The Charlie Kirk Show, November 28th, 2025

Summary

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The Charlie Kirk Show – November 28, 2025

Podcast: Real America’s Voice
Host: Andrew Colvett (Executive Producer, filling in for the late Charlie Kirk)
Guest: Kelly Shackelford, President & CEO of First Liberty Institute
Special Segment: Dr. Richard Fry, Pediatric Neurologist/Autism Researcher, and Riley Marty

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Overview

This deeply reflective and wide-ranging episode of The Charlie Kirk Show explores the current status and future of religious liberty in America, punctuated by tribute to the late Charlie Kirk. Andrew Colvett, joined by legal expert Kelly Shackelford, examines recent Supreme Court wins, the shifting landscape of faith in the public square, and pressing questions around religious pluralism—particularly with the growing visibility of Muslim communities. The second half of the show pivots to a medical and policy discussion on autism, featuring Dr. Richard Fry and Riley Marty, focusing on new research and FDA movement toward treatments for autism spectrum disorder.

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In Memory of Charlie Kirk & Carrying the Torch

[03:18–06:51]

• Andrew Colvett welcomes Kelly Shackelford with gratitude for his ongoing support of Turning Point USA and the mission Charlie Kirk championed.
• Reflections on Charlie Kirk:
  • “There will never be anybody like Charlie Kirk. He’s once in a generation—maybe once in more than that—and an incredible loss... I know he would be so proud of what is happening and what you guys are doing...”
    — Kelly Shackelford [04:31]
• The team’s commitment to keeping the mission alive amid tragedy is emphasized. Andrew reflects on his unexpected thrust into public life and the duty to protect liberty, echoing the biblical calling: “‘Yes, Lord, here I am. Send me.’” [05:21]

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Unprecedented Religious Liberty in America

[06:52–10:08]

• Kelly Shackelford claims Americans currently enjoy “more religious liberty than at any other time in our nation’s history,” citing a string of landmark U.S. Supreme Court victories:
  • Carson v. Makin (Maine): Opened school choice programs to religious institutions, affecting every private school choice program nationwide.
  • Religious Workplace Rights: Overturned a restrictive 47-year-old precedent, winning 9-0 for broader accommodation of religious beliefs at work.
  • Stat: “85% of the private schools are religious schools.” [08:17]

2. Separation of Church and State: Myth vs. Law

[10:08–13:09]

• Colvett & Shackelford clarify that “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution but stems from an 1802 Jefferson letter.
• The Lemon Test’s Downfall:
  • For 50 years, the Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling allowed legal attacks on public religious expression, leading to nativity scenes and Ten Commandments removals.
  • Lemon was overturned in the “Coach Kennedy” case: “The founders would be appalled... It was cited over 7,000 times in the last 50 years to put down religious expression in public.” — Kelly Shackelford [13:11]
• The First Amendment’s True Mandate: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

3. Landmark Supreme Court Cases Restoring Faith in Public Life

[17:28–19:42]

• Coach Kennedy case: Cemented teachers’ and coaches’ rights to private religious expression without forfeiting First Amendment rights, and finally overturned the Lemon precedent.
  • “Coaches and teachers do not give up their First Amendment rights. And that’s what most people know. What they don’t know was within that decision, they overturned the Lemon case.” — Kelly Shackelford [19:09]
• New Legal Standard: If a religious activity in government is consistent with American history and tradition, it's “presumptively constitutional.”

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Religion in Public Life: Pluralism, Precedent, and Cultural Tensions

4. Islam in America: Navigating Pluralism

[19:42–41:53]

• Concerns about the Rising Muslim Population:

  • Colvett relays Charlie Kirk’s worries about Islamic cultural inroads (“Epic City” in Texas, Dearborn, MI, etc.) and the political implications.
  • The “Coach Kennedy” precedent applies: rights are granted based on practice, not just religion.
  • Shackelford: “Religious freedom to do what? To pray? Sure. To put Sharia law in. No.”
  • Calls to prayer and church bells are analyzed as noise issues, not religious preference.
  • Pushback against cultural assimilation resistance and the need for legal/neutral noise ordinances.
  • Quotable:
    “Any religion that comes into the United States that doesn’t want to assimilate, that’s the whole purpose of the United States—is assimilation. It’s the melting pot.” — Kelly Shackelford [35:03]
  • Immigration policy seen as the true regulatory mechanism to safeguard cultural norms, rather than using religious liberty law to curtail certain religious practices.

• Colvett’s blunt take:
  “We don’t have a problem with ethnic diversity necessarily. We have a problem with cultural diversity.”

5. Religious Liberty Commission—A New Presidential Initiative

[42:27–47:32]

• Shackelford discusses serving on the nation’s first Religious Liberty Commission, reporting only to the President, charged with delivering actionable policy recommendations by July 4th, 2026, America’s 250th birthday.
  • “Our job is to give him direct recommendations on what he can do to secure religious freedom for the future of our country.” [47:32]

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

1. “Every day is a battle for your mind. Raging information coming from every angle with the will to deceive... You found the place for truth.”
   — Charlie Kirk [03:18]

2. “The idea that the government can’t be pro-religion in general is ridiculous. I mean, it would strike down the free exercise clause.”
   — Kelly Shackelford [17:28]

3. “I believe, man, you allow there to be freedom. I think that I have the truth and the Holy Spirit on my side, and you got no chance on the other side.”
   — Kelly Shackelford [39:26]

4. “Celebrating anybody’s death is unacceptable. Doesn’t matter who you are. It’s unacceptable in any job in this country.”
   — Kelly Shackelford [53:55]

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Case Stories: Faith in the Workplace and Schools

6. Modern Religious Discrimination Stories

[47:57–52:28]

• Case: Marisol Castro, Connecticut Teacher
  • Forced to hide a small cross beneath her desk (“Don’t put it under a bushel...”), eventually suspended for asserting her faith.
  • “They walked her out of the school with all of her stuff in a box like a crack criminal.” — Kelly Shackelford [50:29]
  • Her emotional testimony moved an entire Commission hearing.
• Contrast with Progressive Activism in Schools:
  • Instances where teachers engaged in offensive, even violent, activism against conservative students—Andrew argues these should trigger employment consequences.

7. Student Rights and Parental Rights Under Siege

[54:41–55:50]

• Preview of a Religious Liberty Commission hearing on student/parent rights, referencing issues such as secret school-facilitated gender transitions ("gut-wrenching" stories).
• A standout moment: a 12-year-old’s testimony about being forced to read gender-affirming literature in school, highlighting the broader clash over parental rights and forced political orthodoxy.

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Autism: Science, Policy, and Hope

Special Segment: [60:24–100:12]

8. Interview with Dr. Richard Fry – Autism Research Advances

Background & Motivation
[62:18–65:44]

• Dr. Fry’s shift to autism research was parent-driven; a lack of helpful protocols in early 2000s neurology clinics spurred him to investigate medical (not just behavioral) underpinnings.
• Discovery of abnormal biochemistry—such as low cerebral folate—led to attempts to treat with leucovorin.

Autism Diagnosis & Prevalence – Nature vs. Nurture
[65:44–74:24]

• Autism rates have skyrocketed (“1 in 22 kids in California, 1 in 30 nationally”).
• Are rising rates due to diagnostic broadening or real increase? Fry: “I think it's a little bit of both.”
• Genetics versus environment: Most genetic mutations in autism are “de novo”—not inherited, but new, often from environmental factors or nutritional deficiencies.
  • Notably, fetal and preconception environment play roles.

Research Insights: Fetal Environment & Nutrition
[74:24–83:47]

• Environment in the womb significantly shapes outcomes. Recent studies use baby teeth as “like rings on a tree” to study prenatal nutrient exposure—deficiency in nutrients like manganese and zinc correlates with later autism.
• Emphasizes the importance of maternal health, nutrition, and supplements (folate, iron, carnitine, vitamin D, thyroid function) preconception and during pregnancy.

Genetics, Screening, and Prevention
[83:47–86:18]

• Current science can identify mutations (“mutations” vs. “polymorphisms”), but practical predictive/preventive screening is complex and evolving.
• Emphasis on optimizing maternal/family health rather than seeking a single gene solution.

Gender Disparities in Autism
[86:18–87:22]

• Boys are diagnosed more; possible reasons: endocrine disruptors, girls’ genetic redundancy (two X chromosomes), or social skill resilience.

9. FDA & Treatment Breakthroughs

Leucovorin for Autism
[88:18–97:41]

• Recent headlines (and confusion) surround the FDA’s announcement on leucovorin: now approved for genetically confirmed “cerebral folate deficiency” (about 47 known cases).
• Most children with autism aren’t eligible under this label, but many may have related, undiagnosed folate receptor antibody issues.
• How Treatment Works:
  • Some autistic children can’t get folate into their brains due to antibodies or mitochondrial issues.
  • Leucovorin (a reduced form of folate, not regular folic acid) bypasses this, boosting brain folate via a “straw” (backup transport), instead of the main “fire hose.”
  • “We say like the worst you can do is make expensive pee.” — Dr. Fry [96:14]
  • Promising anecdotal success: nonverbal children gaining speech after leucovorin.
• Mitochondria’s role is complex; mitochondrial DNA is uniquely maternal and vulnerable to stress/toxins, further complicating the picture.

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Important Timestamps

• 03:18 — Opening statement on the show’s legacy and mission
• 04:31 — Kelly Shackelford honors Charlie Kirk
• 06:52 — “More religious liberty than ever before” argument
• 08:17 — School choice and religious liberty impact
• 11:31 — Constitutional basis (or lack thereof) for “separation of church and state”
• 17:28 — Overturning Lemon with Coach Kennedy case
• 19:27 — New Supreme Court test: historical consistency
• 21:29–41:53 — Islam in America: pluralism vs. precedent debate
• 42:27 — Presidential Religious Liberty Commission explained
• 47:32 — Commission’s direct reporting to the President
• 48:06 — Marisol Castro cross incident in Connecticut schools
• 54:41 — Commission hearing: student rights and transition stories
• 60:24 — Dr. Richard Fry on autism prevalence, diagnosis, and treatment
• 88:59 — Leucovorin, FDA news, and biomedical approach to autism

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Religious Liberty at a Crossroads: Supreme Court wins for religious liberty signal a “revival” for public faith but also spark complex questions as America grows more religiously pluralistic. The legal test is now tied to historical traditions, which generally favor Judeo-Christian customs but leave room for other faiths within neutral policy constraints.
• Cultural Competition and Immigration: The podcast frames America’s changing religious demographics primarily as a cultural and immigration challenge rather than a strictly legal one. The answer, hosts and guest agree, lies in assimilation and wise policy, not exclusion.
• Autism’s New Hope: On the medical front, U.S. science is advancing from diagnosis to treatment, with real-world hope emerging through breakthroughs like leucovorin (for a subset of autistic children). The importance of maternal health and early intervention is ever clearer.

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Final Notable Quote

“I really believe that religious freedom wins out. It’s kind of like free speech. If somebody’s saying something you don’t agree with, the answer is not for the government to stop the other… It’s more speech.”
— Kelly Shackelford [39:24]

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For a full video of the Religious Liberty Commission hearings and more on ongoing autism research, listeners are encouraged to visit FirstLiberty.org and the Rossignol Medical Center.

Transcript

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[Charlie Kirk]

Every day is a battle for your mind. Raging information coming from every angle with the will to deceive.

[Andrew Colvett]

Fear not.

[Charlie Kirk]

You found the place for truth. The voice of a generation that still has the will to believe in the greatest country in the history of the world. This is the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Andrew Colvett]

Buckle up.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here we go.

[Andrew Colvett]

All right, everybody. Welcome to this special long form interview with Kelly Shackelford, who's the President and CEO of First Liberty Institute. That's FirstLiberty.org Kelly, you were a really close friend of Charlie's. You were, you've been on this show many times and it's an honor to have you in the studio because oftentimes we'd have you and it would be breaking news about something that was going on with the Supreme Court or some case that you were working that, you know, our audience needed to know about. You're here on campus at Turning Point usa. You're visiting and you're, you're, you're supporting the mission that the organization that Charlie built and this legacy that we're all trying to move forward. And I just want to say welcome. It's an honor to have you and we're grateful for you continuing this mission with us.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Well, it's a privilege to be a part. I, I've been so proud of what you guys have done since the tragedy, the assassination. And I look back at Charlie and I probably text or talk maybe once a month or so. And I just was looking back at some of them and there was one, it was like, you did it, you won. And I was like, what was this? And it was a big Supreme Court case and just nobody. There will never be anybody like Charlie Kirk. He's once in a generation and maybe once and more than that and an incredible loss. And I still get sad as I think of things, but I know he would be so proud of what is happening and what you guys are doing and what the Lord is doing with this horrible tragedy. And so kudos to you guys for carrying on the mission in an incredible way.

[Andrew Colvett]

Well, I mean, thank you for saying that. And you are in a very small group of people that Charlie would look to for legal advice and especially understanding the Supreme Court, religious liberty, and, you know, you have a long history with this show. We haven't had you on for a while. And I was like, kelly, we gotta. We gotta. We gotta do this. And so I'm glad we have the time and the schedule and you're. You're. And by the way, thank you for those. Thanks. Those kind words. I mean, we're doing our best here, you know, and. But we have a sacred duty, we really do, to continue on. I never wanted to be a public figure. I never had any desire to be. This was sort of thrust on all of us. I know for Mikey and Blake, I mean, all of us are just kind of trying our best to keep the flame of liberty burning. And, I mean, that's what you're doing, though. And so sometimes our mission in life and our calling in life is thrust upon us, and sometimes we just have to say, yes, Lord, here I am. Send me. And so I think that's kind of what we're all doing, because we love this country and we love what the Lord is doing right now. We love the outpouring of this revival that's happening. Bible sales spiking, tpusa. Faith is growing. Our campus programming is growing like leaps and bounds. So there's a lot of good things happening. And you said something when we were meeting before this that really took me by surprise, and it caught my attention, and that is that you make the statement that there is more religious liberty in this country than at any other time in our nation's history. Explain what you mean by that.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, everybody alive right now has more religious freedom than they've ever had in their life. And that's because of the recent decisions. And let me give a little feel for how unusual this is. Typically, there's about 7,000 requests to the Supreme Court to take your case, and they took 56 last year. So if three or four years ago, our goal had been for them to take one of our cases, that would be a pretty heady goal, right? Well, they didn't take one. They didn't take three. Two. They didn't take three. We won four religious liberty cases in 13 months. And three of these were, I would call landmark, like, shifting 50 years of case law. And so the Carson case, which was out of Maine, where they said, and Charlie, we talked about these, by the way, at the time, but you just don't put all this together for 130 years. They've said, parents, you get to pick whatever school you want, public or private, because most of the school districts don't have public schools. Just Take your voucher money and go. Right. And then they decided to make one change. But you can't pick in religious schools. And Supreme Court said six to three, unconsciously.

[Andrew Colvett]

Who decided that?

[Kelly Shackelford]

Originally? The legislature. They got advice. Yeah, they got advice from their attorney. It's like 20 something years ago that, oh, this would violate separation of church and state if you treat the Christian people the same as you do everybody else.

[Andrew Colvett]

Well, and that was a huge landmark because now you can take that to any Christian Catholic school.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yes. What this means is every school choice program in the country now and everyone in the future. So think about since then. Texas has now just passed the school choice program. From now on, you can never tell a parent that they can't pick the religious. The Christian school. That's huge. That's going to really impact a lot of kids, a lot of education. I mean, 85% of the private schools are religious schools.

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah, of course.

[Kelly Shackelford]

So this is huge. So that was victory number one. Victory number two was a case on religious freedom in the workplace. And there what happened is we had a client, he came off the mission field and wanted to work somewhere we didn't have to work on the Sabbath. Strong beliefs on that. So he went to work for the US Postal Service. And that worked fine for two years until Amazon started delivering on Sunday. And all of a sudden they said, look, we were going to have to force you to work on Sunday. And he said, I'll work double shifts. I'll do whatever else, but I can't do that. You need to accommodate my schedule. Well, there's a strong law protecting religious freedom in the workplace. But 47 years ago, in a very dishonest case, the Supreme Court reinterpreted all the words to make it meaningless. And so the Postal Service knew they could just cut him loose. So we went to the Supreme Court. We did something a little different than we would normally do there. We said to the court, this decision from 47 years ago was a lie then and it's a lie now. You know that this is not what these words mean. The court ruled 9, 0 in our favor and restored that standard of religious freedom.

[Andrew Colvett]

I mean, you have other cases here that I want to get to because you have been. I mean, you are the preeminent group working on religious liberty. And beyond that, you're just a legal scholar, an expert on this stuff. And we will continue to consult you as these cases come up. But I want to dive in a little deeper because you mentioned the separation of church and state.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yes.

[Andrew Colvett]

And this is of Course taken from the 1802 letters, Danbury Baptist association, from Thomas Jefferson, where he said a wall of separation between church and state to express his belief that government should not interfere with religious freedom. Now, let's go back to what he was probably really saying. In 1802, America was 100% Christian, essentially, right. For all intents and purposes, Catholic, Christian, whatever. So our founders were often concerned with, we don't want the Presbyterians or the Anglicans or whatever taking control of becoming the state religion. Yes, right. And so that's that. But this is not the Constitution. This is not in the Declaration of Independence. And yet we have turned it into this almost mythology of America that there is a separation of church and state. Now, in practice, obviously, we know that that's impractical. It's not possible, because all legislation, all policy is an extension of morality. It's a codification of a moral precept, which comes, of course, oftentimes. Sometimes it comes from academia, but oftentimes and historically, it comes from our faith, our Christian beliefs in this country. So maybe just explain why this has become so insidious, this idea of separation in church and state and what is true and what is not legally.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, well, number one, it's not in the Constitution, right? I mean, what does the Constitution say? The Constitution, this is the First Amendment. The first two clauses said that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The founders did not want us to establish a national church. They experienced that in England. They didn't want that here. But what happened 50 years ago in a case called Lemon, it's Lemon B. Kurtzman, is they reinterpreted the establishment clause. And they said, well, we don't think it means just not establishing a national church or denomination. We think it goes further than that. And what it really means is anywhere that government is, religion can't be. I mean, that's kind of a separation of church and state. They use words like separation of church and state, and normally you can't bring a lawsuit if you're offended. That's not a basis. But they start allowing lawsuits if you're offended by religion. So if you wonder why nativity scenes were taken down across the country and menorahs at Hanukkah and Ten Commandments were rolled into the closet and all that, it's not because any of that is in the Constitution. The founders would be appalled. It's because of this Lemon case. And it was cited over 7,000 times in the last 50 years to put down religious expression in public. So like nativity scenes, Nativity scenes, ten Commandments. You know, if some sort of religious activity occurs at school, even by a student, everybody's panic.

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[Charlie Kirk]

The hardest working radio show in the business, the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Kelly Shackelford]

We've been trying to get rid of it because we knew it really created a government that's hostile to religion, which is not what the founders wanted. They don't want the government to put their thumb on the scale in favor of one religion over another and never coercion by government. But the idea that the government can't be pro religion in general is ridiculous. I mean, it would strike down the free exercise clause. That's pro religion. And so we finally got to the Coach Kennedy case, which was the third of those cases I was just mentioning. And of course, Coach is a guy was told he got out of the Marines after 20 years. He went coaching he made a promise to God that after every game, the first thing he would do, everybody's in center field, they're making reservations for dinner. After the game, the first thing he would do is go to a Knee and for 15 seconds, thank God for the privilege of coaching those young men. And he did it for seven years until the school came to him and said, if you do that again, we're going to fire you. And, you know, he's like, what did I fight for if I'm not going to stand up? And what kind of example am I to these boys if I run as soon as somebody shoots at me? And so he went to a knee, and they fired him. And unfortunately for him and for us, he lives outside of Seattle, so not exactly sympathetic courts. And for seven and a half years, he lost. But we finally made it to the Supreme Court, and they ruled in our favor. This is the first time, by the way, Andrew, that there had ever been a case at the Supreme Court on the rights of teachers or coaches with regard to their faith. Huge victory. Free speech, free exercise. Coaches and teachers do not give up their First Amendment rights. And that's what most people know. What they don't know was within that decision, they overturned the lemon case.

[Andrew Colvett]

Wow.

[Kelly Shackelford]

7,000 citations.

[Andrew Colvett]

What year was this again? This is like.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, like three years ago.

[Andrew Colvett]

Three years ago. So as of three years ago, because of this success that you guys had at first Liberty Institute, what is now the precedent that has been set?

[Kelly Shackelford]

The precedent, the new test is if there's a religious activity and it's occurring around or in government, if it's a part of our history, if it's consistent with our history and our traditions as a country, it's presumptively constitutional.

[Andrew Colvett]

So I want to. So I want to dive into this, because this is something you and I were talking about before, and I think it's really important. Okay, so Charlie, in the last months of his life, was raising the alarm bell about Islam. He was worried. He was seeing Epic City in Texas, Dearborn, Michigan. You see Soran Mamdani, and you saw that debate clip between him and Andrew Cuomo where he essentially guilted him and shamed him, saying that you don't know the mosques that you've visited. And so it shocked the nation outside, at least New York City, because it's like, oh, all of a sudden, in order to be a. A mayoral candidate at a big city in America, now you have to go service this new population. Historically, there is no doubt, there is no argument that historically, America has been a Christian nation, whether that be Baptists or Quakers or Anglicans or Catholics or. And you could make the case for the. There's been a Jewish presence in the country for historical precedent. So at what point? Because the pushback would be, okay, so we have more religious freedom now than we've ever had. That's good. Obviously, as a Christian, I want to be able to express my religious freedom, but what is good for the goose is then good for the gander. And now we have a rising population of Islam, of Muslims in this country. And so what rights do they now have if it now has to fit within this other precedent of historical consistency?

[Kelly Shackelford]

Well, first, people will ask a lot of times, because we have synagogue cases across the country just wanting to be synagogues, and they're being persecuted. It's ridiculous that this is happening in the United States. And they'll say, well, what about religious freedom for Muslims? And they say, I'm worried about that. And I always say, religious freedom to do what? That's what you got to look at. To do what? To pray? Sure. To put Sharia law in. No. You know, and so take the Texas. They. They built that. They were trying to build that community out in Texas. It was easily taken care of by law in Texas. In fact, what they were doing in excluding others and doing that type of an effort probably violates securities laws. And the attorney general is now beginning to do a securities lawsuit against them for what they were trying to do. So. So I, you know, I say, and it reminds me a little bit, gosh, I don't know how many, maybe 30 years ago, 25 years ago, when Bible clubs and schools became a thing and people tried to stop it went all the way to the Supreme Court, I guess, in the 1980s. And there was a great victory for religious freedom in that, yeah, you can't allow clubs at school and then exclude the Christian club or the Bible club. And people would come to me and they would say, if we allow these Bible clubs, they're going to allow Satan clubs. They have to allow them, too, you know, because of religious freedom. And I would say, you know, our kids say they'd love to know who they are. Let it happen, and let's see who wins. And, you know, 10 years later, there were 33,000 Bible clubs and public schools, and there really weren't much of the others. Now, I know the Muslim community is more organized, but I really think the truth always wins over the darkness. So if somebody's trying to do something and change our country, I mean, there's not a Muslim country in the world that you can find that really has religious freedom. The reason we have religious freedom in this country, even for people who disagree with Christians, is because of the J o Christian belief that a relationship between you and God is between you and God and the government has no right to come in between that. And I think that will win out.

[Andrew Colvett]

Listen, I love the glass half full interpretation of that, but it's an immigration. It's a function of immigration.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Colvett]

The more that we import people that happen to be Muslim, the more that they're going to exercise politically their political rights and they're gonna try and leverage that. You saw that with Zorram, Donnie and Andrew Cuomo. The more that they're going to try and form communities where they get to express a cultural norm that we would not consider traditionally American. So that's kind of the basis of my question. So you're saying that it has to be consistent with a historic norm, right?

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yes.

[Andrew Colvett]

So at what point does something become considered historic? Because if I'm their lawyers and I find myself in a case, I'll be like, well we've had Muslims in New York since, you know, this date. Of course it's historic. Well, not in any. It's the practice predominant way.

[Kelly Shackelford]

It's what they're asking to do.

[Andrew Colvett]

Well, so we have this Muslim call to prayer, right? And there was actually a clip of this. I think I actually have this. So we've got. Bear with me for one second here, Kelly. I want to make sure I get these clips right because these are striking. And here we go. So this is the Dearborn police chief Shaheen on the Islamic calls to prayer blasting five times starting at sunrise daily play cut210.

[Rodney Williams]

Oftentimes when we take readings Council president it's the ambient noise that's even louder.

[Charlie Kirk]

Than the call to prayer. To be honest with you.

[Rodney Williams]

The truck will go by, hit a.

[Charlie Kirk]

Pothole and it's much louder than the call to prayer.

[America's Christian Credit Union Advertiser]

The two or three validations that we.

[Rodney Williams]

Have had in the last couple years.

[Charlie Kirk]

Have been met with compliance as soon as we've talked to the religious institutions. It's no different than church bells that.

[Rodney Williams]

You might hear on Sunday.

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[Rodney Williams]

I'm Rodney Williams.

[Travis Holloway]

And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break.

[Rodney Williams]

Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle, and relying on your community to create something bigger.

[Travis Holloway]

And that's exactly why we created the Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles and real wins.

[Rodney Williams]

We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learn to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six figure business, we're bringing you their stories.

[Travis Holloway]

And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities. Like what it means to take risk, how to navigate failure and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.

[Rodney Williams]

So if you're ready for a podcast as much as about people as it is about money, you're in the right place.

[Travis Holloway]

Listen to the Wealth Break podcast on the iHeartRadio app.

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[Andrew Colvett]

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[Charlie Kirk]

News flash, Democrats. America is a republic, not a democracy. Fact check. True.

[Andrew Colvett]

And then you've got this guy, Mehdi Hassan, who actually comes by way of the uk. He was an MSNBC anchor, and now he's just basically a troublemaker and a provocateur. Play cut 212.

[America's Christian Credit Union Advertiser]

I think that if you can play.

[Andrew Colvett]

Church bells, you can pray. The call to prayer. We are as American as anyone else, and don't take any BS from any. Okay, so this is gonna be their argument now as the population of Muslims increases in the country, while we continue to issue 1.2 million green cards every year. And a lot of those are coming from Muslim countries. And now even increasingly, if we get people immigrating from Europe, they might be Muslims. So the point is they're going to assert their religious freedoms because this is a country historically that has exercised a broad view of what religious freedom is. But you're saying there's a historical precedent. So I'm just, again, I'm playing devil's advocate a little bit here, which is a terrible expression, by the way, to use in a religious freedom discussion. But so if they come in and they start saying, well, it's no different than church Bills and you come in, you say, well, it has to be consistent with historic precedent. Is there a sense of you would look at it and say, well, because this nation is historically Christian or Catholic, that you would have broader freedoms in those respects to exercise certain religious freedoms than you would if they want to start doing Sharia law or if they want to start doing genital mutilation, if they want to start doing just Muslim call to prayer.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, I think it wouldn't be based upon the religion, it would be based on the practice. What kind of practices were allowed? So in other words, if a Christian can pray, somebody could say, well, the history was most of the prayers are Christians, so the Jews can't pray? Well, no, no. The whole idea was they were praying. Right. And I think the situation here with calls to prayer, that's a noise issue. Right. I mean, if the idea was that, well, we don't want them to be able to send an email to their friends and tell them to come to prayer, well, we'll allow the Christians to do it, but not the Muslims, we wouldn't say that. Right. This is a noise issue. And if the noise is really violating and disturbing people, they need to control it with noise. Now the things that people are really concerned about, like creating Sharia law and things like this, those would never be allowed or consistent with our constitution in this country. So those things would take away freedoms and those things. So you always have to ask yourself, what is the religious practice that they're asking for and is it consistent with our history and tradition if the government is involved? If not, is it just something that is, you know, we would want to protect for all faiths because that's really what the religious freedom is about.

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah. I mean, in this Muslim call to prayer, when they start congregating in certain municipalities like they have in Dearborn, that's going to be an increasing issue because that's something that they demand. They demand these five times a day prayers. They all have to point towards Mecca and they get on their prayer mats and it's, you know, and I think at some level for a lot of us, you know, it's just simply, it's offensive because a, we believe that, you know, and you don't have to chime in here, this can be me. But it's offensive because, you know, we love our culture. We love the American Christian heritage that we have that we inherited from England and from, you know, the Magna Carta and, you know, all the way back, the Black Road regiment, the revivals that gave birth to American liberty. And we hold these things dear. And so we don't want to hear Muslim calls to prayer in our neighborhoods. I don't want my kids to have to go to school and be taught how to be respectful to this other culture that I didn't have to grow up with. But all of a sudden they decided to move here. And when you also think about the fact that they have 50 Muslim majority, 50 plus Muslim majority nations on planet Earth that they could move to, why are you insisting on moving to the west that is Christian? Even if we're not, you know, everybody's, you know, going to church on Sunday. This is in our turns of phrases, our rules, our norms, our customs, the holidays that we celebrate. This is a Christian nation. It still is. And we're seeing this great revival. We do not want to have to listen to the call of prayer. And I understand you have a different challenge as a lawyer to sort of interpret the laws and the statutes on the books. But what are the statutes on the books or what is lacking that would help protect and insulate our culture from, I would say, an increasingly hostile force that wants to assert cultural dominance on Americans and the West?

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, I think the idea of what you can do about different religions that would come in and really aren't religions, they're more government and culture, they don't assimilate. That's problem number one. Any religion that comes into the United States that doesn't want to assimilate, that's the whole purpose of the United States, is assimilation. It's the melting pot, not creating a new government from some other source. And so I think the issue there is not the religious freedom side, it's the immigration and who we're allowing in and making sure that we are the United States, that we have a certain history and tradition and approach, and we love diversity. If they're coming here for the ideals of America, freedom. But I will say.

[Andrew Colvett]

Well, I will say we don't have a problem with ethnic diversity necessarily. We have a problem with cultural diversity. Now, it's not to say that I don't love my Italian grandmother's cannolis. That's not what I'm saying. Obviously, there's certain things, but if you expect to come here into this country and you expect to then matriculate your son or daughter into my kid's school, and now we have to make a carve out for Muslim prayer five times a day that impacts my child's learning experience, or they have to now be educated on how to be incorporated into that experience, much like we've seen candidly with the secular cult of LGBTQ whatever, as Charlie always called the Alphabet Mafia. I mean, that was a coercive force. It still is in many schools. And you've had experience. Actually, I wanna play one of these cuts from yours. I wanna talk about that case. But this is a insidious, cultural coercive force that we have to. Yes, the immigration is key. And I totally agree with that. We've been hitting that hard for a long time on the show. We're doing 1.2 million green cards a year and we don't vet for American values. We don't vet for anything like that because we're a bunch of suckers and we get taken advantage of. And my argument is, can we at least as a first step go back to pre1990 immigration act with George H.W. bush, which took it from 500,000 green cards a year to 1.2 million. We do not need the state of Montana every year in this country or the state of Arkansas every three years in this country with legal immigrants, especially as AI is coming. I mean, we're already seeing. Amazon has just announced they're going to probably cut about 600,000 jobs and replace them with robots over the next couple years. I mean, so this is coming. We do not need this level of immigration, but the cultural implications are unavoidable. Right. And so I totally agree. Yes, let's deal with the immigration thing first. But we already have a problem that's here, or at least potential conflicts of interest that are here. And you see that with the Mehdi Hasan clip. So I'm just trying to drill down on this piece of do we have more because we have more precedent historically. Do we have more freedoms? Do we have more rights to this than.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, there's going to be more practices that are more consistent with the Judeo Christian heritage or the founding that are going to be laid in, that are not going to. That wouldn't be part of history, tradition from other religions. They're not going to be. So they're not going to be automatically presumptively. Now, again, what we're talking about here, though, is not practices of individuals. It's when you involve the government. That's what the whole issue with Coach Kennedy's case and this idea of, you know, of you're not doing the lemon approach where, oh, there's your own government grounds. Well, you know, gosh, you can't do any of this religious stuff. They said, no, no, as long as it's part of our tradition. Now, I say all this. We're about to argue a case at the Supreme Court in less than two months over whether you have a right to share your faith in a public park. So you begin to wonder. Sometimes we begin to lose who we are as a country. But I feel good, and I'm very hopeful we'll win that case. But. So that's different. But let's go to religious freedom itself. Not with the. On the government lawn or whatever else is. I really believe that religious freedom wins out. It's kind of like free speech. If somebody's saying something you don't agree with, the answer is not for the government to stop the other.

[Andrew Colvett]

It's more speech.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Let's speak the truth, Right? And it's the same way with religious freedom. Especially as a Christian. I believe, man, you allow there to be freedom. I think that I have the truth and the Holy Spirit on my side, and you got no chance on the other side.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right?

[Kelly Shackelford]

So that's what I want. So that's one of the beautiful things about the Coach Kennedy case is all these things that we haven't been allowed to do that's created almost a naked public square. Right? We should be. I mean, I love the fact that. That we can have a nativity scene at Christmas on the government lawn. We can have a menorah for Hanukkah, and we begin to remember those moral and religious roots of our country. And it's not this sort of naked public square like we're moving into Marxism or something. Is. We actually have a different mindset that actually thinks there is truth that is not about, you know, the oppressed versus the oppressor. It's very different. It's. Every person is valuable in the eyes of God. You know, all those principles start to flood back into our country. But when we remove those from the public arena, we begin to lose those. When you push the Ten Commandments in the closet and you do all these things, which is why I love. If you've seen a number of states are now passing laws, they're putting up Ten Commandments posters in their schools, and they're teaching about these things as part of our history and traditions and the beginning of our laws and our thoughts in our country, that'll really change us, I think, long term. And I would much rather have that approach that allows for more freedom, even if there's, you know, some things that maybe people don't like, as long as they're not infringing other people's freedoms. You know, they're welcome to go live their lives.

[Andrew Colvett]

I wonder if you could make the argument that, you know, the Muslim call to prayer five times a day is infringing on my freedom not to have to hear it. Although they would say the same thing about church bells, which is objectively a beautiful thing to hear. I mean, you know, I mean, I would argue that even Muslims would think, you know, oh, that's a nice sounding tone. Or maybe they don't, maybe they just hear info.

[Kelly Shackelford]

I think they'll have to have neutral on that. I think they'll have to have a neutral law, whatever it is. Right. If it's a noise level, if it's the number of times a day, something. I mean, people. There is a right, somewhat. I mean, you would want to make that a right in your community to not be disrupted by sounds all day. Right. I mean it would be miserable if you're right next to one of these places and you couldn't do your business.

[Andrew Colvett]

Of course. No, of course. So.

[Kelly Shackelford]

But those laws would have to be objective. It couldn't be, well, this religion can't do it. In this religion.

[Andrew Colvett]

I don't think that's going to be a very satisfying answer for somebody. I understand, I understand that you are bound by the laws and you have to work within a legal construct. So I'm not, this is not pointed at you. I understand, you're kind of helping me navigate through what's possible, what's not. But I think you're right. I mean ultimately this is a cultural issue that starts with immigration. Absolutely. And that's we're gonna have to get to. Now I wanna pivot somewhat to this. So the President has formed a commission. Religious Liberty Commission. Yes, tell us about that. Cuz you are directly involved in that.

[Kelly Shackelford]

It's the first time it's ever been done in the United States. Commissions generally report to like an agency or department or something and I think they send a report and it disappears in the back of some room. This one's really different. The charter of the commission is specifically to report directly and only to the President of the United States. And we have to do this by July 4th of our 250th, which is the 250th celebration of religious freedom and the freedom of our country.

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[Rodney Williams]

I'm Rodney Williams.

[Travis Holloway]

And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break.

[Rodney Williams]

Let's be honest, building wealth doesn't look the same for everyone. It's not just about saving. It's about investing. It's about navigating systems that weren't built for you, embracing your hustle, and relying on your community to create something bigger.

[Travis Holloway]

And that's exactly why we created the Wealth Break. We made something different, something more human. It's not just another financial podcast. It's a conversation about real life, real struggles and real wins.

[Rodney Williams]

We're here to talk about the journey. You're hearing from people who've broken barriers, found creative ways to succeed, and learn to build wealth on their terms. Whether it's the first time homeowner, a gig worker, or someone turning a side hustle into a six figure business, we're bringing you their stories.

[Travis Holloway]

And we're not stopping at success stories. We're breaking down the realities. Like what it means to take risks, how to navigate failure, and why resilience matters. Because wealth isn't about money. It's about creating a life where you can thrive and help others to do the same.

[Rodney Williams]

So if you're ready for a podcast as much about people as it is about money, you're in the right place.

[Travis Holloway]

Listen to the Wealth Brave podcast on the iHeartRadio app.

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[Charlie Kirk]

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[Kelly Shackelford]

And our job is to give him direct recommendations on what he can do to secure religious freedom for the future of our country. And so we're holding hearings and we're hearing testimony. I think most people are shocked when they hear what's going on around the country. And we're coming up with some recommendations and I have no doubt with this president that our recommendations will not be executed.

[Andrew Colvett]

You told me some crazy, crazy stories. Let's start with the woman that got, she was a teacher that got fired for having a cross at her desk.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, she's. This is still going on. It's in Connecticut. Marisol Castro, she's a wonderful woman, 33 years teaching. And if you, you could see the pictures, you know, if you see it online, they've got a desk and they've got a little wall behind them that's their personal wall. They put what, there's stuff on there and you know, it's up in Connecticut. There's Yankees banners, there's, you know, Yodas, there's all kinds of stuff. I Mean, you could put a gay pride flag if you wanted. But there's one thing that's not allowed. She has a little cross. It's not that big. It's a little cross in the midst of all those personal things. So principal, vice principal, everybody comes flooding into a room saying, you take that down. And she's very intimidated by this. You know, she's scared. And they say, I'll tell you what, we'll let you put it under your desk. And they had her mount it under her desk.

[Andrew Colvett]

There's literally a verse for this. Like, don't put it under a bushel. Like, you know, it's like, no, you're right.

[Kelly Shackelford]

You're exact.

[Andrew Colvett]

Because she goes home, we have these images. So the studio's gonna put them up in just a second.

[Kelly Shackelford]

You can see.

[Andrew Colvett]

Gosh, she looks like such a sweetheart. I'm just looking at this. Show a picture of this woman. Her name's what, Marissa?

[Kelly Shackelford]

Marisa. Marisol Castro.

[Andrew Colvett]

Marisol.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Marisol Castro.

[Andrew Colvett]

Marisol Castro. And then here, go to. Go to 264. This is the picture of the cross in question. You can see it. It's just like. So where she would sit, it's almost just down to her right side. And that was a violation, but they.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Told her to put it under her desk. Like, on the side inside, under her desk.

[Andrew Colvett]

There is a picture.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, there's a picture of that, too. And. And she, you know, she was intimidated. All these bosses come in, and so she goes home and just starts weeping. And as she says, as she always prays to Papa, God, she said, papa, God, I failed you. And when I go back tomorrow, I'm going to do it right. I'm putting the cross back up. And she went back, and you can see that cross under the desk. She pulled it off the desk, she put it back up on her board, and they walked.

[Andrew Colvett]

And she got suspended.

[Kelly Shackelford]

They walked her out of the school with all of her stuff in a box like a crack criminal. And they're still refusing to back down. And again, think of, oh, separation of church and state. It's like, look at the Coach Kennedy opinion, okay? The whole argument they were making there was, well, the kids might see him pray. It's like. And the Supreme Court said, so, you know, I mean, he could wear a dress, but you can't watch him pray. Of course he could pray. And so there's nothing wrong with a teacher being a person of faith. Having a cross around their neck, whatever, that's part of life. And it's like they can't even read the Supreme Court decision they have. We've sent it to them. This is the hostility that goes on to teachers, to kids, to parents around the country that we have to fight every day all over the country.

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah. I mean, and then there's this. I mean, she's just such a sweetheart, I hope. I mean, it sounds like you guys already should have dealt with this, with the Lemon case, where you got that reverse with Coach Kennedy.

[Kelly Shackelford]

All of this should take care of it. But we're fighting. We have one of the biggest law firms in the world joined us against this school district, but they're refusing to back down. And so we're still in court. And if people. I will say this, they could go to the Religious Liberty Commission and watch any of the past hearings. They're really fascinating. I would encourage people to do that. And her testimony, which is about four to five minutes long, it was spellbound. I mean, it had the whole place, hundreds and hundreds of people with their mouth open, just floored. In fact, I didn't see a woman in the room who didn't have a tissue. It was really powerful.

[Andrew Colvett]

She spoke from her heart, talking about, I failed you, Papa Guy. I mean, that's gut wrenching to just hear you even say that, because, you know, that her faith was so sincere that she knew not to hide her faith or let them persecute her. And so she felt guilty. But I'm so proud of her as a brother in Christ, God bless her.

[Kelly Shackelford]

And you know what? Like, that's not the type of teachers we want for us.

[Andrew Colvett]

Of course, these are the people that you do want leading our children, not the ones that are doing hand signs to their neck. At Nathan Hale Elementary, Lucy Martinez, that still hasn't been fired as of this recording at least. And so we're hoping that that happens. And by the way, you know, some people are like, oh, well, you know, they're upset that we're saying, hey, if you celebrated Charlie Kirk's murder, that you should not be employed to teach our school at our schools, whether that be K through 8, or it be a university like Illinois State, where there was a teacher's assistant who tried to flip over one of the tables of our kids that were tabling out in the square. And that teaching assistant has been fired by Illinois State University, God bless them. And here's another Illinois example. And this Lucy Martinez should be fired because you failed a fundamental decency test. I call it Life's Pop Quiz. It's like, how do you find out the quality of the water in a glass and it gets bumped, it spills out and you find out what's inside. Is it gonna poison you? Is it clean? Is it whatever? Well, she got bumped and what spilled out was vile garbage. And I'm sorry, but that reveals character. You're not fit to be around students. And so some people are like, well you can't be calling for these people to get fired. And I'm like, well listen, just because you're upset that somebody's gonna lose their job for something. Well guess what? Charlie lost his life for it. So don't give me that. Sometimes there are consequences for your actions and this should be one of those examples.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Celebrating anybody's death is unacceptable.

[Andrew Colvett]

Totally. There's gotta be a line.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Doesn't matter who you are. It's unacceptable in any job in this country.

[Andrew Colvett]

1,000%.

[Kelly Shackelford]

I mean we, you know, that should be automatic.

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah, especially somebody as good and wonderful and as decent. I understand people have different algorithms and they get fed all of this stuff. Which is why we've made it a point on the show to just debunk these out of context clips or the divorce from the argument that preceded it for 15 minutes and they take one little snippet and these people go around saying Charlie was a bigot or misogynist or something. It's infuriating. There's another story, however, that I wanted to get to because you had told me about it. I actually still haven't seen the clip, but apparently it went viral. So you guys are having this commission and it's a hearing.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, it's a hearing.

[Andrew Colvett]

Maybe paint the scene. Cause this young man ended up wowing everybody.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah, it's we. That one was the day the. That day was on the rights of students at public schools and the rights of parents. So we heard some gut wrenching stories. I mean, a mom who had her daughter transition behind her back and they were keeping her in the dark and I mean it's just horrible stuff you're hearing. But the president shows up and out of all the people that are going to testify, he picks one person. And the person he picked is when he was. He was 12 at this hearing, but he was 11 when this happened. This is in Encinitas, California. They forced in this school all the 5th graders to read a book called My Shadow is Pink to their kindergarten buddies.

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[Rodney Williams]

I'm Rodney Williams.

[Travis Holloway]

And I'm Travis Holloway. Welcome to the Wealth Break.

[Rodney Williams]

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[Andrew Colvett]

All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. I'm Andrew Colvett, executive producer of this show. We have a special episode for you guys and it's all about autism. This is a conversation that has become very much front and center in the national dialogue, of course, with the MAHA movement, RFK studies, and this discussion about Tylenol and potential treatments for it. And so we wanted to make sure that we address this issue head on. So you guys have all the information that you need in order to make wise decisions for yourself, for your family, for your kids. And to help me make sense of this, is going to be a very special guest, Dr. Richard Fry. You are a medical doctor. You're a PhD, you're a pediatric neurologist studying treatments for kids with autism. You're also the director of research at the Rossignol Medical center. And you are the president of the Autism Discovery and Treatment Foundation. Very, very amazing resume. That you got there. And we also have Riley Marty, who's actually on team as well. Riley is a passionate, passionate advocate for, I think it'd be safe to say, for doing this the right way, the right studies. You and your husband Ryan both have some sort of medical background in studies in school and that sort of thing. And so you're kind of our resident expert. So I wanted Riley to be here with me as we go through this very important topic, but. Dr. Richard Fry, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, thank you so much. Really. Thanks for having me.

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah, absolutely. And so, as I understand it, you have been way out front on this issue in a way that it was, you know, you almost have to use that expression, you know, they're not crazy, they're just early. That was kind of you, right? You were studying autism and ways to treat autism before it became part of our zeitgeist, part of our national dialogue. Tell me, what made you start in this way? When did you start noticing that autism rates were increasing? And why did you decide to get so involved in this area of study?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, no, I appreciate the question. And it's. I like to say autism found me, you know, so I was, you know, very interested in neuroscience. I was talking to Riley before and, you know, very interested in how the brain works and the wiring of the brain. But being a doctor, you know, you think of things beyond just kind of academics of, you know, the. The interesting science of it, of how to make kiddos better. So I was actually very interested in learning disabilities when I was in residency, and I did a fellowship in learning disabilities and behavioral neurology. But what was happening is, you know, I was interested in dyslexia, but, you know, I was also a doctor. And as a doctor, you know, when I'd see patients, there was a lot of kids with dyslexia and learning disabilities that would come to me. What was happening. This was the early 2000s, and I was a fellow, you know, and all these. Autism was being recognized more and more. So parents were bringing their children to the neurologist to say, my child has autism. You know, what can I do about it? And, of course, nobody really knew all that much about it, how to treat it or anything. And when they come to the department, what do you do if, you know, nobody really knows? You give the patient to the fellow, right. See what they can figure out. And so parents would come to me and they would say, well, my child just got diagnosed with autism. They say they don't know what causes it, and they don't really know what to do about it, but probably has something to do with the brain, so maybe you can figure it out. And I kind of took it as a challenge because I wanted to make these kiddos better. And I was doing my residency in neurology, so we knew how to do EEGs to look at seizure activity. And we know that some kiddos with autism have strange type of seizure, type of phenomenon. So I knew I could do an eeg. And then a friend of mine had a child with autism who had a mitochondrial disorder. And I had been very actually interested in mitochondrial disorders when I was in pediatrics. So I said, well, I know how to test for that. Well, I can do that. So I can do an eeg. I could look for mitochondrial disorder. And then it went on to get a job. And so in academia, I was in academia for about 20 years. And I'd go to the department, of course, and my colleagues would say, you know something about autism, because I have a whole clinic full of them and I have no idea what to do with these kiddos. So they gave me all their kids with autism. And finally I had to make my own clinic where I was seeing pretty much only kids with autism. And as I saw more and more kids, I started to figure out other things to do. And as you know, as neurologists, one of the things we do when we can't figure things out is we do what we call lumbar puncture to look at the chemistry in the brain to see if there's something wrong with the chemistry. And I was at a very big center, and so we were very good at doing these things. So I'd send kids for these lumbar punctures. And I noticed that the biochemical findings were abnormal. And I found a couple of kids that had low folate in their nervous system. And I looked at it about the same time. Really cerebral folate deficiency was really described in about 2005. So this is just a little bit about the same time. I said, this brand new research, I said, oh, maybe I can treat it with this drug glucovorin. And I did. And the kiddos had some amazing results.

[Andrew Colvett]

Well, and I want to pause you right there because I actually have a personal experience with this. Not me, not my family. But it was Riley's been helping get this interview set up and kind of telling me some of the backstory. And I was like, I'm literally texting with a dear friend whose son is non verbal, four or five years old, and all of A sudden is taking this drug and is adding words, additional words to his vocabulary. He literally didn't talk. And now all of a sudden, he's using multiple, multiple new words every week. And the parents are ecstatic, as you might imagine. But let's. Before we get to the Luke of Orin conversation, I want to kind of take a step back because Charlie had somebody on this show named Cray Moo. He's got a Twitter account, X account, and he's kind of like a statistician almost. He looks at big, broad things. And they discussed this wasn't that long ago. They discussed whether or not what we're calling this rise in autism, is it more statistic? Is it more because we broaden the definition of what autism is, or is it really, really, truly. What are they saying? What are the rates in California, 1 in 22 kids or something like that? In California, it's 1 in 30 across the nation, something approximately like that. I mean, is it maybe a bit of both that we've opened the aperture and now we're considering more kids with learning disabilities or what have you, autistic, and we just simply didn't classify them that way. So it's misrepresenting the numbers, or is it also that there just simply are more kids that are autistic?

[Charlie Kirk]

I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah. I know when we went from the different definitions, so we used something called the Diagnostic Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders to diagnose the DSM, we went from the DSM 4 to 5. We actually thought it was going to be more strict and that we'd lose. But instead we went the opposite way. And so they have studies that show.

[Andrew Colvett]

Who determines the definitions.

[Charlie Kirk]

So that's a group of experts that look at these different symptoms and they decide how you can best define these. And that's one thing that we have to understand. Yeah. And it's a limitation of our diagnostic methods. So the DSM looks at behavior. So all we look at is behavior. And when these behaviors come together, we say it's a certain disorder. And we don't always look at the underlying biology. And that's something that's really lagged behind. Right. And it's many times thought, you know, for a long time thought maybe there wasn't any biology to it. But we learn more and more that there is biology. And the more we look into it, we find out that there's actually medical causes that are causing. Causing the brain and these behaviors to actually occur. So right now we're still Left at that point where we're using this behavioral definition without having any blood tests or scans or anything.

[Andrew Colvett]

So it's the American Psychiatric association, which determines the DSM guidelines.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly.

[Andrew Colvett]

So you're saying that they are looking at behavioral outcomes and not looking at the underlying biology or in this case, blood work or hormones, whatever that you're noticing that is deficient. So there's underlying. But in an even deeper sense, is there something that's causing the underlying abnormal situation? Whether it's. You were talking about folates, is it our diet, is it toxins in the environment, is it plastics? I mean, do we know more about what these underlying causes are?

[Charlie Kirk]

I think what we know is that it's of kind complex, you know, but definitely there are predispositions, sometimes genetic predispositions. And there's.

[Andrew Colvett]

Those wouldn't have changed between 1950 and.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, this is the very interesting thing. Yeah, so this is the interesting thing, and what I've started to talk about a lot is this fact that you know a lot of people. For a long time, for the last 20 years, we've assumed that autism is genetic because it's very heritable, Relentless in spirit. You're listening to the Charlie Kirk show, okay. And we think that most of what's heritable is genetic, and that's not completely true. And that things that are genetic are untreatable. Both of those things are not true. So first of all, what we're learning is those genetic mutations are what we call de novo. So they're non inherited, they're new mutations. So it's a kind of interesting way to try to think about it. Because yes, autism is genetic, but it's also environmental because you have to get those mutations somewhere.

[Andrew Colvett]

Okay, and that's an interesting question. When you're talking about mutations, is that something that will happen in the parent's life? So they're having kids, let's say at 30, but something happened between 20 and 25 and a genetic mutation happened and then they pass that on, or is it happening in conception?

[Charlie Kirk]

So all of the above. And it's different for men and women because for females their eggs are actually made when they're developing in their mother's womb. So you can go back to their mother, the grandmother. And men, we're making sperm all the time. So actually we can have mutations throughout our life.

[Andrew Colvett]

Do we know what causes mutations?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, there's all types of environmental toxins, so I think we can look at one. There's certain types of toxins in the environment that we're exposed to that cause problems. But there's also the other aspect of the nutritional aspect of it, and that's kind of where the folate comes into it too, is because we know that folate abnormalities will cause problems with replicating DNA. So we know that there's two sides of it. One, not having enough of good stuff and having too much of bad stuff. So these are very complex. So that's why you can't really say it's this or it's that. It's really this complex soup of things that have changed in our society. Both probably poor nutrition and also maybe more toxins, too.

[Andrew Colvett]

So could you give me a couple of examples of real lived experiences that would actually change somebody's genetics? Because you're right, we sort of think of genetics as being the set, you know, formula you've got. This is your sequence of DNA. It's set for life. You're saying those genetic mutations can happen in a human during lived experience. Would it be the cleaners that you use inside your home? Is it smoking? Is it drinking too much? Is it a traumatic experience? Is it stress? What can make somebody's.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, all of the above.

[Andrew Colvett]

Right.

[Charlie Kirk]

I mean, that's where we think of. And not only autism, but cancer. Right. And many times we have cancer because something has happened to the genetics of some of the cells, and it's more of the cells that are replicating. So some of our cells replicate. You've made them, they're there. But there's also cells that renew themselves. And many of those are the ones that are more likely to have those changes because they're making new DNA all the time. And what are those for men that's making the reproductive cells, the sperm, we're making them all the time. So those are going to be more susceptible to having those mutations along the way.

[Andrew Colvett]

Understood. Now that's super helpful to know. So it's basically like a very complex situation. Just got way more complicated because it's now more difficult because of our evolving understanding of the way the human genome works and the way cell replication works and DNA replication works, that you could identify multiple nodes along the life cycle of reproduction and development where you could isolate a potential mutation which could then lead to autism or other abnormalities.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. And then we find that's just one piece of it. It's the genetics. Sometimes there's pure genetic syndromes. We know where it can be the genes that are very. But then more likely it's a genetic predisposition. And then there's some type of environmental agent that interacts with that to predispose to change the way our bodies work. And we know that one of those major, you know, the most, probably the most influential environment you have is those nine months in your mother's belly, you know, so we know that that influences the way that the baby develops. And you know, there's been many links to certain types of both, of course, low folate, but also certain types of environmental agents that can change the way that those cells develop. It can change the physiology. And that's one of the mysteries we think of, you know, how do we have this heritability, right, without having necessarily those genetic mutations is because much of what we think is happening is that the environment in the mother is changing the way the baby develops. So you're actually inheriting changes that are due to the environment you had in your mother's womb. And so say if the mother has a problem with having processing folates, let's say that's going to be transmitted to the baby. So the baby is going to develop that way with abnormal folate metabolism and that baby is going to change its development. Same thing with other types of metabolic disorders which we find that run in families. That that environment in the mother's womb is going to be different. The fuels that the baby gets, the different types of metabolites that may be off because the mother isn't metabolizing things as well, that changes the way the baby develops. For example, one of the studies that we did, and this is associated with another study, it was a really good study by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Some of my colleagues there, they did some really amazing research where they actually can take baby teeth, and baby teeth start to develop at the end of the first trimester. So what you can do is you can go back and look at what's deposited in that teeth and tell what toxins, but also what nutrients the baby was exposed to. Interesting. And so one of the things, almost.

[Andrew Colvett]

Like rings on a tree.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And so one of the first studies, they did a very, very nice study that was published in Nature, one of the best journals, where they showed out of twins, that the twin that developed autism, that they were deficient in zinc and manganese in I think about the second or third trimester. So for some reason that nutrient wasn't getting to that baby and there was changes in the physiology of that baby. We actually showed, when we, you know, we're very interested in mitochondrial function, we showed that the function of the mitochondria as A child was actually correlated with those levels of manganese and zinc that they had prenatally. So this is a change that happened prenatally that then probably programmed the physiology, how the body works long term.

[Andrew Colvett]

So what was the difference? Could they tell between the two twins?

[Charlie Kirk]

So, yeah, so that was divided mitochondria. So we found that, well, they found that there was the zinc and manganese, and we found that those nutrients correlated with mitochondrial function later on in life.

[Andrew Colvett]

And was that a genetic, I guess, predisposition of the autistic?

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. So we don't. And so that's still an open question. Why did that twin, you know, get more of those nutrients or less? Letting everyone know, socialism sucks, the Jolly Kirk show. All we know is that they tended to get more or less of those nutrients for some reason. And so then you have to go back and ask why. Why was one delivered to one child and not the other?

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah.

[TJ Maxx Announcer]

So in regards to mitochondrial diseases, if you are pre, if a mom is predisposed to a mitochondrial X linked disease, what would you suggest? Or is there anything that that mom can do if she's planning on having a baby, if she's currently pregnant, to help minimize those risks of the baby inheriting that disease?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, well, first of all, if it's a genetic disease, so we divide these into what we call mitochondrial disease and mitochondrial dysfunction. So what we find is that some type of mitochondrial disease is due to actually problems with the genesis, you know, and the genes that run the mitochondria. What we're finding is that there's many other diseases, including autism, where the mitochondria isn't working well because other parts of the body aren't working well. So it's trying to compensate for other factors that are not working correctly in the cell. So it might be working harder. So we actually find that some kids with autism, their mitochondria actually works twice as hard as it should be. And it puts it in, actually in a more vulnerable state, is that we found some have this more mitochondria that work not very well, and that's more of the mitochondrial disease standpoint. So there's two aspects of it. If a mother has mitochondrial disease, if the child has that gene, then they're going to be more predisposed for their child's body not to work well. But if they don't have that gene, we have to make sure that the abnormalities of metabolism in the mother is not interfering with the baby, the way the baby grows.

[Andrew Colvett]

So is this like the new front line? The Forefront of the research that's going on with autism is how to identify these abnormalities prenatally and treat them in the womb.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right, exactly right. Preconception, you know, so if we can figure out, you know, so even further back. Right. So we're finding is that many of these metabolic disorders and inflammatory disorders run in families, you know, and they may be influencing the baby and when the baby's growing, you know, prenatally. But if you can go back and identify those things before time, you know, and control them, then you have a much better chance of the child.

[Andrew Colvett]

Could it be supplements?

[Charlie Kirk]

It could be supplements, yeah. So there's really.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Yeah.

[Andrew Colvett]

What are the treatments?

[Charlie Kirk]

So I would say for really very simple things. Okay. In this and you know, and we've written some blogs on this that it's not even that difficult because we know things that predispose to autism and intellectual disability. You know, folate, you know, iron, iron deficiency, you know, thyroid abnormalities, you know, and carnitine. Carnitine's really, that's a really important vitamin that helps with what we call fatty acid metabolism, but it's also important for clearing a lot of toxic molecules from your body. So it's really important.

[Andrew Colvett]

So I have like a thousand questions. I'm sorry, I just like my brain is spinning. So say you're 28 year old couple and you're thinking we're about ready to start a family. Maybe you're 25, could they go to a doctor like you and be like, hey, run some tests, see what I'm predisposed to. And you would do some blood work and you would test their levels and you'd be like, okay, you're good, good, good. There's a little bit of lightness here. You're not in a folate or there may be some indications there's a mitochondrial situation or this vitamin, I can't even remember the carnitine. Yeah, carnitine. So here's some supplements. Try and switch your diet like this. I mean is that essentially, you know, you've got a thyroid situation. So we want to deal with it and you would do this pre trying to conceive a child and.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, so that's the idea is that preconception. You actually look at how the body is working to optimize the way the body works and then you do things that are smart. There's another foundation I work with called the Neurologic Health Foundation. We have something called the Healthy Child Guide. And so what we did is really review the literature to see what evidence there is Even vitamin D. So there's really simple things.

[Andrew Colvett]

Charlie talked about vitamin D all the time. It was mostly about COVID But, yeah, he was a big believer in it, so.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, but these are simple things that you don't have to do any fancy tests or anything. They're very simple things that if you watch and you make sure you get ahead of the game, that you can increase the chances of your child being healthy without chronic disease. We find a lot of these things not only related to autism, but other types of chronic disease, especially inflammatory disease like asthma and eczema and all these other.

[Andrew Colvett]

So are there genetic markers that you could also screen for? Like, when me and my wife, we had our first child, our daughter.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Our.

[Andrew Colvett]

Ob gyn did a genetic screen to see if we had any inheritable diseases. We didn't, thank God. But could you do a test like that? That is a new iteration of it that would test for. Does that test exist when it comes to autism to see how likely you might be in certain risk factors or whatever?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, so there's a difference between two things. There's mutations. So when they do those genetic tests, they look for things called mutations, and those are changes in the genome that will absolutely cause some type of disease.

[Andrew Colvett]

If both parents usually share the same marker, Right?

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly. But now we're looking at things called polymorphisms. So polymorphisms are small changes in the gene that are very common and make your body work better or worse. Okay. And you can. What we try and do is look at these changes to see how maybe some of, you know, if you have a pathway that has a number of weak spots, weak links maybe need to be supplemented in one way or the other, you know, and this is. And it's very complex. So we combine this with not only looking at the genetic changes, because one of the problems with looking at combinations of genetic changes. Right. Is you have 23,000 genes in your body. So, you know, it's hard enough to look at all those 23,000 genes. Think if you're going to start to look at all those combinations, you know, so this is what's really kind of limited us in a lot of ways. So you have to be smart in how you look at those things, and then you really have to look at the biochemistry that is, what do those changes do to the function of the cell? So it takes a lot of science to come up with really very definite recommendations. So now we know some of these polymorphisms, how things work a little bit worse or better, but still the science of what that solution is.

[Andrew Colvett]

Is still developing.

[Charlie Kirk]

Is still developing.

[Andrew Colvett]

But that's what you are doing. That is the purpose almost of your professional career. Right. Looking how to take the science and then apply useful treatments.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly. And then if we can do things. Yeah. And that's the thing, is that these things may be preventable. And that's the only way we're going to reverse the trends right now.

[Andrew Colvett]

Just one other question on the trends. Do you notice a difference in boys versus girls as far as autism rates? It seems to be my impression at least is more boys are getting.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, definitely more boys have autism, are diagnosed with autism in girls. And there's different theories of why that, you know, maybe.

[Andrew Colvett]

Which theory do you prescribe to most? Or are you open minded?

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm open minded, yeah.

[Andrew Colvett]

What are some of the theories?

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, I mean, some people think that it has to do with changes in the endocrine system. So certain types of toxins can be endocrine modulators that change things. It may be that girls are more resilient, you know, because of that xy. Right. They have two X chromosomes, so they're more resilient.

[Andrew Colvett]

They double up the redundancy. They have more redundancy baked in.

[Charlie Kirk]

They think that. And some people just think that women are more. Their brains are more socially wired, so it's harder for their brains to change. So they have less social abilities. They kind of are compensated already.

[Andrew Colvett]

Interesting. So. And this is. Why don't you come in here, Riley, and explain. Explain for our audience, because I know it enough to be, I would say 50% right here. But essentially there was a big press conference that came out earlier in the year. Rfk. It must have been a cabinet meeting. Basically said, we're doing a moonshot. We're gonna find out what the cause of autism is. And this is gonna take our conversation into this folate, Tylenol, this drug that we talked about. I always forget the name Lucavorin. Lucavorin, which is apparently amazing for a subset of autistic conditions. So give us the update of the FDA. Dr. Marty Makary came out and gave some presentation recently, and I think it sparked as much confusion as it did hope and clarification. So walk us through what he announced.

[TJ Maxx Announcer]

Towards the end of September. RFK, as well as FDA Commissioner, Dr. McCarrick. How do you say his name?

[Andrew Colvett]

Makary.

[TJ Maxx Announcer]

Makary had announced this approval, FDA approval for Leucavorin to treat kids with autism. I think a lot of people thought at the time it wasn't very clarified as to if this is for all autism cases or if this is just for a subset, if you could go into detail on how this isn't necessarily a cure all for autism, but it is a step in the right direction for where we are right now.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

So, yeah, to clarify the announcement, the FDA is not approving it for autism, so they are approving it for genetically confirmed cerebral folate deficiency. And so that's kind of the model, as we think. Many kids with autism have cerebral folate deficiency, or we call insufficiency not enough folate. So it's very different. The genetically confirmed cerebral folate deficiency, there's about 47 cases actually described.

[Andrew Colvett]

So 47 kids are now approved to take leucoporin.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. From the fda, at least from the fda. And you can understand, I mean, if they were to say, oh, I'm just gonna suddenly approve this drug, you know, I mean, that would just open up a, you know, Pandora's box of, you know, so what they did is they looked at these 47 cases, you know, that. And when you have that, you know, those few cases, they're what we call case studies. So we have very dense clinical data that shows, okay, you give this medication, this is exactly what it does to the body, you know, so we can definitely say, you know, why this happened. And this actually was a therapeutic agent. So when you look at large numbers, like kids with autism, you don't have that very granular data where you can see that. So the idea of leucovorin. So leucovorin is a type of folate, vitamin B9. And it's really important for everybody to understand that leucovorin and what we call reduced folates are very different than folic acid. So we think of folic acid. That's the folate that we take. Folic acid is the synthetic form of the drug. And there's certain caveats because of that. Because of that, our body has to actually activate it for folic acid to be useful in the body. And we have an upper limit to how much we can activate. And certain, you know, estimates have put that at about 400 micrograms, which is what's in kind of a high dose multivitamin. So if you need extra folate in your body, if you have some type of folate deficiency or your body systems need extra folate, you can't do that with folic acid because you can only process so much. Exactly, exactly. So you have to use special types of folate like leucovorin. Some people use 5 methy tetrahydrofolin.

[Andrew Colvett]

You.

[Charlie Kirk]

Know, leukovorin is something that's been around for ages, 80 years almost. So it's been used to treat, to rescue the body from the side effects of chemotherapy. Okay, so we've used it for 80 years in oncology. If we've injected it, given ITV, given.

[Andrew Colvett]

It orally, was that because that treatment created a folate?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So we know that cancer cells, one of the ways that they grow quickly is that they need a lot of folate. So one of the treatments is to block folate, but then you don't want the body to get sick, so you have to supplement folate.

[Andrew Colvett]

Interesting.

[Charlie Kirk]

So leucovorin has been around a long time. So that's one of the reasons that it was started to be used, because it's really a known quantity. So that's great. We're starting out with something that we know. So what was found is that some kiddos with autism had what we call cerebral folate deficiency. And this was going back to about 2005 or so.

[Andrew Colvett]

These are the 47 cases.

[Charlie Kirk]

So. Yeah, well, it's a small subset. Well, no, it's actually not the 47 cases, because it's very interesting when this was first discovered that there was low folate, as I had mentioned, we do lumbar punctures. We find there's low folate. And so a doctor by the name of Dr. Rainmakers in Europe discovered this, and he noticed that these kids that either weren't developing or actually had regressed had lost skills. Very early on, he did lumbar puncture, and he found there was low folate. And we know that the major way that folate gets into the brain, because everything that gets to the brain has to be carried there. There's a big barrier is this thing called the folate receptor alpha. And so we said, okay, that was his first idea, was there must be a genetic problem with it. And so he sequenced the gene in these cases. He didn't find any genetic mutations. So that's when he collaborated with Dr. Edward Quattros, who's at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, who actually had been working on that same folate transport mechanism, but for women's health, and had discovered that there's this antibody that the body makes. So antibodies usually, you know, attack viruses and bacteria and such, but sometimes your body makes antibodies against yourself. So we found that some people had this antibody that attached to this mechanism, this pump that brings folate into the brain. And so they tested those kids for that Antibody. And they found out that, yes, indeed, most of those kids had this antibody. And that's the reason why folate wasn't getting into the brain.

[Kelly Shackelford]

Interesting.

[Andrew Colvett]

So how do you treat it then?

[Charlie Kirk]

That's whatso leucovorin. So what's interesting is, so the levels of folate in the brain are two to three times higher than they are in the blood. So what's important about the folate receptor alpha is that it actually pulls folate into the brain. So it has to pull it uphill. Right. Because of the higher concentration. So if that's not working, how do you get folate into the brain? Well, there's something called a reduced folate carrier, which is a backup system, but it doesn't like folate as much and it doesn't pump folate into the brain. It's kind of like a tube. So I say like the folate receptor alpha is kind of like a fire hose that puts folate into the brain. And the reduced folate carrier is like a straw. So now what we have to do is we have to push folate through that straw. And a special type of folate, it only transports reduced folate. So what we have to do is increase in the blood levels of reduced folate and essentially now push it into the brain.

[Andrew Colvett]

Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

To restore those levels in the brain.

[Andrew Colvett]

Well, how do you do that?

[Charlie Kirk]

And so that's where leucovorin comes in.

[Andrew Colvett]

Yeah. So is leucovorin just a special type? What was the second type of reduce.

[Charlie Kirk]

Reduced folate.

[Andrew Colvett]

Reduce folate. Is that what it is?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes, it's a special type.

[Andrew Colvett]

So you're just flooding the system with essentially.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Andrew Colvett]

Which is making it easier for this backup system to have enough to sort of push through the tube into the brain to balance out the chemistry in the brain.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly. And the great thing about B vitamins is they're what we call water soluble. So at the end of the day you pee them out.

[Andrew Colvett]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

So they have a, your body has a safety mechanism where you can't, they can't build up in your body. So that makes them very safe.

[Andrew Colvett]

Okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

And we say like the worst you can do is make expensive pee.

[Andrew Colvett]

Right, right, right, exactly. So this is kind of full circle to this. My, my friend's son, who is non verbal to 4 or 5 years old. And it obviously was terribly stressful for the parents and they were asking questions, was it because we got this vaccine, did we over. Those were where their heads went. Did we overdo the vaccines? And so Luca Vorin comes in within the Last, I guess, month. And all of a sudden verbal skills are developing with their son and they are over the moon, ecstatic. I mean, it's every day a new word or a couple new words. And I've seen some of these videos of the mom just so excited, you know, because she loves her little boy so much, of course. And all of a sudden watching and it's because of this drug. So you're saying that probably it's, or at least it's possible that this kid and I have not asked follow up questions of, you know, the diagnosis, but what you're seeing a lot is that there's actually an antibody that is working against the body's ability to get folate through mechanism one, the normal mechanism, into the brain, which is helping with verbal processing and social skills.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes. Yeah.

[Andrew Colvett]

Okay, so that's probably the diagnosis. You would probably guess.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. So what we find now, there's other reasons too. So that's kind of the most prevalent and straightforward reason now also, as I said, that this folate receptor alpha actually pulls folate into the brain. So that takes energy. So it ends up that if the mitochondria isn't working, that also that's another reason. And we found that in individuals with mitochondrial disorders that have cognitive issues, actually that that is the mechanism sometimes that they have some cognitive issues. And there's another mechanism that we can.

[Andrew Colvett]

Help those individuals describe what mitochondria is. Just for people who don't know, I mean, mitochondria is like a weird thing to me because it doesn't have its own DNA and it's like the power center of the cell. And I mean, there's like crazy theories about where mitochondria came from. And we don't need to go into that, but like just explain what mitochondria is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, so mitochondria, we think of it as the powerhouse of the cell. It makes the energy currency of the cell called ATP.

[Andrew Colvett]

ATP.

[Charlie Kirk]

So it takes, it can. Usually takes carbohydrates, but it takes fats also it can take amino acids and take all these things and it can make energy. But. And your cell has anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of mitochondria, depending on each cell. Each cell. Each cell. So you have many of them and.

[Andrew Colvett]

It'S different genetically from.

[Charlie Kirk]

So it has its own, it has its own genome too, which makes a.

[Andrew Colvett]

Complex situation incredibly much, much more complex because you not only have your DNA, then you have mitochondrial DNA.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, the mitochondrial. Which you inherit from your mother and then it ends up that not all the mitochondria that you have, if you have 100 mitochondria, not all of them may have the same DNA. Some may have mutations on it, and we call that heteroplasmy. So that makes it even more complex to understand how mitochondrial DNA and mitochondrial inheritance goes on top of what we call Mendelian inheritance. And the mitochondria, DNA also is very sensitive. It's more sensitive to environmental stressors.

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