Tucker Carlson Interviews Robert F Kennedy Jr
What this video covers
This is the August 2023 “Tucker Carlson Show” episode 16 — recorded for X/Twitter just as Carlson was building his post-Fox platform — and it captures Kennedy at a pivotal campaign moment, polling around 13% in the Democratic primary against a sitting president. (It is not the later HHS-era Tucker interview; the two are sometimes confused.)
The conversation ranges across the issues that defined Kennedy’s outsider candidacy. On Ukraine, Kennedy lays out his case against American involvement and raises claims about U.S.-linked bio-labs — assertions that drew sharp pushback from mainstream outlets. He discusses his conviction that the CIA was involved in his uncle’s assassination, a long-standing Kennedy-family-adjacent theory he has stated as personal belief. On the border, he describes his nighttime visit to Yuma, Arizona for his documentary “Midnight at the Border,” saying he expected Central American families but found mostly military-age men from as far as Ghana, Kazakhstan, and China — and declares, “We need to close the border right now.”
Carlson also presses Kennedy on the Biden administration’s refusal to grant him Secret Service protection despite 15 months of requests — a grievance that would follow Kennedy through the campaign.
Key points
- Kennedy argues against U.S. involvement in Ukraine and raises claims about American-linked biological research facilities there — his assertions, disputed by U.S. officials.
- He states his belief in CIA involvement in JFK’s assassination, a position he has held publicly for years.
- Kennedy describes his Yuma border visit for “Midnight at the Border,” saying most crossers he encountered were military-age men from Africa and Asia, not Latin American families.
- “We need to close the border right now,” Kennedy declares — a striking line from a lifelong Democrat, which he frames as forced on him by what he witnessed.
- He notes he once “ridiculed Trump’s wall” but says conversations at the border changed his mind.
- Kennedy tells Carlson he was denied Secret Service protection for 15 months, presenting it as political retaliation by the Biden administration.
- The episode cemented the Carlson-Kennedy alliance as a central media axis of the 2024 outsider campaigns.