Tucker - Transcribed
13 June 2023
Tucker talks about Trump and his federal indictment for mis-handling documents
Hey, it's Tucker Carlson.
Hey, it's Tucker Carlson. The Biden Administration arrested Donald Trump this afternoon. They had him arraigned and fingerprinted in a Miami Courthouse like the accused felon he now technically is. These were the first steps in a process that is designed to put Donald Trump behind bars for the rest of his life. Cable news carried every moment of it live. It's unprecedented, they told us with what looked like shock. But they weren't shocked; they knew this was coming. Everyone who's paid attention knew it was what just happened was always going to happen. It's been inevitable since February 16, 2016. That's the day Donald Trump made a blood enemy of the largest and most powerful organization in human history, which would be the federal government.
Despite what you may remember, it wasn't anything that Trump had said about immigration or trade with China or rapists from Mexico. Those are the stories that dominated the headlines that year. In Washington, what matters then and now is foreign policy—the invasions and occupations and proxy wars—the decisions that determine which global populations will thrive and which will die, the policies that come with trillion-dollar price tags, the ones that over time have made the counties around DC the richest suburbs in the world.
In Washington, that's what actually matters, and it's obvious when you look carefully. When there's a debate about anything else, for example, the debt ceiling, both sides take their assigned positions and they start yelling. But when Congress decides to start a war, no matter how foolish or counterproductive or obviously disconnected from America's core interests that war may be, when that happens, the leaders of both parties automatically jump behind it like circus clowns and then they stay there, sometimes for decades. Until then, no dissent is allowed. That's the first rule of Washington. But somehow, Trump didn't bother to follow it. He is from out of town, so maybe he didn't know it was a rule or maybe he just didn't care. Either way, we can point to the precise moment that permanent Washington decided to send Donald Trump to prison. Here it is, it's from the Republican candidates debate in Greenville, South Carolina:
"We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. They lied, okay? They said there were weapons of mass destruction; there were none, and they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction." By the time Trump said that, a lot of Republican primary voters were starting to reach the same conclusion. How could they not? But it was the next line that doomed Trump to today's arrest:
"They lied," he said.
"There were no weapons of mass destruction, and they knew there were none."
Now when he said that, a few in the crowd booed, most just sat there in silence, stunned. Can he say that? Well, he said it anyway, and by saying that, he sealed his fate. That was the one thing you were not allowed to say because it implicated too many people on both sides, which on this topic is really just one side. Hillary Clinton was guilty of it, but so is Paul Ryan. All of them were guilty; they all knew, they all lied, and to a person, they hated Donald Trump for exposing them. After that, it was pretty clear that even if he did get elected president, Trump was going to have a very hard time controlling the federal government he was supposed to be in charge of. Most of permanent Washington decided that thwarting Trump was the single most important mission in their lives. Everything depended on it. Many of them said so publicly, but others didn't say so publicly. In fact, the stealthier ones took another path: they ran toward Trump, not away from him. They sucked up to him, they ingratiated themselves with the man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery, which Trump is. And they did this in order to subvert his new administration from the inside.
There were a number of these, and you could spot them immediately: they were flatterers. Invariably, the ones who flattered Trump the most hated him the most and disagreed the most strongly with his views. You saw them in the hallways of the White House and at press conferences. They were there, slobbering over their boss with elaborate self-abasement as if they were addressing a monarch or a god. It was a scene from the Ottoman Court; it was filthy and decadent, and it was false.
Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Lindsey Graham in Congress – they all called Trump a visionary genius up until the moment he lost power, and then they unsheathed their real agenda, as always: the neocon war agenda. And they piled on with maximum force. Here's Mike Pompeo, for example, on Fox News this morning:
"President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn't have had them, and then when given the opportunity to return them, he chose not to do that for whatever reason. When somebody identifies that, you got to turn them in, and so that's just inconsistent with protecting America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines. And if the allegations are true, some of these were pretty serious, important documents, so that's wrong."
May future historians hoping to unlock the mysteries of late Empire Washington study that clip, because it will reveal everything. That very same Mike Pompeo, the one who's sneering at Donald Trump on TV. This morning, that guy served Donald Trump as both CIA director and as Secretary of State. Those are the two most powerful jobs in the federal government, and as he worked in those jobs, Pompeo promised, in fact, he swore to support the president's agenda because that's the way a democracy works. You vote for a candidate in the belief that his appointees will carry out the policies that you voted for. It's not about the president; it's about you, the voter. But Pompeo didn't do that; he didn't even try to do that.
In fact, he undermined Trump's often-stated commitment to peace and non-intervention abroad at every turn. His every waking hour was devoted to fomenting war in some far away foreign country or other – Iran, Syria, Russia, North Korea; the list goes on. But rather than telling Trump that he disagreed with his ideas as a man would, Pompeo tooted up to Trump, a man he despised, in the oiliest, most over-the-top way imaginable. Ask anyone who worked in that White House at the time: who is the appointee most likely to tell Donald Trump on a daily basis that he was handsome, virile, sleek, and powerful? Mike Pompeo would be the consensus answer.
Those of us who saw firsthand Pompeo's relentless cow towing will never forget it; it was indelibly repulsive. No one with self-respect could do something like that, but Mike Pompeo did it effortlessly, with relish and verve. Now, this same person is telling Fox News viewers that he fears for the safety of our military – our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, in the approved phrase – because Donald Trump took some classified documents home and didn't immediately return them to the National Archives. What a lie that is! Mike Pompeo knows that's a lie; he spent his entire life in Washington. Washington is a city where internal memos about Labor Day are classified because everything is classified. Your government has classified more than a billion federal documents, most of them boring and pointless and a danger to no one, and locked them away in secret. You can't see them because you may be an American citizen but not really and therefore you don't have the necessary clearances to know what's going on.
And by the way, none of this is done in order to make America safer any more than COVID restrictions were designed to keep you healthy. No, it's a caste system; that's the point, and you're the untouchable in this hierarchy. Mike Pompeo knows that; everybody who works in Washington knows that. How many secret documents do you think Dick Cheney took home with him while he was running the Iraq War? How many did his wife read? She never had a clearance. We'll never know the answer because there is no chance Dick Cheney will ever be investigated, or staffers will be told to wear wires in his presence. He'll never be indicted for this, of course not. Dick Cheney is a neocon; Donald Trump is not. Dick Cheney supports war with Russia; Trump does not. That's the difference; the rest is just a distraction.
The prosecution of Donald Trump is transparently political. He's literally Joe Biden's main political opponent, pulling over 60 percent among Republican voters right now. So Joe Biden is doing what no president has ever dared to do: he's using law enforcement to lock up his chief rival. That's happening right now; anyone who denies it's happening is lying to you. But actually, it's worse than that. Trump's prosecution isn't just political; it's ideological. Nobody with Trump's views is allowed to have power in this country. Criticize our wars, and you're disqualified. If you keep it up, we'll send you to prison. That's the message Washington is sending, not just the Democratic Party but both parties.
Like so many Republicans, for example, the supposedly conservative governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, spent yesterday totally ignoring the destruction of the American justice system. Instead, he signed a highly important bill called the Crown Act, which, according to the celebratory tweet Abbott sent commemorating it, will "prohibit discrimination based on textures and hairstyles historically associated with race." In other words, in Texas, cornrows are now protected by law; having unapproved views about Ukraine is not. That's fine with most elected Republicans; they find Trump tiresome and embarrassing. Their donors hate him; they will not be sad if he dies in jail. But what about voters? What are they learning from this spectacle? Well, mostly, they're learning that they have no power at all because nobody cares about them. But they already knew that. Unlike so many of our elected leaders, they have been to America recently; they know what it looks like.
Have you seen it? If you've got a few days this summer, find out, take a road trip and see for yourself. Drive 500 miles in any direction and then come home. How are things looking? Well, they should look great. The federal government spent six and a half trillion dollars last year. That's more than any government has ever spent ever. So at the very least, you would expect pristine public roads. Oh no, that's not what you see when you drive around this country. There are potholes and Jersey barriers everywhere. It looks like Tegucigalpa before the Chinese decided to rebuild the infrastructure of Honduras. We don't have China buying our roads, so they're falling apart.
You'd think the people you pass on your road trip would look happy and prosperous. Again, this is a very rich country. But a lot of them don't. Quite a few appear to be strung out on drugs. You see them shuffling by shuttered storefronts in small towns, and you wonder as you see all of this, where did all the money go? It's certainly not here. Well, it's in Washington. It's in Fairfax and Loudoun counties and in leafy, perfectly manicured Northwest D.C. And of course, a huge chunk of it went to Ukraine, to Zelensky and his friends. Not because you voted for that – you didn't vote to give it to them; you never would – but because Joe Biden and his many allies from Chuck Schumer to Mitch McConnell to Paul Ryan and every single news anchor on all of television all of them believe that Ukraine, its borders, its future, its infrastructure, are all more important than the town that you live in. They sincerely think that, and it's obvious.
Everyone in power thinks that, except for Donald Trump. Whatever else you say about him, Trump is the one guy with an actual shot of becoming president who dissents from Washington's long-standing, pointless war agenda. And for that, that one fact, they're trying to take Trump out before you can vote for him. That should upset you more than anything that's happened in American politics in your lifetime. Even if you don't plan to vote for Donald Trump, even if you would die before voting for Donald Trump, which is your right and a lot of good people feel that way, even still, the destruction of our democracy – which is the right of voters to support any candidate they want, even candidates who don't want war with Russia – the destruction of that should keep you up at night.
Yes, Donald Trump is a flawed man, but his sins are minor compared to those of his persecutors. In this life, we don't get to choose our martyrs; we can only choose our principles. And America's are at stake.
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