The Charlie Kirk Show - April 22, 2025


Bill Maher Aftermath and the Left's MAGA Response


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

184.3825

Word count

6,395

Sentence count

530

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Frank Treppert and Alex Marlowe join me to discuss Bill Maher, Bernie Sanders and AOC, and more! Recorded in Los Angeles, CA! (Live from the Bitcoin Show Studio)

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:00.000 Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.
00:00:04.000 The Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:05.000 Frank Turek joins to walk through my Bill Maher conversation.
00:00:09.000 By the way, that will be posted tomorrow on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.
00:00:12.000 So all the more reason to make sure you're subscribed and to listen to it when it is posted.
00:00:17.000 I think you're really going to enjoy it.
00:00:19.000 It'll be the annotated version.
00:00:20.000 And then we also have Alex Marlowe to discuss Mr. Garcia.
00:00:24.000 And should we be worried about Bernie Sanders and AOC?
00:00:27.000 Email me, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.
00:00:33.000 Get involved with Turning Point Action at tpaction.com as well.
00:00:37.000 That's tpaction.com.
00:00:38.000 When you subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page, you get notifications of new episodes, so make sure you do that Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.
00:00:46.000 Email me, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:49.000 Here we go.
00:00:50.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:52.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:54.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:57.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:01:00.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:01:02.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:03.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:01:05.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:11.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:20.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:23.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:33.000 Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:40.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:42.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:44.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:48.000 Joining us now is a very good friend of mine, Alex Marlow.
00:01:50.000 He's terrific.
00:01:51.000 We're going to have Alex on more.
00:01:52.000 He's just terrific in Salem Radio Network and amongst many other things.
00:01:57.000 So Alex, a lot to discuss here, but as you know, I went on Bill Maher's program last week.
00:02:02.000 I have never done marijuana in my life, but I don't know if I could say that anymore.
00:02:06.000 So now when I go to these college campuses and say, Charlie, have you ever smoked weed?
00:02:10.000 I'm like, well, not directly, but very well by secondhand smoke.
00:02:15.000 What was your reaction to my conversation with Bill Maher?
00:02:18.000 I thought it was very friendly.
00:02:20.000 It was very cordial.
00:02:21.000 And in some ways, very hopeful.
00:02:24.000 Alex, your thoughts?
00:02:25.000 Yeah, I totally agree.
00:02:26.000 Good for you for going on, Charlie.
00:02:28.000 You're cornering the market for actually talking to the other side, which is nice.
00:02:31.000 It's a great spot to be in.
00:02:33.000 If I interviewed you, my first question was going to be, did you get a contact high?
00:02:37.000 It's one of these things out here in California that is, it's a real thing, because I've never smoked weed also, so I don't, I think you now have officially had a half a time, so I think one half of a time, I think you can say, if anyone asks.
00:02:51.000 My reaction is very positive.
00:02:53.000 For the record, I did not inhale.
00:02:55.000 That's right.
00:02:56.000 It's worked before.
00:02:57.000 That excuse has worked before in the past.
00:02:59.000 People have gotten away with it.
00:03:01.000 So my reaction is very positive.
00:03:02.000 I'm glad you're doing it.
00:03:03.000 I'm glad he's doing this.
00:03:04.000 So in general, I'm in the camp that Mars stick, he's got a couple of sticks, but one of them is he's saying all the stuff that folks like you and me and Steve and all Donald Trump were saying eight, 10 years ago.
00:03:17.000 And people are talking about him like he's a genius for saying them.
00:03:20.000 And I do find that a little irritating and frustrating, but he does have one other stick that I love, which is he literally is the only person who's talking to all.
00:03:29.000 People of every political angle.
00:03:30.000 I know you would talk to them, Charlie.
00:03:32.000 I know I would talk to them on my show.
00:03:34.000 But they don't tend to show up for whatever reason.
00:03:37.000 He's figured out a way to get all these people to show up and talk to him of all these different viewpoints.
00:03:41.000 And it is a terrific product that he puts out because of that.
00:03:45.000 And it's not that he's so amazing, even though he's, of course, got some skills.
00:03:48.000 But his ability to bring people in is a skill in and of itself.
00:03:52.000 And you've absolutely got to hand it to him for that.
00:03:55.000 And it makes it so that you're able to get deeper on conversations and talk.
00:03:58.000 That you're just not going to be able to do in a two-minute soundbite or people talking past each other on social media.
00:04:04.000 So I'm glad you're doing it, and I'm glad that this could hopefully open up some doors for some people.
00:04:10.000 Yeah, and we have later in the hour Frank Turek to dive deeper into the apologetics Christian side of the discussion, which a lot of our discussion was centered around Christianity.
00:04:20.000 Let's just play one piece of tape here, and then I want to get into some of the news of the day.
00:04:24.000 Because we did talk a lot about Garcia.
00:04:26.000 That was a big portion of my conversation with Bill Maher.
00:04:31.000 Let's play a little funny one.
00:04:33.000 Let's play cut 123.
00:04:35.000 Drink? No, I'm good.
00:04:36.000 Thank you.
00:04:36.000 You don't drink?
00:04:37.000 No. Or smoke pot?
00:04:39.000 No. And you're married and super Christian.
00:04:41.000 We're going to get along great.
00:04:43.000 This is going to just be perfect.
00:04:45.000 And we did get along great.
00:04:46.000 It's a good example of how we can heal the country.
00:04:50.000 Yeah, it is.
00:04:51.000 And I do like that you guys got along.
00:04:52.000 I think it's a good thing because for me, I'm an information guy, and I am ideologically conservative.
00:04:58.000 I'm a Catholic.
00:04:59.000 I'm a Christian.
00:05:00.000 I've been a Republican for my whole life, even though that's been hard sometimes.
00:05:04.000 But I will tell you, Charlie, what animates me more as a news person is what's next, what's coming down the pike, what's exciting, what...
00:05:13.000 Interesting conversations are being had.
00:05:14.000 And so I want more of that.
00:05:17.000 I don't need agreement.
00:05:17.000 This world would be incredibly uninteresting if people only agreed.
00:05:20.000 So if there's a new willingness to talk amongst...
00:05:26.000 People who do not have your same viewpoint or lifestyle.
00:05:29.000 You have children.
00:05:30.000 He's twice your age and no children.
00:05:32.000 I mean, there's so many differences, but it does make for an interesting conversation.
00:05:35.000 I'm just sad to see it's so infrequent.
00:05:37.000 It really is still too infrequent.
00:05:38.000 This is, unfortunately, the exception and not the rule.
00:05:40.000 But let's make it the rule.
00:05:41.000 Let's make it the rule that we actually start talking to each other again.
00:05:45.000 But also, I think some of what he's doing there with the substances is shtick.
00:05:48.000 I think he's trying to draw you out.
00:05:49.000 I think Rogan does this to some degree with people.
00:05:52.000 Was he getting drunk and high while he was there?
00:05:54.000 I know he was sipping on stuff.
00:05:55.000 No, no, no.
00:05:56.000 That's what I'm saying.
00:05:57.000 It was quite an exhibit in hedonism.
00:06:01.000 Oh, really?
00:06:02.000 Because I always feel like I ask this because my friend Robert Dobby writes for us sometimes, who I'm sure you're aware of, who's an actor from a lot of things, Die Hard, among other things.
00:06:11.000 He used to hang out with a lot of the Rat Pack guys.
00:06:13.000 I always asked him, were they always just getting completely loaded or was that part of an image?
00:06:19.000 And he said it was a mix.
00:06:20.000 They were drinking, but it was exaggerated for the sake of storytelling.
00:06:25.000 So, Alex, now transitioning to Mr. Abrego Garcia, to Lamar Abrego Garcia.
00:06:31.000 Everyone's favorite Maryland resident.
00:06:34.000 Yeah, the Maryland dad, the Maryland man, the upstanding citizen.
00:06:38.000 Where does this whole situation stand, and what is your analysis of it?
00:06:41.000 So, what's interesting about this case is that I think both sides, it's a Rorschach test.
00:06:46.000 Both sides think they're going to win this thing.
00:06:48.000 We see it as these people are lunatics.
00:06:50.000 They are...
00:06:52.000 All in for MS-13, meaning the Democrats.
00:06:54.000 They're going down there with the, having margaritas with MS-13 members.
00:06:59.000 It's this case where he's got all these people in the car with him and no one's got any luggage and he's clearly involved in human smuggling that appears to be adding to his resume.
00:07:11.000 It makes you feel as though that how could the Democrats possibly get the upper hand on this?
00:07:15.000 But that's not really the game they're playing.
00:07:17.000 The game they're playing is they're trying to trip up Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and the people who are setting I know they
00:07:48.000 look insane defending MS-13 today.
00:07:51.000 We've got to be pretty vigilant here because if Trump makes one false move here, they're trying to come up with a strategy that leads to his, if not outright removal, at least waste all his time.
00:08:00.000 Yeah, so I think that's right.
00:08:02.000 I think that's really appropriate prudence.
00:08:04.000 What do you make of the calamity in the judicial branch?
00:08:08.000 There is a school of thought that says, look, the Trump administration just fill out the forms, request him back, in quotes.
00:08:15.000 Bukele will say no.
00:08:18.000 That'll satisfy the courts and this issue will largely be put to rest.
00:08:21.000 It keeps on living because of the numerous court interventions.
00:08:26.000 Yeah, it's a great question because I'm generally a don't-give-an-inch guy, but I do feel like I would kind of love to see them bring him back and then just deport him again because they would and they could.
00:08:37.000 Miller said as much, and he could be deported for any reason.
00:08:40.000 So I don't know.
00:08:41.000 Maybe this morning I'm leaning towards do that.
00:08:44.000 But in general, until you just brought it up just now.
00:08:48.000 I do like the don't give an inch approach.
00:08:50.000 Who cares about these people?
00:08:51.000 Who cares about the left-wing media?
00:08:53.000 There was nothing wrong that was done in terms of the law.
00:08:55.000 But the left thinks there's some sort of a hold order that Trump is violating here.
00:09:00.000 And Trump has not crossed one of these lawfare judges yet.
00:09:03.000 He's not done anything illegal.
00:09:04.000 He does not.
00:09:05.000 And I think that's a really wise strategy for now.
00:09:08.000 But it's also, Charlie, what we're seeing is not sustainable.
00:09:11.000 They can't have 675 presidents of the United States who are doubling.
00:09:17.000 Yes, so let's play a piece of tape here from,
00:09:33.000 you know, let's play cut 97, please.
00:09:35.000 Who did pay for this trip?
00:09:38.000 This was an officially cleared, you know, congressional trip.
00:09:42.000 So taxpayer dollars?
00:09:43.000 Yes, like every other trip.
00:09:45.000 And then let's put 172 up on screen.
00:09:48.000 This shows that, again, apparently this is how gang tattoos work.
00:09:51.000 An MS-13 style tattoo right on his hands.
00:09:58.000 And so, Alex, your message is caution here.
00:10:01.000 Understand the bigger picture.
00:10:03.000 Please. Yeah, I just feel like this is one where, in the short term, we've got to emphasize the Democrats are cornered here defending all of MS-13, and they're, of course, defending illegal alien gang members over American citizens.
00:10:16.000 Trump continuing to have the angel bombs out there, make them surrogates in this regard, I think is really important, and it's a great move.
00:10:22.000 But just know that the main goal, they're not dumb.
00:10:25.000 They're foolish sometimes, but they're not dumb on the left.
00:10:28.000 And they're trying to get Trump administration to violate some sort of directive from a court that could lead towards political momentum, towards impeachment.
00:10:36.000 And so just keep that in mind that they're not doing this without a endgame in mind.
00:10:40.000 They are.
00:10:40.000 I think we can beat them at this.
00:10:42.000 I think we are beating them.
00:10:43.000 But let's just not be too overzealous.
00:10:48.000 Charlie Kirk here.
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00:11:54.000 So I want to place a piece of tape here and get your analysis, Alex.
00:11:59.000 Which, it's easy to dismiss this David Hogg...
00:12:04.000 You know, infighting with Hakeem Jeffries, not just Hakeem Jeffries, as rabble rousing.
00:12:09.000 And of course, I did a hit with Will Cain on Fox News.
00:12:12.000 I said, look, it's probably a breakdown of fiduciary duty.
00:12:15.000 But understand, was our party made stronger because of some of the primary challenges we did the last decade?
00:12:21.000 You see, Democrats, they've come into a mentality the last couple of years.
00:12:24.000 No primaries, doesn't matter if it's no matter who vote blue.
00:12:28.000 Let's play cut 106.
00:12:29.000 And then I want your take on, is the Democrat party...
00:12:33.000 Trying to get more based.
00:12:35.000 Playcut 106.
00:12:37.000 David Hogg, who I know you know, a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, he's going to be joining us on the roundtable.
00:12:44.000 And he is pursuing this effort to unseat some Democrats in safe seats through primary challenges.
00:12:51.000 I look forward to standing behind every single Democratic incumbent, from the most progressive to the most centrist, and all points in between.
00:13:00.000 Alex, your thoughts.
00:13:01.000 Yeah, it's really compelling because we in the Republican Party benefited greatly from a civil war that took place.
00:13:07.000 And the history is just really important here.
00:13:09.000 Because remember when Mitt Romney lost, I think he spent like $3 billion on that campaign, and we thought he had a good chance.
00:13:16.000 Remember, Charlie, he basically took a walk on the last debate with Obama because he thought he won.
00:13:20.000 He just agreed with Obama on everything in the last debate.
00:13:22.000 And then he got his clock cleaned, and we were all sitting around thinking, what do we got to do?
00:13:26.000 And the Republican establishment told us we need to embrace amnesty.
00:13:29.000 Amnesty for illegal aliens. 0.74
00:13:31.000 That's what it was going to take for us to win elections.
00:13:33.000 And a lot of us, myself included, said, we're not going to do that.
00:13:36.000 And that's where places like Breitbart and it led to the rise of Trump started saying, we are going to crack down on this stuff.
00:13:42.000 We're going the complete opposite direction.
00:13:44.000 And we don't care if a civil war breaks out because this is a hill to die on.
00:13:48.000 And it worked out incredibly.
00:13:50.000 I mean, if you had told me that after the 2012 autopsy that we'd have Donald Trump in four years and then Donald Trump again four years after that, or eight years after that, I mean, you wouldn't believe.
00:14:00.000 Leave it, but it worked out for us.
00:14:01.000 Now, the problem is who would win a civil war with the Democrats?
00:14:05.000 It'd probably be the insane people because they've got the most energy. 0.96
00:14:07.000 They inspire the donors.
00:14:08.000 So you'd get this sort of dark woke is what they're talking about, where they're really leaning into the woke stuff.
00:14:15.000 Even though we think woke is over, Charlie, they don't all feel that way.
00:14:18.000 So if they have a civil war, I think it might actually hurt them.
00:14:22.000 But you know what?
00:14:24.000 If they want to try it, they might need to because their leadership is so lame and weak right now.
00:14:29.000 There's something of note here that we don't want to ignore.
00:14:32.000 I was just in Boise, Idaho, and we drew a big crowd.
00:14:35.000 I mean, you know, to go debate a bunch of college kids to draw 3,000 people, that's big.
00:14:39.000 However, you have to be honest.
00:14:41.000 You got to tell it like it is.
00:14:42.000 The night before, Bernie and AOC, they drew 12,000 people in Boise.
00:14:46.000 It's a big number.
00:14:47.000 Now, I understand that area, that part of the world doesn't get a lot of attention.
00:14:51.000 It's kind of like what happens when we go to California, when you're so in the ideological minority, you tend to draw out anyone that's like-minded because there really is nothing of the sort.
00:14:59.000 But 12,000 people in Boise is real.
00:15:01.000 They were drawing big crowds all across the West.
00:15:04.000 What do you make about the AOC-Bernie combination?
00:15:08.000 Is this a robust, grassroots, populist counter to MAGA?
00:15:14.000 Or is it Basically, the Democrats continuing on their ultra-radical policies and something that we should encourage more of happening.
00:15:22.000 Well, Bernie's a total fraud.
00:15:23.000 He wouldn't even support the Democrats that he got along with when Trump put them up for confirmation, which is another genius move by Trump.
00:15:30.000 Not only did he pick the best people for his cabinet, but he picked Democrats specifically to expose the senators who act like they're anti-establishment, but they're pure establishment.
00:15:38.000 Bernie's always been that way.
00:15:39.000 He's got a bunch of houses.
00:15:40.000 He's a rich guy, and then he acts like he's a socialist.
00:15:42.000 But there is an astroturf here, which might comfort the audience a little bit, which is a lot of them are trying to piggyback off of musical acts.
00:15:49.000 So they'll get the musicians out.
00:15:51.000 People want to see.
00:15:52.000 And then they'll tack on an AOC or Bernie Sanders speech.
00:15:54.000 So I don't really buy the 12,000 number.
00:15:57.000 But that said, we should go to the woodshed and act as though they're building a robust grassroots resistance that isn't just Soros-funded stuff like a lot of the Tesla stuff.
00:16:06.000 And a lot of our reporting, this group Indivisible that's very networked or the new Arabella advisors where they're just funding everything.
00:16:14.000 We got to act like they're going to get organized and they're going to come back and they're going to mount a comeback.
00:16:19.000 We got to act like we're in a war.
00:16:20.000 We're not in peacetime yet.
00:16:22.000 We're in wartime.
00:16:22.000 We should behave that way.
00:16:23.000 But if you want to comfort, I don't think the 12,000 number is legit.
00:16:26.000 Charlie, your 3,000 number is legit and very impressive.
00:16:29.000 I'm loving the college stuff.
00:16:31.000 Absolutely incredible content.
00:16:32.000 And good for you for doing it.
00:16:33.000 Thank you.
00:16:34.000 In fact, we're doing more campus tour stops this semester than even during the election.
00:16:38.000 We are in a 24-7, 365 mentality.
00:16:42.000 Elections are merely just moments in a broader cultural conflict.
00:16:46.000 Alex, you're the best.
00:16:47.000 Plug whatever you want to our audience.
00:16:49.000 Alex Marlow Show and the Salem Podcast Network.
00:16:52.000 So that's wherever you get your podcasts.
00:16:54.000 And leaving a nice review is always good as well.
00:16:56.000 But anytime you need me, Charlie, I'm here for you.
00:16:58.000 Thanks, Alex, so much.
00:16:59.000 Really appreciate it.
00:17:00.000 Thank you.
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00:17:54.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:17:57.000 As you know, I joined the Bill Maher program last week and it aired yesterday and our full annotated version will be out tomorrow.
00:18:08.000 And my very good friend Frank Turek took a lot of time, about two hours, probably three hours out of his schedule, to watch the entire thing and give his feedback on things that we could add on top of it on how we can best defend our faith.
00:18:21.000 Frank, great to see you, and thank you for taking the time, and happy belated Easter.
00:18:25.000 Yeah, Charlie, you took the right approach with Bill.
00:18:27.000 You were very kind to him.
00:18:28.000 You could have said a lot more, but as you say, when you're on a podcast, somebody else's podcast, You want to give him the benefit of the doubt.
00:18:36.000 You want to get a few points in, but you don't want to make it a monologue as to why the guy's wrong.
00:18:41.000 Well, thank you.
00:18:42.000 And it was not an interesting environment to be in, to say the least.
00:18:46.000 No. Let's go to this one.
00:18:49.000 Let's play cut 127.
00:18:50.000 I'd love your reaction, Frank.
00:18:52.000 I'm going to take something that is so anti-intellectual, even though I can argue like an intellectual.
00:18:58.000 However, but you have to acknowledge even the greatest minds of history have been...
00:19:03.000 Mesmerized by the scriptures, Isaac Newton, Thomas Aquinas.
00:19:06.000 Well, Isaac Newton wrote more about biblical prophecy than even physics.
00:19:10.000 And so there's something about the scriptures that are intellectual, that does push your limits.
00:19:16.000 And that's what I think is so beautiful about our faith, is it can be accessible to everyone, but also infinitely nourishing in exploration.
00:19:24.000 Frank, are the scriptures anti-intellectual?
00:19:27.000 No, not at all.
00:19:28.000 In fact, the Bible continually tells us to give reasons for what we believe.
00:19:32.000 And of course, even Yahweh in the Old Testament says, come let us reason together.
00:19:38.000 You know, Charlie, one of the things that atheists cannot answer, cannot actually give a cause for, is reason itself. 0.99
00:19:45.000 I mean, if we're just molecules in motion, if we're just molecular machines, if we're nothing but moist robots, which is the...
00:19:53.000 Common view of most materialists today, most atheists today, then they shouldn't even believe anything they think because every thought they have is the result of the laws of physics.
00:20:03.000 They're not really thinking, they're reacting.
00:20:06.000 And C.S. Lewis pointed this out brilliantly in so many of his works that if materialism's true, there's no way to even justify thinking.
00:20:15.000 There's no way to justify reason.
00:20:18.000 And if you can't justify thinking, you can't call a Christian anti-intellectual because you haven't...
00:20:27.000 And so, Frank, one of the contentions that Bill Maher made is that, listen, Christianity, it's just a counterfeit of all these other Middle Eastern religions.
00:20:36.000 Osiris and all this, virgin birth and raised from the dead.
00:20:40.000 This is a story that is appropriated, and Christianity just copied other religions in the Middle East.
00:20:46.000 How would you react to that?
00:20:47.000 Well, we have a whole section and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist about that.
00:20:51.000 It's just not true.
00:20:52.000 Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true, okay?
00:20:54.000 About the only...
00:20:56.000 A dying and rising god prior to Christianity was Osiris from Egypt, and that wasn't a resurrection into a new body.
00:21:07.000 That was a kind of ethereal resurrection into the underworld.
00:21:10.000 That's not what the New Testament's talking about.
00:21:13.000 In fact, almost all of these supposed dying and rising gods come...
00:21:19.000 After Christianity, not before. 0.99
00:21:21.000 So if anyone's copying from anyone, it's not Christianity copying from pagan resurrection myths.
00:21:27.000 It's the pagan resurrection myths copying from Christianity.
00:21:31.000 But, you know, as C.S. Lewis also pointed out...
00:21:33.000 Just because you have a parallel between two stories doesn't mean one is copied from another.
00:21:38.000 In fact, there was a ship, Charlie, I don't know if you heard about it.
00:21:43.000 It made its maiden voyage from the UK back in the early 1900s.
00:21:49.000 It hit an iceberg.
00:21:51.000 A lot of people died.
00:21:54.000 And, of course, you're going to say, well, Frank, of course, that was the Titanic.
00:21:56.000 Well, actually, it was actually a novel from, I think, 1898 called The Futility, and it predated the Titanic just by chance.
00:22:09.000 Nobody would say, well, the Titanic story then must be copied from this novel called Futility.
00:22:15.000 It just happened to be that there were parallels.
00:22:18.000 So parallels don't necessarily prove that one is copying from another anyway.
00:22:23.000 For example, a lot of the religions that overlap with Christianity, the overlap lines up with Christianity's rise, so they're just copying it.
00:22:30.000 Like in Norse mythology, for example, there's a god, Balder, who dies and comes back and creates a paradise after an apocalypse.
00:22:37.000 But almost certainly, this part of the myth was influenced by the spread of Christianity and was written down only in the Middle Ages.
00:22:44.000 Another thing that Bill Maher mentioned in the discussion, and I didn't even know how to process this.
00:22:49.000 I mean, in real time, Frank...
00:22:51.000 I knew that this school of thought existed, but I thought it was only on Reddit or Discord channels, not in agreed-upon high scholarly thinking.
00:23:02.000 Did Jesus Christ actually exist, Frank Turek?
00:23:07.000 If there is one or two scholars out of many thousands, Charlie, in academia today who study this kind of material, and I'm not talking about...
00:23:17.000 You know, Bible-believing Christians. 0.97
00:23:19.000 There are atheists or New Testament scholars.
00:23:21.000 If there's one or two out there, it's a lot who say Jesus never existed.
00:23:26.000 I mean, think about this, Charlie.
00:23:28.000 Jesus, inarguably, is the most influential human being to ever walk the earth.
00:23:37.000 How could he possibly have never existed?
00:23:40.000 It would be like somebody 2,000 years from now saying, Luke Skywalker is the most influential human being to ever walk the earth.
00:23:49.000 Nobody 2,000 years from now is going to take a fictitious character and say that person is the most influential human being on the earth.
00:23:56.000 Not only that, but there are non-Christian sources.
00:24:00.000 And you began to talk about this a little bit in your interview with Bill, Charlie.
00:24:03.000 You didn't get a chance to complete the thought.
00:24:05.000 But there are at least 10 ancient non-Christian sources within 150 years of Jesus's life that mentioned Jesus and or the apostles.
00:24:15.000 People like Josephus, Suetonius, Thallus, Phlegon.
00:24:18.000 And Josephus was the name I forgot.
00:24:20.000 I screwed up Herodotus and Josephus.
00:24:23.000 That's a big one.
00:24:24.000 Remind the audience who Josephus was.
00:24:27.000 That's an extra-biblical account of Jesus' life.
00:24:30.000 Non-biblical.
00:24:32.000 Josephus lived from 37 AD to about 100 AD.
00:24:36.000 And he wrote several books related to the Jews, one's called Antiquities, another is called, it's about the Jewish war, is another one.
00:24:45.000 And he mentions Jesus, he mentions John the Baptist, he mentions that James, the half-brother of Jesus, is killed as a martyr.
00:24:53.000 He's the pastor of the church in Jerusalem, and he's killed in 62 AD.
00:24:58.000 The Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council, threw him off the Temple Mount, and then they stoned him to death.
00:25:05.000 He's the same guy, by the way, Charlie.
00:25:07.000 Who wrote that little book in the New Testament called James.
00:25:10.000 He's also the same guy who did not believe his brother was God before the resurrection.
00:25:15.000 But then James had Jesus appear to him, and that's why he converted, and that's why he was later executed by the Jews. 0.82
00:25:24.000 So Josephus has a lot of great information on some of the New Testament events.
00:25:30.000 But let me hasten to say this, Charlie.
00:25:32.000 The best evidence for Jesus is in what we call the New Testament documents.
00:25:37.000 And you don't have to assume that they are inspired to get good historical information out of them.
00:25:43.000 Even atheists like Bart Ehrman, who teaches here where I am in North Carolina,
00:25:48.000 He admits that Jesus existed.
00:25:52.000 He said...
00:25:53.000 Probably one of the most attested to facts from ancient history is the crucifixion of Jesus.
00:25:58.000 Of course, he doesn't believe in the resurrection, but there's virtually no scholars out there who say Jesus never rose from the dead, or I should say never existed, which is why when Bill tried to say that, it's completely off the road.
00:26:09.000 The other one, which I didn't quite grasp, and I did find that there was a school of thought out there that exists, but very fringe, that Paul was talking about a spiritual Jesus.
00:26:23.000 Where does this come from, and is there any merit to the argument that Paul was somehow not connected, or he thought Jesus was just a spiritual celestial being?
00:26:40.000 No, because Paul makes it very clear that he's talking about a resurrected body, a body that comes out of the tomb.
00:26:47.000 It would have been easy to say Jesus resurrected spiritually, then you wouldn't have to, you know, his body could still be in the tomb, and you could still say, oh, he resurrected spiritually.
00:26:56.000 But that wasn't the case.
00:26:58.000 Jesus' tomb was empty, and it would have been easy to squash Christianity if it wasn't empty, because both the Romans and the Jews who didn't want Christianity to succeed would have gone.
00:27:09.000 Gone to the right tomb and taken out his body.
00:27:11.000 They didn't do it because his body wasn't in there.
00:27:15.000 So no, this was a physical resurrection.
00:27:18.000 And that's what made it so crazy to the Greeks because they didn't think anyone would want to have their body raised.
00:27:26.000 They wanted to be liberated from the body.
00:27:29.000 So when Paul is talking on...
00:27:31.000 On Mars Hill, as recorded in Acts 17, and he's bringing up a physical resurrection.
00:27:35.000 These guys over there are incredulous.
00:27:37.000 You know, they're going, we don't want that.
00:27:39.000 We want to be liberated from the body.
00:27:40.000 No, this was a physical resurrection.
00:27:43.000 Christianity only makes sense if that's the case. 0.98
00:27:46.000 The book is, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
00:27:48.000 And Frank, I want you to sign one for Bill.
00:27:50.000 Next time I see him, I'm going to give him a copy and say, you have a...
00:27:55.000 Obligation to read this, Bill.
00:27:56.000 Super quick, about 30 seconds here, Frank, and we have another segment coming up.
00:28:00.000 Remind the audience of the great work that Cross-Examine does and plug the book as well.
00:28:04.000 Yeah, absolutely.
00:28:06.000 Crossexamine.org.
00:28:06.000 We go to college campuses as well, Charlie.
00:28:08.000 We're nearly always talking about why I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
00:28:13.000 We're giving evidence that Christianity is true. 0.93
00:28:15.000 Then we take questions.
00:28:16.000 We have a YouTube channel, Crossexamine, two words, at YouTube.
00:28:20.000 And we also have a podcast called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
00:28:23.000 So we're going to college campuses, high schools, churches, presenting the evidence that Christianity is true and taking a lot of questions.
00:28:29.000 We have over 2,500 videos on our YouTube channel.
00:28:33.000 Most of them are Q&A videos from the college campus.
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00:29:33.000 Shouldn't you be looking into doing that too?
00:29:38.000 So Frank, another contention that he made was that the Holy Spirit was not mentioned until...
00:29:44.000 300 years later.
00:29:45.000 I don't know if you caught this in part of the interview, where he said, well, the Holy Spirit's a concept that came hundreds of years later.
00:29:50.000 I actually think I did a pretty good job of interjecting and correcting the record.
00:29:55.000 It's clearly not true.
00:29:56.000 The Spirit is actually mentioned all the way back into the Old Testament, but primarily we see that in the baptism of Christ our Lord, where it was Jesus Christ, the Spirit came upon him, and God the Father said, this is my Son in whom I am pleased.
00:30:09.000 Is there any truth to that?
00:30:11.000 Truth to what you said, not what he said.
00:30:13.000 In fact, it's all over the New Testament, and as you mentioned, even the Old Testament.
00:30:17.000 I mean, the Holy Spirit comes upon the believers at Pentecost, which as one of the most accurate, I mean, I think all the books are accurate, but one of the most verifiable books in the New Testament is the Book of Acts, Charlie.
00:30:30.000 And in our book, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
00:30:32.000 Yeah, keep going.
00:30:33.000 Yeah, you did.
00:30:34.000 Because both Luke and Acts are written by Luke and Luke is an historian of first rank.
00:30:39.000 That was even admitted.
00:30:42.000 By an archaeologist by the name of Sir William Ramsey, who initially was skeptical of Luke 100 years ago.
00:30:48.000 Then he spent 20 years studying Luke, and he said Luke is an historian of first rank.
00:30:53.000 And if you go through the Book of Acts, there are 84 historically eyewitness confirmable details that only an eyewitness or somebody that knew an eyewitness would know.
00:31:02.000 Just in the Book of Acts, Charlie, we list them all, and I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.
00:31:06.000 So the Holy Spirit is all over the documents.
00:31:10.000 And as you pointed out in your rebuttal video, response video that you released earlier today, or maybe it was yesterday, with Bill Maher, even the, I mean, the data, the documents is important, but what's more important are the sources for the documents,
00:31:27.000 Charlie, as you explain.
00:31:29.000 If you were to write a book or I were to write a book about 9-11 right now, which is about 23 years ago, it's more important that I'm interviewing people who saw it.
00:31:39.000 That's more important than the date I'm writing it down right now in 2025.
00:31:43.000 And that's what goes on with the New Testament.
00:31:46.000 The date...
00:31:48.000 The dates of these books are written during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses by eyewitnesses or people that knew eyewitnesses because they proved it by putting data in the text that only an eyewitness would know.
00:32:00.000 But they're actually interviewing people if they weren't eyewitnesses themselves like Luke wasn't.
00:32:05.000 They were interviewing people that were there and they're still alive when they're writing it.
00:32:09.000 So this is eyewitness testimony.
00:32:11.000 This material is telling us really what happened.
00:32:15.000 And by the way, Charlie, they had no motive to make it up.
00:32:18.000 They didn't get sex. 0.94
00:32:19.000 They didn't get money.
00:32:20.000 They didn't get power.
00:32:21.000 All they got as former believers in Yahweh, just Jewish believers in Yahweh, is they got kicked out of the synagogue. 0.70
00:32:29.000 They got beaten, tortured, and killed.
00:32:31.000 That's why I thought your question when you asked him, why would they fake the resurrection was brilliant.
00:32:36.000 And he really didn't have a response because there is no answer.
00:32:39.000 Why would they fake this to get themselves abused?
00:32:43.000 They wouldn't.
00:32:44.000 In closing here, Frank, what?
00:32:46.000 From my conversation, Bill, more broadly, how should Christians share the gospel?
00:32:51.000 I try to take a more gentle touch.
00:32:53.000 I wanted to develop a relationship with Bill.
00:32:56.000 It was tempting to kind of go all in and go heavy apologetics and a little finger wagging.
00:33:03.000 Just speak as someone who does this for a living and closing here, about a minute and a half remaining, the different approaches that we as believers should bring to unusual circumstances to point towards Jesus.
00:33:14.000 Well, I think both you and I try and take the approach where we don't want to try and own people.
00:33:19.000 We want to gently correct them and ask them a lot of questions because we want them walking away going, I want to know more.
00:33:26.000 We don't want them walking away from an interaction with us.
00:33:31.000 To say, oh man, I hated that guy.
00:33:33.000 He made me look bad.
00:33:34.000 You don't want to do that.
00:33:36.000 You want to try and win people.
00:33:37.000 Look, Charlie, as you know, when somebody asks you a question, you're not just answering a question, you're answering a person.
00:33:45.000 And so you want to provide an opening for the next conversation.
00:33:50.000 And what I try and ask people is, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? 0.95
00:33:55.000 And Charlie, I've had atheists stand at their microphone in front of hundreds of people on college campuses and say no, because they don't want it to be true. 0.83
00:34:03.000 So I think that clears the deck of all the objections they could have.
00:34:08.000 So I always ask that question.
00:34:09.000 You asked a similar question to Bill.
00:34:10.000 You asked him, hey, do you hope you were wrong?
00:34:13.000 That kind of thing.
00:34:14.000 That's what we need to take.
00:34:15.000 We need to ask people questions, and we shouldn't expect people to agree with us.
00:34:19.000 We should just ask questions, make points, and really highlight grace, Charlie.
00:34:25.000 Because grace is what people are looking for.
00:34:27.000 Look, there's only two things you're going to get in the afterlife.
00:34:30.000 You're either going to get justice or grace.
00:34:32.000 There's no other category.
00:34:33.000 Frank, thank you so much.
00:34:34.000 God bless you, my friend.
00:34:35.000 Crossexamine.org.
00:34:36.000 Thank you.
00:34:37.000 Thanks, Charlie.
00:34:38.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:34:39.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.