00:00:43.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:47.000And I would say glasnost, but I don't know if people still say that anymore.
00:01:51.000So you run one of the most successful websites out there.
00:01:54.000One of the reasons I love having you on the program is because you have a finger on the pulse of what the conservative base is consuming and thinking and their sentiment and their attitude.
00:02:05.000Walk us through the month of January, things you learned, things you saw, articles that perform better than you would have otherwise expected.
00:02:16.000So you and I spoke, I think it was the last, a few days before Christmas.
00:02:22.000So at that time, you know, one of the big things you and I spoke about was whether the MAGA base was being sort of psychologically forced away from voting because they thought everything was rigged.
00:03:01.000There's not a lot that's going to happen outside of a Trump indictment.
00:03:04.000And I figured we would probably talk about that there.
00:03:07.000You know, we're waiting on Fannie Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County.
00:03:14.000And there was a New York Times huge profile on her this morning that Drudgelink.
00:03:18.000So that could obviously happen any day.
00:03:20.000But those are sort of, you know, we're in an infra, kind of in a period where not a lot is going to happen, you know, unless it's a Trump indictment.
00:03:29.000So it leads to a lot of DeSantis Trump discussion.
00:03:58.000He said the fake news media was good yesterday in their coverage of my stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina, other than the globalist street journal, the Wall Street Journal, which is rarely accurate or good.
00:04:07.000The enthusiasm to make America great again has ever been stronger.
00:04:10.000He continues by saying the revelations about quote Ron DeSanctimonius doing far worse than any other Republican governor, including that he unapologetically shut down Florida and its beaches, was interesting indeed.
00:04:46.000I mean, we can really get deep into this as to why Trump psychologically would decide to make these preemptive attacks.
00:04:54.000But no, it's more hurting to a certain degree.
00:05:01.000You know, there are people who really, really want unity and they see DeSantis as the future, whether that comes in 28 or 32, they see Kerry Lake in the same way.
00:05:11.000And so to this certain cohort of the MAGA base, they do not want to see attacks.
00:05:49.000And a certain part of the Trump crowd, you know, very loyal part of that crowd, feels like Governor DeSantis, you know, should stay in his lane.
00:05:59.000And, but then here's the last part of it, Charlie.
00:06:03.000As you know, three-quarters of this is coming from lefty media, right?
00:06:08.000Trying to create, they want to create a conflict between Trump and DeSantis.
00:06:28.000I think that there is a split, but it doesn't seem to be resonating the way that Little Marco or Lion Ted or any of those kind of hits in 16 did.
00:06:45.000And part of that is because, you know, the MAGA base viewed Rubio as an enemy and Jet Bush as an enemy.
00:06:53.000But that same base loves Governor DeSantis.
00:06:56.000And so when you're trying to destroy a guy with a nickname or just take shots at a guy, you know, there are millions and millions in the base who love, who just absolutely love, adore Governor San DeSantis, what he's been through with his family, with Casey and her tough battle with cancer.
00:07:13.000So there's a lot of personal feelings that are involved.
00:07:16.000And so no, you know, calling Rubio, I mean, you know, the little robot, that was hilarious because, you know, our side wasn't really supporting Rubio.
00:07:31.000You know, you got to thread the needle here.
00:07:33.000I, you know, if you're asking my personal opinion, I'm covering it, right?
00:07:38.000So I enjoy the battles, but I would like to, I don't want to see a public battle between Governor DeSantis and President Trump, not even close.
00:07:47.000I would like to, I would like them to work it out privately.
00:07:51.000I wish we wouldn't have attacks like this.
00:07:56.000You know, he does what he does and he's been pretty successful.
00:07:59.000Yeah, just based on the emails we received, since I asked the question in just the last couple of moments here, overwhelmingly negative on Trump attacking DeSantis.
00:08:08.000The sentiment, and I'm summarizing hundreds of emails that come in just like this: is Charlie, I love Trump, but this is not the way that he should be running.
00:08:17.000Basically, he should be more magnanimous.
00:08:20.000And DeSantis is not the same as attacking Liz Cheney.
00:08:25.000I mean, DeSantis has been a rockstar conservative governor that has made Florida a very freer place, a more prosperous place.
00:11:39.000A lot of positive citizen free press listeners, I got to tell you.
00:11:43.000So let's just kind of walk through then the next couple of months then, outside of the politics stuff.
00:11:49.000What are the stories that you see starting to bubble up to the surface?
00:11:52.000The Biden thing, where should we be focusing?
00:11:55.000What do you consider is more kind of vapor and smokescreen versus legitimate stories that we need to zero in on?
00:12:02.000I see a lot of energy towards the kind of vaccine justice issue, which I find to be super interesting as the Pfizer cover-up is really starting to be revealed.
00:12:14.000Yeah, that's a good point on the vaccine justice.
00:12:18.000That more and more, you know, people have been fighting for almost three years now, and more and more it seems like we're getting some wins here.
00:12:25.000And again, that, you know, news naturally fills a vacuum.
00:12:30.000So with fewer political stories, because it's an off year with 2023, hopefully we can get some work done there.
00:12:37.000And I posted the live link yesterday to the very first House COVID hearing on the waste and abuse of tens and tens of billions of dollars.
00:13:18.000I think Fulton County is actually where the regime is now placing their bets, just based on the profile pieces, the pub pieces, the leaks, the focus and the attention.
00:13:28.000I think that they are turning down, they're lowering the expectations of a federal indictment, and they're going to try to indict Donald Trump in a state that he needs to win the presidency and Republicans need to win, and where a local grand jury actually might be more flexible.
00:13:47.000So there were always two possibilities for DOJ indictments of Trump, right?
00:13:52.000It was Mar-a-Lago and it's January 6th and the, you know, the whole insurrection stuff.
00:13:57.000So I feel like Mar-a-Lago is completely off the table because they know that justice is often about public opinion and there is no way they can indict Trump.
00:14:07.000And obviously you can't indict a sitting president.
00:14:10.000So they wouldn't be able to indict Biden while he's president, but it just isn't going to flow.
00:14:14.000So that leaves the insurrection thing in Georgia.
00:14:24.000She sounds like a, she's, she's tough on gangs, tough on crime in Atlanta, and they kind of threw some shade on her.
00:14:30.000So she's not a totally typical Democrat.
00:14:33.000But I think, you know, look, if Merrick Garland brings a case and loses, it's a stain on him forever.
00:14:40.000If an unknown prosecutor from Fulton County brings a case and loses-she just made herself more famous for three months of discussion on MSNBC.
00:14:50.000I don't think she has nearly as much to lose as Merrick Garland would.
00:14:55.000So that's another factor leaning towards indictment.
00:14:58.000Then when you, I was following the, you know, the judge 10 days ago was making the decision about whether to make the grand jury report public.
00:15:06.000And he ordered that they should make it public with heavy redactions.
00:15:11.000But all of the comments from her office at that time were, don't do it.
00:15:15.000We're on the cusp of making our decision.
00:15:18.000It just, to any reasonable reading person, it smelled like she was saying, look, we're going to indict the guy.
00:16:15.000When Roe versus Wade fell as the law of the land last year, all it did was increase what pro-abortion states are doing to entice and mislead women to abort their children.
00:16:25.000States are now advertising to travel just to get an abortion.
00:16:30.000So the need to provide the truth as girls and women are contemplating what to do about their pregnancy is greater now than ever before.
00:16:37.000Ultrasounds save babies because ultrasounds give the truth at a time everyone else is saying it's not just a baby, it's just a clump of cells.
00:16:45.000When you introduce a girl to her baby by providing an ultrasound, you are giving her the truth at the most important time of her life.
00:16:53.000And more than 85% of the time, she will choose life.
00:16:57.000You don't have to make a lot of noise to make a big difference for life.
00:16:59.000Just give an ultrasound at preborn.org to be a hero for life.
00:17:29.000Charlie, I have to say you've become a fine broadcaster.
00:17:32.000You know, when we met you many years ago, you were just a kid and you were going to these college campuses and arguing with these leftist maniacs.
00:18:25.000Well, basically, you know, there's been a lot of wacky stuff going on with Twitter.
00:18:29.000You're a power user there, and you're one of the guys that in the original Twitter files, it was exposed that your account was being hit.
00:18:36.000So you're well aware of the specifics.
00:18:38.000But to your audience, you know, for people that are not on Twitter or don't pay that much attention, you know, you really can tell if you're a big Twitter user when people are seeing your stuff, when your relevant stuff's really breaking through, when things are going viral, when you may not see other people that you follow, and a whole bunch of other problems.
00:18:55.000So for the last couple of weeks, it seems like those problems have really ramped up after about a three-week period when Elon made the acquisition, when suddenly Twitter felt like the old days.
00:19:07.000I was starting to see people I had long forgotten about because they had been shadow banned into oblivion and everything else.
00:19:12.000So I was fortunate enough to get in touch with two engineers over there, and they were doing a deep dive on my account and asking me what I was seeing for about two weeks.
00:19:59.000I think he was testifying in a court case earlier in the day.
00:20:01.000He had the Tesla quarterly earning meetings the next day.
00:20:05.000And he says to me, he says, Dave, you know, I'm extremely tired, but if you need me to stay right now, if you need us to sit down and deal with this right now, we'll do it.
00:20:19.000And then we ended up meeting the next day, again, after midnight, because he was so busy for about two hours.
00:20:24.000And that's where we got into some of the nitty-gritty.
00:20:26.000But I thought that that little moment alone, the fact that this guy, you know, I'm just one of a gajillion people on Twitter, but that he was willing at 1 a.m. basically to stay up later to continue trying to fix these problems.
00:20:40.000Like he did not need this problem, Charlie.
00:20:42.000This thing is a freaking endless headache as he described it.
00:21:28.000Just the details of you met midnight to 2 a.m.
00:21:33.000And just, I mean, that is perfectly consistent with all the folklore around Elon Musk and kind of how he operates and his eccentricities.
00:21:42.000So, but what did you leave Twitter with a greater understanding of what they're dealing with and or more trust that they're trying to accomplish legitimate free speech ends?
00:22:14.000He's trying to have a transparent set terms of service, you know, all that sort of stuff.
00:22:19.000So on that end, as much as I can trust someone that I don't live with, that I don't know to that degree, I do trust he's doing his best on that front.
00:22:26.000We also talked about politics a bunch, and he was well aware of sort of my political evolution, which in some ways mirrors his own political evolution because, you know, he was only a Democrat voter his entire life until this last election, the midterms.
00:22:39.000He voted for Myra Flores in Texas because he's a resident of Texas.
00:22:44.000He has said he would support DeSantis, but the point is, this is not somebody, you know, the media treats him like he's some scary far right winger.
00:22:52.000And it's just, it couldn't be further from the truth.
00:22:54.000So we did a whole bunch on the politics side as well.
00:22:57.000As far as fixing some of the problems, Charlie, you'll find this one particularly interesting.
00:23:00.000When the original Twitter files came out and they listed you as one of the people that had a label attached to your account, and that meant you were being shadow banned or your views were being depressed.
00:23:11.000And it wasn't even totally clear what else it could mean as well.
00:23:15.000The reason they called me in was as they did this deep dive on my account, what they found was my account didn't have any of the outward labels that someone like your account or Dan Bongino was another one that had it, a couple other people.
00:23:28.000My account, what they found was they had to go deep into the code, meaning just looking at my account.
00:23:34.000And that's where they found things like, I had been labeled not safe for work, which basically means that my account was porn, which it obviously is not.
00:23:42.000I had been labeled not safe for ads, which meant that when ads were put in the feed, my tweets could not appear above or below them.
00:23:50.000So you could see how that would hurt within the algorithm.
00:23:52.000And then I had also been hit with, I think it was the recent misinformation, the recent misinformation tag, which I don't know what I've spread that's misinformation.
00:24:03.000I mean, if they want to go after misinformation, they should be going after the New York Times and NBC and CNN and the rest of them.
00:24:08.000But the point was this stuff was buried under the hood.
00:24:12.000The original Twitter files showed you what was there fairly obviously.
00:24:16.000And now they're realizing, whoa, there is way more here.
00:25:30.000The question is, how many bad actors were writing this stuff into the code on their own?
00:25:35.000Meaning there might have just been some guy at Twitter that was a programmer that didn't like me and decided to do this, you know, just completely as a bounty hunter on his own volition.
00:25:46.000Do they have emails from Jack Dorsey, the former CEO, saying go ahead and do this stuff?
00:25:51.000Or did he just turn a blind eye to it?
00:25:53.000And then really to your question, does Elon know if he got rid of all the bad actors?
00:25:59.000I can't speak to that exactly, but my guess is, you know, he did a pretty hardcore blanket firing of half the people.
00:26:06.000You got to imagine, knowing how wokeism has infected every institution, educationally, technologically, governmental, whatever it might be, you can't, you have to imagine that there's still some of them there.
00:26:18.000And the question is, what are they up to right now?
00:26:21.000Yeah, I mean, I have so many questions, Dave.
00:26:23.000The engineers that you met with, and you're good at reading people, and I trust your judgment.
00:26:28.000Did you get a sense that they were trying to fix this, that they shared values?
00:26:35.000The two guys, the two guys that I spent most of my time with, I'm telling you, these guys brought their laptops up to me, opened up all the internal stuff.
00:26:42.000You know, there's certain things they can't, you know, you're not seeing people's passwords and things of that nature, but they're showing me all their analytics related to my account.
00:26:51.000I think you were on one of the lists, actually, but I had given them a separate list because you were called out in the original thing of people that I thought it might be worthy of looking into.
00:26:59.000I'm telling you, every single question that I asked these guys, they had their laptops right in front of me and they were not hiding their screens.
00:29:10.000Well, I'll give you one that's a little bit of insider baseball that I did learn.
00:29:13.000You may have noticed that, you know, when we all signed up for Twitter over the years, what we all thought we were signing up for was, oh, you follow this person, you're going to see their tweets in a chronological feed with no manipulation or anything else, right?
00:29:30.000I'm going to see all their stuff as it comes out.
00:29:32.000That's what we all thought was happening.
00:29:34.000Then obviously there was all this under the hood stuff that was manipulating it and the shadow banning and all that.
00:29:39.000But one of the things that I think he's now realizing was a bit of a mistake.
00:29:43.000He's even tweeted this in the last day or two that they're going to try to fix it is they created a tab called For You where the algorithm would then recommend things for you.
00:29:52.000But people did not realize that that was what they were seeing.
00:29:55.000So suddenly you're seeing all of these things that you did not sign up for and you're not seeing the things that you actually did sign up for.