00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show, the Attorney General of Arizona, Mark Bernovich.
00:00:04.000I asked him about what's going on with the audit.
00:00:06.000And I respect Mark Bernovich because he is not like most attorney generals.
00:00:10.000He's careful in what he says, but he's very intent on acting.
00:00:13.000And I think you will get that impression.
00:00:16.000We talk about the cartel of the colleges and what should the proper role of Attorney General be.
00:00:20.000He's running for the U.S. Senate in Arizona.
00:00:22.000And I think it's a very important conversation, especially those of you that are concerned about voter fraud and what needs to happen next.
00:00:29.000If you want to support our program, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.
00:00:33.000I want to thank all of you that support our incredible work here where we do two podcasts a day.
00:00:39.000Thank you, thank you, thank you for making it possible.
00:01:49.000And people of all ages, please consider coming to AmericaFest with the largest names in the whole movement: tpusa.com/slash amfest, tpusa.com/slash amf tpusa.com.
00:02:02.000AmericaFest is the place to be December 18, December 19th, December 20, and 21.
00:02:32.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:03:20.000So I can't wait to get into what I call the cartel of the colleges because you have some things that you really want to dive into that your office has been working on about kind of corruption in higher education.
00:03:38.000And I also want to kind of talk about some of the new things your office has released in regards to voter registration material and some other things regarding the Arizona audit and the election.
00:03:48.000But first, I just want you to introduce yourself to our audience.
00:04:12.000And when your family has not just studied history, but lived it, you have this great appreciation for how unique freedom is.
00:04:20.000And, you know, we know that folks like Ronald Reagan used to talk about, you know, freedom is never one more than one generation away from extinction.
00:04:28.000And that's why I'm so passionate about the Constitution and, you know, our liberties.
00:04:33.000And so much of my career has been spent as I was raised that we have to protect freedom and we have an obligation to give back because this is the greatest country in the world.
00:04:41.000So, you know, I'm a public school kid.
00:04:43.000I still live in the same neighborhood.
00:04:47.000I was a gang prosecutor at a law school.
00:04:49.000In fact, I met my wife there and she's now actually on the federal bench.
00:04:52.000So, you know, anybody knows anything about federal judges, worked at the AG's office.
00:04:57.000I've been a federal prosecutor, served our country in the Army Reserve.
00:05:01.000I worked at a think tank called the Goldwater Institute where I wrote a lot and wrote briefs on the importance of property rights and individual liberty.
00:05:08.000And so I had never thought I was going to ever run for any office.
00:05:12.000And I was brought up with this real strong sense of that when you're the government, when you can take away people's livelihoods, their life, liberty, property, you have to have the most highly qualified, but also the most ethical people in those office and people that understand how much power you have when you're the government.
00:05:27.000And I didn't like what was going on in the AG's office.
00:05:30.000You know, I decided to run for attorney general, kind of a long shot.
00:05:33.000People made fun of the fact that, you know, folks can't spell my name or I never run for office.
00:05:37.000And, you know, but I knew what I believed in.
00:05:40.000I never had to have anyone in my life, you know, tell me what to think or give me a sheet of paper to say, this is what the Constitution says, or this is what you need to believe.
00:05:55.000I won re-election in 2018, even though folks like Tom Steyers spent 7 million bucks more against me than anyone and got more votes than Sinnamore McSally.
00:06:03.000And, you know, now I'm the Attorney General.
00:06:05.000I've been involved in a lot of major fights, major Supreme Court cases, and just keep thinking I've been blessed with so much.
00:06:12.000I just keep trying to give back to the state I love.
00:06:15.000And you're actually challenging the Biden regime on a variety of different things right now.
00:06:20.000Indeed, I think that there's probably a running joke if the Texas AG were here, he'd probably be debating me over who's filed more lawsuits against the federal government.
00:06:31.000I always tell the legislature, you give me the resources and I will do everything I can to protect the Constitution and push back.
00:06:38.000But, you know, whether it was when President Obama was in office, you know, we had filed a bunch of lawsuits over environmental regulations, EPA job, the waterways of the U.S.
00:06:48.000And with President Biden, I mean, I know this and you know this, sure all your listeners know this, is that there is this radical attempt to centralize as much power as quickly as possible in D.C.
00:07:00.000And I don't know if it's President Biden or whoever's speaking as your piece, but literally it's they're socializing the economy, they're nationalizing the elections, and really they've decriminalized our border.
00:07:11.000And as a result of that, people are going to die.
00:07:15.000I was a gang prosecutor, federal prosecutor, but we know that there's the amount of fentanyl right now coming into this country is record amounts.
00:07:23.000We know that in places like Pima County, the second most populous county in Arizona, that fentanyl, opioid deaths are now the number one cause of death for people, for teenagers.
00:07:55.000People's nieces, nephews, sons, and daughters are going to die because of President Biden and his enablers like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Mark Kelly.
00:08:31.000I mean, because there's just literally this massive attempt to centralize power in Washington, DC.
00:08:36.000And you've been one of the few attorney generals that I believe have stood up against the vaccine mandate, and you did on the county level.
00:08:45.000We've done it actually on multiple levels.
00:08:46.000And once again, this is what's happening with the far left and this concentration of power.
00:08:53.000But there's also this notion that somehow, if you disagree with anyone when it comes to quote-unquote the science, somehow, you know, you're the problem.
00:09:02.000And the reality is, is that we have a lawsuit right now, another one against the Biden administration.
00:09:07.000We believe that the federal vaccine mandates are unconstitutional.
00:09:10.000Clearly, you know, the Constitution and all of its amendments is less than 7,500 words.
00:09:15.000Nowhere, nowhere in there does the president, one person, have the power to tell you, me, or anyone else they have to inject something in their body.
00:09:39.000The states were a check on the federal government.
00:09:41.000The federal government didn't create the states.
00:09:43.000The states created the federal government.
00:09:45.000And so Madison, you read, you know, Federalist 42, you know, you read the Federalist Papers.
00:09:49.000They clearly intended and wanted the states to do exactly what we're doing by filing these lawsuits.
00:09:55.000Furthermore, you have cities, counties that are also now trying to impose vaccine mandates, which we do not believe they have the authority to do.
00:10:03.000And I think that it's really, really problematic that nowadays, you know, people talk about science, they talk about debates.
00:10:09.000I was down in Tucson a week or so ago, and I don't use notes as we talk about, I know what I believe.
00:10:15.000I spoke for about an hour, and someone was asking about the vaccines, and I was explaining why I thought it was unconstitutional.
00:10:21.000And I also explained why some people may be hesitant.
00:10:24.000And I'm not a doctor, not a scientist, but quite frankly, Kamala Harris up the run-up to the election said she wouldn't get the vaccine if President Trump told her to do it.
00:10:34.000We were told no mass, then we're told mass.
00:10:36.000We're told that the vaccine is 90% effective.
00:10:46.000That's why polio has essentially been eradicated.
00:10:48.000But we're now told every three months that, oh, there's a new variant.
00:10:51.000There's this, this, you need boosters.
00:10:53.000I'm not telling what people, what they should or shouldn't do, but I just know from a perspective of someone that believes very passionately in liberty and the Constitution, that no government, no government anywhere should tell you to inject something in your body that literally from week to week, what it does or doesn't do changes.
00:11:13.000Hey, everybody, if you're paying attention right now, you know we're going to face some tough times.
00:11:17.000And I'm not going to say run and hide, far from it.
00:11:24.000The best way to do that is to get a three-month emergency food kit from MyPatriot Supply.
00:11:28.000They're the number one emergency food company, and they've served millions of American families over the last 14 years.
00:11:33.000Right now, you can save $100 on their three-month emergency food kit just in time before the whole system crashes.
00:11:39.000Since you're saving $100 per kit, get one for each member of your family.
00:11:42.000This kit gives you breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks, and snacks, totaling over 2,000 calories a day with a wide variety of delicious foods.
00:11:49.000Go to preparewithkirk.com right now and save $100 per kit and you can't beat this price.
00:11:54.000Act now and your order will ship quickly and arrive discreetly at your door in unmarked boxes.
00:12:54.000And so I'm just saying, I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but every single drug, even the wonder drug, has side effects.
00:13:01.000So why aren't people being told that these are the possible negative consequences?
00:13:05.000And then people can make an individual decision.
00:13:08.000And so there really is this herd mentality with a lot of stuff, whether it's on our walk culture, whether it's the stuff you're doing on the campuses and fighting back against this liberal indoctrination.
00:13:18.000And quite frankly, now it's with this vaccine.
00:13:20.000And I think, I think this is all part of the left's attempt to change our mindset from this notion of that our rights don't come from government because they don't, but they're trying to change this mindset so people think that their whole health safety is all dependent on Uncle Joe, not Uncle Joe Stalin, but Uncle Joe Biden now.
00:13:39.000And so they want that, everyone to become dependent essentially on the government to tell them what's right, what's wrong, what's healthy, what's not healthy.
00:13:58.000And I know a lot of people that are facing termination from their job, even though they've had COVID and they've had a strange reaction to a vaccine before.
00:14:16.000It's, it's, and once again, if you follow the science, that it, what they say has not only changed, but it's inconsistent with objective data and facts.
00:14:27.000And we know even with like young kids, like I have two daughters in college, that if you look at the data, look at the stats.
00:14:34.000I mean, frankly, I mean, if you're under 18, you're more likely to die in a car accident or drowning than you are from anything related to COVID.
00:14:41.000I mean, I think that's what the data shows, but it's hard because anything that's contrary.
00:14:46.000It's anything that's contrary to this dominant narrative that's coming out of CNN or the Biden administration.
00:14:52.000And once again, that's anti-American as well.
00:14:55.000And whether you're a Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, it should scare you when anyone says, okay, the government's going to tell you what to think and why to think it.
00:15:05.000I mean, there was a time in this country where the far left would be like, oh my gosh, this is terrible.
00:15:31.000And so one thing I respect about you, you're a real person, which I respect a lot because everyone in this business seems to not be.
00:15:38.000But you're also not like Letitia James, where you're trying to abuse power.
00:15:43.000And so I know you have to be careful the way you talk about these things.
00:15:46.000I just want to say that for our audience.
00:15:48.000But I still I want to ask about it because it is a big issue.
00:15:51.000So you sent these two letters out regarding the voter registration list maintenance and the notice of submission to review findings and a request or written response to the Maricopa board.
00:16:02.000Tell us about these two letters as like we still try to kind of figure out what happened post-2020.
00:16:09.000I respect the fact that you mentioned that New York.
00:16:13.000And I always say to folks that, look, I'm not like the clowns in New York.
00:16:17.000I'm not going to reach a conclusion and then try to find facts or conjecture to support it.
00:16:24.000Because at the end of the day, and this goes back to what we were just talking about, when you're the government, when you're a prosecutor, literally there's statutes and ethics that you have to abide by.
00:16:33.000And unfortunately, sometimes the courts and they take a different view when you have liberal or democratic AGs or prosecutors doing something versus when we do it.
00:16:43.000And we can maybe talk about that in a second.
00:16:45.000But I do want to say so that any prosecutor worth their salt knows, not only because of the ethical and legal limits, you have to be careful what you say because if you say too much in the front end, then either a judge or even a defense attorney in front of a jury is going to say, aha, he did this or she did this.
00:17:02.000And they did this case or charge this case this way because they had said this or they're biased or they're prejudiced or somehow you get in a position where someone's going to try to have you recused or say that there's a conflict.
00:17:12.000So you have to be really, really careful what you say.
00:17:14.000So let me just say from the very beginning, our office supported the right to send the Senate to do the audit.
00:17:28.000And when the county was not turning over information, you may recall that we literally sent the county formal notification that if they did not turn over all the documents requested by the Senate, they would lose $700 million of state funding.
00:17:43.000So what the Senate is doing with the, how they did the audit, what they're doing with the audit, what they did with their settlement with the county, that's their business.
00:17:50.000Because I believe, once again, separation of powers and there's only certain things, you know, the attorney general prosecutor can do.
00:17:56.000So we've supported the Senate rights to do the audit and we've said all along when they get it, we will get the report, the information, they will submit something to us and then we'll review it and we'll make a determination how to proceed.
00:18:07.000So when the audit was submitted to us, we move forward.
00:18:11.000We have an investigation going on right now.
00:18:13.000I am very limited what I can say because.
00:18:15.000I just want to say, I wouldn't put you on the spot because that would be so dumb.
00:18:19.000If you have an ongoing investigation, people need to really understand what that means.
00:18:28.000Those letters, those documents are available on our website, but we're limited.
00:18:32.000We don't want, we want to do this the right way.
00:18:34.000When you're the government, your prosecutors get one chance normally to get it right.
00:18:38.000And sometimes, you know, it means that you have to go through a process of going through all the facts, evidence, what is admissible, what's not admissible, whether we have jurisdiction, whether you don't have jurisdiction, moving forward with what is more of a policy matter versus maybe what's more of a legal matter.
00:18:55.000And so I would just ask people to be patient, just like, you know, the Senate had a right to do its job.
00:19:01.000I hope that folks respect the right of the prosecutor's office or the attorney general's office to go through the facts, go through the information that was provided and do the right thing.
00:19:11.000And that's ultimately, you know, my entire career is based on doing the right thing, never been afraid to take on tough fights.
00:19:17.000I mean, I literally began my career politically, at least, taking on, you know, some of my own party.
00:19:25.000I've been involved in death penalty cases, literally life and death matters.
00:19:28.000I've sued the federal government, you know, more than any other AG probably.
00:19:33.000I've literally argued at the U.S. Supreme Court.
00:19:36.000I've successfully prosecuted people in my own political party.
00:19:40.000So, you know, people say what they want about me, but the one thing they can never say is I don't like to fight because I am a fighter and I will continue to fight and do the right thing.
00:19:51.000I just want to read part of the letter.
00:19:52.000There's a request for information of all the data files and log spreadsheets provided by the U.S. Postal Service or its designee related to the Arizona voter registration file, all the list and reported related to a certain type of code.
00:20:04.000A lot of information being requested, and you're being prudent, which is important and it's lacking in today's time.
00:20:11.000We'll post these on charliekirk.com because we get thousands of emails about Arizona.
00:20:17.000We get a lot of them to at our offices.
00:20:20.000It's frustrating because I know and I understand that this is a big issue.
00:20:26.000And I understand people are frustrated.
00:20:27.000But, you know, once again, I'm an old school conservative that I believe in the process.
00:20:34.000And I believe that when you're the government, you have to do things the right way.
00:20:38.000And it means sometimes that it may take longer than folks want it to take.
00:20:43.000And, you know, but it's important to get it right.
00:20:48.000Did you know that if you shop at Nike, they turn around and give your hard-earned dollars to pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and the Population Council?
00:20:56.000Did you know that Airbnb gave $500,000 to the Marxist Black Lives Matter organization?
00:21:01.000Your first vote is at the ballot box, but that isn't enough to defend our traditional Judeo-Christian values.
00:21:07.000Left-wing corporations are subverting our democracy by taking money from conservative customers and giving it to radical organizations that support abortion, gun control, and critical race theory.
00:21:18.000You have another vote, a second vote at the checkout line.
00:21:22.000And that is where massively important organizations called Second Vote come in.
00:21:26.000The courageous people at Second Vote are exposing corporations for how they spend your money.
00:22:39.000And you and I kind of hit it off when you started to say, well, Charlie, you don't understand what ASU has been doing.
00:22:46.000And so this is kind of like the third rail in our office here because we have so many people that lent ASU and they have some sort of loyalty to it.
00:23:03.000Walk us through what you're doing from the Attorney General's office with this issue.
00:23:06.000And let me just preface this by saying that, and the difficulty is: look, I literally, the university and their law firm Perkins Cooey, has filed a more than 200-page bar complaint against me.
00:23:18.000And even my own lawyer has told me not to talk about it.
00:23:21.000I've been told not to talk about the subject.
00:23:23.000And that's why just this past week, the state Supreme Court accepted one of our cases for state Supreme Court on one of our lawsuits against the University Sweetheart real estate deals.
00:23:36.000And so then you get folks from ASU criticizing us saying stuff, but I'm not allowed to say anything because, you know, I can't, I'm a lawyer, so they file bar complaints every time I say anything.
00:23:46.000Can I say something about that, though, which is that this is exactly what they do.
00:23:50.000Anyone up the down the conservative ladder, and I know you have to be careful commenting on this for obvious reasons, but they go through the politics of personal destruction.
00:23:57.000Like you start to investigate something we don't like, we're going to use Perkins CUI or whatever, COI, which is Hillary Clinton's like favorite law firm, by the way, alongside, you know, the other one she used to use all the money at the dossier, but Facebook uses Perkins, you know, Goldman Sachs does all of them to try to go after you to try to suppress you.
00:24:15.000And that means you're doing something significant.
00:24:17.000Well, I'm going to tell the folks from the university and from Perkins Cooey, that means they're going to have to listen to this entire podcast.
00:24:22.000Oh, they're going to be able to do that.
00:24:23.000They're going to have to listen to this because they're going to, this is what happens.
00:24:25.000They listen to me whenever I talk about them.
00:24:26.000And then all of a sudden there'll be some like thing like, Brudovich said this on, you know, this show or whatever.
00:24:30.000So I have not actually talked about this for a long time.
00:24:33.000So thank you for letting me talk about this because I feel like it's been suppressed.
00:24:37.000And so this, our lawsuit actually began, or my fight with the universities began.
00:24:42.000And I didn't want, I mean, you've done amazing job, amazing work exposing the hypocrisy and the left-wing biased universities.
00:24:49.000I did not, I know, folks like you were doing it.
00:24:51.000I did not want to become this anti-whatever higher education person.
00:24:56.000But what happened was we were involved in litigation.
00:25:00.000The universities here in Arizona were giving in-state tuition for people that didn't have legal status.
00:25:06.000So we literally in 2017 went to the Court of Appeals, we won 3-0 at the Court of Appeals because voters in 2006 in Arizona had approved a ballot measure that said, if you do not have legal status, you cannot get in-state tuition, period.
00:25:22.00070% of the people voted in favor of that in Arizona.
00:25:24.000So this was not like any sort of 50-50 issue.
00:25:28.000After we won that case, the Court of Appeals, the regions voted to continue to allow folks that didn't have legal status here to get in-state tuition.
00:25:36.000So we took it up to the state Supreme Court and we won 7-0.
00:25:39.000But during the course of that litigation, I realized, I came to realize that the universities in this, I'll call it the higher education establishment, there's this certain elitism where they think they know everything.
00:25:51.000And if you file a lawsuit, and I've tried to explain this to them, I'm not anti-ASU and I'm not anti-immigrant.
00:25:58.000But what I am is anti-crony capitalism.
00:26:02.000And we started looking at, if you look at the price of college tuition, and you know this, it's gone straight up like a rocket.
00:26:09.000In fact, there was an article just a couple of years ago from Forbes.
00:26:12.000If you look at the 50 states in our country, ASU was ranked number one in something.
00:26:16.000It was for tuition increases of the 50 states or public universities.
00:26:21.000And ironically, I mentioned this and the newspaper, which once again, you get no opposition here.
00:26:27.000There's two things the mainstream media here won't talk about, local media, immigration and the consequences and anything that's critical of Michael Crowe and ASU, right?
00:26:38.000So I literally said things that were proven facts and then they do this fact check and they have the universities explaining like, well, no, no, it may be technically that we went from ASU went from, you know, and when I graduated in the 1980s, we were in like the bottom 10% for public university costs.
00:26:53.000And now we're in the essentially the top quarter.
00:26:56.000And they basically said the data and stuff are like, well, no, no, it's wrong because that's looking at all the state universities in the state, not the research universities.
00:27:05.000And ASU and U of NAU are research universities.
00:27:07.000So you have to compare them against other research universities, which of course is so bogus because the whole point is, is our university system, and I came to realize this, is they've suppressed any sort of competition.
00:27:19.000And so whether it's, I believe, higher education vouchers or whether it's allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees, we've supported that.
00:27:26.000And it's the university and that establishment that hasn't.
00:27:30.000So unlike places, let's say like the University of Wisconsin system, where you may have like 13, you know, colleges in that system, only two are research universities.
00:28:13.000And then, of course, Charlie, you know, then the left comes around and says, oh my gosh, the government's going to get rid of all this for BS because, you know, my AC was out last week or week four.
00:28:25.000My HVAC guy is like, who's paying off?
00:28:32.000And instead of asking or talking about debt forgiveness, why aren't we, why aren't every one of us talking about why tuition has gone straight up like a rocket?
00:28:41.000And here in Arizona, we know that it's gone up more than 300% in the last 15 years.
00:29:24.000And so, of course, there's people out there that may think, well, we wish Bertovich hadn't gone to law school, but the point is, is that it's- They work for ASU now.
00:29:34.000And then you and I could talk about this for days.
00:29:38.000And all the crap the university spent money on is so ridiculous.
00:29:44.000And so you have not only this crushing amount of tuition going through the roof, but I'm going to, can I, sorry, I did bring, this is a prosecutor.
00:29:51.000I'm going to give you this, this one quote.
00:30:06.000I'm going to, you guys tell me which president said this.
00:30:08.000We are excited to be taking part in downtown Los Angeles resurgence.
00:30:12.000Not only does the building, they bought a more than 100,000 square foot building.
00:30:16.000Not only does the building illuminate the city's rich history dating back more than a century.
00:30:21.000We look forward to our presence there to play an important role in adding to the downtime, downtown's intellectual, culture, economic vibrancy.
00:30:28.000We take seriously our responsibility to the enhancement of the community.
00:30:32.000We look at participating in critical issues facing the nation's second largest city.
00:30:36.000Do you know which president said that after buying 100,000 square foot?
00:30:49.000Yeah, they have, there's ASU as a building in D.C. now.
00:30:52.000So, I mean, these are like nonprofit hedge funds.
00:30:56.000This is not that, that's exactly what's going on.
00:30:59.000And if you read, like, I don't know where to start and where to end on this, but you can, if you read the Auditor General's report from 2019, the Auditor General determined that there was all sorts of real estate transactions that were suspect.
00:31:14.000There wasn't public records maintained.
00:31:15.000And what happens is, is they do these real estate transactions and then they use the foundations to his wife sitting on some board or something.
00:31:24.000Well, there was a story that, oh man, I'm telling you, they're going to come unglued.
00:31:29.000But I'm saying, no, people can Google it.
00:31:32.000And at one point, his wife was the highest paid employee of the foundation.
00:31:38.000I don't think that's still the case because now that once the stuff's exposed.
00:32:04.000So right after we won the lawsuit on in-state, where they were giving in-state tuition for people that didn't have legal status, we had the second lawsuit about overall tuition and how it's gone up like a rocket.
00:32:15.000We went from that bottom 10 into the top quarter in tuition.
00:32:18.000And so the universities opposed us, not on any sort of constitutional grounds or any, it was on procedural grounds.
00:32:25.000They said the Attorney General does not have the ability to file a lawsuit in civil court without the express approval of legislature, the governor.
00:32:35.000If I can't enforce the Constitution in state court, who can?
00:32:38.000So we went all the way to the state Supreme Court.
00:32:42.000The governor, treasurer, Secretary of Education, Secretary of State, every single one of them filed briefs opposing my ability to sue the universities.
00:32:52.000And so the Supreme Court said there was some old case from 60 years ago called McFait, and that case said I couldn't initiate lawsuits in civil court without the explicit authority.
00:33:04.000So the universities wanted a technicality on that.
00:33:08.000And it's unfortunate because, once again, if I can't defend the taxpayers of the Constitution and State Court, who can?
00:33:14.000Now, under state law, I do have the ability to file lawsuits in federal court.
00:33:18.000And that's one of the reasons why I've been very active.
00:34:14.000Our friends at Noble Gold can keep you safe and protect you about whatever happens next.
00:34:19.000By starting a precious metal IRA or 401k portfolio, you can start the fight of the coming wave of inflation and ride out the storm with your savings intact.
00:34:31.000Buy things that are inflation resistant.
00:34:34.000And as a bonus and a thank you, you receive a free five-ounce solid silver America the beautiful bullion coin with each qualifying plan you start this month.
00:34:45.000Buy things you can touch that are finite, not infinite, that are real and objective and are not some numbers on a screen.
00:35:42.000There was a full page ad, Colorad in our local newspaper.
00:35:46.000And then, of course, they're sending out these mailers where they're literally, they've built a senior living center, like million dollar condos on campus.
00:35:53.000And they're basically inviting people to come to lunch, to buy these condos and enjoy luxury living and high-rise condominiums in Tempe.
00:36:02.000And you look at this, I mean, I showed you this this morning, Charlie.
00:36:04.000It's like, what does this have to do with education?
00:36:07.000And, you know, when you talk about how much debt students are going into, and I guarantee you this is happening in other universities, there's a New America Foundation where the university spent a million bucks to get President Crow a seat on the board so he can rub elbows with, you know, the left, the left folks, you know, the CNN folks back east and stuff.
00:36:25.000And so there is this game being played and no one is holding them accountable.
00:36:32.000And when we tried to hold them accountable, it, you know, they've they, everyone fought us.
00:36:36.000Everyone, the establishment and everything else, they fought us, other elected officials, Republican and Democrat.
00:36:42.000So we have what I call the third, the trilogy.
00:36:45.000Hopefully it's like Star Wars and this works out for the good guys.
00:36:47.000But they, the, uh, the third one is about these sweetheart real estate deals where they have this hotel deal in downtown.
00:36:54.000They're building an Omni or something.
00:36:55.000Yeah, they're building a down luxury hotel, Omni Hotel, and they literally essentially, like the real estate was going for about $85, $87 a square foot somewhere in that ballpark.
00:37:05.000But literally, you know, two blocks away, there's another hotel chain that's building something that was more than $200 a square foot.
00:37:13.000So what's happening is because they can essentially rent out or lease or sell their nonprofit status as an education entity, that ends up allowing them to develop these properties for non-education purposes.
00:37:25.000And quite frankly, the legislature, and they should be having hearings on this, but our legislature is doing nothing.
00:37:57.000And so, you know, from folks, you know, from folks, the conservative side, folks on the right, we all know what a den of indoctrination the universities have become, right?
00:38:06.000I mean, you know, you should pay for an education, but indoctrination is free, right?
00:38:20.000And so what's happening all across the country is that there's like this arms race where, so if ASU raises their tuition, you know, University of Wisconsin, North Carolina are like, well, we're ranked higher.
00:38:35.000And what this is a very important point.
00:38:37.000And I think this is going to be the next, if we can get past this case in the Supreme Court, I'm going to, this is our next lawsuit all over the country.
00:38:44.000In places like Arizona now, you have out of state students now, more and more becoming a bigger, bigger size of the population.
00:38:56.000So what's happening is the universities now have this racket where it's like, well, instead of you going to your state school where it'd be cheaper because the costs have gone up so much, people now, you know, in Georgia, you're going there from Arizona because you can get Georgia school and then Georgia can charge you more because it's out of state.
00:39:12.000And no one is asking why overall, whether you're in state or out of state, while tuition has gone straight up like a rocket at state schools.
00:39:18.000It's one thing if you're at a private school or, you know, whatever they can charge what they want, what the market allows them to charge.
00:39:26.000But because between the subsidies and people thinking that somehow Uncle Joe is going to pay off their student debts to this unaccountability, you have this dramatic increase in prices where there's this arms race where everyone keeps raising it and raising it.
00:39:41.000And the university presence, like people like Michael Crowe, I mean, his compensation package is more than a million dollars a year.
00:39:47.000I mean, there's what he gets paid officially, and then there's what he gets paid from the foundation.
00:39:52.000And then he gets paid from the foundation.
00:39:54.000And so the universities here, other places, we know when they, when they fire, you know, the coach, well, they're not going to fire Nick Saban at Alabama, but you know, when they fire, you know, the coach, when Lane Kiffing gets fired, it goes back to be the offensive.
00:40:12.000Todd Graham got like $12 million when he got fired and they brought in Herm Edwards.
00:40:16.000And so they throw around all this money that no one really knows about or no one cares about because there's no accountability.
00:40:22.000There's no one out there saying, wait a minute, why are you doing these real estate deals?
00:40:26.000Why do we have the universities having literally hundreds of acres and quote unquote research parks where it literally says or or the stadium, what ASU has where there are stuff for the university, the sports facilities, they literally, it allows them to have retail space, all this other stuff.
00:40:41.000The United States farm building was like the largest real estate transaction.
00:40:44.000Yeah, I mean, look, the universities have become, and this is why a lot of folks don't want to call them into account, but they have become the largest real estate developers.
00:40:51.000And so they are now scratching a lot of people's backs.
00:40:55.000And so there's a lot of folks out there that don't want to say, wait a minute, there's something fundamentally wrong with this.
00:40:59.000And I know from my own experience, literally, whether it's bar complaints, whether it's hiring some of the state's largest PR firms to go after me, whether it's the media not wanting to talk about it because, you know, it's Arizona State.
00:41:11.000It's the most important point, though.
00:41:17.000I'll give you one quick anecdote, Charlie Chari.
00:41:20.000I was on a station and I was talking about this a year or two ago when we filed our third lawsuit against the universities.
00:41:27.000And someone told me that the president of the university at like 10.30 at night heard about it and sent an email to the station and said, I want to be on.
00:41:36.000And the next day he was on because, you know, they cover sports for ASU.
00:41:40.000And so he was on to do his quote unquote rebuttal.
00:41:43.000And so this is, there's a very sophisticated media operation, a political operation.
00:41:49.000And unfortunately, literally, I mean, they have people filing 200-page bar complaints against me just because I'm trying to protect taxpayers to do my job.
00:41:58.000Well, but you should be encouraged because I want everyone to understand kind of the significance of what you're saying.
00:42:04.000You ask questions and file lawsuits on behalf of Arizona taxpayers, which is, you know, your job.
00:42:09.000And there's this cartel, my word, not your word, that kind of springs into action that hires top PR firms that has favors at all the newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, is able to call in favors to do bar complaints where they don't want to be questioned.
00:42:25.000And this is an Arizona equivalent of what it would take to go after the EPA or go after any of these kind of government departments.
00:42:34.000And I think it's really admirable because they, who else is challenging them?
00:42:38.000Most Republicans in the legislature, they want their football tickets to go see ASU, right?
00:42:43.000They want their kids to get into, you know, the business school.
00:42:47.000ASU have a business school, I'm sure it does.
00:42:49.000But that's what's so, that's what's so unprecedented about the college system is that the Republicans all in some ways want something out of it.
00:42:59.000I think, and I don't say this lightly, but Michael Crowe is the most powerful man in Arizona.
00:43:05.000And when you look at who his friends are, I think that's right.
00:43:08.000When you look at his friends at the country club, you look at the power they wield, how much financial impact they have, whether it's through the sports.
00:43:14.000And look, I'm an alumni and I've had people ask me, like, why are you hating on the universities?
00:43:21.000I want the universities to be great, but I also remember a time, like I said, in the late 80s when I was there and people could afford to go to college without a bunch of debt.
00:43:29.000And quite frankly, in 1987, the team went to the Rolls Bowl.
00:43:37.000But the point is, is that there should be accountability.
00:43:41.000And the notion that someone has been a university president, and I believe in term limits for elected officials, but I also believe in term limits for university presidents.
00:43:49.000And when you have someone that's been there, you know, at some point 17, 18 years, I mean, that's a lot of power and a lot of influence.
00:43:56.000And when you combine that with unaccountability and the notion that they can basically do whatever they want with these real estate transactions with no accountability, no one can hold them accountable.
00:44:07.000That's a recipe for historically we have seen that that's a recipe for a lot of back scratching and crony capitalism.
00:44:16.000And one of the reasons why I think so many younger folks are turned off to quote unquote capitalism is not because they don't like free markets, but what they've seen is crony capitalism.
00:44:24.000And whether that's the bank bangout, bailouts, or how the university conducts its business, that is crony capitalism in a nutshell.
00:44:30.000Well, and then they see themselves go into debt and then see high rises going up around them.
00:44:47.000Los Angeles, I can't remember which Los Angeles, just for the record.
00:44:49.000You can't get anything for less than a couple million.
00:44:51.000So let's say it was millions of dollars, right?
00:44:53.000So it's the 30 million in D.C. That could have helped a lot of students pay their way through college or in some way could have lowered tuition.
00:45:09.000And once again, they got this dismissed on procedural grounds.
00:45:13.000So we were at the state Supreme Court.
00:45:14.000December 16th is when we're arguing it.
00:45:17.000And of course, we're making the argument that we have the ability to sue the universities over these real estate deals.
00:45:23.000And it's not just ASU doing them, just so we're clear.
00:45:26.000And we hope that the court will say that, yeah, that we can move forward on these lawsuits.
00:45:30.000Because I think the greatest fear that the university and the higher education establishment has is once we start getting into this, you're going to have other AGs, I think, doing this.
00:45:41.000And once you start getting into these documents and the discovery, I'm sure that there's a lot of things that the higher education establishment doesn't want coming out.
00:45:50.000One of the reasons why you and I love the U.S. Constitution is because it has checks and balances.
00:45:55.000Who's supposed to check and balance them?
00:46:22.000Well, and the problem or the big issue is, is that the regents have become essentially a de facto rubber stamp for the universities.
00:46:32.000And then what they've lost sight of, and it's not only here, this is in other states as well.
00:46:35.000They realize they're not supposed to be, they could be cheerleaders for the university, but what they're supposed to be doing is making sure that public institutions, public universities, whether they're in Georgia or Wisconsin or Arizona or North Carolina, that they are providing the most value for hardworking middle-class taxpayers.
00:46:52.000So people like me, people have the ability to go to a state university and get an education if that's what they want to do and not get into $80,000 or $100,000 in debt.
00:47:01.000So the obligation, the focus needs to be on protecting the students and making sure we have systems in place where people aren't going into all this debt and we're getting good quality education and not indoctrination at our public universities.
00:47:15.000Well, thank you for your great work on that.
00:47:18.000And how could people stay in touch with you?
00:47:19.000You allowed to plug your political website?