00:00:10.000Also, we're joined by my friend Rick Grinnell to go through our response to the Russian-Ukrainian situation.
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00:01:39.000Okay, I want to dive into this story here that I wanted to get to yesterday from the New York Times.
00:01:44.000It's not always that we lead with stories from the New York Times, but this story is so extraordinary and it paints a broader picture, a more important point that I think we want to put forward.
00:01:57.000So look, the New York Times article says this.
00:02:09.000Daily life in red and blue America has continued to be quite different over the past few months.
00:02:14.000It is a reflection over the partisan divide over COVID-19.
00:02:17.000So the New York Times is writing this, David Leonhart, and he goes through this article and he admits the following, quote, in the country's most liberal cities, many people are still avoiding restaurants.
00:02:29.000The number of seated diners last month was about 40% below pre-pandemic levels in New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and San Francisco and Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to Open Table.
00:02:38.000By contrast, Nashville, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Austin, as well as in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New Hampshire.
00:02:44.000Residents in liberal cities like New York, Washington, and San Jose are still spending significantly more time at home and less time at the office.
00:02:52.000In more conservative places, the rhythm of daily life has returned to nearly normal.
00:02:58.000So the New York Times is diving into the data here, and they say, quote, during the Omicron wave, schools in heavily Democrat areas were more likely to close.
00:03:06.000Some classrooms require students to stay at home for extended periods of time.
00:03:10.000Mask wearing was very common in liberal areas, far more common in liberal communities than conservative ones.
00:03:15.000These are a stark difference that have created a kind of natural experiment.
00:03:19.000Did the Omicron variant spread less in parts of the United States where social distancing and masking were more common?
00:03:26.000And the New York Times says the answer is surprisingly unclear.
00:03:31.000They say, quote, the number of official COVID cases has been somewhat higher in Democrat areas that masked and had lockdowns and lower in Republican areas according to the New York Times data.
00:03:44.000Now, the New York Times doesn't want to say this definitively, but they're shocked and they're confused.
00:03:49.000Now, there's a reason why this is so important.
00:03:51.000We just locked down our civilization for two years, put vaccine mandates on people that did not need to get a vaccine against a virus that did not significantly threaten them, locked down our entire civilization and created $6 trillion as a result.
00:04:05.000But I'm very concerned by the lack of interest from the people in charge to have an honest diagnosis of what we just put our country through.
00:04:15.000What I'm talking about is where is the audit of our COVID response?
00:04:20.000The New York Times is kind of stumbling into this, and this is kind of on their back page.
00:04:24.000Like, oh, yeah, by the way, now that we compare liberal areas to conservative areas, none of the mask mandates, none of the vaccine mandates, none of the lockdowns made any difference at all whatsoever in virus transmission rates.
00:04:34.000Actually, according to the New York Times, the red states actually had lower virus rates and did a lot better.
00:04:40.000Now, when we jump quickly from COVID to Ukraine and all these other types of issues from one hysteria to the other, it prevents us the opportunity as a nation and as a society to learn from our own self-inflicted response.
00:04:56.000Now, we've never received a mea culpa or an apology or any form of a audit from the people in charge or from the public health officials.
00:05:07.000Many people are starting to ask, where is the justice?
00:05:11.000But instead, it seems as if there's an intentional and a deliberate cover-up campaign to make sure you don't associate the sort of tyrannical government action that we just lived through with the pain and suffering that you just experienced.
00:05:25.000So here's the New York Times saying, quote, nationwide, the number of official COVID cases has recently been somewhat higher in Democrat areas than in Republican ones.
00:05:37.000And they say, quote, the lack of a clear pattern in itself is striking.
00:05:40.000Remember, not only have Democrat voters been avoiding restaurants and wearing masks, they're also much more likely to be vaccinated and boosted.
00:05:48.000Combine these factors seem as if they should have caused a large difference in case rates.
00:05:56.000The New York Times writes, quote, but they have not.
00:06:00.000They have not offered any sort of clarity about the real effectiveness or the efficacy of COVID interventions.
00:06:09.000So wait a second, the New York Times just said that the COVID interventions that we went through over the last two years might have just been all for nothing.
00:06:15.000This is the New York Times writing this.
00:06:19.000And instead of a nationwide moment of pause and of reflection, it seems as if we're moving on to the next crisis and the hysteria.
00:06:28.000And this is where I'm really concerned.
00:06:30.000The people in charge are intentionally interrupting the collective learning process of our country.
00:06:38.000Nations need to learn things just like human beings need to learn things.
00:06:42.000Same, in a micro level, it's when you touch the stove and you burn yourself, you associate the action with the pain.
00:06:54.000But we don't actually, we've not afforded ourselves that similar type of opportunity when it comes to our COVID response.
00:07:01.000The New York Times, quote, not only do we not have clarity about the effectiveness of different COVID interventions, but red states seem to have substantially reduced the chance of infection.
00:07:14.000If we as a civilization or a country do not gain a proper understanding of the implications of our actions, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and mask mandates, not only will we repeat the same sort of absurd and ignorant response, but it will prevent other lessons from being learned.
00:07:37.000Countries that embrace communism and socialism and then reject it, they learn lessons the hard way.
00:07:43.000Meet any sort of immigrant from Cuba or Venezuela, they learned their lesson.
00:07:48.000Fortunately, their leaders continue to participate in these experiments.
00:07:53.000Americans in the recent time in modernity post-1980, lessons seem to not want to be conveyed properly to our population.
00:08:03.000It's as if we don't want to associate massive government intervention or certain public policy decisions because if America were to internalize the mistakes being made by our leaders and rulers actually might interrupt the very same sort of programs or ambitions that they have for our country.
00:08:24.000They don't want other lessons to be learned alongside of it.
00:08:28.000The New York Times is writing extensively that every one of the interventions that we did in the last two years made zero difference.
00:08:36.000In fact, the Republican states that have open restaurants, open schools, no mask mandates, no vaccine mandates are doing better than the blue states.
00:09:29.000Instead, the public propaganda campaign that we're all experiencing right now, it's deliberate, is trying to make you forget about the last two years.
00:09:39.000But this New York Times article is screaming in detail that everything your child went through, everything that your school went through, the local community was all basically for nothing.
00:09:52.000There's another lesson from that that I want to dive into.
00:09:55.000And we're going to put that article on charliekirk.com.
00:09:57.000And the lack of humility from our leaders is just striking.
00:11:37.000Now, we're not even getting into not just not having the intervention, not just having the lack of lockdowns, but also the lack of interventions, azithromycin, ivermectin, vitamin D, hydroxychloroquine.
00:11:51.000So, here we have a tape I want to play.
00:11:54.000CDC director Cut 14, Rochelle Walensky, says, Look, the science is gray.
00:12:18.000It's about whether or not a lesson will be learned collectively by a society, whether or not the truth will be properly conveyed to a population to associate the disruption, the inflation that we're seeing is largely because of our response as well.
00:12:32.000By the lack of wisdom from our leaders and the malevolence from our leaders.
00:12:37.000If we do not gain a proper understanding of the implications of our action, then not only will we repeat it, but we won't learn lessons from any sort of issue or campaign that we get behind.
00:13:19.000And sometimes it takes months and years to actually find out the answer.
00:13:25.000And now another extraordinary piece of tape that I want to play from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' roundtable.
00:13:32.000So there's Dr. Joseph Freeman, very similar to the New York Times article.
00:13:36.000He comes out and he says, Look, I want to apologize to the other scientists with me here on Zoom, the proponents of the great Barrington Declaration.
00:13:48.000Now, thankfully, this doctor has the courage to admit that the people that were talking about the lockdowns that are going to harm, the need for interventions, this Dr. Joseph Freeman, has the courage to take responsibility and to apologize and to be a better human being because of it.
00:14:04.000Our public health officials are doing no such thing.
00:14:08.000And the data is there in striking colors.
00:14:11.000Now, I know the temptation to want to say, let's move on.
00:14:16.000We just went through a civilization altering event that we did to ourselves.
00:14:22.000It wasn't like an asteroid came from outer space and hit us.
00:14:25.000We said, you know, next time we could break apart that asteroid a little bit differently, or maybe we could consolidate our programming and our response.
00:14:35.000Do you think our public health officials and our government officials are now less likely or more likely to put forward a response that we just lived through?
00:14:45.000Personally, I would like to apologize to the three other scientists sitting with me here on Zoom, the proponents of the Barrington Declaration, because initially I did think you all were crazy or dumb, or maybe you just didn't understand what I was seeing.
00:15:02.000But I now realize actually I'm sorry, because I believe now you guys were correct.
00:15:09.000And you were correct from the beginning.
00:15:12.000And I wish that more people, including myself, have realized that sooner.
00:15:19.000So that's a doctor that has come out and has said the signers of the Barrington Declaration, which of course was censored by social media, which said, as infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.
00:15:34.000Almost a million people signed it, 928,000 public health experts, and the doctor signed it.
00:15:39.000Most people didn't even know it existed.
00:15:41.000Now, this doctor said, Look, I was told to believe that you guys were nuts and crazy, but in reality, you were right.
00:15:49.000You're going to start to see crumbs of this and little signs of this.
00:15:53.000But the question is: the people, the stakeholders in charge, have they issued the public polology report?
00:15:59.000Have they issued the audit to the American people saying clearly, we not only messed up, we promised to you we're never going to do it again.
00:16:07.000That was the purpose of Nuremberg, by the way, was to make sure that we never do that again.
00:16:14.000Now, The Economist, Financial Magazine, and newspaper has said the stock market lost over a trillion dollars so far this year.
00:16:28.000Except those with gold and silver as their backup plan.
00:16:31.000They know that with precious metals in their IRA, they'll be fine.
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00:16:43.000And for the month of March, with any qualified IRA above 20,000, you get a three-ounce silver American virtue coin or a five-ounce American the Beautiful Silver coin for anything over $50,000.
00:17:08.000With us right now is a friend of mine who has guts.
00:17:10.000I got to tell you, he was one of the most important members of the Trump administration and quite honestly, one of the least appreciated members of the Trump foreign policy successes, especially in Europe and deterring Putin's aggression during Trump's term.
00:17:27.000Rick Grinnell was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany and was also the former acting director of national intelligence.
00:17:32.000I've got to know Rick really well over the last couple of years.
00:17:34.000And I could tell you that the difference between what our government has right now and the wisdom and the work ethic and the prudence of Rick Grinnell, it really, it's not just night and day.
00:17:46.000It's also the difference between war and peace is really the difference.
00:17:59.000Just walk us through just some of the history in the last couple of years when you were U.S. Ambassador to Germany of the differences in policy and also tone of how Trump was able to prevent Vladimir Putin from ever making a single incursion into Ukraine versus what this regime is unfortunately doing right now.
00:18:17.000Yeah, Charlie, I mean, as you know, from 2016 to 2020, Putin was not on the offense like he is now in Europe.
00:18:27.000And we have to look at what's been happening in Europe over the last decade or so.
00:18:35.000And what I would say is that Merkelism, the idea that Chancellor Merkel put forward of being friends with everybody, and I would argue, moving away from the Western alliance and trying to change the transatlantic alliance, which has traditionally been Western-facing, to just a transatlantic alliance.
00:18:56.000And the difference is: if you have an alliance between Europe and America that just is on paper that we're friends, that's one thing.
00:19:04.000If you have an alliance that clearly says we're going to be Western-facing, we're the Western government, and we are going to stand up for the West and stand against the East, then there's no other way to say it other than Merkel moved away from a Western-facing alliance and just tried to paper over it with this phony transatlantic alliance.
00:19:30.000And I blame Charlie a lot of the NGOs, to be honest, the German Marshall Fund and others that sat by and allowed this slippery slope to happen.
00:19:39.000And you ask, what is that slippery slope?
00:19:41.000Well, it's the idea that we keep saying that America and Germans are great friends and we have a long history, but we let the Germans not pay their fair share at NATO.
00:19:52.000We let the Germans build a pipeline of not only gas, but a pipeline of influence in with Russia.
00:19:59.000And by the way, I think one big mistake that the NGOs in America make and the media in America make and a lot of the official Washington types make is that they look at Europe and they just think that it's Berlin, Paris, and Brussels.
00:20:14.000And Europe is much more diverse and much different.
00:20:18.000Remember that the European Parliament on multiple occasions told the German government, don't build this Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
00:20:27.000You should do some other things to diversify your energy.
00:20:31.000And they made some specific proposals, including buying liquid natural gas, not only from America, but from other sources.
00:20:39.000There are some Middle East countries that are selling liquid natural gas now.
00:20:43.000And there was a move to push Germany to have a diversification, but Merkel was really hell-bent on keeping the Green Party in Germany from getting close to her party and toppling her.
00:20:57.000And to do so, she had to triangulate on some of these green issues.
00:21:03.000She has committed to getting rid of coal, which I highly doubt they'll ever be able to do.
00:21:10.000But Merkelism put Germany in the position of being able to get leveraged by Putin.
00:21:18.000There's no other way to say it, and there's no question about it.
00:21:22.000And so there's now beginning to be a very healthy argument in Germany to say, did Merkel put us in this position of being at the mercy of Russia and causing this Ukraine crisis?
00:21:47.000They've put themselves in the position where they rely on Nord Stream I and Nord Stream II.
00:21:52.000I like to remind people that our U.S. policy of diversification of energy for Europe does include some Russian oil.
00:22:01.000We agree that there should be some Russian energy, and that's Nord Stream I.
00:22:06.000But that Nord Stream II goes too far and gives the Russians too much leverage.
00:22:10.000Thank God for Ted Cruz standing up and trying to really push hard on sanctioning this issue.
00:22:16.000But let me just finish this part by saying we have to be very clear that the German government, the then German government of Angela Merkel, and the Senate Democrats and the Biden administration all came together to drop the sanctions.
00:22:32.000And they did this because Joe Biden wanted consensus with the Europeans.
00:22:37.000He felt like having an agreement with the Europeans is better than having a strong U.S. policy.
00:22:43.000And so he sacrificed America first for consensus with the Europeans.
00:22:51.000Now that the Germans have flipped in this new government from a socialist leader, Olaf Schultz, has said, we made a mistake with Merkelism.
00:23:04.000We've got to now stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
00:23:07.000That admission from the Germans has not permeated to the Senate Democrats or the Biden administration yet.
00:23:14.000They've flipped on Biden from Merkel to Olaf Schultz.
00:23:18.000This is an enormous story to go from the Christian Democrats to the socialists having a better policy in Germany.
00:23:26.000There is more information, Rick, in that answer than anything I've heard from the State Department or anything that we have running our government.
00:23:34.000So, Rick, I want to ask you: there's been a lot of back and forth on this very specific topic.
00:23:38.000And if you're not at, if you're not able to dive into some of the details, I understand, but I'm personally confused about it.
00:23:45.000We did a podcast on it yesterday and a broadcast on it yesterday when Senator Marco Rubio asked Victoria Newland about the biolabs in Ukraine, asking, does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?
00:23:56.000And Victoria Newland answered, Ukraine has biological research facilities, which in fact we're now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking control of.
00:24:05.000So we're working with the Ukrainians on how to prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.
00:24:12.000Senator Rubio responded by saying that there's Russian propaganda groups putting out that these have been uncovered and America might be connected with them.
00:24:20.000So Rick, can you help us separate fact from fiction on this topic?
00:24:23.000There's been a lot of chatter about this.
00:24:34.000Well, as you pointed out, it's going to be a challenge to talk about this issue as the former acting director of national intelligence.
00:24:42.000But let me give it a shot of trying to talk generally about this to give some direction without going into any intelligence.
00:24:52.000I think the short answer for what you just said is it's a little bit of all of the above.
00:24:58.000And there are too many sides that are trying to pretend like it's all or nothing.
00:25:03.000I think the Pentagon's briefing and the media swallowing everything that the Pentagon said, dismissing this, calling it just simply Soviet-era labs.
00:25:16.000You know, look no further than the Pentagon statement where they say this is just Soviet-era labs.
00:25:23.000And then they say, well, in 2015 or 2005, so they really go into modern times.
00:25:32.000And I would say that we also need to resist the attempt to think that this is totally nefarious.
00:25:41.000I think it's like the situation where the United States partners with other countries and over time loses the regulatory and responsibility of making sure that what that joint partnership is doing today is the equivalent to what we wanted it to be originally.
00:26:05.000I give you a specific example of the United Nations.
00:26:08.000In theory, 50 plus years ago, the UN was a great idea of, oh, let's have countries come together and solve problems.
00:26:17.000The way that it is today, the UN is literally a total failure unless there is total U.S. leadership.
00:26:26.000Without U.S. leadership at the UN, the programs tend to immediately become problematic and a waste of money.
00:26:34.000And so what I would just say simply is: unless we stay on top of our partnerships in labs around the world, we don't know exactly what's happening.
00:26:46.000And I think that we have a situation where we haven't been watching enough and working closely enough.
00:26:55.000And so the simple answer is sometimes these partnerships get away from us.
00:27:01.000And Rick, we appreciate you answering that because I know there's some sensitivities there given your former job.
00:28:29.000We cannot do a no-fly zone in Ukraine.
00:28:33.000We should not have American boots on the ground.
00:28:36.000But everything changes if a member of NATO is attacked.
00:28:41.000If this conflict moves into Poland, then unfortunately, America is going to have to deal with the terrible weak responses of the Biden administration getting us into a conflict.
00:28:54.000Man, I think I speak for our entire audience, Rick.
00:28:57.000You know, we wish you and your team was in charge.
00:28:59.000I mean, you did some phenomenal things.
00:29:01.000The world was a safer place, and America was strong, and there was less war.
00:29:31.000I'm always traveling, boarding planes, taxis, Ubers, checking into hotels, or being screamed at by angry leftists.
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00:30:18.000Okay, I want to get to this tape here.
00:30:20.000So when we teach our children the Pledge of Allegiance, we want them to pledge to their nation, to their fellow countrymen, and of course, pledge to God that has given them their natural rights.
00:30:30.000When you take a pledge, it's a big deal.
00:30:32.000Taking a pledge to something can tell you a lot about the society and the culture that you live in.
00:30:36.000It can tell you about the type of nation we want to be, the nation we have been, and the nation that we currently are.
00:30:41.000It reinforces the three-tied knot of what has happened before, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future of many different generations working in tandem and working together for a broader and specific purpose.
00:30:54.000A new video has now come out of this man by the name of Chastin Bootedjej, who is the husband of Pete Bootedjej of Transportation Secretary.
00:31:02.000It's such an extraordinary video, it's hard to even comprehend.
00:31:08.000And it is a video that it appears that Chastin Boutijej is leading children in the gay Pledge of Allegiance.
00:31:17.000This is happening more and more at schools across the country.
00:31:21.000This further reinforces why everyone should get involved and engage with Hillsdale College, CharlieForhillsdale.com, and also Turning Point USA and the work we are doing.
00:31:28.000I'm going to play this tape right here.
00:31:30.000And if you send your child to public school, there's a risk, there's a chance that they might have already been exposed to this very sort of type of activity of Chastin Buttigedge, the husband to the Transportation Secretary of the United States government, leading children in the gay pledge of allegiance.
00:32:15.000So this is Chastin Bootedge, who was doing this for gay teenagers in a pledge of allegiance to the gay pride flag.
00:32:23.000He said that we pledge allegiance to the gay pride flag of allegiance or something.
00:32:29.000This is during an Iowa Safe Schools Pride Camp that says, quote, campers will meet with other LGBTQ and allied youth who are passionate about creating change in their communities through activism and building relationships.
00:32:41.000It's called Pride Camp, an annual camp held in Iowa, hosted by the nonprofit organization Iowa Safe Schools.
00:32:51.000What you pledge allegiance to matters a lot.
00:32:54.000You have children pledging allegiance to the gay flag, not the United States of America.
00:32:59.000That's where identity politics leads you.
00:33:02.000Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:33:03.000Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast today.