{"id":562762,"date":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562762\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","slug":"kim-dotcoms-first-major-interview-since-stroke-shows-speech-heavily-impacted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/562762\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Dotcom\u2019s first major interview since stroke shows speech heavily impacted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Surprise political endorsement<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">The interview also provided a surprise endorsement for the NZ Outdoors &amp; Freedom Party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">Asked by Carlson if there are any free countries, or the freest country, \u201cwhere people can say what they think with the most latitude\u201d, Dotcom\u2019s response was swift.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI think Switzerland is very good, because they have direct democracy &#8211; not a representative democracy. So the people decide. It is people power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI bring that into New Zealand this election. So with the Freedom Party, we will have direct democracy available here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE &#8211; Saturday 8th of August  2026<br \/>\u200bKim Dotcom promotes Freedom Party and Direct Democracy policy on Tucker Carlson<\/p>\n<p>In an interview released overnight, Kim Dotcom spoke to Tucker Carlson about surveillance and direct democracy and his support for the Freedom\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/7TlZbIEKN8\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/7TlZbIEKN8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 freedom (@FreedomDotKiwi) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FreedomDotKiwi\/status\/2085856151053480343?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">August 7, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">Dotcom\u2019s appearance comes after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/court-of-appeal-dismisses-kim-dotcom-challenge-to-us-extradition\/KF6O7TYEMVGTDLS6KLB7OHZD3A\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/court-of-appeal-dismisses-kim-dotcom-challenge-to-us-extradition\/KF6O7TYEMVGTDLS6KLB7OHZD3A\/\">Court of Appeal dismissed his latest bid<\/a> to stop his extradition to the US, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/kim-dotcom-extradition-fresh-appeal-planned-as-legal-expert-says-case-could-stretch-five-years-easily\/premium\/MEARIY7BDVACTJHC7SNRL34Y7U\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/kim-dotcom-extradition-fresh-appeal-planned-as-legal-expert-says-case-could-stretch-five-years-easily\/premium\/MEARIY7BDVACTJHC7SNRL34Y7U\/\">which has been an ongoing legal fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">He spoke briefly about that on Carlson\u2019s show.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cOh, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/business\/the-kim-dotcom-saga-is-a-national-embarrassment-deborah-chambers\/premium\/LZDT3XW42JG5DH7WKG5Z6DSB7M\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/business\/the-kim-dotcom-saga-is-a-national-embarrassment-deborah-chambers\/premium\/LZDT3XW42JG5DH7WKG5Z6DSB7M\/\">they want to extradite me from New Zealand<\/a> to the United States. Even after my stroke, they are still trying to do that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThey will want to &#8211; I have no doubt. But I don\u2019t know if they can, because I\u2019m not the same person anymore after my stroke. So if they really want to go ahead, they are up for a big challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">Late last year, Dotcom posted on X that the New Zealand Government had prior warning from his doctor about a stroke risk, but \u201cthat they didn\u2019t care,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThey still want to extradite me,\u201d he wrote at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"GVVHMTqjHdqyH\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surprise political endorsement The interview also provided a surprise endorsement for the NZ Outdoors &amp; Freedom Party. Asked&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15408,27605,3378,16186,276777,1888,71,11782,23785,31869,359,5620,5511,6148,12125,424,661,1073,44443,5969,111,43,139,69,12900,1238,418,7811,9345,9939,4371,43211,9938,1530],"class_list":["post-562762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-almost","tag-appearance","tag-appeared","tag-dotcom","tag-dotcoms","tag-first","tag-from","tag-fugitive","tag-heavily","tag-impacted","tag-internet","tag-interview","tag-just","tag-justice","tag-kim","tag-life","tag-major","tag-media","tag-mogul","tag-much","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-revealing","tag-serious","tag-shows","tag-since","tag-speech","tag-states","tag-stroke","tag-suffering","tag-united","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}