The Charlie Kirk Show - How Far Does Free Speech Go?

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter.

00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

00:00:56.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

00:01:06.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at NobleGoldInvestments.com.

00:01:13.000 That is NobleGoldInvestments.com.

00:01:17.000 All right.

00:01:17.000 Welcome, everybody.

00:01:19.000 It is November 11th, 2026.

00:01:22.000 We are live from Phoenix, Arizona at the YRefi Studios.

00:01:26.000 Honored to be with you all from coast to coast.

00:01:29.000 There's so much news to get into, and we have a jam packed show, I will tell you.

00:01:32.000 We even have an airline passenger joining us.

00:01:39.000 The top of or the second half of this hour, Michael Knowles is going to be in the house.

00:01:44.000 He's gone viral recently for that, but that's not what we're talking about with him, at least not primarily.

00:01:49.000 We've got some due honor to be paid to our military today.

00:01:56.000 It's Veterans Day, also, so we're going to bring on a guest on that.

00:01:59.000 And then we've got Ryan James Gardusky on the lessons learned from some of the data that he's been pouring over after these elections.

00:02:07.000 So we have to start with what I believe is a Dramatic betrayal of the American people, especially the conservative base of the United States.

00:02:16.000 I don't know if I want to say a betrayal, but it's a show of defiance.

00:02:21.000 I was on Newsmax yesterday and they asked what it would mean if Thune got reelected, and he promptly was 30 minutes later.

00:02:28.000 And I think what it is so, of course, Senator John Thune, leader of the Senate Republicans, has been reelected as their leader after losing, we'll see what the final tally is, but seven, eight seats in the Senate, our worst bloodbath in a long time, lost our majority, and then some.

00:02:45.000 It's going to be very hard to undo that damage, but he's still the leader.

00:02:49.000 And well, and so let's talk about how this happened, though.

00:02:52.000 So there were a number of people Ted Budd from North Carolina, Ashley Moody from Florida.

00:02:58.000 We had Rick Scott, who was supposed to be on the show yesterday, then he tried to push it today, but that is not able to happen because the Senate is deep in work.

00:03:07.000 A lot of people are upset about what happened yesterday, so I take that as a good sign.

00:03:11.000 But Rick Scott, there were others, there were about eight of them Jim Banks.

00:03:15.000 Ron Johnson, that were saying, hey, no election.

00:03:19.000 We're not doing a leadership election on Tuesday.

00:03:22.000 We got to delay this after a bloodbath of an electoral process that was the midterms.

00:03:26.000 We've got to push this out.

00:03:28.000 Well, they met in secret for seven hours.

00:03:31.000 Ultimately, the people that were urging a delay were defeated.

00:03:36.000 They did a secret voice vote.

00:03:38.000 So this is not recorded.

00:03:39.000 We don't know who the senators were that voted for yay or nay.

00:03:45.000 And it proceeded at 31 to 15.

00:03:49.000 To have a vote for leadership, there were no challengers.

00:03:53.000 And that's half the problem here.

00:03:54.000 There were no challengers.

00:03:57.000 So, you know, there's a lot going on here.

00:04:00.000 And I'm going to start there.

00:04:01.000 Ron Johnson was asked if he wanted or knew of anybody that was willing to take the leadership role.

00:04:07.000 And he said, hey, that's part of the problem.

00:04:09.000 Stop 14.

00:04:10.000 It will be minority leader.

00:04:11.000 If that vote happens Tuesday, would you vote for Thune?

00:04:15.000 First of all, I'm not sure anybody else wants the job.

00:04:19.000 Who would want it right now?

00:04:21.000 Okay, so again, I think we ought to delay these elections.

00:04:23.000 We ought to have robust, robust, soul searching discussions within our conference.

00:04:29.000 Repugnance have to recommit ourselves to limited government, lower spending.

00:04:34.000 Unfortunately, now Democrats are got a lot of leverage here.

00:04:38.000 Yeah, so nobody wanted the job.

00:04:40.000 And so that was, I think, an interview from Saturday.

00:04:42.000 So it's a little bit of a throwback, but it's important because 31 to 15, they vote to advance the election.

00:04:49.000 31 senators, we don't know who they are.

00:04:51.000 We want their names.

00:04:52.000 We want to know.

00:04:53.000 But part of the problem, if we're just being honest, nobody wants this job.

00:04:56.000 Well, and that's a frustrating thing to hear.

00:04:59.000 Like, I can get that it is a thankless job.

00:05:01.000 We just lost.

00:05:02.000 You're in the minority.

00:05:03.000 Being the minority leader in the Senate is not the greatest thing in the world.

00:05:07.000 And we have a divided.

00:05:09.000 But I think of Charlie's line.

00:05:12.000 He loved that line lead, follow, or get out of the way.

00:05:14.000 You guys are all United States senators.

00:05:17.000 It takes a little bit of lift and effort to become one of 100 United States senators.

00:05:22.000 You think they'd have a little bit of a leadership bone in their body?

00:05:25.000 You'd think.

00:05:26.000 And that someone would want to step up.

00:05:28.000 Or not, because they all go to a Senate where they can hide behind their numbers and never have to poke their head out and take any slings in their head.

00:05:33.000 And what I think this, frankly, what I think some of this is, is I think some of this is defiance in that if they.

00:05:39.000 Picked a new leader besides John Thune, that would be an acknowledgement we screwed up at all and are at all to blame for what just happened.

00:05:48.000 And I think a lot of them want to throw it at President Trump and say, This is all President Trump's doing.

00:05:54.000 We didn't goof this up.

00:05:55.000 And you and I know, Andrew, that that is not the case.

00:05:58.000 It's crazy.

00:05:59.000 Yeah, it's not the case.

00:06:00.000 John Thune goes on Brett Baer's show yesterday, probably one of the few shows that was brave enough to take him.

00:06:07.000 By the way, Brett Baer said he can't even post on social media about.

00:06:10.000 Leader Thune without his getting blown up with negative comments.

00:06:13.000 SAT 12, this is Leader Thune, a minority leader soon to be, saying, Hey, we accomplished a lot.

00:06:19.000 SAT 12.

00:06:20.000 You called today's meeting open and honest.

00:06:22.000 What did those senators tell you that you got wrong?

00:06:25.000 Well, I don't know that they necessarily told me anything I got wrong.

00:06:28.000 I mean, I think that we accomplished a lot.

00:06:30.000 If you look at what we did in these two years, and my question for them was, What could we have done differently?

00:06:37.000 Oh, well, yeah.

00:06:38.000 So this is being reported widely, by the way.

00:06:40.000 So Punchbowl has it.

00:06:41.000 You know, there was this whole back and Forth, like, what would you want me to do differently?

00:06:45.000 I've got a whole list of a lot.

00:06:47.000 I mean, and so, save act, yeah, exhaust the ban on congressional stock trading.

00:06:51.000 Do an actual on the record vote, let's see who votes yay or nay for this stuff.

00:06:55.000 Confirm the president's appointees, which they generally were not on the ball to do.

00:06:58.000 Like, yeah, there's stuff they did, they passed the big beautiful bill, they funded President Trump's deportation stuff.

00:07:04.000 Very glad about that.

00:07:05.000 But a big subset of why this midterm just happened is we got elected on a lot of pretty bold promises, and I think the public would respond well to having a Very bold, revolutionary cast of mind in the Senate.

00:07:19.000 Yeah, well, and they do not have that.

00:07:20.000 Unfortunately, President Trump had to govern by executive fiat there.

00:07:25.000 This is Senator Rick Scott.

00:07:27.000 He did a video afterwards describing what took place and what was agreed to.

00:07:31.000 SOT 13.

00:07:33.000 Have you ever had a deadline to get things done?

00:07:35.000 We do.

00:07:36.000 The Democrats take over in January.

00:07:38.000 Guess what our deadline is that day?

00:07:40.000 We've got to get all of Trump's judicial nominations done before then.

00:07:45.000 If we don't work seven days a week, We're not going to get them done.

00:07:49.000 So, what that means is starting today, we need to stay up here until all of these judicial nominations get confirmed because, guess what?

00:07:58.000 None of them will get confirmed next year.

00:08:00.000 He basically goes on to outline that it will require 200 hours of floor time to confirm the rest of Donald Trump's judicial nominees.

00:08:08.000 My question, and I think a question a lot of people in the audience have and across the grassroots: Why does it take one hour?

00:08:15.000 Where were you two years ago?

00:08:19.000 Where were you six months ago?

00:08:21.000 Why all the vacations?

00:08:22.000 Why all the recesses?

00:08:24.000 Why all the stupid stuff?

00:08:28.000 I'm trying to use my words here wisely.

00:08:31.000 They didn't have.

00:08:32.000 Why all that stuff?

00:08:33.000 And why was there no urgency then?

00:08:36.000 And I know, in defense of Senator Rick Scott, I know that you've been pushing.

00:08:40.000 And also in defense of Rick Scott, who's ran for leadership before in the past and lost to Thune and lost to McConnell, I understand why he didn't want to put himself out there again.

00:08:49.000 He probably didn't have the votes.

00:08:51.000 That's the sad truth that 31 people were just going to vote against him.

00:08:54.000 Yeah.

00:08:55.000 And it's tough.

00:08:56.000 We have an email.

00:08:57.000 We got one yesterday when this happened from Jamie.

00:08:59.000 It says, I'm a lifelong conservative who followed Charlie religiously.

00:09:02.000 I'm frustrated by the GOP by spitting in our faces by selecting Thune again to continue to lead our party in the Senate.

00:09:10.000 I would love a frank discussion of why Republican voters should continue to associate with this party.

00:09:15.000 We're going to need to answer that in the next segment, I think, because we're going to have to do it.

00:09:20.000 You can never, ever respond to frustrations like this by giving up, period.

00:09:23.000 That's why I wore this actually today.

00:09:25.000 Never surrender.

00:09:26.000 It was funny.

00:09:26.000 Somebody else on our team wore it today because I think there's, as defined as they are to us, we have to be defiant back.

00:09:32.000 So, Will Scharf is somebody that I want to.

00:09:34.000 Highlight to you before we get into that question Blake posed.

00:09:39.000 Will Scharf is somebody that has been on the show many times with Charlie.

00:09:43.000 He was running for Attorney General of Missouri.

00:09:46.000 Very talented legal mind.

00:09:48.000 Very, very smart guy.

00:09:50.000 And he got drafted into the White House, White House counsel.

00:09:53.000 And you'll sometimes see pictures of Will Scharf when he's bringing out the executive orders and that sort of thing.

00:09:58.000 He has delivered a warning to Democrats coming in, like Rep Garcia, who said, Lawyer up.

00:10:07.000 Maybe I'm gay, but I'm just, I'm petty.

00:10:09.000 Maybe it's because I'm gay, I'm petty.

00:10:10.000 He's saying things like this out in the open.

00:10:13.000 And they don't even know what they're going for.

00:10:15.000 They just know that they want retribution.

00:10:16.000 They know that they want to hurt people.

00:10:18.000 They know that they want to imperil people legally that they disagree with.

00:10:22.000 So Will Scharf has fired off a letter back saying, Beyond being inconsistent with the clear, well recognized constitutional limitations on your investigative functions, threats to executive branch officials designed to deter them from public service or process designed merely to abuse or instill fear in the recipient may.

00:10:41.000 Cross the line into blatant criminality and issuing unlawful subpoenas with the intention of depriving citizens of their constitutional rights and privileges may warrant further investigation.

00:10:54.000 That is a shot across the bow from Will Scharf.

00:10:57.000 Will Scharf is not a buffoon, he's not a clown, he's not a flamethrower.

00:11:01.000 And if Will Scharf is warning them that if they continue with this unabated spray and pray approach to trying to entrap, The executive branch officials in some sort of investigation or subpoena process just to punish them.

00:11:20.000 He's saying that could be blatant criminality.

00:11:23.000 You are warned.

00:11:25.000 And again, I'll say, Will Sharp, very smart guy.

00:11:29.000 So that's good.

00:11:30.000 I like the pushback.

00:11:31.000 I like the fight.

00:11:32.000 But Blake, you posed a question.

00:11:35.000 Yes.

00:11:35.000 Let's re up it.

00:11:36.000 So again, that's Jamie emailed us yesterday and basically said, Why should I even be a Republican if they're going to re elect Thune as the Senate leader?

00:11:44.000 Why should I be involved?

00:11:45.000 It almost implied.

00:11:46.000 Should we start a third party?

00:11:48.000 Well, first of all, I will tell you if you start a third party, the only purpose of doing that in the United States in its current condition in this time is to get Democrats elected to do the most far left Democrat stuff.

00:12:00.000 Period.

00:12:01.000 End of story.

00:12:02.000 And that's not acceptable.

00:12:03.000 So you kind of have to start from that thing.

00:12:05.000 What is our goal in politics?

00:12:07.000 Our goal in politics is not to feel like you're part of a club.

00:12:11.000 Your goal in politics is not to achieve self actualization within a group, it's not to hang out with all of your best friends.

00:12:20.000 You participate in politics because you, hopefully, as a Christian or, you know, as an observant Jew, whatever, as someone who cares about your country, you, as someone who cares about your country, need to make your country better.

00:12:32.000 Yeah, I mean, listen, we want to be a party that actually accomplishes good things for the country.

00:12:36.000 We believe in ascendant America and a restoring point.

00:12:41.000 What's it?

00:12:42.000 And a turning point for America.

00:12:43.000 We believe in restoring the greatness of this country.

00:12:46.000 We believe in big, beautiful ideas like sovereignty, like virtue.

00:12:51.000 Republican forms of government.

00:12:53.000 We believe in the founders' vision for this country.

00:12:56.000 We are happy warriors and we believe in not allowing the third world to invade America.

00:13:01.000 We believe in all of these things.

00:13:02.000 Now, the movement has a lot of virtue in it.

00:13:06.000 You and the audience have a lot of good things that are in your hearts, in your minds, in your value system.

00:13:13.000 And as Charlie would say, I just want conservatives in Congress to be as conservative as their people.

00:13:21.000 They want We want them to love the Lord.

00:13:23.000 We want them to be virtuous, to be not corrupt.

00:13:27.000 We want them to be courageous.

00:13:28.000 Courage, as Charlie would always say, is the least common of all the virtues.

00:13:32.000 We want these things and we believe that we can still instill them if we work really hard and we primary the right people and we get good candidates.

00:13:40.000 Our ideas are fundamentally different and better than the left.

00:13:43.000 There has never been a time where our ideas are further apart.

00:13:46.000 Yeah, but that said, Charlie wanted those things.

00:13:46.000 Go ahead, Blake.

00:13:50.000 He wanted lawmakers who matched the conservatism of the people who vote for them.

00:13:53.000 But.

00:13:54.000 It is a difficult process.

00:13:56.000 It's an often thankless process.

00:13:57.000 It's a painful process.

00:13:58.000 It's one that has a lot of defeats along the way.

00:14:02.000 Andrew, you and I, we're not even that old, but we've been through a few cycles of GOP defeat.

00:14:07.000 If you were around in the 90s, you had to sit through the GOP letting you down on immigration reform.

00:14:13.000 If you were here in the 2000s, we invaded Iraq and then Bush led a huge wave of illegal immigration under Bush and then we got blown out, lost the White House, they gave us Obama.

00:14:24.000 Like we've been through many cycles of disappointment and yet.

00:14:28.000 I think the conservative movement is better now than it was decades ago.

00:14:31.000 I totally agree with this.

00:14:33.000 And think about things that were unimaginable victories.

00:14:37.000 We repealed Roe v. Wade.

00:14:38.000 That took decades to achieve.

00:14:40.000 We got let down by Republicans a lot along the way.

00:14:44.000 And there are children who are alive today because we didn't give up on that cause.

00:14:48.000 We eventually got rid of a heinous Supreme Court decision.

00:14:50.000 And that could still be undone.

00:14:51.000 That's another reason you can't let Democrats win.

00:14:54.000 They will try to undo that.

00:14:55.000 But all victory, no victory is permanent, no defeat is permanent.

00:14:59.000 Well, how about this?

00:15:00.000 President Trump's border wall, something that was unimaginable in 2016.

00:15:04.000 They cackled that that could never happen.

00:15:06.000 That's going to be done.

00:15:07.000 That will be completed by the end of Trump's second term.

00:15:09.000 The level of deportations, which some people online who want to demoralize you will say is not enough.

00:15:15.000 It's no big deal.

00:15:16.000 A million deportations, two million deportations, it doesn't matter.

00:15:19.000 That was an amount that was unthinkable under any previous president, and this administration made it happen.

00:15:24.000 And we could pick other stuff, stuff you don't even hear about anymore.

00:15:27.000 The GOP used to be soft on gun rights all the time, and you don't hear about it anymore because we won so hard.

00:15:32.000 You have basically Total gun rights in any red state in this country, and you have the gun rights you used to have in red states in blue states.

00:15:40.000 They have to try really hard to restrict it at all.

00:15:42.000 Yeah, here's the thing.

00:15:43.000 You know, and I go back to that Scott Greer comment that we read on the show yesterday.

00:15:48.000 It was actually an excerpt from an article he just wrote, where I believe that the Lord is doing a new thing in the conservative movement.

00:15:57.000 I believe that there are new things churning, but I don't believe that ultimately it is something contrary to our values.

00:16:06.000 I don't think it's anything contrary to some of the best ideas that have emerged in the new right over the last 10 years.

00:16:13.000 The immigration hawkery, as he calls it.

00:16:16.000 That is consensus.

00:16:18.000 You know, as soon as amnesty was floated after the midterms, the base swarmed in and took that on.

00:16:26.000 As a matter of fact, we have a great clip from Laura Ingram yesterday challenging Secretary of DHS Mark Wayne Mullen on this.

00:16:34.000 Give me the clip, Danny, where she is voicing the concerns of the base.

00:16:40.000 That is consensus.

00:16:41.000 This kind of tough interview that we saw from Laura Ingram with Secretary Mullen would not have happened 10 years ago.

00:16:46.000 Yeah.

00:16:47.000 Let's clip four.

00:16:47.000 Let's do it.

00:16:48.000 It seems like every time Republicans feel like they're running into a rough spot, they rush to some type of immigration deal with a party that you yourself have said has no interest in lowering immigration, legal immigration, or enforcing the laws as they exist.

00:17:03.000 Why would any idea be floated to work with the Democrats on an issue that is their holy grail as well?

00:17:10.000 Well, I think it depends on what you're talking about.

00:17:13.000 If they want to talk about making people that enter this country here illegally legal, that's a non starter.

00:17:18.000 If they want to talk about how do we reform amnesty and how the port of entries work, they want to talk about how.

00:17:24.000 But why did you flow DACA, Mr. Secretary?

00:17:27.000 Why is that the message for you guys of this election?

00:17:31.000 Good for Laura Ingram.

00:17:32.000 Yeah.

00:17:33.000 She's asking all the right questions because guess what?

00:17:36.000 The conservative movement has won that battle.

00:17:38.000 Our immune system is strong.

00:17:41.000 Yes.

00:17:44.000 What if today's mortgage market isn't an obstacle but an opportunity?

00:17:48.000 Yes, mortgage rates are higher than we'd all like them to be.

00:17:51.000 While some buyers are sitting on the sidelines, others are discovering opportunities to negotiate, find the right home, and make a move on their own terms.

00:17:51.000 But.

00:17:59.000 Here's something to think about.

00:18:00.000 If you buy when the opportunity is right, you may be able to refinance down the road if rates improve and you qualify.

00:18:06.000 So don't let today's uncertainty steal tomorrow's possibilities.

00:18:09.000 Andrew and Todd have decades of real life experience helping people like you.

00:18:13.000 They have access to programs and solutions that may open doors that you didn't know were available.

00:18:18.000 Don't look back six months from now and wonder what you missed.

00:18:21.000 Check in with Andrew and Todd today.

00:18:23.000 All it takes is one phone call.

00:18:25.000 To find out what's possible for you, call 888 888 1172.

00:18:30.000 That's 888 888 1172.

00:18:32.000 Or visit andrewandtod.com.

00:18:34.000 Don't let an obstacle become a missed opportunity for your future.

00:18:38.000 Make the call today.

00:18:39.000 888 888 1172.

00:18:44.000 Michael Knowles joins us now.

00:18:46.000 Airline passenger.

00:18:48.000 Knowles, I want to hear about it.

00:18:50.000 We all know that the airline industry has really taken some severe steps back post COVID.

00:18:55.000 There it is.

00:18:56.000 Airline passenger.

00:18:59.000 Tell us your story, Michael.

00:19:00.000 We know it's been.

00:19:01.000 Well, the New York Post ran this story over the weekend, and I noticed it.

00:19:05.000 Some people started tagging me in it.

00:19:07.000 They said, Airline passenger fumes over having to tip a robot.

00:19:12.000 And then it's just a picture of me.

00:19:13.000 And what's really strange about this is I filmed this video where I was at the airport, and a buddy of mine said, You're not going to believe this.

00:19:21.000 I went to buy a Coke, and there's no employee, but they asked me to tip the robot.

00:19:25.000 And so I went in, I filmed a little video.

00:19:26.000 That was like three years ago.

00:19:28.000 I thought it was funny, whatever.

00:19:30.000 I guess there's nothing in the news this week.

00:19:31.000 But I got such a kick out of it because I thought, look, we all have lots of different identities.

00:19:36.000 We're Americans, we're podcasters, I'm a cigar salesman, all this.

00:19:41.000 But if you ranked all my identities, airline passenger is probably in the top four.

00:19:45.000 I'm on a lot of airplanes, you know?

00:19:47.000 So I think the post got it totally right.

00:19:49.000 I mean, and, you know, we just apologize for what you've been through, Michael.

00:19:49.000 Yeah.

00:19:53.000 And we know that it was tough.

00:19:55.000 Yeah.

00:19:55.000 Everybody, you know, a lot of people out there really share this moment with you and understand exactly what you were feeling in that moment.

00:20:02.000 Three years ago?

00:20:02.000 Wait, did the video just like recirculate?

00:20:05.000 I guess.

00:20:05.000 Did it just.

00:20:06.000 I don't know.

00:20:07.000 I'm surprised it's three years ago because I feel like that's really at the start of where they started putting the tip screen on everything.

00:20:13.000 And really, like, yeah, massively going at you for it.

00:20:15.000 That's a no, I'd rather, though, I'd much rather be asked to tip a robot weirdly.

00:20:20.000 And I mean, it's more absurd, but the thing is, when the robot asks for the tip, I can just say no and I can, like, I don't know, flip it off if I wanted to.

00:20:27.000 But, but when you're at the coffee shop or wherever you're at the convenience store, they say, okay, just press this button now, and then they stare at you and they pierce your soul.

00:20:34.000 And you have to tip like three bucks to get your bottle of water.

00:20:37.000 That's much worse, in my opinion.

00:20:39.000 Blake is not beholden to, yeah, no, yeah, you've got to stand up to this, Michael.

00:20:43.000 I have we discussed this on Thought Crime before, like, I'm, I'm adamant.

00:20:47.000 We have things that get tipped.

00:20:48.000 Table service gets tipped.

00:20:50.000 A bartender gets tipped.

00:20:51.000 Taxi driver, you could tip him.

00:20:52.000 But you are not getting tipped if you just walked up to the cash register and received your item.

00:20:58.000 That's not a tipping job.

00:20:59.000 You deal with the angry driver.

00:21:00.000 You have to resist.

00:21:01.000 You deal with the angry driver.

00:21:02.000 If you give into that, Michael, you are actually participating in the downfall of American civilization.

00:21:07.000 You're right.

00:21:08.000 And I think, frankly, they should tip me.

00:21:08.000 I agree.

00:21:10.000 I'm going to flip the screen back on them.

00:21:12.000 I say, you give me three bucks.

00:21:13.000 I did half the work here, or at least.

00:21:15.000 Tip culture has gotten out of control.

00:21:16.000 I think we all agree.

00:21:17.000 Agree with that, but Blake's like the guy that'll be like, Well, the service wasn't quite what I expected.

00:21:23.000 You get five to ten and a half percent.

00:21:24.000 No, exactly.

00:21:26.000 No, this is not true.

00:21:27.000 I've only refused a tip at a restaurant once, and it's because they kicked me off the table because I wasn't ordering alcohol.

00:21:35.000 I was at the bar, actually.

00:21:36.000 I was at the bar to watch a Packers game, and so they said I had to order alcohol.

00:21:41.000 Ordering a Diet Coke and food wasn't enough.

00:21:44.000 I don't want to, I mean, I'm on your, but I kind of get it.

00:21:44.000 I kind of get it.

00:21:47.000 All right.

00:21:48.000 Yeah, I mean, This is, we're getting into very conscious.

00:21:50.000 Well, this is not why we had you on.

00:21:50.000 All right.

00:21:52.000 Michael Knowles, we want to talk about.

00:21:52.000 All right.

00:21:54.000 So, this is hilarious.

00:21:55.000 Like, there is a move afoot to remove all the sponsors from Jennifer Welch's podcast.

00:22:03.000 Now, I'm pretty sure most of them are gone.

00:22:05.000 There's like 30 that have left her podcast.

00:22:07.000 Now, they're all mad at me.

00:22:08.000 Like, I did this.

00:22:09.000 I did not do this.

00:22:10.000 They keep using me as the boogeyman.

00:22:12.000 I did not do this.

00:22:14.000 All I did was post the W's.

00:22:16.000 All I did was say, hey, another company down, another company down.

00:22:19.000 The grassroots did it.

00:22:20.000 There was this whole network and they were all DMing me stuff.

00:22:22.000 I didn't do it.

00:22:23.000 I didn't even tell them to do it.

00:22:25.000 So, anyway, I just was like, hey, another one bites the dust.

00:22:28.000 Okay.

00:22:29.000 But now they're trying to, you know, trying to act like I'm canceling them.

00:22:33.000 I'm not canceling them.

00:22:34.000 But you had this, you had a tweet and you said, you said, crone Jennifer Welch has reportedly lost $7.6 million for cackling on air at Charlie's murder.

00:22:45.000 That's a good start.

00:22:46.000 Her remaining phone numbers of her two remaining advertisers are.

00:22:49.000 These you get, and we lost another one of those since he made that post.

00:22:52.000 I believe, yeah.

00:22:53.000 I think Quince is gone.

00:22:54.000 I don't have updates on article, but, anyways, uh, so you've been you were supportive of this effort, so I wanted to get you on for a conversation of what about canceling.

00:23:04.000 Now, conservatives said we're anti cancel culture, we're anti cancel culture, but in the years in between that became a consensus, and now you'll hear certain voices say, Well, I'm actually okay with canceling certain things and certain people, we need to embrace cancel culture.

00:23:17.000 There is a debate about what is cancellation and is it okay?

00:23:23.000 Michael knows the floor is yours.

00:23:24.000 Well, I love you say, look, I didn't do this.

00:23:27.000 And that's true.

00:23:28.000 You know, you were trying to be more moderate about it.

00:23:30.000 But if I were you, I would take credit for it.

00:23:32.000 I happily would.

00:23:32.000 I posted their phone numbers.

00:23:33.000 I think every single one of her sponsors should drop.

00:23:36.000 I think she should be excluded from polite society.

00:23:38.000 There was this big debate during the heyday of cancel culture, 2016, 2017, before COVID.

00:23:46.000 And there was a debate over what cancel culture meant.

00:23:51.000 Does cancel culture really mean that you can never hold anyone to account?

00:23:55.000 Does cancel culture, I'll go further, does cancel culture really mean that you can't censor any kinds of speech?

00:23:59.000 Because the framers of our Constitution censored a lot of speech.

00:24:02.000 There are speech acts that are not protected by the First Amendment that are, in fact, criminal and for which you can be prosecuted, like threats, obscenity.

00:24:11.000 Fighting words, so on and so forth.

00:24:12.000 So, my argument at the time, and it was kind of unpopular when I was making it, the whole right was defending free speech in absolute terms.

00:24:22.000 And I said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up, guys.

00:24:24.000 That's actually kind of a liberal perspective.

00:24:26.000 The free speech movement, you will recall, originated in the 1960s with leftists at Berkeley who were just trying to tear down the pillars and standards and norms of traditional society.

00:24:37.000 And then, by the way, they didn't stick with this free speech talk very long.

00:24:39.000 The minute they ripped down the good standards and norms, They just created their own terrible standards and norms.

00:24:44.000 So they'd punish you for saying true things and good things, and they'd reward you for saying bad things and false things.

00:24:49.000 So I said, I wrote this book about it called Speechless, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds.

00:24:53.000 At the time, I said, the debate between free speech on the one hand and censorship on the other is a fake debate.

00:25:00.000 All societies have taboos.

00:25:01.000 All of them have standards.

00:25:02.000 That's just like part of living with other people.

00:25:05.000 The real debate here is over what kind of standards and norms we're going to have.

00:25:10.000 I'll give you just one practical example on it.

00:25:12.000 In the 50s, you could teach the Bible in schools.

00:25:16.000 You could not teach pornography in schools.

00:25:18.000 So there was censorship.

00:25:20.000 There were limits to free speech.

00:25:22.000 Those are the limits.

00:25:23.000 Today, you cannot teach the Bible in schools, and you must teach pornography in schools.

00:25:28.000 So there's always going to be some kind of limit.

00:25:29.000 I think they had it right in the 50s.

00:25:31.000 And I think a woman who's going to cackle about the cold blooded murder of a political conservative, a father, and a husband for stating perfectly mainstream, amiable views, if that woman's going to cackle about it, I think she should lose all responses.

00:25:44.000 She should be totally canceled.

00:25:46.000 She should be ostracized from polite society.

00:25:48.000 She can repent.

00:25:49.000 She can be forgiven.

00:25:50.000 She can have eternal life in heaven, but there need to be consequences on earth.

00:25:53.000 I'm very glad that that crone is facing them.

00:25:56.000 Why did you decide on the word crone over hag or witch?

00:26:00.000 Well, because it's a less popular word.

00:26:04.000 And so I wanted this to be a teaching moment, too, not only on the nature of free speech, but on very funny words for vicious aging women like Jennifer Wells.

00:26:13.000 Precisely.

00:26:14.000 So to run with this, though, so on the serious part of it, though, so as you say, there's going to be standards.

00:26:19.000 No matter what.

00:26:20.000 But I think the reason a lot of people on the right really seized upon a relatively absolutist position with speech was the sense well, we don't own the commanding heights of culture anymore.

00:26:32.000 And despite our efforts, we're not really close to getting there yet.

00:26:35.000 We are still mostly insurgent in our ways.

00:26:38.000 And so we are the beneficiaries of a relatively open situation.

00:26:43.000 Whereas if we concede, oh, there's going to be controls on speech, even if we say we have freedom of speech, actually, there are limits on it, the people are going to be setting those rules.

00:26:52.000 Are the left, and we are just going to maybe we'll get a win here, but we are going to open the way to they boot us off YouTube, off of X, off of every platform again, and we're back where we were 15 years ago.

00:27:05.000 And you can't really say a lot of stuff.

00:27:07.000 Yeah, there's something to that argument.

00:27:09.000 I mean, I think the latter part of it, this hypothetical fear that if we enforce the taboos now, that'll really bite us because in the future, hypothetically, the left could do it to us.

00:27:19.000 I discount that because I think they're already doing it, they do it every chance they get, it's built in, fait accompli.

00:27:24.000 So I'm not concerned about that hypothetical because it's. been so real.

00:27:28.000 But the first part, I think, is a very good point, which is maybe when I wrote Speechless or when I was kind of zagging while a lot of people on the right were zigging on free speech, maybe the crime was just I was being a little too honest.

00:27:41.000 I was being a little too blunt about it because both sides, when they are in the minority position, both sides will make arguments for free speech absolutism.

00:27:51.000 It's what the leftists did in the 60s at Berkeley, it's what the conservatives did during the 20 teens when big tech and the government were censoring us.

00:27:58.000 It's a great argument to make.

00:28:00.000 It's what conservatives in academia make.

00:28:02.000 They'll usually call for neutrality in speech or open discourse or whatever, mostly because they know that the arbiters of what is right are total lunatics because the left dominates the institutions.

00:28:14.000 So that's all well and good.

00:28:15.000 But I guess I just don't want us on the right to believe our own press releases, which is a real danger that people have in politics.

00:28:23.000 The men who created our modern ideology of free speech, I'm talking about the liberals like John Locke, John Milton.

00:28:31.000 Further, though, Montesquieu, even the more conservative liberals like Edmund Burke, all of these guys admitted that there have to be great restrictions on speech, even for there to be such a thing as free speech.

00:28:43.000 They imposed much harsher standards than I would.

00:28:46.000 Go read Milton's or John Locke's letter concerning toleration.

00:28:50.000 I guess the point with Jennifer Welch, why it's so crucial for us to enforce this standard, is Jennifer Welch is cackling at the notion, seemingly supportive of, The notion that leftists should murder conservatives as we're trying to have debate in the public square.

00:29:09.000 And so, my point is even if you believe in the free exchange of ideas and the open marketplace of ideas, what Jennifer Welch is doing undermines the free marketplace of ideas.

00:29:17.000 It is what Chesterton would call the thought that stops thought, and it is therefore the thought that ought to be stopped.

00:29:23.000 I think that's right.

00:29:24.000 I mean, because it is the assassin's veto, right?

00:29:27.000 That if you can undermine this value in our culture, Everything else falls apart.

00:29:33.000 And, you know, they're already trying to push this back.

00:29:36.000 And, like, you know, they're trying to get to turning point sponsors.

00:29:40.000 They're trying to get to the show sponsors.

00:29:42.000 And I'm like, good luck.

00:29:43.000 Good luck with that.

00:29:44.000 You know how many times we've been boycotted?

00:29:46.000 Conservatives have been boycotted throughout the years?

00:29:48.000 The only people remaining with us are the good guys.

00:29:51.000 That's it.

00:29:52.000 They've got a backbone.

00:29:53.000 So, finally, in one instance, we have the asymmetrical advantage over the left.

00:29:59.000 Good luck.

00:30:00.000 So, just before you talked about, yeah, letter concerning toleration from Locke, some of those early guys, they favored.

00:30:06.000 A lot more restrictions on speech than we're used to as Americans.

00:30:09.000 So I went and I looked at a summary of the letter concerning toleration.

00:30:12.000 One, it's very funny because he strongly implies we shouldn't tolerate Catholics, as you may remember, because it's mostly about religious toleration.

00:30:19.000 And he says we shouldn't allow churches that owe fealty to a foreign prince.

00:30:23.000 But he also talks about stuff you.

00:30:26.000 And some of this seems related to what you're saying.

00:30:27.000 So he says we shouldn't allow opinions contrary to civil society.

00:30:31.000 And I think we could say, for example, advocating the assassination of others would come under that.

00:30:37.000 But he also just says, like, you shouldn't allow.

00:30:39.000 Religious meetings that are actually fronts for sedition.

00:30:42.000 You shouldn't allow doctrines that claim special privileges over others.

00:30:46.000 And an example he cites is those who say, do not keep faith with heretics.

00:30:51.000 So basically, they don't tolerate others.

00:30:53.000 And I guess I just want to continue unpacking this because we're glad that Ms. Welch is losing her sponsors.

00:30:59.000 But if we are going to embrace a realm where speech is restricted, I just feel like I hear in those caveats, like don't allow stuff that's undermining society, you very rapidly end up at The UK, right now, and the UK is a country where way more people are getting arrested for their speech than in China.

00:31:19.000 You're getting booted off everything.

00:31:21.000 You're going to go to jail if you make a Facebook post critical of immigration.

00:31:25.000 Yes, I guess my argument is not so much prescriptive as it is descriptive.

00:31:30.000 I'm not saying that this is how society should operate.

00:31:33.000 I'm saying it's how it always does operate.

00:31:35.000 So, yeah, you might end up in a situation with speech like you're seeing in the UK or like you're seeing in America because plenty of Americans have been punished for speech and lost their jobs and been deplatformed or debanked or worse or even prosecuted.

00:31:49.000 So, it happens here in different ways because polities are different.

00:31:53.000 Even, look, I'm a mackerel snapping papist with decent bona fides on that.

00:31:58.000 But I almost want to defend John Locke or John Milton, another early liberal, very pro free speech, wrote Areopagitica, probably the most powerful pro free speech text ever written.

00:32:09.000 Both of them said we need to limit the speech of Catholics.

00:32:12.000 But in their defense, the issue of those religious wars between Catholics and Protestants had been the central political issue that was ripping the country apart.

00:32:21.000 So I wish they decided it on the other side.

00:32:23.000 But I actually even understand that from the principle of politics.

00:32:27.000 Because what lies underneath all of this.

00:32:30.000 Is that in order to have a society, we need to agree upon certain things, certain ways of life.

00:32:37.000 We need to agree upon the difference between a man and a woman.

00:32:40.000 Here's a good example from modern society.

00:32:42.000 Either women get their own bathrooms or they don't get their own bathrooms.

00:32:45.000 But you can't just let everyone have his own opinion on that and act upon that opinion.

00:32:49.000 We actually have to establish it.

00:32:51.000 That's a matter of political right.

00:32:52.000 Do women get their own bathrooms or are we going to get rid of women's bathrooms and let the men go into them?

00:32:57.000 So we have to establish certain exclusions.

00:33:00.000 This is why in the First Amendment, We defend a lot of speech, but certain things we don't defend.

00:33:05.000 So, like threats, for instance, or threats are not protected by the First Amendment because they actually undermine speech.

00:33:13.000 Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment because it appeals to the prurient interest, takes you away from your reason, and undermines the purpose of free speech, which in theory is supposed to help us to get to the truth.

00:33:23.000 And so, regardless of the ways in which speech restrictions could go off the rails, I think what we have to first establish is.

00:33:33.000 There are always going to be speech restrictions.

00:33:34.000 There always have been from the beginning of the country.

00:33:36.000 There always are in every polity.

00:33:39.000 Right now, I think we can agree that we're not going to clamp down on Catholics speaking or Protestants or Jews or Muslims for that matter.

00:33:47.000 But we do have to at least reestablish the basic premises of this.

00:33:53.000 We no longer even enforce the First Amendment prohibition on obscenity.

00:33:57.000 That's weakened for many, many decades now.

00:33:59.000 But at the very least, can we all agree that if you use your free speech to threaten or to encourage Political violence against people who are properly using their free speech would be incoherent.

00:34:13.000 That would violate the law of non contradiction.

00:34:15.000 That would be a use of speech that totally undermines speech.

00:34:18.000 And therefore, that is at the very least one restriction that we should all be able to agree on, left, right, and center.

00:34:25.000 Well, and this is where we have a lot of agreement.

00:34:28.000 I tend to, you know, I think Charlie was a free speech absolutist, you know, because I think ultimately you find that it becomes unworkable in this multi ethnic, multicultural society that we have.

00:34:40.000 You know, if we were all, you know, 90%, you know, white evangelical Protestants or whatever, you know, as the country was at certain points, then, you know, it would be a lot easier to come up with certain consensus around our value system, right?

00:34:55.000 I ultimately kind of find that to be unworkable now.

00:34:58.000 But what I would say, and I made this point when I was on with Will Kane a couple days ago when it was about the Dave Chappelle joke or joke.

00:35:06.000 And I use that term very lightly in this regard.

00:35:09.000 Was it a joke?

00:35:09.000 Yeah.

00:35:10.000 It wasn't a joke.

00:35:11.000 It was him just expressing his feelings.

00:35:13.000 And he, you sort of hear the audience kind of, they cheered, but it was subdued.

00:35:19.000 It was muted.

00:35:21.000 And I look back at 1981 after Reagan was the attempted assassination on Reagan's life.

00:35:26.000 And I look back to see if any comics were making jokes about it.

00:35:29.000 And there was only one I could find.

00:35:31.000 And what I heard or what I read was that the joke bombed.

00:35:35.000 Nobody laughed.

00:35:37.000 And ultimately, that's what we're talking about.

00:35:39.000 It's the political will to establish consensus in a country, to establish a value system where we're not trying to be speech police, we're not trying to be thought police.

00:35:50.000 Incentive system.

00:35:51.000 Dave Chappelle said that out loud because he thought that he was going to be cheered.

00:35:55.000 He thought that he was going to be rewarded for voicing that.

00:35:58.000 And I want to live in a culture that at least has this modicum of decency left where they know not to cheer.

00:36:04.000 They know not to laugh at a joke that is that revolting.

00:36:08.000 Yeah, and you know, it gets to a really deep issue at the heart of this question, which is what is free speech for?

00:36:16.000 And some people will say, I don't know what it's for.

00:36:18.000 But no, there is an answer to that.

00:36:19.000 The people who developed the concept of free speech, the framers, the founders, they actually did have an answer to that in America.

00:36:25.000 Free speech is for the blessings of liberty.

00:36:30.000 Liberty itself is for certain blessings.

00:36:33.000 It's for the common good.

00:36:34.000 It's for a flourishing society.

00:36:37.000 It's for justice.

00:36:38.000 I mean, the framers are writing all about this in the Federalist Papers, which explain the Constitution.

00:36:43.000 And so you say, okay, we believe, you follow someone like John Stuart Mill, okay, we believe that it's for getting at the truth.

00:36:51.000 Okay, well, at least let's not have speech that totally undermines that speech.

00:36:55.000 Amen.

00:36:55.000 I think that's a good place to end it.

00:36:57.000 Michael Knowles, airline passenger.

00:36:59.000 Travel safe, my friend.

00:37:00.000 Good to see you, gentlemen.

00:37:01.000 See you soon.

00:37:03.000 Picture this you go to pay for groceries and your card is declined.

00:37:08.000 You check the app, zero.

00:37:09.000 The IRS just levied your account overnight and nobody called to tell you about it.

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00:37:15.000 That's a Tuesday for the IRS.

00:37:18.000 Liens, levies, wage garnishments, bank seizures.

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00:38:00.000 Protect your financial security with guidance from America Tax Group.

00:38:04.000 Call 888 381 3816 or visit americataxgroup.comslash Charlie Kirk.

00:38:14.000 It is, of course, Veterans Day, and we want to take a brief aside to give some reverence and some thought and some appreciation to the men and women who have served in our armed forces and provided us all with freedom, security, and we love these people.

00:38:33.000 We It's a great day on the calendar, honestly, and there's so much to be thankful for.

00:38:38.000 And here to kind of help us dive into some of the rich tradition, I think it's a palate cleanser, a good palate cleanser, is Patrick K. O'Donnell, best selling author of The Indispensables and the Unvanquished.

00:38:49.000 And he has a book now called Revolutionary Snipers Washington's Frontier Commandos, whose marksmanship forged a new way of war and helped win the revolution.

00:38:59.000 You've seen him on our show before, and we're so glad to have him back.

00:39:02.000 Patrick, welcome back, my friend.

00:39:04.000 How are we doing?

00:39:05.000 Straight to me back.

00:39:06.000 I'm doing wonderfully.

00:39:07.000 I mean, the book came out yesterday.

00:39:09.000 It's a best selling book.

00:39:10.000 We're doing awesome.

00:39:11.000 That's great.

00:39:12.000 And we really mean palate cleanser.

00:39:14.000 I was telling him before we started that 250 years ago, right now, is basically the low point in the American Revolution.

00:39:23.000 You have that Battle of Long Island.

00:39:25.000 We get driven out of New York.

00:39:26.000 Washington hasn't crossed the Delaware yet.

00:39:28.000 We are losing this war.

00:39:30.000 It is going badly.

00:39:32.000 So if you think we had a bad time a week ago, because we lost a lot of House seats and Senate seats, America has been in dire straits before.

00:39:39.000 Absolutely.

00:39:40.000 I mean, this is, I think it's a great.

00:39:42.000 Thing about history, it provides perspective when you think things are bad, you think you had a bad day, it provides perspective.

00:39:49.000 And I mean, this next week is the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Washington.

00:39:55.000 And if you know where the GW Bridge is, the base of that Fort Washington was this bastion that was over a mile long.

00:40:02.000 And it was here that Washington constructed defenses.

00:40:06.000 Many of the revolutionary snipers were inside of that bastion, um, but they had a problem.

00:40:11.000 They, I mean, this is a situation where.

00:40:14.000 The American Civil War was really the first Civil Wars during the American Revolution.

00:40:17.000 You had people that were just not on board, and you had some serious hardcore traitors.

00:40:23.000 And the adjutant of the fort, who is actually a rifleman initially in my book, bails out a week before the siege of this fort, almost to this day, right now that we're broadcasting this show, bails out with the plans of the fort and the order of battle and delivers them directly to the British Army.

00:40:43.000 So they know exactly where the weak points are at Fort Washington.

00:40:47.000 And also, the order of battle where people are positioned and they attack.

00:40:52.000 And it's, you know, the riflemen hold for a while.

00:40:57.000 Their long rifles are the best in the world.

00:41:00.000 They're able to hit at 300 or 400 yards at best, sometimes 100, 200 yards, where the average musket can't even hit within 50 yards.

00:41:08.000 It's that inaccurate.

00:41:10.000 But they're able to hit the weak points, and it's the Hessians, the German allies that the British have.

00:41:15.000 It's led by a guy by the name of Johann Rahl, if you know your history.

00:41:19.000 He's the commander of the garrison at Trenton.

00:41:22.000 On Christmas Day, where Washington attacks, but he is really one of their most elite and best commanders, and he leads the assault and they break through.

00:41:30.000 And it's here that there's some really amazing stories, Blake.

00:41:34.000 That, um, you know, I mean, especially some women's stories that are just off the charts.

00:41:40.000 In fact, uh, Molly Corbin is one of those people, and she is a camp follower with her husband.

00:41:45.000 She many of these women go to battle with their husbands because they don't want to be left behind at home.

00:41:51.000 And she is next to the cannon, uh, of her husband, and he he goes down, he's killed.

00:41:57.000 And the next man up is a woman, and it's Molly.

00:42:00.000 And she helps load that cannon and continue to fire into the onrushing Hessian soldiers.

00:42:08.000 And she is actually very almost mortally wounded, very seriously wounded in the process of doing that.

00:42:17.000 And she is, after the battle is over, some British surgeons find her and they sort of rehabilitate her just enough.

00:42:24.000 And she will live out her days in West Point eventually with the Americans.

00:42:27.000 And she's one of the first women to receive a pension.

00:42:30.000 And she's considered an army veteran.

00:42:33.000 That's amazing.

00:42:33.000 And she wore her frock coat.

00:42:35.000 You had a piece today in Fox News.

00:42:38.000 The revolution's epic test showed the strength of our greatest generation.

00:42:41.000 And I think, yeah, you're calling the original revolutionary heroes the true greatest generation.

00:42:45.000 Obviously, all respect to our World War II vets as well.

00:42:49.000 But you just talk about, like, describe what they're going through just day to day to fight this battle that they're enduring starvation.

00:42:57.000 They don't have shoes.

00:43:00.000 What do you have to do and endure to be an American patriot 250 years ago?

00:43:04.000 This is why, you know, people are selling out so cheaply.

00:43:09.000 This is the sacrifices that this generation made.

00:43:14.000 And I'm a World War II historian.

00:43:16.000 I've written seven books on World War II.

00:43:18.000 In fact, I've interviewed about 4,000 World War II veterans.

00:43:21.000 And one of my favorite interviews was in the mid 90s with the Darby's Rangers.

00:43:25.000 And I said to Frank Matevi, who was in the spearhead attacks on everything and one of the toughest of the toughest, I said, Are you the greatest generation?

00:43:35.000 And he looked me straight in the eye and said, Patrick, what about the boys of 75 and 76 who fought for the cause?

00:43:44.000 That fought against the greatest army and navy at the time, that forged our ideals of freedom and liberty, and then also fought against fellow Americans that were fighting against the crown.

00:43:53.000 And they do all this and they create our ideals of freedom and liberty, which transcend everything and have changed the world.

00:44:01.000 But the article I wrote today is about the Long March.

00:44:04.000 This is sort of like most people don't know about it.

00:44:07.000 Benedict Arnold was a great hero at the early phase of the Revolutionary War, a strategic genius, and they are going about attacking Canada.

00:44:17.000 And Arnold, it's a two pronged plan.

00:44:19.000 They push Montgomery up in the center.

00:44:22.000 He takes Montreal to the right through the main woods in the wilderness.

00:44:28.000 Benedict Arnold thinks it's only about 200 miles, when in reality, it's the most rugged terrain practically in the United States of rivers and trees and mountainous terrain.

00:44:40.000 And they have to traverse all this for over 350 miles.

00:44:43.000 And this becomes a death march, a starvation march.

00:44:48.000 It is an epic story of survival, and that's what the piece is on today.

00:44:52.000 Where you know, this is, I think, one of the greatest generations that revolutionary generations really the true epic test of human endurance because they have to traverse this, they have to constantly look over their shoulder for Native American Indian tax.

00:45:08.000 And oh, by the way, they're totally starving, and they're starving so much that they literally rip off their belts and shot pouches and boil them in water and eat the leather.

00:45:19.000 And many of the men do not survive.

00:45:22.000 And within this group are also some intrepid women that are following the men.

00:45:28.000 And I'll have another article out tomorrow called America's First Female Sniper.

00:45:33.000 And one of those women is with her man and she takes his rifle and she's a combat veteran.

00:45:39.000 Patrick O'Donnell, historian and author of the brand new book, Revolutionary Snipers Washington's Frontier Commandos, whose marksmanship forged a new way of war and helped win the revolution.

00:45:52.000 I want to read just a Portion of the description of this book because it's so vivid.

00:45:56.000 And Patrick, I think your real gift, the real treasure is yes, you're an intelligent man, you're a deep researcher, you do the hard work, but you're such a good storyteller.

00:46:07.000 Listen to this The snipers, the very first members of the Continental Army, quickly struck terror among British troops besieged in Boston in the summer of 75 by picking off targets.

00:46:18.000 However, their success was checkered by mutiny, an epic journey through the main wilderness, and heart wrenching failure at the gates of Quebec.

00:46:25.000 O'Donnell follows unforgettable characters, including a white slave to a rifle wielding female camp follower in a riveting band of brothers style narrative.

00:46:33.000 Despite setbacks, Washington and his officers perceived a new approach to waging war could emerge from the combined arms of pairing sniper groups with traditional units, like the journey to Maine and Quebec and the mutiny.

00:46:46.000 I mean, this is such good stuff.

00:46:49.000 It's drama.

00:46:49.000 It's epic.

00:46:50.000 Yeah, it's epic.

00:46:51.000 It's epic.

00:46:52.000 But we're talking about the way that they revolutionized the way that war was even fought.

00:46:56.000 And it had me thinking about.

00:46:59.000 The drones that are revolutionizing our current day and what that can do to the way people perceive war, engage in it, and execute these battles.

00:47:08.000 And I just, as a historian, I was curious about your reflections on that.

00:47:11.000 This is a major theme within my book.

00:47:14.000 And the book is a band of brothers on these characters that will travel from 75 and even 74 all the way through the war to Yorktown.

00:47:24.000 And it's about the enlisted men.

00:47:25.000 These are riflemen that do extraordinary things, that do the fighting, that do the fighting of all of our wars, in fact.

00:47:33.000 As well as some really amazing revolutionary snipers that are officers.

00:47:37.000 But within that, another character is the long rifle or the Pennsylvania long rifle.

00:47:41.000 And just think of a drone today.

00:47:43.000 This was the drone of its day.

00:47:46.000 And it's an incredible piece of technology that was American made, that was an American innovation for the frontier.

00:47:52.000 There were rifles around in Europe, but they were bulky, they were clunky, really heavy.

00:47:57.000 But this thing is light and it's adapted for the frontier so that it could shoot further than any other rifle in the world time.

00:48:05.000 And it was lightweight.

00:48:06.000 And it had to work because the men in this book were on the bleeding edge of the frontier.

00:48:12.000 They were, their homes were next, you know, many of them were burned out by Native Americans.

00:48:18.000 It was life hung by a thread, it was rugged individuals that was formed in this crucible.

00:48:24.000 And the story of the long rifle itself is a character, and how it fits into the broader system of war is a real struggle because they're constantly trying to figure out how it fits in.

00:48:37.000 And how it works with its advantages, which is this great distance.

00:48:40.000 Major disadvantage, though, it's very fragile.

00:48:43.000 You can't put a bayonet on it.

00:48:44.000 It's very slow loading compared to a musket.

00:48:47.000 So they're vulnerable to a bayonet charge.

00:48:50.000 And, you know, they come up with an idea of, you know, issuing everybody spears.

00:48:54.000 It's Washington, but nobody wants to leg around a heavy spear and their rifle, a shot pouch, a bedroll, and a tomahawk, and all kinds of other stuff.

00:49:02.000 So they get rid of the spears.

00:49:04.000 I think it's Daniel Morgan, who's a central character in this book, that comes up with.

00:49:10.000 It's probably him that comes up with the idea of combined arms.

00:49:14.000 And what that means is to combine riflemen with musketmen so that they have this like phalanx of bayonets and fast loading rifle, fast loading muskets that can protect the slower loading riflemen.

00:49:28.000 And this is a very innovative tactic and it will mushroom and grow into cavalry and cannon that move around very quickly.

00:49:37.000 And it's a new way of war.

00:49:38.000 But that's only part of it because these guys also.

00:49:41.000 Innovate and pioneer much of a regular warfare and special operations.

00:49:45.000 They are the earliest and first troops of the Continental Army.

00:49:48.000 They're part of the 10 companies that are formed on June 15, 1775.

00:49:53.000 And they're the backwoodsmen of America.

00:49:56.000 And they're tough as nails.

00:49:58.000 They're total badasses.

00:49:59.000 They can shoot further than anyone else.

00:50:01.000 I guess that's the big takeaway.

00:50:02.000 America's been one of our blessings is we have men who've sacrificed a lot, suffered a lot, but we've also been these big innovators.

00:50:10.000 So even back in 1775 all the way through to today.

00:50:13.000 Forged by the Struggle in the frontier.

00:50:17.000 I mean, that's what's interesting.

00:50:18.000 And you see this with the drones.

00:50:20.000 I go back to the drones.

00:50:21.000 You develop drones because you have to.

00:50:23.000 It's all you got.

00:50:24.000 It's the only way you can fight back against a superior force.

00:50:27.000 So, how do you eke out an advantage?

00:50:30.000 Where can you do it?

00:50:32.000 And it's the frontier mixed with just the sheer daunting task of facing down the British, right?

00:50:40.000 So, you have to come up with innovations.

00:50:42.000 And what's so cool about the story is it's not this linear slope of success.

00:50:48.000 It's mired in controversy.

00:50:50.000 These are guys that are uncontrollable in many cases, and they have to somehow fit into the army.

00:50:58.000 And when they arrive in Cambridge, Massachusetts for the Siege of Boston, their first job is to protect the army because there's a vital shortage of gunpowder.

00:51:07.000 The British know that.

00:51:08.000 Everything at the beginning of the war was about disarmament, Lexington and Concord and everything else.

00:51:12.000 British knew that, but they had to mask this critical shortage.

00:51:16.000 So their job was to keep heads down or take them off.

00:51:18.000 And they were doing that very effectively.

00:51:20.000 But they were also hard drinking men that didn't like to be told what to do.

00:51:24.000 And when one of their guys was put in the stockade, they literally, in mass, an entire company went to the stockade and pulled them out.

00:51:33.000 And it was effectively a mutiny.

00:51:35.000 And Washington has to crush that.

00:51:38.000 And it's this incident that literally takes two of these companies and puts them on this death march through the Maine wilderness.

00:51:46.000 Because Washington almost, in a way, deals with them very leniently in a court martial, but they also get a ticket to ride on a death march and starvation march.

00:51:56.000 But that's an epic story.

00:51:56.000 Wow.

00:51:57.000 And many of these men survive and then they attack the gates of Quebec and they're so close, so close to taking Canada and Quebec in the middle of a nor'easter.

00:52:08.000 It's another epic story.

00:52:11.000 You're telling us we could have prevented Canada.

00:52:16.000 The 14th colony almost was America's day.

00:52:20.000 It was incredible because it was on the first of the year, 1776.

00:52:30.000 That these men are, they know that British reinforcements are coming.

00:52:34.000 And General Montgomery gives these men a very rousing speech.

00:52:39.000 And they had been through so much hell.

00:52:41.000 And that's what's amazing of this death march, that they are just united and they will just go through the most treacherous things.

00:52:50.000 Through the snowstorm, they attack the bastion of Fortress Quebec on both sides.

00:52:56.000 And Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan are on one side, they're penetrating.

00:53:00.000 And then Montgomery is on the other, and they are moving forward.

00:53:04.000 And the Canadians are retreating along with the British soldiers.

00:53:07.000 But one guy who's a drunken sailor is next to the cannon.

00:53:11.000 He's like, All right, I'm going to give it one last shot.

00:53:13.000 Puts his torch on the touch hole and it fires a shot directly at General Montgomery and kills him instantly and halts the one prong of the attack because the Americans flee.

00:53:23.000 It should have, it was a twist of fate that changed the course of the war.

00:53:28.000 We're going to stop thinking about this now.

00:53:31.000 We could have stopped Maid.

00:53:32.000 We could have stopped all of that.

00:53:33.000 We could have stopped Justin Trudeau.

00:53:36.000 But Patrick, thank you so much for coming on.

00:53:38.000 Thank you for your work honoring our military heroes.

00:53:42.000 Check out his book, Revolutionary Snipers.

00:53:44.000 And happy Veterans Day.

00:53:45.000 And happy Veterans Day to you.

00:53:46.000 Thank you for coming on, Patrick.

00:53:47.000 I'm that combat historian on Twitter.

00:53:49.000 Beautiful.

00:53:50.000 Thank you.

00:53:53.000 I talk about jobs and industries on this show all the time, but I didn't expect to find an entire skills trade community on TikTok.

00:54:00.000 Plumbers, electricians, builders, and contractors sharing the work they do every day.

00:54:05.000 And it went way beyond tips and tricks, people were sharing their craft.

00:54:09.000 Connecting with local contractors and talking about how they were building their businesses and growing their teams.

00:54:14.000 It opened my eyes to how people in the trades are using TikTok to share their skills, make connections, and find new opportunities.

00:54:20.000 I remember thinking, this is exactly what we need more of people sharing what they know and creating opportunities for others.

00:54:26.000 And I never expected to find a community like this.

00:54:29.000 That's the thing about TikTok.

00:54:31.000 You start with something you know, and suddenly you're finding a whole new side of it that surprises you and leaves you wanting to know more.

00:54:37.000 Your next discovery is waiting for you on TikTok.

00:54:39.000 Learn more at TikTok.comslash discover more.

00:54:45.000 Without further ado, we have Ryan James Gurdusky.

00:54:48.000 You know him from this show and also from the homelandpack.com work he does, the Nat Pop, which is National Populist Substack.

00:54:56.000 Check him out there.

00:54:57.000 He's also the host of the Numbers Game podcast.

00:55:00.000 Ryan, good to see you, my friend.

00:55:02.000 We all know that we lost the midterms because of tariffs.

00:55:06.000 And I'm excited to have you explain why.

00:55:10.000 Yeah, it was.

00:55:11.000 No, we lost because we didn't have amnesty.

00:55:13.000 That's what they all got.

00:55:14.000 It was amnesty.

00:55:15.000 That's what we need.

00:55:16.000 So you are diving in the numbers, Ryan.

00:55:20.000 Immigration corruption amnesty the, the Dems like to put this thing on their polls.

00:55:25.000 Like democracy?

00:55:27.000 Uh I, I never really.

00:55:28.000 Yeah, like 62 of Democrats are very concerned about democracy, and i'm I have no idea what the hell they mean by that.

00:55:34.000 Uh, what?

00:55:36.000 Give me the broad strokes and we'll dive deeper.

00:55:38.000 Sum it up as simple as you can, what happened?

00:55:41.000 I mean?

00:55:42.000 Um, so yeah immigration, not immigration.

00:55:45.000 Uh, the war and the gas prices definitely mattered.

00:55:47.000 I think the the thing i've been kind of challenging myself within the last couple of days is how much The Epstein files mattered in a way that I didn't think they were going to.

00:55:58.000 Epstein files were the Democrats' closing message in almost every key swing state.

00:56:03.000 There was a Democrat donor who gave $12 million to run this message.

00:56:07.000 And I don't know whether it was because of GOP suppression ad or whether it was a persuasion ad, but essentially they were saying that the Republicans in Congress were part of the Epstein class and protecting a pedophile sex ring.

00:56:20.000 And it really impacted, it probably swung Mississippi.

00:56:23.000 It may have swung a lot of votes in Kansas, but it was absolutely effective in.

00:56:29.000 Suppressing, I think, suppressing the Republican vote and making them feel like, once again, this party that branches up as the working class party has become the party of the elites that look out for each other no matter what.

00:56:41.000 Interesting.

00:56:41.000 I mean, that's actually fascinating.

00:56:44.000 It does jive because ultimately the Epstein thing didn't matter to Democrats.

00:56:48.000 They never even talked about it during Joe Biden's tenure.

00:56:51.000 It was our base, it was the MAGA base that really, really wanted transparency on that.

00:56:56.000 That was the first, I call it the psychic break with the base.

00:56:59.000 Charlie knew it, he saw it.

00:57:01.000 He was privately warning about it a lot and publicly at Student Action Summit in July 2025.

00:57:07.000 I mean, we talked a lot about it and we were trying to get people in DC to understand what it meant to the base.

00:57:13.000 So that actually makes perfect sense to me.

00:57:15.000 And it makes sense that it would impact red states more than blue states, actually.

00:57:18.000 So Democrats ad tested their five most effective ads.

00:57:22.000 The most effective ad was the anti Max Miller ad.

00:57:25.000 No surprise there.

00:57:26.000 The four other top five were all Epstein ads in every key swing state.

00:57:32.000 In which states?

00:57:33.000 Mississippi, Ohio, Kansas, Texas.

00:57:37.000 And I don't know about South Carolina, but it was attested because those are the big four Ohio, Kansas, Mississippi, and Texas.

00:57:42.000 Hugely effective.

00:57:44.000 North Carolina's the only attack ad that they had really against Whatley was over pedophiles and the Epstein stuff.

00:57:52.000 It was like the most effective stuff.

00:57:54.000 And I think it really impacted why Republicans wanted to show up.

00:57:58.000 And I think it, you know, if you've seen TikTok lately, which I'm not on TikTok, but my siblings are.

00:58:04.000 I have two younger siblings, and they said TikTok has gone from a pro Trump social media platform to a platform that is solely about conspiracies, theories about Israel and Epstein.

00:58:14.000 And that TikTok has changed fundamentally how many social media content creators are really talking about how Republicans are covering up the Epstein files and how we're going to war for Israel.

00:58:25.000 And that's been a real game changer.

00:58:27.000 I was looking at Zachary Danini from Vote Hub's file on the early vote.

00:58:32.000 Among non three of three young Republicans, Republicans between 18 to 44, among the people who are not Who don't vote in every election under the sun? they had a turnout of the lowest turnout imaginable.

00:58:46.000 13% of those that voted early in 2024 showed up early in 2026 among young, non-thirteen percent.

00:58:57.000 Do you know how many three of three, non-three of threes blacks showed up?

00:59:00.000 Non-three of three blacks, 55%.

00:59:04.000 Non-three of three Latinos, 45%.

00:59:09.000 So the difference in the difference in among white young Republicans was catastrophic, super low turnout.

00:59:18.000 And it is probably why so many of these elections were close.

00:59:22.000 In the state of Georgia, for example, 18 to 25 year old whites barely showed up more than 18 to 25 year old blacks.

00:59:31.000 And there's a lot more whites than there are blacks because they did not show up to vote in this election.

00:59:35.000 There is something about the Republican brand and the Republican message that they don't believe that they have the same, you know, that they're that this is the same party from just two years ago.

00:59:45.000 It's really dramatic.

00:59:47.000 And I say that.

00:59:48.000 You know, the Epstein files was a big part of it, but it's really hard to say you're the party of the working class when most of your campaign dollars are coming from a handful of billionaires, including the world's richest man.

01:00:00.000 You know, every Republican candidate was outspent in their campaigns, not super PAC money, but campaign money.

01:00:06.000 They raised some of the fewest dollars from smaller grassroots donors in the entire country, certainly far fewer than Democrats do.

01:00:13.000 And if you look at a map, a breakdown of counties, of which counties gave more smaller grassroots donations to Democrats versus Republicans, You can almost count the amount of Republican counties on your hands, your toes and fingers.

01:00:27.000 Super low.

01:00:28.000 And what happens when you donate that $20, that $10, you're more invested in your candidate winning.

01:00:28.000 Democrats.

01:00:34.000 Republicans have become so used to getting these $100 million checks from the likes of Elon Musk.

01:00:40.000 And there's nothing wrong with Elon Musk, but I'm not bashing him.

01:00:42.000 I'm just saying they're so used to getting the Adelson money, the Musk money, the this money, the that money.

01:00:48.000 They've really lost touch with grassroots as far as what their issues are, what their concerns are, and how to mobilize them.

01:00:54.000 And young people, especially.

01:00:55.000 I mean, it's that's really, I remember, yeah, Ryan.

01:00:59.000 I remember after midnight.

01:01:02.000 I mean, this is why Charlie was screaming at the top of his lungs basically about Iran and screaming about Epstein.

01:01:10.000 It's because he knew, he knew what kids were thinking about both of those things.

01:01:14.000 He knew it.

01:01:14.000 I just have we, I mean, have we ever seen kind of a divergence between people on the same political side in terms of what issues they prioritize?

01:01:25.000 Because we've seen it just with this war that what stands out is.

01:01:28.000 If you're an over 65 Republican, they basically just like the war.

01:01:32.000 There's rah, rah.

01:01:33.000 Let's go knock heads.

01:01:34.000 And then if you're under 35, under 30, not just not enthusiastic, but really adamantly against it to the point that the war happening at all just seems to have destroyed their turnout enthusiasm completely.

01:01:47.000 Well, where do you get your news from?

01:01:48.000 I think that's the big message.

01:01:50.000 I mean, is there anyone under 65 years old or under 75 years old listening to Mark Thiessen?

01:01:55.000 Seriously.

01:01:55.000 I mean, I'm not joking.

01:01:56.000 I don't think that there probably is.

01:01:58.000 If you are the last people.

01:02:02.000 Look at what the war has done in terms of support for Israel.

01:02:05.000 I was saying this to one of my Jewish friends the other day.

01:02:07.000 I said, You've been so wrapped up in what the DSA thinks of Israel and what young Republicans think about Israel.

01:02:13.000 Look at what the average Gen X independent thinks about Israel.

01:02:17.000 These are people who usually vote Republican, and the support has been catastrophic.

01:02:21.000 You need to wake up to reality.

01:02:24.000 Otherwise, you're caught fighting the last war.

01:02:28.000 So that was a big part of it.

01:02:29.000 Epstein's fight was bigger than I thought it was.

01:02:32.000 Obviously, the.

01:02:34.000 The gas prices from the war, immigration, the taxes went, I think, moved a lot of Hispanics to the left.

01:02:40.000 Yeah, Ryan, can we talk about Texas?

01:02:43.000 Why did Texas go blue?

01:02:45.000 Paxton's a horrible candidate.

01:02:47.000 Truly horrific.

01:02:47.000 Didn't campaign, didn't fundraise, wouldn't debate.

01:02:50.000 He's notoriously.

01:02:52.000 How much worse than Abbott did he end up coming in?

01:02:56.000 Seven points.

01:02:57.000 Was it seven points?

01:02:58.000 Okay.

01:02:58.000 It was the worst performer statewide by a long shot.

01:03:04.000 And actually, the biggest overperformer in the state legislature, or one of the biggest overperformers in the legislature, was the man who was in charge of his impeachment trial.

01:03:13.000 There are a lot.

01:03:14.000 There was the anti Paxton attitude was significant in Texas.

01:03:19.000 It was really, really significant.

01:03:21.000 And it also feeds the whole idea of corruption.

01:03:24.000 Corruption as an issue was both highbrow and lowbrow.

01:03:27.000 Among lowbrow, it was these people are covering up Epstein.

01:03:30.000 They're all part of the Epstein class.

01:03:32.000 That was the line you heard over and over again.

01:03:34.000 Among highbrow, it was why is Donald Trump making $5 billion?

01:03:38.000 Why is Jared Kushner making all this money?

01:03:40.000 Why are all these pardons happening around money?

01:03:42.000 So there was a difference, but the But it didn't help that our candidate in Texas also had his own corruption allegations that were so it played into a pervasive narrative, so right, so because Paxton had won statewide races in Texas before, he was generally beloved by the grassroots and the base.

01:04:02.000 But in terms of normie voters, independent voters, it probably played into this narrative, and it was just maybe the wrong candidate at the wrong time, perhaps, is what you're saying.

01:04:13.000 And I like Ken, I think he's a fighter, I have nothing against Ken Paxton at all, but also he was.

01:04:19.000 He was not in the state as much.

01:04:21.000 Listen, the only two things that are very equal in all campaigns is time.

01:04:26.000 Tallarico did three times as many town hall rallies as Paxton.

01:04:31.000 There is no excuse for that.

01:04:32.000 He never campaigned like he was running from behind, he always campaigned like he was a mile ahead.

01:04:37.000 You cannot do that in this kind of election cycle.

01:04:42.000 How did we win the narrative on affordability? With just these nice little Democrats out there running for office and going to the.

01:04:49.000 No.

01:04:51.000 The Republicans never figured out what we were doing.

01:04:53.000 There's something called the American Accountability Network.

01:04:56.000 Tens of thousands of online humans, not bots, coordinated to make the affordability message a winning message online.

01:05:04.000 32.5 million people hit on Instagram every day.

01:05:10.000 88.8 million hit on Twitter every single day.

01:05:17.000 And 185 million Facebook hits.

01:05:20.000 Every single day.

01:05:21.000 And they were saying, you need to elect Democrats to deal with this.

01:05:24.000 Driving the kitchen table affordability message and tying that to Democrats on a positive and Republicans on a negative.

01:05:32.000 They couldn't get any traction on these cultural war issues anymore because we figured out how to get around all that.

01:05:38.000 We're joined by Ryan James Gurdesky.

01:05:41.000 And what you're hearing there, Ryan, has been one of the more viral clips I've seen go around.

01:05:46.000 Do you buy it that it was that Dems worked this giant PSYOP and it affected, you know, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, saying to voters, we are the kitchen table issue party.

01:05:58.000 We're going to get your prices down, even though we all know they have no ideas to do that.

01:06:01.000 Just tax the rich and try and hand out free stuff.

01:06:04.000 It's not going to work.

01:06:06.000 Do you believe that that was effective?

01:06:08.000 No, I think that's a lie.

01:06:09.000 I think it's something they're trying to brand for the election.

01:06:11.000 Look, is it ever just one thing?

01:06:14.000 Could Trump, could a terrible candidate, could Barry Goldwater, if he had Turning Point USA, win the 1960s?

01:06:24.000 64 presidential election.

01:06:25.000 No, he couldn't, right?

01:06:26.000 You can have a good organization and bad candidates.

01:06:28.000 You could have bad organization and good candidates, and you can't win.

01:06:32.000 And it's a lot of little things that mount up to it.

01:06:36.000 Did this action group have 32.5 million?

01:06:39.000 One, that's 32.5 million.

01:06:40.000 Is it all global?

01:06:42.000 It is because every internet thing is global.

01:06:43.000 So 32.5 million across the globe, not just in America.

01:06:46.000 How many were repeat users?

01:06:47.000 How many were new users?

01:06:49.000 I mean, he's really selling a lot of hopes and dreams right now that this is impacting it.

01:06:54.000 I don't think that that's the case.

01:06:56.000 I think that there was a large shift among Latinos for immigration issues and for economic issues.

01:07:01.000 I think you had, I'm sorry?

01:07:01.000 Okay, hold on.

01:07:03.000 Latinos on immigration?

01:07:06.000 Yeah, I think immigration did impact.

01:07:08.000 So the sense that Renee Good, Alex Pretty, it was too, it was too, Harsh.

01:07:13.000 It was too many raids.

01:07:14.000 What are you saying here?

01:07:16.000 So, what Republicans did successfully in 2024 was do the fairness issue on immigration, right?

01:07:23.000 Is it fair for an illegal alien to cross the border, to get benefits, to jump line?

01:07:27.000 No, it's not fair.

01:07:28.000 Fairness is a really core establishment of the American mantra, right?

01:07:33.000 We run against people who are unfair.

01:07:35.000 So, we won the fairness issue on immigration with border security in 2024.

01:07:40.000 I think doing some of the ICE rates at like Courthouses where people are trying to get their paperworks together and they're getting dragged off.

01:07:48.000 Is that fair?

01:07:49.000 They're trying to do the right thing.

01:07:50.000 To a lot of the minds of a lot of Americans, no, it's not fair.

01:07:53.000 Going in school lines, is that fair?

01:07:55.000 No, it's not fair.

01:07:56.000 Going after people with their children, is that fair?

01:07:59.000 Those kinds of things.

01:08:00.000 It's not that we were doing mass deportations.

01:08:03.000 It's, I think, how aggressively it happened and where it was caught on constant on video.

01:08:08.000 I've talked to a number of Hispanic friends of mine who are not political people in the slightest.

01:08:12.000 They are just normies.

01:08:14.000 And some of them were sort of carrying around ID because they thought they were going to be intercepted by ICE.

01:08:18.000 Like they were genuinely afraid of what was happening.

01:08:21.000 I think we could have achieved mass deportation by freezing bank accounts, by going after employers, by doing other things like that.

01:08:28.000 I think it was just a little bit too much, too aggressive.

01:08:33.000 And the problem is, is that a lot of Republicans, they really want to go after Somalians.

01:08:37.000 Problem is, Somalians are all here legally.

01:08:38.000 Thank you, George H.W. Bush, right?

01:08:40.000 They're some, and Bill Clinton.

01:08:43.000 We want to go after the people who came under Biden.

01:08:45.000 Problem is, a lot of them are asylum seekers and they're caught up in the legal system and they're not going to be deported until their cases are adjudicated.

01:08:52.000 Who are the easiest people to get is the gotaways.

01:08:56.000 They are mostly Mexican.

01:08:57.000 They've been here for quite some time.

01:09:00.000 And criminals, by the way, are really good at evading the law.

01:09:02.000 That's why they're criminals.

01:09:03.000 So it's gotaways, known gotaways that were able to really get deported in mass and they are overwhelmingly Mexican.

01:09:10.000 If you see among Hispanics, the group that shifted the furthest left of all Hispanic ethnicities, it was Mexicans.

01:09:17.000 I don't think that's an accident.

01:09:18.000 So, I'm not saying don't do mass deportation.

01:09:20.000 I'm very in favor of mass deportation.

01:09:23.000 I'm super in favor of the wall.

01:09:24.000 Everything that Trump said, I think it's not a matter of, like, you know, when your parents would yell at you, your mom would yell at you.

01:09:29.000 It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

01:09:31.000 It's not what we're doing, it's how we're doing it.

01:09:33.000 I just think it's a little too over the top and aggressive.

01:09:36.000 Let's freeze bank accounts.

01:09:37.000 Let's go after employers.

01:09:38.000 Let's punish the people hiring them.

01:09:40.000 I just think there's a better way to do it.

01:09:42.000 I mean, it's always seemed to me like that's the $50 bill on the sidewalk or billion bill on the sidewalk is.

01:09:47.000 You turn business owners who employ illegals into these national villains because a lot of them are pretty ugly people.

01:09:53.000 Like they're running shops that pay in cash and don't have any safety, and they're not super likable a lot of the time.

01:10:00.000 And especially if you can pick who you make the villain, you can find the least likable one in America to make him the face for it.

01:10:07.000 Yeah, just seems like right.

01:10:09.000 And you make opportunity in this populist economic populist environment, wealthy people are the villain, whether we like it or not, especially the wealthier they are.

01:10:18.000 So, yeah, you want to go to a meat shop, a meat packing plant where.

01:10:22.000 Like an illegal alien loses their hand and has no protection, and the American hospitals are on the dole for it.

01:10:28.000 That's a great optics that they could go after for illegal immigration and put some fear in the eyes of employers and freeze bank accounts of illegal aliens.

01:10:37.000 That's another easy way to create self deportation and to use the, the, the, whatever the app is.

01:10:43.000 That is an easier way than I think it was, and not what we're doing.

01:10:46.000 It's like how we're doing it.

01:10:48.000 And I think that that was the problem.

01:10:50.000 So I've gotten so many notes, Ryan.

01:10:52.000 The numbers don't add up.

01:10:53.000 The numbers in Texas don't add up.

01:10:55.000 There's something fishy about these numbers.

01:10:58.000 Texas, go back to that.

01:11:00.000 The turnout was insane for Democrats.

01:11:02.000 What explains it then?

01:11:04.000 About 20% of Republicans voted for James Tellerico.

01:11:07.000 Something like something, something that high.

01:11:10.000 Um, Republicans outvoted Democrats in Texas when all the numbers are said and done.

01:11:16.000 There were 170,000 new Hispanics that have never voted before.

01:11:19.000 That's a concern.

01:11:20.000 A lot of low propensity Democrats up 700,000 more low propensity Democrats than Republicans.

01:11:26.000 That's a major concern as far as the future goes.

01:11:29.000 But a bigger problem is you can't win Denton County and Collin County without Republicans.

01:11:35.000 You just can't.

01:11:36.000 And he lost them by a landslide.

01:11:38.000 It wasn't they were inventing new voters, it's just that the Republicans were really turned off by James Tellerico.

01:11:43.000 And also, There's this myth that, like, Abbott's this amazing campaigner who does his amazing numbers in the suburbs.

01:11:49.000 Abbott was not amazing.

01:11:51.000 And what was Abbott running on for his fourth term, an unprecedented fourth term?

01:11:55.000 He wanted to say if you owned a home, you didn't have to pay a school tax anymore.

01:12:00.000 What happens if homes don't pay school taxes?

01:12:03.000 It's the end of high school football in Texas.

01:12:05.000 And Gina, whatever her last name is, was talking about that, saying he's going to end high school football in Texas.

01:12:12.000 Yeah.

01:12:12.000 I mean, she was mentioned on the campus.

01:12:15.000 Yeah, could you?

01:12:16.000 Exactly.

01:12:17.000 You shouldn't go after football in Texas.

01:12:19.000 I have a belief, though, that we have a chance to snap back a lot of these states.

01:12:24.000 We're just going to have to get rid of the buffoonery and the clownishness, and we're going to have to get serious.

01:12:29.000 And Darlene Graham can't be our nominee anymore.

01:12:31.000 So, yeah, that's that.

01:12:32.000 Fair enough.

01:12:33.000 Ryan James Gerdesky, this was very, very interesting stuff.

01:12:37.000 Genuinely.

01:12:37.000 We even have him back for round two.

01:12:38.000 There's so much stuff.

01:12:39.000 Yeah, so much to get to.

01:12:41.000 We'll see you guys tomorrow.

01:12:43.000 Much more to get to then.

01:12:48.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

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The Charlie Kirk Show - November 11, 2026

How Far Does Free Speech Go?

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