Bongino x Tucker Carlson: The Unfiltered Interview (PART 1)

your host, Dan Von Geno.

Welcome to part one of my interview with Tucker Carlson.

It's the first time me and him have been together in a long form interview.

I think you're really going to like this.

We're going to cover a lot of territory.

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All right, let's dig right into it.

Part one, my interview with the great Tucker Carlson.

Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show, probably my most anticipated interview ever.

I ask people all the time, like, who do you want me to interview?

And this name is always, pretty much always number one.

Finally made it.

I love this guy, our good friend, Tucker Carlson.

Tucker, thanks so much for spending some time with us.

Really honored you're here.

Thanks a lot.

Well, I'm honored to be here.

Are you kidding?

Thank you.

You're a good man.

We used to share a floor together up at our former employer at Fox.

Your team had most of it.

They stuck us in like a corner somewhere, but we've known each other for a long time.

You were always so nice to me and my family.

You took a picture with my dad at the Patriot Awards.

My dad has it prominently displayed above me, by the way, in his garage in his house,

which is kind of telling.

Can I say one thing?

It wasn't just that we shared the same floor.

We shared the same views, and management shared the same view of us.

So we actually had a lot in common.

I was on the air doing this live, my podcast live at 11 o'clock, and I'm doing this show

live, and I see this break, and I remember Harris Faulkner had said something like, in

news break, Tucker Carlson.

I was like, wait, what?

Because I had just left the week earlier, and I'm sitting here.

I mean, legit.

For me, it was like, you know those moments like when you were a kid, you remember sadly

all these tragic moments, but you know exactly what was going on?

For me in the media, I didn't see that coming.

A lot of people tie you and me together because we left, but I had no idea.

From what I heard from you just publicly, you didn't either.

I mean, I didn't really plan on digging too deep into it, but what happened exactly there?

I don't know.

I mean, it was one of the ... I was surprised, too.

It was our ... It actually, weirdly, was I had just finished writing my script in my

living room with my dogs, drinking coffee, banging this thing out.

I filed the script.

I look at my calendar.

What do I have to do today?

It said, sixth anniversary of the show at eight o'clock.

I was like, oh, that's kind of cool.

Then boom, I get a call from the head of the channel called me, and I thought, oh, probably

wishing me congratulations.

It was, of course, canceling the show.

I was completely surprised, but I wasn't shocked on a deeper level because, of course, I knew

I was out of step.

It wasn't my company.

By the way, I wasn't mad about it.

I was just confused, but I wasn't mad then or now at all.

Yeah, I think we feel the same.

Yeah, exactly.

First of all, it wasn't my company.

I served at their pleasure, the family that owns it, for the entire 14 years I was there.

Our deal always was, I'm not going to take orders.

I'm what to say.

It's your network.

If you don't like it, take me off the air.

One day, they did.

That was really an explicit agreement that I had.

I don't know how I could complain, really.

They did a lot for me.

I am very happy to be doing something else, and I'm very happy not to be in that business

anymore.

So grateful every day.

I can't say I feel misused or something.

I wasn't.

Yeah, and I think you've displayed an inordinate amount of class here.

A lot of guys would have left and burned a place down.

Listen, like you, I feel the same way.

There's a lot of friends I still have there, a lot of good people there.

It just wasn't a good fit.

At that time, it didn't work.

I know you.

I read about it.

I was going to get to this at the end, but I knew when I talked to you, I'd throw the

script out the window.

I read a long-form interview.

You and Megan, I could talk to you forever.

I read a long-form interview you did.

I think it was a New Yorker, but I'm not sure.

Forgive me.

But you had said something at the end, and I really laughed when I read it because I

kind of stole it and embraced it myself.

You said, once in a while, you got to throw just a shit grenade in the tent.

If there's a lot of just garbage stuff going on, you can't be afraid to run away from the

hot stuff.

The hard reality, like you just said, is when it's not your company, that may not be their

bag of donuts, but that doesn't mean you're going to keep doing it there.

Now, you got to do what you're doing now at TuckerCarlsonNetwork.com.

Look at what just in your life, you left under whatever.

I'm not exactly sure why they let you go, though.

I think we both know.

Then look what happened to your life.

It's just so much better.

That is the biggest change.

I got into this in my 20s.

I'm now 54.

That's a whole lifetime I've been in this business at every one of the networks.

For most of the time, the rule was, if you're not working here ... Guys like me, I had no

other skills.

I was not in law enforcement.

I wasn't in anything.

I've been a journalist since I was 22.

I couldn't really do anything else.

It's not like I'm going to go become a landscape architect or something.

I'm a talk show host.

That's all I am.

You couldn't leave because there was nowhere else to work.

All of a sudden, it's like not only is there another place to work, it's way better on

every level.

It's happier.

You can make a real living.

You get a bigger audience.

It's just amazing.

I'm not sure the old model, and I'm not gloating over it.

I don't like the destruction of anything.

I'm for building, not destroying.

Just as a matter of fact, I don't see how that old model continues because it has no

credibility.

No one really wants to watch that.

I don't think it's going to be around in a few years.

It's a huge problem, Tucker.

It's a huge problem, especially in this inflationary era where people are cutting costs.

There are a lot of folks out there saying, I'm going to my monthly budget, and I don't

get it.

When I could get there on X, I can get here, not X Twitter, but X variable wise, I can

get for free.

You've got this diaspora of people, to quote a group of people that hate us, but it's true.

People who've left, who are producing content that's mostly free, you can go get elsewhere.

That leads to my first question.

I was going to talk about this whole new media environment, you, Megan, everyone from Bill

O'Reilly to Glenn Beck.

You've got mixtures of SVOD, X Twitter, Rumble, YouTube, all this different blend of stuff.

The upside to it is you control your own stuff, which is you've controlled it anyway.

At Fox, anyone who knows their work there knows it, but now you can really just do it

with no fear of being taken down.

I see the issue, and I want to get your thoughts on this to give a full scope pros and cons.

The only downside is the older generation, we have what I call the two-button problem.

People are used to going to their remote, hitting power, and Fox or OAN or Newsmax is

on.

All you hit is power.

You don't have to do anything else.

That's it.

The younger generation, it's not an issue.

They'll go through.

They know exactly how to log in to Amazon Prime and Rumble and YouTube and live stream,

but the older generation, I'll go out, and I'm not going to lie to you, it still gets

under my skin when people say to me, oh, what happened, man?

I haven't seen you in like forever since you left Fox, and I'm like, I don't know.

I live stream 100,000 people a day.

But I get it.

I told it.

The two-button problem is kind of a thing that's going to go away, but it's still there

now.

Yeah.

No, we talk about this all the time.

I've been on television since the mid-1990s.

I was on the set when the Monica Lewinsky thing broke.

That's how old I am, so yes, I get it.

We're going on TVs, actually, pretty soon, and it's not that difficult at all.

You can get a stick.

You can sell it or give it away.

Put it in your TV, and bam, it comes up.

We actually were waiting to launch until we did that, but I just thought, I can't wait

any longer.

It's been seven months, so we launched.

But no, in a few months, we're doing that, and I have no idea what kind of audience we'll

pick up from that.

I don't have a TV.

I haven't had a TV in many, many years, so I'm not a TV watcher.

My wife hates it, so we just don't have it.

I think a lot of people, a lot of smart people, everyone has a TV, or a lot of people have

TVs, so why would you miss out on that?

I don't think the technology is that difficult at all.

No, it's not.

We just have too many things going on and haven't finished that, but we will.

You got the grandkids solution, Tucker.

The grandkid comes in and shows you in two steps, right?

Hey, Ma, you plug the stick in, Grandma, you do this, right?

I don't have any grandkids yet.

I wish I had grandkids.

I'm not that much farther behind.

I'm going to be 50 next year, brother.

I'm no spring chicken anymore.

Don't let these generally good looks and young skin actually fool you.

I'm an old man.

I'm dying.

Of course, I kid, folks.

I'm not actually that arrogant.

That's why I'm on the radio more than anything.

I got a face for that.

But this new media environment you and I are in, which is on demand.

People just want their stuff on demand.

They wanted VOD.

They want to find Tucker Carlson.

You're going to have TuckerCarlsonNetwork.com, which is where people can go and get that

content and subscribe.

We're going to throw that up on the chyron of the show, and it's also going to be in

the email, folks.

You can link right to it.

Go right there.

But Tucker, there's a long – there we go.

Look at Guy.

He's all over it.

Look at this guy, producer Guy.

Yeah, this is nice, TuckerCarlson.com.

Sorry, TuckerCarlson.com.

Gallup.

I want to throw this Gallup poll up on the screen, Tucker.

The reason new media, you and I and others who've left the kind of old ecosystem are

doing our thing I think works is because the old media sucks.

It just sucks.

Nobody trusts them after Spygate, the Russia hoax, the impeachment disaster, them covering

for the Soviet Union with the New York Times debacle over the decades.

So I pulled up this Gallup poll.

Here's people's confidence in the media.

It's at an all-time low, but it matches 2016 right before Trump got in there.

Tucker, people aren't dumb.

You can see the chart right here.

You can only lie to people so long before they're like, ah, you're kind of full of

shit and I don't want to waste my time with you anymore.

I think that's right.

And it's not just, I mean, I've always thought, because my dad was in the media, I've always

thought there was distortion in the media, but it's only been in the last several years

that you can feel the malice in it.

I mean, life expectancy in the United States literally declined.

Like people are dying younger, particularly rural people, old America, and they like think

that's fine.

And so there's a sense in which like they kind of want to kill you.

I mean, they hate you and they want to hurt you.

And that's scary.

So it's not just that they're dishonest.

It's that they're cruel and that they seek your destruction.

You watch these people from January 6th go to prison who didn't do anything wrong and

it destroys their lives.

And the media cheerleader, they murder Ashley Babbitt.

You know, Michael Byrd murdered this girl, and that's totally fine with the media.

So if they're happy, you know, Ashley Babbitt's a military veteran.

She was unarmed.

She didn't do anything wrong.

She was standing at a doorway inside the people's house.

Is that a death penalty offense?

No, it's not.

And yet they cheered that on.

So if they're happy to see Ashley Babbitt get murdered, how would they feel about my

murder? Well, they would celebrate it, of course.

So these aren't just liars.

These are your blood enemies.

I mean, that's real.

That's how I feel about it.

Doesn't the temerity of it kind of like burrow under like a tick?

I mean, I just wrote down a few things.

The Russia hoax was the single dumbest line of bullshit.

Anyone who knew Donald Trump, you know him, Tucker.

He's a germaphobe.

Like he's he doesn't even hide it.

If you shake his hand, he has no problem whatsoever asking someone for the for the for

the what we used to call the alcohol, the scale gel stuff, because he's a germaphobe

like you're out.

It's like you're out like he don't even he admits it.

So you're like, listen to this story.

Like, so he was getting peed on by some hookers in Russia.

Like, do you even know this guy?

Like it was the dumbest bullshit story ever.

And it's not. And supposedly this I know I know I don't want to get going because I'll

go for it because there's so much more.

But like, how did you fall for this?

And the answer is they didn't.

They had to know it was bullshit.

And like you just said, they just freaking hate you.

They think you're a piece of shit.

They hate your guts.

And they just this was a pure hierarchical power play.

Like, we're going to just tell you bullshit and you're going to believe it.

When Rush Limbaugh died, they celebrated, they literally celebrated.

Now, I'm thinking, like, maybe you don't like Rush Limbaugh.

I knew Rush Limbaugh and liked him a lot.

But, you know, I share his politics.

Maybe a lot of people die I don't like.

To celebrate a man's death on the day he dies suggests a level of cruelty and sort of

inhuman disregard for another person.

If you don't respect death, you don't respect life.

And these people don't.

And again, I think they they have genocidal instincts.

I mean, they'd like the old America to go away.

And they say that all the time.

That's the anti-white stuff is about.

What do you think that is?

Like, where did that come from?

I mean, that's the that's the desire to kill you.

And I don't think I'm overstating it at all.

Yeah, no, I don't think you're overstating it at all either.

I mean, they'll tell you to this day that the Russia hoax was real, but the spying

operation on Donald Trump wasn't.

And then like I wrote three books on like extensively and noted with left wing

sources. I mean, I only use left wing sources.

So when I when they come to me, that's why they never reviewed the books, because

they'd be like, oh, this book is bullshit.

I mean, it's fascinating.

I use your sources and they'd be like, he's never spied on.

I'd be like, oh, here's a CNN article, 2017 by Pamela Brown.

And was it Eric Branner that says that the British Intel passed information to the

Americans about Donald Trump?

How do you explain that? It's still up on your website.

And I know all of a sudden they shut the hell up.

These people are insane.

I mean, the 51 Intel officials who said a computer, Hunter Biden, Tucker, the dude

dropped it off.

The guy recognized them.

He signs his name with his address, with a computer, with a Biden family sticker on

it, with emails, texts and photos of a naked Hunter Biden and dipshits in the media.

And the 51 Intel people like, yeah, sounds to me like a Russian thing.

And these freaking liberal assholes are like, sounds legit.

Yeah, I mean, you got to be scratching your head is like, what am I in, like

bizarro Superman land?

No, no, you're just what what we're all in the middle of is a process of

rethinking our assumptions about the country, you know, what's real, who's on

my side, you know, where's this going?

What's the point of this?

Like, why would you wreck your own country, which they've done?

Obviously, tens of millions of people from Africa and Latin America, you know,

nothing about when we don't we don't need the labor, of course.

Like, what is that?

And of course, what you're watching is like the intentional detonation of the

United States. But why would anyone want to do that?

I mean, these are very deep questions.

I think about them all the time.

I don't think that they have political answers.

I think it's deeper than that.

But whatever. No, it's hard to digest.

I guess that's the only point I'm making.

It's hard to digest.

Like, there's there's too much.

It's too horrible.

It's not we're not disagreeing about tax rates here.

We're talking about like the deaths of whole populations.

Like, it's really heavy and hard to deal with.

Tucker Carlson dot com is the website.

I strongly encourage you to support this man and his work.

Tucker Carlson dot com.

Ladies and gentlemen, you get some of the best content and not just that.

This new media ecosystem is the future.

Get in there. Get in there early.

Tucker, I want to jump to this hierarchy argument versus hypocrisy, something I

make on my podcast all the time.

I've heard on your show often.

But just quickly, you had said something there that kind of struck me.

It's another argument I bring up a lot, even on the Fox show when I was doing it.

This this is intentional.

I mean, when you look at what you said, the an open, destructive border,

fentanyl trafficking, little kids getting sex trafficked.

This isn't a conspiracy theory.

I mean, these things are happening.

When you look at the debasing of our currency, when you look at the destruction

of American pride, a very simple idea.

I mean, if you had a treehouse club, you'd want to be proud to be a part of it.

Right. Or no one would.

These are just really simple ideas.

The left isn't doing this by accident.

This destruction agenda is an effort to bring out bring about their liberal

dystopia. So I think the point that you often make is like really important, that

it's not about hypocrisy.

It's about hierarchy.

Really, if you take three steps back, what you're watching is the end of Western

ideas supplanted by Eastern ideas.

So the core Western idea is universalism.

We have principles and they apply to everybody.

Doesn't matter what you look like, you know what your religion is.

Everybody is treated exactly the same because we're all created by God.

This is the basic Christian idea.

And we all have certain inalienable rights that govern the relationship

of the state to the citizen.

So that's the Western understanding.

The Eastern understanding, which is what we're living under now, is that, no,

there's a permanent God given hierarchy.

Some groups are better, inherently better than others, and they deserve better

treatment. And therefore they live by different standards.

It's like this is it's not just that these people are like getting away with

shit because they can.

They have a different worldview.

They believe that certain groups, certain ethnicities, races.

I mean, that's how they talk.

I mean, it sort of blows.

I always because I'm so dumb, it takes me like years to figure this stuff out.

But I'm like, wait, you just built a Martin Luther King memorial that says we're

all the same underneath, right?

Right. But you're now telling us that some races are better than others.

Like, what is this?

But what it is, is the end of the basic Western understanding of the Christian

understanding of the world.

And people piss on Christianity all the time, of course.

But you don't need to be a Christian to see the benefit of living in a Christian

country, in a Christian country, universal principles reign.

And the core assumption is we're all morally equal, not in our actions.

Some people are good in the way they act.

Some are bad. But our moral value is the same.

And the people who run the country don't share that view.

No, no, they don't.

I was looking at this article the other day in USA Today, you know, about Hunter

Biden, who is just ignoring this congressional subpoena.

And it was funny.

I opened up my show the day after it happened.

And I said, you know, you're never going to believe it, folks.

I found a Democrat with principles.

I'm going to run some audio here of Nancy Pelosi objecting strongly to this

ignoring of a lawfully issued congressional subpoena.

And the audience obviously being a little confused.

I played the audio. It's real.

And of course, it's not about Hunter.

It's about Steve Bannon.

You know, Steve Bannon, when he ignored it, Nancy Pelosi wanted him locked up.

He got to go to jail.

Even Joe Biden himself, he got to enforce the law.

But now that his kid does it, it's a ground ball, black and white situation.

You believe in objective truth in the law.

You don't. And the left's like, we really don't.

I always have this. Someone gave me this at a book signing.

This is like middle finger thing.

They're like this. I go, fuck yourself.

Like, we don't really care about your values.

Like it. And it's like what you just said.

The core essential component of collectivism is this idea that objective

truth means nothing because it's obviously the opposite of their subjective

ability to treat people differently.

If I say Tucker and Dan have the same big R God given rights, I can't treat them by

natural law differently.

But when I wipe that shit out and I say, no, no, no, it's all subjective.

Tucker's rich. He's you know, his dad was smart.

He had a leg up and he's white, of course.

So if that guy I'm going to take from him and give to Dan, you have to wipe all of

it out. And it becomes a system of rankings of grievances.

And sadly, as you just said, with this bullshit intersectionality stuff, that's

where we are now.

And guys like you and me are at the bottom.

Well, sure, because if you don't believe in Western values, a euphemism for