The Charlie Kirk Show - February 24, 2026


Dennis Prager on God, Evil, and Charlie


Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

152.70213

Word count

6,075

Sentence count

447

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Oscar Ramirez is a reporter on the ground in Mexico reporting on the situation in the wake of the death of Nemesio Oseguera El Mencho. He tells us how the situation is escalating and how the government is responding.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.
00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.
00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.
00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.
00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.
00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.
00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.
00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.
00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.
00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter.
00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.
00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.
00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.
00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.
00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.
00:00:45.000 Here I am.
00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.
00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:49.000 Here we go.
00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000 All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:11.000 We are joined by Oscar Ramirez.
00:01:13.000 He's a Real America's Voice border correspondent.
00:01:15.000 And with everything that happened over the weekend with El Mencho, we wanted to have on the ground reporting.
00:01:22.000 So, Oscar, welcome to the show.
00:01:25.000 Tell us, where are you, or if you can tell us roundabouts where you are, and where is some of the worst violence happening?
00:01:34.000 And is it still happening?
00:01:36.000 Well, after the assassination and the execution of Nemesio Oseguera El Mencho, the violence started escalating in the parts, the tourist areas, in the part of Puerto Vallarta, and escalated to the parts that they have enormous control, that is, Michoacan and the parts of Guerrero, and also in Jalisco.
00:01:51.000 But this perplexed and it just caused a domino effect.
00:01:54.000 And it started happening in the north borders in cities like Tijuana that we are located.
00:01:58.000 What, you know, they started doing narco blockades, burning cars, burning businesses to send a message to the government and to tell them that we have presence on these particular neighborhoods or tourist areas and that we are going to terrorize the citizens and to let them know that they are critically hurt because the head of the snake was completely eliminated at this particular moment.
00:02:17.000 And they started doing this in the part of Tijuana, you know, burning cars, burning businesses.
00:02:22.000 Until now, yesterday, we were reporting on the ground more than 22 incidents happened.
00:02:28.000 What it means, incidents between vehicles and also businesses that they were burned, sending a message strongly to the government of Mexico to tell them we have a lot of presence on these particular estates in the whole country and the whole territory.
00:02:42.000 Now, a thing that is extremely important, just today, breaking news, the head of the military and the head of the Department of Defense in Mexico just made out a statement and an interview said that this was a clear collaboration with the United States of America in regards to the United States providing the intelligence to do the execution by the federal government of Nemesio Oseguera El Mencho.
00:03:06.000 The violence right now, it was increasing last night.
00:03:09.000 It's here in the city of Tijuana that is connected to San Diego.
00:03:12.000 There was still burning of vehicles continuously in several areas.
00:03:16.000 But until now, schools have been off limits.
00:03:19.000 Now they closed the schools.
00:03:20.000 They closed the educational systems of elementary, junior high schools, high schools, and colleges.
00:03:25.000 Businesses are closed for security reasons of the citizens.
00:03:28.000 There has been multiple threats on social media groups by, you know, these, you know, particularly pages that they are in cahoots with the organized crime, telling the population that they're going to start shooting civilians after 10 o'clock at night.
00:03:42.000 Is they still walking?
00:03:43.000 It is a huge national security threat.
00:03:46.000 I, you know, I did a video on a report on a vehicle that was burned just steps away from the border, from the border wall.
00:03:53.000 This tells you the level of audacity of the cartel, and they burned that vehicle in front of a post on the territory in the American territory.
00:04:01.000 This post that has a huge camera from the U.S. customs that basically tells you that they did it on purpose just to tell the American government, we know that you provided the information for our leader to be executed.
00:04:12.000 So, at this moment, the federal government has released statements that they will provide the security that it needs to be provided for tourists and also deployment of more military to the whole continent, to the whole country of Mexico.
00:04:24.000 I have a bunch of questions here.
00:04:26.000 As far as where the CJGN cartel, the Cartel Jalisco new generation, where does it rank in terms of the most violent, most powerful cartels in Mexico?
00:04:38.000 That is the number one right now.
00:04:39.000 Nemesio Seguera El Mencho was one of the most violent ones and atrocious ones.
00:04:44.000 That clearly he sent a message to the population and to the world of decapitations, dismembering bodies.
00:04:50.000 And he's the one that is basically pointing out to the multiple hundreds of thousands of mass graves that they have been found in our country of Mexico, missing people, extraction of organs, you know, and all this atrocious acts towards women in the country.
00:05:07.000 Oscar, I think that's really baffling me.
00:05:08.000 So, 25 members of the National Guard killed, obviously, throughout the country.
00:05:12.000 I'm reading the LA Times this morning.
00:05:14.000 Mexican president Claudia Scheinbaum insists the country is at peace and remains calm after what's going on.
00:05:22.000 What's her attitude towards all of this?
00:05:26.000 It seems like she strikes a very strange tone with her remarks.
00:05:30.000 And I guess the follow-up is: what's next?
00:05:32.000 Is this a spasm of violence, or is this going to turn into a wider, I don't know what else to say besides war?
00:05:39.000 Well, the Mexican people that we have common sense, and there's millions of us, we know who perpetrated and who did this mission and who initiated this mission. 0.97
00:05:47.000 And it was the American intelligence.
00:05:49.000 If it wasn't for the Trump administration, this that just happened would have been done.
00:05:54.000 And all of this that has been happening in the country of Mexico, the dismantling laboratories, the extraction of criminal leaders and leaders of cartels are being extracted to the United States of America, you know, the execution of Nemesio Seguera El Mencho, all of this wouldn't be happening.
00:06:08.000 Now, the Mexican president, she has an agenda and it's a leftist socialist agenda. 1.00
00:06:12.000 And she needs to pander to her audience to say, we are not letting the gringo, we're not letting the white man to come and invade and intervene in our country, but we are collaborating so-and-so, and quote unquote. 0.94
00:06:23.000 We are collaborating with the American government for them to provide information and for us to execute.
00:06:27.000 That is how she's maneuvering this.
00:06:29.000 And of course, she's saying that this, all this mission was executed by the federal government, but now she's obligated to say that the American government are providing the information.
00:06:40.000 This is history, guys.
00:06:41.000 Nobody in history in the United States of America has had the more extraction of information that the Trump administration has right now.
00:06:48.000 And why do I say that?
00:06:49.000 They have El Chapo Usman, they have El Mayo Sabada, they have Nicolas Maduro, all the extraction of information of how Mexico works and how corrupt all these dirty politicians that they're located in the Senate and Congress in Mexico.
00:07:01.000 So the Trump administration basically knows the ins and outs of the government, and they need to bend the knee.
00:07:07.000 When the Trump administration says we're going in is we're going in.
00:07:10.000 Yeah, so my question is, Oscar, is does this signal a change of policy in Mexico?
00:07:16.000 Is this a turning point?
00:07:18.000 Or is Claudia Scheinbaum doing this kicking and screaming? 1.00
00:07:21.000 And this is kind of going to be a one and done.
00:07:23.000 What's your prediction?
00:07:24.000 Well, the Mexican people are going to demand more now if they had the capacity to execute Nemesio Seguera El Mencho and why you're not going through several states and controlling these things that they're violently and critically controlled by the organized crime and the carter. 0.68
00:07:36.000 So basically what the pressure of the American government is doing right now to Mexico is for the Mexican people to demand more from the Mexican government for them to execute this mission.
00:07:47.000 If you were precise and if you, you know, we lost some good ones, we lost some military men on this mission.
00:07:53.000 But if you went over there and you executed the mission, why you're not doing that on every state?
00:07:57.000 So it's going to have an effect on the senators, on the opposition, on the conservatives, on the Christians, on the Christian senators and Christian congressmen that they are in our country to demand more from the opposition.
00:08:12.000 Yeah, so Oscar, that's my question.
00:08:13.000 Because the cartel is so interwoven with just basic businesses and the hotels, and there's this, it's hard to draw a line between official government business and cartels, right?
00:08:25.000 And will the people demand this?
00:08:27.000 Will the you know, is there popular support for more action against the cartels?
00:08:33.000 And will is there enough will within the official government structure of Mexico?
00:08:38.000 Absolutely.
00:08:39.000 Absolutely.
00:08:39.000 And it is happening right now.
00:08:41.000 And also, what the Trump administration has done is that they have given the courage to senators on the opposition and on the right of Mexico to go and basically on Congress and on the Senate and expose the left-wing political party and say you're corrupt.
00:08:54.000 You're involved with the organized crime in the cartel.
00:08:56.000 You know, one of the things that got viciously exposed is how this criminal organization had so much control over states and how they have the audacity to terrorize the citizens.
00:09:06.000 And they're still doing it until this point.
00:09:08.000 So it's basically exposing the, you know, the weaknesses of our government.
00:09:12.000 And the Mexican people know that right now at this moment.
00:09:15.000 So do you predict more violence in the days and weeks to come?
00:09:18.000 I will not recommend American citizens to travel right now to several spots and several tourist spots.
00:09:23.000 You know, it is kind of agitated and let this sink in for the next couple of days for the federal government to have more control over really rural and difficult and tough neighborhoods.
00:09:35.000 I believe that it's going to escalate a little bit.
00:09:37.000 Inner wars are going to happen.
00:09:38.000 And let's see who takes charge of this criminal organization.
00:09:41.000 That is going to be the next step of how they're going to fight among each other for territory.
00:09:46.000 Oscar Ramirez, Rav's border correspondent in Mexico right now.
00:09:50.000 Thank you so much, Oscar.
00:09:51.000 Appreciate it.
00:09:52.000 We'll have you back on as this story develops.
00:09:54.000 Thank you so much.
00:09:56.000 Thank you so much for the invitation, guys.
00:09:57.000 Absolutely.
00:09:58.000 Blake, you had one final thought, and I thought it was really important.
00:10:01.000 I just want to close the book on the cartel thing.
00:10:04.000 What was so insane is just the visual of literal cartel members.
00:10:08.000 They're standing, they're wearing uniforms with their armored cars.
00:10:11.000 They have armored cars, armed vehicles, heavy machinery, heavy weaponry.
00:10:16.000 And all I can think is this is a country that borders the United States.
00:10:19.000 And we've had 30 years plus of lots of adventures in the Middle East where we're often chasing people armed up just like that, but they're on at least the other side of the planet.
00:10:30.000 They can't send rocket launchers super easily to the United States.
00:10:35.000 But you know who can?
00:10:37.000 The cartels.
00:10:38.000 And we see with them launching this, for lack of a better term, this insurgency where they're taking over huge chunks of central Mexico in demonstration of their leader being killed, killing dozens of Mexican National Guard.
00:10:50.000 It just almost actually strikes me as insane that we've had so many wars on the other side of the planet, and yet we haven't just said, okay, actually, we're going to drone strike anyone, like every armored vehicle that belongs to a cartel, blow it up.
00:11:02.000 It's just going to get totally agree.
00:11:04.000 Period.
00:11:04.000 We're trying to play nice with the money.
00:11:05.000 Mexico wants to help us.
00:11:07.000 That's great.
00:11:08.000 That's the point.
00:11:08.000 But if they don't want to help us, we're going to do it anyway because it's not acceptable for there to be a gangster actor in a neighboring country that has armored personnel carriers.
00:11:19.000 Totally agree.
00:11:20.000 All right.
00:11:21.000 Well said.
00:11:22.000 Needed to be said.
00:11:24.000 So, and Charlie, by the way, totally agreed with that.
00:11:26.000 He's like, if we're going to use military force, that's the one place we should.
00:11:29.000 Yes.
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00:12:52.000 I got to play a couple clips for you.
00:12:54.000 339.
00:12:55.000 Young black kids growing up in the Bronx who don't even know what the word a computer is.
00:13:00.000 They don't know.
00:13:01.000 They don't know these things.
00:13:02.000 346.
00:13:04.000 And the other thing we should do is we should challenge these students.
00:13:07.000 We should challenge students in these schools to have advanced placement programs in these schools.
00:13:12.000 We have this notion that somehow if you're poor, you cannot do it.
00:13:16.000 Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids. 1.00
00:13:22.000 And 250, the new one.
00:13:25.000 I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to impress you.
00:13:28.000 I'm just trying to impress upon you, I'm like you.
00:13:32.000 I'm no better than you.
00:13:34.000 You know, I'm a 960 SAT guy.
00:13:39.000 And, you know, and I'm not trying to offend anyone, you know, trying to act all there if you got 940.
00:13:47.000 But literally a 960 SAT guy.
00:13:50.000 I cannot, you've never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech.
00:13:57.000 All right.
00:13:58.000 So Gavin Newsom's trying to buddy up to the black community by saying, I'm dumb too.
00:14:03.000 I can't read.
00:14:05.000 This is okay.
00:14:07.000 This man's going to run for president in 2028.
00:14:10.000 And I want them to run this moment on repeat on the ads.
00:14:15.000 This is the bigotry of low expectations in living color.
00:14:20.000 I've never seen such a clear example of that other than the two other clips that I played before.
00:14:25.000 I mean, there's so many more.
00:14:26.000 I remember Hillary Clinton, when she was running for president, she did an appearance in New York, and then she showed up with hot sauce.
00:14:33.000 No, it's the one she showed up and she said she was on CPT.
00:14:38.000 And then they said it was cautious politician time, but that's obviously something else.
00:14:42.000 It's like it's very wild.
00:14:44.000 And all I can think of is this is a real study from 2019.
00:14:47.000 Do you know about this?
00:14:47.000 The Yale study.
00:14:49.000 Yale did a study of how like the vocabulary that white liberals use.
00:14:54.000 And what they found is, yeah, white liberals, when they're talking to black people, they will actually deliberately down show their vocabulary.
00:15:02.000 They will basically act like they're talking to children.
00:15:04.000 And they'll get an accent.
00:15:05.000 And they noticed that white conservatives did not do this.
00:15:07.000 They just did not change.
00:15:08.000 Nope.
00:15:09.000 Because we expect the same out of everybody.
00:15:11.000 It is literally the most racist comment in the world.
00:15:14.000 And then you add on top of all of this that they don't think black people are smart enough to get ID. 0.98
00:15:21.000 It is quite literally the most racist crap that you will ever hear coming out of the mouths of Democrats.
00:15:29.000 And they're pandering to them to win their votes by telling them they're dumb.
00:15:33.000 And yet most of them will still vote for Democrats.
00:15:36.000 And that's the baffling part of all of this.
00:15:39.000 Here's Charlie reflecting on his time with Gavin Newsome.
00:15:42.000 Remember, Charlie went on Gavin Newsome's podcast, was the first guest, made lots of news.
00:15:47.000 353.
00:15:49.000 He is the fakest person I think I've ever met in my entire life.
00:15:52.000 So synthetic.
00:15:53.000 And honestly, that's very dangerous, like incredibly dangerous.
00:15:56.000 Like he's the type of person that could just like stare at you like, oh, yeah, I voted for Trump.
00:16:01.000 And just like pass a lie detector test.
00:16:03.000 That is very, very dangerous.
00:16:05.000 You know, just stone cold.
00:16:07.000 Just like there's no inhibitions whatsoever when it comes to deceit or lying or misleading.
00:16:14.000 So Blake, you and I were with Charlie when he went to that podcast when he interviewed or when he went on Gavin Newsom's podcast.
00:16:21.000 And I'll never forget, we were driving away and I go, what was your impression?
00:16:25.000 He goes, man, that guy wants to be president.
00:16:27.000 Yep.
00:16:28.000 He always has.
00:16:29.000 It's really, it's really glaring.
00:16:31.000 And it's really disturbing because I've got to say, as much as we make fun of him here, as much as we made fun of him in other people.
00:16:37.000 And he deserves it.
00:16:37.000 You, and he deserves it.
00:16:39.000 I don't think you can escape that feeling like it could happen.
00:16:42.000 This is the dark future of America is 100% that Gavin Newsom could run, be slick enough, have the right look, say the right things, and everyone will just sort of get behind it.
00:16:52.000 It's like he's the politician utterly without qualities.
00:16:55.000 He hasn't been a great governor of his state.
00:16:57.000 By any objective measure, it's been a catastrophe.
00:17:00.000 He has big headline disasters like burning down a big chunk of Los Angeles.
00:17:04.000 And then he has the data-driven disasters.
00:17:06.000 Businesses leave.
00:17:07.000 People leave.
00:17:08.000 His state is entirely dependent on endless immigration inflow to from foreign countries to not completely implode. 0.58
00:17:16.000 And they're having, you know, they're driving out every billionaire because they have this wealth confiscation.
00:17:22.000 I think Fair Newsome says he's going to veto that.
00:17:24.000 Yeah, but they can't break.
00:17:25.000 Well, that was, I think it's a vote amendment.
00:17:27.000 I don't think he can block it if they.
00:17:28.000 He's promised to veto it.
00:17:29.000 We'll see what he does.
00:17:30.000 on top and on top of that they have every other problem in the world and so yeah it's but he could win Well, it's interesting.
00:17:38.000 I got asked to write a piece, and I forgot to tweet it out, actually, but I got asked to write a piece for the California Post, which is like the New York Post, but for the West Coast.
00:17:48.000 It was about Charlie, what he thought about California.
00:17:50.000 And Charlie loved California, loved how beautiful it was.
00:17:53.000 But he would always, when you lay in there, he goes, man, what a beautiful state.
00:17:56.000 It's a shame what they've done to it.
00:17:58.000 Every time.
00:17:59.000 That was his first, first thought, his first comment.
00:18:02.000 And, you know, Gavin Newsom is just the living embodiment of what incompetent leadership looks like.
00:18:08.000 The Democrat plan in 2028 is to run on Making America California.
00:18:13.000 And it's going to be very shameful if we can't beat that pitch.
00:18:18.000 I am so excited for our next guest.
00:18:22.000 He's a man that needs no introduction to this audience, but I will say it anyway.
00:18:26.000 Dennis Prager is one of the most respected and influential thinkers, writers, and speakers in America.
00:18:33.000 He's a nationally syndicated talk show host.
00:18:36.000 He is the founder of Prager University and is a New York Times best-selling author of nine books.
00:18:42.000 And he's a man who's been through a lot.
00:18:44.000 But most importantly, to this audience, as you all know, he was a dear friend and mentor to Charlie Kirk.
00:18:51.000 And Dennis, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:18:55.000 It is an indescribable honor to have you.
00:18:58.000 Oh, I'm delighted to be with you.
00:19:02.000 I'm delighted to be with you because you're you, because it's TPUSA, and because I'm delighted to be able to speak.
00:19:14.000 Be perfectly honest.
00:19:17.000 For those who don't know, I had a catastrophic fall in my home on November 12th of 2024, which left me paralyzed from the shoulders down and not breathing without a ventilator and not speaking.
00:19:40.000 And here I am having an interview with you.
00:19:44.000 So you can imagine for all those reasons.
00:19:48.000 And finally, I just might note, when I watched the funeral service and other memorial services for Charlie, and I heard all these people describe themselves as Charlie's closest friends, I thought it was a great credit to Charlie,
00:20:14.000 like kids who think, you know, they have five kids and each one thinks that they are the parents' favorite.
00:20:23.000 The parents did a good job.
00:20:25.000 Charlie did a good job, but I would just like to remind everybody, or maybe they didn't even know it.
00:20:34.000 So remind might not be the actual verb.
00:20:38.000 And that is that his last book on Shabbat, on taking a day in the name of God, up there to stop in the name of God, by honoring the Sabbath will transform your life, was dedicated to me.
00:20:59.000 Charlie wrote a beautiful dedication.
00:21:02.000 Charlie called me, I would say, almost every week for at least five or eight years.
00:21:13.000 And he would call after listening to another tape of mine on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, with questions.
00:21:31.000 And the whole idea of Shabbat came from our interactions.
00:21:40.000 So, you know, I'm supposed to promote my book, but here I am promoting Charlie's book.
00:21:48.000 Well, it's a beautiful, beautiful testament to your guys' friendship.
00:21:53.000 You've shared a deep, deep bond.
00:21:54.000 And we are going to get to your book, which is titled, If There Is No God, the Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil.
00:22:02.000 And the fact that you're even coming out with a book, Dennis, is a miracle and a testament to your character and your fortitude and your strength of will.
00:22:11.000 But I want to read Erica Kirk's endorsement of the book.
00:22:16.000 I think it's just so beautiful.
00:22:18.000 And it's a bit long, but I'm going to do it.
00:22:22.000 She says, this book is a treasure to me.
00:22:25.000 Dennis was more than a mentor to my husband, Charlie.
00:22:28.000 He was a dear friend and one of the few voices who played a role in encouraging Charlie's moral courage.
00:22:34.000 The two of them shared a rare bond blessed by countless conversations about faith, morality, and what it means to live with conviction in a world that has lost its compass.
00:22:43.000 Reading If There Is No God feels like sitting at the table with both of them again.
00:22:48.000 It carries forward the very message that both Dennis and Charlie lived, and Charlie died believing, that without God, there can be no good, and without truth, there can be no freedom.
00:23:01.000 She's beautiful.
00:23:03.000 Yeah.
00:23:04.000 It meant a great deal to me that she would write such a thing in the midst of her grief and her battling people who want to destroy TPUSA.
00:23:19.000 I have never encountered something like this effort to hurt a beautiful institution from people who supposedly are on our side.
00:23:36.000 I don't know if it's unprecedented, but I can't think of a precedent.
00:23:40.000 Yeah, well, you know, I always tell people what God has unleashed, man cannot stop.
00:23:46.000 And so we walk in great faith and great courage.
00:23:50.000 And the movement is expanding.
00:23:51.000 It's growing.
00:23:52.000 Charlie's legacy looms large.
00:23:54.000 I can tell you here at HQ, but at all the chapters, Dennis, that are exploding.
00:23:59.000 It's not just, you know, we're opening 50 new chapters a day, but they're not just two or three kids.
00:24:04.000 We're talking 10, 15, 20, 50 kids, 100 kids.
00:24:08.000 Some of these chapters are thousands of students large now because of the life and the legacy that Charlie left behind.
00:24:14.000 And you were a huge part of that, Dennis.
00:24:17.000 And one of your most famous questions, which relates to your book, of course, is a famous one from your days on the radio.
00:24:29.000 If your beloved dog and a stranger are drowning, who do you save first?
00:24:34.000 This became an incredibly famous question.
00:24:38.000 It's also sort of a starting point for this book.
00:24:41.000 Please explain.
00:24:42.000 That's right.
00:24:43.000 I've actually been asking this question for 50 years.
00:24:50.000 50 years.
00:24:51.000 And the results have been the same throughout those 50 years.
00:24:58.000 I would ask high school students or college students if they love their dogs, which everybody who has one does, and a stranger were drowning and their dog were drowning, who would they try to save first?
00:25:17.000 I know that they would all love to save both and so on, but they have to try to save one first.
00:25:25.000 In virtually every instance, cut across economic, racial, religious lines.
00:25:35.000 In virtually every instance, one-third of the group said they would save the stranger, one-third said the dog, and one-third didn't know what they would do.
00:25:48.000 Two-thirds of Americans over half a century would not save, would not save, would not say that they would save the stranger.
00:26:00.000 And that led me to the whole supposition of the book that what they were doing is substituting emotions for values.
00:26:17.000 I love my dog is an emotion.
00:26:21.000 Humans are created in God's image, is a value.
00:26:26.000 That's why I would save a stranger before my beloved dogs.
00:26:33.000 My wife really loves our dogs.
00:26:36.000 I only love them.
00:26:38.000 She really loves them.
00:26:40.000 And she would save a stranger first because she believes that people are created in God's image.
00:26:50.000 Animals are not.
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00:27:53.000 I really want to drive home for anyone who is a more recent listener or just didn't know how important your moral guidance was to Charlie when he would think about moral questions.
00:28:05.000 Andrew, you know, you would mention this in private.
00:28:07.000 You know, Dennis says this.
00:28:08.000 This is how Dennis used this problem.
00:28:10.000 He really looked up to you for moral reasoning like that and for framing things.
00:28:15.000 So many things that you would say, and we would hear him repeat on campuses because you have that great way of distilling, like that difference, you know, using emotions instead of values and the subtle differences between them.
00:28:29.000 I want us to play one of those clips just to illustrate that.
00:28:32.000 We have Charlie citing you for a moral question, 487.
00:28:37.000 I learned this from the great Dennis Prager, who says, stop focusing on intentions, focus on the actions.
00:28:42.000 It's a much better way to judge whether or not something is right or wrong.
00:28:49.000 Intentions, as I've said before, and there's a video that went viral.
00:28:52.000 The Nazis thought they were doing good.
00:28:54.000 They convinced themselves that they were doing good, when in reality, they were doing some of the greatest evil in the history of the species.
00:29:01.000 That's very moving to me, obviously.
00:29:04.000 I don't know if either of you know this.
00:29:08.000 Charlie visited me in my hospital room and he brought a copy of the trance of the transcript of his book.
00:29:25.000 Little did I know.
00:29:27.000 It never occurred to me that I would not see Charlie again.
00:29:36.000 And it broke my heart on every ground.
00:29:41.000 Well, Dennis, even in the aftermath of Charlie's assassination, your subtitle, The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil, and you think about, I would say, the vast majority of people reacted as you would expect and hope to the tragedy and sadness and horror and shock.
00:30:01.000 But there were some voices that reacted in glee and celebration.
00:30:07.000 And I can't help but think of your subtitle in that book as the perfect distillation of why the battle of who gets to define good and evil matters so much.
00:30:17.000 Well, if man determines, humans determine what is good and evil, then you can have moral inversions where the Nazis are good, are good guys and the Jews and others are bad guys.
00:30:36.000 You have that now in the Middle East, where all of a sudden the Nazis of our time, the true Nazis of our time, Hamas, are the good guys. 0.98
00:30:55.000 They're battling colonialism and Israel, a democracy with one-fifth of its citizens are Arab Muslims who thrive there and who supported Israel, by and large, in this war.
00:31:15.000 Israel is the bad guy. 1.00
00:31:18.000 We are living in a morally inverted universe.
00:31:22.000 Dennis, I want to ask you a question that you addressed in the book.
00:31:25.000 It's called The Problem of Pain, as C.S. Lewis said.
00:31:29.000 You know, how does your book answer the question of why a supposedly good God allows for so much suffering and evil in the world?
00:31:39.000 I've dealt with that all of my life.
00:31:43.000 And I have so much to say on it.
00:31:50.000 I'll try to be concise.
00:31:53.000 All right, first of all, people need to deal with that issue before tragedy strikes in their life.
00:32:04.000 If you start thinking about that question only once you've been hurt, it's too late.
00:32:16.000 I, for whatever reason, was preoccupied with the problem of evil from my high school days.
00:32:27.000 So I have, I dealt with it before I was personally hit by the tragedy that I am currently living.
00:32:39.000 All right.
00:32:40.000 And therefore, I already had answers.
00:32:44.000 People, I'll give you a great example.
00:32:47.000 A woman called my radio show many years ago, said, you know, I just want you to know, Dennis, that I always vehemently disagreed with you on capital punishment.
00:33:02.000 I was opposed to capital punishment and you were ardently for it.
00:33:09.000 Well, I've come around now to your point of view.
00:33:14.000 I'm for capital punishment.
00:33:16.000 And I said, why?
00:33:18.000 She said, because my brother was murdered.
00:33:22.000 So, of course, I offered condolences.
00:33:26.000 But then I said, what needed to be said that I said to her, wait a minute.
00:33:38.000 So when millions of other people's brothers were murdered, you never asked the question.
00:33:47.000 And she agreed, she had never asked the question before.
00:33:53.000 This is a common flaw in the human species.
00:33:59.000 We deal with issues only when we are confronted by them.
00:34:06.000 You've got to deal with these issues way before you're hit by them.
00:34:11.000 I did.
00:34:14.000 My way of dealing with it is through reason and religion, the greatest combination there is.
00:34:25.000 Judeo-Christian religions and reason.
00:34:31.000 And that is that God allows evil to take place because we would be robots otherwise.
00:34:45.000 Life would lose its meaning.
00:34:49.000 People would no longer be a free species.
00:34:54.000 So that has to happen.
00:34:58.000 And as regards a natural evil, if you will, cancer of the undeserving, you're right, we don't have an answer to that.
00:35:14.000 I've read book after book by theologian after theologian.
00:35:20.000 There's no great answer to the question.
00:35:24.000 And therefore, we have only Job's The answer at the end of Job, where God says, where were you when I created the world?
00:35:50.000 Do you know why eagles make nests?
00:35:53.000 In other words, we're like puppies compared to human beings in our ability to understand life when we compare ourselves to God.
00:36:11.000 We don't know the answer, but I will say I do believe that there's bad luck.
00:36:17.000 Most religious people differ with me, but I think God, in my case, God allowed gravity to and lack of friction to take its course.
00:36:34.000 Well, what was he supposed to do?
00:36:37.000 Stop it from happening to me?
00:36:41.000 And I wrote this stuff decades before what happened to me.
00:36:47.000 It's remarkable.
00:36:48.000 And I know one thing I think about, I know Charlie had wanted to do his Sabbath book even before your accident.
00:36:56.000 I know he was planning it, but I also recall after it occurred, I know that really motivated him to make sure that was his next book that he would work on.
00:37:03.000 And it moved him to complete it quickly.
00:37:06.000 I don't know if that offers some solace to you or not, but I think I know Charlie drew some inspiration.
00:37:11.000 He really wanted to get this Dennis-inspired book because he knew maybe you wouldn't recover and he wanted to make sure that he would have be able to carry on your legacy as well with his own work.
00:37:21.000 And now I know none of us expected this, but we're glad that I guess you could return the favor.
00:37:28.000 You are continuing Charlie's legacy.
00:37:30.000 We're trying to continue Charlie's legacy.
00:37:32.000 That's right.
00:37:34.000 And I dedicated my book, which is coming out now, If There Is No God, to Charlie, as it happens, which I would have done anyway.
00:37:49.000 But now it was to Charlie's memory, which I still, to this day, I find that almost as unbelievable as my paralysis.
00:38:03.000 Charlie Kirk is dead.
00:38:09.000 It's this vibrant and incredibly young man.
00:38:17.000 It's.
00:38:20.000 I know.
00:38:21.000 Yeah.
00:38:22.000 It's a reality that we confront every day.
00:38:25.000 And we still have his seat open here in the studio, Dennis, and we'll never fill it.
00:38:32.000 But it's a comfort.
00:38:34.000 I didn't realize how comforting it was going to be for me personally to talk to you, Dennis, and to see you doing so well.
00:38:40.000 I didn't know what to expect when I saw you.
00:38:43.000 And your mind is as vibrant and as alive as ever, even if your body's rebelling against you.
00:38:49.000 And this has been truly wonderful.
00:38:51.000 I wish we could have more time.
00:38:52.000 And in fact, maybe we'll try for that.
00:38:55.000 But thank you so much, Dennis Prager, for talking about your book and talking about Charlie with us today.
00:39:01.000 I would love another opportunity to talk to you.
00:39:07.000 And you really, you may not be in that chair, but you're filling the seat beautifully.
00:39:14.000 Thank you, Dennis.
00:39:15.000 And finally, I just ask your listeners and viewers to order a copy of If There Is No God.
00:39:27.000 It will change lives.
00:39:29.000 Everybody, please go get a copy today of Dennis' incredibly important new book, If There Is No God, The Battle Over Who Defines Good and Evil.
00:39:40.000 Get it today, everywhere books are sold.
00:39:42.000 Dennis Prager, God bless you, and we'll talk with you soon.
00:39:46.000 You too, thank you.