Video and Transcript: Tucker Carlson's Las Vegas Speech

[Note: I’ve been meaning to do this for a week now, and finally got around to it this morning. This 30-minute speech by Tucker Carlson recently is so powerful and true that I wanted to ensure you all had a chance to listen to it or read it. I don’t agree with Carlson on everything, but the messages delivered in this speech are, in my view, essential for every American who wants to save this country to take to heart. Please give it a listen, a watch, or a read. You’ll be glad you did.]

Transcript:

Of course, never had an introduction like that. And by the way, every introduction should come with profanity. So thank you.

I didn't hear the introduction because I was backstage with an old friend of mine from television who's here. I didn't expect to see him, and he's probably the greatest financial analyst on television. And so I said to him jokingly, since he deals with markets and, you know, real companies. I said, What? There he is right there. I said, Is it crazy to bury gold in my yard? It was right in the face. He goes, Not at all.

And that kind of and I'm by the way, I'm not giving investment advice. I'm the last person you would never take investment advice from someone who's never had an actual job. Don't buy real estate from a homeless person, etc. etc.. Don't hire a fat person as your trainer. So I'm not I'm not doing that. I'm I'm okay.

But I'm only saying that to highlight what everyone in this room already knows, which is that it's really a volatile moment. I flew out here across the country this morning. And spent five hours texting people, mostly people I know, but also the entire mental health community in America has my text. So a lot of crazies, too, but also a lot of people really like and who are smart and temperate and reasonable people who've been around who are my age.

I'm 54, you know, kind of seen stuff and have measured opinions on things. And I got to tell you, every single person I texted with, with the exception of my wife, was not on the Internet at all. I was angry and paranoid, seriously. And these are not crazy people.

These are normal, good people with like kids and stuff. With a vested interest in America's success, these are not the burn it Down caucus. These are the you know, these are the people you want voting. And they were all angry and paranoid, every single one of them, some of them really angry and some of them really paranoid. And I have to say, after assessing their views for five hours, I think they were justified in both.

They had every reason to be angry and all the evidence required to become paranoid. And so I'm not mocking them at all.

I'm just telling you, this is going to be, the next year is going to be I think I'd bet my house on it, really like nothing we've ever seen in the country and everyone can kind of feel that.

You know, most of our perceptions come through intuition rather than reason. And if you have dogs, you know this because they can't understand literally a word you say because they don't speak English, hardly any of them. But if you're close to your dog, you know, the dog knows exactly what's going on, knows when it's time to go out, knows when you're going on a trip.

Why is that? Because they don't hear anything. They just watch and they feel.

And people are very much the same. And if something bad is about to happen, everybody gets jumpy and everybody's really jumpy right now. So I'm not here to, you know, make your anger and paranoia worse. Just the opposite. I'm here merely to suggest a couple of things that I think you could do about it and that might be useful rather than pointless.

Like spending a ton of time on social media screaming at people. Well, obviously I do that for a living and I would never discourage anyone from doing it. You know, probably aren't gonna solve your problems.

So the first thing I think that's really important as you stare down the next 12 months is to is to accept the fact that it's that all your senses are telling you the truth.

A good friend of mine called Gavin de Becker, once wrote a book, the thesis of which was Every feeling, every gut level, feeling you've ever had is real is totally true. That your gut is the one thing that doesn't lie to you. Your gut only has your interest in mind. It is not trying to sell you a product or convince you to vote for it. It's acting solely on your behalf.

So if you get a very strong message from your viscera, from your intuition. Obey it. Take it very seriously.

I always tell my children, if you're talking to somebody and the person seems creepy, he's creepy. It doesn't mean you could convict him in a court of law for creepiness, though. Maybe you should try, but you don't need to. All you need to know is that what your senses are telling you is absolutely true. This person is creepy.

If you feel deception, you're being lied to, period. Now, you may not know how you're being lied to or why you're being lied to, much less what the truth is, you probably don't. And most have no idea. But if you feel you're being lied to, you’re 100% right, you are being lied to.

And if you feel that something very intense and history changing is about to happen, don't ignore it. Don't. Don't panic. There's no profit in that. You can't control it. You're not in charge of history. No offense. None of us is. But that is absolutely real.

So, I mean, just ask yourself just on the merits of the facts. You've got the two front runners just for president just in this country, and they're, by the way, 150 other countries with a similar volatility unfolding certainly in every Western country. But just in our country, you've got two people running for president. One of them is literally senile, I'm not attacking the guy. But that's true. Maybe not fully aware that he's president. It's being the White House is being run by a cartel of people for whatever ends.

You know, we have no visibility in that. We don't know what the plan is. We know the guy they claim is running it is not running it. So that's grotesque.

And by the way, no one ever mentions it. You know, people snicker at Joe Biden. I try not to because I feel bad for him because I don't believe in making fun of old people or the disabled. I'm serious. I really don't. I feel guilty every time I say it, including now. But it's just true. He's not running the country, and yet he's standing for reelection at the age of 80. Okay.

Opposing him is a man who has been indicted four times and is facing life in prison. Life in prison. And every time he gets indicted and every time they tack years on to the sentence, this potential sentence, he becomes more popular. And now he's winning. So love it.

Hey. Hey. Hey, man. But it tells you a couple of things. One, the side that's indicting him doesn't want him to be president so badly that they are willing to indict him on whatever transparently ridiculous charges. Okay.

And two, the public is not only not buying it. It is incentivizing them to support him, indict him again. Arrest him again. March him out to the gallows, he'll become king.

So it's literally counterproductive. So what does that tell you? It tells you that the people currently in charge have no idea how the country works, what the country wants, and they don't care.

They don't understand human nature. They're desperate and they'll do literally anything. And he's willing.

So how does that resolve itself? I mean, I could give you a thousand potential scenarios.

The first thing is the governor of California will get in. I have no evidence whatsoever that that's true, other than he's the single most ruthless and evil person I've ever seen in politics. Therefore, he has to come to the top of that party.

But I don't know that. I don't know that. All I know for a fact is that this can't be resolved in an orderly way, and it won't be, period.

So how do you respond to that? Obviously, bury gold in your yard. It's approved.

But what else can you do? Well, the first thing you need to do is understand the terms and the stakes of what's going on.

The big lie that we tell ourselves and that I have told many times is that this is political. This is not political. What we're watching is not political.

This is not politics. Politics is a human conceived system whereby civilized people settle their differences without violence. And by consensus, politics describes a negotiation. You want this? I want that. Neither of us is going to get exactly what we want, but we'll each come away thinking we didn't get totally hosed and we can continue to live together. That's all politics is. And that's why nobody wants to watch it, because it's filled with horse trading and accommodations.

No one exits the process pure. Everybody has given up something. That's the nature of it. And while it's unattractive, like watching heavyset people have sex, it's absolutely necessary. And it's kind of beautiful in its way. In its way.

Everyone deserves love and everyone deserves to live in a country governed by politics, not force. You say you hate politics. What's the option? Force.

You only get two options. And we're past the political stage.

Nothing. That's exactly right. Whoever said that? Nothing that is happening now or that has happened for the last 5 or 6 years can be explained through conventional political terms, period, in a convention.

And I hear people miss this all the time. Whatever awful thing is happening and I've contributed to this endlessly, you find out that someone's getting a vig on something someone's making a little money on on the deal. And it's all about the money. Follow the money. It's all about the money. I've said this myself a thousand times since I quit drinking. I say at last, but still follow the money.

And you know, if it were only about the money, we'd be fine. We'd be fine. Because I understand that. Just in the same way that I understand being totally honest here.

Most crimes I understand most crimes, I wouldn't commit them. Because the penalty is too high and you try to be a decent person. But when someone who is poor robs a bank or even if someone is greedy, robs a bank or someone is greedy, makes up a fake cryptocurrency and buys his parents houses in the Bahamas. Not pointing at you, Sam Bankman-fried, But I'm just saying I get it. I don't approve of it, but it makes sense to me.

It's explicable if people do something for power. I understand it. You cheat in an election so you can become president even though you're senile. That has happened. I'm just telling you, when you want to run things, you want to be in charge. I get it.

The lust for power is ugly. It's a sin, but it's certainly not foreign to anybody who's alive. We all know that feeling. It's totally recognizable.

That's not what's happening. What's happening is bad behavior for its own sake. There is no upside to the great trends of our age. There's no upside to pushing transgenderism on kids, period. None. Not for the kid. Not for the society at large. Not for the parents who will never have grandchildren. There's no upside.

So why are they doing that? Well, you got to figure there's some percentage of the population, you know, decides I want to switch genders, whatever. We've had that. That's a long standing thing. But it involves, you know, 100th of 1% of the population.

If 40% of the girls in your kid's eighth grade class identify as nonbinary, that's being pushed on them. That's not an organic conclusion they have reached. That is, someone has decided to tell them that there are more than two sexes. And of course, there aren't. And why is that person doing it? Is it really a conspiracy from gender clinics? I mean, maybe to some extent, but it's bigger than that.

What you're seeing is evil done for its own sake, hurting people, done for the sake of hurting people.

That's exactly what you're seeing when you see a war like the war in Ukraine. And I think and I have always thought since day one that good people can have differing views on that. I have my own views. I don't expect anyone else to share them. I don't attack anyone for not having my views have certainly been attacked for my views. But I don't.

I think decent people can come to any variety of conclusions, but in the end. No one really benefited actually from that war. No one benefited.

I saw a video today of the latest class of Ukrainian army recruits that were older than I am. And I'm pretty freakin old. Close to death. And these guys were at least as old and much closer to death. And by their faces, you knew. They knew it. They looked miserable.

This is a country that's ruined, man. And they're not going to win. So, you know, people win or lose wars. I get it. You make a bad bet. You think this is going to work? It doesn't. I understand that. I've done it many times.

But for American policymakers, for Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, to announce yesterday that we must continue this war. What is that? A war with no hope of winning when the best possible outcome is a generation of grandfathers gets slaughtered. What? Cause? Why? What you're looking at is someone who is thrilled.

And I mean Janet Yellen, our Treasury secretary, specifically, who was thrilled by the prospect of people dying. Death is an inherent good.

You're watching. You're watching death worship.

That's exactly what that is. Make no mistake. And I'm not attacking anyone who's for Ukraine or is once again another song. I'm saying I'm not saying at this point right now. If you're rational at all and you take ten minutes to read about it, there's no other outcome other than prolonged human suffering, period. And if you're endorsing that, you have to ask why.

And then there's the question of lying and the question of lying. Since I'm in the media, though, I don't admit it very often anymore. I guess now I'm unemployed, but I was in the media. It's a big question.

I mean, when I started in this business following my father, who was in this business in 1991, there was really just kind of one well, the unspoken rule was have an interesting life and learn how to tell a story at dinner and, you know, don't pass out till you get home.

But the explicit rule in journalism really was just one was to tell the truth. You tell the truth in this business. That's it. And of course, we get it wrong. When we get it wrong, we admit it.

The basic requirement of seeking the truth is admitting when you don't find it right. That's, you know, an honest person when he admits he was wrong. And if you deal with people, never admit they're wrong or are dealing with liars.

So there have always been liars and there always will be.

But what we're seeing now is very, very different. Because the kinds of lies there are two things that make it different.

The kinds of lies that we're hearing are not conventional lies at all. They're the inversion of the truth. They're the exact opposite of the mirror image of what is true.

And anyone who has kids knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you all kids lie. This is how you know it's inherent to the human condition.

All kids lie. Even your beloved little Dylan, he lies. Okay. But they lie in a very specific way. So you come down. For breakfast. You open the cabinet and like half the Oreos are gone. And you say, Dylan, did you eat an Oreo? And he's like, Oh, no. You made it or you didn't. You just won. Dillon there. 12 Oreos gone. Well, maybe two.

You get it? He's lying. He knows he's lying. He's ashamed of what he did. He's trying to hide it. You caught him. He's doubly ashamed you caught him. And so he's trying to hedge a little bit. Well, it's not as bad as you think. Not that bad a person. Only two at any 12. And instead of, you know, smacking him and saying, you're lying, you get it right?

If Dylan worked in the Biden administration, he would stare right in your eyes and smile and say, I didn’t eat any Oreos. You did. You ate the Oreos. You ate the Oreos.

And he would be so calm and unperturbed and so certain of your guilt that in your mind you would think, shit, I eat the Oreos. Maybe I did. Maybe I sleepwalked.

Because we're not used to dealing with people who can live without guilt. That's where the polygraph works. And everyone who lives with the polygraph. Irony of ironies, they lie about the lie detector test.

They're like, oh, it's not admissible in court. It doesn't work. Oh, it certainly does work. No, it's not admissible in court. I don't know why.

But if you work for a big company or CIA or DOD, or if you work for any organization where telling the truth is a high stakes matter. They will polygraph you.

And if you've ever been polygraphed, you know how effective it is. And it's effective because people don't like to lie. They do it because they feel they have to, because they're hiding the truth about themselves. I get it. But they don't like it. And something in your body, literally in your body. Rebels against lying. You tell a lie, your palms will sweat involuntarily, your heart will increase and you will breathe more quickly. And that's what they're measuring.

So they know you're lying. So it takes a very rare person to lie in the way that we're being lied to. And it takes a very rare moment to see lying at this scale.

But the final fact that makes this moment different is that they're not just lying. They hate the truth. They're offended by things purely because they are true.

Even when they don't possibly track anyone. I saw this today. Somebody sent me a piece. There's a group called Media Matters, which is a, you know, it's a censorship organization funded by Soros and a lot of other people who hate Western civilization, designed to prohibit people from saying certain things while the things that they're prohibiting people from saying are 100% true.

And that's why they're prohibiting it.

Somebody sent me a piece for media matters, attacked a guy for suggesting that our historical timelines were wrong, and there had, in fact been advanced civilizations in earlier moments in time and that they had been eliminated somehow through climactic events. Through natural disasters and that we're not aware of that in any detail.

Well, that's a really interesting hypothesis. I've no idea if it's true. It kind of seems to be true. I'm not emotional about it either way. I don't you know, I'd like to learn more because I think it's really interesting.

We have no idea how the how the pyramids were built, for example. How can we not know that we sent a man to the moon and you can't replicate the technology that created the pyramids? You can't even be a good guess as to how they were built. We don't even know when they were built. That's those are facts.

So a normal, curious person would say, well, why don't we know that? And what does it tell us about ourselves and about the past that we don't know? That's what I would think people would ask.

They were attacking this guy for asking the question. It was like, why would Media Matters care about your opinions on the pyramids? What do they care? Or whether they were big civilizations in Illinois 10,000 years ago, which there were, by the way, they used metal. Amazing.

But why would anyone care? Well, they care because that's true. That is just true. And the current version of history that we've been told is not only incomplete is just wrong. It's just flat out wrong.

I don't know what the truth is. I don't know what it means. And I would never claim to. But I know that what I learned as a kid is wrong. And so it is much closer to the truth to say we have no freakin idea how they built the pyramids. And that's kind of amazing.

And Media matters was offended. Now, why were they offended? They were offended purely because it was true. And that is across the board the case.

Every person and I just by happenstance nature of my job. No, like 80% of the people have been canceled, which is to say had their lives destroyed by the censors.

And I can't think of a single case where someone was destroyed for lying. There's no penalty for lying. If they had lied, if they repeated whatever dumb slogan they were told to repeat. Whatever the climate crisis the person is or strength or whatever, whatever the approved script is, if they just read it like a good little robot, they would have ascended the ladder. NBC News They wouldn't be living in their weakened house.

But they didn't. What they did was they told the truth. And that is that is the case everywhere. And if you don't believe me, look back and do it when there's no one else around because everyone's afraid even to have unapproved thoughts now.

But go through like the last 15 famous people who are canceled for saying the wrong thing. And ask yourself is the thing they said wrong. You may not agree with it. It may offend you. Some of the things people get canceled for are kind of offensive, in my opinion. But that's not the measure. The measure always and everywhere has to be in a free society, in an honest society, in a decent society. Is it true? Truth has to be a defense.

And it used to be your first offense, you would say, Well, in fact, it was a guy who used to say, Facts don't care about your feelings. Changed his views on that recently, but on. But that remains true. The facts matter most. And even more important than the facts, the truth of the facts. What do they mean? That's the most important thing.

And it used to be you could say, well, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I was always say to my children, Never tell the truth about other people in their presence because it can really hurt them. I told my kids to lie. The only lies that hurt people are the true ones. The only attacks, you know.

Don't call the fat girl fat. That's cruel. But in the end, that's a function of politeness. I was telling my children to be polite, to care about the feelings of others, which I think is super important.

But as a legal matter and a cultural matter, you cannot punish people for telling the truth. Period. Or else you become an empire of lies. In every sense, both in a literal sense and in a spiritual sense. That is just true.

And if you are governed by people who actively hate the truth and who live for the sheer animal thrill of doing so, you are living in a dark time under very dark people.

And the stakes are the ultimate stakes. It's not about you. It's not about who gets elected. It's about what happens to the world in your soul.

And so my advice like what? You know, what can you do about that? You know, it's a very action oriented, practical country.

So people are always like, What can you do? I have no freakin idea what you can do. Write your congressman. He's not going to read your letter. Go to your school board meeting. You're going to get arrested. I think you should do it anyway. I think so, anyway.

I think the only way to stay alive and fully human in a moment like this is to resolve that you are going to tell the truth in every and all circumstance. And if you can't say it out loud and stay silent, it's going to hurt the feelings of someone you love. That's an absolutely justifiable reason to be quiet.

But in every other circumstance, whether you're standing in carpool line with all the fashionable ladies in your neighborhood, the stupid private school. No offense. I sent my kids to one to I hate them. With your dinner party or with your wife's friends are over in their SoulCycle outfits talking about something and you disagree. There's a way to do it. You can be gentle, you can be empathetic, and you always should be.

But you should never allow yourself to repeat anything that you know is not true - that will destroy you. That is the mark not of a free man or a citizen, but of a slave.

That is the difference between freedom and slavery. Is the right to say what you actually think. That is that is the line. And anyone who is trying to force you to lie is your enemy. And B, believes that you were subhuman. Because that's not the way you treat adults by definition.

You have to deal with adults. They may have different views, different interests, different goals, and you have to contend with them through the aforementioned process of politics or negotiations. I want this. You want that? Let me convince you. You were not allowed to say to a free adult citizen, Shut up, you must do this. Under no circumstances can you do that.

You can't do that in the middle of a pandemic. You can't do that in the middle of a war. You can't do that under any circumstances, or else you are no longer a citizen. You are a slave. And worse than that, you have degraded yourself. And that's the real cost.

Clearly, the people who run things see the rest of us as slaves. That's obvious to me. I can't imagine the more obvious. It's crystal clear.

They don't seek consensus around interested in the public's opinion. The overlap between the list of things that people care about in this country and the list of things that Congress and the White House actually do. There's none. There's no overlap. And by the way, this is not my opinion. This is Gallup Public Opinion Polling.

Go look at the last ten Gallup polls and what Americans care about and compare those to the policy priorities of your government. They're not the same.

They don't care what you think. They're not interested in what you think. That's publicly available information. They're not reading it because they don't want to, because it doesn't matter to them. They're in charge. You're not.

So the truth is, it's very hard to fight that. I'm not exactly sure how, but I know that it begins with the strength inside you.

If you are weak, you will never prevail. And that explains their determined effort to make you weak by feeding you poisonous garbage, by trying to make you take medicine that is not at all medicine. But their insistence that you shut up and hate yourself. By their claim that your children are not your own.

They have no interest in you having dignity. In fact, your dignity and strength is a threat to them. That's why they closed the gyms and kept the weed dispensaries open. That's why the churches were shut down. But the strip bars weren't.

And I'm not attacking strip bars in Vegas. I'm merely saying.

What is that? And of course, it's a determined, systematic effort to weaken the population in order to limit their resistance to what they plan for us. Obviously. Oh, you're a conspiracy. No, I just have lived here for the last four years and that just could not be more obvious.

And so I'm not calling for armed insurrection. I hope it doesn't get to that. I'm calling instead for a population that becomes stronger inside and also outside, you know, physically stronger. I think that's worth it. But it's more than that. It's retaining your dignity and your self-respect.

And by the way, when you allow people to lie to you without saying anything. When you're too afraid because of whatever you're. And I've been there. I had four kids young and I've been fired a bunch. You may have heard not the first time have been fired at all. And I had to sell my house, get around the money. I'm not, you know, not doing the woe is me thing. I'm just saying like that happens. It's not the worst thing. It's fine, actually, as long as you're married to someone, you can handle it. And if you're not, that's probably your fault.

You know, you should try harder to explain it and rally the troops at home. But the point is, you know, getting fired, being unpopular, maybe even getting arrested. Those are not the worst things that can happen to you.

The worst thing that can happen to you is becoming a slave inside. And I'll I will quote the great Jimmy Cliff. I would rather be a free man in my grave than live as a puppet or a slave.

And I think we should all want that. And it's not hard, actually. You don't need to, like, start a rebellion or order him on the Internet, though. You should like you going to do it.

But, you know, it's much more fundamental than that. Don't let them take your dignity. And your dignity is rooted in your sense of self as a free person. I'm a free person. You may not do that to me. You don't have to shout. I'm not going to do that. And there's literally nothing you can do to make me do that. I don't want to be killed, but I'm willing to be because I don't want to live like that. In fact, I want. And I've already decided.

And if you actually make that decision, and if you mean it, a couple of things will happen. The first thing that will happen is that your marriage will improve. Especially if you're a man. No woman - And I know there are women in my class. I know there are women here. - No woman wants to be married to a man who will take that kind of abuse. I'm sorry. She doesn't. There's no woman who wants that. No, it's true.

And most of them are pretty nice. And so they won't say anything about it. But their respect for you will diminish. And why wouldn't it? And the same with your children. Same with your children. So that's the first thing that's going to happen.

And the second thing that happens is the more you tell the truth, the stronger you become and you can feel the change happening inside. And you don't have to believe in the supernatural. I happen to. But you don't you don't even have to understand. And I don't really understand where that comes from or why where that power emanates from. But I've experienced it, and anyone who has told the truth experiences it to instantly.

In the same way that lying and crappy behavior and being drunk all the time I've been there too makes you weaker. Telling the truth makes you stronger and you can feel it. It's like a superpower. Did I just do that? And other people can feel it, too. They can smell it. Dogs can smell it.

The person who tells the truth is strong. Other people respect the strong. And then it just increases from there.

And the third thing that happens over time, if you tell the truth persistently, quietly, gently, politely, not spray painting in I'm buildings just know in a dignified way. No, not doing that. Sorry. And here's why. If you're interested, I'll tell you. But I'm a free man and I'm not doing that ever.

The third thing that happens if you adopt that posture, is that they will back off. Because liars are weak, they are weak and afraid.

They can't even admit that the president's senile. They are hiding behind a facade of lies. But the operative word, the verb in that sentence, is hiding. They're hiding. Who hides? Weak people hide. Scared. People hide. People who can't stand. Sunlight. Hide. That's who hides.

And that's exactly what they're doing. They are weak and they are afraid of the population. And I'm sad to say the population is giving them very little reason to be afraid. But they're still afraid because they know they're doing wrong. They know they're serving lies.

They know nothing they do or say is justifiable can withstand scrutiny. And on some animal level, they are terrified of the day that the average person, not some stupid talk show host, but the average person who works at some big dopey company and shuffles to work every day in some pod with a drop ceiling and fluorescent lighting that that guy is like, Nope, I'm not going along with that story. I'm not going to the DEI meeting it because I don't think you should discriminate people on the basis of their race. How's that? Because it's immoral, actually.

And we've got a monument on the mall that shows that: It’s a monument to Martin Luther King. And that was his core message.

We're not going to discriminate against people on the basis of their skin color, period, for any reason. It's always wrong.

This is immoral. I'm not participating. If enough people do that and things like it, this whole nonsense will end immediately. That's the one thing they can't handle.

You don't have to take to the streets. You don't take Saturday off to hold a candle, carry some stupid spray painted sign on a bedsheet. All you need to do is tell the lady I'm opting out, and here's why.

And I hope you will. Thank you.