An Olympic Triumph and Mexican Mayhem

Summary

The Charlie Kirk Show
Episode: "An Olympic Triumph and Mexican Mayhem"
Date: February 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show revolves around two central themes:

• The U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal triumph over Canada at the 2026 Olympics—a moment the hosts see as a watershed in American sports and patriotism.
• The escalating drug cartel violence and political upheaval in Mexico, following the death of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader "El Mencho,” as well as the broader implications for U.S. border security and American domestic policy.

Later, guest Steve Dace joins to discuss generational dynamics on the right, the crisis of young men, the impacts of foreign and domestic policy, and the ramifications of rising nihilism and violence in American political culture.

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Olympic Triumph: U.S. Hockey Gold Over Canada

Discussion Highlights

• The hosts celebrate Team USA’s overtime victory against Canada in men’s hockey, calling it a top-10 American sports moment.
• The game is framed as symbolizing deeper, ideological clashes: defeating "Canadian turbo-wokeism" the way the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” team beat Soviet communism.
• The emergence of Jack Hughes as a national hero—highlighting his performance, his resilience after a bloody penalty, and his family’s deep roots in USA Hockey.
• Emotional stories, including the team honoring the late Johnny Gaudreau’s family.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “In 1980, we defeated Soviet communism; this time we defeated basically the 2026 version of Soviet communism, which is basically hyper gay, hyper wokeism. Canadian turbo wokeism.” — C (02:08)
• “So proud to be American today. He said, you know, that's a great Canadian team over there, but this is American hockey. We did this for the country.” — B (03:10)
• “I'm lucky I'm from the best country in the world. We got great dentists there, too. So I'm lucky I'm American and they're gonna fix me right up.” — Jack Hughes, quoted by D (05:40)

Timestamps

• [02:55] Jack Hughes post-game: “This is all about our country right now…”
• [05:40] Jack Hughes jokes about American dentists after losing teeth in the game.
• [06:00–06:51] The team honors Johnny Gaudreau’s (Johnny Hockey) family.

Cultural & Political Resonance

• Team USA's success is celebrated as a "patriotic" antidote to the negative coverage around some "woke" Olympic athletes.
• The moment is seen as a rare unifying event offering “hope and national pride” in contrast to political divisions.
• Controversy discussed around Cash Patel (FBI director) celebrating with the team—some argue it's unorthodox, but hosts defend it as patriotic bonding.

Notable Quotes

• “Let them celebrate the way they want to celebrate.” — B (08:25)
• “The moment you put on the Team USA jersey, it is about duty, responsibility, obligation to the nation and victory.” — Charlie Kirk, archival audio (09:44)
• Framing Olympic sports as “peaceful geopolitical combat.” — B (09:52)

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Mexican Cartel Violence and U.S. Security

Key Highlights

• The killing of "El Mencho," leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), triggers violence and upheaval across Mexico.
• The debate over the importance of strong borders and the risks posed by drug cartels infiltrating the U.S.
• President Trump’s policies—praised for making cartel operations harder and prompting joint operations with Mexican authorities.
• The hosts worry about cartel power spreading within the U.S., connecting policy debates on DHS funding and border enforcement.

Timestamps

• [13:03] Announcement: “All hell broke loose in Mexico. Here's the deal…They killed a massive kingpin...El Mencho.”
• [14:50] “Borders are where bad ideas, bad policy, bad governance end, and good ideas, good governance and good policy begin.” — B

Insightful Analysis

• The CJNG is depicted as a paramilitary group with sophisticated weaponry and vast criminal enterprises (drugs, human trafficking, fraud).
• U.S. intelligence cooperation cited as pivotal in the takedown, reflecting the Trump administration’s efforts to curb cartel activity.
• Reflection on cartel-driven societal collapse: “There’s nothing about destiny that keeps America from being like that.” — C (14:30)

Memorable Quotes

• “We are not like that because we have different people, different laws, different values.” — C (14:37)
• Speculation about the operation—hints that Mexican officials may have intentionally killed El Mencho in transit to avoid further violence. (15:35)
• “President Trump's policies are making their life a living hell.” — B (16:19)

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Cartel Takedown: "On The Ground" (Interviews & Reactions)

Timestamps/Quotes

• [16:46] CNN: “Think what President Trump has been doing has been making your job tougher?”
  • (Cartel member, via D): “Oh, yeah. Yes.”
• [16:59] Trump: “We are going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. … The cartels are running Mexico…killing 250, 300,000 people in our country every single year.” — D

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Interview with Steve Dace: Generational Crisis & Political Nihilism

Context

• Steve Dace (BlazeTV) joins for an extended discussion on young men, political leadership, and the spread of nihilism and violence across right and left.

Key Points & Quotes

• Dace's thread: Disillusionment on the right shouldn’t be dismissed as mere weakness but traced to structural change—economic, cultural, and political.
• The crisis for young men: fewer role models, difficulty buying a home, competition from mass immigration, and lack of purpose.
• “They don't want to be another generation of wimpy dudes...they skipped a generation of masculine modeling and leadership, so they're kind of searching…” — Steve Dace (20:30)
• Dace draws a parallel to the War on Iran: lack of transparency in motives leaves disaffected young men vulnerable to extreme, conspiratorial narratives.

Timestamps

• [19:46] Dace: "I just think when we tell everybody last June that we obliterated Iran's nuclear capability...and then we're being told a mere eight months later that nope, it's back..."
• [22:42] C points out "Iran buildup" happens with little mainstream discussion, inviting confusion and suspicion.
• [26:15] Dace: Who takes over in Iran if regime change happens? Warns of unforeseen consequences.

The Social Fallout

• Case study: Austin Tucker Metcalfe, young man radicalized by “Epstein files” conspiracies, dies in violent attack at Mar-a-Lago.
• Dace emphasizes: technology enables disconnected, poisonous forms of masculine energy. The need for elder generations to provide positive modeling grows urgent.
• “We skipped a generation of masculine leadership and modeling in the home, in the pulpit, and in too much of our body politic and cultural institutions. And so now the repercussions for that are here.” — Steve Dace (32:30)
• Hosts and guests agree: faith, family, and nation-building at home are key antidotes to rising nihilism.

Radicalization & Assassination Culture

• The hosts caution against both left and right talking up violence, noting the troubling emergence of “assassination culture.”
  • “This is a, you know, a fascist takeover… and mentally imbalanced people are pushed over the edge by that sort of rhetoric.” — C (33:37)
• Dace: nihilism is contagious and must be confronted directly with grounded values and positive visions for American youth.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes by reaffirming the show’s message:

• Take pride in American exceptionalism.
• Prioritize national renewal—faith, family, opportunity—over fruitless “nation building” abroad.
• Cautiously address the root crises among young men to prevent further descent into nihilism or violence.

Notable Quote

• “We have to make sure they can buy homes. We have to be nation-building here at home.” — B (36:53)

For more stories and commentary, listeners are encouraged to visit charliekirk.com.

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This summary covers all key segments, omitting ads and promotional material. All timestamps and attributions reflect in-content discussion, and notable quotes preserve speaker tone and intent.

Transcript

[A]

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're gonna end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You gotta stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a Point USA College chapter. Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same. Here I am, Lord.

[B]

Use me.

[A]

Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. The Charlie Kirk show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends and viewers.

[B]

All right. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. What a weekend it is. Charlie Kirk so hyped. I know he would be. It's February 23, 2026. Apparently there's a blizzard going on on the east coast. Not here in Phoenix, but we'll find out. State of union is tomorrow, and I'm planning on traveling there if the flights allow. If not, you'll see me here tomorrow. But what a weekend for American sports. An Olympic. We were debating whether or not the men's team winning US gold for the US against Canada was a top 10American sports moment. And I think it is.

[C]

I kind of feel like it has to be. It's not as big as the miracle on ice for a few reasons, but it comes close and it. It sort of captures the spirit of it. You think? I saw a good take. That was in 1980. We defeated Soviet communism, and this time we defeated basically the 2026 version of Soviet communism, which is basically hyper gay, hyper wokeism. Canadian turbo wokeism. That's what Canada's gone all in on being.

[B]

I would venture to guess that Canadian wokeism is as large an existential threat, if not bigger, to. To our way of life and to the survival of Western civilization as Soviet communism.

[C]

Survival, quite literally, given their love of assisted suicide.

[B]

Yes. Euthanasia. The euthanasia country. But it was a beautiful moment. I would just. Let's just go through some of these clips because a new star has been born, Jack Hughes. And this was the clip that when I. I was busy with family yesterday, so I was only like half Checked in and this clip came across the wire immediately. And I was just filled with patriotism at Jack Hughes and the way he handled this moment. 235.

[D]

This is all about our country right now. I love the usa. I love my teammates.

[B]

It's unbelievable.

[D]

The USA hockey brotherhood is so strong and we had so much support from ex players. And I'm so proud to be American today.

[B]

So proud to be American today. He said, you know, that's a great Canadian team over there, but this is American hockey. We did this for the country. And it was just like we've seen so many bad clips and bad interviews from this Olympics from woke athletes, skaters that can't win gold and that fall. Sorry. Rooting against you was happy you fell. Sorry, just how I feel. But then we saw so many good stories, right? Like Alyssa Liu, who may be a liberal, may be woke, but she didn't disrespect us on the national stage. And for that we salute her. And she won gold. And then you get this moment. It was just. And by the way, we had more medals, more gold medals than we'd had since 2002. The Salt Lake City game. We had the most medals we'd ever had.

[C]

I think before we move on to anything else, we should actually get the moment itself, which is they score the golden goal, which is so just context for those who didn't watch the game. It was very tight, the whole game. It was one to one. I would say actually, clearly Canada is the stronger team.

[B]

They had more shots on.

[C]

Way more shots on goal. We had some really great ones. There was a Canadian player misses a wide open shot at, I don't know, five feet away, if that. There was another one where it would have gone in and just freak deflected off the goalie's stick.

[B]

The goalie was awry is why we.

[C]

And the goalie was amazing. And then I'm told, this is the clip. This is in overtime. Sudden death. That's one of the best things about hockey. Pure sudden death. When you get into the finale and I'm told, let's show 244. It's only 244. It's only the. Or 243. But we only have it as B roll, unfortunately.

[B]

That's fine. Throw it up, throw it up. We'll narrate.

[C]

And he's taking it down. They have it three on three in overtime.

[B]

Flex it over to Jack Hughes back in the net.

[C]

It's great. I really love the. The Canadian announcer, he's very crestfallen.

[B]

Yeah, of course. Well, you know what's great, though, is that Jack Hughes had actually got a high stick penalty against him. Loses a couple teeth, so he's all bloody his mouth just. And then he goes on to score the winning goal. And his brother's on the team. Another little known fact here, his mom was actually a coach for the women's team that also won gold. Oh, that's amazing. So the Hughes family won three gold medals from this Olympics, which is just phenomenal.

[C]

Several family affairs, because I think we also had the Tkachuk brothers, Matthew and Brady. I think they were on the team as well. So we have some great clips. In fact, speaking of the. Him getting his teeth mangled. Jack Hughes had that to say after the game. 239.

[D]

I'm lucky I'm from the best country in the world. We got great dentists there, too. So I'm lucky I'm American and they're gonna fix me right up.

[B]

It's just so good. Anyways, so this was just one of the proudest moments. And then I want to address. Because it's just so annoying. Well, actually, one other good note here first. So one of the players, Johnny Goudreau, was killed in a drunk driving accident in 2024. And they welcomed his kids out for the group picture. And I'm just. I'm gonna be really honest. I got emotional watching this because they honored the widow, they honored the children. And my heart was instantly thinking about Erica and Charlie and their kids. And it was a beautiful. I think we have an image of this. If you guys can throw it up there. It was just beautiful.

[C]

When that happened, it actually kind of became a mainstream news story. I think J.D. vance said something about it at the time. It was during the election season. Yeah, super popular player. They called him Mr. Hockey.

[B]

I think they called him Johnny Hockey.

[C]

Huge ambassador for the game. And then just he and his brother killed by a drunk driver, which never should have happened.

[B]

But they honored his kids. They brought him out for the picture. It was actually his son Johnny Jr's birthday. It was the 298th birthday of George Washington. And it's obviously America 250. So there was just. I mean, we were going to win, guys. There was no chance. That's how I look at it. But honestly, just a beautiful, beautiful, touching moment. And then on to the annoying part. So Cash Patel and, I don't know, Blake might feel differently than this. I understand. I understand both sides here, but Cash Patel is over there. Apparently on Other official business, doing opsec. He's got meetings is planned well in advance, according to his team, but he's a hockey player, and he's a huge hockey fan. They invite him down into the locker room afterwards, and he's. I mean, he's living it up. It's like the best moment. And by the way, we were all Cash Patel in that moment. I was feeling complete joy and pride for our nation. And so Cash is back there, he's drinking a beer. And here's my thing. So people left, the left especially, is outraged at this. Some people on the right are outraged about it. They don't think he's doing enough good. Well, listen, like, the crime rate and the murder rate is at the lowest it's been. There are wins on the board. I get it. You want more. We all want more. But Cash in this moment was just like one of us. He was just an American celebrating an amazing, amazing victory. And here's my take. Those guys invited him to be with them. They loved it. Look at him. They're all jumping up and down. They called him down. And if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me. And I have no problem with it. Let them celebrate the way they want to celebrate.

[C]

It's weird for an FBI director to be doing that.

[B]

I agree. But guess what? It's weird that President Trump sends out truths the way he does. It's weird a lot of things are abnormal. It's weird that Gavin Newsom is trying to relate to black people by saying he has a low SAT score. All I would say is there's a lot of weird.

[C]

If James Comey when he was FBI director or any. If Merrick. If Merrick Garland had been at an Olympic game in 2022 and was jumping around like that, how would we disagree?

[B]

Hard pass. Hard, hard disagree. James Comey is not a hockey player. Cash Patel is a hockey player. Big, huge hockey fan. He was there. He FaceTimed the President. They got invited to the State of the Union. It was a beautiful moment, I think. Listen to all the haters out there. It must be a miserable existence, like, constantly being upset all the time. This is a beautiful win. Beautiful for the country. Let them celebrate. The guys loved it. They're Patriots. They handled themselves well. Made the nation proud. Want to tell you one or actually want to play for you one. Clip from Charlie about the Olympics. Charlie loved the Olympics. Often when the Olympics were on, we were just constantly talking about it, and we've tried to do him justice and talk about The Olympics that have been going on. This is a great clip327.

[A]

The moment you put on the Team USA jersey, it is about duty, responsibility, obligation to the nation and victory.

[B]

And he goes on to talk about one clip that the audio syncing was kind of off, so we didn't play it. But he was saying this is peaceful geopolitical combat. That's why you have USA on your jersey. And I love that. It's a really great way to frame everything that's going on.

[C]

Yeah. Although I really, I wish we had him to get his take on, like the Eileen Gu thing for an example. Peaceful geopolitical combat between countries all of whose athletes just grew up in the United States.

[B]

Well, yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate because she's very talented and grew up skiing in Tahoe and she took the money $20 million for Eileen Goo every year.

[C]

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[A]

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[C]

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[A]

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[B]

All right, There is more international news that we have to get to, but basically all hell broke loose in Mexico. Here's the, here's the deal. They killed a massive kingpin. And of all the cartels, his name is El Mencho. But of all the cartels, it was the cartel Jalisco New Generation or Nuevo Generacion or whatever. So the CJNG cartel, which is a mouthful.

[C]

There's people feel like there's a new

[B]

cartel every few years. This cartel has existed with basic impunity in Mexico for years. And I thought this was really important because this morning President Trump is honoring the angel families. He's bringing up the mother of, he's bringing up the mother of Lake and Riley who was killed at the hands of an illegal immigrant. And here meanwhile, we've got this whole fight going on in Washington where they're trying to defund dhs, which is the agency that keeps us safe. That which under, you know, ICE is under. Listen, you could make an argument that DHS shouldn't have been consolidated into one agency.

[C]

It's just they're trying to defund the organization that is on the front line of making it so a US City does not look like Puerto Vallarta. Yes, they are trying to defund the agency that keeps every one of those cartel members which if you watch those clips, they have assault weapons, they have armored vehicles, they have heavy explosives. That is what happens when you have a full blown cartel narco state operating with impunity. And that is not. There's nothing about destiny that keeps America from being like that. We are not like that because we have different people, different laws, different values. And if you change the situation, if we are just Mexico, we'll have the same thing.

[B]

Borders are where bad ideas, bad policy, bad governance end, and good ideas, good governance and good policy begins. If we have the courage of our own sovereignty, if we have the courage of our own convictions, and we are proud to be Americans and say our ideas are better, our foundation is better. I'm not saying Mexicans are bad people. Some, I suppose, are good people, as President Trump once said. But the point is, our country and our civilization is more successful for a reason. And we cannot allow those cartel factions and forces to cross over the border and infect our country, which they did under President Joe Biden. There are currently cartel members existing in all 50 states. This isn't just like a border region thing. This is all across the country. And I have a theory on this, why we saw this. Now, El Mencha was taken out by the Mexican military, but it was done in coordination with US Intelligence. So we were providing intel about where this guy was. It was also very interesting that he died in transit. So they. There was a shootout and him along with two others. So three of them died in transit. I think they made a very. I think they made a conscious decision to make sure that he was not able to exist alive because then he would have been a target for an assault on the prison he was at. I think they killed him in air. That's what I think. Or at least refused to resuscitate him. But whatever. That's speculation. I also think that they chose to do this after a year of President Trump's deportation efforts, getting some of these bad hombres out, because you got to get these cartel factions that exist within the United States at least cowed. You have to put them on the defense. Right. And so this is what's interesting. President Trump's policies are making their life a living hell. Let's go to 258. This was from September 2025. CNN interviewed one of them and asked them this.

[A]

258 Think what President Trump has been

[D]

doing has been making your job tougher.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Yes.

[C]

Yes.

[D]

But it's becoming more difficult, you think?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And President Trump is on record stating the case very plainly.254 we are going

[D]

to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels.

[B]

The cartels are running Mexico. It's very, very sad.

[D]

To watch and see what's happened to that country. But the cartels are running, and they're killing 250, 300,000 people in our country every single year.

[B]

The drugs, it's horrible.

[D]

It's devastated families. You know, you lose a child or a parent. I mean, parents are dying, too, with drugs.

[B]

So cartel Jalisco, New Generation was famous for a couple of things. Still are. They have armored vehicles, they have rocket launchers. I mean, this is a complete paramilitary organization. And they just decided, hey, you're gonna kill our leader, we're gonna make your life a living hell. All over the country. They're famous for fentanyl, running cocaine. They're also famous for things like fraud with timeshares. So actually, the Treasury Department just sanctioned a Mexican timeshare company that was part of which was run by this cartel. They're famous for ripping off senior citizens that are vacationing there, American senior citizens. And then, of course, smuggling of humans. So this is a really nasty cartel that was a. Essentially, they lifted up this El Mencho as their preeminent leader. Right. It was a cult of personality. So for them to lose this guy would be extraordinarily destabilizing. So that's my theory. My theory is that the Mexican government, that President Trump has been putting the screws to the Mexican government to get them to act, they finally did it after a year with our help and involvement. All right, without further ado, Steve Dace, host of the Steve dase show on BlazeTV. Welcome back to the show, my friend. It's good to have you.

[D]

Good to see you, too. How are you doing?

[B]

Great. So, Steve, you had this great, great tweet, and you were talking. I mean, we can put it up on screen if you want. It's a little bit long. 3:13. So I just wanna pull some threads from here. You're saying you're a child of the 80s, you detest Iran, you cheer. You know, if you woke up. If we woke up this morning and Mossad took them out, basically, however we were told that they were taken care of, that this was already done. And now we're gearing up for another invasion here, it looks like could be more kinetic activity and you start to. I felt like you were channeling your inner Charlie, where you're saying, we hate the brain rot of anti Semitism, but, like, for a moment, put yourself in their shoes and try and understand where they're coming from. Try and make sense of this, their counter theories and this, all of the. I thought you put it beautifully. So please check out this tweet from Steve. He put it much more eloquently than I have just now. But break it down. Your big idea here, Steve, and why you're trying, why you felt it was important that you put this out.

[D]

Well, I mean, some of this is exactly what Charlie and I texted each other last June, the night that we bombed Iran the first time. And generationally, I'm going to be way more jingoistic about let's make Iran, the Iranian regime, assume room temperature. But I also understand the tension. I have a son in law that's enlisted right now. He was told by his unit two years ago that if Joe Biden won, they were all just going to go over to Syria for two years for reasons. And so I'm very sensitive. I mean, that was basically it. For reasons, you know, and so I'm sensitive to this in that what is the point of what we are doing here? And have we explained it? And hey, listen, I was the guy on the main stage that y' all put up against the gripers, all right? So, I mean, I think everybody knows where I stand on that entire debate, but I talked to a lot of those young men, Andrew and Blake, after that, after that talk. And a lot of them, frankly, are just driven to the likes of Fuentes on a couple of impulses. Number one, they don't want to be another generation of wimpy dudes. They don't want to grow up and be Mike Pence with a perpetual furrowed brow and wearing sweater vests in July and Hawaiian shirts in January. They don't want to be that guy. That's part of it, you know, and when we skipped kind of a generation of masculine modeling and leadership, so they're kind of searching and somebody like Fuentes kind of steps into that void and gives them an aberrant, I would say, demonic inversion of that. But the other is they have a lot of questions that I think we as the older generation have to answer. Questions like, why is it harder than ever to find a wife? Why is it harder than ever when you have one, to find a house and to buy one? We have the highest median age home buyer in American history right now, 41 years old. All right, why, you know, am I losing jobs in universities even if I want to go become a gay race communist, or. Or in the workplace to over 20 million foreigners that were imported over the last four years under Joe Biden? And I. And I just think when we tell everybody last June that we obliterated Iran's nuclear capability. And then we're being told a mere eight months later that nope, it's back. And now it requires the largest asset deployment of our military since the invasion of Iraq. I just think we need to step back and understand some of the reasons why our young men are, are contemplating going into some of the dark recesses of the abyss that they are. Because we have lacked answers and substantive answers to some of these dilemmas. Why is it we're fighting harder for, we're fighting harder on the borders of Iran right now than we are in Minneapolis. And I think that's a valid question. And if the older generation, such as myself and the boomers that are ahead of me, if we don't have good answers, then at that point it doesn't matter how many algorithms ban the likes of afuentes, people, young men are going to go searching for people like that as sources that might come up with aberrant alternative theories like the tail wags the dog. And it's really the Jews and the Israelis that are really in control of the world. Well, when, when we don't offer them any prevailing theory of any common sense, don't be surprised when they go looking for alternatives.

[C]

Yeah, especially with, with this Iran buildup. It's as you say, we hurt. We saw this strike last summer, we were told it was effective. And I really feel the buildup with Iran right now has almost happened on the back page of the papers, if anyone even reads papers anymore. I don't feel there's been much discussion of it. You compare with the Iraq war 20 years ago, which I do remember, there was a very long buildup to it. Whatever, it was a big mistake. But there was a very strong and aggressive case made for the war on several grounds. Similarly, we had a pretty strong motive for going into Afghanistan. I do feel like a lot of Americans, if we were to suddenly be doing a regime change, large scale war with Iran tomorrow, one, I think a lot of people who are paying less attention would just be shocked that it's happening in the first place because they would not have noticed the buildup and they would struggle to articulate why are we doing this Now. There were this, there was the uprising there, but that at this point was almost a couple months ago. And then there was the nuclear stuff. But it seems like if there was a rational reason to do it, it would have happened last summer. And it's going to be difficult, I think, for, if this happens, for the administration to sell it. And I hope they've practiced what they

[D]

would say, don't disagree with any of that. And I think the key for the Trump administration, what Trump understood, because of the years he's done business dealings in that part of the world, what he understood is that Muslim and Arab are not necessarily the same thing. And for decades, going back to as long as you two guys have been alive, the so called Palestinian CR question was the vexing conundrum of Middle east peace. And administrations post Reagan, from Bush to Obama to Clinton, all were attempting how much land should we give up, how much autonomy to give the PLO and the Palestinians on and on and on. And what Trump recognized is there's a lot of leaders in places like Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Egypt that actually could care less about the so called Palestinian question. They're no great, you know, fans of Israel, but they're not necessarily fans of forever and perpetual war either. And they'd like to start lining some of their pockets and be wealthy too. And I think he set that tone in Riyadh with one of the greatest foreign policy speeches I've seen in my lifetime, maybe the greatest foreign policy speech I've seen by a president post 9 11. And I think that set the tone for his success and why at the end of his first administration, we were beginning to see normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. For example, right now there's over 2,000 Jews working full time in Saudi Arabia. That had been unheard of a decade ago. And you can put a lot of that on the success of this administration. And Iran is, is, is a seamless garment here. The Saudis hate Iran for, for different reasons, but every bit as much as the Israelis do. And so there's a common foe and a common enemy here. And yet despite that, here's the thing that I think is the most troubling to me. Who reigns in place of the Ayatollahs.

[B]

Right?

[D]

Listen, I don't, I would, I want these guys to accept, to assume room temperature post haste, right? But we're talking about a nation now of tens of millions of people, has its own, has two different standing armies, okay? It has the Revolutionary Guard that's loyal to the Ayatollahs, its own national army, who so far has not stepped in and defended their protesters. So we don't know if there's an Al Sisi kind of a figure within that military. We don't even have. You know, again, I'm a little older than you guys, who's the Boris Yeltsin kind of half drunk, but at least somewhat stable, you know, resistance Figure we don't have that, let alone a full statesman like Alekwalesa. Maybe this Reza Pavlovi, who's been living the lap of luxury his entire life in exile, maybe there's the common Iranian that was getting gunned down in the streets, would just love to have that aristocracy back. I don't. I don't pretend to know. But, Blake, these questions are some of the things that I think you have to answer for the American people. What's the plan of succession here?

[B]

Hi, folks. Andrew Colvett here. I'd like to tell you about my friends over at why Refi. You've probably been hearing me talk about why Refi? For some time now. We are all in with these guys. If you or someone you know is struggling with private student loan debt, take my advice and give them a call. Maybe you're behind on your payments, maybe you're even in default. You don't have to live in this nightmare anymore. Why Refi will provide you a custom payment based on your ability to pay. They tailor each loan individually. They can save you thousands of dollars and you can get your life back. We go to campuses all over America and we see student after student who's drowning in private student loan debt. Many of them don't even know how much they owe. Yrefi can help. Just go to yrefi.com that's the letter Y. Then refi.com and remember, Yrefi doesn't care what your credit score is. Just go to yrefi.com and tell them your friend Andrew sent you. Steve, I love this tweet and wanted to talk about it with you because again, I just felt completely Charlie esque. And one thing that we have the privilege of doing at turning point in our work on campus is we get to meet a lot of these young people. We bring them on the show. And I think if you could sum up Charlie's kind of the Charlie Doctrine, if you will. It was, why are we nation building abroad? We need to be nation building here at home. We have all these kids. To your point about all this immigration, I was just traveling this weekend with my family. I couldn't get over how many foreigners were around. Mostly Hispanics. But there was other nations. I mean, it was like half and half. It was like half Americans, half foreigners. And you extrapolate that to the workplace. You extrapolate that to where they learn. You extrapolate that when they go get an ID at the dmv, you extrapolate that across the board. And they feel like they live in a nation that has betrayed them, that has basically led in the third world at their own expense and given them all kinds of kickbacks, all kinds of privileges and advantages and at their expense. And then they look at the news and we're about to bomb Iran again. And I think there is this cognitive dissonance that starts to sort of creep in. And as you point out in your tweet, they start looking for other explanations. They don't care what the Constitution says when they're looking at that kind of a formula. They stop caring about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and the beauty of our founding documents and our founding creeds. They don't care. They're just looking at their life and saying, I can't do it like my parents did it. And because of these structural issues, now, you could be of a Gen X or a boomer generation and say that they're just a bunch of whiners. I'm telling you, a lot of these kids are amazing. They're hard workers. They're in a different generation would have been considered great patriots. Structurally, though, there are issues in front of them that we have to acknowledge, we have to be honest about. So I loved your tweet and I want to get into this in the next segment, Steve. But then you've got this Austin Tucker Metcalfe kid that went into Mar A Lago with a gas can and a shotgun and gets himself killed because he's getting. He's, you know, on some Reddit channels or something on the Epstein files. And so we gotta make sense of this. We have to make sense of what's happening to our young people in this crazy media landscape that they're all kind of trying to exist in. Throw up 329. This is apparently this Austin Tucker Metcalfe kid. And TMZ got this tweet of his or text message exchange. He said, I don't know if you've read up on the Epstein files, but evil is real and unmistakable. The best people like you and I can do is use what little influence we have, tell other people about what you hear about the Epstein files and what the government is doing about it, raise awareness. So this is a guy that apparently is like traditionally been a conservative. He's been proud about his Christian identity or his Christian faith. And then he goes into Mar A Lago seemingly to set fire to it, shoot somebody, maybe assassinate the President. Thinking back to our conversation in the last segment, what are you thinking about this story, Steve?

[D]

I think first of all, it's Brilliant. To connect these two stories. Listen, as I get older, I'm getting that age. I have to hire my oldest daughter to run some of my social media because I'm at the age now where I just don't want to learn anything new. I'm good, I'm good. You know, and we all hit that age, right? And so next stop, Gran Torino. Okay. And sour looks. All right. Okay. And, you know, and I think the benefit that I have is I'm launching a 19 year old son into manhood right now. All right. Just graduated high school, right. Has two job interviews today. He's got some, some real talent when it comes to writing and content creation. But even when your old man's got connections, those are some of the toughest businesses to break into. So, you know, he's got to start at the bottom. You know, Mr. Miyagi said, Send the flow kind of stuff, you know, and so that has been helpful to me to hold off some of my. Y' all are just lazy and soft because I know what home he was raised in, and being lazy and soft was not permitted in my home. So I. So I. That helps me to not immediately devolve to that sort of. Old man yells at cloud default setting. Because I now hear the other side of the conversation. I hear what him and his peer group. A lot of these are kids from good homes, Christian homes, went to Christian school, homeschooled, right? And even they are feeling this tension, let alone the young men that maybe didn't have a good dad or any dad at all in the home to model anything to them at all. This idea that for the very first time, it is very possible none of what we know as America or the American dream will be there for them at all. And then at the same token, what occupies their time? I mean, we had law of the jungle when I was growing up. There were just certain things you could not say to another young man for fear that your parents could not afford the orthodontist, you know, appointment. Okay. I mean, if you played football growing up as I did, you know what an Oklahoma drill was. And that's where things came correct real quick about the. The stuff you maybe were maybe running your mouth about in school. Well, now on these devices, I jump on Snapchat, I jump on a Reddit forum, and I just say a gamer forum, and I just say things I'd never say to somebody else's face because there's no instant recourse. And so the level of venom and toxicity is way higher at the Exact same time. And so where does all that masculine energy go? We have a real, real crisis here. You know, to quote Barack Obama's former pastor, America's chickens are coming home to rooster. We skipped a generation of masculine leadership and modeling in the home, in the pulpit, and in too much of our body politic and cultural institutions. And so now the repercussions for that are here. And this is why I said, you know, when I eulogized Charlie and Amfest, that for the, for the mission, for his mission to reach the young men, to. To be confirmed and successful is going to be determined now by the older men, the boomer men in their third act, the Gen X men like me. Entering your third act, how you finish your race, how you model on the back end, what Charlie was urging these young men to do on the front end. Because we should be the ones now that are living the best portion of our lives. Living the blessing of getting married, having children, staying with our wives, making something of ourselves. We need to model that finish and finish well. Otherwise I fear what's going to happen collectively to this generation of young men.

[C]

Yeah. And on top of that, this is another version, another manifestation of what we actually saw in Minneapolis where the Alex Pretty's, the Renee Goods, the people who are getting whipped up by that line that this is a, you know, a fascist takeover, that there is, that we're on the brink of a Nazi dictatorship and mentally imbalanced people are pushed over the edge by that sort of rhetoric. And that's also what we're seeing with this Mar a Lago gunman that he's getting told, oh, there's a pedophile cabal running America. And there are people running with that narrative who know that it is a severe exaggeration, who know that it is not the real. That's not reality. But they also know it will whip up people like that to go too far. Especially because at the same time we have a real case of burgeoning, call it assassination culture in America where people are just overtly in favor of talking about murdering politicians, murdering leaders. We have clips like this. In fact, let's play one of them. This is 338.

[B]

I don't think it would, it would take that many of them having something happen before maybe they started to fall in line is all I'm saying. You know, just like three, maybe publicly. Yeah, but this, by the way, that's one of like a dozen clips that our team has pulled. And the comments are all like, yeah, you're not dreaming big Enough. We need to kill more. And what's interesting about this, and Steve, we got about two minutes left here, is that this has been coming from the left to the right. I mean, this is why we make such a big deal about this, because it killed our friend. But this kid seems to fit in a different sort of paradigm here, so.

[D]

Well, just like we saw, there was a pattern as I was coming of age politically, where postmodernism infested the left. And then like the, like a swarm of locusts, once it had corrupted that entire crop and consumed it, it then started seeping into some of the right as well. We're now seeing this with nihilism. All right, so nihilism in and of itself is a fundamentally demonic ideology.

[B]

Right.

[D]

But again, I mean, most demonic ideologies behave in the marketplace of ideas like locusts. And locusts are never satiated. They just consume until the crop is gone and then just find the new crops. And that's kind of how this works out ideologically. And so we're now starting to see some of this black pilling kind of nihilism emerge within our side too, particularly amongst a cache of our young men. And the thing that we have to always remember about Marxist ideologies is everything they do, say and think everything, is to accomplish two goals, more power and more control. And so, as Blake is pointing out of cynically winking and nodding to some of these nihilistic elements, you know, it's okay to how many eggs do you crack in order to make an omelet kind of a thing? It's just collateral damage. If it gives them the power and control they want, they'll go with it. And the only thing that they won't be for is what won't give them the power and control that they want.

[B]

I think that's well said, Steve. I really hope, and I think this is one of Charlie's enduring legacies. I hope it endures, which is that if you see the polling, a lot of this nihilism seemed to be on the left, the assassination culture. This mangionism was coming from the left. And meanwhile, young men on the right wanted to get married, they wanted to have families, they wanted to have a good job. I mean, we saw that NBC poll just before we lost Charlie. And so I just hope that what you're wa. You know, you're sounding the alarm here. Charlie sounded the alarm about this nihilism creeping into the right. We have to fight it. We have to present an alternative. We have to present a faith based alternative. I believe as well. And I think you're, I think your message is well made, Steve, that Gen X boomers, older millennials, we have to present that alternative version of events, of reality that they, you know, and by the way, we have to, we have to make sure they can buy homes. I mean, we have to be nation building here at home. I hope that message gets through. Steve Dace, thank you so much, my friend. It's always a pleasure having you. We'll see you again, Steve.

[D]

You bet, guys. God bless.

[C]

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