Tucker Exposes the Growing Censorship Regime Using Charlie Kirk’s Death to Destroy Free Speech

Hey, it's Tucker Carlson. Charlie Kirk was  assassinated two weeks ago today in an event. that clearly is going to change American history.  Changed a lot of people inside. And there was a. moment in the first week where you thought to  yourself, this is going to have effects. A lot. of them are going to be bad, but some of them are  probably going to be good because Charlie's life. was itself so good. Charlie Kirk spent his life  above all trying to live the Christian gospel and.

trying to live the principle of free speech which  is to say he talked and he also listened. He was. most famous for traveling from college campus to  college campus and asking people who disagreed. with him to confront him. Ask me anything he said  and he sat there patiently as they did and they. often attacked him. They almost always expressed  views he found repugnant and almost always he took. those views seriously and answered the questions  put to him as crisply and honestly as he could.

That's what he spent his life doing and in fact he  was assassinated while doing that. So if there's. any lesson from Charlie Kirk's life, well the  first lesson would probably be sincere Christians. tend to be really decent people. Maybe we should  have more of them. But the more secular temporal. lesson is that free speech is a virtue. It is in  fact the foundation of this country. Not only its. laws but its culture and that we should protect  it. And maybe if we seek to honor Charlie Kirk, we should emulate it. Maybe we should begin  by asking our politicians to do what Charlie.

Kirk spent his life doing, which is to answer the  question. Just calmly answer the question. We'll. ask you anything and then you go ahead and answer  it to the best of your ability. Like for example, who blew up the Nordstream pipeline? What happened  to all the money we sent to Ukraine? Why haven't. you released all the JFK files, etc., etc.,  etc., all the questions on your mind that slowly. drive you crazy because no one will address  them? Why don't we just ask them directly to. our leaders and they get to answer? Nothing,  nothing would honor Charlie Kirk's memory more.

than that. That is free speech in action.  But nothing like that happened. Instead, the only real conversation we've had about free  speech has been about Jimmy Kimmel, who is hardly. a champion of free speech. In fact, just the  opposite. He's a nasty little sensor, talentless, a person who has many times on camera over the  years chuckled and applauded as other people, his political enemies, have been silenced. a guy  who has so little influence in American society.

and so little audience. He was on his way out  anyway, has the job only as a result of some kind. of weird political affirmative action where people  who agree with studio heads get to have late night. jobs. He is hardly the person who should be  taking up the cause of free speech or become. a symbol of it because of course he's the symbol  of censorship and has been for most of his career. And the other thing that we saw, maybe even  more distressing than that, was politicians turn. not only against free speech, but actively and  openly announced efforts to censor the American.

population and use the memory of Charlie Kirk  to do it as their justification. There are many. examples we could pick. Here's a particularly raw  one. This is from Congressman Moscowitz just in. the House of Representatives. Eight days after  Charlie Kirk died. Here it is. It's crazy what's. going on on the social media platforms. There are  so many conspiracy theories on what's going on.

with Charlie Kirk. Israel assassinated him, right?  There are conspiracy theories about your personal. social life all day. It is totally rampant.  Big names on the right, Candace Owens, right? talking about how the what's been released as far  as the dialogue between the perpetrator and his. roommate is manufactured by the FBI, manufactured  by the administration. It is totally rampant,

allowing foreign governments to just perpetrate  these platforms, all of these bots all of the time. to weaponize Americans. And so if we want to do  something, then we should talk about section 230. We should talk about how we're going to make sure  that we don't let foreign governments poison our. children's mind. And so I will work with you on  that, director. I'll work with you on 230 any day. So there is the congressman talking to the FBI  director and there's a lot there and we'll unpack.

it, but the most telling line came right in the  middle and he turns to the FBI director. He says, "They're criticizing your personal life. They're  airing conspiracy theories about your personal. life." Now, speaking for myself, I have literally  no idea what the congressman was talking about. I. haven't seen that. Doubtless it exists. There are  conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories about. everybody and everybody's personal life. If you're  in public, people are theorizing about you on the. internet. Kind of the nature of the internet and  kind of the nature of having authority. But you'll. notice that the congressman thinks this will be  a compelling argument for the FBI director. He.

basically just says, "They're criticizing you  and me and they're not allowed to do that.". He's not even pretending that the purpose of  censoring speech and that's what he's saying. We need to censor the speech that the purpose  of that would be protect any vulnerable group. vulnerable groups. No, they're criticizing us.  They can't do that. And then of course he goes. on to blame unseen foreign actors. And by the  way, that's something that I think most Americans. would get behind, but that the congressman is not  behind at all. If they want to take the influence.

of foreign nations out of our politics, most  Americans would applaud. And that would start. with not taking money from their lobbies. um that  would be a welcome change. But the idea that we. need to censor what you say because the people  who run everything don't want to be called out. or have their personal lives misdescribed or the  subject of conspiracy theories. Well, that's not. really reform as much as it's just kind of classic  oldfashioned tyranny, isn't it? Shut up. We have.

guns you don't. And we're going to make you. And  how are we going to make you? That's the question. So, you may remember that last week the attorney  general came out right after Charlie Kirk's death. and said there is a distinction between speech  constitutionally protected famously in the first. amendment and the bill of rights and something  called hate speech a category that doesn't. strictly speaking exist under the law but which  a lot of people seems seem to believe exists and. hate speech is never defined like most of the most  powerful words uh that we use to punish people.

terrorism for example racism it's never actually  defined. What is that exactly? We don't know. Other than it's speech the people in charge hate  and therefore it should be banned. And most people. who understand the American story, who understand  our government, who understand our culture, who. care about continuing all of those things, reacted  with outrage when the attorney general said that. you can't pass a law that will strip from us our  God-given right to say what we think is true. She.

addressed it in such a ham-handed way that it was  obvious to everybody exactly what she was talking. about, and they reacted. We did, too. But in real  life, that will not happen. There will not be, I can say confidently, in my lifetime, a  law in the Congress that says explicitly, any American who says something our leaders don't  like. Anybody who traffs in a conspiracy theory. about our personal lives will be shut down, fined,  imprisoned. An open, transparent censorship law.

will not pass through the House of Representatives  or the United Senate, United States Senate. will. not be signed by the president. Why? Because it's  just too obvious. So instead, because censorship. is coming if these people can help it, instead  they will invoke something called section 230. And. you're going to hear a lot more about this without  question. It's never again explained very well. And the reason it's not explained is because they  don't want you to know exactly what they're doing.

So let me just give you the cliffnotes version of  what section 230 is. Section 230 is a section 230. within the 1996 Communications Decency Act and  it is the piece of legislation often credited. for creating the internet. It's the framework that  Congress came up with at the dawn of the internet. to put parameters around what this is to protect  companies as they grew to set laws around this. new technology. And one of the laws that they  made, section 230, shields internet providers,

platforms from lawsuits. It gives them legal  liability from lawsuits on the basis of slander, obscenity, things that are on their platforms  that they didn't create. In other words, it creates a distinction between a publisher like  a newspaper, a magazine, a television network, and a platform. Google, Facebook, X. And the  distinction allows the platforms to let other.

people post whatever they want without getting  sued for it. They cannot be held liable. These. big companies cannot be held liable for slander,  hate speech, anything really on their platforms. And as a result of this law, those platforms have  come to dominate news and information globally. In fact, when we talk about censorship, nobody's  talking about censoring the New York Times, the.

Washington Post, NBC News, because nobody cares.  All meaningful information and all meaningful. social movements are influenced by social media.  So, if you want to get people whipped into a. frenzy, if you want to change your government, for  example, you're not going to take out an ad in the. New York Times, of course not. You're going to get  something going on the social media platforms. So, they are huge. They are completely dominant.  information flows almost exclusively on them. And all of this is possible because of section  230. Now, there's been a pretty vigorous debate.

for the last 20 years over whether this is a good  idea. And there are arguments against it. One of. them is why would Google get a liability exemption  when I don't have one? You run a business. You're. just an American citizen. You can be sued at any  time under our famously loose and destructive. tort laws and you can go to business. You can  be bankrupt. You can be destroyed. They can do. to you what they did to Alex Jones, for example.  The FBI can join up with some activist group and. take your business away, wreck your life. So why  should these big tech companies be exempt? Now,

that's a real argument. It's similar to the  argument about the pharma companies. Why should. vaccine makers get a shield from lawsuits? If I  make playground equipment, I'm vulnerable. If I. make the COVID vac, I'm not. That's a principled  argument. But what's interesting about the 230. debate is that both parties had been on both  sides of it at various times. The Republicans. for years were mad at the big platforms  because they were censoring conservatives,

which they were. And so they often muttered about  revoking 230 shield protection unless they opened. their platforms to all points of view. In other  words, they wanted to use section 230 to end. censorship. There's no reason you she you should  get a special carve out from the US government, from the Congress if you don't treat people  equally, if there's not fairness and neutrality. in the way you allow opinions to be broadcast  on your platform. That seemed like a fairly. reasonable position. But things have changed.  Now you're seeing Republicans invoke section 230,

pick up the cudgel that they hold over these  huge tech companies and say unless you censor, we will revoke section 230. And by the way, they  are following in the footsteps of the leftward. edge of the Democratic party in doing this. In  2020, Betto Oor of Texas ran one of his many. doomed campaigns for office. This one, I think,  for president. and he said, "Unless they get hate.

speech off the platforms, we're going to revoke  section 230 and put these people out of business.". By the way, the threat is enough. That was the  hope. If we threaten them, then we don't have. to do the censoring. We'll make Google, Facebook,  Meta, and X do the censoring for us. That was the. idea. Then no one can accuse us of violating the  First Amendment or being for speech codes. We'll. make someone else do it. He lost. But then Joe  Biden that same year, 2020, said, "Actually, yes,

we should use this threat to force the big tech  platforms to censor in ways that we like." And by. the way, they did. They did throughout the Biden  presidency, Facebook, Twi, then Twitter, Google, all censored opinions the Biden administration  didn't like. And they did this ultimately because. they feared having their legal protection revoked.  That's why they did that. That's what got them to.

act. And Republicans, the sensible ones, looked  at this and said, "This is completely wrong. It's totally immoral. It's illegal for the US  government to be imposing censorship on its. citizens. It's against the Constitution of the  United States, and it's against, more important, natural law. These are not rights we were given by  the Biden administration. These are rights we were. born with, and when you take them away from us,  you are the criminal." And they made that point. All of a sudden, you are seeing Republicans take  the position that Betto Aor and Joe Biden took.

just 5 years ago. Here, for example, and this will  come as no surprise to you at all. You will not. be shocked to hear this. Here is Senator Lindsey  Graham of South Carolina running for reelection. making exactly the same case that Beta Ror made.  Watch. Section 230 needs to be repealed. If you're. mad at social media companies that radicalize  our nation, you should be mad at a bill that will. allow you to sue these people. They're immune  from lawsuit. Oh, it should be repealed. Now,

it's not clear from that clip exactly why Lindsey  Graham is calling for the repeal of section 230. Why is he threatening the tech platforms? And by  the way, the pretext always changes. They'll tell. you, "Well, we're against child sex trafficking,  as if anyone is for it. We're against terrorism, a term once again they never define and don't have  to. We're against drugs. We're against foreign. influence. We're against bigotry. Whatever.  They will always give you an excuse. And that. excuse will make them sound like the virtuous  party, like the good guys. We're here to save.

the vulnerable. But that's never the real reason.  Censorship always and everywhere is imposed with. the intent and always has the effect of shielding  the powerful. They're the ones who don't want. to be exposed. Free speech, by contrast, and  this is the reason it's in our Bill of Rights, is the one great power that the powerless have.  Especially in a world where your vote may or may.

not matter. All you have is your voice. All you  have is your opinion. And that's infuriating to. Lindsey Graham's donors. And make no mistake, when  he's calling for invoking section 230 and taking. it away, threatening the big platforms, he's doing  that on behalf of his donors who feel criticized. by random accounts on the internet. And they hate  it because the people in charge always hate to be. called out. Censorship has one goal, and that's  to preserve secrecy. And secrecy has one purpose.

and that's to abet wrongdoing. So people who are  doing nothing wrong are transparent. People who. are committing evil hide and censorship allows  them to hide. It's literally that simple. And. those people are the most powerful people in the  country. So who's encouraging this? The donors, whoever they are. But there are lots of  lobby groups, all of them on the left,

pushing the Republican le Congress to get behind  censorship initiatives, using the cover of the. section 230 debate to get it done, to pressure  the tech companies into making you shut up, into taking your opinions off the internet using  algorithms designed to censor you without even a. human being entering into the equation. No person  will decide that your opinion is offensive and. pull it off. The computer will decide that and it  will be aided by the massive exponential growth in.

computing power that is at the very center of tech  right now. AI that is the goal to make certain. that opinions that are disruptive to the people in  charge never see the light of day. What's amazing. and what's especially infuriating is that many in  the Republican party, the party that controls all. branches of government right now, are completely  for this, strongly for it. Where did they get this. idea? Is this a betrayal? Oh, it's a betrayal.  How profound a betrayal? Listen to Congressman.

Don Bacon of Nebraska, a former Air Force  general, describe who he's been talking to. about censorship. And I appreciate Jonathan Gri  what hit him and his ADL stance board. Uh I I know. you you made us better with your feedback and and  ideas and recommendations and it's been a trick. to get to know you. We we want to be in a country  that makes clear that anti-semitism or any kind of. racism is repugnant, unacceptable, not allowed  in my space and we just zero tolerance for it.

So we need to hold these companies accountable  and work with them to take it off the airwave. It's hard to believe that's a real clip. We  actually checked. Is that real? Congressman. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a great and sensible state  with tons of normal people, a former Air Force. general. Is he really colluding with Jonathan  Greenblat of the ADL to take away your right to.

say what you think? Oh, you bet. That's exactly  what he's doing. And make no mistake, the ADL. is not an anti-defamation organization. The ADL  practices defamation and slander and bullying and. not in service of protecting a marginalized group  but in acrewing power and by forwarding its goals. which are ideological. And if you don't believe  that go's website and take a look at what the ADL.

considers hate speech. Hate speech another one of  those terms never quite defined but the ADL has. actually taken the time to define it. What do they  consider hate speech? Well, among other things, complaining about drag queen story hour is  hate speech according to the ADL. Huh. Not. being enthusiastic about the COVID vax. That's  hate speech and it's dangerous. Noticing that. the American population has changed completely in  the past 30 years thanks to immigration. That's. dangerous hate speech. You should be punished  for that. For noticing it in your country that.

you were born in, no noticing. You can't notice  that it looks completely different because of. decisions that someone who never consulted  you made without your knowledge. Shut up, says the ADL. You not only don't have the right  to speak, we're going to scream at you and call. you a Nazi and imply that you are the dangerous  one. The people who opened up the borders to 50. million foreigners, but you're the dangerous  one. Sure. You know what else is hate speech, by the way? Reading the Gospels of Matthew or Mark  or Luke or John. The gospel itself, Christianity.

itself, is hate speech. I know that because three  nights ago, I recounted the Christian story in its. essence over like five minutes and was immediately  denounced by the ADL as someone who is dangerous. and inspiring murder. But I'm not the only one.  The ADL has actively attacked the Christian gospel. for years, has gotten behind a definition of hate  speech that includes the Christian story. That's.

not an exaggeration. That's not a fid conspiracy  theory. That's a fact and you can look it up. So. this is the guy that's the guy Jonathan Greenblat  of the most aggressively left-wing democratic. aligned but much more important than that lunatic  antihuman anti-American group the ADL completely. corrupt. He's consulting that guy to decide how  much speech you should have because there are.

ugly opinions on the internet. Yeah, that's your  Republican party. Was he denounced by his fellow. Republicans in the House? Was he denounced by  the Speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson? No, he wasn't. They barely even noticed because  they had the same views. Not all of them, but an awful lot of them. It's unbelievable.  And it's counterproductive because once again, censorship is never enacted to help the  powerless. It is always and everywhere an.

effort to shield the powerful. Always. and in fact  has a counterproductive effect on the people it is. supposedly designed to help. How would you feel  about any person you're not allowed to criticize? Would that make you like the person more? No.  It would make you resentful and suspicious and. would give you the well-deserved opinion that  this is not an egalitarian society in which. we're all citizens. It's a hierarchal society in  which the government has decided some people have.

more rights than others. So, if you find out  you're not allowed to criticize someone else, maybe the first question you might ask is, "Well,  then why are people allowed to criticize me?" And. the answer is because some people have more  power in our society or being used to pit. different groups against each other or who knows  what's going on. But none of it is consistent with. the core promise of this country, which is we're  all citizens under our government and we're all. equal before our God who made us. It says that,  but increasingly that's not the country we live.

in. We live in a country where some people have  more rights than others. And that's exactly the. kind of message you would send if you wanted  to ferment a revolution against your government. because it enrages people and it divides them  from each other. Oh, we have to protect this. group. What does everyone else think of that? They  secretly don't like the group. You're not ending. bigotry by enacting censorship. You're creating  it, Dumbo. And this is specifically aimed at. Congressman Bacon, who was somehow an Air Force  general. He can't be dumb, but he's obviously not.

very thoughtful because this is very obvious.  People don't like other people who get special. treatment. Were you never a child? You never  learn that. Who knows what the purpose here? It. doesn't even matter. It is happening right before  us. The people who are elected to protect us, who say they're our friends, are selling us out.  And you can theorize as to why. And by the way,

all of that theorizing is itself unhealthy. Where  do conspiracy theories come from? Where do you. think they come from? They come from living in a  country where the government will never explain. anything and lies constantly. So the next time  you see someone in power complain about malicious. conspiracy theories, stop him in mid-sentence and  say they exist because of you. If you would just. tell the truth, if you would live like Charlie  Kirk and answer the question politely, reasonably, fully, there wouldn't be a vacuum into which  lunatics would rush. We would have a plausible.

answer to basic questions like, "What the hell is  going on?" But because you haven't provided that, what do you think's going to happen? People are  going to have some pretty far out explanations. And maybe some of them are true. By the way, we  don't know. Your behavior is so suspicious because. you can't answer any question straight any. And  you're spending your time talking to Jonathan. Greenblat, one of the darkest, most corrupt  people in our society. Truly a divisive figure.

Speaking of divisive, how many Americans have made  fellow Americans hate each other more consistently. over the years than Jonathan Greenblad? Very,  very few. Very few. and you're talking to him. So, if this sounds like a paranoid rant, like,  "Oh, that could never happen." Well, you should. know that it is happening right now in the state  of California. The state of California like.

two weeks ago, 10 days ago, 8 days ago,  something like that, has passed a law in. the state legislature, both chambers of the  state legislature. It awaits a signature from. Gavin Newsome that would ban hate speech on  the internet in California. Hate speech. Now, how do they define hate speech? I actually  have the definition. I actually wrote it. down because I was so shocked by it that  this is happening. the state of California, if Gavin Newsome signs this law, and he has until  October 13th to do it, he people will be fined if.

the sensors determine that speech constitutes,  and we're quoting now, violence, intimidation, or coercion. What's intimidation or coercion?  Right. Right. Or coercion based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status,  or other protected characteristics. Obviously, white Christian men are not covered under that.  And so, this the society becomes ever more.

hierarchical with a Brahman class and untouchables  at the bottom. The opposite of the country all of. us over 50 grew up in that had an egalitarian  spirit where some were rich, some were poor, some were smart, some were dumb, some had good  jobs, others were unemployed. But all of us were. considered equal under the law and equal in the  eyes of God. And that concept is the basis of a. stable society, any stable society. And it was the  basis of stability in this country. And laws like. this and the attitudes that give birth to them  to laws like this have made it wildly unstable,

wobbly. It's so unstable. So as of October 13th,  that could become law. Now that's a censorship. law. Now they'll say, "No, no, no. We're just  we're actually getting the platforms to censor.". Well, right. You're getting someone else to do  the job for you. But if you hire a hitman and. he carries out the hit, you're the murderer.  He participated in it, but you hired him. And. that's exactly what's going on here. The state  of California under Gavin Newsome is about to, we think, censor the opinions of Americans, not  to protect anybody, but to shield themselves.

from criticism so they can continue to do  what they want to do in secret. [Music]. Jonathan Greenblat, the head of the ADL,  applauds this. And in case you're not familiar. with Jonathan Greenblat, and in case you want a  sense of what he's like and what he considers hate. speech, let's just go right to the tape so you  know that we're not exaggerating. This is Jonathan.

Greenblat video. When you look at the prevalence  of antivaxer accounts that have been amplified and. spread across Facebook, they don't show up on your  network, but they show up every day to billions of. people because Facebook profits from amplifying  these voices which are literally killing people. And freedom to express your opinion isn't the  freedom to incite violence. But but for Facebook, it is. And that needs to change. That's all. It's  simple. There's nothing wrong with keeping all of.

us safe from violent white supremacists or hateful  people. So criticizing the COVID vax is tantamount. to murder. There's never been I mean obviously  that's primopacia insane. It's untrue. It's a. deranged perspective. But more than anything  you're seeing who Jonathan Greenblat really is. He is a faithful Ptorian guard for the people in  charge. This is not someone who's ever challenged.

actual power. Not once in his life. That's who  he works for. That's who he takes money from. That's what hate speech looks like. Anybody in  charge can make you shut up when you criticize. them or stand in the way of their aims. So,  in case you don't think this can come to the. United States, one final clip, and it's a sad  one, and it comes from the UK. Now, the UK,

obviously, the country that gave birth 2 hours, a  cousin, a country so similar to ours and so close, 6 hours by plane overnight, that we don't really  think of it as fully foreign. It's not like going. to Malaysia or Burundi or even France. It's an  English-sp speakaking country whose customs are. recognizable, whose government and common law  form the basis of our government and our law. Everything about England seems like home but 3°  off. And yet the UK has become a police state.

And if you don't believe that, if you think that's  just hyperbole designed to whip you into a frenzy, here's a stat that we checked and it's  it's hard even to believe this is true, but this is true. 2023, so like a year and a half  ago, how many people do you think were arrested in. the United Kingdom for speech violations? Arrested  by the police, handcuffed, and brought to jail in.

2023. Couple dozen. You know, the ones you see on  X, the ones Fox News talks about. How many people. in that year were arrested for saying things the  government didn't want them to say? What's your. guess? Is it more than 12,000? Cuz that's the  answer. More than 12,000. Wow, that seems like. a lot. Is that a lot? I mean, it's kind of hard  to know, right? Okay. Well, let's compare it to. the number, the widely agreed upon number from  the most totalitarian country in the world. A.

country so lacking in basic freedom. A country  run by a mad man. A country that's so evil, we're literally at war with that country right now  just on principle because we so disapprove of how. they treat their people. And that country  of course is Russia under Vladimir Putin. So, if the UK handcuffed 12,000,  more than 12,000 people in one year. for saying things the government didn't  like, how many were arrested in Russia,

a country with twice the population of the  UK? Oh, we happen to have the number. 3,319. So to restate, more than 12,000  people arrested in the United Kingdom, England in one year for speech code violations,  3,300 arrested in Russia, a country with twice. the population. So that tells you you don't think  totalitarianism can come to the Anglosphere. Oh,

it already has. We haven't even touched on  Australia, New Zealand, Canada. In some ways, even worse. But what does it look like? What is  the face of hate crime prosecution? What does. it actually look like when a citizen is arrested  for saying something the government doesn't like? This video is not from China. It's from the United  Kingdom. This is a British veteran being arrested. for offending the government. Watch police would  realize how ridiculous this is. It is ridiculous.

It is to come to this what did it need to come  to? Tell tell us why you escalated it to this. level cuz I don't understand. I posted something  that he posted. You come to arrest me. You don't. arrest him. Why has it come to this? Why am  I in cuffs? Because of something he shared. then I shared because someone has been caused  obviously anxiety based upon your social media. post. That's why you've been arrested. Oh yes.  The velvet wrap jack boot of British fascism.

You're being arrested because someone has been  caused anxiety by your views. Notice that someone. has never identified. And of course, the answer  is someone in power. Someone in the government or. someone who funds the government, someone close  to the government, someone who's a lot more. power than you. Didn't like what you were saying,  felt anxious about what you were saying. And so, unfortunately, we're going to have to  handcuff you and bring you to jail. That happened this year. That happened in That's  from January. And it happens every single day. more than 12,000 people arrested every single year  for criticizing their government in the UK. Our.

closest ally with whom we share intelligence  on every level, British intelligence. I know. everyone's spun up about MSAD, very close to  MSAD. We're closer to British intelligence. That's the country we're partnering with to spy on  our respective populations. Yeah. So, it's really, really simple. If a government, if your government  is willing to arrest you for saying things that. they don't like, if your government is arresting  you for criticizing them one way or another,

you need a new government. If there is any  justification for revolution, it's that that's. unacceptable. That's tyranny. A government that  does that is not a legitimate government. has. absolutely no right to do that and it should be  stopped from doing that immediately. That's the. red line right there. Michael Shelonburgger is  one of the great reporters in the United States, a friend of ours and someone who as a former  liberal has probably thought about speech.

uh for more years and with more clarity than  probably anyone I know. And so we're so grateful. to have him on to assess the state of free  speech in the United States 2 weeks after. Charlie Kirk's assassination. Mike, thanks  very much uh for coming on. Are you worried? I I'm very worried. I mean, I think what's  maybe under said recently is that, you know, assassination is the ultimate form of censorship.  You know, you and it comes from the same place.

You know, I think that's what everybody senses  about it is that there had been efforts, you know, to censor, you know, and and and they had,  I think, censored Charlie Kirk, obviously. I. mean the Twitter files we discovered that he  was on a blacklist. There was obviously huge. attempts to keep him out of universities. He had  already had you know many death threats which is. uh not a direct form of government censorship but  these are societal demands that he be silenced. And then at a global institutional level yeah it's  a very disturbing trend that we're seeing. I mean.

I think there's two things happening. And there's  both a organic kind of demand from powerful people. like the kind that you were describing where a  politician just really, you know, I think it was. the Moscowitz where he just kind of can't stand  something and they just want to see something. taken down and you see that from groups and  politicians. And then there's more of an inorganic. demand for censorship which we've labeled the  censorship industrial complex. You can call it.

the censorship industry. And that is in place  in the European Union, in Britain, in Brazil, California would like to have that. Basically,  all the five eyes countries are pursuing that. And their strategy, I think, is pretty clear at  this point, is to encircle the United States and. to make our tech platform censor along the  lines that they would like to so they can. achieve censorship through the back door. And this  has always been their strategy because they know.

that the first amendment is a major obstacle for  them since it requires that the people have really. radical levels of free speech that no country has  ever come close to. And as you said based on this. idea of natural rights that we are granted by  our creator, not given to us by the government. The speech comes before the government. The  speech is how we constitute our government. Whereas in Europe and everywhere else, the  government had gradually, you know, let people say. certain things. You have to petition the king. Oh,  king, can we criticize you for sleeping with Anne.

Boland? And the king would decide whether that  would be okay or not. And and that's how it would. occur. And the creators of this amazing country  and as you work on free speech, I've only worked. on it now for really two and a half years. I'm a  new newbie to the issue, but one of the things you. just really appreciate is really how radical and  powerful and strong that commitment to the First. Amendment was. It's not just hype. You might just  think, is that just patriotic hype from Americans? It's not when you read the history of free speech  over 2500 years going back to Socrates who was.

put to death uh for things that he said, also an  act of censorship. um then you realize just how. radical the first and how beautiful it the first  amendment is because the Americans that created. our country said we don't want to have a country  we don't have a government if we can't have full. free speech with some very narrow exceptions  and so the exceptions now they sort of say well. the internet changed everything that's what you  hear from that's what I hear from my progressive. friends heard it on Martha's Vineyard of all  places it's all changed with the internet it's too.

dangerous to allow this high level of free speech  we have to change things. Well, Tucker, to to put. into to put in context how crazy that is. Our  Supreme Court has ruled not once but twice that. Nazis can march through neighborhoods not only of  Jewish Americans but of Holocaust survivors. And. that the line where you the the line that gets  crossed between speech and actual violence is.

when I say go kill that person there or go light  that house on how it's when the speech becomes. part of the action, you know, or coordinating an  assassination or something. Of course, language in. that context has to be illegal because it's part  of it's part of breaking the law. But marching. through a neighborhood with the most vile ideology  is something that the Supreme Court has twice. upheld. Well, now we're supposed to believe that  some racist comments on a on on a Facebook post.

or as you said, it's really political. It's really  about stifling the conversation around migration, gender, climate. Uh I mean, it's actually been  less on race, more, you know, huge amount on. on trans issues. I mean, we just saw a British  gentleman, Gran Linham, a famous uh television. comedy writer, get arrested when he landed in  Britain for having urged uh biological women to. defend themselves from biological males that come  into their bathrooms. So, it is a very serious.

threat. Uh Tucker, I think that the thing to keep  our eye on is they've been trying to basically get. governments to empower a mostly secret group  of so-called NOS that would be financed by. the government and who would be telling the social  media companies what to take down. In some places, they're more subtle with it than in others. That's  the big threat. The Trump administration has done. some great things to defund that. It was all  going to work through NSF and then Congress. would have to bless it and that was the way  that they were going to do it. So the the Trump.

administration has done a great job defunding that  and also holding a strong line on both Europe and. Brazil putting, you know, demanding that free  speech protections uh be there. But obviously, you know, we see some some backsliding and some  behaviors over the last couple of weeks that. were lamentable. Certainly the attorney general's  comments, which she then later kind of went back. on and said she didn't mean what she had said. And  then obviously or maybe not obviously but a dust.

up over the the FCC chair and his comments around  Jimmy Kimmel which I got to say as the days go by. and you look in retrospect it just seems absurd.  I mean you had Democrats trying to create this. elaborate censorship system and then you had some  bad mouthing of Jimmy Kimmel. It wasn't really it. it wasn't great. I I I think it was a it was  inappropriate. Um, but I think there was a lot. of other complicating factors too and there was,  you know, economic concerns around Jimmy Kimmel.

and just sort of this demand that, you know,  that he have to be carried on every television. station. I think in retrospect, uh, we won't look  back on as it's not a great moment. I don't think. the Trump administration covered itself in  glory over the last couple of weeks on that. But on on the European side of holding strong on  free speech and also in standing up to Brazil, uh, I do give the Trump administration credit.  All it did was save Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, Jimmy. Kimmel is on his way out. Nobody watches that.  It's crap. I mean, it has no effect on American. society. It's just murbbitatory. It's really he's  he's playing for an audience of one himself. And.

um this kind of allowed him to pose as a free  speech defender. I got to say, I'm the Tik Tok. thing. I think I sort of missed that. I don't know  why I wasn't paying attention. I should have been, but Tik Tok was banned by the Congress uh for  forced to sell. Chinese owned company by dance. owned Tik Tok and the argument in the Congress was  well we can't have foreign ownership of you know. a critical service like social media in this  country and so it has to be owned um at least.

51% by Americans. Okay. I just I don't know why I  missed the significance of this. Then it turns out. and they said this openly. It had nothing to do  with China and members of Congress said this. I'm. v a lot of Republicans. I'm voting to shut down  Tik Tok because people are starting to like Hamas. when they watch it. Now, I'm not endorsing Hamas,  obviously. I'm not pro Hamas at all. But Americans. have a right to like anything they want and to  come to their own conclusions about some foreign.

conflict or even domestic conflict, any conclusion  they want because they're not slaves. So, is it. okay for the Congress to decide, I don't like the  effects, the radicalization of this one social. media platform, so I'm going to shut it down?  I mean, is is that allowed? Can they do that? Well, this gets to let me let me come to it  by addressing the one of the things that you. I thought rightly discussed in your monologue,  which is this uh very wonky but important issue.

of this law called section 230 and the nature  of these platforms that we have. And I think. it's helpful to think of these platforms at this  point as utilities. They're monopoly utilities, right? You could say there's some competition  between Instagram and Tik Tok and and X and. there's truth to that, but there's often  situations in in monopoly environments where. there's some competition. Uh but they really do  operate, I think, functionally as monopolies. And they're they're already regulated monopolies  by section 230. They're already saying to them,

you're a different category of business. Um you're  not liable if you take down illegal content. you're not you can't be sued for having had that  content on your website. It still requires them to. take it down. I think my view and I've published a  couple of white papers on it. I've testified on it. uh hasn't exactly caught fire. My uh proposal  I've got a lot of views like that too. Yeah. But. I think like I think that uh you know I mean look  one thing you have to understand about these these.

big tech companies they're so powerful. There's I  I I was shocked when I learned that like Facebook. has a different lobbyist for House Republicans  than for House Democrats and a separate lobbyist. for Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats. I mean,  these guys really put a lot of money into having. that control over Congress. So, uh that's a little  bit like the utilities uh power uh at the state. level, the electric utilities power at the state  level. So, it's a regulated environment, but I. do think public interest voices like yourself  and Joe Rogan and others uh out there carrying.

this message is really important because I think  what's in the public interest is that we actually. do keep 230 but make it contingent on allowing  all adult users to filter our own content, our own. legal content. So in other words, all the child  exploitation stuff obviously still being policed. as we do now. All of the, you know, copyright  violation, all that stuff still being policed.

as is now. But when you would go into social  media platform, you'd have a chance to basically. decide what you wanted to see and what you didn't  want to see. And there was even some talk among. uh Republicans who I respect, but I disagree on  this issue that were upset that the the video of. Charlie Kirk being assassinated was on X. I mean,  it was quite shocking. I have to agree with that. But I don't think the solution is to necessarily  take it down, but you could certainly create your. own filter that I want to filter out any scenes  of people being physically harmed. You could have. a lot of different filters. You could have the  Tucker Carlson filter. You could have the Greta.

Tunberg filter, but the the users would be able to  do that. And then, of course, the platforms like X. already does can feed you their own platform, a  separate stream. I think Elon has gotten pretty. close to that at X. Not as close as I would love  to see it, but we're so grateful because I mean. the impact that he's had has been so enormous in  terms of ending this censorship fa fact-checking. mafia. Mark Zuckerberg at Meta earlier this year  decided he was going to copy the Elon Musk model.

of crowdsourcing, which is what the spirit of  the first amendment is. We crowdsource truth. with the first amendment. And then we just saw  Google yesterday uh in a letter to chairman Jim. Jordan in the house said that they would move to  something more like that. So those are those are. good directions, but for me that's should be the  only issue of section 230 reform is to actually. uh expand the speech that's allowed not  restricted. What they want to do is they want to.

basically give the deep state, you know, for lack  of a better word, DHS, NSF, DoD, the power to kind. of choose the the people that will decide what  the truth is as these NOS's who would then get NSF. money, which is, you know, public money, national  science money, and that they would then get. special access to the data. I mean, this was their  whole vision, and they were close to achieving it. We only really discovered it with the Twitter  files. That's their holy grail is to be able to. control it that way. It's they're they're set  back in the United States, but they are moving.

for sure in that direction in Europe, uh, Britain,  uh, Brazil, and certainly California would like to. do the same. I hope that if Gavin does sign that  atrocious legislation that you were describing, Tucker, I hope that the Supreme Court or that the  courts strike it down. They struck down the last. California censorship initiative which was aiming  at uh banning uh AI, you know, parodies and that. got struck down by a judge in a very eloquent uh  decision. But that's kind of where we're at and.

why I think your special on this is so important  because we're on a knife's edge. On the one hand, I think we're making some good progress here  in the United States in exposing the censorship. um and shutting and defunding it, but I think  worldwide the trends are in the wrong direction. and on college campuses with young people.  Unfortunately, we've seen an increase of support. among censorship. Really, every generation from  baby boomers to Gen Xers to millennials to zoomers. that we see support for censorship going up. And  it's exactly like what you were saying. It's about.

protecting feelings. It's this, you know, to use a  bit of jargon, it's this expressive individualism, which is that my feelings are like the most  important thing in the world, and if my feelings. are hurt, then somebody has to pay a price. That  sadly is the ideology and that's why I think the. censorship is in this broader you know cultural  decline you know where it's like the intolerance. and the entitlement that people feel are these  big forces that have been I think driving those. demands for censorship. I think it's I think  everything you've said is absolutely true. I think.

it may even be more insidious than that. However,  I think that there are decent people who've had. their best impulses hijacked by totalitarians and  used against them. In other words, I think there. are like good people, Americans, mostly women,  to be totally blunt about it, who are like, "Oh, we can't be mean to this or that group." Well, I  think that's a good impulse, by the we shouldn't. be mean to any group, and the weaker they are, the  more careful we should be about being mean to them. because you don't want to be a bully, right?  Like, that's a good impulse. But that impulse.

is hijacked by the sensors who are acting on their  own behalf, not on behalf of whatever marginalized. group they claim they're acting on behalf of.  They don't care about those groups, obviously. The lives of black people in inner cities did not  improve after the George Floyd riots, obviously. But they they hijack that and they say, "If you  care about the weakest among us, you will get on. board with censorship." I I think that's really  clever and insidious and evil, but effective.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think it's um  it's a manipulation. You know, it just shows how. emotional the culture has gotten, you know, that  you can appeal to those feelings. I mean, Tucker, it's so easy to show how much of an abuse of power  you can get with these hate speech laws. I mean, it's worth considering. For example, you'll  get people that will be like, "Oh, well, are. you defending the right of people to like call for  genocide?" And you kind of go, "Oh my god, well, no. I mean, that's horrible. I don't want people  to call for genocide. And so you kind of go,

so we'll carve that out. But then you kind of go,  well, wait a second. So the same people that are. saying that to you are the ones that point out  as soon as you talk about the American experiment. of the 17th and 18th and 19th centuries that the  that the European settlers committed a genocide to. create the United States of America. So how hard  would it be to criticize somebody that say praised. America, praised the western expansion, praised  the the west opening up and the European settlers.

uh frankly taking over the United taking over this  land from indigenous people. Someone could say. that's defending genocide. So you see how easy and  quickly it comes. I'll give you another example. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which is one of  these deeply sinister I mean they would not return. any phone calls or whatever and they personally  uh uh smeared me and a lot of others. Can I ask. you to stop? So the the Center for Strategic  Dialogue didn't want any dialogue. Yeah,

the Institute for Strategic Dialogue refused  to have dialogue. I'm not surprised. Um creepy. creepy group close to British intelligence. I  mean it's just like I mean close to I'm being. generous you know like clearly an intermediary uh  with deep state British organizations that is very. interested in censoring Americans and we see this  dynamic a lot where they you know the Brits you. know pick on Americans the British groups pick on  Americans um because you know the US intelligence. uh uh community can't directly go after Americans  so they get their British uh allies to do it and.

this is a group that labeled along with the  center for countering digital hate, which is. equally sinister organization, very connected to  the Labor Party of Britain. They label criticism. of George Soros as anti-semitic. And and Tucker,  I'm not saying criticism of George Soros and even. noticing that he's Jewish. It wasn't even  that. It wasn't like they said the Jewish. philanthropist George Soros. They'd be like, just  criticizing George Soros was anti-semitic. That's.

how crazy it is and got that. And you know you  look at the number of institutions that have been. putting this. It's the European Union. It's NATO.  It's the United Nations. It's Germany, France, Britain. United States is really powerful. And I  think that the president did a good job pushing. back against those types of people around the  world. But it is important to remember that the. European economy is bigger than the United States  economy. And certainly when you go and kind of. look at a world with this incredible economic  power of China and the gravity it exercises and.

all these other countries in the world including  Europe including Brazil. I mean it was notable. that when Trump punished Brazil with tariffs for  its censorship and banning their their their lead. their opposition party leader and the leading  presidential candidate Bolsinaro that China. made up the difference in the loss of trade. So  you sort of start to see the world, you know, and. particularly get this kind of organic, you know,  decline of real belief and support in free speech.

with a kind of global move towards this censorship  industrial complex system of censorship by proxy. It is disturbing because they can exercise  economic power over our platforms. And you know, I mean, I I I think Elon has shown good reason  that we can, you know, basically trust what he's. done. I think he's made great decisions um for  the most part since he's taken over the platform. But you know if anything were to happen to Elon  I mean these companies Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Sundar Pashai, they've shown themselves to be  quite cowardly. Facebook um was worried about.

the lack of help from the Biden administration.  It was enough to get Facebook to censor because. they were worried about not having enough help  from the Biden administration to retrieve their. very valuable user data from Europe, which their  laws require. And that's why they agreed to do. censorship that even their own social scientists  within Facebook said would backfire because they. were like, look, if you go censor mothers sharing  information about the about the COVID vaccine side.

effects, it will make mothers more nervous.  That's what the internal people at Facebook. said. And the Facebook execs were like, "We better  just give the Biden administration what they want, otherwise they're not going to help us with  our data in Europe." So, it doesn't I mean, it's it's not hard to imagine, you know, the power  that these states can exercise on these platforms. And I don't think that that threat has gone  away. It doesn't seem like a good system if one, you know, South African-born naturalized American  is the only thing standing between us and tyranny.

I mean, I really think that the media wouldn't be  I mean, I I work in the media. My whole life I've. worked in the media. Elon Musk did this. Elon  Musk did all this and he did it because I I. think he says because he believes in it. What  whatever the cause, he did it. He opened up. everything. Yeah. So, but which I'm will never  stop being grateful for obviously. However, that's a pretty thin thread kind of holding your  civilization aloft. No. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I the.

things I really worry about are those numbers, you  know. I mean, you've had, you know, um, you know, just those numbers of young people that I mean,  the number of young people, the number of college. students, the share of college students that said  that violence may sometimes be necessary to stop. a campus speaker was under 20% in the year 2020.  It's 34% right now. That means onethird of college. students think that violence might be necessary  to stop a campus speaker. That is I mean that's.

pathological. I don't know there's another word  for that's bonkers, crazy scary behavior. And. so you know remember George Orwell he was uh you  know a leftist um wrote 1984 because he had read. James Bham who's this very famous you know former  Trosky who becomes a conservative and writes u you. know this book about the managerial state which  is basically about how this totalitarianism would.

kind of emerge out of the society and out of the  state in these in these very specific safetist you. know harm reduction demands that that you would  sort of get a whole kind of state of busybody. you know nanny state people that wanted to police  the speech I mean that was his prediction in 19. whatever that was 1947 I think or you know when  1984 came out that is was so brilliant I mean.

it's terrifying brilliantly pressing it because  that's what I worry about and I think you know. I saw the obviously very moved by all the Charlie  Kirk what's the response to the Charlie Kirk perk. assassin and the desire to go into universities.  I think we need to figure out how to move that. number down so that people really do be the young  people become and the everybody becomes more. comfortable with Yeah. I mean look I mean Charlie  really was um inspiring in the way that he would. go into places and of course the sign said prove  me wrong. He was saying look I'm open to debate.

is exactly he I mean it's so I don't know ironic  is not the right word. It's so powerful that the. person that was assassinated was the person doing  what we need the most of. That the person that. was killed was the person who was doing what we  need to see much much more of at the high schools. and the colleges, which is getting people very  comfortable with having difficult conversations.

and with having conversations with people whose  values you don't share and who believe things. that you find reprehensible. And that is at  the heart of it. And I don't know. I mean, it's sort of what's terrifying is that, you know,  those numbers of intolerance kept increasing over. the last 10 years. I hope that we've hit  an inflection point. I will say, Tucker, one number that did change that gave that that I  felt some hard in was that Pew had found that the. share of Democrats that thought the government  should be involved in censoring misinformation.

online had risen from 40% in 2018 to 70% in 2023.  They did the stud the same question earlier this. year and it's now declined to 58%. So I do feel  like there is a chance at which the I mean it's. still terrible but like the the the sense in which  that trance has broken you know that hypnotic we. have to fight misinformation that just bonkers  anti-American unamerican impulse. It feels like. it was broken but I still think there's a lot  of that you know cultural work that we need.

to do to really educating kids because I just  don't think free speech is intuitive. I mean, you go to a playground and you see little kids  playing and they just are yelling shut up, shut. up at each other all the time. It's our natural  instinct. You hear something you don't like, you want to shut them up. And the alternative  to listen to somebody and actively disagree. with them and maybe think about how to respond  or just figure out if you agree or disagree. It. take it's like a muscle. It just takes practice.  And I think we have to teach the kids, you know, both the K through 12 and the college students how  to do that. and that doing that is a core value.

that will be rewarded in life and we should be  celebrating rather than the opposite which is this. desire to silence and shut down. Are you concerned  that technological advances that we're in the. middle of really um will be harnessed to affect  censorship without people even knowing it? I mean, you did the Twitter files with mental and found  what I don't think anyone knew. There was this. vast censorship program at Twitter and but  most users had the sense that, you know,

it's a liberal website, whatever, they're  taking the conservatives off, but had no idea. uh about the specifics until you brought  them to light. Does AI increase the power. of the platforms to take information off the site  without anyone even knowing it's been taken off? Yeah, I mean just to answer that question, I'll  preface it by saying of course I watched very. closely your interview with Sam Alman where you  asked I think some very important questions which.

is what is the moral framework with which uh his  AI will follow. That is the right question and of. course it remains an everpresent question. It's  not like it'll it will never go away. Ultimately, these decisions about what gets censored and what  the AI censors for us are made by people. And so, you look at the worst episodes of censorship over  the last, you know, 5 to 10 years. You can find. the people that were demanding the censorship.  You can find the groups they created to demand.

it. you know that it was it was human decisions  and that in fact at the company level in the. Twitter files. There was a huge amount of debate  around I mean not enough a huge amount of debate. around deplatforming the president of the United  States like removing the account of the president. of United States which is so insane. They it  was a big deal. Obviously, it was talked about. and then of course you could see it. Same thing  with the Hunter Biden laptop where the FBI ran. a deception operation against the social media  platforms illegally in an illegal conspiracy. Uh.

that included spreading disinformation about the  laptop. Um that was obviously a very elaborate. thing that a lot of people could see and were  getting kind of glimpses into. There was also. just the the the humrum or the ordinary kind of  deamplification. So you remember Twitter famously. said, "Oh, we don't shadowban." That was the  language that people had used. Well, of course. they did. They called it something different. It  was called like uh you know, do not ampl amplify.

lists for examples, like a kind of blacklist that  they ran or a trends blacklist. Don't let them. show up on the trends thing. So there's just all  a million dials of course uh as you know, Tucker, to like kind of turn these things up and down.  Yeah, the AI can help, but sometimes, you know, like they wanted to go after a QAnon conspiracy  at one point. I reported this in my Twitter files. on the decision to deplatform Trump and there was  something around like the Kraken which I guess is. like a giant like squid in the ocean. I think  it's uh you know they were like the Kraken was.

somehow tied into QAnon conspiracy theories and  they wanted to censor that which is also insane. like they wanted to literally stop people from  talking about Kraken like on Twitter and then. somebody figured out that the Seattle I think  hockey team is the Kraken and that all these. tweets around hockey were getting like swept up in  it. So it's like you know it's like I worry about. it but ultimately it's not a bunch of sensors  in like the Philippines or even I think PaloAlto. these like the worst forms of censorship are being  decided at at the executive level. But as I said,

my view is that if you have section 230, which  is what gives you the power to be a monopoly. It's like literally like the p like the permit  to operate as a functional natural monopoly. I. think that that you should have to um give the  user the adult user complete control over all. legal con content and you can censor the illegal  content. And I do think we should there's a whole. separate thing on kids, you know, which I think is  complicated because they're using the kids right.

now in Australia. They're literally using the kids  in Australia to create digital identifications. as a way to censorship, which I think you we  should be alarmed about. But nonetheless, as. a father who's seen the impact of social media on  adolescence, I do worry about it. But I do think. like if you're going to have section 230, that's  that should be the agreement. Yeah. And I thank. you for describing it as using the kids because  it is the most obviously transparently cynical. uh attempt to censor political speech by using  the suffering of children about whom they care.

nothing obviously. Um there's no demonstrated  care for kids like how are the schools you know. they don't care. Um right and any pretext will do.  I mean the terrorism thing was huge as you know um. under the Bush administration was terrorism what  is that exactly? Can you can you define it for me? No they can't. Um I'm wondering though what's  the recourse? So these are decisions you just. described that are being made at like the highest  level of well global society. I mean the richest.

man in the world decided to restore free speech  to the United States. The president of the United. States helped him. um judge, federal judges rule  on these things, but let's say we have a different. president and there's no Elon or his commitment  changes and there's a different Supreme Court. Uh. like where's the power to fight back against this?  Is can you imagine a kind of civil disobedience. that people could use to regain their speech? I'm  trying to think through what that would look like.

Well, look at the top of my list is that we are  in something called the NATO organization and it. has a treaty that requires that we only have as  members free democracies. Dem we only are going. to defend countries that allow free speech and  that allow candidates uh people to choose the. candidates of their choice. Currently that is  absolutely under attack in Europe. Romania has.

already prevented, as you interviewed, the Romania  has prevented their presidential front runner. Now. France is about to ban their presidential front  runner, Marine Le Pen, in a completely trumped. up charge that the prime minister, the last prime  minister was already guilty of and still uh came. into office. Germany, there's I just interviewed  a mayoral candidate who was banned for for like. madeup reasons because he liked Lord of the Rings.  I'm not even kidding. and he went to a book fair.

where there were some people that the intelligence  services uh didn't like people and that was like. the basis of the election council preventing him  from running and then they have these elaborate. censorship industrial complexes. We're part  of NATO. Everybody knows that we're the main. event. We subsidize it to the tune of, you know,  hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Like you, Tucker, I'm willing to die for free speech and  democracy. like I with Senica uh like the Spartan. slave boy in the great Senica passage. I would  rather die, you know, a free man than live as.

a slave. And so we will we are willing to die for  for freedom. And I think we all care a lot about. Western civilization in Europe, but not if they're  going to I don't want to defend I'm not going to I. don't want to put my life on the line to defend  authoritarian sensorial autocracy autocracies. like France, Germany, and Romania and potentially  Britain. So I think the president has, you know, been pretty strong on it, you know, they're  still negotiating this right now. But I just.

think that the public certainly MAGA but whatever  leftists are still in favor of free speech out. there including as you mentioned I think a lot  of the the pro Palestinian folks that felt p you. know felt censored on TikTok and elsewhere and  have been censored in other ways that that we. should all make very clear that we don't want to  be a part of a military uh treaty that uh has us. risking our lives for for illiberal autocracies.  Like that's got to be at the top of the list. Same. thing with Brazil. It's like, you know, okay, I  think people, Americans need to know we should.

pay more for orange juice if it means protecting  our freedom of speech. That like our freedom of. speech, it's not like a small thing. It's like  the main event. It's like the reason why America. is the greatest country that's ever existed and  certainly the greatest country in the world still. despite all of our problems and the country that  everybody wants to live in is because of the first. amendment of free speech. So, it just has to be  an absolute non-negotiable. So, I said this is the. number one issue. If you don't have free speech,  you don't have anything. You don't have democracy,

you don't have your dignity, you don't have  you don't have c you don't have prosperity, you don't have you have infrastructure can't work,  it's just everything depends on free speech. And. so it's just got to be an absolute issue for the  administration um in these in these negotiations. And yeah, I mean I think civil disobedience um if  we see you know when things get to that level is. always should always be an option particularly  for defending something as essential and sacred. uh as the first amendment. Do you have any guesses  or theories as to what happened to Great Britain,

which of all countries is the closest to ours, has  the deepest historical ties, and is now arresting. more than 12,000 people a year for saying things  the government doesn't like that. It really, it's hard for me even to digest that. But I'm  also confused by it. Like, how did that happen? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, look, you had Christopher  Caldwell on uh the other week, and I thought. he did um an incredible job explaining  what's happened to Europe, but I mean,

I think we're I think it's fair to say that we're  at the end of an 80-year cycle that began in 1945. with the end of World War II. And the United  States had the role of being the, you know, really the the main, you know, the country that  was at the center of this new empire. I mean, you can call it the American Empire, whatever  you want to call it. And we were trying to. prevent another war in Europe. and we pushed  out an ideology that you might call RRO calls. the open society ideology. And at first it made  sense when you're denazifying Germany and you're.

um you know uh whatever way they did with  Japan, moderating Japan and you're trying to. kind of usher in a liberal democratic western  order made sense for a few decades. Probably. didn't make sense after 1990. Um and it went too  far and it obviously we decimated our industries. by exporting them to China and you know created  you know with the help of George Soros created. this elaborate NGO sector that basically pushed  two things at the same time because I think the.

only way you can understand the censorship and the  demand for totalitarian censorship in the kind of. mental space is to just also understand the total  disorder that they're creating in the physical. world. you know, from like as you're saying, the  unchecked mass migration, the collapse of borders, people in boats, you know, people with 14, you  know, criminal uh prosecutions and still let out. on the street street despite their schizophrenia  to commit murder against refugees. I mean,

that disorder is I think I don't think it's  a coincidence that that those two things are. unleashed by the same people at the same time. I  mean, Soros Foundation wants censorship. they also. want uh disorder and anarchy and lawlessness uh  you know at the street level at the city level. So I think that you know as that you know the  contradictions of their own you know ideology. of just sort of you know the guilt around the  past and the construction of these singularities. of evil that were you know the holocaust slavery  indigenous genocide those became new religious.

the new original sins for this new woke religion  and you know it's funny because it was interesting. when you everyone looks at I mean everyone's seen  the data you know that really the the border the. migration and the illegal migration to United  States really wasn't nearly as out of control be, you know, before Trump. He campaigned on in  2016, but it really gets out of control as. a kind of reaction by Biden and the blob elites  after 2020. Europe's a slightly different story,

but um you know, I think it's just what it  looks like. There's just this woke religion. has just absolutely displaced the older  story that we had of Western civilization, which is that Christianity gave way to the  Enlightenment. The Enlightenment secularized. a whole bunch of Christian values including the  idea that we're all born with dignity and rights. and we just that old story just got replaced by  this really ugly story which is that humans are. a cancer on the earth that Western civilization  is just genocidal and um you know it's just the.

opposite of really what it's been historically  which is a massively liberating phenomenon and. we got stuck in this awful story. It got taught in  the schools. that got taught in the universities. and it's just that beautiful open society vision  from 1946 just became its complete totalitarian. opposite and I think Britain really exemplifies  that and it's worth knowing by the way too. because I think you've done such a good job here  Tucker of point out the left and right origins.

of this certainly like what we call the foreign  policy establishment the blob they were behind. the online safety act in Britain that passed in  2023 it was the conservative government that that. got it done but it was the same foreign policy  blob that was behind our censorship industrial. complex and that was clearly emerged out of this  effort to govern the American empire and then was. reacting to this just massive populist unrest  to you know out of control migration policies,

energy policies that were aimed at creating  scarcity and high prices. the trans madness. where literally I mean that is just one where  I mean if you really want to like it's like a. David Croninberg movie you know it's like it's  these atrocities physical atrocities that you're. then not allowed to talk about like that you're  then if you actually deny if you actually I mean. they wanted censorship on all of it we had at  Twitter they censored Megan Murphy for saying but. a man is not a woman like that's what she said and  they like deplatformed her I mean you talk about.

like a terrifying scenario we're in a scenario  where it's these hideous medical experiments are. being conducted on the bodies of adolescence and  mentally ill people and they were then trying to. censor people talking about it and and demanding  that you believe that it's possible to change your. sex. I mean, that's just how you kind of go that's  how far gone we we've we we got as a civilization, you know? It's that we convinced ourselves  that you could perform, you know, biological. alchemy and then we wanted to silence and suppress  anybody who told the truth about it. So, you know,

I it's there's I think there's a black pill moment  where one could say that we're pretty far gone, you know, if you're already at this place.  But I do think, you know, thanks to, you know, uh, what you were saying to the opening of the  platform, to the success of people like you and. Joe Rogan and the creation of this alternative  media universe, I do think we have a chance to. to remake that case, not just for free speech,  but really for this amazing, you know, you know, tiny moment in history where like actually  everybody that's a citizen of a country got.

to be free. And and I and and that that's a  beautiful, wonderful thing. And anybody that's. ever traveled outside the United States, I I think  can see that and appreciate it. It's the greatest. thing that we have. And the reason we have it is  because we've reminded ourselves generationally. because we told the story of it that this is the  greatest thing that we have. And I can't think of. a greater tragedy, a more perverse tragedy than  the assassination of Charlie Kirk being leveraged. by people in order to construct a world that he  hated and fought against for his entire short.

life. to use Charlie's assassination as a pretext  for censorship. I I I I mean the mind struggles. even to to understand that. But that's how brazen  people are. So I hate to ask you this, but you've. thought so deeply about it. Maybe you have an  answer. I don't. What's the motive for all this? Like why would you want to conduct hideous medical  experiments on children? It doesn't benefit you. It doesn't benefit them. Like what what is this  actually? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, as you as.

you probably remember in one of my my last book on  uh the homeless crisis, I put a lot of emphasis on. this desire from the left to be compassionate  and to think of ourselves as good people. Um, and that really the idea and it's really this  immediate emotive, you know, like with addiction, people that are crying out there saying, "I'm  fine and I'm fine and my living in my waist and. being sexually assaulted every night. I'm just  fine. Let me just smoke some more fentanyl.".

uh every everybody should know that that person  needs an intervention so that they stop harming. themselves in public. Um but the emotionalism and  the sentimentality that immediate appeal to oh no. it's somehow cruel oops that it's somehow cruel to  allow uh you know to enforce laws and mandate care. for people. So on one hand it does seem like this  empathy of like oh we have to protect people but. I also think there is something you know darker  and more selfish and frankly more hedonistic than.

that which is as you were saying I mean the the  the ability to censor somebody is an incredible. act of power and domination. It's not something  that weak the weak can't censor people. I mean. you look at any movement for human liberation  like the weak don't have the power to censor. The censorship comes from these really arrogant,  overly empowered, overly powerful, entitled elites. displaying traits of frankly antisocial disorder  um with no empathy for the people that they're.

censoring. And so I think that my views are that  there's certainly plenty of people that think. that that feel that they're being empathic, but  I think a lot of other people it's will to power. and nothing besides to paraphrase NZ where it's  actually the pleasure of just controlling what. people can say online. I mean the people these  sensors have now we've profiled them. I mean, we've written, you know, we we haven't published  all of it, but we try to understand the people.

that that are doing this very deeply at a psych at  a psychological level, and they're just absolutely. power- hungry and they're completely arrogant.  Like, they're and closed-minded and frankly not. very smart. I mean, that's the thing you  forget about the totalitarians. You know, it's depressing because I think there's a lot  there's a story that's a story that's getting. told. I won't say everybody knows by who, but  somebody there's somebody on the right that's sort. of telling a story about how terrible democracy  is and how if we if we had an autocracy it would. be run by somebody competent like Elon Musk and  everything would work great. Actually the history.

of totalitarianism is that it's the incompetent  awful idiotic bureaucrats that are running things. It's not like it's not Mozart and Gerta and  Nze that are like you know running things. It's. like these very crude dumb people. And so you see  someone like Nina Jenkowitz or Renee Desta. These. are really power-hungry, very petty, small people.  There's so much kind of just a a kind of almost.

like a neediness there. You see it in some of  them. A need a neediness for people to tell them. how good they are and how much they care. A lot of  like, you know, if you remember the movie Misery, the Kathy Bates character, I always sort of say a  lot of that Kathy Bates energy of, you know, I'm. going to take care of you, but it's actually I'm  going to dominate. So I think that when we I think. that people sometimes sort of say it's suicidal  empathy or it's pathological altruism and I know. what they mean. I think that what's underneath it  is something darker, more nihilistic that is just.

feeding hedonistically off the power of dominating  and censoring and persecuting others that really. isn't in service. you know, as you know, we've you  know, as the foundational spiritualities and and. um philosophies of the West have aimed at that  power be used in service of of beautiful values, it's not it's not in service of that. It's just  in service of their own individual expression. of power. And like you said, you know, if it's if  it's to censor you on COVID or anti-semitism or uh.

trans or migration or the Ukraine war, they don't  care. like they're always wanting to find new ways. to censor because it's coming from something so  deep, something so deep and frankly pathological. inside of them. It's the war impulse is so  similar. You killing people being the ultimate. expression of power. You know, you you can't  create life, but you can end it. Um, and there. there are people, and I would say Lindsey Graham  is one of them, but there are many, who just.

derive pleasure from the idea of killing people,  not just because they're cruel, that obviously. they are, but because it makes them feel alive.  And I think there's something you see it in school. administrators. So, I I have I really feel like  we're on the cusp of like something great. Charlie. Kirk's memorial on Sunday made me feel that way.  I feel like it's not all darkness and like don't. take the black pill, you know? there is light  there and um so I feel that way but then you see. I have to say video of Don Bacon the Republican  congressman from Nebraska the most normal state.

out of 50 saying oh yeah I'm talking to Jonathan  Greenblad who's like a gargoyle from ADL which is. like the most anti-human organization like I've  ever dealt with in my life and you feel like wow. if Don Bacon is taking orders from the ADL and  Jonathan Greenblat then like the fix is in. Like. it's a bipartisan conspiracy to strip people of  their most basic freedom. Yeah. I mean I think.

that for me also what comes up Tucker and I I I  know that this is something that you are concerned. about too is that I think you were saying it  before like there's a there's a censorship and. then there's well there's actually so many sides  to the totalitarianism. There's the censorship, there's the disinformation and dehumanization  that the state or these paristatal censorship, you. know, proxy entities play. And then there's the  secrecy. And so I think what we now know and again.

I've I've said very clearly and praised the Trump  administration. They've actually been helpful in. my own case in Brazil where I'm I'm under criminal  investigation for the Twitter files Brazil. And so. I'm very grateful to the Trump administration. I  hope that's clear. But nonetheless, I think we can. see that there are clearly some things that we're  not that they really don't want us to know about. And the Epstein one, the Jeffrey Epstein situation  is easily, I think, the most explosive and most. famous one where everybody knows there's these  files and everybody knows that they're the FBI.

and DOJ and everybody knows that there's no legal  barriers to releasing them and that there's all. these excuses or everybody knows that it's not  just Jeffrey Epstein's own personal pornography. collection. um and that the the story has kept  shifting, but you know, it looks like there may. now be enough votes in in the House pretty soon to  force a vote on it. I think Speaker Johnson could. still try to stop that, but I think I'm heartened  that uh the MAGA movement uh actually remained.

true to following that issue through to the end.  But um I think we've seen that there's you know. frankly a secret government that I mean we can  people will say that sounds conspiratorial but. I think if you realize what the Epstein files are  and that it was covering up almost certainly very. likely a sex blackmail operation. And by the way,  we didn't even have proof of the hidden cameras. until a couple of weeks ago when the New York  Times published two photos of the hidden cameras,

one of them pointing right at a bed in Epstein's  New York apartment. I think we know that. And. you know, we had and Massie was in, you know,  Congressman Massie was in Congress last week and. he said there was 20 names that he knows who they  are that are in the files. He gave us one of them, CEO of Barclay's Bank. And then he kind of listed  who the other ones were. one of them was like a, you know, Hollywood producer, rock star, magician.  Um, so we know all these things. It I think it's. a really important test. I think it's really  important that all of us that are sympathetic.

to things the Trump administration has done that  we continue to not let the Epstein issue go. And. then I think the other issue, Tucker, that that  I know you care a lot about is the UAP issue. the the president said after the drones over  the drones over New Jersey, the unidentified. uh mostly unidentified drones over New Jersey that  we were going to be able to find what that is. I. have a list of all of the doc of the key documents  provided to me by John Greenwald of the document. the UAP documents that exist that have many of  which have been released and have just been so.

heavily redacted. They need to release these  things. They need to um stop hiding this. And. I'll just end by saying uh on this to culminate  it all. Look, the elephant in the room here is the. CIA. You know, you've got this wonderful reform  leader in Tulsi Gabbard who is a unifying leader. She has so much trust from people that were on the  left, so much trust from the MAGA community. She's. obviously a good person like anybody that has ever  met her or seen her. That's correct. and and she.

she by law Congress after 9/11 made this law that  she is the boss of the intelligence community. That is what the law requires. But we have this  recalcitrant CIA where I mean come on guys like. we have not seen significant change to personnel.  Apparently only two of the people that worked on. the bogus intelligence community assessment about  Russia interference in the 2016 elections. Only. two of those people are gone. Um it's the response  from CIA to us. Uh there I frankly found their.

what they told us to be just uh uh patronizing  to the point of offensive in insisting you know. is basically trust us bro. Um it's all good now.  The CIA is fine. The CIA is not fine. The CIA is. hiding information that the American people paid  for and have a right to know on a lot of issues. a lot UAP Epstein. Uh, Congressman Massie revealed  that there is a CIA file on Epstein that needs to.

come out. And look, maybe CIA shouldn't exist.  I mean, Senator Moahan before he died and uh uh. Kennedy's historian, why am I blanking his name?  Schlesinger. Schlesinger. There's been various. proposals to break up the CIA. You know, frankly,  it's a paramilitary organization. ever since 9/11. It was supposed to be an Truman wanted an intel  organization. We need good intel. By the way,

congratulations on your brilliant documentary.  I saw the first part of it last night. So, now it appears, if I'm understanding correctly,  that the CIA was probably behind uh the 9/11. attacks. It was a botched uh CIA operation.  It sounds like I haven't finished your series, but here you have this. So I mean you kind  of go so here you have an organization that's. responsible for just the worst like regime change  coups followed by dictators who tortured people.

CIA that you know infiltrated American student  groups that used labor unions to you know engage. in regime change um you know that spawn off people  that were involved in the censorship industrial. complex and lawfare may have been sounds like  what you're saying you know that uh was behind. or at least didn't stop or contributed to the 9/11  attacks. And then they did the torture after 9/11, which not only doesn't work uh like creates bad  information and is a stain on the moral character.

of the United States. At a certain point, you're  like, what is this dog of an organization doing. being just unreformed and trampling on all of  our basic, you know, freedoms? So, I mean, I, you know, I kind of go, I think we just need to  tell people that we don't really govern ourselves. as long as you have this, you know, uh, mess of  an institution called the CIA where a bunch of. analysts uh, kind of appear to run the world. As  long as that organization remains unreformed and.

we don't really get true disclosure about all the  things that we know are going on, then I think. we should be pretty unhappy and pretty demanding  of much more significant reforms than it appears. uh the Trump administration is going to pursue.  I'd settle for real oversight rather than, you know, Tom Cotton, who runs the Senate  Intelligence Committee, is basically just. an apologist for the CIA. There's no oversight  at all. he carries water for the agency in ways. that hurt this country and it's I'm not exactly  sure why. Like what is that? And I don't know the.

answer. Um people can speculate all they want. I  do want to just go back and thank you for what you. said. It's all true. It's true. Okay. Um good. I  haven't seen the end of it, but I saw the first. part. It's amazing by the way. No, no, I'm not  talking about our doc documentary series. I was. just saying your analysis of CIA. I mean, how many  people do you think in the White House right now. know what the actual CIA budget is? You know,  I'd be surprised if you could find someone. I. I don't I've never met anyone who can act who can  even they can't tell you because it's classified,

but and I assume supposedly the House and Senate  Intel Committee chairman know what the full budget. is, but I would be shocked if they actually did.  I mean, it's its own country. It's autonomous. It. doesn't have um oversight. It doesn't have command  control structures. it just kind of does what it. wants. It lies about what it does. There's no way  to know for a fact. I mean, you it's it's a it's. a separate government within our borders. Um just  like they had in Portland, Oregon at the you know,

the the height of uh George Floyd. But I just want  to ask you about something um that you said about. the the drone sighting or the lights in the  sky over New Jersey last year and you know, so many sightings that it's really no dispute  that it happened. And the question is what is. it? And the president said that he would tell us.  We've never heard. What was that, do you think? I. don't know. And you know, they're having also very  similar drone sightings now um over in Denmark.

that actually shut down both Danish airports  on Sunday. I mean, it's uh uh Yeah. I mean, and why can't we know about it, you know? And but  what's your sense? I mean, you you've done a lot. on this. I I I've talked to you off, you know, off  camera just because I you're one of the few people. whose judgment on this I trust. There's so much  deception on this question. I think parts of it, what's the term they use? It's an op. Um I  think part of it is, part of the explanation is,

but at its core are physical phenomena that have  been recorded in such volume at such scale that. like something real is happening. And I and I know  you don't really have the final answer on that, but what is your sense? Yeah, I mean I think  look, first of all, the government is engaged in. extensive disinformation on this topic and that's  not uh that's not that's just all confirmed like. right it's been well documented what they've done.  I mean there's a you know there's a there's an.

alien crash retrieval manual that uh is you know  that is officially according to official story a. total fake a total fabrication but I mean when you  look at it it is extraordinary in its quality of. like if it is a fake I mean complete with like the  names of the people who checked it out and those. people having been checked out who who would do  that like why would you do that well one story is. that it was used as passage material to identify  counter counterint in intelligence spies in the.

US intelligence community but nonetheless there  has been so much government misinformation. Um. there's also been you know efforts to there's  also secret you know uh technology projects. I mean one of the guys that testified at the  UAP hearing last week just said that uh that. he has seen successful reverse engineering of  technologies. Um, you know, there's a whole kind. of Pentagon technological side of this that many  other people have done so much better work on and.

reporting on than me. Jesse Michaels being one of  the leaders of kind of unearthing it. I will say I. don't think any of it could all be reduced to uh  hard military hardware, either ours or somebody. else's. I'm very confident that there's just way  too many cases that don't fit that. Um I also. uh think that Jacques Valet is done really some  of the most important scholarship on this. I find. myself and he just gave a presentation on it.  He's like he's the French character played by.

France Trufo in Close Encounters of the Third  Kind by Steven Spielberg, a French researcher. who's just sort of a international treasure of  UFO, you know, cases. And you know, he's actually. gone a very similar direction that you've gone.  Um and I find myself going there a little bit too. which is that there is a spiritual element to this  that I don't think is just purely attributable to. technology because the issue is such a gestalt  uh issue because you know if you look like in.

the classic gestalt is it an old woman is it  a young woman is this a spiritual issue sort. of manifesting as sort of some high-tech hardware  or is it some high-tech civilization manifesting. um as something spiritual. I find myself  really gravitating towards these uh cases. which is also where valet encouraged a lot of  new research. Um one of which is my favorite. is this English woman in the countryside who  had a UFO sighting in the ' 50s. And I would.

um dare anyone to watch that. And she describes  scene, you know, she's like a very workingclass. uh English woman. It's a beautiful interview with  her uh done. It's not by it's like BBC or somebody. and they said, "Describe what you saw." You know,  she said she hears this noise. Her two boys are. in the front yard. She sees a huge UFO over her  house. He asked her to describe it and she said, "What can I say? It was like a Mexican  hat, you know, like a typical, you know, uh, flying saucer with a dome." Her kids were  there seeing it. She swear as she saw it. She.

says there was two people inside and they were  beautiful people with long blonde hair and sort. of slightly bigger foreheads and sort of looking  at her and um it ends so interesting. She says, you know, we we told people about this and  then we were ridiculed and then she said, but it's okay because I know it happened. It's  true. And I I think I dare people to watch that. and come away thinking that she was lying. I don't  think she was lying. Yes. I also um as you know I.

have interviewed a fair number of psychotic people  living tragically on the street um and people in. psychotic states that's not the kind of story they  tell in fact I have I even have psych guy I have I. have homeless people I've been interviewing that  are methinduced psychotic you know methinduced. psychosis talking about aliens and it's just  a lot of word salad and and garbled it's like. talking to somebody trying to explain a dream  they had it doesn't make sense. Yes. So I don't. think she lied. I don't think she's cap I think  that most actors are bad actors. I don't think.

she's capable of having invented that and then  persuading her children to lie with her. I think. that that she had that experience. I don't think  she's psychotic. Um I don't really know if anybody. knows if that if if that if those beings come from  a different planet or they're interdimensional or. they're spiritual or if they have some other form  and they're just manifesting and and hologramming. like that. I don't know. Um but I think that um  the conversation, you know, thanks to again people.

like you and and Joe and others has just widened  so that we can see just what a what a big lie it's. been that science has really properly accounted  for reality. um you know this you know sci science. magazine did a survey of scientists including  natural scientists and I think it was somewhere. around 60 to 80% of natural scientists I'm talking  physics and biology and chemistry were not able. to replicate famous studies in their field they  admitted this in a survey and then they would ask.

them do you still trust your field of science  and they all said yes but they can't replicate. basic scientific experiments they keep changing  their mind on the creation stories at the big bang. I think there's sufficient doubts about we about  human origins and so but like that became that was. so taboo that was so you couldn't talk about that  in polite society but I do think now we are able. to have those conversations and I do think it's  really notable that at this political shift there.

is I think a spiritual a spiritual movement I mean  I'm obviously really into it um other people in. my life are not as excited about it but for me  I these um experiences, you know, the evidence. um you know uh or the spiritual side of it,  the government cover up, you know, are just. huge areas that we should be doing so much more  research and investigations and journalism on. Um,

I get a little frustrated because I think  sometimes I think the conversation right now. in the podcast world and in the conversation is  just a lot of people are repeating and speculating. about stories that we've kind of heard before  or sort of know about, but we haven't put nearly. enough pressure on the government to to release  or unredact the documents that we know exist to. come clean about what they appear to know and are  unwilling to tell. there should be a real movement.

around this and there should be consequences for  members of Congress because that's information. uh that uh that belongs to all of us and if  there's some evidence of non-human intelligence. or a lot of evidence my I've been my understanding  I'm very confident that there are thousands of. highquality videos photos sensor data radar data  a lot a lot that the military is keeping from us. and the CIA is keeping from us and we should be  really upset about that. And I think that for me,

I'm I think that we can we there's just been a  lot of conversations where people go round and. round about with the data that we know, but what  we're missing is the fact that the government the. government is sitting on so much more of it.  And I find myself wanting to do more to force. it out. And I'm getting frustrated. Um, but I'm  a little bit, you know, I think as you've seen, I'm on the one hand very grateful to this  administration and the strong things it's done, you know, on free speech and the disclosure it's  done. Certainly disclosing so much more than the.

last administration, but we still need a lot more.  There's still so much that needs to be released. on Epstein, on COVID origins, the whole COVID  pandemic response, on the weaponization of FBI, the continuing rot. I mean, we were someone at  the CIA told us pathological rot at the CIA and. we need we need to know what's going on with the  UAPs. It's just the specula, like you were saying. before, um it would be irresponsible not to engage  in conspiracy theorizing and speculation given how.

little information they give to us. And if they  were really so concerned about conspiracy theories. and speculation and misinformation, then they  they should be releasing those documents. Well, of course they ferment conspiracy theories and  race hatred um because it's a distraction from. what they're doing. I mean, when I was younger  living in Washington and I began to understand. that the government was systematically lying  across agencies about a couple of things, probably a lot of things, but UAPs were definitely  one of them. That became obvious a while ago. And.

I remember asking, you know, like what is this?  And never getting a straight answer. Except people. would say, look, it's not it's destabilizing. It  would be destabilizing if the public knew. And. like who wants an unstable country? You know,  there are some things that people just aren't. ready for or whatever the euphemism they use. But  that was the explanation. As I got older, I began. to, you know, talk to other people and have other  thoughts and one of them was totally possible that. the government has something really does have  something to hide is participating in things.

that people would not approve of or be shocked to  learn. And all of that gets to a a question that's. never occurred to me till right now, but like  who named America's military headquarters after. a pentagram? Like who thought that was a good  idea? And I know you've done a lot of research. on that period, the war period. Like what what  was that? Well, yeah. I mean, this is uh you know, I haven't seen it yet, so I can't evaluate it yet.  I don't know a lot about it, but yeah. I mean, there's some there's a real darkness to the  whole area. Yeah. Let let's call the Let's call.

the building that controls nuclear weapons the  Pentagon. Huh. I mean, it's sort of like right. in your face, right? Or no? Yeah. I mean, I I I  just haven't looked that much on it. I do know. that like a lot of the UFO stuff is very tied in  with the occult. Yeah. And apparently apparent, you know, Jesse Michaels again did a apparently  did a a new documentary on a cult. I mean, I'm. not vouching if I don't know about it, but I like  Jesse occult behaviors within NASA. Uh, so very.

concerning. I don't know what it means. Um, you  know, I I I'm I'm shocked by how little curiosity. there is at a societywide level. I think that  you know the intellectual life of this country. by which I mean not just the universities but also  the newspapers and the big media companies that is. how censorship was done over the last 80 years.  The internet is almost a return to a pre radio.

pre-bro period um when people were really free to  just print whatever they wanted. Uh the internet. is not there but it's it's a lot closer to it. we  finally get to kind of learn that actually there's. all these anomalies around human evolution around  human history around you know archaeological sites. where things don't seem to add up right and you  start to get um people that were called you know. pseudo archaeologists starting to kind of win some  arguments publicly I mean there's one happening.

right now around uh Gabbeckley with this guy  Jimmy Corsetti where he's just shown known that. the people that are supposed to be excavating the  site are destroying it, planting trees whose roots. will destroy these ancient sites and also building  these really grotesque roofing structures in ways. that destroy the site. They're very weird and  suspicious. Um there's just a lot of, you know, we know that a lot of the Tesla information  was missing, uh that, you know, should have.

shown some very interesting things. And then  yeah, I mean I think that the relationship with. nuclear is one of the most interesting parts  of this because these UAPs they show up around. nuclear sites. I used to work on nuclear a lot and  there would be nucle there would be these drones. um these unidentified uh uh they seemed like  objects but unidentified phenomenon around nuclear. power sites. uh the nuclear the people working at  them um were often very concerned around public.

perception of danger and so they often didn't  talk about them but they they've certainly been. over Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California. Um  but when the drones happened in New Jersey well we. caught them in an open lie. I mean they just said  John Kirby at one point said something like they. had evaluated like 3,000 cases of drone sightings  in like 48 hours which is like absurd. There's no. possibility they did it. And then we started  looking, a set set of people started looking.

and you discover that in fact there's been these  drone swarms around US military bases. I mean, not a couple either. I mean, I think it was  somewhere around two or three dozen military. bases and there's a lot of evidence that those  those drones um are circling around those moments. when there's nuclear weapons uh in the area. So,  um, you know, if it's I'm skeptical that it's. Chinese and Russian because the drones are engaged  in behaviors that I think are very difficult,

uh, for anybody to do. But, I mean, if these  objects are behaving in ways that, you know, do appear to be using a different kind  of propulsion or anti-gravity. I mean, I'm very skeptical that that's ours in the sense  that it takes a lot. It took a huge effort to. create the Manhattan Project and to create nuclear  weapons. It was a massive, massive endeavor. And. so to somehow easily get or to be able to easily  hide reverse engineering, I don't know how you do. that. Um I'm really skeptical that we have it,  but it's absurd that we have to just sit around.

and speculate about it. Like like we need there's  basically no transparency. Instead, we have a DoD. organization called Arrow, which as far as I can  tell is part of a deception operation, consistent. with the CIA's recommendations through the Robert  Robertson panel in the 1950s, that the main thing. the US government should do is so is supposedly  debunk the UFOs and to de and to ridicule the.

people that see them and and research them. And  worse, um there's a lot of threats made to people. in this field. I personally find it one of the  scariest issues. Um, trans and UAPs are the two, paradoxically, the the scariest issues. Um, and  because it just seems like a lot of people really. don't want us to know what's going on with it.  And uh, President Trump sent made noises like he.

was going to reveal something and Tulsi Gabbard  just made some noises that she wanted to get to. the bottom of it. But otherwise, Tucker, they're  just they just seem like they really they it seems. like they want to they want a Jeffrey Epstein the  UAP files. Yeah. I don't think there's any. And if. you're wondering if there's a spiritual component  to the whole thing, if it's if it's if it's about. technology and, you know, I don't know, Martians,  right? Uh probably not going to be uh this kind. of response to it. I mean, this just glows with  intensity. Again, it's the Pentagon. So, yeah,

there's a spiritual component to it. I would say  I've been I've been scared off, too. It's like. I don't even want to deal with it. But I'm I'm  grateful for you, Mike Shelonburgger. Really, I I'm I'm so grateful you went into journalism.  There are few people uh with, you know, you. could be doing a lot of other things. There not  that many super smart people in journalism with, you know, true principles and you're definitely  one of the very few. And so I'm always grateful.

to talk to you and I'm grateful you're doing what  you're doing. So thank thank you and back at you. and congratulations on uh coming back to your  famous monologues and I was really delighted. that you did it on free speech and I hope you  keep doing a a weekly monologue. I think it's. uh getting all spun up. Yeah, I enjoy it. Thank  you. I hope we can have dinner soon. Great to see. you. Great. The great Mike Shelonburgger.  We'll be back next week. Good night.