Ask Charlie Anything 25: The Unbelievable Response to Our Cancel Culture Episode; Charlie’s Favorite State; Republicans Are On the Wrong Side of THIS Issue; and Making Our Kids Love America Again
00:00:28.000If you guys want to get in the running to win a signed copy of the MAGA Doctrine, type in Charlie Kirk Show, hit subscribe, give us a five-star review.
00:00:35.000And also, please, I encourage you to send in your questions.
00:01:14.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:29.000I had a good couple days in the backcountry of the wilderness of our country.
00:01:34.000For those of you that are just looking for a fun summer vacation or just if you want some time away from the chaotic world that we live in, I highly recommend just turning off your phone, going into the backcountry of Wyoming or Montana, Idaho for a weekend.
00:01:50.000It is so unbelievably fulfilling to look at the natural beauty that God gave our country that he created so perfectly.
00:02:00.000The roaring rivers, the snow-camped mountains, the fresh air.
00:02:37.000Those of you that I select, freedom at CharlieKirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:02:41.000So I want to start with kind of a follow-up from our very popular and successful episode on Friday, The Human Cost of Cancel Culture.
00:02:49.000We got an incredible, overwhelming support from this episode.
00:02:54.000I must have received hundreds of emails from people, some of which were people that were struggling intimately with depression, some people contemplating suicide.
00:03:04.000And the response we got were people that were saying thank you.
00:03:26.000Well, look, the Charlie Kirk Show, and for those that support us at charliekirk.com/slash support, you allow us to do the amount of episodes that we do with our production team and the output that we have on this podcast is the best of any podcast in the political space.
00:03:41.000However, we don't just talk about politics.
00:03:44.000This is not just the news of the day podcast.
00:03:46.000Sometimes I speak directly to you about cultural, psychological, religious, and spiritual issues.
00:03:52.000And on Friday, it was really weighing on me having a friend who just recently committed suicide to share with our audience the reality and the weight that comes with mental health issues, possibly depression, and really the message of every single person's life matters, that your life matters.
00:04:17.000That if you apply yourself and you straighten out your life and you aim on something that matters, your life has meaning.
00:04:25.000So let's talk about that a little bit more concretely, because I got a lot of emails.
00:04:30.000Well, take out a piece of paper and write uninterrupted for 15 minutes what an ideal and realistic life would look like for you that would bring you some form of fulfillment and happiness a couple years from now.
00:05:23.000I'm a big believer that sacrificing something today to know that you might benefit tomorrow is something that is one of the biggest breakthroughs in human history that we take for granted.
00:05:35.000You see, this is articulated in the Bible many times in Christ being the ultimate sacrifice, sacrificing one day so that we can have eternal life and accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
00:05:46.000But this was talked about in the Old Testament, of course, most famously with Abraham and Isaac, where God was trying Abraham to possibly have to sacrifice his son, which was anyone who has children, and I do not yet have children, know that that sort of story is just so difficult to read to know that God might ask you to sacrifice your child.
00:06:10.000And of course, the correct reading of that is God never intended to have that child be sacrificed.
00:06:16.000Instead, he was testing and pushing Abraham to see how much faith he actually had.
00:06:22.000And Abraham passed the test and God provided a sacrifice.
00:06:25.000But this idea of sacrificing today so that you might have a better life tomorrow is not something that animals do consciously.
00:07:55.000There's a reason for this is because your body and your life is not set up to be constantly indulging itself.
00:08:02.000And I talk to so many young people and young men in particular that have been sold a repeated pattern of lies by the secular humanist radical left that all you have to do is basically be a hedonist and pursue your own self-pleasure whenever you want, how you see fit, and that will make you happy.
00:08:23.000In fact, it's going to make you miserable, inevitably miserable.
00:08:28.000And so maybe you find one or two things that you need to stop doing today.
00:08:33.000And the incredible irony of it is stopping doing something that you might actually enjoy will give you far more fulfillment and enjoyment than actually doing that thing because you're doing it for a very specific purpose.
00:08:48.000And that's why you must start with mapping out your meaning.
00:08:51.000That's why you must start with articulating very specifically and in high amounts of detail where you want to go with your life, the type of person that you want to be, the type of spouse maybe you want to be, the type of boss you want to be, the type of person in the world that you want to aspire to.
00:09:23.000I encourage you to listen to our previous episode of the throwback episode of my conversation with Jordan Peterson.
00:09:28.000He talks about this in such great detail.
00:09:30.000The issue at times with Jordan Peterson is he doesn't totally connect in a full circle loop the need to commit your life to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
00:09:42.000He does a better job defending the Bible than most Christians do, but he defends it archetypically and psychologically.
00:09:49.000This is part of what we talk about at the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty at Liberty University.
00:09:54.000And if any of you are interested to go to Liberty and you guys want more information, you guys can always email me, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:10:01.000I'd be happy to connect you with the right people at Liberty.
00:10:04.000It's one of the few colleges I actually put my name behind.
00:10:06.000And you guys know what I feel about higher education and the damage that they are doing to our country.
00:10:11.000And so if you're listening to this, you say, Charlie, I don't know where I'm going and why I'm heading in that direction.
00:10:50.000I want to understand the scriptures even better.
00:10:53.000That is an incredible ideal to attain.
00:10:57.000That's an incredible ideal to strive for and to aim for.
00:11:01.000Now, I will say, the amount of emails that I got on that specific podcast, it troubles me because I see how many people are dealing with these issues, but it also gives me a great deal of fulfillment for me because I know that I'm helping other people.
00:11:19.000And so that's my final piece of advice for you: is that if you're looking for something fulfilling, stop thinking so much about making yourself fulfilled and make somebody else fulfilled.
00:11:29.000The most fulfilling thing I have felt in the last couple weeks, and honestly, the last couple months, that I have felt is when I get messages from other people that say I helped them live a better life, that I helped straighten out their path, that I helped answer some questions for them.
00:11:48.000So look to other people for a place that you might be able to lean into them.
00:11:52.000I can tell you personally, that's why I do what I do here on the podcast.
00:11:56.000That's why we produce so much content, as I know that someone out there in this beautiful country, in this beautiful world that God gave us, needs to hear what I'm saying today.
00:12:06.000That's what makes us do 12, 13, 14 episodes a week.
00:12:09.000And I think I actually have a moral prerogative to try and make the best possible arguments for truth every single day.
00:12:18.000So I want to thank you guys again for that warm response we got from that episode Friday.
00:12:22.000If you haven't checked it out, I encourage you to do so and also apply some of these pieces of feedback and advice that I give here, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:12:40.000Well, I hate to bash on your own state, Sally, Sally Sue from Michigan.
00:12:46.000Michigan is not my favorite state, but I do love Michigan in the summer.
00:12:49.000Some of my favorite memories are with friends up near the Lake Potoski region, Lake Walloon, actually, the Potoski region in northern Michigan.
00:13:15.000I have to say, my favorite state in the summer is probably either Wyoming or Montana.
00:13:21.000I love where I get to live and where I get to travel from.
00:13:24.000I do like being from Chicago, and I don't live there anymore, but it is a, let's just say, a difficult place to be at times, politically and otherwise.
00:13:32.000But great people, my family's from there, and I'll always appreciate what Chicago did for me, which really created a strong work ethic in me.
00:14:07.000It is basically impossible to be able to exist in New York City.
00:14:12.000New York City has become a place of widespread lawlessness, just blatant criminality, and a lack for the rule of law, a lack of regard for the rule of law.
00:14:22.000It's something that I just, I cannot tolerate being in New York City very much any longer.
00:14:35.000New York City has been handed over to the most radical Marxist elements of our entire society.
00:14:40.000And I think that that is something that we honestly have to point out and say, look at this beautiful city that was completely and totally destroyed by radical left-wing Democrats.
00:14:50.000And so, favorite states, I do love South Dakota.
00:14:52.000I think Governor Christy Noam is doing such a great job.
00:14:55.000I encourage you to check out that previous episode that we had with Governor Christy Noam.
00:15:30.000You win a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine.
00:15:32.000Just email us when I select your question.
00:15:34.000Freedom at CharlieKirk.com, Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
00:15:36.000And if you guys want to get in a random drawing for the MAGA doctrine, we are mailing out another 65 MAGA doctrines tomorrow because I'm back in the office.
00:15:45.000You guys can subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show, give five stars, leave us a review, screenshot it, and email us, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:16:16.000The president did kind of take a very similar tact in recent days.
00:16:20.000He did tweet out right before the weekend.
00:16:23.000And as I was without cell service for many, let's just say many, many hours, I came back and I was very pleasantly surprised to see the president tweet out that he wanted to potentially revoke the tax-exempt status for universities because of the left-wing indoctrination that they are doing towards our students.
00:16:50.000The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets and cities that are run by liberal Democrats in every case is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions.
00:17:11.000Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains.
00:17:29.000The radical view of American history is a web of lies.
00:18:36.000I am going to say that we probably played a role into it because I sent our podcast around.
00:18:40.000I wrote about it on AmericanGreatnessamGreatness.com.
00:18:44.000And I sent it to probably every single human being that I knew that worked in the White House and in the United States Senate about how we need to get our kids to love America again.
00:19:18.000This July 4th, the president said, our movement is based on lifting all citizens to reach their fullest God-given potential.
00:19:25.000Never forget, we are one family and one nation.
00:19:30.000We will teach our children to cherish and adore their country so they can build its future.
00:19:36.000This vision is not a culture war, as the media seeks to falsely proclaim.
00:19:40.000It's an embrace of our American family, our values, our freedom, and our future.
00:19:46.000So, look, I think that there is a lot to be said about, look, again, I didn't come up with the idea of educating our kids, but I was one of the pioneers of trying to say that we have to label and message our outreach as educating the next generation around the ideas of American history, first principles, and what matters most in America.
00:20:08.000I think there's nothing wrong with saying that.
00:20:09.000I think that we as Americans need to get serious about educating the next generation about why they should love America.
00:20:19.000We have a country where a majority of young people are being taught a negative perspective on American history.
00:20:25.000Washington, Adams, Madison, Jefferson, the founders and framers of our country, are being portrayed as evil, bigoted, and backwards.
00:20:34.000And they should be portrayed as heroic individuals that, of course, were not perfect human beings.
00:20:52.000Some of them regretted engaging in slavery towards the later years in their life.
00:20:56.000In fact, one year after the Declaration of Independence was signed, Vermont began to abolish slavery in 1777.
00:21:04.000So it was because of our founding fathers that states began to abolish slavery, not in spite of it.
00:21:11.000It wasn't America's founded in 1776, and then we start to have more states embrace slavery.
00:21:17.000This is what's so wrong about the 1619 project that if you're listening to this podcast, many of your kids, if you're a parent listening to this podcast, I should say, many of your kids are probably learning from the New York Times propaganda project, the 1619 project, that makes the argument that our country was founded in the year 1619.
00:21:40.000That our country was founded not in 1776, but instead we were founded the first year slaves came to America.
00:21:48.000This framing of American history, and even some conservative organizations that run some of the biggest think tanks in all of Washington, D.C., that run some of the biggest conservative think tanks in Washington, D.C., have acknowledged and have said in public pieces that America is 400 years old.
00:22:08.000We had a very unique, significant, and declarative founding in the year 1776.
00:22:17.000Anyone who says that we were founded 400 years ago when slaves started to come to America does not understand what America is.
00:22:24.000America was a rebellion against tyranny and a creation of something new, not a continuation of bad or medieval or English colonial practices previously.
00:22:38.000America did its best to expand always by purchasing land or by negotiating with Indigenous people.
00:22:45.000Of course, we made our missteps throughout history there, but large in part, we were actually far more humane to Indigenous people and Native Americans than a lot of American history would tell you that they teach in our schools.
00:22:57.000Of course, there were people that stepped outside of the bounds and did not act completely properly.
00:23:04.000We should teach the totality of American history.
00:23:06.000I'm not saying we should teach American history without the flaws, but you shouldn't teach American history without the brilliance and the heroism either.
00:23:18.000That's where I get compelled to action to do even more podcasts and speak on more campuses and grow Turning Point USA more than ever before because you do not have a country.
00:23:28.000You cannot have a country if you have an entire generation of young people that think the country they're growing up in is an awful brutal place.
00:23:38.000You might be able to survive another 5, 10, 15, maybe 20 years because of the amount of success we've had, but eventually, those scales will tip.
00:23:46.000Eventually, those young people will become lawmakers.
00:24:11.000As long as our economy and political systems prioritize profit without considering who is profiting, who is being shut out, we will perpetuate this inequality.
00:24:26.000So we cannot stop at the criminal justice system.
00:24:30.000We must begin the work of dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.
00:24:37.000We will have hundreds of elected officials that believe that if we are not serious about addressing root causes as to the decay and the downfall of the United States of America, the root causes are that we have not taught our young people our history properly.
00:24:52.000We have not taught our young people to be proud of the United States of America.
00:24:56.000Instead, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, all of them are in on it.
00:25:02.000Some voice it more forcefully, some pretend to be moderates, but they're all different positions on a radical leftist Marxist team dedicated to the complete and total destruction of our country.
00:25:16.000And I had a question that you guys can listen to on a previous episode of the Charlie Kirk show last week where a young man said, Well, Charlie, I don't think the left wants to destroy the country.
00:25:23.000And I think that's fine to say because he's probably talking about his friends.
00:25:28.000And I broke it apart and I think it was a good back and forth.
00:25:31.000But to go a level deeper, there is no way that you can support the idea that the left wants what's best for America if they want the statues to be torn down.
00:25:40.000They don't want to teach our kids history and they want to continue the radical Marxist elements of every single aspect of American society.
00:26:04.000I actually wanted to do a podcast on this, and I plan to do a podcast coming up on this.
00:26:08.000The number one issue that I think Republicans fail on is the money in politics issue.
00:26:13.000Now, this can be easily conflated with the Citizens United decision that said that there could be unlimited amounts of campaign contributions into federal elections.
00:26:21.000That's not as big of an issue that I'm actually going to zero in on.
00:26:25.000Instead, I'm talking about lobbyists directly contributing to congressional campaigns and congressional committees.
00:26:31.000This is actually something that, believe it or not, Elon Omar, Alexandria Acasio-Cortez, Ayanna Presley, and Rashida Tlaib are on the right side of.
00:26:41.000They have a PAC that they use, the Justice Democrats PAC.
00:26:46.000And the disclaimer on the bottom of their email is that they do not take any money from federally registered lobbyists, that they do not take any money from any lobbyist that is registered as a FARA lobbyist, a foreign agent registration act.
00:27:01.000I think that's what it stands for, lobbyist.
00:27:03.000They don't take any money from fossil fuel industries or CEOs.
00:27:06.000I think that's kind of silly, obviously.
00:27:08.000But the point is this: if you're listening to this podcast and you're wondering why Republicans don't fight, if you're listening to this podcast and you ask yourself, why don't we have a wall?
00:27:20.000Why is it that we have not been able to fix some of the structural issues in our country?
00:27:24.000Why are we borrowing a couple trillion dollars a year?
00:27:27.000Why have we not been able to address the education system the way we need to?
00:27:33.000Why have we not been able to bring our jobs back from China?
00:27:35.000The answer more times than not is that your elected officials have been bought and paid for by sinister, malevolent, sometimes corporate interests, sometimes not corporate interests, but just lobbyists that are representing the worst aspects of American society.
00:27:49.000And Republicans' reluctance and resistance to get on the right side of this issue is going to be electorally detrimental.
00:27:58.000We already saw Congressman Matt Gates get on the right side of this at CPAC, and he's the only Republican to do so.
00:28:03.000And I think he can go even farther, and we'll have him on our podcast to discuss this.
00:28:07.000But he said he's not going to take any PAC money.
00:28:09.000In fact, let's play some tape from that, from him at CPAC, where he made that announcement, play tape.
00:28:13.000You know, in Washington, we hear a lot about fortunes, not so much about honor and sacredness.
00:28:22.000This PAC donation process with the expectation of exchanging money for favors renders public service, what should be the noblest of professions, dangerously close to the oldest profession.
00:28:40.000I've never turned tricks for Washington PACs, but as of this very moment, I will not pick up their money in the nightstand anymore.
00:28:54.000I will never again accept a donation from a federal political action committee, not one red cent.
00:29:01.000The American people are my one and only special interest.
00:29:08.000So Congressman Gates was completely right there that you should not take any money from PACs because PACs basically have the most influence over the direct contribution to congressional candidates.
00:29:22.000So I'm going to do an episode actually unpacking this in full, where we're just going to talk about how Republicans need to get on the right side of this.
00:29:28.000But most establishment Republicans are perfectly happy taking money from the pharmaceutical companies, from the Chamber of Commerce, Cheap Labor Open Border Coalition, from sometimes teacher unions, from even some Republicans, some moderate Republicans, take money from organizations that are affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party or not so affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
00:29:49.000You want to know why we haven't done anything against tech censorship?
00:29:52.000It's because most of our politicians are bought and paid for by Google, Facebook, and some of these other massive social media companies spending tens of millions of dollars on public affairs every single year.
00:30:02.000And Google in particular, they are so confident they will not be regulated by Congress because they have contributed to the correct people all throughout our government.
00:30:20.000I do not think that former members of Congress should ever be able to become lobbyists.
00:30:24.000I don't think that lobbyists should be able to contribute to political campaigns.
00:30:27.000And I don't think foreign governments should be able to hire American lobbyists.
00:30:31.000I think all lobbying should be done between certain hours and a certain disclosed location that is made public to the American people after an allotted period of time, maybe 24 or 48 hours.
00:30:42.000Once you see that happen, you'll start to see representatives actually do the right thing for their districts or for their states and for the country, not just the right thing for their lobbyist campaign contributors.
00:30:51.000You want to know why Washington, D.C. will probably never hold China accountable the way they should.
00:30:57.000It's because our representatives have been bought by companies that are reliant on the Chinese Communist Party and or on conglomerates that represent the Chinese Communist Party.
00:31:07.000You want to know why we have not been able to cut the $500 million to Planned Parenthood that we send every single year, which Donald Trump has cut greatly.
00:31:16.000Mostly it's because Planned Parenthood gives to both Republicans and Democrats.
00:31:20.000Planned Parenthood, not all Republicans take the money to their credit, but plenty of Republicans have taken money from Planned Parenthood throughout the years, either directly or indirectly.
00:31:29.000And you see this happen year over year.
00:31:31.000And if you're frustrated and you wonder why you're losing your country, the root cause, see, everything we talk about on the Trello Kirk show is going down to root causes.
00:31:38.000You listen to other podcasts at times and sometimes they say, oh, you know, Democrats bad, Republicans good.
00:31:44.000Okay, I think that's an oversimplification.
00:32:08.000And those are two completely distinct and different questions.
00:32:11.000And so the issue that I think we are on the wrong side of more times than not as Republicans, every single time, basically, absent Matt Gates, is why are Republicans still taking money from lobbyists?
00:32:22.000Better yet, why are Republicans taking money from federally registered lobbyists for foreign countries?
00:32:27.000So if you have a federal lobbyist that is lobbying for a foreign country and that foreign country is paying the lobbyist and the lobbyist is contributing directly to someone's congressional campaign, how is that good for the republic?
00:32:42.000How is that good for the political process?
00:32:44.000Because if we're honest about how the process works in Washington, D.C., these politicians, they answer to their campaign contributors.
00:32:52.000And I know a lot of those campaign contributors that donate to some of these individuals, and a lot of them mean well.
00:32:57.000In fact, a lot of them want what's best for America.
00:33:00.000However, the ones that don't mean well, they give the most amount of money.
00:33:04.000They have the best lobbyists and they push the hardest.
00:33:07.000Those are the people that represent the pharmaceutical companies, that represent the cheap labor coalitions, that represent the military-industrial complex.
00:33:14.000So if you want to know why Republicans haven't fought correctly, it's because we've been on the wrong side of this issue.
00:33:19.000And I think we have to start challenging our lawmakers.
00:33:22.000If your congressperson takes money from federal registered lobbyists for companies that are, let's just say, unsavory, challenge them on that.
00:33:38.000Not all pharmaceutical companies are bad, but I'll tell you, most pharmaceutical companies are not doing the research and development that is needed.
00:33:45.000They are more protecting their incumbency than ever before.
00:33:49.000And I'm a free market guy, and I think that these pharmaceutical companies have way too much power.
00:33:54.000And I think that we need to get the FDA out of the way in certain cases so that you can have more competition.
00:33:59.000And I also think that if you are marketing something that is chemically addictive to a human being, I think that you should be treated differently.
00:34:06.000And that's basically what happens when the amount of, I think the over amount of medication that we have in our society does not make us more competitive, and it certainly does not make us more healthy.
00:34:17.000And then you look at cheap labor, you look at the military-industrial.
00:34:20.000This is an issue that if Republicans really want to save the country, they'll get on the right side of.
00:34:55.000The left comes from a Machiavellian amoral position more times than not, where they try to use their own wording and branding against you, but it can never be used against them.
00:35:06.000So for BLM Inc., they are going into postmodern tribal politics that try to organize people on the color of their skin, not on the contents of their character, where they try to turn people against each other on tribal lines, where they try to turn white versus black, where they try to turn people against each other at all costs.
00:35:21.000This is the Marxist way, tribal class warfare.
00:35:24.000And unfortunately for them, middle class versus the rich or the poor versus the rich did not work out great.
00:35:31.000They tried this out with Occupy Wall Street in 2011.
00:35:34.000If you're listening to this podcast and you don't know what Occupy Wall Street is, I encourage you to look it up.
00:35:39.000Occupy Wall Street was a movement that happened in Zuccotti Park in New York City, which was a Marxist, anti-capitalist movement post-financial crisis where they tried to turn people against each other based on wealth.
00:35:56.000Because in America, there's nothing wrong with being rich.
00:35:59.000However, they propagandized us to believe there's something wrong with being white.
00:36:04.000That is even more dangerous than the traditional bourgeoisie versus the proletariat struggle, oppressor versus oppressed struggle that they teach us in the typical Marxist paradigm.
00:36:14.000So we must reject it wholeheartedly and completely.
00:36:17.000We must repudiate these awful and backwards ideas.
00:36:20.000And this whole idea is like, well, I have my truth.
00:36:23.000Well, then shouldn't we as Christians have our own truth?
00:36:26.000And why are you telling what the Bible says?
00:36:28.000But this goes back to this whole idea.
00:36:30.000Evan, even though you are a Christian, that doesn't necessarily mean that someone who's not a Christian can't also understand Christianity.
00:36:38.000No individual based on their own personal experience can have a better license to a macro argument.
00:36:45.000Now, of course, you can have individual stories that do matter and they should contribute to the national conversation.
00:36:51.000However, when you're trying to make public policy or you're trying to make big philosophical arguments, any single person, Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, should be able to make an argument about what Christianity actually says because the text is there for anyone's reading.
00:37:07.000Now, trust me, that's a lot easier said than done.
00:37:10.000You have all sorts of different denominations.
00:37:12.000You have all sorts of different interpretations.
00:37:13.000You have all sorts of different theological ways of interpreting the Bible.
00:37:18.000However, the point is this, there's no such thing as my truth.
00:37:21.000Especially there's no such thing as my truth when we talk about something as important as religion, as Christianity, as racial issues, and the Constitution.
00:37:33.000You don't get to read the United States Constitution and say, well, my truth says that this document is racist, bigoted, homophobic, should be completely obliterated and allows me, because it says for the general welfare, it means that I get a mansion.
00:37:47.000That's an untrue reading to a universal document, and your truth is completely and totally irrelevant.