The Charlie Kirk Show - Ground War, Marriage, Music, and More ft. Megan Basham, Mollie Hemingway, and Sean Davis

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, Lord Museman.

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.

00:01:12.000 So there is lots going on right now.

00:01:14.000 There's CPAC, which is happening in Texas.

00:01:17.000 It's opening day for the Cubs.

00:01:19.000 It's opening day for, well, I mean, I think it was opening day yesterday.

00:01:22.000 Yeah, but the Cubs didn't play.

00:01:23.000 Today is the first game for the Cubs.

00:01:25.000 And I think they technically call this opening day.

00:01:27.000 Yeah, technically today is, but they did a Yankees Giants game last night on Netflix.

00:01:33.000 So yeah, Charlie was a huge Cubs fan.

00:01:35.000 So go Cubbies and go. 0.99

00:01:38.000 They'll probably be better than the Twins.

00:01:39.000 Go Dodgers.

00:01:42.000 I keep forgetting that you were.

00:01:42.000 I can't remember.

00:01:44.000 Everyone forgets about the Twins because they're a very forgettable team, especially now.

00:01:48.000 Kirby Puckett was amazing.

00:01:49.000 Yes, he was.

00:01:50.000 Joe Mauer was great, and they'll probably never be great again because they have those owners who kind of treat their baseball teams the way the Democratic Party treats America.

00:01:58.000 This like husk to extract value from and then abandon.

00:02:02.000 I've never seen him give me crazy eyes like that.

00:02:07.000 That hit you at a deep childhood trauma level.

00:02:10.000 It's very sad.

00:02:11.000 It's very sad.

00:02:11.000 I'm stuck with this team that's never going to win.

00:02:14.000 But the Cubs might win.

00:02:15.000 We'll be pulling for that.

00:02:16.000 You know, everybody's mad at the Dodgers forgetting Tucker, who was the, I think, the top sort of free agent on the market this offseason.

00:02:26.000 Everybody's mad at the Dodge.

00:02:27.000 We just don't want baseball to go the same way that soccer goes in all those other countries where there's two teams ever allowed to win the title.

00:02:34.000 It's good for baseball to have a villain, Blake.

00:02:36.000 It's good.

00:02:37.000 Makes everybody hate the Dodgers, which makes every game that they play way more interesting and fun.

00:02:44.000 It's more fun to hate the Yankees, though.

00:02:46.000 No, you can hate the Yankees and the Dodgers.

00:02:48.000 That's fair.

00:02:49.000 So the big news today is the Pentagon is weighing what they're calling a final blow option against Iran.

00:02:56.000 Do you think it's going to be called like Operation Final Blow?

00:03:00.000 I hope not.

00:03:01.000 They've been giving him some funny names.

00:03:03.000 Well, Operation Epic Fury.

00:03:04.000 I actually think that's an epic name.

00:03:06.000 I think it's great.

00:03:07.000 So here's the news from Axios.

00:03:10.000 Among the options, so these are including ground operations and a massive bombing campaign, according to a report Thursday from Axios.

00:03:17.000 Among the options under consideration are seizing or blockading key Iranian positions, including Karg Island.

00:03:23.000 We've heard a lot about Karg Island, the country's main oil export hub, as well as the strategic islands of Abu Musa and Larak near the Strait of Hormuz.

00:03:32.000 Axios reported citing U.S. officials and sources familiar with internal deliberation.

00:03:38.000 Other scenarios include targeting Iranian oil shipments or conducting large-scale strikes on nuclear facilities, it added.

00:03:45.000 And President Trump has reportedly not made up his mind.

00:03:49.000 But what we know is that all of the chess pieces are in place to do something like this.

00:03:55.000 And Blake, we've seen this before where President Trump sort of mobilizes in a region and you're thinking, oh, it's bluster, saber-rattling.

00:04:05.000 But lately, he's tended to just kind of press the go-to.

00:04:08.000 Yes.

00:04:08.000 And I mean, we were thinking about, I guess, it was initially just the air assets, but they did start moving these a few weeks ago.

00:04:18.000 And as you say, it could be two things.

00:04:20.000 It could be show I'm very serious so that they have the pressure to make a deal, but more so than a lot of people and more so than himself in the past, he appears ready to push through with it.

00:04:31.000 I think we would love to have all of your emails about what you support on this because we're of two minds on this.

00:04:38.000 We're already in the conflict.

00:04:40.000 We do want to win that conflict since it's begun.

00:04:43.000 But I am thinking always of the discussions we'd have with Charlie and the way that, okay, if this isn't what wins it, it's now just another step towards we have a bunch of troops now on the ground in the area.

00:04:57.000 And then if it doesn't end the war, the pressure will be, well, you could send more troops and escalate more, and then that will end it.

00:05:04.000 Yeah, well, CNN's even reporting on this.

00:05:06.000 So let's get their coverage on it.

00:05:10.000 By the way, you know, CNN was famously denying that there was any negotiations going on, and then they eventually had to backtrack and say, yes, there were negotiations on a deal going on.

00:05:21.000 Iran has reportedly declined.

00:05:23.000 So here we go.

00:05:24.000 We're building up SAT-20.

00:05:27.000 Well, Audi, whatever the president ultimately decides about a ground operation in Iran, all the pieces are now in the region to carry one out.

00:05:37.000 And it's not just the thousand paratroopers.

00:05:39.000 You have Marines deployed to the region, and then all the forces, the air transport, et cetera, that one would require to put troops on the ground.

00:05:49.000 Whether that be, you've heard the discussion of Karg Island, which is so central to Iran's energy industry, or perhaps along the shores of the Strait of Hormuz to secure the Strait of Hormuz, we don't know.

00:06:01.000 And ultimately, it's up to the president.

00:06:04.000 So all the pieces are on the board.

00:06:06.000 Please send us your emails, freedom at charliekirk.com, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:06:10.000 We want to hear what you think.

00:06:12.000 I'm just going to be really honest.

00:06:15.000 I hate it.

00:06:16.000 I don't want to see ground troops in Iran.

00:06:20.000 I would love for the people of Iran themselves to rise up.

00:06:23.000 And it's, you know, there's another report that B.B. Netanyahu suggested that we now give the signal to the Iranian people to rise up in the streets.

00:06:33.000 And President Trump rebuffed that and said they'll get mowed down.

00:06:36.000 I mean, I think we saw, they clearly were leaning that way when it first began.

00:06:40.000 Remember when the first strikes threw in, a lot of the rhetoric from the president was the Iranian people take back your country.

00:06:47.000 He was clearly gesturing towards something like that happening.

00:06:50.000 And in truth, I think they expected that to happen.

00:06:53.000 And then it didn't.

00:06:54.000 There wasn't a big strong upsurge.

00:06:56.000 Well, I think, you know, I've been calling around on this.

00:07:00.000 They are waiting for the signal to go.

00:07:02.000 And they can give them the signal.

00:07:05.000 I think the Reza Pavlavi could give the signal and it would probably generate some movement.

00:07:11.000 But again, I don't think President Trump thinks it's safe for them to do so yet.

00:07:15.000 It probably isn't.

00:07:16.000 And it's difficult because, I mean, what we could do is we could give the signal and then just explicitly launch airstrikes on behalf of those people.

00:07:24.000 But it's difficult to coordinate with a fundamentally uncoordinated mass.

00:07:29.000 It's difficult.

00:07:30.000 It's easy to do airstrikes on a facility, on a base, even on a ship, but on a bunch of guys running around with AKs.

00:07:38.000 You know, it's difficult.

00:07:39.000 It's an interesting idea because I met some Persian folks recently and they were basically telling me the people are ready to rise up when the signal is given.

00:07:48.000 And I said, well, are they armed?

00:07:49.000 He said, no, they're not.

00:07:51.000 Well, I said, well, then the IRGC is armed and they're going to get mowed down again.

00:07:55.000 Basically what Trump said.

00:07:57.000 An interesting potential of having, you know, the 82nd Airborne, these Marines in position.

00:08:05.000 I mean, in theory, again, I don't love this job falling to us, but maybe a potentiality here is that they give the signal to go and these guys basically become like a protector force.

00:08:19.000 You know, I don't know.

00:08:20.000 It sounds like a terrible idea.

00:08:21.000 I'm just saying maybe that's one of the options on the table.

00:08:24.000 We've repeatedly wanted uprisings to sort of efficiently and easily solve our problems in the Middle East.

00:08:30.000 And there's often this idea that any government we're fighting has this 0% approval rating that will crumble as soon as you blow up a few guys.

00:08:38.000 And unfortunately, I think it's clear there's at least a pretty large mass of Iranians who do support this regime.

00:08:44.000 And there might be more now because they're at war.

00:08:47.000 Wars radicalize people in a country.

00:08:50.000 Well, and the factions within an old country, an ancient culture like Iran, are going to be deeper than in a country like Venezuela, right?

00:08:50.000 Yeah.

00:09:00.000 So we're just going to have to see how this plays out.

00:09:05.000 I just watched A Great Awakening.

00:09:08.000 And I have to tell you, this isn't just another historical drama.

00:09:11.000 It's a wake-up call that you all need to pay attention to.

00:09:14.000 We spend so much time talking about 1776 and constitutions and congresses and declarations, but this film reminds you of something even deeper.

00:09:23.000 Before the revolution, there was revelation.

00:09:25.000 George Whitfield wasn't a politician.

00:09:27.000 He was a preacher.

00:09:28.000 And yet watching this film, you see how his fearless proclamation of liberty in Christ shook the colonies to their core.

00:09:36.000 It unified people who had nothing else uniting him.

00:09:39.000 And that is power.

00:09:40.000 What really struck me was the portrayal of Benjamin Franklin.

00:09:44.000 He's this brilliant, rational mind, and yet he's drawn into genuine friendship with Whitfield, not because he suddenly becomes someone else, but because he begins to see freedom isn't structural.

00:09:55.000 It's spiritual.

00:09:57.000 The film makes one thing clear.

00:09:58.000 You cannot sustain political liberty without moral and spiritual awakening.

00:10:02.000 In theaters, April 3rd, visit agreatawakening.com to learn more today.

00:10:08.000 Agreatawakening.com to learn more today.

00:10:14.000 Without further ado, so excited to have Megan Basham in studio in Phoenix.

00:10:20.000 I'm so excited to be here.

00:10:20.000 I know.

00:10:22.000 I've done the show so many times, but I've never been here in person.

00:10:24.000 So now I feel like real.

00:10:25.000 We like to keep you.

00:10:26.000 Have you ever been in God's Furnace before?

00:10:29.000 I haven't.

00:10:30.000 And it is actually, well, okay, I grew up in Arizona.

00:10:32.000 Okay.

00:10:32.000 So I thought you were talking about the building.

00:10:34.000 I'm like, it's actually very cool in here.

00:10:35.000 Oh, no, no.

00:10:36.000 It's very cool in here.

00:10:36.000 No, the building is not.

00:10:38.000 Hopefully this is more like holy ground than God's Furnace.

00:10:38.000 No, but Phoenix is in the middle.

00:10:40.000 Yeah, no, but yeah, I grew up in Phoenix.

00:10:42.000 So yes, we fled the summer oven door open experience like many years ago.

00:10:48.000 Yeah, but you're, what are you in Tennessee?

00:10:48.000 Okay.

00:10:50.000 Charlotte, North Carolina, yeah.

00:10:51.000 Oh, because the I was headquarters are in Tennessee.

00:10:54.000 I was thinking of Daily Wire.

00:10:55.000 Yeah.

00:10:56.000 So you get hot and you get the humidity.

00:10:58.000 So I don't know what I think I'd actually prefer the dry oven heat for four months as opposed to.

00:11:03.000 And this is unseasonably warm.

00:11:06.000 Yeah, this is, and I knew that.

00:11:07.000 So, I mean, like, you know, we're, we're Arizona born and bred.

00:11:09.000 So we know that you guys are having freakish weather.

00:11:11.000 That's great.

00:11:13.000 Okay, so we actually were planning on having a conversation about this earlier in the week than the Joe Kent stuff.

00:11:19.000 And we brought Schellenberger on.

00:11:21.000 And then you were like, well, I'm going to be in Phoenix anyway.

00:11:23.000 I was like, well, then we're just going to do it then.

00:11:25.000 So it's a bit of abrupt pivot because we were talking about ground troops and things.

00:11:29.000 And Blake kind of laughed at the break.

00:11:31.000 He's like, that was an awkward pivot.

00:11:33.000 I was like, yeah, I know.

00:11:34.000 We're going from ground invasion to promiscuity in Virginia.

00:11:37.000 So this tweet took over X, which was pretty impressive because there's a lot going on.

00:11:43.000 Blake, give us the rundown here.

00:11:45.000 Well, so what it was is it went astonishingly viral.

00:11:49.000 Was a Christian man named Trevor, Trevor Sheets, and he just does kind of a post, and I don't know that we want to read the whole thing, but it was basically the opening line of it, which is what I think got a lot of people's attention, was my wife was formerly promiscuous.

00:12:06.000 I was a virgin.

00:12:08.000 She was then radically born again, committed to church, evangelized constantly, Puritan books in her bedroom, prayer journals, grief over past sexual sin, etc.

00:12:18.000 We got to know each other over each other well, over a year, dated for four months, engaged for two and a half, and didn't sin sexually with one another.

00:12:26.000 Our first kiss was on the altar of our wedding day.

00:12:28.000 Goes on, talks about they've been married for several years now, they have children, and all of these things.

00:12:33.000 And then there's a photo at the bottom of their wedding, which is very nice.

00:12:36.000 This has gotten 35 million views on it.

00:12:42.000 That's like Nick Shirley levels of view count.

00:12:45.000 And it's been very divisive, as we know, because some people say this is a perfectly fine testament.

00:12:50.000 Some people say it's TMI.

00:12:52.000 Some people say, I mean, we'll get your take on this.

00:12:54.000 Some people, it really is a Warshaw test because some people think, is this wallowing in a sin?

00:12:59.000 Is this throwing your wife under the bus? 0.97

00:13:00.000 Is this the right way to approach a topic like that?

00:13:03.000 And he wanted to discuss. 1.00

00:13:05.000 His wife is a whore. 1.00

00:13:06.000 He said she's a former. 1.00

00:13:06.000 Right. 1.00

00:13:08.000 Formerly promiscuous.

00:13:10.000 I mean, it was literally five words that like blew up the internet.

00:13:13.000 Blew up the internet.

00:13:14.000 Yeah.

00:13:14.000 So what's your take on this, Megan?

00:13:17.000 Okay, so I have a different take.

00:13:19.000 Don't be so nuanced that my eyes glaze up.

00:13:22.000 Nuance is not usually my problem.

00:13:24.000 So, you know, a couple of data points I want to bring to this story.

00:13:29.000 One is that this woman was a girl at the time these things were going on.

00:13:34.000 She was under 18 years old.

00:13:36.000 You told me this was a moment.

00:13:37.000 She became a Christian at 17. 0.93

00:13:40.000 So the guys who are having a really good time calling her a whore and much, much worse, are not recognizing that they're actually talking about the activities of someone when she was legally a child. 0.71

00:13:52.000 So, you know, I don't know her story. 0.79

00:13:54.000 I don't know what went on in her background, but I she's been very public about it, by the way.

00:13:58.000 Before this, this is sort of part of their ministry, I think, together.

00:14:02.000 And I mean, and she, I read her full testimony, and I think she said it started around 15.

00:14:02.000 Right.

00:14:08.000 So, you know, 15 to 17, maybe was a little younger than that.

00:14:11.000 But my point being, usually there is some traumatic things in someone's background when they've had that experience by 17 years old.

00:14:19.000 So she became a Christian at 17.

00:14:21.000 And the other thing I want to correct is there was a ton of guys out there saying, like, oh, she's, they were basically equating her to Nala Ray, like saying, okay, so you were like a webcam girl and you were promiscuous.

00:14:34.000 And, you know, they described it in much worse terms, but then you pivoted to become a Christian influencer.

00:14:39.000 And I'm like, no, this woman became a Christian almost 10 years ago.

00:14:43.000 So it's not like she's like, oh, yeah, yesterday I was on OnlyFans, but now I'm building up my platform by saying I'm reformed.

00:14:50.000 This woman actually did the steps of repentance and got married and has been living, you know, quietly. 0.97

00:14:55.000 She has three kids.

00:14:56.000 Yeah, this is not somebody who like immediately was like, now embrace me as a Christian influencer.

00:15:01.000 I mean, she's, she's shown repentance and she's shown fruit in keeping with repentance.

00:15:06.000 So I'm like, this is not that kind of story.

00:15:08.000 And I understand the resentment of young guys going, okay, so the second you say I'm a Christian now, even though five minutes ago I was on OnlyFans, I'm going to keep all the money.

00:15:18.000 And in fact, I'm going to continue to make money now on my reform story.

00:15:22.000 I get the suspicion of that.

00:15:24.000 I get the cynicism.

00:15:26.000 That's not this woman. 1.00

00:15:28.000 So, you know, that's something else I would want to emphasize because I think people didn't do enough research.

00:15:32.000 And I actually communicated with her a little bit.

00:15:35.000 Yeah.

00:15:36.000 So we were messaging and I just said, were you embarrassed by what your husband put out there?

00:15:41.000 And just as she said, I think in a clip that we have, she was very clear with me.

00:15:45.000 No, I've been very public about my testimony.

00:15:47.000 I wasn't embarrassed.

00:15:48.000 My husband knew that he is free to talk about this.

00:15:52.000 And to the degree that he talked about it, and we can debate the wisdom of the forum in which he talked about it.

00:15:57.000 But this man, according to what Ashley Sheets told me, was very clear that he had his wife's permission to discuss this topic.

00:16:07.000 Well, we have that clip.

00:16:08.000 I think this is what it is, Sat 25.

00:16:12.000 He showed me that I was, my promiscuity was a sin against God, and I deserved help.

00:16:24.000 But Jesus paid for all my sin.

00:16:29.000 And all I have to do is to repent and trust alone in Jesus.

00:16:34.000 And I will be new.

00:16:36.000 And that night I gave my life to Jesus. 0.52

00:16:41.000 That person who was promiscuous is dead.

00:16:44.000 She's gone.

00:16:46.000 And I am new in Christ.

00:16:48.000 And that is why I have no shame anymore.

00:16:51.000 Because God looks at me as clean and robed in Christ's righteousness.

00:17:00.000 It's a beautiful clip, actually.

00:17:01.000 But the use of the word promiscuous is still like, it hits every time she says it.

00:17:06.000 It's like, ugh, can you?

00:17:07.000 It's not a word you hear much these days.

00:17:09.000 Yeah, it's not.

00:17:10.000 But that's a beautiful clip.

00:17:11.000 And theologically, it's accurate.

00:17:13.000 And something else she said in that interview, if you watched it, and I thought, this is so different from what we have gotten from the Me Too movement, which is that a lot of women who obviously participated in some level in consensual sexual sin, then later come back and go.

00:17:13.000 Yeah.

00:17:28.000 They rewrite it.

00:17:28.000 Right.

00:17:29.000 I was traumatized.

00:17:30.000 I was, I didn't, you know, I was abused, even though, you know, they willingly participated if there's some power imbalance.

00:17:37.000 This, this woman was actually a minor when these things happen. 1.00

00:17:41.000 And yet she's very clearly taking responsibility for her own sinful choices.

00:17:45.000 And you don't see that often.

00:17:46.000 I mean, I think part of what you hear from Ashley Sheets and using the word promiscuity is she's trying not to minimize her background. 1.00

00:17:55.000 I think you're right.

00:17:57.000 And, you know, it's funny because the guys were showing me this at the office the day it was kind of blowing up.

00:18:03.000 And they were like, what are your thoughts?

00:18:04.000 And I read it.

00:18:04.000 What are your thoughts?

00:18:05.000 I was like, honestly, I think it's, you know, it's accurate.

00:18:09.000 Like, theologically, as a Christian, like, everything she said here is.

00:18:13.000 I love the verses they quote.

00:18:14.000 And he quotes several different verses.

00:18:15.000 You know, he mentions the parable about debts being forgiven.

00:18:20.000 And then her many sins have been forgiven.

00:18:22.000 That is why she loved much.

00:18:23.000 The one who has forgiven little loves little.

00:18:26.000 If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

00:18:28.000 The old has passed away.

00:18:30.000 And see, the new has come.

00:18:31.000 That's from Corinthians.

00:18:32.000 That's right.

00:18:32.000 But I could tell just on the fact that everybody was showing it to me.

00:18:36.000 Like, you know, you look at the comments, like, delete this, delete this.

00:18:38.000 Not too late to delete this.

00:18:40.000 Oh, wait, it is.

00:18:41.000 And everybody just kind of piling on.

00:18:42.000 I mean, here's the thing.

00:18:44.000 X is a really mean place.

00:18:45.000 Yeah.

00:18:46.000 It's an extraordinarily mean place.

00:18:47.000 So was this a good forum?

00:18:49.000 Yeah, it's an extraordinarily mean place.

00:18:51.000 Like, just, you know, we can attest to that in the last six months.

00:18:55.000 But so I think that was more of the intrigue for me is just to see the way people reacted.

00:19:01.000 And it didn't trigger me when I saw.

00:19:04.000 That being said, you know, I understood that given the forum, the way that that first line was in there.

00:19:10.000 And now people are alleging that it was part of this building a platform and that he's a Christian marketing guy.

00:19:16.000 And so he knew what he was doing.

00:19:17.000 I don't know.

00:19:18.000 I don't think I buy that.

00:19:19.000 I don't really either.

00:19:20.000 In part because, again, I mean, it was like almost 10 years ago that, you know, this happened, that she came to Christ.

00:19:26.000 So I'm like, you know, she's been pretty public with her testimony since then.

00:19:30.000 I think she wrote about it in 2019.

00:19:32.000 It's her pinned tweet.

00:19:34.000 It's been there since 2019.

00:19:36.000 So, you know, I don't think we can read their motives right there.

00:19:40.000 So I'm going to go, I think everybody who's saying we know why they're doing that, we can't know that.

00:19:45.000 Yeah, I mean, I agree.

00:19:48.000 But it kind of does, you hit on a vein here that I think has a lot of rich stuff to explore because we had a guy named Gabe Saint in the studio yesterday, and he was talking about the animosity and the resentment between the sexes, especially with Gen Z. 0.89

00:20:04.000 And there is a distortion of, you know, what young women expect from their men and what young men are even capable of providing.

00:20:15.000 He kept using this word simps, that they were kind of these beta male, these sort of weak men that don't know how to lead.

00:20:22.000 They don't know how to be masculine.

00:20:23.000 And then the ones that do, they're not free to be strong and masculine.

00:20:27.000 And the women want the men to accept all this responsibility, be the provider, take care of them, bring them flowers, take them on dates, pay for dinner, but they don't give them any authority in the relationship. 1.00

00:20:37.000 So they're just expecting the men to sort of worship them and revolve around them.

00:20:42.000 And it feels like there is this healthy imbalance.

00:20:45.000 And you talked about you understood the suspicion that women get to be sort of promiscuous.

00:20:51.000 And then when they just claim the name of Jesus, good men have to take them back or something.

00:20:57.000 There is a lot there because actually what's underlying a lot of this is a really unhealthy, I think, relationship between the sexes. 0.77

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00:22:31.000 So we are getting into this dynamic, this unhealthy imbalance between the sexes.

00:22:35.000 This is a crazy stat.

00:22:37.000 63% of young men between the ages of 18 and 29 report being single compared to only 34% of women for the same age group.

00:22:46.000 Correct.

00:22:47.000 The maths don't math, first of all.

00:22:49.000 So somebody's not telling somebody what's really going on here.

00:22:52.000 They're dating older men or some men are dating multiple women.

00:22:56.000 Yeah.

00:22:57.000 I mean, that's classic.

00:22:58.000 Yeah.

00:22:59.000 So, but there is resentment that is building.

00:23:02.000 And again, I go back to Gabe Saint.

00:23:04.000 He's our turning point chapter president at the University of Wyoming.

00:23:07.000 He explained this, you know, he said it's even amongst conservatives that share ostensibly the same value set.

00:23:14.000 What do you make of it?

00:23:15.000 So, you know, a couple of things.

00:23:16.000 One, it was funny that I ended up sort of being on the receiving end of some of the hostility over the last couple of days when I came to this woman's defense because I have been very outspoken that I believe the longhouse is real and it's a real problem.

00:23:30.000 And I'm actually working on a book on this that I'm like, I do believe that we are increasingly living in a gynocracy. 1.00

00:23:37.000 You hear that term, which essentially means that it is a female-dominated culture. 1.00

00:23:42.000 Helen Andrews.

00:23:42.000 Very Helen Andrews.

00:23:44.000 And can I tell you, I posted a clip.

00:23:45.000 For younger people, you're in the longhouse. 0.99

00:23:47.000 Right.

00:23:48.000 And I have gone, you know, to the mattresses fighting some of these evangelical influencers who have denied that the longhouse is real.

00:23:55.000 I'm like, it is absolutely real.

00:23:57.000 We are living in an extraordinary mean.

00:23:59.000 It's the idea in ancient times, everyone lived in a big long house and you could get bossed around by women who would nag you, basically. 0.88

00:24:05.000 And so that's the online term.

00:24:06.000 Just explaining for all of our boomer viewers.

00:24:10.000 But so at the same time, I watched this very bitter, angry reaction from so many young men over the last 48 hours to this post.

00:24:21.000 And one, I think they are projecting all kinds of things onto this couple and in particular this woman that I'm like, you don't know her background, you don't understand.

00:24:28.000 And you're assuming that she is like sort of any cam girl who is just, you know, on a dime, said, now I'm a Christian.

00:24:34.000 And so now buy my new merch that's, you know, Christian-branded merch.

00:24:38.000 This is not this woman. 0.86

00:24:39.000 But I think a lot of that bitterness, as we said, 63% of young men say they're single.

00:24:44.000 Only 34% of young women say they're single.

00:24:47.000 That's creating bitterness.

00:24:48.000 By the way, and Gabe is saying that a lot of young men are just opting out.

00:24:52.000 And like they, there are stats showing that roughly half of young men have not dated in the last year.

00:24:52.000 Right.

00:24:59.000 So you have a lot of young men who are just simply not romantically involved with anyone.

00:25:03.000 They're not pursuing women.

00:25:05.000 And so I understand, and I don't want to use that term in self because I understand that that's offensive.

00:25:11.000 But a lot of them are probably either wasting away like on Twitch and video games and porn.

00:25:19.000 And I mean, honestly, it's a bad, it's not a good ending to this story.

00:25:24.000 And that's what I want to come at is that there's so much fault on both sides.

00:25:28.000 I understand that.

00:25:29.000 But when we look at these things and we talk about these things, we have to be able to talk about them.

00:25:34.000 We have to talk about the real reality of young men being isolated, not pursuing women, not dating.

00:25:40.000 It's a statistical reality.

00:25:41.000 It is not meant to disparage anyone or to insult anyone.

00:25:44.000 It's just to acknowledge what's happening here and that it would very understandably engender feelings of anger and resentment.

00:25:52.000 But the thing to do is not, you know, projected all over this girl who has been saved and was saved 10 years ago.

00:26:00.000 And the other thing, I think there is a false perception by young men because of this, that young women are more promiscuous than they used to be.

00:26:08.000 Statistically, that's not true.

00:26:10.000 They're actually across the board.

00:26:13.000 Everyone is having sex.

00:26:13.000 Everyone's having less sex.

00:26:14.000 They stay inside.

00:26:16.000 They have fewer friends.

00:26:17.000 They go to fewer events.

00:26:20.000 Yeah, everyone's just sort of seceding from society.

00:26:23.000 But men are doing so more than women.

00:26:25.000 Probably.

00:26:25.000 Yeah.

00:26:26.000 Men have an easier time doing it. 0.70

00:26:27.000 I'll be frank.

00:26:28.000 Like, men have an easier time being solitary.

00:26:31.000 They are, they find things like, as you said, like video games, internet stuff.

00:26:35.000 They find that all more appealing.

00:26:36.000 They're less socially oriented.

00:26:38.000 And so I think a big answer is like they actually do just have an easier time getting by alone.

00:26:44.000 I want to bring up this Nala Ray thing because I remember Charlie had Nala on the podcast.

00:26:50.000 And, you know, everybody's like, you know, you shouldn't be lifting her up as some like influencer, some leader.

00:26:55.000 And that was not the spirit of why he had Nala on.

00:26:58.000 He had her on to warn young women away from OnlyFans.

00:27:02.000 Right.

00:27:03.000 And I thought that was admirable because actually our disposition is much more sympathetic to, you know, the prodigal son story, the bringing in, like, we believe that change is real.

00:27:15.000 If you don't, then you're not a Christian.

00:27:17.000 Like, you can be born again.

00:27:18.000 The old is gone.

00:27:19.000 The new has come.

00:27:21.000 You can be clothed in Christ.

00:27:22.000 You can be clothed in redemption.

00:27:24.000 If that's not true, then what are we even doing here?

00:27:27.000 And I understand that you don't want to lift those people up too soon.

00:27:30.000 You know, be careful who you lay hands on. 0.97

00:27:32.000 Get that, but that's that was not why we had Nala on because Nala was warning against this really coercive, addiction-riddled sort of lifestyle where you're an online prostitute. 1.00

00:27:44.000 I mean, that's what you are. 0.98

00:27:45.000 And I thought that was fine.

00:27:48.000 I don't know Nala's heart.

00:27:50.000 I don't know what her ultimate motives were if she was just sort of taking the influencer world and transposing it onto a Christian setting.

00:27:58.000 I don't know, but I think it's important to warn people about this.

00:28:01.000 But you, what's your, I'm just curious what, like, what your take is on the Nala Ray thing, because we, that was a huge blowup for us. 0.98

00:28:09.000 Yeah, and you know, part of what I think we don't talk about with that is that there's this perception that all of these young women just go, I want to get on a webcam and make lots of money. 0.74

00:28:17.000 Two problems with that.

00:28:18.000 One, that's not, I've talked to people in that world, and that's not typically how it goes down.

00:28:22.000 How it goes down is there are a lot of OnlyFans agencies now that deceptively recruit these young women. 0.90

00:28:29.000 So they scout on Instagram and they will look for girls who are maybe, and girls, you know, 16, 17 can be very dumb.

00:28:36.000 And they will post bikini pictures and things.

00:28:39.000 And there are OnlyFans agents who go trolling and they find those girls and they start to build a relationship with them.

00:28:44.000 And what they want is so the second they turn 18, they can then transfer them to OnlyFans and take a big cut of their earnings.

00:28:51.000 So that's one. 0.99

00:28:52.000 So people don't know that you actually have OnlyFans agencies preying on stupid teenage girls. 1.00

00:28:58.000 The founder just died of cancer at 43. 0.99

00:29:03.000 Noteworthy.

00:29:04.000 Yeah.

00:29:05.000 And I, you know, all I subscribe to is.

00:29:08.000 Yeah, when I saw that was, what does it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?

00:29:11.000 Lose his soul.

00:29:12.000 I wouldn't want to be on the, I wouldn't want to see his welcoming committee.

00:29:14.000 That's all.

00:29:15.000 And the other point of this is that there's this perception that all of these women on OnlyFans are making tons of money.

00:29:15.000 Yeah.

00:29:22.000 The vast majority don't.

00:29:23.000 They make about the average is about $1,000 a month.

00:29:28.000 I don't think it's a month.

00:29:29.000 Oh, geez.

00:29:29.000 No, I think it's like ever.

00:29:31.000 Yeah.

00:29:32.000 Like they'll go on, they'll make a little bit of money and then they get off.

00:29:34.000 I mean, not that it's really that much better if you make a lot of money, but it is just exceptionally evil about something that leaves an indelible mark on, like, well, I don't want to say indelible.

00:29:45.000 Jesus can clear a lot, but it's huge damage on your soul, on your personality, on your ability to live a normal life ever after.

00:29:53.000 And yeah, and you get nothing for it.

00:29:55.000 Just chews and spits people up.

00:29:56.000 Right.

00:29:56.000 And so I think there is this perception that these women are profiting and no one's holding them accountable and they're getting away with it.

00:30:02.000 And, you know, a couple things to say about that.

00:30:04.000 One, ultimately, in light of eternity, nobody's going to get away with anything.

00:30:08.000 The person who can read our hearts perfectly is going to know whether or not you were truly repentant.

00:30:12.000 So you want to encourage these young Christian men, hey, nobody's going to pull the wool over God's eyes.

00:30:17.000 You know, there will be accountability eventually.

00:30:19.000 But in the meantime, instead of attacking this individual woman, we need to talk about why we got to this place that young men and young women are not finding each other and finding relationships.

00:30:31.000 So I wanted to ask, just so we are, as you said, we have the problem that young people are splitting apart.

00:30:39.000 Another debate that was going on in the last few days, there was a woman who on, I believe a woman on X who basically said, it's not appropriate to ask people to date like in a church setting.

00:30:48.000 That's not what women are. 1.00

00:30:49.000 I was so horrified by that.

00:30:50.000 That's the best thing.

00:30:51.000 I saw you definitely disagree with that.

00:30:53.000 But more generally, I guess, what should the approach of churches or just conservative movement stuff generally be towards this crisis?

00:31:01.000 Because it will destroy human civilization.

00:31:04.000 Right.

00:31:05.000 And so up to now, I think the church has now realized they've handled it abominably.

00:31:10.000 I mean, I can show you just a couple of years ago, you have essays at like the Gospel Coalition and places like that saying, we have to stop making marriage an idol.

00:31:17.000 We have to not make family an idol.

00:31:19.000 And it's very much that proverbial C.S. Lewis quote about you have these guys running around with fire extinguishers to put out floods.

00:31:27.000 That's essentially what they're doing.

00:31:29.000 Because you're like, we have a massive problem of a crashing birth rate, a crashing marriage rate.

00:31:35.000 And in the meantime, the church has been telling us, don't idolize marriage and family.

00:31:38.000 And I'm like, I don't think that's our problem right now.

00:31:41.000 So, you know, that's first is that we actually have to acknowledge that it is very important civilizationally that we form families.

00:31:50.000 And that is scriptural.

00:31:52.000 You know, it's biblical that we recognize the building block of mother, father, children.

00:31:57.000 So, you know, that's the first part.

00:31:59.000 The second part is the messaging absolutely needs to be, no, you should be looking for your spouse at church.

00:32:04.000 Where better to look for your spouse?

00:32:08.000 And, you know, that also, I would say, we also need to have an education of young women in how to be gracious in saying no, thank you. 0.97

00:32:16.000 So that if a young man asks one woman out and she's not that interested at church, if he then, you know, a few weeks later or a couple months later asks out her friend, that first girl should not go and say, oh, he's so creepy.

00:32:28.000 He asked me out too.

00:32:30.000 I mean, that's the kind of thing.

00:32:31.000 That's the kind of mean girl thing that I hear a lot about anecdotally. 0.99

00:32:34.000 And I think that's real.

00:32:37.000 Well, I was just thinking, it's really, I thought a bit about how so much of the system has broken down over time as marriage rates have declined, as like courtship periods have extended.

00:32:46.000 Because I remember another thing that went viral a few months ago was just talking about people dating back in like the 40s and 50s and like, oh, oh, these people are dating four or five people at a time.

00:32:55.000 Well, yeah, because they actually are just going on dates with them.

00:32:58.000 They're not having these extended relationships.

00:33:00.000 That's why going steady became a thing.

00:33:03.000 Exactly.

00:33:03.000 And it was like the defining the relationship moment.

00:33:07.000 I want to go steady with you.

00:33:08.000 Right.

00:33:08.000 And then it was usually a brief thing.

00:33:10.000 I think about one thing I wonder about is, is there damage that's done, for example, just it seems much more the norm, even in Christian communities, to just be in a unmarried, unengaged relationship for one year, two years, three years, then you get engaged for a year and a half, and then you actually pull the trigger.

00:33:27.000 And it's just, no one was doing that back when we actually had thriving families and a 2% divorce rate.

00:33:33.000 And, you know, I haven't looked deeply into this story, but one of the other interesting developments a couple of weeks ago was Pastor Josh Howerton like challenging these shacking up or, you know, let's say promiscuous couples who are having sex and not married.

00:33:33.000 Yeah.

00:33:50.000 He directly said, you're in sin and you need to get this right.

00:33:53.000 So, you know, here's how we do this.

00:33:55.000 Let's get married.

00:33:56.000 Let's have a big, I'm going to let you guys know in a couple of weeks, a month.

00:34:00.000 I can't remember how we got.

00:34:02.000 Yeah, they had a huge multi-marriage ceremony.

00:34:02.000 We're going to do that.

00:34:06.000 Yeah, where a whole bunch of young people in his church got married.

00:34:08.000 Polygamy, one-to-one.

00:34:10.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:34:11.000 But they have been either living together or having sex before marriage.

00:34:14.000 And he's like, you got to correct this.

00:34:15.000 No, it's great.

00:34:16.000 I'm all for it, by the way.

00:34:18.000 I think we make way too much of marriage.

00:34:19.000 It costs way too much.

00:34:20.000 It's too much of a hurdle.

00:34:21.000 Just go like have a potluck.

00:34:23.000 Put on a dress, wear a suit.

00:34:25.000 Make it happen.

00:34:26.000 One of the most successful families I know is a guy.

00:34:28.000 He's about my age, and he got married at the Jefferson Memorial.

00:34:32.000 It cost him about like $400.

00:34:34.000 And then he had a dinner with his friends in the common area of their apartment building.

00:34:38.000 It costs him about $400.

00:34:39.000 They own a house.

00:34:40.000 They have four kids.

00:34:41.000 They live in D.C.

00:34:42.000 I totally agree.

00:34:42.000 And everybody wants to like one-up the other people and have their wedding be more beautiful.

00:34:46.000 I think there's beauty in the way they used to do it in like the 70s and 80s.

00:34:49.000 I see like my parents, their wedding was like in the backyard of my grandma's house.

00:34:52.000 Right.

00:34:53.000 Anyways, last question here, and then we got to do the hot swap with Molly and Sean.

00:34:53.000 And it was just simple.

00:34:58.000 So Matt Walsh has come out and said, my biggest issue with this is that like we need to stop celebrating our formerly sinful ways because you're giving this permission structure to your kids to then go, oh, they survived.

00:35:11.000 It's going to be fine.

00:35:12.000 I actually totally agree with that.

00:35:13.000 I had a pastor that said, I want less impressive testimonies.

00:35:16.000 I want a bunch of like, I was born, I met Jesus, I served Jesus, I lived well and righteously, got married, had kids, had those kids, you know what I mean?

00:35:25.000 Right.

00:35:26.000 But like in churches, evangelical churches are the worst of this. 1.00

00:35:28.000 They're like, I was a drug dealer for the cartel, and then I was shooting up heroin, and then Jesus came to me, and it's like, okay, that's that's great, but like, we like, hopefully, we have boring testimonies, right?

00:35:40.000 And I think there's two things there.

00:35:41.000 One, um, we need to celebrate boring testimonies.

00:35:44.000 Yeah.

00:35:44.000 In fact, I once heard this woman give this great testimony where she said, I was saved from heroin, I was saved from prostitution.

00:35:50.000 I was saying, and she did this whole list.

00:35:51.000 That's jail. 0.80

00:35:52.000 No, no, no.

00:35:52.000 Then at the end, she goes, I was saved by all that because I became a Christian as a child and I never did any of those things.

00:35:59.000 So the Lord saved me from doing any of that.

00:36:01.000 I never had to experience any of it.

00:36:03.000 I love that.

00:36:03.000 And I thought that was a great testimony.

00:36:04.000 So do you share your formerly sinful ways with your kids?

00:36:07.000 Is the question?

00:36:08.000 I do judiciously because I do think, you know, okay, I am someone with a somewhat colorful testimony.

00:36:17.000 You're breaking all the rules I just laid out.

00:36:19.000 I'm sorry.

00:36:19.000 I know.

00:36:20.000 But it is a question of wisdom.

00:36:22.000 I think, you know, are you glorifying your sin for your kids?

00:36:25.000 Are you a little bit like, oh, that was such a good time?

00:36:27.000 But yeah, I totally, I regret it.

00:36:28.000 I'm not going to do that again.

00:36:30.000 Or are you saying, like, I'm not going to, you know, delve into juicy details and specifics, but here are some poor choices I made in my youth generally.

00:36:40.000 And here is what it cost me.

00:36:42.000 And be real and honest about the cost.

00:36:46.000 So, you know, those are two different pieces.

00:36:47.000 Because look, I mean, when we look at Paul and like Acts, he's pretty out there about here's, you know, I was chasing Christians to persecute them. 1.00

00:36:56.000 Killing them. 0.85

00:36:57.000 Yeah, I was chasing them to foreign cities. 0.95

00:36:59.000 He's not really shy and retiring about what he was doing.

00:37:02.000 I'm not talking about his heroin usage and his promise cues. 0.97

00:37:05.000 I mean, he was trying to murder Christians. 0.91

00:37:05.000 But is that worse? 0.91

00:37:07.000 Yeah.

00:37:08.000 No, I think you said it really well.

00:37:08.000 Yeah.

00:37:10.000 I think it's a good place to wrap it.

00:37:11.000 Megan Basham, you rock.

00:37:13.000 We love having you in studio.

00:37:14.000 That's so good to be here.

00:37:15.000 I've never been in studio on this.

00:37:17.000 Thank you very much.

00:37:17.000 Tearful.

00:37:20.000 Imagine being a young woman just finding out that you're pregnant, not knowing where to go or what to do, not even knowing exactly what is going on in your body.

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00:37:34.000 We know it is a baby.

00:37:36.000 And once she has an ultrasound that you provide and she sees the truth of the baby growing inside of her, you help her choose life.

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00:38:27.000 Again, that's 833-850-2229 or click on the pre-born banner at charliekirk.com.

00:38:36.000 Now we have Sean Davis and Molly Hemingway of the Federalist, a publication I check every day.

00:38:43.000 And you guys have an event here in town, and so we get the glory of your presence, which not to be related to Jesus because you're not Jesus.

00:38:52.000 But you're not.

00:38:52.000 You're pretty great.

00:38:53.000 You're pretty great.

00:38:54.000 Thank you guys for coming.

00:38:55.000 It's wonderful to be here with you.

00:38:56.000 Yeah, it's the second time we've had you.

00:38:59.000 They said they're ready to talk about everything.

00:39:01.000 Literally, literally.

00:39:02.000 So, what do you guys think of the new Lord of the Rings movie that they're going to make?

00:39:06.000 Why?

00:39:07.000 Why?

00:39:08.000 Yeah, I'm very traumatized.

00:39:10.000 Why does there need to be a lot of people?

00:39:11.000 Yeah, they're going to have Stephen Colbert write a Lord of the Rings movie about Sam's daughter.

00:39:15.000 We'll talk about it today.

00:39:16.000 And even in the trailer or in the announcement of it, they were getting basic facts wrong about it, which did not inspire trust.

00:39:22.000 Yes.

00:39:24.000 Is there Jackson involved?

00:39:25.000 I hope not.

00:39:26.000 They claimed that Frodo died.

00:39:29.000 No, he didn't.

00:39:29.000 Actually, doesn't he die?

00:39:30.000 I think no, he just goes to the Undying Lands with the elves.

00:39:33.000 Yeah, but I think the implication is he still dies there.

00:39:35.000 Like, he doesn't become immortal.

00:39:37.000 He doesn't reject the vitars.

00:39:39.000 I don't imply anything from Tolkien.

00:39:40.000 If Tolkien doesn't say he's dead, he's not dead.

00:39:43.000 So you say Tolkien.

00:39:45.000 Tolkien?

00:39:46.000 Yeah, I say Tolkien.

00:39:47.000 Tolkayan.

00:39:49.000 Either way.

00:39:49.000 Tolkien.

00:39:50.000 Anyway, I just wanted to say that.

00:39:52.000 I'm just going to say there's also an issue with Stephen Colbert there.

00:39:55.000 Stephen Colbert is, you know, someone who has been funny in his past, but is not, has lost his show because of his hyper-partisanship.

00:40:04.000 He just runs a Democrat PAC at night.

00:40:06.000 Yeah.

00:40:07.000 And he lost his show, and yet now he gets to write something.

00:40:11.000 He's like, hey, he's like Lord of the Rings.

00:40:13.000 It just really speaks to the power that the left has over many institutions.

00:40:16.000 It also speaks to just how absolutely awful late night has, or Hollywood has become that they're using a washed-up late night host who, like, there's got to be better options than Stephen Colbert, is what I'm saying.

00:40:30.000 A few hundred.

00:40:31.000 He's not even really a writer.

00:40:32.000 I'm sure he wrote, I'm sure he's written bits, but the idea that he's going to magically write a screenplay on one of the most celebrated works of fiction in all of history is, it's absurd.

00:40:43.000 Now I have to get this Jimmy Kimmel clip because you guys have now inspired it with Stephen Colbert, where he's attacking Mark Wayne Mullen for being a plumber.

00:40:54.000 Mario's a plumber. 0.98

00:40:55.000 And Mike Lee called him an elitist bastard. 0.99

00:40:58.000 And I thought that was wonderful. 0.99

00:40:59.000 And I think you could use even more colorful language.

00:41:01.000 Mike Lee's a Mormon. 0.83

00:41:03.000 That's about as far as he's going to go.

00:41:05.000 That's pretty strong for Mike Lee.

00:41:07.000 But I completely agree.

00:41:09.000 Jimmy Kimmel, remind you, is the guy that almost lost his show, should have lost his show when he tried to blame Charlie's assassination on MAGA.

00:41:18.000 And so I went after him, and it was like this Colvette versus Kimmel thing, like for like three days.

00:41:24.000 And I just can't stand the guy.

00:41:25.000 There's something about Jimmy Kimmel that makes my skin crawl. 1.00

00:41:29.000 I think he's a rudderless, moralless, absolute, disgusting, vile creature. 0.99

00:41:35.000 Well, here's what I don't get about him attacking Mullen. 0.99

00:41:38.000 Jimmy Kimmel got his start in media with Adam Carolla.

00:41:41.000 He has Adam Carolla to thank for being a big name.

00:41:46.000 Adam Carolla was like a carpenter and a general contractor.

00:41:49.000 Yeah.

00:41:50.000 That's a great point.

00:41:52.000 Did you tweet that?

00:41:53.000 No, I should.

00:41:54.000 Yeah, in the break.

00:41:55.000 Like, he's one of Kimmel's best friends.

00:41:57.000 The reason anyone cares about him, because Carollo's clearly the funnier one of the two, who still to this day, like, I think does construction stuff for fun, and then you're mocking a tradesman.

00:42:08.000 I just, I don't.

00:42:09.000 I don't get it. 1.00

00:42:10.000 Well, he's a disgusting pile of garbage, is why there's nothing to get. 1.00

00:42:14.000 And then he had the gall to claim he was a victim. 1.00

00:42:18.000 The big crime there with him is that he's just never funny.

00:42:22.000 No.

00:42:22.000 It's mean and angry.

00:42:24.000 Yeah, and then cries when he, he, you know, people, he, he likes to play this victim.

00:42:29.000 He was sharing made-up information for political gain.

00:42:34.000 He was lying for political gain, which is why he suffered for what he was saying there.

00:42:40.000 And think about what it, the message it sent.

00:42:42.000 It's a, you can go shoot a conservative and the entire liberal media apparatus is going to rally to your defense and whitewash it and make it go away.

00:42:50.000 That is a green light for other people to do it as well.

00:42:53.000 And blame some of the primary victims.

00:42:55.000 Yes.

00:42:55.000 Which is just disgusting, reprehensible stuff.

00:42:58.000 But I just, in general, the Democrat Party, of which Jimmy Kimmel is a major player, they are, what is it, like 40 points underwater with men right now?

00:43:08.000 No normal man feels good about the Democrat Party.

00:43:12.000 And then they're going out there and saying, if you are a plumber or a carpenter, you're reprehensible.

00:43:17.000 You have no business having any say in the running of our country.

00:43:21.000 And you wonder why they have these problems.

00:43:22.000 Well, let's go ahead and play the clip then, just since we brought it up.

00:43:26.000 Sot 26.

00:43:27.000 Don't worry, Trump's got a whole new generation of thinkers lined up, including his newly confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security, Mark Wayne, Chuck Mike, Bruce Dave Mullen.

00:43:39.000 Maybe Mellon's better.

00:43:40.000 He is the now former senator of Oklahoma.

00:43:43.000 Before he was elected to the Senate, Mark Wayne Mullen was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber.

00:43:50.000 That's right.

00:43:50.000 We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now.

00:43:55.000 I work for Super Mario.

00:43:56.000 Why not Mark Wayne?

00:43:58.000 I'm not reading.

00:43:59.000 He owned eight separate businesses.

00:44:01.000 He turned it into a multi-million dollar business.

00:44:04.000 It was a six-man crew that he took over from his dad and he turned it into this enormous company. 0.98

00:44:09.000 What is a clown? 0.99

00:44:10.000 Jimmy Kimmel is a clown. 0.99

00:44:12.000 What is a clown doing? 1.00

00:44:13.000 Like a literal court jester for the regime? 0.93

00:44:16.000 What is he doing mocking someone else's occupational choice?

00:44:19.000 Also, if we're going to make jokes about Mark Wayne Mullen, he sounds like, I don't know, a receiver for Florida with a Q in his name.

00:44:27.000 Maybe there's an apostrophe in there.

00:44:29.000 Like, there's your obvious joke, Mark Wayne, but no, you're going to make fun of him for being a plumber?

00:44:34.000 Mark Wayne.

00:44:35.000 I do want to say that this, speaking of him being a former Oklahoma senator, does remind me of a big pet peeve I have with the Republican Party, which is in a state like Maine, where a Republican has no shot of winning, you get someone like Susan Collins, who's actually remarkably great for the state of Maine.

00:44:52.000 She's always there when we need her.

00:44:54.000 In a state like Oklahoma, which bleeds red, you get these really limp, disappointing senators who in no way are doing what they, you know, you can tolerate a Susan Collins if you have someone who's actually worthy, you know, in Oklahoma to push the agenda in ways that are, that they can do because they're so safe.

00:45:17.000 And I do not feel great about the current senators out of Oklahoma.

00:45:21.000 Oklahoma gave us Tom Coburn.

00:45:23.000 How is it that the reddest state in the country, I don't think a single county in Oklahoma has voted for a dam in multiple elections, why are they giving us squishy?

00:45:32.000 Well, this is my problem with Texas, that even Cornyn's on the table to be endorsed is beyond me.

00:45:39.000 I mean, Texas should absolutely have some of our best senators, right?

00:45:44.000 And that's why we've, I mean, we've endorsed Paxon.

00:45:46.000 I've had him on the show.

00:45:47.000 I thought that was a brilliant move.

00:45:49.000 He said I'd drop out if Cornyn, if they passed the Save Act or they make a deal to get it done, Save America Act.

00:45:55.000 I thought that was a smart chess move.

00:45:57.000 And Trump's kind of taking a step back.

00:45:59.000 I think he kind of read the tea leaves, read the room a little bit, and we'll see how that plays out.

00:46:03.000 There was a huge information operation right after that primary.

00:46:07.000 Cornyn should have, with the amount of money he spent, with his name recognition, with being an incumbent, he should have cleaned up in that primary.

00:46:14.000 And he did not.

00:46:15.000 He went to a runoff, and there was this info op in D.C. to say, oh, he won, you know, because he had more than all of the other contenders.

00:46:22.000 He performed so horribly.

00:46:24.000 And you're seeing now that Trump does not seem like inclined to endorse him given. 0.89

00:46:30.000 The guy's been a backstabber.

00:46:31.000 I mean, you got to get these guys out.

00:46:34.000 I mean, listen, if you can get Lindsey Graham out in South Carolina, if you can get Nate Morris in Kentucky, if you can get a Paxton in Texas, already that would be a huge upgrade in multiple places.

00:46:47.000 The ones that frustrated me are like, okay, we got rid of Romney in Utah and we got replaced with Curtis.

00:46:53.000 How do you perform more poorly than Romney?

00:46:57.000 I really want folks to understand this.

00:46:59.000 Just a quick shout out to you guys.

00:47:01.000 And I know Charlie appreciated it as well because we said it privately a bunch as we were building the show and thinking through our show flow.

00:47:09.000 You know, you can't measure the impact of the work that you guys do just on how many page visits you get.

00:47:14.000 And I hope people understand that because it would be shows like ours and when Charlie was here where you guys formed so much of the intellectual groundwork and foundational thought work that went into then doing it on the show and the podcast and then millions more would see it.

00:47:30.000 And so I just, you know, you guys do really, really important work and we just totally respect you guys.

00:47:35.000 And you've been doing it for so long and doing it the right way.

00:47:39.000 And I hope people really understand that about you guys.

00:47:41.000 I really appreciate that.

00:47:42.000 And Sean and I were talking actually just this morning about the important difference between mere punditry and actual investigative reporting.

00:47:50.000 Anyone can give their opinion about anything.

00:47:52.000 If you actually want to change the situation on the ground, knowing the facts, being able to put them together in a sensible way, and also just having a different perspective than everybody else in corporate media.

00:48:03.000 Of course.

00:48:04.000 You know, they're always trying to push an establishment talking point.

00:48:08.000 Even if you take this week in the discussions on the SAVE Act, everyone in D.C. is trying to say, oh, they're going to get this SAVE Act done through reconciliation.

00:48:16.000 Through our reporting with actual facts, we're showing how that's actually not going to happen and how that's a cop-out.

00:48:22.000 And, you know, it's one thing to just say it.

00:48:25.000 It's another thing to show procedurally why that's.

00:48:28.000 Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how much power the parliamentarian has.

00:48:31.000 You know, it's like you can't, you, there's, they tried, right, during the BBB, like the, at some point that was floated and they were like, you can't get it through.

00:48:41.000 So they stripped it.

00:48:43.000 Reconciliation is a weird thing because so much of the rules around it are statutory.

00:48:48.000 You know, so most Senate procedure and parliamentary stuff is just based on internal rules and precedents.

00:48:55.000 Budget stuff and reconciliation stuff are one of the rare areas where they've actually put these restrictions on what the Senate can do in it into law.

00:49:02.000 If you go back and read the debate at the time, there are a lot of people who thought that was a really bad idea.

00:49:06.000 Like, you can't be putting Senate procedure into law.

00:49:08.000 Like, that's weird.

00:49:10.000 And I will actually go to bat for the parliamentarian on this one.

00:49:15.000 You know, you'll have people say, oh, well, she was appointed by Reed.

00:49:18.000 She's a Democrat.

00:49:19.000 I've known her for a long time, worked with her when I worked for Tom Coburn.

00:49:23.000 And she's a total straight shooter. 1.00

00:49:25.000 And when it comes to things like reconciliation, because the rules are in law, she has very little room to maneuver.

00:49:33.000 The law says what it says.

00:49:35.000 The rules are what they are.

00:49:36.000 And it's up to the Senate at some point to actually take some responsibility and determine whether it's going to allow this stuff or not.

00:49:42.000 So then I got to put you guys, got to ask the tough question then.

00:49:46.000 Abolish the filibuster, nuke it.

00:49:48.000 What are we going to do here?

00:49:49.000 Talking filibuster?

00:49:50.000 What should be the next step?

00:49:52.000 I would just say you do not need to destroy the filibuster in order to continue to push the SAVE Act through the Senate.

00:49:59.000 The filibuster is an important thing for minority rights.

00:50:03.000 And frequently, people on the right, and conservatives, are going to be in the minority.

00:50:08.000 Taking away all minority rights from the Senate, which is supposed to be this great deliberative body, is not a great idea.

00:50:14.000 I think what is a wiser course of action is to let the Senate actually be the Senate, discuss, debate.

00:50:21.000 Even just when they did a little bit of debate on the SAVE Act, you saw Democrats say, oh, well, actually, we don't oppose voter ID.

00:50:27.000 That's not true.

00:50:28.000 But they said it publicly.

00:50:29.000 Well, if you can take that little morsel and say, okay, what if we just take away everything else in the SAVE Act, but all we care about is voter ID?

00:50:36.000 It shows that you have room to negotiate and be that deliberative body that it was for hundreds of years before people started just taking all the debate out and putting it into back rooms.

00:50:46.000 I genuinely wish we could get rid of, actually kind of get rid of C-SPAN, because I think C-SPAN messed up Congress where every speech, if you've ever been inside the chambers, you know that the speeches they give are fake.

00:50:57.000 They're delivered to nobody except a few bored bystanders who are yawning.

00:51:02.000 They're all just so they can be on C-SPAN, be on the record for whatever clip they want to get.

00:51:07.000 So there's it's baffling.

00:51:10.000 It's almost, it's very alien to read about the U.S. Congress 150 years ago, where guys can become major American figures because they are, you know, giants of actual argument on the floor of the House, on the floor of the Senate.

00:51:24.000 They get things through on the basis of that.

00:51:27.000 And that's been totally wiped out in favor of just endless procedural nonsense.

00:51:31.000 On the filibuster specifically, though, I think I actually might disagree there on it being about minority rights.

00:51:39.000 I think a good formulation from a friend of mine, Vince Collins, actually, I think you know him.

00:51:45.000 He pointed out the filibuster, it protects not the minority, it protects the majority from votes it secretly does not want to take.

00:51:53.000 Because that is how we have all these Republicans who say, I'm super MAGA, I'm super gung-ho on the border.

00:51:58.000 Oh, but, you know, it can't pass this.

00:52:00.000 You need 60 votes.

00:52:02.000 And same thing when the Democrats have power. 0.99

00:52:04.000 Oh, yeah, we know we'd love to do all that, you know, crazy socialism, abolish the police stuff, but, you know, 60 votes, guys, tough breaks.

00:52:12.000 And I feel like that is how it has broken out.

00:52:14.000 And we have this fake Senate, a fake Senate that never passes anything.

00:52:18.000 I think that's totally true.

00:52:20.000 I think that's less a function of the filibuster than the modern running of the Senate.

00:52:25.000 I personally think Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell together destroy the U.S. Senate.

00:52:29.000 Rather than allowing debate to flower and to be unpredictable, they would go in, they put a bill on the floor, they would do what's called fill the tree.

00:52:37.000 So they make it impossible for anyone to offer amendments and they'd file closure.

00:52:41.000 And then you would just vote on that, and that was the end of it.

00:52:43.000 If you could convince me that if we've abolished the filibuster tomorrow, that we had 51 votes to do truly transformational things to restore the country, I think I would be all for it.

00:52:55.000 The reality is that if we were to abolish the filibuster today, they would have 51 votes to reopen DHS, and that is it.

00:53:03.000 That is the only thing the Republicans would get.

00:53:06.000 You don't think we get Save America Act passed?

00:53:08.000 You don't think we get end invasion-level migration?

00:53:12.000 You don't think we could do that?

00:53:13.000 No, and I actually think that's why Thune and leadership were so against the talking filibuster.

00:53:18.000 They came up with procedural reasons why they said it couldn't work, which were all fake.

00:53:23.000 The reality is they didn't have 50 votes to do what they wanted to push it through.

00:53:29.000 That's depressing.

00:53:30.000 That means we need way better Republicans.

00:53:32.000 Absolutely.

00:53:32.000 Yep.

00:53:33.000 Primaries are where the battle is for Republican.

00:53:35.000 To your point, though, rather than blackpilling over this, it is true that by and large, every two years you get a slightly better class of Republican senators.

00:53:44.000 You compare who've come in more recently with people who came in during Schmidt, Subberville.

00:53:49.000 Yeah, real leadership coming in there.

00:53:52.000 Holly's been kind of interesting, actually.

00:53:54.000 He's been more and more kind of an X factor.

00:54:00.000 Hi, folks.

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00:54:59.000 Caboose, you're getting shout outs by our guests here on your musical choices.

00:55:04.000 The bumpers are fire.

00:55:07.000 They approve.

00:55:08.000 He says, thank you very much.

00:55:09.000 You can't go wrong with free.

00:55:10.000 Play never surrender for the next one.

00:55:12.000 That's my favorite.

00:55:13.000 Blake is definitely more engaged with the musical choices.

00:55:16.000 I'm just like.

00:55:17.000 Sometimes we'll get a new one I haven't heard before, and I'll just have to ask what it is because I don't know all of my 90s alt rock that they throw at us with some bowling for soup songs I've ever heard of.

00:55:25.000 So I went to this show in Scottsdale a couple weeks back and I actually saw the Gin Blossoms.

00:55:31.000 And I was like, I was like, guys, I saw the Gym Blossoms.

00:55:34.000 And I was too young when they were big, but you keep hearing their songs for years afterwards.

00:55:40.000 And so they're, I mean, I know the words, you know?

00:55:42.000 And everybody in the studio is like, who's the gym blossom?

00:55:44.000 The gold era.

00:55:46.000 I've never heard of any of these things.

00:55:47.000 The gym blossoms are legit.

00:55:49.000 It's the pride of 10 P. Like, that's why I thought everybody would know about it.

00:55:52.000 We've got Hey Jealousy.

00:55:53.000 Yes.

00:55:54.000 Swallow You Down.

00:55:54.000 Oh, dude, Gin Blossoms are never hearing.

00:55:56.000 They're amazing.

00:55:57.000 By the way, the guy, you know, he's, you know, I think he's like an old Xer or whatever.

00:56:01.000 And his voice sounds perfect.

00:56:03.000 So it just sounds the exact same.

00:56:05.000 We need to bring that 90s guitar rock.

00:56:08.000 I totally agree.

00:56:09.000 But we're a dying breed.

00:56:10.000 I know.

00:56:10.000 It's really sad.

00:56:12.000 Blake doesn't even understand what we're talking about.

00:56:13.000 Music died when Nevermind came out.

00:56:17.000 Okay, so speaking of big, big views like that, Sean showed me this really interesting YouTube on how everybody came to hate Nickelback and how unnatural that was.

00:56:29.000 Caboose loves Nickelback.

00:56:30.000 I am 100% pro-Nickelback.

00:56:32.000 Caboose loves Nickelback.

00:56:34.000 I am not.

00:56:34.000 They're Canadian.

00:56:35.000 Get them out.

00:56:36.000 It kind of went through how it started as a, like, literally a joke on Comedy Central that got pulled and played over and over again.

00:56:44.000 And also how critics never liked them because they were so focused on commercial success.

00:56:51.000 And so, but they kept on selling like just gangbusters.

00:56:54.000 They weren't gangbusters.

00:56:55.000 And the more successful they were, the worse their critical reviews were.

00:56:59.000 And then it became like a joke.

00:57:01.000 And then it became this joke that you like had to believe in.

00:57:04.000 And it was just like this fascinating.

00:57:06.000 Yeah, Blake, you were psyoped into not liking Nickelback.

00:57:09.000 I'm not going to show why you're not.

00:57:10.000 I'm pretty sure I organically do not like Nickelback.

00:57:12.000 Yeah, I also am not a Nickelback fan, but I still like Nickelback.

00:57:16.000 How do you remind me?

00:57:16.000 No.

00:57:17.000 1.8 billion streams on Spotify.

00:57:19.000 Those are just the same.

00:57:20.000 And we know that the people are never wrong.

00:57:23.000 Yeah.

00:57:25.000 I knew he'd have it on call because he's like, Caboose is like the biggest Nickelback stand there is.

00:57:31.000 And I'm always like, Nickelback.

00:57:33.000 Like, why is that?

00:57:34.000 Because, you know, and Pozo loves Creed, and so there's been a lot of Creed talk.

00:57:37.000 And I kind of lumped them together in the same thing.

00:57:40.000 But Creed was, obviously, had the faith angle that was much more pronounced, if you will.

00:57:46.000 I mean, music is an interesting question.

00:57:47.000 I mean, we had the All-American Halftime show, which did like between 50 and 60 million viewers.

00:57:52.000 We actually hired an independent media analyst to break down the numbers and give us like a Nielsen equivalent.

00:57:59.000 And it was the, if you add up all the streams together, it was the number one live stream event in basically online history.

00:58:07.000 But we all did that with like two months prep.

00:58:09.000 Yeah, and I mean, honestly, we put in like most of the work in the last two weeks, but it was, you know, and if you, we can't claim that it was the number one because we didn't put everything into one account.

00:58:20.000 So Turning Points YouTube account, though, was the second largest in world history and the number one in U.S. history.

00:58:26.000 Not bad, right?

00:58:27.000 It's amazing.

00:58:28.000 And it also shows that the worse that the NFL is doing with its halftime show, the more opportunity there is there.

00:58:35.000 I'm curious to see if they're going to pivot, you know, and try and do something a little bit more uniting.

00:58:39.000 Here's the problem is that they've got a Super Bowl in Nashville in like, what, two years, three years?

00:58:44.000 So I don't think they're going to go country next year because they're sort of holding that back for whatever.

00:58:51.000 I think it's 2020.

00:58:52.000 They should just do a Metallica halftime show.

00:58:54.000 That would be small.

00:58:55.000 That would be awesome.

00:58:55.000 They should have done that last year.

00:58:57.000 In San Francisco, it was like, you have the perfect act right there.

00:59:01.000 Like, that's the move.

00:59:03.000 You do have a problem with not enough monoculture of people being able to all know the same band.

00:59:09.000 Like, it's true that this guy who did the Super Bowl is very popular in a certain niche, but not with the rest of the people.

00:59:14.000 What if they did it?

00:59:15.000 Okay, okay.

00:59:16.000 It's total swerve.

00:59:17.000 What if they did a K-pop Super Bowl halftime show?

00:59:19.000 BTS halftime show.

00:59:20.000 It's your worst idea ever.

00:59:22.000 I think it would be pretty funny.

00:59:23.000 I think it'd be a funny show.

00:59:25.000 That would be less controversial than Bad Bun.

00:59:28.000 The music video would kill.

00:59:30.000 I just want to say, I was listening to the Dana Carvey, who's that guy?

00:59:35.000 David Spade.

00:59:36.000 David Spade podcast.

00:59:37.000 Oh, yeah.

00:59:37.000 And they were actually talking about the TPUSA halftime show.

00:59:40.000 One of the things they mentioned was that.

00:59:41.000 We got mentioned at the Oscars.

00:59:43.000 Yeah.

00:59:44.000 Oh, I love it.

00:59:45.000 And they were mentioning, though, that the first people to have done an alternate halftime was it was In Living Color.

00:59:52.000 Yes.

00:59:52.000 And how successful that had been.

00:59:54.000 And that's why we got the halftime show.

00:59:56.000 Like, they kind of did more lame halftime shows.

00:59:59.000 And then, because no one's going to counterprogram the Super Bowl.

01:00:02.000 And then the other networks are like, screw it.

01:00:04.000 We're going to counterprogram the Super Bowl.

01:00:05.000 And then the next year they rolled out Michael Jackson.

01:00:07.000 By the way, it was so hard to do.

01:00:10.000 You would not believe how many people were like, I'm in.

01:00:12.000 Let's do this.

01:00:13.000 Can't wait.

01:00:13.000 And then their manager or their agent would call and be like, you can't do that.

01:00:17.000 But yeah, music is powerful.

01:00:18.000 But let's talk about culture in general.

01:00:22.000 It feels like we had this moment in 2024 where we were culturally ascendant, right?

01:00:26.000 You saw the New Yorker magazine with all the young kids at the inauguration.

01:00:31.000 It was this dawn of a new era.

01:00:33.000 Really hasn't materialized.

01:00:35.000 I think losing Charlie was a big blow to that.

01:00:37.000 But I also think just some of this, the Epstein stuff and the Iran stuff, I feel like, you know, we've got CPAC going on, by the way, in Texas. 0.58

01:00:46.000 So the conservative movement is coalescing, at least in some shape or form, in that sense.

01:00:51.000 But what do you guys make of this?

01:00:53.000 Like, did we lose the plot?

01:00:56.000 Is it policy?

01:00:58.000 Is it just this is a hard country to govern and this was inevitable?

01:01:01.000 What do you guys make of that?

01:01:02.000 I think a big part of the energy coming out of 2024 was the outsider energy.

01:01:08.000 When you're on the outside looking in, which Trump was, they tried to kill him, they tried to imprison him, they tried to bankrupt him, and then he's ascendant and comes back.

01:01:17.000 America loves an underdog.

01:01:19.000 That's a great story.

01:01:21.000 The vibe and the energy was awesome.

01:01:23.000 But then when you get into power, that all changes.

01:01:27.000 You don't have that outsider energy anymore.

01:01:29.000 I feel like that's the real struggle now, is now you're in there and you actually have to do stuff and what's actually being done.

01:01:35.000 It's a lot harder.

01:01:37.000 But yeah, there's been a definite vibe switch.

01:01:40.000 And speaking of difficulties, building coalitions, that's a very difficult thing to do and to maintain.

01:01:47.000 You know, just being here in this studio reminds me that after Charlie was assassinated, people tried to say, oh, well, this is a big free speech martyr.

01:01:57.000 Well, he was a free speech martyr, but he was so, so much more than that.

01:02:02.000 It was not just about advocating for free speech, but the content of what he was talking about was much more important.

01:02:08.000 But also just his role within the movement was as this statesman who was able to interact with all these different groups of people with sometimes competing interests and keep everybody from going crazy.

01:02:20.000 And you don't really have a lot of figures who can serve that function.

01:02:26.000 And also just politically speaking, Donald Trump has historically been really good at managing his coalition.

01:02:32.000 And I think less good in recent months than he has been in the world.

01:02:37.000 Some of this is inevitable.

01:02:38.000 Some of this is inevitable.

01:02:39.000 I think I've pointed this out.

01:02:40.000 There's a lot of stuff about President Trump that is, I think for a lot of people, it's very endearing and funny when he's this candidate.

01:02:48.000 You know, he's always saying funny stuff.

01:02:50.000 He says something that sends the media into an absolute frenzy and all of that.

01:02:55.000 And it's very entertaining while he's running.

01:02:57.000 He's always doing unpredictable stuff.

01:02:59.000 And I do think for a chunk of the population, it just becomes less amusing when he's the president of the United States.

01:03:07.000 Like, he can post on truth whatever he wants when he's running.

01:03:11.000 But don't you think he's done so much less of that this term than he does?

01:03:13.000 I think it's less prominent because he's not on, he's, you know, he's on Truth Social instead of on X.

01:03:18.000 But I do think that stands out.

01:03:19.000 And I just think there's going to be a core of people where, you know, he says something about Rob Reiner on Truth.

01:03:25.000 It goes really viral that he said that.

01:03:27.000 And a lot of people, even if they like his policies, they just, they don't like that.

01:03:31.000 I'm not in Ubers as much as I was when I was in D.C., but I do remember taking Ubers in D.C.

01:03:36.000 And a super common take I would run into from these guys who are immigrant cab drivers.

01:03:41.000 And they would say, oh, I love Donald Trump's policies, but I do not wish he would tweet so much.

01:03:47.000 Well, hopefully they're not voting.

01:03:49.000 if they have an accent like that anyways i did love see the the moment where i felt like the energy was coming back was the pearl harbor comment in That was great.

01:03:59.000 That was great.

01:04:00.000 That's the Trump I want to see more of.

01:04:02.000 Well, you know what's crazy is we had, you know, I talked with Rich Barris, who's polling a lot, and he's kind of like Black Pill Barris right now.

01:04:09.000 And, you know, I asked him after the State of the Union, you know, do you think he's going to get a bump from that?

01:04:14.000 Like, that felt really good.

01:04:16.000 He was like, yeah, he's going to get a serious bump from that.

01:04:19.000 And Rich was sounding a really positive note.

01:04:22.000 And then like a week later, Iran happens, right? 0.89

01:04:25.000 And I instantly knew that that was going to be wildly unpopular with young people.

01:04:30.000 There's no doubt about it.

01:04:32.000 I know like some of us that have been pushing this anti-interventionist foreign policy for years. 0.56

01:04:38.000 And by the way, Trump helped usher that in when he called, you know, Iraq a dumb war, right?

01:04:44.000 I mean, he is the sort of originator of this energy, and it was extremely popular, especially with young people.

01:04:52.000 And that was always Charlie's focus is my focus.

01:04:55.000 I'm going like, okay, this might be the natural security right play, but it's going to be politically very dubious.

01:05:00.000 As a side note, I'm surprised President Trump's shaken up so many other traditions in politics.

01:05:05.000 If you get a bump from the State of the Union, I'm surprised Trump has never made the call.

01:05:08.000 I'm going to do the State of the Union the last week of October.

01:05:10.000 Oh, that's interesting.

01:05:12.000 He doesn't say when you have to do it.

01:05:13.000 It has to be Trump.

01:05:14.000 It says it has to be once a year.

01:05:15.000 There was polling yesterday from Fox News showing pretty bad numbers for Trump in terms of his approval ratings.

01:05:23.000 And there's just a lot of polling showing just general lack of support for this war.

01:05:30.000 But you think about all the polling that we heard about for the last couple of weeks.

01:05:33.000 What was it?

01:05:33.000 100% of Trump supporters support Trump.

01:05:36.000 It was like 100%.

01:05:37.000 Kind of a weird MAGA.

01:05:39.000 It's tautological.

01:05:41.000 Yeah, but like if MAGA is shrinking, then 100% of a smaller political thing.

01:05:46.000 They were saying, though, MAGA is not shrinking and it's 100% support.

01:05:50.000 Whenever you hear 100% number, you should be suspicious, right?

01:05:54.000 Like it doesn't sound real.

01:05:56.000 I would say, well, I think that's what it is.

01:05:58.000 I just think there is a hard core of Trump supporters where, I mean, President Trump himself has said, I am MAGA.

01:06:04.000 MAGA is me.

01:06:05.000 Like, there's just a group of people who have decided I will support President Trump kind of no matter what he does.

01:06:11.000 I think he's won me over.

01:06:13.000 But if that number is 35% or whatever it was from the Fox poll, how are you going to win elections?

01:06:19.000 That's the thing.

01:06:20.000 And so that's what I wish more people were thinking about in D.C. Obviously, in D.C., the main push is make sure Donald Trump does not pull out of this war.

01:06:28.000 Make sure he stays in.

01:06:30.000 You see this in the Wall Street Journal editorials.

01:06:31.000 They're like, you would be the biggest loser in history if you didn't commit to ground invasion.

01:06:35.000 I think the Wall Street Journal had a take that if we don't commit ground troops, the United States will collapse.

01:06:41.000 It's investing a lot of importance.

01:06:42.000 What's going on with the Wall Street Journal?

01:06:44.000 You guys probably know more about that than I do.

01:06:45.000 But the neocon element, I've heard it described, I think it was Kurt Mills or something, said that this is like the Empire Strikes Back of the Neocons.

01:06:54.000 And I mean, I'm curious about your take.

01:06:56.000 So, okay, let's say you've got the 82nd Airborne getting in position.

01:07:00.000 You've got Marines.

01:07:01.000 You've got some other paratroopers.

01:07:04.000 All the pieces are in place for some sort of potential ground strike.

01:07:08.000 And President Trump, in recent memory, when he builds up a force, he uses it.

01:07:12.000 Okay, so let's say this happens.

01:07:15.000 What is the political implication of that?

01:07:18.000 And does it depend on the outcome?

01:07:20.000 I guess it necessarily does.

01:07:22.000 I mean, eventually it depends on the outcome, but how far away is the outcome?

01:07:26.000 And wars have this tricky thing.

01:07:28.000 And it feels a little bit like people got a false sense of confidence from this Venezuela race. 1.00

01:07:34.000 It was super easy.

01:07:35.000 We went and kidnapped Nick Cage or kidnapped Maduro for Nick Cage in a constitution movement.

01:07:42.000 Which was objectively rash.

01:07:44.000 An amazing operation.

01:07:46.000 President Trump clearly, he likes to be able to do stuff quickly, instantaneously.

01:07:52.000 That has a lot of appeal to him.

01:07:53.000 I think, I mean, even on domestic policy, he wants to issue executive orders.

01:07:57.000 One reason I think he loves tariffs, he does innately like tariffs, but he also loves that he can impose them by executive fiat a lot of the time.

01:08:05.000 And whenever he's trying to demand the SAVE Act, it's okay, suddenly it's mired in, oh, the Senate has a filibuster and they don't want to, and they're moving slow and it's a bummer.

01:08:14.000 I think he likes with foreign policy that he does have this huge range of action.

01:08:19.000 I think people who, frankly, have always been in the pro-war caucus, they won him over with, oh, this Fordo thing, big instant success.

01:08:27.000 This Venezuela thing, big instant success.

01:08:30.000 I think it's pretty clear they sold him a narrative that Iran would be similar.

01:08:35.000 I think they pretty clearly expected that they would blow up the Ayatollah and they would instantly either surrender or collapse.

01:08:41.000 And that didn't happen.

01:08:42.000 And now I am a little concerned that now they're selling him, it's going to be easy.

01:08:46.000 You just send in these Marines, you take this island, then they'll have to surrender. 0.98

01:08:50.000 And if that doesn't happen, what are they going to tell him then?

01:08:53.000 And that's the nature of war, and it's why you should always be super hesitant.

01:08:57.000 The enemy always gets a vote.

01:08:59.000 You may decide when it starts, but they generally decide when it ends.

01:09:03.000 And right now, they don't seem like they're in a hurry to end it right now.

01:09:07.000 So are we going to be talking about this in July or October or next year?

01:09:11.000 I just read a book about World War II in the Pacific from the Japanese perspective.

01:09:15.000 And so they have a Japanese ambassador in the United States who, I believe, was not told they were going to do Pearl Harbor.

01:09:21.000 They didn't inform him of this.

01:09:22.000 War breaks out.

01:09:23.000 He's interned for a few months.

01:09:25.000 Like six months later, they trade him and he goes back to Japan.

01:09:27.000 And he meets the government and they're like, we wish you to like, you know, make an initiative to like negotiate a peace deal with the United States as quickly as possible.

01:09:34.000 And he just looks at them and he's like, I don't think you guys quite understand what you have done.

01:09:39.000 I don't think they're going to make peace with you guys.

01:09:41.000 And he was correct.

01:09:42.000 Exactly.

01:09:43.000 War has a way of having objectives outside of what your own are.

01:09:47.000 It's easier to start a war than to end it because the enemy gets a vote.

01:09:50.000 I will say, I saw, again, Wall Street Journal story saying that Trump is privately telling anybody who will listen that he does not want this to drag on, that he wants to be out very soon.

01:09:59.000 And Byron York had the point that, well, that's also what he's saying publicly.

01:10:04.000 And he has said publicly over and over and over again.

01:10:07.000 He's thinking more four to six week timeline.

01:10:10.000 And so that is why you're seeing the pressure now being to elongate this war and have it continue.

01:10:16.000 The gas prices alone are politically catastrophic.

01:10:20.000 Inflation is going to be 5.5% again.

01:10:23.000 But I do think that, and I'm saying this is totally outside of my own views, communicating more what you want to achieve might be helpful for political outcomes.

01:10:32.000 Doing more of a, you know, bringing people along with your goals.

01:10:38.000 I wasn't expecting this, I have to say.

01:10:40.000 But death of recess, it stopped me in my tracks.

01:10:44.000 This isn't about dodgeballs and jungle gyms.

01:10:47.000 It's about control.

01:10:48.000 The modern American classroom didn't just happen.

01:10:50.000 It was intentionally designed.

01:10:52.000 It was standardized and centralized.

01:10:54.000 And once you see who built it and who protects it, everything clicks.

01:10:58.000 Billions of dollars are flowing through education bureaucracies every year.

01:11:02.000 Test scores collapse.

01:11:04.000 And somehow the answer is always more money and less parental authority.

01:11:07.000 The documentary breaks down how organizations like the NEA amassed enormous influence, how radical gender ideology entered classrooms and why something as basic as recess, movement, freedom, childhood, you know, had to go.

01:11:22.000 That's not random.

01:11:23.000 That's systemic.

01:11:24.000 Institutions protect themselves.

01:11:26.000 They do not protect your kids.

01:11:28.000 And that's why this documentary exists on Angel Studio streaming platform, Angel Guild.

01:11:33.000 Angel Guild is willing to distribute films that challenge powerful systems when legacy media won't touch them.

01:11:40.000 So right now, go to angel.com slash Charlie and watch Death of Recess right now.

01:11:46.000 If you're a parent or plan to be, you need to see this.

01:11:48.000 That's angel.com slash Charlie and watch Death of Recess.

01:11:55.000 By the way, yeah, we got some B-roll of the All-American Halftime show.

01:11:58.000 You know, people love this show, first of all, I will tell you.

01:12:02.000 And then the haters online have to be like, you know, and I was like, no, we did a pretty darn good job.

01:12:08.000 There it is.

01:12:08.000 And Kid Rock, bless him, man.

01:12:10.000 I mean, he was the one guy that had the guts to stand with us and like anchor that thing.

01:12:15.000 And it was, so God bless him.

01:12:17.000 I genuinely, I was never like a huge Kid Rock guy.

01:12:20.000 And after this, I'm like, the man can do no wrong.

01:12:23.000 God bless him.

01:12:24.000 I was on a plane or something during the Super Bowl, and I'm not really a big NFL watcher.

01:12:29.000 Have you ever played the game to intentionally not know what the score is?

01:12:33.000 No.

01:12:34.000 I love it.

01:12:36.000 I love it.

01:12:36.000 But I was talking to my sister, my nieces and nephews, and everybody loved the show.

01:12:43.000 And they were really happy that there was an alternative that they could enjoy.

01:12:47.000 Good.

01:12:48.000 And by the way, it was like 30 minutes out and there was already a million people on the stream waiting for it.

01:12:53.000 I was like, this is something's happening.

01:12:55.000 Something's like really happening.

01:12:57.000 All right.

01:12:58.000 So I have two questions for you.

01:12:59.000 The first is Joe Kent.

01:13:01.000 I want to help me understand what do you think the importance of this?

01:13:04.000 How damaging was this to President Trump, to the war effort?

01:13:09.000 Or is it, you know, kind of what you learned about Joe Ken has your thinking on it changed?

01:13:14.000 Yeah, I think it'll end up being a blip in the whole scheme of things.

01:13:18.000 Washington has a way of making you believe that whatever is happening right now is the most important thing ever.

01:13:23.000 I mean, it wasn't unimportant, but I think, you know, a month or two from now, it'll be forgotten.

01:13:27.000 Molly and I were talking on the way to the studio this morning about how there seems to have been a permanent change kind of in how the American mind processes events.

01:13:38.000 I don't know whether it was COVID that did it or the Russia hoax or the JFK assassination where people just instinctively refuse to believe whatever it is they're told is the primary story.

01:13:51.000 And a lot of times this can be directionally accurate.

01:13:54.000 You can kind of smell a rat.

01:13:55.000 You know that something's not right.

01:13:56.000 And then you go to look for, you know, what might have explained this behavior that has better facts.

01:14:04.000 You know, did COVID come from a lab or not?

01:14:06.000 We were told, oh, no, no, it was natural.

01:14:08.000 It was from wet markets.

01:14:09.000 And everyone kind of knew, no, no, no, it came from a lab.

01:14:12.000 So I think there's a healthy instinct that people have to question the narrative, but there can be a point where that goes way too far.

01:14:20.000 And I think what we're seeing now with just how easy it is to go and research stuff on the internet, there's podcasts everywhere.

01:14:26.000 It's really easy to kind of choose your own adventure when it comes to a narrative.

01:14:30.000 And that can, like I said, it can be a good instinct, but it can really go too far to where you just refuse to accept anything you ever hear ever, in which case you're really just crafting your own reality.

01:14:42.000 It's not isolated to the left.

01:14:44.000 It happens on the right as well.

01:14:45.000 And I think overall, it's kind of an unhealthy thing to do when we can never agree on the nature of reality or facts or anything ever.

01:14:54.000 There's got to be a way back from that.

01:14:57.000 And more specifically on the individual in question, I do think that Sean refers to staffer syndrome where staffers think they're much more important than they are.

01:15:05.000 If you believe you cannot support your principle and you feel that you should resign, I think you should resign.

01:15:13.000 I think that's more honorable than staying in and undermining and sabotaging, leaking.

01:15:18.000 I don't like that behavior.

01:15:20.000 You should do it quietly.

01:15:22.000 You should not do it where you are the center of the story.

01:15:25.000 And so I don't really like the way that all went down.

01:15:29.000 Now, I will say, I do think debate is good.

01:15:33.000 Debate on this war is good.

01:15:35.000 And nobody should be afraid of it.

01:15:37.000 The strongest supporters of this war should understand that debating the objectives, the means by which you're going to obtain those objectives, is healthy and important.

01:15:47.000 Wars are not done unilaterally.

01:15:49.000 You have to have the support of the people who are putting their lives on the line, who are paying for it, and who might be forced to pay for it.

01:15:55.000 For, you know, in the case of previous wars we've done, sometimes that lasts for decades.

01:15:59.000 And so there are, see, I didn't love like everything about the way this went down.

01:16:04.000 And I think we should just encourage much better debate.

01:16:08.000 So I find it interesting that, you know, we're plus six months from Charlie's assassination, and it still feels like this is the churn that we're in, even in the midst of a war.

01:16:22.000 And sort of the question is, you know, can we bring this back together in time for the midterms?

01:16:29.000 Can we bring the coalition back, a winning coalition, so that we don't get completely shellacked?

01:16:35.000 And if so, what needs to happen between now and then?

01:16:37.000 Yeah, we absolutely can.

01:16:39.000 I'm not a black pillar at all.

01:16:40.000 Six months in politics is an eternity.

01:16:43.000 We have extremely short memories as American voters.

01:16:47.000 I would compare them to goldfish generally.

01:16:49.000 I remember in 91, George H.W. Bush had at one point a 91% approval rating on the heels of Desert Storm.

01:16:57.000 Ends up getting 40% in the election over a year and a half.

01:17:01.000 Well, that was Ross Perot had something to do with that too, but yes.

01:17:04.000 So did raising taxes and violating that key pledge.

01:17:07.000 You know, we go back to 2020.

01:17:09.000 I was at the State of the Union.

01:17:10.000 Trump blew the roof off that building.

01:17:13.000 I think it was better than the State of the Union speech he gave this year.

01:17:17.000 The economy was roaring, and then bam, COVID hits, everything falls apart.

01:17:21.000 So six months is an eternity.

01:17:23.000 What do we have to do to get where we need to be?

01:17:25.000 I think Trump needs to have a laser focus on the domestic economy.

01:17:29.000 He needs to understand that you have people who went to college and followed the rules who can't get jobs.

01:17:34.000 You have a whole generation that thinks they're never going to get married.

01:17:37.000 They're never going to own a home because you look at how much you have to have just to have a down payment, let alone the mortgage interest rate.

01:17:42.000 And increasingly, you have multiple generations of people who believe the American dream is a total fantasy and totally out of reach.

01:17:49.000 If he is laser focused on that with solutions on how to deal with how can you afford a house, how do you get college affordable?

01:17:56.000 Can we make groceries normal, gas affordable?

01:17:59.000 I think that solves most of his problems.

01:18:02.000 And I would say, you know, this is Donald Trump is currently the president, but will not be with us forever.

01:18:08.000 And it is shocking and appalling to me how little other Republicans have thought about being leaders in this moment.

01:18:17.000 And the political party that does address some of these really deep questions about, you know, what does it mean to be an American?

01:18:23.000 What does it mean to have a flourishing life will benefit with voters?

01:18:26.000 Now, I also think there's something incumbent upon the people themselves.

01:18:31.000 One of the things I love about particularly Charlie's last few years was his emphasis less on politics and more on inculcating morals in the people, focusing on the importance of religion.

01:18:43.000 And I think that even as Sean and I are doing day-to-day news, you guys are doing a daily radio show, like we have to be focused on the day-to-day, but we also need to be focused on much bigger long-term issues about the trust we put in princes and whether we are a moral people capable of having this constitutional government.

01:19:01.000 And if I can just make a little pitch here, I have a book coming out next month on Justice Alito, who is, I think, our most important and least understood justice.

01:19:12.000 And one of the things I try to point out in this book is how he balances pragmatism and principle.

01:19:18.000 And too often on the right, we have seen people really just go at one extreme or the other.

01:19:24.000 And it doesn't work if you do that.

01:19:26.000 You can be, you know, you can ride your principle and not care at all about whether you're helping the people that those principles are supposedly supposed to help.

01:19:33.000 Or you can be so pragmatic that you become a utilitarian and think the ends justify the means.

01:19:38.000 And so we as a people need to understand how to balance those things and also hold up those people, less influencers, more people who show moral courage, like I would say, Justice Alito.

01:19:50.000 I'm Charlie Kirk.

01:19:51.000 And Blake, final, I think you should take us home here.

01:19:54.000 That Mamdani versus MAGA, that divide the future. 0.96

01:19:58.000 I mean, you have to recognize, like, people set, people still, I think they get lost in the idea that we won this like huge permanent victory in 2024.

01:20:08.000 They're not really accounting to reality, which is this can swerve back very violently.

01:20:13.000 There's very radical people who would love to abolish a lot of core American freedoms, would love to bring a revive 2020 style social revolution.

01:20:24.000 They already have ruined entire states.

01:20:26.000 They would love to ruin the entire country.

01:20:29.000 And that is what we are facing if we cannot adapt to the stresses that young people are facing, because they will vote to blow stuff up. 0.98

01:20:37.000 Some of them will vote to blow stuff up just because it gives them a rush to do it.

01:20:40.000 So you have to win over the people who are at least inclined to keep things together.

01:20:46.000 Yeah.

01:20:46.000 And that was one of Charlie's final warnings to us.

01:20:49.000 You know, we're a race against the clock to train the next generation to value the same things that our founders gave us.

01:20:56.000 Molly Hemingway, Sean Davis, you guys are amazing.

01:20:59.000 We do it.

01:20:59.000 It's nice to be here.

01:21:04.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 26, 2026

Ground War, Marriage, Music, and More ft. Megan Basham, Mollie Hemingway, and Sean Davis

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