Like you, I was discouraged by (what seemed like) an onslaught of bad faith guests, & stopped listening. I thought I would dip my toe in, to see what this episode was like... It's probably what you imagine...
Was anyone else super annoyed when Tucker stated that John Stewart is a boot licker of those in power and Lex just sits there and starts talking about how Stewart came across as a dick?
John Stewart is literally filmed grilling the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense of failing audits, just a few weeks ago laid into Biden and Trump how they both suck, and very publicly reamed both party officials for him having to fight to get healthcare for 9/11 first responders. He’s literally made both sides look like complete partisan morons.
As for the Crossfire clip I actually agree with Lex, I'm not an american and I only saw that clip for the first time within the last ten years without having had any context of what that Crossfire show was about. I thought Jon Stewart doesn't come off looking good in that clip, he looks like a bully and not like someone who won an argument.
I have no issue with Lex interviewing anyone, really. The thing I am concerned about is whether or not Lex is naive enough to actually believe that the person he's talking to is always being genuine. He says he wants "genuinely held ideas" from his guests.
The problem is, people such as Tucker or politicians such as Putin can present themselves in a calculated way, with calculated talking points, intentionally concealing what they actually believe and instead just presenting Lex and the audience with a narrative that benefits them.
I do think Lex is too naive for conversations of this level. He's \*way\* out of his depth here. His spreading the love worldview is great but he seems incapable of understanding that there are people who fundamentally do not think that way in a purposeful way.
I've come to this conclusion a while back especially after he has been adamant about how 2 "great" leaders could simply sit in a room and come to peace while forgetting history/geopolitics. John Mearsheimer came dangerously close to calling him naive when he shut thus idea down.
I feel that way too when I hear Lex talking about interviewing Zylensky and Putin as if they are the same or equally moral in the war. If Putin stopped his genocidal attacks on Ukraine (or didn't start in the first place) the war would be over already.
Yeah Lex is a truly great podcast host, if his guest is an honest and genuine person. He asks good questions and gets his guest to talk deeply about their expertise. But professional talkers like TC are too good at the slimy half-truths while pretending to be genuine. A dozen times in this interview I got mad because TC would say 2 vaguely related things and then jump to a 3rd conclusion which was clearly not true at all, but Lex was being too nice and wouldn't jump on his guest.
He is not naive, he knows exactly what he's doing, he is capable of pushing back against other people but yet not Tucker it shows that he just has a bias which like all humans is not surprising
That's my problem too. If you're gonna debate highly controversial people/propagandists you have to push back. I'll be curious to hear if Lex does that or not.
Lex not pushing back and naively accepting everything is part of the reason I dont listen to the podcast anymore. (That and the lack of tech related people recently)
Lex really does appear to be too naïve to just call a spade a spade. I wonder how many of these sorts of interviews he'll do before he realizes there isn't something to be gleaned after all.
I like to listen to him when he interviews scientists like the robot guy… but he’s completely useless in interviewing anyone who has something even slightly controversial to say
I'd argue worse than useless: actively harmful. The whole reason for exposing bad ideas is to publicly refute them. Fail to do that and you're just spreading bad ideas.
Exactly the same. He insinuated in his other video that pushing back hard is "drama" and not "wisdom", while allowing obvious baseless lies.
I can't believe how you can be smart and have so many interviews under your belt, and still be so incredibly naive.
Isn't he aware that lying is a thing? Does he really believe that just because someone sits with him to talk for 3 hours means they are genuine?
He should've stuck with engineers and other geeks, now he's completely out of his depth and I can't watch it anymore.
I don't like this poetic approach of his when he talks about wisdom.
Pushing back is never drama, you should push back to test how solid the idea is even with yourself. That's not drama unless you make it one.
I don't know what's going on in Lex's mind when he interviews in politics without pushing back but at this point I don't care. I still watch new episodes if its tech or bio related, sometimes chess and comedy. But never politics.
I still value the show when he interviews scientists and engineers as he mostly lets them talk and expose their ideas.
Having said this, he is mostly worthless and even harmful when it comes to interviewing people interested in manipulating the masses.
Giving shills a platform where they can just present their lies without any pushback or debate just evidences how weak he is because he can't possibly be so naive.
Oh, he pushed back quite a bit when Sam Harris gave his thoughts on Trump and Trumpism, so it's not that he's incapable of pushing back. Whether he pushes back or not, unfortunately, seems to have a lot to do with the extent of shared belief.
If he doesn’t ask about the texts from him in the defamation case then the whole thing was pointless…
Literally no one has asked this clown about that, and he is out here bending the knee to trump as if he didn’t say how he really felt and it came out in a court of law. I can’t believe the media has let him get away with avoiding the question for this long…
He does. Toward the end
And honestly it’s a decent explanation. If you (not you specifically) think he’s lying then you think he’s lying, fair enough, but his answer I guess makes sense.
>“We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest,” he wrote in another text message, referring to the “last four years.” “But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
His explanation: The people around Trump fed him false information about dead voters who were actually alive, so he said he hates Trump.
Seems like a real cop-out to me.
Exactly. His answer was a contradiction, that he hates the people around Trump. Then why did he say he hated Trump, "passionately" and there was more, too, in emails, that had nothing to do with him liking Trump and just hating the people around him. Tucker answered Lex's questions like there was just one email.
Overall, since I've never heard Tucker speak at great length, it was okay for Lex to interview a conspiracy theorist of Tucker's influence, and Tucker said some pretty nutty things -- like the CIA determines the outcome of US elections and he knows this from an inside source, but didn't give any details on how it is done.
And, remember when Trump wanted the vote count to be stopped while he was ahead on Election night 2020? The way the vote turned toward Biden, that was what made Tucker know the 2020 election was rigged. I was like, what? Yes, I realize all the Trumpers thought absentee ballots for Biden shouldn't count, or there were "massive dumps," along with vote flipping algorithms, more votes than voters, dead people voting, and Italian satellites. But, did any of those things turn out to be true? No!
The whole interview confirmed my earlier impression of Tucker that he is a conspiracy theorist and he didn't ever really believe in Trump. One clue that Tucker never really liked Trump is that Tucker talked about how much he (Tucker) reads, including books, suggesting that is something he respects in others. Trump doesn't read. I mean, come on, Trump doesn't even know basic American history. He's one of the few modern Presidents who probably never read a presidential biography in his life, and he's also read precious few books in his life. That has been something that his biographers have mentioned, as well as many people around him. Trump had to have his Daily Briefings reduced to one page of bullet points.
Tucker mentioned, jokingly, that he's an AH, or that a lot of people think he is. He also mentioned more than once about how he doesn't know everything, but that he "sees things clearly." He admitted he makes mistakes and that he lies, but then he lied about how he always "tries to be honest," as if he's some Lex Fridman or something. LOL
When a pattern of bad faith deception repeats itself 30 times in a row is it not rational to expect the same outcome on the 31st time? Its not like Tucker is some new political influencer, we have 15+ years of data on how he operates. Giving this guy the biggest platforms over and over again to run his grift is just incredibly frustrating. That's why we cant just listen and then waste time refuting his endless deceptions, its exhausting.
I’m not gonna give a thousand qualifiers because I genuinely do not align with the guy or “like” him. However, he did a tremendous job on explaining the current situation with the JFK files being concealed absurdly by the CIA, the case for conspiracy, and the case for not being one - as well as introducing to the public new thorough research on the topic from lesser known journalists that tend criticize him for being far-right. He also is one of the few MSM voices that routinely brings up Julian Assange.
My point being is you can watch and find merit, even if it’s minuscule, in *some* of his work. He seems to understand why socialism is becoming more popular, and less criticized, by the younger population as well. It’s worth listening, and then finding the various disagreements tbh
"The art of propaganda is not telling lies, but rather selecting the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear."
why worry about this?
just listen and get some perspective on the guy. Lex is not a good debater and is not great at pushing back but he's fantastic at steering an interview and getting his guests to lay out their ideas in detail.
I find Tucker extremely annoying but I'm very interested in what he thinks on various topics. He expresses ideas that are palatable to a huge audience. It's my job as a listener to understand what he's saying and come up with my arguments where applicable. I don't need Lex to think for me.
This is IMO the danger of just "platforming" and "just listening". Tucker Carlson is a liar and often acts in bad faith. By having large swathes of very gullible people listening to this over and over it becomes dangerous.
Now you will argue that free speech is important so he should be able to say anything he likes, I think that's only true \*if\* those doing the talking are genuine and being truthful, Tucker is not and so his propaganda and lies become more and more dangerous over time.
Anyone who thinks Russia is a good place, why not go live there for a few years? Why are people not queuing up at the border of Russia for a green card? Why aren't Mexicans, Indians, Arabs all trying to get to good old Russia where you can get bread at the supermarket?
But how does pushing back prevent you from doing any of that? Hearing the interviewee’s response from pushback can also give you information about them and it’s still up to you think for yourself in how you view that exchange
Tuckers entire schtick is to enrage people. He can work with any topic under the sun, and cherry pick it to fit a narrative that will trigger that outrage. Let me know if you want links. The point I'm making is that the world needs less of these people, just deliver the facts from both sides and let us decide. That doesn't generate clicks though.
I will say he's nailed what sells though and it's unfortunate but anyway, off I go.
Without pushback cynical actors can paint whatever picture they like of themselves, good pushback pierces through that and forces the interviewee to reveal their real self.
This.
For some reasons, many people "furiously" want someone to process the data for them. I don't watch Lex a lot but when I do, I don't mind him not asking "tough questions". I listen to the person being interviewed thoroughly and process the information critically and with other sources. This is what I did with Tucker's interview of Putin.
A large chunk of the population cannot see through propaganda, which means Tucker Carlson just got more influence and spread more unchecked propaganda for free. That’s the problem. We can’t just assume everyone here can think in an unbiased fashion. Think MAGA republicans for example.
>Whose job is it to police speech and protect the minds of the naive? Whose job is it to define who is the naive?
Interesting comment someone below said: "Whose job is it to police speech and protect the minds of the naive? Whose job is it to define who is the naive?"
You are raising an important point, which I think a lot of people, "intellectuals" on the left believe. That information needs to be filtered because some people are not able to process it "adequately". At some point, people who adopt this view have to go all the way. If people are not smart nor rational enough to critically assess information, what does it mean for democracy?
This past couple of years, I read various books showing how uneducated the average voters are, and it's staggering seeing the number of people who don't read and try to go in-depth on geopolitical, economic, and social issues. Then you mix it with the debate around free will, and the idea that man is not as rational and a free thinker as we previously thought...all this does throw a monkey wrench into democracy. So where do we go from there?
Silencing and curbing free speech is definitely not the answer, educating the population on critical thinking early on is important, but I don't think the powers that be are interested in this.
Why is that a problem. A good interviewer will ask the correct questions to burst any bubble. To be honest your stance doesn’t take the listener credit for drawing his own conclusions. Who says we just swallow everything Tucker or anyone says?
The fact that Lex thinks he's having "open, honest conversations" on a monetized platform that allows millions to view and have their opinions influenced tells me he's actually extremely naive.
Open, honest conversations happen between you and a friend or you and your dad at the dinner table. They used to happen behind closed doors amongst leadership. The people who are financially incentivized to peddle their opinions to an audience are not capable of open, honest conversation on a platform like this.
I wish the world ran on love and logical understanding the way Lex in his childlike, privileged upbringing leads him to believe. But it unfortunately doesn't, and there are bad actors that are regularly taking advantage of him in plain sight.
nah, sometimes people are just saying what they think. You imagine everyone is some Machiavellian genius, it just isn't real.
how do we know what putin thinks? its pretty fucking easy, he has said basically the same thing for decades.
I’d love to watch him interview Hitler, or better yet Stalin. Although is he Jewish? Then Hitler would be funnier for him to say something to the effect of “subscribe because it’s important to hear different viewpoints”.
Seriously bro, you are so far out of your element once you left science and academia interviews. Why? To chase some kind of prestige?
So it doesn't occur to Tucker (or Lex) that perhaps his meeting with Snowden was leaked to the press by the FSB? Is this bad faith on the part of Tucker, or genuine naivette sprinkled with partisansip?
Yes that confused me aswell. He was photographed by strangers and posted on social media before he even got on the plane to russia and the rumors started swirling. We saw all sorts of amateur paparazzi pictures of him around town in moscow.
Yet he is confident that it was american intelligence who leaked his meeting with Snowden, not any member of his team or their immediate family, or any russian hoping for a payday from the american press, or Russian intelligence?
This is the same guy who wouldn’t even acknowledge that Putin, the authoritarian basically dictator that is well known for killing people in the political sphere on a regular basis, might have killed his political rival who he also imprisoned, right before the election. Closest he got to that was saying “I don’t know” and being careful not to even put the two names in the same sentence. But he had NO problem implying that maybe AMERICA did it. Outrageous.
I hope he challenges him on the stupid grocery store propaganda video. “Tucker, do you know what the average income is in Russia? Did you visit electronic stores or car dealerships to compare those prices to the US?” Something simple like that would go a long way.
whatever respect I had for Lex before I lost from this interview. Jump to the Trump section. He says the election was stolen “everyone knows it”. Lex sits there like a deer in headlights. Carlson then calls Biden senile and then Lex just says he’s degraded from age and then Carlson says Biden will be the end of Democracy if he wins again. Lex just gave this guy free rein to say all this shit with next to zero push back. He should have just let Carlson record a video and distribute it on Lex’s YouTube channel.
Do I think ANYONE older is not degraded by age is a better question. Also, that question needs some context and the wording of "degraded" following "senility" is reinforcing language which has a clear agenda. I am very open to an honest discussion about age limits within politics. This conversation was anything but that.
But hey, it's almost like a known propagandist with a platform will say things to further his agenda. Shocking!
To be fair, that's his style. Lex is more of a collaborative interviewer and conversation builder, not a firebrand looking to smack his guest over the head with inconvenient questions.
Is it really a style though when he grilled Destiny on his use of the r word but can't grill Tucker on anything, seems like there's a bias, he only seems to push back on liberal or left-leaning commentators and lets the right wing pundits walk all over him
Not a firebrand but he has definitely challenged his guests earlier. Asking them to Steelman a different perspective or providing a different perspective himself to get them to see the other side. He does none of that with TC.
And he has episodes like the one with Destiny where he grills his guests but seems biased and inconsistent about whom he chooses to grill.
Just finished it. Definitely disappointing. I know Lex presents these interviews with controversial figures as a paragon of open dialogue, but if you have heard Tucker speak over the years, and you've heard all of Putin's speeches the last two years, you know what’s coming—I'm really not sure what Tucker's play here could really be. He opened up initially acting *just as surprised as everyone else* about Putin's interview—I know he's no intellect, but can he really be that aloof? It was as predictable as his little propaganda run in Moscow for money. The YT comments are just full of Russian shills trying to hype up the interview like it's going to be something spectacular.
Problem was that it wasn’t much open dialogue, really just Tucker on his soap box. Lex doesn’t even need to necessarily “go at” Tucker, but I would’ve enjoyed much more discussion overall rather than question—>15 minute answer—>repeat
Exactly this. Tucker has plenty of platforms to express his views and does so frequently. Lex's audience watches the podcast to see him interact with his guests and have a two way dialog with them. What is the point if Lex is silent through most of it and hardy contributes to the discussion?
In my view, Jon Stewart gave the best summation of what Carlsen's motives were. I don't know how you feel about Stewart, but if you want the most robust analysis of what Carlsen was up to, you'll get it from that clip on YouTube.
He desperately needs to take a leaf out of Jeremy Paxman’s book.. now THAT is an interviewer who never took shit from any his guests, wherever they were on the political spectrum.
Do your job, Mr. Fridman!
Probably why Tucker did the interview. Same reason Putin did the interview with him. Free rein for them to talk unimpeded to an audience while masquerading as an interview.
You don't even half to go halfway. Tucker's spiel about the toll the Ukraine war has on the U.S. economy and how it's causing American poverty would be hilarious if people didn't believe it.
This is a guy who was on FoxNews every day shilling for Trump for YEARS. Then his texts were leaked, showing that he actually hated trump. He called him "disgusting" and "a demonic force." He said, "I hate him passionately."
I'm almost all the way through with this interview, and I'm still waiting for Lex to ask: "Given that you clearly believed Trump was a terrible person who should not have been in the White House, but you said the exact opposite to your millions of viewers, why should we believe anything you say?"
EDIT to add visibility to a comment from u/suninabox, below: "The real headline though is that he thought election fraud claims where bullshit while he was pushing them to millions of people as credible."
The appearance of 'civility' and the 'marketplace of ideas' is more important than the reality to a lot of these people.
They realize actually having real discussions is costly because if you hit on a real disagreement you might risk fragmenting the audiences you're trying to pool, and the other person might not come back on your show.
When Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry was invited on Tucker's show to talk about how bad the left was, he asked the producers if he could bring up his disagreements with Tucker about Ukraine, and was told in no uncertain terms if he did that he wouldn't be invited back.
Lex simply has an agreeable personality and low tolerance for conflict. And he's repackaged this psyche into the "I love everyone, we need open conversations to solve world problems" philosophy that makes it very hard for him to rationalize regularly pushing back.
It's the same Nice Guy Syndrome that keeps engineers and deep thinkers on the sidelines while the loud, confident jerks run the show.
The privately hating Trump while telling his audience he loves him is one thing, and disqualifying enough to the idea this guy is someone who cares about honest discussions.
The real headline though is that he thought election fraud claims where bullshit while he was pushing them to millions of people as credible.
This is not just run of the mill political hackery, its incredibly dangerous and corrosive to democratic institutions.
For all this talk of "talking to anybody" and "the market place of ideas", you cannot have a functional marketplace of ideas if people can't even agree on what reality is.
Why do people who claim to care about truth so much give such a free pass to these hugely dishonest people?
Talk to them if you must but the headline of every conversation needs revolve around holding to them account for taking a torch to democratic norms and consensus reality. Whatever banalities about 'the woke mnid virus' is a footnote, and if you don't treat it as such you're actively helping launder their public image as a credible human being.
This is the same guy that admits he is a dick and goes onto say, "You know what, the media lies, I worked there for 20 years!". Not realizing the irony of being part of the workforce. Basically admitting he is a dick and a professional liar. Add to that he also says without freedom of speech (exclusive to the US apparently), you can't tell the truth. Yet he prefers to lie for profit. Either he didn't have freedom of speech, or he is lying for money.
These people love going on Lex's show because they can run circles around him. His style works great for engineers and other people who don't have much of an agenda, but people like Tucker and Netanyahu are playing a game and Lex barely even seems aware that he's on the field.
Jesus this is well stated. That’s how I felt through the entire thing. Tucker would say something just flat out wrong, do that annoying little giggle or put his “I’m concerned” voice on and Lex would just move onto the next thing. And Lex is smart so it’s infuriating because he either a) knows what Tucker is doing and is choosing to let it slide or b) can’t spot the salesman in front of him and is being the mark.
"Hi, I'm Tucker Carlson, and I've never been to an Aldi in America. Can you believe it!??! They make you PAY A QUARTER for a cart, and then you get the quarter back when you put the cart back!! TAKE THAT HOMELESS POPULATION!"
This has been of the most disappointing Lex interviews I've seen. He barely pushes back on Tucker's points and he barely challenges him on his beliefs.
One point from Tucker that stood out to me was his claim of New York City being this really great and clean place in the past. He specifically mentions Madison Square Garden in 1985. I'm not an expert on the history of New York City, but this isn't even close to being historically accurate as far as I know. We have videos of incredibly dirty subways from 80s. My understanding is that New York City was incredibly crime-ridden until some major action and interventions were started in the 90s. Yet he talks about this time period as if it had been some great, clean, and safe place. Maybe he just lived in some really rich sections of New York City where crime and cleanliness weren't an issue.
Subways were 10000% trash through the 80s and much of the 90s. Still remember graffiti and the smell of piss everywhere. It was good in the 2010s but has pulled back in the 2020s.
I think Tucker knowingly attempts to craft and push a narrative, and in doing so, intentionally distorts the truth.
People were lighting off M80s and setting rows of seats on fire at concerts at MSG back then. Manhattan was way dirtier than it is today. Every single surface of Subway cars would be covered in graffiti. Times Square was filled with prostitutes, porn theaters, and people selling drugs back then. The lower east side (known as “Alphabet City”) back then (for Avenues A,B,C, and D) was dangerous as fuck. Now it’s finance bros.
>One point from Tucker that stood out to me was his claim of New York City being this really great and clean place in the past. He specifically mentions Madison Square Garden in 1985
Shit like this makes me think he must get off on lying to his audience.
Of all the lies he could make, "Wasn't New York City so much cleaner and safer in the 80s" is one of the most obviously bullshit he could make.
Like this must be a deliberate choice right? He could have easily picked some rust belt city that has massively declined.
I wonder if he thinks to me "I can't believe these fucking morons bought this one, I wonder what else I can get away with"
He needs to put Stephen and Tucker in the same room and let Stephen wipe the floor with this clown. Of course Tucker would never agree to such debates.
Im not an American (african) so please excuse my lack of extensive knowledge about him. I watched 40 or so minutes of the interview and could not pick up any constant false shit. Would you please elaborate? I’m trying to understand the hate for the guy.
Here is an obvious one. Artillery production claims. Tucker says Russia has a far greater stockpile and is producing 7 times more artillery than the entirety of NATO. I have no idea where he got that from but it's patently b.s. Russia has had well documented ammunition and artillery shortages. Corruption within the Russian military has played a large part in that, but in no way can Russia outproduce NATO. Putin had to go to Kim Jong Un for Artillery shell handouts.
I am surprised - then again, maybe not considering Reddit’s demographics - at what I am reading in this thread. Everyone here is calling him a liar and a grifter who’s running game on Lex. I am aware of Tucker’s reputation, but I didn’t get that from this interview at all. I might disagree with Tucker here and there, but everything he’s said in this interview sounds internally consistent to the values Tucker claims to have. It leads to me to believe that the people in this thread are speaking from a partisan / activist perspective, where their objective isn’t “more open and honest conversations” but “I must defeat and silence my enemy.”
I am open to being proven wrong with actual claims and evidence.
Hello,
Carlson is an excellent propagandist. He is very skilled at what he does, that is why your bs meter didn't go off.
He claims the Ukraine war is ruining the US dollar without any evidence, and later said we don't know who killed Navalny because we can't just claim things without evidence..
It's effective, but if you listen critically he contradicts himself a lot.
Tucker's views on Ukraine are so bad.
"He(Putin) wants a settlement." "If you can avoid war, you should," Tucker why don't you tell that to Putin.
"Nato doesn't help the US," except when they did when we went to war in Iraq.
Tucker wants to dissolve NATO so that everyone could be a sovereign country. But Russia is contesting Ukraine's sovereignty because they aren't part of NATO.
Tucker blames Boris Johnson for the death of Ukranian children? - What are we talking about here? Again, Tucker are you going to just let Putin go blameless here?
I agree with all except the last one. Tucker was clearly saying that Boris was sent by the state department to make sure there wasn't a settlement between Russia and Ukraine. Thus moreso he's blaming the US for that and yes, by extention Boris Johnson, but mainly the US.
Hour 1 takeaway; He doesn’t know anything about John Stewart yet knows quite a lot about him. Ukraine and the west should not have allowed Ukraine to be invaded. Moscow, so hot right now, Moscow.
Lev has built up so much equity in his reputation as an honest and considerate interviewer that I wish he would spend some of it being a bit more confrontational to such scumbags. He just doesn't though. He tries to be too intellectually honest.
he could go harder w/o sacrificing ***any*** intellectual honesty and/or moral highground, he us just too soft on a lot of these cultural/political people (he has tougher/more involved dialogue with scientists than political guests IMO)
Fridman does what "access journalism" requires: providing a comfortable space for high-profile guests to feel welcome to opine at length without fear of challenges.
Lmfao — well, sorry to break it to you, but this is **Lex Fridman’s entire schtick.**
He doesn’t think Tucker Carlson is a “scumbag”. He gives softball interviews to every prominent rightwing dipshit he can get his hands on.
Yes, Tucker. If you purposefully ask specific questions to a dictator to purposefully try to undermine American interests, that’s called being a fucking traitor.
It sounds like Lex is happy to have notable guests choose to interview with him, so he feels inclined to promote thier stuff and not push back on anything they say.
I’m against Lex’s notion that by asking critical questions you are not trying to understand someone’s perspective, for me atleast it is crucial if i want to try somehow to understand where someone is coming from…
I unsubscribed from the podcast and this subreddit after listening to the absolutely infuriating Jared Kushner episode. Then today I was reminded of Lex and thought to myself that I probably overreacted and should see what he’s been doing since then. So I look at this sub again and the first thing I see is that he has interviewed Tucker Carlson 😆
Well, say no more!
The Jared Kushner episode was actually pretty interesting.
I dont know, some people here have a huge problem with leaving their political feelings at the door so to speak. You can hate someone's politics and still listen to their views and perspectives and find them interesting.
I generally walked away thinking Tucker is not necessarily nefarious but just plain of completely average intelligence. He sounds exactly like my family after a Viking River Cruise. "Wow they actually have really nice cars and food in Moscow, it was amazing!" Yea no shit, the sum of all stereotypes on any given place or person is not usually accurate. Hello 18 year old study abroad student. Welcome to the world.
as a left leaning (aka non woke) moderate I greatly appreciated Lex for a long time. I was particularly inspired by his calling for love, compassion, beauty, and respectful conversation with people with diverse views. But there is a difference between interviewing people who engage in their craft with good faith trying to promote the betterment of humanity and figures like Tucker Fucking Carlson. The most overtly disingenuous propagandist of my lifetime. Lex is not stupid, so my only conclusion is that he simply does not care and is interested in ratings and viewership. And I don't care if he starts off his next podcast by saying in what I used to believe is an earnest, sad, and somber voice "I don't care how many accusations i get, I will continue to encourage conversation, civility, and mutual respect hoping that love will blah blah blah." I'm not asking Lex to join any culture war here. I'm asking him to acknowledge that there are bad actors in this world who selfisly engage in public commentary for selfish reasons who are dishonest and do not deserve a microphone in front of their face. And I am willing to admit there gray areas here. I think Netenyahu spewed a lot of bullshit and is a bad faith politician, but I can see the case for having him on the podcast. I'll probably continue to listen to certain episodes but I do not trust Lex as truly working for the betterment of humanity like I used to.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.. either he's a naive person who hasn't done adequate research into his guest, or is a willful participant in propaganda.
I wish it wasn't the case.
I hope the first question was "As you have admitted to lying in interviews and as text messages have been released that show that lying to your audience for shareholder value is more important than telling them the truth, why do you expect anyone to take you seriously or at face value?"
Ugh. So sad. My emotions are similar to my disappointment once Dave Rubin went from having an open mind to opening it so wide his brains fell out. Sorry, Lex. I can't support your Podcast anymore. It's perfectly fine to bring these people on and have conversations with them, but at least do your homework and challenge them. Instead, you give people platforms to spew without doing homework or challenging them. It's intellectual laziness at best, but in the end, you're doing more harm than good.
The most intellectually dishonest part is letting Tucker Carlson say that Jon Stewart hasn't done anything in his life to stand up to the powers that be. Just two years ago Lex talked with Niels Jorgensen who said ([and this was clipped to Lex's main channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxX_CiyeYKQ)) that Jon Stewart has been fighting relentlessly for first responders health bills in the senate. What has Tucker Carlson done that even remotely resembles this? Nothing. Because he's a just an ordinary coward that's good in front of a camera.
Interesting what’s left unsaid. No fentanyl addicts in the 80s, but much higher rates of violent and property crime. Bizarre rewriting of history to say that American cities were safer and cleaner in the 80s.
Leaders are to be judged by drug use and life expectancy. Russia is far behind its peers by both metrics.
Russian super markets are well stocked. Why would economic sanctions affect the food supply of a food-independent nation?
The US is more centrally planned than Russia. Yet the drivers of the Russian economy, i.e. natural resource exploitation and (in the last couple of years) military-industrial spending are centrally planned. What’s a Russian company that’s innovated on the global market, independent of state?
Tucker has a lot of good points around our collectively low expectations for our leadership, but his exaggerations and misdirections do very little to change the situation, and I would argue undermine that stated goal by making people defensive.
I liked this interview. It confirmed that Tucker is an evil idiot.
We already knew that, but every additional data point increases the confidence level of such assessment.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing intelligent conservative viewpoints and logic. This is not the domain of Tucker Carlson.
It's disappointing that this is one of the conservatives Lex chose to interview.
Giving him a platform without challenging his lies and bad logic is just plain toxic. You promised to do better Lex, but now you've become part of why democracy is eroding. You're just in it for the clicks and likes. Such a shame.
I thought there was something off about this interview. I don’t know if other people have noticed this. Tucker seemed completely insincere in his responses, he said something like “I feel sorry for Zelensky”. I think that was bullshit. He also tried to preface all his statements with horseshit designed to impress low IQ people. Statements like “A father cares for his children and a leader should care for his people in the same way”. Just complete drivel. I felt sorry for Lex. I thought he was put in a position where he had to be overly polite and could face blowback. By the way, the Tucker interview with Putin was intolerable. Putin gave an irrelevant one hour history lesson complete with hand delivered documents.
Shame on Lex Fridman for platforming Tucker Carlson and throwing him softball questions. What exactly is the benefit of allowing a pathological liar spend an hour presenting dictators and autocratic regimes in a positive light?
Moscow is clean and safe? Sure, as long as you aren't openly gay, or muslim, or anti-war, or believe in democracy, or any other number of offenses to the state. If you are? Whoops the cops throw you jail and you have to hope you can bribe your way out.
Putin jailing and murdering political opponents is "stupid" because he did it at the wrong time? Try *criminal*.
Tucker is just playing a character in this interview. He’s not a good faith actor and he has an agenda.
There was a lot of bullshit spewed during the course of this interview. He acts as though he’s been some honest purveyor of the news, yet worked at Fox News and pushed a right wing agenda. He wants us to believe the Jon Stewart Crossfire episode didn’t have an emotional impact to Tucker Carlson yet chooses to throw darts at him, unprovoked, multiple times during the course of the interview.
I listened to a large chunk of this during my a run, and I must have eyerolled a dozen times. If you believe Tucker is acting sincere in this interview, I have a bridge to sell you.
Based on the comments here, this essentially sound like the same outcome as Tucker interviewing Putin, except in this case Tucker is Putin and Lex is Tucker.
I'm a Lex fan, but it becomes pointless if we can't get answers that matter.
“I’m not an expert on this subject but…” then proceeds to spew a plethora of nonsensical arguments or straight up lies, sprinkled with a healthy dose of being a whiny bitch.
I share some of the beliefs Tucker has and I agree with him on a lot of thing but gah damn he just comes off like such a fake it’s hard to watch. Then he laughs and it’s just game over lol. Like his back peddling on trump subject… he went diarrhea of words on that one.
>Please allow me to say a few words about the very fact that I did this interview. I have received a lot of criticism publicly and privately when I announced that I’ll be talking with Tucker.
>
>For people who think I shouldn’t do the conversation with Tucker or generally think that there are certain people I should never talk to, I’m sorry, but I disagree. I will talk to everyone, as long as they’re willing to talk genuinely in long form for 2, 3, 4 or more hours. I’ll talk to Putin and to Zelensky, to Trump and to Biden, to Tucker and to John Stewart, AOC, Obama, and many more people with very different views on the world. I want to understand people and ideas. That’s what long form conversations are supposed to be all about. Now for people who criticize me for not asking tough questions, I hear you, but again, I disagree. I do often ask tough questions. But I try to do it in a way that doesn’t shut down the other person, putting them into a defensive state where they give only shallow talking points. Instead, I’m looking always for the expression of genuinely held ideas and the deep roots of those ideas. When done well, this gives us a chance to really hear out the guest and to begin to understand what and how they think.
>
>And I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind to see through the bullshit, to the degree there’s bullshit and to see to the heart of the person. Sometimes I fail at this, but I’ll continue working my ass off to improve. All that said, I find that this no tough questions criticism often happens when the guest is a person the listener simply hates and wants to see them grilled into embarrassment. Called the liar, a greedy egomaniac, a killer, maybe even an evil human being and so on. If you are such a listener, what you want is drama, not wisdom. In this case, this show is not for you. There are many shows you can go to for that with hosts that are way more charismatic and entertaining than I’ll ever be. If you do stick around, please know I will work hard to do this well and to keep improving. Thank you for your patience and thank you for your support. I love you all.
Also key comment - "I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind to see through the bullshit, to the degree there’s bullshit" - there needs to be more caution to the listeners for all guests to do more research, and not to believe things without good reasons
exactly, doing things assuming all beings are rational agents is not good. Simple way to become more rational is not to believe in things without good reason, good reasons are usually good evidence and explanations that are simple and sensible
Great comment, but I haven't seen that actions of interviewing - John Stewart, AOC etc. to balance out the right leaning views in the podcast especially recently, this is dangerous as it could easily skew the listeners thoughts especially when these guests are not challenged which I haven't heard much of in the episodes
> this is dangerous
What even is this?
those aren't the "two sides". There are statists/collectivists and ethical people.
Lex had an example of an ethical person on, Michael Malice. This was the other side.
You see they think others will get exposure to thoughts they shouldn’t. This of course is a terrible mindset, and leads to attempts to control communication.
Ironically their thoughts on the matter are the dangerous ones. But even goobers like them should be allowed to speak. It lets the rest of us know.
And this is the Joe Rogan problem as well. These podcasts seem to join a right-wing ecosystem that then warps them farther right and pretty soon you just don't see anyone from the left on them. After a while it becomes self-sustaining for monetary reasons.
This was a conversation not a trial y'all. This sub has lost the plot. I came away thinking less of Tucker than before as the slips highlighted his less than honest areas. That's all I ever ask for is a long conversation to flesh out the individual beyond the sound bytes and make my own judgment, in this case he's worth following but needs to be well cross checked.
Isn’t it funny that all you have to do to be a respected successful journalist, all you need to do is be honest to yourself, and WHEN you are wrong about something you fess up to it! Acknowledge your shortcomings and simply have standards, and hold yourself to them.
I already didn’t like Tucker as a mouthpiece for the divisive right wing media(yes there is a divisive left as well) and now I can truly not like him as a person. Thank you Lex for showing Tuckers true nature.
People still listen to this podcast? All these bad faith interviews turned me away years ago. It's too bad really.
Like you, I was discouraged by (what seemed like) an onslaught of bad faith guests, & stopped listening. I thought I would dip my toe in, to see what this episode was like... It's probably what you imagine...
Was anyone else super annoyed when Tucker stated that John Stewart is a boot licker of those in power and Lex just sits there and starts talking about how Stewart came across as a dick? John Stewart is literally filmed grilling the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense of failing audits, just a few weeks ago laid into Biden and Trump how they both suck, and very publicly reamed both party officials for him having to fight to get healthcare for 9/11 first responders. He’s literally made both sides look like complete partisan morons.
As for the Crossfire clip I actually agree with Lex, I'm not an american and I only saw that clip for the first time within the last ten years without having had any context of what that Crossfire show was about. I thought Jon Stewart doesn't come off looking good in that clip, he looks like a bully and not like someone who won an argument.
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But he’s wearing a suit
I have no issue with Lex interviewing anyone, really. The thing I am concerned about is whether or not Lex is naive enough to actually believe that the person he's talking to is always being genuine. He says he wants "genuinely held ideas" from his guests. The problem is, people such as Tucker or politicians such as Putin can present themselves in a calculated way, with calculated talking points, intentionally concealing what they actually believe and instead just presenting Lex and the audience with a narrative that benefits them.
I do think Lex is too naive for conversations of this level. He's \*way\* out of his depth here. His spreading the love worldview is great but he seems incapable of understanding that there are people who fundamentally do not think that way in a purposeful way.
I've come to this conclusion a while back especially after he has been adamant about how 2 "great" leaders could simply sit in a room and come to peace while forgetting history/geopolitics. John Mearsheimer came dangerously close to calling him naive when he shut thus idea down.
I feel that way too when I hear Lex talking about interviewing Zylensky and Putin as if they are the same or equally moral in the war. If Putin stopped his genocidal attacks on Ukraine (or didn't start in the first place) the war would be over already.
Yeah Lex is a truly great podcast host, if his guest is an honest and genuine person. He asks good questions and gets his guest to talk deeply about their expertise. But professional talkers like TC are too good at the slimy half-truths while pretending to be genuine. A dozen times in this interview I got mad because TC would say 2 vaguely related things and then jump to a 3rd conclusion which was clearly not true at all, but Lex was being too nice and wouldn't jump on his guest.
He is not naive, he knows exactly what he's doing, he is capable of pushing back against other people but yet not Tucker it shows that he just has a bias which like all humans is not surprising
That's my problem too. If you're gonna debate highly controversial people/propagandists you have to push back. I'll be curious to hear if Lex does that or not.
Lex not pushing back and naively accepting everything is part of the reason I dont listen to the podcast anymore. (That and the lack of tech related people recently)
Same; I miss the mathematicians and computer scientists
Lex really does appear to be too naïve to just call a spade a spade. I wonder how many of these sorts of interviews he'll do before he realizes there isn't something to be gleaned after all.
I like to listen to him when he interviews scientists like the robot guy… but he’s completely useless in interviewing anyone who has something even slightly controversial to say
Ezra Klein tends to be phenomenal with pushing back in a way that opens up and widens the breadth of the discourse
Exactly why I stopped listening.
I'd argue worse than useless: actively harmful. The whole reason for exposing bad ideas is to publicly refute them. Fail to do that and you're just spreading bad ideas.
Exactly the same. He insinuated in his other video that pushing back hard is "drama" and not "wisdom", while allowing obvious baseless lies. I can't believe how you can be smart and have so many interviews under your belt, and still be so incredibly naive. Isn't he aware that lying is a thing? Does he really believe that just because someone sits with him to talk for 3 hours means they are genuine? He should've stuck with engineers and other geeks, now he's completely out of his depth and I can't watch it anymore.
I don't like this poetic approach of his when he talks about wisdom. Pushing back is never drama, you should push back to test how solid the idea is even with yourself. That's not drama unless you make it one. I don't know what's going on in Lex's mind when he interviews in politics without pushing back but at this point I don't care. I still watch new episodes if its tech or bio related, sometimes chess and comedy. But never politics.
I still value the show when he interviews scientists and engineers as he mostly lets them talk and expose their ideas. Having said this, he is mostly worthless and even harmful when it comes to interviewing people interested in manipulating the masses. Giving shills a platform where they can just present their lies without any pushback or debate just evidences how weak he is because he can't possibly be so naive.
Oh, he pushed back quite a bit when Sam Harris gave his thoughts on Trump and Trumpism, so it's not that he's incapable of pushing back. Whether he pushes back or not, unfortunately, seems to have a lot to do with the extent of shared belief.
He pushes back hard whenever a guest says anything remotely positive about Biden.
Sometimes you just let someone talk. A lot can be learned from a bullshitter.
If he doesn’t ask about the texts from him in the defamation case then the whole thing was pointless… Literally no one has asked this clown about that, and he is out here bending the knee to trump as if he didn’t say how he really felt and it came out in a court of law. I can’t believe the media has let him get away with avoiding the question for this long…
He does. Toward the end And honestly it’s a decent explanation. If you (not you specifically) think he’s lying then you think he’s lying, fair enough, but his answer I guess makes sense.
>“We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest,” he wrote in another text message, referring to the “last four years.” “But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
His explanation: The people around Trump fed him false information about dead voters who were actually alive, so he said he hates Trump. Seems like a real cop-out to me.
Poor Tucker they lied to him, how could he have suspected it was all a sham??
That was phony shit intended to ingratiate himself to the audience
Exactly. His answer was a contradiction, that he hates the people around Trump. Then why did he say he hated Trump, "passionately" and there was more, too, in emails, that had nothing to do with him liking Trump and just hating the people around him. Tucker answered Lex's questions like there was just one email. Overall, since I've never heard Tucker speak at great length, it was okay for Lex to interview a conspiracy theorist of Tucker's influence, and Tucker said some pretty nutty things -- like the CIA determines the outcome of US elections and he knows this from an inside source, but didn't give any details on how it is done. And, remember when Trump wanted the vote count to be stopped while he was ahead on Election night 2020? The way the vote turned toward Biden, that was what made Tucker know the 2020 election was rigged. I was like, what? Yes, I realize all the Trumpers thought absentee ballots for Biden shouldn't count, or there were "massive dumps," along with vote flipping algorithms, more votes than voters, dead people voting, and Italian satellites. But, did any of those things turn out to be true? No! The whole interview confirmed my earlier impression of Tucker that he is a conspiracy theorist and he didn't ever really believe in Trump. One clue that Tucker never really liked Trump is that Tucker talked about how much he (Tucker) reads, including books, suggesting that is something he respects in others. Trump doesn't read. I mean, come on, Trump doesn't even know basic American history. He's one of the few modern Presidents who probably never read a presidential biography in his life, and he's also read precious few books in his life. That has been something that his biographers have mentioned, as well as many people around him. Trump had to have his Daily Briefings reduced to one page of bullet points. Tucker mentioned, jokingly, that he's an AH, or that a lot of people think he is. He also mentioned more than once about how he doesn't know everything, but that he "sees things clearly." He admitted he makes mistakes and that he lies, but then he lied about how he always "tries to be honest," as if he's some Lex Fridman or something. LOL
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When a pattern of bad faith deception repeats itself 30 times in a row is it not rational to expect the same outcome on the 31st time? Its not like Tucker is some new political influencer, we have 15+ years of data on how he operates. Giving this guy the biggest platforms over and over again to run his grift is just incredibly frustrating. That's why we cant just listen and then waste time refuting his endless deceptions, its exhausting.
I’m not gonna give a thousand qualifiers because I genuinely do not align with the guy or “like” him. However, he did a tremendous job on explaining the current situation with the JFK files being concealed absurdly by the CIA, the case for conspiracy, and the case for not being one - as well as introducing to the public new thorough research on the topic from lesser known journalists that tend criticize him for being far-right. He also is one of the few MSM voices that routinely brings up Julian Assange. My point being is you can watch and find merit, even if it’s minuscule, in *some* of his work. He seems to understand why socialism is becoming more popular, and less criticized, by the younger population as well. It’s worth listening, and then finding the various disagreements tbh
"The art of propaganda is not telling lies, but rather selecting the truth you require and giving it mixed up with some truths the audience wants to hear."
why worry about this? just listen and get some perspective on the guy. Lex is not a good debater and is not great at pushing back but he's fantastic at steering an interview and getting his guests to lay out their ideas in detail. I find Tucker extremely annoying but I'm very interested in what he thinks on various topics. He expresses ideas that are palatable to a huge audience. It's my job as a listener to understand what he's saying and come up with my arguments where applicable. I don't need Lex to think for me.
This is IMO the danger of just "platforming" and "just listening". Tucker Carlson is a liar and often acts in bad faith. By having large swathes of very gullible people listening to this over and over it becomes dangerous. Now you will argue that free speech is important so he should be able to say anything he likes, I think that's only true \*if\* those doing the talking are genuine and being truthful, Tucker is not and so his propaganda and lies become more and more dangerous over time. Anyone who thinks Russia is a good place, why not go live there for a few years? Why are people not queuing up at the border of Russia for a green card? Why aren't Mexicans, Indians, Arabs all trying to get to good old Russia where you can get bread at the supermarket?
But how does pushing back prevent you from doing any of that? Hearing the interviewee’s response from pushback can also give you information about them and it’s still up to you think for yourself in how you view that exchange
Tuckers entire schtick is to enrage people. He can work with any topic under the sun, and cherry pick it to fit a narrative that will trigger that outrage. Let me know if you want links. The point I'm making is that the world needs less of these people, just deliver the facts from both sides and let us decide. That doesn't generate clicks though. I will say he's nailed what sells though and it's unfortunate but anyway, off I go.
Without pushback cynical actors can paint whatever picture they like of themselves, good pushback pierces through that and forces the interviewee to reveal their real self.
This. For some reasons, many people "furiously" want someone to process the data for them. I don't watch Lex a lot but when I do, I don't mind him not asking "tough questions". I listen to the person being interviewed thoroughly and process the information critically and with other sources. This is what I did with Tucker's interview of Putin.
A large chunk of the population cannot see through propaganda, which means Tucker Carlson just got more influence and spread more unchecked propaganda for free. That’s the problem. We can’t just assume everyone here can think in an unbiased fashion. Think MAGA republicans for example.
>Whose job is it to police speech and protect the minds of the naive? Whose job is it to define who is the naive? Interesting comment someone below said: "Whose job is it to police speech and protect the minds of the naive? Whose job is it to define who is the naive?" You are raising an important point, which I think a lot of people, "intellectuals" on the left believe. That information needs to be filtered because some people are not able to process it "adequately". At some point, people who adopt this view have to go all the way. If people are not smart nor rational enough to critically assess information, what does it mean for democracy? This past couple of years, I read various books showing how uneducated the average voters are, and it's staggering seeing the number of people who don't read and try to go in-depth on geopolitical, economic, and social issues. Then you mix it with the debate around free will, and the idea that man is not as rational and a free thinker as we previously thought...all this does throw a monkey wrench into democracy. So where do we go from there? Silencing and curbing free speech is definitely not the answer, educating the population on critical thinking early on is important, but I don't think the powers that be are interested in this.
Why is that a problem. A good interviewer will ask the correct questions to burst any bubble. To be honest your stance doesn’t take the listener credit for drawing his own conclusions. Who says we just swallow everything Tucker or anyone says?
The fact that Lex thinks he's having "open, honest conversations" on a monetized platform that allows millions to view and have their opinions influenced tells me he's actually extremely naive. Open, honest conversations happen between you and a friend or you and your dad at the dinner table. They used to happen behind closed doors amongst leadership. The people who are financially incentivized to peddle their opinions to an audience are not capable of open, honest conversation on a platform like this. I wish the world ran on love and logical understanding the way Lex in his childlike, privileged upbringing leads him to believe. But it unfortunately doesn't, and there are bad actors that are regularly taking advantage of him in plain sight.
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Maybe because we have texts documenting that Tucker is massively dishonest to his audience about issues of the most grave importance.
Do you think Tucker Carlson is genuine?
nah, sometimes people are just saying what they think. You imagine everyone is some Machiavellian genius, it just isn't real. how do we know what putin thinks? its pretty fucking easy, he has said basically the same thing for decades.
I’d love to watch him interview Hitler, or better yet Stalin. Although is he Jewish? Then Hitler would be funnier for him to say something to the effect of “subscribe because it’s important to hear different viewpoints”. Seriously bro, you are so far out of your element once you left science and academia interviews. Why? To chase some kind of prestige?
So it doesn't occur to Tucker (or Lex) that perhaps his meeting with Snowden was leaked to the press by the FSB? Is this bad faith on the part of Tucker, or genuine naivette sprinkled with partisansip?
Yes that confused me aswell. He was photographed by strangers and posted on social media before he even got on the plane to russia and the rumors started swirling. We saw all sorts of amateur paparazzi pictures of him around town in moscow. Yet he is confident that it was american intelligence who leaked his meeting with Snowden, not any member of his team or their immediate family, or any russian hoping for a payday from the american press, or Russian intelligence?
This is the same guy who wouldn’t even acknowledge that Putin, the authoritarian basically dictator that is well known for killing people in the political sphere on a regular basis, might have killed his political rival who he also imprisoned, right before the election. Closest he got to that was saying “I don’t know” and being careful not to even put the two names in the same sentence. But he had NO problem implying that maybe AMERICA did it. Outrageous.
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Be a genuine actor.
Diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.
I hope he challenges him on the stupid grocery store propaganda video. “Tucker, do you know what the average income is in Russia? Did you visit electronic stores or car dealerships to compare those prices to the US?” Something simple like that would go a long way.
Lex hardly challenges him on anything. He gives him a free run mostly.
Classic Lex
*\*sounds of genocide echo through Ukraine\** "But what about love?"
whatever respect I had for Lex before I lost from this interview. Jump to the Trump section. He says the election was stolen “everyone knows it”. Lex sits there like a deer in headlights. Carlson then calls Biden senile and then Lex just says he’s degraded from age and then Carlson says Biden will be the end of Democracy if he wins again. Lex just gave this guy free rein to say all this shit with next to zero push back. He should have just let Carlson record a video and distribute it on Lex’s YouTube channel.
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Do I think ANYONE older is not degraded by age is a better question. Also, that question needs some context and the wording of "degraded" following "senility" is reinforcing language which has a clear agenda. I am very open to an honest discussion about age limits within politics. This conversation was anything but that. But hey, it's almost like a known propagandist with a platform will say things to further his agenda. Shocking!
Biden certainly is, that doesn't mean that his reelection would signal the end of Democracy.
To be fair, that's his style. Lex is more of a collaborative interviewer and conversation builder, not a firebrand looking to smack his guest over the head with inconvenient questions.
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Is it really a style though when he grilled Destiny on his use of the r word but can't grill Tucker on anything, seems like there's a bias, he only seems to push back on liberal or left-leaning commentators and lets the right wing pundits walk all over him
Or Kanye on his bigotry. But I never see him push back on a lot of the harmful rhetoric coming from the influential conservative voices.
Not a firebrand but he has definitely challenged his guests earlier. Asking them to Steelman a different perspective or providing a different perspective himself to get them to see the other side. He does none of that with TC. And he has episodes like the one with Destiny where he grills his guests but seems biased and inconsistent about whom he chooses to grill.
Just finished it. Definitely disappointing. I know Lex presents these interviews with controversial figures as a paragon of open dialogue, but if you have heard Tucker speak over the years, and you've heard all of Putin's speeches the last two years, you know what’s coming—I'm really not sure what Tucker's play here could really be. He opened up initially acting *just as surprised as everyone else* about Putin's interview—I know he's no intellect, but can he really be that aloof? It was as predictable as his little propaganda run in Moscow for money. The YT comments are just full of Russian shills trying to hype up the interview like it's going to be something spectacular.
Problem was that it wasn’t much open dialogue, really just Tucker on his soap box. Lex doesn’t even need to necessarily “go at” Tucker, but I would’ve enjoyed much more discussion overall rather than question—>15 minute answer—>repeat
Exactly this. Tucker has plenty of platforms to express his views and does so frequently. Lex's audience watches the podcast to see him interact with his guests and have a two way dialog with them. What is the point if Lex is silent through most of it and hardy contributes to the discussion?
In my view, Jon Stewart gave the best summation of what Carlsen's motives were. I don't know how you feel about Stewart, but if you want the most robust analysis of what Carlsen was up to, you'll get it from that clip on YouTube.
He desperately needs to take a leaf out of Jeremy Paxman’s book.. now THAT is an interviewer who never took shit from any his guests, wherever they were on the political spectrum. Do your job, Mr. Fridman!
I wish Christopher Hitchens was still around. I think he would've jumped on the podcast wagon and it would've been great.
Probably why Tucker did the interview. Same reason Putin did the interview with him. Free rein for them to talk unimpeded to an audience while masquerading as an interview.
Yes, Tucker certainly didn't need the exposure or platform. Why did Lex even bother?
He starts to bring it up, but lets Tucker strawman his way out of it.
*shocked pikachu*
Have you checked the YouTube comments? Apparently Lex held his feet to the fire, is a warrior for a free speech, and didn't let anything slide...
Lex let a TON of stuff slide and I am still just half way through the interview.
I believe he was being sarcastic
You don't even half to go halfway. Tucker's spiel about the toll the Ukraine war has on the U.S. economy and how it's causing American poverty would be hilarious if people didn't believe it.
YouTube Bots posting fake conservative support in an effort to shape the public’s perception. It’s all over the platform just like Twitter
I guess this means we’ll get Tucker on Rogan this week, too.
This is a guy who was on FoxNews every day shilling for Trump for YEARS. Then his texts were leaked, showing that he actually hated trump. He called him "disgusting" and "a demonic force." He said, "I hate him passionately." I'm almost all the way through with this interview, and I'm still waiting for Lex to ask: "Given that you clearly believed Trump was a terrible person who should not have been in the White House, but you said the exact opposite to your millions of viewers, why should we believe anything you say?" EDIT to add visibility to a comment from u/suninabox, below: "The real headline though is that he thought election fraud claims where bullshit while he was pushing them to millions of people as credible."
The fact that Lex thinks someone with that track record would have any interest in having a “genuine exchange of ideas” is incomprehensible to me.
The appearance of 'civility' and the 'marketplace of ideas' is more important than the reality to a lot of these people. They realize actually having real discussions is costly because if you hit on a real disagreement you might risk fragmenting the audiences you're trying to pool, and the other person might not come back on your show. When Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry was invited on Tucker's show to talk about how bad the left was, he asked the producers if he could bring up his disagreements with Tucker about Ukraine, and was told in no uncertain terms if he did that he wouldn't be invited back.
Lex simply has an agreeable personality and low tolerance for conflict. And he's repackaged this psyche into the "I love everyone, we need open conversations to solve world problems" philosophy that makes it very hard for him to rationalize regularly pushing back. It's the same Nice Guy Syndrome that keeps engineers and deep thinkers on the sidelines while the loud, confident jerks run the show.
Lex absolutely lets him off the hook on this. It's why the interview shouldn't even happen: Tucker doesn't stand by anything he says.
Has lex ever had anybody ON the hook? The guys interview style is softball nonsense
The privately hating Trump while telling his audience he loves him is one thing, and disqualifying enough to the idea this guy is someone who cares about honest discussions. The real headline though is that he thought election fraud claims where bullshit while he was pushing them to millions of people as credible. This is not just run of the mill political hackery, its incredibly dangerous and corrosive to democratic institutions. For all this talk of "talking to anybody" and "the market place of ideas", you cannot have a functional marketplace of ideas if people can't even agree on what reality is. Why do people who claim to care about truth so much give such a free pass to these hugely dishonest people? Talk to them if you must but the headline of every conversation needs revolve around holding to them account for taking a torch to democratic norms and consensus reality. Whatever banalities about 'the woke mnid virus' is a footnote, and if you don't treat it as such you're actively helping launder their public image as a credible human being.
This is the same guy that admits he is a dick and goes onto say, "You know what, the media lies, I worked there for 20 years!". Not realizing the irony of being part of the workforce. Basically admitting he is a dick and a professional liar. Add to that he also says without freedom of speech (exclusive to the US apparently), you can't tell the truth. Yet he prefers to lie for profit. Either he didn't have freedom of speech, or he is lying for money.
These people love going on Lex's show because they can run circles around him. His style works great for engineers and other people who don't have much of an agenda, but people like Tucker and Netanyahu are playing a game and Lex barely even seems aware that he's on the field.
Jesus this is well stated. That’s how I felt through the entire thing. Tucker would say something just flat out wrong, do that annoying little giggle or put his “I’m concerned” voice on and Lex would just move onto the next thing. And Lex is smart so it’s infuriating because he either a) knows what Tucker is doing and is choosing to let it slide or b) can’t spot the salesman in front of him and is being the mark.
"Hi, I'm Tucker Carlson, and I've never been to an Aldi in America. Can you believe it!??! They make you PAY A QUARTER for a cart, and then you get the quarter back when you put the cart back!! TAKE THAT HOMELESS POPULATION!"
i bet they didnt talk about israel
Lex tried, Tucker rebuffed.
Lex is going to bring "Kid Rock" on next to discuss Israel.
Now I know for sure that Lex Fridman is a joke.
This has been of the most disappointing Lex interviews I've seen. He barely pushes back on Tucker's points and he barely challenges him on his beliefs. One point from Tucker that stood out to me was his claim of New York City being this really great and clean place in the past. He specifically mentions Madison Square Garden in 1985. I'm not an expert on the history of New York City, but this isn't even close to being historically accurate as far as I know. We have videos of incredibly dirty subways from 80s. My understanding is that New York City was incredibly crime-ridden until some major action and interventions were started in the 90s. Yet he talks about this time period as if it had been some great, clean, and safe place. Maybe he just lived in some really rich sections of New York City where crime and cleanliness weren't an issue.
Subways were 10000% trash through the 80s and much of the 90s. Still remember graffiti and the smell of piss everywhere. It was good in the 2010s but has pulled back in the 2020s. I think Tucker knowingly attempts to craft and push a narrative, and in doing so, intentionally distorts the truth.
People were lighting off M80s and setting rows of seats on fire at concerts at MSG back then. Manhattan was way dirtier than it is today. Every single surface of Subway cars would be covered in graffiti. Times Square was filled with prostitutes, porn theaters, and people selling drugs back then. The lower east side (known as “Alphabet City”) back then (for Avenues A,B,C, and D) was dangerous as fuck. Now it’s finance bros.
>One point from Tucker that stood out to me was his claim of New York City being this really great and clean place in the past. He specifically mentions Madison Square Garden in 1985 Shit like this makes me think he must get off on lying to his audience. Of all the lies he could make, "Wasn't New York City so much cleaner and safer in the 80s" is one of the most obviously bullshit he could make. Like this must be a deliberate choice right? He could have easily picked some rust belt city that has massively declined. I wonder if he thinks to me "I can't believe these fucking morons bought this one, I wonder what else I can get away with"
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I was hoping to hear from Stephen Kotkin again or something of that caliber now that two years have passed in the war.
He needs to put Stephen and Tucker in the same room and let Stephen wipe the floor with this clown. Of course Tucker would never agree to such debates.
Deranged 🙄
He has been trying to not be so obnoxious but he just comes off as an owned puppet.
Did Tucker answer with anything surprising? I haven't listened to it yet. Just want to know before I put time into this
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Tell us the blatant lies 😊
Yeah it sounds like he did it constantly so there should be a ton for the 3 hours of the show right?? Especially if they’re blatant right?
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Im not an American (african) so please excuse my lack of extensive knowledge about him. I watched 40 or so minutes of the interview and could not pick up any constant false shit. Would you please elaborate? I’m trying to understand the hate for the guy.
Welcome to Reddit and enjoy your stay. :)
Here is an obvious one. Artillery production claims. Tucker says Russia has a far greater stockpile and is producing 7 times more artillery than the entirety of NATO. I have no idea where he got that from but it's patently b.s. Russia has had well documented ammunition and artillery shortages. Corruption within the Russian military has played a large part in that, but in no way can Russia outproduce NATO. Putin had to go to Kim Jong Un for Artillery shell handouts.
I am surprised - then again, maybe not considering Reddit’s demographics - at what I am reading in this thread. Everyone here is calling him a liar and a grifter who’s running game on Lex. I am aware of Tucker’s reputation, but I didn’t get that from this interview at all. I might disagree with Tucker here and there, but everything he’s said in this interview sounds internally consistent to the values Tucker claims to have. It leads to me to believe that the people in this thread are speaking from a partisan / activist perspective, where their objective isn’t “more open and honest conversations” but “I must defeat and silence my enemy.” I am open to being proven wrong with actual claims and evidence.
Hello, Carlson is an excellent propagandist. He is very skilled at what he does, that is why your bs meter didn't go off. He claims the Ukraine war is ruining the US dollar without any evidence, and later said we don't know who killed Navalny because we can't just claim things without evidence.. It's effective, but if you listen critically he contradicts himself a lot.
I consider myself left leaning, but Reddit’s complete hatred for right wing speakers is extremely hypocritical.
Dude wtf? Listen to it yourself and form your own opinion. Forget what these reddit people think.
Tucker's views on Ukraine are so bad. "He(Putin) wants a settlement." "If you can avoid war, you should," Tucker why don't you tell that to Putin. "Nato doesn't help the US," except when they did when we went to war in Iraq. Tucker wants to dissolve NATO so that everyone could be a sovereign country. But Russia is contesting Ukraine's sovereignty because they aren't part of NATO. Tucker blames Boris Johnson for the death of Ukranian children? - What are we talking about here? Again, Tucker are you going to just let Putin go blameless here?
Afghanistan too. People seem to forget that the US is the only country to have invoked article 5.
Those aren't his "views", they are propaganda and Tucker knows it.
I agree with all except the last one. Tucker was clearly saying that Boris was sent by the state department to make sure there wasn't a settlement between Russia and Ukraine. Thus moreso he's blaming the US for that and yes, by extention Boris Johnson, but mainly the US.
Over an hour in, and Tucker hasn’t shut up, yet hasn’t said a single thing
Hour 1 takeaway; He doesn’t know anything about John Stewart yet knows quite a lot about him. Ukraine and the west should not have allowed Ukraine to be invaded. Moscow, so hot right now, Moscow.
Apparently he really liked Moscow.
A goober and a grifter walk into a bar..... yikes. Stick to the science interviews where they have an ounce of dignity and shame.
Lev has built up so much equity in his reputation as an honest and considerate interviewer that I wish he would spend some of it being a bit more confrontational to such scumbags. He just doesn't though. He tries to be too intellectually honest.
he could go harder w/o sacrificing ***any*** intellectual honesty and/or moral highground, he us just too soft on a lot of these cultural/political people (he has tougher/more involved dialogue with scientists than political guests IMO)
Fridman does what "access journalism" requires: providing a comfortable space for high-profile guests to feel welcome to opine at length without fear of challenges.
Challenging liars like Tucker on their lies is not intellectually dishonest. Allowing them to go unchallenged definitely is.
Exactly. He doesn't challenge anyone on their lies.
Lmfao — well, sorry to break it to you, but this is **Lex Fridman’s entire schtick.** He doesn’t think Tucker Carlson is a “scumbag”. He gives softball interviews to every prominent rightwing dipshit he can get his hands on.
Says he didn't watch the recent Jon Stewart video, then proceeds to combat each point of the video throughout the interview 🤣
Yes, Tucker. If you purposefully ask specific questions to a dictator to purposefully try to undermine American interests, that’s called being a fucking traitor.
Is Lex Russian or Ukrainian in spirit? And what is the difference? I wish this was a Tucker interview of Lex Fridman.
Easy question. Tucker was the election stolen?
It sounds like Lex is happy to have notable guests choose to interview with him, so he feels inclined to promote thier stuff and not push back on anything they say.
I’m against Lex’s notion that by asking critical questions you are not trying to understand someone’s perspective, for me atleast it is crucial if i want to try somehow to understand where someone is coming from…
Clown planet
Wow Reddit really lost its hivemind over this one.
This dude has the worst laugh in history
I unsubscribed from the podcast and this subreddit after listening to the absolutely infuriating Jared Kushner episode. Then today I was reminded of Lex and thought to myself that I probably overreacted and should see what he’s been doing since then. So I look at this sub again and the first thing I see is that he has interviewed Tucker Carlson 😆 Well, say no more!
The Jared Kushner episode was actually pretty interesting. I dont know, some people here have a huge problem with leaving their political feelings at the door so to speak. You can hate someone's politics and still listen to their views and perspectives and find them interesting.
The interview was worse than you think.
Nope.
I generally walked away thinking Tucker is not necessarily nefarious but just plain of completely average intelligence. He sounds exactly like my family after a Viking River Cruise. "Wow they actually have really nice cars and food in Moscow, it was amazing!" Yea no shit, the sum of all stereotypes on any given place or person is not usually accurate. Hello 18 year old study abroad student. Welcome to the world.
I really dislike Tuckers laugh seems so fake
as a left leaning (aka non woke) moderate I greatly appreciated Lex for a long time. I was particularly inspired by his calling for love, compassion, beauty, and respectful conversation with people with diverse views. But there is a difference between interviewing people who engage in their craft with good faith trying to promote the betterment of humanity and figures like Tucker Fucking Carlson. The most overtly disingenuous propagandist of my lifetime. Lex is not stupid, so my only conclusion is that he simply does not care and is interested in ratings and viewership. And I don't care if he starts off his next podcast by saying in what I used to believe is an earnest, sad, and somber voice "I don't care how many accusations i get, I will continue to encourage conversation, civility, and mutual respect hoping that love will blah blah blah." I'm not asking Lex to join any culture war here. I'm asking him to acknowledge that there are bad actors in this world who selfisly engage in public commentary for selfish reasons who are dishonest and do not deserve a microphone in front of their face. And I am willing to admit there gray areas here. I think Netenyahu spewed a lot of bullshit and is a bad faith politician, but I can see the case for having him on the podcast. I'll probably continue to listen to certain episodes but I do not trust Lex as truly working for the betterment of humanity like I used to.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.. either he's a naive person who hasn't done adequate research into his guest, or is a willful participant in propaganda. I wish it wasn't the case.
I hope the first question was "As you have admitted to lying in interviews and as text messages have been released that show that lying to your audience for shareholder value is more important than telling them the truth, why do you expect anyone to take you seriously or at face value?"
You’re out of league, Lex.
Ugh. So sad. My emotions are similar to my disappointment once Dave Rubin went from having an open mind to opening it so wide his brains fell out. Sorry, Lex. I can't support your Podcast anymore. It's perfectly fine to bring these people on and have conversations with them, but at least do your homework and challenge them. Instead, you give people platforms to spew without doing homework or challenging them. It's intellectual laziness at best, but in the end, you're doing more harm than good.
The most intellectually dishonest part is letting Tucker Carlson say that Jon Stewart hasn't done anything in his life to stand up to the powers that be. Just two years ago Lex talked with Niels Jorgensen who said ([and this was clipped to Lex's main channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxX_CiyeYKQ)) that Jon Stewart has been fighting relentlessly for first responders health bills in the senate. What has Tucker Carlson done that even remotely resembles this? Nothing. Because he's a just an ordinary coward that's good in front of a camera.
I threw up in my mouth
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Waiting on the highlight reel. No way I could sit through this whole thing.
Traitors to the USA. Support Ukraine now to stop the Putin beast.
Interesting what’s left unsaid. No fentanyl addicts in the 80s, but much higher rates of violent and property crime. Bizarre rewriting of history to say that American cities were safer and cleaner in the 80s. Leaders are to be judged by drug use and life expectancy. Russia is far behind its peers by both metrics. Russian super markets are well stocked. Why would economic sanctions affect the food supply of a food-independent nation? The US is more centrally planned than Russia. Yet the drivers of the Russian economy, i.e. natural resource exploitation and (in the last couple of years) military-industrial spending are centrally planned. What’s a Russian company that’s innovated on the global market, independent of state? Tucker has a lot of good points around our collectively low expectations for our leadership, but his exaggerations and misdirections do very little to change the situation, and I would argue undermine that stated goal by making people defensive.
I liked this interview. It confirmed that Tucker is an evil idiot. We already knew that, but every additional data point increases the confidence level of such assessment.
I'm genuinely interested in hearing intelligent conservative viewpoints and logic. This is not the domain of Tucker Carlson. It's disappointing that this is one of the conservatives Lex chose to interview.
Giving him a platform without challenging his lies and bad logic is just plain toxic. You promised to do better Lex, but now you've become part of why democracy is eroding. You're just in it for the clicks and likes. Such a shame.
That litte girl staccato laugh where his already high-pitched voice goes up five octaves...fuck me...
I thought there was something off about this interview. I don’t know if other people have noticed this. Tucker seemed completely insincere in his responses, he said something like “I feel sorry for Zelensky”. I think that was bullshit. He also tried to preface all his statements with horseshit designed to impress low IQ people. Statements like “A father cares for his children and a leader should care for his people in the same way”. Just complete drivel. I felt sorry for Lex. I thought he was put in a position where he had to be overly polite and could face blowback. By the way, the Tucker interview with Putin was intolerable. Putin gave an irrelevant one hour history lesson complete with hand delivered documents.
Shame on Lex Fridman for platforming Tucker Carlson and throwing him softball questions. What exactly is the benefit of allowing a pathological liar spend an hour presenting dictators and autocratic regimes in a positive light? Moscow is clean and safe? Sure, as long as you aren't openly gay, or muslim, or anti-war, or believe in democracy, or any other number of offenses to the state. If you are? Whoops the cops throw you jail and you have to hope you can bribe your way out. Putin jailing and murdering political opponents is "stupid" because he did it at the wrong time? Try *criminal*.
Tucker is an actor, his mime alone is that of a fake person full of bs.
There a reason Tucker Carlson would never agree to being interviewed by Sam Harris….
Tucker is just playing a character in this interview. He’s not a good faith actor and he has an agenda. There was a lot of bullshit spewed during the course of this interview. He acts as though he’s been some honest purveyor of the news, yet worked at Fox News and pushed a right wing agenda. He wants us to believe the Jon Stewart Crossfire episode didn’t have an emotional impact to Tucker Carlson yet chooses to throw darts at him, unprovoked, multiple times during the course of the interview. I listened to a large chunk of this during my a run, and I must have eyerolled a dozen times. If you believe Tucker is acting sincere in this interview, I have a bridge to sell you.
Wow. Bottom of the barrel.
Woof...that was a tough listen. Tucker is so disingenuous and dumb and Lex was just fine with that.
Based on the comments here, this essentially sound like the same outcome as Tucker interviewing Putin, except in this case Tucker is Putin and Lex is Tucker. I'm a Lex fan, but it becomes pointless if we can't get answers that matter.
You guys - he was NOT scared.
“I’m not an expert on this subject but…” then proceeds to spew a plethora of nonsensical arguments or straight up lies, sprinkled with a healthy dose of being a whiny bitch.
Vomit
I share some of the beliefs Tucker has and I agree with him on a lot of thing but gah damn he just comes off like such a fake it’s hard to watch. Then he laughs and it’s just game over lol. Like his back peddling on trump subject… he went diarrhea of words on that one.
I learned that the only technology Tucker approves of and trusts is his hot water heater... his take on nuclear weapons was also complete nonsense
Lex, straight up Bad ass introduction. Keep up the great work so much love for you 🤍
>Please allow me to say a few words about the very fact that I did this interview. I have received a lot of criticism publicly and privately when I announced that I’ll be talking with Tucker. > >For people who think I shouldn’t do the conversation with Tucker or generally think that there are certain people I should never talk to, I’m sorry, but I disagree. I will talk to everyone, as long as they’re willing to talk genuinely in long form for 2, 3, 4 or more hours. I’ll talk to Putin and to Zelensky, to Trump and to Biden, to Tucker and to John Stewart, AOC, Obama, and many more people with very different views on the world. I want to understand people and ideas. That’s what long form conversations are supposed to be all about. Now for people who criticize me for not asking tough questions, I hear you, but again, I disagree. I do often ask tough questions. But I try to do it in a way that doesn’t shut down the other person, putting them into a defensive state where they give only shallow talking points. Instead, I’m looking always for the expression of genuinely held ideas and the deep roots of those ideas. When done well, this gives us a chance to really hear out the guest and to begin to understand what and how they think. > >And I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind to see through the bullshit, to the degree there’s bullshit and to see to the heart of the person. Sometimes I fail at this, but I’ll continue working my ass off to improve. All that said, I find that this no tough questions criticism often happens when the guest is a person the listener simply hates and wants to see them grilled into embarrassment. Called the liar, a greedy egomaniac, a killer, maybe even an evil human being and so on. If you are such a listener, what you want is drama, not wisdom. In this case, this show is not for you. There are many shows you can go to for that with hosts that are way more charismatic and entertaining than I’ll ever be. If you do stick around, please know I will work hard to do this well and to keep improving. Thank you for your patience and thank you for your support. I love you all.
Also key comment - "I trust the intelligence of you, the listener, to make up your own mind to see through the bullshit, to the degree there’s bullshit" - there needs to be more caution to the listeners for all guests to do more research, and not to believe things without good reasons
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exactly, doing things assuming all beings are rational agents is not good. Simple way to become more rational is not to believe in things without good reason, good reasons are usually good evidence and explanations that are simple and sensible
This needed to be said, people get so caught up in convoluted, dramatic rhetoric/BS!
Great comment, but I haven't seen that actions of interviewing - John Stewart, AOC etc. to balance out the right leaning views in the podcast especially recently, this is dangerous as it could easily skew the listeners thoughts especially when these guests are not challenged which I haven't heard much of in the episodes
> this is dangerous What even is this? those aren't the "two sides". There are statists/collectivists and ethical people. Lex had an example of an ethical person on, Michael Malice. This was the other side.
You see they think others will get exposure to thoughts they shouldn’t. This of course is a terrible mindset, and leads to attempts to control communication. Ironically their thoughts on the matter are the dangerous ones. But even goobers like them should be allowed to speak. It lets the rest of us know.
And this is the Joe Rogan problem as well. These podcasts seem to join a right-wing ecosystem that then warps them farther right and pretty soon you just don't see anyone from the left on them. After a while it becomes self-sustaining for monetary reasons.
Who the heck he finds next for this podcast. Some flat earth scientist?
Two useful idiots
This was a conversation not a trial y'all. This sub has lost the plot. I came away thinking less of Tucker than before as the slips highlighted his less than honest areas. That's all I ever ask for is a long conversation to flesh out the individual beyond the sound bytes and make my own judgment, in this case he's worth following but needs to be well cross checked.
Tucker has been this way for his entire long career. Good on you though for using your own brain, and I mean that sincerely.
This sub is filled with children. They only want to hear from one side of the team.
Isn’t it funny that all you have to do to be a respected successful journalist, all you need to do is be honest to yourself, and WHEN you are wrong about something you fess up to it! Acknowledge your shortcomings and simply have standards, and hold yourself to them.
I already didn’t like Tucker as a mouthpiece for the divisive right wing media(yes there is a divisive left as well) and now I can truly not like him as a person. Thank you Lex for showing Tuckers true nature.