00:00:00.000Today on the Charlie Kirk show, Created Equal, a book about Clarence Thomas in his own words, pretty awesome conversation, and as well as Justin Olson, who is running for the United States Senate in Arizona.
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00:01:41.000I've said for quite a while that one of the heroes of our country that gets almost no credit, and he deserves credit, but he almost demands no credit, I should say, is Clarence Thomas.
00:01:52.000Clarence Thomas is one of the most extraordinary people alive.
00:01:55.000He is a fighter for liberty and for the Constitution.
00:01:59.000And we have with us the producers and the people behind the great film that everyone should see, Created Equal, and the soon-to-be released book that I think everyone should check out.
00:02:12.000And that is Michael Pack and Mark Paletta.
00:02:16.000Welcome, Mark and Michael, to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:02:21.000So, Michael, tell us first about the movie, or actually first tell us about the book that then inspired the movie, and tell us what you have learned from the exceptional Clarence Thomas.
00:02:31.000Well, so the way the movie came about, it's been about two years since it was released, is that a bunch of people who were friends of Justice Thomas's and knew me were concerned about how the people who hated him and the left were telling his story.
00:02:48.000So I had not known that much about Clarence Thomas at the time, but after meeting him, you quickly realized what you said in your intro, Charlie, that he's a great American with a great story.
00:03:00.000So after working on the film for a while, I came to the conclusion he should tell the story himself in his own words, that he and Ginny should be the only interviewers.
00:03:09.000And I interviewed them for over 30 hours over multiple months.
00:03:14.000You know, more, a longer interview, more access than any Supreme Court justice has ever given anyone in the history of the Supreme Court.
00:03:22.000And we worked on the film, and it was a two-hour film.
00:03:24.000It was released first in movie theaters till COVID knocked it out.
00:03:27.000And then it was nationally broadcast on PBS.
00:03:30.000And it's still streaming for those who want to see it or missed it.
00:03:34.000It's on Amazon, but it's on Salem and Fox Nation and Newsmax.
00:03:38.000And you could go to our website, manifoldproductions.com for the full list of where it's streaming.
00:03:43.000But Mark Paletta, my co-author, you know, quickly felt that there was a lot of good stuff that wasn't there.
00:03:50.000I always tell the story that as we cut the film down from 30 hours, the first cut was nine hours.
00:03:56.000And Mark thought that was the perfect length.
00:03:59.000So he has spent his time since the movie lobbying for something else.
00:04:04.000And he came up with the idea that we'd do a book based on some of the material that isn't in the film.
00:04:10.000And as you said, Charlie, the book is 95% new material.
00:04:14.000And again, unless you hear Clarence Thomas tell his story, you know, they're more or less most of it, except for a few of my questions and Mark's footnotes.
00:04:22.000They're really Clarence Thomas to talking and telling you about his life and ideas.
00:04:28.000So Mark, any thoughts on that as we get the conversation started?
00:04:33.000You know, I worked on Justice Thomas's confirmation back in 1991 and have been a lifelong friend of his.
00:04:39.000And, you know, when we met Michael and who was interested in making this film, it was just a perfect convergence of folks who wanted to tell Justice Thomas's story and a filmmaker who can tell it in the right way.
00:04:53.000And Michael is an extraordinary filmmaker, and we're blessed that he took on this project.
00:04:59.000And as Michael said, there was just so much being cut away as we were making the movie that it would be a crime, if you will, to not have some of these exchanges sort of get out to the American people.
00:05:10.000And I thought, you know, people watch a movie and some people, surprisingly here, watch, have watched it multiple times, but a book is something different, you know, and we've organized it in a way that's very, very accessible.
00:05:22.000So it's chronological through his life, just like the movie, but we've broken it up in a way where you can open up the table of contents and it's, you can look at his life and sort of go to a certain part of it.
00:05:31.000You can read it all the way through, obviously, but there's other parts where you can look at a chapter and all the subheadings, which we put a lot in, so that it's very accessible and almost like a reference book.
00:05:41.000And it's something about a book sitting on your desk or sitting somewhere where you can look at it more and just glean Justice Thomas's wisdom and thoughts on things.
00:05:48.000And that's why I thought it would be a great contribution to get this book out to the American public so they could learn more about Justice Thomas in his 30th year, right?
00:06:26.000This has been a passion of mine in terms of clearing Justice Thomas's, you know, defending his name through all of that.
00:06:33.000At the end of those hearings, of course, the American people believed Clarence Thomas 58% to 24%.
00:06:38.000So that means they thought Anita Hill was lying, and that ran across both men and women.
00:06:42.000But these were these allegations that were last minute that Anita Hill had accused Justice Thomas of talking dirty, essentially, not even, you know, it's sort of sexual harassment, but certainly no touching, all a lie.
00:06:56.000The Senate Judiciary Committee looked into it.
00:06:58.000It was then headed by Joe Biden at the time.
00:07:00.000They looked into it quickly, but thoroughly, spoke to the relevant people and came back and the Senate Judiciary Committee, including Biden, said, there's nothing here.
00:07:08.000Let's move forward with the confirmation.
00:07:11.000But then, of course, somebody leaked it and that became the spectacle that became known as the Hill Thomas hearings, where, you know, Anita Hill made these accusations.
00:07:19.000Justice Thomas, you know, credibly and firmly denied them.
00:07:23.000The other witnesses there, 12, not a single person who worked with Justice Thomas and Anita Hill, believed Anita Hill.
00:07:30.000There were 12 people who testified for Justice Thomas who had been colleagues and said nothing like this happened.
00:07:44.000And I think the American people saw through it because they broadcast it, you know, it was throughout without the filters, right, of the corporate media to tell the story the way they want to tell it.
00:07:53.000And at the end of those days, you know, the three days of hearings, they firmly believed overwhelmingly that Justice Thomas was telling the truth.
00:08:01.000The name of the book is Created Equal.
00:08:07.000So very quickly, Michael, in the conversations with Clarence Thomas, I mean, he has been under attack relentlessly for years.
00:08:15.000It seems as if they've never let the Anita Hill kind of drama stop.
00:08:20.000It's almost like that was the starting point.
00:08:22.000I believe they hate him because he is a black constitutional conservative and they just don't like that.
00:08:29.000I think they consider that, and I'm going to say something they say, a race traitor.
00:08:33.000How much do you talk about that in the book?
00:08:36.000Because I know the theme is trying to not focus on race, created equal, but it's hard to ignore with considering how the media almost emphasizes it all the time.
00:08:46.000Well, it is a lot in the book, and it's a lot in the film.
00:08:59.000And it's continued on to yesterday and the day before, really, with the attacks on Ginny.
00:09:05.000But I am shocked, always shocked at how, just as you implied, Charlie, that their left is willing to attack him using racist stereotypes and racist tropes.
00:09:15.000You know, they depict him in Ku Klux Klan Roves.
00:09:18.000They depict him as a shoeshine boy to Justice Scalia.
00:09:22.000They always call him an Uncle Tom and things that they would never say, if you could not say to a progressive black man and get away with it.
00:09:30.000And, you know, I'm a conservative and I've been attacked, but really the attacks that black conservatives sustain is really unique.
00:09:41.000No one's ever called me a traitor to my race.
00:09:44.000You know, they suffer in a different way.
00:09:47.000And it's very moving to hear Justice Thomas talk about it.
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00:10:39.000So, Mark, what is one of the takeaways from the book that you think that kind of one of our average listeners or average viewers will take away from reading this book?
00:10:49.000What do you think will be one of their things that they'll learn that they'll take away that they might not have otherwise known about Clarence Thomas?
00:10:56.000His amazing life, number one, from Pinpoint George up to the Supreme Court.
00:11:01.000But as you were talking about before, in terms of, you know, the left requiring him to think a certain way, Justice Thomas really sort of in much more detail than he does in the movie or even in his memoirs, really takes on the left and the destructiveness of their policies and why it was so selfish by the left to insist on policies that don't work, that they don't care about people.
00:11:30.000You know, we talked about the black leadership and requiring Justice Thomas to think a certain way.
00:11:34.000The black leadership is actually out of sync with Black Americans rank and file.
00:11:40.000Poll after poll on issue after issue, from school choice to abortion to affirmative action to defund the police.
00:11:46.000And so it's this crazy thing, Charlie, where Clarence Thomas is a threat to them because they have power and they get a lot of money, right?
00:11:52.000And if you go back to the confirmation, the NAACP did bizarrely oppose Clarence Thomas, but it was at the insistence of the AFL-CIO, a labor union, right, that funds the NAACP, and it provided the basis for both them and the women's groups, the pro-abortion women's groups, to attack Justice Thomas and oppose him.
00:12:14.000But you really, you know, the movie is beautiful and powerful and it's visual, but the book is going to bring you much more inside the mind of Justice Thomas and how he's talking about issues, contemporary issues, policy issues that are out there, but on his life most especially and the lessons he's learned from these, you know, these years he's been both on the Supreme Court and in the Reagan administration.
00:12:44.000Justice Thomas's memoirs went up to, they were published in 2007.
00:12:49.000It's a wonderful book, but it only goes up to the time he went on the Supreme Court.
00:12:53.000So this book talks to the justice about his judicial philosophy, about some of the cases, about his relationships with the justices like Justice Scalia.
00:13:02.000So it's a real insight into how the court works, how cases are decided, and some of these important cases that Michael spent a lot of time talking to Justice Thomas about, like Grutter v. Bollinger, which is a race case, affirmative action case with Michigan.
00:13:17.000But you really get to see the justice taking on his critics and talking about his life.
00:13:35.000You know, he writes more opinions per year than any justice on the Supreme Court, three times as many as some of his colleagues.
00:13:40.000So in terms of that influence and not seeking the limelight, he is out there laying down his vision of the law, originalism that is leading the court.
00:13:48.000And we're going to see hopefully in Dobbs, where the court is coming around time and time again to Justice Thomas's views on the law.
00:14:30.000I recommend people watch the movie and read the book, which is also available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble's and wherever else books are sold.
00:14:38.000But he does talk about that at length.
00:14:40.000And he really feels that each advocate during oral argument gets 30 minutes, and he thinks it's their time.
00:14:47.000And anything that any justice question or argument between the justices takes away from their time.
00:14:54.000And he wants to give them a chance to make their case.
00:14:57.000But maybe more importantly, as Mark was saying earlier, he talks about the process in the court.
00:15:02.000And we are very focused on oral argument, but this is an appeals court.
00:15:06.000And that's not the heart of what they do.
00:15:07.000What they mainly do is write opinions, circulate them, discuss them, where Justice Thomas takes a leadership role.
00:15:13.000As Mark said, he wrote more opinions than any other justice.
00:16:24.000You rarely see this kind of focus and commitment.
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00:17:03.000With us is Justin Olson, who is running for Senate in Arizona.
00:17:06.000I've known Justin for a couple years now, and he was our CFO at Turning Point USA and took a leave of absence to go run for Senate here in Arizona.
00:17:14.000So, Justin, introduce yourself to our audience.
00:17:47.000I'm the candidate that's defunded Planned Parenthood, defunded Obamacare, voted to ban ballot harvesting, funded the border strike force, balanced budgets, cut taxes, and the list goes on.
00:17:58.000So that's why I'm running to defeat Mark Kelly and charge up that hill to make sure that we can save our country and pass on a strong and a free country to our kids and grandkids.
00:19:20.000Yeah, I think that's because we've had a lot of folks moving to Arizona.
00:19:23.000There's a lot of resources chasing very few goods and services.
00:19:27.000You know, but the inflation is squarely due to the failed policies of the Biden administration.
00:19:34.000He took office and immediately shut down the Keystone XL pipeline.
00:19:38.000He announced that we're going to end drilling for natural gas and oil on public lands.
00:19:42.000He led an all-out war on natural gas and oil on fracking.
00:19:46.000And that drove up the price of the pump.
00:19:48.000This cost of fuel is baked into all of our products that we purchase.
00:19:53.000And so it is squarely due to the uncontrolled spending in Washington, D.C. That's going to be my priority number two right after immigration is getting control of this runaway inflation.
00:21:36.000You know, I'm the only candidate in this race.
00:21:38.000The voters don't have to take my word for it that I'm going to fight for the Second Amendment.
00:21:42.000I'm going to fight to secure the borders and end this runaway inflation.
00:21:46.000They can look and see that's what I've been doing.
00:21:48.000You know, for my work here at Turning Point as the former CFO to my public service, where I cut taxes, where I balanced budgets, where I earned an A rating from the National Rifle Association, defunded Planned Parenthood.
00:21:59.000I'm the only candidate with this proven record of conservative successes.
00:22:02.000So when it comes to these red flag laws, I'm going to fight against them.
00:22:05.000You know, we should not be losing our constitutional rights without any sort of due process.
00:22:12.000And that's what these red flags, red flags are.
00:22:14.000And I've noticed, you know, Mark Kelly's going to probably vote for this, right?
00:22:17.000But he's been a little quieter on the gun issue than I would have expected.
00:22:23.000I mean, his wife was tragically shot and survived, Gabby Gifford's, but gun control has kind of been his thing.
00:22:43.000You know, he ran as an independent, ran that he's going to be this moderate, and he's been anything but, you know, he's been a rubber stamp for Joe Biden, for Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
00:23:51.000I mean, we've seen it so many times, both in D.C. and in Phoenix.
00:23:54.000I mean, we've been let down by Republicans here at the state level as well.
00:23:59.000You know, how I resist that, it's never been part of my nature to want to go along to get along.
00:24:04.000I've been one who wants to cut against the grain, like the great Garth Brooks song.
00:24:10.000Sometimes you got to go busting in like old John Wayne and have the strength to go against the grain.
00:24:14.000I mean, that's what I did in Phoenix when I fought for balanced budgets, when I fought against the Obama Medicaid expansion, when our Republican leadership was telling us that we needed to do this.
00:25:40.000So in closing here, Justin, just tell us any other issues that are really driving and motivating you of why you're running, what you seek to fix, what you're hearing from voters.
00:25:49.000Oh, you know, there's so many issues from the cultural issues, critical race theory, to the damaging indoctrination that's taking place in our schools.
00:25:59.000But you know what really motivates me more than anything is the fact that the radical left wants to take our country down the path towards socialism, towards communism.
00:26:09.000They're no longer even try to hide that fact.
00:26:12.000They're transparent, and we know where that path leads.
00:26:15.000We've seen every time in history that these principles of big government have been tried, they failed, and they've left a path of destruction and poverty in its wake.
00:26:23.000And that's where the radical left wants to take our country.
00:26:26.000I'm running for the United States Senate to stand up and protect these freedoms that made our country great.
00:26:32.000I'm reminded of what Daniel Webster said in the 1800s when he said, Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the republic for which it stands.
00:27:32.000Look, free speech, religious liberty, and the Second Amendment.
00:27:35.000Our rights are being destroyed across the board.
00:27:38.000And look, many months ago, I told our team, I am sick of paying all this money to these cell phone providers that hate me and hate our values.
00:27:47.000So I said, go find that really cheerful guy.
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00:27:56.000And I vetted Patriot Mobile head to toe.
00:27:59.000Their business model, how they do things.
00:28:02.000And I was convinced that we must partner with them.
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00:28:25.000Patriot Mobile shares your values, and they support organizations fighting for religious liberty, constitutional rights, sanctity of life, like Turning Point USA, and veteran and first responder heroes.
00:29:54.000I think that we can all learn something at how incredibly successful a radical fringe, degenerate movement, it's like definitionally degenerate, by the way, has been able to overtake an entire American political party.
00:30:17.000And I've said this before, but repetition is the soul of memory.
00:30:22.000I grew up in a time, and I'm 28 years old, so it's not that long ago, where politicians on the left and activists on the left, they were so proud and clear about defending women and they could tell you what was a woman.
00:30:41.000In fact, we went from Brett Kavanaugh being accused by saying, believe all women, to 2022, what is a woman?
00:30:49.000Well, listen to this of the wicked witch of the North, otherwise known as Governor Grevin Whitmer, who I think is one of the more sneaky and nasty American politicians.
00:31:53.000So we looked at all the tools that I have as governor and determined that a couple unique things I can do.
00:32:01.000Number one, I have the constitutional ability to bring a lawsuit to protect constitutional rights of people of Michigan.
00:32:08.000So I brought a lawsuit on behalf of all the menstruating people in Michigan, 2.2 million, to and another tool I have is to go straight to our state Supreme Court.
00:32:20.000I brought a lawsuit for her to protect all the menstruation people of Michigan.
00:32:31.000It reminds me of Neo at the end of the first Matrix dodging all the bullets.
00:32:38.000I mean, the calisthenics you have to go through, the mental gymnastics to say, oh, what I'm not supposed to say, that on behalf of all the menstruating people of Michigan.
00:32:49.000And the reason is that she can't say they're women because not only women can menstruate.
00:32:57.000So now the new way that they define what a woman is, is they say menstruating people.