The Charlie Kirk Show - Andrew Tate Talk and DeSantis' Missed Turning Point with Raheem Kassam and Paul Manafort

00:00:00.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk show, I give you my take on the viral conversation Tucker Carlson had with Andrew Tate.

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:06.000 Paul Manafort also joins the program.

00:00:10.000 And we talk with Raheem Kassam about Ron DeSantis and the state of the 2024 race.

00:00:16.000 Support our program, charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:00:19.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:28.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:30.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:31.000 Here we go.

00:00:33.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:34.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:36.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:40.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:43.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:44.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:45.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:52.000 Turning point USA.

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00:01:15.000 The center of the conservative movement will be Saturday, Sunday in West Palm Beach, Florida.

00:01:21.000 President Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino, Steve Bannon, Josh Hawley, JD Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, Governor Asa Hutchinson, Mayor Suarez, and many others.

00:01:32.000 But noticeably absent, we received a decline from Governor DeSantis.

00:01:37.000 And here to make sense of it, it's Raheem Kassam, Raheem, who is not part of Turning Point, so maybe he can offer kind of an outsider's really kind of clear perspective here.

00:01:47.000 Raheem, what am I missing?

00:01:49.000 Why did Governor DeSantis decline our invitation to speak to 6,000 grassroots super activists?

00:01:55.000 Well, Charlie, thank you for having me.

00:01:58.000 I'm sorry to have to talk about this issue because I know it's probably a particularly insulting one as far as you're concerned.

00:02:05.000 I almost feel like I should be interviewing you about this.

00:02:09.000 And, you know, it's one of these things where you got to look like below the surface of this.

00:02:15.000 I know a lot of people were speculating immediately that perhaps Ron DeSantis was worried about getting booed or jeered up on the stage.

00:02:23.000 And my attitude towards that was, well, no, not really.

00:02:26.000 I mean, it's a very welcoming audience.

00:02:28.000 I've been to several of your events.

00:02:30.000 People are never rude or churlish, especially to speakers that have been around on that circuit for years and years, as Governor DeSantis has been.

00:02:38.000 And so I started to sort of think about, you know, what are the other pressures on the Florida governor at the moment that might be causing him to have to kind of park, to put it in a mild sense, snub is probably more accurate and more, you know, representative of the insult that him and his campaign are doling out here towards those grassroots activists, right?

00:03:02.000 And what I came down to is this.

00:03:04.000 DeSantis seems to be able to hop on a plane and get to a different part of the country almost every day to fundraise.

00:03:11.000 There's no shortage of this.

00:03:13.000 Yesterday, he was in Wisconsin doing a fundraiser with the Council on Foreign Relations, neoconservative AEI donor who used to give to Rahm Emmanuel.

00:03:23.000 And he has time for that.

00:03:24.000 And he has time to go and see his donors in the Hamptons this coming week who are demanding that he explain why his campaign isn't got the momentum that they all promised it would have, especially if you give me $200 million, which people have done.

00:03:38.000 And so I think this is probably coming down, like actually coming down to what the campaign would refer to in Newspeak as like scheduling clashes, right?

00:03:47.000 But what it really means is crisis form.

00:03:49.000 It's Crisis and Crunch talks with the donors.

00:03:52.000 It's Crisis and Crunch talks about Iowa.

00:03:54.000 It's Crisis and Crunch talks about why he's not making a move in the polls.

00:03:57.000 And unfortunately, I think your event is getting the thin end of the wedge there.

00:04:01.000 Yeah, and again, I don't want to play the victim.

00:04:03.000 We have an amazing lineup here, but Raheem, I'm trying to understand the calculus of the DeSantis campaign.

00:04:11.000 It's perplexing to me because you have voters that you have to win over.

00:04:16.000 And by the way, we did a ton of events with Governor DeSantis last fall.

00:04:20.000 Our audience is very fair.

00:04:23.000 I see it completely differently.

00:04:25.000 If he wants to be the nominee, get in the arena and try to assert dominance.

00:04:31.000 You know, buy a booth, do an influencer reception, try to win over the audience, open up questions.

00:04:37.000 You know, Raheem, it's not just our students that are there.

00:04:40.000 We have hundreds of pastors of mega churches that will be there.

00:04:43.000 We have 500 donors.

00:04:45.000 We have 10 billionaires that will be there.

00:04:46.000 So it's not like there's no donors if that's a big priority, right?

00:04:50.000 Every major media outlet will be there.

00:04:52.000 300 influencers will be there.

00:04:54.000 But Raheem, I'm just trying to understand the calculus.

00:04:57.000 And yes, we do consider it a little bit of a snub.

00:05:01.000 And President Trump, his credit attending is really something.

00:05:06.000 Does it show you that there's some sort of a plan that DeSantis has that we have not yet been read into, which is to kind of win the Chamber of Commerce primary first before actually speaking to donors?

00:05:19.000 Because what I can say, Raheem, is what we are receiving from attendees and grassroots, hundreds of messages.

00:05:25.000 People feel insulted that he is not attending this weekend.

00:05:29.000 Yeah, I'm not surprised.

00:05:30.000 I mean, the interesting part of it is that so many people may have been coming along in part to hear from Governor DeSantis, right?

00:05:38.000 Knowing that you would have, and he's been at turning point events before, knowing that you have other presidential candidates up there probably thought like, hey, yeah, this is going to be a good time for me.

00:05:50.000 You know, I've read so much about what's going on in the media.

00:05:52.000 I've seen him on Fox all the time talking about this, that, and the other.

00:05:55.000 But I'd really like to get up close and personal and see, yeah, maybe see if he's as awkward as people say he is.

00:06:01.000 Maybe see if you can disprove some of those things by meeting with him in person, rubbing shoulders, shaking hands, all of the things that go on at political conferences.

00:06:10.000 And to turn your back on that, like you said, this isn't just a student summit.

00:06:15.000 There are thousands upon thousands of other leading people in the movement who will be attending your event.

00:06:21.000 And it seems like this, okay?

00:06:23.000 So Reuters today puts out a story that says, Iowa is do or die for DeSantis, right?

00:06:30.000 And this story appeared to be briefed by the DeSantis campaign.

00:06:33.000 At least that's how it read, right?

00:06:35.000 People who know this world know what those stories tend to look like.

00:06:38.000 And a source close to the campaign said this.

00:06:40.000 Well, yeah, you just talked to the campaign and somebody didn't want to go on the record.

00:06:44.000 So they are themselves now saying we are going to replicate the Ted Cruz strategy of 2016.

00:06:50.000 Now, remember, Ted Cruz won Iowa, but also remember, Ted Cruz did not become the president of the United States.

00:06:55.000 Ted Cruz lost the nomination.

00:06:57.000 Ted Cruz was not the one up there on the debate stage against Hillary Clinton.

00:07:00.000 And thank goodness for that, quite frankly.

00:07:02.000 As much as Ted Cruz is good on some issues, he would have been no way near a candidate as strong as Donald Trump on that stage against Hillary Clinton.

00:07:09.000 And so you look at who he's got behind him, DeSantis, right?

00:07:14.000 Jeffro, Axiom Strategies, that whole Cruz campaign team from back in 2015, 2016.

00:07:20.000 And you go, oh, I see.

00:07:23.000 You're just trying to do a redox.

00:07:25.000 And the reason that they're spending more time fundraising rather than actually campaigning, which would involve turning up at your event, is because the consultant class want their big bucks paid out.

00:07:36.000 What is the finish your thought, please?

00:07:40.000 Well, look, here's the other part of this that I've been saying for months now, is that they're not running a populist campaign.

00:07:47.000 They're not populists.

00:07:49.000 The MAGA skin suit is about as much as they have offered to the Republican Party base in recent months.

00:07:58.000 And sometimes it's not even that.

00:07:59.000 They're putting together a new oligarchic establishment Republican donor class. 0.98

00:08:05.000 And by the way, they're barely hype.

00:08:08.000 You can see when he goes to the Dominion Law Lawyer's office to fundraise.

00:08:12.000 You can see when he uses Rom Emmanuel's old backers.

00:08:15.000 You can see time and time and time again, Council on Foreign Relations, all of these guys.

00:08:20.000 That's the team he's putting together.

00:08:21.000 And that's not a populist way of campaigning.

00:08:24.000 And maybe he's telling us something.

00:08:25.000 Maybe he's telling us, look, I'm not that much into you.

00:08:28.000 So there's this story.

00:08:30.000 I don't know how accurate it is, Raheem, that there's a kind of a crisis meeting in the Hamptons.

00:08:35.000 Can you fill us in on that?

00:08:36.000 I saw that you kind of broke that story, added some commentary to it.

00:08:40.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:41.000 Look, we were following up on a lot of the reporting that was done by Charlie Gasperino on the same issue earlier this week.

00:08:49.000 And I think this story has gone around a little bit around the rumor mills, around the gossip mills.

00:08:53.000 And it just came to a point where somebody was ready to report that out.

00:08:57.000 And that's what Gasperino did.

00:08:59.000 So we pick up on the basis of that using my sourcing, the people I've spoken to, you'd be surprised at how many people down in Florida actually still want to, I say this as if you're on different sides, but reach out across the aisle of this Republican presidential primary and talk about what's going on and what needs to be fixed and the problems that are manifesting themselves down in Tallahassee at this current point in time.

00:09:23.000 And so, yeah, it looks like at some point over the next few days, DeSantis and perhaps some key members of his team, his inner circle, are going to be in Southampton, in the Hamptons in New York, and having to explain to some quite peeved donors, like, hey, where is our money actually going?

00:09:43.000 Because you have moved in the polls.

00:09:46.000 You've moved downwards in the polls.

00:09:47.000 So what's going on?

00:09:49.000 You know, are we going to be supporting you in the future?

00:09:53.000 Tell us what the plan is.

00:09:54.000 And of course, the briefed plan back to that is, you know, we're playing the long game.

00:10:00.000 Well, let's get into the I want to get into the detail about that.

00:10:05.000 And also just, you know, Trump's standing in the party.

00:10:10.000 I got in a little bit of a heated conversation with DeSantis donor the other day, and that's fine.

00:10:14.000 Like, he has a right to do that.

00:10:16.000 And he's like, oh, Trump's going to lose the nomination.

00:10:18.000 I don't know one person that's voting for Trump.

00:10:20.000 It's like, yeah, you live in Aspen.

00:10:22.000 Okay.

00:10:23.000 Like, just you live in Aspen.

00:10:26.000 Okay.

00:10:27.000 You live in Aspen.

00:10:31.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:10:32.000 Do you believe in our founders' vision for America that our republic will only survive if we are an educated and informed people who know our rights and our duties?

00:10:40.000 Since 1844, Hillsdale College has sought to educate all who wish to learn about these timeless principles of self-government.

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00:11:06.000 You can hear the best arguments from speakers such as Christopher Ruffo, Molly Hemingway, Mark Stein, Hillsdale College President Larry Piarn, among others, read by Hillsdale students.

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00:11:20.000 You can subscribe today to listen at Primus at charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:11:24.000 That is charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:11:26.000 They do an excellent job.

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00:11:28.000 Hillsdale College, CharlieForhillsdale.com.

00:11:34.000 Raheem Kassam is with us from National Pulse.

00:11:36.000 You guys should all become members of National Pulse.

00:11:38.000 They do a great job, independent.

00:11:39.000 They're terrific.

00:11:40.000 I think it's $9 a month, right, Raheem?

00:11:42.000 That is very cheap in the grand scheme of things.

00:11:44.000 The nationalpulse.com is where we break the news and we have a great new podcast called The Campaign Trail, where once a week I go through kind of the detail.

00:11:54.000 And I guess this weekend I'm going to be talking a little bit more about the detail and the stupidity of skipping an event like ActCon, like a turning point event, which Governor Santis is apparently doing.

00:12:04.000 You also have a charity run you want to mention, Raheem, before we dive back into the theme you had previously?

00:12:10.000 Yeah, I'm very grateful.

00:12:11.000 So every year, this is the third year I'm going to be doing the 5K for Tunnel to Towers.

00:12:15.000 You know, they're 100% rated charity, which means most of the money goes straight to the causes.

00:12:21.000 It's just a 5K.

00:12:22.000 It's nothing crazy.

00:12:23.000 But it was crazy a couple of years ago when I was 50 pounds heavier and hadn't run in about four years.

00:12:27.000 But now I do it every year and I try and raise as much money for them as possible.

00:12:30.000 You know, they build homes for veterans and the families devastatingly impacted by 9-11.

00:12:37.000 They do such great work.

00:12:38.000 I'm sure most of the audience know Tunnel to Towers already.

00:12:40.000 But if you want to help out, the website is just runsignup.com forward slash Raheem, runsignup.com forward slash Raheem.

00:12:48.000 Or it's all over my social media.

00:12:50.000 So you can check it out there at Raheem Kassam everywhere.

00:12:53.000 Thanks for letting me pitch that because it's a charity that means a lot to me.

00:12:56.000 They're a great charity.

00:12:57.000 So Raheem, let me ask you, and maybe you could segue this into something you wanted to kind of touch on.

00:13:03.000 Do you believe that the more establishment donor class, of which I'm friendly with some of them, not so many other ones, right?

00:13:10.000 You have to build big things.

00:13:12.000 You don't try to create enemies.

00:13:13.000 We certainly disagree in a lot.

00:13:14.000 But at least I'm talking to them and I'm gleaning from them that DeSantis' stock is down.

00:13:19.000 Do you think they're going to draft a different candidate, Yunkin, or try to revive Mike Pence or Nikki Haley?

00:13:28.000 Because DeSantis was supposed to be the challenger.

00:13:32.000 He was supposed to be the chosen one.

00:13:35.000 How do you see this playing out?

00:13:37.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:13:39.000 And when you look at the statement that the DeSantis campaign is making ahead of this crisis summit with potential donors in the Hamptons, they say, oh, we're playing the long game.

00:13:50.000 Well, let's get into the time period that's required here because there is no long game to be played, especially if Iowa is the do or die, as the DeSantis team themselves are now saying.

00:14:02.000 You really have just about three months left to make your mark, about 90 days left to make your mark.

00:14:09.000 By the time we reach mid-October, early November, it's going to be impossible, impossible to shift people's opinions as if they're finding it easy now, right?

00:14:22.000 They're not.

00:14:22.000 They're not shaving half a point off Donald Trump's numbers.

00:14:26.000 You know, there may be trading points back and forth between Mike Pence and Doug Bergham and Vivek, who's catching Ron, quite frankly, and who I expect perhaps by the end of summer may even have caught him.

00:14:39.000 No, I think Vivek could finish second, just so we're clear.

00:14:43.000 He is on pace to be the second delegate in the convention, the second most delegates.

00:14:49.000 Do not be surprised if Vivek Ramaswamy next summer convention has 10% of the delegates.

00:14:56.000 Yeah, I mean, he's working so much harder.

00:15:00.000 He's doing like dozens and dozens of events, especially right now in Iowa every week.

00:15:04.000 He's going all over the state.

00:15:06.000 And, you know, he's actually cutting through.

00:15:09.000 When you listen to him talk at some of these events, some of these conference speeches, he's actually cutting through, receiving way more applause than Ron DeSantis or any of the other candidates.

00:15:18.000 He makes a lot of sense.

00:15:20.000 And, you know, I think personally, I think he would make a great commerce secretary or something like that.

00:15:25.000 But Vivek is actually running a pretty coherent and successful campaign for where he started from, he's gone up.

00:15:33.000 And from where Ron has started from, he's gone down.

00:15:36.000 So let's get back to that long game thing, right?

00:15:39.000 The long game isn't there.

00:15:40.000 There is no long game to be played right now.

00:15:43.000 So he's treating the donor class even that he has his begging bowl out for.

00:15:47.000 He's treating them with contempt. 1.00

00:15:49.000 He's effectively telling them you're stupid. 1.00

00:15:51.000 And I believe that you don't know how this all works. 1.00

00:15:54.000 So I'm just going to tell you what I think is going to keep you on my side.

00:15:57.000 The answer to your question is yeah.

00:15:59.000 They're already interviewing a number of different candidates out there who they think they could either get behind.

00:16:06.000 I'm sure Doug Bergham would like to sit on the casting couch there.

00:16:10.000 Glenn Younkins certainly is.

00:16:12.000 Mike Pence certainly wants to do that.

00:16:14.000 There are others.

00:16:15.000 I read this morning a hilarious article about how Chris Christie sees the path to victory ahead of him.

00:16:20.000 So there's no shortage of people out there who would bend appropriately if a donor said so.

00:16:26.000 Can Chris Christie see his toes?

00:16:28.000 That's the first question.

00:16:29.000 So Raheem, in closing here, 20 seconds remaining.

00:16:34.000 Trump looks stronger than ever.

00:16:35.000 And to his credit, he's doing the work.

00:16:37.000 Raheem, final thoughts, 15 seconds.

00:16:39.000 Chris Christie couldn't even see your toes if you were standing five foot away from him.

00:16:43.000 That's my final thoughts.

00:16:45.000 That's so true.

00:16:46.000 And we're being mean, but honestly, he deserves it.

00:16:48.000 So, but we're out of time, Raheem.

00:16:50.000 NationalPulse.com.

00:16:52.000 Look, Trump, to his credit, he's working his tail off.

00:16:56.000 He's doing a lot of events, interviews.

00:16:57.000 He is showing up.

00:16:58.000 He's doing the work.

00:17:00.000 Spending time with President Trump at Benminster a week and a half ago, there is zero entitlement.

00:17:05.000 He wants this, and I think he's going to earn it.

00:17:11.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:18:16.000 So I kind of live in a bubble at times and kind of a created bubble.

00:18:20.000 That's what happens when you honor the Shabbos and you turn off your phone and you don't have any social media apps.

00:18:27.000 So kind of on the fringes, I guess you could say, I would hear Andrew Tate, Andrew Tate, and Andrew Tate.

00:18:33.000 And I didn't, I was like, okay, whatever.

00:18:35.000 Who is this guy?

00:18:37.000 And apparently he got really, so he's a kickboxer.

00:18:40.000 He's the son of a chess legend.

00:18:41.000 That's important.

00:18:42.000 I'll tell you in a second.

00:18:43.000 And he got super, super popular for talking about masculinity in particular.

00:18:49.000 Now, I'm not an apologist.

00:18:51.000 Apparently, he's participated in a lot of behavior that I would deem reprehensible.

00:18:56.000 You could say he ran a cam girl business.

00:18:58.000 He's accused of rape.

00:19:00.000 So putting all of that and factoring all that in, I never was overly interested in Andrew Tate, full disclosure.

00:19:06.000 People seemed really interested in him, and I was like, okay, what is this?

00:19:09.000 Just a fad or whatever.

00:19:10.000 So I have a lot of respect for Tucker Carlson.

00:19:13.000 He's a good friend of mine.

00:19:14.000 We've spent a lot of time together and he's coming to our event this weekend.

00:19:18.000 And so, and also Patrick Bett David has been on the Andrew Tate thing for a while.

00:19:22.000 And I've never said anything critical of him.

00:19:23.000 Again, I don't really have any strong opinions.

00:19:25.000 If you don't know who Andrew Tate is, Andrew Tate was the most Googled man in the world last year.

00:19:30.000 Pickboxer, incredibly well-built, like ridiculously muscular, super fit, was a professional kickboxer, as I mentioned, but really kind of made his name in the last couple of years, going on social media, speaking out against the kind of postmodern, secular, anti-masculine agenda that has been setting into the West.

00:19:52.000 And if you're like me and you're like, who is this guy?

00:19:55.000 I think it's actually worth thinking about what he has to say.

00:20:00.000 And it's notable because over the span of a week last year, they deplatformed him from everything.

00:20:07.000 It was the Alex Jones Donald Trump treatment.

00:20:10.000 From every major social media website, he was tarred and feathered, largely because he was so skilled at dominating TikTok and social media platforms, saying things you are not allowed to say.

00:20:23.000 Now, there's kind of, from what my research in the last 24 hours, there's kind of two versions of Andrew Tate.

00:20:29.000 There is Andrew Tate sitting down with Tucker, who's incredibly precise with his language and very mainstream in how he presents himself.

00:20:36.000 And then there's TikTok Andrew Tate, who's a little bit more grandiose and braggadocious, which is fine.

00:20:44.000 I mean, you're allowed kind of two different presentations of yourself as long as there's some harmony in your messaging.

00:20:50.000 And so if you were to watch Tucker Carlson's interview with Andrew Tate, you're like, wow, this guy's so rational and all this.

00:20:55.000 And yes, I don't think he ceases to be rational, but his TikTok persona was very provocative.

00:21:01.000 And by the way, I agree with almost everything he was saying.

00:21:04.000 Again, all while understanding he is under accusations of rape and running a cam girl business and all this other stuff, not stuff that I consider to be necessarily virtuous.

00:21:14.000 However, Andrew Tate struck a chord.

00:21:17.000 We have not seen a viral sensation like Andrew Tate since, in my opinion, Jordan Peterson.

00:21:24.000 Jordan Peterson came on the scene and went totally viral.

00:21:30.000 Andrew Tate comes on the scene and just starts dominating.

00:21:33.000 So I want to play a piece of tape here.

00:21:34.000 And then I think we have Paul Manafort as I was building into an entire segment on Andrew Tate, but you have to be flexible.

00:21:40.000 So you guys are going to have to listen to thought crimes for the completion of it.

00:21:42.000 I'm not an apologist for Andrew Tate.

00:21:44.000 And here's what I recommend for everybody.

00:21:46.000 When you hear you're supposed to hate this person, you're supposed to hate this person, just check all of your assumptions aside, which is what, I mean, we have our group chat here, and I literally asked the team yesterday afternoon, I don't understand this Andrew Tate thing.

00:21:58.000 I literally don't get it.

00:22:00.000 They said, well, he's viral all this.

00:22:01.000 So I said, okay, I'm going to watch the interview.

00:22:02.000 And after about 30 minutes, I say, oh, now I get it.

00:22:06.000 This guy's pretty smart, high IQ, son of a chess master, saying things you're not supposed to say, ridiculously fit, talking about things you're not supposed to talk about.

00:22:15.000 Is that why he's imprisoned?

00:22:16.000 I have no idea.

00:22:17.000 But he was really targeted in platforms.

00:22:20.000 So I just want to play one tape here, and then we'll go to Paul Manafort, which I thought was one of the most insightful comments that Andrew Tate had in his sit-down with Tucker Carlson that I encourage all of you to watch.

00:22:32.000 It's worth your time because you're supposed to hate this man.

00:22:35.000 I don't hate him or love him.

00:22:37.000 But to be honest, when I was watching the interview, I couldn't stop watching.

00:22:41.000 He's saying stuff that strikes a fundamental chord of what is wrong in Western society.

00:22:47.000 Play Cut 57. 0.94

00:22:49.000 When you want to conquer a society, you kill the military-age males. 0.99

00:22:52.000 That's what you do. 0.97

00:22:53.000 That's the first thing they've ever done. 0.99

00:22:54.000 They walk in and all the men have to have their throats cut. 1.00

00:22:57.000 They can't perhaps do that, but they can certainly cut your balls off. 1.00

00:23:00.000 And then you can't resist. 0.97

00:23:02.000 And I think there's certainly a movement to ensure that there's very little resistance left inside of the number one demographic, which is required to resist oppression, which are military-age males.

00:23:13.000 And they don't want those kind of people waking up with any kind of self-respect or standards or to say, no, I don't accept this.

00:23:19.000 I do not need a ninth injection.

00:23:21.000 They don't want that.

00:23:22.000 They want you to sit and say, hmm, I don't need it, but the news said so.

00:23:28.000 So, a lot to finish on that topic, but I want to get to our friend here, Paul Manafort.

00:23:32.000 Paul, welcome to the program.

00:23:33.000 I want to point our audience to your book, Political Prisoner, by Paul Manafort.

00:23:38.000 And so, Paul, I mean, I don't want to overly connect the themes here, but Andrew Tate is now facing a bunch of charges in Romania for what considered to be thought crimes.

00:23:46.000 You were a political prisoner and targeted by the regime, and Donald Trump is now being targeted by the regime.

00:23:52.000 Did you have just some top-line thoughts of how our judicial system has now kind of metamorphosized into a way to imprison people that hold ideas or participate in political parties that are against modern orthodoxies?

00:24:10.000 Yeah, Charlie, you're so right.

00:24:13.000 I mean, depending on where you align yourself in the political spectrum, it determines what kind of political rights, real kind of constitutional rights you have.

00:24:21.000 You know, my case, you know, I was on the wrong side.

00:24:24.000 I was Donald Trump's campaign chairman, and they spent two and a half years trying to get me to say things that weren't true.

00:24:32.000 And because I wouldn't, they violated a lot of my constitutional rights and made up crimes and put me in jail.

00:24:39.000 And I never worried about it at the time because I felt like this was the United States of America.

00:24:45.000 This is a country that I've been defending the values of all around the world.

00:24:50.000 But times have changed.

00:24:52.000 And in my book, you talk about, which was written a couple of years ago, I was concerned.

00:24:58.000 And the reason I wrote the book, I say that, was not just to get my side of the story out, but really to warn the American people that there was a two-tier system of justice and that even everyday Americans were going to be in the crosshairs if we didn't take our government back and our country back.

00:25:13.000 And unfortunately, my predictions have all seemed to come true.

00:25:19.000 And to the point that they're even going after a former president and creating crimes like the DA did in New York that just don't exist on the stats and the statutes, and then citing an espionage act to deal with document production.

00:25:39.000 It's just outrageous.

00:25:40.000 But at the same time, you see with what's going on in Washington today with the Department of Justice and Hunter Biden, they've got a laptop with so many fair violations on it.

00:25:52.000 Yes.

00:25:53.000 That they totally ignored it.

00:25:54.000 And with me, they had to create a fact pattern using people that I had hired and legitimately were working for publicly and were registered.

00:26:04.000 And they said because I had hired them, I was responsible for their work.

00:26:09.000 And even the fair unit didn't agree with that.

00:26:14.000 But when Mueller was appointed, Weissman told the Fairer Unit that they were taking over and their understanding, the Fair Unit's agreements with me were thrown out.

00:26:24.000 Well, and it's just so everyone understands, it's such a loosely written statute.

00:26:27.000 The intention of the law was a good intention. 0.68

00:26:30.000 1930s don't want Nazis to come into our country.

00:26:33.000 But if you read how it's written, as you all know, Paul, it's like any contact with any foreign official, whether money is exchanged or not, could make you and by the way, it's supposed to be a failure to register, just so we're clear.

00:26:46.000 It's a registration statute.

00:26:48.000 It's not even an activity statute, but they then criminalize, they've only used it nine times since the 1930s.

00:26:55.000 They dusted off this law.

00:26:56.000 You did legitimate international business for years, and they said we hate this guy because of his proximity to Trump.

00:27:02.000 Now they've ignored that precedent towards Hunter Biden, who has done clandestine, illegitimate borderline treason activity with foreign nationals.

00:27:12.000 Your thoughts, Paul?

00:27:13.000 Well, I mean, the laptop shows meetings that Hunter had on behalf of Barisswa, on behalf of the Chinese, on behalf of the Russian oligarch that hired him.

00:27:22.000 I mean, there actually are meetings, there are memos, there are emails.

00:27:26.000 So, there's no question about what kind of activity was involved.

00:27:30.000 There was like deputy involved, but they just ignored it.

00:27:33.000 And this plea deal that they've agreed to, I mean, basically, what, as I understand it, the plea agreement says is that any and all other crimes are thrown out.

00:27:45.000 And only the three that he's pled to, or the two that he's pled to, you know, the third one being the gun registration issue, which is not even going to be a conviction unless he violates that the plea agreement.

00:27:59.000 But in that plea agreement, they cleanse him of everything else that's on the laptop.

00:28:04.000 And I hope the judge takes a serious look at it because it's a serious problem.

00:28:09.000 And this Justice Department is just unabashedly promoted as a fair treatment when all they have to do is look at the precedent they set with me and they'll see that it's not that it's a different tier of justice.

00:28:26.000 So, Paul Manafort is with us.

00:28:28.000 Check out the book, Political Prisoner.

00:28:30.000 He said it best, your civil rights and your treatment is directly connected with your politics.

00:28:36.000 That's such a sad reality.

00:28:38.000 It's where we are right now.

00:28:40.000 Paul, what advice would you give Donald Trump after your brawl with the Department of Justice?

00:28:45.000 Well, the key thing I think I would say is, I mean, this is obviously a big difference.

00:28:49.000 He's running for president.

00:28:50.000 I was not.

00:28:51.000 Yes.

00:28:52.000 And it's important to the president needs to understand what they're trying to do.

00:28:56.000 They're trying to get him off message.

00:28:58.000 They're trying to get him dealing with the legal issues and not dealing with the campaign issues.

00:29:04.000 And I think what's important for the president is he's got very good counsel.

00:29:08.000 One of the lawyers, one of the lawyers that represented me, and actually won in New York for me.

00:29:13.000 He's very bright.

00:29:15.000 He understands the law.

00:29:16.000 He understands the tactics that the DAs and the prosecutors are going to try to play.

00:29:22.000 Let him deal with the practice because right now it's a motion practice.

00:29:25.000 It's on the law.

00:29:26.000 The issues that the Trump campaign is focused, Trump legal team is focusing on relate to really the problems with the indictments.

00:29:37.000 And I think the president, the American people, at least on the Republican side, they've already made their opinion known to the president about how they feel about this.

00:29:46.000 Even people, American Republicans who are supporting other candidates support Donald Trump in this matter.

00:29:53.000 And frankly, I think a lot of Republicans are recognizing that they have to vote for Donald Trump as well.

00:29:59.000 Otherwise, the left is going to get its way with trying to establish this two-tiered system of justice. 0.95

00:30:06.000 So what I think President Trump needs to do is focus on his number one job, which is getting himself re-elected or elected president of the United States.

00:30:15.000 Let his lawyers do the motion practice.

00:30:16.000 That's not to say he doesn't have to deal with the framework of the absurd two-tier justice system, because the American people see it.

00:30:24.000 I mean, all the latest polls now, you see the FBI has credibility of 24, 25%.

00:30:31.000 You know, the Justice Department's in the same place.

00:30:33.000 So President Trump's defining of the two-tiered system of justice has impacted.

00:30:41.000 And he doesn't, I mean, he needs to get elected so he can clean up the swamp.

00:30:46.000 That's his job.

00:30:46.000 And that over the next year is what he needs to do.

00:30:49.000 And clearly, in watching him on the campaign trail, he gets that.

00:30:52.000 And he's focusing on that.

00:30:54.000 And I think that's disappointing the Democrats somewhat because they thought they'd have him dealing with all of the issues of obscurity of the Espionage Act and this crazy stuff they're trying to do down in Georgia.

00:31:07.000 And he's not falling for that.

00:31:10.000 And that's the biggest advice I'd give to him, but he's already following his own advice in that regard.

00:31:16.000 So just from a personal management standpoint, you could feel as if your world is falling apart and the government just tries to demoralize you.

00:31:24.000 They have unlimited assets.

00:31:25.000 They have the media on their side.

00:31:28.000 How did you stay hopeful when it looked as if the whole regime was trying to basically give you a death sentence to get you to go to jail?

00:31:38.000 Well, I mean, first was my faith.

00:31:40.000 It was very important to me because I knew I didn't do anything wrong.

00:31:44.000 And I knew that these charges were bogus charges.

00:31:48.000 I also knew that the president of the United States knew they were bogus charges.

00:31:54.000 I tried to stay inward.

00:31:55.000 I wouldn't let them, you know, what they were saying about me define how I felt about myself.

00:32:00.000 My family was there.

00:32:01.000 My friends were there.

00:32:02.000 And I've always felt that the end of the day, that one way or another, I would not spend the rest of my life in jail, even though that's what they were trying to do.

00:32:12.000 And thank you to President Trump for providing me a pardon because he knew I was there under the wrong, for the wrong reasons.

00:32:19.000 And he also knew that I wouldn't give up hidden by lying so that the prosecutor would go easier on me.

00:32:27.000 And so that's what my faith, my family, and knowing that I had done nothing wrong and believing that Donald Trump would, in the end of the day, do the right thing.

00:32:35.000 Paul Manafort, author of the book Political Prisoner, thank you so much.

00:32:39.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:32:40.000 Good seeing you again.

00:32:40.000 Thank you.

00:32:41.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:32:43.000 Email us your thoughts.

00:32:43.000 As always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:32:46.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.

00:32:51.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - July 12, 2023

Andrew Tate Talk and DeSantis' Missed Turning Point with Raheem Kassam and Paul Manafort

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