BREAKING: Tucker gives EPIC Turning Point Action speech—In Biden’s America, ‘no one is punished for lying. People are only punished for telling the truth’

The crowd got to their feet and went wild as soon as Tucker Carlson took the stage at Turning Point Action on Saturday night, and stayed standing and cheering even as he tried to speak. "Tucker! Tucker!" They shouted.

Tucker is a big favorite at Turning Point, and was fresh off of his trip to Iowa, where he interviewed several presidential candidates, grilling them on Ukraine, the state of American cities, education, and other key matters.

Carlson asked the audience to not only question the narrative, but to buck it. He told them outright to not capitulate the truth. There is a pervasive narrative on several key events over the last few years, including the pandemic, January 6, the 2020 presidential election, race, gender, and the war in Ukraine. 

The key issues, Carlson posited, that the American people are being lied about are the war in Ukraine, the Covid pandemic, and January 6. 

He spoke about having interviewed the field "minus the front runner," and told the crowd that he is not a fan of politicians. "After spending all day with them," he said, "I think I've learned a couple things."

"I can think of a couple of those things that are more edifying than savaging Mike Pence," he said. "The easy things are not rewarding," he said.

Carlson shared those things with the crowd.

The spread between the things that Republicans in Washington care about and what the rest of the Americans care about are "very different from the things that matter to the people who vote for them," he said.

This was surprising, he said, given that the Trump presidency happened, during which the people's voices were heard when they made their concerns known. Now, with Trump out of the White House and the incessant spread of progressive ideology, it's as though half of the country is being intentionally, effectively silenced. 

"Almost everybody in elected office in the Republican party has internalized the other side's rules for debate," he said. This is "self-defeating," because it concedes ground before the debate even begins. It's as though the GOP says at the outset that they are wrong and so their ideas never get a fair airing. 

The conservative side continues to play by the rules of their opposition, as though the progressive left is correct and the GOP is simply trying to gain a little ground. This is not a great way to get an argument across.

"The problem is nobody pushed back on the fundamental terms," he said as regards the pandemic and the absurd rules that came along with it. The same is true for the war in Ukraine.

"In America, you have the right to decide who you hate," Carlson said. "As an adult, you get to decide." 

"So it's totally fair to say 'wait a second,'" on the Russia question, given that they "haven't killed any Americans." A bigger concern for Carlson is fentanyl, and the illegal importation of that drug from Mexico, where much of it is manufactured. 

Deaths from overdoses are a more essential issue for Carlson, who spoke directly to 2024 GOP hopeful Mike Pence about the state of American cities. Pence responded that it wasn't his concern.

Carlson condemned a media and political landscape that doesn't even allow people to "think about" the differing perspectives on the war in Ukraine, and the American relationship to Russia.

"We don't care enough about our civilization to keep it pretty, to keep it going," he said, lamenting the state of the United States, and the lack of care for our own culture.

"This is the collapse of civilization," he said.

"And if you allow propagandists to set the terms... you're probably not going to win," he said.

Carlson spoke about having raised questions about the clergy in Ukraine and the state of religion in that country with candidates for president. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has essentially outlawed the Russian Orthodox religion, shutting down churches, "raiding nunneries and throwing priests in jail."

It is his view that Christians should speak out. When he spoke to GOP candidates in Iowa, they stated, he said, that the Christians who are "being jailed for their views" had the wrong views.

Christians, Carlson said, must stand up for Christians who are facing punishment for their religion. "The overriding message of the New Testament is to bring peace," he said.

Many on the GOP are pro-war in regard to Ukraine, and have spoken out in favor of continuing to arm the nation as opposed to seeking peace. Trump, DeSantis and Ramaswamy have brought up questions about these policies.

Carlson slammed the Biden administration's handling of the conflict, and the endless supply of weapons and money going from the US to Ukraine. "The first thing you do is stop the fighting," he said, equating the necessity of seeking peace to a father leading a family.

"Leadership is bringing order... to a chaotic scene," he said. The Biden administration, in their behavior in Ukraine, is "abdicating leadership."

"The democracy requires the public to sign off on wars, and it's totally alien in Washington," he said. 

Carlson brought up January 6, and the Capitol riot of that day, saying that it was a group of people who brought their grievances to Congress. He was surprised when he started to hear, within hours, that the event was a "racist insurrection."

"In the name of defending democracy, we took away the things we needed to have democracy," he said. These include the outright censorship and suppression of Americans who ask questions, whether they be about Covid, the war, January 6 over which more than 1,000 Americans have been arrested, or the safety and security of American elections."

"When something is very likely or clearly untrue it poses no threat to anyone," he said. 

"No one is punished for lying, people are only punished for telling the truth," he said.

"Thought crimes," he said, are what are punished in our society, going on to tell the crowd of students and political activists "Don't put untrue things in your head on purpose."

"How do you know what's true?" He asked. 

"You can't really know because you're not God." Carlson said humility is necessary for seeking truth, and that it can never be truly known. 

"Who are the thought criminals and what are they saying?" Carlson asked, noting that they should be heard, and that "the people who censor your words and thoughts have a very well-calibrated sense of what's important," he said.

"A lot of the debates we have are probably divergent to things that really matter," Carlson said, discussing what he sees as intentionally generated media outrage. This is evident on issues of men breastfeeding, or absurd claims that run entirely counter to reality.

"The exponential growth of totally irrational claims from the other side... are actually designed to take people like me and send them off into a screaming fit so we don't actually realize they're ruining the country," Carlson said.

"Look around and ask yourself what are the topics that no one's even pushing back on," he said. The war in Ukraine, Covid and January 6, he said, were key issues that need to be addressed.

Carlson cackled when he was asked about the recently discovered cocaine in the White House, saying that it was his "favorite story of all time."

"After 27 years in the television business, don't trust a man with numb gums," he said in parting.