In a podcast with Joe Rogan, popular US journalist Tucker Carlson revealed that the members of Congress (elected representatives in the US) are terrified of the Intel agencies. He asserted that because they are afraid of the Intel agencies, they allow their abuse of power to go unchecked and let these unelected persons make important decisions. Based on his conversations with several elected officials, Carlson stressed that the USA is no longer a democracy rather it may resemble tyranny (of unelected).
Carlson emphasised that even those responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies and their undisclosed ‘black budgets’, are afraid of them. He further explained his point with the analogy of parents and their children, adding that the situation is such that the parents are afraid of their children.
He said, “Members of Congress are terrified of the intel agencies. I’m not guessing at that…They have told me that including people who run the Intel committee. The people whose job it is to oversee and keep in line, these enormous secretive agencies whose budgets we can’t know. They are ‘black budgets’. They are the parents. The agencies are the children. (Yet) They’re afraid of the agencies.”
Carlson then highlighted that in a democracy people rule through their elected representatives and they express their preferences through voting. But when unelected people, without any accountability, start making major decisions, it can’t be called a democracy, he noted.
Raising questions on the democratic credentials of the US, Carlson added, “Whenever you have unelected people who are not accountable to anyone making the biggest decisions, you don’t have a democracy. You have something else, another system. I would call it a tyranny, or whatever you want to call it, it’s not a democracy.
According to him, while it’s playing out in front of everyone and is super obvious, no one cares or does anything about it because they’re threatened.
Carlson said while he doesn’t have evidence to prove that the elected officials are being ‘blackmailed’ or ‘compromised’ because they fear getting exposed, it is not beyond imagination the reason why they are allowing agencies to do it. He added that he knows these people and it is a fact that all of them have ‘secrets’ to hide.
He said, “If you look at the committee chairman who allows this s**t to happen year after year, allows warrantless spying on Americans to continue or whatever abuse (of power to Intel agencies) they’re allowing, knowing fully or hiding the truth about UAPs, ignoring the UAP disclosure act of 2023. Like why are they doing that? It’s not impossible to imagine that some guy has a drinking problem or a weird s*x life, that’s very common up there. That’s why they are doing it. Cause they don’t wanna be exposed.”
It is pertinent to note that the development comes at a time when the US administration debated to reauthorise a spy program. Notably, following a fierce debate on Section 702 of the law, the Senate on 20th April passed the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
According to reports, Section 702 has drawn strong criticism as it allows the US government to collect electronic communications of non-Americans located outside the country without a warrant. As a result of this, sometimes it leads to a collection of data on Americans who are in contact with those surveilled individuals, making it controversial. Several prominent voices in America and around the world have registered strong protests against the advanced surveillance of the US arguing that it leads to abuse of power and intelligence information by the agency.
Regarding the controversial Section 702 of the FISA program, Carlson said congressmen were “terrified” that intelligence agencies would frame them with “kiddie p*rn” if they were to oppose reauthorising it.
Additionally, sharing an anecdotal incident, Carlson said that once he had an informal (kitchen) conversation with an elected official who holds a really senior position and is a very famous person. He added that this person who also serves on one of the legislative bodies admitted these things before him.
Narrating the exchange, Tucker Carlson said, “I was going crazy, about all the warrantless spying and about the funding for these insane wars, and I said to the guy, who serves in one of the legislative bodies. But I was like, ‘All these people are controlled. They’ve all got weird s*x lives, and all these things they’re hiding, and they’re being blackmailed by the intel agencies.’”
To which, he replied, “I know.”
Regarding his response, Carlson said, “I was like, okay, so at this point, we’re just sort of admitting that’s real? Like, why do we allow that to continue?”