The Tucker Carlson Show
Catherine Fitts: Epstein, CIA Black Budget, the Control Grid, and the Banks’ Role in War
27 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What is the control grid and how does it function?
Catherine Austin Fitz, thank you for doing this.
Tucker, thank you for doing this.
The first time we did an interview over a year ago, different worlds completely. And I remember thinking, wow, I've rarely spoken to anyone who thinks in such big terms. I mean, that is a compliment. I wonder if this is all true. I think time has proven you right. We've had a couple of meals in the subsequent months.
Chapter 2: How will biometrics be used to exert control?
And so I'm just, I just want to say, I think you're really wise and I'm grateful to have you.
So I want you to know it was only 10 months ago, but it seems like a long, long time.
Chapter 3: Why are banks moving away from cash transactions?
Man. Time is flying. Yeah, I meet people in airports all the time who are like, I used to think I was a conspiracy theorist, but now I know I was, you know, but it's kind of a variety of that.
But last time we had lunch a couple months ago, you were telling me about, and I wish we had this on tape, but we can recreate it here, about the control grid, a concept that you had explained when we last did an interview, and how it was, as you said at lunch, snapping into place constantly.
Can you just, for people who haven't seen your previous talk, explain what the control grid is, what it looks like and what it means?
So the control grid is a process or an infrastructure that allows digital technology to be used to assert phenomenal surveillance and control of people. And at the very heart of it is what I call programmable money. So it's money that is no longer just a currency. It's money that comes with a set of rules that can be surveilled and forced.
Chapter 4: What role do central banks play in modern warfare?
So imagine back in the pandemic, if your money, if I said, okay, you've got a lockdown and your money won't work if you leave your house, you can't buy gas in your car because your money is programmed with AI and software to enforce a whole set of centralized rules.
And programmable money allows the bankers who've been running monetary policy to now control fiscal policy and essentially replace legislatures and executive branch by making and enforcing the rules through the money. Now, that requires a large infrastructure structure.
of surveillance so you need digital ids and then you need the hardware locally and globally to to do the surveillance and implementation so for example if you look at the local hardware and now people are seeing it you know now that it's material they're beginning to see it snap into place so i don't know if you know flock cameras but there are many communities across the united states
that are entering into contracts paid by the taxpayers to put up cameras all around their neighborhood that track license plates and keep that data and share it with a variety of people. Or you have the FCC is trying to overrule local controls on cell towers so they can literally put... cell towers every 400 to 700 feet so that they can have the kind of invasive surveillance you need.
Or you have satellites now that can literally beam in Wi-Fi so that whether you have Wi-Fi in your home or not, they can start to track you. And all those systems put you in what I call the panopticon. So we saw in the Middle East with the First war with Iran, we saw 11 leaders out of 12 sort of top leaders in science and government assassinated because they're literally tracking everyone.
And they can identify them and track them. And then you have invisible weaponry that can then take them out or, you know, can identify missile strikes.
So you're talking about the 12-day war against Iran in June of 2025. Correct. We were led to believe just as newspaper readers or news consumers that those 11 Iranian officials were targeted with human intelligence. you know, that Israel had spies inside of Iran, but you're saying that was done digitally.
That's probably, I would assume that that's probably true because you always want to get human confirmation of what the systems are telling you. It's always better if you have both. But we are now moving into building out the kind of surveillance systems that, That can literally track, identify, and integrate with not only our existing weaponry, but ultimately autonomous weaponry.
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Chapter 5: What crisis might justify the implementation of digital currency?
So, anyway, so let me step back. You've got three parts to the control grid. One is the local hardware and infrastructure, and that includes the data centers. Because if you... The data?
I thought those were for AI.
Yeah.
Chapter 6: How does programmable money affect individual freedoms?
They are. Because if you look at what it takes to apply the equivalent of a social credit system to people's money, so the social credit system I apply to you is different than the one I apply to me.
And if you look at the data I need to track you and test whether or not you're following the rules I've given you and enforce those rules, it's an explosive amount of data, particularly because you're looking not just at financial control, but spatial control. So what is AI good at, Tucker?
Is spatial control movement control?
Yeah, so turn off the car. So Congressman Massey is trying to kill the kill switch in your car. That's because spatial control means I can turn off your car or I can set it so your money won't work more than a mile from your home or a 15-minute city. So you literally, you're not allowed to leave your 15-minute city and your transportation and your money won't work outside of that area.
So let me step back. So what is AI good at? AI is very good at tracking things that can be expressed mathematically. And financial transactions and spatial movement can be expressed mathematically. And so what the AI centers are for primarily is to build that digital control grid and to manage that data. And now it can be used for many other purposes too.
So it's not just going to be used for control. But to me, that's the primary purpose. And that, if you look at the cameras, if you look at the cell towers, if you look at the satellites and then the AI, the data centers, those are all component pieces of the local hardware. So there are three sort of pillars that I track.
One is the programmable money, and that's what we at Solaria are trying to stop. The second is the digital ID, because you need digital ID systems that are interoperable globally. And then the local hardware. And those are sort of the three pillars. And what's interesting is... There's phenomenal development of all three. We have a commentary at Solari where we track.
It's called the Fast Approaching Digital Control Grid. And every week we update all the things that are being done to build those three pillars and have them integrate with each other. And ever since the inauguration, it's been moving very, very quickly. Now, it's both sides of the uniparty. They come at it in different ways and they do different things. But this is...
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of a digital control grid for society?
Ultimately, what this is doing is this is going to a point where the central bankers, whether they do it with a central bank digital currency or private stable coins and asset tokens, are setting the world up so that they can control your financial transactions literally in real time with the equivalent of a social credit system.
I have so many questions. I've probably been in six or seven, eight countries in the last month. And I think in every single country I had biometrics taken, either fingerprint or facial recognition. What role do biometrics play in the control grid?
That's part of the digital ID system. And that facilitates the surveillance. And it's interesting. So we do a lot to promote cash because I think there are many things we can do to slow down or stop the digital control system. But one of it is by embracing analog and keeping analog alive. Because to go to a really serious programmable money, you need an all digital financial system.
So we do a lot with cash, but people will tell you if you go to Walmart, you leave your phone in the car and you use cash, you come out having made a purchase. And the next thing you know, the next day on your phone, you get a text from the company of the product you bought at Walmart. So they were able to identify you. It's because of the biometrics. They have your facial recognition.
I had a crazy experience with cash. I thought of you right before Christmas. I wanted to pay employees a bonus in cash, which I always do. And so I asked my wife to go to the bank. She did Wells Fargo branch not far from her house. I want to take out this amount. Pretty large amount, but not crazy, right? And they said, no, we can't give you the money. And why?
Because we think that you are being scammed, that there's probably someone outside with a gun demanding that you withdraw cash. And she's like, what? No. So she called me. Anyway, I finally went into the bank and got upset. It wasn't their fault. They were being told, I think, by federal regulators not to give me cash. And I said, I thought the point of a bank was to hold my money.
You loan it out of interest. I get less interest from you, so you make the money, but my money's safe, but I get it when I want because I made it at my job. And they're like, we're so sorry, we're so sorry, but they wouldn't give me the cash. It took two weeks to get the cash.
What is that? It's called nudging. Do you know what nudging is? No. Oh, there's a whole science of nudging. So if you're the central bankers and you want to take cash down to zero, what you do is you create lots of different kinds of rules and regulations that nudge people in that direction. Okay, so that's one of the things that's happening. And you use these things as an excuse.
Now, there's something else happening.
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Chapter 8: What actions can individuals take to resist the control grid?
Now, if you look at the person who implemented that, they're getting a role, they're just doing their job. And one of the reasons they're getting the role and one of the things they use to do the nudging with If you look at the amount of cybercrime and financial fraud that's happening that is causing people to go down and get cash, it's real. And the banks are losing a great deal of money on it.
And it's a serious problem, particularly because if you look at the technology used to using it to be implemented online. You know, I believe they're using neuro warfare. So they get these people very addicted online and they get them doing sort of crazy financial things. I was trying to wire, I was in the Netherlands, I was trying to wire 5,000 euros to one of the people who works for me.
And my bank stopped it because they felt that I was a victim of a romance crime.
A romance scribe.
A romance scribe. I said, no, I assure you, this person writes my loving art column. It's not a romance. I mean, there's a romance with art here, but it's not with each other.
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