The Charlie Kirk Show - Dismantling Impeachment 2.0 with Judge Ken Starr

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:01.000 Awesome episode in store for you today.

00:00:03.000 My exclusive conversation with Judge Ken Starr, who was the impeachment lead against Bill Clinton, was on the defense team for President Trump, and speaks out against this impeachment charade and circus.

00:00:17.000 Email us your questions that you might have for our guests as we follow impeachment this week, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:44.000 Judge Ken Starr is here, everybody.

00:00:46.000 Here we go.

00:00:46.000 Buckle up.

00:00:48.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:49.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:52.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:55.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:58.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:59.000 He's an incredible guy.

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00:02:33.000 Hey, everybody.

00:02:34.000 Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:02:36.000 I am super thrilled to be with us today.

00:02:39.000 Judge Ken Starr, a friend of mine and a board member, honorary board member at Turning Point USA, and author of the new book, Religious Liberty in Crisis, Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty.

00:02:50.000 Everyone, go pre-order it.

00:02:51.000 We're going to talk about that amongst other things.

00:02:54.000 But Judge, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:02:57.000 Hey, thank you, Charlie.

00:02:58.000 Good to be with you.

00:02:59.000 And thanks for all that you do.

00:03:00.000 Oh, thank you.

00:03:01.000 It's very kind.

00:03:02.000 So I want to get right into it.

00:03:03.000 This is impeachment week.

00:03:05.000 And did you ever think after you presided over the, presided is not the right term, but you were involved in the impeachment in the 90s.

00:03:13.000 You helped defend the president over the last impeachment that we'd have another impeachment a year later.

00:03:19.000 What does this tell us about how impeachment is now being brought up more and more frequently?

00:03:25.000 What was the framers' original intent behind impeachment?

00:03:29.000 And do you even think that this impeachment is constitutional?

00:03:33.000 The answer is the framers use this as or envision this as a tool of last resort, which is the way impeachment was in fact historically used.

00:03:43.000 We went in our country's history for 100 years almost before the first impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

00:03:51.000 Then we went for a century plus before the beginning of the impeachment against Richard Nixon.

00:03:58.000 We'll, I hope, come back to that in the conversation.

00:04:01.000 But a new era came in with a law that Congress passed, which was a very ill-advised law.

00:04:08.000 It was one under which I was appointed as special prosecutor.

00:04:12.000 The name kept changing because they couldn't figure it out.

00:04:14.000 So I was known as an independent counsel at the time.

00:04:17.000 And that law ushered in what I called during President Trump's first impeachment and my presentation, the age of impeachment.

00:04:25.000 Boy, are we in the age of impeachment?

00:04:27.000 Which is impeachment is now since that statute was passed in 1978, impeachment is simply a political tool.

00:04:35.000 And that's not what the framers envision.

00:04:39.000 But specifically with respect to now impeachment two, this approach of what I call eternal impeachment, you can always be impeached.

00:04:47.000 Why don't we just impeach people after they're deceased as well?

00:04:52.000 To make a political point, this is patently unconstitutional.

00:04:57.000 I know, Charlie, a lot of people disagree.

00:04:59.000 That's why it really should be resolved by the Supreme Court of the United States.

00:05:02.000 I'm sorry they're not getting a shot at it because it's unconstitutional under the text of the Constitution.

00:05:07.000 It's unconstitutional in the light of our history.

00:05:10.000 We can talk about that.

00:05:11.000 It's also unconstitutional because of the presiding officer who's going to be United States Senator from the majority party, sort of kind of quasi-majority party, right?

00:05:23.000 It's 50-50.

00:05:24.000 But guess what?

00:05:25.000 The tie goes to the runner because they won the White House.

00:05:29.000 So we now have to consider Chuck Schumer as the Senate majority leader.

00:05:35.000 Okay.

00:05:36.000 Guess what?

00:05:37.000 One of his colleagues, who's a partisan Democrat, is going to be apparently presiding at the trial beginning this week.

00:05:47.000 And guess what?

00:05:48.000 Due process, Charlie, as you well know, requires, among other things, a fair and unbiased presiding judge.

00:05:57.000 That's what the Constitution provided for by saying when the president is impeached, and the President Trump was the president when he was impeached, but it anticipated a trial during his service as president, and thus the Chief Justice should preside.

00:06:16.000 He is not presiding.

00:06:18.000 That should be a matter of record.

00:06:20.000 That is, the Chief Justice of the United States should receive a formal letter, in my judgment, requesting his attention as his presiding, and he would formally say no.

00:06:31.000 And why would he say no?

00:06:32.000 Because it would be unconstitutional for him to preside.

00:06:37.000 Do you see what I'm saying?

00:06:38.000 It's not just, well, it's a matter of convenience.

00:06:40.000 Someone has no, no, no.

00:06:41.000 These are violations of the constitutional structure at every turn.

00:06:45.000 It's manifestly unconstitutional.

00:06:48.000 Let's talk about a bill of attainder in one of our segments here, because if this goes forward, and heaven forbid, if there is an actual conviction, we don't anticipate that.

00:07:00.000 It seems very far-fetched to even think of it.

00:07:03.000 But we have to play this out to think about the constitutional issues.

00:07:07.000 If he is convicted, and if the punishment is any kind of disqualification, then Congress, congratulations, Senate, you will have passed a bill of attainer, which is absolutely expressly forbidden by the text of the Constitution.

00:07:23.000 A bill of attainder is the legislature can't single you out, Charlie, or any individual out.

00:07:28.000 They couldn't single out Richard M. Nixon and to say, we're going to now disqualify you because you abused the powers of office, et cetera.

00:07:37.000 That is another indication that this whole process is unconstitutional.

00:07:43.000 Can you explain to our audience in more detail what a bill of attainder is and the significance of that?

00:07:49.000 I'd like to build that out a little bit more.

00:07:52.000 A bill of attainer is when the Congress of the United States, or here one body has is asserting the power to impose any form of punishment on a named individual.

00:08:02.000 Instead of passing a law, it's passing a punishment.

00:08:06.000 That is what parliament used to do.

00:08:09.000 So, Charlie, when you see the arguments about, well, parliament did this and parliament did that, red flags should go up.

00:08:17.000 Part of the reason that we have a separation of power system is that the founders were very aware of the dangers of congressional overreach.

00:08:27.000 We do not have a parliamentary democracy, and the Congress of the United States was forbidden that power, which Parliament used to bully effect.

00:08:37.000 They loved passing bills of attainers against political enemies.

00:08:42.000 That's what we have here.

00:08:43.000 If the president is convicted, the former president is convicted, it will be because his political enemies, even in his own party, have said we do not want to have him run for any office again.

00:08:56.000 Remember, John Quincy Adams lost the presidency, but he said, I would be very happy as a member of the House of Representatives.

00:09:03.000 So, who knows what President Trump, the former president, may decide to do in the future.

00:09:08.000 And he should be able to do that.

00:09:09.000 Welcome to freedom.

00:09:10.000 This is what TPUSA stands for.

00:09:13.000 We live in a limited government, constitutional democracy that's designed to assure freedom.

00:09:19.000 And this prohibition against a bill of attainder being passed is just another indicia of the freedoms that we enjoy.

00:09:29.000 So, reading from justthenews.com, you said, and I quote, I would hope that those 10 Republicans and hopefully even some Democrats would say as we now look at the timelines, the media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all are reporting on, here's exactly it, the facts.

00:09:45.000 You said that they made a huge, colossal blunder.

00:09:49.000 And then you said, so walk back and apologize to the former president, apologize to the American people that I never should have voted in favor of this without the benefit of all the facts.

00:09:58.000 I rushed to judgment.

00:10:00.000 What does this say about the age of impeachment?

00:10:03.000 We're at a moment now, Judge, where you can wake up one morning and the president is not impeached.

00:10:09.000 You don't even have articles filed.

00:10:10.000 And then by the end of the day, there is impeachment.

00:10:14.000 That sort of rush to judgment is dangerous beyond even the impeachment process.

00:10:19.000 It almost cheapens the justice system that you and I both believe is the greatest in the world.

00:10:26.000 It's a gross, what happened is a gross violation of procedural fairness.

00:10:31.000 A rush to judgment means what?

00:10:34.000 It's mob rule.

00:10:36.000 Mob rule.

00:10:38.000 So to those 10 Republicans, I would say, take a sober second look.

00:10:44.000 You are swept away.

00:10:45.000 We all get carried away.

00:10:46.000 Sometimes I rush to judgment, but I've been trained and we all should be trained in life.

00:10:53.000 But especially the lawyers in that crowd of 10 Republicans.

00:10:58.000 Well, do we have all the facts?

00:11:00.000 We know that very bad things happen and we're very emotional.

00:11:02.000 We're very upset.

00:11:05.000 Let's find out what's causation, right?

00:11:09.000 Scientists want to know causation and so do lawyers and judges.

00:11:12.000 What caused that?

00:11:14.000 And the timelines, of course, suggest that this mob rule, the mob attack, the violence was underway before the president had even finished his remarks.

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00:12:02.000 Start a free trial today.

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00:12:07.000 Can you talk a little bit about this idea of incitement?

00:12:10.000 Even in the justice system, do you think the president could be indicted for incitement?

00:12:17.000 What would it take for it actually to be considered, his remarks to be considered incitement?

00:12:23.000 And is this even the theater to try to figure out whether or not the president incited the mob?

00:12:30.000 The answer is: I don't think so.

00:12:32.000 Now, the 46-minute speech will be analyzed very closely, right?

00:12:37.000 And we'll see exactly what the worst case that can be put on looks like.

00:12:45.000 That is the least favorable to the president.

00:12:48.000 But our baseline, again, in this country, is freedom, including free expression.

00:12:52.000 And the idea, and this came out in one of the submissions by the House managers, that the president doesn't enjoy First Amendment rights, I think, is just profoundly in error, manifestly wrong, demonstrably wrong.

00:13:08.000 The First Amendment protects all persons, including, but not limited to the president.

00:13:12.000 Certainly, the president's not excised from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

00:13:18.000 It is only, so to come back to what is the core issue, incitement is when you essentially are saying, we want you to go take violent action now.

00:13:28.000 And so now it's important to analyze the text as well as the context.

00:13:34.000 The text points in favor of the president, especially the exculpatory text about do so peacefully, make your voices known, and so forth.

00:13:45.000 And there is, thus far, no indication I've seen, Charlie, that the president was in any way advised.

00:13:51.000 By the way, there's some really bad actors in this crowd.

00:13:54.000 We have an intelligence briefing.

00:13:56.000 Did he have an intelligence briefing that morning that said, by the way, Mr. President, Antifa is here and some very violent right-wing organizations are here.

00:14:07.000 Who knows who's here, Mr. President?

00:14:09.000 If he had that briefing, that would be a fact that the decision makers should take into account in terms of incitement or inciting to insurrection.

00:14:18.000 I think it's far-fetched.

00:14:19.000 Now, the president is, of course, subject right here and now to indictment in the criminal justice system.

00:14:27.000 I hope that won't happen, but that's part of our equal justice under law.

00:14:32.000 He should not be subject to impeachment and trial.

00:14:35.000 That's a travesty.

00:14:37.000 But he obviously, like any other citizen, is subject to the criminal justice process.

00:14:43.000 Well, or so we would hope, without the kind of circus that happened in the House with no witnesses, no due process, no representation, just complete and total, you know, just a couple hour process and then you're impeached, which is extraordinary.

00:15:00.000 We've never seen anything quite like that.

00:15:02.000 Right.

00:15:03.000 The house is supposed to be deliberative.

00:15:06.000 The speaker of the house cannot suesponte just unilaterally say, we're impeaching the president. 0.99

00:15:13.000 She tried to do that in impeachment one, right? 0.89

00:15:16.000 She said, we're impeaching the president. 0.82

00:15:19.000 He will be impeached, so go draw up articles.

00:15:23.000 I said at the time, abuse of her power. 0.86

00:15:25.000 There should have been a vote by the people.

00:15:28.000 And what precedes the vote?

00:15:30.000 Look at history.

00:15:31.000 History is a great guide, especially when we look at presidential impeachments.

00:15:36.000 Each presidential impeachment was preceded by numerous and careful hearings, a sifting of the facts, an assessment of the credibility of witnesses.

00:15:48.000 Not done here, exactly as you say.

00:15:51.000 And the Democrats are saying to play devil's advocate that we don't need the evidence.

00:15:57.000 The evidence came here.

00:15:59.000 But the more information we actually find, it's not that simple.

00:16:04.000 There were groups that were there coming with the intent to try and take federal buildings with militia gear and without any of the remarks of the president.

00:16:15.000 And so it's not that simple.

00:16:17.000 And Judge, can you talk about for some of our younger listeners why our system is designed the way it is, why it is supposed to be deliberative, why we're not supposed to be able to convict somebody in 24 hours or less.

00:16:31.000 You have to have time to be able to build a defense to submit evidence.

00:16:35.000 It feels as if this is almost like the Russian system where they convicted the Alexei Novelani guy in four days or less.

00:16:43.000 I mean, I couldn't believe it.

00:16:44.000 I said, look at the similarities between the two of this kind of rush to judgment.

00:16:49.000 Can you just, from a constitutional perspective, talk about why our system is actually built that way?

00:16:55.000 It goes back to Magna Carta almost a thousand years ago that government, whether it's the king, whether it's Congress, whether it's the president, whether it's the governor, can abuse power.

00:17:10.000 And what we treasure in a constitutional democracy throughout the English-speaking world is power has to be limited.

00:17:19.000 And that includes the power of the House of Representatives.

00:17:22.000 One justice of the Supreme Court from yesteryear put it very well: the history of liberty is largely the history of procedure.

00:17:32.000 Process counts.

00:17:35.000 Let's say you're being accused of something in the university or in high school, right?

00:17:42.000 Don't you want to be heard?

00:17:44.000 No, we don't need to hear from you.

00:17:46.000 And there have been some issues, right, under Title IX.

00:17:49.000 I would like to have my lawyer.

00:17:51.000 You don't get a lawyer, right?

00:17:53.000 And so the term kangaroo, and I love kangaroos.

00:17:56.000 I don't know why it's called kangaroo court, but a kangaroo court is one where you don't have fair process.

00:18:04.000 So always demand process, right?

00:18:08.000 Think about you're pulled over, driving offense, and the police officer says, I find you guilty.

00:18:14.000 He said, excuse me, I was not violating the law.

00:18:18.000 And who are you?

00:18:19.000 He said, I'm the judge.

00:18:21.000 No, you're not.

00:18:22.000 You're having a hallucination.

00:18:24.000 There's a process here, and I get to go to court and so forth.

00:18:28.000 And I'll see you in court, officer. 0.99

00:18:29.000 Oh, darn, you're right, sir. 0.98

00:18:32.000 Ma'am, you do get a trial. 0.99

00:18:34.000 I forgot about that.

00:18:35.000 This is America.

00:18:36.000 It's not Russia.

00:18:37.000 It's not China.

00:18:38.000 Process counts.

00:18:40.000 If we do away with process, which is what the House of Liberal Representatives did with respect to impeachment two, then terrible.

00:18:48.000 We complained about process during impeachment one.

00:18:50.000 In comparison, there was a lot of process because there were at least hearings.

00:18:56.000 I don't think it was adequate process.

00:18:58.000 And I think the speaker of the house, but we don't need to re-litigate that.

00:19:01.000 The point is, the House had hearings.

00:19:04.000 They had hearings for the Intelligence Committee.

00:19:06.000 They had hearings for the Judiciary Committee of sorts.

00:19:09.000 So they were on a tight timeframe.

00:19:12.000 But this is beyond.

00:19:14.000 This is, I'm just going to go ahead and say the House of Representatives should be condemned by fair-minded historians of tomorrow as having been carried away, intoxicated with emotion and with power.

00:19:31.000 And I love your point about how the process counts, because without the process, you really don't have the system that is considered to be the greatest justice system in the world.

00:19:42.000 As William Blackstone said, it is better for 10 guilty people to walk than one innocent person to suffer.

00:19:50.000 The system is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

00:19:54.000 And if you don't even have a representative from the side of the accused, especially at the highest level of government, which is the legislative branch, then what does that say for the entire system itself?

00:20:04.000 And the irony, Judge, is that most of the people that were overseeing it were lawyers themselves.

00:20:09.000 You know, most of the people that were actually doing the House impeachment management, they have law degrees.

00:20:15.000 They know better than this, don't they, Judge?

00:20:18.000 I'm not going to get into intent.

00:20:19.000 All I know is they are on notice.

00:20:21.000 They are on constructive notice that they ran offshot over the fundamental principles.

00:20:27.000 But here's it.

00:20:28.000 You know, let's talk to our students for a second.

00:20:30.000 I realize you have so many listeners, but we're all students.

00:20:33.000 We just, yes.

00:20:34.000 Some of us are students longer than others.

00:20:36.000 So this is for all of my fellow students.

00:20:39.000 The Bill of Rights was so critical.

00:20:41.000 Oh, yeah, we like the Bill of Rights.

00:20:43.000 Well, you should like the Bill of Rights.

00:20:44.000 You should love the Bill of Rights.

00:20:46.000 The Bill of Rights, of course, was part of the Great Compromise because a lot of people oppose the Constitution because there was no Bill of Rights.

00:20:54.000 And so Mr. Madison, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, rightly dubbed so, says, okay, I got it wrong.

00:21:05.000 As a political matter, I got it wrong.

00:21:07.000 We're going to get a Bill of Rights.

00:21:08.000 Now let's read those Bill of Rights.

00:21:10.000 There are 10 of them.

00:21:11.000 You can read it in about 10 minutes or less.

00:21:14.000 And what are those?

00:21:15.000 They're freedom rights.

00:21:18.000 I talk about in my book, Freedom of Religion.

00:21:20.000 We're talking about free speech, right?

00:21:22.000 We're talking about freedom of the press.

00:21:23.000 The right of the people peaceably to assemble to petition the government for redress.

00:21:28.000 Those are all political rights.

00:21:31.000 The Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

00:21:33.000 You keep marching the Third Amendment.

00:21:35.000 You don't have to put up the National Guard that may be dragooned into service in the District of Columbia for eternity.

00:21:42.000 At least the mayor can't say, oh, by the way, they're going to stay in your home tonight.

00:21:46.000 Okay, so that's the third amendment.

00:21:48.000 It's the third amendment.

00:21:49.000 Yeah.

00:21:50.000 But you keep marching.

00:21:51.000 And what's the next cluster?

00:21:53.000 Our rights to process.

00:21:56.000 Our rights to process.

00:21:58.000 You can't be subject to unreasonable searches and seizures.

00:22:01.000 You can't have your property or your life or your liberty taken without due process of law.

00:22:05.000 You've got to have the right to counsel.

00:22:08.000 You have a right to a jury trial in civil cases, right?

00:22:11.000 Eighth Amendment, the government cannot punish you in a cruel and unusual way.

00:22:15.000 And then, of course, the ninth and tenth amendments are structural amendments to reserve power to the people and to the states.

00:22:23.000 And the thought process behind that entire system is one that the government, if not given specific rules for what the government cannot do, will abuse its citizens.

00:22:36.000 And power can be abused against the people.

00:22:43.000 Look, conservatives are getting kicked off social media and it's not okay.

00:22:46.000 So why exactly are we choosing to give these big tech companies all of our personal data?

00:22:50.000 Now is the time to take a stand.

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00:23:47.000 Judge, I want to talk about your book and how you build this out.

00:23:51.000 And I want to reiterate the title, Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty.

00:23:58.000 And so we saw the lockdowns this last year, which has really put the church through difficult times.

00:24:04.000 My pastor has remained open since May and has been fined and has been ridiculed, investigated by local and state authorities for just opening his church.

00:24:15.000 Whereas other assemblies seem to be deemed appropriate, the church seems to be singled out.

00:24:20.000 Can you talk about how we do have the free expression clause and we have the establishment clause when it comes to religion in our country about how the church actually does have separate constitutional carve-outs to assemble, different than if we were just going to a sporting event or to a concert?

00:24:40.000 I'm so glad you said that.

00:24:42.000 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

00:24:48.000 Those are the first 16 words of the First Amendment, and then a semicolon.

00:24:53.000 Then they move on, the words move on to freedom of speech and the like.

00:24:57.000 In other words, these are the first freedoms, the first of the first.

00:25:01.000 This was so foundational to the architects of the Bill of Rights.

00:25:05.000 And so, Congress, stay out of the business.

00:25:08.000 You shall not make a law respecting establishment, but now we're in the free exercise territory.

00:25:14.000 I think some of these restrictions were profound violations of the free exercise right.

00:25:20.000 But what does that mean?

00:25:21.000 Free exercise.

00:25:21.000 What means you go to church?

00:25:24.000 Does the government have absolutely no power?

00:25:26.000 What if you've got a small sanctuary and 10,000 people are coming in?

00:25:31.000 Ah, you do have the police power to say, okay, wait a second, 10,000 people in that small sanctuary, people are going to get crushed or whatever.

00:25:39.000 Reasonable regulation.

00:25:41.000 But the reasonable regulation has to be what?

00:25:44.000 It has to be content neutral.

00:25:46.000 You can't say, now, those 100,000, those 10,000 people or however, they can go to the casino.

00:25:53.000 They can crowd into the casino.

00:25:54.000 And that's exactly what was happening.

00:25:57.000 Governors were permitting, and the Nevada case to me was one of the most atrocious, but there were others that you can go to Caesar's Palace and it can occupy the occupancy limit was 50%.

00:26:13.000 Churches were limited, regardless of the size, to 50 persons.

00:26:19.000 You and I have both been to the wonderful church in Palm Beach, right?

00:26:23.000 That wonderful chapel.

00:26:25.000 Family church.

00:26:26.000 Yeah, sure.

00:26:27.000 You can't tell the deacons of that church or the elders of that church.

00:26:32.000 You can only get 50 people in there because it can seat hundreds.

00:26:35.000 And it's a chapel.

00:26:37.000 Think of the mega churches.

00:26:38.000 And one of the things that was made clear in all these cases is the pastors, the deacons, those in charge, the executive directors were all taking the appropriate precautions.

00:26:48.000 And as one case put it, we're a lot safer than Walmart, which is open down the street.

00:26:55.000 We're a lot safer.

00:26:56.000 We have more social distancing and so forth.

00:26:58.000 And so one of the things my book does is identify the principles of freedom as applied over the years.

00:27:06.000 And the freedom here that's implicated that I spend a chapter on is the freedom from non-discriminatory action by the government.

00:27:15.000 The government can't single churches out and say, oh, you're limited to 50, but Walmart or cannabis stores in Colorado, keep it at half capacity, would you?

00:27:28.000 That's discriminatory, and that is a constitutional no-no.

00:27:34.000 So, Judge, why is it that this was such a difficult issue for our legislators and our judges to get right?

00:27:40.000 You cited the Calvary Chapel Las Vegas lawsuit that went up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:27:46.000 Justice John Roberts sided with the four liberal justices while Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still on the court.

00:27:54.000 And the four dissenting were Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch, who believed that, no, Caesar's Palace should not be given more right to assemble than Calvary Chapel, Las Vegas.

00:28:08.000 What was the reasoning behind this?

00:28:10.000 Because it seemed like there was a double standard, even when it came to public health statutes.

00:28:15.000 Was this an attack on religion?

00:28:17.000 Or is it just that they didn't trust pastors to do the right thing?

00:28:21.000 Or it's hard to go after their motives or their intent.

00:28:25.000 I understand that.

00:28:26.000 But what could possibly be the reasoning for that?

00:28:28.000 Well, let's just stick with, I'm not going to get into motive, but let's just stick with Chief Justice Roberts because we were surprised, right?

00:28:34.000 A lot of us were surprised by that.

00:28:37.000 So I'm just going to take him at his word.

00:28:39.000 First of all, on Merit's case, he's always on the side of religious liberty, always.

00:28:45.000 But this was coming up on an emergency kind of basis.

00:28:49.000 And so I'm going to take him at his word.

00:28:51.000 Look, the local officials know better than I do without the development of a full record.

00:28:57.000 This was a process point, right?

00:28:59.000 We haven't had these issues tried.

00:29:01.000 There have been no witnesses in the courthouse.

00:29:05.000 We haven't had the engine of cross-examination, that great engine.

00:29:09.000 So I'm going to give him credit for that.

00:29:12.000 But here's the good news.

00:29:13.000 In December, as you know, this got turned around with a case coming out of New York, the Roman Catholic diocese in Brooklyn, and lots of opinions, lots of words spilled.

00:29:26.000 And really, once again, Chief Justice Roberts in dissent saying, no, I believe that we should be deferring to local officials, was really making this process point.

00:29:37.000 But also, it ends well because by Christmas time, guess what?

00:29:41.000 Churches were back open.

00:29:44.000 Or they could be open.

00:29:46.000 I realized there were some exceptions to that because I don't want your viewers to come in and say, hey, Starr doesn't know what he's talking about.

00:29:52.000 They had the right to be open.

00:29:54.000 That was so clearly established by the court's decision in the Brooklyn case.

00:29:59.000 So you talk in your book about the creeping secular age that might erode our freedom.

00:30:05.000 We talk about this a lot on our program.

00:30:07.000 What do you mean by that?

00:30:09.000 And can you talk about the Christian tradition that has always enriched the American experience?

00:30:16.000 Let me talk about the latter first, and then I'm going to talk about the Fulton versus City of Philadelphia case that's now pending before the Supreme Court.

00:30:24.000 I don't know whether he's secular or he's a believer, but Robert Putnam, one of the nation's leading sociologists, co-authored a book with Professor Campbell from Notre Dame entitled American Grace.

00:30:35.000 And he talks about how wonderful churches are.

00:30:38.000 They do such good works.

00:30:40.000 And everyone who is involved in any kind of faith community knows, yes, doing good works.

00:30:46.000 That's what we're called upon to do in the Christian tradition, certainly in the Jewish tradition.

00:30:51.000 You are kind to the stranger and so forth.

00:30:53.000 You allow gleaning in the fields.

00:30:55.000 This is our great tradition from millennia.

00:30:58.000 And so so much good is done.

00:31:01.000 Think of hospitals and orphanages and so many universities.

00:31:05.000 Harvard, yes, was a good Christian.

00:31:08.000 When Bill Buckley, one of my great heroes, William F. Buckley Jr., so I pay tribute to his memory right now, wrote God and Man at Yale talking about the secularization of Yale and sort of where's the place for God.

00:31:21.000 And he wrote this mid-20th century.

00:31:24.000 The then president of Yale said, I don't know what Mr. Buckley is complaining about.

00:31:27.000 Yale is a Christian university.

00:31:29.000 So, this culture has changed very dramatically.

00:31:34.000 And that is now putting pressures, even though so many good works are done.

00:31:39.000 And we see that in the cases coming before the Supreme Court, including Fulton versus the City of Philadelphia.

00:31:46.000 Sharon L. Fulton is a very devout Roman Catholic, African-American woman who has taken precious children.

00:31:54.000 Her ministry is taking care of foster children.

00:31:57.000 She's had over 20 in her care and keeping, lovingly so, over the years.

00:32:02.000 She performs this individual ministry and social service under the auspices of Catholic Social Services.

00:32:11.000 Catholic Social Services of Philadelphia has been providing this service for the children of Philadelphia for well over a century.

00:32:19.000 But the current administration of Philadelphia said no more because you will not place precious children with LGBTQ families, even though no LGBTQ couple had ever requested such a placement.

00:32:38.000 So it's so unfortunate.

00:32:39.000 It's really tragic because their children, there are approximately 300 children, as I understand the record in the case, who still could use, not could use, could avail themselves of a foster home, a beloving foster home.

00:32:54.000 And CSS Catholic Social Services was so respected.

00:32:58.000 What a tragedy that is.

00:33:00.000 I could go on if we've got time and use another example.

00:33:03.000 Please do.

00:33:03.000 Can I?

00:33:04.000 Okay, so Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cake Shop.

00:33:09.000 This is a case that's already been decided by the court in suburban Denver, Colorado, has this bake shop, and he will serve anyone and everyone.

00:33:21.000 There's no status discrimination, but he has principles, and he will not depart from those principles in terms of his art.

00:33:30.000 It's not, I won't bake a cake.

00:33:31.000 It's I will not perform artistry.

00:33:34.000 And we've all seen cakes, you know, a cake is a cake by any other name.

00:33:37.000 No, no.

00:33:38.000 They're artistic cakes, right?

00:33:40.000 Just as floral arrangements. 0.78

00:33:42.000 Go get some flowers. 0.85

00:33:44.000 No, no.

00:33:44.000 It's a floral arrangement.

00:33:46.000 Artistic taste is brought to bear.

00:33:48.000 Skill is brought to bear.

00:33:50.000 And so he said, I can't do Halloween stuff because that's demonic, right?

00:33:55.000 This is his set of views and values.

00:33:58.000 And so a recently, at that time, married couple, a same-sex couple, they got married out of state.

00:34:05.000 This is before the Regeville case.

00:34:07.000 And they come into him to celebrate their nuptials.

00:34:12.000 And he says, and he had served them apparently before.

00:34:15.000 I'll sell you anything in the shop, but I cannot in conscience create this cake for you.

00:34:20.000 That began then his saga, which continues seven years later.

00:34:24.000 But he won in the Supreme Court of the United States on freedom of conscience.

00:34:29.000 And in particular, in that case, the, and this makes the point that you flagged earlier, hostility to religion.

00:34:37.000 In his opinion, for the court, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is very sensitive to issues of coercion, freedom of conscience, and so forth.

00:34:48.000 So Jack Phillips prevails in the Supreme Court of the United States in a powerful opinion by Justice Kennedy.

00:34:55.000 And one of the things that I'm trying to say in the book is not the lower courts, but the Supreme Court of the United States has been, over these last 20 to 30 years, a friend to religious liberty.

00:35:11.000 We have to not take these kinds of onslaughts lying down if we're not taken to court, we being friends of faith of all faiths, including those of no faith.

00:35:24.000 We're talking about the rights of conscience here for all Americans, which is so fundamental to our constitutional system.

00:35:32.000 So, Judge, if you could clarify a question we get quite often here, where people say it is illegal to discriminate based on religion and it is illegal to discriminate based on race.

00:35:45.000 What about political viewpoints?

00:35:47.000 A lot of people believe that they are being discriminated against because they're Trump supporter, because they are conservatives.

00:35:53.000 Are there any protections for them?

00:35:55.000 Or is it that you are allowed to discriminate based on political viewpoint?

00:36:00.000 Yeah, in this land of freedom, the fundamental point is: yes, oh, you're a Trump supporter or you're a Biden supporter or you're whatever.

00:36:12.000 I'm not going to do what?

00:36:15.000 Engage in artistry.

00:36:16.000 Now, this is engaging in artistry.

00:36:20.000 Now, if you're talking about someone getting kicked out, remember of the Red Hen restaurant, her family, and so forth.

00:36:27.000 Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

00:36:29.000 Yes.

00:36:29.000 I would immediately go to the public accommodations law of that particular state.

00:36:34.000 It would not be under present law a violation of federal law.

00:36:39.000 That's not a protected category.

00:36:42.000 So people said, Look, I'm just not going to serve you because you support Black Lives Matter.

00:36:48.000 I'm not supporting, right?

00:36:49.000 If that were the ground, you said, ooh, that's getting into racial discrimination and so forth.

00:36:55.000 So it depends on what the category is.

00:36:57.000 But right now, political expression is not clearly a protected category under most laws.

00:37:05.000 I see it both ways.

00:37:06.000 I don't think it necessarily should be because what if all of a sudden Turning Point USA had to, you know, allow every socialist into our organization?

00:37:16.000 So it could, in some ways, if it was just viewpoint or politics, it could cause some problems down the road if it were to become a political thing.

00:37:25.000 This is so important.

00:37:27.000 And it's really hard, I think, for younger fellow students to understand this because we don't like exclusion.

00:37:35.000 Yes.

00:37:36.000 We don't like you're not welcome signs.

00:37:38.000 And I understand that.

00:37:40.000 We want to be welcoming and so forth.

00:37:43.000 But groups have the right to say, here's who we are, as long as you're not discriminating on certain enumerated terms, especially racial discrimination and so forth.

00:37:55.000 And so just think, and here's the Supreme Court opinion by Justice David Souter, who cannot be characterized fairly as some, what shall I say, very conservative, traditionalist kind of justice.

00:38:12.000 And in a very important opinion involving the Boston St. Patty's Day parade, the friendly sons of St. Patrick and so forth, the people who organized that parade said to an LGBTQ Irish American group, I'm sorry, you are welcome to march in the parade, but you can't march under the banner of your group. 0.61

00:38:35.000 That's not what this parade is all about.

00:38:37.000 You have the right to identify what your organization is.

00:38:42.000 And so Turning Point USA has every right to say, it might say, if you're a Marxist, come in because we want to convince you.

00:38:50.000 But you don't have to allow the Marxists to form a student chapter, right, even at a state university.

00:38:57.000 You do not have to allow someone whose views are inimical to the views of freedom articulated so ably by Turning Point USA to then say, okay, I'm now your chapter president.

00:39:09.000 Or I'm going to run for your chapter president.

00:39:10.000 And the same with the Democrat socialists. 0.61

00:39:12.000 They don't have to allow a capitalist or a conservative into their groups.

00:39:16.000 And so it is.

00:39:17.000 Precisely.

00:39:18.000 That's the freedom of association.

00:39:20.000 Now, you'd say, well, gee, this sounds exclusionary.

00:39:22.000 Guess what?

00:39:23.000 This arose out of the civil rights movement when certain states were trying to intrude into the operations of the NAACP, a civil rights organization. 0.98

00:39:34.000 That's a great point.

00:39:35.000 And the Supreme Court said, uh-uh, uh-uh, you can't even get their membership list, much less, this is going way beyond, much less an attempted open infiltration.

00:39:48.000 That's a phenomenal point.

00:39:49.000 The book, again, is Religious Liberty in Crisis, Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty.

00:39:53.000 Judge Starr, any closing thoughts or things you wanted to touch on that we didn't get to cover?

00:39:59.000 Stand up for freedom.

00:40:00.000 I know it's a very tough environment out there and it's getting tougher all the time, but do so in as charming and winsome a way as Charlie Kirk.

00:40:09.000 Stand firm, be firm, be a justice warrior, a freedom warrior, and so forth.

00:40:16.000 And then I hope that don't feel moved to purchase my book, pre-order the book.

00:40:24.000 And thank you so much for the opportunity.

00:40:26.000 I felt very strongly that this is an important book for now in light of all the tensions and pressures on religious liberty, religious expression.

00:40:35.000 So I hope that will be of use to people.

00:40:37.000 That's what it's designed to do, to help us gird our loins for the battle that's already underway.

00:40:43.000 Everybody, check it out.

00:40:44.000 Judge Starr, thank you so much for joining our program.

00:40:46.000 Hope to have you back on soon.

00:40:48.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:40:49.000 All the best.

00:40:50.000 God bless.

00:40:50.000 Thanks, Judge.

00:40:54.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:40:55.000 If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, which we talked about a couple times in this interview, go to tpusa.com.

00:41:00.000 That's tpusa.com.

00:41:02.000 Email us your questions, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:41:06.000 And if you'd like to support us, go to charliekirk.com slash support.

00:41:09.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:41:11.000 God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 09, 2021

Dismantling Impeachment 2.0 with Judge Ken Starr

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