Tucker Reacts to Daily Wire’s Downfall

0:00 Um, on the subject of the economy, an American company is struggling mightily.

0:04 It's called the Daily Wire.

0:06 And they've reportedly laid off as many as 50 or 60% of their staff.

0:10 They deny that.

0:11 They say those numbers are overstated.

0:14 But they've definitely had massive layoffs over at the Daily Wire.

0:17 Why do you think that is?

0:19 I knew a an old political consultant once,

0:21 30 years ago, I was covering a campaign and he said,

0:23 you know, propaganda works, advertising works,

0:25 but ultimately reality makes the difference.

0:27 You can spend a billion dollars advertising a dog food,

0:30 but if the dogs won't eat it, it's just not going to sell.

0:33 And I just don't think the dogs are going to eat this dog food.

0:36 I mean, this there's there's more supply than there is demand in this case.

0:40 There's an awful lot of Daily Wire and not a lot of people want to consume it.

0:43 Who is the constituency for more wars?

0:46 Hey Americans, shut up and stop complaining.

0:49 Get back to work.

0:50 Retirement, as Ben Shapiro famously explained, retirement is immoral.

0:54 You should be working.

0:56 For him and his family, I guess.

0:57 I don't know.

0:58 But the contempt, the pure contempt that Shapiro

1:02 and not all the people who work at Daily Wire,

1:04 but some of them have shown for their audience, like is not a long-term play.

1:08 It doesn't work after a while.

1:09 If you hate your audience, if you hate your voters,

1:12 in the end you're going to be rewarded with failure.

1:15 And that's, not surprisingly, what they're getting.

1:18 And I'm not, you know,

1:18 I don't I don't rejoice over anybody's failure, including Ben Shapiro's.

1:22 I don't hate Ben Shapiro.

1:23 I don't even I don't even care enough to dislike Ben Shapiro.

1:26 But I'm just I just will say I'm not surprised at all.

1:29 He should go do something else useful.

1:33 Mhm.

1:33 He, um, a few years ago was on Bill Maher bragging

1:36 about his bed made of money that he sleeps on every night.

1:40 [laughter] You can look it up.

1:41 It's all over the internet.

1:43 It was a shocking thing to say.

1:45 And it's what you don't say things like that, right?

1:46 Because it's like that then when something like this happens,

1:50 it feels like karma.

1:52 And he also, of course, famously or infamously, depending on your POV,

1:55 tried to kick you out of the conservative movement,

1:57 tried to kick Steve Bannon out, uh,

1:59 threw me in there for good mention in December.

2:01 And I do think, regardless of one's feelings on the three of us,

2:05 I don't think conservatives are into that kind of policing.

2:08 It's pretty antithetical to what makes one a conservative,

2:13 which is like hands-off, to each his own.

2:16 We have our points of view, we may fight and disagree,

2:18 but we don't excommunicate over here on team rational.

2:22 No, and also money worship is bad.

2:24 I just want to say it.

2:25 I'm not a I'm hardly a socialist.

2:27 I don't I hate socialism.

2:29 But like money for its own sake, accumulating money just so you have more money,

2:32 which is very much Ben's worldview, is disgusting.

2:35 Like that's not When is that Since when is that virtuous?

2:37 It's not.

2:38 It's anti-Christian for one thing.

2:40 It's very clear.

2:42 Jesus is not for communism.

2:43 That's not the point I'm making.

2:44 Sorry, but money for its own sake is a dead end.

2:48 It actually doesn't make you happy.

2:50 Debt makes you miserable.

2:51 Poverty hurts.

2:53 But accumulating money, bragging about how much money you have,

2:57 measuring your value by money, these are contemptible things.

3:02 And all we've lost the ability to say

3:04 that on the right because people whip around and they're like,

3:07 "Ooh, you was Are you a Casio Cortez now?" It's like it's so stupid.

3:12 No, I'm not a Casio Cortez, whoever that is, that absurd person.

3:17 No, but we do not worship money because that's low and disgusting.

3:22 In fact, our Bible calls it evil.

3:24 The root of evil.

3:25 And we should just say that.

3:26 It's just true.

3:27 It's like accumulating money for its own sake is ugly.

3:30 That was always Ben's goal.

3:32 And yeah.

3:33 Is the same man is accusing you and me, for that matter, of chasing clicks

3:38 [laughter] for the for opposing the Iran war.

3:42 And yesterday there was a sound bite of me on with Mark Halperin on his show

3:47 talking about how I My My is that you've had an influx of young viewers

3:53 and some Muslims now that are taking another

3:57 look at the Tucker Carlson show because you've

3:59 you've been somewhat defensive of Islam just just

4:01 the blatant attacks on it as a religion.

4:05 And I also said something that you and I talked about months ago,

4:08 which was as I now see what Israel does to you.

4:12 I mean truly like it's emissaries for sure have unleashed

4:14 a vicious campaign against yours truly on social media and elsewhere.

4:17 It's it's fine.

4:18 We're handling it, but as I now see what they do,

4:21 it does cause me to re-evaluate what other propaganda has been

4:24 out there that I've fallen for that's coming from a foreign government.

4:27 You know, you and I discussed this.

4:29 So I'm going to show you the soundbite

4:30 and then I'll tell you what they're saying about it.

4:32 Watch.

4:33 Like he's gotten very very popular lately I read

4:37 with Muslim viewers because he's been standing up for Islam.

4:42 You know, and I have to tell you Mark it's been something

4:44 I've noticed just since I've gotten a sort of more clear-eyed on Israel

4:48 that a lot of the anti-Muslim rhetoric

4:52 that's put out there originates with people

4:55 who are very very pro-Israel who kind of need us to demonize them.

5:00 And I've taken a look recently at my own

5:01 rhetoric on this to say like have I been manipulated?

5:04 I want to make sure I'm not getting manipulated,

5:06 but I think he's having a lot of Muslim viewers flock to him.

5:09 I know for a fact he has a lot of young men flocking to him.

5:13 [snorts] And so while he may have lost some contingent

5:15 of the Fox News audience that's very very pro-Israel and you know,

5:19 pro-Trump and you can't say anything about Trump.

5:22 For every one of those who leaves there is another newer younger audience member

5:29 who does want to hear these traditional

5:31 lines challenged and hear just new independent thinking.

5:35 I mean I'm experiencing some of that myself and Tucker probably times 10.

5:41 Okay, so what happened interestingly in response to that clip online yesterday

5:46 was a torrent of demands by the Israel Firsters and some regular conservatives.

5:53 I mean, demanding that I in their view, return to Muslim hate.

6:00 That any deviation off of Muslims are bad, universally bad,

6:05 is not acceptable and makes you of the left, was the accusation.

6:10 Um, and you know, you're just out there for clicks.

6:12 It's like, nothing I've done is for clicks.

6:15 If anything, my stance on the Iran war

6:18 and Trump attacking me hasn't been particularly helpful,

6:20 but it's [laughter] sincere and you know,

6:22 you got to be honest about who you are and where you stand.

6:26 Yep.

6:25 And I have been blown away by how openly the Israel

6:29 First crowd is demanding that I and others hate Muslims or else.

6:36 Or what?

6:36 Or what?

6:37 We're we're going to be called empty vessels?

6:39 We're going to be like shamed for having

6:41 said things that are questioning about Islam?

6:43 I'm not real pro on like Islamic leaders in America.

6:46 I still stand by that.

6:48 But I am reevaluating some of the things that I swallowed hook,

6:51 line, and sinker, Tucker, because I now see we've all been manipulated.

6:55 You have no idea how ubiquitous and powerful AIPAC,

6:59 Israel, its lobby, its paid agents.

7:02 I mentioned Brad Parscale the other day,

7:04 who's registered as a foreign agent for Israel now and runs Salem Media Group.

7:09 I mean, there are a lot of those folks in our nation pushing propaganda on us.

7:15 And I frankly think I've been too trusting.

7:18 Well, this was one of of the concerns about immigration a hundred years ago,

7:22 that people would come to this country and import with them their own

7:26 ancient blood feuds and then impose them on the rest of us.

7:29 And you know, I'm American and I I don't

7:31 I don't have to sign on to your blood feud,

7:33 you know, if you're Armenian and you demand I hate all Turks.

7:36 No, I'm not doing that.

7:37 I mean, you may hate Turks,

7:38 you may have good reason to hate Turks, whatever, but I don't hate Turks.

7:41 I'm I kind of reserve the right to form my own bigotries.

7:45 And one of the reasons that [laughter] I try

7:46 to retreat from the world regularly in the woods or sauna

7:50 or whatever just to kind of get is just

7:52 to sort of come to center to what I believe.

7:55 I'm a Christian.

7:56 Which is an exclusive claim.

7:57 Okay, so I believe Jesus is the son of God.

8:00 I believe you get to God through Jesus.

8:02 That's exclusively through Jesus.

8:03 So I'm not a Muslim.

8:04 I'm not a Jew.

8:05 I'm not a Hindu.

8:06 Not a Sufi.

8:07 I'm a Christian.

8:08 On the other hand, I just like reverent people.

8:11 And anyone who bows down before God and admits I'm

8:14 not God five times a day doesn't share my theology.

8:17 We don't have the same view of how you get to heaven.

8:19 But that person is not by definition my enemy.

8:22 People who I have a problem with are those who espouse violence and hatred,

8:28 who lie, who think it's okay to lie.

8:30 People with a point of view that is not universal.

8:35 The Christian worldview, and by the way also the Muslim worldview,

8:37 is a universal worldview.

8:38 Anybody can come to this faith.

8:41 That's my worldview.

8:42 That's I was born into it.

8:44 I believe it.

8:44 It's sincere.

8:46 And so anyone else who has that worldview, I'm willing to be friends with.

8:51 I'm not going to hate you because

8:53 your parents did something that somebody else objects to.

8:56 I'm just not playing along with that.

8:57 And I knew that I would be attacked as like a Muslim lover or whatever.

9:02 I I don't know.

9:03 I'm not a Muslim lover.

9:04 I'm a people lover until proven otherwise.

9:07 And I'm just not going to play along at all with that kind of stuff.

9:11 And at this stage of my life,

9:12 I just don't care because it's not about the money for me.

9:15 Honestly, I've never taken a dollar from a Muslim or anyone else.

9:18 I have no debt.

9:18 I have no investors.

9:20 And I don't seek to be a billionaire.

9:21 That's why I'm not in crypto.

9:23 So at this point it's like what are you going to do about it?

9:26 Call me a Muslim lover?

9:27 Okay.

9:28 Okay, [laughter] go ahead.

9:30 So what?