The Tucker Carlson Show: Erik Prince: CIA Corruption, Killer Drones, and Government Surveillance

Erik Prince is an entrepreneur, former Navy SEAL and founder of Blackwater Worldwide, a private military corporation. His latest project is Unplugged, a phone, messaging application and VPN that is privacy focused and won’t collect or share customer data. Visit www.unplugged.com/Tucker to learn more about our paid partnership with Unplugged.

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Link to original here >>> https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-erik-prince
published 5.22.24

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Tucker [00:00:00] We had this pattern for years of taking of hoarding tape like you do ammo.

Erik Prince [00:00:06] Yeah.

Tucker [00:00:07] Like I don't even shoot seven six two by 39 really, it's just not I'm not that interested. But I have, you know, like, I it's unimaginable how many steel case rounds I have. Like, why do I have those? Because I'm crazy.

Erik Prince [00:00:20] Just in case. Right. It's like, so you have it not need the need and not have.

Tucker [00:00:25] Totally agree with that. But I'm not rational about it. Like, I'm sure you, like, equipped an entire private army is. You're pretty rational about it. I'm not. I'm like. I'm not exactly sure I need. I don't give a shit. Gold ammo, you know, whatever. I just want to hoard it. And, because I feel, you know, I can feel all the stuff. And tape is the same way.

Erik Prince [00:00:44] But dudes with guns…

Tucker [00:00:46] Yeah.

Erik Prince [00:00:47] Are not a match for dudes with drones.

Tucker [00:00:53] So if you're, if you're the kind of person I'm not, you know, naming names or identifying myself by name. But if you're the kind of person who sees a deal on Steelcase seven six two by 39, you're like, I need another 10,000 rounds because in your gut you feel like something, you know, volatility is coming. How is that pointless?

Erik Prince [00:01:13] I've just been, reading a book called firepower, which is a history of basically a history of gunpowder. And you track the change of warfare going from spears and longbows to the wheel locks, match lock muskets, flint locks, artillery with bursting rounds. And I read that to try to understand, we're now through a massive step change because, you know, despite all the techno wizardry of the US military, the best weapon the enemy had was an IED. Yes, I noticed, and now the and the IEDs would be positioned along the road and clacked off remotely. Now the enemy can fly the ID at you at 120 miles an hour. Low to the ground, even in a highly jammed environment. So the threat-

Tucker [00:02:02] Highly jammed means there's no way to stop the signal?

Erik Prince [00:02:04] Highly jammed, right, because the Russians are really good at jamming. Yes. And the Ukrainians, where they've developed, they've innovated taking a cheap racing drone, like with the goggles that somebody wears a drone and you put a beer can size charge that, you can 3D print the casing for it in the field with a little copper disc on the front of it, and drive that into the back of the tank. And for $1,500, you destroy a $2 million tank. So that is like having a sniper rifle versus a guy with a longbow. The step change in warfare, and we're there right now. And the longer this combat goes in Ukraine, the Russians are getting a lot better. Ukrainians have to, but they're just trying to, you know, the battle is the ultimate cauldron of learning. Yes. And bad ideas are quickly destroyed and discarded. And so the proliferation of that knowledge is staggering.

Tucker [00:03:04] So what are we learning from watching?

Erik Prince [00:03:06] I don't think the U.S. military is learning much. Good. Oh, good. No learning. Well, no. The problem is the US weapons systems aren't even that high demand because they're not that effective in that highly jammed environment for 20 years of global war on terror. You're fighting against a very comparatively unsophisticated enemy now in a big state on state type war. The US systems are not holding up. You know, the javelin missile, which javelin, which Raytheon sells to the taxpayers for $200,000 a shot with a $300,000 command launch unit. The Ukrainians can only use that for the first shot in a, in an ambush because their air detector, if they shoot the first tank, the tank is very hot. It's burning. If they try to shoot a second and third missile, the other missiles go for the very hot spot on the battlefield. You can't even discern. So then the Ukrainians shift from a $200,000 missile from the Americans to one that they build themselves for $29,000, and it works just as well.

Tucker [00:04:08] And it's delivered on a drone?

Erik Prince [00:04:10] Deliver on a drone or from an anti-tank missile. Yeah. So there's the super high dollar American stuff is not doing so well in that battle space.

Tucker [00:04:19] So I would assume I mean, the world is watching this. Potential future adversaries are seeing on display American military capability.

Erik Prince [00:04:30] And we should be concerned as taxpayers and as citizens, that all this money we've spent, we have not gotten very good value for in the same way.

Tucker [00:04:41] But doesn't it, doesn't it display our vulnerability to if our weapons systems aren't working in Ukraine, why would they work in other parts of the right? Are we sort of showing our hand?

Erik Prince [00:04:51] Look, some of the stuff works well, but at what cost?

Tucker [00:04:54] Right.

Erik Prince [00:04:55] Because, you know, the hoodies are using a 20 to $50,000 drone to attack commercial shipping or US shipping in the Red sea, Gulf of Aden. And the US has to shoot that down with not one, but two missiles that cost $2 million apiece. So you're costing us $4 million to shoot down a $50,000 drone? Bad math. So even in Washington, DC.

Tucker [00:05:18] Why wouldn't? Because this is on display in the world is sort of watching. Why wouldn't military planners in the United States be taking notes and adjusting accordingly?

Erik Prince [00:05:28] Because the money flow keeps on going the same way with no accountability and no, no self introspection, no learning. Look who got fired, who got punished for a complete debacle in Afghanistan, where over 20 years we replaced the Taliban with the Taliban. Yeah, and nobody's been fired. The only guy that got fired was Stu Schiller.

Tucker [00:05:53] What a good man.

Erik Prince [00:05:54] The young marine who stood up and said enough. That's right. Because if one of-

Tucker [00:05:59] Shell aren't in jail.

Erik Prince [00:06:00] I know, because he said, look, if a couple of my young Marines lost a rifle on the rifle range, they would be punished. We lost. We left 80 some billion dollars worth of military equipment and turned over the country to a terror organization. And everybody's been promoted, and everybody is just it's business as usual. That's a problem. This kind of incompetence is not going to end well.

Tucker [00:06:24] So, I mean, I have too many questions. And I do want to circle back to your initial point that warfare's completely different. A step change, as you said. But how on this thread, how does the U.S. Congress, how do people who claim to support our troops back the military strong defense, the Liz Cheney wing of the of the Congress, like, how do they keep sending money to an organization that's increasingly incapable of defending the country?

Erik Prince [00:06:50] I spoke to a bunch of members yesterday morning, in Congress, and they were at the point of despair because they're trying to restrict the money and to bring some accountability. And they said the money is the amount of money that is sprinkled around the Capitol by the defense contractors, by the effectively, the brigades worth of lobbyists, thousands of lobbyists spreading tens of millions of dollars around politicians. And they just keep the money train going. It's really disgusting. And the in the big thing I and the article I wrote recently, I'd said. You know, in Rome, like when the Romans lost a whole bunch of people at the Battle of Cannae. Yes. When their Senate met a couple of weeks later, it was 40% undermanned. Why? Because the Roman elites actually served in the military and bore the consequences of failure. Our elites don't serve in the military. They have very little skin in the game or no skin. And so for them, it's about it's about money and grift.

Tucker [00:07:53] Or their children serve in foreign militaries. So just back to back to the technology itself, which you've been watching all your life because you've been around it all your life. I think you had the world's largest private air force at one point. Is that true?

Erik Prince [00:08:07] We had 73 aircraft that, we owned and operated and flew into garden spots for the US. It was fun. So I was just at a Blackwater reunion, last weekend. And, we had it at the Alamo. And it was just it was really cool standing there on hallowed ground. Because I didn't realize that across the street from the Alamo is the major bar. And that's actually where Teddy Roosevelt started the Rough Riders. So there's all kinds of Rough Rider memorabilia in this bar. Raising a glass to a great American. And if I'd convinced Trump to change policy in Afghanistan to prevent the debacle which ended up happening, I was going to call that unit the second U.S Volunteer Cavalry. The first all US volunteer cavalry was a Rough Riders.

Tucker [00:08:59] San Juan Hill.

Erik Prince [00:09:00] Exactly. This is going to be a two USV. It would have worked. Afghanistan would be stable. We would have, we'd have saved America the embarrassment. Yes. And really that I'd say a, a pivotal moment for a massive collapse in American credibility and deterrence. And it would have cost 5% of what the US was already spending.

Tucker [00:09:22] So why couldn't I remember that very well? And, in my memory, you were not making the case for a forever occupation. You were making the case for a sensible drawdown that didn't destroy the.

Erik Prince [00:09:34] All the convention, all the conventional forces could have left, right? 90% of the contractors could have left. There would have been a small stay behind. Special Operations Force, 6000 contractors. That's it. And would have kept accountability for the tens of billions of dollars of U.S. equipment that was already there and would have kept the government upright. And, you know, there's now every Al-Qaeda, every crazy terrorist organization has set up shop there in Afghanistan. Again, we've not heard the last of Afghanistan. It's really sad.

Tucker [00:10:06] Why? And I remember again, I remember that, in fact, I think we talked about I know we talked about it at the time and it seemed it seemed sensible to some kind of non-ideological, practical. How do we get this is kind of a clusterfuck. How do we get out in the best way possible, preserving our own interests to the extent that we can? Why didn't the administration, the Trump administration, take you up on that?

Erik Prince [00:10:26] I would say the same neocon, the perpetual war presence in Washington that wants to do it the same way, that we've been doing for decades. And I would argue losing doing that. Yes. And it's about it's about money and power and perpetuation, not about actually having a, putting a bow on a bad situation.

Tucker [00:10:46] But how do those people, as they inevitably do, seize the moral high ground in the in the opening moments of the ideological battle and position themselves as like the champions of freedom and human rights, when in fact they're monsters. Like, how do they how do they get away with that every single time?

Erik Prince [00:11:02] I think it's a direct result of the all volunteer force, which seems a good idea. I'm still supportive of it, but it means it's a very. The people that actually serve that bear the cost of these overseas efforts is maybe one half of 1% of the population you're serving 3 or 4%. Know that 1%. And then 95% of America has no clue and no skin in the game. And so they're easily bullshitted by the, the posturing jackasses in Washington.

Tucker [00:11:33] It's. Yeah. That's why Dan Crenshaw has a job. So I just want to get back to to the technology because I'm just I'm interested on behalf of all people who sensed turmoil ahead and say, stockpiling ammo. Right. I think there are people like that. Is that fruitless given the technologies?

Erik Prince [00:11:54] I would argue for Taiwan, for example, facing a possible invasion or issue from coming from mainland China, the best thing they could do is build a home guard because a well-armed, well motivated people. I mean, as we showed in Afghanistan, as the Taliban showed the US military, yeah, well, motivated people, even using weapons that are 70 years old can still be the superpower with all the techno gimmickry. Yes. It's not the steel in the ships that make a great navy. It's the steel in the man, the steel, the crew.

Tucker [00:12:31] But are you ever going to see another war between states that's won or lost on the basis of artillery tanks? I mean, is that have we get close to the cavalry charges of today?

Erik Prince [00:12:45] Cavalry. Artillery is still the king of battle. As Ukrainians are learning the hard way and the Russians have gone from you know, if you shot at the Russians a year and a half ago, it would take them about an hour and a half to shoot back accurately. Yes. To geo locate, and to coordinate with their fire, you know, fire control centers to shoot back. Now they're down to about 2 or 3 minutes. So they've learned and they're coordinating and they've gotten a lot better. And it is wrong for us to assume that our kung fu is all that good right now.

Tucker [00:13:18] And what role did drones play going forward? To the extent you can predict and imagine it.

Erik Prince [00:13:23] Very significant. You know, people say the tank is dead, is gone forever. It will go just like chariots or the attack helicopter of 2000 years ago. There will still be a role for tanks, but people are gonna have to figure out how to knock down the swarms of incoming drones with hard kill and soft kill, etc.. It is always going to, you know, warfare is going to ebb and flow, but the ability to program very sophisticated devices that fly very fast, that are very hard to kill. You know, the first strategic offset after World War Two was nuclear weapons. Yes, we had nukes. Then the Russians did. And then it was about tonnage. Then the second offset was precision weaponry. Now everybody has precision weaponry. So I would argue that the third offset that the US should try to pursue, dominance when we're far from it is in an AI drone innovation application. And I would say the most innovation that's happened has been in Ukraine and Russia right now. And we are way behind because, again, Washington procurement people, the the appropriate people in Congress keep spending money in the same way on the same stupid cartel of defense contractors, with the same failing result when at the bleeding edge of battle, actual innovation is happening by dudes in their garage in Ukraine that are fighting for their lives and they've, they've innovated. But, and we ignore that to our, to our detriment.

Tucker [00:14:55] So these are countries with fewer marketing majors and more engineers coming out of here, right?

Erik Prince [00:15:01] Yeah, they've marketing definitely.

Tucker [00:15:02] Bad at creating drones.

Erik Prince [00:15:03] They've done well at Stem. Yeah, they have done well.

Tucker [00:15:06] And they're smart people, which no one wants to say. But it's true. You may have come to the obvious conclusion that the real debate is not between Republican and Democrat or socialist and capitalist. Right left. The real battles between people who are lying on purpose and people who are trying to tell you the truth. It's between good and evil, it's between honesty and falsehood. And we hope we are on the former side. That's why we created this network, the Tucker Carlson Network, and we invite you to subscribe to it. You go to Tucker carlson.com/podcast, our entire archive. Is there a lot of behind the scenes footage of what actually happens in this barn, when only an iPhone is running Tucker carlson.com/podcast? You will not regret it. What can what will drones be able to do? Do you think going in in ten years, what will that look like?

Erik Prince [00:15:58] You could load a face and between network surveillance and the facial recognition on that drone, find one person and fly into that person's head that fast. Seriously? Yeah. So identity management privacy will become even more, essential. You think about how many cameras, how much data is being constantly collected everywhere, from street cameras, from Dornoch, from doorbell cameras, from facial recognition at the airport? Privacy is really under attack. Well, yeah. Well I've noticed.

Tucker [00:16:37] And now TSA has decided to take your photograph every time you walk through. I went through yesterday and they had to, you know, stare into the screen and will assess your face. I said to the guy, is this mandatory? And he said, no, it's not. And I said, fuck that, I'm not doing that. And he goes.

Erik Prince [00:16:54] I agree with you. Look.

Tucker [00:16:57] Okay, I mean, but like, what is that? Why are they doing that?

Erik Prince [00:17:02] Data aggregation. Because they can.

Tucker [00:17:06] So it's not a good sign when your own government is gathering data on you, is it? Like, why would they possibly need that?

Erik Prince [00:17:14] Well, think about what chipped our founding fathers off.

Tucker [00:17:19] Right.

Erik Prince [00:17:20] Paying some taxes on TI and, you know, land taxes. And I mean, I guess our idea of, of what we will resist over, in terms of liberty and government intrusion has been very steadily eroding. And now it's, I would say, increasingly a steep curve of descent.

Tucker [00:17:40] Yeah. And it does seem like the purpose of politicizing the military and making it left wing, anti-white, pro, trans, all the stuff which I think the right to sort of says, well, that's going to be less effective military. It's bad. They make fun of it. But that seems way darker to me. I mean, it does seem like it's being weaponized against dissent in the United States.

Erik Prince [00:18:03] I, I think, you know, the military was one of the most trusted institutions for sure. And, and I saw already even in the 80s. I mean, look, I went to the Naval Academy in 1987, and I left after a year and a half because I found the political correctness and the nonsense already. Then on the double standards that were pursued by the Academy leadership, while saying there are no double standards, I just found ridiculous. What were the double standards? I remember going to the, the Old Course the first time and they said, there's this is one height of a of a wall to get over for one gender and one height for the other one. And they said all the standards are all the same. But wait a minute, they're liars. So yeah. So just let's if you're going to if you're going to call it the same, then be the same. But listen let's be consistent. And so the and the amount of recruiting for specific sports teams of people that were completely unqualified to be there or to be naval officers was staggering. I love the Navy. I just didn't like the a school run by the federal government.

Tucker [00:19:10] So which you I didn't fully realize it. So you made it through the first year you people drop out?

Erik Prince [00:19:16] Yeah. No, I, I left halfway through my sophomore year to finish my finals.

Tucker [00:19:21] So you did the hard stuff and you still dropped out?

Erik Prince [00:19:24] Yeah. It's not that hard. It's just you have to have a high tolerance to high tolerance for bullshit, that's all.

Tucker [00:19:30] Yeah. That's dropped in you, I notice.

Erik Prince [00:19:32] Yeah, yeah, but I, I rolled to Hillsdale, so, you know, I went quite the opposite to one run by the federal government to one that accepted no federal funding at all.

Tucker [00:19:43] Interesting. So even in 1987, why didn't anyone say anything about it? Because women don't fight different wars. Presumably it would be the same war. So that's like, very obviously insane.

Erik Prince [00:19:54] Look, I had no issue with women being at the academies, but at least make equal enforcement, that's all. Yeah. If it's going to be, you're going to call it the same. The be the same. That's fine. And you. But what I also found I went to Hillsdale and I joined the fire department of the local town, and I learned more about small unit leadership there than I did in the very artificial learning lab that was the academy.

Tucker [00:20:19] Why did you join the fire department? Because it.

Erik Prince [00:20:20] Was cool. It was fun. Come on. I got to do a lot of things in life, but driving a fire truck to a fire, lights and sirens is definitely in the top five.

Tucker [00:20:29] How many kids in your class were in the fire department?

Erik Prince [00:20:32] None that since then it's been more of a thing, but I was the first one ever at Hillsdale to join the fire department, and it was, convincing the gruff firefighters. And it was a full time part time. So there was a couple of full time guys, those. But the rest were like a butcher and a trash truck driver and building contractor. So convincing them that this snot nosed college kid was okay to go through a burning building with them was there was no small, admissions process.

Tucker [00:21:01] One of the things I think is most interesting about you, which I know you hate to talk about, but, is the fact that you were from an affluent family, and so you didn't actually need to do any of that at all. So why did you do that?

Erik Prince [00:21:14] Sense of mission, sense of service, and mostly a sense of adventure.

Tucker [00:21:19] So you never thought, like, you know, we're rich. I don't need to. This is just nonsense. I'm going to.

Erik Prince [00:21:25] No, that was never a.

Tucker [00:21:26] Bummer in Europe for the summer.

Erik Prince [00:21:27] Never part of the equation. Why? No, I did, no, I did, I got married. Between my junior and senior year. And I took a long honeymoon and we went through Eastern Europe. But the funny thing is, we.

Tucker [00:21:41] That's for Eastern Europe. What year was that?

Erik Prince [00:21:43] That was 91. That was as the whole Soviet Union was.

Tucker [00:21:46] Yeah. I got married that year. I remember.

Erik Prince [00:21:48] And we went to, we went to the Baltic Liberation Tour with Pat Buchanan and Lew Rockwell from the Von Mises Institute, and we went to, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and we visited the government buildings, which were still surrounded and occupied by Soviet Interior Ministry troops, but they'd had free elections. It's always fascinating to see a place literally at the inflection point of embracing.

Tucker [00:22:11] What month free anyone was us.

Erik Prince [00:22:13] That was me.

Tucker [00:22:15] Okay, so I got married that summer also, and I went to the Ocean Club and Tuckers Town, Bermuda. It seemed more romantic than Estonia. What is your wife? Think you're young bride. Think when you're like, we're getting married. But actually, the honeymoon is in Eastern Europe. In this, like, the hellscape of Eastern Europe. Honey, do you know anything about Stalinist architecture?

Erik Prince [00:22:33] We road trip through. But it was it was really funny. I I'll never forget. Bay Buchanan bought an entire uniform off of a Soviet border guard, a captain for 20 bucks. And we were at a restaurant and comes back with a whole uniform on the hanger and 20 bucks. And as we're leaving the country, another one of our group had a, luggage that you have to put through the scanner and. You can see in the scanner, it looks like there's a manhole cover in the suitcase. There's this huge disk. The Soviet border guard opens the thing. This is a very big problem. Well, how much to make the problem go away? $50. It was an entire bronze bust of Lenin that had been yanked off a building. And my our friend was exporting it. So I thought, you know, if they're selling Lenin for $50 off a government building, this is not long ago.

Tucker [00:23:23] And in fact, it was, I think it was in August.

Erik Prince [00:23:25] It was too much later it was done.

Tucker [00:23:26] That's incredible. So my final question about the drones. I mean, is it is it a crazy thing to consider the possibility that the government might employ this technology against its own citizens, deploy it against all citizens? They're putting people if people are still rotting in prison for protesting at the Capitol on January 6th. If they're putting a woman got four years in prison yesterday for protesting outside an abortion clinic. It's a government at war with its own citizens. So why wouldn't drones be part of that?

Erik Prince [00:24:00] Entirely possible.

Tucker [00:24:02] How hard are they to shoot down with, say, a 12 gauge?

Erik Prince [00:24:05] It's actually one of the, it's a big problem for the small FPV drones that are so small and small, so hard to hit. It's almost like hitting a, a ptarmigan.

Tucker [00:24:14] Very hard to hit that bird.

Erik Prince [00:24:15] Very fast.

Tucker [00:24:16] Very fast.

Erik Prince [00:24:17] I know you love bird hunting, so I try to correlate it to, you know, or maybe a very like a quail on cocaine.

Tucker [00:24:23] Oh, it's that tough? Yeah. It sounds kind of sporty. So what is the defense? So if nets. Net nets.

Erik Prince [00:24:31] Nets. Our nets are a cheap, simple defense for small FPV drones because that's a small charge. If you can keep the charge away from the target, the small charge doesn't have that much effect. But you know, for plenty you can always increase the the poundage.

Tucker [00:24:46] My sense is that police departments and state police have drones now for surveillance?

Erik Prince [00:24:52] Yes.

Tucker [00:24:52] For surveillance. How hard is it to to alter a surveillance drone to become an offensive weapon?

Erik Prince [00:24:59] Well, the Ukrainians and the Russians have done that in their garages or in a tent on the edge of battle pretty easily.

Tucker [00:25:06] Okay, so why wouldn't. I mean, if you care about living in a non totalitarian country, if you care about America, why wouldn't someone say, and say, actually, no, we're not, you know, we're we're just going to pass a federal law that no law enforcement or Intel agency or the US military, these things cannot be used domestically against Americans, period, under any circumstance.

Erik Prince [00:25:25] Or certainly not armed.

Tucker [00:25:27] Or surveillance. Like why do you need. You know what I mean.

Erik Prince [00:25:30] Look for for stopping a mass shooter or some actual terrorism event. It provides good situational awareness and it protects the cops who are trying to do an honest job. But the leakage, in the same way that the forever wars of Iraq or Afghanistan and all those surveillance tools that the government tells us they need to protect us. The danger is certainly some of that tech on the arm side leaking back to be used domestically.

Tucker [00:26:01] I don't see any effort by the US government to stop mass shootings. In fact, they seem to be abetting them. And time and time again, you find in the small print in the write up after the shooting that the person has been detained repeatedly by some branch of government you saw in Uvalde. The cops refused to go in and save the kids as they were being executed, etc., etc. there just doesn't seem any will to stop mass shootings or seems to be instead.

Erik Prince [00:26:24] Yeah, but I don't see that I don't. The Uvalde one was not a I wouldn't say that's not a top down federal conspiracy. That was that was individual inadequacy of training percent. Because there's because there's dozens of other ones where the cops have just been spectacular, like in Nashville.

Tucker [00:26:40] Yes.

Erik Prince [00:26:41] But then you see the political correctness of them being reluctant to release the, the, the, the writings of this trans shooter who was out to kill Christians.

Tucker [00:26:52] Right.

Erik Prince [00:26:54] So great individual valor by those cops, bad by the cop leadership or the law enforcement leadership by not releasing the truth. Let's have a massive disinfecting effect of truth on this situation.

Tucker [00:27:07] So for sure. But there's no will obviously, in the media to get to that information. So it's left to like people on X to do it. But I mean, you've been in and around the government since you were 18 and shipped off to Annapolis. So do you think it's fair for the rest of us who haven't to be skeptical of massive increases in government power, particularly military and law enforcement power that are justified by some threat?

Erik Prince [00:27:33] Like we should be highly skeptical. Yeah.

Tucker [00:27:36] Mass shooters, child molesters, human traffickers, Islamic terrorists. Like, I don't think the government does a good job of protecting us from any of those things, but they certainly increase their power and their power to kill me and my family on the basis of those threats.

Erik Prince [00:27:50] War on poverty. More poverty. War on drugs. More drugs. War on terrorism. Didn't go so.

Tucker [00:27:57] Well, right? And just to that, I know we're jumping around, but I have too many questions. But.

Erik Prince [00:28:04] Maybe we both suffer from a little ADD. Yeah.

Tucker [00:28:06] Well, I mean, there's just a lot to go through. So you were at the center of the war on terror? More than any other American, I would say. Oh, well. Oh, I mean.

Erik Prince [00:28:14] We had we had a our shoulder to the wheel pushing like everybody else.

Tucker [00:28:18] I'm just but that the scale was. You know, I don't think there's ever been a more effective military contractor, you know, in a war that I'm aware of in the United States than than Blackwater, which you started in ramp. So but, you know, you were subject to the policymakers as well. And as in the Afghanistan withdrawal, not one of them. Not only was not like indicted or punished, but not a single one of them sort of lost a step in career advancement. They all kind of went on to the Atlantic Council or whatever.

Erik Prince [00:28:47] Or their board seats or their board seats on the big defense contractors.

Tucker [00:28:50] So how is it, since you watch that, how did that happen? Like, how did Toria Nuland go from Dick Cheney's office to being like the number two person in the State Department overseeing the war in Ukraine? Like, that's just crazy to me.

Erik Prince [00:29:05] Because it's at that it's almost a unit party. It is the party of big government and big Washington and more spending and more warfare and 100% wrong.

Tucker [00:29:19] The guys that you serve with, in the Seal teams and you know who you've been around in the subsequent 30 years, like, how do they feel about that? Like guys who did, you know, 3 or 4 deployments or.

Erik Prince [00:29:31] The guys that actually paid the cost?

Tucker [00:29:32] That's exactly right.

Erik Prince [00:29:33] Bad policy maker decisions.

Tucker [00:29:35] You know, where their friends commit suicide and they didn't get to see their kids grow up, or they got killed or lost a limb like those guys? Yep. What do they think?

Erik Prince [00:29:41] They're disgusted. They're angry. The righteously angry because they believe in the Republic. When you when you join the military, you swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and you kind of join thinking all those enemies are going to be abroad. But some of the enemies of liberty are probably here. And when a elite enriches themselves and separates them from the realities of consequences of accountability, that's a that's a pendulum that swings out far. But nature has a way of swinging the pendulum back to the middle, and so that either it gets done and within the rule of law and accountability or things can come apart very quickly.

Tucker [00:30:25] Frighteningly, it's part of the accountability is informal. It's social pressure, which is very effective.

Erik Prince [00:30:30] Shame.

Tucker [00:30:31] Exactly.

Erik Prince [00:30:32] And humor we need. First of all, we need to just laugh at the freaking incompetence. I'd say when you when you track. I made the last deployment on the USS America, an old, it was a fuel fired aircraft carrier, and they used to, everything is measured on an aircraft carrier, especially the landings, because it's all about the aviators. And who has the best, launch and recovery, especially the, you know, the traps. So they measure which wire you catch and everything. So once a month, there's a thing called the Forecastle Follies, which is the front of the ship, but below the flight deck where the the chains come out of the belly. And so all the air wing and the, the senior ship's crew would muster there, and they'd go through all the scores, but then it would go through the most merciful, merciless roasting of anybody. It was the most vicious humor I've ever seen in my life.

Tucker [00:31:31] Like guys who screwed up the landings.

Erik Prince [00:31:33] Screw up the landings, the CEO. It was no holds barred. It was fantastic. It was hilarious and very healthy. And but now that you've you have a much more politically correct military. You can't do that at all.

Tucker [00:31:49] They don't do that anymore.

Erik Prince [00:31:50] No.

Tucker [00:31:51] No. But I mean, if you can't land an aircraft on a pitching deck of an aircraft carrier, I mean, you put your own life, the hardware and the lives of the sailors at risk, correct? Right, right. So the stakes could not be higher.

Erik Prince [00:32:08] High stakes, very important mission literally lives on the line. And it's good to to reinforce good behavior and to punish bad behavior and and shame and derision of your peers matters.

Tucker [00:32:25] So looking back, since again, you were so close to what was happening during that whole period, or at least until maybe 2012, but for the critical years, who were like, right there, who who do you blame most for the mistakes made in Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent wars? Who are the villains who shouldn't get board seats?

Erik Prince [00:32:47] Oh, look, any we went through like 18 different commanders, 18 different four star generals over the course of Afghanistan.

Tucker [00:32:56] Lot of four star generals.

Erik Prince [00:32:58] We have as many generals now as we did in World War two, when we had 14 million men under arms. So now you have 10% of that. So you have basically 1.4 million under arms versus 14. And we have the same amount of flag officers. So yeah, we are massively overstaffed. And you think about all the m this I mean they have.

Tucker [00:33:21] All chiefs or no Indians.

Erik Prince [00:33:23] Each four star general has a personal butler and a valet and a driver and a cook and all those kind of, quaint 18th century habits of staff that they surrounded military generals with. We have that yet for our general.

Tucker [00:33:38] Back when generals were brave, though, generals got killed in the Civil War.

Erik Prince [00:33:42] Yes. And not so much now. So it's just it's it's enormous. The there can be a massive winnowing of, of headcount across the board in generals, in staffs and in civilians. The tooth, the tail ratio of the military of like how many when you say teeth, people that put warheads on foreheads versus tail has gotten way out of whack. We have way too much tail, like an alligator sized tail with a salamander sized bite.

Tucker [00:34:16] It's it's just it's so unbelievably corrupt.

Erik Prince [00:34:19] But again but again it's, it's corrupt because we just keep throwing money at it. And no one ever calls bullshit a business that goes through a massive growth cycle. Everybody can get fat and sloppy and lazy because you just there's always more money and there's we never have to tighten the belts. And so the, the U.S. military has been on like a, a, Krispy Kreme bender of donuts. Compounding amount of donuts consumed every day, and no one's ever tightened them up and saying, all right, today we're just PTA and we're not eating donuts. That's across our entire government, but especially in the military, which is supposed to exist constitutionally to defend and deter. And I don't think we're not getting the money that we're not getting the value that we're spending money on right now.

Tucker [00:35:11] No, it seems we're at a point where it's dangerous.

Erik Prince [00:35:13] Yep.

Tucker [00:35:14] And it does seem I just want to restate it. I don't know this as a dessert, in fact, but I can feel it very strongly. I think the purpose of it is to keep, you know, I think I think the enemy that they're seeking to fight lives here. I mean, I think this is a political. I think the policymakers feel that way. They're very anxious to control any instrument of force.

Erik Prince [00:35:34] I would argue. It's about for for the defense contractors. They just want to keep selling expensive weapons. Right. And they will keep paying politicians to keep buying the expensive weapons. I almost feel. I don't feel sad for that for the white House as they deal with a problem like in Yemen, where the Houthis have become long range pirates and have shut off the entire Red sea, like 50% of global container traffic flowed through the Red sea. Now it doesn't. Egypt is losing $800 million a month. In lost toll fees from from container traffic. And all those ships have to go all the way around South Africa now to make it to Europe, coming out of Asia. It's a big problem and I'm sure the Navy, the or the, the DoD policymakers only provide the administration with the 50 and $100 billion solution to go beat down the Hutus to make them behave. And in that article I wrote, I just come back to there is such a constant rejection of market based private sector solutions because the Saudis and the Israelis actually had this problem back in the 60s when, there was a war in Yemen, and they hired David Sterling, the founder of the SAS, saying that there were 30 guys and they kicked ass. And it worked. And it was cheap and simple and practical. And in this article I wrote, just is a is a litany of those kind of rejections. And that's my frustration because I provided a lot of those options, even to deter the Ukraine war in the first place. You know, when, I, my internal Intel sources gave me a pretty good idea that already in December of 21, three months before the invasion, that the Russians were going to invade. It was not a it was not a song and dance. And so I wrote a paper proposing a combination of Lend-Lease and Flying Tigers to deter the war. Was in 1940, when Britain was really in it. The US gave 50 destroyers a bunch of aircraft guns, gave it to the Brits. We also provided aircraft and allowed us pilots to take leave and go to work for the Nationalist Chinese to stop the Japanese from bombing cities called the Flying Tigers.

Tucker [00:38:04] In this case, and we are Stalin.

Erik Prince [00:38:06] Yeah. And made it possible to go from Moscow to to Berlin to stop the Nazis. But. Biden could have done one very simple thing. He could have announced. Okay, no war necessary in Ukraine. They're never going to join part of NATO, but they're at least going to have an Air force because there was already, 200 aircraft set to retire from the US Air Force to be flown to the desert in 2022, 50, 1550 F-16 some it's already written down to zero value to the taxpayer. They're going to be flown to the desert, to the boneyard and parked for eternity. Transfer loads of Ukrainians would have been less than $1 billion. Prevent the war and the discussion of NATO done.

Tucker [00:38:53] But they wanted the war, obviously.

Erik Prince [00:38:56] Apparently. Why? Or they or they believed their own bullshit that they that their PowerPoints and their posturing would dissuade. Look, I understand why the Russians get ornery about it, because if the Russians, the Chinese were looking to make, the northern provinces of Mexico into active parts of a Chinese or Russian alliance, we'd get ornery about that or obviously.

Tucker [00:39:23] Yeah, right. They're putting if they put, you know, look.

Erik Prince [00:39:26] At what happened when they put missiles in Cuba in 1962.

Tucker [00:39:28] Missiles in Taiwan. And it would be unacceptable. Right. So my question is, and this is all complex and delicate, and, you know, I understand to some extent, but what I don't understand is sending Kamala Harris to the Munich Security conference and saying at a press briefing with cameras rolling to Zelensky, we want you to join NATO. You only say that if you want a war, you want the Russians to invade. Like, why would they want that?

Erik Prince [00:39:54] I. Maybe. Maybe they're just that dumb.

Tucker [00:40:00] I don't think. And I think they are dumb. I mean, they're well, they're definitely dumb, Tony Blinken. I mean, really dumb.

Erik Prince [00:40:06] Having a rock concert in Kiev. During massive combat operations while Ukrainian army is getting crushed. He just who he just visited and he's up there on stage. Video. He's up there on stage with his guitar. It's like that is Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Tucker [00:40:23] Here it is.

Erik Prince [00:40:24] All right.

Tucker [00:40:35] So, yeah, I mean, he's a child, obviously. And like an angry, destructive child. But what happens? Like, where does this go? We send another $60 billion to Ukraine.

Erik Prince [00:40:48] Most of that money goes to five major U.S. defense contractors. Yes. To replace at five times the cost. The weapons costs that we already sent the Ukrainians. Meaning, you know, if we send them something that was built ten years ago, well, now it's going to cost four and five times as much. So again, it's a massive grift paid by a Pentagon that doesn't know how to buy stuff cost effectively. It doesn't change the outcome of the battle. The as as the fields dry. It's May now coming up on tank season.

Tucker [00:41:20] The those it tank season again.

Erik Prince [00:41:23] At weather still matters and warfare and you know if you have a a wet snow covered farm field it's very muddy, very gooey. Not great for tanks.

Tucker [00:41:35] Mud season.

Erik Prince [00:41:36] Mud season. I think the Russians call it the great Rasputin to the great slush. Yeah, that's done now. And, as June comes, it'll be game on. And I think the Russian bear is hungry, and. And they're going to have a time. So the war should have been ended. Never should have started. It should. They should have made a deal. Froze the lines six months into it. Well, that's right, but the Biden administration believed that, all this American weaponry would have saved the day. It hasn't. And it's ugly. And, you know, the Russian, the Russian commanders are not idiots. They know their history. The Battle of Kursk, which happened just north of where the fighting is now, was the largest tank battle in history. It was the last offensive effort of the of the German army against the Soviets. And, they tried to push from the north and south on this salient. It was a bulge, and the Russians knew they were coming. And so they built lots of lines of defenses. It's the same thing they've done that that they did last summer, which ate up all that equipment. And now the Ukrainians are very thin. They've had a lot of corruption issues. All the defenses that were supposed to be built by the Ukrainians are much smaller or nonexistent. And so now it's allowing maneuver, and especially as the tanks as the fields dry and you can maneuver. It's going to be a very ugly summer. What do you.

Tucker [00:43:02] What do you think the Russians want?

Erik Prince [00:43:05] I'd say now they want to absolutely humiliate the West. And make sure that they never have a problem with Ukraine again.

Tucker [00:43:13] And that seems achievable.

Erik Prince [00:43:16] Right.

Tucker [00:43:16] So what happens to Ukraine?

Erik Prince [00:43:20] I don't know if it survives as an independent country. If they take Odessa, if they take the ability for Ukraine to export its grain. That really threatens the long term economic viability. Maybe, maybe it goes back to Western Ukraine. Used to be part of Poland, right? Eastern Ukraine used to be part of Russia. So, you know, maps, maps move depending on, you know, military victories drive diplomatic breakthroughs. So you think right now the Russians are winning and they're going to have a very good summer?

Tucker [00:43:51] Is there anybody who's knowledgeable on the subject who believes Ukraine can, quote, win, which is to say, push Russian troops all the way back to the to the old Russian border?

Erik Prince [00:44:01] Well, I didn't really believe it ever.

Tucker [00:44:04] Oh, I know that.

Erik Prince [00:44:05] But I don't, I don't know who's advising the white House at this point or who they're listening to, but, they probably need to change out their advisor list.

Tucker [00:44:16] But. But then you have the secretary of state, buffoonish secretary of state Tony Blinken. Boomer parody, showing up and telling the Ukrainians during his rock concert that, you know, we're with you forever. Like, how could you say something like that when I've never met a single person who knows anything about the region, who thinks Ukrainians will achieve victory, no matter how much money we send them? Like, how could you say something like that?

Erik Prince [00:44:40] It's good money after bad. And all we're all we're doing now is facilitating the demise of of Ukrainian men and destroying them for future generations.

Tucker [00:44:49] So how many have died? I've asked members of Congress who are funding this stuff.

Erik Prince [00:44:53] Hundreds of thousands.

Tucker [00:44:54] But here's what I understand. If you're paying for this war, which the United States is the U.S. Congress is Mike Johnson is, don't you have a moral obligation to know its consequences? Like, how can you just how can you get up there with a Ukrainian lapel pin and talk about the brave Ukrainian people who are being killed by the hundreds of thousands? And you don't even keep track of the casualties, like, aren't you kind of a monster for doing that? I don't understand.

Erik Prince [00:45:19] And you look at if you if you made the pictures of the modern battle space on the front, a little grainy and black and white. Yep. It's indistinguishable from the battle of the Somme or World War One.

Tucker [00:45:30] Well, that's just right.

Erik Prince [00:45:32] Artillery. A grinding, crushing, pointless loss of humanity.

Tucker [00:45:37] But it's being abetted by our policymakers like they they're responsible for this to some extent. Like what?

Erik Prince [00:45:44] And it's it's shocking how, you know, party government has become.

Tucker [00:45:49] You don't seem shocked that they don't care about how many Ukrainians have died.

Erik Prince [00:45:53] They don't care about how many U.S. troops die. Really?

Tucker [00:45:56] Good point. No, it's totally fair point.

Erik Prince [00:45:58] Because they'll send they'll send us troops to war with a whole bunch of cockamamie rules of engagement and policies, and it's just not a serious way to wage warfare. The, the the whole premise of got was that we could buy surgical by American magic and precision. We could always just clip off the head of the snake, and the whole body would die of the snake. And that's just proof that flies in the face of every kind of warfare. When you look back to World War Two, we killed off 30% of the German male population. World War one, same American civil war, same. The the continental wars in Europe in the 17 1800s. Back to the Punic and Peloponnesian Wars. You destroy their manpower, the logistics, and their finance. This cutting off the head of the snake is a fool's errand.

Tucker [00:46:51] Is there any precedent for that in history?

Erik Prince [00:46:53] No.

Tucker [00:46:53] So I thought it's sort of a key component of education of the military academies was military history. No, I'm sure he's. And you. I mean, you're a big example of it. You went to one and you know an awful lot about your business.

Erik Prince [00:47:07] I didn't read, I didn't learn that at the Academy.

Tucker [00:47:09] Really?

Erik Prince [00:47:10] No, no, that's a lifetime of curiosity I had. I was a military history geek as a kid. When we. My family went to Normandy when I was 11. And, you know, I was the tour guide. Sword gold, Juno Beach, Pegasus Bridge, all that. Yeah, I was, I was that, but I mean, nerdy, geeky kid.

Tucker [00:47:28] So do you think your average, like, modern flag officer is just sort of not aware of the history of warfare?

Erik Prince [00:47:34] I'm sure they get some level of it, but they have not made it a career. I I'd say the best book I read on General Officers was that one. It was a British military study. It's called The Psychology of Military Incompetence. And it and it went through five of the biggest disasters in British military history, like the surrender at Singapore.

Tucker [00:47:56] Yeah. Khartoum.

Erik Prince [00:47:57] Yeah. Khartoum, Baghdad in World War One, of course.

Tucker [00:48:01] The Afghan withdrawal.

Erik Prince [00:48:03] Yes.

Tucker [00:48:04] Into Peshawar.

Erik Prince [00:48:05] Yes. And it and it literally looked through the guy's childhood where he went to school, his relationship with his father, all the rest, and very consistent themes. And what were they? They they're very bookish, very geeky, not, not self. No introspection.

Tucker [00:48:30] Yeah. So there, Tony Blinken basically.

Erik Prince [00:48:33] Are just not people able to say, okay, this is not working. We're going to attack. We're going to attack the boat because the this is not working in this direction. And so they're weak men.

Tucker [00:48:44] In other words.

Erik Prince [00:48:48] Yeah. Look, the anomaly of pattern is doesn't occur very often.

Tucker [00:48:55] Pattern? Who's been maligned since his death? Remarkable human being. And of course, you know, Hollywood is I don't know how many movies they've done telling us pattern was bad. But, you know, there are some suggesting the pattern was also murdered. Do you think that that's possible?

Erik Prince [00:49:11] It'd be a hell of a difficult. Well, I don't know if the traffic accident, the Jeep rollover. Yeah, yeah, but it was an accident then.

Tucker [00:49:19] But he survived it and then Douglas.

Erik Prince [00:49:22] I mean, I don't know, but he hated the Soviets. He hated communism.

Tucker [00:49:26] No, I know, so I don't want to get too far afield here, but I that does seem like a pivot point in world history where that were, you know, April 1945 Hitler kills himself, Berlin is occupied by the Russians, etc., etc. we win in Europe and then we sort of like kind of pivot toward the Soviet Union for a few years until maybe the Rosenbergs or.

Erik Prince [00:49:50] Yeah. Well, and even the amount of communists agents that were surrounding Roosevelt.

Tucker [00:49:54] Oh, well.

Erik Prince [00:49:55] Yes, I've got well.

Tucker [00:49:56] Harry Hopkins is literally a communist Soviet agent. Yeah. Right. So, but, like, why did that happen? Like, how do we fight this war for freedom and then wind up sort of handing Poland to Stalin, for example, or on the side of the totalitarian.

Erik Prince [00:50:12] Handing all of those countries of the world? Of course. Yeah. It showed.

Tucker [00:50:17] So how is this a war for freedom beforehand.

Erik Prince [00:50:19] Exhaustion of moral leadership? Yeah.

Tucker [00:50:22] I think who was that? Who do you think if we could hold one person responsible.

Erik Prince [00:50:26] For that, Truman was president? Yeah. Because Roosevelt was dead. So as Churchill said, he died in the traces. But I think, I think when you look at history, the the lie of socialism, communism, it is such a it's easy for elitists to love that paradigm because it's because the, because the right wing Austrian school economics approach is massive decentralization. Yeah. Decision making at the micro level. The farmer knows what prices are, has a good idea what demand is going to be, decides whether he's going to plant more acres that that year or not and takes that risk himself. The Soviet planner says I need everyone to plant this many acres, and we're going to do it at this price. And it's it's the lie of individual incentive versus massive central planning to the betterment of elite thinking.

Tucker [00:51:25] Right. Well.

Erik Prince [00:51:26] With the grift that goes with it. And that's just a that's like a mind worm disease that so many people continue generation after generation continue to fall for.

Tucker [00:51:36] Yeah, it's a mom based system. Whereas the let the farmer figure it out. It's a dad based system. Yeah. It's true. What are you, a farmer like? How do you know? Like that's what your dad says. Your mom's like, no, it's what's going wrong. Well, I'm sorry.

Erik Prince [00:51:50] But that's why I'm I, I'm so excited to see me, like, having success in Argentina for a guy. And maybe it's analogy to. To America because he got sick. I mean, you know, at the end of World War two. Cap per capita living standards in Argentina were higher than Switzerland. Yes. Peronist is. Socialists take over. They run the company. They run the country basically off the cliff. Hyperinflation, economic wreckage. Terrible. I get sick of not only the Peronist is, but the pathetic so-called right wing opposition, which is not opposition. He starts his own political party and he wins. I mean, I like any guy that campaigned with the chainsaw. I agree.

Tucker [00:52:33] With that. You think that'll happen here?

Erik Prince [00:52:36] I don't think the Republican Party is really that salvageable anymore. No, of course, because it's been gobbled up by corporatist.

Tucker [00:52:44] Yes.

Erik Prince [00:52:46] And the you know, the defense industry now spreads money equally. Right and left. Not even really right. Just across the Washington insiders. So, yeah, maybe an entirely new political movement. That's why Trump is transformational. Because he kind of came outside the Republican Party, right. And did it. And. I hope he can. I hope he can move the needle somewhere in the right direction because it's it's teetering.

Tucker [00:53:11] So I got to ask you a personal question. We're in the Middle East together. Not that long ago, and I noticed two things. One, you flew coach to the Middle East, which obviously don't cheat you, but you did it on purpose. I think that is your custom. We're the same age, three weeks apart, and I think most like. Why would you do that? And the second thing I noticed is you went from there to some far more obscure part of the world. So, like, explain those things, if you would.

Erik Prince [00:53:42] When I, I got out of the Seal teams earlier than I wanted to. I loved being a Seal. I was pretty good at it, I think. And, I would have had a nice career going there.

Tucker [00:53:58] Those are another story. If you're just plain why you got out.

Erik Prince [00:54:00] Oh, my dad died. And when I was 25 and my wife got cancer. No, I was 26. He was 29, and she got cancer. So I got out to sort out the homefront. And that's really why I started Blackwater. Just as a way to stay connected to the Seal teams. I knew nothing of business, nothing of land development, nothing of government contracting. But I kind of knew what the special operations community needed. And building that business was, was a really great experience. It was it was family policy for my dad to not come and work in the family business after college. You had to go do your own thing. I had nothing, I didn't want anything to do with his business. I was not I don't think I was really suited for it. And. But I was going to come and work with him after 12 years or so of being a seal. Starting Blackwater building. It was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done in my life, because bringing together people with great talents that were really good, that they'd gained in the military and they'd retired or gotten out and having it smashed the way it was, really left a bad taste in my mouth. And I'll be honest, I carry a big chip on my shoulder yet. Yeah. And I try to keep it in perspective. So look, I had a business that was crushed and lost. Thousands of guys lost their lives, their limbs, their mental health, their spouses over a badly run war in two theaters by idiot Washington elites. Same idiots that smashed my business. So, yeah, I got a chip on my shoulder to do something. Big and effective and spectacular again and run hard until that happens.

Tucker [00:55:41] But I mean, you know, 54, 55 year old guys who've been successful, what you have been, despite having your business smashed. They don't fly coach. Like, what is that? Is that like a just a spartan impulse? So you just don't get this off.

Erik Prince [00:55:52] You get there at the same time.

Tucker [00:55:54] Yeah, but it's I.

Erik Prince [00:55:56] Tucker. I fly so much that anyway it look and I'm not. I'm weird.

Tucker [00:56:02] I know we're the same age. I know how this look.

Erik Prince [00:56:05] I'm not I'm not a purist. I do fly business class 10% of the time.

Tucker [00:56:12] I mean, that's fine if you're flying to Fort Lauderdale from DC or something. But, you know, Dubai is a long way. I just think it's very, very interesting.

Erik Prince [00:56:19] Learn to sleep in any position.

Tucker [00:56:21] So that's what that's what it is. Yeah, I like that. What's the weirdest place you've been recently? Why are you always in Africa? What do you do for a living, Eric?

Erik Prince [00:56:37] Hahaha.

Tucker [00:56:39] I feel like I know you pretty well.

Erik Prince [00:56:42] I would say there are lots of countries that, need help organizing. With the basics of tax collection and security assistance and border security and, police advisement. Because what we take for granted in America, if you want to start a business in America, you can call a law office in Delaware, get a business in two hours for 200 bucks. It's simple. And you can get title to your land here and you can get a bank account. You get a business license. You can you can do all those things that make capital formation possible. There are so many parts of the world that's not possible. And so providing them the very basic means of a reliable police department or the means to stop gangs, jihadi gangs, criminal gangs, whatever. So I do provide some advice to countries how to do that from time to time.

Tucker [00:57:42] I, judging by what little I know of your travel schedule, it seems pretty frequent. That's interesting. So since you are everywhere all the time, and most Americans are including me, sort of only dimly aware of what's happening around the world. Name three places we should be paying more attention to now than we are.

Erik Prince [00:58:03] The Chinese Communist Party has been very active in Mexico. The fentanyl crisis is very much, you know, last year, fentanyl in America killed like 109,000 people. Yes. It is funded, organized, logistically, facilitated by the Chinese Communist Party to move the precursor chemicals that are actually made near Wuhan, China, shipped to either Venezuela or Mexico, fabricated into fentanyl and basically blended with other common drugs that people are taking. And it doesn't make any sense to do so because why would a drug dealer want to kill his customers? That's what's happening. And it is an absolute it's a fuck you from the CCP against the West for the Opium Wars of the 1840s. And it's done to.

Tucker [00:58:57] To murder American children.

Erik Prince [00:58:59] 100%. Yes.

Tucker [00:59:01] And these are not junkies who, like, took too much. These are kids. That's a college kid.

Erik Prince [00:59:06] College kid.

Tucker [00:59:07] Off Instagram.

Erik Prince [00:59:08] Yes. Or a, a bootleg Percocet or something.

Tucker [00:59:12] Yeah, exactly.

Erik Prince [00:59:14] And so they're people dying, and that is you trace that and I can show all of that going right back to mainland China.

Tucker [00:59:23] Why wouldn't why are we sending all these armaments to Ukraine? And we could bomb those facilities in Mexico if they're. If killing. Oh, excuse me, 100,000.

Erik Prince [00:59:31] You don't you don't you don't you don't need to bomb fires and underutilized tool. That's.

Tucker [00:59:38] What's happening here. I know quite a few manufacturing and agricultural facilities that seem to be going up in smoke in this country.

Erik Prince [00:59:44] Yeah. And so look at this. And on that last time Blinken was in Beijing, he didn't even call him on it to say stop. He said, well, no, it's yeah, maybe some of the stuff is coming from China, but it's really just a shipping accidental shipping problem. I mean, it's it is such a denial of reality.

Tucker [01:00:05] It's just I mean, you're so against who you're saying is you're not speculating about this. This is known.

Erik Prince [01:00:11] 100%.

Tucker [01:00:13] To the intelligence to assume. No, this-

Erik Prince [01:00:15] Yeah, but nobody wants to do anything. Why? I think the. You have an agency that doesn't want to do their job. Which agency? CIA. Because I think, and I know you have rightly very mixed feelings on the CIA. However, the mission of the CIA, if you think about the State Department, can handle 5% of issues. Diplomats and embassies. You want your military over here, your conventional military. It's a big, angry dog waiting to be let off leash that hopefully never is the middle of the world. Those those problems. You think about how the Soviet Union was really undermined in the 80s. There was there was 20 covert action findings that were signed, a couple by Carter, mostly by Reagan, done to undermine the Soviet Union economically, politically, culturally, socially. And that was done under title 50 authorities, and that worked without having to involve big military expenditure. There are if you want to stop. Like how we know? We know fentanyl is a problem. We know the Chinese are a problem doing it. That's specifically what the title 50 authorities are for to say to six guys, go make that problem stop. I think if you have an agency that doesn't want to do their job. That's why it's not happening.

Tucker [01:01:40] But they seem to be doing so many other things. I mean, I'm exactly my dad work was I am not I was never against CIA. I thought only like dumb liberals were against CIA, you know, and traitors or whatever. So my views on CIA have evolved based on things that I have seen and personally experienced. And my conclusion is not that everyone they are particularly know the paramilitaries. I know a million of them seem

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