Tucker Carlson

I'll be thinking about this for the next month.

Fantastic.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Mä ajattelin, että kun Massey meni Kenttäkuussa, mä ajattelin Trumpin inauguraatioon, Trumpin inauguraatioon päivänä, mikä oli yllättäen aiemmin, aiemmin joulukuussa, 20. joulukuussa. Mä olin Washingtonissa, ja Trumpi soitti minut kulttuuriin päivänä, ennen kuin hän oli saapunut, joten tietysti menin. Se oli St. John'sissa, Episkopalaisessa kulttuurissa Lafayette-suomessa, jossa melkein kaikki presidentit ovat menneet päivänä inauguraatioon, joten mä tulin.

It happens to be my denomination, the Episcopal Church, so I know the church pretty well. I know people who work there, so I was pretty excited about going and saying a prayer for this presidency. So I'm standing outside, it may be 6.45 in the morning, and it is freezing. And if you've been to Washington in the winter, you know it's mostly pretty temperate, but the cold days are very cold. And there's something about the cold in a city that is biting. Even if you like cold, it's tough. And this was probably 12 degrees and windy.

Ja muistan sen hyvin, koska oltiin paikalla, turvallisuuden paikalla, odotettavassa magneetimella. Sekretti-yhteys oli siellä, oli koko rikomerooli ja kotia, ja he olivat koko ajan menossa. Se ei ollut heidän ongelmansa, mutta protokollit ovat yksinkertaisia. Ja se oli huono paikalla. He pysyivät meidät ja rauhoittivat. Ei ollut paljon ihmisiä, se oli melko pieni kulttuurisyritys, mutta ihmiset olivat paikalla ja sanoivat, että mennään ja menemme kulttuuriin. Ja kun olemme paikalla, tuntuvat kukin, odotettavassa yhdistelmällä yhdistelmällä,

A woman brushed by me on the left side, walking fast. Older woman, not very tall, and I recognized her. And it was Miriam Adelson. And she blew past me and everybody else in line and went right to the front, right to the magnetometer, announced who she was, and walked on in.

And I thought to myself, Miriam Adelson, who I know vaguely, not really, but I knew that she was the biggest or one of the biggest donors to the Trump campaign. An Israeli, born in Israel, widow of Sheldon Adelson, the biggest Republican donor, the casino magnate, but more than anything, a fervent neocon. Her main issue is American support for Israel. She says this, it's not a secret, and she spends accordingly.

And she brushes past me, I remember thinking this, and everybody else, and just walks right in like she owns the place. And I remember thinking, hmm, I hope this isn't an omen. I hope it's not a sign of things to come. It feels a little bit like a metaphor. I hope that's not real.

So I kind of sublimated it, tried not to think about it, finally got into church, sat alone in a pew with Charlie Kirk, had a great time. We were both almost jubilant, really, that Trump had been elected. We didn't think he would, but he did. And we were thrilled, not just because we liked Trump, which we did, because he's hilarious and fun to talk to and interesting and funny.

but because he ran on ideas that we agreed with really strongly. And first among them was the idea, self-evident really, that the US government ought to serve, in fact it exists to serve, the interests of American citizens. And it really has no other role in the world. Doesn't mean it has to strike a bellicose posture toward anyone else. Hurting other people isn't necessary, but helping your own people is the only reason you exist, if you're the US government or one of its many employees.

And the American president should proceed from that commitment. I am here to serve my people as a father does with his children, an officer with his men, etc. That's leadership. Service to the people you lead and a love for those people. And both of us were convinced at the time that Donald Trump was that man, that he was truly America first. And because he was America,

This would be a great moment for our country, a much needed relief from a worldview that put America at the bottom of its concerns, but that would also change the Republican Party, which was meaningful, because the Republican Party, along with Trump, had just taken total control of the country. Both houses in Congress, House and Senate, the White House, majority of the Supreme Court appointed by Republicans, the Republicans were in charge, and we hoped, and at the moment we believed,

That the Republican Party would change along with Trump, its new leader. And that it would change in one specific way. It would come to put the concerns of Americans first. Period. That's it. We can argue about how best to serve them, but serving them has to be the goal. And so we imagine, Charlie Kirk and I, we may have talked about this in the Pew, that we would see the Republican Party suddenly populated by a lot of people like, well, like Thomas Massey. I can't remember if we actually talked about Thomas Massey.

But we had before, and Charlie Kirk had talked a lot about Thomas Massey, and Charlie Kirk loved Thomas Massey, not just as a person, because he was honest and decent, but because Thomas Massey's orientation was purely about what's best for the country. And again, he said it many times, including in this representative interview of Thomas Massey. Here's Charlie Kirk.

Are you concerned for your own safety and or what they might try to do to blackmail you? Oh, absolutely. By the way, you're not qualified to be on this committee if you don't realize that there will be an effort to discredit me. It's poignant and honestly kind of fascinating in retrospect to hear Charlie Kirk express alarm at the behavior of the intel agencies. Are you afraid they're going to kill you or blackmail you, he says to Thomas Massey. Charlie Kirk was thinking about that even then.

It was only eight months after the inauguration, less than, that Charlie Kirk of course was murdered, assassinated in public in a very, very strange shooting.

Ja samaan aikaan Donald Trump puhutti suunnitelmiin, joista uskomme, että se olisi jotenkin erilainen. Meillä olisi ollut epäonnistunut, kun puhuttiin St. John'sin ympäri White Housea päivän päivänä, että Donald Trump puhutti Epstein-kirjoituksia, kiinnosti yhä yksityisyyttä, yhä yksityiskohtaisempaa, yhä yksityiskohtaisempaa, yhä yksityiskohtaisempaa, yhä yhä yksityiskohtaisempaa,

And above all, it would have been stunning for us. In fact, we wouldn't have been able to comprehend it that morning in January of last year, that Donald Trump would be cheerleading a regime change war in the Middle East against Iran of all Middle Eastern nations, the biggest and most powerful. Because both of us understood the point of Donald Trump and the reason that we supported him was because he would never do anything like that.