00:01:07.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:14.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:26.000Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:29.000We are joined by what I call the most witty and wise and funniest person in the entire conservative movement, Greg Gutfeld.
00:01:38.000You've probably seen him on Fox News many times, and he's actually had the opportunity to speak at a few of our Turning Point USA events throughout the years.
00:01:46.000And he has a new book out that I encourage everyone to go get.
00:01:50.000It's called The Plus, a Self-Help for People Who Hate Self-Help.
00:01:54.000And Greg, you were once a self-help writer at a magazine.
00:03:15.000You know, I realize how cheesy and false it is because whenever you meet self-help writers, they're generally really miserable and in need of help.
00:03:28.000I've been on, I've been at conferences where there are other self-help writers from other magazines, men's magazines, women's magazines, and they look terrible.
00:04:19.000You know, they're probably 60 or 70 pounds overweight.
00:04:22.000They haven't shaved in like two and a half weeks.
00:04:24.000And then they write this long article about self-discipline and waking up on time.
00:04:27.000And it's like, there's something a little bit contradictory here.
00:04:31.000If you meet them in the, like, if you ever meet a self-help person like in a green room, there's like the button is always like the buttons on the shirt aren't actually lined up.
00:04:43.000And if it's a guy, the fly is never totally up.
00:04:47.000They're just, and they're, I shouldn't talk because look at me.
00:04:49.000I mean, I just got, I just got done exercising, so I'm kind of a wreck, but they're not put, they're not put together.
00:04:56.000And it's, but you're to your point, though, in journalism in general, the people that are dispensing advice, whether it is self-help or political or how to be a better person in general, when you meet them, the contrast is so stark.
00:05:14.000It is, and I think that's why, like, you know, it's always interesting with like people paint Republicans and conservatives as like evil, awful people.
00:05:23.000And then you, in person, they're like, sorry, they're like pretty good looking.
00:06:16.000You could say what you can say whatever you want.
00:06:18.000And also, to your point about this not being a political book, it is frustrating to work in television and that I never could win the argument.
00:06:26.000I don't want my face on the book because all the books with faces on them now are just, you just feel like it's a right-wing book, right?
00:06:33.000And you always have somebody like this with their, with their like with a flag draped over them.
00:07:49.000So I want this to have a different cover so people can pick it up who don't know who I am five years from now and can go like, wow, this was about living in a time of hysteria, mobs, and disease, and it could be helpful.
00:08:11.000We see it statistically and anecdotally, especially with young men in this country, where, and you see it reflected in we're having 500,000 less children this year than last year, drug use is up, suicide is up.
00:08:30.000What are some of the themes that you hit on?
00:08:31.000Well, you know, it's kind of interesting.
00:08:33.000You go back to like what Jordan Peterson said about start by making your bed.
00:08:39.000And people laughed at that, but that's kind of what I, what the plus is about is like, I created a new or artificial, let's call it an artificial replacement for impulse control.
00:08:50.000Let's say you don't have a religious upbringing and you don't have a two-parent household and you don't have a role model.
00:08:56.000And so you're faced with options that are good and bad or in the mix of good and bad.
00:09:02.000This book creates this artificial thing that you teach yourself before every decision, plus or minus.
00:09:10.000So before I text, before I tweet at Charlie Kirk something obnoxious because he ripped my show, is this a plus or minus?
00:09:17.000Because this book was made for me as somebody who could have better impulse control on Twitter, online, on email, in meetings, even on TV.
00:09:29.000Although I think it's funny that I'm more in control on TV than I am anywhere else, I think.
00:09:35.000But the idea of the plus was like, how can I add some muscle to my impulse control, especially when my impulses can be so negative?
00:09:45.000So it was also, that's why I said it's self-help for people who hate self-help.
00:10:45.000I'm going to write a self-help book that tackles these things.
00:10:48.000And that was like, I wasn't planning on the negative would have been not to do anything.
00:10:54.000So I hope that this is just a valley for us and that we come out of it and that there will be meaning rediscovered.
00:11:06.000It is, I do think that when you're watching what's going on in the streets, there's a lot of miserable people who are finding meaning in self-destructive envy.
00:11:20.000It's like they're not trying to rob Charlie Kirk of his wallet.
00:11:24.000They just don't want Charlie Kirk to have that wallet.
00:12:01.000Yeah, and they actually find satisfaction in not even getting the good, but in seeing other people suffer, which is even way, it's actually way more morally twisted than people recognize.
00:12:12.000Is that when they get the Gucci bag, that's actually gave them less satisfaction than when the glass shattered.
00:12:57.000She was looking out our window and watching every single store, hundreds, just going in and going out.
00:13:04.000And to your point about stuff that they were stealing was like a woman running out of a store with like 100 bras, you know, of a different, that was out of the lingerie store.
00:13:14.000And it was just insane, but completely understandable when you don't have impulse control and there are no incentives or disincentives, i.e. punishment or consequences.
00:13:27.000There's like punishment is an incentive not to do something.
00:14:06.000It's almost they've gamified the criminal process.
00:14:09.000It is a mentality that has been ingrained if you went to any major university in the last 20 years that capitalism, free markets, achievers do not deserve what they have.
00:14:23.000So you have protesters walking through the suburbs, I think it might have been Seattle, telling the white owners of homes to leave their homes and let black individuals have their homes because I guess historically it was a black neighborhood.
00:14:38.000But it's like, you have to give up your homes.
00:14:43.000I'm trying to make sure, like maybe it was just, maybe it's just five people.
00:14:46.000But, you know, there's a guy running for office in Minnesota who was standing outside somebody's house shouting expletives saying F the police and all this stuff.
00:14:56.000And he's got the governor's endorsement.
00:15:12.000And it's because, and I would love your opinion of this.
00:15:14.000I don't know if you talked on this in the book or not, which is it's a lack of gratitude.
00:15:18.000If you don't have gratitude, it's very easy to become bitter.
00:15:22.000Do you talk, do you kind of, can you walk us through this kind of this new like systematic thinking that you have in the book, which I'm really, I'm really interested and intrigued by, because it's very, it's pragmatic, basically what you're saying.
00:15:35.000It is basically looking at everything as an opportunity for a plus or a minus type behavior, two roads and figuring out which way to go.
00:15:44.000It's almost like Bongino said this to me.
00:15:46.000He goes, Greg, it's so idiotic, but no one's ever done it before.
00:15:51.000That's how I that's how I hear Bongino when he's talking to me.
00:15:54.000He's like, This is, I've never read this before, but it's so obvious, and it is obvious.
00:15:59.000Um, I actually use this uh principle when talking about dealing with people like uh uh miserable leftists.
00:16:08.000And if there is a glimmer of hope that you can kind of open them up to other ideas, I have strategies in there to do that, whether it is like trying to meet them a little bit, um, trying to get them to talk about other things as analogous to politics.
00:16:22.000So it's like, okay, so if you think this is wrong, how do you, why do you use an alarm clock, you know, or why do you not?
00:16:27.000That's a dumb analogy, but why do you why do you invoke discipline in these areas, but not in these areas?
00:18:11.000And right now, I don't care what you claim you are today because it's going to change tomorrow.
00:18:18.000So there's a lot of people listening to this podcast, and we've done a podcast on how to try to get people's lives reorganized.
00:18:24.000It's a serious problem in our country to try to get people straightened out and try to get them understanding of how they can find purpose and responsibility.
00:18:32.000Just technically, Greg, what is your message in the book of the applicability of this kind of systematic thinking, of looking at everything through a plus and minus?
00:18:39.000It's somewhat utilitarian, but it's also deeper than that, right?
00:18:43.000It's not just kind of funny because I am not religious, but the people that have interviewed me, God, Dennis Prager.
00:18:54.000Oh, geez, I hate it when I cite names.
00:18:57.000I'll just say that, but they all say that there's a religious tradition in this.
00:19:02.000And the advice that I give about leading a productive life has a lot to do with forgiveness, doing the right thing because religion instills impulse control.
00:19:15.000And my book is about impulse control because I'm not religious.
00:19:18.000So what I'm trying to do is almost offer a secular religious tract, but I didn't mean to.
00:19:24.000Probably the most important part of the book is to share the risk.
00:19:31.000I first heard that phrase from Claire Lehman from Quillette when I interviewed her.
00:19:35.000And it was that, and it was, you know, I had been writing about the cancel culture.
00:19:38.000And I do think cancel culture is probably one of our biggest threats.
00:19:41.000If a group doesn't like you, they will try to destroy you.
00:19:44.000So there's the Breitbart model as a response, mutually assured destruction.
00:19:50.000So if John Smith wants to destroy Charlie Kirk by going to Charlie Kirk's employer and saying, if you don't fire Charlie Kirk, I'm going to do a boycott.
00:20:02.000Then you have the right to know where John Smith works.
00:20:06.000So then you can direct people to go to his place of work and say, this guy is bullying, blah, blah, blah.
00:20:13.000That would be like a Breitbartian kind of mutually assured destruction mode, which I don't disagree with, but I don't want to do it.
00:20:19.000So I'm asking him as a why I don't want to do it because there's a certain religious element to the idea of turning the other cheek combined with sharing the risk.
00:20:28.000The idea that rather than go after them, you share the risk with Charlie Kirk or you share the risk with the Covington kid, meaning anybody who gets targeted, no matter even people on the left, which I think I mentioned it in the book.
00:20:40.000There was an occasion where there was a guy targeted on the left for doing something, saying something totally stupid.
00:20:48.000And I really do believe that I had a large part in keeping his job because when I tweeted a defense of his, it kind of got, it kind of snowballed and stopped that mob from going.
00:21:05.000And of course, like two months later, the guy is back to crapping all over me and taking my stuff out of context from the five and saying I'm a jerk.
00:22:47.000Sharing the risk and maybe a little mutually assured destruction makes it more of a challenge for that person to come and ruin you if they think that they're not anonymous, right?
00:24:34.000You're like, oh, and it's, it's, it's interesting.
00:24:36.000So basically, when you're on TV, you are absolutely, you are out there saying, come get me.
00:24:45.000And you have to, in the back of your head, you have to, you have to, you have to choose your words so carefully, but you also have to tell the truth and you have to entertain.
00:24:54.000And that, those two are, are almost almost required that you jump off a verbal cliff to take a risk.
00:25:01.000If you're in the other side, I, I, it's like always like this, and you always see this with people now who are on TV and they are like, it's like they're so tight-lipped because they're afraid that what they might say might ruin their careers.
00:25:13.000And that's why you also see a lot of celebrities not doing many interviews anymore because it always comes back to haunt them.
00:25:21.000And so when you're anonymous, you're actually able to be much more destructive.
00:25:25.000When you don't have an identity, you're able to well, yeah, I mean, but there is something to be said.
00:25:30.000There is something to be said that the indecency and the cancellation has only been inflamed by how people can hide behind Twitter accounts or they have such small followings, they're able to do things that they otherwise wouldn't do, or they have duplicative accounts.
00:25:44.000And so then all of a sudden, you have an entire group of people that are held to an unholy standard.
00:25:50.000And it actually creates really unhappy dynamics between the communicator and the audience.
00:25:57.000And I think that's also why we have the death of comedy is because people are like, well, I'm so afraid of offending anyone, which comedy is.
00:26:02.000I mean, comedy by definition is offensive.
00:26:04.000And the worst people are the comedians that are kneeling before canceled culture, the ones that say, you know, they have a point.
00:26:12.000I think it was Sarah Silverman who said, like, it's true.
00:26:15.000Some comedy from 10 years ago, I'm paraphrasing completely, but it was like, and I'm pretty sure it was her, but like, you know, attitudes change.
00:26:23.000You know, it's like, so she, and remember, she wore blackface, which I, you know, back then, I think she was, I think she was absolutely petrified that she was going to be canceled over blackface.
00:26:35.000So she, you know, she got on her knees before the crocodile, you know, the crocodile hoping that it won't, you know, always eats you last, you know, and I find I really admire the comedians that are just basically giving the finger to cancel culture.
00:26:51.000And we need to support them when they get in trouble.
00:26:55.000I love Andrew Schultz and Dave Smith and a whole bunch of people that are that kind of like, they're just, they're doing it without a net, you know, and also that's the other answer to whether it's Joe Rogan, Adam Carolla, Dave Rubin, you got to create your own business for two reasons.
00:27:16.000One, then you can't be canceled unless they demonetize you on YouTube.
00:27:28.000I assume Joe Rogan's worth, what, like $100 million now?
00:27:31.000So there's an incentive for me to get the hell out of here.
00:27:35.000It's like, I'm thinking, like, what am I doing?
00:27:38.000But that's the bright spot is that if you go, the audience will find you and cancel culture will be left with this safe, homogenized syrup of inanities that they won.
00:27:52.000And absent people doing that, if you stay in the institutions, the institutions will die alongside the individuals that don't have the creative capacity.
00:28:09.000I think any TV show, I mean, and then you'll see Netflix will keep certain shows alive that aren't being watched simply because of the demographic of the talent or just the message.
00:28:23.000They need to keep the PC elements going.
00:29:49.000If you want to get involved with Turning PointUSA, go to tpusa.com, tpusa.com, and consider supporting us at charliekirk.com/slash support.
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