00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:22.000As always, I'm joined by Blake Neff, our not-so-secret weapon.
00:01:27.000I'm Andrew Colvett, executive producer of this fine show, and we have lots to get to.
00:01:32.000Yesterday, of course, was the two-month anniversary of Charlie Kirk's assassination.
00:01:39.000And we had a campus tour event, the final one of the This Is the Turning Point tour.
00:01:46.000We rebranded it after Charlie's assassination, and it was at UC Berkeley, which is supposed to be the birthplace of the modern free speech movement.
00:01:55.000The birthplace of the free speech movement and like persistent like layer of the worst, most like wretched elements of ones that haven't moved to Portland or Seattle.
00:02:07.000Yeah, Charlie visited the campus a few times.
00:02:09.000I was with him on one occasion, and we were struck by just this prevailing sense of nihilism and of depression.
00:02:18.000It's a very, it's a very, I think, a dark place, but there are great people there.
00:02:22.000And Antifa swarmed our event last night.
00:02:25.000It became a massive news story, as most of you probably have heard by now.
00:02:30.000And I want to get right into it because we have Lila Youssef.
00:02:35.000She is part of our Cal Berkeley TPSA chapter there.
00:03:13.000It was absolutely a horrible experience with the Antifa book protesters.
00:03:18.000Pretty much I finished class around 5.30.
00:03:22.000I walked over from the law school and kind of it was clear that there were two different groups.
00:03:27.000It was the Antifa and the violent protesters carrying their signs.
00:03:31.000At that point, they had already started mocking Charlie Kirk's death, shouting slurs like Nazi fascists to anyone walking by, wearing a MAGA hat or anything with the American flag on it.
00:03:49.000And so then I ended up joining this line of people to enter when all of a sudden I start hearing three loud booms and it sounded as if it was as if it was almost a bomb or gunshots going off.
00:04:03.000I later found out it was, I believe, some car revving or fireworks.
00:04:08.000And then all of a sudden I see a glass bottle being thrown above the crowd at the police officers.
00:04:15.000And all of a sudden the police officers, they kind of get into a formation.
00:04:22.000And that's when the glass bottles get start getting thrown on us.
00:04:26.000And so I at the time was standing with a police officer.
00:04:28.000I was the first person in line in the barricade that at the time was open.
00:04:33.000So I ran through the barricade and I ran through the two lines of police officers and I kind of hid beneath the police officers to be protected from a glass shard and bottle that was almost a few inches from my head.
00:04:46.000And so just so everybody's clear about what actually happened and, you know, you were so close to it that you probably didn't understand the tactical formations that were happening.
00:04:54.000So these Antifa people, and I've got the whole rundown from our team, these Antifa thugs tried to basically block off the one entrance to the venue.
00:05:12.000So what they're doing now is they're claiming that Turning Point is inciting violence by holding a free speech event in Charlie's honor, something he died for, something he was murdered for.
00:05:38.000And what happened was we were begging the police, our staff was begging the police to get involved to open this up.
00:05:46.000And it wasn't until actual violence started happening that the police finally, you know, did something to block these people off and create safe passage.
00:05:56.000And they did sort of a thing that we experienced at UCLA a few years back where they played with the QR codes.
00:06:02.000So a lot, maybe you could speak into this, Layla, where a lot of people had QR codes.
00:06:06.000And we have to use, sometimes we have to work with the universities, especially in California, for ticketing systems.
00:06:12.000And a lot of people were having issues with that.
00:06:14.000Can you explain what was going on there?
00:06:17.000Yeah, so pretty much I, like many others in the line, we had already ticket, we had tickets, we had QR codes that we believed would work.
00:06:25.000And when we would reach the front of the line, we were told that this didn't work because we had only filled out a student interest form or not the correct form.
00:06:33.000We were pretty much all being told different things.
00:06:36.000And I believe it was part of an orchestrated effort to ensure that the hall wasn't completely full, that the students were allowed to enter.
00:06:43.000And as you mentioned, this was the one entry point.
00:06:47.000So we were kind of left with, we're stuck in this line, but I can't even leave because I'm going to be attacked by these Antifa thugs.
00:06:54.000So it was, it was, we were pretty much cornered.
00:07:03.000I mean, you'd think that I'd use my Berkeley law email to register for this event through Turning Point, through the school, and somehow it's not working.
00:07:12.000For the number of people that I saw it not working for, it's very odd.
00:07:17.000Yeah, you almost assume that there was some sort of sabotage going on.
00:07:22.000I mean, I'm not trying to speculate wildly, but it does feel, I mean, we've run into this before in Memphis.
00:07:29.000We had a situation where the actual administration and the school were sabotaging our events.
00:07:34.000So it doesn't surprise me that you would go into a deep blue university and there would be shenanigans at play.
00:07:50.000A few examples of Kirk and Turning Point's typical rhetoric should make clear that Turning Point's actual method for our university community is not about free speech or freedom of debate.
00:08:00.000It is about the intimidation of free speech, especially in an academic setting.
00:08:04.000It is about bringing an end to free debate.
00:08:08.000These people, they just accuse you of exactly what they do.
00:08:22.000So what happened in this instance is there was a guy out there with a red freedom shirt, and it had a cross on the back, and he was saying, Jesus is Lord, you know, whatever.
00:08:31.000And he's getting antagonized by these people.
00:08:34.000And then one of these Antifa goons comes up and rips the cross and his chain off of him.
00:09:53.000For more than 12 years, Patriot Mobile has been on the front lines fighting for our God-given rights of freedom while also providing exceptional nationwide cell phone service with access to all three of the main networks.
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00:10:55.000Yeah, so I got inside because one of the Turning Point staff members was very kind and helped me, honestly, walked me through every single gate because they were being, for some reason, even when I had a QR code, they didn't want to let me in.
00:11:11.000So and even, and when I got in, I was like kind of surprised because the room wasn't even full yet.
00:11:17.000Like I thought I wasn't being allowed in because it was at capacity or something, but they were simply just not letting people in for some arbitrary rules.
00:11:46.000And so I had to connect them with turning point staffers to get them inside the building.
00:11:49.000I know some of the audience members maybe questioned my judgment, but listen, anybody who's stuck out in that melee, like, you know, you can make reporter jokes all you want, but nobody deserved to be stuck out there with the chaos and the violence that was happening out there.
00:12:25.000So to be able to hear wonderful speakers like Rob and Frank kind of go into this notion of, yes, we have conservative values and beliefs, but we can't succumb to the pressures that they want us to.
00:13:14.000I mean, the clips were absolutely amazing.
00:13:18.000And, you know, there's a, here's, we'll just give people a, you know, let's just give a taste of inside because it was, it was an amazing, amazing moment.
00:13:52.000They have already lost the intellectual battle.
00:13:54.000Their goal is to disturb the crowd, silence those who disagree, and destroy any ounce of conservatism that they can get their filthy paws on.
00:14:33.000And after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I had people taking pictures of me because I'm somebody who is vocally conservative being canceled, people saying we shouldn't have just killed Charlie Kirk.
00:14:47.000We should kill other people that think like him and kind of pushing this narrative forward.
00:14:53.000And so people like John Paul, for example, and myself have faced a lot of backlash for even the day I posted that Charlie Kirk got assassinated, the amount of messages I got saying I should die just like him and kind of this general rhetoric within the student body, but also around the community as well.
00:15:12.000This is, it's not safe anymore to walk around Berkeley as a conservative.
00:15:19.000Antifa is prevalent and it's a domestic terror group that needs to be handled with.
00:15:24.000And quite frankly, with all their defund the police chance, I don't think the police are intervening enough and protecting the students enough.
00:15:33.000So I certainly, of course, since the assassinations of Charlie Kirk, people who before were afraid have been more empowered to speak, but that has come with consequences, unfortunately, at Berkeley.
00:15:43.000Yeah, we really need to emphasize on that point.
00:15:45.000Like Antifa is basically like if we had a group that just in the South, if we had a group in the South that had a uniform and went around and terrorized people who were trying to hold speeches, you know, like the Klan did back in the day, like we'd be able to say this is a domestic terror group and should be targeted accordingly.
00:16:00.000And like when you have these Antifa urchins who will harass any conservative event in Berkeley, that is a domestic intimidation terror group.
00:16:07.000Yeah, I mean, to Blake's point, it's a really good point.
00:16:10.000And, you know, and you brought it up, Lila, that you do not feel protected.
00:16:14.000You do not feel like the cops are taking this seriously enough.
00:16:17.000And we did have the president just, you know, declare that Antifa is a domestic terror group.
00:16:23.000And I know Treasury is working on kind of putting together this loose network.
00:16:28.000They pop up cell by cell, but they do wear uniforms.
00:16:32.000They are, listen, if you're going to wear the black block and you still want to do this thing where you identify yourself visually, then I think the authorities need to be empowered.
00:16:42.000And there was a lot of that going around on X last night where people were like, listen, they're laughing in your face to the administration's face because they're out there loud and proud and nobody's doing anything about this.
00:16:53.000And students like you are getting caught in this violent culture, this subculture, this ideology that's trying to intimidate, bully, and assault conservatives on campuses like UC Berkeley.
00:17:08.000What would you like to see happen as a result of what we saw unfold last night?
00:17:12.000I would like an extreme condemnation from the administration, first and foremost.
00:17:17.000I would like for heightened security for our events, any conservative events in general across campus.
00:17:24.000And I want this university that once used to supposedly champion itself as being, you know, free speech and all to recognize that it's now not free speech.
00:17:34.000It's free speech as long as they like it.
00:17:36.000And if they don't, then you're going to get a glass bottle thrown at you or fireworks thrown at you.
00:18:22.000As long as there is not a full-throated condemnation and very serious accountability.
00:18:30.000If a university receiving public funds, like we have very broad federal laws on this, if UC Berkeley is systematically not allowing conservative groups to have their constitutional rights expressed, the ones that are protected on any public university campus, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, these have to be protected at public university campuses, then the Trump administration should say, you're not going to get any more money, University of California.
00:18:54.000Yeah, we'll put the fear of God into them.
00:18:56.000But candidly, these cells need to be rooted out.
00:19:34.000This is Andrew Colvett, executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show.
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00:20:53.000This is, I mean, we have a topic, a very clear topic that we're going to get to about bringing together the disparate coalitions on the right.
00:21:03.000However, I just want to encourage, the show that you're doing with Lomez is going to be a must-listen to for if you want to hear sort of, I would say, just really smart dialogue, challenging the ideas, everything that's going on in X, all the chaos.
00:21:20.000Maybe just tell us one more, give us a few lines about the show and why you guys are doing it.
00:21:25.000Yeah, we're doing a show called Rufo and Lomez.
00:21:27.000It's me, Rufo, and my friend Jonathan Lomez Keeperman.
00:21:37.000And so we're trying to tackle culture and politics through a different lens than people are used to in the kind of traditional right-wing talk radio format.
00:21:47.000We're trying to take all of the chaos out of the digital sphere.
00:21:51.000We're trying to break it down, dissect it, analyze it for people, and really serve as a trusted, responsible guide through the times that we're in.
00:22:01.000And I think that's what the responsibility for all of us is to do right now.
00:22:08.000We have a lot of infighting on the right.
00:22:11.000And it's time for those of us who have the ability to step up and try to be a really kind of responsible guide, much like Charlie Kirk was for so many people.
00:22:22.000Yeah, that's well said and a good segue.
00:22:25.000And Blake's going to kind of bring us to your tweet.
00:22:27.000114, you brought this, you tweeted this yesterday.
00:22:31.000I instantly flagged it, and I thought it was so much better.
00:22:34.000Yeah, so you just said, it's become very clear in retrospect that Charlie Kirk was holding the right together and that we need JD Vance to step into that role, which will require settling disputes and laying out the boundaries of the coalition.
00:22:49.000Nixon figured out how to do this after being vice president.
00:22:53.000So, and then someone said, you know, Vance should have his own podcast, which we've had him on a few times, and we should hopefully do that again in the future.
00:22:59.000But yeah, I think that's, for those who aren't aware, who are watching, there's been a lot of discussion of this online because there's been a lot of arguments within the right over, you know, for example, when Tucker interviewed Nick Fuentes, what are the barriers on the Israel question on different on foreign policy questions, on a lot of stuff, what's up for debate, what's not up for debate, what's beyond the pale.
00:23:21.000And, you know, Charlie was such a coalition builder.
00:23:24.000He was so interested in keeping the focus on get wins against the left.
00:23:29.000Don't, you know, Charlie would not have been having a big fight over what the right should believe a week before the elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
00:23:37.000And I think it's very important to emphasize that.
00:23:38.000And I'm glad you were emphasizing it, Chris.
00:23:42.000Why do you see him as uniquely positioned to be that person?
00:23:46.000Well, look, I mean, I think, again, in retrospect, I saw it.
00:23:50.000And, you know, I remember during the transition period, I talked with Charlie, and he called me and he said, Hey, I need great names for people to staff the Department of Education.
00:24:02.000And that's the moment that I realized that he was someone that in public had this huge role, but also in private.
00:24:10.000He was essential in figuring out how to get good people together that were focused on the mission, that were going to deliver results.
00:24:18.000And I think I didn't quite understand that and appreciate that until after he was gone.
00:24:24.000And then there's this sense of a void.
00:24:28.000There's no one that can stitch together the various coalitions into the MAGA movement, into the general right.
00:24:35.000He was really just an incredible leader in that regard.
00:24:37.000And as I'm looking around for other people who could fill his shoes and serve in that same capacity, the first person that obviously comes to mind is the sitting vice president of the United States.
00:24:49.000You know, JD has great relationships with all the various factions on the right.
00:24:53.000He, of course, has the bully pulpit of being the vice president.
00:24:57.000That's actually quite helpful to be in a powerful position.
00:25:01.000And he can really gatekeep in a unique way, kind of offering the access to the White House, offering access to the office of the vice president, and then getting people in line.
00:25:15.000And look, the right is facing this question now.
00:26:17.000JD Vance has become such a warrior for our cause in the past six months.
00:26:21.000JD Vance is acting and looking like the vice president that Donald Trump needs, the vice president that Donald Trump deserves, and maybe beyond that, even the 48th president.
00:26:42.000And what an upgrade from what we had during that last administration.
00:26:47.000Unclear if he's talking about Joe Biden's or Trump 1.0 there, but it probably would have remained probably true from Charlie's perspective on either.
00:26:56.000But yeah, I mean, listen, Chris, JD has the built-in advantage of not only being the vice president, but, you know, Charlie in death somehow has taken on even more important of a position within the movement symbolically, spiritually.
00:27:14.000And of course, the words that he spoke out and all these clips we have of him, he was in JD's corner a billion percent.
00:27:21.000I can tell you this from the first time we had him on the show years ago when it was just talking about it.
00:27:27.000He'd always say, people would say, like, Charlie, you should run for president.
00:27:41.000And I think, again, he really set the example.
00:27:44.000If you see how Charlie dealt with kind of right-wing racialism, right-wing conspiracism, the Grouper movement more broadly, he was trying to kind of create good boundaries that would benefit.
00:27:58.000And he understood that sometimes there is addition through subtraction in a political coalition.
00:28:03.000There are certain groups that you want to manage, and there are certain groups that you want to manage out because ultimately they detract.
00:28:10.000And the end of my tweet was a reference to Richard Nixon.
00:28:14.000And if you look at the history of Nixon, Nixon was derailed in his 1962 campaign for California governor by the John Birch Society, which in that time represented a more extreme form of right-wing conspiracism.
00:28:28.000They, of course, were famous for attacking President Eisenhower as a communist agent.
00:28:34.000And by the 1968 presidential campaign, which Nixon won, and then in 72, which he won by an overwhelming margin, winning 49 states, he learned how to successfully cut through these thorny questions, how to create a successful coalition that galvanized huge majorities, and also how to edge out some of the negative influences, some of the net negatives, like the John Birch Society.
00:29:02.000He had this sophisticated strategy of strategic distance without getting sucked into a debate with the Birch Society.
00:29:12.000And I think that for someone like JD, a similar approach could be quite effective.
00:29:19.000I think he has he demonstrated one potential model for this that could be very important.
00:29:27.000And of course, Nixon was, you know, formerly served as vice president.
00:29:32.000And so that's why I think the historical example might be useful and might offer a plausible way forward.
00:29:39.000Yeah, I think, you know, this is the debate.
00:29:42.000I mean, what you've just isolated is the, you know, and Buckley played a big role with, you know, who, who was in, who was out.
00:29:50.000I mean, it's a, it's, I can't tell you how many people have sent me the Buckley example going back to those days.
00:29:56.000And, you know, it's a really tricky question.
00:29:59.000It is a tricky one because, like, for example, you could say some of Buckley's influence meant that we had like that anti-intervention, anti-immigration faction of the right was too low for too long, and that caused a lot of damage to the movement and the country, arguably.
00:30:16.000Yeah, no, I think you have to get it right.
00:30:18.000And I will say, you know, I mean, let's just name names.
00:30:42.000But, you know, a lot of people, we've said it on Thought Crime.
00:30:45.000I think we've said it on this show as well.
00:30:46.000You know, a lot of people are asking us to distance ourselves from Tucker, given everything that's happened.
00:30:52.000And I would say, listen, one of the last things that we were asked to do or that Charlie made very clear to us was that I will not be morally blackmailed when it comes to Tucker Carlson.
00:33:52.000First on the Senate thing and then on the vice presidential selection.
00:33:55.000Yeah, I can personally attest of just how much Charlie, how much equity he put it, political capital he put in to getting JD to be selected as the vice president, to getting him to win the primary for the Ohio Senate race.
00:34:25.000Yeah, Chris, we just want to hear what you have to think about the elephants in the room, which is we're having this big factional debate because it didn't start with him.
00:34:35.000Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes.
00:34:54.000Well, it's a little, it's a very complex question, and I have a few parts to the answer.
00:35:01.000You know, first off, I think like many of us, Tucker gave so many people on the right a great start, a great boost, great support.
00:35:10.000I count myself as someone who really is grateful for what Tucker has done.
00:35:14.000And so I think you give someone like that more latitude.
00:35:17.000If you're talking about the Fuentes interview, my own personal preference would have been for Tucker to really interrogate Fuentes a little bit more, challenge his opinions, really make it a kind of journalistic and adversarial enterprise.
00:35:35.000However, I think that therefore the call to banish Tucker, to banish Kevin Roberts from Heritage, to banish anyone in that orbit is foolish.
00:35:51.000And in my own attempt, I've texted with Tucker subsequently.
00:35:57.000I've tried to give him my sense of how to think about the Fuentes or Grouper phenomenon, how to approach it in a way that I think would be more productive.
00:36:09.000And I think that is probably the best strategy moving forward to recognize that Tucker does have an important place in the conservative movement.
00:36:16.000And even in places of criticism, I think that we can try to debate those ideas.
00:36:22.000We can try to push people in a more productive direction.
00:36:25.000I think this is what Charlie did with not just with Tucker, but with many other people.
00:36:30.000And I am, well, I think that, look, again, there's always addition through subtraction with people who are net negatives, very counterproductive.
00:36:39.000I think kind of racialist, conspiracist factions certainly fall under that.
00:36:45.000But, you know, this instinct to denounce, to disavow, to draw red lines, to purge leadership, to do that kind of action, whether at Heritage or now at ISI or in other institutions, I think that is not the right way approach, right approach.
00:37:03.000And I think we get into an almost inverse of the BLM moment where you have DEI-style struggle sessions at conservative institutions.
00:37:52.000I will tell you with a thousand percent certainty because I had dozens of conversations about this.
00:37:58.000The larger critiques, the chew the meat, spit out the bones kind of critiques about what this country has done when it comes to betraying young men, young white men, what it's done to break the social compact and to label a lot of these groups as toxic, as beyond the pale, as not worth fighting for, has done such extraordinary damage to our country that some of this backlash, it needs to be harnessed and focused.
00:38:25.000And that's what Charlie devoted his life to.
00:38:27.000You heard that with Erica Kirk in her memorial speech, that this was the guy that killed Charlie was the same kind of guy that he was out on these college campuses trying to save.
00:38:37.000We must remember that some of these, yes, it comes out in gross and vile ways, but at the core, there is a truth that we must acknowledge and be very, very serious about addressing.
00:38:47.000Final word to you about 50 seconds, Chris.
00:38:50.000I mean, if you're a young man growing up today, you came of age during the COVID lockdowns.
00:38:55.000You came of age during the BLM era where you were told that you were inherently and intrinsically evil because of your sex, because of your race.
00:39:04.000And so there is a justifiable resentment that has been bubbling up for many years.
00:39:10.000But I think that the best way to address that is through eliminating DEI, delegitimizing BLM ideologies, and then kind of tapping into those essential pillars of building our civilization, economic opportunity, great institutions, strong families, and offering young men a way that is not nihilistic, but a way that's actually going to make their lives better in the real world.
00:39:35.000If conservatives can't do that, we need to keep thinking.