In this episode, Mikey and Blake talk about their trip to Asia with their good friend, Charlie Kirk. They talk about what it was like to be there with him, and how it was a turning point in his life.
00:00:58.000Uh it's crazy to think that was just three, four days before Utah.
00:01:02.000And we it was Charlie's dream to always go to Asia.
00:01:05.000And Blake and I got the gift of being able to tag along for that.
00:01:09.000Uh and so I brought the camera with me.
00:01:12.000I've never traveled with a camera before, but I decided, you know, it would be a good idea to mic Charlie up, do some content with him while we're there.
00:01:20.000And so we put together a little teaser.
00:01:23.000There's some speeches that are gonna be coming out soon, podcasts that are gonna be coming out soon.
00:01:28.000Never before seen, so this is exciting, this is new.
00:01:31.000But uh number two, ninety-two at you calling Sots.
00:02:48.000It was it was called Build Up Korea 2025, and it was so amazing to see.
00:02:53.000It was it literally was they're like, you know, we say it, you know, Charlie would want to imitate people who were successful, so we'd learn from people he would do a lot of the rush stuff because he's like, well, Russia's successful.
00:03:02.000So this is people doing the same thing with Charlie Kirk.
00:03:04.000They're like, I want a successful youth conservative event.
00:03:08.000Turning point is a successful Let's do a turning point event.
00:03:12.000So it's got the it has like the cracking me up when you guys are sending the clips.
00:03:16.000I was like, It has like they just literally really looked like same backstage area, same shape.
00:03:20.000Sparkling rooms, the sparkling, same fireworks, same like synth wave color scheme, like you know, like it's out of the eighties sort of.
00:03:28.000And the funny part is right at the end, they're going, USA, USA.
00:03:38.000They had exhibited hall, and some of them were very Korean, but one that I got a kick out of it was like the 1776 Institute, and it was a Korean, like US fan club.
00:03:47.000It's like, oh, what you can learn from the American founders and how awesome they are, and I was like, yes.
00:04:02.000And they just started singing and praying over Charlie, which was interesting, like full circle moment because the same some of the worship leaders at the the event for Charlie's memorial sang that same song.
00:04:16.000And it was it was a basically like two weeks to the day later that they they the song that these Koreans were worshipping and praying over Charlie that was ended up being sung at his memorial, but y he put his hand on his heart and you told me it was one of the few times you'd seen him get emotional.
00:04:33.000So he they called him on stage, they said we had one last gift for you, Charlie.
00:04:37.000And so he didn't know what it was, but he went out on stage and she spoke to the crowd in Korean, then all of a sudden the piano starts playing and starts, how great is our God.
00:04:46.000And they're singing it, and it's I keep saying beauty transcends even language.
00:04:51.000Even though that song was in Korean, we all knew what song they were singing.
00:04:55.000And they they came and then they were praying over him.
00:04:57.000They said something in Korean, they yelled it out loud.
00:05:00.000And uh a week and two or two weeks later, two weeks and two days later, that that song would be sung at Charlie's memorial.
00:05:10.000It warms my heart knowing that he had this overflowing of the Holy Spirit and God and prayer that he got to just bask in and feel the love in that way.
00:07:57.000And there's Pastor Sun, S-O-N, and Charlie was talking to him, he was and he was talking about politics from the pulpit, which you can't do during an election season in Korea, but he was doing it anyways.
00:08:07.000And Charlie's like, let me take a picture with you.
00:08:09.000So he took the picture, and we left Korea two days after we left Korea.
00:08:14.000The pastor was arrested and is in jail right now.
00:09:53.000Usually foreigners who were also there, but there was at least one guy from Japan who did recognize him, and a lot of Koreans recognize him.
00:10:00.000Actually, there was that group of kids.
00:10:01.000Remember in Tokyo, they came up to him and they're like, those were Korean, I believe.
00:11:32.000They had no idea who we were, and I think Charlie.
00:11:35.000Charlie absolutely enjoyed, you know, being an activist on a big scale, but I think he also enjoyed that he could actually wander around Seoul and not be spotted by the city.
00:11:43.000You mentioned in your thread on X that you because one of Charlie's big missions was restoring the family, increasing marriage and having babies, and he was even taking that message to Seoul in South Korea.
00:11:56.000But you said it was kind of you guys noticed as you were walking around the lack of children.
00:12:31.000They'd get in lines where the things would stop, and you could tell where it would stop because it kind of had a very precise little window that it would be at.
00:12:37.000And they would have it would basically be three people wide, and they would get two parallel lines with a path in the middle for the people who were going to get out.
00:12:46.000And not only would they do that, they get on and off the train in that orderly way.
00:12:51.000Like once the train was kind of just getting a little too full, the people would just stop and they would wait for the next train.
00:12:57.000Like they did not actually pack to the gills where like you were you're maximizing the number of people in there.
00:14:12.000You said you saw these like empty playgrounds.
00:14:15.000Yeah, so there was like a playground by there's a big Korean war like museum monument, and I went to it, and there was a very nice playground next to it, but it was totally deserted.
00:14:25.000It also had a very fun sign that had all the different fines you could receive if you broke the rules.
00:14:30.000Like if you captured and tamed an animal, that was one of them.
00:14:34.000And it had a little fun photo, or it was like this man with kind of little gnome thing.
00:15:04.000He wanted to go see the MacArthur statue, which is the same.
00:15:07.000When you fly into Korea, you land at Incheon International Airport.
00:15:10.000And Incheon is during the Korean War, uh, a very important battle is fought there where we're losing the Korean war, we're at the bottom end of Korea, and General Douglas MacArthur, he does this very daring maneuver where he sails 200 miles north behind the North Koreans, and he lands at Incheon.
00:15:41.000And Charlie was he's walking up, he goes, Wow, I wish we had statues like this in America.
00:15:47.000And he walks up to the statue, and Blake, if you could read this, he reads these words out loud.
00:15:53.000There is no boundary in justice, nor is there any obstacle to struggle, mountain, or sea.
00:15:59.000A man who executed such a struggle in the spirit of justice to the triumph of the cause of the free world and to the gratitude and admiration of mankind is the man whom this statue represents.
00:16:54.000They bring they have this like platter, almost like a silver platter that they put the microphone on, and so when it was Charlie's turn to speak, they kind of walk up to him and they just present this mic to him on his other thing I remember that was so funny was like just the way they're so deliberate about things.
00:17:10.000Like, we had that meal, and like Charlie just wanted to eat fast, but it was like a Chinese restaurant that was like one thing at a time, and he just after two courses like I'm out, goes and takes a nap.
00:18:59.000It was mass immigration that took down the British Empire.
00:19:03.000So you must enter with a sense of cautiousness, but also immediacy to communicate in real language that in real words that this can have a very serious impact on what people care about most.
00:19:18.000There's right after that speech, he did a report, uh a reporter of CNN interview.
00:19:25.000Blake made a joke, no matter where you are in the world, CNN's still CNN.
00:19:28.000And she said, Don't you feel like your speech was a little xenophobic?
00:19:33.000And Charlie goes listen, I think we can both agree.
00:19:38.000If we import 40 million Pakistanis into Japan, Japan's not Japan anymore.
00:19:49.000Yeah, and it's people are commenting that's the slowest I've ever heard uh CK talk, and it's like, well, he had to speak slow so the translators could translate him, so he's being very deliberate in his pacing.
00:19:59.000Because normally, yeah, Charlie could rattle off things pretty quickly, and we we we're all accustomed to like editing clips and listening to things at 2x speed.
00:20:06.000So we're that was an extraordinary slow for for for my ear.
00:20:12.000Our good friends at Angel Studios, I love Angel Studios, amazing new film uh this holy week, phenomenal.
00:20:19.000Is I think about Charlie's life and how much of a support he was of Angel.
00:20:24.000It's hard not to feel so grateful for what he did.
00:20:27.000He supported us in our darkest days and in our brightest hours as a company.
00:20:32.000Jeff and I and Charlie were doing lunch together.
00:20:34.000We asked him, he said, Are you are you at all worried about one of these college campuses?
00:20:38.000And he just said with so much peace in his in his eyes and so much peace in his heart.
00:20:43.000If that's how God takes me, then that's how I'm supposed to go.
00:20:46.000But I feel like that was a clear message that Charlie's life is a testimony to Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior, and his relationship with him was the most important thing that he would want the world to remember about his legacy.
00:21:00.000Man, are we grateful to have gotten to be a little connection in the multitude of connections that he made throughout his life because it was so impactful to us.
00:22:23.000I mean, I know we talked about this, we prayed on it.
00:22:27.000We really tried to Um discern properly how to go about the next few stages and steps of everything.
00:22:39.000And we've been very intentional in a way that always keeps Charlie first and his dreams alive and his legacy going.
00:22:51.000And what's so beautiful is to see all of you step in and do that.
00:22:58.000And so part of the reason why I wanted to, I agreed to come on, because this is not going to be a forever thing of me being on the hosting the show.
00:23:08.000Um was because I I gave assurance to people that Turning Point USA is continuing.
00:23:38.000And the show when we talked about this became very intimate for me because I was there from the beginning of all of it.
00:23:50.000And I'll never forget 2020 when literally the world stood still.
00:23:56.000And Charlie and I would go hiking every morning.
00:24:00.000And we would just talk about what life, the crazy things going on, and we came home from one of our hikes uh that that time that season, and my mom pulled him aside in the kitchen, and she goes, honey, they had a very good relationship.
00:24:24.000We joked around that he was a favorite child.
00:24:26.000Uh but she loved him, still loves him.
00:24:29.000And she said, you know what, honey, she said, God has blessed you with an amazing voice.
00:24:37.000And you will be the Rush Limbaugh of your generation.
00:24:42.000And two days later, you and him engaged in conversations about the show and about the podcast.
00:24:50.000Well, it was it was hey, we're gonna be doing uh about five more episodes a week now.
00:24:55.000So uh just tell the team and make sure that happens.
00:24:58.000Three hours of this, two more hours of podcasting, like it just and it it just and he ran with that and the team ran with it, and to see the Charlie Kirk show grow from that moment until now has been so humbling and beautiful, and he loved every single day, he read every email.
00:25:21.000I know you guys have said that so many times, but I can vouch for that because there were times where he would forward me some of the emails that he would get, and he wouldn't even say anything, he would just forward the email.
00:25:32.000And to me, it was almost like an extended form of family where you guys were the you guys were the pulse point of and the connection point of turning point USA, TP action, the Charlie Kirk show.
00:25:53.000It was a triple threat, and the audience was the master and main component of that because Charlie and the Charlie Kirk show is not just a show, yeah, it has a movement attached to it, it has the youth movement attached to it, and so for Charlie, the audience was a barometer of what do we need to be focusing on?
00:26:17.000How many times did a listener send in something and say, Hey, this is going on, you need to dig deeper in this or check this out.
00:26:25.000And Charlie's show became and still is, and I'm gonna get there in a second, but Charlie's show became the North Star for freedom of speech, but in a way where when he spoke and whatever came across his desk or whatever he put on the air was right.
00:26:44.000Yes, it wasn't inflated, it wasn't awkwardly optimistic that had no leverage behind it.
00:26:55.000Extremely grounded wisdom of the audience, and but not only that, he had a team, still does All of you that was the sounding board of that and collectively, each one of you are a piece of his brain.
00:28:11.000What's happening is the team is keeping this alive because we have Charlie and each and every one of us, and it is going to be continually the North Star of the conservative movement of the voice of the youth, of the voice of the base, and that will not end.
00:28:29.000And the members only will continue to grow, and that will be the tight-knit network of family members that supported and loved Charlie and the team.
00:29:20.000Everything he would not do a speech unless we could get the video and the 100%.
00:29:24.000So we have speeches that no one's heard of.
00:29:27.000We have interviews that no one's heard of.
00:29:30.000We have stuff from Korea and Japan that no one's heard of.
00:29:34.000So I mean, in the words of my husband, buckle up because there is a lot of content to be had, and we have so many amazing things down the pipeline that we are working on currently that will unveil in due time.
00:29:54.000We uh we were working on some big things, you know, right up until the end.
00:29:59.000And you know, we've talked about that a lot.
00:30:01.000Like a lot of the the guiding vision that we're using right now to kind of steady the ship and figure out where we're going is the things Charlie himself told us where we were going.
00:30:26.000We have the blueprints, we have our marching orders, and we are just remaining humble and grateful to God, and we're main remaining just stewards to what God has blessed us with.
00:30:38.000And I know Charlie's going to continue to guide us, and the Lord will continue to guide us.
00:30:41.000And I just wanted to let everyone know that this is far beyond any of us sitting in these chairs.
00:30:48.000This has nothing to do with us, it never will.
00:30:51.000Uh the the glory all to God on that on that front.
00:30:57.000It's weird to say excited, but it it's also very surreal to say it because I know that God will use all of this in a way that will glorify him, further Charlie's legacy, and Charlie's up in heaven, just having He's rooting us on.
00:31:31.000And I just remember being like, huh, yes, thank you.
00:31:34.000I needed to hear that because it's it it is a little awkward.
00:31:38.000Now we're not we're not gonna use it for like random stuff, but for very specific things.
00:31:42.000For his voice for things he cared about for movements he cared about for causes he cared about, those those socials, and also too to support Turning Point USA to be the barometer of what's going on, to be the pulse point.
00:32:18.000That he built those because he knew that being a voice for the Lord and being a voice for everything that is good and beautiful in this world, and also, yes, the youth, he used that as the North Star, and we will continue that.
00:32:34.000And we'll it'll be it'll be done tastefully, it will be done appropriately, and I I'm excited for all of it because we have a good team.
00:32:45.000You have every right to be after everything that that you've been through, what the team has been through to see it's it's like I keep saying Charlie's almost sp spark uh sprinkling his little Charlie Kirk magic dust on everything, and I mean that in a in a very Christian sense that the that Charlie lived such a remarkable life, and his mission was so big that in death you cannot contain it.
00:33:09.000It unleashes something even greater, and it's on us, and Charlie would look at us and expect us to do the right things here.
00:33:17.000And I would say, look at the memorial.
00:33:19.000I know the memorial is the proof point that the team that Charlie put together can do the impossible, and God's blessing was on that.
00:33:26.000So there were so many prayers, and I know you feel the prayers because I feel them.
00:33:30.000If I feel them, you must be feeling them like a hundred hours.
00:33:33.000All of them matter, and and we are going to we will never be silenced.
00:33:38.000We will never be silenced, and that's why having continuing his platform in a beautiful, honorable way will reinforce that we will never be silenced.
00:33:50.000Well, so we have gotten so many questions about these little toys the puppets, yeah, and uh what they are.
00:33:59.000We of course know what they are, but why don't you tell the audience what they so every day when Charlie would go into the office, he would see our daughter, and she would just be playing, and she would look at him.
00:34:15.000She couldn't email, but this was her version of emailing.
00:34:19.000Every day she'd watch the show, and she did it because daddy would take the item that she gave to him and have it on the show with him.
00:34:29.000And sometimes she would he would say, like, this is the item that my daughter gave me.
00:34:34.000Sometimes he wouldn't, just to see if she was really watching.
00:34:38.000And so when she when he would come home, she would be like, Daddy, I saw I saw the puppet on the show today.
00:34:47.000Daddy, I saw the moose on the show today.
00:34:49.000Daddy, you brought you brought baby buff buff on the show today.
00:34:53.000Like, so that was their little connection point of and he loved it too, because it was a little piece of her that he could have with her on the show, but those little moments of it and I loved it too because it you know, Charlie was known for so many things, and I think people just love seeing that side of him.
00:35:23.000Yeah, if Gigi made him something, or if she puts a sticker on his shirt or a sticker on his face, or gave him a figurine to bring to work, he did it and he loved it.
00:35:33.000He didn't care what other people thought.
00:35:37.000I don't think it even occurred to him to think about what somebody else thought about that.
00:35:41.000Um, so I we I we talked about kind of some of the things we wanted to just say in this last segment.
00:35:47.000And you know, I really believe, and you knew this so well of how much this audience meant to him.
00:35:53.000And I said this actually in my speech at the memorial that you in the audience were his firewall because you gave him so much confidence when he would go in these fancy rooms and with these fancy people and these elites, and they would say, Well, this is the way it is, this is the way he knew they were wrong because of you in the audience.
00:36:12.000Yeah, and you always would send him freedom at Charlie Kirk.com, and we want to commit to you right here and now on this show and you're gonna be part of this a hundred percent that we are going to read all of the emails just as we have always done that you send to freedom at Charliekirk.com it might be rule by committee it might be sort of uh I get to some of them Mikey gets to some of them Erica but they will be read they will be read we'll get to it we will get to it all of them and you guys are so important to him and we were talking about this in
00:36:42.000donor meetings in private meetings even at the White House when people would be wrong about something he would triple double down and he would say to them no you don't understand you are wrong about this I'm in touch with my audience I read their emails every day so they don't like what you are doing fix it.
00:36:58.000Yeah we're gonna do that we're committed to it right yeah very proud of that and I just also want to say thank you to the audience because in the days immediately after I mean we looked at each other a couple of times going like what are we gonna do here?
00:37:13.000And uh so many of you guys signed up to become members members dot Charlie Kirk dot com so many of you bought the t-shirts at Charlie Kirkstore.com that you gave us this breathing room in this really hard time and it was like we don't know what's gonna happen we don't know if we've got a show we don't know what any but we we committed to the staff we're gonna keep you we're gonna keep you and and you committed to him very clearly maybe s maybe say something I said you're not going anywhere.
00:37:40.000You can choose to leave any of you can choose to leave but you are a part of the Charlie Kirk family Charlie Kirk show family and we need you each one of you serves a purpose and a role and again if the enemy tries to come in and divide you'll be able to see that very clearly but we will all remain a united front and the show will continue.
00:38:05.000I mean a little behind the scenes here Erica D's speech where I'm standing right now on the podium somehow got through that her national dress then she walks out there to where all of our staff are and she then goes on to do another speech to all the staff telling him you're not going anywhere.
00:38:22.000We're keeping the lights on we're doing everything I I mean watching that I was blown away we were all inspired we knew that um that Charlie chose well Erica.
00:38:32.000Yeah and you chose well you both chose well and uh the world is seeing your love affair in a new in a new new way.
00:38:41.000I just am very proud of all of you I'm grateful for all of you I'm grateful for the audience and I'm really looking forward to how this show is going to continue to be blessed and continue to be a voice for all of Charlie's causes and continue to just empower and enhance the legacy of my husband and I'm just so grateful.