The Charlie Kirk Show - Defunding the Globalist American Empire + The Fall of Bud Light

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's on the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:02.000 Lomez joins the program as young kids get doxxed who are trying to help the government.

00:00:07.000 We also have the latest on USAID. Jack Posobiec joins the program.

00:00:12.000 What happened with Bud Light?

00:00:14.000 We recap the decline.

00:00:16.000 Bud Light stock and why it has happened.

00:00:19.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:41.000 Here we go.

00:00:42.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:44.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:46.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:50.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:53.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:54.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:55.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:57.000 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.

00:01:12.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:38.000 USAID is the ATM machine of the Central Intelligence Agency.

00:01:54.000 It is the funding mechanism of the deep state.

00:01:59.000 Do you know that we spent $1.5 million to promote DEI in Serbia?

00:02:04.000 $70,000 for a DEI musical production in Ireland?

00:02:09.000 We spent $47,000 on a transgender opera in Colombia.

00:02:14.000 $32,000 on a transgender comic in Peru.

00:02:19.000 $20 million to produce Sesame Street in Iraq to promote a LGBT gay agenda.

00:02:25.000 $2 million for sex reassignment surgery in Guatemala.

00:02:29.000 $27 million for gift bags for deportees in Central America.

00:02:34.000 Hundreds of millions of dollars for irrigation and agricultural in Afghanistan that were ultimately used to increase opium supply.

00:02:43.000 $1.1 billion to build a port and a power plant in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

00:02:49.000 A project promoted by Bill Clinton, but nothing was actually built.

00:02:53.000 $74 million evaporated in 2006 under the title of Promoting Democracy in Cuba.

00:02:58.000 And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

00:03:02.000 Joining us now is Jonathan Kieperman, founder of Passage Press, also known as Lomez.

00:03:09.000 Great to see you again.

00:03:10.000 What is your take on USAID and should it continue to exist?

00:03:15.000 Charlie, the easy answer there is no, at least not in its current form.

00:03:19.000 It's great to be here, by the way, but this question of USAID and what we've seen over the last week since Marco Rubio at the State Department has taken control and tried to...

00:03:32.000 Make transparent some of the funding schemes going on there has really got me and I think a lot of people really heated because it's very clear that what USAID is doing is the exact opposite of what is in the interest of the United States and the American people.

00:03:50.000 And USAID really is a kind of perfect microcosm of both the stupidity and the malice.

00:03:57.000 of the unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats who run our State Department and use our tax dollars, the money that we make and that should be helping our people and supporting our interests instead goes to spreading this international ideology.

00:04:17.000 What we might just call international wokeism for the benefit of their own pockets and of their own interests, which again are entirely divorced from the interests of the American people.

00:04:29.000 So, you know, I'm really glad that this is now out there, that this is a discussion we're having.

00:04:35.000 And what was previously so opaque about some of this funding and this waste is now open for everyone to see.

00:04:44.000 I want to thank, by the way, Data Republican, a great account on Twitter, also put together a tool at datarepublican.com where you can go and search this stuff for yourself.

00:04:55.000 So I encourage you to go to datarepublican.com, type in USAID to the grant search tool, and see what comes up.

00:05:02.000 I just did this, okay?

00:05:03.000 And here's just one small sample of something I found.

00:05:07.000 $30 million going to an organization called Creative Associates International.

00:05:13.000 What does Creative Associates International do?

00:05:16.000 They fund women in the Guatemalan Highland to stitch their own ponchos.

00:05:23.000 They also fund vague community organizing efforts in Burkina Faso.

00:05:30.000 I dare anyone listening to this to explain to me why that money being spent on ponchos in the Guatemalan Highland Is more appropriate than spending that money to fix up, let's say, the floods in North Carolina or the fires that just devastated our people in California.

00:05:48.000 And there's also some nefarious activity here as well, in addition to the extraordinary.

00:05:54.000 Talk about how this money is also used in parallel with some of the nefarious goals of our intel agencies.

00:06:05.000 Yeah, so this is right.

00:06:06.000 And I think, you know, this requires a kind of deep dive into the history of the State Department and some of our globalist policies, what some people like our friend Darren Beattie, who's now at the Department of State, has called the global American empire.

00:06:19.000 Which is really an offshoot of the neocons, going back to the Iraq War, and this idea that we could spread democracy across the world.

00:06:28.000 And we would do that by force initially.

00:06:31.000 It turns out that you can't just march an army into a place like Iraq or Afghanistan and turn it into a liberal democracy.

00:06:39.000 So over the last decade...

00:06:41.000 That strategy has transmogrified now, and we use a kind of soft power, and we use this kind of ideology of wokeness to impose the interests of this global American empire on the rest of the world.

00:06:56.000 A lot of this is represented in things like...

00:07:00.000 LGBTQI plus initiatives, things like environmental justice.

00:07:04.000 You see words like Latinx politics popping up all over the place when you search for this stuff.

00:07:10.000 Our friend Josh Howerton, he's a great account on Twitter.

00:07:13.000 He mentioned, for example, he found that a lot of Christian organizations and religious organizations around the world, this money is dangled over their head and they only get access to it so long as They allow for and accept the leftist activist views on things like LGTB issues and trans issues.

00:07:37.000 Otherwise, this money disappears.

00:07:38.000 So it's a way to sort of force this ideology onto the rest of the world.

00:07:42.000 A quick history lesson here, okay?

00:07:45.000 I'm reminded of Tacitus, who writing about the Roman Empire and quoting a leader of the Britons.

00:07:55.000 Describing the wrath and devastation of the Roman imperial army had the quote, they make a desert and they call it peace.

00:08:05.000 And you might say something like this about the global American empire, which is we raise a pride flag and we call it peace.

00:08:13.000 Otherwise known as the gay. 0.99

00:08:15.000 The G.A.E. Gay.

00:08:16.000 That's right.

00:08:17.000 G.A.E. The global American empire.

00:08:19.000 Just by coincidence.

00:08:20.000 But you make a really astute point, which is that...

00:08:25.000 When we're told, for example, at USAID by their defenders, well, we're sending American values abroad.

00:08:31.000 So we think we're sending, like, pocket constitutions to Aboriginal tribes in Australia. 1.00

00:08:40.000 Like, wow.

00:08:41.000 Like, you're trying to tell me that the poor people of Sudan are going to learn about Thomas Jefferson. 0.95

00:08:47.000 No, no, no.

00:08:48.000 When they say we're sending American values, we are sending gender transition clinics To Sri Lanka. 1.00

00:08:57.000 We're sending the worst, the lowest aspects of the radical trans agenda. 1.00

00:09:03.000 We're sending gay pride flags to Thailand. 0.80

00:09:06.000 We're trying to convert the part of the world that might not believe that there are 242 genders.

00:09:14.000 And part of this is the evangelistic component of the great American modern empire.

00:09:20.000 The religion, the state-run religion.

00:09:26.000 So, you know, the divide here is very simple.

00:09:30.000 There is the ideology of the global American empire.

00:09:34.000 This is what we call globalists, broadly speaking.

00:09:37.000 And then the other...

00:09:39.000 Foreign policy option that we have is a nationalist, American-first foreign policy.

00:09:46.000 USAID has been operating on the globalist foreign policy ideology for the last several decades.

00:09:55.000 Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, our patriots now in charge of our government, are reasserting a foreign policy that prefers And supports the interests of the American people over the rest of the world.

00:10:14.000 And part of this now is going to be revising how we spend our money and returning that money to the American people.

00:10:24.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:11:26.000 Lomas made a very astute point.

00:11:28.000 Marco Rubio is doing phenomenal.

00:11:30.000 The taking over of USAID is just amazing to see it now under the State Department.

00:11:37.000 And you could see the worst people in our entire government are getting outraged about it.

00:11:41.000 Let's just play a piece of tape here just to reinforce this.

00:11:44.000 This is the ingrate.

00:11:45.000 Ilan Omar speaking English for a change, which is nice.

00:11:48.000 Playcut70.

00:11:49.000 It is really, really a sad day in America.

00:11:53.000 We are witnessing a constitutional crisis.

00:11:57.000 We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one, and here we are.

00:12:05.000 This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like.

00:12:09.000 When you gut the Constitution and you install yourself as the sole power.

00:12:17.000 That is how dictators are made.

00:12:21.000 It's good that she's now addressing the cameras in English.

00:12:25.000 By the way, did we ever look into the fact about her whole brother thing?

00:12:29.000 I don't think the statute of limitations has expired that.

00:12:32.000 Kristi Noem should investigate.

00:12:34.000 Immigration fraud is a big deal. 0.98

00:12:36.000 A lot of people were saying that there might be something there with Ilhan Omar.

00:12:39.000 A thorough investigation, I think, is warranted.

00:12:43.000 Lomez continues with us.

00:12:45.000 So this is a very important story.

00:12:47.000 And let me walk through it, through my take, and then I want Lomas to go with it.

00:12:52.000 And Blake has this phenomenal write-up here.

00:12:54.000 I don't know if I'm going to get to all this, but it's worthwhile.

00:12:56.000 So DOGE is a special government employee project done by President Trump.

00:13:02.000 Department of Government Efficiency.

00:13:03.000 Who could be against that?

00:13:05.000 Well, we know who could be against that.

00:13:06.000 Every little gremlin of the regime is against it.

00:13:09.000 So Elon Musk has brought in...

00:13:12.000 His all-stars.

00:13:13.000 And these kids, when you meet them, meet their kids, 19, 20, 21 years old, these are the best our country has to offer.

00:13:19.000 I'm saying IQs that will melt the charts.

00:13:22.000 I met one of them, and you could just tell.

00:13:25.000 I mean, he is so smart.

00:13:26.000 He is so switched on.

00:13:27.000 Just as an example, Luke Ferreter, one of them.

00:13:32.000 Won a $700,000 prize for figuring how to use artificial intelligence to decipher ancient scrolls buried in the Roman city of Pompeii.

00:13:42.000 He dropped out of University of Nebraska to take up a Teal Fellowship, which pays talented people a six-figure sum, to drop out of college.

00:13:51.000 Actually, I applied for the Teal Fellowship and didn't get it way back when.

00:13:53.000 Good thing I didn't get it.

00:13:55.000 In response to the fact that these young prodigies are working on the Department of Government efficiency, let's put up these images.

00:14:02.000 Cut 92 through 95. They are now receiving death threats to their homes.

00:14:06.000 Their personal addresses are being leaked.

00:14:09.000 There is fantasizing going on all throughout of left-wing Twitter, which is called Blue Sky, to hunt them down.

00:14:14.000 Dom, let's please put up 92 through 95, saying Luigi intensifies, which is a direct threat.

00:14:20.000 Of course, the UnitedHealthcare killer was named Luigi.

00:14:23.000 Their personal information and addresses are now being made public.

00:14:27.000 They're being hunted down.

00:14:28.000 Antifa has been mobilized, which is the paramilitary arm of the Democrat Party, to go after these 19, 20, and 21-year-olds.

00:14:35.000 And what are they doing?

00:14:36.000 They're simply trying to make government more efficient and find duplicative costs and savings.

00:14:41.000 Lomaz, your reaction? - Yeah, I mean, this is typical of what we see from the left now.

00:14:45.000 So first of all, these kids are the perfect embodiment of what we talk about when we talk about meritocracy.

00:14:51.000 They are the best.

00:14:53.000 These are the people we want running our systems and running our government.

00:14:58.000 We don't want to scare away these people from public service.

00:15:03.000 We need them.

00:15:06.000 These kids, we need their brainpower. 0.66

00:15:08.000 We need their talents.

00:15:10.000 And so the left, why are they so angry about this?

00:15:13.000 One is they're out of ideas.

00:15:14.000 Okay, they can't argue against the kinds of things these kids are doing.

00:15:18.000 They know there's waste, but they don't want to admit to it.

00:15:23.000 And so what do they do?

00:15:24.000 They threaten.

00:15:25.000 They ostracize.

00:15:26.000 They are like cornered animals gnashing their teeth.

00:15:29.000 And, you know, frankly, I think it's largely impotent.

00:15:32.000 Although they do want to do damage.

00:15:34.000 They want to prevent these kids from being able to get jobs in the future, et cetera.

00:15:39.000 And so we have to make sure as, you know, if we're on the right here that we protect these people, we make sure when they get out of government that they have a place to land on their feet.

00:15:48.000 So that's number one.

00:15:50.000 The other thing too here that's going on is for a long time, I think the left has felt entitled to this kind of young talent.

00:15:58.000 The left has always assumed that young bright people, People are going to join their side, but there's been a vibe shift, okay?

00:16:08.000 This is palpable here, and we see it with kids like this.

00:16:13.000 They don't want to join the left.

00:16:15.000 They don't want to engage in this woke ideology that, frankly, has probably made them suffer quite a bit.

00:16:23.000 Over the course of their young lives.

00:16:25.000 And now they are on the right and they are doing what we want them to do.

00:16:30.000 And so this is something that the left is very afraid of, that there's going to be this massive shift.

00:16:35.000 Well, it's too late.

00:16:36.000 It's already happened.

00:16:37.000 The other thing here is what these kids are doing.

00:16:41.000 Is sorting through all the waste in our government and getting rid of it.

00:16:46.000 The left also feels entitled to that money.

00:16:50.000 Suddenly these whiz kids come along and they're going to turn off that spigot. 1.00

00:16:55.000 So, you know, they're angry for a lot of reasons and now they're impotently lashing out at these kids.

00:17:02.000 Frankly, I think it's beautiful what these kids are doing.

00:17:05.000 I am so happy to see them and we need to support them at all costs.

00:17:09.000 And just look across the board here, and this is very important.

00:17:13.000 We have this mass movement where we have Caroline Levitt, 27. We have these 19, 20, 23-year-olds.

00:17:21.000 I mean, this is a generational takeover.

00:17:24.000 You have this incredible senior staff, Sergio Gore.

00:17:28.000 You've got J.D., the VP, who's young.

00:17:30.000 You've got Stephen Miller, who's in his 30s.

00:17:32.000 This is the untold story of this administration because the media just doesn't cover anything.

00:17:39.000 This is a Gen Z millennial takeover of the federal government. 0.98

00:17:43.000 And we always thought it would be coming from the left, but this is the geriatric, the kind of nursing home regime that has been glide-pathing the country into oblivion. 0.98

00:17:54.000 No, the young guns are taking over the country for the better, defending the president, issuing executive orders. 0.94

00:18:00.000 Well, the president's issuing them, but putting them on the desk and offering them.

00:18:03.000 It is a generational shift.

00:18:05.000 Lomez, you're great.

00:18:05.000 Come back anytime.

00:18:07.000 The kids are all right.

00:18:09.000 And the government is getting back in the hands of the people.

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00:19:12.000 Do you guys remember that bizarre moment that was almost like the cultural bottom?

00:19:20.000 It was like the cultural canon.

00:19:22.000 The bottom of the bottom.

00:19:24.000 Where we hit the valley.

00:19:26.000 When that freak, Dylan Mulvaney.

00:19:30.000 Was paid to promote Bud Light?

00:19:33.000 Seems as if that was the low point of the kind of cultural four years.

00:19:39.000 Well, joining us now is Anson Friedrichs, author of Last Call for Bud Light.

00:19:46.000 Anson, welcome to the program.

00:19:48.000 Thank you for being here.

00:19:50.000 You are a former president of Anheuser-Busch, so I know you have a lot to share.

00:19:54.000 How on earth did that all happen?

00:19:56.000 And take us back in time.

00:19:58.000 The floor is yours.

00:19:59.000 Yeah, no, Charlie, thank you so much for having me today.

00:20:01.000 And you're absolutely right.

00:20:02.000 I mean, this really was sort of the tipping point.

00:20:04.000 And when Bud Light did the sponsorship with Dylan Mulvaney, I think that was a red pill moment for most of America when they said, we've just had enough of corporations getting involved in political issues.

00:20:13.000 We saw when the NFL got involved with having half their players kneel and accepted it.

00:20:18.000 We saw companies like Disney, who all of a sudden were promoting all of a sudden parental rights in Florida issues that were going on.

00:20:26.000 And then when Bud Light, I mean, the most American...

00:20:28.000 The most American of brands, the most American of beers, all of a sudden starts doing this controversial partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.

00:20:34.000 This is really when people had enough.

00:20:35.000 And this is when you actually saw customers left in droves.

00:20:38.000 They lost millions of customers.

00:20:39.000 The company lost billions of dollars of shareholder value.

00:20:42.000 Their profits plunged by $2 billion as well.

00:20:45.000 And this is when all of a sudden you actually saw more companies take a step back and look at some of the really controversial, divisive DEI and ESG policies that have been implemented across corporate America by the Biden administration, by asset managers like BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, by a bunch of consultants like McKinsey.

00:21:04.000 And this is when all of a sudden corporations actually took a step back and said, you know, maybe we don't need all this.

00:21:08.000 Maybe this isn't good for business.

00:21:09.000 Maybe we need to sort of reevaluate where we are as a company.

00:21:12.000 And, oh, the pendulum is starting to swing back.

00:21:15.000 This is still very relevant.

00:21:16.000 You've seen certain companies like McDonald's, like Walmart, and like Tractor Supply Company kind of step back.

00:21:23.000 But other companies are really leaning in.

00:21:24.000 It's just this week.

00:21:25.000 You have Costco, JP Morgan have doubled down on their DEI policies.

00:21:28.000 And then now there's been a lawsuit that's been filed by a lot of DEI officers at companies that are trying to undo some of Trump's recent legislative agendas.

00:21:36.000 So this is very much still a topic that is alive, and I think we're going to not be seeing the end of the DEI movement anytime soon.

00:21:43.000 So it's just amazing to me.

00:21:45.000 So I want to get into the details here of your book and your experience, but in April of 2023, if my timeline is correct, they decided to make Dylan Mulvaney one of the faces of Bud Light and kind of do this whole thing.

00:22:00.000 And the stock price was at $65.52 a share.

00:22:05.000 Now it's at $48.75 a share.

00:22:09.000 You're a former president of Anheuser-Busch.

00:22:12.000 Do you believe that this decision and the backlash has contributed in this nearly 20% decline in their stock over the last year and a half?

00:22:22.000 Absolutely it has, Charlie.

00:22:24.000 I mean, you've just seen that Bud Light, which was the biggest beer brand in America, had lost 30% of their sales, 30% of their customers.

00:22:30.000 Other brands that they have, Budweiser, plunged as deeply, and then even took growth brands they have, Niccolo Ultra and Bush Light.

00:22:38.000 All of a sudden, those started plunging also.

00:22:39.000 So it's had a huge effect on the stock price.

00:22:41.000 At the same time, the broader stock market has been up almost 40%.

00:22:44.000 So Bud Light down 20%, 30%, broader stock market up 40%.

00:22:49.000 So it's had a massive effect.

00:22:50.000 And it's not just a...

00:22:51.000 Bud Light, companies like Target, very similar.

00:22:54.000 When Target two years ago got involved in Pride Month and they were having the tuck-friendly bathing suits, as you might recall, their stock is down double digits over that time period where their biggest competitor, Walmart, who Walmart has taken its big step back.

00:23:06.000 Walmart ditched their divisive DEI policies.

00:23:09.000 They were more focused on the customer.

00:23:10.000 Walmart's stock has doubled over that same time period.

00:23:13.000 So I think it's very clear that you're starting to see this really diversion happen.

00:23:16.000 Companies that are leading into controversial DEI ESG. Those businesses are going to thrive, especially, I think, in the coming years.

00:23:33.000 And I think those businesses are going to add a ton of value to their share price.

00:23:37.000 And then also, I think they're going to add a lot of value to just our broader sort of American environment.

00:23:42.000 But the private sector and companies used to be an area where people could come together, whether you were black, white, gay, straight, Democrat, Republican, who cares, and just work on the mission of a company, be united around that.

00:23:52.000 And then all of a sudden, the workplace became a very fragmented environment over the last couple of years with companies taking...

00:23:58.000 Very controversial stance on defund the police initiatives, on overturning election integrity laws, Roe v.

00:24:03.000 Wade.

00:24:03.000 And there was no reason for this.

00:24:05.000 I think that further inflamed a lot of the division in this country.

00:24:09.000 Some companies have learned their lesson.

00:24:11.000 I think other companies have not.

00:24:12.000 And that sort of message is, I think, still being written and will continue to be written over the next couple of years.

00:24:18.000 And we'll see, really, some companies separate themselves and others continue to fall behind based off who's going to get involved in political issues moving forward.

00:24:25.000 So, Anson, help me understand.

00:24:27.000 Tell us the internal story.

00:24:29.000 How did this come to pass?

00:24:30.000 How did we go from Clydesdale's to Tranny's with beer? 0.84

00:24:36.000 Yeah, there's a short story and a long story.

00:24:39.000 So the short story is that the company really adopted really divisive.

00:24:47.000 Now, a lot of corporate America was doing this at the exact same time.

00:24:51.000 They adopted these policies because a lot of people that own Anheuser-Busch tend to be these large asset managers like BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, that get a lot of their money from progressive institutions like the state of California, state of New York, European sovereign wealth funds.

00:25:06.000 And there was a big push by these organizations, especially when Trump was first elected and pulled out of global organizations like the Paris Climate Accord, UN Human Rights Coalition, World Health Organization, that all of these large progressive institutions said, if now Trump and government is not going to solve these so-called existential if now Trump and government is not going to solve these so-called existential crises of climate change, of systemic racism, of police brutality, then all of a sudden

00:25:31.000 And for large, mostly New York and East Coast-based institutions like BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, that manage $20 trillion worth of capital, those were the ones that all of a sudden were the single largest shareholders in companies like Anaheim.

00:25:45.000 And they started telling these companies that we need you to start solving all these problems.

00:25:51.000 And all the companies really unfortunately didn't have.

00:25:54.000 Much of an opportunity to push back because these companies, they vote for shareholder proposals every single year at companies.

00:26:01.000 They put companies in ESG index funds, which is our funds that you invest money into, hoping that the companies are going to return capital.

00:26:09.000 And they were threatened to be not put in these funds or to not have the support of these large asset managers that were using other people's money to foist these policies on them.

00:26:17.000 And so unfortunately, Anheuser-Busch was uniquely susceptible.

00:26:21.000 The company was bought by a European company called InBev about 10 years ago.

00:26:25.000 This European company allowed them to, unfortunately, switch the ideology away from sort of American values, just focusing on the bottom line, focusing on shareholders, more towards this European model of being beholden to your stakeholders, being involved in programs like ESG and DEI.

00:26:42.000 So the company all of a sudden switched their focus from Clydesdales winning the Super Bowl ad meter award every single year.

00:26:48.000 Totally the greatest ads there were.

00:26:50.000 Yes.

00:26:51.000 Greatest.

00:26:52.000 Greatest.

00:26:52.000 This was by far the company that was the best in terms of winning Super Bowl Adminer.

00:26:56.000 They've won more of them than any other company, but haven't won one since 2011. And that was one of the reasons why everyone got so upset is that this wasn't Patagonia, which was well known as a left-wing environmental company.

00:27:07.000 This is Heartland, St. Louis, as good as it gets, right?

00:27:13.000 Beer drinking, just great American Midwest consumers.

00:27:17.000 And all of a sudden, they too are kind of bending the knees.

00:27:20.000 Were they just trying to be trend followers?

00:27:24.000 Did people inside the company warn them?

00:27:27.000 What was the process that this actually went about?

00:27:30.000 These guys were trend followers.

00:27:31.000 They were not leaders.

00:27:32.000 This used to be a company that was leaders in America.

00:27:35.000 Leaders in terms of setting culture.

00:27:36.000 Leaders about humor.

00:27:38.000 And to your point, they had a clear mission historically.

00:27:40.000 Bud Light was supposed to be easy to drink, easy to enjoy.

00:27:43.000 It was the most popular beer in America because it was enjoyed by people across the political spectrum.

00:27:47.000 Everybody loved Bud Light because it was about humor.

00:27:49.000 It was about football.

00:27:50.000 It was about bringing people together.

00:27:51.000 It was authentic.

00:27:52.000 It was not Ben& Jerry's.

00:27:53.000 Ben& Jerry's is a brand that tells you.

00:27:55.000 That we use ice cream to advance a socially progressive mission.

00:27:58.000 So great.

00:27:58.000 If you're eating Ben& Jerry's, it's free market, you know, go eat it.

00:28:01.000 You know that you're going to be supporting defund the police causes and giving land back to Native Americans and all kinds of things Ben& Jerry's does.

00:28:08.000 But if you drink Bud Light, you were just about, I mean, this is using the VP of Bud Light in the marketing.

00:28:13.000 It was kind of a fratty beer.

00:28:14.000 That's what it was.

00:28:15.000 And it was a fun beer.

00:28:16.000 It was kind of the life of the party.

00:28:17.000 And that's what they really lost when they tried to switch the company more from just one folks.

00:28:24.000 Mission, easy to drink, easy to enjoy, to one that was about a more socially progressive beer.

00:28:28.000 And that's where they really got caught, Charlie, when all of a sudden they do this partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.

00:28:33.000 It blows up in their face.

00:28:34.000 You have Kid Rock that's using the AR-15 to be able to take out a bunch of Bud Light cases.

00:28:38.000 And now the company all of a sudden, because they had adopted an ESG DEI policy, they couldn't apologize to their loyal customer base.

00:28:46.000 But they couldn't also go and say that we're kind of more about the Ben & Jerry's type of brand because they're going to lose even more sales.

00:28:53.000 Really quick, I want you to plug your book and answer this question.

00:28:55.000 Do you think they've learned their lesson?

00:29:00.000 I don't think they've learned their lesson because here's the deal.

00:29:02.000 If this company's ever going to be redeemed and their customers, really the path to redemption, it goes through forgiveness.

00:29:09.000 But to be forgiven, you have to admit that there was a mistake.

00:29:12.000 So I think this book, it talks about not only the mistake of broader corporate America getting involved in ESG, DEI. Programs that didn't deliver any shareholder value and were more divisive, but it really uses the story of Bud Light and uses the story of this company to tell that story to really make it easy to understand for folks because Bud Light was the biggest brand.

00:29:33.000 So we'd love you to read Last Call for Bud Light to learn more about what went wrong in corporate America and to learn what Bud Light needs to do to move forward and get its customer base back.

00:29:40.000 Thank you, Anson.

00:29:41.000 Really appreciate it.

00:29:42.000 Talk to you soon.

00:29:43.000 Thanks, Charlie.

00:29:44.000 Appreciate it.

00:29:46.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here with New Year's Resolutions.

00:29:49.000 Many of us will vow to eat healthier, and that's a good thing.

00:29:51.000 But what about your beloved pets and their nutrition?

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00:30:33.000 Resolve to provide what your pet's food has been missing with RUFF Greens.

00:30:38.000 To get your free Jumpstart trial bag, go to roughgreens.com.

00:30:41.000 Use promo code Charlie.

00:30:42.000 So good, your pet will ask for it by name.

00:30:45.000 roughgreens.com slash Charlie.

00:30:49.000 I want to thank my great friend Jack Posovic for stepping in for me for our third hour.

00:30:54.000 He's a great addition to the Salem Radio Network, and Jack is here.

00:30:58.000 Jack, welcome to the program.

00:30:59.000 Charlie, I just want to say thanks so much.

00:31:01.000 By the way, Salem Network, incredible network that they've done.

00:31:04.000 I was a longtime listener to Bill Bennett in the mornings, so it's incredible to be there at 9.90 a.m.

00:31:12.000 in Philadelphia.

00:31:14.000 So, Jack, talk about it.

00:31:15.000 You're going to be doing your show.

00:31:16.000 It would also be...

00:31:18.000 Simulcasted on Salem Radio Network.

00:31:20.000 Tell us about it.

00:31:21.000 Well, that's right.

00:31:21.000 So it's really just kind of a happy accident in many ways.

00:31:25.000 Or perhaps, you know, you could say we planned it that way.

00:31:27.000 Given that it was a Charlie Kirk idea, it was probably planned out in advance that way.

00:31:30.000 But so it's, you know, you had the 12-3, but then my show was always sort of...

00:31:36.000 Two to three.

00:31:37.000 And so the idea being that we were up on Real America's Voice at that time, but then you were covering down two to three on both.

00:31:45.000 And so we were sort of simultaneously overlapping each other.

00:31:49.000 So it turned out to be that when we were looking at this third hour, said, OK, what could we do with it?

00:31:54.000 That, hey, I was already doing a show in that hour to begin with.

00:31:58.000 And so it just sort of made sense to say, well, why don't we just put that show out and being able to have a few conversations with the Salem team?

00:32:06.000 And having them understand that I'm not only all about what their values are, but in many ways, I was able to learn the values of the conservative movement and actually learn what it means to be in a conservative in America by just listening to Salem.

00:32:22.000 And in fact, for people who don't even know the deeper backstory, humanevents.com was actually under Salem at one point, and it later went independent.

00:32:31.000 But now I kind of feel like it's it's almost like human events and Salem are rekindling that great partnership.

00:32:38.000 And so it's an incredible place to be with everything that's going on in our country.

00:32:41.000 So.

00:32:42.000 So, Jack, this is a total blitzkrieg right now that we're seeing from President Trump.

00:32:46.000 Talk about the media strategy of flooding the zone and overwhelming the system.

00:32:50.000 Do you think it's working?

00:32:51.000 Well, Charlie, it's absolutely working.

00:32:52.000 Look, I talk to journalists a lot frequently, a lot more frequently than in the past.

00:32:57.000 You know, they used to have this more antagonistic relationship, but suddenly they realized that, oh, if they want to actually know what's going on, we might have to talk to people like Jack Posovic or Charlie Kirk, and they're all telling me, we can't keep up.

00:33:08.000 What you guys are doing is so fast, and they don't realize how many years people in this movement have spent studying these issues and understanding these nodes.

00:33:18.000 So you've got Mike Benz on USAID. That's just one spot.

00:33:21.000 If you think that was big, wait till you see what comes next.

00:33:24.000 When it comes to Tulsi Gabbard and the intelligence community, RFK, with the Maha movement, with the FDA and the FTC even a little bit.

00:33:33.000 And a number of these places.

00:33:34.000 And so they didn't realize that President Trump had this ability with this all-star team that he put together to go through and be firing down on multiple avenues, multiple verticals at the same time in a place where they don't even know where to put their resources because look at the corporate media.

00:33:51.000 They've actually been downsizing over the past couple of years.

00:33:55.000 Why?

00:33:55.000 Because people are checking out of corporate media.

00:33:58.000 And then Elon comes in with X. And what does X do?

00:34:00.000 X democratizes information.

00:34:02.000 You can go right on there.

00:34:04.000 You can post anything.

00:34:05.000 Boom.

00:34:05.000 You can see what's going on in any one of these verticals and there's no censorship.

00:34:09.000 So you don't have anyone telling you what you need to think.

00:34:12.000 You can actually go.

00:34:13.000 You can watch this program.

00:34:14.000 You can watch a hearing.

00:34:15.000 You can see what's happening.

00:34:16.000 You can look up research.

00:34:17.000 You've got Grok. 0.93

00:34:18.000 You've got all these different features.

00:34:19.000 It is fantastic.

00:34:21.000 And so what President Trump has done is utilize this and his team...

00:34:25.000 The comms team with Stephen Chung, with Caroline Levitt as the press secretary, they've understood that the way to get ahead of the media is to literally drive faster.

00:34:36.000 Caroline Levitt just a couple of minutes ago announced that these illegal alien flights are already beginning down to Guantanamo Bay. 0.72

00:34:44.000 The media hasn't even been able to pick up on any of this yet because it's all moving way faster.

00:34:50.000 And I'm sorry, guys, you're going to have to start working or you're going to be left in our dust.

00:34:55.000 That is right.

00:34:55.000 Jack, one minute remaining, what is on the horizon that you're looking at right now?

00:35:00.000 Big fights where the MAGA faithful need to be aware and manning the ramparts.

00:35:05.000 Well, look, we know Tulsi Gabbard.

00:35:07.000 That's going to come up in a couple of minutes.

00:35:08.000 I feel good about this vote right here.

00:35:10.000 Of course, all of this goes down to the floor, though.

00:35:12.000 So you've got Bobby Kennedy, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard.

00:35:15.000 It still has to go down to a floor vote.

00:35:17.000 A lot of people think the committee vote is the floor vote.

00:35:19.000 I get it.

00:35:20.000 It's wonky.

00:35:20.000 It's the system.

00:35:21.000 We have to work with what we have.

00:35:22.000 But understand, none of these people have been confirmed until they're confirmed by the United States Senate.

00:35:28.000 And there's some senators out there, Charlie, who I think might need a little bit of our attention, maybe just to hold their hand as we walk them down.

00:35:39.000 Very good.

00:35:40.000 Jack, good luck.

00:35:41.000 You have a program in about 20 seconds, so get ready for that.

00:35:46.000 Jack, thanks so much.

00:35:48.000 We'll be all right, Charlie.

00:35:49.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:35:50.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:51.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 05, 2025

Defunding the Globalist American Empire + The Fall of Bud Light

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