00:00:52.180All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard today's Human Events special.
00:00:55.820We're going to take you inside AmFest.
00:00:58.240And so a lot of the stuff that we did while we were at AmFest, the content that we got, the interviews that I conducted, we put them out on social media, but we wanted to make sure that we actually included them here on the program as well.
00:01:12.340So what we've done with this episode, we've put two together.
00:01:15.780We've got one interview that I did and then one panel.
00:01:18.720So we'll start with one and we'll move to the other.
00:01:20.900And first up, you've got my interview with Megyn Kelly.
00:03:13.740How to get you up and down in a story.
00:03:15.880He had a very good judgment for what was interesting to the audience, too, and was always so generous with his time and his, you know, his approach.
00:03:22.420So that, of course, I'm going to miss, but I can't believe it's been three months.
00:03:27.860In some ways, it feels like yesterday, and in some ways, it feels like another lifetime that we've seen him, right?
00:03:33.080Somebody brought up a, you know, an event I was at just a few days before Charlie's murder.
00:03:39.720And I remember thinking to myself, we were sitting, we were having lunch, and everything was totally normal.
00:03:50.060And then suddenly God snaps his fingers and shows you that you are not in control, that he is in control, that you are a spectator, you are a reactor.
00:04:02.580You are someone who is living out God's will.
00:04:05.880and I think that's one of the biggest things for me that I've been, and look, you know, it's not
00:04:12.440easy doing all this, but one of the things that I've been working hard to remember that God's will
00:04:18.380is absolutely paramount in all of this. I know, we don't have it all figured out.
00:04:24.820I mean, I'll tell you, I was backstage a little while ago and I went to see Erica in her green
00:04:32.320room and you know she's so strong and she's the picture of class but she was alone you know and
00:04:41.520I saw her I met her for the first time backstage at one of these events and she was with just their
00:04:47.980daughter uh who was just a baby at the time they didn't have their little boy yet and she was
00:04:53.380seated she looked so beautiful she had her baby with her Charlie was in and out of everything it
00:04:57.880was crazy it was we were in Florida he was like sweaty and she was just like an angel sitting
00:05:03.000there in the middle of the chaos like completely managing it and nonplussed and I just couldn't0.98
00:05:08.200help with seeing her backstage alone thinking this it doesn't feel right you know she she
00:05:14.160shouldn't be alone she should be with the love of her life and that's why we have to make sure
00:05:19.400we get justice for the man who took him. Absolutely. And Megan, you were talking about
00:05:28.240this on your show recently, and you and I had a little conversation about it as well. And you said,
00:05:34.960you know, can a Christian want that kind of justice? And can a Christian believe in that0.99
00:05:42.140kind of justice? That's a great question. It's something a lot of people wrestle with.0.98
00:05:46.520And the Bible tells us that the sovereign is given the sword to wield justly.
00:05:56.300And so when you talk about things like the death penalty, when you talk about things like capital punishment,
00:06:02.560we understand that it is not done out of vengeance.
00:06:09.320It is done, as Charlie said himself, out of valuing the life of the victim and showing that that life had worth, showing that that life had value.
00:06:19.520And by the way, it is a way to start to repay, I believe, as a way to start to repay the debt that's incurred by every single moment that was stolen from Erica, from his daughter, for his son, for every single Christmas, for every single holiday, for every single birthday,
00:06:37.620for every single baseball that'll never be thrown and caught, for not being able to walk
00:06:42.500his little girl down the aisle, that's a debt that needs to be paid.
00:12:51.400And when it was over, we hugged, said goodbye, and then we had a nice text exchange a couple days later saying our friendship was important to us.
00:13:00.480And the next thing I saw was him attacking me on stage last night as a coward.
00:13:05.140So that's not friendship, and I think that's fine with me, with friends like that.
00:13:11.200There was also, there was also some response where it seemed like that call was being co-signed
00:13:20.340by the new head of CBS News, Barry Weiss, and I wanted to know if you wanted to respond
00:18:16.640Maybe that's the best way to see if we can put this to bed.
00:18:20.760But Erica really felt that they should sit down together face to face.
00:18:23.980And I've gotten to know Candace a little better over the past months.
00:18:26.340And I actually thought she might do it.
00:18:27.840Like, I wasn't sure, but I don't know.
00:18:29.500An invitation from Erica would be hard to resist.
00:18:32.600And she said, you know, would you please come and facilitate it, really?
00:18:36.420Just like they were going to have the discussion.
00:18:38.020But Erica's thought, and Candace originally wanted to do this too, was for them to live stream this out that same Monday that the Turning Point guys were going to live stream their event.
00:18:50.380And, of course, I'm like, oh, my mother of God, what am I getting myself into?
00:18:56.040But I actually felt, I felt like it was divine right order.
00:18:59.700And I have to tell you, Jack, I've prayed so many times, so many times to Charlie and to God to give me the right guidance on how to handle this whole thing.
00:19:06.940the fracture within the conservative movement,
00:19:09.320my friends turning on me because I won't call out my other friends,
00:19:12.120like Tucker, this dust-up between Candace and Erica,
00:19:15.680and Turning Point and Candace, which is fraught,
00:19:19.520and yet I understand, I know people are very angry at Candace right now,
00:19:23.920and I understand it, but I have to say,
00:19:25.320and Ben, yet another thing he mocked me for was saying she was a young mother,
00:19:28.700but Candace had, like, literally just had a baby.
00:19:31.300And I'm sorry, maybe Ben doesn't understand,0.61
00:19:33.900but that is a vulnerable position for a woman,
00:19:35.640and then her friend got shot in the neck1.00
00:28:44.180So I just want to go over and share a few of the Catholic Action Network's accomplishments from the last election.
00:28:51.200We moved disengaged Catholic Republican voters from a 20% voting rate in 2020 to an 87% voting rate in 2024.
00:29:00.800We did it with God's help and partnering with Turning Point to create a specific section of disengaged Catholic registered Republican voters in the Turning Point app.
00:29:16.360We recruited captains from our 96 Catholic parishes around the diocese.
00:29:20.800We organized and implemented voter registration at our parishes, called and texted Catholic-specific scripts for disengaged Catholic Republican voters.
00:29:33.680We mailed 12,000 Catholic-themed voter information postcards to disengaged Catholic Republican voters.
00:29:41.080On election day, we called and texted Catholic Republicans shown as not having voted yet in the election,
00:29:47.860contacted them and made sure that they knew where they could go to vote
00:29:51.520and urged them to get out, cast their votes, and bring their faith into the public square.0.54
00:29:57.660For 2026, we can win the midterms by ballot chasing, again, disengaged Catholic Republican voters.0.53
00:30:05.800If you will, scan the code up here so that you can receive detailed information
00:30:09.960on the Catholic Action Network Committee and our work with the Catholic Ballot Chase.
00:30:33.340We need to get Catholics in the public square.0.96
00:30:35.580We need to get Catholics to vote our morals and values.1.00
00:30:39.280So we can, we'll have this scan code back up at the end of our presentation0.98
00:30:45.500so you can get into that, and obviously we'll help you in any way we can.
00:30:51.880Marcus, thanks for the overview, and now it's my honor to introduce our distinguished panelists.
00:30:58.760I'd like to acknowledge a recent addition to our panel, Father John Parks,
00:31:04.900and Father Parks is a respected priest within the Diocese of Phoenix.
00:31:09.640He serves as the pastor of St. Joseph's Parish and is the prior director of evangelization for the diocese.
00:31:18.360And something not a lot of people know is he is also a Hall of Famer, along with Erica Kirk, at Notre Dame Prep High School here in Scottsdale, Arizona.
00:31:39.640the president and CEO of Catholic Vote, a graduate of Notre Dame University, and a former Dominican
00:31:47.300sister. She served as a director of media and evangelization for Catholic Vote before becoming
00:31:54.140the CEO in June of this year. Jose Pulido, president of learning and development, where he
00:32:07.720He trains Catholics in communication skills to stand up for their faith and morals.
00:32:13.100An alumnus of Yale University and a former political advisor in Washington, D.C.
00:32:23.420Our final panelist, who really doesn't need an introduction, Jack Posobiec.
00:32:29.560One of the most important parts is Jack is a devout Catholic, was a military intelligence officer, he's host of the podcast Human Events Daily, and most importantly, a member of the Turning Point Action Team.
00:32:51.600and thank you panelists for being here with us to share your thoughts on how to inspire
00:33:02.960Catholics to vote I'd like to start the conversation with this question
00:33:08.640Kelsey what do you think is the greatest obstacle preventing Catholics from involvement in the
00:36:16.520But personally, I couldn't think of anything better to do this morning
00:36:19.640to be here and give praise to our eternal creator
00:36:23.020and our eternal savior, Jesus Christ, the king of the universe,
00:36:26.000which we are about to do very shortly here at Adoration.
00:36:29.580And that's why I made sure to be here as well.
00:36:35.420I've got my family here, my very sleepy five-year-old in the front row.
00:36:40.680And look, you know, when it comes to political piety, I also wanted to add because you see two sides of this.
00:36:48.560Because on one side, you see the political piety of people saying, oh, I don't want to get involved in politics.
00:36:53.580But then on another side, you see people who are so pious, they will say, oh, well, Donald Trump isn't, you know, Catholic enough, and he's not pro-life enough, and he's not this enough, so I'm not going to vote because I can't vote for a guy like that.
00:37:07.480And I would say, I understand it. I get it. We're pushing him in the right direction.
00:37:12.060But at the same time, if you don't come out, then Kamala Harris gets in because it is a binary.
00:37:17.500You have to look at politics as it is not a vacuum. It is relative.
00:37:21.120and if she gets she got in remember when she was in the united states senate what was she doing
00:37:25.900she was demonizing the knights of columbus she was demonizing the little sisters of the poor
00:37:30.740she was there when merrick garland and chris ray were sending the fbi after traditional catholics
00:37:37.200who were praying their rosaries a little bit too hard and i said you know what you want to come for
00:37:42.400me here's my rosary please come for me because this is absolutely key so you need to break that
00:37:47.560and get people to understand that if we let Marxists win,0.90
00:37:51.900the Catholics are the ones they're going to come first for.0.92
00:37:55.540And in fact, they've already started, haven't they?0.99
00:41:42.640I would just add, building off of Father Park's comment, you know, Jesus didn't say go out to all the earth and stop at the ballot box.
00:41:50.800You know, or stop at the public square.0.91
00:41:53.000And you look at what happens when Catholics absent themselves from the public square.0.77
00:41:58.180I mean, how is it possible that we're in a situation where we cannot understand the difference between men and women?
00:42:06.380I mean, I played basketball for the University of Notre Dame.
00:42:08.920You might have noticed I'm a little tall.
00:42:10.800There are only six women, well, when I played, which was eons ago,
00:42:15.240there were only six women in the history of the sport who could dunk.
00:42:18.200And every sophomore boy over 5'10 spends his entire summer sophomore year learning how to dunk.
00:42:24.180I mean, the fact that we cannot understand and live basic truths in the public square, that's a failure on our part.
00:42:32.880And we need to accept responsibility because there are elements of the light, the truth, and the gospel that we need to be bringing to every aspect of the public square.
00:42:44.440now Jose talk to us a little bit about how evangelization fits into this because you've
00:42:56.160written a book how to evangelize anyone obviously there's probably some principles in here that apply
00:43:02.060both to the political life and to the practice of proclamation of the gospel