← The Charlie Kirk Show
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Steve Bannon from the War Room Pandemic Podcast, one of the biggest podcasts in the country, joins our show advertiser free. So if you guys like this conversation with no advertisers and you want to support us, you could do it@charliekirk.com Support Doreen from Ridge, New York. God bless you. Thank you so much for supporting us. CharlieKirk.com support is where you guys can get behind the work we are doing at our show to try to reach millions of young people every single month. I want to thank Christine from North Carolina where she says, love your show with Dr. Merritt. Thank you so much. Charliekirk.com support thank you, Lori from Huntington Beach, California. Thank you, Rosalind from Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Thank you, Sarah from Anacortes, Washington. You help us hire more staff, you help us hire more researchers, you allow us to get the show ready every single day of two podcasts a day. So this one is brought to you with no advertisers at all. Please consider going to charliekirk.comsupport to support us. Get behind us with whatever means you can. And please consider becoming a monthly supporter. If you want to get involved with TurningPoint USA, you can do so@tpusa.com Steve Bannon is here. You're gonna enjoy this. Buckle up. Here we go. Charlie. What you've done is incredible here.
- [01:23]
B
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 wanna 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.
- [01:42]
A
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are gonna fight for freedom on camp the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. By popular demand, we have Steve Bannon here today from the War Room Pandemic podcast. And, Steve, welcome to the show. This has been long overdue, and I listen to your show quite, quite regularly. Can you just kind of start with where the idea of doing this live stream on the War Room Pandemic started? Because it's not one of the top broadcasts in the world.
- [02:19]
B
It's funny you asked that. And by the way, we watch you all the time. I actually did an homage to you yesterday on your breaking of the Priest that was in Buckeye. So just like we follow your social media because you get so much big stuff up. It happened. I would do. John Fredericks is a guy that has this kind of radio network for the deplorables. And he's from my hometown of Richmond. I did his show in the once a week, you know, forever. And back in 2019, I got on there and talked about the impeachment. This is after Nancy Pelosi was up to the UN and it just said, hey, you know, President Trump's gonna get impeached. Here's how they're gonna do it. He's not gonna get removed from office. They're gonna try to chop blocking for his reelect, because everything. He's on fire right now. Economy, all of it. And the audience, like, went nuts. It says, fake news. This is not happening. And so over the weekend, he says, you know, it's the first time he had a negative response. I said, john, you know, this is happening. He goes, no. So I talked to him. And on October, that was a Friday, we talked over the weekend, and he put me up on his radio network on Monday. We did one dry run. We had Mark Meadows the next day. And so October 22nd of 2019, we started. And then two hours and an hour in the afternoon. Then in January, because I'm pretty dialed into China, I knew that there was this pandemic happening. So we bifurcated the show. One hour to the impeachment, one hour to pandemic. And then when the impeachment fell apart a couple weeks later, this is in mid January. And the funny thing, Charlie, is when I started we're in pandemic, I had all the mainstream media from D.C. and New York guys I knew said the impeachment show is pretty intense because you get all these experts in. But why are you doing this pandemic? It's like it's a bird flu from central China. You sound like a nutcase. And I said, yeah, I don't know. Just stand by on this thing. So we've had a good run. And I think, you know, just like you people are looking for sources of information, they can come every day, build a community, and actually get information they can use in their personal lives and information that they can actually apply to their political or their, you know, their social lives, one of the things we pride ourselves on is that we're an activist. Our audience, the War Room Posse, is an activist community. I mean, you can see today when somebody like you are on, they'll be taking the clips and pushing them out and acting as a force multiplier. So it's A it's really about human agency. That's what we try to tell the audience, to give them tools and information and access. And that's why the Turning Point usa, those types of things are what they like. They like action oriented. It's not really traditional talk radio, which I love, don't get me wrong. But you know, Rush Limbaugh and these guys have such a great model and that's just not, it's not what we do. And that's why a guy like you, come on, you're the kind of guest that really we try to book and try to get on because it's action, action, action.
- [05:06]
A
Well, it's very unique. And you know, there was just a story, I think in the Washington Post somewhere that blamed you for the fact that people are taking precinct committee positions seriously. We were mentioned like halfway through because we've been trying to do that through our political arm, Turning Point Action. And it's kind of refreshing to finally see a community that wants to do something and want to take back the Republican Party and take back the country. And I want to explore that with you, Steve, because you've been one of the leaders on kind of this idea of populist conservatism. And I don't think you get the credit always for being able to articulate the philosophical foundations for that. Can you just kind of riff on that for a second here of why? What do we believe? What are we trying to do here?
- [05:50]
B
Yeah, I think it's. By the way, it gets back to the precinct committee minute which came out of a guy in Arizona actually has been doing it for years. It was pro publica, the kind of left wing investigative guys who I thought did a very good job of trying to find out what we're doing. Look, populism really came from the financial collapse of 2008 where I noticed that all the working class people were the guys left holding the bag. In particular, Obama came in most progressive president. They just blew up the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. You had the greatest concentration of wealth ever. And the hard working folks, like my dad at the time was I think 80, almost 90 years old. He had held AT&T stock. All the stock dropped to be of no value. These are guys that totally buy into the system. And so populism, I started looking at it. You know, we've won as Republicans, we've won more elections than we've lost since 19, since Nixon won in 68. If you look at Senate and House and state legislatures and governorships and I tell people hey, we won all these elections, but we lost the country. And you could look at that right after the 2020, you know, this fiasco in 2020 and after Biden administration came in and today with the mandates that you just can't go on. An old model. An old model that really is a corporatist and I think you said it so well on our show today, a corporatist model that just plays to these kind of tax cuts and deregulations for these giant corporations. And that's been. And that's what the controlled opposition that the Democrats want. We need something that engages citizens and particularly people. Remember, they pay the taxes. They're the ones that send their sons and daughters into the military. Many of them are veterans. They're the. The Chinese have a name for it, Lao Baijang, which means old hundred names. It's just this common man and I come from a family of the common man and woman, right? Just kind of hard working basic people. We need to shift decision making to them and their engagement in the country's governance. And that's populism. Now the other part of that is kind of nationalism and conservatism and that is, hey, we understand in a global network, we understand that, you know, we have interest all over the world and obviously companies all over the world, et cetera. But you've got to put American citizenship first. America has to come first and American citizens have to come first, whether it's the sovereignty of our country, the southern border, how we deploy our troops, all of it. It's not that we can't be in multinational organizations or treaties or things like that. But America's interests have to come first, just like other nations. It's kind of the Treaty of Westphalia, which was 300 years ago, that made the nation state the centerpiece. That's still the way for us to get the most ability of freedom. So populism is really pushing decision making down to the people and having policies that really benefit the people. A perfect example is economics. You know, for years and years and years we've had tax cuts for giant corporations, deregulation for giant corporations, which in and of itself is not bad if you look at the overall aspect of it, what we've allowed these multinational corporations and I always tell the Republicans, they're the most progressive institutions in the world. Now these woke companies, all these guys you gave tax cuts to and deregulation have now turned on conservatives, turned on traditionalists with a vengeance to de platform them, de bank them, all of it. And so that's not working. We have to have a model that focuses on bringing job high value added manufacturing jobs back here that looks at economics that we've put too much of the returns to capital that now needs to be pushed back. Some of that's going to be pushed back to labor. We have to have tax policy like that, investment policy like that, et cetera. Because listen, it's on the shoulders of the deplorables arrest. All the tax revenues essentially come from them or the great bulk of it, since we know the wealthy pay very little in taxes. And the pension funds are really the private equity and the venture capital that drive the Zuckerbergs the world and the Jack Dorsey's of the world, in addition has been the driving engine of shipping all the jobs over to China. So to me, this country is about 65%. I think the policies of President Trump, who kind of personified this as a real estate billionaire from Queens, then go Manhattan on the global stage. He understands and connects, as you've seen a million times, Charlie. He can connect to the common man and he understands their fears and particularly what they want out of governance. Right. Which is not a lot. What they basically want to do is protect the family, make sure they get a fair share and they will pay their taxes, they'll work hard, they'll send their sons and daughters to defend the nation. So it's pretty straightforward. And I think that it's now we can. And the key I keep telling people, I say, hey, look, we're winning. And if you look at like in the 2020 election, look at the Rio Grande Valley, look at these, as Steve Cortez says, we are winning working class Hispanics like never before. Right? We're winning African American males like we've never won before. And those are cause of basic Trump policies of populism and nationalism. And so I think with the work that you're doing with the youth, which is still to me are most tenuous because I don't think we get that message out. I see a coalition here that could govern for 100 years. And so that's what the war room every day tries to emphasize the populist nationalist aspect of the Trump movement.
- [10:55]
A
And an idea of populism is also in some ways non ideological. It's supposed to be prudent in its approach to reject kind of like bumper sticker conservatism of saying like, oh yeah, you can never do tariffs. Like why can't we have some tariffs if it actually helps your workers? Right. And so Steve, can you let's go a level deeper about this, about how Republicans are, are kind of stuck in this muscle memory of a party and a movement that quite honestly, I grew up in in 2012 and 13 and 14. You know where I used to go to these gatherings, Steve, and there used to be like charts and graphs about, you know, GDP growth or, you know, and again, I'm not discounting that. I guess it's fine, right? It's an element to a successful society. But now, Steve, when I speak at these gatherings, like I just did in my California, they're talking about culture, they're talking about children, they're talking about things that I think are far more important than GDP graphs. Can you talk about that? About either where we went wrong and how we're correcting that?
- [11:54]
B
I think that because elections and what the consultants told people, because remember, the consultants are really marketing experts that are focused on television and they were trying to make 30 second spots. And so they came up with, it's the economy, stupid. And it got to be that we're just focused on the economy and GDP growth and tax cuts and deregulation. And what people forgot is we're a country with an economy, not an economy that has a country bolted onto it. And I think that's been one of the big powers. So true in populism. You can see the Persona or manifestation of populism right now. People say, well, it's still too esoteric. Here's the thing. Look at the school boards. Look at moms and dads, particularly moms there arguing about mask, arguing now about vaccines. But particularly look at that crt. I know so many moms who, let's say this, weren't political science majors when they were in college that now sit there and can tell you about Herbert Marcuse and Claud Piven, Michel Foucault and
- [12:53]
A
Jacques Derrida and all of them. Yeah.
- [12:55]
B
In the Frankfurt school. And when Joanne Reed is on MSNBC saying, oh no, critical race theory is just some Derrick Bell esoteric thing at Harvard Law School, they're saying, no, no, no, Derrick Bell taught this Obama. I mean, they know it. That's populism.
- [13:09]
A
Yes.
- [13:10]
B
They were so engaged. Right. That. And you're seeing it now in the precinct committee strategy where people are showing up. There's, you know, the Republican Party structured to be kind of a grassroots party. Now what they get away with is only half the billets are filled. So Dan Schultz, a guy in Arizona for years, West Point grad, has been pushing this and we just kind of gave it a platform and people go, hold it. Hang on. I can actually go down to a precinct, sign up and be actually part of the Republican Party and be a decision maker. And it doesn't cost me any money, just time. And that's. And by the way, so the left's freaking out. They hate populism. They hate the fact they're seeing in Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and Florida and particularly Arizona, they're seeing grassroots organizations that really are getting engaged. Remember, if you look at our political history, the two big reactions, one to the Clinton presidency in 92 was the Newt Gingrich revolt in 94, which is kind of one of the beginnings of it. And then the Tea Party revolt, right. When you were coming on the scene, Charlie, in 2010, which was the kind of revolt against the Obama failed policies in this first year. Right. His first year and a half, those two gave us huge. First we took back the house in 94 for the first time, and then in 2010, 63 seats, the biggest sweep since the depths of the Great Depression in 1932. That's populism. Now we kind of lost the plot because we really didn't have the policies to go along with that. People, once again, once again, Mitch McConnell and the establishment are pretty good about steering it back to what the Kochs want. And that's the power of the Trump movement today. I mean, you came out and the reason we had you on the show today, you came out as a firebrand yesterday. Say, hey, look, I've got a company, over 100 people. I'm taking this to court and I'll go to the Supreme Court. You're not coming in here. OSHA's not coming in here. Defiance. J.D. vance said, Hey, I want mass civilization.
- [14:57]
A
Yes.
- [14:57]
B
You had firebrands coming out from the leadership in the Republican Party. It's been kind of crickets, just like it has been on the Heartbeat Bill. The populace, whether it's in Texas with the right to life movement, whether it's, whether it's right now with people at the school board level taking back for crt, whether people are fighting these vaccine mandates, the leadership is still not there. Remember, they're not leadership. They're really led. And I think that that is we're living in an age right now because of organizations like yourselves, shows like this and social media, even though we've been deplatformed all over the world's getting out and people are sitting there going, I just don't want to sit there and listen to talk radio anymore. I just want to sit there and watch Fox. Not that I don't love it. I love talk radio. I love guys getting me fired up. I love Fox. But I want to do something. I want to be engaged, and particularly if it doesn't cost them a huge check to be a donor, but to actually put their time and effort and energy in it. We're in an age of populism right now, and that's what the main the ruling class in our country the greatest fear is not simply Trump, but what President Trump represents. President Trump not in the room, not in the deal. President Trump gave us a seat at the table in a bold seat, right? They hate Trump, obviously. They tried to destroy him many, many times. They don't want him to return. And I'm talking about the establishment of the Republican Party, not the left. But what they really fear most is the populist movement and the nationalist movement underneath Trump. And you can see that from that pro publica article where they literally freak out about people going to be election officials, people this democracy personified, people going to be committee men, election officials, school boards. That grassroots populism that is so powerful to give people voice. They're in full melting.
- [16:43]
A
Well. And the part that you highlighted, Steve, that I think is super interesting, is how intelligent our grassroots activists have become over the last 10 years. And I've seen this year after year, and I see it in our listeners on our podcast. And they're emailing me about not just Marcuse and Foucault and Derrida, but they want to know about Machiavelli, and they want to know about Descartes and Hume and Aquinas, and they want to know about the ancient Greeks. And I asked them, I say, like, what are you, a professor? Like, no, I'm a plumber and I'm homeschooling my kids. And Steve, that's an even more profound point of why the elites are truly getting scared. Because an informed and active grassroots base, then all of a sudden they'll be able to call BS the next time some sort of technocratic politician does what Kelly Lefler does. Who's a nice person, right? Nothing against her, but it's like, oh, yeah, reject socialism. Yeah, I actually want more than that.
- [17:38]
B
This is such a powerful point. It's one of the reasons Fox and the talking points aren't seen over and over again, that one of the shows like yours and mine have to always keep ahead of it is that I go into these sites and see what's happening. The people are so informed and have access to so much information and they're so you've got to make sure the show's not a generalist show. I mean, I come on there with the two hours in the morning, I go, wow, not only do we have to concentrate, but we actually have to have new information because they're so up to speed. It's quite, it's amazing. And a lot of this is found in people's getter feeds or Twitter feeds or what your show's putting out. And then they take it to the next level and they spend hours. You have, you go to some of these sites. I sit there and I look at. Obviously some of it is a little ill formed, but a lot of it is dead spot on. And people have done research and they crowdsource things that you have real experts. And so it puts the pressure on the Charlie Crooks and the Steve Bannon to make sure these shows don't turn into just Fox.
- [18:36]
A
Totally.
- [18:37]
B
You've got to be ahead of it. Every day our staff is working to keep up with the audience. Remember, this is another thing with President Trump. I keep telling guys, they're all ripping on him. I said, hey, in many respects the populist nationalist movement is actually farther to the right than President Trump.
- [18:56]
A
I agree completely with that on the
- [18:58]
B
vaccine mandates, et cetera. I said, you're picking on Trump, poor Trump, all the time. I said, but you got to see where that goes to the next tier down, not of elected officials, but of powerful voices in this movement and they're farther to the right. And I believe that the smart people on the left understand that. They see exactly what's happening.
- [19:18]
A
And Trump has prudence and wisdom and he will follow the cue from the people, though. That's the thing. If you've noticed that in some of his interviews, all of a sudden he's going after Pfizer a little bit. He's going. I mean, he gets it right, he listens and that's something. He's a non ideological figure, which a lot of people, that's an unknown commodity. And so Steve, are you starting to see though, at the highest levels of the Republican Party in Senate leadership or House leadership, are they starting to get the clue is this starting to change and if so, what needs to be done for that to change?
- [19:49]
B
Here's what needs to be done and I think it's my turning point in these operations. We have to, it's not only about winning anymore. Obviously we have to win, okay, but we have to win with the right people and the right Policies, I think now, And I believe 2022 is going to be because we gotta get to the bottom of three. November, that's still essential to get there. But we have to do it with the right people and we have to do with the right policies. These have to be populist, nationalist policies and they have to be the right people. And you're gonna see a lot of bait and switch. And you brought up a perfect one. Kelly Loeffler down in. You know, first off, I think there's two. One, when we get to the bottom of Georgia, you're gonna see that we had two Republican senators.
- [20:31]
A
I totally agree, but it should have been a 500,000 vote win, right?
- [20:35]
B
Yeah. Let's be honest. There's 405 or $500 million spent by the Republicans in that 45 days. I don't think a lot of that flowed through the Charlie Kirk show or came to the War Room and they were. I'm sitting there and instead of focusing on November 3rd and what support and getting all the Trump voters out and jacked up, they're talking about capitalism versus socialism. It's kind of this esoteric view that, you know, people say, hey, tell me how capitalism's work for me when I'm one paycheck away from desolation. And it's worked for the 1%. I got that, but how's it working for me? So it's the messaging. They're going to try to message this and what they're going to try to do is draft off. They want the muscle and the energy and the dynamism of the Trump movement, the populist movement, but they want to continue with their same policies. And we're going to have. That's going to be a fight. I think a lot of these primaries, particularly we could win, I think 50 to 60 seats in the House if we teed this up like 2010, particularly. Remember, Biden is in a complete free fall. He's in complete free fall in the suburbs. The Economist poll the other day said the Economist now, not the Charlie Kirk show or Turning Point or War Room. The economist poll had 42% of independent voters believe he's illegitimate. Okay, that should go off like a fire bell in the night. The other poll they had, I think was the morning Council poll had, oh, no, no, no labels, which is a moderate group, had only 39% of suburban voters, which is their strength, believe they should do this. $6 trillion in spending. They wanted to follow mansions. Let's take a breather. We don't know what's going on here. He's imploding everywhere and his numbers are lower than Clinton's in 94. And the reason was, not reason was he was never at the Obama levels. He was more, I think at 43 or 45% of the real vote. And that's why you see the implosion down. We could run the tables. The whole issue is going to be who's in the primaries, right? And who are these voices going to be and what are the policies going to be. And I think that's going to get, that's going to get a little dicey and it's going to be a lot of, you know, the establishment is going to blow back hard. There's an article in Politico today that Kevin McCarthy doesn't want to talk about. 3rd November. Now, Kevin McCarthy is a very nice guy. He's done a good job recruiting, but we're in a war, right? And we got to get focused on this. And particularly I don't see how you can back those people that turned on President Trump and voted for impeachment. That to me it's just gonna, you're gonna lose 10 or 15% of your vote.
- [23:02]
A
I totally agree.
- [23:03]
B
It's just gonna sit there and go, hey, look, you know, I'm coming out and I'm coming out for this guy, but I'm also coming out for this guy he represents. And the Republicans are still under some fantasy that that's gonna, that's just gonna just come and that's just not going to happen. That's going to be Georgia all over again.
- [23:18]
A
And so maybe you can help explain this to me, Steve. Why is it then with Biden sinking popularity, he seems to be accelerating what his regime is doing? Usually when you plummet in the polls, there's like a cooling off period. You kind of like invite a basketball team to the White House or like you go give some sort of, you know, medal to, you know, a veteran. You do like non controversial things. Right. Instead it seems like he says, what's the most radical thing I can do? Why is that? I have some my own theories, but I'd love your wisdom on that.
- [23:48]
B
Here's what I think it is. I do think the mandates and I think you brought it up today about it's gonna take some time for them to even write the eos and to get OSHA involved before. It's gonna take a while for OSHA to knock on Turning Point USA's door. Right? So here's what I Think. I think it's a little bit of a misdirection play to demonize the. Remember, 47% of the country is not vaccinated yet, but to demonize that minority majority. The reason is the next four weeks is going to be the fulcrum of American politics. So we have two events coming up and Biden needs to spend money. He needs to buy off the working class and the middle class with these massive $6 trillion, the 1.25 phony infrastructure bill which 19 collaborators in the Republican Party agreed to, and then the 3.5 trillion. Just radical expansion of the social safety net. And he needs to do that with two big structural problems on the 30th of September. If you don't have a budget, the fiscal year ends and the government shuts down. Number one, we also know more importantly the debt ceiling. We've topped out now to the debt ceiling. So they just can't print money. The ways you finance this whole debacle, you either one, sell bonds to the Chinese or the Japanese or the Gulf Emirates, government bonds. Either through growth you get more tax revenues or you raise taxes. And there's not enough juice there in the lemon to do that because there's no growth. Number three, you just print money because we're the prime reserve currency and we do that. That's a fancy term for saying it's going back on Turning Point USA's members. This is really the full faith and credit of the United States. Somebody's got to pay that off. The American people always pay it off. That is just adding to this. They right now we have complete leverage what they have to do. And in this city, there's no heated debates right now about this. They're not over in the Capitol Hill saying how are we spending $6 trillion and adding this over the spending we're going to do. Remember this annual spending is about $5.2 trillion right now. This is all over and above that. And so the question gets to be is that. And they need to do that. If he does not get this money and pay off and buy off the working class and buy off the middle class with essentially an expanded set of goodies. Right? And also buys off all the corporate clients. One of the reasons you don't hear a peep here, the lobbyists in the Republican Party are quite comfortable with what's happening because their clients are going to get huge paydays, contracts, more revenue. And that's why you almost hear no peep about it. So to stop it all gets back to money Money and power. Right now we have the leverage points. If you don't allow continuing resolution and any of these funny games, you know, they did it with President Trump all the time. Kick the can down the road a couple of months, stick all kinds of things in the CR and for the continuing resolution that would get them past the 30th. The other day, Charlie, the Hill newspaper said, oh gosh, look what they're including in there. One is 65,000 Afghani refugees in the United States. It's the first time they ever mentioned in Mount and where they were coming and why they needed money to pay for. And that's where they put it in there. So for the audience, the mandates are huge. They're dropping the hammer. Now. Part of that, I think, is to get people's eye off the ball, the spending. But we're now into it, you see. And if they get this spending done, I will tell the turning point audience. America's economy is never coming back like the country that was bequeathed to me and I was able to grow up in. It's going to be radically different. This is going to be not just big government, this is going to be government into everything. Right? And AOC and these guys do this with a green New Deal that gets you into the middle of everything. We're going to have very quickly 35, $40 trillion of face amount of debt. You're at 1 of 0 interest rates with the Fed can keep right now, it's fine. But when that comes off, we're going to be like Japan. You're going to have multiple lost decades. You know, your team members there, the people in their 20s, you can assume the time that you reach middle age, right? Almost retirement, this economy is never going to come back. It's going to be like 2% growth, 1% growth, no opportunities. And particularly no opportunities on a mass scale. So we must fight this now in the Uni party that lives off the federal budget, lives off the spending, lives off the corruption, the graph, all that is pushing this. And that's why these grassroots voices are more important than ever.
- [28:12]
A
And when I speak to senators, there are some good ones out there. I want to say Rand Paul's been terrific on Fauci. He's led on Fauci. He really has been phenomenal. But when I talk to most senators, I don't feel that kind of sense of urgency, Steve. And obviously I wish that we still had state legislatures that appointed senators. I think that was one of the worst things. And even as a populist, I say that, Steve, I think that it's actually more populous to have the state legislatures to control it. It's the opposite of what people would think. But I don't feel that sense of urgency from the ruling class because they've been able to insulate themselves from any of the damage that their decisions actually have when they make them.
- [28:52]
B
Here's the awful thing, and this is why your show and Turning Point, what you guys are doing and other groups are doing, they want you to kind of drift by in ignorance and focus on the shiny new toilet. That's why all these things pop up and there's an outrage du jour. They want your eye. This is war. And in the fog of war, they want you not to focus on it. It's money and power.
- [29:11]
A
Yes.
- [29:12]
B
Right now from the Biden administration. The power is boom. They're hitting you right in the mouth with these vaccine mandates and they're going to roll hard. Okay, may take them a while, but they're going to roll hard. And the money, they expect to get something through with the unit party in the next couple of weeks. And that's what this is down to, money and power and what they're always going to do. No, there's no sense of urgency. The only sense of urgency they've got is to make sure their donors get paid off. And the lobbyists are the guys that do the. That's the link between the donors, the global corporations, Wall street in the, in the Senate. So, no, I think you see very little. You've got a handful of really great guys over, don't get me wrong, men and women. But it's not enough. We have to change that, start changing that this cycle. And I think particularly in the House, in the House, we have to really get fire breathing populists in there. They're prepared to really, you know, and as you know, Charlie, you can't back off. You just got to attack, attack, attack. You always got to be on offense. If you're ever on defense, they're just going to roll you.
- [30:08]
A
No war has ever been won by playing defense. And the states have more power than people realize in this. You know, I was just in North Dakota, Steve, and you know, North Dakota does not have a governor that is fighting at all. And they just, it's amazing. It's probably the most conservative state in the country. If you just look at kind of how they vote yet. They're kind of just kind of governed by a bunch of moderates. And I want to try to get the states to empower them to not just challenge the federal government, but to create the country that they want to live in. And the trend is actually getting away from the international organizations and even D.C. the trend is getting more local and local. Can you talk about that, Steve? How the momentum is actually towards self rule?
- [30:48]
B
Want to remember in the Catholic Church, the concept was from Thomas, I think subsidiarity. That man lives best when decision making is made at the lowest level. That's kind of what nationalism is based upon, because you can actually control it, you know, from the grassroots level. And that's why I think at the states and at the school boards, right, at the precinct committees, this is the new populism. And absolutely, the states can be laboratories. And right now, think about it. Everything has come out of the three November. Every policy we've got that's kind of a fighting policy has come from the states, has come from. Hey, the railhead of the patriot movement right now is Arizona.
- [31:25]
A
Arizona.
- [31:26]
B
Those patriots that were in what I call the new Concord Bridge of that convention center for those months in hot conditions, counting every day, doing the detailed work. Now we know that people are out canvassing and this is why the Justice Department freaked out, right? They wanted to charge them with criminal violations for voter intimidation. That all came from basically nameless populist patriots in Arizona. You're seeing that in Georgia. You're now seeing it in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. So no, I think people are on fire. And particularly the degree that they say, I got to take this school board back. I don't want to have my kids polluted with crt. I want to take the school board back. I want to make sure that we have informed consent on both mask the social distancing, whether they're in school or not, and particularly on vaccines. People, I think, are feeling more empowered. And remember, victory begets victory. The more you have this. And I think, Charlie, actually at the state level, I think you're going to have such a flood candidates coming in. Because right now we have a lot of candidates jumping into these House races. I think the next wave is in state legislation. House of Delegates, you're gonna see a flood of populists come in there to say, hey, look, let me get into these state legislatures. I can make some real changes. Because we know from the election of 2020, all power resides in the state legislature. Deem who certified the electors. That's gonna become a massive story towards the end of this year and in early next year. The certification process of these, of these, of this election, as it becomes in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and particularly Arizona and Georgia, as it becomes evident that something was untoward and they go through a decertification process that's going to raise up the power that the founders wanted into these state legislatures. And I agree with you, massive mistake we made in an anti populist, in hindsight, was to take the power away from the state legislation, actually elect the senators.
- [33:19]
A
So in closing, Steve, I wanna ask you about Trump running in 2024. I could see it both ways. I see some positives, I see some problems with that. What's your own personal opinion on that? Because my fear is that a technocrat tries to inherit the populist movement and it doesn't take. And all of a sudden we kind of have the thing that we've been seeing in Senate Republican world, which is they'll show up to the Trump rally and get the endorsement and then turn around and do the exact opposite. What's your thought on this?
- [33:47]
B
My thought, first off, 2022, I'm a huge advocate of, because Trump's going to be on the ballot. You know, we can say anything we want. It's going to be about the Trump movement and Trump. So the Republican Party just wants him to go away. They say just go off and be quiet, don't say anything. So no, the left is going to put him on the ballot. And I think when he's on the ballot, we draw out more votes, we draw out all the deplorables, people put their shoulder to the wheel and we're going to win massively. I'm actually an advocate he should not run for office, but I think he should become speaker of the House for 100 days to impeach Biden, step down and then say, I'm starting my campaign in 2024. We need, look, President Trump's kind of like an Andrew Breitbart type guy. These guys come along once and very rarely in American history. Right. The chapters of Trump's political career and his impact on the nation are far from over. That's the candidate we've got in 2024. We know what happened in 2020. We're now fired up to get to the bottom of it. 2022 is kind of the interim point. That's where we really, we take the country back and we get fire breathers in there for investigations, for being tough, for shutting down this White House and anything they want to do because we have the purse strings or the ability to investigate. Right. And ability to actually lay out a tax code that's fair, all appropriations, and most importantly, the investigations in this administration, particularly God bless Rand Paul and Tom Cotton, Tony Fauci and others. Right then we prep for 2024. I just think that President Trump is the man for the times. I just pray every day that he's going to be. He'll be 78 years old, or he'll be, I think, 78 years old at the time. We're very fortunate to have him. And quite frankly, all the other people around there will not galvanize like we need to be galvanized. I'm a strong advocate. Every time I talk to me, it's a foregone conclusion. I think it's going to happen. There'll be plenty of time for people later. All these other people are relatively young. There's plenty of time. But we've got to win 2022. We must win in 2024. And that even lays aside what happens when we decertify these elections, because right then we'll be in a constitutional crisis. All bets will be off. But that's why I say the 3rd of November, get to the bottom of that. Let's have the state legislatures do their business. Let's go back to the certification process, which is what we wanted on November 6, on January 6, let's see where the chips fall. But I would say all the populists and nationalists focus on Trump 2022, 22 with the Trump movement, populous with real fire breathers, then let's take care. Let's get our. Put our shoulder to the world. 24. And I think it's pretty. I think it's pretty straightforward. Every time I say a Turning Point conference, you guys are on fire. So I know we're gonna have enough young people.
- [36:25]
A
The numbers are increasing like we've never seen before, Steve. And you know, I tell people a lot that students and young people, they are. They're growing envious because they actually want to start to live in the country they've been told exists for their whole life. You know, they've been told that, yeah, you could go buy a home and start a family. And they say, really? Like, can I get in on that a little bit? Because I want to participate in that project that used to exist. So, Steve, final question here. Our audience is like you. We have a doing audience. We kind of talked about precinct committeemen and all this. What are the action items for people to do? You know, just get as specific as you can.
- [37:02]
B
The action item number one, get engaged. When I mean engage. Whether it's turning point, whether it's precinct committee member, school board, first thing you do is be a force multiplier. What do I mean by that? Immerse yourself with information. Immerse yourself with multiple sources of information and then act as your own little node to push this stuff out, connect people. Do that 24 hours a day. Just get into it. This is. Look, the country's at war. You need to get engaged and immerse yourself like people in the 1940s, right? Look, it's a political civil war, right? And we're going to win this at the ballast. Remember, we're the majority of the country right now. 2020 is going to show us that when we get to the bottom of it, act like we do control the country. And the way to do that is get engaged. And you can do that at so many different levels of opportunity. First, immerse yourself in information. Two, push that information out and then find where your interests are. If your interest is in elections, you can get involved in election groups, you can get involved in election integrity or actually helping to make sure the elections are fair. If you like media, get involved in that. If you like grassroots organizing, get involved in that. If you like national security, you can volunteer for the military, or if you're a veteran, come back. And there's so many groups. So every interest you have in your country and then really taking this country forward, there's a network out there in a community. It may be very small, but you'll find it. And the way you'll find it is to get focused. I would say if you do this, you still got time for the golf clubs and the tennis, but make this a big part of your life, make it a part of your fabric of your life and take action. Remember, every day you're going to feel better as I get victory after victory after victory personally and as a group. So just jump in and get engaged.
- [38:42]
A
And the thing you mentioned earlier is everybody dedicate time to learn every single day. Things will make more sense the more time you spend on this. It's War Room Pandemic podcast. It is always on the top 5 to 10 of all Apple podcasts. We're always jousting up there, Steve. And that's good if you actually.
- [39:01]
B
Hey, can I say one thing, Charlie? Don't ever change today. I can't tell you how much the audience love the way you're very direct. There's no just boom. And I tell you, just keep doing that and your podcast will be better. You'll be higher than the war room.
- [39:19]
A
Okay, I don't know about that, but it does give me hope because out of the top 10 podcasts, War Room Hours and Bongino, three are populist conservatives. I'll take that.
- [39:30]
B
Pretty. Pretty good. Pretty good. Populist. Pretty good. Those three can throw a punch.
- [39:34]
A
I'll tell you what, Steve, thanks so much for joining. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.
- [39:37]
B
Thank you, audience. Thank you.
- [39:38]
A
See you soon. Bye. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us your thoughts freedomarliekirk.com and if you want to support our program, you could do so@charliekirk.com support if you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, it's tpusa.com God bless you guys. Speak to you soon.
- [39:59]
B
For more on many of these stories and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.