← The Charlie Kirk Show
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. I had some great conversations recently with my friend Kelly Shackelford from First Liberty. Great organization. I love what they do. I encourage you to listen to this episode and email me your thoughts about it. Freedomarliekirk.com if you want to support us, go to charliekirk.com support if you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com, buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here.
- [00:55]
B
I want to start with a lot of people know who you are, but how did Charlie Kirk get to be Charlie Kirk? I mean, who really influenced you? Who really had an impact on your life that kind of really brought you to who you are?
- [01:10]
A
Well, first of all, Kelly, I'm honored to be here, and it's great to be here in person with so many of you, and it's just terrific. So. And I want to make sure I say this. First Liberty is one of the few organizations I give a full endorsement behind. I run Turning Point usa. I know what it takes to run an organization. And I also know the difference between an organization that does a lot of talking and a lot of doing, and First Liberty does a lot of doing. And this is a great. I. I was first. Really made aware of First Liberty when I came out and saw you guys in Colorado last year. I'm invited to speak all across the country. I literally give 300 speeches a year. And I started to hear Kelly, I said, this guy really understands this issue, and he's able to prove what he's actually doing about it, not just writing a bunch of papers about it and then complaining. And I'm a big believer that we need to be people of action, not just kind of recirculating the same sort of ideas the last 40 years. So I just want to say First Liberty is a phenomenal investment for getting behind what matters in our country. And I really believe if we lose the rule of law in America, we lose everything. And we could build out that idea further, but it's all we have that stands between the despots and, and free people basically is a fair and impartial judiciary, judges that know what they're doing and the Constitution and the framework behind it. So thrilled to be here. As far as my upbringing. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Anyone from Chicago here, It's a great place to be from. In Illinois we have term limits, unlike California where it's one term in office, one term in jail. So it's a little bit different than most states. My grandmother passed away in the mid-1990s. Lifelong Republican, she's been voting Democrat ever since. So I keep going with my, my Chicago stuff. But so, yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago in a very somewhat liberal area, I guess you could say. And I always loved the country, obviously still do. Was inclined to always ask questions of my teachers. I started in public school in sixth grade and it was always very clear that the agenda that, yes, Even back in 2006 and 2007 in our country was to train young people to become activists to try to deconstruct our republic. And it wasn't as clear to me then, but it was very, it was very disturbing that my parents were not necessarily political, but they were always very patriotic. They'd say, you must always understand why our country is unique and exceptional. And then I would be in school and I'd be taught the exact opposite. And so I wanted to go to West Point. Didn't get in. I decided to take a gap year before entering school. It's been nine and a half gap years and so it's sort of fun. Never actually went to college. And again, if someone goes to college, that's fine. And for me, it just wasn't the right, right choice. I ended up just kind of going my own path and had some really good mentors. Bill Montgomery, who was phenomenal, he passed away last summer and many others. My fiance Erica has been amazing and we have the best team at Turning Point usa. And if you're ever in Phoenix or if you want to go take a drive from here to Phoenix, I'm telling you right now, you've seen the offices, Kelly, it's special. You'll see probably 125, 26 year olds that are working from 7am to midnight to save Western civilization through every vertical imaginable planning events on campus, activities, digital online outreach, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. I do two podcasts a day, three hours of radio a day on about 140 radio stations. We were just from, we are just in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, Nashville. We were In Las Vegas last night, packed house. Go to San Jose tomorrow at a church, actually, we can talk about that. But our whole ethos is really that we play offense, the sense of urgency to win America's culture war. And I've always been someone that has not kind of sat still. Well, and I'm trying to do my part and I love what I get to do. And I've had some amazing influences. My pastor, Rob McCoy from Calvary Chapel, Thousand Oaks, some of you might know him or know of him. He's been amazing and a great mentor of mine. And so it's people say kind of, how did you get where you are now? It's just been, it's been the hand of the Lord, quite honestly, unbelievably blessed. Right place, right time.
- [05:24]
B
Yeah. Before I get to the turning point and what you're doing, in fact, I want to start with what role does your faith play in what you're doing?
- [05:33]
A
Yeah, it's everything. And you know, thanks to my pastor, Rob McCoy, who I met just about a couple years ago, he kind of was a game changer for me. And so I grew up in a Bible believing church, a good one, in the suburbs of Chicago. I gave my life to Christ when I was in fifth grade. I believe in the inerrant word of scripture. I believe in the Triune God, the Nicene Creed, that Jesus Christ was a real person who lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, and then rose again from the dead. But I was taught wrongly that Christians don't get involved in politics. In fact, I was taught that if you dare intersect your political beliefs and your religious beliefs, that's somewhat heretical. And I never really challenged it that deeply. You know, as I started Turning Point usa, I was always told to stay away from that, just focus on fiscal issues. You know, Christianity is not where politics should be. And I guess you could say I was naive, but I just really didn't understand the scriptures or the ideas or really where they came together. And ever since I started my podcast a couple years ago, I do two hours a day of deep reading of our federal documents or philosophy. And I started to realize as a Christian, I was fed the big lie. The big lie is that we're not supposed to get involved in politics. The big lie is this idea that America was founded by a bunch of atheistic, you know, revolutionaries. It was the opposite. It was the black robe regimen and activist pastors in our country and churches that founded them. America God has mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. 72 of 75 signers of the Declaration believe it's 75. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Were Bible believing, regular church attending Christians. It was Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Roger Williams, pastors that were getting into the public square. And some people say, well, the Bible says nothing about politics. That's completely wrong. In fact, what are we supposed to do with Daniel, Jeremiah, Esther, Mordecai, Nehemiah and Joseph, just to name a few of people that were trying to influence secular government for God's purpose? What are we supposed to do with when Jesus Christ went to the mouth of the Jordan River? I've been there at Caesarea Philippi. And he asked his disciples, who do you say that I am? And they say, well, some say that you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elijah. And he famously said on this rock build my. And we say church, but the real Greek word is ecclesia and that word means political gathering, public square. They didn't use synagogue, they didn't use temple. No, no. We are called to be salt and light in every single arena. And so I think that we have been fed this lie intentionally by secular leftists and also the Johnson Amendment thing, which is completely misunderstood and misinterpreted because they know that the greatest sleeping giant in America is an active, vibrant and alert church that understands what's really happening in our country, that we have God granted rights. And that if the church rises up, then all of a sudden the game is completely changed for good. And so it's everything for me. And I've spoken to over 50 churches in the last year, from Jack Kibbs church to Rob McCoy's church, the Bangor, Maine. And I can tell you that there is so much potential in the American church to rise up and take stances on these issues in the cultural and political arena. It's hard to even put into words and I'm unafraid to talk about my faith. And I think if properly understood, every one of my political positions is reinforced by Scripture.
- [09:02]
B
So, so let. Because not everybody here knows. How did Turning Point start? You know, how you know it was time for you to go to college. Didn't happen. How did it start? And, and what is, what is the goal that you want to accomplish through Turning Point?
- [09:23]
A
Yeah, so it's a great question. I've written about this and I want to be very clear. When I started this organization, which has now turned into a movement, we have 165 people on staff, $35 million operating budget, no debt. We've been so blessed beyond our wildest imaginations. I don't know what a checking account was because they don't teach that in high school, I had no money, no connections, and no idea what I was doing. And so. But let me be very clear. Only in America could someone stand up on stage now, nine and a half years later, and be able to tell that kind of success story. And it's because I had what it takes in America, which is really, really good. Mentors and people that wanted to invest and believe in the vision, like Foster Freeze and so many people. And I had energy. I was willing to outwork everyone. That was the one thing that I. And I still do. I still try to do this. Maybe it's the Midwestern in me, which is, you might be smarter, but I will put in more hours than you. I will do more events, I will do more podcasts, I will do more radio shows. I will make more phone calls. And then we'll see who wins, right? We'll see who ends up, you know, being able to succeed. And so Turning Point started kind of like that video you saw where I would just literally pull up to a college campus with a card table and be like, who's interested? Who loves America? And it kind. I just realized that there is this untapped resource on college and high school campuses where we're on past. We're on pace to have 1,000 high school chapters by the end of the year. We have the largest events across the country. Thousands and thousands of people that attend our events. As I mentioned, we're doing our campus tour right now. Candace Owens, the amazing Candace Owens got her political start with us at Turning Point USA as our communications director, which was kind of just a really fun moment. If that's all I did was partner with Candace Owens from her beginning. I think I've lived a good political career. That's just one. That's just one chapter. And the amazing things we've done. We're so proud of her. We just did an event with her. But look, I just. The college thing, I was supposed to go to college. I didn't get into West Point. My parents did a really good thing, and they said, you got to pay for college yourself. We're helping with none of it. And I said, okay, well, if you're helping with none of it, then I'm not borrowing the money, so I'm taking a gap here. I said, fine. And I actually really encourage you guys to do that with your kids and grandkids. It Forces really good decisions. It does. As soon as they're the ones that have to sign on the dotted line. Like I was, I was like, I'm not ready to go borrow $85,000 to go, you know, learn how to hate America. Maybe I'll do that in a couple years. At least for me, that wasn't, you know, and I know we're. We're somewhat restricted on time. I could give a whole symposium on the state of the college, you know, arena in our country, which actually is my next book. And I writing an entire book on it because I think it's really helpful. And I think everyone knows that college is a scam because people are afraid to say it. And everyone deep down knows that they're charging way too much money and that they're teaching your kids to hate the country and that all the bad ideas because everyone's kind of afraid to say it. And let me be very clear. I'm not saying that no one should go to college. I'm saying go get a skill and make sure your child or grandchild shares your values when they graduate. That's all I'm saying. And if you can't guarantee those two things, then maybe it's not the right choice. But I understand that I'm definitely the exception to the rule. But again, we've been so blessed, Kelly. It's been the Lord moving one opportunity after the other. I could go just through everything from how I met the president to how that whole chapter unfolded. And so I'm a living testament that the American dream is still alive and well.
- [12:44]
B
Well, I will say one thing. The outwork, the out energy. It can be very easy when you love what you do. Either problem. But Erica's job will be similar to my wife, who just. She's called the governor because, you know, if you've ever been in a race car where they have only so fast, you can go, I don't.
- [13:07]
A
We've.
- [13:07]
B
I've done that on the track. I don't know if you've ever done that. I've slammed it to the floor because I want to go full speed at some point. It won't let me go any faster because it knows I'm not really equipped. And that's kind of my wife's job. And she does it very well. She says, we need to talk about your schedule. And I know Erica is going to be doing that so that you can live a long life and have a longer.
- [13:29]
A
I was a mess before I met Erica. I mean, if you think it was it was, it was red eye flights, just forgetting luggage in random airports. If anyone needs food recommendations at any airport across the country. I could tell you every single one of them, the Chick Fil a thing, actually I could tell you that they didn't have a Chick Fil A. But no, it's, I, I second that. That resonates.
- [13:50]
B
What. All right, so what if you look back, what do you want to be able to look back and say I did it, I accomplished it. What do you, what is your goal?
- [13:59]
A
So people say, what does success look like? And it's, it's simple to say, but it's really difficult. I want to change the trajectory of America and I want your grandkids to love the country more than you do. That's it. And I, I think we have to get a lot better at painting a visual of this. I want 35 year olds that are having families to have to calm down their 7 and 8 year old because they're so fired up that they just learned about Thomas Jefferson. Is that happening right now? No, it's not the opposite happen. Instead we're hearing stories that they learning how many slaves Christopher Columbus had on their ships coming over as we were sharing over dinner. We need our kids to love America again. I want, I want it to be an unthinkable statements in American political discourse in both parties to say that America is anything but the most benevolent, creative accepting, forward thinking, exceptional nation ever to exist in the history of the world. It should be a non negotiable. And again, how do we go about doing that is a variety of different ways. But I mean my big picture goal hopefully is to save this gift that I believe was divinely inspired and handed down to us. And I believe we're going to be judged by our creator of whether or not we're able to preserve this constitutional republic. And at the very least we must give it everything we possibly can and have. And we're seeing a lot of positive signs, a lot of optimistic signs, some troubling signs, but that's my day to day mission every single day.
- [15:25]
B
You know, I wanted people to know because I, I was, my son goes to Belmont University and, and I was asked to come down there and speak before the debates. And, and so I'm going to a, you know, a college event, you know, with a bunch of college students before a debate. I mean what college students are interested in politics and this kind of thing? I show up, it's like a rock concert. I mean there's, yes, there's, there's music blaring like rock music. There's 5, 600 students there. And I'm going, I looked at this and I told my marketing, I got somehow needed to give a picture of this to all these people across the country who have no idea this is going on.
- [16:10]
A
That was a turning point event. We have hundreds of those happening simultaneously across the country.
- [16:15]
B
So there's a lot more hope. Yeah. And that's, that's, to be honest, that was the first reason I wanted you to come to one of our events is because I said we've got a lot of people who, you know, they're older, they've been successful. And I thought I wanted them to see somebody that's actually doing something that's young so they can have hope for
- [16:31]
A
the future of the country.
- [16:32]
B
And that's, you know, that's definitely you. So, all right, that's what you want to. What do you see as the, as the dangers right now?
- [16:44]
A
That's a really important question. And so I've done a lot of thinking about this and I'm also on the front lines of this and those of us that call ourselves conservatives, the paradigm is shifting. And I think you all agree with this and you're all seeing it. I'm going to try to put these pieces together for you in real time, which is that the threat to our liberty is not just the government right now. This is a new thing. Was not the way 20 years ago. We now have threats to our liberty from the federal government and from the Chamber of Commerce. Look at what Delta and Coca Cola did in the last week. Inexcusable. Misrepresenting a very boring Georgia voting bill as if this is Jim Crow 2.0. And none of them have read the bill. In fact, they admit American Airlines admitted it to Dan Patrick, that they have not even read the bill. Major League Baseball. This is, this is Major League Baseball, right? So they're like, we want to fight systemic racism. So their way of fighting systemic racism, which by the way, they accuse anyone that asks for identification as being bad people. Good luck going to a Texas Rangers game at will. Call tickets without showing an id. Try that one out. Major League Baseball says they want to fight systemic racism. And so then they pull out of a 62% black county to Denver, a 12% black county which is mostly upper middle class white, and remove $100 million stimulus to over 3,000 black businesses in downtown Atlanta because they want to go fight systemic racism. Don't get me started on the Silicon Valley tech issue. And so what's happened here is we as conservatives we, we have done a very poor job of maintaining and protecting our institutions of power. A really bad job at that. And so the institutions of power obviously government, media communications, universities and most pressingly the corporations where now the threat to our liberty is multi institutional. Here's the good news though. The good news is that this is an unsustainable practice by the CEO of Delta and the CEO of Coca Cola is that the people that actually buy these products in massive quantities are going to start saying I'm going to purchase my values and I'm not going to go out of my way anymore to go fly Delta or to go to a major league baseball game. Like for me I'm done with baseball. Like have a nice life. Thanks so much. Same with basketball. Enjoy going to go pander to the Chinese Communist party because you think you want to go somehow communicate to the woke industrial complex. This is a hard thing for us conservatives to talk about which is corporations are not your friend. They're financing BLM Incorporated. PepsiCo gave $100 million to BLM. $100 million. Bank of America $1 billion. I can go, I can go down the list. And so we kind of have to take stock and inventory of what do we actually control? Control, you know, where do we have influence? And so that's something I really want. I'm saying this at every single event. So people say, well then Charlie, what should we stand for? I say that's a great question, thankfully, but we have a really good answer to it. Unlike the left, I care much more about whether or not we're having children in our country than corporate profits. I care about getting the divorce rate down than the corporate tax rate for Google. I care about whether or not we're able to bring down opioid deaths in America than whether or not mark Zuckerberg has $100 billion or $50 billion or that Jeff Bezos is able to go to the moon. Completely irrelevant to me. I want church attendance to go up. I want opioid deaths to go down. I want young people to get married again. I want us to have more children in our country. I want us to restore the moral fabric in America. I want people that speak freely online without the threat of termination or cancellation. And that's a winning message. I care more about the muscular class in America than the Zoom and Skype class in America. And I think that there's, there's something really interesting happening which is the first party that actually, and we were talking about this at Dinner. The first party that understands that there's 108 million people in America that serve you dinner and drive your Uber cars and deliver packages to your home. And let's give it up for the people, by the way, that are working in this, that put on this event. It's a really important thing. And they're the ones that have to wear a mask all day long. And they work eight to ten, ten hours a day. How do you win those people over? Do you win them over by some sort of corporate tax cut like Paul Ryan did in 2017? No. What they care about is whether or not their children are going to get a quality education. They care about whether or not their church is going to get shut down recklessly because of some lockdown order. And so what's happening here is that the largest. It's what I call a top down revolution. It's unprecedented, actually. It really is. It's a really, it's a bizarre thing. And I did an entire, I did multiple podcasts on this, which is the Russian, Chinese, Cuban Revolution. Were all generally people of the working class pushing against the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy. Now we have the aristocracy that's pushing down on the common man. Like, the biggest threat to the people in control is the white Christian male that works at Wendy's. Like, they're the problem. Like, no, I'm sorry, Jeff Bezos, you're the problem. And you doubled your net worth while America was totally shuttered and 40% of small businesses went under while you went and delivered packages and funded groups that hate our values. And so this is the new kind of populist, moral centered conservatism that you see best articulated by Tucker Carlson every night. And if we're serious about preserving liberty, we have to recognize what the threats to our liberty actually is. And I'll just make one more point on this, Kelly, which is first, freedom. Freedom of religion. Right now I can name 10 pastors that have been kicked off YouTube. 10. What's their right of redress or grievance? So First Liberty. This organization is doing a moral good for America. And praise God, the founding fathers gave the capacity to sue Google. When Google kicks off. One of my best friends, James Cadiz, who runs Calvary Chapel, Signal Hill, just a couple hours from here, he's not allowed on YouTube. Why? Because he had a person that asked him a question saying that he thinks the vaccine is not a good thing. He didn't say it. Someone asked a question as a guest on it, they strike down his account. He has no legal Representation rights. He has no ability to do anything because they're a private company. Give me a break. They control 92% of all search results in our country. That's like saying that the 405 is a private highway and you could do whatever you want. You could discriminate. Of course you can. Those are interstate highways. These are information highways. And so that private company in Menlo park has way too much power over our freedoms and liberties. So I will make a limited government pro liberty argument that, that we must push back against this small group of people that quite honestly do not share our values and that are trying to crush the common man and our fellow countrymen. And so that's one of my biggest issues right now. And I think that they're really worried, which is why they're doing a preemptive strike against us.
- [23:59]
B
Yeah, I, you know, we, Glenn, we talked at dinner about this, but I mean, I really feel like there's a clear shifting going on in politics. It's like the Republican Party used to be the party of the corporation and all this. Now the corporations are all woke. They're all, they've been taken over by the diversity councils and they're against every American value. And it's like some of these politicians don't get it yet. It's not a bad thing, though. It's a good thing because now the general population is totally with you and they're just sitting there waiting for somebody to be a leader on what they believe and why you would cave in to this small, tiny, I mean, you know, elitist minority is nuts politically. And I hope, I think people are getting with this, but there's clearly not. Kristi Noem Recently, a number of them who, you know, are not getting what's going on.
- [24:54]
A
And last night you might have saw this on Tucker Carlson. Anyone who thinks that they can out communicate Tucker Carlson, you got really bad media consultants. Let me just be very clear, okay? If you're in the midst of a controversy and Tucker doesn't think you're 100% correct, is going to defend. Don't go on Tucker's show. I don't know if you saw this last night. The governor of Arkansas goes on his show and his arguments were so unbelievably bad and he just happened to also be going up against someone who is so precise with his language and has a BS meter that goes off immediately. I don't know if you saw this or not, but the governor of Arkansas decided that his big fight is going to try and veto a Bill that prevents children from chemically castrating themselves. Right. Like that's apparently what it means to be a conservative now in corporate America and Arkansas is we're now going to allow children to destroy themselves. And Tucker said, you know, Tucker went through and asked him what studies and what science and all this. And you could see the governor was so stunned that he would be pressed with this. And this is what he said. He said, well, don't we as conservatives believe in limited government? And I laughed out loud. I said, you are living 20 years ago when we were hypnotized to believe in this weird libertarian, open border, moral indifference lifestyle when our country was burning from within and we said nothing about it. This is a new conservative movement where if government's good for anything, it's probably good for making sure our children can't go put puberty blockers when they're seven years old and change God's design of male and female. That's probably what government is good for, if anything. And he was so stunned that someone would make that argument. Like, oh my gosh, you're trying to tell me that you don't see eye to eye that the government should be indifferent? Like, no, no, no. The government is there to make those moral claims, especially for our children. And so this is happening very quickly. And I think a lot of politicians are, quite honestly, they're owned by these corporations.
- [26:51]
B
Yes.
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A
And they get their contributions from these corporations. And the governor that is just acing every single one of these tests is Governor Ron DeSantis, who's just been unbelievable at every single one of these. And, and he's an example of how to actually handle these issues. But here's the good news, Kelly, is that there's a disconnect between the politicians and the people. And eventually the politicians will just read the script that the people write for them. And this country, if we play our cards right, we're not just going to win. We're going to win so big in a way that the left is going to win 20% of the electorate with their constantly woke up, I am a better person than you are. Virtue Signaling Malibu in Manhattan kind of competition where we're going to be the people that represent traditional, normal American values. The countryman, the plumber, the electrician, the H Vac, the taxi driver, the person that picks up your garbage, the police officer and the firefighter, the veteran and the entrepreneur. You can go represent Larry Page and, you know, Sergey Brin and also go represent the people that are just perpetually angry. We'll Go represent the rest of our country. And that realignment I think all of you are seeing in real time. And it's really exciting, quite honestly, because it's long past time that we get back to actually why we're conservatives and what we're doing here.
- [28:14]
B
Let's talk about the big tech. But I want to do it from your standpoint. I mean, a huge part of your, you know, success, your communication, is relying upon me. You're having to do stuff with them. I mean, I know you thought about this. What happens if they decide to all pull the plug on Charlie Kirk? What is your plan? What is your strategy? Are you looking for alternatives?
- [28:41]
A
Yeah, we're already trying to develop alternatives. I encourage all of you to check out a YouTube competitor called Rumble. R u m b l e. Never go to YouTube again. And just go to rumble.com. it's just as good, if not better. Please, just every time anyone sends you a YouTube link, just say, nope, I use Rumble. It makes a difference. 5% market dip, you know, is all of a sudden going to make an impact on their revenue margins. But yeah, look, this is a very serious thing that you now have a small group of people that can digitally assassinate me and that they control my livelihood. And you know, I will say that Facebook has been the best to deal with. They do interface and they do liaison with. And you know, I will say that they got plenty of problems and I could go through them, but they've been really good at communicating and Google has just been impossible, quite honestly. And. But there's just too much power. And so this is a really interesting question, and I know you'll appreciate this, Kelly, which is that if you read the Federalist Papers, which I encourage every person to read and study, and every young person should have to study them intently. The founding fathers feared centralized power. They feared one or two people having unchecked power. The American Revolution was not about tea. It was not about taxes. It was about consent. It was about the consent of the governed. It was a philosophical multi thousand year leap forward. And so now we come to today and we say, okay, if the IRS comes after any of us, at the very least they send you a document called here's your taxpayer bill of Rights. Some of you have seen it before. For you at least get a right to counsel. You can sue your own government, and in fact, you can win. It's hard. You guys have done it, but you can sue and win. But now you have these companies that are more powerful than our government, that are more sophisticated than Our own government. And if they decided tomorrow, Charlie Kirk does not exist on these platforms. I lose revenue, I lose employees, I use, lose livelihood, I lose audience, I lose all of it. And I have no ability to sue. And it will just get thrown out immediately because we're supposed to believe that's what's best in the private interest. And the legal community is changing on this. Clarence Thomas two days ago issued an opinion which was kind of in my. And I'd love your thoughts on this, Kelly, a guidance memo to other lawyers and judges to kind of start thinking correctly on this. And Clarence Thomas said, these are common carriers. These companies are no different than the telecom companies, where they're just connecting point A to point B. And that if there's not a comparable competitor, then you're not allowed to kick any American citizen off of these. For example, there was a lawsuit that was done in Washington, like, 1960s. It was cited in the. In the opinion that he wrote, which is that someone said, oh, I don't have to let them ride on this road. You know, it was probably a racial stereotyping issue. They could always just, you know, swim in the river or they can ride a horse. And the court said, no, no, you must let people of all colors and races and religions drive on your road because there's not a comparable way to transport. That's the equal protection clause, or you would know the legal statute better than I would. The point is that once they kick you off Google, there is no comparable. There's no comparable outlet to be able to reach that many people. I can go through the different philosophical arguments here. We actually talked about this back in July, or maybe it might have been June at the event we had in Colorado. And I warned about what was coming. And I encourage all of you to go back and listen to that on my podcast. Only because I warned that these tech companies were going to directly interfere in our election. Remember, I said that was the biggest threat. And what happened? Early October, one of the most bizarre, unexpected political stories just popped up where the soon to be president's son hands over his laptop to a laptop repair shop man in Delaware ends up in Rudy Giuliani's hands. He seems to be in the middle of everything, gives it to his lawyer, Mr. Costello, interesting name for the whole situation. Hands it over to the New York Post. And the New York Post publishes stories saying, okay, there's X rated, allegedly child pornography on here, right? There's also emails that show that Joe Biden might be a minority partner in a Chinese company. And Then if you posted it on any social media site, Facebook, Twitter, any of them, they restrict your account immediately. Explain to me how that is not the work of a Democrat super pac. How is that not direct election interference? They directly impacted early voting in our country. Directly. In fact, I could make an argument that if big tech did not interfere, Donald Trump would have been president. Even with the shenanigans of mail in voting and all that other stuff, it's that big of a deal that they interfered with the communication flow, they manipulated with it. Because I want you to imagine if we had a real social media platform and a national discussion be like, whoa, you're trying to tell me that Joe Biden has 10% for the big man and his former business partner, Tony Bobulinski is validating these emails and that his son is saying in the email chain that he wants a corporate bonus from a Russian oligarch and the mayor of Moscow's wife. That's sort of a big deal for geopolitics, isn't it? But if you even mentioned any of the contents in the laptop, you would lose your social media account. I did. I lost my Twitter for a week because I commented on it during early voting. Explain to me how that is fair, how that is an election. No, no, that's a show trial. That's a Soviet tactic. And so the remedies, I think, are popping themselves up. We're anticipating being eliminated and canceled, but I think that finally people are waking up. And I'll just say, I know I'm. I literally do radio every day, so I could talk too long. They made one mistake. When they kicked Trump off all in one day, everyone in this room, I'm sure, was like, that's it. They've shown their true colors. These are no longer tech companies. These are Democrat super PACs. We now, the gaslighting, they were trying to do, the slow, incremental hypno, you know, kind of hypnotizing you. He's like, nope, we know who you are. You kicked Trump off as the President of the United States of these platforms, the country woke up immediately. Yeah,
- [35:04]
B
Yeah, we, I mean, we've been actually a part of a. A bunch of legal groups have been looking at this for the last few years. And you know, there's antitrust lawsuits or seven of them going right now against them. There's, there's a lot of creative examples, but it's, I mean, one of them is, is simply a shareholder derivative lawsuit against these corporations. Because what is the job of the corporation is to protect the fiduciary interests of their shareholders. And when they're doing things that are against their own, you know, financial interest, I mean, somebody's going to make a lot of money with those lawsuits eventually, but there are a lot of options. But right now we have these trillion. I mean, these companies are bigger than 90% of the countries in the world. And so I can't think of anything more dangerous. And it's something we've got to watch. I do want to get to, you know, as maybe the last area or questions, religious freedom, since I know you'll play this on your podcast. And so your listeners, if they want to find out stuff on religious freedom, go to First Liberty.org and get the information. But I want to know how you see religious freedom. I know that you've been watching what's been going on with all these churches. You've been watching what's going on with all these cases. And certainly that's our battle. How do you see it and what is catching your attention?
- [36:24]
A
Yeah, and thank you, Kelly. And just to reiterate what Kelly said, we're going to be rebroadcasting this on our podcast feed. This will be listened to, God willing, by over a million people, but very minimum, hundreds of thousands of people, young people will be hearing this conversation, which is a great thing, and they'll be made aware of the great work that First Liberty is doing. And you might find some new, new cases as a result of that. So great. So look, I think that the way you framed the argument with religious liberty was, was so perfect and wise because we should ask ourselves the question, why didn't the communists take over work in the 1950s? It's a really interesting question. They tried, they tried to take over this country with a communist style revolution from within, just like they took over the Korean peninsula. Why did communism not work vocally? It's because every time any of those ideas started to pop up, but say in Janesville, Wisconsin, a Baptist preacher would look his congregation in the eye and say, our rights come from God, not from government. And communist socialism is an atheist state run religious exercise that's against us at every turn. The church is what kept us free. For so long. The church has been the only hedge and firewall against tyranny. And that's exactly why they're targeting the church. That's why my friend Mike McClure, who's pastor of Calvary Chapel San Jose, where we're having our event tomorrow night, faces $2.6 million in fines for opening his church in the last year, $2.6 million in fines. And most of the other churches around him, in fact all of them except two, have completely turned their back on him. They're like, oh, he's a rabble rouser. Despite the fact that Mike McClure has brought thousands of new people to Christ in the last year. And so Mike McClure said, if I just bring one new person to Christ, I'll pay more than $2.6 million. What a great statement, right? That's courage. It's lacking in our country, but that's courage. And so the religious liberty fight is everything. It's not. There's, there's another interesting question I'd like to ask. There's a lot different ways I could go with this, but here's a probably a pretty effective question. In the last hundred years, which religion has been more successful in America, Christianity or leftism? Leftism is a religion. They have a hierarchy, a unified set of beliefs. They evangelize with more fervor than most Christians do. They dominate Hollywood, pop culture, music, arts and entertainment, academia, athletics. They took over everything absent Billy Graham, who by the way, was an aren't an anti communist and spoke against communism very effectively. Christianity has just withered down and down and it's, there's some places where it's still vibrant, but for the first time ever, less than 50% of Americans would consider themselves outward Christians. And they know that as America becomes more secular, it will become less free. And they know that the only thing that's standing in the way of their tyrannical, despotic power grab is the American church. It bothers them that people will gather and worship something that isn't done. It bothers them that there might be millions of people out there that will look to the word of God, not to the 1619 Project to interpret today's or the New York Times or the Washington Post or whatever it might be. And so there's a direct correlation with the persecution of the church and the destruction of liberty and freedom in our country. And I make this argument all the time to atheists or secularists that come to our events, but they agree with what I say, which is that you should be contesting and fighting for an open church. But I'm going to be very honest with you that most Christians didn't want an open church. This last year. Most Christians were like, oh, we should keep things closed. We're just going to go to the YouTube live stream. Mike McClure is facing $2.6 million in fines from San Jose. I'd say he's probably gotten 10 or 20 pastors reaching out to him. No massive financial assistance from national Christian organizations because for him he's a rabble rouser and a rebel who's fighting to open his church against a tyrannical government in San Jose. And that's just one example. My pastor, Rob McCoy, Jack Kibbs has been amazing. They leave him alone in Chino because it's rather conservative area. But yeah, look, the religious liberty and the religious freedom fight and I do want to make other one other comment on the war in court. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say separation of church and state. This is a figment of their imagination. It's a fiction. We got to get it out of our discourse. It's one letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Convention. I think in 1803 they, the founding fathers said very clearly. It was either Adams or Madison said without a moral people, a republic will crumble in a generation. I'm paraphrasing. Which is without religious liberty, our ability to worship our Creator, then a republic will absolutely implode. And here's why. And I'll tie it all together. Liberty is really hard. We learned this this last year, didn't we? I'm going to say something depressing, then I'm going to say something optimistic. We can keep talking if you want them. Depressing but true. People don't want to be free. They don't. People want to be taken care of. I'll prove it to you Biblically. Moses brings the Israelites, God's chosen people, out of Egypt. They're finally out of slavery. And go look at an exodus tonight and what do they say? We want to go back to Egypt. Slavery because at least we had meat, we ate better. I prefer slavery with good food and they were still being fed in the wilderness by the way than freedom and just being able to eat not as good. People don't want to be free. So then therefore any freedom you have must be explained. It's a value, it's taught. Most importantly, it's taught by the church. The entire idea of freedom as we know it did not come from the Enlightenment. It helped. It didn't come from scientific inquiry. It helped. It came from the Bible. The idea of people being free is the original idea. As Thomas Aquinas wrote so eloquently. Is Christ setting you free from your sin. The idea of freedom, of freedom, of bond, bondage, the freedom of the mistakes you made is uniquely a Christian idea. So that's the depressing things people like, oh, boy. People don't want to be free. They want to be safe. Safety ism. What's the optimistic thing? The optimistic thing is that one sentence of truth can break apart a lifetime of lies. That the only problem that we have right now, the biggest problem, I should say, is we have a problem of distribution. How many people would agree that if only my neighbors, my family, my friends, my son who is on the left, heard what I heard and didn't hear the nonsense every single day, things would be different? Right. We have a problem of distribution in our country. So how do we fix it? We have to identify the distribution problem and then get personally involved. Where you have to become your own social network. We have to build our own social networks. And then we have to understand that the church, every church in America must take stances on every single one of these issues. We need a thousand Dietrich Bonhoeffers in our country fast.
- [43:51]
B
Yeah, it's interesting. We'll, you know, end here, but when I was spoke. No, no, no, no, no, no. When I spoke at your turning point group, I just read Live not by Lies, which we've talked about as a book, excellent book. It talked about communism in these different countries. And I said to them, do you know what this book says and what all these people who live through this says is the greatest thing you can do to stop totalitarianism and communism? And, you know, tell. They're looking like, no, what is it? It's to grow stronger in your faith so that you can stand and speak the truth despite what's coming at you. And that's exactly what you just said. If enough people, it doesn't take a majority. If enough people speak the truth, the lies can't handle it. And as you say, one truth can dispel all the darkness. And so we've just got to be faithful. And I can't think of anybody that's doing more of that than you're doing and what you're challenging with these young people. I just really appreciate everything you're doing.
- [44:56]
A
Charlie, I'm just going to say one last thing. Kelly's doing literally the Lord's work. And again, I don't say that lightly because I know the entire ecosystem of groups that are out there. This is a great organization that's doing really impactful Kingdom building, first liberty preserving type work. And it's an honor to be able to partner with it. But I know that a lot of you are depressed or you might just looking for action. I'm going to give you one last message of hope, if that's okay. We know the law of thermodynamics, the second law of thermodynamics, the inevitable law of decay. We know force equals mass times acceleration. We know Newtonian physics. I'm going to give you one other law that is always true. The left destroys everything they touch, everything. Therefore, people are going to now look and say, bring the common sense people back in charge. We're going to get another shot at this, everybody. And it's going to be in massive numbers in ways you've never imagined. The Holy Spirit is moving. The Lord is moving in ways I've never seen before. The worst thing you can do is do what you're tempted to do, give up and say, I'm going to just enjoy the rest and watch from my balcony. No, no, no, no. This is no longer a spectator sport. The thing I can't stand, and I appreciate when people say, charlie, we're counting on you, man. Like, what are you talking about? No, no, you're in the fight, too. Everyone in this room is now needs to be materially involved in it. It's not a spectator sport. This is not going to the Super Bowl. You guys are in the arena in your own little part in whatever you're doing. And that's my call to action for everyone here tonight, is that be personally and intimately involved with the Republican group, the women's group, starting the college chapter, speaking there, supporting kids, taking the education, whatever it might be. We're all involved in it together. And Kelly, that's what you're doing so well.
- [46:43]
B
Thank you.
- [46:43]
A
Really. God bless.
- [46:45]
B
We pray for you. And Turning Point.
- [46:47]
A
Thank you, guys. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your thoughts freedomarliekirk.com and if you want to get involved with Turning Point usa, where we play off into the sense of urgency to win America's culture war, go to tpusa.com God bless you guys. Speak to you soon. For more on many of these stories
- [47:07]
B
and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.