Transcript of How to Save America: Mark Cuban and Tucker Carlson Debate | All-In Summit 2025

Mark Cuban is here ever since he was a child.

He wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I just love to compete for whatever reason I do. We want all our fellow Americans to succeed. The Dallas Mavericks are NBA champions, the first title in franchise history.

One of America's most famous professional sports owners is selling his beloved team.

We've done a reality show, just retired from that, cashed out of the Mavericks check. It adds up to you're going to run for President.

No, there's no way.

No?

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mark Cuban.

All right.

Thanks for being here.

God, Mark, it feels like we've been doing this for 30 years, and we have.

We have, I know. We have.

What GLP are you on?

What off-menu items?

You're looking pretty...

None.

He's in retirement. Sells a team, takes a break.

All the stress is on. You really do look incredible. Are you doing something?

I'm working out. Yeah. That's it.

We want to know about the off-the-menu items. We'll talk backstage.

There are no off-the-menu items.

No off-the-menu items, okay.

Nothing. Just exercise, huh?

Exercise and watching what I eat, yeah.

What was more painful in the last year? Kamala losing or Luca getting traded?

Luca getting traded. It's not even close. No, I had nothing to do with it.

We know. You sold the team. You explained it 50 different ways to Sunday. But there was this idea that you would still be involved to some extent.

Yeah, I fucked up.

Unpack it.

When I did the deal, the presumption was that I would still be running basketball. We tried to put it in the contract, but the MBA said, The governor is the governor, and they make all final decisions. And then I was involved, and then we went on this run where we went to the finals. And rather than trying to interject myself all the time, I was like, I don't want to get in the way. We're rolling. And that was a mistake. So there were some things that happened internally where the person who traded Luca didn't want me there. And so they won. I lost. Yeah. But That's in the past. I'm still Hardcore, Mavs, MFFL.

A rare L for Mark.

No, there's been plenty of them. I just try to minimize them. Yeah.

Mark, let's talk about health care. You started a business that has had a really profoundly disruptive impact on its compounding. Tell the people the business you started and tell them why you started it and why you just think health care is the bro.

Sure. I got a cold email from a Dr. Alex Sashmajansky, and he wanted to create what's called a compounding pharmacy pharmacy where pharmacies can make drugs per order. It was right around the time the farmer bro was going to jail for jacking up the price of this generic drug called Daprim. I was like, How can he do this, Alex? In investigating it, it became very clear very quickly that no one knew what the price of any medication was, and there was zero transparency. I was like, This is wrong. We got the URL, costplusdrugs. Com, and we set it up so that when you go to costplusdrugs. Com, costplusdrugs. Com, and you put in the name of the medication, whatever it may be, we're going to show you our actual cost. Not only are we going to show you our actual cost, we're going to show you our markup, which is only 15% plus for mail order is $5 for shipping, $5 for the pharmacist to review, and then we also have the option of local pickup. Now, what really created the change is we were the first to ever do that. Even to this day, three and a half years later, nobody else publishes their price list for medications.

When you think about health care, particularly the financial side, nobody trusts it at all. In reality, trust is actually a formula in my mind. Trust equals transparency, divided by self interest. We were completely transparent. In terms of self-interest, only a 15% markup on medications is fair and it's nothing. I get emails all the time. I was looking at having to pay $900 or $1,000 or $1,500 or 2,000, and your price is $21.

But just explain that. It's not as if it's 21 versus 40 or 90. It's 21 versus 900. How does that happen?

Because it can. If you have an entire industry of insurance companies and the pharmacy benefit managers that either own them or they own, controlling the financial flow in an entire healthcare industry, and it's completely opaque by design, they get to charge what they want Because, again, unless you know to go to costplusdrugs. Com, you have no idea what your Medicaid... Did I say that right? Costplusdrugs. Com. I'm not a salesperson at all. The segment brought to you by.

Yeah, right?

Costplusdrugs. Com. But unless you know to go check pricing with us, you're just walking in and just hoping you can afford it. And the way the system is set up now, even at Medicare Advantage or Medicare Part D will be cheaper than your copay, and particularly if it's co-insurance. One of the things that the pharmacy benefit managers did that's just a complete rip-off, they created tiers of medications. There's generic tiers, there's brand tiers. But even in Medicare, and Medicare Advantage, they created these things called specialty generics. They're just pills. It's like a drug called a Matnib, all these multiple sclerosis drugs. There's a long list of them. But because they designated them as special, they either use a co-insurance insurance or very high copay. We don't do any of that. A big part of our business is people on Medicare Advantage, on Medicare Part D.

Are there drugs you can't get access to or you can't compound or you can't make?

Yeah, there's certain drugs, like the biggest brand drugs, the eloquists of the world, we can't get access to them. The reason why we can't get access to them is because those big PBMs, they have these things called formularies which determine the drugs that you're allowed to have access to for 180 million plus people. They've literally told the brand manufacturers, If you deal with costplusdrugs. Com, we will diminish you on that formulary. Instead of reaching 180 million people, and not just for the drugs they work with us on, but for their entire portfolio.

Sounds like an antitrust case. Yes, it is. But Mark, if this gets changed, the PBMs gets wiped out. First of all, should the PBMs all get deleted? If they do get deleted, what's going to happen in the marketplace? Is there suddenly going to be a big commoditization, more competitors for your business, etc?

I don't care about the competition because our market is still going to be 15%. We're so AI-driven. We only have 70 people in the entire company, and we manufacture drugs in the whole nine yards. So if they're all wiped out, or the easier approach is require that the formularies are segregated from the PBMs, because all they really do is auction off access to those formularies. Yeah. And when they do that-So do you think the PBM should be deleted? Well, there's pass-through PBMs. I mean, the shit that PBMs do are just insane. If you wanted to go... If your company, if you get your insurance from your employer, And they wanted to go to Lili or Novo Nord to do a wellness program to determine who's most suited for GLP-1s. They're not allowed to do that. And on top of that, all the reason is... Because contractually, they don't want to-They get blocked out. They get blockedThey don't want you to go direct. They don't want you to go direct. And on top of that, you would think it'd be valuable for the claims for all the people who use Zepound or whatever the GOP wants to go to the manufacturers so they can determine adherence, what's working, issues.

Not allowed. In fact, they'll charge them to get access to that.

Are there things that the government agencies or next round of legislation can do to take the advantages of what you've learned and apply it so that everybody can get the benefit of this? And have you talked to the administration about that?

I may have talked to some people, but then they say, We're not going to tell anybody we talk to you. But this The simplest approach really is just market-driven. So where you guys get your insurance for yourselves, for the besties, for the companies that you guys work with out there, tell them, Don't use any of the big PBMs. Use these things called pass-through PBMs that allow you to own your own claims, own your own data, get the lowest price, et cetera. There are market solutions to get there.

Is the original sin in this country, tying healthcare to employers and making them responsible for it?

Is that what we have to solve for? No. The original sin is allowing these companies to become vertically integrated and enormous. There's one big insurance company just for intercompany transfers. Each year, it's about $161 billion. That's 0. 3% of our GDP. They have gotten so large and so vertically integrated that they can game the entire system. You want your medical loss ratio to be where it needs to be? We'll then push the cost to the PBM. You want to increase your profits here? You want to make your Medicare Advantage programs work? Game the system this way. The big insurance companies... Think about this, right? We all have insurance, or we're on our parents' insurance at some point. But the insurance company defines a plan. They set a premium, and they set a deductible and a max out-of-pocket. The less you make, the more likely you're going to take a lower premium, higher deductible. But excluding the people on Medicaid, 40% of people can't afford a $400 bill or expense. Yet they're the ones choosing the 2,500, the $5,000 deductibles, and the 9,000 out-of-pockets, which means for the insurance companies that they know that they can't afford to get the first level of care anywhere.

They can't afford to go to the hospital. So the insurance company is just keeping the premiums. And even if you work for a company, let's say you work for a company here in LA and your net take home is 35, $40,000, and you have a $2,500 or $3,000 deductible, and you're playing basketball and you go to dunk like Jason always does and breaks his leg, you're fucked. You're not going. That's why my fingers are like this, right? Because you just can't afford to go use your deductible. That's the problem of the system. And as long as we have these companies that are so vertically integrating, continue to buy more and more companies so that they can game the system even more, and they control the patient flow, and they control the flow of drugs.

So this is an interesting reaction happening in the markets, which is self-directed health care. People are opting to, affluent people in some cases, higher premiums and saying, You know what? I'll just do my own blood work with superpower or function. I'm going to go take care of my own peptides, or I'm going to go to a compounding pharmacy. I'm going to go to row. Com, and I'm going to get my whatever.

If you go to row. Com, let me just tell you, for my friends of my age, 90 Tadilafil cost less than a bag of M&Ms. Tadilafil is Generic Cialis. So we charge less than a bag of M&Ms. If you go to Rose or Hamsley, those guys, you're getting ripped off.

Mark, let me ask you.

But the self-directed concept.

But the self-directed.

Jason is going to change his prescription. I'll change my prescription right now.

But on this self-directed point.

On that point, right? So we're creating a company called Cost Plus Well this that hasn't launched yet. It'll hopefully launch at the end of this month. And what we're doing is we're going out there for my companies, we're eating our own dog food, and we're setting up direct contracts with 8,000 providers at this point. And so it's based off cash pay because those insurance companies not only rip off patients and deny care, et cetera, et cetera, they also underpay providers and all these other things, and they have to respond. And they underpay doctors, too. And so what we're doing is we're going out there negotiating these cash prices with terms that we'll pay on a cash basis. But what's different about it when we launch, we're going to publish all those contracts because there's absolutely no transparency whatsoever on the insurance side. Companies don't know what they're doing. They're permitted from having discussions with each other to compare notes, so we'll publish the contract.

Just to wrap that point on costplusdrugs. Com, this isn't going to impact your economics personally in any way. You're doing this because, hey, maybe as a third act, you see this as a way to give back to society.

I want to fuck up health care. Who here thinks the financial side of health care is great? Nobody. It's a fucking mess.

You're doing this to prove a point to help people.

Because it's fixable. It's fixable, but politicians got to do what politicians do.

Have you gone to DC since President Trump? I know you were campaigning for Kamala Harris. Have you been to DC since the election? Yeah, one time. You have. And how did it go? Our experience, maybe we're a little bit influential or whatever because of various relationships. But everyone we speak to, it's an open-door policy. The administration is listening to everyone on all of these important issues. And we're hearing this from industry leaders from both sides of the-Trying to get them to move is different.

Because the President, and actually his MFN, EO, was great. No knock on that whatsoever. The problem is, we literally went to manufacturers and we said, take the PBMs out. If you take the PBMs out and sell to us at a higher price than what you're selling to the big PBMs and just let us market up only our 15%, our price will be close to all the European countries that the MFM wants to compare to because you know the difference between our countries and theirs? They don't have PBMs. I went to CMS and told them we would do these things. Then we started talking to the manufacturers. Then the manufacturers backed off. And US knew they backed off. You know why they backed off? They were more afraid of the PBMs and being removed from formularies than they were of Donald Trump. I even wrote a letter for them to give to the President explaining all that. Now, whether or not they ever gave it to him, I don't know. But it's crazy that they would rather piss off Donald Trump and make the EEO not happen because it's been a lot longer than 90 days, and we haven't seen a single drug that falls under the MFN principles.

You've had a lot of chapters in your life, very successful. But if you are able to crack this, it will obviously not just be a great service for people, but you will build an immense amount of social and political capital. We mentioned this backstage, but But some folks have whispered and said, When we ask who is the leader of the Democratic Party? And they say it's Mark Cuban.

Eric Smallwell said this on our show.

That was a long time ago.

But Mark, can you just transition and just talk about that, which is Where is the Democratic Party? If you're able to get this done, how can you reinvigorate that side of the aisle?

I don't care about the Democratic Party. People think I'm a Democrat. I'm not.

I think you're a Democrat.

I'm not. If it were up to me, I I kick both parties to the curb. I think both parties suck, right?

I'm with that. Moderates and independents, common sense. So does that mean you're a pro-American Party? If you were advising Elon, would you tell him, Stay out of the Republican Party, just try to win some seats for common sense, and would you back him with the America Party?

It depends on the policies and who the politicians were. But yeah, I posted, Yes, I'm wide open to that. We need to look at each individual situation motivation for its own merits. I just don't care about either party. The Republican Party isn't the Republican Party anymore. It's the Trump family business. And the Democratic Party doesn't even exist anymore because they don't even know what they're doing, and there's nobody in charge. They both suck.

Do you get calls from Democratic leadership saying, What should we do? Give us a... And what do you say?

Well, basically, what I tell them is, You have to learn how to sell. They have no idea how to sell. I'll give you a perfect example. Right now, with the enhanced ACA credits, subsidy credits, are set to expire at the end of this year. When they expire for 12. 5 million people.

These are the Obamacare health care credits.

Right, for the ACA. And so when they expire, let's just take a family of five from the state of Texas, the great state of Texas, $125,000 in income, three kids. By By the time you look at all their adjustable gross income and all that stuff, their net federal tax rate is 3. 3%, their effective tax rate, 3. 3%. That same family, if they lose their enhanced credits because they're eligible for them, their monthly payments will go from $880, give or take, per month to about $2,300 a month. So that delta, $1,500 a month, that's $18,000 a year. That's everything. Yet that's a 20% tax increase. Now, that's right in front of the Democrats to jump all over when it comes to all the stuff that's coming up. Yet not a single word that this is the biggest increase in the history of tax increases ever. And so they're not cognizant of just the obvious things. And then the Republicans aren't cognizant of it either, because they've got to realize that you are about to screw over 12. 5 million people in a way they've never been screwed over before. It's just right there, right in front of them, and nobody's paying attention to...

And we wonder...

When you say that, what do they say? When you point this out to Democratic leadership that calls you, what's the response?

That's a good point. That makes sense.

It seems like they're leaning into this ban the billionaires, social spend.

Yeah, and that's so stupid. I had that conversation the other day. 942 or however many people. Look, it's like the Mondami thing, right? They haven't learned from 10 years of Trump. Mondami is just Trump progressive version, right? You just say what people want to hear. You want rent control? Yeah, I'll give you rent control, right? You want free transportation? Got it, right? You want grocery stores paid for by the government? Done. That's Trump 101. And so he has figured it out. The rest of them have not.

I think this might be a good time to bring out our... Stay here, Mark, but I think we want to bring out.

We want to introduce you to a friend of ours.

People who are also-Let's just add one more bestie. Just add a bestie. We're going to add bestie. Tucker. Surprise bestie.

Come on out. Surprise bestie coming out. Tucker Carl.

End is in. I'll give you a hug.

Thank you. Gentlemen.

Grab a seat.

Grab a seat. All right. I think you guys are on the couch. I see each other. Yeah, come on. But actually, what Mark... The right and the left. Mark raised an interesting question there, which is... He certainly did. I'm curious to get your take, Tucker, which is, where's the line in a democracy, Tucker, between giving the people what they want, which is democracy, versus what Mark seems to be saying, which is pandering to them or something, or offering something that- Where is the line?

I can identify it. It's at costplusdrugs. Com. It's true. It's happening. I was thinking backstage This is one smart man. Where do I meet my SSRI needs? Let's say I need, I don't know, a pallet of benzos. Costplusdrugs. Com. I would say that falls on the radical democracy end of the spectrum, which I oppose. No, I mean, it's a balance. Obviously, the founding documents reflect the balance that the founders, for all their overhyped genius, they really were geniuses, actually, and they thought deeply about this. How do you not devolve into the the ugliest form of democracy, which inevitably leads to tyranny, where you're just taking payoff and seeking affirmation from the mob, and the oligarchy that is the other extreme. Clearly, we're on or were, up until Trump's election, at one end, where there was no demonstrable effort by the government to meet the basic desires of the population, doing just the opposite. There was never any effort to poll people Hey, would you like 40 million new Americans? No one's for that in any country ever. They just gave it to you and shouted you down whether you wanted it or not. Hey, maybe we should...

The real problem is the Houthies. Okay, oh, the Houthies. All right. As my father said to me growing up, just beware the Houthies. Ancient enemy of our people. Like, what? They would just present these things or, Putin is bad. You got to hate Putin. Really? I don't really have a strong feeling. Shut up. Russian tool or whatever. This is even before I loved Putin. I was like, What are you even talking about? In place of the actual organic desires of the people, which are never that different from society to society, peace, prosperity, hope of a better future for your children, the promise of grandchildren, not just sterility. In place of those, they manufacture these things you're supposed to want. So that's obviously way on the other side of what we think of as just basic responsive government. Are we going too far other way? I don't know. We're not even in your end, but that is the tension.

Tucker, I want to get your reaction to what Mark said. Mark characterized Mamdani as Trump on the left. Like he's taken the Trump playbook and inverted it and applied it with leftist rhetoric. Do you agree with that characterization? What is working in Mamdani and what is the same and different versus?

Well, I'm not an expert on Mamdani. I don't know him. I've tried to interview him a bunch of times because I think it'd be interesting. There's clearly something there. It's not just about hating Israel or the foreign policy stuff. I refuse to believe that's the core of it. I think it's part of it. But I think the core of it is just economic frustration. I think this is a marker for what we're going to see a whole lot more of, which is economic populism. That's the actual next chapter. That's going to scare the shit out of everyone in this room. I get it. I'm not even calling for it. I'm just saying when your kids can't buy a house or even dream of buying a house, when they're buying DoorDash on credit, you're ripe for some revolution. The question is, is it a violent one? God forbid, or is it a sincere Bernie Sanders? But either way, you're going to get some massive reaction to that because that is a core human need.

What's the impact of social media in all this? Because I think another thing that Madame and Trump have in common is they know how to make the algorithms work in their favor. When Trump talks about they're eating cats and dogs.

Which I think they were, by the way.

Well, maybe one person was, right? But it was certainly-Okay, maybe one person? So that's not a day.

Eating one dog is too many. That's not a day. If being an American means anything, if you could boil down an actual greed to one statement is no dog eating here. What about cats? I'm agnostic on cats, but no dog eating. Yeah.

Cats are pricks.

That's a foundational principle.

Well, no, but if it is about wages, if it is about affording a home, let's put the political parties aside. What's the path forward, Mark Tucker, of maybe letting the bottom third believe in America again? Should we raise the minimum wage? Do we need We don't have a Manhattan project to do something as easy as build 5 million homes? We live in the great state of Texas. They build homes like you wouldn't believe. Rents have gone down in Texas three years in a row. There are solutions to these problems. What should we solve for as a country? Politics aside, if we had a top two or three things, what do we need to solve? Mark and then Tucker, same for you.

I think we've forgotten about entrepreneurs. I think that's one of the challenges of the tariffs that We hear about $500 billion investment, $600 billion investment, $2 trillion, whatever, in aggregate investment. But we don't talk about the 10% effective or 15% or 20% effective tariffs and the impact on small businesses, and Not just from the actual tariffs per se, but from the friction that they create for the companies trying to run their companies. For my Shark Tank companies, it's put several out of business. When you hear the President talk about them, I understand he's trying to work on a macro basis. That's what he's trying to do. That's fine. But there's 33 million companies, 30 million of them are solopreneurs. There's only 22,000 companies that have 500 or more employees. 60% of new jobs are created by small companies. I think they're being ignored. To your point, if he's able to reduce friction in terms of zoning, in terms of anything else that makes it more difficult to run, whether it's using AI or whatever it may be, then I think the American spirit takes over. You guys are entrepreneurs. You're an entrepreneur. You know that the ideas are there.

The people who want to implement those ideas are what makes this... You can go around the world, and they don't talk about the French dream, the Houthi dream. They talk about the American dream.

By the way, over lunch, the French government collapsed, I understand.

Yeah, I saw that. But they talk about the American dream. That's what makes this country great. That's what makes this country different. I think for a long time now, we've forgotten about those entrepreneurs. Absolutely.

I agree.

Tucker, what do you got on the short list?

I think housing is the core of everything. Where you live is one of the central questions of your life. I don't think it's actually about housing. It's about autonomy, actually. Both sides want to subvert it. The left is always talking about housing. The unhoused is if the core problem with homelessness is we don't have enough Section 8 high density buildings or something. It's nothing to do with that. The right talks about it like, even to address the question is to buy into the Mamdani program. You're a socialist or something. No, I think the material condition of your people is a really big deal, and you should focus on it. It doesn't make you a socialist at all. I am not a socialist, obviously. Then they go too far. I don't think building condos in Yellowstone either is the answer. We have way too many people in the country. The top line numbers really matter. How many people live here? Well, we don't actually know the answer. Trump told me directly he thought it was 50 million. He's the President of the United States. He doesn't know how many people whose identities we don't really know live here, which is a little weird in a time of facial recognition.

I have to have my nose scanned to get on an airplane, but we don't know who's here. I call But whatever, we don't know. But we do know that, and you know from traveling, that how many people a country has determines the nature of the country almost more than anything. Right? I mean, this is why the places you go on vacation are not densely populated. We need to articulate just the obvious supply and demand principles out loud.

Don't we have more fundamental issues than that, though?

There's no more fundamental issue than who lives in your country, dude.

There is, right? Because if you want-The cost of prescription drugs? No, but if you want the birth rates to go up.

I may have an answer to that, Mark.

Thank you. What was the name of the place?

Costplusdrugs. Com. Smart man. For your drug needs. I'm Cal Worthington. Sorry.

But if you can't afford to live here, you can't afford kids, right? I get it. If you can't afford health care-Mark, let me ask you a question.

What's your take on whether we should be sending money to Ukraine or not? Were you in favor of that?

Man, they need it.

I mean, honestly, I don't have a good answer. I can make an argument both ways. Half my family is Ukrainian from my grandparents. Personally, I think we should help, but I don't have a studied answer for you.

How much money have you sent to Ukraine? None. What do you mean by we? You're the one who's family's from Ukraine. Why don't you send them a billion dollars?

Because I'm trying to fix health care.

Why don't you fix their health care if you're so deep? If you think we need to help, why don't you start? How about you first? I noticed that's never even an option for anybody. It's like, We need to help. That's not what charity is. Forcing other people to help is not charity. It's vanity.

The good news is all the weapons were on loan lease. We're getting it back. Our dear President Trump has negotiated that we own half the minerals. So he turned this horrible, tragic of a war into a profit center, which is one of his unique gifts. I think we can all agree.

Can I just follow up on another alternative root cause? I've harped on this a lot, federal spending. Ultimately, if the federal deficit remains as it is, 6. 5% of GDP, we're printing money. The Federal Reserve has to buy all the treasuries to fund the government. That money printing and all of those inefficient programs for housing, lending for student loans, spending on stuff that has no ROI, et cetera, et cetera, ultimately leads to inflation and leads to everything becoming unaffordable. Is it not an option? And how much do you both care about or think about reigning in the federal spending and having those pointed conversations about the importance of this?

Go ahead, Tucker.

You look back here. Tucker. I think about it a lot. I think about the devaluation of the dollar. I think about it's just not worth as much. I know that in my own... I'm not an investor. I don't invest in anything. But in the things that I buy with an eye to retaining value, they're physical things. They just don't believe in any of this at all. I caught myself the other day, and I'm at such a low level compared to everyone else here. I'm not especially rich, but I had a little bit of extra money, and it really was like the Vimar Impulse. Like, Shit, I got to buy something soon before I lose it.

Before the dollar is worth less. Yeah.

I mean, everyone I know, and I live in a very rural area, and most of my friends are crazy, but People I know are thinking in terms of land, gold, ammo. I don't think that water... I don't think that's... No. I mean, are you really laughing? Are you tittering nervously? Because you know that's not insane.

I own a shit ton of Bitcoin, first and foremost. It's a hedge. I have probably five years now, but we do need to cut costs, and I'm hoping AI is a path there. Government as a service, AI as a service, reducing the number of people it takes to get things done, understanding that laws that were written in the '60s, and this is the abundance thing, right? Laws that were written in the '60s that are still in place don't apply now. It's like government version of the innovator's dilemma. We have to modify things that are in place already so we can start to optimize. I think we haven't done that in a long, long time, and I don't think we're in the process of changing that right now.

But may I ask, and I'm not against anything you said, I'm for technocratic solutions to moral problems, too, but I wonder, just kidding, I'm wondering what the aim is. It seems like with any project, you begin by articulating your goal, which is one thing America is super bad at. If you want to get to the moon, say so. Then if you don't get there, just fake it or whatever like we did. But it begins with... Again, kidding. But it begins with saying what the goal is. What society do you want? Absolutely. No, but I'm not attacking you at all. I do think you should money to Ukraine, but I think we're all at fault. It's all like, Well, how can we do this more efficiently? We'll do what? In the end, I want to live in a society where people live single family homes with little lawns that they own that are not going to be taken away from them, like actual property rights, not theoretical property. It's like my house, okay? I want married people, and I want them to have children and grandchildren with the rough assurance of the future, of course, being fundamentally unknown, but rough assurance that it'll be the same.

Radical change all the time drives people insane.

Yeah, but it's not radical change to do.

It's not radical change, dude. I grew up in this city. I don't recognize it. I'm only 56. That's radical change.

What, you're talking about Los Angeles? Yeah.

What is this?

Look, you can go in any decade, any generation.

No, there's never been-There's been radical change.

There's never been population... Okay, then I dare you then, because I know you're a historian, Give me another example other than the mass rape by the Mongols of population change like what we've seen in the West over the past 50 years. You can't because there isn't one in all recorded history. You can be for it or against it, but you can't say there's a precedent.

If you want to answer it You keep answering your own questions.

That way I get to the right answer. I just answer my own questions. This is a monolog posing as a toloquy.

Let me bring us to AI job displacement. It's been a big debate we've been having on the pod, we all know that AI is going to replace a large number of jobs. Do we know that? I don't know that either. Well, if any self-driving car replaces four or five drivers, full-time positions, that's indiscutable.

But there could be different jobs.

Well, okay, we're going to get to that. But for our guests, do you think we're going to have a job displacement that could be acute? And how should we handle that? Because we're seeing people make optimist robots. The idea that any human is going to be in a factory sorting things, and all the factories we're making today are designed explicitly to not have humans in it. We may be talking about bringing back and on-shoring factory jobs. That's not happening. All the new factories are going to be run by robots. We all know that there are lights out facilities. So What's the best, worst case scenario here in terms of management?

Can I give you the upside? Please. Everyone knows this, but the IBEW is fine. Your electrician will still exist. We've got 1 million lawyers and a little fewer than 1 million lawyers in the United States, and a lot of them are just S-O-L. I think it's just so great to think of unemployed people. No, I'm serious. I do think, to some extent, it's going to affect the worst, most entitled, most annoying classes of people. That's an upside. I I don't want to see any other working class people. Can I say this one thing? You can displace farm workers. What are they going to do about it? You can displace factory workers. They'll just kill themselves with drugs and fast food, which they have done. You'll feel guilty, but then ignore it. If you do that to lawyers and nonprofit sector employees who I lived around in DC, you will get a revolution. I mean that. I'm dead serious. Where did Paul Pot come from? There's never been a revolution that wasn't fomented by frustrated members of the insurgeon class. It's totally true. Sub-aristocrat, but the striving class, the most repulsive people there are, I think we're fair to say, but also the most intent on getting what they want.

If you put them out of business, I'm not joking at all. I think you can get unstated.

We're seeing this already. One could argue that the Mamdani election surge may be the result of young people coming out of colleges that were in that exact same situation. It's driving elite, and they don't have a non-run. They were told that if they take on $400,000 of debt, they'll end up making a good living and progressing in life, buying a home, and all of that turned out to not be fucking true.

I got two kids in college. What I tell them is, if you were looking for a job at a big company, you're not going to get it. Because the big companies can implement what they need to do with AI in the short term. The small to middle-sized companies need all the help they can get from AI natives. Because walking in and understanding AI and being able to implement for that company is a huge step forward to them. I think that's one way where we will adjust. Number two, the tools you have as someone in college, there's no better time to be in college or just graduating than right now because you have more resources available to you in your phone than anybody in the history of everything. Because if you want to be an entrepreneur, if you want to do whatever it is, you have every expert that's right there available to you. It's not going to go as far as you think in the short term, but in the long term, it comes down to robotics. Because the electrical workers, if robotics do what robotics need to do, they're fucked. Because here's the disconnect right now that I think people don't understand in AI.

On one hand, we're so used to the large language models, but those are all text-driven. They don't know anything that's happening here. They can't acquire all this video. They can't adapt. There's a huge latency, and it's all text, and all their IP is being siloed. They're going to have to pay for it, so they all have their own specialties. A lawyer, large language. There'll be millions of large language models. Robotics, on the other hand, it's not even so much about self-driving cars or what I use in the factory is a cost plus drugs. It's about in your house. It's about walking down the streets. It's about doing those things. So if you tell... You have to get to a point, we have to get to a point for it to be impactful, where you can say to a robot, Clean the house. And they'll know not to touch Jason's socks. And they'll know. The whole idea is robots robots use video, and they capture, and they have to be able to process that video, which means understanding the laws of physics, which- Skid marks.

Skid marks. Would you let a robot with a video camera in your house? Honestly. Yes.

And beyond that, houses are going-You're a very self-confident man, aren't you? Houses are going to be redesigned because right now, when we design houses and we design robots, we design them to work for us, and the optimal robots aren't going to look anything like us at all. Mark, thank you.

Hold on. We're running out of time. Tucker, lightning round. Was Epstein a spy? No, no. Is Putin a...

We're going to stay with Tucker now.

We're going to stay with Tucker for a little bit?

Yeah, we're going to stay with Tucker. Okay, hold on.

We just want to think.

He gave it away, man. Now I'm going to prepare my answer.

Let's thank Mark Cuban, everybody. Mark Cuban, everyone. Tucker is going to Tucker is going to stay for a little bit. Okay, sorry. Thank you, guys. Bring off, brother. Move over on. Okay, Tucker. Now, you get your own segment here. All right. So I need to get these answers. Okay. Costplusdrugs. Com.

Yes.

Was Was Epstein a spy? Is Putin a war criminal? And what was Sacks like in college? Go.

Was Epstein a spy? No. I don't know. I do know a lot about the story. I don't think he was a conventional. He wasn't like an asset or something. He did a ton of work on behalf of intel agencies. He did do work on behalf of intel agencies? Yes, well, no question. He was involved in Iran Contra. American, French, Israeli, probably British. But there are a lot of... I know a million people, and so do in that category, which is most people who travel a lot know a lot of people are doing that.

Putin, war criminal?

Let me define war criminal. A war criminal is anybody who kills the innocent. That's what terrorism is. That's what a war crime is. That's the basis of Western justice is that we punish the guilty. We punish people as individuals, not as groups, because we don't believe in blood guilt. We don't believe in collective punishment. By that standard, there are very few are innocent. I'm not being a relativist here, but I think it's really important to define the term. Just to say it again, a war crime and terrorism have the same root crime, which is punishing the innocent, period. If there's one thing that Western civilization exists to uphold, it's his sense of fairness and justice, and it's rooted in that. We punish the guilty. We do not punish the guilty's relatives. We don't punish people who look like the guilty from the same place as the guilty. We punish the individual because we believe believe that all people are fundamentally equal, not in their aptitude, but in their value, because they're all created by God. That is the West. The West, the West. We're fighting to uphold the Western value. No, what is it then?

That's what it is. To the extent you fall short of that, yes, you are a criminal, period.

Now, most importantly, what was Sacks like in college?

Take us back to- Totally fucking out of control. It's funny. People are always like, If you mix cocaine and ayahuasca, It's really hard to stand on the roof of a moving car. I'm like, Yeah, that makes sense until you see someone do it.

Absolutely. But more importantly, if you bang one of these-You don't want to hear more? Where are we at? No, we're going to get there, but I want to be on the same level as you. Are you banging nines or threes right now?

I don't want to say on the grounds, it'll make me seem impossibly cool, but nines, obviously.

You get it chilled. What do you got? What are you packing? I know you got some.

I pack, and I'm not allowed to make any medical claims, though. These do pure illness. No, these just make you a god.

I can just tell you, these make you a god. But what do you got? Come on, you got to share.

It's my version of costplusdrugs. Com. Oh, wow.

Oh, sweet nectar.

Sweet nectar nines, yes. I have one in from morning till night.

That puts me at 12: 00.

Let's go. I've used nicotine for 41 years.

Come on, Sacks, get on the level.

Is going to become so difficult this afternoon. Oh, man.

It's crazy what they do. The health benefits are insane. I never go to the doctor. I eat a lot of pizza. I I never intentionally exercise. I'm 56. I can't even open this thing. I feel great, and I mean that. I mean, you look great in Naseco.

Okay, I need to get this back on the rails. I need to get this back on the rails.

Sorry, back on the rails.

Tucker, I would like to go around the world in the 11 minutes that we have and just get your reaction to a bunch of different things. Okay, let's start. In Europe, UK, and then just continental Europe, what has happened?

I feel like all of those nations, the Anglosphere, specifically, but Western Europe in general, is poised for massive change, and I just hope it ends peacefully. But the story in the West is population change, period. That's the story. Following from that comes culture and political change. It's always painful. I don't think it's always bad, personally, but at the scale it's happening, it's happened way too fast, and there will either be a true reaction of the kind that none of us want to see, or there will be full totalitarian clamped down.

What was at the root of, for For example, there was a post on X that said that Canada's population increased by 30% in the last seven years? 35%, 35%.

10 years.

In the UK, when you look-Simultaneous with government sponsored suicide, where native Canadians are encouraged to kill themselves at government expense for non-terminal illnesses up to and including economic distress.

That's sponsored by the government. It's called the Mades program. It's the darkest thing that's happened since Europe in the '30s. We're instructed to ignore it. The government advertises it in conjunction with private businesses in Canada. It's one of those things where your grandkids, assuming you have them, are allowed to have them, are going to ask you, What was that? Why didn't anybody say anything about it? I gave a speech in Canada recently and mentioned it. I started with it because it's so mesmerizingly horrifying. People just like, stared at me like, I don't think we're supposed to talk about that. It's like the brainwashing is so generational and crazy that they can't even notice when people are dying at the behest of the government. The behest, by the way.

To be clear, what we're talking about, assisted suicide, end-of-life suicide. You can go in, you can set a date.

Not for the terminally ill, for the bummed out or veterans who don't have adequate housing. We'll kill you for free. They are pushing that program. Thousands of people have died. Of course, they don't release most of the numbers, but they did release numbers this summer that showed it's 100% native Canadian. Because people will show up there from Gujarat, it's like, Why would I kill myself? This is awesome. They have the spirit of life in them. What is that? It's not just the government. There's something going on with Western populations that is suicidal, and they're participating in it.

Do you think that's related to fertility and birth rates?

Fertility and birth rates, their decline, reflect the change that I'm describing, which is very obvious. I spent a lot of time in Europe for a bunch of reasons, and I have family there, and I was just there, and it's like, I can't even not believe this is happening. Why doesn't anybody say anything about it?

There was a survey that was just published today. I got to pull it up, but it surveyed 12 things, ranked them in order of importance. Men that voted for Trump, number one, was having children. Women that voted for Kamala, number 12 out of 12.

Do you remember the percentage? This is women who voted for Kamala, it was American women, asked your priorities. What percentage said I think children was an interest of theirs. What was it? 6%.

Why?

That's suicide. That's you're watching the end of something. Why?

That's people voluntarily-Is it a deep pessimism about society? Is it a deep depression that I can't progress in life? Where is it going?

Yes, of course, that's what it is. But that's without precedent, really. Even in the final years of the Soviet Union, there was no indication that it was that bad. But it is reflective of what a defeated empire does. A defeated peoples. But I personally think there's something bigger going. Why is it happening in New Zealand? Why is it happening in Ireland? These are not colonial power. Ireland was never a colonial power. They were colonized, actually.

Korea. South Korea.

Korea, which if you spend any time in... Japan. By the way, a Korean friend of said to me, In 50 years, there will be only North Korea.

Are these all just post-industrial? Is that what they are versus rising industrial? It's not happening in Africa. It's not happening in parts of South Asia. Just the opposite. You can feel the life force when you go to places. Fertility rates or birth rates in Africa, I think, are like 6-7.

But the global south, more broadly, that is true. Middle East? Yeah, there are lots of causes, but there's a spiritual route. The secular places are killing themselves, and the religious places. It's not happening with Orthodox Jews in Borough Park.

Does the industrialization kill religion?

The atom bomb killed religion. Hiroshima killed West, because, of course, you're God now. Every assumption we've made since August of 1945, 80 years ago, has been based on the core often unstated belief that we're in full control of nature.

It's also why we became so deeply techno-pessimistic, I think.

I think there's some evidence to support that pessimism.

This is something that the Japanese people can teach us from because the last two times I was there, two different A lot of people said they weren't having kids. I asked why. They said it's immoral to bring children into a world of global climate change, and that it would just be totally immoral because the temperatures are rising. I was just like, Have these people been hallucinating?

Well, they don't even go through the steps required to have children in the first place. Any society where people have to be encouraged to have sex is a society that has decided to extinguish itself because that's the Honestly, that's like being Bobby Sands and starving yourself. That's like you're at war with nature. You've decided my most basic impulses must be overridden in the service of what? Death. I've never been a super religious person. I'm certainly becoming one, that's for sure, at high speed, just in reaction to watching what's happening. I think it's the darkest thing that's happened in a thousand years, at least.

We were talking about SSRIs earlier. What's your take on this medication of everybody with these antidepressants and Adderall.

I think it should be illegal immediately. Ssris, don't get me going, but let me just say, and I should say as a sober person who doesn't use deodorant and doesn't believe in any of that stuff, I don't take any pills ever. You don't have to be as crazy as I am to wonder, what is necessary I do? Well, we've been taught falsely that they correct a chemical imbalance. Okay, if it's an imbalance, what's the baseline? There's no answer to that. What's the actual diagnosis of, say, bipolar disorder? Unknown. There is none. No. On the basis of... That's not science at all. That's witchcraft. It's a questionnaire. But on the basis of it, they prescribe drugs which do not correct a chemical imbalance. They limit emotional range. And limiting emotional range is taking someone's soul. Emotional range is your soul. That's what it is. You feel sad when someone dies, you feel joyful when something great happens, that's what it is to be alive. That's called the human experience. By the way, the effects of this, unintended but very common effects, include genital amnesia. You know what that is? That's when you feel nothing between your knees and your navel, permanently.

There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, because one-fifth of the entire American population is on SSRIs who feel nothing, who are permanently sexually disabled by these drugs. Now, are there people you know or I know personally who were going to kill themselves and they got on an SSRI and they didn't? That's a massive success. Thank God for that. There is no indication ever for prescribing an SSRI for 5 years, 10 years, same with benzos, which are also prescribed. Same with amphetamines that we give to our children. The whole country is addled on drugs, and it's changing the nature of people and making them into something that is less than people, and it should be banned immediately.

100% agree.

I think it's crazy that it's happening.

I mean, we're giving kids speed. We're giving them meth.

And good people are doing it. People I know that I'm related to who love their who would die for their children are told by doctors, air quotes doctors, who know nothing about the long-term effects because they've never been studied, to put their kids on meth. They do because they love their children.

I want to make sure we get to a couple of other things. Tucker, just react to what happened this weekend in Charlotte on the train with the woman who was stabbed by...

I think it's got to be a turning point. I think that the number one thing you don't want-How can there be just a coordinated suppression?

How does that happen?

Well, this is how people wind up with really dark theories about what's happening, because why would you suppress that? If a young woman, by the way, Ukrainian, I wish costplusdrugs. Com was here, so I could ask him, but if you really care... Mark Hupin. Mark Hupin, sorry. Costplusdrugs. Com. I wish I could ask if you care about the Ukrainian people, one was just stabbed to death on a train for being white, why doesn't anybody Where's Bill Kristol on this? We love the Ukrainians. One just got stabbed in the neck on public transportation, and no one cares? I don't have an answer to your question. I will say that the one thing you have to worry about in a multi-ethnic society is ethnic conflict because it's enduring. It doesn't go away. It's generational. We are moving toward that. She was stabbed because she was white, and everyone knows that, actually. Knowing that and not being able to say anything about it because you fear you're going to be called names doesn't make the problem go away. It makes you move to Bozeman, and it makes the problem worse. That's what you're seeing. Everyone I know who can afford it is moving to Bozeman or Jackson or Sun Valley or whatever, but they all have one thing in common.

Okay, let's just stop lying. I don't like that because that suggests a future of ethnic conflict, which is like, ask anybody from a country that has, ask a Belgian. Belgium has ethnic conflict. This is inherent to the human condition, and you want to be very thoughtful in trying to avoid it. Things like Let me just take that, exacerbate it to a crazy, crazy animal level.

Tucker, let me just ask. Three parts to this, but short. Do you believe that there is rising anti-Semitism in the West? Why do people say that you are contributing to it? Why has that become-I think there's rising anti-Semitism on the left and right.

There's definitely rising anti-Semitism for sure, and I hate it.

You don't have to believe me. You hate it on the record, right? Of course, I hate it. Yeah, Because there's a lot of social media, a lot of this coordinated effort from large industry groups saying, Tucker Carlson is an anti-Semite. Why is that the case?

Of course, attacking my children over it. Yeah, I'm aware. I actually called an Israeli official who I know, I know a bunch of them, including the Prime Minister, and said, Why are you doing this to me? If you think I'm your enemy, man, you're really out to lunch, and they're totally out to lunch. I've never seen anybody mismanage anything the way the government of Israel is mismanaging their response to what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank. The way to... It's not my country, but I'm just noticing that this is really bad for everybody. Two things. One, you have to be willing... If I stand up and say, I'm an American, my family has been here for 300, 400 years, and I love this country, but my government's done a lot of horrible things. No one's like, You hate America. If you're like, I love Israel, or I like Israel, I have a frequent visitor to Israel. But this is not good. Shut up. That's not helpful at all. You turn your allies into enemies by acting that way, A. B, conflating a nation state with an ethnic group is not a long-term strategy. It's not wise because you are tied to the temporal politics, the politics of the moment.

Bbc I don't hate Bibi, but his political fortunes, individual political fortunes, play a role in his calculation and everything that he does. True with all politicians. You want to tie an entire group to that? I don't think that's very smart. You can say, I really like Israel. I love Israel, I have family in Israel, whatever you think about Israel, but I don't think this is a good idea, or I'm offended by it, or whatever. If you eliminate the distinction between a political organization, which is a synonym for government, and And an ethnic group, boy, you're going to hurt that ethnic group, and that's exactly what's happened. It's so bad, and it freaks me out. I will say, once again, that my views on Israel apply to the United States, they apply to Senegal, they apply to Malaysia, they apply to people.

But not to the Jewish people.

Come on, dude. No. I don't even fight back against it because I'm like, That's so low. I'm not playing your fucking game. My view is really simple. I don't think That it is allowable. It is the most immoral thing to punish the innocent. The United States government has punished the innocent a lot. They did during COVID. I yelled about it every night on Fox News. All governments do this because all leaders get carried away with hubris, and they treat people like numbers or enemies or nonhuman beings, and they kill them. I'm opposed to that. We're all opposed to that, by the way. I'm opposed when it happens in Gaza. I'm opposed when it happens in Texas. I'm just opposed. All of a sudden, we've reached this place where people are so overwrought and defensive. Like you meant it said something about, I don't know, I'm glad we beat Imperial Japan. I'm sad that we incinerated all those people with the atom bomb. Ben Shapiro did a whole segment about how I was like a quizling or something. You hate America. No, I love America. That's why I don't ever want anybody to kill people who didn't do anything wrong.

That is the basis of justice. We punish the guilty. We can argue about to what degree they should be punished. Should it be Norway, where they get high-speed internet and massages? Or should it be, you know what I mean, Malawi, where they rot in a cave?

But why are we not allowed-We don't punish the innocent.

And that includes children, all children.

Tucker, why are we not allowed to say we are absolutely saddened at the tragedy that happened on October seventh, and we're absolutely appalled at watching people starve and innocents being killed in Gaza and not being able to get them made? Why can't you say both things and not be criticized?

You should be. I've decided that I'm old enough and I know God, now I sound like such a fraud. I know my heart. But you can feel the hate coming off people or whatever. I would hear Obama talk, and I always really liked Obama before he became a senator, but I would hear him talk and be like, Wow, that's animated by hate. It would be in this, this is your captain speaking voice, but It didn't matter. I was like my dogs. I could feel what was in him. I feel very confident in my views. I like people, and I just feel that way. I'm not going to play the game where I have to be like, Oh, actually, my wife is part Jewish or whatever. Final question. I could play. I'm not going to do I think we should stand on principle. Don't punish the innocent. I don't care who you are. No one has a special dispensation that allows him or his country to punish the innocent. If you do, I'm going to call you on it.

Okay. Let me just back up. In lieu of a final question, I just want to back up, Tucker, on this that the basis of conservatism is not believing that any government is sacred.

Thank you, David Sacks.

Every government should be subject to criticism because we know that they will always abuse their authority. Power corrupts an absolute power, corrupts absolutely all governments must be subject to criticism. Governments shouldn't seek to make themselves immune by essentially calling people names. I've known Tucker for 30 years. He doesn't have an antisemitic bone in his body, and it really pisses me off the way that he gets attacked for criticizing the conduct of a government.

I'm not even that critical, by the way. That's the hilarious thing. I'm not even that critical. I have been around and I know that people do shitty things. I think for what it's worth, you're an American treasure.

I appreciate that you're with us. Thanks. Sacks, as we wrap here, tell us about the meet cute moment when you met Tucker and you fell in love with Tucker.

Oh, the meet cute. You love Tucker. Yeah, meet cute.

Give us the meet cute. You come around a cubicle, what happens? You see Tucker, he's got the bow ties.

Did you guys lock eyes?

How did it-Yeah, what happens?

It was at lunch in Union Station in Washington, DC. I'll never forget.

Tell us, Sacks, your earliest memory of Tucker.

It was just camaraderie, born of some common views. Yeah.

Can I say one thing about David? David was saying, I don't even get into it, but he was saying things that now would be considered, well, of course, but at the time we're pretty brave, I thought. He had written a book, and we had a mutual childhood friend, and I was super impressed because he was saying things that the people around him would be like, You don't need to say that. Why are you doing that? He was just totally principled, completely principled. He just don't meet that many people like that.

You have a straight shot to the presidency. Are you going to take it? You, Tucker Carlson.

To being President?

You have your fans want it. They want you to run. You have the audience. You have the skill, you have the intellect. Would you consider public service?

Not even for a second, but if I did, I would be like... John F. Kennedy was very moderate, actually, on almost everything. They killed him anyway. So I'd make it about 10 minutes.

Self preservation is a strong driver.

I get the Jack Ruby cancer. Who knows where he got it?

Ladies and gentlemen, Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson. Thank you.

It's awesome.

Thank you. Thank you, Steve.

You crushed it, brother. Thank you. Thank you, John.