The Charlie Kirk Show - How a Press Pass Can Save A City with Libby Emmons and William Kelly

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, we dive into the city of Chicago's crusade against the journalist.

00:00:06.000 Libby Emmons joins us to talk about a big announcement and also what is behind the proliferation of drag shows in front of children.

00:00:15.000 Email me your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com, and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

00:00:19.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:20.000 Here we go.

00:00:21.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:23.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:25.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:28.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:32.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:33.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:34.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:41.000 Turning point USA. 0.65

00:00:42.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:00:51.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:54.000 Brought to you by Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage.

00:00:57.000 For personalized loan services, you can count on.

00:00:59.000 Go to AndrewandTodd.com, the wonderfulandrewandtodd.com.

00:01:06.000 Humanevents.com is a terrific website with now a new editor-in-chief, and she is a friend of the program.

00:01:15.000 She's done a great job of growing post-millennial.

00:01:18.000 And I think she's going to do a great job with human events as well.

00:01:20.000 It is Libby Emmons, and she's come on the program many times.

00:01:23.000 Libby, welcome back to the program.

00:01:24.000 Congratulations.

00:01:25.000 Thanks, Charlie, and thanks so much for the congratulations.

00:01:28.000 I'm excited to get started, hit the ground running.

00:01:31.000 Tell us about your vision for humanevents.com and what you want this website to be.

00:01:38.000 Yeah, so we have a great staff at Postmillennial, and they're going to be shouldering some of the workload at Human Events as well, which is exciting.

00:01:48.000 We also have a great spate of columnists already up at Human Events.

00:01:53.000 So we're going to continue working with them.

00:01:55.000 And what I'd really like to do is branch out a little bit into some of the international news that I think has really been popping lately and is not necessarily the post-millennial's purview.

00:02:08.000 So that's pretty interesting and exciting.

00:02:10.000 And also have some great columnists to tell us what they're thinking.

00:02:16.000 I'd like to do some more rapid response pieces so that we can tackle the analysis of breaking news every day as it comes in.

00:02:25.000 Yeah, so that's, you know, that's pretty much what we're looking at.

00:02:28.000 We often have great columns from you, Charlie.

00:02:31.000 We have Jack Pesobica's senior editor at Human Events, and he is usually entirely on fire.

00:02:38.000 So that's exciting as well.

00:02:41.000 Yeah, so that's what we're looking at.

00:02:43.000 I think it's going to be great.

00:02:45.000 So I want to get into this story here that you've been covering this theme, this genre.

00:02:50.000 And I'll be honest, Libby, you know, I was so appalled yesterday when I went to University of California, Santa Barbara, in one regard, of just the lackadaisical attitude that the college students had with trans individuals going after children. 0.99

00:03:04.000 They couldn't care less.

00:03:05.000 They said it's good.

00:03:06.000 It's fine.

00:03:07.000 You know, they think it's part of initiation.

00:03:10.000 Really, it's just really, you think about it.

00:03:12.000 Now, this is not an example that happened in America, but there's plenty of similar examples that have happened in America.

00:03:17.000 This one is so grotesque of a drag queen, erotic drag show for babies and children in the United Kingdom sparks international outrage for babies. 1.00

00:03:29.000 And I just have to say this, Libby. 0.99

00:03:32.000 As time goes on, Saurabh Amari looks better and better and better, and David French looks more and more like a fool. 0.98

00:03:42.000 And at the first viewing of that debate, I saw it more. 0.95

00:03:45.000 Saurabh won me over in some ways.

00:03:47.000 I was like, oh, maybe David French is right.

00:03:49.000 For those that don't know, it's kind of this wonky, nerdy, inner conservative piece of debate that went viral, what, four years ago, right, Libby?

00:03:58.000 When it was...

00:03:59.000 Yeah, something like that. 0.55

00:04:00.000 Yeah, so Rob against David French and David French took the neoliberal, hey, I don't like drag queens, but I'm going to fight for their right to be able to expose themselves and, you know, do all this stuff.

00:04:10.000 And it's a small thing.

00:04:12.000 And so Rob was like, no, this is degeneracy.

00:04:14.000 It's licentiousness.

00:04:15.000 It's awful.

00:04:16.000 And David French made fun of him, like, oh, wow, it's going to be a big movement and it's really growing.

00:04:21.000 Well, it turns out it is. 0.94

00:04:23.000 And this is a drag queen in front of babies, erotic drag show in front of babies. 0.98

00:04:28.000 Parents are enthusiastically bringing their children to these.

00:04:31.000 This is the United Kingdom, not America, but there's plenty of examples in America.

00:04:35.000 Play Cut 99.

00:04:53.000 Now, for those on podcasting or radio, I struggle to even explain that.

00:04:58.000 I mean, Libby, how would you explain what we just saw?

00:05:00.000 Just complete quasi-naked degeneracy in front of babies, right?

00:05:05.000 Yeah, you have grown men doing flips and spinning around in barely any clothing and spreading their legs to the wild applause of parents who hold up their children to show them that this is normal behavior in our culture, that grown men wearing high heels and dancing around provocatively is what they can expect in life.

00:05:27.000 It has been really a wild ride with this whole drag queen situation. 1.00

00:05:32.000 As someone who came out of theater, I have a theater background.

00:05:36.000 I've been to a number of drag shows.

00:05:38.000 I've had friends and colleagues that have done drag, and it has always been a nightlife enterprise.

00:05:46.000 It's at over 21 establishments.

00:05:49.000 It's specifically for adults, by adults.

00:05:54.000 And this transformation has been totally insane to see essentially the canonization of drag queens as some sort of crazy progressive saint. 0.76

00:06:04.000 And the idea too, that we constantly hear that drag queens are not sexual, that this is not a sexualized activity. 0.93

00:06:12.000 And that is just such a lie.

00:06:13.000 And everyone knows that's a lie.

00:06:15.000 The names of drag queens are sexualized names.

00:06:19.000 That's the whole point.

00:06:21.000 The point isn't to be sort of friendly clowns or, you know, people dressed in garish Barney style cartoons.

00:06:31.000 This isn't Minnie Mouse over here.

00:06:33.000 This is the intentional inclusion, and I use that word deliberately of sexualized content for children so that children's barriers are broken down, their guards are broken down.

00:06:44.000 I remember when my son was little and I was taken by surprise when our library in Brooklyn was hosting drag story hours and there were kids, you know, in the room.

00:06:56.000 I didn't take my son because that's really just not my jam.

00:07:00.000 That's not what I'm looking for.

00:07:01.000 And that's a method to raise my son, obviously.

00:07:04.000 But you could see kids being sort of put off by the drag queens, like, I don't know.

00:07:09.000 You know, they're pre-verbal.

00:07:11.000 They don't want to get too close to the drag queens. 1.00

00:07:14.000 And the parents are just like, no, honey, this is perfectly great and acceptable and good.

00:07:18.000 And it's this intentional breaking down of children's barriers.

00:07:22.000 Children have, they know what's yucky.

00:07:25.000 They know in their stomach, they back away.

00:07:28.000 We should encourage their instincts and not try and suppress them.

00:07:32.000 And shows like this suppress children's instincts so that they can't recognize danger when it's staring them directly in the face.

00:07:39.000 Westerners are so entitled and they have no idea how most civilizations operate. 1.00

00:07:44.000 Roman historian writes, in Roman history, especially towards the fall of Rome, there were widespread sexual relationships between adult men and adolescent boys.

00:07:54.000 This had been a common feature of the Greek world and was adapted by the Romans, who saw it as a natural expression of male privilege and domination.

00:08:00.000 A Roman man would direct his sexual attention towards a slave boy or at times even a freeborn child and would continue to do so until the boy reached puberty. 0.77

00:08:09.000 These relationships were seen as acceptable or even idealized form of love, the kind of love expressed itself in a poem, story, or song.

00:08:16.000 In the Roman world, quote, a man's wife was often seen as beneath him and less than him, but a sexual relationship with another young boy represented a higher form of intellectual love and engagement.

00:08:26.000 It was a man joining with that which was equal and could therefore share experience and ideas with him in a way he could not with a woman. 0.98

00:08:33.000 Pedophilia was understood to be good, acceptable, moral, and loving in Roman times.

00:08:39.000 Libby, any thoughts before we go to break on that?

00:08:42.000 Yeah, so this was at the end of the Roman Empire, and I think we are clearly veering toward the end of our empire.

00:08:49.000 I wish it were not so.

00:08:50.000 But those anecdotes from Rome are actually used by people like state senator Scott Weiner in California to justify reducing the penalties for older gay men having relations of that nature with boys who are not yet of age.

00:09:12.000 Yeah, look, groomers can't reproduce, so they recruit instead.

00:09:15.000 And that's what we see time and time again.

00:09:19.000 And just a quick question, one minute remaining, Libby.

00:09:23.000 Why are parents seemingly okay with this?

00:09:24.000 That's, I mean, I under, there's three types of people, right?

00:09:27.000 There's infants, there's the protector of infants, and there's predators.

00:09:29.000 Predators are always going to be around infants, they're always going to be around the protectors of infants, is the group that the West really institutionalized as a moral good.

00:09:38.000 Why is that so hard to find now?

00:09:41.000 We have given up God in our culture.

00:09:43.000 We have absolutely destroyed the place that God once held.

00:09:47.000 We no longer can differentiate between right and wrong because we have relinquished God.

00:09:52.000 And so parents don't know right from wrong.

00:09:55.000 They don't know how to teach it to their children because they don't know it themselves and they don't know how to access it.

00:10:00.000 We have completely destroyed our moral center and we have destroyed our culture because of that.

00:10:07.000 Yeah.

00:10:07.000 And so, Libby, the other interesting wrinkle to this is I was recently with some people that do not see the world.

00:10:13.000 I do, not the campus visit, but some other upper middle class people.

00:10:17.000 And they said, Charlie, you know, why are you talking about the trans thing so much?

00:10:21.000 Because they watched the show and they said they didn't like it.

00:10:24.000 And they said, it's not a big deal. 0.99

00:10:26.000 And I said, you are aware of drag queens with kids. 0.99

00:10:28.000 They said, what are you talking about? 0.78

00:10:29.000 Libby, just to kind of communicate to our audience, there's a whole portion of America that has no idea this is going on.

00:10:35.000 Isn't that wild?

00:10:37.000 I have talked to my mother about that.

00:10:39.000 She's, she's kind of switching a little bit now.

00:10:42.000 She's leaning in my direction, but she is pretty progressive.

00:10:45.000 She's definitely leftist. 1.00

00:10:48.000 You know, she has one of those like love everybody or some flag on her house, you know.

00:10:53.000 And I've talked to her about it.

00:10:55.000 And I said, you know, mom, they're removing the breaths of healthy young girls in order to affirm to these girls that they can actually be males. 0.86

00:11:04.000 And my mom's like, what?

00:11:06.000 No, nobody's doing that.

00:11:07.000 And I'm like, mom, yeah, they're really doing it.

00:11:09.000 And this is how they go about doing it.

00:11:11.000 I explain it to her.

00:11:12.000 And she says, but that's awful.

00:11:13.000 Why are you telling me about this?

00:11:14.000 Well, mom, because these are the people you're voting for.

00:11:16.000 The people you're voting for are in favor of young girls doing this to themselves. 0.90

00:11:21.000 Mom, they're doing drag queen story hours instead of just perhaps having, you know, retired people at nursing homes maybe read to kids, grandparents whose kids moved across the country, something like that.

00:11:34.000 That would be cool.

00:11:34.000 No, and she's like, no, they're not.

00:11:36.000 They're not reading to children half naked and reading to them about how they can switch their sex. 0.84

00:11:42.000 I'm like, mom, no, they really, they're really doing this.

00:11:46.000 And I think there's an incredulousness to so many who just don't want to believe that it's happening.

00:11:52.000 And you and I can see it.

00:11:54.000 It's like we, it's here.

00:11:56.000 Yeah.

00:11:56.000 And then, and so then I showed some videos, and then I was met with the minimization argument.

00:12:01.000 Oh, that's rare.

00:12:02.000 It's extreme.

00:12:03.000 That's not everywhere.

00:12:04.000 And then I'm like, this is this is this is Georgia.

00:12:06.000 Okay.

00:12:06.000 This is not Seattle.

00:12:08.000 I'm like, oh, no, this, this is propaganda.

00:12:10.000 That's what they're like, this is Texas.

00:12:12.000 And it pains me because you show them a video of it.

00:12:16.000 And eventually maybe they can move on.

00:12:18.000 And it's interesting, Libby, because the minimization argument is widespread.

00:12:22.000 So yesterday when I was having a dialogue with a kid who is very pro-abortion, he was sweet about it, but he was totally wrong.

00:12:28.000 I just said, hey, just so, because he was very pro-abortion, how many abortions do you think there are in America every year?

00:12:33.000 He said, 20,000.

00:12:34.000 I said, yeah, try a million.

00:12:36.000 And it was really telling to me because, first of all, they have no idea what they're talking about, first of all.

00:12:41.000 But the scale of the thing is important, isn't it, though, Libby?

00:12:46.000 Because it really is.

00:12:48.000 The scale, I mean, again, I don't want to get too into the abortion topic right now.

00:12:52.000 I'm obviously very pro-life, but a million abortions a year is a much different moral crisis than 20,000, right?

00:13:00.000 So you can probably see why that kid was a little nonchalant about it because he thought it was 20,000 a year.

00:13:05.000 Yeah, it's okay, 20,000.

00:13:07.000 A million.

00:13:08.000 Okay, that's a factor of what, that's a factor of not just, that's almost a factor of like 15 or 20.

00:13:14.000 It's unbelievable.

00:13:15.000 Libby, your thoughts.

00:13:16.000 Yeah, no, I'm with you on that.

00:13:19.000 I think that, I think that there are so many more abortions than people are aware of.

00:13:23.000 And there are states that do not actually keep track of the number of abortions that are done in their states.

00:13:29.000 California, I believe, doesn't really keep track.

00:13:32.000 And there are the most abortions, is my understanding in California.

00:13:36.000 Don't quote me on that entirely, but I'm sure that's not.

00:13:39.000 Not only that, California has aborted more than the entire population of Canada since Roe versus Wade.

00:13:45.000 That's shocking.

00:13:45.000 Yeah, go.

00:13:46.000 I did not know that.

00:13:47.000 I have to interject.

00:13:47.000 It was just, and we're going to play the tape.

00:13:49.000 But the kid was like, so many people in this community have been affected by Roe versus Wade.

00:13:53.000 I was like, dude, how is that?

00:13:55.000 Abortion's a constitutional right in California.

00:13:57.000 You're just like making stuff up now.

00:13:59.000 Sorry, please continue.

00:14:00.000 Yeah.

00:14:00.000 No, that's shocking.

00:14:01.000 I remember one thing that when I was my mother, as I said, very left, she was horrified when I came to live with her when I was almost 16.

00:14:11.000 She was horrified that I was pro-life.

00:14:13.000 I had been raised Catholic up until that point.

00:14:15.000 My CCD had shown us a video of abortion, I believe, when I was in eighth grade.

00:14:20.000 And I was like, well, we're done there.

00:14:22.000 It's not getting involved.

00:14:23.000 It's powerful.

00:14:23.000 It's very persistent.

00:14:24.000 It's really horrifying.

00:14:26.000 And I remember reading about something Mother Teresa said when she was asked, she's such a fascinating character in theology, but she had said, she had been asked about the second coming of Jesus Christ.

00:14:40.000 And she, you know, why has this not happened yet?

00:14:43.000 She was asked.

00:14:44.000 And she said, well, you know, God says that he keeps sending him and you keep aborting him.

00:14:51.000 It's just quite a spiffy little comeback.

00:14:54.000 But when you think about it, there is a huge scale.

00:14:57.000 And it starts to make you think about the number of talented, beautiful, creative, loving, kind, world-changing, spectacular human beings who we will never know.

00:15:10.000 If you hear my voice, you are a former fetus. 0.92

00:15:12.000 And it just, it's sad because it shows the left has so little hope in humanity.

00:15:17.000 How many Steve Jobs, how many game changers, how many amazing entrepreneurs were aborted?

00:15:23.000 And that's a real tragedy.

00:15:24.000 Libby, God bless you. 0.97

00:15:25.000 Good luck with human events.

00:15:26.000 We're behind you.

00:15:27.000 Everyone, check out humanevents.com.

00:15:29.000 Thanks so much.

00:15:30.000 Thank you.

00:15:34.000 Look, everybody, we're nine meals away from anarchy.

00:15:38.000 You are.

00:15:38.000 Balloons flying overhead, possible EMPs, UFOs, unidentified flying objects being shot out of the sky.

00:15:45.000 Do you have food for your family if things fall apart?

00:15:49.000 I think there might be food shortages.

00:15:51.000 There might be electromagnetic pulses.

00:15:53.000 You better be prepared.

00:15:54.000 That is the Boy Scout motto: be prepared.

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00:16:46.000 That is mypatriotsupply.com.

00:16:51.000 We are going to get into a topic that fires me up significantly because it is close to home, literally.

00:16:59.000 And that is the intentional destruction thanks to the parasites and the locusts that have taken over Illinois and Chicago and destroyed the once greatest state and city in America.

00:17:09.000 And they did it through a planned demolition so quickly.

00:17:12.000 We have a great guest to help talk about his own personal experience about how he's suing the city.

00:17:18.000 He's had his press credentials pulled.

00:17:20.000 There's so many different angles to this.

00:17:22.000 It's William J. Kelly.

00:17:24.000 And boy, he is relentless and he's trying to hold these people accountable.

00:17:28.000 William, welcome to the program.

00:17:30.000 Thank you, brother.

00:17:31.000 I'm doing great.

00:17:31.000 How are you doing?

00:17:32.000 So, William, just have to kind of rant for a second here.

00:17:35.000 I love Chicago.

00:17:36.000 The city is completely falling apart.

00:17:38.000 You're one of the only Maverick journalists that's actually trying to hold these people accountable.

00:17:43.000 I visit from time to time, and I was just there this last weekend, and it depresses me what has happened to our beautiful city.

00:17:50.000 Just, William, for a national audience, just walk through the last couple years, especially of what's happened in Chicago and what it used to be, even five years ago.

00:18:00.000 God bless you.

00:18:01.000 You know what?

00:18:02.000 Thank you.

00:18:02.000 Now, am I going to have to pay for some therapy as a result of this?

00:18:07.000 Maybe, you know, as you know, I was born and raised in Chicago.

00:18:13.000 I love Chicago with all of my heart.

00:18:16.000 My whole dream was to be a journalist in Chicago.

00:18:20.000 And I, quite honestly, achieved my dream.

00:18:23.000 You know, TV, radio, print, Emmy Award-winning.

00:18:27.000 And I was very, very, I guess you could say, I knew that, I always knew that we were on the like the brink of total destruction and collapse, but I had no idea that 2020 was going to hit so hard.

00:18:44.000 Who did, right?

00:18:45.000 And it was like right around my birthday and St. Patrick's Day, March, you know, 10th through the 17th on 2020 that Lightfoot and Predsker just locked it down.

00:18:57.000 Schools, church, businesses, they canceled the St. Patrick's Day parade.

00:19:01.000 Okay.

00:19:02.000 So, you know, I took that.

00:19:03.000 Not only did I take it hard, I took it personally.

00:19:06.000 I mean, you know, and I remember, and I decided that I was going to ask questions, you know, like we read history books about people in Germany who were, you know, who asked questions and things like this, you know?

00:19:25.000 And I thought, hey, you know what?

00:19:26.000 I'm going to be that guy.

00:19:27.000 I'm going to go and I'm going to ask Mayor Lori Lightfoot questions.

00:19:33.000 God bless you too, brother.

00:19:35.000 I know you're going to be in town for.

00:19:37.000 I will.

00:19:38.000 Happy birthday.

00:19:38.000 I hope to see you there.

00:19:39.000 Yeah, Candace and I. Great.

00:19:40.000 No, please continue.

00:19:42.000 And so here's what happened.

00:19:47.000 I can't really take a huge amount of credit.

00:19:50.000 Lori Lightfoot brought this on herself.

00:19:53.000 I showed up at her press conferences.

00:19:55.000 I asked her basic questions.

00:19:58.000 Any reporter should be asking about lockdowns, crime, looting, the smash and grab, the carjackings, etc.

00:20:09.000 And all Lori and Lori Lightfoot, every time, went ballistic.

00:20:15.000 And these videos went viral.

00:20:18.000 Millions of views, likes, comments, and shares.

00:20:21.000 And honestly, if you've never seen them, Google Lori Lightfoot Reporter or go to reporter William JKelly.com.

00:20:30.000 They're all there.

00:20:32.000 And there's, and you can scroll until you literally fall asleep in the middle of the night watching videos.

00:20:39.000 I want to play one of these tapes, and I'm going to give you credit.

00:20:41.000 I think you were instrumental in ending her political career because, look, we need citizen journalists just to ask basic questions.

00:20:48.000 And look, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, they don't ask these questions.

00:20:52.000 Their regime meets.

00:20:53.000 And by the way, what's really sad is the city I grew up in, I grew up in the suburbs, that the area I grew up in is the trib used to ask really good questions.

00:21:02.000 I grew up that the trib used to actually get into adversarial back and forth with the dailies and with the aldermen.

00:21:10.000 And it was good for ratings and it was good for the Sunday edition.

00:21:14.000 WGN used to go into City Hall trying to almost challenge the consensus, not defend it.

00:21:20.000 So we'll talk about that in a second.

00:21:21.000 Let's go to 90, play cut 97, please.

00:21:25.000 Mayor Lightfoot, I can totally understand why you would think another $100 million in grants would buy you the votes necessary to win re-election.

00:21:36.000 But the business experts and this is okay, folks.

00:21:40.000 This is what he's like.

00:21:41.000 He works for a right-wing news organization, and he does this kind of stuff all the time.

00:21:47.000 Feel free.

00:21:48.000 Go ahead, sir.

00:21:50.000 The business experts and the crime experts that I talk to say that downtown Chicago has already reached the tipping point.

00:22:01.000 Now, William, that's just one of many.

00:22:02.000 We're going to play some more, but your basic premise was: I love Chicago.

00:22:07.000 I have some energy and I have some hustle and some spirit.

00:22:09.000 I'm just going to go ask questions.

00:22:12.000 And you got under her skin.

00:22:14.000 It's really a simple story, isn't it?

00:22:16.000 Love of city, challenge powerful people with questions.

00:22:20.000 Charlie, thank you.

00:22:21.000 You know what? 0.98

00:22:24.000 I truly appreciate you because Chicago reporters, it wasn't until like the 20th time I went viral asking Mayor Lori Lightfoot, challenging her on lockdowns, lootings, carjackings, and mass shootings and having her literally call me stupid.

00:22:45.000 I mean, you know, and it wasn't until like the 20th time that this went viral that Chicago reporters were like, oh, we're going to have to, we're going to have to get on this, this, on the same page as William Kelly.

00:23:00.000 Otherwise, we're going to look like we're just working for life.

00:23:03.000 Which is what, so I do have a question, though.

00:23:05.000 I mean, was WBBM and WGN and the Trib and the Sun-Times, were they not asking any critical questions?

00:23:11.000 Don't they have to live in this city as well?

00:23:14.000 Mayor Lightfoot would say crime is down.

00:23:18.000 They would report crime is down.

00:23:20.000 The numbers are down, according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

00:23:22.000 So Orwellian.

00:23:23.000 It's just we're not at war with Eurasia.

00:23:26.000 War is peace and ignorance is strength.

00:23:28.000 Please continue.

00:23:29.000 Charlie, thank God.

00:23:30.000 You know what?

00:23:32.000 This is therapeutic for me.

00:23:34.000 Thank you so much.

00:23:35.000 There you go.

00:23:35.000 I am your colleague.

00:23:38.000 No, if I start crying, you're going to have to cut away.

00:23:42.000 All right.

00:23:42.000 I will.

00:23:43.000 You got it.

00:23:44.000 But at any rate, so yeah, that's exactly what happened.

00:23:48.000 And then they realized, you know, this Kelly guy is going viral every week, millions of views, comments, likes, and shares.

00:23:57.000 We're going to have to at least like pretend that we are also questioning Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

00:24:05.000 And you're right.

00:24:06.000 That is exactly when it became, you know, this idea, you know, the, you know, like the old, what do they call it, the, you know, Wizard of Oz, you know, they pulled back the curtain.

00:24:15.000 And what do we have here?

00:24:17.000 This little like Mayor Lightfoot, you know, and all of a sudden, people started to realize that she wasn't all powerful and that she wasn't telling the truth and that she was vulnerable and that somebody might actually be able to beat her in an election.

00:24:38.000 And, you know, and now here we are.

00:24:41.000 Now, I got a little bit of a conspiracy theory here, William.

00:24:44.000 You know, she said, I only want to take questions from black reporters. 0.99

00:24:49.000 Was that her way of saying I don't want to take questions from William Kelly?

00:24:52.000 I'm just asking the question because go ahead.

00:24:56.000 Well, you know what? 0.99

00:24:57.000 You know, she literally revoked my media credential.

00:25:03.000 She said that I could no longer enter City Hall press conferences.

00:25:08.000 You know, and this was tough for me.

00:25:10.000 You know, I was born and raised on the south side of Chicago, unlike her.

00:25:14.000 You know, I love Chicago with all of my heart, and I've always said that.

00:25:18.000 But, you know, I'm a journalist.

00:25:20.000 This is my job.

00:25:21.000 You know, as I'm sure you know, most journalists don't make a lot of money.

00:25:25.000 You know, they do it because they love the practice of it.

00:25:29.000 Yeah, they want to see their name in the byline.

00:25:31.000 They want to, you know, they have a dream that maybe they can make a difference or something.

00:25:34.000 I get it.

00:25:35.000 You know, and that's all I really was about.

00:25:38.000 And so, you know, she revoked my media credential.

00:25:41.000 I actually tried to go to City Hall.

00:25:43.000 The last press conference I tried to attend, I wanted to ask her about the spike in police suicides, you know, a serious issue.

00:25:51.000 I, you know, I grew up in a cop neighborhood on the south side, the 19th ward, you know, a lot of Chicago city employees, police, fire, you know, teachers, et cetera.

00:26:02.000 And, you know, this was a very important people.

00:26:05.000 You know, here's what happened.

00:26:07.000 People started contacting me and saying, hey, Kelly, you're the only guy.

00:26:11.000 Could you please, at the next city council press, you know, conference, ask Mayor Lightfoot about her policies about the, you know, regarding time off for the Chicago police.

00:26:21.000 We've got a spike in the police suicides.

00:26:24.000 Could you do that?

00:26:24.000 Could you do that for us?

00:26:26.000 And I'd be like, I'll try.

00:26:27.000 And then I show up at the press at the city hall and they tell me my media credential has been revoked.

00:26:34.000 I want to talk about that, but I want to play more your tape here because it's important for the audience to understand the importance of your work.

00:26:41.000 Play cut 102.

00:26:43.000 It's important.

00:26:45.000 Every time you have a press conference, you say crime is down.

00:26:48.000 The economy is booming.

00:26:49.000 Well, that's not true, but get to your question, sir.

00:26:53.000 Real Chicagoans are asking me, how could you possibly even consider running for reelection as mayor of the city of Chicago after all the harm you've caused?

00:27:04.000 Well, I disagree with you fundamentally.

00:27:07.000 And I don't think I need to address any and dignify your comments one second further.

00:27:14.000 And for asking these questions, they pulled your press credentials and you're suing them.

00:27:18.000 So, William, I'm just curious, do they have a right to pull your press credentials?

00:27:22.000 Walk us through your complaint.

00:27:25.000 Well, we are in federal court.

00:27:27.000 The entire complaint, by the way, because the truth has nothing to hide, can be found at reporterwilliamjkelly.com and click it, read it, and decide for yourself.

00:27:38.000 You know, I believe that it is a clear First Amendment case.

00:27:43.000 Freedom of the press, free work.

00:27:46.000 You know, I was interviewing, believe it or not, Mayor Lightfoot on a city sidewalk.

00:27:51.000 Okay.

00:27:52.000 And when they decided that they couldn't have any more of this, we were getting closer and closer to her reelection campaign.

00:27:59.000 She's, you know, and she did, she just realized that she could not possibly get re-elected mayor of the city of Chicago if I kept, you know, if one reporter kept showing up asking her real questions.

00:28:13.000 And so, so, yeah, so we're in federal court as we speak.

00:28:17.000 And, you know, it's, it's not easy.

00:28:20.000 I'm not going to lie.

00:28:21.000 I mean, we, we're, we're still fighting, despite the fact that she's already lost her, she's not even in the runoff anymore.

00:28:28.000 And her police chief has already, you know, turned in his notice that he's leaving town.

00:28:35.000 Yes.

00:28:36.000 We, you know, they still haven't renewed my press credentials.

00:28:40.000 So I'm still fighting to get my freedom of speech back.

00:28:43.000 And I think that there are a lot of reporters, you know, if they can do this to me in Chicago, then they can do this to other reporters, other radio hosts.

00:28:52.000 They can do this to other platforms, bloggers, websites.

00:28:57.000 They're going to try to shut down.

00:28:59.000 I mean, Mayor Lightfoot is not unique, sadly.

00:29:02.000 There are a lot of Democrats around the country that want due to their, you know, if they've got a reporter who keeps asking, you know, asking them questions.

00:29:11.000 This is why.

00:29:12.000 Yeah, this is why reporters don't ask tough questions because they lose access.

00:29:16.000 Exactly.

00:29:17.000 So, William, I want to talk about this more after the break, but people ask me all the time, Charlie, what can I do?

00:29:22.000 What can I do if I live in a blue city?

00:29:24.000 Well, what did William Kelly do?

00:29:25.000 He applied for a press credential and asked tough questions and filmed it.

00:29:30.000 Why don't you do that?

00:29:32.000 And just act professionally, plainly ask powerful people what the heck you're doing to the place I love.

00:29:41.000 All right, everybody.

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00:31:26.000 So, William, Lori Lightfoot is not making the runoff.

00:31:30.000 I'm pleased with that.

00:31:31.000 You played a role in that.

00:31:33.000 But what about tell us a little bit about the runoff, Vallis?

00:31:36.000 I mean, when I was in politics in Chicago 10 years ago, Vallas is a bad dude.

00:31:40.000 Like he was not somebody I supported, but now he's the moderate against Brandon Johnson.

00:31:44.000 How should we think about this runoff, William Kelly?

00:31:48.000 Well, first of all, this is exactly why I want my media credential back.

00:31:58.000 I want to go to the press conferences.

00:32:00.000 I want to go to the events.

00:32:01.000 This is my media credential, by the way.

00:32:02.000 I don't know if you can see it.

00:32:04.000 It's an actual credential that the city of Chicago, believe it or not, issues so that you can be a real reporter, right?

00:32:13.000 And they can revoke it and prevent you from doing a job that should be constitutionally guaranteed, right?

00:32:22.000 I've had this credential for 10 years.

00:32:25.000 It actually says that it's still good, technically speaking.

00:32:28.000 If I don't know if you can zoom in on that, but I mean, but Lori Lightfoot revoked it because she thought my questions, which, by the way, if I were mayor of the city of Chicago, I would appreciate somebody asking me, you know, there was a mass shooting in front of Holy Name Cathedral.

00:32:47.000 Is it safe to go to church on Sunday? 0.97

00:32:50.000 You know, I wouldn't turn, I certainly wouldn't turn to that reporter and call him stupid for asking the question. 0.99

00:32:56.000 You know what I mean? 0.72

00:32:58.000 You know, so you know, but but I mean, yeah, so but I'm just curious, what is the process you had to do, go through to get that credential?

00:33:06.000 You have to apply for it, or what is the process?

00:33:09.000 Yeah, you had to prove that you actually worked for a media organization.

00:33:13.000 And I've had a radio show in Chicago off and on for, I don't know, 20 years.

00:33:18.000 I have my own Emmy Award-winning television production company.

00:33:21.000 I write for the, you know, the, I just had a great story in the Daily Mail, despite not having a Chicago media credential about the prisoners at Cook County Jail being pressured to vote in the election, regardless of their residency at William J. Kelly, you know, at William J. Kelly is where you can find that story or at the Daily Mail.

00:33:47.000 And, you know, I mean, so I've, I, you know, I've, I write for the, you know, the New York Post.

00:33:52.000 You know, I, you know, there, there's no question that I'm a journalist.

00:33:56.000 You know, the question is, you know, the problem was that I was asking real questions.

00:34:01.000 And I wasn't even, you know, technically speaking, I really wasn't even going after Mayor Whitefoot per se.

00:34:08.000 You know, I wasn't like the kind of reporters that you remember watching when you were a kid, you know, who literally were hateful against Richard Jay or even Richard M.

00:34:17.000 I mean, they were savages against.

00:34:21.000 And by the way, they loved it.

00:34:22.000 They would run it.

00:34:24.000 Literally within hours, the trib would have it in either the evening edition or the next, and it would just be pummeling Daly and his father.

00:34:31.000 And no, and they owned it.

00:34:33.000 And I'm so happy to talk to you, a Chicago guy who gets it.

00:34:37.000 You know, they would chase politicians down the street.

00:34:40.000 They would go to their homes, knock on the door, put their foot in the doorframe, you know, and they were heralded as great reporters.

00:34:50.000 I did that.

00:34:51.000 I went to City Hall press conferences and asked Mayor Lightfoot what I perceived, what I thought initially were just basic, you know, questions, you know, and not only did Mayor Lightfoot hate me, but other Chicago journalists seem to hate me for asking real questions.

00:35:10.000 This is how bad it's gotten, Charlie.

00:35:12.000 You know, we, I know you're coming to town for my birthday, March 9th.

00:35:16.000 That's why I'm coming, just for your birthday.

00:35:18.000 That's the only reason.

00:35:19.000 Yeah, right.

00:35:20.000 So I'm hoping that we can get together.

00:35:22.000 I'm hoping that maybe we can do some kind of a press conference or an event, you know, for this lawsuit against Lightfoot, you know, and not only for William Kelly in Chicago, but for the other reporters who are going to, I guarantee you, especially if I lose my lawsuit, heaven forbid, I guarantee you other reporters in other cities and states, especially heading into 2024, Charlie,

00:35:50.000 do you think other Democrats and other cities, if they see that Mayor Lightfoot can discriminate against William Kelly in Chicago, you think that that will embolden them?

00:36:02.000 It's called legal precedent, by the way.

00:36:03.000 I'm not just like making this up.

00:36:05.000 You know, if they're able to prevent me from getting, you know, getting my media credential back and covering a mayor's race, then trust me, Charlie, they're going to come after you.

00:36:17.000 They're going to try to prevent you from here.

00:36:22.000 William, great job.

00:36:23.000 We will see you in Chicago.

00:36:25.000 I want Chicago to be restored to what it once was, and it starts with exposing bad people.

00:36:29.000 Thank you so much.

00:36:30.000 Thank you.

00:36:32.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:36:33.000 Email me your thoughts.

00:36:34.000 As always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:36.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

00:36:40.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk dot com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 03, 2023

How a Press Pass Can Save A City with Libby Emmons and William Kelly

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Transcript