Tucker Carlson was the keynote speaker at Center of the American Experiment’s Annual Dinner in 2018. It was a great event, attended by 1,200 conservatives. I rummaged around in a drawer and found the video of Tucker’s speech; it is embedded below.

What is striking, watching it now, is how fully developed Carlson’s populist themes were five years ago. The same thing emerged in the interview I did with him earlier that day. In several ways, his speech that night was prescient. It seems ripped from today’s headlines.

The speech is also, in spots, hilarious, and as you can tell from the video, the audience loved it. I appreciated, too, the fact that Tucker praised American Experiment Policy Fellow Katherine Kersten’s work in exposing left-wing indoctrination in Minnesota’s public schools, an issue that continues to reverberate.

I make a cameo appearance at the end of the video. I think it was the last time I wore a tuxedo. Here is Tucker’s speech: