Roger Waters, co-founder of Pink Floyd, speaks with Tucker Carlson about his decades-long pursuit of a legitimate investigation into the September 11 attacks, his criticism of Israeli apartheid and the lobby that has targeted his career, and his broader view that a small global oligarchy drives endless war for profit while suppressing dissent through media complicity and political pressure.
9/11 and the Quest for a Real Investigation
Waters was in a London studio on September 11, 2001, and immediately wondered whether Americans would connect the attack to blowback from U.S. foreign policy; he was surprised when that reflection never entered the mainstream.
He never accepted the 9/11 Commission Report, noting that Building 7’s collapse was announced by the BBC half an hour before it happened — a sign of controlled demolition — and that the towers’ destruction defied the laws of physics for steel-framed buildings.
Thousands of architects and engineers have concluded the official narrative is physically impossible, yet the mainstream media rubber-stamped the government’s story and marginalized anyone who questioned it.
Waters wrote a private note in January 2019 expressing hope when a U.S. attorney convened a special grand jury at the request of the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, but the effort vanished without explanation, as did a parallel push by a Queens fire commissioner who lost brothers on 9/11.
The only member of Congress to question 9/11, Kurt Weldon, saw the FBI raid his daughter’s business days before his re-election — no charges filed — and he lost his seat.
Waters now supports Matt Campbell, a British man whose brother Jeffrey died in the North Tower; Campbell has spent 25 years seeking a proper inquest in the UK, where law requires a judicial inquiry for any unusual death.
After multiple attorneys general blocked the inquest, Campbell won a Supreme Court hearing set for October 14–15, 2025 — the first time 9/11 evidence could be heard in a court of law anywhere in the world.
Waters has donated $100,000 to Campbell’s legal fund and is helping raise another $100,000; he sees this as the only path to answering who placed explosives, who pressed the button, and why.
JFK Assassination and Government Secrecy
Waters draws a parallel to the JFK assassination: 63 years later, the CIA still withholds files, and the Warren Commission’s conclusion — that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone — is widely recognized as nonsense.
He recalls Kennedy’s 1963 American University commencement speech calling for peace with the Russians, arguing that Kennedy was killed because he threatened the war machine’s profits.
Ukraine, Russia, and the Drive Toward War
Waters believes Western governments — especially the U.S., UK, EU, and Germany — are manufacturing a war with Russia despite Russia having no intention of invading Europe; he cites a push to commit 5% of European GDP to a war fund.
He attributes this to a ruling elite that profits from war, pays politicians to do its bidding, and uses media to demonize Russia, China, and Iran while ignoring the 20 million Soviets who died defeating the Nazis.
Waters has visited Russia, calls it a civilized country, and says ordinary Russians are “lovely people”; he sees the current hostility as irrational and driven by greed, not security.
Israel, Palestine, and the Israeli Lobby’s Campaign Against Waters
Waters’ criticism of Israel began after a 2006 concert in Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, a peace village, and a subsequent West Bank tour with UNRWA where he witnessed apartheid roads restricted to Jews only.
He concluded Israel is an apartheid state and has since advocated for equal human rights between the Jordan River and the sea — not violence, not expulsion, just equality.
The Israeli lobby in the U.S. responded by systematically trying to destroy his career: pressuring venues, hotels, and promoters across Europe and South America (Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Quito, Montevideo) to cancel or refuse him.
In 2015, the lobby forced Waters out of Stand Up for Heroes, a benefit for severely wounded U.S. veterans he had helped organize since 2013 — including forming a band with a triple-amputee Marine who learned to play drums.
The lobby told the Woodruff Foundation: if Waters performs, the veterans lose the event; they also threatened City Harvest, a food-rescue charity, with total donor withdrawal if they accepted Waters’ help.
Hotels in Frankfurt, Kraków, and across South America banned him; in Quito, a hotel let him stay only by pretending he wasn’t there.
Waters emphasizes he has nothing against Jewish people — his opposition is to a state policy of apartheid and genocide, and to a lobby that enforces silence through financial coercion.
Iran, Usury, and the Neocon Regime-Change Plan
Waters sees the push for war with Iran as part of the same neocon “New American Century” plan outlined to General Wesley Clark in 2001: destroy seven countries in five years (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran).
Only Iran and Lebanon remain; he notes Iran’s ban on usury (lending at interest) as a structural threat to the global financial system that relies on debt bondage.
He calls a potential attack on Iran “despicable” and “self-destructive,” noting Iran poses no threat to the U.S. or Israel.
The Media’s Complicity in War
Waters argues Western media no longer questions power but amplifies the case for war: “More war!” is the default editorial line.
He is persona non grata in mainstream media — no network bookings, no op-eds published — while pro-Palestinian marches are labeled “hate marches” by outlets like the BBC.
The media’s role, he says, is to uphold the propaganda of the ruling class and suppress empathy across borders.
Hope, Organizing, and “Sumud”
Waters finds hope in sumud — an Arabic word for steadfast perseverance in resistance to occupation — and in ordinary people organizing across borders.
He cites the Italian dockworkers’ union (USB) as an example of working-class solidarity that sees through the propaganda.
Quoting a line from his opera Ça Ira: “I was here, I felt something, and perhaps I was not alone” — he believes the many can overcome the few thousand oligarchs if they organize, raise their voices, and refuse to be divided.
The alternative, he warns, is nuclear conflagration; the only way to turn the ship around is collective, persistent action rooted in kindness and mutual recognition.
