The Charlie Kirk Show - How “Consequentialism” Killed Charlie

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 gonna 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 gotta 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, you would say college chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start attorney point, you'll say 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.

00:00:38.000 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 Museme.

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.

00:01:11.000 Andrew Colvid in here, executive producer of this show, joined by Jack Pesobak, uh host of Human Events Daily with Jack Pesobick.

00:01:19.000 So honored to have our next guest here, Dr. Gad Sad, who is a great friend of the show, has been a great friend to Charlie Kirk.

00:01:28.000 He is also the scholar.

00:01:31.000 I want to get this title right because he has actually uh a new wonderful title, Dr. Gadsad Scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at University of Mississippi.

00:01:45.000 Uh is also the author of a bunch of amazing books, The Parasitic Mind.

00:01:48.000 He's working on a new one.

00:01:49.000 I want to talk to him about that.

00:01:50.000 Uh Dr. Sad, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show, and thank you for making the time.

00:01:55.000 Oh, thank you so much for having me.

00:01:56.000 Cheers.

00:01:57.000 Well, Dr. Sad, I want to let you start uh where you know I think it makes sense most, and that is, you know, we haven't had you back on the show since uh, you know, Charlie was taken from us on September 10th.

00:01:57.000 Yeah.

00:02:09.000 And I just want to give you a chance to reflect on what this last month or plus has has meant to you.

00:02:15.000 Um and just let you reflect on on what a loss we've all suffered.

00:02:20.000 Uh I mean, I sort of oscillated from sadness to anger.

00:02:26.000 Uh only maybe, I think it was maybe a month prior to the tragic day I had appeared on the show with uh Charlie.

00:02:35.000 And I I I've told the story before, but it's worth repeating here.

00:02:39.000 You know, I've spoken to many wonderful people, you know, throughout my professional career, many of whom have come on my show.

00:02:46.000 I mean, really, really top people.

00:02:48.000 My daughter, who's 16 years old, never asked for me to introduce her to anybody.

00:02:54.000 When I was appearing on Charlie's show this last time, she came home excitedly and said, could you please just introduce me to Charlie?

00:03:03.000 And so that kind of gives you a sense.

00:03:05.000 I'm 61 years old and a fan of Charlie, and my 16-year-old is a fan of Charlie.

00:03:11.000 So uh it is an immeasurable tragedy, but here we are uh promoting his legacy, so hopefully he lives on in all our hearts and minds.

00:03:20.000 Dr. Sad, maybe that's the next best place to start is you know, you talk about his legacy.

00:03:26.000 I don't typically throw this question out to people, but you are a public intellectual, you are uh a great thinker, you have a way of distilling ideas.

00:03:36.000 What is Charlie's legacy in your mind and what do you hope that it will grow into?

00:03:42.000 You know, there are several ways by which I could answer this question.

00:03:45.000 I'll I'll take a stab at one or two ways.

00:03:47.000 Number one, you know, in chapter in the last chapter of the parasitic mind, I ask people to activate their inner honey badger.

00:03:55.000 And I use that terminology because the honey badger has been officially uh classified as the most fierce animal in the animal kingdom.

00:04:05.000 Now, I don't mean when I say activate your inner honey badger for you to be violently ferocious, but it means, you know, get off the couch and do big things, stand tall.

00:04:15.000 And Charlie was not only physically tall at six foot four, but he was a tall honey badger, in that at 18 years old, when most of us are worried about how we're going to get through the next day, as you know, with teenaged angst, he starts off something that is absolutely impossible that most people in their 80s wouldn't dare start.

00:04:37.000 And so, first of all, the fact that he had the chutzpah, right?

00:04:41.000 Which is a Yiddish word for sort of existential gall, the fact that he had the confidence to say at 18 years old, I'm not going to university.

00:04:49.000 I've got better ways to be able to contribute to the cause is something that we could all uh cherish and be inspired by.

00:04:57.000 But then the fact that he was able to cater to the young people to get involved, to get excited, so that my daughter is not asking me to introduce her to Elon Musk, but is asking me to introduce her to Charlie Kirk that says everything you need to hear about his legacy.

00:05:14.000 He is a unique individual in that he had the intellect, he had the political ability to organize, he had the warmth, right?

00:05:24.000 He always has a smile, even when he's engaging in difficult debates, he's warm, he's engaging.

00:05:30.000 So he's he's he's an immeasurable loss, truly, one in a generation type of fellow.

00:05:36.000 Giant of our generation.

00:05:36.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:38.000 And but he his memory and his legacy will live on.

00:05:42.000 And you know, we're committed at turning point on the show to growing it to expanding it as best we can.

00:05:48.000 And the outpouring of love and support that we've seen, both at the show, but uh at the students on campuses, uh, has been truly, truly wonderful and heartening to see.

00:05:57.000 Now, Dr. Sad, you you we are going to get into some news of the day with you because you have a way of making sense of the chaos, unlike few can.

00:06:06.000 But I do want to pick up on something we touched on in the previous hour, and that is the rise of Islam.

00:06:12.000 It's something you and Charlie talked a lot about.

00:06:14.000 And I just want to play one clip from a conversation that you had with Charlie on this show, 290.

00:06:19.000 What would you said?

00:06:20.000 The West is a woman to be mounted. 1.00

00:06:22.000 That is the Islamic creed.

00:06:24.000 Remind us of it.

00:06:25.000 I would repeatedly hear from Arabic speaking Muslim-speaking immigrants, and in this case, it was in Canada, always say that the West is a woman to be mounted. 1.00

00:06:37.000 And what the reflex that that captures is that all of the virtues that we think as laudable in the West, compassion, magnanimity, uh, generosity, empathy, are heard as weakness, weakness, weakness, and weakness by cultures that don't necessarily share our infinite largesse.

00:07:00.000 And so it's exactly what they're saying.

00:07:03.000 West is weak, it's a woman, therefore, really quick. 1.00

00:07:06.000 Yeah, powerful stuff.

00:07:07.000 And we we've seen those clips go viral where you can actually hear them in their own words say the West is a woman to be mounted, especially if we see. 0.87

00:07:14.000 I think the clip that I've seen was from uh the UK, a place that Charlie visited uh relatively uh recently before, I mean, soon before uh the tragic events of September 10th happened.

00:07:25.000 And so he saw it up close, and you had zeroed in on this idea of suicidal empathy.

00:07:29.000 This this it's almost uh uh an opening that both the left and Islam were exploiting. 0.98

00:07:37.000 Uh, maybe I could give you a a quick synopsis of the framework of suicidal empathy.

00:07:37.000 Exactly.

00:07:43.000 Many people have wrongly uh presumed that what I mean by suicidal empathy is that empathy is a bad thing.

00:07:51.000 Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

00:07:54.000 We are a social species, and therefore it makes perfect evolutionary sense that that empathy would be part of our repertoire of possible strategies, right?

00:08:04.000 For you and I to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind, and vice versa.

00:08:10.000 That's called theory of mind, which is part of cognitive empathy.

00:08:14.000 Autistic children, for example, fail a theory of mind test.

00:08:18.000 This is how we uh diagnose them as being autistic.

00:08:21.000 So empathy, when properly modulated to the right targets in the right situations in the right amounts, is a perfectly relevant and appropriate evolutionary response.

00:08:34.000 The problem arises, as is the case with many psychiatric disorders, when you have a dysregulation of this otherwise beneficial virtue, right?

00:08:43.000 So, for example, laughter is great, right?

00:08:46.000 It has medicinal properties, but then you could have pseudo-balbar effect, what the Joker in the movie had, where he, because of abuse, he starts laughing uncontrollably in wrong situations, or the way Kamala Uh Harris can cackle the way that she does, that becomes an inappropriate form of laughter.

00:09:05.000 And so suicidal empathy takes this beautiful virtue, and then because it becomes dysregulated, it becomes hyperactive and it targets the wrong targets, leads to the demise of the West.

00:09:19.000 And unless we get rid of this reflex really quickly, I can assure you that the West will fall.

00:09:25.000 It might take five years, it might take 50 years, or it might take 500 years, but it will fall the way many other societies have.

00:09:32.000 Yeah, no, that's really well said.

00:09:34.000 I, you know, and I I think of basically what MAGA is, what conservatism has transformed into, in large part thanks to President Trump, but also to Charlie Kirk and others, is that it now has a muscularness to it.

00:09:47.000 It has it has a backbone, it has a fighting chance.

00:09:50.000 Ultimately, that's why the left hates it so much, because it's effective.

00:09:53.000 Because it is the it is the anti-venom, it is the counteraction to what the left has been doing in this country since essentially post-World War II in the uh the invasion, the the the move in our institutions, the long march through the institutions of progressivism of liberalism, uh, in a negative sense, obviously, in that second sense, in the second word.

00:10:15.000 But yeah, this is the this is the anti-venom of what we've what we're doing at MAGA, what we're doing in the conservative movement and President Trump.

00:10:21.000 That's why the fight is so intense.

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00:11:24.000 That is Andrew and Todd.com.

00:11:28.000 I want to uh share with the audience a little bit of breaking news right now.

00:11:31.000 President Trump has just concluded his call with uh Vladimir Putin.

00:11:37.000 They've been on a very long call, and it looks like he's saying that they have agreed to send uh high high-ranking delegates led by Marco Rubio to meet.

00:11:47.000 Uh, and then they are going to, after that meeting with high-level advisors, the United States will be meeting, or President Trump will be meeting with uh Putin in Budapest.

00:11:59.000 So President Trump, hot off the heels of getting peace in the Middle East, is now going to be meeting with uh President Putin in the near term.

00:12:08.000 So hopefully we can get that as he calls it inglorious war between Russia and Ukraine brought to an end.

00:12:13.000 He is going to be meeting with President Zelensky tomorrow here in Washington, DC.

00:12:18.000 So uh Jack, that feels like a good time to throw to you.

00:12:22.000 Uh yeah, you you are uh you you you do uh have a bit of a feel for Eastern Europe as well as uh war analysis in general.

00:12:32.000 Yeah, no, I mean uh look, I've I've traveled to the war um a couple weeks after it started in back in uh March of 2022, or excuse me, May of 2022.

00:12:42.000 Um, I've been to Budapest a few times.

00:12:44.000 I was at the Anchorage uh meeting.

00:12:46.000 I accompanied the president's delegation as a new media member there aboard Air Force One when he met with Putin um just uh in Alaska just a few weeks ago in Alaska.

00:12:55.000 So I was in the room with himself, Putin, Lavrov, all the rest.

00:12:59.000 And uh what can I say?

00:13:00.000 It looks like I'm going to Budapest.

00:13:02.000 Oh, wow.

00:13:03.000 There you go.

00:13:04.000 Uh Dr. Sad, um, and we'll keep Jack involved in uh I want to make sure we're working in, Jack here.

00:13:09.000 No, no, no.

00:13:10.000 Um, but Dr. Sad, maybe maybe comment really quickly.

00:13:13.000 We we we've been told that American leadership on the world stage was coming to an end, that Trump was going to ruin America's standing in the world, and yet here he is pulling off win after win after win, achieving peace.

00:13:24.000 Uh tie that into what it means for the West that that America's leadership is strong and robust, and we're leading the way.

00:13:32.000 Look, uh, to to go back to our earlier conversation where many Muslims say the West is a woman to be mounted.

00:13:39.000 Uh President Trump lives in the real world where he actually understands human nature.

00:13:45.000 He he may not call himself an evolutionary psychologist, but he is an evolutionary psychologist because throughout his long and successful life, he's had to deal with many people, whether it be in his real estate life or in his TV life, where his ability to succeed in those forums stems from his you know understanding of human nature.

00:14:07.000 And so having people like Joe Biden and the others super sweet and kind and empathetic diplomats who cross their legs like Justin Trudeau might look nice because you could show off your really colorful socks, but that's not that's not what really nasty folks around the world respect, right?

00:14:26.000 So on the you know, I come from the Middle East.

00:14:28.000 In the Middle East, we have the the creed, right? 0.52

00:14:31.000 Might is right, or as you probably, of course, know the old term, you know, if you wish to have uh peace, prepare for war.

00:14:39.000 There are endless, you know, military dictums that speak to the fact that it's nice to have a velvet glove while you're shaking someone's uh hands, but make sure that behind your back you have a really big stick, right?

00:14:53.000 As you also know, speak softly but carry a big stick, right?

00:14:58.000 So all of these maxims exist throughout history because the world doesn't exist in a utopia in a democratic progressive utopia.

00:15:08.000 It exists in the real world where people respect might, and Donald Trump exemplifies that.

00:15:15.000 That's why you're seeing win after win.

00:15:17.000 Well, Dr. Sadd, you know, you're you're reminding me of something you said on the show with Charlie years ago.

00:15:23.000 Uh I I remember it very clearly because we were at Berkeley, and he was about to do a campus stop at Berkeley and a tabling stop there.

00:15:34.000 And we had to we had to do the show.

00:15:36.000 So we set up, you know, in some back room, we set up a kind of a mobile mobile studio in some back room at Berkeley.

00:15:44.000 And you you guys were talking about gender ideology and the transing of youth and this things, but it but it relates to this conversation too.

00:15:51.000 The line you used, and he stole it.

00:15:53.000 I don't know that he always gave you attribution, but I remember hearing it and going, oh, that's a good line.

00:15:57.000 I texted to him, he's like, oh, totally, that's great.

00:16:00.000 But you said the the pesky shackles of uh reality, the pesky shackles of reality, the these things like you might think you can fly, but you're gonna jump off a building and find out really quick that gravity still pulls you down.

00:16:12.000 You might think that uh the the rules of nature, nature's god don't apply to you, but just test nature's god and find out.

00:16:19.000 Um so so I I I love that because you you're you are a realist, Trump is a pragmatist, uh, and he knows that the vile monsters on the stage, it's better to work with them, it's better to have them fear you and respect you uh than to be cowed by them.

00:16:33.000 So uh, Dr. Sadd, I'm a little upset at Jack right now because Jack uh spilled the news that uh I spilled coffee in the world.

00:16:41.000 Not all that's being spilled around here, yeah.

00:16:42.000 And then now he's spilling tea, coffee, all the things.

00:16:46.000 Uh but it but listen, I I love this because uh, well, I don't love the coffee spill.

00:16:51.000 There's like memes being made.

00:16:53.000 I warned him about the curic. 0.99

00:16:54.000 I said we got a bum Key in here, and he did not heed my warning. 1.00

00:16:58.000 Um my coffee right here.

00:17:00.000 What I love here though, Dr. Sad is that you and Jack Pesobuk are on a show together.

00:17:03.000 I think um you and you and Jack have disagreed on on minor, honestly, very minor things in the past.

00:17:09.000 But in the in this post-era uh of this post-Charlie era, we all have to come together, and I love that.

00:17:16.000 And you know, I I feel like if you look at the the metal ceremony, Dr. Sad, you had all these fox hosts, you had uh senators and congressmen that don't always see eye to eye coming together to celebrate Charlie. 0.86

00:17:28.000 And uh so I'm just glad this moment is happening and uh Jack, I don't know about it.

00:17:32.000 So am I?

00:17:32.000 Well, no, I actually the the question that I had, and and uh honestly was you know, really to kind of pick your brain because you you have such a good theory of mind of the left and such a good theory of mind of you have this ability to really get into what makes them tick.

00:17:47.000 And one of the things that we've all been grappling with here, Dr. Sad, is this this idea that there is this kid, Tyler Robinson, an ex-Mormon or comes from a Mormon family, would then find himself on a roof hundreds of miles away from where he lives in a relationship with a trans boyfriend,

00:18:07.000 so a biological male who was transitioning to a female, and then somehow thinks he's defending his boyfriend by, and again, allegedly legally speaking, pulling a trigger and shooting Charlie Kirk.

00:18:20.000 And I wonder at all if you could possibly attempt to unpack that twisted psychology for us.

00:18:26.000 Yeah, thank you for that question.

00:18:28.000 Uh so I taught I don't know if you guys have heard me discuss uh the difference between deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics.

00:18:37.000 So it might be worth repeating it here, even if some of the viewers might be familiar with it.

00:18:41.000 Deontological ethics are absolute statements.

00:18:43.000 So for example, if I say it is never okay to lie, that would be a deontological statement.

00:18:49.000 If I were to say it's okay to lie to spare someone's feelings, I would be engaging in consequentialism.

00:18:56.000 And of course, for many things in life, we are all consequentialists.

00:18:59.000 I always joke, although I'm being serious, that if you wish to have a long, happy marriage, if you hear the following question, do I look fat in those genes?

00:19:07.000 Very quickly put on your consequentialist hat.

00:19:10.000 And even if you have to slightly lie, you're doing it because you love your spouse and you don't want to hurt her feelings.

00:19:16.000 So that's perfectly fine.

00:19:17.000 But when it comes to certain foundational principles that certainly define the unique American experience, presumption of innocence in the courtroom, freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry, those things cannot be consequentialist principles, right?

00:19:33.000 So if I say I believe in freedom of speech, but not if you marginalize a particular group, then I'm succumbing to consequentialism.

00:19:41.000 So to now wrap that up to your question, I think what this uh the alleged assassin has done is he's drank from the Kool-Aid of the pool of consequentialism, which basically says Charlie Kirk is such a dangerous guy that the deontological principle of freedom of speech and exchange of ideas no longer applies to Charlie Kirk.

00:20:04.000 He is saying words that are akin to violence.

00:20:07.000 So if I stand on that rooftop and take him out, boy, I should be lauded as a hero rather than be put in prison.

00:20:15.000 So that's what makes consequentialism so dangerous.

00:20:19.000 And so in his mind, it's almost like he he feels as though he's he's defending uh his his boyfriend, his lover.

00:20:26.000 Um, again, we don't know all the specific details there, but I'm just just going off of what we've seen.

00:20:32.000 And and it's it's a complete, you know, you talk about this the um tox suicidal toxic empathy.

00:20:38.000 It seems like it's almost that suicidal empathy, but in in the person of one individual here.

00:20:43.000 Well, exactly.

00:20:44.000 And but that's why so suicidal empathy is targeting the wrong targets, right?

00:20:49.000 We love the Hamas fighters, but we have no empathy for the Jews. 1.00

00:20:53.000 So there is no empathy for Charlie Kirk and his right to speak freely.

00:20:57.000 There's only empathy for the trans community, right? 1.00

00:21:00.000 Or his wife, his children, his friends, and everyone else.

00:21:04.000 And so on.

00:21:06.000 Israeli hostages have been released from captivity, and those who are killed will finally rest in peace near their loved ones.

00:21:13.000 Praise God.

00:21:14.000 In this time of celebration, our good friends at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews send their deepest gratitude for your prayers and an unwavering support.

00:21:21.000 Thanks to you, the fellowship has provided 300 million dollars in emergency aid since October 7th, including millions in direct support for the hostages and their families.

00:21:31.000 Of course, the road ahead is still a long one.

00:21:33.000 Much needs to be done to restore and revive these victims of terrorism.

00:21:37.000 But that's exactly what the fellowship does.

00:21:38.000 For example, they're assisting returned hostages along with their families and friends with immediate medical, psychological, and financial support.

00:21:45.000 They're also providing mental health care for Israelis of all ages.

00:21:49.000 Find out how you two can help.org.

00:21:53.000 That's IFCJ.org.

00:21:57.000 We are with Dr. Gad Sad, who is a uh scholar at the University of Mississippi.

00:22:05.000 So you you've you are, you know, you're just loving the South now, huh, Doc, Dr. Sad?

00:22:10.000 Oh, I gotta tell you, I I am the only thing that I'm lacking to be a full Southerner is that I grotesquely lack in height.

00:22:19.000 Now, if you want to feel like your self-esteem is is going to take a hit, if you're six feet tall in the South, you're rather height challenged.

00:22:29.000 And So the only complaint I have about Mississippi thus far is that everyone is over six foot four when I am merely the height of Linel Messi.

00:22:40.000 So I'm struggling with those ego issues, but otherwise, I am loving the South.

00:22:45.000 I am immersed in the South.

00:22:47.000 Love the place.

00:22:49.000 Well, I mean, you just got to get that accent too, Dr. Sadd.

00:22:52.000 We're gonna we're gonna wait for that.

00:22:53.000 Yeah.

00:22:54.000 Y'all can't have you have you picked have you picked an SEC team yet?

00:22:57.000 That's the real, that's the real college football.

00:23:00.000 You've got to there you go.

00:23:02.000 All right, all miss.

00:23:03.000 There it is.

00:23:03.000 See?

00:23:04.000 Um he's in.

00:23:05.000 So I'm gonna play a clip for you, Dr. Sadd. 0.97

00:23:08.000 I went to this uh news nation town hall last I got put in, I gotta put in a panel with this Midas touch kid.

00:23:15.000 I'd never met him before.

00:23:16.000 He seemed very nice.

00:23:17.000 As soon as we got on stage, it was he was coming, he wanted his clip.

00:23:21.000 He wanted his viral clip.

00:23:22.000 Sure enough, he's posted on the left seems to love it because I'm not disavowing the New York Republicans.

00:23:27.000 I have no idea about the context of them.

00:23:30.000 My position on disavowing the New York Young Republicans is that when listen, the Democrat Party gets to a point where they want to call Jay Jones to pull out of the race, and they disavow him by actually disavowing him and saying they denounced the uh anybody that would run for the top cop in the state of Virginia that would fetishize murdering his political opponents, which obviously is an issue very near and dear to me.

00:23:53.000 Anyways, this is uh this is a clip uh 274.

00:23:56.000 Political violence overwhelmingly comes from the right.

00:23:59.000 These mass shootings come from the right.

00:24:01.000 My dear friend was just killed by left-wing violence, assassinated in cold blood.

00:24:05.000 There has been how many ice facilities that have been targeted?

00:24:08.000 What about George Floyd?

00:24:09.000 What about the that that whole summer of looting and rioting?

00:24:12.000 There listen, but there is a justification for political violence.

00:24:16.000 It shows up in every poll, and it's coming from progressives.

00:24:20.000 And of course, there is this poll that I was thinking about in my head.

00:24:25.000 Uh, go ahead and throw up image 31.

00:24:28.000 This was from September 12th through the 15th.

00:24:30.000 So just in the immediate aftermath of Charlie's murder, and it shows that almost 30% of liberals that are self-described liberals between the ages of 18 and 39 justify political violence.

00:24:43.000 You see that blue dot over on the left side of your of the of the screen.

00:24:47.000 It is an outlier of outliers, Dr. Sad.

00:24:50.000 Your thoughts.

00:24:51.000 And by the way, this perfectly uh segues into what we discussed earlier with deontological versus consequentialist.

00:24:58.000 This is exactly consequentialism.

00:25:00.000 It is per I'm speaking now if I were one of the progressives.

00:25:03.000 It is perfectly fine to engage in political violence when you are facing the existential threat of Orange Himmler, Donald Trump, and so on, right?

00:25:13.000 So again, look, I don't know if you remember in 1960, the Mossad had uh identified where Adolf Eichmann was hiding, and he was in Argentina.

00:25:24.000 And they could have easily put a bullet in his head to you know, met out justice, but they wanted to stay true to the deontological principle, which is that even someone like Adolf Eichmann deserves his day in court.

00:25:39.000 So they ended up at great personal cost or risk and great diplomatic risk, tried to get him out of Argentina so that he could have his day in court in Israel.

00:25:51.000 Of course, eventually he was found guilty and was hung.

00:25:55.000 But that shows you the difference between what the left does, and in this case what Israel did, which is even Eichmann deserves his day in court. 0.88

00:26:06.000 Yeah, well, that's that's uh fascinating insight, Dr. Sad.

00:26:10.000 Um, you know, listen, I I think my my belief here is that of course we want to get to a point of political unity, unanimity on the issue of political violence.

00:26:22.000 But in order to get there, we have to confront a very unfortunate truth in this country, and that is that there is one side of the political aisle that has begun to justify, and you put it beautifully, what the rationale or the philosophical undernings of why.

00:26:38.000 But they but that is the truth that we must confront, that they have completely abandoned the liberal values of a constitutional republic of open debate, open dialogue, the very values that Charlie himself espoused and championed.

00:26:51.000 And I we cannot forget that the assassin on these bullets had Bella Chow had uh catch fascist, uh hey fascist catch uh on on the bullet casings. 0.54

00:27:02.000 This is this is an he may not have been a card carrying member of of Antifa, but he was certainly inspired by them.

00:27:08.000 You had a question for Dr. Sadd.

00:27:10.000 Dr. Said, so you know we've identified this.

00:27:14.000 It's it's spreading.

00:27:15.000 You've talked about it as if it's a parasite, which which continues, but we're also talking about anti-venom.

00:27:22.000 We're also talking about potential cures.

00:27:25.000 Is there a way to reach people who and again, but perhaps not so that are um some that are so far gone that they would you know pull the trigger themselves, but we also saw in the wake of Charlie's murder, thousands upon thousands of people taking to social media, celebrating, clapping, cheering this on.

00:27:45.000 And these were not card-carrying members of Antifa.

00:27:48.000 These were people in positions of authority.

00:27:50.000 There were you saw you had pilots, you had doctors, nurses, HR departments, uh all over the place where people seem to share in this belief.

00:28:01.000 Is there any way to kind of break them out of this?

00:28:04.000 Yeah, that's a that's a great question, and and one that I struggle with often when I'm trying to decide whether to engage someone in terms of whether I could flip them, if I could administer the mind vaccine to them or not.

00:28:17.000 And it's not always obvious that your your time is not going to be wasted on some people.

00:28:22.000 But I do think, and maybe here I'm being naively optimistic.

00:28:26.000 I do think that with enough showing of the evidence, uh, people can come around, but it takes a lot of dogged efforts.

00:28:35.000 So, for example, I had a person who in 2010 I had had a very, very difficult email exchange with.

00:28:43.000 Well, it took her 14 years, but then last year she came around and said, Oh boy, I wish I could have listened to you back in 2010.

00:28:53.000 Uh, she was one of those super progressive liberal Jews who was very upset that I was saying some detrimental things about Islam because her friend is a Muslim woman and she's very peaceful and kind and empathetic.

00:29:07.000 And I was, you know, not adding to the ecosystem of love by spreading hateful things about Islam and so on.

00:29:14.000 Well, 14 years later, she said, oops, I guess I was wrong.

00:29:17.000 So I'd like to think that with enough evidence, people can potentially be reached.

00:29:23.000 But here's where I'm gonna hit you with the counterpoint that's slightly more pessimistic.

00:29:28.000 I was recently asked on a show by a British psychiatrist.

00:29:31.000 What is the singular thing that has most surprised me about human nature in all the years that I've studied human behavior?

00:29:38.000 And I'm I don't think you're gonna be happy to hear this.

00:29:41.000 I said the difficulty to get someone to change their opinions once they are fully anchored.

00:29:47.000 So it takes a Herculean effort, but hopefully we're all up for the challenge.

00:29:52.000 Well, that's exactly why we were devoting so much, and we are devoting so much of our energies, Dr. Sad, to ensuring that these high school chapters get off the ground.

00:30:01.000 I will never forget it was it we were in Aspen a couple weeks before we were we were having a retreat um for for donors of Turning Point USA, and Charlie was working on the presentation the night before he was going to present it to everybody, and he he his vision was very clear.

00:30:17.000 He wanted a Club America chapter in every high school in the country.

00:30:21.000 And you know, getting getting to students before they get completely ideologically brainwashed at the university, uh universities where Dr. Sad is not is not uh a professor, of course, uh, is critical.

00:30:34.000 Yeah, obviously the university chapters are are critical as well.

00:30:38.000 But you see you you do see this.

00:30:40.000 It's very it's very interesting.

00:30:42.000 I'm I'm learning something with this clip, correct?

00:30:45.000 Because this uh gentleman from Midas Touch, uh, his name's Adam, I guess.

00:30:51.000 He is clipping it for his audience and his audience loves it because I refuse to disavow the New York Republicans, young Republicans.

00:30:58.000 Well, they also talked over you.

00:30:59.000 You didn't get a chance.

00:31:01.000 I basically said, listen, I'm willing to have a conversation about it, but until you uh tell me that you're willing to disavow the uh John uh what the I just blame Jay Jones, gosh.

00:31:12.000 Jay Jones, two Jays.

00:31:13.000 Jay Jones, uh attorney general candidate, Democrat in the state of John James in Michigan, if you like Jay Jones.

00:31:19.000 So until you're willing to actually tell him he needs to drop out of the race, then listen, we have we're gonna we're gonna be at an impasse here.

00:31:25.000 I'm willing to have a conversation about some of the things that were said.

00:31:27.000 I I don't agree with some of the things that were said.

00:31:29.000 I don't understand The context of them.

00:31:31.000 But this is what's funny.

00:31:32.000 We are in this hyperpolarized environment because I have never gotten so many compliments from people about my performance last night saying, based, you know, way to go, way not to, way not to, you know, they were proud of me for not doing the disavow ritual on stage with Chris Cuomo and this Midas Touch Kid, because that's what he wanted.

00:31:50.000 He wanted this clip to be able to put it on social media.

00:31:52.000 There was no civil dialogue.

00:31:54.000 There was none of this.

00:31:55.000 And it does raise an interesting point about, you know, social media.

00:31:59.000 I'm being told by authorities a lot of this stuff happens on gamer chats, right?

00:32:03.000 This is a lot of this radicalization fully anchoring into these ideas is happening on these these uh Discord chats and things like this.

00:32:11.000 So what is the solution when it comes to the fact that we are just living in completely different algorithms where we seem to be getting further apart because of the machines?

00:32:20.000 Yeah, well, I mean, I I try to do my part in terms of reaching the this the young people at the university level, but I think what made, you know, to your original question about Charlie's legacy, the fact that he's able to reach nobody wants to listen to you know a 61-year-old professor with gray hair, but people want kids want to listen to Charlie, right?

00:32:41.000 Because he seems only slightly older than him.

00:32:44.000 And his brilliance is actually, I mean, it really needs to be highlighted.

00:32:48.000 Let me draw an analogy.

00:32:50.000 When I teach consumer psychology, and I explain to the students that we can't sell chewing gum to 10 year olds because they don't yet have the cognitive apparatus to fight against the advertising message message that's thrown at them.

00:33:06.000 So that's why all the ideologues try to get to your children early, right?

00:33:11.000 That's why we have, you know, twerking drag queens for during uh, you know, reading hour when they're five and six years old. 1.00

00:33:19.000 Because the ideologues understand that that we need to get to the children very early before they have developed the cognitive armory to protect themselves against the nonsense.

00:33:31.000 And so I did my part at the university level.

00:33:34.000 God willing, you guys will be doing it at an earlier age bracket, and hopefully we can administer the mind vaccine globally.

00:33:43.000 Hey everybody, this is Andrew Colvet, executive producer of the Charlie Kirk Show.

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00:34:46.000 I want to talk about this AOC Bernie Sanders town hall, Dr. Sad.

00:34:51.000 Um, you know, well, well, they were talking about social media, so let's play this clip.

00:34:55.000 248.

00:34:56.000 Why does Republican messaging on social media seem so much more effective than democratic messaging?

00:35:01.000 And what can we do about it?

00:35:03.000 Well, that's a great question.

00:35:06.000 Uh I think the Republicans are effective.

00:35:11.000 They have learned a lot about social media.

00:35:13.000 And by the way, it doesn't hurt that their friends on all of the major uh social media platforms.

00:35:21.000 Well, that's that's factually inaccurate.

00:35:23.000 But you know, there is this thought that I've been having, Dr. Sad, is that this reaction to the resorting to violence.

00:35:30.000 There is this thought that I've that keeps occurring to me, you know, and I said this last night at the town hall, you just need better ideas.

00:35:36.000 I mean, part of the reason that the the left is losing the social media uh battle is because their ideas do not hold up to scrutiny.

00:35:44.000 And once they are allowed to be scrutinized in an equal setting, equal footing, they tend to fall apart.

00:35:51.000 Ours go viral because they're common sense.

00:35:53.000 Yeah, can I can I just say something about X and Elon, which by the way, the only one, right?

00:35:57.000 We have like X, and I guess like a little bit of CBS Right now, maybe I don't know.

00:36:01.000 You know, and and Elon didn't come in and start boosting conservatives, though.

00:36:08.000 What he did is he came in and he stopped banning conservatives.

00:36:12.000 He stopped censoring conservatives and he instituted one tier standard for everyone.

00:36:19.000 And then he also instituted community notes and all the rest.

00:36:22.000 And that for some reason to them made them so upset that they all started running over to Blue Sky.

00:36:27.000 It wasn't in a boost of engagement that Bernie Sanders is saying, it was actually leveling the playing field to an equal standard.

00:36:34.000 Indeed.

00:36:35.000 And I'll just Yeah, maybe I'll add a point.

00:36:38.000 So it is true, of course, that in the battle of ideas, the conservative ideas, of course, we would all agree are much better than the progressive ones.

00:36:46.000 But I want to introduce a slight cosmetic point that speaks to sort of the virality on social media.

00:36:53.000 In my happiness book, my my the book after the parasitic mind, uh I talk about the research, not my own research, but there's unequivocal research that shows that on average, conservative score much uh higher on happiness than do progressives and liberals.

00:37:11.000 And the research is unequivocal.

00:37:13.000 So that if you look at and the reason, by the way, if I can just explain it very quickly, the conservative, I argue wakes up in the morning.

00:37:21.000 He may not live in a perfect society, but there are things worth conserving if you are a conservative by the definition of that term.

00:37:29.000 The progressive wakes up with unbelievable existential angst.

00:37:34.000 I live in a supremacist society, white supremacy, transphobic, Islamophobic, built on slavery.

00:37:40.000 Therefore, I need to eradicate the current society, and around the corner, they'll be unicornia. 0.97

00:37:45.000 So I'm sullen, I'm I'm dour, I'm angry.

00:37:49.000 Look at Bernie Sanders.

00:37:50.000 I mean, he is more scary looking than you know, the black mamba. 1.00

00:37:55.000 Whereas you look at you guys, you look at all of the beautiful women on uh Fox, they look happy.

00:38:02.000 They are easy to on the eyes.

00:38:04.000 And so I think that certainly is an additional element beyond just the quality of the ideas that makes people uh more drawn to some of the leading conservative figures.

00:38:15.000 That's I think that's a really smart point.

00:38:18.000 I've never actually thought about that, thought about it that way, Dr. said we live in a state of gratitude and of a of a sense of I would say obligation of duty to conserve the good, the true, and the beautiful.

00:38:31.000 Uh, things we're grateful for, things we have joy knowing that they exist.

00:38:35.000 The the progressive mind lives in a state of existential dread because they believe the world is not good, true, or beautiful right now, and they want to make it that way.

00:38:43.000 And so they're willing to tear down all the edifices they see as in between them and their utopia that is simply never going to exist on planet earth.

00:38:51.000 And that dichotomy is why you you liberals tend to wear their dread on their face, whereas conservatives tend to be happy.

00:38:59.000 We tend to be jovial.

00:39:00.000 And I it was funny because that also kind of like like like it's like self-effacing, right?

00:39:05.000 It's like it's like you you you hate yourself, so you look worse, and then it's like you know what I mean.

00:39:10.000 But it's funny because I you know, sometimes I would notice on social media in the wake of this tragedy, Dr. Sad, that some people would say, Oh, you guys aren't mourning enough.

00:39:17.000 And it's like, okay.

00:39:19.000 First of all, like that's not true.

00:39:23.000 If you if you could just see us in private.

00:39:26.000 But secondly, we do not mourn the way the world mourns.

00:39:29.000 I have faith that that Charlie is staring Jesus in the face, and that's our Christian faith.

00:39:35.000 And and I believe that he is uh he was wearing a crown of glory, and he's uh he's a martyr for the faith and for the country.

00:39:41.000 I believe that God has a plan.

00:39:43.000 I trust God's plan.

00:39:45.000 I don't understand God's plan.

00:39:47.000 I don't have to like God's plan all the time, at least in my flesh, but I trust it.

00:39:51.000 And there is there is a sense of of higher purpose at play that I am willing to you know park my emotions in my flesh at the door and trust the Lord.

00:40:01.000 I want to play this other clip, Dr. Sabb, because it it it's again, we're talking about this AOC Bernie Town Hall, Caroline Levitt's weighing in, saying we we now have the two new leaders of the Democrat Party.

00:40:11.000 Tough to argue with that uh observation.

00:40:14.000 Uh but she can't, she really struggles to give Trump credit for his pe this peace deal in the Middle East.

00:40:19.000 And I I want to dive into what that says at a deeper level about our politics in this country.

00:40:24.000 261.

00:40:25.000 Maybe I'm wrong about the ceasefire in Gaza.

00:40:28.000 Do you believe President Trump deserves credit for that?

00:40:30.000 Well, you know, I find these there have been several ceasefire announcements and developments that have happened over the past two years.

00:40:39.000 As President Trump was on the plane back to the United States, there's already indications and questions about whether this ceasefire will hold.

00:40:48.000 But do you give him credit?

00:40:49.000 Do you give him credit though for getting to this point where it did get those 20 hostages back home with their families?

00:40:55.000 In this particular development, yes, but we also know that President Trump uh was an obstacle to peace previously as well.

00:41:05.000 Okay, so he was an obstacle.

00:41:07.000 The whole world celebrated when this happened.

00:41:12.000 And everybody said that nobody could do this except for Trump, and yet somehow he is an obstacle.

00:41:17.000 She says, yes, he gets credit, but instantly has to say, oh, but the peace is fragile.

00:41:22.000 Well, of course it's fragile.

00:41:23.000 Dr. Sadd, what does this tell us about the state of politics where we can't leave our domestic issues at the shoreline like we used to and sort of present a United Front internationally?

00:41:34.000 You know, I thank you for that question because in the way that I'm going to answer it, it it shows the power of studying psychology and behavioral science.

00:41:43.000 So here's the answer to your wonderful question.

00:41:46.000 There is a great book by two French cognitive psychologists by the name of Sperber and Mercier.

00:41:53.000 The book is titled The Enigma of Reason, where they argued that our capacity to reason did not evolve in order to achieve some objective truth, but rather it evolved to win arguments.

00:42:07.000 So that even when we are applying our faculty of reasoning, we are doing it in a tribal coalitional manner, right?

00:42:15.000 So it doesn't matter if Andrew convinces me that my position is wrong, and therefore I will have the humility to say, thank you for correcting me, Andrew.

00:42:24.000 You're right, and I was wrong.

00:42:26.000 I will double down, triple down forevermore because my team can't lose.

00:42:31.000 That's exactly what AOC AOC is showing.

00:42:34.000 She is showing that she's not an honest interlocutor.

00:42:38.000 All that matters is that I don't give credit where credit is due.

00:42:43.000 I can never accept the fact that Trump might have done something that was decent, and therefore I'm going to try to avoid giving him the due credit.

00:42:53.000 Jack, anything to add to that?

00:42:54.000 So I suppose is it possible then that we are able to return to a point in this country where things like being an American are where what we see as our tribe.

00:43:09.000 And I this is one of the reasons that I think that uh Trump's defense of the American flag, uh, fighting against the the kneeling at the during the national anthem during uh the the Super Bowl and NFL games, that if you bring everyone under one umbrella of saying we're all American citizens, we may have disagreements on uh on our SEC team and our our our Super Bowl team, or Andrew and I are crosswise because his Dodgers beat my Phillies in the uh three to one in the darn nearest.

00:43:39.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:43:40.000 Okay, all right.

00:43:40.000 I remember thank you.

00:43:41.000 You didn't even make it interesting.

00:43:43.000 We had the one.

00:43:43.000 Okay, it was eight to two of the one game.

00:43:45.000 Anyway, we have too many men on base.

00:43:48.000 But the point is we can still all be American.

00:43:52.000 And I think that it's it's the it's the messing around with those nuts and bolts of the country that have gotten us to this place.

00:44:00.000 One minute Dr. Sad.

00:44:02.000 Yeah, let me let me give you an example.

00:44:04.000 I recently had on my show NS Kander Freedom, the former NBA player, right, who retired to play for Boston Celtics, right?

00:44:11.000 Now, this guy's from Muslim background, but I don't care that he's Muslim, even though I don't have nice things to say about Islam because he exemplifies the types of immigrants that we want in the United States or in the West. 1.00

00:44:24.000 He comes to the United States and says, I want to be to Jack's point, I want to be united under the common rubric called the United States.

00:44:31.000 I'm Canadian, yet I'm at Old Miss at a center called the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, because I embody, and I I'd like to think I exemplify all of the values of American exceptionalism.

00:44:47.000 So you're exactly spot on, no more hyphenated Americans. 0.97

00:44:51.000 If you are American, you believe in our foundational principles, and then welcome in my brother.

00:44:56.000 If you don't, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

00:45:00.000 And that is a perfect place to leave it.

00:45:02.000 Dr. Gad Sadd, uh a southerner from uh who's rooting for old myths.

00:45:07.000 I never thought I'd see the day.

00:45:08.000 But it's but it's we're all building bridges.

00:45:11.000 We're all building bridges.

00:45:12.000 Post uh September 10th, I think uh it's fitting somehow.

00:45:15.000 Dr. Sad, thank you for so much of your time.

00:45:18.000 Thank you.

00:45:18.000 That was great.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 17, 2025

How “Consequentialism” Killed Charlie

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