The Charlie Kirk Show - July 31, 2025


High Time For A Texas Gerrymander?


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

158.51924

Word count

5,424

Sentence count

451

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

28

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Abraham George of the Texas Republican Party joins us to talk about how Texas is redrawing its congressional maps to give the GOP a better chance at picking up 5 more seats in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio.
00:00:04.000 Is the war in Russia going to end anytime soon?
00:00:06.000 A fabulous conversation with Dr. Paul Ray from America's greatest college, Hillsdale College, all about the Russia-Ukrainian situation.
00:00:13.000 It's really deep conversation.
00:00:15.000 I think you'll love it.
00:00:16.000 And he says stuff that no one else said in just a really fair way.
00:00:18.000 It's CharlieForhillsdale.com.
00:00:20.000 If you want to learn more from Hillsdale College, CharlieForhillsdale.com, C-H-A-R-L-I-E for Hillsdale.com.
00:00:26.000 And Texas is redrawing its congressional maps.
00:00:28.000 Abraham George here on how Republicans could pick up five House seats.
00:00:33.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
00:00:37.000 That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.
00:00:39.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:40.000 Here, we go.
00:00:41.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:42.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
00:00:44.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:48.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:51.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:52.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:53.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
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00:01:39.000 For years, Democrats have pushed the boundaries in the pursuit of power.
00:01:44.000 This story is very interesting, but we're out to focus on in Texas because it's consistent with the Senate parliamentarian story.
00:01:50.000 It's consistent with the Senate blue slip story, the Senate rule story.
00:01:55.000 While the Democrats have gone full throttle to destroy the United States, we have always been, oh, we take the high road of virtue and tradition while they are crushing us.
00:02:05.000 Well, no more.
00:02:06.000 Texas is fighting back.
00:02:08.000 Almost every major Democrat swing state has gerrymandered, not the swing state, but home state gerrymandered their maps to be so difficult for Republicans to be able to win swing districts like Illinois, like New Jersey, like California.
00:02:22.000 Well, Texas is now fighting back.
00:02:24.000 First, let's show up on cut 483.
00:02:27.000 This is Illinois' congressional map.
00:02:30.000 Do you see that little sliver on the right-hand of your screen, the screen on the right?
00:02:33.000 That's a congressional district.
00:02:35.000 They're leveraging racial grievances and civil rights law to be able to gerrymander Republicans out of any representation in Illinois.
00:02:43.000 And you can see it has worked.
00:02:44.000 Illinois basic, you know, Illinois had more Republican congressmen than Democrat congressmen a decade ago.
00:02:50.000 Well, they made quick work of that.
00:02:51.000 Well, joining us now is Abraham George.
00:02:54.000 He is the Texas GOP chair to discuss the situation happening in Texas and the proposed Texas maps.
00:03:00.000 Abraham, great to see you.
00:03:02.000 Walk us through what is happening here and the proposed Texas maps.
00:03:05.000 We'll put the maps up on screen while you're talking, please.
00:03:08.000 Yeah, Charlie, so glad to be back.
00:03:11.000 What happened in 2020 during the COVID and the census?
00:03:18.000 The Republican House back then went and shored up the support for their own districts and ended up leaving a lot of open seats basically for Democrats.
00:03:31.000 And I am glad President Trump made a call and finally said, okay, Texas, actually, you can actually bring in another five state, five congressional districts for us.
00:03:42.000 So over the past year or so, we've been working on it with RNC and also with Michael Watley.
00:03:47.000 He's been very helpful on this.
00:03:49.000 Many of our congressional members helped on this.
00:03:52.000 And then finally, we're at a place we are going to have a map that actually represents the people.
00:03:59.000 Hermit sent out a memo from DOJ saying there's four districts that are gerrymandered based on race, which is illegal.
00:04:07.000 We can do it on political reasons, but I didn't think the Texas leadership had the fortitude to do it.
00:04:13.000 But we finally have a president who is asking for it and it's getting done.
00:04:18.000 So walk us through the geography of this, though.
00:04:19.000 So what is the significance, the proposed contrast between the current maps and where we could potentially be?
00:04:26.000 How many seats could Republicans potentially pick up?
00:04:30.000 We believe we can pick up five new seats for the Republican side, which we currently have 25 seats on our side, 13 for Democrats.
00:04:39.000 I think it's going to be 30 for Republicans and 8 for Democrats out of the 38 seats we currently hold.
00:04:47.000 And during the census, it was a whole mistake, and the party was against it back then.
00:04:52.000 Even our Texas House seats are 70, 80% Republican on certain areas of Texas.
00:05:01.000 And it's the same thing for congressional maps.
00:05:03.000 You know, a lot of these congressmen, they just don't want to go out there and campaign.
00:05:07.000 So what they've done is they've made a 70% district for themselves, which is giving a lot of space for Democrats.
00:05:18.000 And honestly, at this point, Charlie, it's a fight for our country.
00:05:23.000 And if we're going to hold the House in 2026, and Texas is bringing brand new eight five new congressional districts on the Republican side.
00:05:34.000 Yeah.
00:05:35.000 So is there any fear that the new proposed map might hurt us eventually?
00:05:40.000 But let me actually pause on that.
00:05:41.000 Let's play some pieces of tape here.
00:05:42.000 Let's play Harry Enton.
00:05:44.000 Let's play first cut 451.
00:05:47.000 This, in fact, could win or maintain control for the Republicans in the House of Representatives.
00:05:52.000 What are you talking about?
00:05:52.000 Well, Texas has 38 congressional districts.
00:05:54.000 Look at those that Trump won last year by at least 10 percentage points.
00:05:58.000 Under the current lines, it's 25.
00:06:00.000 Under the proposed lines, it's 30.
00:06:02.000 That's one, two, three, four, five.
00:06:04.000 Five potential pickup opportunities for the Republican Party.
00:06:08.000 They are playing hardball at this particular point.
00:06:11.000 And right now, it seems to me that Democrats are actually playing close to the Little League peewee.
00:06:15.000 It's about time we start to play hardball.
00:06:18.000 Let's play cut 452.
00:06:20.000 So five seats.
00:06:21.000 What would five seats in Texas do for Republicans in Congress overall?
00:06:24.000 You might think five seats is just five seats, but keep in mind this: margins of spare for the House majority.
00:06:30.000 In 2020, the Democrats had four seats.
00:06:33.000 2022, Republicans had four seats.
00:06:35.000 This time around, two seats for Republicans out of the 2024 elections.
00:06:39.000 Five seats can make all the difference in the world.
00:06:42.000 And that is why Republicans in Texas providing five pickup seat opportunities could, in fact, make the difference between Republicans losing control of the House of Representatives and maintaining control of the House of Representatives.
00:06:54.000 This is about whether or not Trump is going to be impeached.
00:06:56.000 It all hinges on Hispanics. 1.00
00:06:58.000 Abraham, are you confident that Hispanics will continue to vote in a way to make these districts solidly red?
00:07:04.000 Absolutely.
00:07:05.000 So we have 14 border counties in Texas, and out of the 14, 12 of them, we flipped to Republican.
00:07:13.000 All 14 were Democrat counties, and most of them are about 60, 65% Hispanic population.
00:07:20.000 And out of the 14, 12 of them came to the Republican side primarily because Donald Trump was on ballot and Biden had destroyed our country.
00:07:29.000 So they are continuing.
00:07:31.000 We have a brand new elected official, a county commissioner, and one of those counties flipped from Democrat to Republican today, this morning.
00:07:39.000 So we have elected officials flipping to the other side because they're just saying our values do not align with the Democrat Party anymore.
00:07:47.000 We want to be part of the Republican Party and we are welcoming those people.
00:07:52.000 I don't know if they're going to run on our ballot again because we just don't know if they're real Republicans, but we're trying to work with everyone up there.
00:08:00.000 And a lot of these people who has been railroaded by the Biden administration, especially on the border issue and economy, now saying, yeah, Republican Party knows what we need and they're working on it.
00:08:12.000 So we are going to continue to have Hispanic and Black American voters on our side in Texas.
00:08:18.000 Let's play cut 453, please.
00:08:21.000 Some voting shifts within Texas might be adding fuel to this.
00:08:26.000 Exactly right.
00:08:27.000 They wouldn't necessarily be able to do this if, in fact, Republicans, Donald Trump did not do so much better among Latino voters last time around than he did in 2020 because four of the pickup opportunities are majority Hispanic seats.
00:08:38.000 In 2024, get this, Donald Trump actually won Latino voters by 10 points in Texas.
00:08:43.000 In 2020, it was Joe Biden who won him by 17 points.
00:08:46.000 That's nearly a 30-point switcheroo.
00:08:48.000 So this, in my mind, is fueling these potential pickup opportunities for Republicans.
00:08:52.000 As I said at the beginning of this, Republicans are playing hardball.
00:08:55.000 It's going to be interesting to see if Democrats can actually answer this or are they going to be stuck in the little league.
00:09:00.000 One thing we are watching is that Donald Trump maintains his support among Latino voters, but that is to come. 0.95
00:09:05.000 That will be to come.
00:09:06.000 It will be answered soon enough.
00:09:09.000 Abraham, so this could potentially keep the House of Representatives red.
00:09:12.000 What is the process then to get this done?
00:09:15.000 Greg Abbott, House of Representatives, what is the actual timeline of the process?
00:09:19.000 Well, Greg Abbott called a special meeting, special session, 30 days.
00:09:24.000 He's given a mandate that he wants to redraw the districts.
00:09:28.000 We currently have a map that's filed by Chairman Hunter from South Texas.
00:09:33.000 And that map actually is a pretty good map.
00:09:35.000 I mean, I'm not part of the process of redrawing the maps, but that new map that is proposed, it will have about five new seats on our side. 1.00
00:09:46.000 There's one seat in Dallas, North Dallas, that will be flipped over to the Republican side, which is held by Julie Johnson, who is a lesbian, crazy person who really does not reflect the values of Texas. 0.91
00:10:01.000 And then there's a lot of these people who are going to be losing their seats, mainly because honestly, when Donald Trump won by 14 points in Texas, a lot of these people were being, they're scared.
00:10:14.000 Now with the redrawing, I think they're pretty much done.
00:10:18.000 So this is going to be an interesting deal.
00:10:21.000 We have 30 days to do this.
00:10:22.000 We're currently holding all of these public hearings.
00:10:26.000 So there's one happening tomorrow.
00:10:28.000 Once that's done, we will have the final map and it will get to the floor.
00:10:33.000 And both the House and the Senate is on board with it.
00:10:36.000 So we should have everything wrapped up by in about two and a half weeks.
00:10:40.000 If Texas House members can get their act together, which I think they will.
00:10:46.000 Democrats are talking about cutting quorum, but we'll see how that goes.
00:10:49.000 Abraham, thank you so much.
00:10:50.000 Abraham George, Texas GOP State Chair.
00:10:52.000 Thank you so much.
00:10:53.000 Thanks for having me.
00:10:57.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
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00:12:02.000 Allenjackson.com slash Charlie.
00:12:07.000 JD Vance is just doing a phenomenal job.
00:12:09.000 I think JD Vance will make a great 48th President of the United States.
00:12:13.000 I want your thoughts on JD Vance.
00:12:15.000 I think we've been on quite a JD Vance journey the last year, haven't we?
00:12:18.000 JD Vance went from a freshman U.S. Senator to now a primary part of the Trump coalition and a phenomenal vice president of the United States.
00:12:28.000 In fact, I was just chatting with J.D. the other day.
00:12:30.000 He's in good spirits, and I think he's doing a terrific job.
00:12:34.000 JD Vance had some very sharp commentary about immigration and about Europe.
00:12:39.000 Let's listen carefully to the vice president of the United States and maybe the 48th President of the United States, Play Cut 393.
00:12:46.000 Yes, the Europeans annoy me sometimes, and yes, I disagree with them on certain issues, but we have to remember that is the cradle of Western civilization.
00:12:53.000 The entire idea of Christian civilization that led to the founding of the United States of America, that was formed in Europe.
00:13:01.000 Europe is at risk, I think, of creating, of engaging in civilizational suicide.
00:13:07.000 They are unable to or unwilling too many countries to control their borders.
00:13:11.000 You see them starting to push back against that.
00:13:13.000 And good, that's a good thing.
00:13:15.000 You see them starting to limit the free speech of their own citizens, even as those citizens are protesting against things like the border invasion.
00:13:23.000 I want Europe to thrive.
00:13:25.000 I want them to be an important ally.
00:13:27.000 This is important.
00:13:28.000 We want Europe to survive and to thrive.
00:13:33.000 In the United Kingdom, the government spent last year more than 7 billion pounds flying Afghan Muslims into the country in secret.
00:13:42.000 A court made it illegal to report that it was happening.
00:13:46.000 Now the government is considering a definition of Islamophobia that would make it illegal to talk about Islamic grooming gangs.
00:13:54.000 The flag of Islam is taking over the European continent. 0.99
00:14:00.000 And they're doing this by choice.
00:14:02.000 Muhammad is one of the top birth names all throughout the continent of Europe.
00:14:09.000 Who do you want to rule you?
00:14:11.000 Muslims do not believe in separation of mosque and state.
00:14:16.000 They do not believe in freedom of speech, free expression.
00:14:19.000 Many of them don't even believe in private property rights the way that we do or free enterprise.
00:14:22.000 It's all subservient to the Sharia Allah. 1.00
00:14:26.000 And migration and immigration makes it possible.
00:14:30.000 You see, immigration, and I've spent a lot of time in the kind of ruling class neighborhoods this summer trying to raise money for turning point and hanging out.
00:14:37.000 Immigration is where all of a sudden the ruling class gets a little bit nervous.
00:14:42.000 Oh, well, you know, we can let them in as long as they come in legally.
00:14:46.000 No, no, no.
00:14:48.000 They must assimilate. 0.99
00:14:50.000 Legal is not enough because immigration without assimilation is in invasion. 1.00
00:14:56.000 President Donald Trump warned repeatedly about this during his trip to Europe, Play Cut 243.
00:15:02.000 On immigration, you better get your act together. 0.90
00:15:05.000 You're not going to have Europe anymore.
00:15:08.000 You got to get your act together.
00:15:10.000 And we, you know, as you know, last month, we had nobody entering our country.
00:15:14.000 Nobody.
00:15:14.000 Shut it down.
00:15:15.000 And we took out a lot of bad people that got there with Biden.
00:15:18.000 Biden was a total stiff and what he allowed to happen, but you're allowing it to happen to your countries.
00:15:25.000 And you got to stop this horrible invasion that's happening to Europe.
00:15:30.000 Many countries in Europe.
00:15:32.000 Some people, some leaders have not let it happen.
00:15:37.000 And they're not getting the proper credit.
00:15:40.000 I could name them to you right now, but I'm not going to embarrass the other ones.
00:15:45.000 But stop.
00:15:46.000 This immigration is killing Europe. 1.00
00:15:50.000 At this point, I think European elites finally realize that Muslim mass migration was a massive mistake, but they're in so deep they'd rather just basically cover up than keep on talking about it. 0.98
00:16:05.000 They just want to cover up how awful it is until they're basically dead and they don't have to worry about it.
00:16:10.000 There's just no way to argue that Muslims in the UK, France, or Germany has been anything other than a disaster. 1.00
00:16:17.000 And remember this, Muslims are compelled to take over the government in the land that they are in. 0.99
00:16:23.000 That is why you have Mamdani.
00:16:25.000 That is why you have Omar Fatah in Minneapolis.
00:16:28.000 That's why you have Dalak Dalakwa in South Portland.
00:16:32.000 And then you can't even speak out against it.
00:16:35.000 You see so many of them running for office because government and the instruments of power is fundamental to Islamic theology.
00:16:43.000 It is not fundamental to Christian theology.
00:16:45.000 Our kingdom is not of this world.
00:16:47.000 We should get more involved in politics, but that is my push for pastors and Christians.
00:16:55.000 Islamists have no such concern theologically.
00:16:59.000 They know that they should take over the power structure and to govern and eventually through Sharia. 1.00
00:17:06.000 And what do the purple-haired jihadis in Brooklyn and the actual jihadis have in common?
00:17:12.000 They hate the United States of America and they want to suffocate our civilization. 0.90
00:17:18.000 They want to starve the baseline and the foundation.
00:17:23.000 They despise the West and we invited them here. 1.00
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00:18:25.000 Dr. Paul Ray, professor of history from Hillsdale College and war historian.
00:18:30.000 Dr. Ray, great to see you.
00:18:32.000 Thank you for the time.
00:18:33.000 Dr. Ray, what is your analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian war?
00:18:39.000 Do you believe that Putin is going to continue to broker this war against Ukraine?
00:18:46.000 Yes, I do.
00:18:48.000 I never thought that a ceasefire was at all likely.
00:18:53.000 That having been said, I honor Donald Trump for trying.
00:18:57.000 The number of people being killed is terrible.
00:19:01.000 And I think a ceasefire would be very much in the interest of Ukraine, which is under tremendous pressure because the Ukrainian population is greatly outnumbered by the Russian population.
00:19:13.000 So the potential list of draftees of people that you could actually put into the war is much, much smaller.
00:19:24.000 But I never believed it would happen.
00:19:27.000 And the reason is that I think Putin has gotten himself into a corner where if he ends this war with anything but something that can be represented as a great victory, he will be toast.
00:19:46.000 He has stirred up Russian nationalism, focused it on the Ukraine issue.
00:19:53.000 He has sacrificed innumerable Russian lives at the front.
00:19:59.000 And if he has very little to show for it, it's over for him.
00:20:05.000 I don't think he has room to move. 0.99
00:20:09.000 Going in there was one of the stupidest things he could conceivably have done. 0.99
00:20:14.000 He thought it was going to be a cakewalk. 1.00
00:20:17.000 And what does that say about Russian intelligence?
00:20:21.000 That a country next to them, the language is very similar to Russian, and they can't tell that these people are prepared to fight.
00:20:28.000 That's really quite remarkable.
00:20:30.000 Must be an awful lot of people around Trump, around Putin, who are afraid to tell him the truth.
00:20:37.000 And that's probably still true, I'm afraid.
00:20:40.000 So, Dr. Ray, that's a phenomenal analysis, but I want to zero in on your answer.
00:20:44.000 You say, yes, he's going to continue brokering it.
00:20:47.000 To what end?
00:20:48.000 Until he reaches Kiev, till he reaches the middle point or the center part of the country?
00:20:56.000 So you're saying he's going to keep on brokering it.
00:20:58.000 What would the final objective be?
00:21:01.000 And what would then a reasonable victory for Putin be?
00:21:04.000 Well, one of the problems is I'm not sure he knows what the final objective is.
00:21:11.000 Oftentimes, countries go to war without a clear understanding of the mission.
00:21:17.000 I think that was true for us in Vietnam 50 years ago.
00:21:21.000 We didn't really quite know what victory would mean and how you can't bring means and ends together unless you know what the end is.
00:21:32.000 I think the original end was to take Kiev and to install a puppet government that would control the whole country so that you would have a puppet under the Russians. 0.75
00:21:44.000 But that's not going to happen.
00:21:47.000 So I don't know what would count as victory.
00:21:52.000 And keep in mind, he has to sell it as a victory to the Russian people, but not just to the Russian people, to that rather narrower group that is powerful in Russia.
00:22:04.000 And he has revved up a kind of ultra-nationalism that won't be satisfied with anything less than a whole lot.
00:22:16.000 So I think he's got himself in a lot of trouble.
00:22:20.000 And I think it's extremely foolish because the only country in the world that has any territorial ambitions vis-a-vis Russia, and I mean the Russia that existed before this war started, is China.
00:22:35.000 It's not widely known, but Russia and China fought a war along the Amur River in 1969, major tank battles.
00:22:45.000 China has a claim to Siberia or to a good chunk of Siberia.
00:22:50.000 The Russians won that in the middle of the 19th century, and there was a treaty.
00:22:55.000 It's one of the treaties that Chinese children are taught to look upon as the unequal treaties that have to be overturned.
00:23:03.000 So what has Putin done?
00:23:05.000 He has put his country in bed with its greatest potential enemy.
00:23:10.000 He has put it at odds with potential allies.
00:23:15.000 And he has alienated them.
00:23:17.000 I was about to say permanently, but in foreign affairs, there's no such thing as permanently.
00:23:24.000 And this is so illuminating.
00:23:26.000 So you've said he's made a big mistake and he's kind of got to back up against the wall.
00:23:29.000 He doesn't really know what the objective is.
00:23:31.000 So let's talk about then who he has to win over.
00:23:34.000 Russian people, sort of, but he's using the more rural, poor Muslim parts as cannon fodder up on the front lines.
00:23:42.000 Who then does he have to win over?
00:23:44.000 Who is the intelligentsia, the Russian ruling class of Moscow and St. Petersburg that he has to convince that this war was a success?
00:23:53.000 Who are these people?
00:23:54.000 Okay, there's two Russian intelligentsias, and they're at odds with one another.
00:24:00.000 There's one that's cosmopolitan, relatively Western-oriented, and innumerable Russians have fled Russia because of this war.
00:24:11.000 They're living in Georgia, they're living in Armenia, they're living in Finland, they're living on Cyprus.
00:24:19.000 There are a lot of Russians who look upon this war as a nightmare and who are themselves concerned primarily as patriotic Russians with the Chinese threat.
00:24:32.000 The people that he's got to please are the KGB guys that are his subordinates.
00:24:41.000 And, you know, there's quite a few of them, but think of this as an oligarchy of thugs.
00:24:49.000 A lot of them trained by the KGB back in the days when Putin himself was a KGB officer in Dresden in Germany.
00:24:58.000 And a lot of them share his view, which is, you know, the real enemy is the United States.
00:25:07.000 Let me say a little something about that, because the Roman historian Polybius says that when you end a war, you have to think very hard about the defeated opponent.
00:25:22.000 Are they broken in spirit, or do they think that they have lost the war because they yielded to circumstances?
00:25:34.000 And his argument is the Carthaginians at the end of the First Punic War have yielded to circumstances.
00:25:42.000 Okay, if they've only yielded circumstances, they are lying in wait for an opportunity to strike back.
00:25:49.000 Think of Germany after World War I.
00:25:52.000 The Germans didn't think they'd been defeated. 0.97
00:25:55.000 They thought they had been betrayed from within.
00:25:59.000 And they are looking for the opportunity to strike back.
00:26:04.000 Okay, Russia at the end of the Cold War, it's defeated.
00:26:08.000 It yielded to circumstances.
00:26:11.000 The Soviet Union broke up and places like Ukraine became independent countries.
00:26:17.000 Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Stans, Armenia, and so forth.
00:26:26.000 Putin comes from a generation that thinks they were cheated.
00:26:32.000 You know, he refers to the breakup of the Soviet Union as a great geopolitical disaster.
00:26:38.000 So the aim is to put it back together.
00:26:41.000 You know, and if you might, you might wonder, why did the Swedes join NATO?
00:26:44.000 Why did Finland join NATO?
00:26:46.000 The answer is they think that Ukraine is a test and they're next. 0.77
00:26:54.000 So he's painted himself into a corner in which there is an ultra-nationalist elite, largely drawn from the army and the old KGB.
00:27:08.000 And he can't afford to give ground.
00:27:15.000 The USSR never technically lost a war. 0.72
00:27:18.000 I mean, there was Afghanistan, but they collapsed and Russians felt that they were taken advantage of in a moment of weakness.
00:27:25.000 And What you're articulating is a ruling class that is very jaded, that was likely in their late 20s and early 30s.
00:27:35.000 They were at their formative years when the USSR collapsed.
00:27:40.000 And now they're on top of Russian society and they hold a memory of great bitterness. 0.98
00:27:46.000 Bitterness that this project that they inherited fell apart and they're trying to reconstitute it.
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00:28:57.000 Dr. Ray, the article from the Washington Post, a little old, but it says Putin wants Russia's youth to become ultra-nationalist patriots.
00:29:04.000 Many are all in.
00:29:05.000 Dr. Ray, how do the youth of Russia feel about all this?
00:29:09.000 They feel differently.
00:29:11.000 I mean, you know, I said something about the people who fled.
00:29:16.000 I used to chair the board of a little foundation that sends Americans to places to talk and study people who are being ignored by the press.
00:29:26.000 We sent someone out.
00:29:27.000 This is the Institute of Current World Affairs.
00:29:29.000 We're 100 years old.
00:29:31.000 We sent someone out to visit the expatriates in Georgia, Armenia, et cetera.
00:29:38.000 Those are all young people, almost all young people.
00:29:42.000 They don't want to be drafted and they don't want to have anything to do with this particular imperialistic war.
00:29:50.000 And there are lots of them.
00:29:51.000 I'm talking hundreds of thousands of them.
00:29:54.000 If you turn to Russia, here would be the test. 0.86
00:29:57.000 If Russian youth really are dedicated to this project, are they volunteering to go fight against Ukraine? 0.51
00:30:06.000 I mean, my sense is the cannon fodder that is being fed into that war comes from the periphery, from the poorest regions in Russia, and from the minorities, not from people in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
00:30:26.000 They may talk an ultra-nationalist line, but are they willing to put their lives on the line?
00:30:34.000 I don't see much indication of that.
00:30:36.000 And it strikes me the failure to draft people from Moscow and St. Petersburg and the like is a sign that Putin knows there are limits to his support.
00:30:48.000 In other words, it's one thing to talk it.
00:30:51.000 It's another thing to walk the walk.
00:30:53.000 Dr. Ray, in closing here, you've painted a very vivid picture of a superpower with a dictator that has made a mistake and he probably knows it and he's in a little too deep.
00:31:08.000 That's not a good scenario for the United States of America.
00:31:13.000 So then I don't want to ask you how should we get involved.
00:31:17.000 Where does that leave us?
00:31:18.000 What are the choices then in front of us in front of the United States since Putin has basically gone all in and he has to save face?
00:31:27.000 Well, we could abandon Ukraine, but if we abandon Ukraine, we may lose our European alliances.
00:31:35.000 They're very much worried about this.
00:31:38.000 And their view is if Ukraine goes down, we're on the front lines.
00:31:44.000 Or we can continue to support them.
00:31:48.000 If we continue to support them, it's going to go on for a considerable period of time.
00:31:53.000 I think the preferable thing is to continue to support them.
00:31:57.000 But I don't think we're in a very good situation here.
00:32:00.000 When this thing started, the Ukrainians could have won. 0.79
00:32:05.000 They backfooted the Russians that first six months. 0.97
00:32:09.000 And had they had the weapons they needed, they might well have been able to push the Russians out. 0.97
00:32:16.000 They did push the Russians out of a considerable area at that time. 0.65
00:32:20.000 So, you know, it's a little complicated because the situation now, it looks like World War I. You've got these trenches and that's a terrible kind of warfare.
00:32:31.000 But you had a warfare of a maneuver right at the beginning.
00:32:35.000 And Joe Biden chose the Vietnam War route, gradual building up, rather than hammer them right at the start.
00:32:44.000 Dr. Ray, phenomenal analysis.
00:32:46.000 I'd love to have you on soon.
00:32:47.000 7,000 total dead a week per Trump.
00:32:50.000 It's a terrible death toll.
00:32:52.000 I'm afraid this thing is not going to go away anytime soon.
00:32:56.000 Dr. Ray, thank you so much.
00:32:58.000 Everyone should check out charlieforhillsdale.com from Hillsdale College.
00:33:01.000 A phenomenal analysis.
00:33:02.000 Thank you so much.
00:33:03.000 I got to be honest, that was some of the best Russia analysis we've had on the show.
00:33:06.000 It was fair.
00:33:07.000 It was factual.
00:33:08.000 It was nuanced.
00:33:10.000 It was not political.
00:33:11.000 It was really well done.
00:33:13.000 This is President Trump 322 on the Russian situation.
00:33:16.000 I'm not, you know, I'm not so interested in talking anymore.
00:33:24.000 He talks, we have such nice conversations, such respectful and nice conversations.
00:33:28.000 And then people die the following night with a missile going into a town and hitting, I mean, recently, I guess, a nursing home, but they hit other things.
00:33:37.000 Whatever they hit, people die.
00:33:40.000 And then he says, I'm giving Russia 10 more days. 0.74
00:33:43.000 His patience is running out.
00:33:45.000 This is a toughie.
00:33:47.000 My opinion aside, this is a very difficult situation.
00:33:50.000 I've always been of the opinion this is not America's war.
00:33:53.000 But Dr. Ray makes a good point.
00:33:54.000 It's worthy of consideration, pondering, and reflection.
00:33:57.000 Is it worth severing our European alliances?
00:34:00.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:34:02.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:34:04.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.
00:34:08.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.