Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom | Lex Fridman Podcast #414

Tucker Carlson 0:00 ... he said very specifically, "Depending on the questions you ask Putin..."

Lex Fridman 0:04 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 0:05 Um, you know, "... you could be arrested or not." And I said, "Listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US government has, like, control over my questions, and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question? Like, how are we better than Putin if that's true?" Killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference, in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding? Maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all. I don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh wait, no, we do it a lot, and have for 80 years.

Lex Fridman 0:39 The following is a conversation with Tucker Carlson, a highly influential and often controversial political commentator. When he was at Fox, Time Magazine called him The Most Powerful Conservative In America. After Fox, he has continued to host big, impactful interviews and shows on X, on the Tucker Carlson podcast, and on tuckercarlson.com. I recommend subscribing, even if you disagree with his views. It is always good to explore a diversity of perspectives. Most recently, he interviewed the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We discuss this, the topic of Russia, Putin, Navalny, and the war in Ukraine at length in this conversation. Please allow me to say a few words about the very fact that I did this interview. I have received a lot of criticism, publicly and privately, when I announced that I would be talking with Tucker. For people who think I shouldn't do the conversation with Tucker, or generally think that there are certain people I should never talk to, I'm sorry, but I disagree. I will talk to everyone, as long as they're willing to talk genuinely in long form for two, three, four more hours. I will talk to Putin and to Zelenskyy, to Trump and to Biden, to Tucker and to Jon Stewart, AOC, Obama, and many more people with very different views on the world. I want to understand people and ideas. That's what long-form conversations are supposed to be all about. Now, for people who criticize me for not asking tough questions, I hear you, but again, I disagree. I do often ask tough questions, but I try to do it in a way that doesn't shut down the other person, putting them into a defensive state where they give only shallow talking points. Instead, I'm looking always for the expression of genuinely held ideas, and the deep roots of those ideas. When done well, this gives us a chance to really hear out the guest and to begin to understand what and how they think, and I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind, to see through the bullshit, to the degree there's bullshit, and to see to the heart of the person. Sometimes I fail at this, but I'll continue working my ass off to improve. All that said, I find that this no-tough-questions criticism often happens when the guest is a person the listener simply hates and wants to see them grilled into embarrassment, called a liar, a greedy egomaniac, a killer, maybe even an evil human being, and so on. If you are such a listener, what you want is drama, not wisdom. In this case, this show is not for you. There are many shows you can go to for that, with hosts that are way more charismatic and entertaining than I'll ever be. If you do stick around, please know, I will work hard to do this well and to keep improving. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for your support. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Tucker Carlson.

Lex Fridman 3:53 What was your first impression when you met, uh, Vladimir Putin for the interview?

Tucker Carlson 3:58 I thought he seemed nervous, and I was very surprised by that, and I thought he seemed like someone who'd overthought it a little bit, who had a plan, and I don't think that's the right way to go into any interview. My strong sense, having done a lot of them for a long time, is that it's better to know what you think, to say, you know, as much as you can honestly, so you don't get confused by your own lies, um, and just to be yourself. And I thought that he went into it, um, like an overprepared student, and I'm- and I kept thinking, "Why is- why is he nervous?" Um, but, you know, I guess because he thought a lot of people were gonna see it.

Lex Fridman 4:39 But he was also probably prepared to, um, to give you a full lesson in history, as he did.

Tucker Carlson 4:46 (laughs) Well, I was totally shocked by that, and very annoyed, because I thought he was filibustering. I thought he w- I mean, I asked him, as I usually do, the most obvious, dumbest question ever, which is, you know, "Why'd you do this?" And, um, he had said in a speech that I think is worth reading, I don't speak Russian, so I- I haven't heard it in the original, but, um, he had said at the moment of the beginning of the war, he had given this address to Russians, in which he explained, to the fullest extent we have seen so far, why he was doing this. And he said in that speech, "I fear that NATO, the West, the United States, the Biden administration, will preemptively attack us." And I thought, "Well, that's interesting." I mean, I- I can't evaluate whether that's a fear rooted in reality or- or one rooted in paranoia, but I thought, "Well, that's- well, that's an answer right there." And so I alluded to that in my question, and rather than answering it, he went off on this long, from my perspective, kind of tiresome, um, sort of greatest hits of Russian history, and the implication, I thought, was, "Well, Ukraine is ours, or Eastern Ukraine is ours already." Um, and I thought he was doing that to avoid answering the question. So, uh, you know, the last thing you want when you're interviewing someone is to get rolled.... uh, and I didn't want to be rolled, so I, a couple of times, interrupted him politely, I thought. Um, but he wasn't having it. And then I thought, "You know what? I'm not here to prove that I'm a great interviewer." It's kind of not about me. I wanna know who this guy is. I think a Western audience, a global audience, has a right to know more about the guy. And so just let him talk, you know, 'cause it's not, you know, I don't feel like my reputation's on the line. People have already drawn conclusions about me, I suppose, to the extent they have. I'm not interested really in those conclusions anyway, so just let him talk. And so I calmed down and just let him talk. And in retrospect, I thought that was really, really interesting, you know, whether you agree with it or not, or whether you think it's relevant to the war in Ukraine or not, that was his answer, and so it's inherently significant.

Lex Fridman 6:52 Well, you say he was nervous. Were you nervous? Were you afraid? This is Vladimir Putin.

Tucker Carlson 6:57 I wasn't afraid at all, and I wasn't nervous at all.

Lex Fridman 7:01 Did you drink tea beforehand?

Tucker Carlson 7:02 (laughs) No, I did my, my normal, uh, regimen of nicotine pouches and coffee.

Lex Fridman 7:09 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 7:10 Uh, no, I'm not a tea drinker. I tried not to eat, you know, all the sweets they put in front of us, which is, that- that is my weakness, is eating crap. Um, but you eat a lot of sugar befo- as you know, before an interview, and it- and it does dull you. So I, I successfully resisted that. But I, no, I wasn't nervous at all. I wasn't nervous the whole time I was there. Why would I be? You know, I'm 54. My kids are grown. I believe in God. You know, I'm not, I'm almost never nervous. But, um, no, I wasn't nervous. I was just interested. I mean, I couldn't... I, you know, I'm interested in Soviet history. I studied it in college. I've read about it my entire life. My dad, you know, worked in the Cold War. It was a constant topic of conversation. And so to be in the Kremlin, in a room where Stalin made decisions, either wartime decisions or decisions about murdering his own population, I just, I just couldn't get over it. You know, we were in Molotov's old office. So for me, that was, I was just blown away by that. I knew... I thought I knew a lot about Russia. It turns out I knew a lot about the Soviet period, you know, the 1937 Purge Trials, the famine in Ukraine. Like, I knew a fair amount about that. But I really knew nothing about contemporary Russia, less than I thought I did, it turned out. And, um, but yeah, I was just, I was just blown away by where we were, and that's kind of one of the main drivers at this stage in my life of... You know, that- that's why I do what I do, is 'cause I'm interested in stuff, and I wanna see as much as I can and try and draw conclusions from it, to the extent I can. So I was very much caught up in that. But no, I wasn't nervous. I didn't think he was gonna, like, kill me or something, and I'm not particularly afraid of that anyway, so...

Lex Fridman 8:38 Not afraid of dying?

Tucker Carlson 8:39 Not really. No. I mean, again, it's a ti- you know, it's an age and stage in life thing. I mean, I've, I have four children, so there were times when they were little where I was terrified of dying, 'cause if I died, it would have huge consequences. But no, I mean, at this point, I- I don't wanna die. I'm really enjoying my life. But I've been with the same girl for 40 years, and I have four children who I'm extremely close to. Well, now five, uh, a daughter-in-law. And I love them all. I'm really close to them. I tell them I love them every day. Uh, I don't... I've had a really interesting life.

Lex Fridman 9:16 What was the goal? Just linger on that. What was the goal for the interview? Like, how were you thinking about it? What would success be like in your head leading into it?

Tucker Carlson 9:22 To bring more information-

Lex Fridman 9:24 Just information.

Tucker Carlson 9:24 ... to the public. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I have really strong feelings about, um, what's, you know, happening not just in Ukraine or Russia, but around the world. I think the world is resetting to the grave disadvantage of the United States. I don't think most Americans are aware of that at all. And, uh, so that's my view, and I've, I've stated it many times, um, because it's sincere. But my goal was to have more information brought to the West so people could make their own decisions about whether this is a good idea. I mean, I just... I guess I reject the whole premise of the war in Ukraine from the American perspective, which is, you know, a tiny group of dumb people in Washington has decided to do this for reasons they won't really explain. And you don't have a role in it at all as an American citizen, as the person who's paying for it, whose children might be drafted to fight it, you know, to shut up and obey. I just, I just reject that completely. You know, I'm a ch- I think, I guess I'm a child of a different era. I'm a child of participatory democracy, to some extent, where your opinion as a citizen is not irrelevant. And, um, so I- I- I'm just... And I guess the level of lying about it was starting to drive me crazy. And I've said, and I will say again, I am not an expert on the region, or really any region other than say Western Maine. I just don't... You know, I'm not Russian. And, um, but it was obvious to me that we were being lied to in ways that were just... It was crazy the scale of the lies, and I'll just give you one example. The idea that Ukraine would inevitably win this war. Now, victory was never, as it never is, defined precisely. Nothing's ever defined precisely, which is always a tell that there's deception at the heart of the claim. But, um, Ukraine's on the verge of winning. Well, I don't know. I mean, I'm hardly a tactician or a military expert. For the fifth time, I'm not an expert on Russia or Ukraine. I just look at Wikipedia. Russia has 100 million more people than Ukraine, 100 million. It has much deeper industrial capacity, war material capacity than all of NATO combined. For example, Russia is churning out artillery shells, which are, you know, significant in a ground war, at a ratio of seven to one, compared to all NATO countries combined. That's all of Europe. Russia is producing seven times the artillery shells as all of Europe combined. What? That's an amazing fact, and it turns out to be a really significant fact, in fact, the significant fact. But if you ask your average person in this country, even a fairly well-informed person of good faith who's just trying to understand what's going on, "Who's gonna win this war? Well, Ukraine's gonna win. They're on the right side." And they think that because our media, who really just do serve the interest of the US government, period-They are state media in that sense, have told him that for over two years. And I-I, I was in Hungary last summer talking to the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, who's a, you know, whatever you think of him, is a very smart guy, very smart guy. Like smart on a scale that we're not used to, uh, in our leaders. And I said to him off camera, "So is Ukraine gonna win?" And he looked at me like I was deranged, like I was congenitally, (laughs) you know, deficient. "Are they gonna win? No, of course, they can't win. It's tiny compared to Russia. Russia has a wartime economy. Ukraine doesn't really have an economy. No, uh, look at the populations." He was like, looked at me like I was stupid. And I said to him, "You know, I think most Americans believe that because NBC News and CNN and all the news channels, all of them, tell them that because it's framed exclusively in moral terms, and it's Churchill versus Hitler, and of course, Churchill's gonna prevail in the end." And it's just so dishonest that even, it doesn't even matter what I want to happen or what I think oughta happen, that's a distortion of what is happening, and if I have any job at all, which I sort of don't actually at this point, but if I do have a job, it's to just try to be honest. And that's a lie.

Lex Fridman 13:20 There is a more nuanced discussion about what winning might look like.

Tucker Carlson 13:24 For sure.

Lex Fridman 13:24 You're right, a nuanced discussion is not being had, but it is possible for Ukraine to, quote unquote, "win" with the help of United States.

Tucker Carlson 13:31 I, I guess that conversation needs to begin by defining terms, and th- the key term is win. What does that mean?

Lex Fridman 13:39 Peace, a ceasefire, who owns which land-

Tucker Carlson 13:43 Yes.

Lex Fridman 13:43 ... coming to the table with a, as you call, the parent, the United States-

Tucker Carlson 13:48 Yes.

Lex Fridman 13:49 ... putting leverage on the negotiation to make sure there's a fairness.

Tucker Carlson 13:53 Amen. Well, I, of course, as a, and I should just restate this, I am, uh, uh, not emotionally involved in this. I'm American in every sense, and my only interest is in America. I'm not leaving (laughs) ever. And so I'm looking at this purely from our perspective, what's good for us. But also as a human being, as a Christian, I mean, I, I hate war, and anybody who doesn't hate war, um, shouldn't have power, in my opinion. So I agree with those, that definition vehemently. A victory is, like not killing an entire generation of your population. It's not being completely destroyed to be eaten up by BlackRock or whatever comes next for them. So yeah, w- we were close to that a year and a half ago, and the Biden administration dispatched Boris Johnson, the briefly Prime Minister of the UK, to stop it, and to say to Zelenskyy, who I feel sorry for, by the way, 'cause he's caught between these forces that are bigger than he is, to say, "No, you cannot come to any terms with Russia." And the result of that has not been a Ukrainian victory, it's just been more dead Ukrainians, and a lot of profit for the West. It's, it's a moral crime, in my opinion. And I tried to ask Boris Johnson about it because why wouldn't I, after he denounced me as a tool of the Kremlin or something, and, um, he demanded a million dollars to talk to me.

Lex Fridman 15:17 Oh wow.

Tucker Carlson 15:18 And this just happened last week. And uh, and by the way, in writing, too, I'm not making this up. (laughs) I'm not making this up.

Lex Fridman 15:23 Mm-hmm. Just for the record, you demanded a million dollars from me to talk to you today.

Tucker Carlson 15:26 (laughs) No, I didn't. And you paid. Um, no, I'm, of course, kidding, but, um, and I, I said to his guy, I said, "I just interviewed Putin, who is widely recognized as a bad guy, and he did it for free, he didn't demand a million dollars, he wasn't in this for profit. Like are you telling me that Boris Johnson is sleazier than Vladimir Putin?" And of course, that is the message. And so I, I guess these are really, it's not just about Boris Johnson being a sad, you know, rapacious fraud, which he is obviously, but it's about like the future of the West and the future of Ukraine, this country that purportedly we care so much about, all these people are dying, and like what is the end game? It's all so deranged that I didn't imagine and don't imagine that I could, like add anything very meaningful to the conversation because I'm not a genius, okay? But I felt like I could, at the very least, puncture some of the lies, and that's an inherent good.

Lex Fridman 16:23 Vladimir Putin, after the interview, said that he wasn't fully satisfied because you weren't aggressive enough. You didn't ask-

Tucker Carlson 16:29 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 16:30 ... sharp enough questions.

Tucker Carlson 16:31 Uh-huh.

Lex Fridman 16:31 First of all, what do you think about him saying that?

Tucker Carlson 16:34 I don't even understand it. Um, I guess it, I, I, it does seem like the one Putin statement that Western media take at face value. Everything else Putin says is a lie, except his criticism of me, which is true. But, I mean, I have no idea what he meant by that. I can only tell you what, um, my goal was, as I've suggested, was not to make it about me. I, I watched, you know, he hasn't done any, any interviews of any kind for years, but the last interview he did with an English-speaking reporter, Western media reporter, was like many of the other interviews he'd done with Western media reporters. Mike Wallace's son did an interview with him that was of the same variety, and it was all about him. You know, "I'm a good person. You're a bad person." And I just feel like that's the most tiresome, fruitless kind of interview. It's not about me. I, I don't think I'm an especially good person. I've definitely never claimed to be, but people can make their own judgments. And again, the only judgments that I care about are my wife and children and God. So I, I'm just not interested in proving I'm a good person, and I just wanna hear from him. And, and I had a lot of que- I mean, you should see the... I, I almost never write questions down, but I did in this case because I had months to, well, I had three years to think about it as I was trying to book the interview, which I did myself. But they were all, it was all about internal Russian politics and Navalny, and, and I had a lot of, I thought, really good questions. And then at the last second, and you make these decisions, as you know, since you interview people a lot-

Lex Fridman 18:02 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 18:02 ... often you make them on the fly, and I thought, "No, I wanna talk about the things that haven't been talked about, and that I think matter in a world historic sense." And the number one among those, of course, is the war-

Lex Fridman 18:13 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 18:13 ... and what it means for the world. And, um, so I stuck to that. I mean, I coulda answered... I did ask about Gershkovich, who I felt sorry for and-... I wanted Putin to release him to me, and I was offended that he didn't. I thought his rationale was absurd. "Well, we wanna trade him for someone." I said, "Well, that, doesn't that make him a hostage?" You know, which of course it does. Uh, but other than that, I really wanted to keep it to the things that I think matter most. You know, people can judge whether I did a good job or not, but that was my, that was, that was my decision.

Lex Fridman 18:44 In the moment, what was your gut? D- did you wanna ask some tough questions as follow-ups on certain topics?

Tucker Carlson 18:52 I don't know what it would mean to ask a tough question.

Lex Fridman 18:54 Clarifying questions, I, I suppose they would-

Tucker Carlson 18:56 I guess. I just wanted him to talk, you know? I just wanted to hear his perspective. Again, I've probably asked more asshole questions than, like, any living American, you know?

Lex Fridman 19:07 Sure.

Tucker Carlson 19:07 I'm, as, as has been noted correctly, I'm a dick by my nature and, um, so I don't... I, I just feel at this stage of my life, I didn't need to prove that I could, like, "Vladimir Putin, answer the question!"

Lex Fridman 19:19 Sure, sure.

Tucker Carlson 19:21 "Okay?" You know, I think if I had been, you know, 34 instead of 54, I definitely would've done that, 'cause I would've thought, "This is really about me and I need to prove myself also." No, I, I just... there's a war going on that is wrecking the US economy in a way and at a scale people do not understand. The US dollar is going away. That was, of course, inevitable ultimately because everything dies, including currencies, but that death, that process of death, has been accelerated exponentially by the behavior of the Biden administration and the US Congress, particularly the sanctions. And people just don't understand what the ramifications of that are. The ramifications are poverty in the United States, okay? So, I just, I just wanted to get to that, um, because I'm coming at this from not a global perspective. I'm coming at it from an American perspective.

Lex Fridman 20:08 So you mentioned Navalny.

Tucker Carlson 20:09 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 20:11 After you left, Navalny died in prison.

Tucker Carlson 20:14 Yes.

Lex Fridman 20:15 What are your thoughts on, just at a high level first, about his death?

Tucker Carlson 20:20 Well, it's awful. I mean, imagine dying in prison. You know, I've thought about it a lot. I've known a lot of people in prison, a lot, including some very good friends of mine. So, I felt instantly sad about it, um, from a geopolitical perspective, I don't know any more than that, and I... uh, I laugh at and sort of resent but mostly find amusing the claims by American politicians who really are the dumbest politicians in the world actually. You know, "This happened, and here's what it means," and it's like, actually, as a factual matter, we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened. We have no freaking idea what happened. We can say, and I did say, and I will say again, I think... I don't think you should put opposition figures in prison. I really don't. I don't, period. Um, it happens a lot around the world, happens in this country, as you know, and I'm against all of it. But do we know how he died? The short answer, no, we don't. Now, if I had to guess, I would say, killing Navalny during the Munich Security Conference in the middle of a debate over $60 billion in Ukraine funding, maybe the Russians are dumb. I didn't get that vibe at all. You know, I just don't... I don't see it, but maybe, you know, maybe they killed him. I mean, they certainly put him in prison, which I'm against, um, but, uh, here's what I do know, is that we don't know. And so when Chuck Schumer stands up and, "Rah!" Or Joe Biden reads some card in front of him with lines about Navalny, it's like, I, I'm allowed to laugh at that because it's absurd. You don't know.

Lex Fridman 21:49 There's a lot of interesting ideas about, if he was killed, who killed him.

Tucker Carlson 21:53 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 21:53 Because it could be Putin, it could be somebody in Russia who is not Putin.

Tucker Carlson 21:58 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 21:59 It could be Ukrainians, 'cause it would benefit the war.

Tucker Carlson 22:02 They killed Dugin's daughter in Moscow, so yeah, it's possible.

Lex Fridman 22:06 And it could be... I mean, the United States could also be involved.

Tucker Carlson 22:10 I don't think we kill people in other countries to affect election outcomes. Oh, wait, no, we do it a lot and have for 80 years, and it's shameful. I can say that as an American 'cause it's my money and my name. Um, yeah, I'm really offended by that, and I never thought that was true, and I spent... again, I'm much older than you, and so I spent my, my, my worldview was defined by the Cold War, and very much in the house I lived in, in Georgetown, in Washington, DC. You know, that's what we talked about. And, yeah, and the Left at the time, you know, I don't know, the whacko MIT professor who I never had any respect for, who I know you've interviewed, et cetera. Like, the hard Left was always saying, "Well, the United States government is interfering in other elections," and I just dismissed that completely out of hand, uh, as stupid and actually a slander against my country, but it turned out to all be true, or, or substantially true, anyway. And that's been a real shock for me in middle age to, to understand that. But anyway, as to Navalny, look, I don't know, um, but we should always proceed on the basis of what we do know, which is to say on the basis of truth, knowable truth, and if you have an entire policymaking apparatus that is making the biggest decisions on the face of the planet on the basis of things that are bullshit or lies, you're gonna get bad outcomes, every time. Um, every time, and that's, that's why we are where we are.

Lex Fridman 23:33 Does it bother you that basically the most famous opposition figure in Russia is sitting in prison?

Tucker Carlson 23:40 Well, of course it does. Of course it bothers me. I mean, it bothered me when I got there, it bothers me now. I was sad when he died. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the measures of... it's one of the basic measures of political freedom, are you imprisoning people who oppose you? You know, are you imprisoning people who pose a physical risk to you? I mean, there's some subjective decision-making involved in these things. However, big picture, yeah, y- uh, do you have opposition leaders in jail? It's not a free... it's not a politically free society, and Russia isn't, obviously, and as I said (laughs) af- a friend of mine from childhood, an American, actually, he's a wonderful person, lives in Russia with his Russian, in Moscow, with his Russian wife, and I had dinner with him. He's a very balanced guy, totally non-political person, and, um...... and speaks Russian and loves- has many Russian children, and, and loves the culture, and there's a lot to love. The culture that produced Tolstoy. You know, it's not a gas station with nuclear weapons, sorry. Only an, a moron would say that. It's a very deep culture. I don't fully understand it, of course, but I, I admire it. Who wouldn't? But I asked him, like, "What's it like living here?" And he goes, "It's, you know, it's great." Mo- Moscow is a great city, indisputably. He said, "You don't wanna get involved in Russian politics." (laughs) And I said, "What?" He said, "Well, you could get hurt. You could wind up like Navalny if you did. Um, but also it's just too complicated." You know, the, the Russian mind is not, is not exactly the sa- it's, it's a Western, it's a European city, but it's not quite European. And, um, the way they think is very, very complex. Very complex. It's just, it's too complicated, just don't get involved. And, um, I would just say two things. One, uh, I'm not su- I mean, I, I don't know, but my strong sense is that Navalny's death, whoever did it, probably didn't have a lot to do with the, the coming election in Russia. My sense from talking to Putin and the people around him is they're not really focused on that. I mean, in fact, I asked one of his top advisors, "When's the election?" And she looked at me completely confused. She didn't know the date of the election (laughs) , okay? She's like, "Uh, March?" Okay. Um, and I asked a bunch of other people just in Moscow, "Who's, who's Putin running against?" Like, nobody knew. So, it's not a real election, right? I- in the, in the sense that we would recognize at all. Um, second, I was really struck by so many things in Moscow, and really bothered by, deeply bothered by a lot of things that I saw there. Um, but one thing I noticed was the total absence of cult of personality propaganda, which I expected to see and have seen around the world. Jordan, for example. I don't know if you've been to Jordan, but go to Jordan. In every building, there are pictures of the king and his extended family, and, and that's a sign of political insecurity. You know, you don't create a cult of personality unless you're personally insecure, and also unless you're worried about losing your grip on power. None of that. That's- it's interesting, and I expected to see a lot of it, you know, like statues of Putin. No. There are no statues of anybody other than, like, Christian saints. So that was, like, I'm not quite sure, I'm just reporting what I saw. Um, so yes, it's not a, in a political sense, it's not a free country, it's not a democracy, uh, in the way that we would understand it or w- I don't wanna live there, okay? 'Cause I like to say what I think. In fact, I make my living doing it. Um, but it's not Stalinist in a recognizable way. And anyone who says it is should go there and tell me how.

Lex Fridman 27:08 I mean, this question about the freedom of the press is underlying the very fact of the interview you're having with him.

Tucker Carlson 27:16 Right.

Lex Fridman 27:16 So, you might not need to ask the Navalny question, but did you feel like, "Are there things I shouldn't say?"

Tucker Carlson 27:23 I mean, how honest do you want me to be? I mean it when I say I felt not one twinge of concern for the eight days that I was there. Maybe I just didn't... And I feel like I've got a pretty strong gut sense of things. I rely on it. I make all my decisions based on how I feel, my instincts. And I didn't feel it at all. Um, uh, my lawyers before I left, and these are people who work for a big law firm, this is not Bob's law firm, this is one of the biggest law firms in the world, said, "You're gonna get arrested if you do this by the US government on sanctions violations." And I said, "Well, I, you know, I don't, I don't recognize the legitimacy (laughs) of that actually, 'cause I'm American and I've lived here my whole life, and that's so outrageous that I'm happy to face that, that risk, because I, I so reject the premise, okay? I'm an American, I should be able to talk to anyone I want to, and I, I plan to exercise that freedom, which I think I was born with." And I gave them this long (laughs) , long lecture. They were like, "We're just lawyers!" But that was, um, it was, it was a v- let me put it this way. I don't know how much you've dealt with lawyers, but it costs many thousands of dollars to get a conclusion like that. Like, they sent a whole bunch of their summer associates or whatever. They sent, they put a lot of people on this question, checked a lot of precedent, and I think, and they sent me a 10-page memo on it, and their sincere conclusion was, "Do not do this." And of course, it made me mad, so I was lecturing them on the phone and I had another call with the head lawyer, and he said, "Well, look, a lot will depend on the questions that you ask Putin."

Lex Fridman 28:51 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 28:52 "If you're seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested when you come back."

Lex Fridman 28:56 Hmm.

Tucker Carlson 28:57 And I was like, "You're describing a fascist country, okay? You're saying that the US government will arrest me if I don't ask the questions they want asked? Is- that's what you're saying?" "Well, we just think based on what's happened that that's possible." And so, I'm just telling you what happened.

Lex Fridman 29:11 So you were okay being arrested in Moscow and-

Tucker Carlson 29:14 I didn't think I was-

Lex Fridman 29:14 ... arrested in-

Tucker Carlson 29:15 I didn't think-

Lex Fridman 29:16 ... back in ...

Tucker Carlson 29:16 ... for a second, I mean, maybe, look, I don't speak Russian. I'd never been there before.

Lex Fridman 29:21 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 29:22 Everything about the culture was brand new to me. You know, ignorance does protect you, sort of, when you have no freaking idea what's going on (laughs) . You're not worried about it. Like, this has happened to me many times. Uh, there's a principle there that extends throughout life. So it's completely possible that I was in grave peril and didn't know it. 'Cause like, how would I know it, you know? I'm like a bumbling English speaker from California. But, um, I didn't feel it at all.

Lex Fridman 29:48 But the lawyers did?

Tucker Carlson 29:50 Yeah, I mean, it scared the crap out of people, you're gonna b- and look, and I, you have to pay in cash. They don't take credit cards because of sanctions, and you have to go through all these hoops, just procedural hoops to go to Russia, which I was willing to do because I wanted to interview Putin, because they told me I couldn't. But then there's another fact, which is that I was being surveilled by the US government, intensely surveilled by the US government. And this came out, they admitted it, the NSA admitted it a couple of years ago that they were up in my Signal account, and then they leaked it to the New York Times. They did that again before I left. And I know that because two New York Times reporters, one of whom I actually like a lot, uh, said, "Oh, you're going..." and called other people, "Oh, he's going to interview Putin." I hadn't told anybody that. Like, anybody. Like, my wife, two producers, that's it.So they got that from the government. Then, I'm over there, and of course I wanna see Snowden, who I admire. And so, I have a, we have a mutual friend, so I got his text and come on over and, and Snowden does not want publicity at all.

Lex Fridman 30:49 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 30:50 And so, but I really wanted to have dinner with him. So we had dinner in my hotel room, at the Four Seasons in Moscow. And I s- I tried to convince him, you know, "I'd love to do an interview, shoot it on my iPhone." You know, "I'd love to take a picture together and put it on the internet because I just wanna show support."

Lex Fridman 31:07 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 31:08 'Cause I think he's been railroaded. He, he had no interest in living in Russia, no intention of being in Russia. The whole thing is a lie. But anyway, whatever, all this stuff, and he just said, respectfully, "I'd rather not anyone know that we met." Great. The only reason I'm telling you this is because s- And I didn't tell anybody and I didn't text it to anybody, okay, except him.

Lex Fridman 31:29 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 31:30 Semafor, Semafor, um, runs this piece saying report, "reporting" information they got from the US intel agencies, leaking against me, using my money and my name, in a supposedly free country. They run this piece saying I'd met with Snowden, like it was a crime or something. So again, w- My interest is in the United States and preserving freedoms here, the ones that I grew up with, and if you have a media establishment that acts as an auxiliary of, or acts as employees of the national security state, you don't have a free country, and that's where we are. And I'm not guessing, 'cause I spent my entire life in that world, 33 years I worked in big news companies. And so I know how it works. I know the people involved in it. I could name them. Ben Smith of Semafor, among many others, and I find that really objectionable, n- not just on principle either, in effect, in practice. I don't wanna live in that kind of country and people are like... They externalize all of their anxiety about this, I have noticed. So it's like, "Russia's not free." Yeah, I know. You know, neither is, you know, Burkina Faso, like, most countries aren't free actually but we are. We're the United States, we're different and that's my concern, preserving that is my concern and so they get so exercised about what's happening in other parts of the world, places they've never been, know nothing about, it's almost a way of ignoring what's happening in their own country right around them. I find it so strange and sad and weird.

Lex Fridman 33:00 So the NSA was tracking you, as... Do you think CIA was? Who's, is uh, people still tracking you?

Tucker Carlson 33:06 Look, one of the things I did before I went, um, just because of the business I'm in, all of us are in, and just 'cause we live here, you know, we all have theories about secure communications channels. Like Signal is secure, Telegraph isn't, or WhatsApp is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, you can't trust WhatsApp... Okay. So I thought, you know, before I go over here I was getting all this... We're having all these conversations, my producers and I, about this and I decide, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna actually find out like what's really going on. So I talked to two people, um, who would know, trust me, and that's, I- it's all I can say and I'm, I hate to be like, "Oh, I talked to people who would know but I can't say who they are," but I mean it.

Lex Fridman 33:48 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 33:48 They would know. And both of them said exactly the same thing which is, "Are you joking? Nothing is secure."

Lex Fridman 33:54 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 33:54 "Everything is monitored all the time." If, if state actors were involved. I mean, you can keep the, you know, whatever, the Malaysian mafia from reading your texts probably. You cannot keep the big intel services from reading your texts. It's not possible. Any of them or listening to your calls. So... And that was the firm conclusion of people who've been involved in it, you know, for a long time, decades both, in both cases. So, I just thought, "You know what? I don't care. I don't care." I'm not sending a ton of naked pictures of myself to anybody.

Lex Fridman 34:24 Not a ton, just a little.

Tucker Carlson 34:25 (laughs) Not a ton. I'm 54, dude. Probably not too many.

Lex Fridman 34:29 All right.

Tucker Carlson 34:30 Um, but, but you s- so I'm like, I- I'm just g- so w- the guys, uh, I travel with three people I work with who I love and who I've been around the world with for many years and I know them really, really well and they all got, you know, separate phones and I'm leaving my other phone back in New York or whatever and I just decided I don't care actually and y- I resent having w- n- to... No privacy, um, because privacy is a prerequisite for freedom (laughs) , um, but I can't change it and so I have the same surveilled cell phone and, you know, I do switch them out because... There it is, uh, because if you have too much spyware on your phone, this is true, it wrecks the battery.

Lex Fridman 35:13 (laughs)

Tucker Carlson 35:14 And... No, I'm, I'm serious. It does and we got... It was, I don't know, five or six years ago I went to North Korea and, um, my phone started acting crazy and so I talked to someone on the National Security Council who's, well actually, who called me about this... Somehow knew that your phone is being surveilled by the South Korean government. I was like, "Why the... I like the South Korean government. Why would they do that?" Um, because they want more information. They thought I was talking to Trump or whatever. So... But I could tell because all of a sudden the thing would just drain in like 45 minutes. So that is... That's a downside.

Lex Fridman 35:50 (laughs) So y- you, you keep, uh, switching phones, getting new phones for the battery life. That's good.

Tucker Carlson 35:54 Yeah, I mean, I try not to do it... You know, I'm kind of f- flinty Yankee type in some ways, so I don't, I don't like to spend $1,000 with the freaking Apple Corporation too often but yeah, I do.

Lex Fridman 36:04 I mean, you say it lightly but it's really troublesome that you as a journalist would be tracked.

Tucker Carlson 36:10 Well they leaked it to Semafor and they leaked it to the New York Times. Look, it's... I would even put up... Well, there's nothing I can do, so I have to put up with everything, okay? But I would probably not be actively angry about being surveilled, I... Because I'm just so old and I'm, I actually do pay my taxes and I'm not sleeping with the makeup artist or whatever, so I don't care that much. The fact that they are leaking against me, that the intel services in the United States are actively engaged in US politics...

Lex Fridman 36:39 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 36:39 ... and media...That's so unacceptable. That makes democracy impossible. There's no defense of that, and yet NBC News, Ken Dilanian, and the rest will defend it. And it's like... And, and not just on NBC News, by the way, on the supposedly conservative channels too, they will defend it. And there's no defending that. You can't have democracy if the intel services are tampering in elections and information, period.

Lex Fridman 37:05 So you had no fear. You know, your lawyer said, "Be careful which questions you asked." You said, "I don't have..."

Tucker Carlson 37:13 Well, the lawyer said... No, he said very specifically, I- if, you know, depending on the questions you ask Putin, um, you know, you could be arrested or not. And I said, "Listen to what you're saying. You're saying the US government has, like, control over my questions and they'll arrest me if I ask the wrong question? Like, how are we better than Putin if that's true?" And by the way, that's just what the lawyer said, but I, I can't overstate, one of the biggest law firms in the United States, smart lawyers we've used for years, so I was, I was really shocked by it.

Lex Fridman 37:42 You said, "Leaders kill, leaders lie."

Tucker Carlson 37:45 Yeah. I don't believe in leaders very much. Like, this whole, like, oh, Zelensky's Jesus and Putin's Satan. It's like, no, they're all leaders of countries, okay? Like, grow up a little bit, you child. Do you... Have you ever met a leader? Like, all of the... Uh, first of all, anyone who seeks power is damaged morally, in my opinion. You shouldn't be seeking power. You can't seek power or wealth for its own sake and remain a decent person. That's just true. So there aren't any, like, really virtuous billionaires and there aren't any really virtuous world leaders. You have grades of virtue. Some are better than others, for sure. But I mean, in other words, Zelensky may be better than Putin. I'm open to that possibility. But to claim that one is evil and the other is, uh, virtuous is like y- you're revealing that you're a child. You don't know anything about how the world actually is or what reality is. Like, it's, I- it's, uh, it's...

Lex Fridman 38:43 That's quite a realist perspective, but there is a spectrum.

Tucker Carlson 38:46 There is a spectrum, absolutely. I'm not saying they're all the same. They're not.

Lex Fridman 38:48 And our task is to figure out where on the spectrum they, they lie, and the leaders', uh, task is to confuse us and convince us they're one of the good guys.

Tucker Carlson 38:59 Of course. But I actually reject even that formulation. I don't think it's always about the leaders. I mean, of course the leaders make the difference. A good leader has a healthy country and a bad leader has a decaying country, which is something to think about. Um, but it's about the ideas and the policies and the practical effect of things. So we're very much caught up in the personalities of various leaders, not just our political leaders, but our business leaders, our cultural leaders. Are they good people? Do they have the right thoughts? It's like, no. I, I ask a much more basic question. What are the fruits of their behavior? And I always make it personal, because I think everything is personal. Does his wife respect him? Do his children respect him? How are they doing? Is the country he runs thriving or is it falling apart? If your life expectancy is going down, if your suicide rate is going up, if your standard of living is tanking, you're not a good leader. I don't care what you tell me. I don't care what you claim you represent. I don't care about the ideas or the systems that you say you embody. It's, it's, it's dogs barking to me. How's your life expectancy? How's your suicide rate? What's drug use like? Are people having children? Are, are people's children more likely to live in a freer, more prosperous society than, than you did and their grandparents did? Like, those are the only measures that matter to me. The rest is a lie. But anyway, the point is, we just get so obsessed with, like, the, the theater around people, or people, and we miss the bigger things that are happening and we, we allow ourselves to be deceived into thinking that what doesn't matter at all matters, that moral victories are all that matters. No, actually, facts on the ground victories matter more than anything. I mean, you certainly see it in this country. Black Lives Matter, for example. How many Black people did that help? It hurt a lot of Black people, but in the end, we should be able to measure it, you know? Like what... How many Black people have died by gunfire in the four years since George Floyd died? Well, the number's gone way, way up. And that was a Black Lives Matter operation, defund the police. So I think we can say as a factual matter, data-based matter, Black Lives Matter didn't help Black people. And, and if it did, tell me how. "Well, these are important moral victories." I'm over that. That's just another lie in a long litany of lies. So I try to see the rest of the world that way,

Tucker Carlson 41:20 and... But more than anything, I try to see world events through the lens of an American, because I am one. And what does this mean for us? And it's not even the war, it's the sanctions that will forever change the United States, our standard of living, the way our government operates. That, more than any single thing in my lifetime, screwed the United States. Levying those sanctions in the way that we did was crazy, and that was... That... For me, the main takeaway from my eight days in Moscow was not Putin. He's a leader, he's whatever. They're... None of them are that different actually, (laughs) in my pretty extensive experience. No, it was Moscow. That blew my mind. I was not prepared for that at all. And I thought I knew a lot about Moscow. My dad worked there on and off in the '80s and '90s 'cause he... US government employee and he was always coming back, "Moscow, it's a nightmare," and all this stuff, no electricity. I got there almost exactly two years after sanctions.

Lex Fridman 42:17 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 42:17 Totally cut off from Western financial systems, kicked out of SWIFT, can't use US dollars, no banking, no credit cards. And that city i- just factually, 'cause I'm not endorsing the system, I'm not endorsing the whole country, I didn't go to Lake Baikal, you know, I didn't go to Turkmenistan, I just went to Moscow, largest city in Europe, 13 million people, I drove all around it, and that city is way nicer, outwardly anyway, I don't live there-... than any city we have, by a lot. And by nicer, let me be specific. No graffiti, no homeless, no people using drugs in the street, totally tidy, no garbage on the ground, and n- no forest of steel and concrete, soul-destroying buildings, none of the postmodern architecture that oppresses us without, without even our knowledge. None of that crap. It's a truly beautiful city. And that's not an endorsement of Putin. And by the way, it didn't make me love Putin, it made me hate my own leaders, because I grew up in a country that had cities kind of like that, that were nice cities, that were safe, and I- we don't have that anymore. And how did that happen? Did Putin do that? I don't think Putin did that, actually. I think the people in charge of it, the mayors, the governors, the president, they did that, and they should be held accountable for it.

Lex Fridman 43:33 So, I think cleanliness and architectural design is not the entirety of the metrics that matter when you measure a city.

Tucker Carlson 43:41 They're the main metrics that matter. They're the main metrics that matter. The main metrics that matter are cleanliness, safety, and beauty, in my opinion. And one of the big lies that we are told in our world is that, "No, something you can't measure, that has no actual effect on your life matters most." Bullshit. What matters most, to say it again, beauty, safety, cleanliness. Uh, th- lots of other things matter too. A whole bunch of things matter, but if I were to put them in order, it's not some, like, theoretical, "Well, actually, I don't know if you know that the Duma has no power." It's like, okay, gr- I get that, freedom of speech matters enormously to me. They have less freedom of speech in Russia than we do in the United States. We are superior to them in that way. But you can't tell me that living in a city where, you know, your six-year-old daughter can walk to the bus stop and ride on a clean bus or ride in a beautiful subway car that's on time and not get assaulted, that doesn't matter. No, that matters almost more than anything actually. And we can have both, and like the normal regime defenders and morons, Jon Stewart or whatever he's calling himself, they're like, "Well, that's the price of freedom." Like, people shitting on the sidewalk is the price of freedom. It's like, you can't fool me because I've lived here for 54 years. I know that it's not the price of freedom, 'cause I lived in a country that was both free and clean and orderly. So, that's not a trade-off I think I have to make. Y- you can't w- that is the beauty of being a little bit older, because you're like, "No, I remember that actually. It wasn't what you're saying. We didn't have racial segregation in 1985. It was a really nice country that kind of respected itself. I was here." And I think with younger people, you can tell them that, and they're like, "Well, 1985, you were s- you know, selling slaves in Madison Square Garden." It's like, no, you- they weren't. You're going to Madison Square Garden and not stepping over a single fentanyl addict.

Lex Fridman 45:35 It is true there doesn't have to be a trade-off between cleanliness and freedom of speech, but it is also true that in dictatorships, cleanliness is, and architectural design is easier to achieve and perfect, and often is done so, so you can show off, "Look how great our cities are," while you're suppressing-

Tucker Carlson 45:54 Of course, of course. I agree with that vehemently. This is not a defense of the Russian system at all. And if I felt that way, I would not only move there, but I would announce I was moving there. I'm not ashamed of my views. I never have been. And for all the people who are trying to impute secret motives to my words, I'm like the one person in America you don't need to do that with. If you think I'm a racist, ask me, and I'll tell you. If you think-

Lex Fridman 46:19 Are you a racist?

Tucker Carlson 46:19 Of c- (laughs) no.

Lex Fridman 46:21 (laughs)

Tucker Carlson 46:21 I am a sexist, though. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 46:22 All right, great.

Tucker Carlson 46:23 Anyway, no, but if I was like-

Lex Fridman 46:25 (laughs)

Tucker Carlson 46:25 ... a defender of Vladimir Putin, I would just say I'm defending Vladimir Putin now. I'm not. I am attacking our leaders, and I'm grieving over the low expectations of our people. You don't need to put up with this. You don't need to put up with foreign invaders stealing from you. You know, occupying your kids' school? Your kids can't get an education because people from foreign countries broke our laws and showed up here, and they've taken over the school? Th- it's- that's not a feature of freedom, actually. That's the opposite. That's what enslavement looks like. And so, I'm just saying, raise your expectations a little bit. You can have a clean, functional, safe country. Crime is totally optional. Crime is something our leaders decide to have or not have. It's not something that just appears organically. I, I wrote a book about crime 30 years ago. I- I've thought a lot about this. Cr- you have as much crime as you put up with, period. And it doesn't make you less free to not tolerate murder. In fact, it makes you unfree to have a lot of murders. Uh, and so I just- but it makes me sad that people are like, "Well, you know, I guess this is t- I c- I can't, like, live in New York City anymore 'cause of inflation and filth and illegal aliens and people shooting each other, but, you know, I'm just g- I'm glad because this is vibrant and strong and free." It's like, that's not freedom actually, at all.

Lex Fridman 47:50 Your point is well taken. You can have both, but do you regret-

Tucker Carlson 47:54 We had both, that's the point.

Lex Fridman 47:56 ... yes.

Tucker Carlson 47:56 We had b- I saw it.

Lex Fridman 47:57 Do you regret, to a degree, using the Moscow subway and the grocery store as a mechanism by which to make that point?

Tucker Carlson 48:06 No. I mean, I thought I- I mean, look, I'm one of the more un-self-aware people you will ever interview, so to ask me, uh, you know, how will this be perceived? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 48:21 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 48:21 I literally have no idea, and kind of limited interest. But, um, I- I was just so shocked by it. I was so shocked by it, and, and there were two... And, uh, to the extent I regret anything and am to blame for anything, it would be not, and I've done this a lot, not giving it context, not fully explaining why are we doing this?

Lex Fridman 48:40 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 48:41 The grocery store, I was shocked by the prices. And yes, I'm familiar with exchange rates.... but very familiar with exchange rates. But those don't, and I adjusted them for exchange rates, and this is two years into sanctions, total isolation from the West. So, I would expect, in fact I did expect until I got there, that their supply chains would be crushed. How do you get good stuff if you don't have access to Western markets? And I didn't fully get the answer because I was occupied doing other things when I was there. But somehow they have, and that's the point. And they haven't had the supply chains pro- problems that I predicted. In other words, sanctions haven't made the country noticeably worse. Okay. So again, this is commentary on the United States and our policy makers. Why are we doing this? It's forcing the rest of the world into a block against us called BRICS. They're getting off the US dollar. That will mean a lot of dollars are gonna come back here and destroy our economy, and impoverish this country. So the consequences, the stakes were really high. They're huge. And we're not even hurting Russia, so like what the hell are we doing? One, on the subway, that subway was built by Joseph Stalin right before the Second World War. I'm not endorsing Stalin, I, (laughs) obviously. Stalinism, Stalinism is a thing that I hate, and I don't want to come to my country. I'm making the obvious point that for over 80 years, you've had these frescoes and chandeliers, maybe they've been redone or whatever, but like somehow the society has been able to not destroy what its ancestors built, the things that are worth having. And they're a lot. And that, like why don't we have that? And e- even on a much more terrestrial plane, like why can't I have a subway station like that? Why can't my children who live in New York City ride the subway? A lot of people I know who live in New York City are afraid to ride the subway. Young women especially. That's freedom? No. Again, it's slavery. And how can, if Putin can do this, why can't we? Like what? It's not, in other words, I mean, this is like so obvious. I'm a traitor? Okay. So if I'm calling for American citizens to demand more from their government, and higher standards for their own society, and remember that just 30 years ago we had a much different and much happier and cleaner and healthier society, where everyone wasn't fat with diabetes at 40 from poisoned food, like how is that... I'm not a traitor to my country, I'm a defender of my country. And by the way, the people calling me a traitor, they're all like, you know, whatever. Uh, they're not, I- I would not say they're people who put America's interests first. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 51:15 But there-

Tucker Carlson 51:15 To put it mildly.

Lex Fridman 51:16 There's many elements, like you said you don't like Stalinism. You know, you're a student of history. Central planning is good at building subways in a way that's really nice. The thing that accounts for New York's subways, by the way, there's a lot of really positive things about New York's subways. Not cleanliness, but the efficiency, like the accessibility, how f- how wide it spreads. Like that net- the New York network is incredible.

Tucker Carlson 51:44 It is.

Lex Fridman 51:45 But Moscow, for different, in different, under different metrics, results of a capitalist system, and you actually said that you don't think US is quite a capitalist system, which is an interesting question in itself.

Tucker Carlson 51:55 That's true. We have more central planning here than they do in Russia.

Lex Fridman 51:57 No, that's not true.

Tucker Carlson 51:58 Of course it is.

Lex Fridman 51:59 You think that's true?

Tucker Carlson 52:00 The climate agenda? Of course. They're telling, the US government has, in league with a couple of big companies, decided to change the way we produce and consume energy. There's no popular outcry for that. There's never been any mass movement of Americans just like, "Oh, I just, I hate my gasoline-powered engine. No more diesel!" That has been central planning. That is central planning. And you see it up and down our economy. There's no free market in the United States. You get crossways with the government, you're done. If you're at scale, I mean maybe if you've got a barber shop or a liquor store or something, but even then, you're regulated by politicians. And so, no, we, I actually am for free markets. I hate monopolies. Our economy is dominated by monopolies. Completely dominated in-

Lex Fridman 52:42 Like, what do you mean?

Tucker Carlson 52:43 ... Google. What percentage of search does Google have? 90? Google's a monopoly, by any definition. And Google is just rich enough to continue doing whatever it wants in violation of US law. So, there's no monopoly in Russia as big as Google. I'm not, again, defending the Russian system. I'm calling for a return to our old system, which was sensible and moderate and put the needs of Americans at least somewhere in the top 10. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:10 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 53:10 Somewhere in the top 10. I'm not saying that Standard Oil was like interested in the welfare of average Americans, but I am saying that there was a constituency in our political system, in the Congress for example, different presidential candidates were like, "No, wait a second. What is this doing to people? Is it good for people or not?" There's not even a conversation about that. It's like, "Shut up and submit to AI." And, no offense. And so I'm just-

Lex Fridman 53:33 Offense taken.

Tucker Carlson 53:34 (laughs) I'm just-

Lex Fridman 53:35 I will, I will write, we will get you.

Tucker Carlson 53:37 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 53:38 When it's strong enough.

Tucker Carlson 53:38 I have no doubt. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:39 You'll be the first one to go.

Tucker Carlson 53:40 Well, as a white man, I just won't even exist anymore.

Lex Fridman 53:42 Right.

Tucker Carlson 53:42 So.

Lex Fridman 53:42 So much to say on that one.

Tucker Carlson 53:44 I bet when you Google my picture-

Lex Fridman 53:46 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 53:46 ... 20 years from now, it'll be a Black chick.

Lex Fridman 53:48 (laughs)

Tucker Carlson 53:49 100%.

Lex Fridman 53:50 Well, I hope she's, uh, attractive.

Tucker Carlson 53:52 I hope so too. It'd probably be an upgrade. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:56 (laughs) Um, so, well, the- the central planning point is really interesting, but I- I just don't, I don't know where you're coming from. There's a capitalist system, I mean, the United States is one of the most successful capitalist systems in the history of- of Earth. So to say-

Tucker Carlson 54:13 Well, it's the most successful. I'm just saying that I think it's changed a lot in the last 15 years, and that we need to update our assumptions about what we're seeing.

Lex Fridman 54:21 Sure.

Tucker Carlson 54:21 And that's- that's true up and down. That's true with everything. It's true with your neighbors' children who you haven't seen in three years and they come home from Wesleyan and you're like, "Oh, you've grown." That is true for the world around us as well. And most of our assumptions about immigration, about our economy, about our tax system, are completely outdated if you compare them to the current reality. And so I'm just for updating my files, and I have a big advantage over you because I am middle-aged, and so I don't-

Lex Fridman 54:47 You've called yourself old so many times throughout this conversation.

Tucker Carlson 54:49 I don't trust my perceptions of things-

Lex Fridman 54:51 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 54:51 ... so I'm constantly trying to be like, "Is that true?"

Lex Fridman 54:54 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 54:54 I should go there.... you know, I should see it, and I guess just in the end, I trust, I trust direct perceptions. Like, I don't trust the internet actually. Wikipedia is a joke. Wikipedia could not be more dishonest. It's certainly in the political categories or things that I know a lot about. Occasionally, I read an entry written about something that I saw or know the people involved and I'm like, "Well, that's a complete liar. You left out the most important fact." And it's like, it's not a reliable guide to reality or history, and that will accelerate with AI where history or perception of the past is completely controlled, um, and distorted. So, I think just getting out there and seeing stuff, and seeing that Moscow was not what I thought it would be, which was a smoldering ruin, you know, rats in a garbage dump. It was nicer than New York. What the hell?

Lex Fridman 55:46 Direct data is good, but it's challenging. For example, if you talk to a lot of people in Moscow or in Russia and you ask them, "Is there censorship?" They will usually say, "Yes, there is."

Tucker Carlson 55:56 Oh, yeah. Of course there is. Well, I, I agree. I mean, just to be clear, I'm not... uh, I have no plans to move to Russia. I think I would probably be arrested if I moved to Russia. Ed Snowden, who is the most famous sort of openness, transparency advocate in the world I would say, along with Assange, doesn't want to live in Russia. He's had problems with the Putin government. He's attacked Putin. They don't like it. I mean, I get it, I get it. I'm just saying, what are the lessons for us? And the main lesson is we are being lied to, eh, like, in a way that's bewildering and very upsetting. I was mad about it all eight days I was there, uh, because I feel like I'm better informed than most people 'cause it's my job to be informed and I'm skeptical of everything, and yet I was completely hoodwinked by it. I, I would just recommend to everyone watching this, like, you think you know... Like, if you're really interested, if you're one of those people, and I'm not one, but it was like waking up every day and you've got a Ukrainian flag on your mailbox or whatever, your Ukrainian lapel pin or... It's like absurd theater. But if you, like, sincerely care about Ukraine or Russia or whatever, why don't you just hop on a plane for 800 bucks and go see it? Okay. No one... That doesn't occur to anyone to do that? And I know it, it's time-consuming and kind of expensive, sort of, not really, um, but you benefit so much. I mean, I could bore you for, like, eight hours, and I know you've had this experience, where you think you know what something is or you think you know who someone is, and then you have direct experience of that place or person and you realize all your preconceptions were totally wrong. They were controlled by somebody else. Like, you know, for... In fact, I won't betray confidences, but off the air we were talking about somebody, and you said, "I couldn't believe the person was not at all like what I thought."

Lex Fridman 57:41 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 57:41 That's happened to me-

Lex Fridman 57:42 In the positive direction.

Tucker Carlson 57:43 In the positive direction. By the way, for me, it's almost always in that direction. Most people I meet, and I've had the great privilege of meeting a lo- you know, a lot of people over all this time, they're way better than you think, or they're more complicated, or, or whatever. But the point is a direct experience unmediated by liars, there's no substitute for that.

Lex Fridman 58:04 Well, on that point, direct experience in Ukraine. So I visited Ukraine and w- witnessed a lot of the same things you witnessed in Moscow. So first of all, beautiful architecture.

Tucker Carlson 58:13 Yes.

Lex Fridman 58:13 E- and this is a country that's really in war. So it's not-

Tucker Carlson 58:17 Oh, for real.

Lex Fridman 58:18 Like, for real, where most of the men are either volunteering or fighting in the war and there's actual tanks in the streets that are going into your major city of Kyiv, and still the supply chains are working.

Tucker Carlson 58:32 Yes.

Lex Fridman 58:32 Just a handful of months after the start of the war. Everything is working. Uh, the restaurants are amazing. Uh, the... Most of the people are able to do a, some kind of job, like the, like, the life goes on. Um, cleanliness, like you mentioned.

Tucker Carlson 58:49 I loved that.

Lex Fridman 58:49 Security, like, is incredible. Like, there's... The crime went to zero. They, they gave out guns to everybody. Th- the Texas strategy.

Tucker Carlson 58:58 It does work.

Lex Fridman 58:58 Yeah, when you witness it, you realize, okay, there's something to these people. There's something to this country that they're not as corrupt as you might hear.

Tucker Carlson 59:06 Right.

Lex Fridman 59:06 You hear that Russia's corrupt, Ukraine is corrupt. You're, you assume it's just all gonna go to shit.

Tucker Carlson 59:11 Well, so that's been... And I haven't been to Ukraine, and I've certainly tried, and they put me on some kill-im-immediately list so I can't. I've tried to interview Zelensky. He keeps denouncing me. I just want an interview with him. He won't-

Lex Fridman 59:20 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 59:21 ... unfortunately. I would love to do it.

Lex Fridman 59:22 I hope you do.

Tucker Carlson 59:23 I ho- I do too. But one of the, um, things that bothers me most... I love to hear that, what you just said about Kyiv, and but I'm not really surprised. One of the things that I'm most ashamed of is the bigotry that I felt toward Slavic people, also toward Muslims, I'll just be totally honest, because I lived through decades of propaganda from NBC News and CNN where I worked, you know, about this or that group of people and they're horrible or whatever, and then you wind... And I kind of believed it. And I see it now, like, we can't even put the word Russia at Wimbledon 'cause it's so offensive. Well, what does the tennis player have to do with it? Did he invade Ukraine? I don't think he did. You know, stealing all these business guys' yachts and denounced them as oligarchs. Like, what do they have to do with it? You know, whatever. Here, here's my point. The idea that, like, a whole group of people is just evil because of their blood, I just don't believe that. I think it's immoral to think that, and I can just tell you my own experience after eight days there, I, I think it's a really interesting culture, Slavic culture, which is shared by the way by Russia and Ukraine of course. They're, they're first cousins at the most distant, and, um, I, I found them really smart and interesting and informed. I didn't understand a lot of what they were saying. I don't understand the way their minds work 'cause I- I'm American, but it wasn't a thin culture. It's a thick culture, you know? And I admire that, and I wish I could go to Ukraine. I would go tomorrow.

Lex Fridman 1:00:49 So, I think after you did the interview with Putin, you put a clip, I think on TCN, where, like, your sort of analysis afterwards.

Tucker Carlson 1:00:58 Yeah, it wasn't much of an analysis.

Lex Fridman 1:00:59 No, but what stood out to me is you were kind of talking shit about Putin a little bit.

Tucker Carlson 1:01:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:01:03 Like, you were criticizing him.

Tucker Carlson 1:01:04 Why wouldn't I?

Lex Fridman 1:01:06 It spoke to the thing that you mentioned, which is you weren't, you weren't, uh, afraid. Now, the question I wanna ask is-... it would be pretty badass if you went to the supermarket and made the point you were making, but also criticized Putin, right? Criticize that there is a lack of a freedom of speech and freedom of the press and-

Tucker Carlson 1:01:23 In the supermarket? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:01:25 (laughs) Yes.

Tucker Carlson 1:01:26 Oh, oh, you mean, if I also said that? Well, yeah, I mean, I, of course, I think that I'm not... So, I guess part of it is that I'm a little, because I have such a low opinion of the commentariat in the United States and the, and the news organizations, which really do just work for the US government. I mean, I really see them as I did Izvestia and Pravda in the '80s, like they're just organs of the government, and I think they're contemptible. And I think the people who work there are contemptible. And I say that as someone who knows them really well personally. I think they're disgusting. Um, that I, I'm a little bit cut off, kind of, from what people are saying about me 'cause I'm not interested, but, um, so I try not to be defensive, like, "See, I'm not a tool of Putin." But the idea that I'd be flacking for Putin when, you know, my relatives fought in the Revolutionary War, like I'm as American as you could be, um, is like crazy to me. Anne Applebaum calls me a traitor to my... Okay, right. It's just like so dumb. I, uh, but no, of course, they don't have fr- no country has freedom of speech other than us. Canada doesn't have it. Great Britain definitely doesn't have it. France, Netherlands, these are countries I spend a lot of time in. And Russia certainly doesn't have it. So that's why I don't live there. I'm just saying our sanctions don't work. That's all I was saying. And we don't have to live like animals. We can live with dignity. Even the Russians can do it. That's kind of what I was saying. Even the Russians under Vladimir freaking Putin can live like this. And no, it's not a feature of dictatorship. That's the most, I think, discouraging and most dishonest line by people like Jon Stewart who really are trying to prepare the population for accepting a lot less. He is really a tool of the regime in a sinister way, always has been. Um, like, "How dare you expect that? What are you, a Stalinist?" It's like, "No, I'm an American. I'm like a decent person. I just wanna be able to walk to the grocery store without being murdered. Is that too much to ask?" "Shut up then you don't believe in freedom!" It's really dark if you think about it, you know?

Lex Fridman 1:03:28 So there is a fundamental way which you wanted Americans to expect more?

Tucker Carlson 1:03:33 You don't have to live like this. We don't have to live like this. You don't have to accept it. You don't. And everyone's afraid in this country they're gonna be shut down by the tech oligarchs or have the FBI show up at their houses or go to jail, and people are legit afraid of that in the United States. And my feeling is, "So?" Like, show a little courage, like, what is it worth to you for your grandchildren to live in a free prosperous country? It should be worth more than your comfort. That's how I feel.

Lex Fridman 1:04:02 We should make clear that, you know, by many measures, you look at the World Press Freedom Index, you're right, US is not at the top nor, Norway is. US is, score is 71, same as-

Tucker Carlson 1:04:16 (laughing) Norway is.

Lex Fridman 1:04:16 ... Gambia-

Tucker Carlson 1:04:18 Really?

Lex Fridman 1:04:18 ... in West Africa.

Tucker Carlson 1:04:19 So let me just ask-

Lex Fridman 1:04:19 Hold, hold, hold on a second, hold on a second, hold on a second.

Tucker Carlson 1:04:22 (laughs) Now you're making me laugh.

Lex Fridman 1:04:23 Ukraine is 61 and Russia is 35. The lower it is, the worse. Close to China at 23 and North Korea at the very bottom, 22.

Tucker Carlson 1:04:33 A- I think, didn't, didn't Ukraine put Gonzalo Lira in jail till he died for criticizing the government? How can they have a high press?

Lex Fridman 1:04:38 Yes, that's why they're 61 out of zero to 100.

Tucker Carlson 1:04:40 But I'm saying, look, I, I don't know what the criteria are they're using to arrive at that. Uh, but I know press freedom when I see it, I try to practice it, which is saying what you think is true, correcting yourself when you've been shown to be wrong, as I have many times, um, being as honest as you can be all the time and not being afraid. And those are wholly absent in my country, wholly absent. People are afraid in the news business, I would know, since I spent my life working there, and they're afraid to tell the truth. They're under an enormous amount of pressure, and a lot of them have little kids and mortgages, I've been there. So I have sympathy, but they go along with things, like you would, you are not allowed, if you stand up at any cable channel, any cable channel in the United States and say, "Wait a second. How did the Ukrainian government throw a US citizen into prison until he died for criticizing the Ukrainian government and we're paying for that?" That's what's, that's why it's offensive to me, we're paying for it. And that happens all the time around the world, of course. But this is a US citizen and we're paying the pensions of Ukrainian bureaucrats, like we, we are the Ukrainian government at this point. And like, if you said that on TV, on any channel, well, you, you know, you'd lose your job for that.

Lex Fridman 1:05:51 Right.

Tucker Carlson 1:05:52 So like, that's not, I don't care, or Norway is at the top. Really, Norway? If I went on N- Norwegian television and said NATO blew up Nord Stream, which it did, NATO blew up Nord Stream. The United States government, with, uh, the help of other governments, blew up, committed the largest act of industrial terrorism in history, and by the way, the largest environmental crime, the largest emission of CO2, methane. Could I keep my job? No. So how is that a free press?

Lex Fridman 1:06:16 Well, we don't know that. I mean, the whole point of saying that-

Tucker Carlson 1:06:18 In Norway?

Lex Fridman 1:06:19 Yes.

Tucker Carlson 1:06:19 Well, as a Scandinavian, I can tell you, they would not put up with that (laughs) in Norway for a second.

Lex Fridman 1:06:22 Uh, it's been a while.

Tucker Carlson 1:06:23 What, you're deviating from the majority? No. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:06:26 Well, but it's, it's, uh, deviating maybe is, uh, frowned upon, but-

Tucker Carlson 1:06:31 Frowned upon? Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:06:32 ... uh, but do you have the freedom to say it if you do deviate? That's the question.

Tucker Carlson 1:06:36 Can you keep your job? That's one measurement of it.

Lex Fridman 1:06:38 If you can keep your job, yeah.

Tucker Carlson 1:06:38 Yeah, it's not the only measurement, obviously, being thrown into prison is much worse than losing your job. I've been fired a number of times for saying what I think, by the way, um, and it's fine. I've enjoyed it. I don't mind being fired. It's, I've always become a better person after it happened. But it is one measurement of freedom if, you know, if you have the theoretical right to do something but no practical ability to do it, do you have the right to do it? And the answer is not really, actually.

Lex Fridman 1:07:03 You mentioned Jon Stewart. The two of you have a bit of a history. I don't know if you've seen it, but he kind of grilled your supermarket and Subway videos. Ha- have you got a chance to see it?

Tucker Carlson 1:07:13 I haven't seen it. Um, but someone characterized it to me, which is why I pivoted against it earlier in our conversation about how the price of freedom is living in-... filth and chaos.

Lex Fridman 1:07:24 Yeah, that was essentially it. So in 2004, that's 20 years ago, uh, Jon Stewart appeared on Crossfire, a show he hosted, and that was kind of a memorable moment. Can you, uh, tell the saga of that as you remember it?

Tucker Carlson 1:07:40 I mean, for me, you know, as I was saying to you before about how it takes a long time to digest and process and understand what happens to you, or at least it does for me, I didn't understand that as a particularly significant moment while it was happening. I just got off a plane from Hawaii. I mean, I was out of it, as usual. And I was very literal, as usual. Um, and so from my perspective, his criticism of me, to the extent I remember it, was that I was a partisan. Well, he had two criticisms, one, that Crossfire was stupid, which it certainly was. In fact, I'd already given my notice and I was moving on to another company by that point. Um, Crossfire was, was stupid. Crossfire didn't help. Crossfire framed everything as Republican versus Democrat-

Lex Fridman 1:08:24 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 1:08:24 ... um, whatever. It was not helpful to the public discourse. I couldn't agree more, and that's why I left. So that was part of his critique. Fair. I'm not sure I would have admitted it at the time 'cause I worked there, and it's real hard to admit you're engaged in an enterprise that's, like, fundamentally worthless, which it was. But, uh, but his other point was that I was somehow a partisan or a mindless partisan, which is definitely not true. I mean, it is true of him, he is a mindless partisan. Uh, but I am not, and I haven't been for a l- I really haven't been since I got back from Baghdad at the beginning of the Iraq War, and I realized that the Republican Party, which I'd voted for, you know, my whole life to that point and had supported in general, um, was, like, pushing this really horrible thing that was gonna hurt the United States, which, in time, it, it really did. The Iraq War really hurt the United States. And I realized that I had been on the wrong side of that. I said so publicly immediately from Baghdad, I said that to The New York Times, and I really meant it. I mean it now. And so to call me partisan, uh, you can call me stupid, you can call me wrong, I certainly have been wrong, but partisan, w- I just didn't think it was a meaningful... I mean, it's like, that's just not true. It's the opposite of true. So, I didn't really take it seriously at all, and, um, I, uh, and I never thought much of him, so I was like, "Whatever, some buffoon jumping around on my show grandstanding." Um, but I do think it was recorded... And by the way, that happened right at the moment that YouTube began.

Lex Fridman 1:09:52 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 1:09:52 I think that was one of the first big YouTube vid- It was one of the first big YouTube videos. So it, it had a virality that... if that's a word, it went everywhere, uh, in a way that didn't used to happen in cable news. I mean, by that point I had... That was 20 years ago, as you point out, I've been in cable news for nine years. So in the... Before 2004, we would say something on television and then it would kind of, it would be lost. Like people could claim they heard it, but you'd have to go to the, I think the University of Tennessee at Knoxville archives to get it. Suddenly, everything we said would live forever on the internet, which is good, by the way. That's not bad, but it was a big change for me and I just couldn't believe how widely that was discussed at the time 'cause I thought he was not a, an interesting person. I think he's v- he's obviously a very unhappy person. Um, I just didn't take him seriously then and, uh, and I don't now. But, uh, so anyway, that was it. It was a smaller thing in my life at the time than other people imagined (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 1:10:54 Okay. You said a lot of words that will make it sound like you're a bit bitter, even if you're not. So y- you said unhappy person, partisan person.

Tucker Carlson 1:11:02 Well, I think he's an unhappy guy. Well, he's definitely partisan, for sure.

Lex Fridman 1:11:05 So can you elaborate why you think he's partisan?

Tucker Carlson 1:11:06 Well, so I think that, and I see this a lot, not only on the left, but people who believe that whatever political debate they're engaged in is the most important debate in the world, and so they bring an emotional intensity to those debates and they're inevitably disappointed because no, no eternal question is solved politically. So, they're kind of on the wrong path, right? And they're doomed to frustration, um, if they believe that, and many do. He certainly does, that whatever the issue is is so, you know, "Clarence Thomas should not be a Supreme Court justice!" And the implication is, well, if someone else is Supreme Court Justice, we'll live in a fair and happy society, but that's just not... It's a false promise. So I think that people who bring that level of intensity to politics are by definition bitter, by definition disappointed, bitter in the way that disappointed people are, and that the real questions are like, what happens when you die, and how do the people around you feel about you? You know, those are, those are not the only questions in life, but they're certainly the most important ones.

Lex Fridman 1:12:04 Mm-hmm.

Tucker Carlson 1:12:05 And if we're spending a disproportionate amount of time on who gets elected to some office, not that it's irrelevant, it is relevant, but it's not the eternal question. And so I feel like he's not the only kind of bitter, silly person in Washington or in its, in its orbit. There are many, and a lot of them are Republican, so. Um, but I just thought it was ironic. I mean, everything is ironic to me, but like being called a Russia sympathizer by a guy who calls himself Boris (laughs) , you know, like that just made me laugh (laughs) . No one else has ever laughed at that. Boris Johnson's real name is not Boris, as you know. He calls himself Boris. It's his middle name. Um, and so like if you call yourself Boris, you don't really have standing to attack anyone else as a Russia defender, right? That's my... I think that's funny. No one else, as I noted, does. But um-

Lex Fridman 1:12:50 (laughs)

Tucker Carlson 1:12:51 But Jon Stewart, like-

Lex Fridman 1:12:53 Yeah.

Tucker Carlson 1:12:53 ... you know, if y- if he... There are a lot of things you could say about me, but he's much more partisan than I am. So to call me a partisan is like (laughs) , "What?"

Lex Fridman 1:13:02 He would probably say that he's not a partisan, that he's a comedian who's looking for the humor in the absurdity of the system on both sides.

Tucker Carlson 1:13:09 That's a dead on... He's a dead ser- he's a very serious person. And this, I will say this, and he shares this quality with a lot of comedians, I know a lot of comedians. I know a cross-section of people just having done this job for a long time, and uh, a lot of them are very serious, like about-... their views, and they're- they have a lot of emotional intensity. And he certainly is in that category. He's not, that's- that's like the silliest thing. Yeah, he's a comedian for sure. He can be very funny, for sure. He has talent, no doubt about it. I've never denied that. But he is, he's motivated by, um, by his moral views. You know, this is right, that is wrong. And- and I just think it's- it's a misapplied passion.

Lex Fridman 1:13:48 What, do you think I'm just a comedian is, um...

Tucker Carlson 1:13:52 I don't think any serious person thinks that. I mean, if you're just a comedian, to be... And- and I, look, I'm- I- I'm not trying to cl- claim, I couldn't claim that I haven't said a lot of dumb things. And one of the dumbest things I ever said was when he was on our set lecturing me, you know, he's- he's a moralizer, which I also just don't really care for as an aesthetic matter, but he, um, he was lecturing me about something and I said, "I thought you were here to tell jokes." Which I shouldn't have said because he wasn't there to tell jokes. He was there to- to lecture me, and I should have just engaged it directly rather than trying to diminish him by like, "You're just a little comedian." Well, he doesn't see himself that way. But I would just say this. Jon Stewart's a defender of power. Like Jon Stewart has never criticized, like what's Jon Stewart's view on, you know, the aid we've sent to Ukraine? The $100 billion or whatever. Like what happened to that money? What happened to the weapons that it bought? He doesn't care. He has the exact same priorities as the people