The Charlie Kirk Show - "Bring Back Merit And Reward:" An AmFest Convo With Tucker Carlson

00:00:00.000 Happy Christmas Eve.

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:02.000 This Christmas Eve, we wanted to air my conversation with Tucker Carlson.

00:00:06.000 A phenomenal conversation about a lot of different topics.

00:00:09.000 We talk about nicotine.

00:00:11.000 We talk about Russia.

00:00:12.000 We talk about war and more.

00:00:14.000 Become a member today.

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00:00:19.000 That is Members.CharlieKirk.com.

00:00:21.000 As always, you can email us, freedom at charliekirk.com, and get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com.

00:00:28.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:31.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:32.000 Here we go.

00:00:33.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:35.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:37.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:40.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:44.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:45.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:46.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. 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.

00:01:03.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:06.000 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.

00:01:16.000 Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:23.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:25.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.

00:01:27.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:01:32.000 Oh! 0.60

00:01:33.000 I didn't realize there would be people here.

00:01:36.000 I tell you that every year.

00:01:37.000 I know, and every year I forget, but every year I love coming.

00:01:40.000 So, Tucker, great to see you.

00:01:43.000 You have this new product.

00:01:44.000 Tell us about that.

00:01:45.000 Well, sure, I'm glad you asked.

00:01:46.000 It's America's premiere.

00:01:49.000 I've never sold anything in my life.

00:01:50.000 I've had a lot of prostate cures sold against my image and scam gold deals and pillows.

00:01:55.000 But I've never actually sold anything myself.

00:01:58.000 And this is a new nicotine pouch which has replaced the left-wing monopoly that had dominated the space for the past five years.

00:02:05.000 It starts with a Z. I won't call it out loud.

00:02:08.000 It is a sin, it turns out.

00:02:09.000 But anyway...

00:02:11.000 It is delicious.

00:02:12.000 It's called ALP. It's out last week.

00:02:14.000 I love it.

00:02:15.000 We have no agenda to talk about.

00:02:18.000 Do you think there's something to the effect that as America stopped consuming nicotine that all of a sudden our health outcomes got worse?

00:02:24.000 How did that actually happen?

00:02:26.000 Ever seen the graphs?

00:02:27.000 I know, but we were told that we end nicotine consumption, obviously, via cigarettes.

00:02:31.000 All of our health problems will be solved.

00:02:33.000 We're actually fatter, sicker, we're dying earlier.

00:02:35.000 And more cancer, more depression, more suicide, more anxiety, more prescription drugs.

00:02:35.000 And more cancer, yeah.

00:02:39.000 That's strange.

00:02:40.000 Look, I'm not endorsing smoking.

00:02:42.000 I quit smoking.

00:02:44.000 But it is just a fact that the public health establishment did promise us something.

00:02:50.000 Eat a lot of carbs, get thin.

00:02:52.000 Quit tobacco, get healthy.

00:02:54.000 And it just didn't come true.

00:02:55.000 And I'm not certain of the cause and effect there, but neither is anyone else because they're studiously not looking at it because they never assess their failures.

00:03:03.000 And adults assess their failures.

00:03:05.000 Successful people, honest people take a clear-eyed look at their predictions and compare them to the results.

00:03:10.000 And if there's a discrepancy between the two, they first admit it and they try to figure out what happened.

00:03:14.000 I thought we'd be greeted as liberators.

00:03:16.000 We weren't.

00:03:17.000 I thought they were WMD. There weren't.

00:03:19.000 I thought if we got everyone off cigarettes, you know, the country would be thin and fit. 0.97

00:03:23.000 It's fat and chronically ill.

00:03:25.000 Like, where did we go wrong? 0.89

00:03:26.000 And instead, they just sort of allied past it on to the next crisis.

00:03:29.000 Oh, there are drones.

00:03:30.000 What?

00:03:31.000 And, you know, it allows sort of a handy device for them to evade responsibility for the catastrophes they caused.

00:03:39.000 I mean, the people running the country...

00:03:41.000 But it has this dual bad effect.

00:03:45.000 The first is to ensure we get more disasters.

00:03:47.000 There's no after-action report.

00:03:48.000 Every functional organization, classically the military, but all organizations and all families figure out when something goes wrong, why did it go wrong?

00:03:56.000 Why did the plane crash?

00:03:57.000 Why did the fire start?

00:03:58.000 We don't want this to happen again, so let's figure it out so we can make sure we don't repeat it.

00:04:01.000 That's the first.

00:04:01.000 But the second...

00:04:03.000 Effect over time it has is in sending the message that it doesn't matter whether you tell the truth, that it's okay to lie.

00:04:11.000 It's okay to have leaders who are constantly screwing up, denying it, blaming you, and then moving on to the next screw-up.

00:04:18.000 That makes everybody cynical.

00:04:20.000 It makes people distrustful of their government and of each other.

00:04:23.000 And it turns your country into a third-world mess.

00:04:27.000 People are like, oh, what's so great about America, our free market system?

00:04:30.000 Yeah, great.

00:04:31.000 Our resources, great.

00:04:33.000 But it was a pretty honest, straightforward culture run by a relatively honest, straightforward government, and now it's not.

00:04:39.000 And I do think the first step is to fix that.

00:04:41.000 It's like a thematic fix.

00:04:42.000 The government should tell the truth.

00:04:44.000 They have no right to lie to you.

00:04:46.000 You own the government.

00:04:47.000 If they make a mistake, they should be punished, not you.

00:04:52.000 And if you catch her housekeeper stealing, you get to fire her.

00:04:54.000 If you catch the government stealing, same thing.

00:04:57.000 You get to fire them.

00:04:58.000 They don't own the country. 0.72

00:04:59.000 You do.

00:04:59.000 It's a vibe shift.

00:05:02.000 It's a way of thinking.

00:05:03.000 And I would add the great anti-smoking, Kim.

00:05:08.000 And again, I'm not endorsing smoking like everybody.

00:05:11.000 I have relatives who died of smoking.

00:05:12.000 It's bad for you.

00:05:14.000 I don't think it's morally bad, but it's bad for you.

00:05:16.000 And so, like, don't do it.

00:05:18.000 But it remains true that, like, everything they said would happen when they banned cigarettes and infringed on your civil rights by telling you what you could do in your own car, in your home, and in a private restaurant, etc., etc.

00:05:30.000 The outcome was the opposite of what they said.

00:05:32.000 And the last thing I'll say is they have no problem pushing, like, actual narcotics on the population.

00:05:37.000 Smoke more weed, son! 0.95

00:05:39.000 You know, so you can, like, grow boobs and never leave the couch. 1.00

00:05:43.000 Like, it's...

00:05:44.000 It's not an accident that the chemicals they approve of lower testosterone and the ones they despise raise testosterone.

00:05:54.000 Because an alert, aware, self-respecting country is more difficult to manage.

00:05:59.000 You have to do it by consent.

00:06:01.000 So yeah, go smoke some more weed.

00:06:03.000 Here's your Netflix.

00:06:04.000 Don't notice what we're doing.

00:06:05.000 No.

00:06:07.000 Nicotine is an appetite suppressant, and it also constricts your blood vessels, which of course sharpens thinking and allows a higher processing of information, whereas marijuana dilates your blood vessels and does the opposite.

00:06:20.000 Are you insinuating, Tucker, that our population would push something really bad on us to try to make us easier to control?

00:06:27.000 I mean, our government would not do that.

00:06:28.000 I mean, I do think these are conspiracies of instinct.

00:06:31.000 I don't know.

00:06:32.000 I mean, I spent my whole life in D.C., and I know the people, in some cases pretty well, personally, who run it and have for a while.

00:06:39.000 And they're non-geniuses as a group, I would say.

00:06:43.000 These are not creative people, not incredibly organized people.

00:06:47.000 I wouldn't hire any of them, personally.

00:06:50.000 So I don't think they're sort of getting together at Bohemian Grove or Bilderberg to plot anything, really. 0.97

00:06:55.000 I think they go home and sit and sell in silence with their unhappy wives and then, you know, get loaded scrolling the internet like all losers. 0.98

00:07:04.000 But... 0.98

00:07:06.000 But I think the conspiracy is unspoken mostly.

00:07:09.000 Is that too vivid?

00:07:11.000 No, no, I agree.

00:07:11.000 I don't think that there's like this.

00:07:13.000 Well, I was very vivid.

00:07:14.000 They don't rise to the level of Dr. Evil.

00:07:17.000 At least he's got his act together.

00:07:18.000 At least he's like self-consciously evil.

00:07:20.000 He knows who he is.

00:07:21.000 No, but I mean they do have some skill set.

00:07:23.000 What is it though?

00:07:24.000 Is it treachery?

00:07:24.000 Is it deceit?

00:07:26.000 Or is it just that this is a group of mediocrity? 0.95

00:07:30.000 Well, look, the whole system is designed, it's set up to thwart the creative and the energetic and the free thinking and to reward the conformists, the losers.

00:07:41.000 I mean, like, if you really think about it, and this is not just the government, and it's also, sorry to rattle your cage, but it's the economy as well, the whole thing is set up to reward people who could not succeed in a true meritocracy.

00:07:51.000 I think so.

00:07:52.000 That's what DEI is, most obviously.

00:07:54.000 Let's take people who are not qualified for the job and give them the job, okay? 1.00

00:07:57.000 Right?

00:07:58.000 And let's penalize people who are qualified, score high enough on the test, we're not letting you in.

00:08:01.000 Like, how does that work?

00:08:02.000 It's the opposite, right?

00:08:03.000 So what that is doing self-consciously, I mean, explicitly, is making space for people who couldn't occupy these positions otherwise, okay?

00:08:10.000 Everyone knows that.

00:08:11.000 But what they don't understand is that's not just on the basis of race and gender.

00:08:15.000 It's like, society-wide, the richest people in our society are no longer the most impressive.

00:08:22.000 That's just a fact.

00:08:23.000 Like, if I buy some family company, manufacturing company in Ohio, and sell off its parts and lever it up, load it up with debt, and then cash out, leaving the company in ruins, and its workers unemployed, and I go back to Martha's Vineyard with an extra $100 million, that's called private equity.

00:08:41.000 And I'm celebrated for that.

00:08:43.000 There is no obvious value to the country in doing that.

00:08:47.000 At the same time, people who have obvious contributions to make, and I would, much as I despise teachers, I'd have to be honest, we really need good teachers.

00:08:56.000 That's like an essential thing to have in any society.

00:08:58.000 Socrates was a teacher.

00:08:59.000 Like, you pass on your values and the requisite knowledge to the next generation so they can continue, right?

00:09:05.000 You have to have great teachers. 0.97

00:09:06.000 And just because ours happened to be unionized and dumb, not all, but a lot. 0.96

00:09:10.000 I married one, by the way, who's not either one of those things. 0.97

00:09:13.000 They're great teachers, but...

00:09:14.000 But the truth is we need great teachers and we should pay them a lot.

00:09:17.000 That's not a liberal thing to say.

00:09:18.000 That's a conservative thing to say, obviously.

00:09:19.000 Just because they currently control the schools doesn't mean they should or will forever.

00:09:23.000 We need great physicians, not great health insurance companies. 0.88

00:09:26.000 Who cares about a freaking health insurance company? 0.96

00:09:28.000 We need great doctors, people with knives who cut you up and take out the bad things and sew you up. 0.97

00:09:32.000 That's a critical skill.

00:09:34.000 They're not the ones getting rich.

00:09:35.000 It's the insurance companies and the pharmacy brokers who are getting rich.

00:09:39.000 Like, that's a screwed up system, right?

00:09:41.000 If you just think about it, why is it that people who aren't actually contributing all that much to your society are the ones who are getting the smallest benefit?

00:09:50.000 The people who change your tire or plow your roads, fix your HVAC, build your home, fly your airplane?

00:09:57.000 Like, these are critical skills.

00:10:00.000 But it's not socialism to say that.

00:10:02.000 It's actually what we have as a form of socialism.

00:10:04.000 That's right.

00:10:04.000 Where people are rewarded for unimportant tasks like high facility with accounting or the ability to like weave through a super complex bureaucracy or like I have a special skill at understanding Dodd-Frank.

00:10:21.000 Therefore, I get a ton.

00:10:22.000 What?

00:10:23.000 That's like lower than my housekeeper. 0.95

00:10:26.000 At least she scrubs the sink. 0.80

00:10:28.000 And yet those people—so it's like the whole thing is on its head.

00:10:31.000 It's all a form of DEI, particularly in the financial sector.

00:10:35.000 I would say this having grown up around people in the financial sector and having lived around them my whole life.

00:10:39.000 I like a lot of them.

00:10:40.000 Some are smart.

00:10:41.000 But some aren't that smart.

00:10:42.000 They're just aggressive and predatory, and I'm not sure what they add. 0.53

00:10:46.000 And Republicans have been brainwashed and been like, no, it's really—it's a good thing.

00:10:49.000 Really?

00:10:50.000 Do you know them?

00:10:50.000 They hate America.

00:10:51.000 They hate you. 1.00

00:10:52.000 They hate your family.

00:10:53.000 They're not doing anything for the American economy.

00:10:54.000 I'm not saying we should shut them down or have the government take over their businesses.

00:10:58.000 I'm not for command and control.

00:10:59.000 It didn't work in Bulgaria.

00:11:00.000 It's not going to work here.

00:11:01.000 But I also don't think that I should, like, have to pretend that they're heroes.

00:11:04.000 They're creeps.

00:11:06.000 They are.

00:11:07.000 I don't know what to say.

00:11:08.000 And so we should reestablish the connection between merit and reward.

00:11:14.000 If you're doing something creative and important that helps people, I think you should be rewarded.

00:11:20.000 And if you're some bureaucrat, if you're teaching a really interesting course on ancient history in a liberal arts college, you should make the most.

00:11:29.000 It should not be the administrator who's figuring out how to comply with the ADA in the bathrooms. 0.97

00:11:35.000 It just should not be.

00:11:36.000 And yet it is.

00:11:37.000 And that's like society-wide.

00:11:39.000 So I don't know how I got off on this, but I really feel it.

00:11:44.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:11:45.000 I'm going to be realistic about my diet in December.

00:11:47.000 It slips a little bit.

00:11:48.000 It's got to be one of the worst months of the year in terms of eating right.

00:11:51.000 I'm inevitably going to find myself stuffing treats, meats, and dishes into my mouth, leaving very little room for the right stuff.

00:11:58.000 But I will take balance of nature every single day.

00:12:01.000 Balance of Nature is made from whole fruits and veggie ingredients, and I'll not skip taking those daily supplements.

00:12:06.000 It's one thing I'll get right, because feeling good is important to me, especially in December.

00:12:11.000 Join me in pushing back against the dreaded December diet crash.

00:12:15.000 Get Balance of Nature today.

00:12:17.000 Use my discount code CHARLIE and sign up as a new customer to get 35% off plus free shipping and their money back guarantee.

00:12:23.000 This is an awesome December discount, but you must use my discount code CHARLIE. So call them at 800-2468-751 and use my discount code CHARLIE or order online at balanceofnature.com.

00:12:34.000 That is discount code CHARLIE to get 35% off plus free shipping.

00:12:39.000 balanceofnature.com promo code CHARLIE balanceofnature.com promo code CHARLIE Well, in one part of the financial sector from payday lending...

00:12:51.000 Ah!

00:12:54.000 That's all I have to say.

00:12:57.000 All three Abrahamic faiths, monotheism worldwide detests usury. 0.99

00:13:04.000 And that's lending money and interest.

00:13:06.000 And that's like, if you say that out loud, that's like more controversial than like anything you can say.

00:13:12.000 What are you, a socialist?

00:13:13.000 Yeah, I'm a socialist.

00:13:14.000 Yeah, I'm a big socialist, okay?

00:13:16.000 No.

00:13:16.000 I just don't know why.

00:13:18.000 If the mafia, well, they used to, lend money at 22%, you need to go to jail.

00:13:23.000 It's a federal crime.

00:13:25.000 It's loan sharking when they do it. 0.51

00:13:27.000 And they had, like, pretty easy terms, by the way, compared to, I don't know, Citibank charging 22% on interest on credit cards.

00:13:36.000 I always bring this up with people, and they always look at me like I'm a freak, like they expect me to endorse Hugo Chavez or something.

00:13:42.000 And I'm like, no, I'm opposed to socialism.

00:13:44.000 I just don't know why I'm supposed to think that's good.

00:13:45.000 I don't think it's good.

00:13:47.000 And, you know, you often hear people talk about, you know, the American middle class is dying and all their problems and the price of eggs and all that stuff.

00:13:54.000 And it's like, if you actually talk to middle class people, I'm not a middle class person, never have been one.

00:13:57.000 but I know some and I'm interested because I think you need a middle class base in your country.

00:14:02.000 You need a majority middle class country in order to have a democracy.

00:14:05.000 Definitionally.

00:14:06.000 Definitionally, that's exact.

00:14:07.000 People with a rooted stake in the country with a future here, not renters, owners, you know, small owners.

00:14:15.000 And that's the basis of any healthy society and we're losing it.

00:14:19.000 It's less than 50% now.

00:14:20.000 And if you actually ask them, like someone who makes 75 grand a year with two kids, like where are your actual expenses?

00:14:27.000 What do you actually worry about?

00:14:28.000 Of course, it's mortgage and credit cards.

00:14:30.000 And it's really, at this point, credit cards, because a lot of people can't even afford to own.

00:14:34.000 So I think that's a huge problem.

00:14:36.000 I'm not exactly sure how to solve it, but as a professional talker, I believe, and as a Christian, I believe— We're not even allowed to, like, criticize— But that's the point.

00:14:44.000 Saying the truth out loud in the beginning was the word.

00:14:47.000 Saying the truth out loud is the first step toward fixing things.

00:14:54.000 The spoken truth.

00:14:55.000 And the spoken truth.

00:14:56.000 The spoken truth.

00:14:57.000 That's exactly right.

00:14:59.000 And by the way, that's my job.

00:15:01.000 I mean, I'm not an economist.

00:15:02.000 I couldn't balance a checkbook, assuming there even are checkbooks, and I wouldn't know because I don't handle money in any way.

00:15:06.000 So I'm totally ignorant of economics from beginning to end.

00:15:11.000 But I am interested in people, and I talk to a lot of them, and it's credit card debt that torments people.

00:15:16.000 And I'm thinking...

00:15:17.000 It's worth asking, is there a good reason for that?

00:15:20.000 Credit card debt is one of the very few forms of debt that's not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

00:15:25.000 Now, why is that?

00:15:26.000 Well, I happen to know, because I was there, that was made law in the bankruptcy bill.

00:15:30.000 And that was led by Joe Biden, who later became the worst president in the history of the country.

00:15:35.000 But at the time, when he was sentient, he was, of course, representing Delaware.

00:15:40.000 Wilmington, Delaware was the credit card capital of the country in an exchange for adding that to the bankruptcy bill that you can discharge all kinds of debt, medical debt, all kinds of personal debt, like your landscaper.

00:15:53.000 You don't have to pay your landscaper in a bankruptcy.

00:15:55.000 You don't have to pay your caterer.

00:15:56.000 You don't have to pay your builder.

00:15:57.000 They all get shafted.

00:15:59.000 Credit card companies, you have to pay them.

00:16:01.000 Like, how'd that happen?

00:16:02.000 What happened?

00:16:03.000 They gave Joe Biden a house.

00:16:04.000 Look it up.

00:16:06.000 That's a fact.

00:16:07.000 That's corrupt.

00:16:08.000 But it had this effect.

00:16:09.000 And I brought this up like a thousand times when I worked at the TV channel.

00:16:13.000 And I never had one person...

00:16:15.000 They'd always look at me like, were you criticizing the credit card companies?

00:16:19.000 I think they're on our side.

00:16:20.000 Like, don't criticize the banks.

00:16:22.000 And it's like, I'm not saying I hate the banks or we should shut them down.

00:16:26.000 It's a thought.

00:16:28.000 But, I mean, I'm open to it.

00:16:29.000 I'm kind of shutting down the bank's agnostic, leaning toward.

00:16:32.000 But whatever.

00:16:33.000 I'm not sold on the idea.

00:16:34.000 But I do think it's worth a conversation.

00:16:36.000 And why do we never have that conversation?

00:16:38.000 Ever, ever, ever, ever.

00:16:40.000 And the fact that they're sending credit card solicitations to college students.

00:16:45.000 By the way, I sell a nicotine pouch.

00:16:48.000 I'm not allowed to say this because it's against the rules of the FDA. You're not allowed to make any medical claim about this.

00:16:53.000 You can make medical claims about anything else but not nicotine because it's bad.

00:16:57.000 But this is considered much more dangerous than credit card debt.

00:17:00.000 And I just don't think that it is.

00:17:01.000 Having experienced both, I can say nothing wrecks your sleep, nothing can hurt your marriage more than debt, faster than debt.

00:17:12.000 I would say it's a bigger problem than sexual infidelity, which gets a lot of attention, which is bad.

00:17:16.000 I'm not endorsing that either, obviously.

00:17:18.000 But I'm saying if you were to actually look at the numbers on why people get divorced, debt is a bigger driver of divorce than sexual infidelity.

00:17:27.000 And it's driven in this country primarily by credit cards.

00:17:29.000 I mean, debt is the slavery of the free.

00:17:32.000 The entire financial system is leveraged.

00:17:35.000 Everything from the federal budget to how hedge funds operate to how we finance even the most simple things.

00:17:42.000 I mean, you could go a step further and say the entire American economic project is on credit.

00:17:49.000 Well, I don't think that's a stretch to say that, because it is.

00:17:52.000 And it's a habit of mind, by the way, that is a relatively new development in the Christian world and in the Jewish and Muslim world.

00:17:59.000 I mean, again, this was a precept of— It's one of the 613 laws of Judaism.

00:18:03.000 Exactly.

00:18:04.000 And it was, you know, not allowed at various times during the Dark Ages, which are actually pretty light, it turns out, but another story entirely.

00:18:14.000 It's one of those things that, you know, was the basis of, like, American politics for a long time.

00:18:20.000 I mean, political leaders 150 years ago, really up until, you know— The First World War constantly talked about things like monetary policy, the banks, and debt, as you know, just as students of political history.

00:18:32.000 And now it's totally vanished in favor of identity politics, race war, gender war.

00:18:38.000 And that's, of course, intentional, right?

00:18:41.000 You know, fight amongst yourselves, hate each other on the basis of characteristics that never change, immutable characteristics so you won't notice that the country's being looted.

00:18:47.000 And I personally, I had an idea the other day that was not at all popular with the people I mentioned it to.

00:18:51.000 They thought it was crazy, but I'm going to say it again because I kind of like it.

00:18:54.000 It would be kind of fun to have a political party that was like the credit card party.

00:19:00.000 And the only requirement for membership of the party would be that you would pledge at a certain date in the coming year to stop paying your credit card bills.

00:19:08.000 And if you had, say, 100 million people in that party, it's sort of the old line about how you're afraid of the bank until you borrow enough that they become afraid of you.

00:19:16.000 And I think it'd be sort of nice not to tank the banks or put anyone out of business or hurt anyone at all, but just as an expression of resistance and power.

00:19:25.000 Like, hey, we have power too.

00:19:26.000 We owe you money, and if we didn't pay you back, then you would have to talk to us as adults and not just patronize us or stick your dogs on us. 0.71

00:19:34.000 But you would have to, like, have a real adult conversation, as adults do with each other.

00:19:37.000 You know, each with their point of view, and we can reach a negotiation.

00:19:40.000 But I think that would be great.

00:19:42.000 I mean, I kind of love that idea.

00:19:44.000 And I brought that up to a prominent conservative.

00:19:46.000 I was like, what?

00:19:47.000 What?

00:19:48.000 You know, it's like totally fine to talk about, you know, our political power.

00:19:52.000 We all get together and vote.

00:19:53.000 Well, I don't know.

00:19:54.000 I feel way...

00:19:56.000 I don't personally, because I don't have any debt, but I have in times of my life.

00:19:59.000 I feel like people are way more oppressed by their credit card debt than by anything else, actually.

00:20:04.000 If we're being honest about it, which no one ever is.

00:20:06.000 I mean, it's way easier to talk about your sex life Than it is about your spending habits and your debt.

00:20:11.000 No one ever talks about it.

00:20:13.000 Every time I'm in an airport, somebody's talking about this crazy sex life.

00:20:16.000 Two women are like, I can't. 1.00

00:20:17.000 I'm like, whoa, I don't want to hear it.

00:20:19.000 I've never one time been in an airport and there are two college roommates being like, yeah, I'm $30,000 in debt to MB&A and I can't pay.

00:20:27.000 Not one time.

00:20:29.000 I'm serious.

00:20:31.000 No one ever talks about it.

00:20:32.000 So it would be kind of nice to bring that to them.

00:20:34.000 The question is, why?

00:20:36.000 You lure me into this deal?

00:20:38.000 Like, I'm responsible for not paying my credit card on time.

00:20:40.000 I get it.

00:20:41.000 But you're also kind of responsible.

00:20:43.000 In the same way, people watch pornography.

00:20:44.000 I'm against pornography.

00:20:46.000 It's bad to watch pornography.

00:20:47.000 It's also kind of bad to make pornography.

00:20:49.000 And to make it readily available to everybody.

00:20:51.000 Like, the pornographers are part of the problem, too.

00:20:54.000 Aren't they?

00:20:55.000 I think they are.

00:20:56.000 And most of them, to their great credit, are sort of ashamed to be pornographers.

00:21:00.000 And that's why they're not, you know, on the NBC Nightly News being like, well, in the pornography business, like, they hide.

00:21:05.000 They all live in Puerto Rico evading taxes.

00:21:08.000 And so they understand there's a shame attached to their business.

00:21:10.000 And I just think that banks should feel the same way.

00:21:12.000 Because why wouldn't they?

00:21:13.000 They're enslaving people.

00:21:15.000 So that's my view.

00:21:17.000 So speaking of another topic that we're not allowed to talk about.

00:21:21.000 I don't know why it feels so radical to say that.

00:21:23.000 It seems so obvious.

00:21:25.000 And this is something I really want to dive into, and then I want to get some questions from the audience.

00:21:28.000 You recently visited Russia again.

00:21:30.000 I did, yeah.

00:21:32.000 So deep is my commitment to Putin.

00:21:37.000 Putin!

00:21:38.000 Putin!

00:21:41.000 So how's the weather in Russia right now?

00:21:44.000 It's brisk.

00:21:45.000 Now, am I brisk with a hint of totalitarianism?

00:21:49.000 And wait, so I got a text from Tucker.

00:21:52.000 He said, hey, I'll respond to your other text.

00:21:54.000 I'm going to Siberia tomorrow.

00:21:56.000 Yes.

00:21:56.000 Usually that doesn't go well.

00:21:59.000 So how was all of that?

00:22:01.000 I swam in a lake by call.

00:22:04.000 The largest lake, 20% of the world's fresh water is in Lake Baikal.

00:22:07.000 I've always wanted to see it.

00:22:08.000 I love, you know, evergreens.

00:22:11.000 I love pines and spruce and birch.

00:22:13.000 And I love cold, fresh water.

00:22:16.000 So I've always wanted, like passionately.

00:22:18.000 And I sauna every day.

00:22:19.000 So I always have wanted to get out of the sauna and dive into Lake Baikal naked.

00:22:23.000 And I did.

00:22:25.000 Life goal fulfilled.

00:22:28.000 I don't know why.

00:22:29.000 We all have goals.

00:22:30.000 Some people want to make a billion dollars.

00:22:32.000 I have zero interest in that.

00:22:33.000 You know, some people want, you know, whatever weird things, some like car or whatever.

00:22:37.000 I drive a crappy truck.

00:22:39.000 I'm not interested in cars, but I definitely wanted to jump and link by call.

00:22:42.000 That's not why I was there, but I did do that.

00:22:45.000 It was a 14-hour round trip flight, but I pulled it off.

00:22:49.000 How deep in Siberia is that?

00:22:52.000 Don't get me going in Siberia, man.

00:22:54.000 That place.

00:22:54.000 I mean, it's...

00:22:55.000 So America is about, what, 3.7 million square miles, including Alaska?

00:23:01.000 Siberia itself is like 9 million?

00:23:03.000 Over 5. That's insane.

00:23:05.000 Just Siberia.

00:23:06.000 It's all of North Asia is a synonym for Siberia.

00:23:09.000 And there are 12 million people in the entire place.

00:23:11.000 There are 350 million in our 3.7 million square miles, and there are 12 million in their over 5 million square miles.

00:23:17.000 So there's nobody there.

00:23:18.000 And it's just pine, fir, spruce, birch, rivers, lakes.

00:23:24.000 So if you like, let's say, western Maine and the Appalachians, where I happen to live, this is like—it's just—it's at scale.

00:23:31.000 So I love that.

00:23:33.000 I don't know if that's not really relevant to anything.

00:23:35.000 I don't know why I'm telling you this because I'm super excited about it.

00:23:36.000 But no, hold on.

00:23:36.000 We're told it's barren.

00:23:38.000 It's like there's almost this idea that it's just like flat tundra.

00:23:41.000 What you're— Oh, it's definitely not tiny.

00:23:43.000 Well, by the way, it's so huge that...

00:23:45.000 I mean, I flew over a lot of it in a helicopter.

00:23:47.000 Not a lot of it.

00:23:48.000 I flew over a tiny postage size.

00:23:50.000 But, I mean, several hours.

00:23:51.000 And at least where I was, you know, it didn't seem to look very much like Maine or Finland or any kind of, you know, northern conifer forest, which is my favorite landscape by far.

00:24:03.000 Everyone wants to go to, like, the beach and look at a lone palm tree in, like, an endless expansive ocean.

00:24:07.000 Yeah.

00:24:09.000 I want to be in place where there are trees.

00:24:11.000 It's one of my great interests in life.

00:24:13.000 But that's not why I went.

00:24:15.000 I went because we are on the verge of a civilization ending conflict with Russia. 0.90

00:24:21.000 And I don't feel like people here understand it.

00:24:24.000 And I'm just immune to criticism at this point because I just don't care.

00:24:28.000 I'm obsessed because I have so many children.

00:24:31.000 I want to get to January 20th.

00:24:33.000 That's how I feel.

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00:25:40.000 And I just know, having lived in the country for 55 years, that there are truly powerful forces arrayed against that happening.

00:25:48.000 And at this point, really the only way they can stop it is with a true catastrophe.

00:25:52.000 And there are a couple I won't even mention, some obvious ones.

00:25:55.000 But one of them is war with the world's largest nuclear arm power, which is Russia.

00:26:01.000 So they're really trying hard to do that.

00:26:04.000 The Biden administration acting through NATO and the government of Ukraine, they have been trying to do that for almost three years.

00:26:10.000 And they're really trying now, which is actually people should be arrested for that.

00:26:15.000 You can't have a guy win the majority of the popular vote in an election in which he said repeatedly, I will stop the war, no more wars.

00:26:21.000 And then the second he wins the majority of the popular vote, a mandate, a democratic mandate, you accelerate efforts to start a war that could very easily, in fact, it will, if not stopped, go nuclear and kill everybody.

00:26:33.000 You should be in prison for that.

00:26:34.000 We send people to prison for all kinds of things.

00:26:38.000 You know, Sam Bankman Freed's crimes are nothing compared to that.

00:26:41.000 Nothing.

00:26:42.000 Assad's crimes are nothing compared to that.

00:26:44.000 You know, Iran's crimes are nothing compared to that. 1.00

00:26:47.000 And I'm not in favor of Sam Bankman Freed, Assad, or Iran.

00:26:49.000 I'm picking bad people to make a point, which is nothing they've done approaches that in its recklessness or potential for mass death.

00:26:58.000 So...

00:26:59.000 I don't even understand why nobody...

00:27:01.000 People are just like in a dream state, in a fugue or something like, oh, it's not happening.

00:27:05.000 Oh, it's definitely happening.

00:27:06.000 And so I just went over there in my autistic way just to like talk to their foreign minister.

00:27:11.000 I asked...

00:27:12.000 Sergey Lavrov.

00:27:13.000 Sergey Lavrov.

00:27:14.000 I asked zero insightful questions.

00:27:16.000 He's a good English speaker.

00:27:18.000 I just opened the floor, let him talk for an hour and a half in the hope that someone would hear it and be like, oh, wow, that's interesting.

00:27:23.000 This is real.

00:27:23.000 Summarize what he said.

00:27:24.000 He said, I should say, Lavrov was a Soviet diplomat.

00:27:32.000 Incredibly sophisticated.

00:27:33.000 Yeah, he's like the longest-serving diplomat in the world, longest-serving foreign minister in the world.

00:27:38.000 He's lived in New York most of his life.

00:27:41.000 His daughter didn't even speak Russian.

00:27:42.000 I mean, he's very familiar with...

00:27:44.000 With the United States having spent most of his life here and has a million friends here since February of 2022, he's been like a criminal or whatever, but he knows everybody.

00:27:54.000 He's just a diplomat.

00:27:55.000 If you're from Washington or on the east side of New York around the UN, there are diplomats everywhere.

00:28:00.000 They'll know each other, and they're not that political.

00:28:02.000 He's one of those.

00:28:04.000 And he just said, you know, they're accelerating this and without being boring in the one sentence, the key misunderstanding of Putin is that he's a dictator with absolute power.

00:28:15.000 It's an authoritarian country.

00:28:16.000 There's no doubt about it.

00:28:19.000 You know, less than some, more than others, but that's what it is.

00:28:22.000 But the president does not have absolute power.

00:28:24.000 That's just not true.

00:28:25.000 In fact, no leader has absolute power.

00:28:27.000 Stalin didn't have absolute power.

00:28:28.000 You know, MBS doesn't have absolute power in Saudi Arabia.

00:28:31.000 People rule by consent.

00:28:32.000 And Russia is especially complex because it's so big.

00:28:35.000 It's the largest landmass in the world.

00:28:37.000 It's 20% Muslim.

00:28:38.000 Lots of different republics.

00:28:40.000 Lots of different constituencies.

00:28:41.000 And Putin is acutely aware of his popularity and of, you know, dissent in the country.

00:28:48.000 acutely aware of it.

00:28:49.000 Here's the point.

00:28:50.000 If there are continued attacks by the Biden administration on Russian soil, and enough Russians get killed, they just murdered one yesterday in Moscow with a bomb, then Putin has no choice but to act in some way that shows his rivals in the military, his population in Russia, that he's not letting his his population in Russia, that he's not letting his country get taken over, that he's fighting back.

00:29:12.000 You can't seem weak.

00:29:13.000 No leader can seem weak without risking his job, period.

00:29:15.000 That's just the truth.

00:29:16.000 That's always true in every country throughout time.

00:29:19.000 And so if Putin is made to seem weak, he will be forced to act.

00:29:22.000 And I'm not defending Putin.

00:29:24.000 I'm just noting what any honest person who knows anything about it will tell you.

00:29:27.000 He's one of the most pro-Western people in Russia.

00:29:29.000 Fact.

00:29:30.000 He tried to join NATO in 2000, whatever.

00:29:33.000 The lying is so insane, it's almost not worth even pushing back against it.

00:29:37.000 I'm not endorsing Putin.

00:29:39.000 I'm just saying if they end up killing Putin, which they've tried to do repeatedly, then you've got this nuclear stockpile that's 6,000 nuclear weapons Where do they go?

00:29:49.000 Who runs Russia?

00:29:50.000 This is like the craziest thing that anyone's ever done, and I'm filled with shame that my government has done it under Joe Biden.

00:30:00.000 I have to interrupt.

00:30:03.000 There's this contradiction, though.

00:30:04.000 When you talk to some of the war hawks and you criticize the vertical escalation, at the core is actually this embedded belief that Putin is very rational.

00:30:13.000 And they'll say, oh no, Putin won't do nuclear war.

00:30:15.000 He knows better than that.

00:30:16.000 And essentially what they're saying is like, okay, we can do interior missile launches into Russia, but the Warhawks say, but Putin will never actually respond in nuclear war. 0.97

00:30:25.000 So we're betting on the restraint of Putin, the man that we're told is a madman.

00:30:32.000 That is the argument from the neocons in D.C. It's hard for me at 55, having lived in D.C. since 1985, I finally fled, but I spent my whole life there.

00:30:41.000 My dad worked for the government.

00:30:42.000 It's hard for me to see the planners of the Iraq War, who I knew and worked for at the time, still have a voice in public.

00:30:48.000 It's like, you should be ashamed, and you should have to atone for what you did.

00:30:53.000 You killed all those millions of people.

00:30:54.000 It was a war crime. 0.92

00:30:55.000 Absolutely.

00:30:56.000 And there's still...

00:30:57.000 Because they have no shame out there telling you that they know what's up and that they have a plan and that you should listen to them.

00:31:04.000 And if you don't, you're a bad person.

00:31:05.000 It's like how they still have moral authority is so shocking to me that I can barely deal with it.

00:31:08.000 But let me just say this.

00:31:10.000 The problem with countries is the same as the problem with families. 0.89

00:31:15.000 And that is when they're rich for too long, they get arrogant.

00:31:18.000 And it produces hubris and incompetence.

00:31:20.000 And that's why the third generation in any rich family is always drunk and driving the Maserati into the tree.

00:31:26.000 I'm going bankrupt.

00:31:27.000 And you see the same thing in countries.

00:31:28.000 If you're rich for too long, you get people like Kamala Harris. 0.88

00:31:33.000 You get these...

00:31:36.000 Dan Crenshaw. 0.98

00:31:37.000 These people who have no idea what they're talking about who are so arrogant. 0.78

00:31:42.000 You don't know anything. 0.76

00:31:43.000 You don't speak the language.

00:31:44.000 You've never been there.

00:31:45.000 You've never read three books on the subject.

00:31:47.000 You're not wise.

00:31:48.000 You can't even organize your personal life in a way that anyone would admire if they knew the details.

00:31:52.000 You're totally without accomplishment, and you're driving decisions on which the lives of the world hang.

00:31:59.000 It's just crazy.

00:32:01.000 It's a lack of wisdom.

00:32:04.000 The fear of the Lord.

00:32:06.000 That's exactly right, which is itself both the product of and the way you get to humility.

00:32:12.000 You can't...

00:32:13.000 Have wisdom or knowledge of God or a relationship with God without humility.

00:32:17.000 It is the prerequisite.

00:32:19.000 I don't know what tomorrow brings.

00:32:19.000 I am not God.

00:32:21.000 I mean, it says this in James.

00:32:23.000 I was just reading it.

00:32:23.000 But it's just true even if you're not a Christian.

00:32:25.000 It doesn't matter your religion.

00:32:26.000 It's just a fact of life. 1.00

00:32:27.000 If you think for certain that you know what the future holds, you're an idiot. 1.00

00:32:34.000 And you'll be punished for that. 1.00

00:32:36.000 Period.

00:32:36.000 Because you don't, because no person can know that, because you're not omniscient.

00:32:40.000 So let's just start there.

00:32:41.000 The law of unintended consequences has never been repealed.

00:32:44.000 It is always in effect.

00:32:46.000 And it's an effect in our lives, and it's an effect in our nations.

00:32:49.000 I do this with my children, my wife, my job, also with my country, because it's always true.

00:32:54.000 And I think I'm gonna get this, but I get that!

00:32:57.000 And then I get a whole lot of other things I never thought of!

00:32:59.000 Like, that's just a fact!

00:33:00.000 And it's true at the level of foreign policy as well.

00:33:04.000 It's especially true, and then people die.

00:33:06.000 So I just don't have any patience.

00:33:08.000 Here's what we do know.

00:33:09.000 We know that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time in history.

00:33:15.000 We've had nuclear weapons for 80 years.

00:33:17.000 They've been used once.

00:33:18.000 The weapons used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were less than a hundredth as powerful as the weapons that all these seven nations now possess. 0.97

00:33:27.000 So everything is at stake, and anyone who would even risk that, like Dan Crenshaw or other morons like that, should be laughed off the stage, in fact, jeered off the stage. 0.91

00:33:36.000 You have no right to have a position of authority because you are taking my family's life and putting it at risk for no good reason. 0.99

00:33:42.000 So you can, like, seem cool on Twitter or get some job at, you know, AEI or some stupid think tank or, like, get accolades from Bill Kristol or whatever your motive is, it's not good enough. 0.93

00:33:53.000 It doesn't justify putting 350 million lives at risk. 0.95

00:33:57.000 My life, my kid's life.

00:33:59.000 It is fundamentally pathological.

00:34:01.000 It's insane!

00:34:02.000 And they're so racked with you.

00:34:04.000 You know, and I go through these thinking, like, and I don't mean to beat up on Dan Crenshaw, the poor guy's in agony.

00:34:09.000 LAUGHTER No, obviously.

00:34:11.000 I mean, he's just got no self-control.

00:34:13.000 He spends all his life on Twitter yelling at people. 1.00

00:34:15.000 Like, that's pathetic. 0.99

00:34:16.000 But there are so many people. 1.00

00:34:18.000 And then you think, well, maybe you're just evil.

00:34:20.000 But I don't think they are all evil because I know them.

00:34:21.000 And they're not evil.

00:34:23.000 What they are is diluted by hubris.

00:34:25.000 They really think they can control the outcome in a dynamic situation.

00:34:29.000 You can't control the outcome with your wife. 0.99

00:34:32.000 Nobody can.

00:34:33.000 I'm serious.

00:34:34.000 You can't make anybody do anything.

00:34:38.000 You can't.

00:34:38.000 You can't make your kids do anything.

00:34:40.000 You can't make your wife do anything. 0.99

00:34:41.000 You should be able to, I think.

00:34:43.000 But you can.

00:34:45.000 You can.

00:34:47.000 You have to get buy-in from them. 0.99

00:34:50.000 You can yell at them, shut up, I'm talking, I'm the man here. 0.98

00:34:53.000 Oh, she'll get you for that. 0.99

00:34:54.000 You know, it's true.

00:34:56.000 Fact.

00:34:57.000 Fact.

00:34:58.000 You want your wife to do something long-term.

00:35:00.000 Short-term, you can make anybody do anything.

00:35:02.000 Pull out a gun, do it.

00:35:03.000 But long-term, you have to convince them.

00:35:06.000 Consent is required in leadership.

00:35:09.000 Period.

00:35:10.000 And they've forgotten that because they've been preeminent in a unipolar world for so long. 1.00

00:35:14.000 And they become idiots. 1.00

00:35:15.000 And they don't realize. 1.00

00:35:16.000 They're like, who cares what Turkey thinks? 1.00

00:35:18.000 Well, okay.

00:35:19.000 Maybe in an ideal world, we shouldn't have to care what Turkey thinks.

00:35:22.000 But we have to care what Turkey thinks because they have a big army.

00:35:25.000 And look where they're situated on the map, Dumbo.

00:35:26.000 They're on the med.

00:35:27.000 You have to care.

00:35:29.000 Russia, who cares what they think? 1.00

00:35:30.000 They're a gas station with nuclear weapons. 1.00

00:35:31.000 Okay, anyone, by the way, anyone who says that is a moron. 1.00

00:35:34.000 Immediately disqualified. 0.99

00:35:35.000 Immediately disqualified.

00:35:36.000 Yeah, they wrote Tolstoy.

00:35:37.000 Okay, yeah, gas station. 0.99

00:35:39.000 Not only gas station attendants write Anna Karenina, but whatever, shut up. 0.99

00:35:42.000 You don't know anything.

00:35:43.000 But leaving aside that, it's like, no, you have to deal with other people.

00:35:47.000 If I said to my neighbors, I think I'm the coolest person on my block.

00:35:50.000 I think I've got the best house, the hottest wife.

00:35:52.000 That may be true or not, whatever.

00:35:54.000 But I still can't tell my neighbor, like, you know, not a word out of you.

00:35:59.000 You know what I mean?

00:36:00.000 I'm going to park on your front lawn, and if you don't like it, you know, whatever. 1.00

00:36:05.000 I'll shoot you. 0.94

00:36:07.000 Like, work for a day or maybe a week, but in the end, it's probably not a long-term strategy for, like, having a neighbor. 0.98

00:36:12.000 That's not how life is!

00:36:15.000 Anyway, whew! 0.84

00:36:17.000 Let's do some questions.

00:36:20.000 That is Alp at work, by the way.

00:36:22.000 That right here.

00:36:23.000 Sorry.

00:36:25.000 That is brought to you by Alp.

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00:37:17.000 That is a $15,000 gift.

00:37:18.000 We'll provide an ultrasound machine that will save lives for years to come.

00:37:21.000 Go to prebornbanner at charliekirk.com.

00:37:24.000 I'm a donor and you should be a donor as well.

00:37:26.000 Go to charliekirk.com and click on the pre-born banner.

00:37:29.000 Hello.

00:37:32.000 Great.

00:37:32.000 Hey.

00:37:33.000 Hello, Talker.

00:37:34.000 I just want to say thank you for removing the legitimacy of the legacy media, especially for the people on the right.

00:37:39.000 You shined a light on Fox News, and I'm very grateful for that.

00:37:41.000 Thank you.

00:37:42.000 Thank you.

00:37:43.000 Great.

00:37:43.000 I believe we see a lot of actors on the news networks and not necessarily journalists speak in their mind.

00:37:49.000 I want to know how much control the news hosts have over what they say on the networks and was there ever anything that you were extremely passionate about but could not talk about on air?

00:38:00.000 I have every incentive to be mean to Fox.

00:38:03.000 They fired me or whatever.

00:38:05.000 But I don't feel mad at Fox at all.

00:38:07.000 I'm really grateful.

00:38:09.000 By the way, let me just say, I think every man who thinks he's successful should get fired at least every five years.

00:38:17.000 And humiliated, just to make sure you don't become a total unbearable douche, because you will if that doesn't happen.

00:38:23.000 So my wife was totally thrilled that I got fired, like thrilled. 0.95

00:38:26.000 And it's not my first time, so I've been through it before, getting fired.

00:38:30.000 But...

00:38:31.000 No, but of course I have every, you know, there are people I don't like at Fox, of course, you know, but not really passionately.

00:38:37.000 I feel sorry for people who are still not just at Fox, but that business is dying.

00:38:41.000 No one believes them.

00:38:42.000 They lied too much and they kind of blew up their business.

00:38:44.000 Yeah, no, I agree.

00:38:46.000 But I can just, I'm just being honest, no one at Fox ever told me what to say.

00:38:50.000 And I was so cut off.

00:38:52.000 I had an amazing and still have the same staff that came with me.

00:38:57.000 Literally, I got fired and they all came.

00:39:00.000 I flew out with one of them today.

00:39:01.000 So I'm grateful for that.

00:39:02.000 But they kept me so insulated.

00:39:04.000 But no one ever told me what to say, not one time.

00:39:06.000 The only time anyone ever told me what to say is when they called me in the morning last year and were like, you're fired.

00:39:12.000 That was it.

00:39:13.000 And I always said to them, and to their great credit they went along with it, I was like, it's your channel.

00:39:17.000 It's your company.

00:39:18.000 I believe in private property.

00:39:20.000 Despite what I said about the banks, I actually do believe in private property.

00:39:23.000 And it's your company.

00:39:24.000 I'm just an employee.

00:39:25.000 I don't own the company.

00:39:25.000 If you don't want me to work here, you can fire me.

00:39:27.000 Until then, I'm going to say exactly what I want to say.

00:39:29.000 I'm never going to take instructions because I'm too old.

00:39:32.000 But if you don't like it, just can me.

00:39:34.000 And one day they invoke their option.

00:39:38.000 Let's get to the next question.

00:39:41.000 Yes.

00:39:41.000 Hi, my name is Alicia Morales.

00:39:43.000 I attend St. Mary's College, and I have been a lifelong listener.

00:39:48.000 I grew up to listening to you in my dad's truck.

00:39:51.000 Go your dad!

00:39:54.000 I was wondering, I go to a very liberal college, and if there's any advice that you have to give to a college student trying to put conservative ideas back on the college campus, what would it be?

00:40:05.000 Yeah, I mean, there's no one better than Charlie Kirk, who didn't even go to college, which is so great.

00:40:10.000 We're an unrecognized chapter, so we're not allowed to be a chapter on St. Mary's campus.

00:40:16.000 You know, I mean, I think it's worth getting kind of aggressive.

00:40:19.000 Like, you're paying money to go there.

00:40:20.000 It's an all-women school. 1.00

00:40:21.000 Yeah.

00:40:22.000 I mean, in the all-women school, and as a father of three daughters, like, I'm not really sort of pro-men at all.

00:40:28.000 So I love the idea of pro-women schools. 0.98

00:40:31.000 I mean, of all-women schools, but they're all, like, the most insane. 1.00

00:40:34.000 I don't know why that is. 0.68

00:40:35.000 I've just noticed that.

00:40:36.000 But I think it's important to say to them, look, you run a failing business.

00:40:41.000 Once the Chinese wake up and stop sending their kids here, you're done, okay? 1.00

00:40:45.000 You're scamming the US government with the loan system.

00:40:48.000 My parents are in debt to pay for this worthless degree.

00:40:52.000 And so you, as someone who's committing fraud, should be a little nicer to me. 0.68

00:40:57.000 And stop imposing your insane and, by the way, totally unpopular views And I just think you should be super direct with it, with them.

00:41:07.000 You know, you're paying for a service.

00:41:11.000 And so they don't have—so much of life is figuring out who is the moral high ground.

00:41:18.000 This is just the truth.

00:41:19.000 And the one thing that liberals are super good—they're not good at anything, really.

00:41:23.000 They can't build an energy grid.

00:41:24.000 They have no idea how anything works.

00:41:27.000 They're, like, helpless.

00:41:28.000 You know what I mean?

00:41:29.000 Call the super if something breaks. 1.00

00:41:31.000 Like, they're just pathetic. 0.99

00:41:32.000 But the one thing they're really talented at is immediately occupying the moral high ground and staying there. 1.00

00:41:38.000 Like, I'm on the side of children.

00:41:41.000 Democracy.

00:41:43.000 Like, standing inside Planned Parenthood lecturing you about children.

00:41:45.000 It's like crazy.

00:41:47.000 But no one ever calls him on it. 0.63

00:41:49.000 And so I think it's super important to say to them, look, you have no legitimacy, you're a criminal, and I'm in charge now because I'm paying for this.

00:41:59.000 And so you're my employee, and I'm not going to lord it over you or make fun of you or whatever, but you better obey.

00:42:07.000 Because what you're doing is really wrong.

00:42:09.000 And if you just say that calmly and smile, I mean you throw them off because they're used to like lecturing you all the time about everything.

00:42:16.000 And I think we need to reverse that.

00:42:18.000 Not in a hateful way at all.

00:42:19.000 And the last thing I'm going to say is, be cheerful.

00:42:21.000 The divide is really between people whose lives are miserable, that's why they embrace the politics of death, and people whose lives are really happy and they want to keep them that way.

00:42:30.000 You know what I mean?

00:42:31.000 Because they have the right values, they have families and relationships with God and meaningful work.

00:42:36.000 They love nature and dogs.

00:42:38.000 Not cats.

00:42:39.000 And, um...

00:42:40.000 No, it's just true.

00:42:41.000 You can have a cat.

00:42:42.000 It's totally fine.

00:42:43.000 But, like, if you're obsessed with cats in, like, this weird, morbid way, posting pictures of, like, a cat...

00:42:49.000 I mean, a cat has an agenda, okay?

00:42:51.000 And I've had cats and loved them, but if it's only cats, it's a problem.

00:42:56.000 It's a sign.

00:42:58.000 And...

00:42:59.000 That's not appealing to anyone.

00:43:02.000 Right?

00:43:03.000 So you be the light.

00:43:05.000 You bring the joy.

00:43:07.000 That is more effective than anything.

00:43:09.000 And they're like, just smile with your dog.

00:43:13.000 You know what I mean?

00:43:15.000 Good evening, Tucker.

00:43:17.000 My name's Henry.

00:43:18.000 And three years ago, my father actually passed away.

00:43:21.000 And when I got to see him on weekends, he was very quiet, man.

00:43:25.000 Your show was actually the one area of my life that really opened him up.

00:43:30.000 And it was the one thing that started conversation.

00:43:32.000 So I sincerely have to say thank you for that.

00:43:35.000 Thank you.

00:43:35.000 My question this evening is, as someone who unfortunately is going to have to move to Washington, D.C., what is the area...

00:43:45.000 homeless problem there as it's kind of threefold with drugs and the debt crisis as well as just lacking social services without the conservative perspective being kind of transitioning to that democratic approach of increased taxpayer-funded social services stuff like that i mean stop paying for it is the truth As a sober person, a long-time sober person, I have true empathy for addiction, of course.

00:44:10.000 And I mean that.

00:44:11.000 I'm just saying that.

00:44:12.000 And I've tried my best to help people with addiction, having been through it.

00:44:17.000 Homelessness is a manifestation of addiction, clearly.

00:44:20.000 But overwhelmingly, not all, but overwhelmingly, you're looking at addicts, people addicted to drugs and alcohol.

00:44:25.000 You know, stop paying for the drugs, and you get fewer drug addicts.

00:44:30.000 Don't allow the drugs.

00:44:31.000 It's hard to keep drugs out of your country, but what we're doing is the opposite.

00:44:34.000 We're just allowing them to flow in, and we're increasing, I think intentionally, the number of drug addicts.

00:44:40.000 And first, you've got to stop that.

00:44:42.000 Second, you have to stop paying the NGOs to solve homelessness.

00:44:45.000 The more money you send to the homeless representatives, the more homelessness you get, obviously. 0.98

00:44:50.000 They're disgusting. 1.00

00:44:52.000 They're poverty parasites. 0.99

00:44:54.000 And you should say that, speaking of no moral high ground, if you're a homeless advocate, encouraging people like the denomination, I won't even name it, that I grew up in, all the tents in Washington where I spent my life that the homeless are living in are provided by I'll say at the Episcopal Church. 0.97

00:45:10.000 And it's like, are you really helping homelessness?

00:45:12.000 No, you're abetting it.

00:45:13.000 You're making it permanent.

00:45:14.000 You're causing it.

00:45:16.000 And it's unfair to the homeless, but much more important, it's unfair to the people who live there, including me and my family.

00:45:22.000 This is my view.

00:45:22.000 I feel sorry for the homeless.

00:45:23.000 I feel more sorry for my kids.

00:45:25.000 By the way, who has a right?

00:45:27.000 Who pays property tax?

00:45:29.000 At some point, people who do the right thing, I think, get served first.

00:45:33.000 I feel sorry for the homeless.

00:45:35.000 I'm a Christian.

00:45:35.000 I do think the least of these are a true concern for us.

00:45:38.000 But I also think if you penalize people for working hard and paying taxes, then you don't have any society at all.

00:45:45.000 And we need to say that and not be embarrassed.

00:45:47.000 Like, no, you can't live on the sidewalk in front of my house.

00:45:49.000 I'm sorry.

00:45:50.000 How about no?

00:45:51.000 That's how I'd put up with that in my house if I had...

00:45:53.000 Whatever.

00:45:53.000 Don't get me going.

00:45:54.000 I don't want to be self-righteous about it, but...

00:45:56.000 I'll just say one of the reasons I left D.C. was the homeless thing because it made me so mad to think of members of Congress walking from Union Station, which is the prettiest train station in the United States, totally destroyed by homelessness and drugs, and stepping over the bodies of their fellow Americans dying of fentanyl to go vote for Ukraine. 0.90

00:46:17.000 And I just couldn't deal with that.

00:46:19.000 That made me so angry.

00:46:20.000 I was like, I'm becoming a hater.

00:46:20.000 I have to leave.

00:46:21.000 And I did.

00:46:22.000 That right there, like, if you are paying for more homelessness, you are by definition not serving the homeless.

00:46:32.000 And we should just say that.

00:46:34.000 We have time.

00:46:35.000 We have five minutes.

00:46:35.000 So let's try to get to two more if we can.

00:46:37.000 Charlie.

00:46:37.000 No, no, no.

00:46:38.000 This is the questions that need to be tighter.

00:46:40.000 So yes, Daisy, where are we at?

00:46:41.000 Okay, yep.

00:46:42.000 Hi, Tucker.

00:46:43.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:46:44.000 My dad wanted to know, when did you go from wanting to maybe keep your distance from Trump to openly supporting him?

00:46:54.000 Man, that's, I don't know.

00:46:55.000 You know, I've thought about that.

00:46:56.000 I was standing backstage at Madison Square Garden, and it felt totally natural.

00:47:03.000 I was actually with Trump, and it felt totally natural and fun and It was just great.

00:47:08.000 But then I had this weird moment where I was like, wow, I can't believe I'm here.

00:47:11.000 I'm speaking at a politician's rally.

00:47:13.000 Boy, I've never done that in my life.

00:47:15.000 I never thought about doing that.

00:47:16.000 I've always looked down on that.

00:47:17.000 I actually really dislike politicians.

00:47:19.000 They're the one group where, you know, contact does not create warmer feelings at all.

00:47:24.000 You always feel like, if I knew him, I'd probably like him.

00:47:26.000 That's not true for politicians.

00:47:27.000 It's like the more you know, the more you dislike.

00:47:30.000 The deeper the creepiness is.

00:47:31.000 They're actually really bad.

00:47:32.000 All of them.

00:47:33.000 So I just couldn't believe I was there.

00:47:35.000 And that's sort of the answer to your question.

00:47:37.000 It was organic.

00:47:39.000 And part of it was the shooting.

00:47:41.000 Part of it was the realization that, you know, people always say it's the most important election.

00:47:45.000 This really was.

00:47:47.000 And I felt like if the cartel, you know, Kamala Harris, I was never mad at her.

00:47:53.000 She's just like some hapless chick who, you know, fit the part. 1.00

00:47:56.000 You know, she couldn't even pronounce her own first name consistently. 0.90

00:47:59.000 Like, she was, you know, whatever.

00:48:01.000 Kamala Harris is wrecking America?

00:48:03.000 She has no idea what's going on in America.

00:48:05.000 She's not making any decisions. 0.90

00:48:06.000 She's just like a sad figurehead. 0.67

00:48:08.000 Same with Joe Biden, air quotes, assuming he even exists.

00:48:12.000 Yeah.

00:48:13.000 And no, but the people actually running things, Tony Blinken, high on that list, those people are just flat out evil.

00:48:19.000 They're risking nuclear war and they cannot do this again.

00:48:22.000 We can't have this.

00:48:23.000 So then I decided, since I don't really work for anybody anymore, I was like, it just came naturally.

00:48:30.000 And so I spoke at the Republican convention.

00:48:32.000 I didn't have a prepared speech.

00:48:35.000 I didn't even really think about it until I was standing backstage with like two minutes to go.

00:48:39.000 I was like, wow, I have to give a speech.

00:48:40.000 And I mean, I always do it that way.

00:48:42.000 You know, I never write anything down, but I don't have a speech prepared for five minutes from now.

00:48:46.000 But it's different.

00:48:47.000 I love Charlie.

00:48:47.000 It's Charlie.

00:48:48.000 And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm speaking to the Republican National Convention.

00:48:51.000 I have no idea what to say.

00:48:52.000 And it was crazy how...

00:48:54.000 Easy it was.

00:48:55.000 Yeah, because I really felt it.

00:48:57.000 I really, really felt it.

00:48:58.000 And part of it is I know Trump well, and Trump can be frustrated.

00:49:02.000 But I kind of love Trump.

00:49:02.000 It's Trump!

00:49:04.000 I'm just being honest.

00:49:05.000 I don't have to hide it.

00:49:06.000 I really do.

00:49:07.000 I like him personally very, very much.

00:49:09.000 And I just think he's brave, and I think he's great.

00:49:12.000 So it wasn't as weird as it seemed.

00:49:18.000 Last question, where are we at?

00:49:19.000 Then I gotta get Tucker on stage.

00:49:20.000 Yes, sir.

00:49:21.000 Hey, so I'm wondering, do you do nicotine?

00:49:23.000 Me?

00:49:24.000 No.

00:49:24.000 Yeah.

00:49:25.000 Okay, that's what I thought.

00:49:26.000 And then Tucker, I have one request.

00:49:27.000 Could you please pack one of your Alps when you're on stage?

00:49:31.000 The college kids would love that.

00:49:33.000 I always do.

00:49:35.000 And I, you know, I was, I've never been embarrassed about it, to be totally honest.

00:49:39.000 And I grew up in a completely different country and a society, you know, I won't even get into it.

00:49:45.000 But it was not, you know, everyone I knew used tobacco and I was allowed to use it as a young traveler.

00:49:50.000 Oh, it's so bad.

00:49:51.000 But whatever.

00:49:52.000 But I was, you know, I guess it wasn't putting in people's face, but I just don't, I don't feel bad about it.

00:49:58.000 I really like it.

00:49:59.000 And I can say after 41 years of using it, I've gotten a lot out of it.

00:50:02.000 Sorry.

00:50:04.000 You know, I don't drink.

00:50:05.000 I don't use drugs.

00:50:06.000 I just drink coffee and use a lot of nicotine.

00:50:08.000 And I guess someone should...

00:50:10.000 I've asked a million doctors, is this bad?

00:50:11.000 And they're like, yeah, it's bad.

00:50:12.000 Why is it bad?

00:50:13.000 I don't know.

00:50:14.000 It's bad.

00:50:15.000 All right, give me a good reason, okay?

00:50:19.000 Sorry.

00:50:20.000 You're not supposed to say that, but I really feel that.

00:50:22.000 So anyway, at this point, I really don't care.

00:50:24.000 I really believe that.

00:50:25.000 I would recommend it to those I love, and I have.

00:50:27.000 And so I'm going to proudly pack one.

00:50:31.000 Tucker Carlson, everybody.

00:50:32.000 Thank you.

00:50:34.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:50:35.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 24, 2024

"Bring Back Merit And Reward:" An AmFest Convo With Tucker Carlson

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