00:00:00
this is Sax's big day there he is oh there's T oh look at the smile on Sax's face this is the greatest day in the
00:00:07
history of the all in look at how happy s is s by the way I'm I'm not ashamed of
00:00:16
that come on I'm honored oh wa s getting this heated up quickly how threatened do you feel right now this is
00:00:26
the highest rated host in in cable history this is the world's true greatest moderator exactly yeah no doubt
00:00:32
no doubt absolutely Zach where is this in relation to your marriage and the birth of your children don't ask it's
00:00:38
right up there up there he's like what children it is for me let your winners [Music]
00:00:46
ride David and instead we open source it to the fans and they've just gone [Music]
00:00:58
crazy all right everybody we've got got an amazing guest for you today here on the Allin podcast Sachs his dream has
00:01:06
come true Tucker Carlson is with us today you know Tucker he was the number one TV host for much of the past decade
00:01:12
including last year when shockingly he was fired from Fox News on April 24th reason for the firing it's never been
00:01:20
pinned down but maybe we'll get into it today and we're going to find out what is motivating a post Fox News Tucker who
00:01:28
has obviously launched show on X the platform formerly known as Twitter he's done 42 episodes and Counting he's had
00:01:37
everybody from Donald Trump Andrew Tate Dave pory and the newly elected president of
00:01:44
Argentina on the program so welcome to the all-in podcast Tucker Carlson thank you for having me it is it
00:01:53
is a legit honor to be here two-part question to kick us off here first have you figured out why you were fired from
00:02:00
Fox and let's get into that a bit and second given that you were the number one host from for much of the past
00:02:08
decade and I think probably in the top five highest paid of all time what's motivating you now what's the mission
00:02:15
here as an independent journalist take those two questions in whichever order you like I I don't know why I was fired
00:02:21
I mean it kind of is an Agatha Christie story there are like so many suspects you know what I mean um but I I don't
00:02:27
know I was never told I can only speculate there were lot of different things going on I had a lot of opinions
00:02:32
that were unpopular you know with people who might have influenced my show getting canceled
00:02:38
so I I I really don't know I will say you know right after it happened people said well how can they fire the top Guy
00:02:45
and because that's what it is I'm certainly not the first high-rated host to get fired it's not only about ratings
00:02:53
there a lot of different factors it's a big company you all have worked for and run big companies and you know it's
00:02:59
there's a lot of complicated stuff going on and um and it's never exactly clear you know why things happen the way they
00:03:05
do but I was not shocked by it I mean I was shocked by it in a short term sense I didn't expect to have my show canceled
00:03:10
that morning but um but I was not shocked at all uh when I thought about it for a minute I'd expected that you
00:03:17
know you can't kind of give the finger to everybody um and persist in a in a corporate job so I no hard feelings I
00:03:25
and I and in fact I said that on the call when I received the news it's it's not my company
00:03:30
and I never felt like I had a right to be on the air I was I was working at the pleasure of the family that runs the
00:03:36
company who treated me very well and and um and they wanted me off and so I was off did you ever have moments where
00:03:42
somebody Taps you on the shoulder and says Advertiser XYZ is getting uncomfortable or we're trying to lend
00:03:50
this new Advertiser and right they want you to shape things in one re did you ever feel that pressure is that or is
00:03:55
that just a thing that is kind of like a boogeyman that doesn't actually exist oh
00:04:00
it well it it not only exists it defines news coverage especially on Pharma you know because Pharma is the biggest
00:04:05
Advertiser in television as I know you know and so for sure I mean if you know fizer is sponsoring your show you're not
00:04:11
going to question the V I mean it's kind of that simple uh so absolutely and of course that's why they're the biggest
00:04:17
advertisers so they can shape news coverage I mean that's that's the point but um I personally never had a single
00:04:23
person say to me don't say this that I recall I haven't thought about it too much but that certainly I was there 14
00:04:28
years and I I didn't have that experience regularly or at all really that I can remember and and I think you know my
00:04:36
producers may have been told that but it it didn't ever get to me because I was always really clear which is I I always
00:04:42
said out loud to the supervisors there you know I work for your company I don't own this network all I can control is
00:04:51
what I say if you don't like what I say don't have me on TV but as long as I'm on TV I'm going to say what I think is
00:04:57
true and in a million cas cases I said only part of what I think not because of my employer but just because you
00:05:04
shouldn't actually say everything you think I mean I have some crackpot views too or I have resentments that I didn't
00:05:09
want to work out on the air I mean I did you know you're strain yourself and you
00:05:11
want to as you do in your personal life but on no question of principle did I ever pull back because I just I wouldn't
00:05:19
do that and again I was just super clear if you don't like what I'm saying take me off the air but I'm not going to you
00:05:24
know tow a line and because I was so clear about that I I just think they didn't think it was worth having some
00:05:30
kind of dispute with me and to their great credit for the time that I was there and I said this many times in
00:05:35
public like I took positions on the Ukraine war on the covid vaccine on the co lockdowns among other issues that I
00:05:43
think you know I've been V Vindicated on pretty conclusively on the origins of Co
00:05:48
and all of those were super unpopular on January 6th which was so hated at the company where I worked that people a
00:05:55
number of people including on air people four that I can think of resigned in protest test over my over me suggesting
00:06:02
that actually was more complicated than it looked and there were a bunch of federal agents in the crowd how can you
00:06:07
say that are you claiming a false flag well no not I wouldn't use that phrase but like this is something weird going
00:06:13
on here well I've been Vindicated on that that sounds like I'm bragging I'm not I'm just stating
00:06:18
factually that uh I said things that were truly hated by a lot of the people who worked there and they let me keep
00:06:23
saying them so it's kind of hard to complain really at this point right again it's not company just from a
00:06:30
business standpoint I think it's weird for a company to fire their top performer and to do so without giving
00:06:37
any notes I mean if any of us had a superstar executive or a superstar engineer like a 100x
00:06:45
engineer working at one of our companies and like day in and day out they were you know hitting every Milestone and
00:06:52
crushing it like if you had a problem with them you would give them a note you would just like try to say hey can we
00:06:57
just like so I just think from like a business standpoint it's so weird it just seems like self-destructive and I
00:07:04
think it was I mean their ratings really cratered in the Wake right of making this change maybe they've come back a
00:07:10
little bit but I don't think it's ever been the same I just think it's a crazy way to operate a business so yeah it's
00:07:15
their right I mean they can do whatever they want but I don't understand it as a
00:07:18
way of doing business well I don't understand it as a way of living either I mean you know you everybody in the
00:07:23
course of life whether is a a parent or an employer or just a friend has to deliver uncomfortable news or disagree
00:07:29
with with someone that you deal with and you have a moral obligation to explain the disagreement you you can't just you
00:07:34
know Levy the penalty and leave it at that you have to explain why you're doing that and and I think that's it's
00:07:39
it's incumbent on us morally to do that I wasn't that mad about it actually because I know the rules of that
00:07:46
particular business which are are really harsh and and I've been in it you know my whole life and so I've seen a lot of
00:07:52
people as talented or more talented than I meet bad ends and in you know for reasons that I thought were not
00:07:59
justified and and I I know them all really well so I you you work in a business like that you know what it is
00:08:05
you know the black car is going to show up at 3: a.m. and toach you to lanca and
00:08:09
that's just what it is you know what I mean you can't kind of whine about it you know well how much of it was the you
00:08:15
know this is a family-owned business and the patriarch obviously pioneered opinion-based you know
00:08:24
journalism entertainment commentary and the younger ones maybe were on the other
00:08:28
side of the political aisle and maybe were not as I don't know Cutthroat or maybe didn't share the same philosophy
00:08:36
of uh their dad what was your relationship like with the the new generation with rert Etc and how much
00:08:43
did that play into it do you think well my my relationship with the father and son who are directly involved in in that
00:08:50
company was from my perspective very strong and um I will say this about the murdocks they're very polite I mean
00:08:58
they're really kind of very Anglo almost elaborately polite in a way that I'm not
00:09:03
mocking I'm complimenting and um they're not confrontational they're not nasty in
00:09:08
the way that they deal with people directly and and I prefer that as sort of a way of communicating with people so
00:09:14
I got along with them very very well I always liked them and they were very nice to me elaborately nice to me and
00:09:20
always gave me assurances of my right to say what I thought was was true and so again I can only speculate I will say
00:09:27
though and you see this with Trump especially I don't think I'm anywhere near as
00:09:31
divisive As Trump obviously I'm not as powerful As Trump I'm not the figure Trump is but one thing that maybe Trump
00:09:36
and I have in common is were really disliked by a certain set of people you know affluent people Highly Educated
00:09:43
people people who work at NOS government Finance you know really kind of hate a certain brand of politics so it's not
00:09:50
being conservative you can be conservative in the sort of you know I work at Ko or Heritage or I you know we
00:09:56
need to get back to free trade or whatever that kind of thing the Mega night Forum policy that's all fine but
00:10:01
if you start asking questions like well why doesn't our country act in its own interest there's something about that
00:10:06
that's uniquely offensive to them and to that whole class of people now I could not have more contempt or loathing for
00:10:12
those people having grown up among them I know how repulsive they are so you know their their hatred of me is I wear
00:10:18
as a badge of honor it actually makes me happy but it's hard to take I would say
00:10:23
I me again I'm I'm just speculating in my specific case but I know more broadly like it's very hard to have lunch at the
00:10:28
Four Seasons in Jackson during the winter because there's some private Equity wife who's
00:10:33
going to scream at you on your way to the men's room because that world hates you and so if you live in that world and
00:10:39
you're employing someone like me you know you hear about it I guess that's my point you hear about it like what that
00:10:45
guy's a Nazi like who wants to deal with that I want to actually pull this thread I
00:10:51
would love your perspective on the state of American society just less on the political spectrum of Republican versus
00:10:58
Democrat but just just observe for us Tucker what do you see in American society where are we as a society what
00:11:04
has happened what is happening well this isn't an 8 Hour podcast I could actually
00:11:08
give you my very lengthy theories and views on that but I will just say one thing that's I've been thinking about a
00:11:14
lot recently I just have been had my college roommate staying at my house and um you know we're of course the same age
00:11:20
known each other our whole adult lives he's been very successful and he lives in a you know an enclave of very very
00:11:26
successful people and and so we're we're familiar with this culture and we were talking about American and he's from an
00:11:32
immigrant family so he's got a kind of broader perspect I would argue a broader perspective on like America he's 54 as I
00:11:38
am and we talking about how obviously this is not a democracy it's not even a sort of decent uh fa simile of a
00:11:46
democracy it's to call it a democracy is like ridiculous actually but it's even worse than that our politics and not
00:11:53
just our politics but our public conversation reflects the very specific and parochial concerns of a tiny tiny
00:12:01
group of people which is middle-aged affluent women who tend to be very angry and tend to um mostly with their
00:12:10
husbands but probably for other reasons too and exercise this like wildly disproportionate power over what we can
00:12:18
talk about and think about and and the rules that the rest of us live by it's just kind of amazing and he happens to
00:12:24
live in Jackson Wyoming so and I go there you know to ski and to fish and I have for a very long time and I always
00:12:30
say to him I can't go anymore cuz I yelled at at lunch over my elk chili or in the lift line or whatever or at the
00:12:38
you know Westside Market literally a a relative of mine yelled at me while buying bananas in the you know the
00:12:44
Westside Market she lives there and I'm thinking what is it about this group of people that hates me so much when again
00:12:52
I know them really well I'm related in some cases to them so and I'm not quite sure but I just I I see our politics and
00:12:59
our concerns which if you take three steps back are like insanely picky like trans black lives matter well I never
00:13:07
said they didn't but like if that's your main public policy objective to celebrate trans black lives in a country
00:13:14
of 360 million people it's got a lot of big problems you are not seeing the whole picture so like what is that and
00:13:23
what it is again is the disproportionate influence of a class of people and their
00:13:27
Neurosis I wouldn't even say policy concerns but like there are things they're worried about and their weird
00:13:33
personal ticks and like the result of years of therapy and ssris on their brains like that kind of controls our
00:13:39
whole conversation and my friend was saying because he's really smart he's like yeah but the good news is this
00:13:46
can't last because it's just too stupid and at some point very soon the country is going to revert to the place that all
00:13:51
countries begin which is in a conversation about things that matter like who comprises the population do we
00:13:57
have enough water where are we on energy exactly how are we going to manage these
00:14:01
complex relationships with other countries like the things that you know the stuff of government the stuff of
00:14:06
resour of well of of course resources but like just the basic questions that should dominate the consciousness of any
00:14:14
of any country and should dominate our public conversation it's like our public obsessions are getting increasingly
00:14:20
irrelevant actually increasingly it's like crazy as our problems get bigger conversation the conversation becomes
00:14:28
more in as the problems get bigger thank you exactly so when you look at that that cohort's disproportionate impact
00:14:34
and then you translated for example last night there was um I guess like a almost
00:14:39
Riot protest when folks were trying to light the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center I guess and there was
00:14:46
like a huge Pro Hamas I think somebody checked me if that's is wrong protest and then people were pushing back on the
00:14:53
cops and all of this stuff and all these folks were trying to do was just like the Christmas tree can you connect the
00:14:58
do how does that Cort get to it no but it it's actually a branch from the same tree Christmas tree in this case um
00:15:07
because that whole conversation well I think it's interesting and I think it's you know geopolitically significant and
00:15:12
and I've you know been to those countries and I know people there so I'm like interested in it and there's a lot
00:15:17
to care about and be interested in but the displacement of all of our public passions onto a conflict in a foreign
00:15:25
country however important that conflict may be really kind of tells you a lot it's like in other words yeah I care
00:15:32
what's happening between Israel and Hamas I have views on it which are probably pretty mainstream views
00:15:38
whatever I don't have any very interesting views on it but it it's a little weird for your entire country
00:15:43
thousands of miles away to be so preoccupied with that conflict that they miss big history changing events
00:15:50
happening like in their own country and I think that's again a species of the same problem we are unable to the the
00:15:58
problems that confront us are so big that we can't deal with them and I and actually my wife and I had this
00:16:01
conversation the other night I was for years a magazine writer and I have to file every Friday I work for Bill
00:16:06
Crystal at the Weekly Standard and obviously I regret that but it was interesting at the time and I have to
00:16:10
file the story every week and and I'd stay up all night because I'm very lazy and I put stuff off and I'd stay up
00:16:16
every Thursday night all night and my had recall it's going to the pr you know it's going to the printing press in
00:16:21
Pennsylvania this was back when it was in print and you got to file it and right around 8:30 a.m. on Friday morning
00:16:27
I would have this overwhelm in urge to rearrange the books on my shelves in my library by title or by subject I like
00:16:34
have all these weird kind of like librarian fantasies about rearranging books which in know on a normal day like
00:16:41
why would you do that and better things to do but as my problems mounted and I couldn't like write the lead I wanted I
00:16:48
would transfer all my anxiety onto something I felt I could control or that was of lower Stakes less consequence and
00:16:54
I think that's kind of what we're seeing a little bit like we care more about Foreign Wars and trans lives as like the
00:17:02
obvious things that hold our society together start to fall apart cuz like how do you even deal with that am I I
00:17:08
don't know if I'm being very articulate but that's what's happen sense what do you put on the top of that list of
00:17:13
things we should be focused on tuer oh God I mean but but from my perspective by far one two three this is what
00:17:20
America needs to put its energy on it's not even close National cohesion and by which I mean something specific what
00:17:27
does the majority of the country have in common with one another because look if
00:17:31
it it it the Arc of the last Century's his American history is super super interesting so you have this massive
00:17:38
influx of immigration you know the Ellis Island generation late uh 18th 19th early 20th century and it's
00:17:49
both good and bad we only remember the good but there was a lot of social volatility like a lot like the mayor of
00:17:53
Chicago got shot in his house there was bombings on Wall Street like the whole the wobblies the the anarchists like the
00:17:59
foot soldiers that were were immigrants working class European immigrants and part of the problem was there were just
00:18:05
a lot of immigrants and I mean Saku and Vetti you know who shot the shot the clerk in uh was it Brockton Mass anyway
00:18:14
it was in M outside Boston they had been in the country for just a few years and
00:18:18
they immediately got sucked into radical politics well why was that well because
00:18:21
they weren't kind of bought in or rooted in or hadn't been fully assimilated into
00:18:25
American society so then you have the first world war and we basically shut down immigration and we have this period
00:18:30
of settling we're like all Americans let's think through our Civic religion what ties us together and then that
00:18:36
leads into to October of 29 and you do have this National crisis that lasts for more than a decade and we didn't blow up
00:18:42
and we had a successful you know the CCC we like had these big programs which I'll say this as a conservative kind of
00:18:48
worked in keeping people fed and focused it gave them purpose kept the country from from collapsing during the Great
00:18:55
Depression if that happened now when when there is no broad agreement on what it means to be an American no agreement
00:19:01
at all on what we all have in common I don't think we can withstand it actually I really don't and I'm not even
00:19:07
convinced it matters as much what that Civic religion is as it does that we have one if we don't have anything that
00:19:14
ties us together when that day comes and you know what I mean when the economic crisis comes because it's coming like
00:19:22
what's that going to look like it's going to be very scary and I so that's what I'm most worried about by far how
00:19:28
do you define national cohesion I guess maybe then like what are the few elements that you think America needs to
00:19:33
agree on as a as a majority wake me up from a deep sleep and ask me what it means to be an American okay and then do
00:19:40
the same to a thousand other people and we'll just do a survey on it and do the majority of those people give the same
00:19:46
answer and if they don't like so this is okay this I mean I have all so many theories God don't I'm I'm going to
00:19:53
control myself but I would just say one other thing which is we overestimate people ability to metabolize change it's
00:20:01
you know I'm not like a strict darwinist or anything but I do sort of believe that over time people adapt to their
00:20:06
environment and that you know in US is you most of our abiles are inborn like that's just true sorry I have dogs I
00:20:13
know that and people just haven't you know the world didn't change that much from you know 460 or whatever the
00:20:21
sacking of Rome until the Renaissance it just didn't and then the Industrial Revolution to now has been like such
00:20:27
massive change that is driving people insane people can't handle Relentless change and technologists love Relentless
00:20:33
change and I like a lot of technologists a couple are really good friends of mine
00:20:37
but their anomalies a lot of them are literally autistic I'm not attacking them I'm praising them but they're
00:20:42
different from most people you know right but you know like they can handle it they can like they want a world
00:20:49
that's totally different from today's world tomorrow they flux they they they thrive in that flux they like they do
00:20:55
right but they don't they don't understand how rare they are and if you impose that on a
00:21:02
society and you don't ever have a period where you pause and let things settle you will blow up that society and the
00:21:09
Chinese who I don't admire for many things at all uh know this and I admire that about them they think that change
00:21:15
for it its own sake is dangerous now they think it's dangerous to their power and they're absolutely right but it's
00:21:19
also dangerous just to like the idea of a society what is a society and so um anyway I can go on and on and on but
00:21:27
that that's my main concern let me propose a theory and see if you react to it I think that there's a big
00:21:33
orientation in society where it's constantly about trying to shift the power dynamics that everyone always
00:21:40
feels like they don't have something that someone else has and that other person that has it for some
00:21:46
reason um is advantaged in a way that to them always feels unfair and everyone feels this way everyone that's right
00:21:53
you're you're the top of the food chain you feel like someone else has something
00:21:57
you don't have and it's unfair and the system is set up that way no matter where you sit and as a result of that F
00:22:03
and and by the way this goes back I get I get whack super philosophical on this stuff but like buddhism's always had
00:22:08
this point that like the desire that humans have is the one thing that causes all of societal suffering Behavior
00:22:16
everything but it all comes down to this it's that you see that someone else has
00:22:19
something you desire it and then you want to change the dynamic of how the system how Society is organized to uh to
00:22:26
fix that the thing technology if you think back the Catapult gave an advantage to an army that allowed them
00:22:32
to win in a war so did the rifle so did the nuclear bomb that ultimately technology was the enabling force that
00:22:39
allowed a rapid shift in power dynamics and all technology ultimately creates leverage for the creator of the
00:22:46
technology initially and then it diffuses to everyone but that is perhaps why I this is a a theory I have which is
00:22:53
that there's generally pessimism towards technology because it creates unfair advantages that shift the power Dynamic
00:23:01
too quickly yes um and too advantageously and it's also why I think you don't hear a lot of support for
00:23:06
technology from most of society because technology creators are such a small percentage of society so I don't know if
00:23:13
that that resonates with your point but for me it's always I think that's really smart and I
00:23:17
think it's indisputably true ABS absolutely I will say you're making an argument in addition to many other
00:23:25
things against tribalism because tribalism accentuates these pre-existing impulses
00:23:32
in people which again like all impulses are just inborn like the human nature is
00:23:36
immutable so let's just start there it cannot be changed AI will not change human nature it'll change everything but
00:23:41
but human nature and you know envy and you know the fact that the fact that Prosperity is a relative measure above
00:23:52
starvation so it's like there's a famous Russian proverb like you know I've got a
00:23:57
cow my neighbor has a cow he gets a cow now he has two cows I kill his cow right
00:24:03
totally right it's just right so so but but tribalism especially in a country like ours which as noted doesn't have a
00:24:12
working majority of people with obvious connection to each other it really really exacerbates that a lot and
00:24:21
because it makes it more obvious so it's not so all of a sudden it's not just like hey the smart kids are richer they
00:24:26
have two cows it's it's like the Jews are richer or the Indians are richer or the whites are richer or whatever you
00:24:32
know it's like just name the group and that once you go down that road you know it's it that that leads to violence and
00:24:40
mass violence actually a lot of people listening right now Tucker are probably a little bit confused hearing you talk
00:24:47
about cohesion of the country when most people would look at uh you know the tribalism as almost most manifested in
00:24:56
cable news you and Rachel mat every night we're you know number one and number two in the ratings taking either
00:25:01
side of the tribe so is this something that's evolved and how did your time and cable news inform you to this because
00:25:08
most people would say like wait isn't Tucker and Rachel like isn't that aren't those those the two tribe leaders I
00:25:14
think I think there are dumb people who think that um but no here's the difference my My Views um wait you
00:25:20
talking about me oh no I'm not including you that I'm not including you no I'm not including you no no no no sh fits
00:25:28
I'm ask onal of the audience thing to say I'm sorry it's all good it's all good sucker why should you be any
00:25:35
different than the other panelists no I I love and not only do I love I don't always love but I certainly
00:25:43
think that reason disagreement is essential it's the alternative to Violence by the way that's what that is
00:25:49
debate and politics are the alternative violence you get two choices we're going
00:25:52
to do it by arguing about it or we're going to do it by force okay so so I absolutely think it's essential to
00:25:58
debate things um because if we don't then we just have to shoot each other and I'm against that but that's very
00:26:05
different from tribalism because tribalism is based on things that you can't change so for example in 2002 I
00:26:14
hosted a show on CNN and it was the runup to the war in Iraq I was uncomfortable with the idea that we
00:26:19
would be invading Iraq to respond to an attack on America that had nothing to do
00:26:24
with Iraq I did think that didn't make sense but I was sold on the idea finally by someone and I foolishly uh pared the
00:26:31
bush administration's line on that so I was a proar person for a time then I went to Iraq and I changed my views
00:26:38
completely so I I switched sides completely and I wound up on the other side anti-war in Iraq and that took
00:26:44
about a week I I was born a white man you were born whatever you are everyone's born whatever they are that
00:26:51
can't change so if we Stoke division along lines that can't be changed then we're really at a culdesac our
00:26:59
differences can never be resolved you will always be what you are you can't change it and the same for me and so
00:27:06
those are the things that wind up becoming generational conflicts Civil Wars Rwanda and so I've always been
00:27:13
against that my entire life and my entire time on Fox I argued against that I think affirmative action is completely
00:27:18
not only immoral because it's an insult to the idea of America which is like the
00:27:23
people who do the best get the most but it is also a recipe over time for violence and I made that case I've made
00:27:32
that case every single day you know since David and I had lunch 30 years ago I've never not thought that I've always
00:27:39
had the Dr Seuss view of race relations which is we should deemphasize race and Elevate you know Merit achievement hard
00:27:49
work character the things that we can control and um and but the other side has gone and by the way liberals used to
00:27:55
agree with me that used to be a liberal position within my lifetime and then all
00:27:59
of a sudden became a Nazi position and I you know that's just a manipulation of language but the truth is on the race
00:28:07
stuff which is what matters over time if you convince people to hate others on the basis of their race you've committed
00:28:12
a massive sin and you've done a lot to wreck our country that's coming from the left I'm sorry that's just true just to
00:28:17
connect these ideas I think that is a major source of our division is one of the reasons why people have a hard time
00:28:24
saying what it means to be an American is because there are dueling visions of what it means to be an American the left
00:28:30
has been trying to change or rewrite American history so for example the key year in American history the founding of
00:28:37
the nation was not 1776 with the Declaration of Independence it was 1619 right this is the base of the whole 1619
00:28:45
project of the New York Times is that the founding of the nation began with the importation of Slavery to the new
00:28:50
world that was the key year and so I think there's been an effort for a long time on the part of the left to rewrite
00:28:56
what it means to be an American and and to rewrite American history it's actually in a weird way it's the
00:29:02
opposite of what dong shaing did in China where dung basically he flipped the the doctrine over there from
00:29:09
communism to capitalism he didn't outright declare it he said that you know it doesn't matter whether a cat is
00:29:16
is white or black as long as it catches mice and they didn't change the name they didn't change the party it's still
00:29:22
the Chinese Communist party they didn't change the flag but he did a hot swap at
00:29:25
the back end to capitalism and you know they changed what the country was about in that economically
00:29:32
it worked out great for them I think in a similar way in the United States they haven't changed the flag they haven't
00:29:37
changed the name but there is an attempt to hot swap the back end of what it means to be an American and I think this
00:29:44
is the root of the conflict I mean I agree with that completely and I don't think we've thought through what it
00:29:50
means to change you know out of out of many one to out of one many I I think that's um
00:29:59
we've set ourselves up for something really really scary for again for for violent conflict cuz I don't see how
00:30:05
that that resolves itself you know you wise people understand this in a diverse Society plural society whatever you call
00:30:13
it in society where you know you got a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds and shades and
00:30:16
religions and all this stuff you need to deemphasize the things that divide us inherently and emphasize the things that
00:30:24
unite us like that's not hard and it's it's also so obvious that if you're not doing it my first question is why are
00:30:31
you not doing that I mean why are you not and and that kind of explains the true loathing that I have for the people
00:30:37
in charge on both sides because like if you did that in your household with your
00:30:43
children your kids would be in rehab or jail or dead it's that obvious like you would never do that to your kids so why
00:30:50
would you do that to your population seriously freeberg you had a question well where does responsibility lie there
00:30:55
Tucker what's the mechanism for doing that CU we often and I find in conversations everyone says the
00:31:03
government should and I often question why the government should anything in my in my life in in in my
00:31:11
social settings in How I Live how I do business does the government the federal government in the United States have a
00:31:20
role in responsibility to do what what you're suggesting we need to do in the United States or is it the media or is
00:31:29
it social leaders or is it Business Leaders or is it local governments who is responsible ultimately for creating
00:31:37
the social cohesion necessary for the US to enter a new era of prosperity and and
00:31:44
why is that the right group to be responsible well look I would say well I it's a great question and I would say
00:31:51
New Era of pro era of prosperity I don't think that's really the goal we have prosperity um and I think it's a real
00:31:58
question as to whether but do people want Pro I mean I think there's actually a lot of evidence
00:32:03
that human beings sort of hate Prosperity actually we're not designed to be prosperous and the second we are
00:32:09
we invent climate crises to to to make us less prosperous I mean that's really what that is right but anyway leaving
00:32:16
that aside um it's it's incumbent on all of us anyone with authority anyone with a
00:32:21
voice anyone with money and it's really kind of as simple and and I do think you
00:32:26
know government is kind of the last to fall in line it's it's really as simple as making things socially unacceptable
00:32:32
we certainly I grew up in a world where people smoked on airplanes okay now that
00:32:35
was banned by the FAA but it was also made totally socially unacceptable you couldn't light a cigarette in someone's
00:32:42
kitchen you just wouldn't think to do that in the same way that you wouldn't think to give the middle finger to an
00:32:47
old lady which is not actually illegal but nobody would do that because it's so appalling in the minds of everybody and
00:32:53
everyone's happy to say what what the hell are you doing and and I feel the same way about the race stuff it's like
00:32:59
oh you know race this race that someone should say whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa stop
00:33:04
that there's part of what you're saying which I think is which I really agree with which is this idea that we have
00:33:10
gone as the human race okay from having to make major adaptations over the Arc of our Evolution as a species to now
00:33:19
what you're kind of saying is we're now dealing with all these minor adaptations
00:33:22
and it kind of breaks the entire circuitry of the brain which is like we had to fight to evade the animals to
00:33:29
feed ourselves ex to build a machine to all of a sudden go from an agrarian to an indust these were huge
00:33:36
adaptations and now we have all of this almost Surplus in excess and it's a little bit of a heads
00:33:43
scratcher for a lot of people because now all the adaptations that are left are very minor in shape because all of
00:33:49
these other things that would rather occupy your time sustenance survival resiliency are taken off the table I get
00:33:55
that the other part of of what you say which is very reneer Ard which is like hey there's all this copying of people
00:34:03
and desire there's going to be violence if we don't figure out how to decharge it what do you think we need to do in
00:34:15
order to do that discharge how do you get these people to stop focusing on the small order bits and how do we
00:34:23
reorganize people to focus on the big order bits so that we minimize this risk of violence we
00:34:29
minimize the one group of immutable traits fighting another group of immutable traits how does that happen do
00:34:36
you think you know I'm I'm I'm pretty pessimistic about about a a a country this big and we say the country I mean
00:34:43
like when I talk about the country I'm talking about people I know or grew up with or people who speak my language I
00:34:48
mean the country is so big that something can happen in New Mexico something big can happen in New Mexico
00:34:53
or San Francisco for that matter and like people don't even know so like but in General I would say um you know it's
00:35:00
hard to see changing course before we're forced to um and so I you know I do think you think basically there has to
00:35:08
be a moment of something that's so egregious that causes a national reconciliation of some
00:35:15
kind essentially that says hold on a second you want know you want to know what I really think which is like kind
00:35:19
of crackpot but I know that it's right yes I I do think the problem is is is prosperity and I've noticed this as a
00:35:26
middle-aged man as I've gotten older and I know people who've been successful um
00:35:31
in some cases very successful and I've noticed that um when they succeed when they get everything they want they
00:35:36
destroy themselves I've noticed this again and again and again it's you are the dog who caught the car and and it's
00:35:42
and actually it's more than just having idle time there's something there's a metaphysical quality there's there's
00:35:47
there are factors here that I don't understand that are are are deeper actually but I just notice it there's
00:35:53
something about affluence that that over time convinces people to kill themselves
00:36:01
and you see it like in a literal sense in the euthanasia numbers out of Canada and out of see you see it in a literal
00:36:08
sense when you look at you know the incidence of diabetes as correlated to GDP that's exactly right exactly you
00:36:13
look at these emerging economies and as GDP cranks the first thing that happens is heart disease cranks up and diabetes
00:36:19
cranks up because to your point Tucker they start to enjoy the prosperity of their earned life but they're not
00:36:26
enjoying it that's the thing the other thing you see is they stop having children which is a form of suicide
00:36:31
you're not reproducing you know what I mean there's no other culture who has left a written
00:36:36
record in history that didn't see having children as like the the primary first of all the primary source of wealth and
00:36:42
not just because they worked on your farm but because they exist and and so do your genes um so if you start to see
00:36:49
every it's not just a matter of culture it happens in non-Christian Japan it happens in post-christian Spain it
00:36:56
happens in in South Korea with A7 replacement rate you know reproduction rate s so um what is that
00:37:06
and again it's the same thing it's that affluence kills you and if you don't believe it fast for three days fasting
00:37:14
by the way is a feature not just of you know Christian history every religion and every culture that I'm aware of um
00:37:22
has acknowledged fasting as an important religious ritual why is that why would foregoing food be so important well try
00:37:29
it for 3 days and experience you know you're quivering like a tuning fork you your sensitivity just explodes there's
00:37:36
something about eating too much literally satisfying the most basic need of all which is for calories there's
00:37:42
something about that that kills you and there's something about forgoing it that
00:37:46
enlightens you it's like super interesting so I I and I'm look there's so much I don't know I'm the last person
00:37:51
you want to listen to these are deeper waters that I'm qualified to wait in but my senses tell me very very strongly
00:37:57
that the core problem is having too much and I'm not calling for taking things away I think the global warming [ __ ]
00:38:03
is [ __ ] okay I mean obviously it is climate crisis it's propaganda but it's coming out of it's also sincere to some
00:38:10
extent it's not just a power grab by Davos it's more than that it's people's gut level sense that we need to have
00:38:17
less because this is killing us and that is real fre is Tucker said global warming is uh [ __ ] is I'm just going
00:38:25
to pull anage for I just want I just want his reaction you just said that consultant of science let's see no no
00:38:32
but no no I think it's like just on that topic um you know data shows temperatures are getting warmer off of a
00:38:40
baseline of 500 years and now things get war no no no I'm I'm so sorry can I can
00:38:44
I just make a small correction no I'm not saying it's not getting warmer it seems to be getting warmer I'm really
00:38:49
saying this whole elaborate theory that humans are causing this rise in temperatures and we know how to reverse
00:38:56
it through say shutting down you know the use of hydrocarbons yeah I mean and and even if that were true what we're
00:39:04
doing to affect those changes shows how fraudulent the whole thing is I mean you
00:39:08
you know the whole arguments but I'm not actually calling into a question that it's changing temperatures always
00:39:11
changed I live in Maine which was shaped by the glaciers 10,000 years ago so like
00:39:15
yeah we've had some climate change do you think that human civilization is not threatened by the changing climate I
00:39:21
just just this is a quick little point but do I think well sure I mean it's threatened in some ways probably help in
00:39:27
other ways I personally hate hot weather so um you know I don't care for it I I think there's quite a bit of evidence
00:39:33
that previous that that actually temperature changes can be much more radical than we think and I'll just give
00:39:39
you one example that no one's ever explained but you're aware that there are all these woolly mammoths found in
00:39:45
case to ice in Siberia and the Soviet you know early Soviet 1920s expedition to map all of Russia found these things
00:39:52
and at least one stranded Expedition ate them okay they ate the willly Mammoth because it had been frozen so thoroughly
00:40:00
that the after thousands of years the meat was still edible yeah well the question is like how did that happen and
00:40:05
I think it was the guy who ran bird's eye frozen food who was an expert on freezing meat it's like wait a second
00:40:09
that weighs X th000 PBS it would have to be frozen extremely quickly and I know this from hunting too you have to freeze
00:40:17
meat very fast to keep it from spoiling from the back so how did that happen well no no for real though cuz it
00:40:24
decomposes very a big animal if you shoot say a moose or a big deer or a mule deer you have to open it up
00:40:31
immediately or the meat will spoil because the bigger it is the more heat it generates right we know that it's
00:40:36
like okay so how exactly did hundreds or thousands of large animals get frozen so
00:40:43
quickly that the meat is still edible thousands of years later that's an honest question that no one's ever
00:40:46
answered and the only potential or even plausible answer is temperature changed so fast it flash froze them well how did
00:40:55
that happen like what no these are sincere questions I'll look into it I'll get back to you I've not heard about this
00:41:03
flash frozen that's interesting no this reminds me of that Marlin Brando film you remember where he like goes to an
00:41:08
island and eats the like super rare food it's like a kodo dragon or something the
00:41:13
graduates Matthew broadrick in it so good it's like the expedition to Siberia to eat the flash frozen woolly mammoth
00:41:20
to make a good sequel but it's interesting I'm going to look into it I don't know the answer to how and why the
00:41:26
climate here's the point that we have physical evidence that the climate on Earth within you know inside our
00:41:32
atmosphere has changed dramatically so dramatically that it would you know kill every person who was affected by it like
00:41:39
a number of times that we know of over the course of the history of the earth So like um I mean I think there could we
00:41:47
know we could be in for actual climate change that killed everybody that's entirely possible but the idea that it's
00:41:52
the fault of the United States because of you know you driving F1 50 is like so absurd it's like hard to believe anyone
00:41:58
takes that seriously there's like no evidence of that actually sorry yeah I'm generally just an I'm an optimist about
00:42:03
Solutions anyway but you know I think human Ingenuity has always prevailed so all this pessimism and
00:42:12
catastrophizing I I I do disagree with respect to like there is science that indicates that there are elements that
00:42:17
were kind of affecting things in a in an adverse way to challenging way but I'm not concerned about the challenges just
00:42:23
because of where human technology sits and the things we can do so I'm I have I have a slightly different point of view
00:42:29
but I I hear you on it I don't want to Y debate the point sorry chth go ahead yeah that's a whole another thing yeah I
00:42:35
just want to uplevel this back to something because I think if I had to summarize what you're saying is you're
00:42:39
saying chath our society is too prosperous and as a result that Prosperity creates um small Fringe
00:42:46
issues that dominate which then creates an inability for us to be cohesive so then if we have something that allows us
00:42:53
to be forced to be more resilient we will actually wake up from this fever and say hold on guys what are the big
00:43:00
issues let's really figure out what matters let's get organized and let's go after those and that both is a healing
00:43:07
of the country but it's almost like our insurance policy is that kind of a is that a fair summary if I have to put
00:43:13
what you're saying in a box or is that well I would I would hate ever to seem like I'm looking forward to catastrophe
00:43:19
because I I'm not and I I hope I hope it doesn't unfold that no I mean I used to drink too much
00:43:27
and I know a lot of people used to drink too much and you know use drugs or whatever and some of them didn't get
00:43:31
better till they went to jail you know as people who drink too much tend to do over time that never happened to me and
00:43:35
I'm so grateful for it like you don't need to you know get to the bottom you don't I don't think that you do I'm just
00:43:43
I'm just really worried that we're not even having a conversation about this and but I again would point to I said a
00:43:48
second ago about there's something metaphysical here there's something deeper than just you know the the Search
00:43:54
for Advantage which is is a big motivator among people but there's something more than that going on why
00:44:00
are we intentionally wrecking the society and we are and I and I hear people say well it's because some people
00:44:08
are getting paid and yeah it's not really an adequate answer it's more than that there's something going on like
00:44:14
instinctively people want to some people want to tear it all down and I don't think it's necessarily so they can
00:44:21
rebuild it to their own Advantage I think like destruction is the point and I just watch carefully and I don't
00:44:26
really know what's going on here but something much deeper than what we're acknowledging is going on here well I
00:44:32
think it comes back to this point about I can't get what these other people have
00:44:35
and there's now an insurmountable barrier that I cannot ever get there know I mean that doesn't explain why but
00:44:43
hold on that that doesn't explain like why for example Dustin moscovitz is supporting revolutionary politics and
00:44:50
Chas I think it's a good example S I think it does when you have massive abundance to jamat point about the idle
00:44:56
mind you know DUS moskovitz has achieved more than any human could achieve billions of dollars and now he's got
00:45:03
this Surplus and then whatever you know to to Tucker's Point whatever he's dealing with personally now becomes this
00:45:10
you know canvas under which he's going to deploy that wealth in an outsourced way I think it actually does explain it
00:45:16
it fits more with like luxury beliefs than with the idea that like scarcity or Envy is somehow driving it yeah but yes
00:45:23
so those are luxury beliefs and he's got a huge bankroll therefore it has an outsized impact as sort of Tucker I
00:45:30
think I think the the luxury point is once you reach a certain point your attention can then shift to morality you
00:45:38
when you're starving in a street and you need to feed your children correct you're not focusing your whole day on
00:45:44
the morality and better treatment of others in the world and extending you know morality to the rest of the world
00:45:50
but when you have that luxury you have to focus your attention in that sense I do think that there's this large element
00:45:55
that the term equality gets recast into every aspect of society which ultimately
00:46:01
leads to this General point of view of Marxism which is everyone has to have an equal outcome versus an equal
00:46:08
opportunity and that's where the prosperity takes this you but I think I agree with a lot of what you're saying
00:46:15
but I I I I think it's maybe more profound than that I mean you're absolutely right that only societies
00:46:20
that have reached a certain point can afford to think about certain things you don't see you know Hunter gather
00:46:24
societies don't debate effective out is M because they're looking for roots okay
00:46:27
so I I agree with that y however if you look at the behavior of you know some of
00:46:32
the richest people in our society and I can't speak to Dustin mosit but I I have
00:46:36
the you know I know people like that what they're funding are not exactly luxury beliefs they're it's they're like
00:46:43
funding destruction actually and so like previous generations of liberal rich people funded things like public
00:46:50
libraries summer camps for poor kids remember the New York Times used to have these fundraisers like fresh air fund or
00:46:55
whatever and and people made fun of I always kind of like that like you have extra money and like you know help the
00:47:00
poor kids you know whether it works or not we can debate but like I get it but Dustin MOS if you're Dustin MOS or any I
00:47:07
don't mean to pick on him but any like really rich person you and you're at Baker's Bay or some Discovery property
00:47:12
that you know you and your billionaire friends go to you might occur to you like why not build one of these for like
00:47:16
all the poor kids but only poor black kids get to go to this Resort for a week and that might be it might work it might
00:47:23
not work like all of American social the history of American social reform is kind of species of that like we're going
00:47:29
to help poor people by doing this or that that's not what they're doing it's like hey poor people here are some more
00:47:34
crack pipes and like we're it's immoral to criticize your drug addiction and what we need are more black people
00:47:39
selling weed or it's cool to set fires or we can't criticize you for burning down Wendy's like what that is not the
00:47:47
same thing that is super dark there's no even possibility of uplift or advancement it's just the opposite they
00:47:55
know it these are smart people so like what are we looking at seriously well Tucker he's in DUS in DUS mind I'm sure
00:48:01
he believes he's doing the right thing yeah he thinks he's funding social justice I think like Soros would be an
00:48:08
even better example right where like it's hard to argue that what he's funding is not extremely destructive so
00:48:15
the Revolutionary politics are not somehow coming from below the way you would expect a revolution to normally
00:48:21
happen they're being imposed from above by some of the biggest winners in our society and that is weird that is a
00:48:27
contradiction not you it is it is a bizarre outcome let's um it's exactly what you'd expect and it's exactly what
00:48:34
happened in the Bolshevik Revolution I mean half of the romanof household the you know Nicholas II who was murdered
00:48:41
with his wife and children in the basement as you know by the Bolsheviks his extended household supported the
00:48:47
Bolsheviks rich people who are a small minority by the way there are a million different revolutionary groups at the
00:48:52
end of the first world war in Russia clearly there was going to be a change clearly the the monarchy was doomed and
00:48:56
there were a lot of different options and the most radical crazy nihilistic atheistic option was the Bolsheviks and
00:49:02
they had the support of the rich people and like including the Zar family so like what is that it's the same thing
00:49:08
always the same thing it's the people with the most have the strongest desire to kill themselves and their society
00:49:15
that's just true it's an interesting Theory I mean there are some people who are very thoughtful right you have Bill
00:49:19
Gates or Jeff Bezos who are thinking about philanthropy in a very thoughtful way now they could make mistakes of
00:49:23
course but they're thinking Hey where's the suffering how do I work backwards from mosquito T to you know vaccines or
00:49:29
whatever you know we perceive is what they perceive is is the most suffering they can relieve in the world so it does
00:49:35
seem like it can go either way Tucker do you think it's because most people that
00:49:39
get very wealthy very fast feel like it was unfair and they feel guilty and then
00:49:45
they have to like destroy the system that got them there I think there's a lot I think that's such a deep point
00:49:50
though because and you I know that you know you live of among people I mean you're familiar with this world so and
00:49:56
only someone who is could say that cuz you're absolutely right rich people are not all the same if you meet someone who
00:50:02
made his money incrementally over time he's much less likely to have the desire you know you may not agree with him on
00:50:08
everything he may be a good person a bad person but he doesn't want to tear it down and he doesn't feel especially
00:50:13
guilty for what he has and I have found just a non-political point but as I get older I want to spend less time with
00:50:18
people who hate themselves because they're not capable of loving other people like that's not a good place to
00:50:24
start actually as a person to hate yourself or feel feel super guilty it really isn't you don't end up helping
00:50:30
others when you feel that way but when you find people who inherited a lot of money we never talk about that it's a
00:50:35
huge problem in this country I'm not I'm not arguing for the death tax at all but
00:50:39
I'm just saying as an observation there are an aw there's a huge class of people
00:50:43
with massive inherited wealth and they're almost all horrible not all of them I mean I know you know very well I
00:50:49
know some of them and they're fine they're some of them are great but as a class they're awful and they don't help
00:50:54
at all and they're Al super annoying and dumb and I think it's the well no it's just true and everyone knows it's
00:51:01
true we're about to do that for tens of millions of Americans right you know like we're about to go the largest
00:51:06
generation of wealth transfer Beyond imagination we're talking trillions and trillions and trillions so that problem
00:51:13
that you just encapsulated we're going to Cascade across tens of millions of Americans which also happen in Japan I
00:51:20
agree and in Japan they have a negative growth rate as well let let's pivot to a
00:51:25
to that can I ask you have you been to Japan recently yeah I was there last year okay so me too so so I you know
00:51:33
people you always read like all the libertarian e economists in the Wall Street Journal they're always like oh
00:51:38
Japan's a disaster negative growth and then you go to Japan oh it's the best place you could ever visit it's my
00:51:45
favorite country hands down did you go to Tokyo did you go skiing in the Secco where' you go I went to Koto and Tokyo
00:51:50
and I'll be back to ski on the North Island because it's like why wouldn't you it's like the
00:51:54
pero I never have but I'm it's incredible I went last year it is like 25 out of 30 days in January and
00:52:00
February it dumps powder and the powder is like dust it it's like makes Utah powder look like heavy it is insane uh
00:52:09
I'm going back if you want to go February inred share a room you guys could have
00:52:18
like one this is gonna make SX lose his mind if Tucker and I go in a but can I just ask a question like if if Japan is
00:52:27
is is the butt of every joke that economists tell or the focus of the concern of econ you know lots of chin
00:52:33
tugging and threading about Japan's negative growth economy and then you go to Japan and there's literally not one
00:52:38
piece of litter and four-year-olds ride the Subway on a company highest function
00:52:41
Society you could imagine but yet birth rate is going down that's the only thing
00:52:45
the birth rate is a real thing I totally agree that's probably the product of getting atomic bombs dropped on you or
00:52:50
and maybe the fact also that like the highest testosterone males flew their planes into US Air craft carriers or
00:52:56
whatever I there's probably a lot of reason but it well that's a real thing by the way you kill all the high te
00:53:01
males in your Society changes but but I don't think that we're using the right measurements and I do think that we're
00:53:07
taking economists a little more seriously than they deserve because they're not describing what Japan
00:53:12
actually is which is freaking awesome and way more functional than our society despite the massive disparity and grow
00:53:18
you find is every person in Japan takes their job that they're doing as incredibly important and has massive
00:53:24
pride in it why when you go there as an American you're like wait wasn't this what America was about it's it's it's
00:53:30
really shocking as American because you're like this is what I want Society to be I want the person who works in the
00:53:34
Subway or the stock market or the newspaper to take their job deadly serious and put their best effort in why
00:53:41
I care about growth rate wait but hold on why should I care about economic growth at least as measured in the
00:53:48
conventional sense the only reason is if you have a lot of debt that's it yes if
00:53:52
if if you didn't have all the debt you don't care about it you shouldn't care about economic growth rate with respect
00:53:56
to the measure of prosperity strange also you know if the pie isn't getting bigger and people aren't doing
00:54:03
better than that does sew the seeds for a revolution I mean yeah all this divisiveness will start to explode if
00:54:11
people don't feel like their circumstances are getting better off this is where I mean in this in this one
00:54:16
limited way I guess I'd be in favor of Rapid change which is the technological area I mean I'm against revolutionary
00:54:23
politics I'm against that kind of revolutionary change because it almost never works out but I do think that
00:54:28
revolutionary change in the narrow category of technology is ultimately good for us I know it creates challenges
00:54:35
I know it creates disruption people do lose their jobs and have to find new ones but it is the basis for American
00:54:42
prosperity and the basis for our economy being productive and America having a powerful military and all those things
00:54:47
so I don't know if this is a difference between us Tucker but I do think that in
00:54:53
this area of technological change I'm not sort of a dispositional conservative Ian this is kind of like like Peter teal
00:54:58
right I don't want us to slow down I actually I want us to be successful and it and it feels like actually it's the
00:55:05
people on the left who are generally in this Camp of wanting to slow us down and
00:55:11
meire Us in regulations and make it harder to um make progress technologically uh because it's
00:55:18
something they don't control I I agree with that I just I guess the net result is what I care about I think it's if you
00:55:24
talk to old people people which I is now that I'm getting older and I've talked to you know older relatives and stuff
00:55:30
like what what bothers you and I used to think it was you know taking a leak six
00:55:33
times a night but it's really not the thing that bothers old people I've spoken to anyway is the change is like
00:55:40
they don't just don't recognize it and that's really hard for people to deal with and so all I'm saying I'm certainly
00:55:46
not calling for a halt to technological progress that would be terrible all I'm saying is in tandem with those
00:55:52
advancements should be the concern about people's ability to digest massive change and like let's keep some things
00:56:00
the same you know you just can't change everything it's like bad it's super bad so like maybe we get AI but let's keep
00:56:07
Halloween so you're arguing for tradition and things that bring bring people together this country was built
00:56:14
off of uh immigrants obviously and uh this is one of the most polarizing issues Tucker in each election cycle and
00:56:22
in the country uh large right now now what do you what is your vision for how American Immigration should work here in
00:56:31
the 21st century ideally or right now right now and and then ideally let's start with
00:56:38
what would you do right now short term actually let me if you don't if you don't mind I'll quickly invert it and
00:56:42
say of course the goal is just a is just a rational immigration policy whose purpose is to help your country what
00:56:48
would that so I could see well I could see an argument for example if you needed you know I don't know there there
00:56:53
was a time for the guy who was just my college roommate my best friend um came to this country from India because both
00:56:59
his parents were Physicians and there was a lack of Physicians with de-industrialization everyone was moving
00:57:04
out of the small towns and so we expedited the Visas of foreign Physicians most of them were Indians I
00:57:09
think most were Indians his parents actually came from Africa but whatever the point is they're Indian doctors and
00:57:14
they came here and they settled in a little town in Massachusetts a rural Town dying miltown and it was great it
00:57:21
was great for them it was great for the town the guy my best friend I mean like it that's just that's what you want
00:57:27
right we need this and we're going to in a very smart intentional way um try to get it on the World Market and we can we
00:57:35
will and I'm totally for that what we're doing now is throwing open the doors to
00:57:40
anyone who wants to come here from the poorest countries in the world at a scale that we can't possibly digest so
00:57:45
how many people are here illegally working off the books some estimates 60 70 million those are real estimates by
00:57:51
the way not crackpot estimates but the truth is we don't know we've no no idea we've completely lost control and we
00:57:57
don't know who these people are I honestly think most of them are here for a better life I believe that I think
00:58:02
most of them are probably good people I think most of them agree with my politics actually for whatever it's
00:58:06
worth definitely much more than the private unhappy private Equity wives do for sure the average guy from Nigeria is
00:58:13
like on my side every Salvadoran agrees with me so I like that but I also think it's too much actually at exactly the
00:58:21
moment when native born Americans birth rates are tanking over 100,000 people die of fental ODS and we're pushing
00:58:29
euthanasia on the population which we are you're you basically you're saying you I've given up on the people who live
00:58:35
here whatever their color or background and we're just going to import new people and replace them with new people
00:58:39
that's literally what's happening and when you say that out loud they freak out and call you some sort of craz bigot
00:58:44
for saying the word replacement but that's what it is it's happening in Western Europe and Ireland particularly
00:58:50
that's what those those riots were about not that I'm endorsing the riots but that's what that was and that's like
00:58:55
insane for a government to do to its own people it's just it's totally insane and
00:59:00
and more than anything it is an expression of loathing for the people who live there it's a delution of their
00:59:07
political power it's a delution of their economic power it's the total Destruction of the basic services that
00:59:12
they paid for like schools hospitals roads like those are gone so the last thing I'll say is people say well
00:59:19
immigrants are coming here looking for a better life and I believe that having talked to a lot of immigrants and grown
00:59:24
up around them in Southern California I totally believe that but the question for government is am I making the
00:59:30
citizens life better it's like no one even thinks that so is importing people making the life so when my friend's
00:59:37
parents came both Physicians to the little town little miltown in New England his parents made the town better
00:59:43
for the people who live there they were the doctors and they were super successful actually and great people
00:59:48
Tucker can you give us a rundown of the current political landscape just tell us
00:59:53
I'm just really curious what you think about RFK Biden Trump VI maybe like 10 15 seconds on each it's so hard it's so
01:00:01
hard I mean uh I I mean the thing that jumps out today my view changes all the time
01:00:08
and I don't think Biden can be the nominee his only point was to you know stop Bernie Sanders
01:00:15
basically and he's uh outlift his usefulness so I think he'll be I'm pretty sure he'll be replaced but um as
01:00:20
on the rep on the Republican side and the independence you know it's so hard to know I'm just mesmerized by the love
01:00:26
for Nikki Haley who's like the most and I'm s and like for example I saw Jamie Diamond who who I really like and I know
01:00:35
and I have always admired but when Jamie Diamond starts like freeballing on you know Nikki Haley and saying nonsensical
01:00:41
things about Nikki Haley I'm like I want to call him and say you're humiliating yourself first of all you're way out of
01:00:45
your depth you have no idea what you're talking about but for another you're just betraying how completely out of
01:00:50
touch you were and I think Jamie got and again I say this with admiration for Jamie Diamond which is long held but
01:00:56
like if you get to a place where you think that Nikki Haley has a shot of getting elected in a free and fair
01:01:01
election like you have no idea what's going on in your own country it's just embarrassing to say that super
01:01:06
embarrassing explain to the audience unpack that why is n it really it's not personal I actually
01:01:12
don't care for Nikki Haley as a person but that's IMM material Nikki Haley's program what she stands for what she
01:01:18
believes maybe moral or immoral God Old Judge it's not popular with the with the
01:01:23
public and it's super easy hers on war specifically yeah her stands on war and on economics and and we know that from
01:01:30
looking at the Gallop poll which is a rolling survey of people's attitudes on things and in an actual democracy you
01:01:36
would see the leading candidates or people who hope to become leading candidates articulate concerns and lay
01:01:42
out views that reflected the concerns of the population who were going to vote them into office n the most right now
01:01:50
well Trump is it fair to say Nikki Haley is basically an unreconstructed bush Republican I mean her views are
01:01:56
basically the same views as George W bush she wants to get us in all sorts of new Wars and I don't even think she
01:02:01
regrets the forever Wars of the Middle East that were so disastrous I I haven't heard one word of criticism from her or
01:02:09
remorse that she supported all those things and on the economic policies is kind of this like
01:02:14
corporatism it's like the whole Trump Rebellion never even happened in the Republican party it's just like it's
01:02:20
just like right back to the past and the fact that the establish sort of coalescing around her kind of tells me
01:02:28
that as much as I didn't want to believe this I think that Trump is still the indispensible figure in the Republican
01:02:34
party because if you take him away they're going to revert right back to where they were they're going to exactly
01:02:40
go right back to the factory settings on Republicans which is Bush republicanism
01:02:44
Tucker can you just finish the rest of them RFK VI Trump well I mean I you know I know VI well personally and I I'm I'm
01:02:54
it's shows I'm out of touch too I mean you know I'm 54 so I don't have my finger on every pulse um but so I like
01:03:00
vake actually and and but I see these surveys where he's not you know he's not doing well and people don't like his
01:03:05
personality or whatever he's he's a little overbearing that never bothers me at all I'm just not put off by that at
01:03:11
all and I'm a little bit confused by why he's not doing better again that's a reflection on I've just made fun of
01:03:18
Jamie Diamond here I am doing it myself like why isn't V doing better I'm sure there are reasons I just don't I think
01:03:24
his program is solid I think he's reasonable I think he's smart I don't think he has some creepy agenda um so
01:03:31
but he's not he's not doing well that's just a fact uh Bobby Kennedy I know quite well and and think a lot of him
01:03:39
and uh he's a very he's I think he's a decent man and a principled person I think he's smart um you know I'm I I
01:03:47
don't have quite as much confidence in maybe some of the people around him I'm not I feel like maybe there are other
01:03:53
agendas that he's not aware of you know I don't know I can't assess but uh yeah so that's what I think president Trump
01:04:01
well I mean you know the New York Times had a a piece I think it was Jonathan Swan um who's smart and uh had a a piece
01:04:09
telling you what you already knew kind of but proving it with numbers that Trump became the nominee in August of
01:04:15
last year 2022 when the FBI went through his wife's underwear drawer in his house
01:04:20
like that was so insane that even if you're like I can't deal with more Trump and he didn't actually do anything and
01:04:25
he put Jared in charge you know like there are lots of frustrations you could have about Trump if you supported Trump
01:04:30
and you could be disappointed but the second the FBI raids his house on a documents charge and anyone from
01:04:37
Washington as I am can tell you that's like insane like every that's like so common it's not if they're charging him
01:04:44
for that that's a joke where are the felonies he supposedly committed I was led to believe he like murdered people
01:04:49
and buried them in the Meadowlands do you know what I mean like that's the best they got when they did that I I
01:04:57
know for a fact and this piece showed it but I knew it already a lot of people are like you know I have mix feelings
01:05:02
about Trump or I don't want to deal with more Trump drama but if this is allowed
01:05:06
to happen our system won't continue that's so outrageous that I mean let's just stop lying about it that's a
01:05:12
political prosecution you can't have that of the presidential front runner you can't have that we already did it
01:05:18
with Nixon you can't do that again and so I think that's the key to his surge I really do think that who's the
01:05:24
Democratic nominee if you think Biden's not going to be oh it's Gavin Gavin Gavin for sure well of course cuz he's
01:05:30
by far the most evil person in the Democratic party and in the end they just sort of rise to the peak you know
01:05:37
oil and water man he just yeah Tucker just just comment on Gavin uh vetoing the bill that said that
01:05:46
you could kind of remove the parents remove the child from the parents if the parents don't affirm the transgender
01:05:51
rights of the child that I think there was a a lot of folks who sit in your Camp typically who were shocked and
01:05:57
surprised and said wow I didn't know Gavin actually you know had a stand had a span of opinions and this is
01:06:03
interesting to see I mean what's what like there's no one I know who thought that um and everyone I know who watched
01:06:09
that thought the same thing they thought when he met was G which is oh he's he's
01:06:13
going to be the nominee yeah I of course that's what that was I mean I know I know Gavin Nome and um you know I think
01:06:20
a lot about Gavin Nome uh many different things about Gavin but one thing I know
01:06:24
for a fact about Gavin Newsome is he has the capacity to beat a light lie detector test Gavin Newsome will say
01:06:31
anything he needs to say and not like Biden's not like this actually whatever Biden's fault he's not like this like
01:06:37
Biden would you know he has like guilt if he's lying to you he gets Twitchy Gavin nome's Palms don't sweat his
01:06:46
respiration doesn't increase his body temperature doesn't change nothing changes in Gavin new when he lies to
01:06:51
your face and they're not that many people like that actually that's a rare quality like to lock down the state to
01:06:59
keep people's kids from getting an education and to arrest people for surfing and then go have dinner at The
01:07:04
French Laundry like most people couldn't do that they' just be like you're saying
01:07:08
he's a sociopath just he can lie and not care I'm not a psychiatrist but I so I don't know that I don't really know the
01:07:15
category and I'm not going to diagnose him but I'll just say in 50 years of being around a lot of people I've met
01:07:21
very few who can behave that way very very few it's very usual quality and of course it's probably useful in politics
01:07:27
is he electable is he electable yeah exactly are the American people going to see that the way that you see it or well
01:07:33
as you know the system in California does not include elections I mean it has nothing to do with what the people think
01:07:38
it's a it's a machine State it's the most corrupt out of 50 KLA Harris was like despised by most Californians and
01:07:45
she you know was a sitting us Senator Diane poor Diane Feinstein my neighbor in Washington I don't I don't think she
01:07:51
was a horrible person just for the record but she was non-comp Menace and like she could have lived well beyond
01:07:56
her death as a US senator so it's like it's not a democratic State small D Democratic State it's not run on the
01:08:03
basis of what the population wants it's a fixed game in California and so it does make me very uncomfortable that
01:08:09
someone from that political culture which is an utterly corrupt political culture an authoritarian political
01:08:16
culture could like enter a presidential race cuz like clearly what are you running on if you're Gavin Nome as
01:08:23
native Californian uh you know I know what the state was like in 1985 cuz I live there
01:08:29
and it's completely degraded from that from that time and like how did that happen well part of the big reason the
01:08:36
big reason is the political leadership in the state you've got nothing to run on what are you running have you driven
01:08:41
through La recently like seriously so the fact that he would get in the race suggests you know they think that they
01:08:49
can win without the consent of Voters and that freaks me out well he'll have the media working on
01:08:55
overdrive for him right I mean they will turn him somehow into like John F Kennedy or something I mean they will
01:09:02
paper over all of his flaws and they'll you know they'll basically write puff pieces it'll it'll be like Non-Stop and
01:09:09
then they'll be attacking Trump so the media will put him over the top I think if he well assuming that we have the
01:09:14
same media that we had in 2020 that's true but I mean that's why you just got to pray every night for elon's health
01:09:21
and I mean it too I mean it it's the only platform at scale in the world that's pretty you know there's
01:09:27
censorship on it but there's not mass censorship actually there isn't and that's the only platform of its kind
01:09:36
at scale it's the only one so let's talk about that actually so I mean we've talked in this conversation about how
01:09:41
our public discourse is anain and self-destructive and divisive I would add another word to that which is
01:09:50
controlled you know controlled um a good example of this I think was just on the
01:09:55
Ukraine war David aramia who is zelinsky's parliamentary leader who was the lead negotiator for the ukrainians
01:10:04
at Istanbul in the first month of the war when there was a deal on the table he just testified basically said in an
01:10:10
interview there was a deal on the table to shut the war down we just would have had to agree to make Ukraine neutral and
01:10:16
of course the Biden ministration told them not to this war is and has always been about NATO expansion and yet the
01:10:23
party line from the media even as all of these proof points stack up I mean we're
01:10:28
now on like the 10th person firsthand witness to say that this is what this war is all about you still can't get the
01:10:35
media to honestly report this just as one example okay and I I believe that this is one of the reasons why you were
01:10:41
a fire Tucker is because you were literally the only person on mainstream Network news saying what the war is
01:10:49
really about so this is like one really big example is that we cannot get any truth on an issue as big as Ukraine war
01:10:56
so I guess my question for you is like how does control like that happen like I I don't really understand it myself we
01:11:03
live in a big what's supposed to be a big democracy there's supposed to be you know a lot of uh media channels but yet
01:11:10
they all enforce a certain narrative on pretty much every issue but even you know again I'm picking on I think one of
01:11:18
the biggest issues right now which is this war we've got going on I mean how does that happen I I don't understand it
01:11:23
how do they maintain that control this is one of my personal concerns about technology and about progress of all
01:11:30
kinds which is you don't actually know where it's going you don't I mean your best forecasts are mine have very often
01:11:35
been wrong and the you know of course the promise of the internet was diversity and access to information from
01:11:41
a lot of different sources unfiltered information you can talk to people in foreign countries for free you know
01:11:47
every American will have an encyclopedia at his fingertips and people are going to be much more informed um um and no
01:11:54
one will be able to control it because it's it's free and open and and the effect has been you know the opposite
01:11:59
there's less I I would argue there's been uh less Freedom uh in information than there was 30 years ago how did that
01:12:09
happen I mean that's it's a very comp I mean you guys are much better situated to answer that question someone should
01:12:12
think about that I think but the bottom line is there are just not that many pipelines actually you know in
01:12:18
television there were three big news channels cable you know broadcast kind of receded an importance it's mostly
01:12:23
about prostate health now and um so there three big channels two of them on one side one was on the other and then
01:12:30
there were the social media Giants but there are not that many of them and they were all locked down and they were all
01:12:34
riddled with Intel in some cases actual saled Intel officers Matt Tai's amazing reporting
01:12:42
has shown this not just American either from foreign countries the whole thing was an OP it was insane and um and you
01:12:49
know you could I'm not going to beat up on Fox news but there was a kind of an fairly narrow band of acceptable views
01:12:55
allowed on that channel is that control yes it is and so there there really was no remaining place with scale where
01:13:02
someone with a dissenting view could give it voice and that's just crazy it's the opposite of what we were promised
01:13:09
but whatever not to whine about it but the existence of X where anyone around the world or in most countries anyway
01:13:15
can get for free a whole range of opinions that aren't controlled that changes everything like the the the
01:13:24
Primacy of control of information in a war cannot be overstated like that's you can debate whether it's more important
01:13:30
than ammunition but it's right up there you know and um so I think this election
01:13:35
if that platform stays free for the next 12 months you know I think we have a shot at at least of a real election but
01:13:41
if it does and I think they're going to do whatever they can to shut it down we also have web- based shows podcasts and
01:13:47
that even predated a little bit Elon taking over you know X there's there is a self-correcting mechanism here if you
01:13:54
feel too controlled like maybe perhaps you felt or you felt pressure at Fox I don't want speak for you if you did then
01:14:02
all of a sudden Joe Rogan Allin podcast whatever podcasts all emerg and now your
01:14:07
show on X and I'm sure it's going to be on other platforms as well maybe you could speak to what you think the impact
01:14:13
of a post Fox Tucker Carlson show will be and how will you be able to sort of shape the show differently if at all and
01:14:23
the mission here that was my first question we never really got to which is post Fox post money post Fame what is
01:14:30
Tucker Carlson's mission statement going forward what is your goal just the same
01:14:34
the same as before and I should just be extra clear I I wish I could tell horror
01:14:39
stories about Fox you know forcing me to take some line or other but they they really
01:14:43
didn't but you know they didn't want the show anymore so that kind of tells you but anyway the point is uh my intent in
01:14:50
hosting that show is the same as my intent in hosting the show we're about to launch on X which is you know do your
01:14:56
best to say what you think is true bring perspectives and information that you don't think are widely covered to a
01:15:02
larger audience and you know try and stay firm in that admit when you're wrong like just be honest it's it's
01:15:08
actually not it's you know I got in this business because I hadn't graduated from
01:15:12
college and my father's like it's it's a pretty pure meritocracy in journalism you should do it and it's also pretty
01:15:18
simple no no real skills required just be literate which I was and is the show going to evolve a little bit because
01:15:23
you've been doing this experiment you've done about 40 episodes well here's the way here's the way that it already has
01:15:28
evolved so I I got laid off in in April and I you know I like to I like to fish and bird hunt so I did a lot of that and
01:15:35
then I was like H I need to do something so I've been stuck in a studio for all these you know many many years I
01:15:42
couldn't really go anywhere and I went I took seven foreign trips in four months
01:15:46
I just went to all these places where I knew people I was interested in what was
01:15:49
going on and I just found it amazing two things I found amazing one the view of America the Vantage you get from a
01:15:56
foreign country on what's happening in your own is completely different there's also a lot the whole world is
01:16:00
reshuffling in my view after the Ukraine war February 2022 really did change a lot um particularly with respect to
01:16:08
America's place in the world that's worth covering and the second thing I learned once I started putting videos up
01:16:13
on X was that it's International I mean I was just shocked by that I mean because think about it I mean I'm
01:16:19
working for a US News Channel it's one of three US news channels I've worked for CNN was International but I was on
01:16:25
CNN us so I'm just used to thinking about America being viewed by Americans having a conversation about this country
01:16:31
I had no experience at all of a of an of a big International audience and that platform has that and so I was amazed by
01:16:40
that and so um we're going to continue to cover the rest of the world I'm going over to Dubai in February
01:16:48
interviewing heads of state over it's just so it's just so interesting there going on it's like crazy people and this
01:16:55
is not a political point this is like a human point that bothers me almost more than anything politically which is the
01:17:01
death of curiosity it's like people are not curious like what the hell I thought
01:17:06
the technological Revolution would would set off like explosions in the brain of
01:17:10
every person like what is that I want to learn more and it had exactly the opposite it's like L me to sleep with
01:17:16
Tik Tok don't tell me more I don't want to dble double down on what you already know what you already believe over and
01:17:20
over and over know I'm less certain in my beliefs I know that I know less than any time of
01:17:27
my life and I'm much more interested in many more things than I've ever been I think that's normal and I think there's
01:17:33
something like in the water or something that's making people not care the UFO thing like what whatever you views of
01:17:39
that like well what is that shut up and that's normal people don't want to hear it why I don't know whatever I don't
01:17:45
want to preach I mean postco we still don't have an accounting of what happened and do what do you think about
01:17:51
the the the clip yesterday of Elon let's play it for 45 seconds and then get your
01:17:56
response talker Carson apology tour if you will that this had been said online there was all of the criticism there was
01:18:04
advertisers leaving we talked to Bob Iger stop you hope uh don't advertise you don't want them to advertise no what
01:18:13
do you mean if somebody's going to try to Blackmail me with advertising blackmail
01:18:18
me with money go [ __ ] yourself but go [ __ ] yourself is that clear I hope it is hey Bob here in the
01:18:34
audience well well let me ask you then that's how I feel all right Tucker your response to the good for you the
01:18:42
old G FY I mean I interviewed people every week for over 30 years and so I know what it is to interview dro My
01:18:53
Perry excuse me and I know you know I know I have a lot of experience interviewing people and I've interviewed
01:18:56
Elon you know and I don't understand how the the New York Times character fussy little guy from The New York Times like
01:19:02
how could you not laugh like what he just told Bob ier to [ __ ] himself don't get me started you and I
01:19:09
are in say Andrew rorin is amongst the weakest of moderators and interviewers but he's just what a what a fussy little
01:19:16
douche like that's the moment just like you erupt total like are you joking Elon
01:19:23
Musk just told Bob haer to [ __ ] himself like I'd be texting my wife unable I know um no of course I love it I love it
01:19:32
I I am in the Iger thing I you know I don't hate Bob Iger or anything but like I keep hearing from people you know
01:19:40
mutual people I know who know Bob Ager very well that he's like very serious about running for president and it's
01:19:45
like if you really think if you're bober you can run for president you have anything to offer people or they want
01:19:50
you to be president like you're pretty out of touch so I like that but you know big picture I'm I'm really
01:19:57
I'm not just saying this because it it you know aligns with my interest of some kind I mean it I'm worried about the
01:20:03
pressure that's brought to bear on that platform on this platform on X because it's the only one the only big one you
01:20:10
know huge one international one tens of millions of people hundreds of millions of people like they have to they meaning
01:20:16
the people who would like to maintain the status quo kind of have to shut it down and I am just so hoping that you
01:20:26
know I can help in any way and that all decent people whatever their views add their voice to a chorus that says no you
01:20:33
can't shut down the one big Free Speech platform in the world you can't do that because then it's just dictatorship
01:20:39
you're not free if you don't have free information and you can't say what you really think you are subject to a lot of
01:20:44
these advertising attacks they they went after Fox and your show specifically and
01:20:49
and and it worked they got people to not advertise on yeah so these advertising boycotts do
01:20:55
Work Media Matters whatever you whoever's doing them so I'm curious what you see the business model being for
01:21:01
your show and then how you hope to be resistant to it are you going to just go straight up subscription and hope that
01:21:07
half your audience or 10% of your audience pays and you put half out for free half out for sub what are you
01:21:12
thinking you got to have a subscription component to it and of course we're selling ads against our content um and
01:21:21
we'll be doing that on x and on tuckercarlson.com where we'll be hosting the sub the subscription part of it um
01:21:28
of course we're selling ads we're you know we'll have Network ads too I mean there are lots of different things you
01:21:33
can do um but in the end you you have to have some subscription component if you're going to do it at scale I mean we
01:21:41
brought our whole staff almost our whole staff from Fox with us so we got a bunch
01:21:45
of people we've got you know bigger Ambitions than have been on display so far and um and we you know you got to
01:21:53
have more information and and I would just say this about just having been in this one business my whole life the
01:22:00
range of stories is the problem it's not that the stories are all totally dishonest some are dishonest but some
01:22:07
are not they're technically true but they're taken from such a small pot of stories that it's like it's crazy
01:22:14
there's all this stuff going on and it's just not I mean I was completely obsessed and remain obsessed with the
01:22:21
industrial sabotage of the northstream pipeline it's like that's like that's that's a major historical event like you
01:22:27
just you just ended the EU you just hobbled the economic engine of Europe which is Germany and like who did that
01:22:35
and there were like very few stories on that that's like a very big deal and again back to the Curiosity thing but
01:22:41
it's more than that it's like they people sort of know what where not to go and I just feel like that's first of all
01:22:48
that's soul death you're not a free man if you're that constrained in your thinking if you're letting somebody else
01:22:55
tell you what you're allowed to think how can your wife how can your wife even sleep with you at that point she no one
01:23:00
can respect you if you live like that A B you can't have a democracy you can't have a free country under those
01:23:06
circumstances so I don't think I'm overstating it and so we're going to try to I hope be one of many different
01:23:13
similar efforts to just add to the sum total of information an analysis of that information well the end of the end of
01:23:19
democracy and sex would be kind of rough I think yeah go ahead J yeah yeah I have
01:23:23
a final question and and I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist but if one of the presidential
01:23:32
candidates called you and said Tucker be my VP and replace kamla Harris I mean I
01:23:38
don't think I could do that she's a historic first Tucker would you consider it if Donald Trump gave you that call
01:23:45
well of course I would consider it I'd can I mean you have no idea how open-minded I am I would consider
01:23:51
anything but I mean the truth is I kind of don't respect people who do stuff like that I
01:23:59
really believe I've got a lot of theories which I will not inflict on you but which I do inflict on my own four
01:24:03
children and my main theory of life is that you should do what you are designed to do I don't believe this whole you can
01:24:09
be whatever you want to be thing I think it's a absurd lie I think we're made for
01:24:13
certain things we have certain aptitudes they're inborn they can we can hone them
01:24:17
and we need to through practice repetition but it's very I I think it's a it's it's a sign of
01:24:24
hubris which is always the death of particularly of men huis thinking you have more power than you do when midlife
01:24:31
you're like well actually what I really want to do is direct it's like you just one best actress honey go back to acting
01:24:37
and I've never been involved in politics I've never I I haven't even voted in all
01:24:42
elections I'm serious so like the idea that I'm going to at 54 like run for national office I is a
01:24:49
little you know what I mean like I don't take my quite that seriously I mean I I
01:24:54
can't imagine doing something like that Reas I ask question is that if we're at least the the Republicans will now prove
01:25:01
that we've lived in a 12year era of a non-traditional candidate that was essentially a media personality that was
01:25:08
able to then curate a plurality of support right that's right and there's going to be something that comes after
01:25:14
him and so I'm just trying to get a sense of if it's not you it's probably to be very honest somebody like you
01:25:21
right just talk to us about that for just a second I completely agree with you and I
01:25:27
I love your characterization of trump as someone who's from a media background because that that's closer to the it's
01:25:32
I'm not diminishing I'm from media background so I'm not attacking it but that's a lot closer to the truth than
01:25:38
most characterizations Casino magnet developer is a media guy you he had lots of businesses but he was a media guy he
01:25:45
had the top show in NBC and so I think you're absolutely right my concern is that and I have pure contempt for the
01:25:54
professional political class I've written a book about it I've expressed it daily for a number of years now and
01:25:59
that's real however I think that there you know these are complex systems and it's better to have someone who
01:26:06
understands the systems in an Ideal World administer the systems because he's more effective at doing so um and I
01:26:12
also think that once you decide that like hey let's just go crazy and you couple that with true social disorder
01:26:23
like you get to a place where you can't buy anything at CVS because it's chained
01:26:26
up because shoplifting has been legalized as it has been in California what you're going to get is fascism
01:26:33
because people can't live in in that in they can't live with chaos like that's the one thing they can't deal with and
01:26:38
I've covered a couple of wars and that was my main conclusion the main problem with war is not that people get killed
01:26:44
it's that people have to live with total uncertainty and craziness and that's incompatible with what people want like
01:26:50
that's the that's the worst thing you know we're all going to die dying is not the worst thing the worst thing is
01:26:55
living in chaos and we're starting to live in chaos and so the return to order is what scares me I think it'd be very
01:27:01
easy and I do think Gavin Newsome is a fascist I think he's the kind of person who would have no problem no hesitation
01:27:07
about using the doj to C to imprison his political opponents now Biden is imprisoning his political opponents but
01:27:13
at least they're lying about it Gavin Newsome is the kind of person would be like well yeah you're you're a threat to
01:27:18
the general order and you're going to jail and I think because we're in a moment of chaos right now people kind of
01:27:25
want that actually I think one of the purposes of degrading and confusing our society is to make way for
01:27:32
authoritarianism even more than we have now um so that kind of freaks me out actually I personally my what I would
01:27:39
really like is a kind of colorless you know boring non-charismatic like Gerald Ford Mike Pence without their views both
01:27:50
of those men were bad men in my opinion but someone like that who could govern without making it about himself and
01:27:57
restore the country to a sense of rules-based order that's what I really want and I but I'm probably going to be
01:28:04
denied that Tucker I I feel like one of the one of the other consequences of the
01:28:09
way things have gone is that the solution has always been to throw more money at the problem and we've got this
01:28:13
kind of out ofc control fiscal condition what's your point of view on the fiscal
01:28:18
condition of the us as a priority of the federal government that is priority and
01:28:24
you know do we need to shrink government shrink overall discretionary spending do
01:28:28
we need to cut these entitlements do we need to do it all and how do we get there given that everyone gets elected
01:28:35
by telling people I'm going to give you more stuff and then this just kind of Cascades for decades until eventually
01:28:41
bad [ __ ] happens well who's going to buy our debt I mean that's that's like it's
01:28:46
scary it's so scary um you know this is of course the problem with democracy I mean I think
01:28:52
since you know from the Roman Republic until 1776 like how many democracies were there
01:28:57
exactly let me do the math on that I approximately zero in that range and this was the critique of course in
01:29:05
Europe of democracy at the time is not that it gave too much freedom to the average
01:29:10
person but that it would result in tyranny and when the majority discovered it could steal the goods of whomever it
01:29:18
wanted Legally Legally um you would wind up dictatorship I mean this is like a very
01:29:24
well trod path but I mean but I hope it doesn't get to that I'm not making argument against democracy I'm just
01:29:29
saying it's a little bit harder to perpetuate than we thought that it was and um and this is kind of the fear that
01:29:37
people have had for hundreds of years the condition is the manifestation of that structural problem yes yes that's
01:29:43
exact exactly that's exactly right let's end on this uh Elon clip from yesterday
01:29:48
just about virtue like to get your reaction to this Tucker Tesla has done more to help the environment than uh all
01:29:56
other companies combined would be fair to say that therefore as a leader of the company
01:30:02
I've done more for the environment than everyone any single human on earth how do you feel about
01:30:09
that feel about that yeah no I'm I'm asking you personally how you feel about that because this goes we were talking
01:30:14
about power and influence and I'm saying I'm saying what what I care about is the
01:30:18
the reality of goodness not the perception of it and what I see all over the place is people who care about
01:30:24
looking good while doing evil [ __ ] them your thoughts on ver signal versus that
01:30:31
was like it was like it was like the hand of God massaging my central nervous system like every arous Zone which just
01:30:40
heightened awareness like that I I couldn't Rel full Chiropractic release wow so dirty I'm sorry no but I just I
01:30:49
so vly agree and I don't even like Electric cars I don't think they help the environment I didn't even agree with
01:30:54
that part I just love his point which is the point which is what actually matters
01:31:01
is what you do it's not what you think it what matters is helping other people and I also think that the fact that
01:31:07
Andrew rorin has a television job shows this is not a meritocracy like I don't know how he got that his response his
01:31:15
response to that was like he didn't even he he can't even like I'll just kind of
01:31:19
say this is like so inside baseball but it's literally what I do for a li have done all my life yes that's what we do
01:31:24
talk interviewing people yes is to listen to them Larry King I used to fill in for Larry King at CNN he was number
01:31:32
one 9:00 p.m. all this stuff the first time I filled in for Larry King there was no research on the guests I had two
01:31:37
guests no research and I said the producer Larry was like in Cabo with wife number seven and I said where's the
01:31:42
research oh Larry doesn't do research so I do the show when fine and I called him
01:31:46
after I was like dude you do no research he goes and he was number one most dominant figure in cable news by far and
01:31:53
he goes no I just listen someone says something weird I pause and I said wait wait a second wait a second wait a
01:31:59
second you killed someone in 1962 why'd you kill him you follow up you're present in the interview yes and then
01:32:07
you follow up based on what this guest said notice how Jason's interrupting you right now sorry go ahead Tucker
01:32:12
listening to what Tucker said and reflecting back to him what he said is what game real that's right it's a cqu
01:32:19
jal's treating this as validation absolutely there's story to this Tucker that you don't need to know about but I
01:32:26
can tell it's it's tantalizing it is oh it is it is trust me H well let's end here I you know we have a lot of fans of
01:32:34
not only there about 18% crossover between all in and your work Tucker and they send me images of you out there and
01:32:42
about in the world and uh we just I just got this one in my DMs I don't know what's going on what's
01:32:48
going on here is that a park in New Hampshire where you guys is the run out of these yet that is
01:32:56
so you know what I'm not that's kind of hunky I'm just being honest yeah it's a lot going on here well listen we got
01:33:03
Vineyard Vines t-shirt the the the romance is now complete Tucker we'd love to have you back on a regular basis
01:33:10
actually so fun that was super fun that was great and I'm sorry for talking too much you guys spun me up into a frenzy
01:33:16
but I appreciate it I understand I understand why you were number one in media I that was so fun enjy it thank
01:33:23
you really really good thank you very much Tucker thank you yeah thank was amazing Tu good luck with the new launch
01:33:30
everybody go to tuckercarlson.com and when the subs come out on day one give them a sub okay sub be Tucker sub didn't
01:33:38
come out exactly how I wanted to sure you can sub for Tucker Z are you gonna be a sub for Tucker ax are you
01:33:47
subbing I'm gonna Dom for Tucker Oh God po all right thanks tuck see you guys what' you guys think that was fun that
01:33:57
was great yeah let's show you de socer for Tucker I'll be honest like can we get him on group chat I mean this can
01:34:02
you imagine being on group chat with tuck such a fun guy great guy he's a great Entertainer and you know what he's
01:34:08
into I know he's right-wing conservative but he's actually I think a first principal thinker who thinks for himself
01:34:13
we we didn't get into January 6 we ran out of time but you know he he was you know not happy about that he wasn't
01:34:19
happy about election denial I think he's intellectually regular wow J what do you
01:34:23
think Jam I really liked it I like talking to people that have opinions that force me to like actually rethink
01:34:29
about how I think and yeah it was I think the the most impactful thing that he said to
01:34:36
me which touches upon my own life was just how one feels when you have a little bit too much too early versus
01:34:45
grinding slowly and compounding success over many years I think it does create in moments
01:34:52
an element of self-sabotage I lived it in my own life so that totally resonated this idea that there's just so much
01:34:59
abundance that causes people to not really fight over the big issues and then fight over the The Fringe
01:35:06
issues I I do think that there's an element of huge truth in that it was really really good I think like that
01:35:12
this is probably one of the very few ones that we've done that I would listen to over again totally I'd say that was
01:35:18
like one of my favorite episodes or probably my favor top five just just as a listener I just enjoyed listening the
01:35:24
whole [ __ ] time the thing I I just wanted to I could hear him talk for hours probably I know I didn't want to
01:35:28
talk I didn't have anything to say I just wanted to chill and hang out like listen that's great yeah me too have you
01:35:32
done Tucker show jth yet they asked me to do the show in December which I couldn't do and at some point in the
01:35:39
spring I will do the show but then I was like can you come on our show and there
01:35:44
you go doing it right it's amazing yeah that was amazing SX didn't you like go on his show no I've been on Tucker show
01:35:50
a couple of times when it was on Fox and one appearance was about chasa buin you
01:35:54
know the da that we got tossed out and then go team I I went on a couple other times I think one one was about the
01:36:00
economy I was on a show a couple of times for you know short segments but anyway I thought I thought what was
01:36:05
interesting about this conversation was that it was much more philosophical than
01:36:09
I was expecting yes we we touched on a few like policy issues but we spent most of the time talking about his deeper
01:36:18
clinical diagnosis of American culture and American discourse and I would say that one of the things that's maybe
01:36:26
unique about his take and I mean definitely different than mine is it's much more
01:36:31
psychological than metaphysical even metaphysical and psychological I mean like I don't really ask too many
01:36:38
questions about why people believe what they believe I just sort of take it as a
01:36:41
given and then discuss whether they're right or wrong whereas he actually sort of psycho analyzes why people have the
01:36:49
views that they have and and um you know what I mean it's it's actually kind of interesting that whole methodology for
01:36:55
whatever it's worth resonates with me I mean I think it's very it's the reason early on I really gravitated to Renee
01:37:01
Gerard because I thought it demonstrated a lot of how people behave to me in in a
01:37:05
language that I could understand so when Tucker describes problems in this context to me it's very powerful just
01:37:10
because that is how I kind of frame things as I think humans are driven by psychological incentives and I think
01:37:18
that there is something very worth exploring here which is these Western cultures get so prosperous that the big
01:37:25
things we don't fight over so then we fight over the little things or we have to invent things to fight over and The
01:37:30
Virtue signaling he kind of brings up in his own personal experience which is hey
01:37:33
I go to Jackson Hall I'm getting accosted you know in line at the lift people's wives are upset at me the
01:37:38
husbands are upset at me the hedge fund people these are all people of incredible wealth incredible privilege
01:37:43
who have extra cycles and instead of having a debate over the issues in good faith full contact debate like we do
01:37:50
here they just want to vilify people and you know I tried to listen to him and say
01:37:54
hey what what does he get right here now I obviously think he's wrong about climate change I thought that was
01:37:59
Bonkers but I do think he he understands human nature pretty well from doing 30 years of interviews yeah it's definitely
01:38:05
worth exploring Jason this idea that the more successful people get the more self-loathing there is and then it
01:38:12
manifests in some you know really destructive ways I think especially if you don't have a foundation once you get
01:38:17
successful enough there's very little progress I think a lot of human happiness comes from ress progress
01:38:23
exactly right's the purpose well there just there's just no higher order bits you buy the house that's a huge
01:38:30
accomplishment but then when you buy your second house or third house I think the diminishing returns are severe yeah
01:38:35
Sever and then and then these things are just baggage they're like Al yeah and then you're spending all this time
01:38:40
dealing with headaches you know exactly what's your progress what's your progress what's the purpose in life I
01:38:45
mean saxs when you bought your 6 house I mean how you cut that just busy uh reorganizing the US political
01:38:53
establishments I think he's making progress you know in his own way SX is making progress yeah yeah well I I you
01:38:59
know he's where does he sit on the political Spectrum today saak because you and he
01:39:05
are both yeah because you're both kind of outcast in the Republican party now right like I would describe Tucker as
01:39:11
probably the most influential populist in you know on the on the right so there is a sort of populism well
01:39:20
there's a populism of left that I guess was Bernie Sanders before he to you know
01:39:26
maybe like five eight years ago whatever describe us describe for the audience your perception of populism you know on
01:39:32
the left and the right and what they share and what what they don't share kind of thing because this does seem to
01:39:36
be the emerging party I think we would all agree is that people are sick of these extremes and they want something
01:39:42
new and the something new seems to be populism well one way to think about populism is is just to democracy
01:39:51
populism is the word that the elite gives to democracy they don't like so for example vast majority of the country
01:39:59
wants our border sealed for some reason the elites don't want that so that's labeled populism I think the vast
01:40:05
majority of the country regrets the forever wars in the Middle East and doesn't want us getting involved in more
01:40:11
Wars this sort of hyper interventionism I think that's like a major part of of the platform and then
01:40:17
of course I think the third big area of reevaluation was around our free trade policies you know they
01:40:23
really ended up hollowing out America's industrial capability and exported a lot
01:40:28
of manufacturing jobs globalization to to to China the globalization so yeah I think on the
01:40:34
right big picture I would say the populism is a nationalist reaction to the hyper
01:40:41
globalization that happened that was encouraged by the elites over the past few decades and he he hit on that he
01:40:46
said you know at some point are the politicians going to match what the people want and they they call this
01:40:52
getting to Denmark high functioning governments in the nordics you know tend to reflect what
01:41:01
the candidates reflect what the people want right and we seem to have this kind of broken here we we have one other
01:41:07
story people have wanted us to comment on when we had our week off so I thought we get into the Open Eye thing I just
01:41:12
wanted to point out I don't mean to make this like a love triangle sacks but Tucker and I did go skiing last year we
01:41:18
we tried to keep it but now that it's out you know here it is I'm sorry about this but we were actually in this Echo
01:41:25
at the same time so it's gonna come out at some point we might look how old and nasty those ski clothes are oh yeah well
01:41:34
you know what we're both very woke and we don't want we're fure signaling that we don't we want to recycle so we bought
01:41:40
all this uh on eBay I thought that was Phil HTH on the left I guess that's job that's me
01:41:47
before I was inic face all right let's do the open eye AI thing if you guys have time can we go over this real quick
01:41:54
I don't want to we can I just wonder if the story is stale but I mean I I think one of the things we can do here is just
01:42:00
sort of now that the three acts are complete we can actually talk about the epilog just to for for people who
01:42:07
have I think the epilog's about to drop but yeah well that's that's what we'll get at I think we're still in the second
01:42:14
act here I don't think this is over by a long shot all right so let me AR let's see why I'm curious why that is I'm
01:42:19
gonna architect tuim moth Act One Sam's fired act two chaos for a week we were off you know what were all the reasons
01:42:26
act three obviously just yesterday Sam's back I think il's out Microsoft's an observer on the board so I guess the
01:42:32
epilogue trof is what we want to know is what happened why did this all happen was there a major breakthrough was it
01:42:39
Sam doing deals with masi yoshian or in the Middle East to make uh you know AI chips what do if we if the epilog does
01:42:48
drop or if like you're saying this is the second act and the third Act is going to begin whichever metaphor you
01:42:54
want to use what will it say jam up I think we can all agree on what happened which is that the employees realized
01:43:02
that in the absence of leadership business leadership that the Enterprise value of that company was going to
01:43:09
disintegrate and what would have been imperiled was an 86 billion dollar valuation secondary so I think the
01:43:18
employees did what was in their best interest and it makes the obvious and logical sense which is we need to circle
01:43:27
the wagons and get the business leadership of this company back into this place so that the value of the
01:43:34
Enterprise is sustained they did that so I think this valuation is going to hold
01:43:41
I think the secondary is going to happen so I think like from that perspective whatever was supposed to
01:43:47
happen there happened so what are the interesting threads that are left over we don't yet have a full accounting
01:43:57
of what precipitated all of the all of the decision- making at the board number one number two is the person who seemed
01:44:06
to be the Principal inventor is now no longer on the board and I think based on Sam's blog post
01:44:13
could probably no longer be at the company that seems like an important thing and then the third thing which I
01:44:20
found odd was Brett Taylor who I worked with at Facebook who I've known for a long time very sober reasonable guy puts
01:44:29
out his own addendum to the blog post that basically says his chairmanship of this
01:44:36
board is purely transitory H what do you take what's what is that yeah what do you take from that my takeaway is
01:44:44
whatever's happening is still TBD there's enough question marks that look I told my friends on the board without
01:44:50
saying who it was whatever you guys do the most important thing that you need to do is you need to retain great
01:44:56
counsel and make sure that there and I said this publicly make sure that there's phenomenal dno insurance and
01:45:03
make sure that there aren't any issues where you could be held personally liable for whatever happens in the
01:45:09
future piercing of the Val the corporate Val yeah now that's a generic thing that
01:45:14
I think all corporate directors should do I think it's even more important here because you have a non-standard
01:45:21
governance structure that could change and it could change because the people involved want it to change but it could
01:45:29
also could change because the government says hey hold on a second this should never have been like this in the first
01:45:34
place I'll give you an example of that you know at Facebook there was a moment where we divested all of our IP to a
01:45:40
subsidiary in Ireland and for tax reasons and there were two signatories to that deal it was
01:45:47
me and Zuck and six or seven years later this is long after I left Facebook the IRS
01:45:53
says hold on a second you misvalued these assets we're owed X billions of dollars in taxes it was a huge long
01:46:00
drawn out thing so at a minimum if there's Great Value created here there will be consequences with respect to tax
01:46:08
and who paid what and if you have the shielding of a nonprofit entity there's theoretically a lot of taxes that could
01:46:15
have been paid that not so all of this to me says a lot of really open Curious threads which means it's not the
01:46:21
epilogue yet we're probably somewhere at the end of act two fredberg uh my question to you is there's been
01:46:28
speculation that there was an super intelligence AGI breakthrough possibly and that's what spooked everybody and
01:46:35
maybe the claim that Sam wasn't forthcoming with the board was that he didn't tell him about it the second
01:46:41
thing was there's been some forchan posts again this is pure speculation that maybe the AI they're working on
01:46:49
could break in some way encryption and that would have been CA a really chaotic Global moment what are your thoughts on
01:46:58
those three potential items or more are any of those possibilities in your mind Dave freeberg no idea I can that yeah go
01:47:07
ahead sex goad s you take a out so I think the best theory on what actually happened here what precipitated all of
01:47:13
this was broken and a piece by Reuters and what it said was that there was a letter to the board that was written in
01:47:21
the few days before Sam's firing by the board in which they were raising concerns over the development of qar
01:47:29
which was a new breakthrough at open AI that allows these language models to do math and previously uh llms just weren't
01:47:38
very good at math it would sort of predict the next word but that wasn't actually based on mathematical reasoning
01:47:43
qar actually allows the AI to do math it understands mathematical reasoning supposedly the capabilities only at a
01:47:50
grade school level right now but it is highly accurate and it can be scaled up with more computing power and I don't
01:47:57
think it was coincidental that Sam was supposedly in the Middle East seeking to raise billions of dollars to create a
01:48:02
new chip company basically new specialized chip or ASC to perhaps run these types of models so they were going
01:48:08
to scale up this capability and what mathematical reasoning allows you to do is unlock a whole new problem set so for
01:48:16
example in chemistry in physics in computer science and cryptography encryption an encryption all these
01:48:23
things mathematic mathematical reasoning underpins all of these disciplines and so it does represent a major new piece
01:48:33
towards AGI and so I think the best theory about what happened is that the board but I'd say specifically Ilia um
01:48:43
had a panic or moment of Panic or concern you know freak out or whatever concern whatever about this and it
01:48:52
combined with probably underlying concerns that the board had about Sam's other activity because he's got his
01:48:57
fingers and a lot of so it hits two of the three potential reasons you know putting aside any personal Behavior
01:49:06
would seems like there's no personal Behavior here so it's those two right right so they fire him but they
01:49:10
apparently didn't really think it through at all and these are not it's not a professional board yeah that's
01:49:17
constructed I don't know I think Adam Adam is but the other two were considered technologist and then the two others who
01:49:25
were you know from nonprofits they just not very familiar and so what happened is they took this drastic action but
01:49:30
didn't explain it and with each passing day it became more glaring that they would not explain it so the pressure
01:49:37
sort of built on the company to explain itself and provide a good justification for this and then meanwhile I think Sam
01:49:45
just ran a textbook counter C operation here I mean they got Hearts emojis there
01:49:52
was that aspect of it but disguise behind the velvet glove of all these hearts and saying I love you and all
01:49:58
this stuff was the iron fist the iron fist was they got over 700 of the 770 open AI employees to sign a petition
01:50:08
that they were going with Sam and Sam went to Microsoft and set up shop so the threat to the board was I'm going to
01:50:14
take the whole company with me and set up shop over at Microsoft and that was sort of the compelling threat basically
01:50:20
all the employees threatened to to quit and go with Sam and so the board was under immense pressure and then at the
01:50:27
same time you got the sense that Ilia was under a lot of personal pressure from his friends from people he knew at
01:50:33
the company it's not probably irrelevant that there's about to be a huge cash out
01:50:38
there's about to be a big secondary at a86 billion valuation so all these early employees were about to make a lot of
01:50:45
money in any event for all of these reasons I think I I don't think IL is motivated by money I think he's
01:50:50
motivated by wanting to keep open AI intact I think that he must have had a moment where he realized wait a second
01:50:56
what we've done here in throwing out Sam is destroying the company and then he recanted he basically apologized and
01:51:04
signed that petition and at that moment it just became a fat comp plea that Sam was going to get his job back and so
01:51:09
that's basically what happened now in terms of the epilog where I disagree slightly with
01:51:14
chth is that although they still have to form this board they're going to form a
01:51:19
n person board and they only have three members so far I think the conclusion here is it's sort of a foregone
01:51:26
conclusion which is the board can never fire Sam again I mean they're they're not going to go through that again
01:51:32
therefore he has total control it would take a lot it's would tell you a lot so I think that Sam has won and he's going
01:51:38
to consolidate his control over the company by the way I thought he already had control I thought that yeah you
01:51:44
outlined that in the that he had control apparently he did not do you think he makes
01:51:50
AIT do you think it just it AIT and then says hey we'll amount of the equity or whatever to this nonprofit but we're
01:51:57
going to we're just going to flip this thing and and separate it out and clean up the original sin I think apparently
01:52:02
there's like tax problems with doing that but I but I think that what happens is look they already have this
01:52:07
for-profit LLC entity which is where all the investors have have basically put their money into and they've gotten
01:52:13
shares or membership interests or some sort of profit interest synthetic shares whatever synthetic shares Phantom shares
01:52:19
and then the vast majority of that is owned by this Foundation the nonprofit Foundation that I always thought was
01:52:25
under Sam's control but apparently it wasn't I think it now will be I think that I just think that what's going to
01:52:30
happen in the next few months is that Sam will consolidate his control because he's proven that he has a total loyalty
01:52:36
of the troops and they're behind him and there's no choice so why won't he get everything he
01:52:41
wants yeah all of the all of the smoke I think leads to the fire that you point out which is there was some great
01:52:49
advance there was some deals going on and those things it matches what the board said we
01:52:55
didn't feel like we was being forthcoming with us and it could be on two issues like that it just totally
01:53:00
makes sense it locks the puzzle pieces in place Dave let's assume that they have now not only done language models
01:53:08
predicting the next word and and you know understanding that but there is some reasoning going on here and they
01:53:14
understand math and it understands how to do the next math problem I don't know if we put that under reinforcement
01:53:19
learning it's obviously very different than language models explain what you think if that is
01:53:25
what's happening here with the Q project what that could mean on a scientific basis I don't know enough I'm sorry I
01:53:32
gotta I mean this is why we love you because you're honest when you don't know jamat anything here as we wrap in
01:53:38
terms of watching this whole brewhaha I think it's probably not the end yeah yeah more drama I think there
01:53:47
probably will be more drama yeah I mean of drama did you see the article this morning where they started saying all
01:53:54
the houses that Sam bought he bought all these houses and so I think there's a lot of investigators digging around now
01:54:00
trying to figure out all the backstory because the board was and so forth coming with what happened and why they
01:54:05
made this decision there's a lot of people digging around trying to figure out more about Sam than may have been
01:54:11
you know looked into in the past so this will reveal all sorts of new threads that'll start to become part of the The
01:54:17
Narrative it's unfortunate I think that technology the progress is what really matters here not all the kind of
01:54:25
personal people stuff it's weird I also the the other comment I'll make I thought one of the the biggest takeaways
01:54:30
for me on the whole drama last week was that the employees basically got their way employees got together voted and
01:54:38
said this is what we want and the board did what they wanted and it really um I think sets another precedent much like I
01:54:44
think Elon said a really big presedent in Silicon Valley when he came in and slashed heads at Twitter um the
01:54:50
precedent that it it triggered a lot of other Executives to start to think well maybe that's possible and I should think
01:54:55
about doing you know more cost savings and so on this is another interesting precedent where an entire employee base
01:55:02
gets together and says we want X and the board acquiesced and said here you go you can have X does that mean that other
01:55:09
startups and other companies are going to start to see employee groups band together saying we want X in a more
01:55:14
vocal public way possibly well I mean freeberg this is not a new Tac right but look if the employees are
01:55:21
willing to sign a petition on mass and you get over 90% of them supporting something and then you also threaten to
01:55:28
all set up shop somewhere else I mean boards usually respond to that pressure yeah but look I think that it's very
01:55:36
clear that Sam has the support of the troops I'm not questioning that but I think it would be a mistake to just see
01:55:42
this as some sort of spontaneous ground swell I think there was clearly like some organization to it like I said I
01:55:48
think he ran a textbook operation there yeah and wasn't it Paul Graham who said something like if Sam were dropped in an
01:55:55
island of cannibals like kind of a lord of the fly situation he'd be the one to come out on
01:56:01
top he's like really he's in his element don't don't just assume look this is all
01:56:06
covered up by hearts and I love you I mean I've never read a corporate announcement with the word love in it
01:56:11
more times this was not about love and hearts all you know this is there's some he's a warless corporate in fighting
01:56:18
here yeah he came out on top but look the board was totally incompetent I mean listen if if a board is going to take a
01:56:26
drastic action of firing the founder CEO when everything is going great I mean because everything's been going great at
01:56:34
open AI it's incumbent on them to explain their actions and there needs to be they do that why there need to be why
01:56:41
didn't they do that even as a c their reputation I'm saying it was totally incompetent yeah they should have
01:56:48
dropped it yeah hm well no what I'm saying is either there's a Smoking Gun or there's not I don't think you should
01:56:54
take an action like this ever unless there's a Smoking Gun and if there is a Smoking Gun you need to communicate that
01:57:01
right and I think with each passing day that they didn't communicate it people came to the conclusion There Is No
01:57:05
Smoking Gun and so my guess is there is no Smoking Gun and they were overly Hasty about taking this action yeah this
01:57:12
could have been a very simple discussion hey Sam can we work on you telling us in
01:57:17
advance when you're going doing deal making so we can be in alignment on it like there seemed like there was
01:57:23
something that could have been done that wasn't firing him know yeah I mean like
01:57:29
you could you could put somebody on a pip you could do all kinds of things so taking the step of yeah
01:57:36
letting somebody go in that way with that orchestration again I just I just think
01:57:42
that this stuff is too juicy and too interesting for the details to not come out oh it will come out yeah the fact
01:57:51
that it hasn't come out yet is crazy I I would have suspected it would have come
01:57:53
out in the first 72 hours so you think there is maybe not a Smoking Gun but there's something no no no I think I
01:58:00
think it's what what we said which is that the economically rational decision for all the employees and for Sam and
01:58:06
Greg was to do what they did because it allows them to get an 86 billion valuation and a big secondary done right
01:58:13
so that makes complete rational sense that is the rational decision that should have happened and
01:58:20
so that did but it doesn't stop whatever underlying chaos was happening that caused this decision to exist in
01:58:29
the first place to not come out I just think that the incentives for that decision to come out now for example
01:58:37
from the two departing board members is quite High how do you get this information from the incoming board
01:58:42
members how do they not say anything all the new six people will have that join the board will have to get read into
01:58:48
this thing right so you're just multiplying the number of people that knows whatever it
01:58:53
is and it's either going to be David to your point path a which is the board didn't know what they're doing and they
01:58:59
acted hastily or you know the self-preservation of here's what we knew but it is just going to come out and
01:59:05
leak after leak after leak and then to your point the pulling the sweater of all of the other deals that may have
01:59:12
been happening on the side or whatever all of this stuff now comes out because it's just too salacious for too many
01:59:17
people the numbers are too big everything just looks too juicy now you have this like hidden technology that
01:59:23
could theoretically ruin the world everybody will be leaking to everybody and that that's the that's the only
01:59:31
guarantee here which is why I really think that you have to commend the leadership team for trying to become
01:59:38
very militaristic about all of this everybody had the same tweets they said the same things they use the same hard
01:59:45
emojis I mean it was extremely well-managed it it was mantras it's amazing what a
01:59:51
secondary will do to the Troops there's alignment of the St what was the Mantra the Mantra was that open AI is nothing
01:59:58
without its employees or something like that nothing without our team or something and that was that was
02:00:04
basically something that on the surface appeared to be a positive affirmation of
02:00:10
camaraderie but like I S said Iron Fist beneath the velvet glove it's a threat it's a threat we can set up shop formula
02:00:18
in in Excel spreadsheet that says they are nothing without the team the Enterprise Value equals zero company is
02:00:25
a zero without us and we can go step shop somewhere else so it was perfect velvet glove Iron Fist type stuff yeah
02:00:33
well done Sam we uh well Sam will be on the pod in the coming weeks I think I've
02:00:37
been texting with him so I think if Sam uh I think what Elon said yesterday was also really interesting which is he
02:00:43
described Ilia as an extremely moral person who thinks about these things subtly
02:00:50
and so again and and I've known Adam for a long time I think Adam is tremendous he is from cor Adam D'Angelo yeah he was
02:00:58
the CTO at Facebook we worked together in the trenches in war for years he is just the best of the best totally he's
02:01:06
very smart you know very um very knowledgeable this is not an irrational emotional person my guess is
02:01:14
that that they had good reasons to want to act based on the Ila's philosophy around AI safety
02:01:26
you may not agree with that philosophy but their mistake was if you're going to do something like that you have to be
02:01:32
able to defend it you have to be able to communicate it and I mean if your concern here was around AI safety write
02:01:37
a Manifesto you know explain the values that you're invoking and support that's right I think that's a takeaway for all
02:01:45
of us for for all of us on boards that at some Point have to make these decisions because we're all faced with
02:01:51
them and we've made them the lesson that I learned is we're at a point where it is so important that
02:01:58
you give employees the transparency to reer why they should stay so when you make a decision like this in any company
02:02:05
going forward my reaction will be open the kimono and lay out the case bare so if you have to make a CEO transition
02:02:13
this is exactly why we did it this was the precipitating events that caused it here here's the evidence and here's what
02:02:20
we're going to do about it and I think that that's probably a good takeaway for all boards to learn which is that level
02:02:26
of transparency is going to be needed in the future so that folks don't fill in the blanks with their own conspiracy
02:02:31
theories also there were apparently two companies or two organizations running in parallel here to build on your points
02:02:37
J moth which is Ilia and the nonprofit this might have been the right decision for that organization but the right
02:02:44
decision for the employees who are incented by the secondary that was about to be
02:02:49
shipping the employees apparently billions of dollars that for-profit company this would be the wrong decision
02:02:56
the for-profit company should go fast and it should be releasing Jason and Jason like the I I from what was
02:03:04
reported there's like this obligation and it's hard to understand what it means of the board to determine when AGI
02:03:11
is reached and then as a result essentially hit the kill switch on the commercial business and if I were a
02:03:18
board member dealing with that I would want a gazillion trillion dollars of insurance to cover me and the reason is
02:03:27
that when that's litigated not if when that's litigated it is that board that will be at the center
02:03:36
of dealing with that financial responsibility and liability this is the other Master
02:03:43
stroke I think of what Sam did he's not even on the board so that liability is no longer his yeah
02:03:50
so he's got complete he's got complete control of the business and and the actual none of the responsibility and
02:03:57
and the actual fiscal responsibility he doesn't have to bear good well can I speak to the kill switch for a second so
02:04:03
I I think it's a really interesting point so so by the way Jason there is a for-profit entity here the for-profit
02:04:07
entity is this new LLC that was created correct the nonprofit entity is above it
02:04:12
at the governance layer and it kind of owns the LLC right so again investors and employees get compensated out of the
02:04:18
LLC and then this nonprofit Foundation was supposed to exercise it's a really complicated orc chart there you go yeah
02:04:24
whenever orc chart has more than like two arrows it's crazy you're [ __ ] right how many arrows one two three four
02:04:31
five six seven eight arrows that's six too many but my point is that this complexity was justified by this idea of
02:04:40
the kill switch that if the AI gets out of control the AI gets out of control we're going to have this board of Super
02:04:46
Wise people who are not motivated by a profit incentive right because that we can't trust the profit in motive right
02:04:53
and so we're going to have this board of of of wise Elders who are going to make
02:04:58
this you know super intelligent decision and if this whole episode shows anything
02:05:04
it shows this structure completely failed I mean the board ended up acting in a completely incompetent way either
02:05:09
they had good cause to do what they did and didn't explain it which was incompetent or they had no cause at all
02:05:16
which was incompetent either way you cannot say that this acted with a high degree of competence
02:05:21
no matter how competent any of the individuals are I'm just saying that as a board Dynamic it completely failed so
02:05:28
they did not invent some higher form of governance as they originally claimed was Frank strcture it's a Franken
02:05:35
structure so it didn't work and I think this all I mean it's a I think important
02:05:40
lesson in human motivations which is just because you take out the profit motive does not mean that human beings
02:05:47
all of a sudden become Noble they just pursue other agendas basically political agendas or whatever and um so this idea
02:05:56
that we're going to solve the AGI problem or alignment issue by creating nonprofit structures I think that this
02:06:05
episode proves that's not going to work like look elsewhere and you and I talked
02:06:09
about this on a Twitter spaces and X spaces which was you know people give VCS and and you know investors a hard
02:06:16
time about you know I don't know their existence and how they operate in the world okay fair enough I'm sure there's
02:06:22
valid criticisms but the share price and employees participating and the share price going up and secondaries occurring
02:06:29
on a regular basis is the most perfect structure that has been created by humans to date for running an
02:06:36
organization I think we would all agree and it's super imperfect and there's weird things that happen but if you want
02:06:40
everybody to grow in the right direction giving them some shares and then everybody watching the share price go up
02:06:45
to the right is pretty phenomenal this board did not have one VC on it it was not right and all the VCS in the company
02:06:51
were they were the biggest you know they were the most aggressive tweeters saying you know WTF
02:06:58
like what are you doing because they could see their investment Going Up in Smoke yes they had a alignment with the
02:07:04
share price but nool so so as much as you don't like the profit motive it does create alignment and that makes people
02:07:11
predictable and that's a good thing and like Adam Smith said in the 1700s the reason we can trust
02:07:19
that the Butcher and the baker will serve us our dinner is because they're going to make a profit they're aligned
02:07:25
with us and you know we don't look to charity we look to their self-interest and like you said for all the [ __ ] that
02:07:32
VC's take that if you properly align people it can create I think it creates a great Enterprise it creates a
02:07:39
potential for great Enterprise for great outcomes great outcomes absolutely all right this has been another
02:07:46
extraordinary all in episode probably top five five thanks so much for Tucker Clawson for coming on the program and uh
02:07:54
four the Sultan of science David freedberg the Rainman yeah definitely David Sachs and the dictator himself
02:08:04
jtia I'm the world's greatest moderator and we will see you next time let your winners
02:08:11
ride Rainman David and in said we open sources to the fans and they've just gone crazy with it
02:08:21
love queen [Music] of [Music] Besties my dog taking driveway man oh man myit will meet me at
02:08:40
we should all just get a room and just have one big hug orgy cuz they're all this usess it's like this like sexual
02:08:45
tension that they just need to release Som [Music] we need to get [Music] mer I'm goinging
02:09:04
[Music] all