Turning Point USA President Blake Neff joins us from Mar-A-Lago to talk about the gala weekend in honor of the late Charlie Kirk and the incredible response from the Turning Point USA team to remember him.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:02:38.000We have hundreds of people, people who had known Charlie for years, people who had never met Charlie, people who were motivated to come out because of the tragedy this fall, but he'd still deeply inspired them.
00:03:09.000And so over and over, we were meeting people whom Charlie had moved to deeper faith, to deeper involvement, deeper patriotism, deeper concern for their country.
00:03:21.000And it was really incredible to see them all come together to remember him, to testify about him, and to continue the mission forward, onward, as Charlie would say.
00:03:29.000Yeah, you know, I, so every year is a little bit different at these galas, and I will tell you two things.
00:03:35.000You kind of inspired two, two thoughts.
00:03:37.000One was that I couldn't get past people that would just come up to me and they would just start crying or get emotional about what Charlie had meant to them.
00:03:47.000And two, how many first-timers we had because, you know, this is an annual event, and so you get a lot of repeat people.
00:03:54.000There was so many first-timers that had been moved to come and join us at Mar-a-Lago.
00:04:00.000So it was absolutely packed in a beautiful, beautiful testament.
00:04:06.000Yeah, just to Charlie, but also the work that he did, you know, building an institution that was his goal.
00:04:15.000It was his wish that it would outlive him.
00:04:17.000And we obviously thought that he was going to be 98 before that happened, but we're watching it in real time.
00:04:26.000I'm just so proud of the team and how they stepped up.
00:04:29.000We've got lots and lots of other news, but you did mention the book, or you mentioned Sabbath, and Charlie's book does come out this week, his last book, Stop in the Name of God.
00:04:40.000And Erica is doing media to promote Charlie's book.
00:04:45.000It is, Blake, you know this more intimately than I do.
00:04:49.000I think this is Charlie's potentially his like the most powerful personal book because a lot of the, you know, it was MAGA doctrine.
00:05:08.000And, you know, it's terribly tragic that this is the last book we have from Charlie, but in some ways, now that we know that that's the case, it's really apropos.
00:05:16.000And I think this, it comes out this week, and we're going to be repeating that it's coming out this week on the show.
00:05:25.000How does this book, Blake, because you were so intimately involved with Charlie's prep for these books, how does this book kind of differ tonally and why is it important?
00:05:34.000Well, it's as you say, it is so much more personal.
00:05:37.000When he was deciding, for example, right-wing revolution, the thought was, okay, what are the issues that matter for America?
00:06:28.000I think you could maybe say the college scam was his strongest politically related message because he was so emphatic about you don't need to spend $100,000, $200,000 to get a degree to succeed.
00:07:35.000It's something I've been in the wake of Charlie's assassination, something I've been personally trying to practice and just take time.
00:07:42.000I actually brought my family out to West Palm Beach and Palm Beach because I usually don't because we got three little kids, so it's hard to travel.
00:07:50.000And it's a work trip, so you get distracted.
00:08:22.000So the other big news of the day, however, and by the way, that book comes out tomorrow, start shipping.
00:08:28.000So please, please, please do check it out, 45books.com.
00:08:31.000Other big news, I'm going to go through the list here, Blake, and we're probably going to center on birthright citizenship because I think it's so huge.
00:08:38.000It's the sleeping giant of immigration.
00:08:42.000Birthright citizenship is now going to be heard by the Supreme Court, looking like oral arguments at the beginning of 2026 decision by June, most likely.
00:08:50.000You've got this EU DSA, which is Digital Services Act.
00:08:53.000They have fined Elon Musk and X $140 million.
00:09:37.000But birthright citizenship, we're coming up against a break in this first segment, Blake.
00:09:41.000But really quickly, why is this so big?
00:09:43.000It's big because this is the core element of the great replacement.
00:09:49.000What enables it to happen is our courts have allowed it that anyone who comes into this country illegally as a tourist, as a guest worker, if they have a kid, 10 seconds after they cross the border, that person is a U.S. citizen for life.
00:10:05.000That is certainly not what was intended by the people who wrote the 14th Amendment.
00:10:10.000It is obviously insane in modern America.
00:10:14.000And the Trump administration is finally taking the action we should have taken decades ago to say this is not what our law has ever been.
00:10:25.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:10:28.000And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:10:30.000It's called Culture and Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:10:34.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:10:38.000He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today, gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.
00:10:57.000And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.
00:10:59.000Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.
00:11:05.000The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.
00:11:09.000You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:11:12.000Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.
00:11:14.000Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.
00:11:19.000You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.
00:11:27.000Blake, here's what we're going to get into.
00:11:31.000We're going to explain this birthright citizenship, the dynamics of it, because I think it's really, really important.
00:11:39.000There are, in 2023, which is the last year that I have data on, there were between 225,000 and 250,000 babies born to illegal immigrants.
00:11:48.000They believe that this could impact up to 4.3 million retroactively births.
00:11:54.000Because remember, Trump did this, and the way they're going to work it out and the way they're going to move forward is TBD, but it could impact up to 4.3 million children.
00:12:07.000But when we're talking about historical significance and moving forward, that number obviously is going to be even larger.
00:12:13.000So the language in the 14th Amendment was derived from the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
00:12:20.000So this is, again, right after the Civil War.
00:12:22.000The intent was to give citizenship to freed slaves and the children of freed slaves.
00:12:27.000And the language in that 1866 Civil Rights Act, from which this was derived, said all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power would be considered citizens.
00:12:40.000Now, this also gets lost in the shuffle.
00:12:43.000Two Supreme Court cases upheld that the 14th Amendment excluded citizens of foreign countries born in the U.S., the slaughterhouse cases in 1872 and Elk v. Wilkins in 1884.
00:12:55.000Now, birthright proponents like to cite the 1898 Supreme Court case, which was United States versus Kim Wong or versus Kim.
00:13:03.000But they conveniently forget that that case was about the child of a Chinese parents that resided in the United States permanently and lawfully.
00:13:14.000So the big idea here is that the 14th Amendment was intended to give grant citizenship to freed slaves born in America and their children, not to illegals who owe allegiance and are citizens of a foreign country.
00:14:47.000i know you got so that that wong kim arc decision from the late 1800s that's very important because it gets a one of the biggest lies they'll say is that this is settled law The Supreme Court of the United States has only ever ruled on whether birthright citizenship extends to the children of those legally in the United States.
00:15:27.000And we let them get away with it until it grew into this huge tumor that is consuming the United States.
00:15:33.000As you said, hundreds of thousands of births a year to illegal immigrants.
00:15:37.000There are millions of people who have citizenship as a result of that.
00:15:42.000Among other things, it causes illegal immigrants to receive a huge amount of welfare benefits because even if you're an illegal, if your anchor baby is a U.S. citizen, you become eligible for food stamps and a whole bunch of other things.
00:15:57.000It's based on a myth that it somehow just obviously means anyone born in the U.S. qualifies.
00:16:03.000No, that line, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, it means essentially owing allegiance, owing fealty to that nation.
00:16:12.000It actually, if you dig deep into the roots of it, it derives from legal ideas of like owing loyalty to the king.
00:16:20.000Could you commit treason against the king?
00:16:22.000If you are not able to commit treason against the United States, then I don't think it makes sense to say that you're subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
00:16:31.000And I think I'm hopeful the Supreme Court will rule that way.
00:16:34.000My biggest fear is they'll try some pragmatic decision where they would just say, oh, well, it would be too disruptive to change the law.
00:16:42.000I think the actual meaning of the law is extremely clear that this level of birthright citizenship we've had for so many years is not tenable or defensible.
00:16:50.000The original drafter of this clause, Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan, said in the arguments, this will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, or belong to families, ambassadors, or foreign ministers.
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00:18:27.000I'm like, guys, we're doing 40 minutes on Netflix.
00:18:30.000And everybody was trying to figure this out on Thursday, remember?
00:18:33.000And then it was Friday, the next day that it was like, boom, Netflix.
00:18:39.000Let's just say I may have heard something from my little birds that something was in the air regarding the Netflix buyout of Warner Brothers, which would be disastrous.
00:18:48.000It would put Obama in complete control of some of the most iconic American brands.
00:18:57.000So Obama aligned Netflix in charge with all of them.
00:19:01.000And we've seen, by the way, what they've done with the pedophile content, with QTs, with these very strange, over, and we talked about it at length last week, but this overly sexualized content and LGBT content introduced in Stranger Things.
00:19:15.000And it's like, guys, we got to actually call this stuff out when it's happening.
00:19:19.000So then all of a sudden, Friday happens.
00:19:22.000Everybody thinks, oh my gosh, Netflix is going to buy Warner Brothers.
00:19:26.000And even, you know, a lot of people who work in the film business are saying that this is really bad because they're going to put movie theaters out of business.
00:19:32.000We don't want that because we want movie theaters.
00:20:10.000Paramount attempts hostile offer for Warner Brothers.
00:20:13.000David Ellison calls Netflix's $82.7 billion deal value an inferior proposal and tells Warner shareholders that his coalition, which, to be clear, includes Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, they promise us $18 billion more in cash.
00:20:30.000So the question then is, Jack, why do you believe that Warner Bros is opting for an inferior deal with Netflix?
00:20:42.000Is there an ideological fight happening over this deal?
00:21:25.000And immediately after coming back to Netflix, Susan Rice and Netflix announce what?
00:21:29.000Oh, another huge expanded deal with the Obama family.
00:21:33.000This reminds me, by the way, Andrew, very much of the way that the NFL signed their Super Bowl deal with Jay-Z, and they gave over the halftime show to Jay-Z.
00:21:41.000And of course, Turning Point USA is very smartly, I think, responding back in kind there.
00:21:47.000And so you've got this situation where the audience doesn't want this stuff.
00:21:54.000And in fact, we just saw a new study by GLAD of all people.
00:21:57.000I can't believe I'm citing GLAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, but they're saying that actually looking forward next year, that LGBT content and characters are going to be moving away from shows, that people are moving.
00:22:12.000So what we're seeing is this new alliance of the Obamas, the far lefties, Netflix, and a bunch of the lefties, I think, that are currently in the leadership team of the WB, WB Discovery.
00:22:25.000And at the end of the day, who's going to be hurt?
00:22:28.000It's the average American, you know, the average American who's saying, why is there so much of this woke crap, this LGBT crap in like Looney Tunes and Batman and Superman and just regular TV shows that you want to watch or movies that you want to watch and you're not interested in any of that political or like gender bending nonsense?
00:22:48.000So it's interesting too, because I remember when, you know, Netflix was really starting to pour money into original programming and they would talk openly about how they were in an arms race with HBO to become the streaming version faster than HBO could become Netflix, basically.
00:23:06.000They wanted to become HBO faster than HBO could become Netflix.
00:23:10.000And now you have with this Warner Brothers Discovery deal, basically Netflix, Netflix would acquire HBO, HBO Max will go to the streaming giant, and then the embattled cable network divisions, that's TNT, CNN, notably, HGTV, the Food Network, and Discovery will be spun out as a separately traded company.
00:23:29.000So you have what you have here behind the scenes is an ideological battle because Oracle founder Larry Ellison, it's the son, right, of Larry Ellison, more conservative leaning, and they're worried about CNN as well.
00:23:45.000You've got to imagine that this is part of the calculus.
00:23:48.000They're worried that Paramount, that the Oracle founders would essentially turn CNN into a more conservative network.
00:23:55.000Meanwhile, Jack, just this morning, you have Trump.
00:23:59.000Well, it was actually last over the weekend.
00:25:36.000So it's a huge antitrust problem there, which President Trump, of course, responded to on the floor of the Kennedy Center.
00:25:43.000He's on that step and repeat asking that question.
00:25:45.000But here's what's interesting is that he comes out this morning popping Paramount saying like, hey, hey, guys, no free ride for you either because I'm going to be watching you guys like a hawk.
00:25:56.000Because I saw, I mean, I have to look at the timing, but I'm sure that he probably heard that Paramount's hostile deal was coming in.
00:26:03.000And it also just broke that there was a secret meeting where the head of Netflix actually went over to the White House and they did have a meeting and sat down in the Oval Office.
00:26:14.000The White House didn't put that out because he was trying to make sure there were no regulatory hurdles.
00:26:19.000Now President Trump coming in saying, you know what?
00:26:21.000Just because you guys want to come in, I know you got my son-in-law on board, but guess what?
00:26:25.000If you want there to be no issues with you, I want to see a little bit more fairness when it comes to CBS, when it comes to 60 minutes, all of this.
00:26:34.000So, I mean, the ball's really in President Trump's court on a lot of this.
00:26:39.000You're watching the art of the deal play out here where he's applying pressure to both parties.
00:26:45.000And so they're essentially both in a position where they need to suck up to President Trump, which is, you know, which is probably just where the president wants it.
00:26:55.000If people are not understanding why we're talking about this deal here on this show on the Charlie Kirk show, we have to also understand that there's so many of these cultural touch points, these cultural, I guess, seeds for either wokeness or a return to common sense that are planted at this level with these long-form shows that have become so popular.
00:27:14.000What kind of ideologies are getting spread and implanted in the narratives?
00:27:19.000And then they filter out into our politics.
00:27:21.000This kind of stuff, I would argue, is more important than about 98% of the other things we can talk about.
00:27:27.000Now, I would put birthright citizenship slightly more ahead of this, but there's very few issues that are truly this important that have such civilizational weight behind them.
00:28:18.000It's because that's where people get their story of the world, their story of who we are, their story of who they are.
00:28:23.000It's where they get their views on religion.
00:28:25.000And by the way, and studies have shown, go look at Marshall McLuhan talking about this in the 60s, that people have gotten their worldview from mass media since the 1950s on.
00:28:36.000This started with radio, then it moved to television, and today streaming is just the newest iteration of that, sort of streaming plus social media.
00:28:43.000So if you're not paying attention to who's in control of this, then you're not paying attention to who's in control of the minds of the masses.
00:30:19.000So before we get to this viral Cinnabon clip, which is, you know, a classic case of, you know, bad white woman, innocent immigrant couple, I just, we are still continuing the debate.
00:30:32.000Blake, you think that TV is less important than it's ever been.
00:30:35.000I agree with you on that because entertainment is more diffused.
00:30:39.000Everything is more diffused and fractured, but it's still important.
00:31:38.000I remember at its peak, Netflix, the most common show to watch on Netflix well after it went off the air was The Office.
00:31:46.000I think at its peak, about 1% of all internet traffic in America was people watching The Office.
00:31:51.000And I think that Jack is correct to say it dictates a lot of what our culture is talking about and thinking about, but it also dictates less and less by the year, which I think we should be grateful for because you don't want everything people think about funneled through a tiny number of choke points controlled by people who are completely insane.
00:32:13.000Well, actually, real quick, I just completely agree with you because when's the last time a movie became a classic?
00:32:27.000Well, by the way, the MASH finale, 106 million people tuned in for that.
00:32:31.000We don't have that kind of stuff anymore.
00:32:32.000I mean, this is the most famous one, obviously.
00:32:34.000February 28th, 1983, the finale of MASH drew 106 million viewers, becoming the most watched single episode in U.S. television history for decades with a 77% share of the audience.
00:32:47.000It's like a third of the U.S. population, apparently.
00:33:24.000But even those, so much, those mattered a lot to sort of, I guess, the elite TV watching public, but they were both on, one was on a cable channel, one was on a subscription special cable channel.
00:33:37.000So a lot of people watched those, but at the same time, not anywhere near the number who watched Friends, Seinfeld, MASH, as you said.
00:33:46.000And the other thing we were talking about, there's a lack of new classics, lack of new classic films, but also a big flattening of what genres actually take off.
00:33:57.000So you used to have, go check the top 10 grossing films in 1999, and you'll see rom-coms, you'll see suspense films.
00:34:06.000Now the top grossing films are pretty much exclusively big blockbuster franchise films, your superhero films, your Harry Potter movies, that sort of thing.
00:34:16.000When was the last time a film comedy was a huge deal that everyone in America saw?
00:34:26.000People who were bored after the hangover came out will be able to vote soon.
00:34:31.000And that's another aspect of the way these pop culture phenomena, they still matter, as Jack says, but I think they mercifully do matter less.
00:34:40.000all right so i mean i agree but certainly i mean i that's this is this is really good fodder for a thought crime topic actually but um But I mean, either way, right?
00:34:50.000You know, Netflix and Paramount and Warner Brothers all matter.
00:34:53.000But to your point, yes, I do think that because the biggest competition, right, that all of these things have, that scripted, prepared, formatted, whatever word you want to use for it, content has is actually social media.
00:35:07.000So the idea that because a YouTuber is just going to make it for free and throw it up on YouTube.
00:36:22.000ruin your life by the way oh talking about you're talking about respect you're talking about respect You are fired from this place, mother you're not going to be working here.
00:37:00.000Obviously, I wouldn't recommend acting like that, but what's really going on here?
00:37:04.000What's really going on is that TikTok has created an inverted set of structure for bad behavior.
00:37:09.000And quote unquote, we're going to catch people and cancel them.
00:37:12.000But the way that people are fighting back against this new cancel culture, I mean, this is like some, you know, minimum wage employee at a mall.
00:37:19.000And obviously, and you can see the video before, we've seen this cycle a million times.
00:37:22.000They're clearly being harassed and she harassed her to get content out of it.
00:37:26.000That's why they were filming in the first place.
00:37:27.000And so if you look at Give, Send, Go, last I checked, it's about to cross $100,000 for this woman because people are saying, look, regardless of whether we say we agree with what she did, this is how you stop cancel culture and this is how you reverse the incentive structure.