← The Charlie Kirk Show
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Hey, everybody. This episode is brought to you by my friends at ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN.com Charlie Secure your device. Anonymize your online activity. Protect your action online. Expressvpn.com Charlie help our show out by also helping yourself. Protect yourself. ExpressVPN.com Charlie hey, everybody. Facebook has decided Donald Trump is not allowed on their platform. What does this mean for our country? Is this healthy for our republic? Email us your thoughts. Freedomarliekirk.com and we have a unique take on the tech issue that I think everyone else is missing. If you want to support our program, go to charliekirk.comsupport to get behind the work we are doing to reach millions of young people every single month@charliekirk.com support. Email us your thoughts. As always, freedomarlicirk.com, i encourage you to get involved with Turning Point USA. Facebook, Donald Trump, buckle up. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
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Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
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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.
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His spirit, his love of this country.
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He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created. Turning Point. 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. A big news event happened today that we have been waiting for. This is not an unexpected event. This is something that we are anticipating when the people who actually run our country have decided to tell us whether or not a former president of the United States should be able to access an audience of over 228 million people, or 69% of the United States population. I'm of course talking about Facebook. A company valued at over $900 billion. Facebook has a 12 digit worth. Facebook is more solvent than the federal government. Facebook has more data than the federal government. No one voted for Facebook. Facebook is not a participant in the promise of the consent of the governed. We are going to walk through what's really happening when it comes to this company and all the tech companies. So this was a day that we've been waiting for. They said on Cinco de Mayo that they were going to come out and. Happy Cinco de Mayo, by the way. They were going to come out and announce whether or not Donald Trump will be able to regain access to his Facebook properties, most significantly Instagram and Facebook this came after January6, where Facebook decided to ban Donald Trump, but they said they're going to revisit it. I'm reading from the New York Times. Facebook's oversight board, which acts as a quasi court over the company's content decisions, said the social network was right to bar Mr. Trump after he used the site to foment insurrection in Washington in January. The panel said the ongoing risk of violence is justified the move. But the board also said the indefinite suspension was not appropriate and that the company should apply a defined penalty. Let me just stop here. President Trump has not been charged with any crime. President Trump was acquitted by the United States Senate. And there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that anything that Facebook is saying here is rooted in reality. So Facebook came out today and they said that Donald Trump will not be able to access the Facebook audience of again of over 228 million people. So they have this Supreme Court at Facebook. They call it the oversight board. Now, any company that has its own Supreme Court is too big and should be broken up. That is not a conservative value. That is a corporatist value. Article 3 of the United States Constitution, which we will explore today on this program, says very clearly and simply who the supreme law of the land is. Facebook is more powerful when it comes to dialogue and speech and spreading ideas than our own federal government. Now, Republicans largely created this situation because Republicans were bought and paid for by these mega corporations. For years, they never thought independently. They never listened to their voters. They never understood the concern that these companies poised against our freedoms and liberties. And now today, as this decision comes out, you and now are having response from Republicans all across the board. You have Senator Rick Scott who says big tech thinks it can control everything. Companies that censor Americans while giving brutal dictators a pass should not have free rein over your personal data. Ted Cruz says, disgraceful. Nikki Haley says Facebook and Twitter ban a former US President, yet some of the world's worst dictators. Okay, that's the new talking point, right? That's not even what we're talking about here. It's a pretty good point, but it's a very superficial point. I'm going to show you what everyone's missing here, which is so much deeper and so much more important because you have to understand we're dealing with a corporation here and nothing that corporations that are worth $902 billion at the opening bell today, this is not some sort of mistake. They're making a bet. And so the Republican consensus is now, this is so terrible. Honestly, I don't want to hear their swan song. I don't want to hear their complaints. Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the presidency. And you had a chance to challenge the corporate oligarchy into actually listen to your voters when it came to big tech censorship and these monopolies. Instead, you did the exact opposite. Instead, Republicans decided to go cut the taxes of these very same corporations. Do you that Facebook is going to pay a lower corporate tax rate this year than a couple years ago? Thanks to Mitch McConnell and thanks to Paul Ryan. I think Mitch McConnell did a nice job with judges. But it seems Republicans were so shortsighted because they never actually realized that liberty, the pursuit of virtue, absent of tyrannical involvement, might come under threat by a different entity than the government. You see, the conservative movement and many think tanks took a lot of money from Google, by the way, and from Facebook. They never quite understood something that was so obvious to those of us who actually live in the real world, that live outside of K Street and Capitol Hill, that there were two ways that you could lose your liberties in America. You could lose your liberties through the federal government coming through and auditing you and targeting you, maligning you. But we do have a constitutional process and judges that we have put in place that can help push back against that government tyranny. But Republicans, because Republicans were actually never conservatives, they were economic libertarians. This is a very important thing to talk about here, by the way. I think libertarians are really. I think they're correct on speech. I think they're correct on guns. I think they're completely wrong on immigration, drugs, and social degeneracy. But I could play nicely with libertarians on lockdowns. I think that the lockdowns are one of the biggest mistakes ever made by the American people. We led on that, while other conservatives are more in a safety direction, which we wanted to open up the country almost immediately. So I can play nice with libertarians on those issues where I will not play nice with libertarians on. As they have taken over most of the conservative movement economically is this idea that corporations should never be touched, that they're always right. Voluntary exchange, creative destruction, or this other phrase that is always so perplexing to me, spontaneous order. Now, some of this comes from very thoughtful literature, of which I have read almost all of the major books, from Rothbard to Mises to Friedman. And I think they make some phenomenal points. And I will also give a little bit of an olive branch to libertarians. I think that they're right on the money supply issue. Inflation is a very big It's a massive threat against workers and playing games from the Federal Reserve is a danger to decent society, but something they cannot answer. And the establishment Republicans are still hand wringing over this because they can't quite figure out why this is happening. Is what if I told you that a private company is more of a threat to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution than our government? What if I told you we have a Soviet Union in America that's downloaded in your child's phone? So we're going to continue to explore this and then I'm going to tell you what's really going on here. It's so obvious and I think most people are missing it. This is not about a double standard and by the way, this is not even that much about politics. This is a calculated decision. 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It's time to tell better stories at your parties by showcasing a one of kind coins from collection destined to rise in value. Noble Gold Investments Should a company worth $902 billion with a 12 digit valuation and 228 million users be treated like the local body shop does the local coffee shop with six employees that's barely making it be treated the same as a company worth $902 billion? If you say yes then you are more interested in whiteboard or chalkboard college style idealism than what's good for humanity. There's a big difference between Sal's Body Shop with nine workers that does maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars in revenue a year, barely making it, and a company worth $902 billion. One is a private company the other is a government. Let's play some tape just to give you more idea of what's happening with Donald Trump being kicked off Facebook. And then we're going to go into the why. I think a lot of people are kind of tripping over themselves with the why. They say, oh, this is censorship. Of course it is. That's the what. That's not the why. Let's start with 56 Facebook decision board director Thomas Hughes, who is more powerful then John Roberts. Play. Cut 56.
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I mean, the decision is very clear insofar as you know. The board has found that the suspension of former President Trump was necessary to keep people safe. That the actions of the former president encouraged and legitimized violence and constituted what the board has termed a severe violation of the Facebook rules.
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So he's more powerful than Neil Gorsuch. No one voted for this person, Thomas Hughes. But now he gets to make a decision. He makes a decision Whether or not 228 million users get to see President Trump's content. Cut 57. Mark Meadows, his immediate reaction to Trump remaining banned. Now, I will say this. I sat in Mark Meadows office before he became chief of staff to Donald Trump. Mark Meadows is a good friend of mine. And, and I remember I said, we gotta break up these tech companies. And that was considered to be a radical position. Then, oh my, has the Overton window moved? Playtape. The oversight board will uphold the ban on Donald Trump. Your reaction?
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Yeah, it's a sad day for America. It's a sad day for Facebook because I can tell you a number of members of Congress are now looking at do they break up Facebook, do they make sure that they don't have a monopoly? And I can tell you that it is too two different standards, one for Donald Trump and one for a number of other people that are on their sites and suggesting that more nefarious things than what the President has been accused of actually go unnoticed often.
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Cut 58. CNN correspondents explaining Facebook's oversight board decision. Cut 58.
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To listen to Facebook's response, which I'm
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sure was fascinating on the phone call.
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Donee, explain it to our viewers. Yeah, this is basically, I think, a nightmare situation for Facebook. They set up this oversight board, purportedly independent, to basically make the difficult decisions for them. But what has happened here now is that the board has said, well, you guys were right to suspend Trump at the time in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, but we're not so sure you were right to suspend him forever and has now given that company Six months. So until November to figure out if Trump should be suspended or not. So what's going to happen next? Well, it's all back on Facebook. It's all back on Zuckerberg, and it's going to create a public debate. I'm sure we'll hear from Trump saying that he should be allowed back on, from Democrats saying he shouldn't be. But all the pressure and the decision is now on Zuckerberg.
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Two years ago, I gave a speech in front of a bunch of business types, and I said that the Menlo park government is more powerful than our own government. Some of them completely disagreed. They said, oh, these are just private companies and they'll be disrupted and they won't have as this much power. Have we ever in American history had this much news and attention on a decision a private company makes about whether or not another private citizen or a former president is allowed to use their product or service? This is an unprecedented amount of power. I want you to think about. We're talking about here. We're not talking about the United States Supreme Court or the Florida Supreme Court saying whether or not Donald Trump is able to host a rally. No, we're talking about a private, private company. Is this healthy? Is this the way that our founding fathers desired our country to be? Or are we living in some form of a dystopian corporate oligarchy? 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President Trump has been indefinitely banned from Facebook. 228 million users. To give you an idea, more people use Facebook than vote. More people use Facebook than watch the National Basketball association, which not saying much. Major League Baseball. Again, not saying much. 70% of the US population is on Facebook. And so Facebook put together this board of oversight which was nicely exposed by my friend Brendan Carr who is one of the FCC commissioners, One of their other Supreme Court board members, Alan Russ Bridger, he's a left wing campaigner who wanted to take President Trump's coronavirus briefings off air. Or how about Nicholas Suzor who said that Twitter should deplatform the president. Or how about Afia Asana Tiwaia Asari Kai, who is a board member or a program manager on the George Soros Open Society Foundation. She's a board member for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Or how about Mania Kiayi? I think Donald Trump is the jewel in the crown of far right, fascist, xenophobic right wing groups that exist. Or how about Jamal Green? He is a Supreme Court justice in our country with more power than Clarence Thomas. Let me say that again. Jamal Green has more power than Clarence Thomas. No one ever voted for this guy, nor should they because he fantasized publicly about Trump getting shot and killed and he called Trump's election an unacceptable outcome and failure of American politics and he pressed for impeachment. Or how about Negat Dodd called Trump evil, wanted a build a wall around Trump and said that it's sad to see the kind of country America has become and endorsed Bernie Sanders perfectly unbiased. Or how about Julio Awanu who says that federal workers were willing to commit inhumane acts for President TRUMP at U.S. airports? Would you saying that she wished for a quick end to the Trump presidency. Hmm. Or how about Cato Institute's John Samples thinks that people voted for Trump because like Flight 93 passengers on 9 11, they thought they were going to die anyways. And removing incompetent Trump, quote, may well be justified. So these are Supreme Court members that were never voted for, that were put into power and put into place. But we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that Mark Zuckerberg and the other people at Facebook were not directly involved in this decision, that there wasn't some private door meet, closed door meeting where they really got done what they wanted to get done. So the question is why would Facebook, a $900 billion company, let me say that again. There are 900 billion, hundred billion dollar company. Why would they do this. The answer is so clear and so obvious. They think Republicans have no backbone at all. They know that if they just bully and push Republicans around, we will sue for peace. We will embrace our inner Neville Chamberlain and we will be decent and complain, but nothing will get done. You see, there's an old story from the Greeks. It's a phrase you'll hear on television every so often when people want to sound a little bit cutesy, but it's actually true. Called the Sword of Damocles. The Sword of Damocles was this idea that when you came and visited the king or the emperor or whomever, if there was something he disapproved of, there would be a sword dangling above and it could go down and kill you at any moment. You see, the Democrats, they mean business now. They're on the move. You have to understand we're dealing with corporate types here. The people that run Facebook, they are trained to be risk averse. The people who run these mega corporations, they're always going to try to make a decision to their best of their ability to maximize their profit. Now, I think Delta and Coca Cola obviously didn't do that, but Facebook here sat in a private meeting and here's the conversation that they probably had. And I think almost everyone is missing this. Facebook said, hey, what happens if we bring Trump back on the platform? And someone in the boardroom probably wearing four masks, said, well, Mr. Zuckerberg, the Democrats might break us up. If we do not pander to the Democrats and their demands, they are going to use antitrust action against us. And they mean it because the Democrats right now are not talk, they are action. In fact, the Democrat Party tweeted today that Facebook should permanently ban Donald Trump from its platform. So then someone else in the room and Mark Zuckerberg in this private room with his counsel and his top aides asked, what happens if we ban Donald Trump? What kind of backlash can we expect? And someone probably chuckled and smiled and said, well, Mr. Zuckerberg, Republicans complain they don't do anything against us. So Zuckerberg had to make a decision. And then he obviously conveyed that through whatever channels he could to the Facebook oversight board. If we think this is really an independent board, you're being played as a fool. It's as independent as the Venezuelan Supreme Court. But instead, Zuckerberg was left with a choice, and Facebook was left with a choice. Alienate Republicans who are experts at complaining or alienate Democrats who have become experts at action. What decision would you make if you were in the best Interest of Facebook. Quite honestly, I would keep Trump off the platform because I know Republicans are weak. That's why. I'll give you an example. We're on AM 1100 right now in North Dakota. The governor of North Dakota is a very weak man and they watch all this stuff. They see how Republicans go do ribbon cutting ceremonies to bring Amazon and Google into their states like we have in Arizona. AM960, the patriot. They see how these governors embrace the tech companies coming in as if it's some good thing for your state. They're just bringing in more apparatchiks to infiltrate your school system and artificially inflate property values so you pay more in property taxes. Like, ooh, we get nicer restaurants. Like, really? That's the trade off. You get a bunch of hipster restaurants and awful politics with it. But they see how weak these Republican governors are and they know deep down that Republicans will sue for peace instead of holding these companies accountable. The big bet that Facebook has just made publicly is not about censorship, it's not about politics. The big bet that Facebook has just made is that Republicans will never lay a hand on these companies. That's their bet. Everything in corporate life, the way these people think is to balance risk, reward. And they are always risk averse, especially when you're running a $900 billion company. So when Zuckerberg had to make this decision and quietly probably influence the Facebook board, this ridiculous Supreme Court board full of people more powerful than our own government, he was surrounded by a platoon of attorneys and he probably asked, well, it's a council and they probably charge him $3,000 an hour. What's my downside here? And probably a very smart man said, well, if you upset Republicans, you're going to get a bunch of bad op eds. If you upset Democrats, they're going to submit challenges in court, you're going to have to testify in front of Congress and they mean business. They might break you up. So you got to keep the revolutionaries in check and give voice and credence to the corporate types in the Democrat Party. The reason this is all happening is because Republicans and the Republican Party, they have been pandering for the needs, wants and interests for corporate America for so long. So then the other question that I kind of teased a little bit is where are the anti corporate Democrats? Remember when Bernie Sanders used to go on a crusade around America? Actually, I haven't seen this tape. I just happened to mention Bernie. I don't even know we had Bernie tape. We'll watch it and Hear it together. Together. Play tape.
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You have a former president in Trump who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe. But if you're asking me do I feel particularly comfortable that the president, the then president of the United States, could not express his views on Twitter, I don't feel comfortable about that now. I don't know what the answer is.
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So he's saying he doesn't feel comfortable with him being banned, Is that right? Well, he's making the right choice, the right decision. That's hardly revolutionary type language from Bernie Sanders, though. I don't feel comfortable with that. Usually he's talking about smashing companies up and putting them into millions of pieces. So why are the Democrats, the socialist type Democrats, so quiet when it comes to Facebook? Because they're patiently waiting their turn for Facebook to do what they could never do. The government does not have the power to do what Facebook just did. It is illegal for the government, according to this beautiful document, the United States Constitution, to do what Facebook just did. So Democrats are saying, hey, we might as well control and influence these massive companies. Instead of actually breaking them up, let's use them as Democrat super PACs. And let's tell you what. Until Republicans on a state level start introducing bills to ban Facebook from their state, to tax them $5 million a day, which is what I think they should do, and to consolidate with other states, Facebook will keep on chuckling in their private boardrooms, and they will keep on placing their bet on the weakness of Republicans. And quite honestly, I would make the same bet, because Republicans do not have the spine or the backbone to take on these fights. Instead, they have. They're full of bluster, endless platitudes, and op eds and angry cable news appearances and no action. Facebook knows that, and they are betting on the conservative movement's weakness. You have to understand we are dealing with corporate types that are still interested in some form of profit drivers, and they are just playing the table here. Facebook is playing the odds, and this is the way that they believe they can make the most money and not get broken up. So the only way that this changes is Republicans have to prove them wrong. And so one of our team members here messaged me producer Andrew, who's great, who's gonna be filling in for me a little bit next week. He said, the left has won, therefore, they present more of a risk to corporations. And I pushed back a little bit. I said, no, we won, too. We control state houses. We control attorney generals. Here's the difference between Republicans and Democrats. It's not that Democrats have won more than we have. It's that they're willing to use their power and we're not. That's the only difference. They're enthusiastic about using political power, media power, and cultural power. So we have the Neville Chamberlain Republicans sue for peace, say that it's a threat on the horizon, but don't actually do anything about it. It was famously Winston Churchill who talked about the threat of the National Socialist Workers Party. And we have an example, actually, of one courageous Republican, one Ron DeSantis, assigned into law a bill the tech companies try to defeat, which would tax the tech tech companies for banning politicians off of social media. It was somewhat of just kind of a. It was a little bit of just kind of a public relations bill. It wasn't that much meat on it. I wouldn't call it toothless, but it should have gone a lot further. But the tech companies still were very worried about it. And so Facebook has made the their big bet. And so of all these other tech companies, their big bet is this. We are going to spend 45 to $50 million a year donating to candidates, funding think tanks, running television advertisements. And we believe that Republicans are so weak, are so interested in their own election that they will not take the steps to hold Facebook and Google accountable. Meanwhile, they are terrified of Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. That's where the real threat to them is. So to them, they're going to pander on political censorship and racial politics at all costs. Because the worst thing that could possibly happen for these tech companies is all of a sudden, if the Republican Party starts to take this seriously. So this is where you come in. The voters. Here's a question. Why is it that A company worth $902 billion with 228 million users doesn't have to be held accountable for kicking off a former President of the United States? Do we no longer have an Article 3 of the United States Constitution that clearly states and defines the Supreme Court of the United States? Article three, the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress may from time to time order and establish. The judges of the supreme and inferior courts shall hold their offices during good behavior and shall at stated times receive for their services of compensation. We should not be diminished during their continuance in office. The tech companies know how weak Republicans are, but Republican voters aren't weak. And that's the thing that frustrates me the most, is that Republican voters are active. They're getting involved in school board elections. Republican voters are demanding that their elected officials start to listen to them and make dramatic action. Let me be clear. If you take money from Google or Facebook or Twitter, leave the Republican Party. If you take money from any of these tech lobbyists, leave the Republican Party. If you spend time with these tech lobbyists, leave the Republican Party. It's that simple. Start listening to your voters. Because the tech companies believe they can execute their own version of the Red Terror, the Night of the Long Knives, the purge against Republicans because they think you're too decent. They think that your leaders don't care about you. And it's time for the voters to start to say to our leaders, if you do not act on these issues, you're no longer Republican. We will primary you and we will remove you from office publicly. And that's a conservative value. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your thoughts freedomarliekirk.com and get involved with Turning Point USA@tpusa.com God bless you guys. Speak to you soon.