The Charlie Kirk Show, January 06, 2026

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Real America’s Voice – The Charlie Kirk Show (January 6, 2026)

Podcast: Real America’s Voice
Host: Charlie Kirk (iHeartPodcasts)
Air Date: January 6, 2026
Notable Guests: Senator Ron Johnson, Walter Kern, Ben Berkwam, Blake, Terrence Bates, Benny Ray Harmony

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Episode Overview

On the fifth anniversary of January 6, Charlie Kirk and his team deliver a sweeping episode blending in-depth discussion on current U.S. political events, the aftermath of January 6, justice system contrasts, and debates about immigration, government fraud, election integrity, and American cultural renewal. Through interviews with reporters on the ground, political commentators, and elected officials, the show critically analyzes government overreach, the shifting media landscape, and the meaning of recent and historical disruptions in American politics.

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Major Topics and Discussion Points

1. News Analysis: Venezuela, U.S. Foreign Policy, and Oil

• Opening Segment [00:25–04:55]

  • Kirk and Walter Kern dissect recent U.S. actions in Venezuela, primarily focusing on the arrest of Nicolas Maduro and the implications for U.S. oil interests.
  • Emphasis placed on the legal differences between the Venezuelan and American justice systems, highlighting Maduro's unfamiliarity with rights like legal counsel and bail.
  • Comparison with past U.S. actions, notably the 1989 capture of Manuel Noriega.

  Key Quotes:

  • “He had never even conjured the notion that he's entitled to an attorney... interesting to see him sort of taking that in a system very different from the one I'm sure he's used to.” — Walter Kern [00:15]
  • “The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere... The Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Doctrine is all about securing the national interests of America.” — Charlie Kirk [03:40]

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2. January 6th Anniversary: On the Ground in Washington D.C.

• J6 March Coverage [05:28–09:11, 23:20–26:01, 47:21–52:27]

  • Ben Berkwam reports live from D.C., describing the atmosphere among the 200+ January 6 marchers and sharing personal stories of "J6ers” facing lasting consequences.
  • Kirk and Berkwam express sharp criticism of what they term the “manhunt” and double standard in law enforcement compared to BLM and Antifa protests.
  • Discussion on pardons, personal struggles post-arrest – including suicides, bankruptcies, family disruption – and calls for justice and retribution.

  Key Quotes:

  • “We've started it. Thank God President Trump won the election. Thank God he made the pardons.” — Ben Berkwam [07:19]
  • “If anything, right? They should have been maybe a trespassing charge. Instead there was this manhunt... families disrupted, pregnant wives left without their husbands.” — Charlie Kirk [08:11]

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3. Justice, Double Standards, and Government Overreach

• Personal Stories and Law Enforcement [09:11–13:24]

  • Detailed stories about J6ers’ time in custody, lack of due process, and contrast in how left-wing protestors were treated.
  • Ben Berkwam mentions the story of Coy Griffin: “He went up with a megaphone... prayed over the crowd... got stuck in solitary confinement for two weeks.” [09:11]
  • Claims of excessive state action: “...guns a blazing, raiding these people's homes was an absolute travesty and a miscarriage of justice.” — Charlie Kirk [15:33]

• Michael Byrd & Double Standard Example [12:13–14:39]

  • Reporting on US Capitol Police Captain Michael Byrd, who shot Ashli Babbitt, contrasting his promotion and subsequent career with how police who acted at BLM events were treated.

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4. Deeper Analysis: Venezuela’s Maria Karina Machado and U.S. Policy

• Why Trump Administration Distanced from Machado [18:14–22:49]
  • Discussion around the New York Times reporting. Kirk and team clarify rumors about the administration’s rejection of Machado as Venezuela’s opposition leader, citing internal disagreements and her uncompromising stance rather than the Nobel Peace Prize issue.
  • “What's probably most interesting... Marco Rubio talked to President Trump out of doing it, saying if the United States tried to back the opposition, it could further destabilize the country and require a more robust military presence.” — Blake [20:22]

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5. Interview with Senator Ron Johnson: Fraud, Immigration, and Power

• Systemic Fraud and Immigration as Tools for Power [26:06–38:33]

  • Johnson elucidates findings from Minnesota's Somali community, tying welfare fraud to Democrat strategies for increasing Congressional seats via census apportionment.
  • “All these programs are designed to grow government, to make more people dependent... so they've got the power that people are dependent on voting them back into office.” — Ron Johnson [29:32]
  • Collaboration with Charlie Kirk about growing government, open borders, and urban voter fraud tactics.

• Election Integrity and Legislative Obstacles [37:44–44:33]

  • Push for voter ID and the SAVE Act, discussion of filibuster reform and the possibility/necessity of a “talking filibuster.”
  • Johnson: “We have to restore integrity to our elections or this thing's over because the Democrats will cheat.” [40:56]
  • On spending: “You have to reduce the size, scope and cost of government. But that's not the path we're on.” — Ron Johnson [34:46]

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6. Philosophical and Cultural Reflection with Walter Kern

• Narrative of National Trust and Disillusionment [52:27–61:31]

  • Kern unpacks how Americans are grappling with loss of institutional trust, viewing recent fraud revelations as part of a “daylight theft” and a crisis of legitimacy.
  • “We ask ourselves, are we in a society anymore that we can go on supporting? Just as the revolutionary colonists wondered if they could survive under the British.” — Walter Kern [55:32]
  • Kirk: “It feels like there's no solid ground to place your feet.” [61:05]

• On Agency, Cynicism, and Cultural Renewal [65:50–68:54]

  • Blake and Kern debate whether the current crisis is unique or cyclical in American history, with Kern arguing there are reasons for hope as agency and resistance grow.
  • “I think people are starting to feel a sense of agency and comprehension about how these bad systems work and what might disrupt them.” — Walter Kern [66:35]

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7. Media Landscape, AI, and Truth

• Veracity in the Information Age [78:04–82:31]
  • Team discusses the challenges of verifying truth amidst AI-generated forgeries and mass media fragmentation.
  • Kern urges a local-first approach: “One of the virtues of people not knowing what's real beyond the horizon is that they start concentrating on what's within their horizon.” [79:22]

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8. Legacy of Charlie Kirk and the Movement

• Reflections on Loss and the Path Forward [82:58–98:01]
  • Walter Kern delivers a moving reflection on the impact of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, exploring both the power vacuum it left and its catalyzing effect: “...to live by the word and die by the sword is a whole other thing.” — Walter Kern [84:08]
  • Blake: “His peak does live on forever… very powerful about that. And that's a lot of the power of martyrs...” [87:57]
  • The team agrees Kirk was still ascending, inspiring others to “pick up their pack and carry it.” [90:30]

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9. Final Thoughts: Hope, Black Pill vs. Lightness, and the Road Ahead

• Despair as the Enemy; Enduring Spirit [94:57–98:45]
  • Kern and Charlie stress the importance of resisting despair and “black pill” thinking, promoting hopeful, constructive action despite adversity.
  • “Despair is a sin. And spreading despair is practically the sin... When you try to destroy someone's spirit... it's lost. And you're just living out the clock on this earth, feeling the pain and feeling the depression. You may as well go kill yourself. Well, that for me is. That for me is the enemy in all respects.” — Walter Kern [94:58]
  • “As long as you have a lightness... There's a chance for change.” — Walter Kern [95:58]

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “It's absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us.” — Charlie Kirk [03:54]
• “We wanted one simple thing, was the truth about the 2020 elections that the majority, at least MAGA, know was stolen.” — Ben Berkwam [06:33]
• “This law enforcement action was directed, consistent with the President of the United States responsibility as commander in chief, to protect Americans at home and abroad.” — Walter Kern [04:41]
• “The only way. It could have happened. Because to parse through every single one of these, I think of my friend Coy Griffin... He got stuck in solitary confinement for two weeks... for praying on a megaphone." — Ben Berkwam [09:11]
• “It's all God. God alone. God alone. That's all I can say.” — Charlie Kirk (on Charlie’s victory) [71:24]
• “The real meaning... is the meaning of the moment after the. That I felt and others felt, which was someone has just given in what is not understood as a war, but suddenly looks like one because of the combatant falling, given everything, and he's given everything in the purest way.” — Walter Kern [84:08]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:25–04:55] — Venezuela, U.S. intervention, legal systems
• [05:28–09:11] — January 6th anniversary coverage begins
• [09:11–14:39] — Stories of J6ers, law enforcement double standard
• [18:14–22:49] — Discussion on Venezuela’s Machado and U.S. policy
• [26:06–38:33] — Senator Ron Johnson: welfare fraud, immigration, power
• [40:35–44:33] — Legislative obstacles, filibuster, election integrity
• [52:27–61:31] — Walter Kern: national trust, narrative, “daylight theft”
• [78:04–82:31] — Media/AI, verifying truth, the new localism
• [82:58–98:01] — Charlie Kirk’s legacy, martyrdom, renewal

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Conclusion

This episode captures a pivotal moment in contemporary American politics, as the hosts and guests reckon with the aftermath of January 6, government accountability, and trust in institutions. It is a call to renewed action—not just at the ballot box but in local communities—and a reflection on the enduring importance of optimism, agency, and purposeful resistance to cynicism. Through on-the-ground reporting, political analysis, and philosophical reflection, the show commemorates loss, highlights injustices, and wrestles with the responsibilities of citizenship in a changing America.

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Transcript

[Walter Kern]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Charlie Kirk]

The Charlie Kirk show starts now.

[Walter Kern]

As Secretary Rubio has said, there is no war against Venezuela or is its people. We are not occupying a country. This was a law enforcement operation. In furtherance of lawful indictments that have.

[Charlie Kirk]

Existed for decades, the United States arrested.

[Walter Kern]

A narco trafficker who is now going to stand trial in the United States in accordance with the rule of law.

[Charlie Kirk]

For the crimes he's committed against our people for 15.

[Walter Kern]

Interestingly, he said after the judge read him a version of Miranda rights and included the fact that he had the right to potentially be released on bail. Maduro said he was unaware of those rights. And it struck me that he's coming from a very different legal system because.

[Charlie Kirk]

It seemed like he had never even.

[Walter Kern]

Conjured the notion that he's entitled to an attorney. He may be able to apply for bail, and he has the right to.

[Charlie Kirk]

Use to stay silent.

[Walter Kern]

He has the right that none of the material that he has said outside the purview of counsel necessary necessarily has to come in.

[Charlie Kirk]

So it was interesting to see him sort of taking that in in a.

[Walter Kern]

System very different from the one I'm.

[Charlie Kirk]

Sure he's used to.

[Walter Kern]

This from the beginning has been about getting rid of Maduro, grabbing Venezuela's oil for American oil companies and Trump's billionaire buddies.

[Charlie Kirk]

Donald Trump, you know, claimed that he'd been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.

[Walter Kern]

That wasn't true. But what we do know is he said, well, having gone into Iraq, we should have gotten their oil. This is what drives Donald Trump. And our servicemen and women perform magnificently. But I think it's outrageous that the President United States puts American lives at risk so big American oil companies and as billionaire buddies can profit.

[Charlie Kirk]

The United States, of course, lost its resources, its wealth, its property, as you pointed out. We discovered the oil, we created the technology to extract oil, we invested in the platforms, and we built the refineries to process that head heavy crude in a way that, again, only America has that expertise that we shared. And so that historic injustice has been reversed. As good as you were, in some.

[Terrence Bates]

Of these past classified briefings, did you.

[Charlie Kirk]

Ever convey to you what the objective was or what did the administration say.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

When it was talking about Venezuela, the ultimate goal?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, one, we've had to fight to get any information from the administration which defies the Constitution. Two, in the most recent classified briefing, which I was in and happened right before Christmas, Marco Rubio personally explicitly lied to me and the Congress and to the people's representatives. We asked over and over. What is the larger plan? Is there an effort at regime change being planned? The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We're a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries to be able to be positioned as an asset against the United States rather than on behalf of the United States. Sovereign countries should be able to do what they want. The Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Doctrine is all about securing the national interests of America. For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle east to try to build them parliaments, try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology. A similar action was taken in 1989 against Manuel Noriega. He was arrested, indicted, convicted in a.

[Walter Kern]

Court of law, served in prison in.

[Charlie Kirk]

The United States and in Panama.

[Walter Kern]

And the Panamanian people, the American people.

[Charlie Kirk]

Are safer for it.

[Walter Kern]

And undeniably, the region was more stable.

[Charlie Kirk]

This law enforcement action was directed, consistent.

[Walter Kern]

With the President of the United States responsibility as commander in chief, to protect Americans at home and abroad against a fugitive who is directly responsible for narco.

[Charlie Kirk]

Terrorism that has killed hundreds of thousands.

[Walter Kern]

Of Americans and created destabilizing violence throughout our hemisphere. Charlie, Every day is a battle for your mind. Raging information coming from every angle with.

[Terrence Bates]

The will to deceive.

[Walter Kern]

Fear not.

[Charlie Kirk]

You found the place for truth.

[Ben Berkman]

The voice of a generation that still.

[Walter Kern]

Has the will to believe in the greatest country in the history of the world. This is the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Charlie Kirk]

Buckle up.

[Walter Kern]

Here we go.

[Ben Berkman]

All right.

[Charlie Kirk]

Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. It's January 6th, 5th anniversary of the.

[Blake]

5Th anniversary of the new Pearl Harbor. Yes, the greatest attack on our democracy.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, it was a great attack on patriots that largely did nothing wrong. Most of whom were attacked should have probably just been.

[Blake]

We did the greatest manhunting. We did the greatest manhunt in American.

[Charlie Kirk]

History for what could have been settled with a mere trespassing charge. And actually, on that note, we heard at the Charlie Kirk show are going to pay tribute to some of these patriots that are in Washington, D.C. marching to raise awareness of injustices that are still unaccounted for. And to help us do that is Ben Berkwum. Real America's Voice national correspondent and host of Law and Border on Real America's Voice. Ben, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. Tell us what you're doing on the ground and what. Yeah, there you are, walking backwards. Beautiful sight. Ben, tell us what's going on in D.C.

[Ben Berkman]

Let me just give you the lay of the land. So five years ago today, I was freezing on the ellipse. The ellipse is right over here. We've got the White House right off to my left. We've got the Washington Monument off to our right. This entire area five years ago was packed full of patriotic Americans who loved this country, who wanted one simple thing was the truth about the 2020 elections that the majority, at least MAGA know was stolen. And so they came to peacefully assemble. President Trump said, peacefully march. And we went down and we saw what happened that day. One thing, Andrew, and as we're getting up here, we're going to get to some of the folks that are going to be marching. There's over 200 January Sixers that are here. God bless you guys. You should be thankful you live in a free country. God bless President Trump, huh?

[Charlie Kirk]

Good for you.

[Ben Berkman]

And so, but this is the, this is the, you look at what happened, the injustice that happened to these guys, and you compare that to where we're at now in our country. And the bottom line is the message is very simple. We've started it. Thank God President Trump won the election. Thank God he made the pardons. But until the people that orchestrated the real coup against President Trump, the four years of a coup against President Trump, the insurrection against President Trump, all of the Russia collusion, hoax, all of that nonsense, the impeachments, everything else, until they're held accountable, the deep state's held accountable, the American people aren't going to rest. And so that's what we're here today. We're going to be talking to some of those 200 January Sixers and helping, you know, get their stories out. Some of them still struggling, many of them not here today, committed suicide. And so it's just, you know, it's a, it's a bittersweet day, but thank God they're out.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, Ben, two points on this. One is people don't really know this part of the story behind the pardons of the J6ers, but when that was getting debated during the transition, actually Charlie was in the room and spoke up very vociferously on their behalf and said, pardon them all. Pardon them all. And that's ultimately what President Trump did. So I want people to know that piece of the story. And I remember when he told me about that and I said, good for you. Second piece here, Ben, for the audience, please. You know, you talk about the personal stories. I mean, a lot of these people should have, if anything, right? They should have been maybe a trespassing charge. Instead there was this manhunt across the country. Homes were raided, families disrupted, pregnant wives left without their husbands. And then they were placed in, you know, these jail cells, the gulag inside of DC Tell us more about some of the personal stories from these J6 political prisoners that you have heard on the ground.

[Ben Berkman]

Well, first to your, your first point about Charlie and America Mrs. Charlie Every single day. Charlie was the so instrumental in not just getting President Trump elected, but really this, this MAGA genesis in the next generation and Gen Z and the next generation. But the seeds that Charlie planted, we're seeing the fruits of those. And I pray we continue to see the fruits of those every day. And to your point, what Charlie said is the only way it could have happened. Because to parse through every single one of these, I think of my friend Coy Griffin, who was there that day, never went inside the building. He's cowboys for Trump. He went up there at a megaphone and simply went up on the steps to pray over the crowd. He got on a megaphone, prayed over the crowd, and then he left. He got stuck in solitary confinement for two weeks. He wasn't able to see an attorney, wasn't able to call a family member, slept on a cold floor for praying on a megaphone. And there's story after story after story like that, as you mentioned, trespassing. That's the worst that some people did, not even knowing they were trespassing. When it was a fence, basically like this, it was green, this is metal, it was plastic. That was taken down within minutes before I even arrived. We marched from this location down to the house. When I got there, there were no fences up. You had no idea that there was any barricade that anyone had crossed through. And so a lot of people entered that day, that space, not even realizing that they were breaking the law, going into a place. Now, obviously we saw some of the violence, we saw the attacks. The question is how much of that was instigated. We're only getting, we're only getting the tip of the iceberg on how involved the federal government was. How many FBI agents were there? Which ones of those actually instigated anything? How many antifa and BLM members were there we know John Sullivan, we know many other BLM and Antifa were there to instigate violence. But the bottom line is we don't know. We still know less than we know. There's a lot we don't know. And the question is, will we ever get to the bottom of it? But to the stories, it's just crazy. I mean, they weren't given Shane Jenkins, big dude, big burly guy. You look at him, you think, man, that's a tough guy. When he talks about just sitting in that cell. He was in there for over a thousand days. He, there were months that he went where he couldn't brush his teeth, he couldn't clip his nails, he couldn't, no haircuts. I mean, little simple things like that, but just treated like animals. And you compare the way that January 6ers retreated compared to BLM and Antifa who were burning down our country for four years, who are actually trying to destroy our country from within, who profess that they want to destroy America, they want to remake it and their anarchist communist vision. When we're talking about January 6th was we're talking about patriots that love this country, that want to restore the values of this nation. So huge difference between the people that were arrested and the way they were treated from all of the real insurrectionists that got away with it. Most of the guys in BLM that were burning down their cities never even got charged. Most of Antifa never even got charged. And so there's that. When you look at it, it's the two tiers of justice.

[Charlie Kirk]

Ben. A lot of those BLM rioters got settlements from the cities that they helped burn down.

[Ben Berkman]

That's so crazy.

[Charlie Kirk]

So that's when you talk about anarcho tyranny. It's the law abiding people that try and do things the right way that the regime will target and harass. And it's the rioters, the lawbreakers, the criminals, the illegal immigrants that get free pass. They get money, they get subsidies, and then they get settlements from blue states and blue cities. You know what's an interesting story? You can throw this up to 212reporting from Paul Sperry. New records show US Capitol Police Captain Michael Byrd, who fatally shot unarmed J6 protester Ashley Badabit without warning, has been running an unaccredited daycare center with wife Koleska from their Maryland home. 2008.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Maryland has received over $190 million in HHS daycare funds.

[Blake]

Well, if it's unaccredited is the idea.

[Charlie Kirk]

That they're not right, apparently.

[Blake]

I don't think I'm ever going to get mad at someone for running.

[Charlie Kirk]

An uncredited questions emerged. You can throw up. 2 211. It's just funny how these different storylines, Ben, seem to overlap. So this is from town Hall. On January 6, questions emerge about Michael Byrd's taxpayer funded Maryland daycare that's out of town hall. So.

[Ben Berkman]

Well, think about.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's just, it's just one of those funny, funny overlaps.

[Ben Berkman]

Yeah. Think about the way Michael Byrd was treated while BLM was raging across America. He shoots without warning, as you mentioned, an unarmed civilian who, a veteran of our country who is simply there, you know, again, wanting answers to a stolen election, shoots and kills her. No accountability. In fact, he gets promoted. And you look at how officers were treated, obviously George, Floyd and Chauvin and that whole charade, how they were treated. But the difference between the left and the activist response to it. Byrd became a hero to the left for murdering Ashley Babbitt while other cops who actually were doing their jobs against real criminals were demonized and ostracized and lost their jobs many times. It is, it's, again, it's, it all goes back to that double standard. But then you also compare that now to what we're finally finding out. I mean, how did it take this long to get some answers? Shout out to Nick Shirley and the work he did, but to get some answers on this fraud and shout out to Doge, the only real reason that we have most of these, all of this fraud information about all these fake daycares is because of Doge.

[Charlie Kirk]

I got a wrap, Ben, but give our love to Mickey, Ashley's mom. I saw that she's there with you. God bless you, sir. Thanks for putting a spotlight on this important story. All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show. Very proud of the real America's Voice team being on the ground with Ben Bergwan putting the resources on the ground to highlight some of the stories of. And listen, whatever you think about January 6th, whatever you think about it, because, yeah, we shouldn't have been, you know, going inside a capitol. But I remember, by the way, Blake, I remember doing that show live that morning with Charlie from Phoenix and being like, please get out. Please get out. Because we knew what they were going to do. They were going to use this against us.

[Blake]

It was so obviously bad.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was so. Yes. But regardless of what, you know, what you think about the particulars on that day, these were a lot of really amazing patriots that got caught up in a dragnet And a manhunt, as you said in the first segment, that should have been reserved for the likes of Nicolas Maduro. The way that they came in, guns, a blazing, raiding these people's homes was an absolute travesty and a mistrial, a miscarriage of justice. And I'm glad that we're celebrating their stories because so many of these people had their lives absolutely ruined for basically a trespassing charge. Okay, let me first tell you about our friends over at Y Refi. Private student loan debt in the United states totals about $300 billion. And about 45 billion of that is labeled as dist. Why refi refinances distressed and default to private student loans that others won't touch. Now, these are distinct from different than the federal student loans. So don't confuse them. So these are if you have private student loans, which is the way we should have been doing college and university loans from the beginning. It really got screwed up when the federal government got involved. So if you have private student loan debt, they can help you. They provide you with a custom loan payment based on your ability to pay. And that's really the trick here. That's the key is they're going to work with you and tailor a solution just for you that is custom. That is custom based on your ability to pay. They do not care what your credit score is. You can get this burden off your back. You need to take control of your own financial situation. Visit the folks folks at y refi. Why refi.com, that's yrefy.com or call them today. 888-y-refi34. 888-y-refI34. They can help you get out from under your private student loan because there's, listen, 45 billion is defaulted or distressed. There's a lot of you out there that need this help. So check it out. And they're good patriots. Amazing, amazing people. I'm just gonna prime try and meet up with them in the next couple weeks. All right, moving on to our next story here. So there's been some. We're gonna have Senator Ron Johnson join us in the next segment. So stay tuned for that. And then we've got the great Walter Kern, who is one of my favorite sort of popular thinkers, novelists. Commentary, commentary, guys. Coming up in hour two, we're gonna do sort of what does it all mean? What is the moment we find ourselves in? You know, Walter's got a few years on both Blake and I. He's seen a few more things. And I want to make sense of some of the craziness that we saw in 2025. And as we move into 2026, what does it all mean? Right. This story made me think of you, Blake, and that's why we put it on the rundown here. And that is the New York Times has come out with a whole piece about why Trump and the Trump administration has soured on Machado. Now, Machado is the Maria Machado. Machado.

[Blake]

It's like the old SNL bit you got to.

[Charlie Kirk]

So Venezuela. So there was rumors going around that. That Trump had lost faith in her because she didn't deny the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Blake]

So we should supply some context to those.

[Charlie Kirk]

Give us the context.

[Blake]

Machado was the candidate in the most recent Venezuela. Or she evicted her. She was going to be the candidate.

[Charlie Kirk]

Couldn't run.

[Blake]

She couldn't run.

[Charlie Kirk]

So she had sort of a proxy, so.

[Blake]

Yes, exactly. Her location apparently is unknown right now.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes, she's been under threat.

[Ben Berkman]

Yeah.

[Blake]

So. And then the other guy was in. I think he fled the country for Spain. Yes, that's correct. So, but she was the opposition leader, so she was a common figurehead for the Venezuelan opposition. And then right after they abducted Maduro, it seemed plausible that they would say, okay, install the opposition leader because we'd been endorsing the Venezuelan opposition. We said they actually won the election.

[Charlie Kirk]

And she got the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Blake]

It was an assumption. It was an assumption. And then she won the Nobel Peace Prize back in October instead of Trump. And Trump was just very publicly campaigning for that award in. In an interesting way. And they awarded it to her instead. She actually did. Even the day she received it, she dedicated it to Trump. Yes, but apparently they believed she should have also.

[Charlie Kirk]

Now, this was a rumor. It's unsubstantiated, but it was.

[Blake]

It was stated. It was reported by the Washington Post, so.

[Charlie Kirk]

So they. Which we know never lies about anything.

[Blake]

The Washington Post has sources in the White House.

[Charlie Kirk]

So. So the rumor has been going around that Trump soured on Machado because she didn't just decline the award and offer it to Trump. I thought that that sounded silly. Okay, so there's a big piece in the New York Times that is detailing why the Trump administration decided not to back Maria Karina Machado as Maduro's replacement. And it has nothing to do with her winning the Nobel Peace Prize. So I don't know if you want to take this or if you.

[Terrence Bates]

Yeah, sure.

[Blake]

Well, what's probably most interesting about is it seems honestly the first bullet point, that of it is the Most interesting, which is apparently Marco Rubio talked to President Trump.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Blake]

Out of doing it, he said, I'll quote from Ryan. Saved your summary. If the United States tried to back the opposition, it could further destabilize the country and require a more robust military presence inside of it. And a classified CIA intelligence analysis reflected that view. They were also frustrated that they believed her assessments of the situation in Venezuela were inaccurate, that she underestimated Maduro's strength, that they were skeptical of her ability to seize power. Apparently Rick Grinnell would go and have meetings and he was just very annoyed with her.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

When he tried to have an in person meeting, the US tried to guarantee her security and apparently she refused to do that or somehow didn't materialize despite those promises of and those assurances of security. But also they asked for a list of political prisoners. Apparently that didn't happen. Over time, the relationship deteriorated. According to people briefed on the interactions, Machado and her team ignored the request for a list of political prisoners. So there was also this issue that Machado had been taking a pretty forceful stance, asking for more sanctions against Maduro backed businesses and products.

[Blake]

The whole thing is she does.

[Charlie Kirk]

And that that alienated her from the business class.

[Walter Kern]

She.

[Blake]

Well, she comes off as just generally being very uncompromising. So it has like for example, Machado was upset that Rick Grenell did not denounce Maduro as illegitimate when Grinnell believed that that would undercut any diplomatic thing.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Blake]

Her position was no negotiations with Maduro's government.

[Charlie Kirk]

They were still trying to have a conversation.

[Walter Kern]

Right.

[Blake]

So we were open to a negotiated exit for Maduro and she seemed to kind of have the attitude of Maduro just has to quit. And so it just seems they got very fed up with her, which is a very good adventure in Third World politics, I suppose.

[Charlie Kirk]

Sounds like she basically, there's reason to believe that she had alienated many members of Venezuela's like sort of elite. Right. The business class, the civil society.

[Blake]

Our position is that she's the valid opposition leader and that she, her proxy, won the election. So you kind of, you believe in elections or you don't as well. And I think the opening point is one of the most interesting, which is Rubio arguing if we back the opposition, it could destabilize the country. Reading between the lines there, that kind of suggests there's more support for the regime than we might have otherwise thought.

[Charlie Kirk]

But I mean, even if it's 70, 30, you don't want to inflame the 30. I mean, that's a landslide by any measure. But you want to bring the entire country together as much as possible. So you want to instead of picking favorites, picking sides, you want to establish a transition that makes a little bit more diplomatic sense. We gotta hit another break. Senator Ron Johnson comes up next. Don't go anywhere.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this Real America's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. Today marks the five year anniversary of the J6 demonstration at the U.S. capitol. This anniversary being marked with the march from the Ellipse to the Capitol and a memorial to Ashley Babbitt. Real America's Voice congressional correspondent Benny Ray Harmony joining us right now from the White House with the very latest. So, Benny, first of all, good afternoon. I'm curious what the atmosphere is like between the White House and the US Capitol on this day.

[Benny Ray Harmony]

Yeah. Good afternoon, Terrence. So this morning, President Trump, he departed to go speak with House GOP at the Kennedy Center. We have not heard a lot of wor the Trump administration in regards to this remembrance, this five year anniversary of January 6th. But I will say on the congressional side, there are many things happening. Many House Democrats are holding different hearings to just go after the Republicans and the administration for January 6th. And another thing that I find very interesting, terrence, is the January 6th select committee that was chaired by Bennie Thompson of the House. They ended up this was after January 6th. They put together this committee to try to find wrongdoing from the Trump administration. And I just want to point out to our viewers that they found nothing. There was no indictments, there was no criminal charges brought because of that select committee. And honestly, this, this whole January six talking point was truly created by the Democrats to try to make the Republicans look bad. And that's, I think that's what a lot of people here in the admin believe as well, you know.

[Terrence Bates]

And a lot of the conversation is revolved around narrative versus reality and what actually happened. And it seems that that's also part of the ongoing conversation getting to the bottom of what actually happened.

[Benny Ray Harmony]

Yeah, absolutely. And I will say the press members that are just right here inside the briefing room, there has been a little bit of conversation. I will say, I think I believe it was the Washington Post. I heard a few reporters talking wondering about what this march is going to look like, if Marjorie Taylor will show up and just some of the things that could happen today that we're not sure of. So this march is going to be incredible. And I think just honoring, honoring J6ers is truly incredible. And I'm glad Real America's Voice does that.

[Terrence Bates]

Absolutely. Benny Ray Harmony reporting from the White House. We'll also have live coverage from the march here in just a little while. Stay tuned to Real America's V.

[Walter Kern]

This movement will not be silenced. You're listening to the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

That was the game plan. Open up the borders, flood blue states with more people who would be counting the census, that gives them more members of Congress, make them more dependent on government, that grows government, that gives them greater power. Again, that is what the Democrat Party is all about, power. Again, the shutdown wasn't about literally the enhanced subsidy. It was about making sure that President Trump has no success. They want. They're happy to take anybody hostage, whatever the collateral damage, bad economy, so that they can win in November and retain power.

[Charlie Kirk]

Democrats want power. They want to rule over the ashes and they don't care how they get it. That was the point made by the great Senator Ron Johnson from the state of Wisconsin. He joins us now. Senator, welcome back to the show. It's great to see you. I happen to be on that same show coming on after you. And I was watching the program. You were with Charlie Hurd. I was on a few segments later, and I was watching you going like, he's absolutely right. And I texted your team, I was like, I gotta get him on to talk about this. Because what we're seeing in so many of these blue states and with this Somali fraud ring is you see that the tentacles of flooding the world with third worlders and illegal immigrants. And we're seeing now that this is not just fraud. This could have voting implications. You mentioned the census, maybe build out that point of how what this scheme for power is really all about.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Well, happy New Year, guys.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, Happy New Year.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

You know, my concern about what's been uncovered in Minnesota with the, you know, Somali childcare fraud and Medicaid fraud, that type of thing, is that people say, okay, we found it. That's the problem. It's literally just the tip of the iceberg. These programs have been designed to be abused, to be difficult to really investigate and convict people based on fraud. But the bottom line, Democrats have always just sought power. To conservatives, it makes no sense. I mean, I've got enough dealing with my own life. I mean, why do I want to control somebody else's life? But that's what Democrats want to do. They want to grow government so they can have the power to control other people's lives. And in order to grow government, they've created all these programs that people sign up for they daisy chain them. So you sign up for one, you qualify for another and another and another. They open the borders during Obama and then again during Biden to allow people to flood in this country. Very few people really understand that even illegal immigrants get counted in the census. So when you count in the census and they basically reapportion the congressional seats, those states, the sanctuary states that encourage the illegal immigrants to flood their states, they get more members of Congress. That means they've got more votes. And when you've got Congresses evenly divided as we are, 12 seats may make the difference between having Democrats in total control of government like they were when they passed Obamacare to, you know, carry out some other massive communist and socialist type of program that, as we're seeing with Obamacare, is utterly failed. But it was designed to fail. So again, that's the whole point. All these programs are designed to grow government, to make more people dependent on government. So they've got the power that people are dependent on voting them back into office. It's sick to conservative. It makes no sense whatsoever. But that's exactly what Democrats are. That's what they're all about.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, well, I couldn't help but hear that you were echoing some of the sentiments from the great Stephen Miller. Play cut 210. This was not a loophole. The Biden administration, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas devised a scheme to fly illegal aliens into the country and then to escort them en masse across the border by the millions and to give them something known as parole, which gives them a work permit, which gives them a social, which gives them a Social Security number, which gives them access to the voting booth. This was the plan all along to get them here illegally so they can get free government benefits, get hooked to welfare, and be able to participate in American elections. And one more clip here for you, Senator. This is from Nick Shirley and David. We had Nick Shirley on the show. We don't know David's last name, but he's a patriot in Minnesota that helped uncover this massive viral story. And now they're talking about how these Somali immigrants are engaging potentially. I mean, I think it's fairly certain in voter fraud. Play cut 219.

[Ben Berkman]

And they're all Somali.

[Charlie Kirk]

You're talking probably 100,000 or more people. And they're all living rent free. They're driving a vehicle that you paid for. They're eating food that you paid for.

[Walter Kern]

Everything they do is something you paid for.

[Charlie Kirk]

And for instance, that entire block will then go and vote for one specific candidate. They'll have one person go there and collect all the ballots and nobody tracks.

[Ben Berkman]

They could say they have nine people living in an apartment, they're going to.

[Charlie Kirk]

Send them nine ballots and then they.

[Ben Berkman]

Have someone who comes along, collects all the ballots.

[Charlie Kirk]

So the scheme, the jig is up.

[Blake]

Here even when it's not that bad. I remember accounts like, so a lot of them don't speak English. So if you can't speak English you're allowed to have an interpreter in the booth. And there's tons of accounts where you bring in everyone all at once and they have the same guy going like that's our guy, that's our guy, that's our guy. That's yeah, really, really making, you know, really displaying the sanctity of the secret ballot.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, yeah. And so exactly. I mean it seems like the jig is up. We pay these people to come here, we settle them, we give them free money, they loot the system, commit fraud and then they vote Democrat. The question is, what do you do about it now Senator?

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Well, the problem is you've got about half the country that votes Democrat and they have no problem with this. They also want to get their guys and gals into office so they just look the other way. My concern about only focusing on what's happening in Minnesota and I'm happy to do that, we have to use that as a springboard to investigate all the fraud. I'm older than you guys, live through the development of the big state, the war on poverty which has utterly failed. But what it did do is it grew government back then when I grew up, my dad worked, my mom stayed at home. We weren't very wealthy but we had a great life. Parents of faith, they love their kids, supportive homes but that was the norm. You didn't need two earner families nowadays you can't really survive that way. And what's really tragic is the individuals that do work their tail off making 70, 80, 90,000 bucks a year in a place like Wisconsin, paying taxes, carrying the load for the people who then do videos on social media taunting the hard workers saying look at all these benefits I'm getting now. Take a look at how much money I've got on my EBT card. Thank you for funding my lifestyle. It is just galling. And you take a look at some of the work by people like former senator Phil Graham that talks about on average people benefiting from the welfare state. Not get down about $57,000 a year tax free benefits considering the death, they don't have to work which is why you've got about 20% of the adult male population out of the workforce permanently. Because they don't have to. We pay them not to work. We now pay for their health care. And the Medicaid expansion, the Obamacare expansion, Medicaid is crowding out disabled children from providers because it's more lucrative to get reimbursed $9 to $1 for a single adult. So again, this has been designed. Obamacare was designed to make people dependent on government for the health care, so it could be abused. You know, provider tax. I mean, I could go on and on and on. This is by design. This is exactly what the Democrat Party set out to do. And it's worked marvelously well for them. It's terrible for America.

[Charlie Kirk]

So is the issue, Senator, in this block grant, the way it's sort of like the federal government's giving money to a state like Minnesota or Wisconsin or wherever, Ohio, and then the state is then entrusted with policing the system. So it. But if you get a state like Minnesota where the Democrat politicians are incentivized, especially with a community that votes in blocks like the Somali community, they're incentivized to then turn the other cheek, to turn a blind eye to the fraud right in front of them. Is that the problem with the system or is it run deeper than that?

[Senator Ron Johnson]

The overall problem is just the mass amount of money we spend. GAO issues an improper payment report. Since 2003, since that point in time, they've logged about $2.8 trillion of improper payments. Now, that's a very imprecise term that also is probably just the tip of the iceberg. So, yeah, I mean, the federal government is the easiest entity to fleece, and so it gets fleeced all the time. And I keep pointing out the Somalis, they're relatively new, this country. They're amateurs. Relative to the entrenched interest. The military industrial complex. I can tell you story after story of small businesses who create a product for the defense industry, sold it at pennies on the dollar versus what the big contractor bought them and then started charging the Defense Department for. So again, we get fleeced across the board on every, in every program of government. So the solution is you have to reduce the size, scope and cost government. But that's not the path we're on. And regrettably, you know, I was one of the big holdouts on the reconciliation bill because I was imploring, I was begging the administration, my colleagues, you guys, we have to return to a reasonable pre pandemic level spending this is absurd. We went from 4.4 trillion to over $7 trillion. We have to return to a reasonable baseline. But doing those types of spending reductions, that kind of a constraint, it's not politically popular. It's often said here in Washington, D.C. show me a member of Congress who ever lost because they spent too much money. You can't. And that's until the public, until the public demands it. And that's the beauty of the Nick Shirley video, is the working people of this country, and the question is, are there enough of them, they've seen that, that are properly outraged by how they are getting screwed, how they're being taken advantage of? These people then go on social media and taunt them for giving them this lifestyle where they don't have to work. You work your tail off, you pay the taxes, and I'll live in the lap of luxury off of the benefits you provide me. Are there enough Americans? Have we already crossed that Rubicon where there are too many people gonna vote themselves benefits, vote for Democrats, and this, this democracy, this republic is over? That's the $64,000 question. I can't answer it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, it's a terrifying fork in the road that you're presenting. It's something Blake and I argue about off the air all the time. Are there, is there enough virtue left in the people? You know, we often say that you get the leaders that you deserve. And, you know, Charlie's message was always like, be a type of person worthy of great leadership. It starts individually. Are there enough good people left? Right. And that. And that is the question. The other question, though, Senator, is, you know, how do we reform our election so that, you know, Somali, one Somali can collect eight different ballots. Nobody checks it, just hands them all in. And that's, you know, Trump was mentioning this morning in front of the House GOP guys, the SAVE act play cut to 20.

[Walter Kern]

You ought to have voter ID. You ought to insist on it. You ought to insist on it. The only reason somebody doesn't want that is because they want to cheat. And you would have. You ought to pass the SAFE act or whatever you're going to call.

[Charlie Kirk]

I mean, so it's getting mentioned again, Senator, is there any hope of this? Is there any political will or do we have the votes?

[Senator Ron Johnson]

One of the reasons I reluctantly, again, I think the filibusters prevent us from being a socialist nation for decades. But Democrats, they're going to over, they're going to get rid of the filibuster. So we better beat him to the punch and to do it. So we actually pass pieces of legislation like the SAVE act, some overall federal controls. And the controls we have put in place are the same things. Our State Department advises other nations to hold free and fair elections. We don't follow our own advice.

[Charlie Kirk]

Senator, could I keep you for another segment here because. Yeah, we've got a lot left to discuss and we're coming up against a break here. We'll be right back. More with Senator Ron Johnson when we return.

[Walter Kern]

All right.

[Charlie Kirk]

Welcome back to the Charlie Kirk show. We continue with Senator Ron Johnson here on the stream and Real America's Voice and podcasting. Senator Ron Johnson, you, you brought up, you opened a huge can of worms right before the break and I had to, had to keep you there. But you, you said something that Blake and I have been having ongoing debates about the filibuster. I am still on the fence because I don't believe with Murkowski and Susan COLLINS and Mitch McConnell right now that we even have the votes to do much anything good. Rand, Rand Paul is always a wild card. Maybe you get 50 plus 1 on some of these.

[Blake]

The concern is do we eliminate the filibuster and then we're not able to pass anything other than the most, you know, oh, we avoid another government shutdown and then Democrats take power and it's just that much easier for them to tee off on their much more explicit, ambitious agenda. You know, national abortion, national, you know, D.C. statehood, Puerto Rico statehood, a lot of stuff that they've talked about packing the courts.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

First of all, they're going to do that when they regain power. They purged the two senators that prevented that last time. Again, it's unfortunate they don't respect the minority rights in the Senate. So the first step would be to lay out the powerful agenda that we could pass. And that'll take presidential leadership. And I'm not talking about a laundry list of, you know, three or four dozen items. I'm talking about the three or four or five things that we must do, starting with restoring our elections. And that's, that's, you know, Democrats use Covid. They exploited it. They completely contrary to the Baker Carter bipartisan commission, said that absentee balloting is probably the greatest threat to election integrity.

[Charlie Kirk]

Correct.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

They juiced it, you know, doubled the number of absentee ballots. They have mail in balloting, which is why I think Biden, if he actually got the 80 million votes wherever he got me, that's a joke. So again, we've got, we have to restore integrity to our elections or this thing's over because the Democrats will cheat. They're designing the system to cheat and they'll cheat.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, no, I totally agree. You know, so my question, so my big white whale is the voting integrity voter id, but it's also immigration. And I don't believe that we have the political will or the motivation within either the House or the Senate to get real immigration work done. And I mean, listen, I'm in favor of a net zero immigration moratorium. I get it, not everybody's on that wavelength with me. But we cannot be flooding our country. It's not just illegal immigrants, Senator. There is 1.2 million green cards to legals. Family reunification, chain migration, visa lottery, diversity lottery. All this stuff's got to go. I mean, we don't need it. We got the AI revolution nipping at our heels. We're going to, we're not going to need a lot of these jobs, robotics even for things like farming and different industries that have typically been the ones that are loudest in the room trying to get more immigrants into the country. We're watching the eraser of American culture before our eyes. And you think about how many babies different immigrants groups are having compared to native born Americans. This thing is a ticking time bomb and we're gonna lose the country if we don't get that done. But we don't have it. So if I'm gonna do filibuster, nuke the filibuster, that's what I want. I want those two things. I don't know your reaction to that. And if there's anything else on your laundry list that you think we need to get done.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Well, the major thing Democrats exploited in our immigration law was credible fear, the incredibly low standard versus the standard for actual asylum, which is kind of hard to prove. And so we've gotta get that question, that initial hurdle much closer to the general asylum standard. That should be a reasonably easy fix, not really complex legislatively. But again, you start with these are the things that have to be done, make sure that we've got the votes to do it. I wouldn't move this filibuster until we have that done. Now, short of that, and Mike Lee's the champion of this, we could also stay here in town, stay in legislative session and do a talking filibuster. And you really need to talk to Mike Lee, how you do that.

[Charlie Kirk]

We had him on like that idea I actually like.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

So we actually discussed that this morning, myself and, and Rick Scott and Mike Lee. We need to start talking to our colleagues about that because Right now you don't have the votes to limit the filibuster. That's just true. But yeah, I think we need to express our colleagues in the Republican conference.

[Walter Kern]

Go.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Okay. Short of that, there are things we have to do and we talked actually starting about saving with. Start with the SAVE Act. Let's take that basic step to restore that level of integrity. Again, I don't want to take over elections. That's a slippery slope. But there have to be some basic federal standards for elections that states have to follow so that we have free and fair elections that don't produce illegitimate votes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, God bless you for that. I endorse Senator Lee's because that would be. I mean, the question is, Thune, at that point, would, you know, Senator Thune be on board with changing the rules and make people actually sit and stand on the Senate floor and argue until they lose steam? I don't know. You would know better. Is there any appetite from Senator Thune?

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Well, we've got to sell it. And I come from a manufacturing background. So what I suggest is we need to put the Senate, when we do that on a continuous shift, do a scale down staff. I don't want to abuse Senate staff, but I mean, it's pretty easy. You put three shifts, people come in eight hour shifts. We've got to be around, available, don't have to be on the floor, but we just have to be available in case there's a quorum call or whatever. So it's entirely doable. You just have to have the will to do it. Drove my kids nuts to say three quarters of the word can't is can. It just requires willpower.

[Charlie Kirk]

I could imagine being frustrated as your child if you kept hitting me with that one. But yes, absolutely, I totally agree. You just need to have the political will and I just, I hope for the best from Senator Thune. I just, I don't hold my breath, unfortunately. I want to get to one other topic here really quick. Yesterday the president announced that we are. It's a big win for maha going from 72 jabs for children. And they're moving it down more in alignment with European, some of the other industrialized nations. 11 injections. What do you make of this? You were huge when it came to fighting the. The COVID jabs. And so I want to get your comments on that, Senator.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

An incredibly important first step. I give, you know, Bobby Kennedy and the President all the credit in the world for doing this. I'm sure it's not popular in the medical establishment who let's face it, they literally do not understand that much about vaccines. They're just told they're safe and effective and then they move forward. Okay. So I would recommend your listeners read Vaccines Amen by Aaron Seri. There's a lot of good books. McCulloch has a good one out. Dissolving illusions turtles all the way down. But one that brings it all together most powerfully is Aaron Seri's Vaccines Amen. Read that and you'll start coming to understand and really what a reasonable debate is about vaccines and how we should approach it. But I'm happy that we're going more to our European model, spacing them out and do real science. And that's what takes time because we have not had true rigorous studies on the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines. We simply haven't. And that's what Bobby Kenny's been pointing out. That's what Aaron Seri proves in his book. There's a much more rational way approaching this. Our approach hasn't been rational this day. So again, it's a great first step.

[Charlie Kirk]

We had Aaron Seri on the show for a long form conversation and it was fascinating. I learned a ton. He cross examined some of these big pharma folks that are supposed to be experts in injections and vaccines in depositions and gets them to admit that there hasn't been studies on this. And it's just, I mean, it will blow your mind when you hear the lack of evidence of science that backs some of these broad, sweeping mandates for our children. We have 10 seconds left here. Senator, I don't know if it looks like you're trying to say something.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

It should outrage all of your listeners to the extent that we've been lied to by the medical staff from our federal health agencies. We're not being lied to anymore with Bobby Kennedy and President Trump.

[Charlie Kirk]

God bless you, Senator. We'll have you back on again soon. Thank you. We'll be right back. Take care.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this Real America's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. Today marks the five year anniversary of the J6 demonstration at the U.S. capitol. Today's anniversary being marked with the march from the Ellipse to the Capitol and a memorial to Ashley Babbitt. Real America's Voice law and border host Ben Berkram is in D.C. and on the ground preparing for that march. He joins us us nive now. Ben, talk about this march and kind of all of what's happening even surrounding the march that's upcoming here in the next say 10 to 15 minutes.

[Ben Berkman]

Well, it's pretty surreal, Terrence. I was here five years ago, actually, just about at the same location President Trump gave his speech, right where we've got some of the organizers. J6 there's about 200 of them that are gathered right now. They're going to start marching in about 15 minutes. And this is where it all started. At the Ellipse. Just behind the camera is the Washington Monument. President Trump came out, gave that impassioned speech, and then we planned to peacefully march down to the Capitol. And then everything else happened that we saw that day, to be back here five years later to see the weaponization of our Justice Department against January 6ers. I actually had an FBI friend who reached out to me and said they were taken off of all actual jihadist terror cases in America under Joe Biden and focused on January Sixers. That's how insane this got. Little grandmas that were just simply out there exercising their First Amendment right. And so now to see where we're at now, most of them have been pardoned. There's a few more that still need pardons. Joe Biggs and Stuart Rhodes still need full pardons, along with about 10 others. But to see where we're at now, thank God. That's all I can say is thank God Kamala Harris didn't win. There's still more work to be done, though. We need to hold the people accountable that allowed that to happen. It's been called a fed direction. The federal involvement in it, the deep state, and beyond that, the people that are really, truly trying to undermine our country from within.

[Charlie Kirk]

Terrence.

[Ben Berkman]

It ties to everything. It ties to open borders. It ties to communism and socialism on a rise in America. It ties to jihadism on a rise in America. So all of this is tied together. Today we celebrate people like Ashley Babbitt. Her mom's going to be laying a wreath, and we remember that, and we look to where can we go from here to move forward as a nation?

[Terrence Bates]

You know, moving forward, I think even figuratively, today's march, one step at a time, one foot after the other, moving forward. It seems to me that for many of the people, even though they've been pardoned, the whole idea of being able to move forward is going to be a challenge simply because their life was upended just by being in Washington, D.C. on January 5th, January 6th. Excuse me, five years ago.

[Ben Berkman]

Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, many of them lost their homes, lost their vehicles, went in bankruptcy. Many of them lost their lives. You had a lot that committed suicide. They lost their marriages. They lost, obviously lost their jobs and even going back into the community. That's why the Stand in the Gap foundation was created, that We're Real America's Voice News has partnered with to help the January 6ers get back on their feet. Even getting a job now, you know, if they look you up, they Google your name and you're seen as a 1-6- defendant even though you're pardoned, a lot of them are getting blackballed from jobs. So major issues, obviously, with kids emotionally, kids growing up without their parents, everything else that goes along with that. So this is a much deeper issue. And as you said, it's day by day, it's step by step. And events like this are part of that, that healing process to get people back on their feet.

[Terrence Bates]

I'm curious if they want compensation. You've obviously been talking with many of the people, even the Hundreds, the some 1500 or so who have been pardoned, but do they want compensation? Pardoning is one thing, but getting payback for the years you've lost and for the earning potential and other things that you've lost, it seems like that would be a challenge.

[Ben Berkman]

Yeah, I've never, I've. It's a great question. I've never actually heard anyone say that directly that they want to be paid, but there's no question that they want to be able to get back to their. They want justice. The word is justice, if you ask. We had Enrique Tarrio on the press conference Real America's Voice News did this morning, and he said retribution. They want the biggest thing that everyone that I talk to that they want is justice. They want the people that caused it held accountable. They want the DA's and the judges that were behind it held accountable. And the people that stole the election ultimately, they want justice for the undermining of America.

[Terrence Bates]

All right, Ben Berkman reporting Live in Washington, D.C. in preparation for this upcoming, upcoming march here on this January 6th memorial, January 6th, excuse me, anniversary. We'll be carrying that march for you live throughout the day here on Real America's Voice. Stay tuned.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, welcome back. Hour two, the Charlie Kirk show here on Real America's Voice. Streaming podcast everywhere. You get your podcast. Check it out. Please subscribe. Leave us a review, please. It helps us so much in the charts and the ratings. I'm very excited about this next guest. I think he's one of the most impressive and important thinkers, political commentators of our current moment. And not enough people, in my opinion. I've told him this know about his thinking, his thought work, his writing. And that is Walter Kern. He is the editor at large of county highway and he's co host of the this America week. I think that's what it is. America this week. That's what I got. I was gonna.

[Blake]

It makes a little more sense.

[Charlie Kirk]

That makes sense.

[Walter Kern]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

America this Week with Matt Taibbi, who's a great journalist in his own right. Very accomplished. Walter, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Walter Kern]

I'm glad to be here. Really sorry that I postponed my last invitation while Charlie was around. It was the first invitation and I just wasn't sufficiently prophetic to know how short time was. And I thought I could do it later. And this is the visit that I'm doing later. And it's a sad one for me because I would have so wished to have talked.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, I know. And you and I actually got to meet backstage at Megan Kelly event here in Glendale. And I got to tell you, I got to fanboy a little bit. I do that rarely. Very rarely. But you know, I, I, Blake understands this because we, we, we make content and there's, there's only so much content you can consume when you're making content as well. You've got, you know, you, it's true. But America this week, which is funny that I got the name wrong. I listen to that often with you and Matt because I think you guys have a way breaking down the news that's swirling the big stories of the day. And so I wanted to have you on the show because I think like I said in the intro here, you are an important thinker. You're an important, I think, distiller of these larger stories and you make them make sense and you bring out the most important through line. Right? So what do you really need to pay attention to? So this is. We're gonna have you on the entire hour here, Walter, and we just wanna, we want to make sense of what happened in 2025, maybe go back to 2024 and back further. But we want to also look forward to 2026 and this new year that we've just embarked on. A year that I'm grateful that we have. And so I haven't been so grateful for the passing of a year into the next as I have this one, I will tell you that much. But so let's start at the big question. Help us make sense of our current moment. If you had to distill all of these disparate pieces from so fraud and Democrats are now pro maduro and you know, you've got cultural elements weaving throughout. What are you observing? What are you thinking about right now? WALTER Kern?

[Walter Kern]

Well, let me just, for those who don't know me, introduce my point of view and my reasons for having it. I'm chiefly a novelist, and I was a literary critic and a kind of columnist for all kinds of magazines from Time to the New Republic, Harper's Magazine, fairly liberal magazines. And I see us as living inside a story. There's a big story that goes back thousands of years, and there's a smaller story that goes back just years and then weeks and then days. And what I try to do is examine what's going on in terms of narrative, but not in the sense of pushing a narrative as we, you know, often see the mainstream media doing, trying to get us to pick a preferred version of reality, but in terms of a real drama, a drama that involves the big things, our lives, our freedom, our history as a culture, and the big events that affect it. So if I were to take this Moment in Time, January 2026, and tell you where we are in the current story, as I see it, I would say we're at a first act break in which we suddenly look around and realize that not only were we right to distrust certain kinds of authority, you know, in the media and in government, you know, particularly I think, under Biden, when we weren't even treated to the facts about his, you know, health situation and mental condition. But, but, but due to this Somali fraud, which I think is just an aperture into a bigger story, we're suddenly realizing that we've been in the middle of a daylight theft, a theft of our resources, of our money, of our attention, of our ability to interpret things. Suddenly, a new filter is dropping, and we're seeing that politics is not just about ideology, but it's about resources and what I think is the ongoing cover up of a great diversion of our resources. So as Americans suddenly think about themselves, you know, paying the bills, paying their taxes, raising their families, in light of what seems to have been an almost full scale across the board, we have the Minnesota example as a microcosm, but the macrocosmic example extends to the federal government and to many, many states. We ask ourselves, are we in a society anymore that we can go on supporting? Just as the revolutionary colonists wondered if they could survive under the British, we're starting to realize that we may be in a situation in which the very legitimacy of our government and its promises to protect us, to use our resources wisely, to provide for the common welfare Such as we believe it's necessary are all empty. And in fact, we've been in the middle of a con job. I knew a big con man in my life, a guy who called himself Clark Rockefeller and who was a friend of mine for years. Turned out not to be a Rockefeller. Turned out in to be a murderer. And I remember the week after he was exposed in the news as a German immigrant who, you know, had a whole other name and a whole other history than I had known him to have for 10 years. I suddenly felt like I was floating in space. I was like, I don't know the guy's real name. All the stories he told me seemed to have been a cover up for a life of crime. I don't know his motives. I don't know if I'm in danger when I'm around him. Because he exposed as the suspect in a double murder, a grisly double murder, many years before. And I went to the bank that day and I thought, I'm giving the bank my money, but I don't know where it goes after I hand it over. I was giving a key to a contractor who had to work on my house. And I said, but what if he is part of a burglary ring? And suddenly everything that I. All the bonds of trust and all the expectations of reciprocity that go into daily living were broken. And I think we're in that as Americans. We suddenly looked around and realized we're on a spacewalk when we thought we were secure inside a spaceship.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, I really relate to that, actually, because given what we're going through with the trial for Charlie's assassin coming up and all these conspiracy theories swirling, it suddenly occurred to me that, you know, listen, we went from don't trust the experts to never question the non experts. You know, it's like. But that's what you're talking about. It's like the legitimacy of the system when it becomes in question in such a massive way. Especially following Covid and some of the revelations that we. That we learned in the wake of that. It feels like there's no solid ground to place your feet.

[Walter Kern]

Well, you know, imagine a drama.

[Charlie Kirk]

30 seconds, Walter. 30 seconds. I gotta take a break.

[Walter Kern]

Imagine a drama in which you find out your wife is cheating on you. But then you find a letter and find out she's cheating you with your best friend. Oh, not only your best friend, three of your best friends. And you look around and you think, can I trust anything? How do I go forward? Where to? What do I cling? Now in order to have solidity. And that's, I think, where we are.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And I want to, I want to. I think it's probably worth. I don't know, Blake, please chime in here. But I wonder if it's worth going back through the, through the ticker tape here and figuring out how we got here or if it's more important to look forward. But I think, you know, you are a man of great experience.

[Blake]

We're blowing through the breaks, so we can do both. And we're doing a full hour.

[Charlie Kirk]

We're going to continue. Okay, we are good to go through the clock right now, I am told. I'm.

[Blake]

Guys, this is the new excitement of the new year. You don't know about this, Walter, but we were on radio, but now we're not modern radio.

[Charlie Kirk]

We're still adapting, actually, it's worth saying the story, we, we opted out. I mean, there was a narrative going around that people that we got kicked off radio. No, we were actually offered to go back on radio, but one of the reasons that we didn't is because Charlie and I had already decided that we were not going to for various reasons. But it's also one of the, one of the benefits is that we get to just continue on with guests like you where we don't have to do this choppy start and stop thing. So. Yeah, so. But yeah. How did we get here to this moment then, Walter? How did we get to a point where we can't trust the ground under our feet?

[Walter Kern]

Well, I think it's act one, because the Trump presidency and the reelection of Donald Trump provided a kind of refresh to the whole cycle. You know, that was a point at which people who had anticipated and worked hard to bring about a result on behalf of Donald Trump's election succeeded and sat down for a min minute, reflected on their expectations and the promises that they felt they'd been made and started over. And that first year of Trump is a pretty natural, a pretty natural time span to review. When he came in exactly almost a year ago, I think people were expecting justice. They wanted an immediate kind of redemption and even revenge for the sins of COVID for the deep state hoaxes, coup against him that had been going on for years, and for the deceptions that had come from the opposite party and from our own government in an attempt to unseat him, from the legal cases that were flimsy to the charges about Russia and so on. So everybody got in their seat and they prepared for a gunfight at the O.K. corral, and it didn't happen. And there was a lot of instant dissatisfaction, a lot of it fomented and aggravated by his enemies who want to create dissatisfaction in his followers. Look, he's not doing anything. Nothing will happen. He's not what he promised. He's not the gunslinger, he's not the agent of justice. He's just another politician.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

Well.

[Walter Kern]

Well, I think that's just changed because both the revelations of this fraud, which are really an extension of the Doge revelations, but with much more vividness, have suddenly come a spate of actions on his part, whether it's this Maduro raid, whether it's what we're seeing right now in Minnesota, which is a 2000 agent descent of. Of federal force on what appears to be a criminal racket of almost unimaginable riches and financial dimensions. And so this is the year of action. So combined with that sense of floating and displacement that I described before, we're also getting a feeling, oh, wow, we just shifted gears. And the thing that we maybe some longed for and felt frustrated that they hadn't gotten immediately is now going to come very swiftly. And whether or not it's too late, whether or not it's, you know, people have gotten too cynical to even believe justice is possible, I don't know. But it's an action time and he's telegraphing it all across the board.

[Blake]

I guess it's interesting to me, as Andrew pointed out, you've been around a little longer than us. I do think if you want a reason for optimism, twice as long. Yeah, if you want a reason for optimism, you can look at. In the late 70s, America was in malaise, as Carter called it. Even in the 90s. You get. Chuck Palahnuk is writing these novels about how everything's fake and terrible in the 90s, everything's awful.

[Charlie Kirk]

They said that in the same.

[Blake]

And of course, maybe I'm only going off the movie here, but I know one of your books, up in the Air is about a lot of the ennui from, you know, since the corporate world is getting detached from human values and such. So is there anything to be said? This might just be a constant. Are things truly worse now? Or maybe are we just psychologically worse because of the Internet, for example, Worse.

[Walter Kern]

Isn'T a word I like to use because the framing around better and worse is always changing. You can look at it in the short term, the long term, and so on, on. I think that things are actually starting to become hopeful because we've started to reach the Roots of some of the problems that before we. We were confused, baffled and depressed by. I think people are starting to feel a sense of agency and, and comprehension about how these bad systems work and what might disrupt them. And I think they are moving out of a period of cynicism about, bred by their, I think, over exaggerated expectations of action into a sense that maybe it's possible for the bad guys to be defeated. We now know who they are. We know how their formulas work. We know how their crimes are set up. We know the scale of them, which I think is shocking people. And it's not Elon Musk anymore, as it was last spring, sort of putting himself out front. It's people like Nick Shirley and you know, the commoners who are suddenly picking up the pitchforks, but they're picking up the pitchforks in a pretty constructive way. You know, they're not baying for revenge, they're not rioting. They're not, you know, just foaming at the mouth. They know where to look and they're finding the evidence, they're gathering it, they're sharing it, and they are, I think, preparing themselves for action. And they're also persuading their neighbors and friends. I think, you know, that all of this new critical information dropped over the holidays, was a great opportunity for people to share it and, and discuss it and meditate on it. So just as January is when the New Year's resolutions kick in, I think this is kind of harmonically timed for. For people who want to kick into gear.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And, you know, it's. I have so many thoughts, Walter. You know, it. I agree with you. You know, we had Jonathan Keeperman on just before the New year, and one of the things that he was saying is it was similar in tone to what you're saying he was saying, saying, you know, the ship is pointed in the right direction for probably the first time in living memory. You know, and it's hard to communicate that to a base that is not going to be satisfied until, you know, Fauci is strung up by his entrails in the public square. Right. So you've got, you've got these exact.

[Blake]

Always have to remind people, guys, we.

[Walter Kern]

Secured the border overnight.

[Blake]

That's such an unthinkably huge win that seemed impossible five years ago.

[Charlie Kirk]

Thousand percent. And, you know, and yeah, there's, there's other monsters to slay here. But you talk about this sense of agency and you talk about this new footing that we found in Trump. And I couldn't help think about Charlie's Reaction on election night. And I know what that was. I don't know if you've ever seen the clip. I have it ready to play.

[Walter Kern]

I haven't.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's a beautiful clip. And we were all here. What was happening in that moment was Charlie wouldn't let himself believe that it was possible until it was done, because he knew that he was. He needed. He needed to keep pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, because the.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

The.

[Charlie Kirk]

The agency that we had been robbed of in 2020, in 2022, it was. We almost had PTSD from it. And you could see this wiping away from him in the moment. And I think that's why it went so viral. Play cut 223 for Walter.

[Walter Kern]

Fox News decides Donald Trump is President of the United States.

[Charlie Kirk]

We've got our republic back, folks.

[Walter Kern]

Let's go.

[Charlie Kirk]

There it is.

[Walter Kern]

Everybody should remember this moment.

[Ben Berkman]

Look, I'm gonna. I'm gonna echo Charlie from earlier.

[Walter Kern]

Remember where you were when this happened.

[Charlie Kirk]

Remember where you were when you realize.

[Walter Kern]

That the unit party and all these.

[Charlie Kirk]

You know, just the establishment. You said it's time to actually participate.

[Walter Kern]

And look what you guys have done.

[Blake]

And if anyone deserves to get tears in his eyes, it's Charlie. I think we all agree. I think Erica was onions or something in the. In the break room. No one has worked harder than Charlie.

[Charlie Kirk]

We gotta hear some words here from you, Charlie.

[Walter Kern]

You put all this together, my man. Let's hear it.

[Charlie Kirk]

I. I am just humbled by God.

[Walter Kern]

It's all God. It's all God.

[Charlie Kirk]

God alone. God alone. That's all I can say. Decision desk has it.

[Walter Kern]

Pennsylvania.

[Blake]

It's done.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

It's beginning.

[Blake]

It's a great clip, boy.

[Charlie Kirk]

Still get choked up watching it.

[Walter Kern]

Yeah, that's poignant.

[Charlie Kirk]

I just remember feeling like I couldn't believe it until it was true either. And let me tell you where I.

[Walter Kern]

Was on election night. I was here in Livingston, Montana, where I live, and I was at the Elks Club in Downtown Livingston, Population 7000. My magazine newspaper, the one I help edit county highway, which is an only in print paper, had announced on X that we were having a party at the Livingston Elks Club for election night night. It was not a partisan party. Any of our subscribers were welcome and so were people from town. Anybody who wanted to come was welcome. It was not going to be a Donald Trump celebration or a Joe Biden celebration. It was simply going to be party for whoever showed up. Well, hundreds of people showed up. All we did was announce the invitation. They came from Europe, they came from all over the country. They were not, not all uniformly pro Trump by any means. By any means at all. We turned on the, we turned on the news at about five and there were three TVs in the Elks Club. And then we started talking with each other and people started meeting for the first time and talking about how they got into Livingston, Montana, which is, yeah, you know, a popular place to vacation, but it's also an obscure spot. Well, hours went by in which people were more interested in talking to each other than they were looking at the news. And I finally, you know, tipped my head back up at the screen and saw that Trump had, it seemed resolutely.

[Charlie Kirk]

One second, Walter. We're going to keep going through the break. Just one second. We'll be back with Real American Voice in a couple minutes.

[Senator Ron Johnson]

FOREIGN.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this Real America's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. Well, Today marks the five year anniversary of the J6 demonstration at the U.S. capitol. And just in time for today's anniversary, the White House is out with a brand new page on WhiteHouse.gov telling the true story of what happened that day. Real America's Voice congressional correspondent Benny Ray Harmony at the White House this morning with the very latest on this. We spoke probably about an hour ago or so. BENNY RAY harmony and shortly after our conversation, this page went live.

[Benny Ray Harmony]

Yeah, Terrence, just about, about an hour ago, the White House finally spoke out regarding the fifth year, the fifth anniversary of January6. Now I have it pulled up right here on my phone. On this WhiteHouse.gov J6 you can find video and video evidence of Nancy Pelosi's involvement, unaired HBO footage that was taken by her daughter of her taking full responsibility for this, as well as a complete timeline of events the Trump administration has broken down from the days before leading up the day of and the days following what the facts are in this case. And I think this is a perfect thing for the Trump administration to do at this time, especially with this, this great march happen happening here in Washington.

[Terrence Bates]

D.C. and what a huge release on this anniversary as the reality is many Americans simply want to know what really happened. They don't want conjecture, they want truth.

[Benny Ray Harmony]

No, exactly. And I think there's a lot of questions regarding around that day as to was there antifa members, was there left leaning people in the crowd that were pretending to be maga, pretending to be Trump supporters in order to do this, to make it look bad on the Trump administration. And so I definitely encourage everyone go check out this WhiteHouse.govJ6/ you can find every single thing that you need to know about January 6th on this day as we remember those that lost their lives as well as all those J6ers who are trying to get their lives back. Terrence.

[Terrence Bates]

Absolutely. Benny Ray Harmony reporting live from the White house. Once again, whitehouse.govJ6 you can go there for yourself and see this brand new report from the White House on the events of January 6th. You can see it for yourself. Well, that's going to do it for us. Now let's get you back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Charlie Kirk]

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[Blake]

That story that you've almost certainly heard where they blew up Chavez's mausoleum.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Hugo shot.

[Walter Kern]

I can't.

[Blake]

I literally can't figure out. Figure out if it's true or not, because people are posting photos and other people are saying, that is an AI fake photo.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Blake]

And I haven't been able to look in deep enough, and it either could be true.

[Charlie Kirk]

So. So what do we do in this landscape?

[Blake]

There was another one. Someone posted a thread that was like, I work at Uber Eats, and they're scamming everyone and like, all their stuff, like, they're doing all this scummy stuff, like special expedited delivery stuff that's all fake. It's just done to get more money out of you. And he had all this evidence and he sent it to a journalist. And that was all AI fabrications. It was like an AI Done hit job against a food delivery company.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, all of these examples underscore the question I'm. I'm asking, and I haven't really distilled it in a very good, good question yet. But, Walter, you strike me as a guy who is, you know, very concerned with what is the ultimate truth, what is the deepest truth? What do we do when you have a population of 350 million people, not mention the global population, all trying to suss through these different disparate information streams. How do you get everybody on the same page? How do you get truth across? What do we do in this landscape?

[Walter Kern]

You don't try to get everyone on the same page. That was an illusion and a grandiose, mythological white whale that was pursued in the age of television and mass media. It's no longer possible, and I don't think it's any longer desirable. One of the virtues of people not knowing what's real beyond the horizon is that they start concentrating on what's within their horizon. We have spent far too long in the United States knowing what's going on in New York, knowing what's going on in Los Angeles, knowing what's going on in Washington, and not knowing what's going on across the street. The. The difficulty of obtaining truth about what's going on around the world should cause us, I think, to slightly give up on it, because there is a family, a house, a street, a town, a neighborhood, a church, a group of friends that needs your attention. I promise you, those were the things that they tried to break up during COVID when the power that BE tried to leverage that. That pandemic into permanent rule for themselves. They knew that their first strike had to be at your church, at your hardware store, at your grocery store, at your family, at your dinner table. Well, those are the things you have to reclaim first. I have a friend who's very into solar magnetic storms and sort of doom and apocalypse around, you know, big Earth changes and so on. And I thought to myself one night, he'd warned me that there was a big ejection of plasma from the sun and might. All the lights might go out. I said, well, if the lights go out, where do I start? What do I do next? I figure out who I can trust. I figure out what I have to trade. I figure out what I can defend and who I'm going to defend. And all those questions that would come in the wake of a disaster are ones that we need to be asking right now. Because the disaster is this, as you say, melting of reality and starting on first principles and starting at home and starting with the world you can look around and see with your own eyes is the solution. And then those pods, as it were, those cells, just like the body. The body isn't made of some big giant piece of, you know, chicken McNugget. It's got cells in it, little active, isolated engines that link up and work together and. And at the cellular level, we have to, I think, renew our, you know, renew our contracts if we're going to have a bigger social contract. And this vain thought that everybody is going to be guided by some obelisk that beams truth down from the central authorities does not serve us well. It causes us to ignore our own garden.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, I love what you're saying. I mean, we've been saying for a long time, politics starts local, and you're kind of broadening that conversation to sort of say, look, we just got an.

[Blake]

Email today, someone who said they were inspired to get involved in Maricopa county politics. Charlie.

[Charlie Kirk]

Great. Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is where it starts, you know, Walter. I mean, gosh, my problem with you, Walter, is I want to talk about too many things and there's just not enough time.

[Walter Kern]

Well, I'll come back.

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm still bound by the clock here. I would be remiss if I didn't give you an opportunity to talk about what Charlie's assassination meant for our country. And, you know, as I'm hearing you talk earlier, you mentioned Nick Shirley and this sort of new wave that is slowly kind of forming. You've got Dan Bongino that's coming back. And he's right. You know, he's saying he's going to wage war on certain, you know, influences within maybe the conservative movement and beyond. I just think it's interesting. I believed in my whole heart, especially after we got past the memorial, that there was going to be this sifting of the movement. There was going to be this, like, this changing of the guard, sort of a new out of necessity, this newness that was going to be created out of the chaos and the loss. And I just. So, without feeding you answers, I want to hear what you have to say. But I believe that there is something that we are observing. It will not become clear to us until some time now. But what did losing Charlie, what did you observe? What did it mean? And where are we going next?

[Walter Kern]

Well, to be very cold about it and systematic, as though I don't have a heart. A power vacuum develops when someone of Charlie's magnitude and competence and gifts is lost. And in that power vacuum, all sorts of opportunistic creatures come rushing in and they live by the law of the jungle. How much space that has been left vacant can I occupy? How securely can I occupy it? How can I fend off competitors? And that was. Was a frankly ugly process to watch. And I guess it still goes on to some extent, but in another way, it's a tribute to how big a space he occupied that it was. That it left so much vacant for so many sort of competitive Darwinian struggles over power and attention. But I think the real meaning of the thing is the meaning of the moment after the. That I felt and others felt, which was someone has just given in what is not understood as a war, but suddenly looks like one because of the combatant falling, given everything, and he's given everything in the purest way. He wasn't a man behind a Plexiglas. He was someone openly sitting with a square stance before a crowd of his fellow Americans, taking all comers, listening and speaking back. He was the avatar of openness. And that that openness was rewarded with destruction was, I think, a shock that showed us how far we'd gone, how far we'd fallen, you know, when. When. When truly, you know, when demagogues and people who are, you know, have armies behind them and so on are assassinated. Well, you know, know that they kind of lived by the sword, but to live. But to live by the word and die by the sword is a whole other thing. And to watch someone who lived by the word die by the sword was a terrible moment. And it affected me Deeply, I, I'll be honest with you. I'm a little old for, you know, campus activism and, and a lot of the other things that Charles. Well, yeah, but, but, you know, I was, I, I was, I was aware with him, aware of him in my peripheral vision. And suddenly when he moved to the center of my vision in this terrible way, terrible way, I, I saw the best and worst of America. In one lightning flash, I, I, I, I saw someone who still believed that freedom of speech, a sort of candor about your spiritual and religious beliefs in dialogue with people who maybe flat out oppose them can still lead to a happy ending. That faith lives on. It was liberated from his body, but it spread everywhere. And I think it's starting to reassemble itself after a period of darkness. I mean, everybody was traumatized whether they know it or not. And some people aren't their best under trauma. You know, they become very selfish or even kind of evil. But there is a waking up to the fact that this was a, this was a good force. It was almost too good for the world. It was dispersed by hatred, envy, resentment, jealousy, perhaps even. I mean, you won't think, really, I.

[Blake]

Think it is the best thing about this horrible tragedy that I've brought up is Charlie truly was cut down at his absolute peak. And so in a sense, his peak does live on forever. He's always as he was on that campus in, throughout the year 2025. He was at his peak form in terms of argument. He was at his peak form in terms of how well he lived his life. He was getting better and better. And there's something very powerful. Yeah, there's something very powerful about that. And that's a lot of the power of martyrs is the way they can endure forever. You never have to see them make mistakes or get old or lose their fastball. They're always in that pristine form.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Blake helped write the eulogy that we [e-mail] the day after. And I still don't know how you wrote it, Blake, at 2am in the morning when Charlie died, I basically, I was shell shocked, like the world didn't make sense. I remember trying, I was supposed to get out a statement, you know, about Charlie. We had received word that he had, he was gone, you know, because there was some confusion about that. And I remember trying to write, you know, whatever it was I was supposed to write. And President Trump ended up truth socialing that Charlie was dead. And I remember just being so relieved. I mean, I couldn't put one foot in front of the other. It was like, you know, it was like that scene out of Saving Private Ryan where it was just, just, you know, it's just everything was moving in slow motion, but my body couldn't, I couldn't make it function. So the fact that Blake in the middle of that night got the words out, but one of the things he said was that, you know, Charlie will, will never grow old. You know, we'll never see him, you know, lose, lose any of the grandeur and the glory of his youth. And I guess in some ways this far removed from it. I feel comforted in some ways that I always get to remember him that way, but I hate that I have to remember him too. So it's a bittersweet feeling, but I know that he's gone and there's no bringing him back. But.

[Walter Kern]

Well, you know, I don't mean to be disputatious or niggling, but I don't think he was at his peak. I think he was.

[Charlie Kirk]

I actually agree with you on this.

[Walter Kern]

I think he was ascending toward his peak. He was on an obvious track. He had momentum. He was like a, he was like a mountain climber who can suddenly see the top of the mountain, the top of Everest. They've got their pack and you know they're going to get there. You know, they're going to even get there or beyond. And suddenly it's over. What that, you know, that happens to poets, rock stars, saints, and a lot of people who die young and yet inspire us to pick up their pack and carry it. And I think we're going to have to go where he would going.

[Charlie Kirk]

I, I totally, I mean, a lot of people, you know, speculate. Was Charlie going to be president? Who knows?

[Walter Kern]

He was, he was the kind, he was the kind of guy. What I love about him, what I love about him was that he seemed like he still had the ability to change. He still had the ability to learn and to formulate new conclusions. Hey, he might have gotten to age 35 and decided, I don't want to be the President of the United States. I want to be X or I wanted, you know, write a book or whatever it was. I mean though he was dedicated to action. And the turning point, I think is most impressive to me in terms of getting stuff done like turning point. People wake up every day and they achieve goals that are small in the short term and huge in the long term. And we're not a society like that anymore. To see anybody be effective anymore, especially in a large scale movement, is astonishing. You know, and especially without tons of money. But I, I think that, you know.

[Terrence Bates]

He.

[Walter Kern]

I don't know what my original point was actually. I, I strayed a bit there, but I don't know how he would have ended up. I only know that wherever he chose to go, he would have gotten there and he would have gotten there superbly.

[Blake]

What if he wasn't wondering? What if he'd really gone for becoming a college football coach?

[Charlie Kirk]

That was what he used to.

[Blake]

He always said if he got tired or gave up, he would just quit and coach college football.

[Charlie Kirk]

He would joke at our chat all the time. He'd be like, fine, I give up, you know, I quit, I retired. He's like, I'm gonna go coach college.

[Blake]

Football universe where people are like, did you know that that college football coach used to be a political operative?

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly. Walter, you and Matt have a great show. I want to make sure people know where to find it and how to follow you on that stuff. We still have about six minutes here, but I really, really love your guys content there. So please, like, what are you doing with Matt and what should people know about what you're up to?

[Walter Kern]

So Matt Taibbi is a muck raking reporter from the left, really. I think he was at his greatest fame during the Occupy Wall street years as he basically took on high finance and showed they had committed crimes all through what we now call. But like me, sometime around the first year of the Trump presidents first Trump presidency, he started to see his colleagues fall for this ridiculous and unverifiable story of Trump being a Russian agent. And it alienated him from his cohort as it did me. I was probably a little more to the right than Matt Taibbi or a little more to the center, but. But we both found ourselves after a few years feeling deserted by our supposedly principled and supposedly conscientious colleagues. And so we came together in the sense of both being stranded by not getting on the Russiagate train. And what we try to do on our podcast, Matt's a huge sports fan, is give you a sort of skybox, play by play, a big picture narration of events as though they were a game. Now we realize they're not a game, but we try to treat them as one with a lot of humor, with a lot of, you know, mischief and kind of pop cultural reference so that the heaviness of things doesn't destroy people. It's important to keep a light spirit. And when you talk about black pilling people.

[Charlie Kirk]

Happy warriors.

[Walter Kern]

Yeah, absolutely. When you talk about black Pilling, you're talking about the thing that bothers me most and people who want good things to happen. Despair is a sin. And spreading despair is practically the sin that they tell us is the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit. When you try to destroy someone's spirit with pessimism, with cynicism, and you, you know, a little bit of that goes a long way. But when you try to give them the feeling that nothing you can do, nothing you can say, and no one you can appeal to will ever help you, it's lost. And you're just living out the clock on this earth, feeling the pain and feeling the depression. You may as well go kill yourself. Well, that for me is. That for me is the enemy in all respects. Because as long as you have a lightness, as long as you have a flow, as long as you have sort of a light on in your heart and in your mind, there's a chance for change, but that is absolute death and the black pill. People who tell you you've been betrayed again, don't expect anything. And they think they're being grown up and they think they're being sophisticated, but what they're really doing is sending you to an early grave. And what they're really doing is opening the way for the true cynics, the psychopaths, the power mongers, to own you forever and enslave you. And it's. It. What Matt and I do is, if anything, an assault on the Black Pillars. You can still laugh no matter how dark things get.

[Blake]

All right, well, before we go, if you had to recommend one of your books to people.

[Charlie Kirk]

Good question.

[Blake]

Who are watching or listening to this, what would you say?

[Walter Kern]

You know, funny, there's a book with a terrible cover right there called Mission to America. Look at that. Terrible cover. I mean, they didn't even have AI as an excuse. And it's a story of. It's a story of two missionaries who grow up in what's basically a cult, isolated in the mountains of Montana, which hasn't gotten out into the world for a hundred years. And it's become so inbred, literally genetically inbred, that they're sent out in a van to try to get female converts in America 2005. And they leave their mountain valley having never watch television, you know, being as innocent as Martians practically. And they hit the road to bring people to their belief system. And it's a story about faith, it's a story about modernity versus, you know, the old ways. And it's a Story about vulnerability. Because, I mean, the first time they sit down in a motel to turn on TV, they're there for 18 hours. You know, they have no. They have no immunity to it. So I try. I try to show modern America from the point of view of people who aren't immune to its seductions and its poisons and so on.

[Charlie Kirk]

I love that the way you describe. I've been describing things a lot like this lately about. We build up this immunity to things. And next time I have you on. Walter, I feel like since Trump came down those golden escalators, we as a country have been building immunities to the fake news, to the propaganda, to psyops, to color revolutions, to hoaxes. And I would be super curious to have a conversation in depth about the immunities that we're growing now, because I think when we're talking about black pill immunities, we're talking about this vacuum of this laws of the jungle, we're sort of building immunities to that. I have to believe good will win out, truth will win out. But, Walter, it's been an absolute pleasure talking about.

[Walter Kern]

Well, we know it will in the end. It's the short term and the midterm that we're worried about.

[Charlie Kirk]

I know exactly the midterms. That's what we're worried about, Walter. Yeah. And I want to talk to you next time about your conversion to faith, because you were not a theist and now you are. And I would love to hear more about that. Even in our calls, Walter, that we had after we met you at Megan's, you've hinted at it, but I haven't got the details. So, Walter Kern, the great Walter Kern. We'll have you back again as soon as you'll have have us. Thank you so much.

[Walter Kern]

Thank you.

[Charlie Kirk]

And thank you, Blake, and God bless Real America's Voice for keeping us through. Thank you, guys. We'll see you tomorrow.

[Walter Kern]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.