Charlie Kirk (5:02)

Oh these people, the Most good little gnome. Good, good little gremlin.

Mike Cernovich (5:07)

Yeah, they, they would always do this. Oh, well, Charlie Kirk actually makes some good points. Shut up. Charlie Kirk makes a lot of great points. That's why you won't have them on. And that's why you guys try to act like an intermediary between the energy of the, the modern Christian conservatives, the modern New Right. And everybody realizes that we just have to go direct. And also people, of course, go very hard. JD is obviously more civil than other people. So I think that's the biggest. If I had to explain it because somebody from another country was asking me, hey, what's up? And I would go, it's a new self confidence. It's an American chauvinism. It's a little bit of swagger. Wouldn't you agree?

Charlie Kirk (5:47)

I totally agree. And I want to zero in on one thing you said here, which is that our side has a philosophical depth to it that I have not seen in my 13 years of doing this. We get described by our critics as just being power politics and just caring about winning elections. But MAGA has matured in its love of philosophy, of ancient things, to wonder about really what matters, of what is good, true and beautiful of the great books, the great authors and the great traditions of the west. Speak about this Cerneau, about how the right gets caricatured as just being, you know, a bunch of guys from the back hills of Appalachia, when in reality it's the leaders that are openly talking about Aquinas, thinking about Montesquieu, Rousseau, Locke, and understanding the implications of these ideas when it comes to politics.

Mike Cernovich (6:47)

Yeah, there's always been a philosophical depth to working class people that was shrugged. Shrugged around stuff. I remember being. And you know, I grew up very humble backgrounds. You would see the road to serfdom on somebody's bookshelf. A mechanic, somebody who worked, in my case, I worked on a junkyard. It wasn't unusual to randomly see Hayek somewhere. And that was. We were. But we were always taught, like, oh, these people didn't go to college or they weren't fancy university people.

Will Tebow (7:15)

Sure.

Mike Cernovich (7:16)

Well, you know, a lot of us didn't have money. Guess what? But as a lot of people from humble backgrounds, you know, the Sobics, you know, a lot of people from, from different backgrounds where your, you know, your dad might be a machinist, your dad might have a different kind of factory job. My dad worked in factories. We, we grew up now and we have that working class common sense. We can speak every language which is why so much effort has been made to try to intermediate. Because I talk like a working class person. You know, they had to remind me, you know, Andrew reminded me before I went on to watch my language, which I should anyway, because we're on national TV and I should just watch it anyway. Now, being a father, four children, but we, we have that aggression. There's a tonality that we have. You have it, there's a. JD has it. And it's very much, and I'm not threatening violence, obviously, but within the working class world, there's very much an understanding that you gotta watch how you talk to people. Right? And these snobs, or they think they're snobs, they always talk down to us. And we never had our own platforms, a way to respond. Whereas if you went into a, you know, try the small town. If you went to a small town and you talk down to people like the way these guys do, it would be a different situation. So they, they try to talk down to us. Oh, Neville Chamberlain was a pacifier and he was responsible for every great evil of World War II, and we can't be like him. And somehow the Ukraine war is just like that, right? And JD goes, no, no, bro, no, this isn't going to work. And that's how everyone is. And the reason that these old school neocons, these former leftists as they call themselves, even though they showed that that was always a fake psyop thing, they can handle us. We can talk Aristotelian virtue ethics, we can talk Platonism, we can talk, we can, we can talk Neoplatonism, we can talk Nietzsche is. And we can talk Aquinas, we can talk about the jurisprudence and the, the paths of the law. And it terrifies them because they can't. They're so philosophically glib. I know, because I would watch them and I, I would think you've, you haven't done any of the reading, but you can always tell who has or hasn't done the reading. And there's a glibness. Yeah, there's a glibness to these people. And so, so, for example, I would just, you know, because now they're all like, oh, all these guys care about power. It's like, no, actually, we care about virtue. The, the conservative movement, especially the Christian conservative movement, even people who aren't necessarily Christian but are in that Western value. No, no, it's more Aristotelian. It's virtue ethics. It's the way you lead. It's showing moral courage. It's conducting yourself in a courageous way because chief of all virtues is courage from Aristotle. Of course, they, they don't have any understanding of this and they claim they understand Hegel, even though I've read Hegel and it's a bit laughable that they haven't done that.

Charlie Kirk (10:10)

The phenomenology of spirit. Hegel made the simple complex. When good thinkers make the complex simple. Not to say I'm an expert of Hegel, but there's three or four takeaways and not something worth centering your life around. I would say that the word I would use is poise. I think the new right has a poise to itself, a very that's assured of our abilities. It has a courage element to it, but very centered, not scattered, not distracted, but grounded and a quiet confidence. And I believe it comes from, of course, our love of philosophy, which you've articulated very well, but also what we've been through. When you get through a fear failed color revolution, that was Covid woke January 6, 1, 2, 3. And all of a sudden they're mad because a bunch of federal workers get an email. I'm sorry, we went through Covid woke January 6th. You get through that, you have a baptism by fire. If pain is affecting your life, make 2025 the year of feeling good again. The year of moving better, sleeping better, feeling more alive. And do it with Relief Factor. Relief Factor is a daily supplement that fights pain naturally. It doesn't just mask pain. Temporarily helps reduce or even eliminate it. Over a million people have turned to Relief Factor. Feel the difference it can make in your Life. Give their three week quick start a try. It's only $19.95 less than a dollar a day and just takes a phone call. Call 1-800-For relief. That is 1-800-For relief. Remember, every day you feel better is a day you live better. So wherever you're hurting back, neck, joints or muscles, make 2025 the year of feeling good again. Try Relief factor right now. That is 1-800-for relief. 1,800-for relief. So let me ask you, Mike, what pitfalls can we avoid of what you saw in Trump one that we have to make sure we do not Repeat here during Trump 2.

Mike Cernovich (12:21)

Yeah, the professionalism of staffing is so well handled that I barely even other than the big hits, I barely see that as my duty anymore the first term. Remember, a lot of people become frustrated with me because I would report about staffing that ended up unfortunately being right. And there was a lot of saboteurs. I don't see a lot of sabotage. I think that the. And I see this already happening. The big weakness that the conservative movement has, and I say this with great love, is, you know, when someone converts to Christianity, there's always like, welcome to church. There's this welcoming spirit amongst Christian conservatives. And what happens is a lot of people who call themselves, oh, I was a former liberal. I used to be a hardcore leftist, but now I agree with you. And then everybody says, welcome, you know, welcome. And the next thing you know, a year later, they're calling you Nazis, or they're claiming that you're. You're woke. They're claiming that you're throwing Roman salutes when. When you're waving at people. And I really want the bulwark to be up against that, to tell people it's good for people to change their minds. And you don't want to be mean to people who claim they're a former leftist. But you don't have to promote them, right? You don't have to prop them up, because 99 out of a hundred times, this is a. An act, right? You have to be gentle as doves. But people forget wise as a sermon. But everybody forgets that verse. I find it interesting. They only use the gentleness part. No, you have to be wise like a serpent. You have to recognize.

Charlie Kirk (13:52)

That's exactly right. That's exactly right.

Mike Cernovich (13:54)

That there's a lot of shenanigans happening.

Charlie Kirk (13:56)

You must be wise as a serpent, but gentle as a dove. So let me ask you, as we are proceeding, do we possibly have a threat of being too cocky, too confident, where we become a little too uppity, a little too high on our own supply?

Mike Cernovich (14:14)

I love that you said that because I've been feeling, even within myself there, because there's this masculine energy. It's almost like football energy or fighting energy, where you're a little bit too wound up. And that's something that I'm trying to be mindful of in myself and others, that logos is rationality. But also there's a component of. We broke free from the COVID longhouse. We broke free from the moral skulls of. But we don't want to lose our morality either, right? And that energy, which is great, needs to be channeled in productive ways. So there, there's something that I check within myself every day, is we don't want to let people lecture us, don't use power. Slow down, slow down. Because that's sabotage. But we do. We do want to recognize that we won the popular vote and we have to focus on the real coalition. So my North Star, the new coalition is not these people who claim to be former leftists. I think that is all the psyop and it's obviously been exposed. It's the maha mobs. So as I conduct myself in a certain way, even though people know I could be a little crass and whatever. Don't, don't post anything that the Maha moms. That could turn away the maha moms. Right. So we need to.

Charlie Kirk (15:30)

As we recalibrate, I think that is a centerpiece. I would say it's hard to interrupt Mike, but I think maha moms is number one. I think skeptical of foreign wars, younger crypto bros, kind of the people I represent, we can't do anything to kind of necessarily turn them off. What would you say is the third pillar of this new coalition? We must care about the people who.

Mike Cernovich (15:51)

Are like, there's this wonderful woman. I think her name's Katie. She works for Andreessen Horowitz. There's people who are kind of moderately sort of watching and trying to figure things out. So I do think, and I think everybody is so far behave themselves well. But I do think we need to be mindful of our P's and q's and do our best to let people know that there is a depth to what we talk about. It isn't just raw animalistic energy. The raw energy is about putting forth a better vision of America. And frankly, myself included, sometimes I think, I'm 47 years old, I got four kids. I try to be a little bit more mature. I guess that's just me. I try to be a little bit more mature. I'm not flipping off the cameras or maybe doing those pro wrestling antics of the first term.

Charlie Kirk (16:37)

Cerno, please plug your substack and give our audience a little bit of a pitch.

Mike Cernovich (16:42)

Yeah, I do. I do long form writing. Less political. Although there's some politics at the substack. Mikesnubstack.com parenting topics, life topics. I, I try to show some dimension and I, I think other people do. And I, I still think the biggest weakness or blind spot. Although Alex, who came up from, you know, the farm system, a turning point which doesn't get enough. Paulina. There's always people who. I watched them start off at a turning point action thing. And now you're like, oh, wow. They're. Wow. This is. This is amazing. So we should show depth.

Charlie Kirk (17:15)

Mike Cernovich, everybody.

Unknown Speaker (17:19)

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Charlie Kirk (18:23)

Joining us now is Will Thibodeau, army veteran, director of the American Military Project, the Claremont Institute. On Friday evening, by the way, Fridays are becoming fire days. Do you guys notice that that on Friday evenings we get Kennedy center news. We get all sorts of stuff. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CQ Brown, fired. And joining us is Will Thibodeau to discuss first, what is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and why should it even exist in the first place? Will?

Will Tebow (18:52)

Yeah, two great questions, Charlie. The the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the senior ranking military uniform military officer in the armed forces. He sits atop what's called the Joint Staff, which is an organization that by statute gives advice and consent to the president on matters of military affairs. Now, importantly, what did I leave out? The Joint Staff does not control troops in the battlefield or aircraft carriers on the sea. He doesn't make decisions about the budget or where troops go. That's the Department of the Secretary of Defense. The Joint Staff provides advice and consent to the President. And therefore I think that says a lot about why the president should have ultimate prerogative over who serves as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and which generals serve on the Joint Staff from the respective services. But we've the joint, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in part because of Mark Milley, has become this godlike figure who controls all matters of military affairs. And that's not true.

Charlie Kirk (19:53)

Yeah. And so I just, I want to understand why this institution exists in the first place. And I'm open either way. I don't have that strong of opinions, but I tend to ask the question of first principles. It feels as if it's another layer of kind of oligarchic bureaucracy in the Department of Defense that is neither constitutional nor essential. Help me understand.

Will Tebow (20:17)

Yeah. To steel man the case for the Joint Staff, please. The President should have good military advice from competent leaders who are combat proven and can help the President make decisions that help us win the next war and who and help the President make foreign policy decisions. Because the military also should not make foreign policy decisions. The Goldwater Nichols act of 1986 was also a key statute in this formation. But again, the Joint Staff only provides advice and consent. I'll say it again. It doesn't own resources or operational decisions in the field. There are almost no political appointees in the Joint Staff even though it is now about 4,000 large when you include contractors. There's a joke in the Pentagon that you can't plan a unit barbecue without Joint Staff concurrence. Even though these people in the Joint Staff, these generals have no, you know, again, authority, they have somehow weaseled their way into every decision that the military makes and they are immune from political leader, political accountability. If there is a deep state in the Pentagon, it is the Joint Staff because we've convinced ourselves that these leaders and the staff persist throughout time and administrations immune from political accountability. And it's time for change. I think firing CQ Brown is a really good start. But let's consider some other things. Why? Why is the Joint Staff so big? Why do they work in the Pentagon if they work directly for the President? You know, we always were afraid of being close to the flagpole when I was in the military because we were then under the watchful eye of our boss. Well, let's bring them closer to the flagpole. I think there's empty office space in USAID and DC and probably some offices and then the Eisenhower Executive Office Building too, where we could retask these Joint Staff from bureaucratic malaise and actually towards the proper advice that they should focus on giving President Trump.

Charlie Kirk (22:14)

Fascinating question, I think, worthy of examination. And I've heard a lot of complaints that that is the deep state of the leadership of the dod. So on Friday evening, President Trump terminated CQ Brown. Let's put up a picture of C. Q Brown, please. On screen. The termination of CQ Brown was met with a lot of media fury. So if you could see there CQ Brown is sitting. Do you look at all those medals? Help me understand. What war or civilization did he conquer to get the medals that make it look as if he won World War II. What on earth did he do to do that? And that's somewhat of a sarcastic question, but we overly reward failure in the military, number one. Secondly, what do you make of the firing of him as an individual, CQ Brown?

Will Tebow (23:06)

Sadly, Charlie, you could argue that the civilization that he helped conquer was our own. The class of CQ Brown were the class of military leaders who presided at key points in their career over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know how those ended. And then it was CQ Brown and his cohort who presided over our military engagement in Eastern Europe with the Ukraine. That's clearly a problem. And you do have to wonder what that healthy stack of awards actually means. It's not just a trite online meme to juxtapose a picture of Mark Miller CQ Brown with Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, you know, who won World War II with fewer generals, smaller bureaucracy.

Charlie Kirk (24:02)

Yes.

Will Tebow (24:02)

Independent. And he, he figured out a way to do it and it seemed like he didn't at least need to wear all the medals he won on, on his way, you know. But CQ Brown was fired because he's not the man who should provide advice and consent to President Trump. And President Trump wanted someone else. You know, that's reason enough as far as I'm concerned. But let's examine CQ Brown's career as a four star general as Commander of.

Charlie Kirk (24:26)

Totally. I just interrupt. Let's keep that up on screen. That is the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. I think that was his actual title, if not mistaken. Dwight D. Eisenhower, if I'm, Am I right, Will? And then he.

Will Tebow (24:37)

Supreme Allied Commander Forces. Yes.

Charlie Kirk (24:39)

Ended up becoming President United States. Amazing person. Look, he has like three medals. A humble servant. I think we way over aesthetically award these people. I think it adds to their ego. And what war have we won in the last 40 years?

Will Tebow (24:56)

Right. And we haven't won any. And you know, generally our military is less ready for any future conflict. And I, we, I think we're in this, under this impression that we're able to compete on a strategic scale and we're hoping that our adversaries, small or large, don't call our bluff at this point. You know, serious people in and out of the military understand that America, even today in February of 2025 would have real problems if you just swapped us out with the Ukrainian army in, in, in Ukraine fighting the Russians. It wouldn't be as if that's the key to defeating Russia. We would, there would be carnage because we are not ready technologically, you know, or, or with the necessary leadership in place to fight in the 21st century. That's, that's why CQ Brown needed to go. It's not necessarily to disparage the man, but there's a lot about his career before he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that should question, that should bring into question his ability to be an objective leader during President Trump's agenda and that that begins with DEI and how he established race quotas for the Air Force. He said as commander of Air Forces Pacific that the Air Force would remedy racial systemic racism in America, which is troubling if you really think about that statement. And he also, you know, made an effort in just one example to make flight school in the Air Force look like America. So who got selected to be pilots in the Air Force was not based on your merit or your ability. They wanted to make sure the race and sex composition looked a certain way. And guess what happened? We didn't graduate enough pilots during that experiment of General C. Q Brown. Again, he may be and you know, by all accounts is a good man, but we can't forget the extent to which he politicized the military himself and as, as an Air Force general. And it's, it's time to move on. It's not crazy.

Charlie Kirk (27:02)

In closing here, Will, how are we doing? How are we doing removing the tumor that metastasize cancer cells. That is wokeism and dei. How is Pete Hegseth doing? How is our military progressing on this?

Will Tebow (27:16)

Secretary Hegseth gets it. On his first day in the job he signed a memo that importantly ended race and sex as a consideration for personnel and programs. What most Republican senators urge and even past Secretaries of defense and Republican administrations, they'll, they'll re emphasize the importance of merit. And sure enough the bureaucracy of the Pentagon will go about with service wide race quotas and diversity programs because they fulfill this McKinsey and company backed lie that our diversity is our strength. So this is a great start. And you know, sure enough, accountability for certain senior senior military officers, including the top service Jags, including other members of the Joint Staff is a key part of it. Because it was uniform, senior uniform military officers who propagated this ideology, they violated the uniform code of Military justice countless times by advocating and speaking on behalf of a political cause. That being DEI while in uniform, it's not a, it's not following orders to speak at a Women's Equality Day event in uniform as the Chief of Naval Operations. It's not just following orders to make, you know, absurd comparisons between Christian Americans and Hamas on Twitter.

Unknown Speaker (28:40)

Right.

Will Tebow (28:40)

These are real problems that compromise the trust of the American people and the military leadership class. So I think frankly, there's more to go. There are more people who need to go and more vigilance to be paid. But all signs show that the leadership, the political leadership at the Pentagon understands this and it's a question of making sure they follow through with it and we can help them.

Charlie Kirk (29:03)

Will Tebow, thank you so much. Excellent. Come back anytime. Thank you so much.

Will Tebow (29:07)

Thanks Charlie.

Charlie Kirk (29:11)

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Unknown Speaker (30:40)

Here's a taste. Viewer warning. This one guy had just had his manhood surgically removed. One of the weirdest things that gives me euphoria is when I pee. I don't have to push anything down to make sure it aims right. Here's another. Getting my blank zapped by a laser was shocking. Fine, I'll just do one more. This one guy is talking about how excited he is that the bulge is gone and he can wear bikinis after his sex change. Surgeries. I know.

Charlie Kirk (31:16)

These are the people that are in charge of your intel agencies. So when we criticize the intel agencies, it turns out that mentally deranged and perverse trans people are talking on government servers about their attempted sex changes. I'm gonna read more of these chats on hair removal and estrogen treatments or even gender reassignment surgery. Mine is everything. I found it that I like being penetrated, but all the rest is just as important as well. These are the people that are running your intel agencies that are running your government, that are in charge of keeping the nation safe. One of the weirdest things that give me euphoria. Jesse Waters went through that one. Is when I pee. The nsa, your government, maintains this chat system for the intelligence community. It's called Intel Link. The servers are supposed to be for government work, but gender activists have hijacked at least two of the channels for LGBTQA and iCPride TWG. I've said that I do not think that trans people should be in the US Military. I don't think trans people should be in the intel community. It is a sister agency of the military. Obviously, they are showing that they are not capable of staying focused on the main thing. We got Iran running wild. We got questions happening with China all over the place. Our greatest enemy. We got major issues with North Korea. And yet our intel agencies are talking about their butthole being zapped. Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience this. I can't even read this stuff on air. These are creepy people. They should be fired from their job. And there should be a position that if you are trans, you can't serve in the intel agencies, period. You're a distraction. And you have proven that all of your little tribe is a distraction to our national security. Go get mental help. Go get counseling. And if and when you stop being trans, come back and we'll reconsider you. This is a national security threat. It's easy to make fun of this. It's easy to make jokes. I didn't want these people working in the NSA cafeteria. And of course I have compassion for them. Go get help. Go get some sort of counseling. This is a national security threat. They're supposed to be cross checking satellite imagery, not talking about their butthole being zapped. This is the regime that, by the way, when Senate Republicans go on Capitol Hill and they talk about the intel agencies. Oh, we must trust the intel agencies. Putin's bad because of the intel agencies. Tell us are intel reports. This is who's authoring their intel reports. People like Dylan Mulvaney bragging about the most graphic things imaginable on government devices during government time, using taxpayer servers. And a very interesting point as well. Imagine that they could also be vulnerable to being blackmailed by the Chinese Communist Party. All it takes is to compromise one NSA agent and say, hey, leak these 550 things or else we're going to go public with your butthole zapping. We have now seen enough evidence that trans individuals or people should not be in the US Military, not in the intel community, period. Hard stop. You gotta put your country first. Playtime is over. Cutesy time is over. Enough trying to assuage people's feelings. And either you play to win and you have a country that is worthy of defending, which we do, or we're gonna have chat rooms discussing, discussing fetishes, kink, sex, all legitimized as dei. And these are the intel agencies that many of your Senate Republicans take a knee to. No, we need massive and dramatic change. And it's really kind of numbing. It's worse than you could ever imagine. This is what they're doing during the day and I can't even read the more graphic stuff on air. And that these, these are the people that are supposed to be keeping you safe. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us. As always, freedomarliekirk.com thanks so much for, for listening. God bless.

Unknown Speaker (35:06)

For more on many of these stories.

Mike Cernovich (35:08)

And news you can trust, go to charliekirk. Com.