00:01:34.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:41.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:30.000It's an app that encrypts all of your network data and reroutes it through a network of secure servers, so your private online activity says just that private.
00:02:39.000Expressvpn works on all of your devices and it's super easy to use, so stop letting strangers invade your online privacy.
00:02:46.000Protect yourself at expressvpn.com slash Charlie.
00:02:49.000Use my link at Expressvpn.com slash Charlie.
00:02:59.000Back in New York, it looks like New York's got a little bit of life, and I gotta say, looking out the window, it's about one in four people are wearing two masks, and so that's.
00:03:09.000That's a good day to be alive at 25, Ish.
00:03:38.000Why wouldn't 50 test ballots be sufficient?
00:03:42.000And so this opened up so many questions in the New York City's mayor's race where Eric Adams went to an early lead and now his lead is ever decreasing.
00:03:53.000He seems like somewhat of a mainstream Democrat who kind of wants to clean up the streets and doesn't believe the abolition of the police is a good idea.
00:04:03.000So I got to thinking, did Arizona or Georgia use any test ballots?
00:04:09.000Did Michigan or Wisconsin use test ballots?
00:04:12.000Who's in charge of deciding whether or not test ballots should be used?
00:04:16.000And if you have not seen the story in the wonderful city of New York, as we are here on WABC, they had a primary where they decided they couldn't count votes as it is.
00:04:28.000So they wanted to make it extra confusing.
00:04:29.000So they implemented this very bizarre way of counting votes called ranked choice voting.
00:04:38.000Now, I'm a huge critic of ranked choice voting because it panders to the most radical voter.
00:04:45.000Rank choice voting essentially is you have five options.
00:04:49.000And your first option, you put number one, and then the person that you like second gets second.
00:04:54.000And so what happens is the person who gets the least amount of votes gets disqualified.
00:04:59.000And then those people's votes then go back to their number two choice.
00:05:04.000If you're confused, so is the New York Board of Elections.
00:05:07.000And if you're really confused, so is Bill de Blasio, who basically comes out and says, look, man, after he took a big hit, it's really tough running New York elections.
00:05:19.000It's not like we're New York City or anything.
00:05:42.000It allows the people in last place, so the socialist types, to all of a sudden pick the winner.
00:05:49.000Instead of allowing a plurality to elect somebody, where it basically should be, they say, you know what?
00:05:55.000We know that the AOC types, you know the types, whatever the most radical person that wants to destroy the city, that's who they want to have become mayor.
00:06:06.000And so they designed a system where the normal common sense people, all of a sudden, they did not want that.
00:06:15.000They didn't want to give them a bigger platform.
00:06:17.000So you have a system that works where you choose a winner.
00:08:12.000It is a great, it is a piece of wisdom from the phenomenal Alexander Sochenitsyn in the Gulag Archipelago, which he said that all of the tragedy of the Soviet Union happened thanks to ideology, where you have a group of people that care more to their commitment to an abstraction than what's good for the well-being of the citizens around them.
00:08:43.000And what happened in 17, 18, and 19, and I saw it happen in this beautiful city of New York, was all of a sudden, the activists, the ideologues, they were given an opportunity to destroy probably the greatest city in the world, the center of the world, as John Lennon used to call it.
00:09:05.000And so instead of seeing what is happening and seeing what very well could solve the problem, like more police or not letting first-degree murderers out on bail, minor details.
00:09:17.000Instead, it's a commitment to an abstraction.
00:09:20.000It's a commitment to an idea that sounds good in a lecture hall at Fordham University or Columbia University or NYU or Sarah Lawrence, but it really makes no sense in practice.
00:09:34.000And the reason why New York City really was able to become the greatest city in the world in the 80s and the 90s is when Rudy Giuliani was mayor in the 1990s and even with Bloomberg in the early 2000s, New York City was an anti-abstractionist political environment.
00:09:55.000Even the Democrats made sense because there was kind of this, there was kind of this attitude, especially of the kind of muscular class in New York City, the taxi cab drivers, the garbage, the garbage delivery people, the police officers was like, no, no, but is that good for the city?
00:10:12.000And especially after 9-11, there was this attitude of, I don't care your political party.
00:10:28.000And you see that in this vote counting bonanza that we're experiencing right now in New York, where it's going to be a couple weeks, if not months, where we figure out what's going to happen.
00:10:40.000And they might as well just, and I mean this non-sarcastically, they might as well do the election over again.
00:10:47.000At this point, no one is going to become, no one is going to trust who wins this current count.
00:11:00.000No one is going to trust whatever result that they announce.
00:11:09.000And so the Democrats screwed up the Iowa caucus vote totals.
00:11:15.000They screwed up the 2020 election results.
00:11:19.000They can't count election results in New York City.
00:11:22.000But now they want to control our federal elections at HR1.
00:11:26.000They want to have a complete nationalization of our federal elections, despite not being able to count ballots correctly.
00:11:33.000They say, oh, sorry, we are off by 135,000 ballots.
00:11:41.000With the ever-increasing numbers of makes and models like a Fiat or a Kia, Pacifica or X-T5, it's now impossible to stock all the parts you need in a traditional chain storefront.
00:11:51.000Why endure often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning and wait while the counterman orders all of the parts on his computer, choosing only the very brand his warehouse happens to carry?
00:12:03.000You have computers with access to rockauto.com right in your pocket.
00:12:08.000One reason to repair and maintain your cars is to save money that you can then use for other important things like mortgages or food.
00:12:17.000Why would you choose to spend 30%, 50%, or 100% more on the exact same auto parts as a chain store or the new car dealership?
00:12:25.000Chain stores have different price tiers for professional mechanics and do-it-yourselfers.
00:12:30.000Rockauto.com prices are the same for everybody, and they are reliably low.
00:12:35.000Rockauto.com offers the lowest prices possible rather than changing prices based on what the market will be like, what airlines do.
00:12:42.000Rockauto.com is for everybody and does not require membership or account login.
00:12:47.000Rockauto.com is a family business and serving auto part customers for over 20 years.
00:12:52.000Go to rockauto.com and shop auto body part customers from hundreds of manufacturers.
00:12:57.000Best of all, prices at rockauto.com are always reliably low and the same for professionals as it is for do-it-yourselfers.
00:13:04.000Why spend up to twice as much on the same auto parts?
00:13:06.000Go to rockauto.com and see all the parts available for your car or truck.
00:13:11.000Write Charlie Kirk in the How Did You Hear About Us.
00:13:37.000And you want to know why all of a sudden we are having a hyper-polarized political environment, especially in New York City.
00:13:44.000It's because instead of the coalition builder that is rewarded, it is the more radical voters that are then given a higher platform.
00:13:53.000So essentially, the loser voters end up picking the winner.
00:13:56.000Only if you wanted to have a revolutionary become mayor would you institute a system like this.
00:14:03.000We've talked at length about big tech.
00:14:07.000I think the United States Constitution is the greatest political document ever written.
00:14:13.000The United States Constitution recognizes natural rights given to you by your creator.
00:14:19.000The United States Constitution has a direct tie to the Declaration of Independence.
00:14:25.000Not every historian agrees with this, and those historians are just wrong.
00:14:30.000There is an eternal and there is a divine connection between the truths that are stated in the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate in just a couple days, and the truths of the United States Constitution.
00:14:42.000And at the first glance, it looks as if the Declaration is nothing more than a separation agreement with King George, and the U.S. Constitution is then trying to form an idea of how to govern ourselves.
00:14:55.000You dive deeper into the Declaration of Independence, you will see that the complaints that Thomas Jefferson offers in the Declaration are solved in the actual Constitution written by James Madison and with the help of Alexander Hamilton after the Federalist Papers in September of 1787, finally with the Bill of Rights ratified in 1791.
00:15:13.000And the Constitution talks explicitly, it speaks to this idea, this truth, that you as a human being have the right to speak, assemble, associate, that you have private property rights, and that if something tries to get in the way of those rights, that it is the government's role to stand up for you.
00:15:35.000You see, the Constitution was written for the people, which means for individuals, your capacity to speak and to reason, to associate, to communicate.
00:15:45.000Now, we take this for granted, but when this starts to all of a sudden come into real life encounters, we sometimes seem to say the Constitution doesn't apply there.
00:16:00.000The current example, and we've talked about this, is this example of big tech.
00:16:06.000Big tech, best described as a coalition of a couple companies.
00:16:11.000And I'm just looking at the television screen.
00:16:13.000It's right there: Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and then Alphabet.
00:16:20.000Let's just talk about, for example, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
00:16:27.000I believe that they represent a parallel government.
00:16:31.000They represent a power structure that, quite honestly, is more powerful than the own federal government that we give our power and pay our taxes to.
00:17:22.000And almost every single person that works for Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, they are committed ideologues.
00:17:29.000And they are committed to try to remake the American Republic in their image.
00:17:34.000The question in front of us, and the question here, is what is more important?
00:17:38.000Your right to speak, or four companies with a combined value of over $5.7 trillion to shut you up.
00:17:46.000This summer is showing welcoming signs of a more normal life ahead, we hope.
00:17:51.000Finally, you can get back to enjoying life's little pleasures, like smiling at your neighbor or seeing a movie and going to the post office.
00:17:58.000Okay, some parts of normal life aren't so great, but with stamps.com, you can skip trips to the post office and save on postage.
00:18:05.000Mail and ship anytime, anywhere right from your computer, send letters, ship packages, and pay less, a lot less with discounted rates from USPS and UPS.
00:18:14.000Stamps.com saves businesses thousands of hours and tons of money every year.
00:18:18.000Stamps.com can bring the same U.S. postal and UPS shipping service right to your computer.
00:18:25.000They make it easy for small businesses to mail and ship without needing to take a trip to the post office.
00:18:31.000Print official U.S. postage and shipping labels 24-7 without having to leave your desk or buy any fancy equipment.
00:18:38.000All you need is your computer and a standard printer.
00:18:41.000They offer deals you can't get anywhere else, like 40% off USPS and 66% off UPS shipping rates.
00:18:49.000Stop wasting time going to the post office and go to stamps.com instead.
00:19:30.000You're trying to tell me a law that was trying to be passed to protect free speech violates freedom of speech.
00:19:36.000Fords.com is writing, a federal judge on Wednesday blocked a Florida law passed by Governor Ron DeSantis that would have allowed the state to penalize social media companies for banning or labeling posts made by political candidates, dealing a blow to the Republican-backed effort to retaliate against the likes of Facebook and Twitter for suspending former President Trump.
00:19:57.000First of all, this guy that wrote this article, Sil.atiya Ray, is completely wrong.
00:20:03.000The banning and suspending of President Trump is one component of a broader complaint that those of us that care about freedom of speech have against these tech companies.
00:20:16.000U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, whoever that is, issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law a day before it was scheduled to go into effect on the grounds that it likely preempted or violated the First Amendment.
00:20:30.000Hinkle noted that the law was an effort to target social media platforms, obviously.
00:20:35.000Too large and too liberal, the judge says, but added that, quote, balancing the exchange of ideas among private users was not a legitimate government interest.
00:20:48.000The judge also pointed out the discriminatory nature of the law as it offers exemptions for companies that operate a theme park in the state, something observers have referred to as the Disney exemption.
00:21:00.000Florida's governor Ron DeSantis said he plans to immediately appeal Hinkle's decision, good, and disagreed, quote, with his determination that the U.S. Constitution protects big tech censorship of certain individuals and content over others.
00:21:14.000Hinkle continues, this judge, the legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards, speech they otherwise would not host, and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would.
00:21:29.000The governor's signing statement and numerous remarks of legislators show rather clearly that the legislation is viewpoint-based and parts contravene a federal statute.
00:21:40.000Well, I would love to have this judge oversee the circuit court in New York because if all of a sudden you have any sort of political motivation behind any sort of action, that should throw out the indictment behind Donald Trump in a second.
00:21:55.000But almost no judge will take the political leanings into consideration unless they are so extreme and so over the top.
00:22:03.000So this judge is making the argument that the $5.7 trillion companies, four of them, they should be treated as if they are the local Lebanese restaurant in Midtown New York City.
00:22:18.000So we have seen what big tech has done and what they are doing and just breaking today on Facebook.
00:22:25.000There is a new disclaimer on Facebook.
00:22:28.000If you go to Facebook and maybe you like Charlie Kirk's Facebook page or maybe the Turning Point USA page, Facebook now has a pop-up.
00:22:36.000It says, are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?
00:22:41.000We care about preventing extremism on Facebook.
00:22:45.000Just so you guys know, I want to just train our audience.
00:22:49.000Anytime you hear the word extremism, someone is trying to control you.
00:22:54.000Anytime you hear the word extremism, it's someone who is trying to use power to manipulate your actions.
00:23:02.000Others in your situation have received confidential support.
00:23:07.000How you can help hear stories and get advice from people who escaped violent extremist groups.
00:23:43.000We did a whole show on that one word, experts, on how that word, if you take the two words that are being used to destroy the American Republic, that actually, I'll put in another two words, public health, experts, and extremism.
00:23:59.000We should have a word cloud of the words that are being used to remake America.
00:24:13.000So Facebook has basically come out and they are no different than a Democrat super PAC.
00:24:19.000They are acting with a certain pattern that they have a political viewpoint and they are willing to try to do whatever it is necessary to accomplish it.
00:24:28.000And Ron DeSantis was courageous and heroic to do everything he possibly could to try to at least have a little bit of a check and balance against it.
00:24:39.000Facebook in this last week also won a lawsuit against the Federal Trade Commission.
00:24:44.000In a December 2020 lawsuit, the FTC alleged that Facebook improperly maintained its monopoly in personal social networking services.
00:24:52.000The FTC complaint focused on two sets of practices.
00:24:56.000Number one, that Facebook protected its monopoly by acquiring emerging rivals, Instagram and WhatsApp, in 2012 and 2014.
00:25:04.000And secondly, that Facebook restricted access to application programming interfaces, APIs, that allowed apps and services to be interoperable with Facebook's platform.
00:25:15.000And more specifically, Facebook declined to share API with apps and services that competed with Facebook's core functionability or supported rival social networks.
00:25:28.000So now we have basically a set of judges and the way that the laws are currently written that are saying that big tech's right to dominate you is more important than your right to speak.
00:25:44.000Where is the check and balance against this?
00:25:47.000A French judge named Montesquieu said that liberty is fragile and temporary if there is not a check on power.
00:25:57.000So let me ask a couple questions for this federal judge and for anyone out there that says that big tech has a right to be a multi-trillion dollar cartel.
00:26:07.000I would like you to ponder on these questions.
00:26:11.000Can McDonald's not serve Big Macs to Republicans?
00:26:15.000If McDonald's said that they will not serve Big Macs to Republicans, do you think that is legal, moral, and should hold up in the court of law?
00:26:25.000Can McDonald's now say that we will not serve hamburgers to 75 million Americans?
00:26:33.000Can American airlines kick socialists off their airline and say they can't fly because they want to nationalize the airlines?
00:26:41.000Can American Airlines now walk the aisle on a flight from Los Angeles to JFK and say, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard flight 2132, non-stop service from LAX to JFK.
00:26:55.000Before we get going, we want to see your voting records.
00:26:57.000And if any of you happen to vote for Donald Trump, we will escort you off this airline.
00:27:02.000Thank you so much, and make sure you wear your two masks.
00:27:05.000Is American Airlines allowed to do that?
00:27:07.000Is American Airlines allowed to have viewpoint discrimination based on who uses their airline?
00:27:15.000Is ATT allowed to disconnect phone calls between LGBT groups?
00:27:22.000Is Verizon Wireless allowed to disconnect phone calls between environmentalists?
00:27:28.000What if Verizon Wireless all of a sudden had a meeting and they said, we are now going to not allow phone calls to be made amongst extremists because the experts tell us to do it for public health.
00:27:47.000Experts that are always worried about us becoming too extreme because of public health.
00:27:50.000We must worry about public health because the experts tell us an extremism is on the rise.
00:27:55.000You know those three things, then you know a lot about how the current masters of the universe are trying to control us.
00:28:02.000The courts are currently saying that their right to dominate you supersedes the right to speak.
00:28:10.000Basically, what the courts are currently saying is a multi-trillion dollar cartel has more rights than the vaccine skeptical mother.
00:28:21.000That a multi-trillion dollar company has more rights than the pastor who dares post about how he's worried about the transgender craze that's coming to a high school near him.
00:28:35.000Now, some people say, well, Charlie, they are private companies.
00:28:39.000So is the highway from South Bend, Indiana to Chicago, Illinois.
00:28:53.000Do you know it's against the law if the private group that owns the Chicago Skyway came out and they said, you know what?
00:28:58.000We're not going to allow gay people to drive on the Chicago Skyway against the law.
00:29:03.000You know, if the Chicago Skyway came out and they said, you know, we're not going to allow Democrats to drive on the Chicago Skyway.
00:29:08.000We're not going to allow conservatives because it's against our community standards.
00:29:11.000We're not going to allow extremists on our highway.
00:29:15.000Those are interstate highways, and Facebook and Amazon and Google are information highways.
00:29:23.000And excuse me while I dismiss myself from the overly theoretical arguments and I get into how I see things as they are.
00:29:32.000The local Lebanese restaurant that is just right around the corner or Bill's Burgers right around the corner that we know very well, my wife is right there, is a different circumstance completely than a multi-trillion dollar international company.
00:29:52.000Now, some people say, well, Charlie, the law must apply for the small and for the large.
00:30:00.000We're simply saying that when you're a multi-trillion dollar company with a user base that is the entire North American continent, basically, certain accommodations are going to have to be made.
00:30:10.000And those accommodations are we're no longer going to pander to the corporate board of Facebook that kicked off a duly elected president that kicks off millions of people every single day and also is engaging in a pattern of monopolistic practices that is bad for you.
00:30:28.000I met a restaurateur and he said, Charlie, this last year has been the worst year we've ever had.
00:30:36.000Now we have three restaurants and we let off 350 employees.
00:30:40.000Meanwhile, Facebook went from a $700 billion company to a $1.3 trillion company.
00:30:46.000If we as conservatives are going to remain true to what we actually believe in, we're going to conserve things that are local, that are beautiful, and that are in the tradition of the preservation of natural rights.
00:31:02.000And the current shadow parallel government we have in Menlo Park, California stands in opposition.
00:31:08.000In fact, they stand to try and crush those things.
00:31:11.000Why haven't Republicans, more of them, done what DeSantis has done to try to put a full court press or pressure on these tech companies?
00:31:23.000So let me explain to you why Republicans are not prepared for this fight and why it's up to you, the voter, and us, the communicator, to be in unison and demand out of our leaders to use their political power to preserve natural rights.
00:31:43.000You see, in the conservative movement I grew up in in 2012, 13, and 14, there was a book that was referenced and circulated more than any other book.
00:31:51.000And it is a phenomenal piece of literature.
00:31:54.000It's called Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek.
00:31:58.000And this book talks about the threat of government tyranny, of central planning, of picking winners and losers, how you can get famine, hunger, and misery when you overinvolve yourself in the economy.
00:32:14.000But the belief behind F.A. Hayek's literature is that power, if it is not checked and balanced, is something that will be abused.
00:32:23.000The issue with overemphasizing that particular interpretation of F.A. Hayek's book, Road to Serfdom, results in a seeming indifference to a corporate oligarchy.
00:32:35.000What if I told you that we could have a road to serfdom that also has corporations dominating us, not government dominating us?
00:32:43.000You see, the true awokening that needs to happen amongst conservatives is that we have two simultaneous threats to our way of life, one from Washington and one from Menlo Park.
00:32:55.000If you don't know what Menlo Park, it's Silicon Valley.
00:32:58.000They both have similar objectives and aims.
00:33:02.000One of them, we have some capacity to check and balance, and that is in Washington.
00:33:07.000We at least have some authority for subpoena power.
00:33:10.000If you get an audit notice from the IRS, at the end of that audit notice, you have a very cop, a very commonly noted and copy-pasted piece of paper called, these are your taxpayer bill of rights.
00:33:21.000Now you can roll your eyes and shrug your shoulders and say, I hate the government.
00:33:25.000And by the way, I'm all for all of those things.
00:33:28.000But at least you have something called due process.
00:33:33.000But what happens when Google shuts down your email account?
00:33:36.000What happens when Wells Fargo turns down your banking ability like it did for a Republican candidate for Senate from Delaware last week, Lauren Witzke?
00:33:45.000What happens when all of a sudden the big companies say, we don't think you should exist anymore?
00:33:49.000What are your rights of redress or grievance?
00:33:53.000And the problem why conservatives have not signed on to this and why it's still lacking momentum and why there is not the political will is that there is still this muscle memory of the 1970s that, oh, I thought the companies were on our side.
00:34:09.000They care about being the favored companies in a corporatist agenda.
00:34:12.000Either we are going to use the political power given to us by voters to restrain big tech and restrain the big fourth branch of government, or we're going to be squeezed by both and they'll fight over the spoils.
00:34:24.000The reason why Republicans have not done this is they're so afraid that if they dare use the political power given to them by voters, that that power will be abused.
00:34:32.000Newsflash, you're being abused by the people that actually have the power.
00:34:37.000The only check and balance that remains against Facebook and Google and Amazon and Apple is the process when you go and vote and the power you give to your leaders.
00:34:51.000You know why this judge ruled the way he did?
00:34:54.000Because he doesn't feel as if there is an overwhelming political will to try to make him do otherwise.
00:35:01.000Alexander Hamilton famously predicted that judges are human beings and they will go the way of the public will almost always, at least in the general direction.
00:35:14.000We saw that with the gay marriage decision back in 2011, 2012.
00:35:20.000It's time for Republicans and Republican leaders, especially your governors and attorney generals, to take bold and public and dramatic action.
00:35:31.000We are living through the big squeeze of our actual government and a parallel government that wants to crush you, the average conservative American.
00:35:41.000Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:35:42.000Email us your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:35:45.000And if you want to join us in Tampa, Florida for the Student Action Summit, go to tpusa.com slash SAS.