THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: Harrison Berger interviews Tucker Carlson about his recent speech at TPUSA’s AmFest and the backlash to it from Conservative Inc. The conversation examines Islamophobia on the American right, Carlson’s MLK-style rejection of identity politics emphasized in his recent shows and speeches, and his latest designation as Antisemite of the Year by a pro-Israel censorship organization.

HARRISON BERGER, THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE: TPUSA did a poll during AmFest, or I guess it was after AmFest, and they asked the audience, you know, what they considered to be the greatest threat to America, and they did put radical Islam at number one. I’m wondering where you think those sentiments are coming from. I mean, I’ve heard you say before that this is an op, and that we all know which foreign government it’s actually coming from. Which government is it, and can you explain how that operation works? How is it, you know — TUCKER CARLSON: The Israeli government and its many defenders and informal employees in the United States, of course, and I guess I would just say if that was actually, I mean, I don’t know how to respond to the poll. I don’t know who answered it, but, you know, I believe in measuring reality a little more empirically, and, you know, I don’t know anyone in the United States in the last 24 years who’s been killed by radical Islam. You know, I know a lot of people who have killed themselves, a lot. I know people have died of drug abuse, more than a few. I know people can’t get jobs. None of my, none of the boys in my daughter’s class that can get jobs, none of those white boys can get jobs. They’re being destroyed, you know, by Adderall and video games and porn. Like, I see millions of Americans being destroyed, and none of it is at the hands of radical Islam. Is radical Islam a greater danger than only fans? It’s not even close. Turning some huge percentage of American women into prostitutes, that’s not radical Islam doing that, actually. So anyone who believes that lie, I feel sorry for, but it doesn’t reflect the lived reality of anyone I’ve ever met in the United States, and I observe this for a living. It doesn’t mean I’m right, but it means I’m not a casual observer. I’m a close observer because that’s my job, and I just think that that’s insane, and it would be yet another triumph of propaganda and theory over reality. So you tell people, I mean, this is the whole game. This is how, you know, the United States has somehow tied itself to the anchor of Gaza. Like, why are we responsible for Pee-Pee’s mass murder? Well, we are now, partly because so many Americans have been told over and over and over, like, your destiny is intertwined with Israel. Israel’s our most important ally. There is no sense in which Israel is an important ally. It’s not even an ally. It’s a liability, but people have been told that again and again and again, or I’m an anti-Semite. I was, by the way, I got the award of, apparently, Anti-Semite of the Year two days after I gave a speech saying anti-Semitism was immoral. So what does that tell you? It tells you that the people creating the propaganda and disseminating it have zero interest in the reality of any question. Of course, propagandists never care what the truth is. They’re merely convinced, probably with some evidence, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. I don’t know what to do about that. That’s always been true. I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it. But if you’ve convinced a bunch of kids who literally can’t get jobs and buy houses or find wives or husbands, you know, whose parents are divorced, who are, you know, think on OnlyFans, playing video games all day. If you’ve convinced them that radical Islam is their number one problem, you are the most effective propagandist in history. I mean, that’s an unbelievable feat. I haven’t seen the poll. I’m taking your word for it. And again, I don’t know how many people responded to it. But that is deranged. And by the way, if you think radical Islam is the threat, you claim it is. I’m hardly endorsing it. I’m opposed to it. I’m against radical anything. I’m the most temperamentally moderate person. I’m a 56-year-old WASP, dude. I’m like, I am moderate, okay? But I just don’t like lying. But if you sincerely believe radical Islam is the greatest threat, then why won’t, why aren’t they asking the government, why isn’t Ben Shapiro asking the government to fully classify the 9-11 files? I wonder why that is. Any sense of why that might be? Seriously, if you really think radical Islam is that great a threat, tell me why you’re hiding basic facts about 9-11. And the answer is, of course, it’s not what they told us it was.

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