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- [00:04]
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.
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B
Use me.
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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.
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B
All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. It is February 10, 2026. Honored to be with you guys as always. Blake, how you doing?
- [01:18]
C
I'm doing great.
- [01:19]
B
It's been an interesting news cycle. There's like three hearings going on in Congress right now. There's also a trial in Los Angeles that we're keeping our eyes on. It looks like meta Google are presenting their case that they say they haven't been addicting young people to social media. Turns out there's a lot of data that would suggest that they have been doing that. Also, Todd Lyons from ICE is testifying before Congress and he's absolutely schooling Eric Swalwell on the five year old hoax story. But I want to lead with a really, really fascinating wrinkle that has just emerged in the Epstein documents saga. Yesterday evening, newly unsealed court documents show that Donald Trump called the Palm beach police chief about Jeffrey Epstein in 2006. So this is before he was ever arrested for pedophilia or for sex trafficking minors.
- [02:15]
C
Yeah, or. Well, we should be precise about what it is because we don't have.
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B
He described that phone call.
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C
What we have is we have in 2019. Not even that. We have. In 2019, the FBI interviewed Michael Ryder, who had been the Palm beach police chief at that time, and he apparently told. And this is even blacked out of documents, but the Miami Herald is reporting it was this guy and he spoke with the FBI and then told them that this is how it unfolded. So there is a chain here. This is from the memory, the recounting of the Then Palm beach police chief. But he does say that in July 2006. So that's just when Epstein is coming under investigation, I think before he's even been indicted.
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B
Yep.
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C
Trump calls Palm beach police and he basically tells them, yeah, you guys should investigate this guy.
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B
He's a creep.
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C
He's disgusting. But Ghislaine Maxwell is the really. He calls her evil. He says she's the evil one and is doing bad stuff. And he says people in Miami know about it and people in New York know about it. And it doesn't seem like he gave them anything specific, but that he was encouraging them to look further into it.
- [03:25]
B
Yeah, because everybody knows he said that. Everybody knows what he's been doing. So this is pick322. The image displays a page of redacted testimony or statements related to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein mentioning interactions with Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump was one of the very first person, as revealed by this document. Again, it was from 2019. It was a recollection of the 2006 interaction with President Trump. Trump was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating Epstein. In 2006, President Trump is quoted as saying he threw Epstein out of his club, called the police, and people in New York knew Epstein was, quote, unquote, disgusting. Sounds like President Trump. Yeah, it's one of his favorite.
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C
That's like right around when he was going, he would do this. Rosie o'. Donnell. He would, like, attack her on Entertainment Tonight. Rosie o'.
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A
Donnell.
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B
She's disgusting.
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D
She's a slob.
- [04:18]
B
She talks like a truck driver. Trump also reportedly stated that Maxwell was Epstein's operative and quote, unquote, evil advising to focus on her. So here's image 323. Palm Beach Country Club. This is a quote from. It is a Jewish country club. A lot of wealthy people are there, and they flock together. Mar a Lago is a mixture of everyone. Donald Trump told redacted that he threw Epstein out of his club. Trump called the Palm Beach Police Department to tell him, thank goodness you're stopping him. Everyone has known he's been doing this. End quote. So that's the first part. Now, yesterday, we also got video from Ghislaine Maxwell pleading the Fifth again and again and again before it was Comer and Andy Biggs. So that was. We've got this clip here. It's worth. It's worth showing just for fun here because it's interesting seeing them in their. In their native habitat. All right, 327. Go ahead and throw it up.
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D
Ms. Maxwell, were you a close friend.
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C
And confidant of Jeffrey Epstein? I would like to answer your question, but on the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer this question and any related questions.
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B
My habeas petition is pending in the.
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C
Southern District of New York. I therefore invoke my right to silence under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. constitution. Let the record reflect that Ms. Maxwell.
- [05:53]
D
Has invoked the Fifth Amendment against self incrimination.
- [05:56]
B
So Chairman Comer confirms this. 326 as expected, Lane Maxwell took the.
- [06:01]
D
Fifth and refused to answer any questions. This obviously is very disappointing. We had many questions to ask about the crimes she and Epstein committed as well as questions about potential co conspirators.
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B
But it looks like this little game of negotiation that's going on behind the scenes with the lawyers. Rep. Andy Biggs, who's running for governor here in the great state of Arizona, is going to be the next governor of the great state of Arizona, said that Maxwell's lawyer, quote, said that she has no indication and would say so that neither Presidents Trump or Clinton are culpable of any wrongdoing. And that's one thing they said in this opening statement. So Comer said that Maxwell's attorney said she would, quote, answer questions if she were granted clemency by the President. So horse trading going on behind the scenes, that's tough.
- [06:51]
C
Cuz when you make it that obvious, like certainly just from the political calculation, regardless of what actually happened it if that's the deal, unfortunately anyone who's sold on there being wrongdoing is not going to buy that because they'll just say basically she sold that story in return for a pardon.
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B
Correct.
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C
Which makes it very tough regardless of what truly happened.
- [07:12]
B
Yeah. But you know what's great here is you've got these newly unearthed documents from the FBI, from the Palm beach police chief saying that Trump was calling him, you know, warning about evil, disgusting Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 2006.
- [07:29]
C
Which is funny because Trump, a thing that's worthy of Note is In 2019, President Trump was saying he had no knowledge of anything Epstein was doing. And so you do wonder what caused him to frame it that way. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe it was like he just didn't want to. Maybe he just didn't want people to think he was a narc or something.
- [07:49]
B
Well, I will tell you, I mean Palm beach, if anybody knows the Palm beach area, it's like high school for rich people. They all talking, they all know, they all hear the Rumor mill. And so it's possible that President Trump just didn't have direct evidence or direct knowledge. Yeah, he might mean he had heard all of the stuff that was going on, wanted them to step in. Also, President Trump has been very clear about this. You know, I think Virginia Giuffrey was working at Mar a Lago, I think in the spa there or whatever, and Jeffrey Epstein poached her from his club. He didn't like that. And I think he was trying to do that a lot of times with more staff than just Virginia. And so listen, if you're a business owner and another business is trying to keep poaching your staff, you don't like that and you're going to put your foot down on it. So I do think some of it was sort of a business related thing, some of it was rumor mill. This guy's disgusting. And it seems to be that Epstein held onto this grudge for years and kept trying to.
- [08:49]
C
He's mentioned thousands of times in the files in one form or another, but he doesn't pop up the way others are, where they're emailing Epstein all of the time. He's just this peripheral figure. And I think a very real phenomenon is my, honestly, I suspect that Epstein himself probably believed that Donald Trump might have been the guy who essentially ratted him out to police. Like may have been the guy who brought him down.
- [09:12]
B
Well, and then he runs for President in 2016, 2015, 2016 becomes Uber, Uber important and famous. Jeffrey Epstein then becomes even more fixated on him, wants to know how he can get him, how he can take him down and kind of, you know, talk crap behind his eyes.
- [09:27]
C
I think it's just so funny that obviously President Trump took a lot of heat for. He was skeptical of saying, we don't need to release more of this stuff. It's going to tag a lot of people. And it caused all these people to say, oh, well, the President is hiding. He's the pedo president. And then they finally, like, they dig in and they get this release and, oh, it's this unreport, previously unreported report of President Trump calling the police in 2006. Like, he truly is like the cleanest man ever when you think of the amount of effort to bring him down and what they ultimately find, whether it's business or whether it's this.
- [09:59]
B
And I just want you guys in the audience to marvel in one thing. The left is losing their mind about this revelation. They hate this. So it's a good day. It's a Good day when the left's upset. Every day, Americans make choices that shape our country's future right down to which cell phone provider we support. Here's what most people don't realize. Patriot Mobile isn't just a wireless provider. They're an activist organization funded by selling top tier cell phone service. They've been on the front lines defending our freedoms long before it was cool to do so, standing in the gap when others wouldn't. The best part is they deliver prioritized premium service on all three major US networks, giving you the same or even better coverage backed by 100% US based customer support. Get unlimited data plans, mobile hotspots, international roaming and more. And when you switch to Patriot Mobile, you'll help grow a movement this that fuels the Christian conservative cause. Every bill you pay helps advance the values of family, faith and freedom. Switching is easier than ever. Activate in minutes. Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. Take a stand today.
- [11:07]
A
Call 972 Patriot today or go to patriotmobile.com Charlie. Use promo code Charlie for a free month of service. That's patriotmobile.com Charlie or call 972 Patriot and make the switch today.
- [11:22]
B
This whole Jeffrey Epstein thing is a big, huge, giant story because we all sort of sense that children are being abused. We all sort of sense that children are being taken advantage of. They're being sexualized at a younger age. They're getting online, they're get, you know, by the way, we go back to this meta Google hearing that's happening in California today. There, there was a huge story that broke where they were people, you know, these pedos, these perps were soliciting minors on these platforms on meta, like so Facebook, Instagram, they were doing it kind of in open site. So there's, these sites have been used for distribution of child pornography. It's a huge actual problem. And you can look at Hollywood, the way that they glorify the sexualization of young people. I mean we all kind of sense that this is happening. I think sometimes it gets sensationalized. But there is a real problem here. Go ahead, Blake. Well, I see the wheels turning.
- [12:21]
C
Well, it's just, it's bad, although. No, I mean it is bad. Like there's a lot of bad stuff. I think I still feel, I'm, I, you know, me, I lean more towards our guest last week, Jay Beecher. Yes, Beecher, who I do feel like we have, I think this Trump thing is revealing, which is that the President was basically correct. He was warning, a lot of people are going to be smeared by what comes out in these files when there's not going to be a lot of evidence against them. And so far that's been borne out. What's come out of these files has been interesting. It's been really embarrassing for some people. It's been embarrassing for Bill Gates, it's been embarrassing for Larry Summers. It's been very embarrassing for Noam Chomsky, which I'm very happy about because he's a deranged left wing academic. But it hasn't been really revealing of, I think, what a lot of people were hyping that would get revealed by this.
- [13:14]
B
You and I were very much in agreement on that, that it was gonna be underwhelming for people. Yeah. There's a lot of crazy stuff in the Epstein files, by the way. And you might see one person covering it and making a huge deal about it. And then you'll go and look deeper and you'll realize that it's been debunked or it's some, like, Rando emailing Jeffrey Epstein about a dead body buried in the desert. But it literally. There's no FBI investigation, there's no nothing. There's no. So literally. And we can attest to this, we get like so many crazy emails@freedomarliekirk.com like the craziest stuff. It doesn't mean it's true, it doesn't mean that there's any veracity to it, but people will email sometimes crazy things. So anyways, the point is you gotta take everything with a grain of salt. You gotta dig deep, you gotta do your own research. But another person that is in these files are, is Elon Musk. And that was a little bit embarrassing. And we're, we're fans of Elon. We want Elon to support the heck out of our GOP going into the midterms. But, you know, he kind of framed it that he was, he was rebuffing Epstein's advances to him.
- [14:21]
C
A lot of people have done this. And then, yeah, it's in the files. And it's basically, it's the classic thing. He's like, when are you having a wild party? I want to go to it.
- [14:29]
B
But he did want to go with his wife. He did what? And I would.
- [14:32]
C
And even, and even if he didn't, it's like in a lot of the emails, what they're saying is like, oh, there will be women under 25 there. Well, a lot of rich people want to get with women under the age of 25. And that is different from literal pedophilia.
- [14:46]
B
Yeah, it behooves me to mention it's gross.
- [14:49]
C
It's like very. It's unseemly.
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B
It's.
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C
But it is legal.
- [14:52]
B
Dirty old man stuff. Yeah, dirty old man stuff. But listen, here's what I. Here's. Here would be my one note to our good friend Elon, is that there is a porn problem and a child porn problem on X. I think what would be a great outcome from all of this is that you would clean up, just ban porn and everything gets about a hundred times better on that site. Just ban it. Because there is garbage on that. There's been numerous reporting on the fact that there is child porn on that site. And if they want examples of this, like, we can have a whole team send you what you need because it's gross and you have to sort of like that. The filters don't really work that way that well. But listen, like, there has to be some sort of cleanup on aisle five here when it comes to these social media platforms. And I think X should get cleaned up. Honestly, I think it would be a much better platform if they. If they got rid of that stuff for some reason. It. It's still on there. It's got a bot problem. Sure. Well, and that's. It's just not worth it. Don't make a deal with the devil. You gotta clean it up, make the site better, get rid of the porn, get rid of the. And you know, again, this is from reports. Thank goodness I haven't seen it, but the reports say that there is child porn on that side and that's despicable. And I just, I think all resources need to be flooded in 2x. Make it clean, make it better, and then you get to be on the right side of this issue in multiple different ways.
- [16:20]
C
It would be helpful because in Europe right now, I know they're making a push to ban X. It's a very real one. And the real reason they want to do it is because it has free speech on it. And so they want to ban people who oppose mass immigration, who highlight grooming gangs by Muslim rapists and all of that, but they seize excuses for it. And to some extent, a lot like in the uk, they're, they're using the fact that like you can use Grok to change people's photos so that they're in a bikini, which frankly, I think Grok should be allowed to do because you can already do that with a Photoshop editor. And it's also like not illegal to do that with like in a bunch of other ways. But it would probably be easier out if you couldn't use it to make actual smut. It would make that attack harder to do.
- [17:02]
B
Yeah, exactly. Well, and listen, I just want to be clear. This is not an attack on Elon. I think he inherited this problem. The problem was pre existed and it's a massive platform with hundreds of millions of users on it. There's going to be a lot of bad actors. But if you put your foot forward and you draw a line in the sand and say, hey, this needs to be cleaned up, then listen, you're going to generate a lot of goodwill and the platform will be much improved. So that is my request. I think it would be a very, very solid step in the right direction.
- [17:31]
C
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- [18:41]
B
Very excited about this next guest, Frankie Bianco. He's the general manager of the Zoo Sports Club in Tampa, Florida. And he went viral, not by any choice of his, but just because the way he handled himself, I thought it was brilliant. Let's play the clip and then we'll bring in Frankie307.
- [19:00]
D
Why are you playing bad bunny at the halftime show? Because I put this halftime show on.
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B
Because this is what the majority if.
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D
You filming me, filming me, why are you doing it?
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B
Why didn't you play bad games? I'm gonna pay first.
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D
This is why I gotta pay. This is why I said, no, I gotta pay first.
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B
But I'm asking a question.
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D
I'M not being violent. Yeah, I gotta pay first. Yeah, I shouldn't pay.
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B
What's your time on your.
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D
For the full experience.
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B
I came here for the super bowl experience. The full super bowl experience.
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D
The halftime show. This is not the halftime show. It is the halftime show. It's called the halftime show. I'm going to put this on my social media.
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B
There you go, baby.
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C
Good.
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B
All right.
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C
You have.
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D
You might lose a lot of company cuz you might look like a racist.
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C
We'll see.
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B
All right.
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D
I guess you might look like a racist. So do you came here for the super bowl experience. This is not part of the Super Bowl. This was not promoted. So don't come back.
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B
Well handled. Well handled. Frankie Bianco, general manager of the Zoo Sports Club. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. Good to have you.
- [20:02]
D
Thank you for having me, guys. I'm honored to be here.
- [20:04]
B
Well, I'm sorry that you had to go through this experience, but you know, to me when I see that clip, it was like capitalism in action. You know, you were just like, hey, our people want this show. What do you want me to do? Tell us what happened there and why you chose to handle it the way you did, sir.
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D
Okay. Thank you again, really for giving me this opportunity. I re. I really do appreciate it because I honestly can't believe that it's to this point so, so quickly and it's silly to me, but honestly, I can't tell you what happened Sunday without telling you from the very beginning about who we are. The Zoo Sports Club started out as the Zoo private club. We were going to be a private members only club. It was designed that way. And we built our systems and the building and the decor all around that business model. But In September of 2024, we had back to back hurricanes hit here in the Tampa St. Pete area for the first time in decades. And it wiped out our beaches. It wiped out what is very, very important to those who live here. Too many lives were negatively impacted and we started hearing from those people. We started hearing from employee, restaurant and bar employees who didn't have a job. We started hearing from the bands that didn't have a place to play. We started hearing from the community that they didn't have a place to go to gather, to meet and to just enjoy and have fun. So we as a group, myself and the owners met and decided that we were going to pivot a 90 degree turn and open up to the community, offer them everything that we have planned on being a private club. Now we're going to Be open to the public club. We're going to give them an opportunity to come in and play pool or throw some darts or watch some of the incredible local bands. And it didn't take long for us to realize that this was the right decision. That we have formed a really great community based establishment for everybody to come in and enjoy. There there were no rules to who can come in. There were only rules on how to act once you're there. And it's worked out very well and we're very proud of what we built. So that brings us to Sunday where you know, it wasn't a political decision, it wasn't a personal decision. My personal beliefs and political side of the aisle I sit on had nothing to do with any of the decisions I make at work. It wasn't left or right, it wasn't red or blue, it was green. It was money. And I had about 250 people in the club and around 240 some odd wanted the all American halftime show. So that's what I put on. I the gentleman who videoed me there was a friend of his with him and once he walked away, the friend came over to me to continue to try to talk to me about it. And I explained to him, I said, you know, when it comes to business, the simple rule is majority rules, the needs of the many, so to speak. He understood, he shook my hand, he went back to his seat at the bar and enjoyed the rest of the evening. So, you know, business is business and that's what I base my decisions on when I run my club.
- [23:34]
B
I think that's really well said, Frankie. And so you're just basically saying, so we had this private club, A lot of those people are still your core, your core customers. They made a decision, they said, the vast majority, it sounded like 95, 98% of them were like, hey, we want to watch the All American halftime show. So you gave the people what they wanted. But there was a few riff raff in there that wanted to cause a stir. This was a business decision that makes perfect sense to me. You're being a good capitalist, you're serving your customers well. And I also like the way that you handled that. You said, don't film me. Which is just such a rude thing to do in this day and age that people got their cell phones out and they wanna make you Internet famous in a bad way. But I think you're going to be rewarded. One because of the way you handled this. You haven't been petty, you handled it like a gentleman. You were strong and firm. He was rude. And then thirdly, I think you're going to find that, like you said in the video, you're gonna get customers out of this, because there's a lot of people in the St. Pete, Tampa area that are gonna appreciate the way you handled that. Stood firm on. On your line. Have you got. What is the feedback been. I. I know your phones have been blown up. I know your emails have been blowing up. What's the feedback been from your local customers and your local community?
- [24:51]
D
It has been 98 support wonderful. Which is obviously. Yeah, yeah, it's been wonderful. And, yeah, I can't say anything negative about that, because it really has been wonderful. Our core group of customers have been screaming, support my staff. I am so beyond blessed with my team, who. In the video, you can see they're all there. They all came. They have my back. I have their back. And they've been incredible for this because they're being impacted. It's just unfortunate. And really, I spoke to the owners, obviously, a lot lately. I just want us to get back to doing what we're doing. I don't need to be famous. I don't need to be looked at as anything more or less than I am. I just want us to get back to. To what we do. You know, we have a lot of fun at the club. We have live music and games and great people come and visit us. And that's. I just want to get back to that. And I just. That's what I was hoping to accomplish by coming on your show, because I'm hoping the message gets out that we're still who we are. You know, I know who I am. I know who the owners are. I know who my staff is. And at the end of the day, I can lean on that comfortably and believe that it's just gonna. It's just gonna work out the way it should.
- [26:20]
B
Well, God bless you, man. I think you were doing the right thing by your customers. You handled yourself well. You have nothing to be ashamed of. And, you know, honestly, I appreciate that you listen to your customers. You did the exact thing that the Professional Football League seems to not be able to do, and you said, hey, they want to see this show. We're going to put it up, no questions asked. By the way, there was bars all across America that did the same exact thing. I mean, Nashville was full. We got inundated with videos from bars in Nashville, in Colorado and other places that were doing the same thing. And I would just say that as somebody who's been through it. Blake can attest as well, Frankie, that somebody who's been through the Internet swirl and the churn and the outrage mob, it all lasts about five minutes. It literally, it's like five minutes, man. And then they get on to the next thing. They get distracted by the next outrage. And these are all miserable people. These are people that their whole existence online is to just like throw wrenches into the gears of other people that are doing real things. And that's what it sounds like you guys are doing at the club. You're doing real things for real people. You're creating a place where they can gather, they can feel like a part of a community. And so God bless you. You did great. And you know, listen, we put up huge numbers on Sunday evening. Huge numbers. They're bigger than I thought. Actually. We're working with a third party firm.
- [27:41]
C
I saw that.
- [27:42]
D
I was so happy to see that.
- [27:43]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's going to be. It's going to end up being, let's just say, 50 million. Okay, let's just say it's going to be 50 million. Might be higher, might be a little less, but it's going to be approximately 50 million. And that's a huge, huge deal. And so there's a lot of people that are gonna be emotionally attached to the fact that that was so successful. And we see it already. Like people are trying to say we bought at the feed or there wasn't enough comments. By the way, we ran the numbers, Frankie, and this is funny. We're like almost 60% TVs that we're watching this. Obviously, people don't comment when they're watching on TV device. And you prove that at your club. It was not like people are gonna be able to jump in the comment section at your club. But listen, I thought you did a great job. Congratulations. I think you're going to be rewarded richly and blessed from this. Remember, five minutes outrage and people know who you are. I think your character shined through. So God bless you, man.
- [28:32]
D
God bless you guys. Thank you very much. That's really kind to say. That means a lot. Thank you.
- [28:36]
B
Yeah. This too shall pass. And then you get back to the back to doing what you love. All right, thank you. I appreciate it.
- [28:43]
D
Gentlemen, thank you again.
- [28:44]
B
Yeah, absolutely. Frankie Bianco, general manager of the Zeus Sports Club there in Tampa, St. Pete, what a mensch. What a great guy. He's just salt of the earth. Those are the people that make this country great. So God bless him. And if you are in the Tampa St. Pete area. And you're watching the show, go pay them a visit. Spend a lot of money, you know, buy a lot of food, you know, play a lot of games. Bless that company, that establishment, because they're just good Americans. That's what we love. Folks, let me tell you something straight up. I'm extremely picky about what I put in my body and what companies we support here. Blackout Coffee checks every single box. This is a family run American company roasting fresh coffee in the usa. Built by people who believe in hard work, freedom, and America. No global corporations, no fake activism, no lectures. Just darn good coffee made by Americans for Americans. This is coffee that actually stands for something. And I drink it every day right here on the show. From morning reaper and brutal awakening to 1776 dark roast and their two a medium roast. They've got something for everyone. They even have instant coffee. Real blackout coffee with no machine. No mess. Just add water, stir, and you're ready to roll. Go to blackoutcoffee.com Charlie and use code Charlie for 20% off your first order. That's blackoutcoffee.com Charlie. Blackoutcoffee.com Charlie and for an even better deal, sign up for Blackout Coffee subscriptions, save money, get free shipping, and earn free coffee through their reward program. Just for drinking what you already love. Your coffee shows up fresh on schedule, and you never run out.
- [30:23]
A
That's blackout coffee.com Charlie. Check it out. Promo code Charlie.
- [30:29]
B
There's kind of conflicting data that's going back and forth. There's an article though, out of Breitbart that I think does a really good job of breaking it down. Says almost half of super bowl watchers tuned out Bad Bunny. Now this is interesting because there's also a conflicting data point that's going around that's saying 135 million people watch Bad Bunny. I'm not convinced I believe that number, but let's just assume it's true. Which would be higher than what watched Kendrick Lamar last year. So they're claiming it's a success. Right. But I actually think a lot of people, probably because of the controversy, might have watched both or they might have gone back and watched both. Maybe they went back and watched ours, but that's the headline. It's coming from Samba tv, which is different than Nielsen. So that this is what's crazy though. This represents a 30. This is based on Samba's numbers. Samba TV. This represents a 39% decline in bad Bunny viewers when compared to last year's halftime. Okay. So this is a quote from them. Our latest viewership Insights reveal that 48.6 million US households tuned in to the Super bowl, representing a 13% decrease from last year's game. So already I'm kind of like, super bowl went down.
- [31:42]
C
Not surprising.
- [31:42]
B
Not surprising.
- [31:43]
C
Chiefs, Eagles vs. Seahawks, not as big a team.
- [31:46]
B
Exactly. So it just didn't feel like there was as much buzz about the game. So it made sense to me. There was a decrease from last year. 13% decrease. That follows intuition right there. Okay, but then they're saying more people watched the halftime show, which is possible. People that aren't football fans might have just tuned in for the halftime.
- [32:03]
C
Well, I think usually the halftime show does shed viewers relative to the game, because that's when people.
- [32:10]
B
They might get food.
- [32:10]
C
Then not everyone cares. They do the big halftime show to hold the people in.
- [32:15]
B
So. But this is what's interesting. So Samba says that while 48.6 million people tuned in for the game or households tuned in for the game, only 26.5 million U.S. households watched the halftime performance. And that's down 39% from Kendrick Lamar's show. This is per them, so an 8.
- [32:35]
C
A 13% drop from last year's game, a 39% drop from last year's halftime.
- [32:41]
B
Which would follow because we know, because listen, I'm seeing the numbers on the back end, and we're working with this third party group to gather all the numbers. And some of this stuff just takes time to come in. Like, we're working with Rob and Parker at RAV. There are over 7 million confirmed views for. For their coverage, but they think they might get to 9 or 10 when all the numbers come in from all the, like, Amazon. It takes a while for this to happen. So that would fit, right? That you would think, okay, there's this alternate halftime show, the All American Halftime Show. And we know that we got real legitimate, like, huge numbers for it. And so Nolte in Breitbart says the reason you're seeing preliminary headlines based on Nielsen ratings that look like this 135 million tuned into the super bowl is due to the difference between viewers and household. Nielsen measures viewers, and they use, like, an algorithm to do it. Samba TV measures households. Samba TV also gets its data directly from about 50 million smart TVs where the owners opted in to have their viewership habits measured. So that's actually hard data here. So Samba might be, in theory, better data. Now, that doesn't mean that Samba TV is superior to Nielsen. What's that?
- [33:53]
C
I Just can't believe that there's like 50 million smart TVs.
- [33:56]
B
I mean, people probably opt to do that.
- [33:59]
C
No, but it's.
- [34:00]
B
So both are respected. Nolte makes this point. Both data points are respected in the TV and advertising worlds, and the data they produce is not seen as either or choice, but as complementary. At the very least, Samba is using apples to apples data. What he means by this is that Samba. Samba collected its data the same way for years. So the comparison from this year's ratings to last year's has credibility as far as trends, which in any case, no matter how you measure it, are way down.
- [34:28]
C
Yeah, so it's like, it's not that whether or not it captures the whole set of viewers, if they're working with the same pool of TVs, they can at least say, of the pool of TVs we have, we can reliably detect, yes, the number of viewers went down for the super bowl and then even more for the halftime show. I kind of wonder how many people might have just literally changed the channel because they were wondering, did I accidentally switch to the Spanish language broadcast? Like, you know, it's always funny. There are just. There are tens of millions of people who are totally out of the loop. So, like, yes, they would have totally missed the, you know, it's all in Spanish halftime show.
- [35:05]
B
So. But. But I totally agree. You never know what people are doing like that. We saw that grandma clip from yesterday was like, get this off. She knew it was the Super Bowl. Like, it's not that she didn't, but she just couldn't understand anything, and she didn't like it. And she's like, whatever. And that was the number one piece of feedback I heard. I actually went on with Chris Cuomo and Geraldo Rivera last night to talk about this, and they were, oh, what a celebration of the mosaic of America. And I was like, guys, there was millions of people who couldn't understand a darn thing, and they were not happy about it. Okay, so just to reiterate the point, Nielsen is building this off a. An algorithm, an equation that they use where they put a multiplier on a sort of a survey that they do. This is using actual devices of an actual pool of data that they measure year to year to year. Their data says there was a massive 22 million household drop off for the halftime show. And honestly, it corresponds really, really closely with the numbers that we've seen. Now, again, I'm gonna. I don't. We don't have the final numbers. I Will just say that, like what I'm seeing, if I'm approximating that 50 million viewer mark is, is not crazy at all. As a matter of fact, it might be a little low depending on how Nielsen and this third party group end up calculating the numbers. So what we can tell you is that this was probably the second largest live stream in YouTube history. And that's just Turningpoint's channel. You had Charlie's, you had real America's voice. YouTube, oans, YouTube, NTD's, YouTube. There was a couple other random YouTubes. You add all those together, it very well could have been the number one live stream event in YouTube history. And that means you're beating like the whole country of India that has like what, 1.6 billion people or something like that. They had a national event.
- [36:52]
C
They landed on the Indian moon landing.
- [36:54]
B
It was the Indian moon landing.
- [36:55]
C
Number one.
- [36:55]
B
Yeah, it was number one. And then there was like some, I think number two was like a lot.
- [36:59]
C
Of, mostly it's a lot of World cup games high. But of course, keep in mind, some of those might have alternate streams just as ours did.
- [37:05]
B
Sure, sure, sure.
- [37:06]
C
I think, I think it was a big, I think it was a big win for us overall to be on a million different platforms. You just, you get the whole.
- [37:12]
B
Yeah. Coming together. Yeah, you can view, you can view it the way you, you want. We're still haven't got tbn. TBN was our, our provider, our platform that had the most TV, like traditional cable.
- [37:24]
C
50 million household.
- [37:25]
B
I think it's like 70 million. Yeah. So they, they, they had the most. So if you were kind of old school and you just want to switch the channel on your cable, that was the easiest option. And we still don't have those numbers. So I'm telling you, the numbers are big, big, big, big. And talking to some of the people in the media world, they basically describe this as a tectonic shift that the halftime show will never be the same again. Listen, I feel bittersweet about that. I, I love that we have institutions in the country still that everybody tunes in for. But if you're going to disrespect such a huge swath of the country and whether you meant to do it or not, again, no agenda here, no hate, but whether you meant to do it or not, they felt disrespected, they felt disregarded, they felt forgotten. And so they made a choice and we made a choice to provide something that they could tune in for for more.
- [38:19]
C
On many of these stories and news, you can Trust go to charliekirk.com.