The Charlie Kirk Show - How to Stop the Coming 'Cancellation' of Conservatives

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:02.000 Adam Carolla is here.

00:00:04.000 He is the most downloaded podcaster of all time.

00:00:07.000 We talk about his film, No Safe Spaces.

00:00:10.000 We talk about cancel culture, his story, and so much more.

00:00:14.000 If you want to support our program, go to charliekirk.com/slash support to chip in to keep our program going and growing every single day.

00:00:24.000 CharlieKirk.com/slash support.

00:00:28.000 And this episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN, expressvpn.com/slash Charlie.

00:00:34.000 Secure your device right now and protect yourself against big brother and big tech.

00:00:39.000 Adam Carolla is here.

00:00:41.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:42.000 Here we go.

00:00:43.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:45.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:47.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:50.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:54.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:55.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:56.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:03.000 Turning point USA.

00:01:04.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:13.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:16.000 With the Turning Point USA movement, I've had the honor of traveling across America to visit college campuses and engage in rigorous debate with the next generation.

00:01:24.000 When you talk to as many students as I do, there are several familiar themes.

00:01:29.000 I see disillusionment with the media, a lack of hope in their job prospects.

00:01:33.000 I hear them claim that they're victims and deserve better.

00:01:36.000 Whether college students realize it or not, they're forming ideologies that will affect the way they think and treat others for a lifetime.

00:01:43.000 I'd like to recommend a great book to any young person in this time of life.

00:01:47.000 It's called Reflections on the Existence of God by best-selling author Richard Simmons III.

00:01:52.000 This guy never shies away from the hard questions of life.

00:01:55.000 Reflections on the Existence of God is a collection of short essays that tackles the biggest questions of all.

00:02:01.000 Does God exist?

00:02:04.000 This book is well researched and easy to read.

00:02:06.000 One of the most important things a young person can do is to solidify their worldview.

00:02:10.000 Our worldview informs our personal, social, and political lives.

00:02:13.000 It helps us understand our purpose.

00:02:15.000 So I'm challenging college students to ask themselves life's toughest questions.

00:02:20.000 Dive in and get this book today, Reflections on the Existence of God.

00:02:23.000 Go to reflectionscharlie.com.

00:02:25.000 That's reflectionscharlie.com.

00:02:26.000 Then drop me a line with your thoughts.

00:02:31.000 Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:02:34.000 Thrilled to be joined today by Adam Carolla.

00:02:38.000 No safe space is the film.

00:02:40.000 I have been told by our good friend Mark Joseph.

00:02:42.000 I'm going to say that many times throughout this podcast to make sure people check it out.

00:02:46.000 It's a great film, a phenomenal documentary.

00:02:49.000 And some of the themes of the film are about censorship and cancel culture.

00:02:54.000 So Adam, I wanted to get your thoughts on the fact that the president of the United States no longer has access, not just to Twitter, but almost no social media at all whatsoever.

00:03:04.000 Do you think that the kind of cultural kind of trends that you talk about in the movie have played into this?

00:03:11.000 What are your thoughts?

00:03:13.000 Well, I think we've been heading down this road slowly for a long period of time.

00:03:20.000 Many Americans didn't really notice we were heading down this road.

00:03:25.000 Obviously, Dennis Prager and I and others who produced the movie sort of saw this one coming several years ago.

00:03:34.000 It feels to me like it's a road we started down probably over a decade ago with firing professors who spoke up about this or censoring another person that may have spoken about that.

00:03:53.000 And now we're just going down the same road.

00:03:55.000 We've just picked up the pace.

00:03:57.000 We're just taking as a society what was just traveling 20 miles an hour down this road.

00:04:06.000 In the last 10 minutes, we put our foot down on the accelerator and we're now moving at 100 miles an hour down this road.

00:04:15.000 Yeah, and so the president having no access to any of these social media channels, I think is directly related to the types of people that are staffing these companies.

00:04:25.000 What happens on these college campuses does not stay on these college campuses.

00:04:29.000 They then go work for Facebook and Twitter and YouTube.

00:04:32.000 And you could disagree with the president.

00:04:34.000 You could think that he handled certain things, you know, correctly or incorrectly, but then all of them say he shouldn't have access to the tens of millions of people on social media.

00:04:45.000 It feels as if they're almost trying to create America into a major, the whole country into a college campus.

00:04:50.000 Well, you know, if you think about it, an example I use, forget about politics per se, or right or left.

00:04:59.000 What if everyone on college campuses or the vast majority of people on college campuses were vegan?

00:05:07.000 And then, you know, the professors were vegan and some of the most of the students were vegan or some of the students that weren't vegan converted to veganism while they were there at college.

00:05:19.000 When they left the college and they went home for Thanksgiving or when they left the college and went to their new workplace, do you think they would just leave the vegan lifestyle?

00:05:30.000 I mean, do you think it's something they would just keep to themselves?

00:05:33.000 How long before those people went into the break room of the new place they were employed at and said, hey, I looked at the vending machine and there was beef jerky in there.

00:05:44.000 And I kind of find that problematic.

00:05:47.000 And even though the people at their workplace may not have been vegan, what if they just started causing a fuss?

00:05:54.000 Like, how long would it take for the guy who managed a company to go, you know, what, just pull the jerky, replace it with cheese nips?

00:06:01.000 Like, I don't want to deal with this.

00:06:04.000 And now you have more and more like-minded vegans showing up at that workplace, each new graduating class.

00:06:12.000 So of course, these businesses, these entities, whatever they were, would start taking on veganism.

00:06:21.000 And if you want to keep your employees happy, then you'd have to have a, you know, meat-free Friday.

00:06:27.000 And before you know it, one guy who brought in pot roast for leftovers, that guy would be suspended because he offended others.

00:06:36.000 I mean, how else would it work?

00:06:39.000 Yeah, no, that's right.

00:06:41.000 And I like the analogy of vegans because they tend to be unusually evangelistic about their dietary choices.

00:06:49.000 It's as if it's not good enough that they have made a decision to be vegan.

00:06:54.000 It's why aren't you also a vegan?

00:06:57.000 Yeah, and what's so different about that politically?

00:07:01.000 That's the point.

00:07:01.000 Yes, yeah, exactly.

00:07:02.000 Right.

00:07:03.000 That's the point.

00:07:03.000 I've made this decision to go this direction politically.

00:07:07.000 And, you know, I support Black Lives Matter and I support global warming and I support climate change and I support systemic oppression and all this.

00:07:16.000 And I'm sure as hell not going to keep it to myself.

00:07:19.000 And you're not going to be able to eat your pot roast and smoke your cigarette.

00:07:25.000 No, that's perfectly put.

00:07:28.000 So I guess the question is, the movie is really effective.

00:07:31.000 And I encourage people to check it out because it starts with your life story.

00:07:35.000 And your story is really well told.

00:07:38.000 You wanted to be a firefighter and they called you back like five years later, if I remember correctly.

00:07:43.000 I saw the film about a year ago or a couple, about nine months ago.

00:07:47.000 And you basically just got to work.

00:07:49.000 You decided not to play the victim, despite certain circumstances around you that maybe would have allowed you to play that card.

00:07:57.000 And you've reached a fair amount of success.

00:07:59.000 And now you look at kind of the current generation and you say, where exactly is this stemming from?

00:08:06.000 And I think that in some ways, you and Dennis play different roles in the film where Dennis plays kind of more of the professor and the explainer, and you kind of actually play the hero type against the criticism of the movie, right?

00:08:21.000 Where the criticism is, you need to be sheltered and play a victim your whole life.

00:08:25.000 And you kind of say, no, you don't.

00:08:26.000 Just look at my life.

00:08:28.000 Can you talk about that a little bit?

00:08:29.000 Because I found that to be really effective and fascinating the way it was told.

00:08:34.000 The fireman story, as depicted in the movie, is when I was about 19, I was completely jobless and hapless.

00:08:34.000 Well, thanks.

00:08:45.000 I lived in my dad's garage in North Hollywood, California.

00:08:50.000 And I barely got out of high school with very bad grades, you know, never took the SATs, and I was not college material whatsoever.

00:09:00.000 The economy was bad.

00:09:02.000 And I found myself wandering around just looking for jobs to see if I could get out of my dad's garage.

00:09:09.000 I was going to supermarkets trying to become a bag boy, you know, just walking on a construction site, seeing if they needed any labor.

00:09:17.000 And I wandered into the North Hollywood Fire Department because I had a strong back.

00:09:25.000 I played football in high school.

00:09:27.000 I was pretty fearless at 19.

00:09:31.000 And I thought, this is something I could do.

00:09:34.000 I'm strong.

00:09:36.000 I like to help people.

00:09:38.000 I think I like hanging out with dudes.

00:09:40.000 It was kind of felt like it was an extension of all the football I played.

00:09:43.000 And I think fireman would be a pretty sweet gig.

00:09:46.000 So I just sort of naively wandered into the place.

00:09:50.000 I remember I just walked there and I just sort of walked in and I was like, hey, can I put in an application?

00:09:56.000 And the guy said, yeah, you can put in an application, but there's going to be a wait.

00:10:01.000 And I said, like, what kind of wait?

00:10:03.000 You know, when you're 19, six months is a long time.

00:10:06.000 And the guy said, years.

00:10:08.000 And I said, okay.

00:10:11.000 I said, but how come? 0.96

00:10:12.000 He said, because you're white and we're just hiring black people or Hispanic people or women or whatever they were hiring. 0.52

00:10:18.000 They're trying to get their quotas down.

00:10:20.000 That was, you know, many years ago, obviously.

00:10:23.000 So this stuff's been going on in Los Angeles for a while.

00:10:26.000 So I put the application in.

00:10:28.000 And then I found myself getting a job on a construction site some months later as a laborer, as a ditch digger.

00:10:38.000 And I dug ditches and I, you know, bought a beat-up pickup truck and a couple of tools.

00:10:43.000 And next thing you know, I'd work my way up into some sort of junior carpenter role.

00:10:49.000 And at some point, years later, maybe trying to think of it, but about six years later, I hadn't been living at home for many years at that point.

00:11:01.000 My dad, when I saw him, handed me this letter that, of course, was addressed to his house because that's where I was living.

00:11:08.000 And it was from the LA Fire Department.

00:11:10.000 It said, your test date has come.

00:11:13.000 And I was like, what?

00:11:14.000 When is this?

00:11:15.000 You know, from age 19 to 25 or 26, that is a chunkier.

00:11:20.000 Big Delta there.

00:11:20.000 Yeah.

00:11:22.000 And I was like, what?

00:11:23.000 And said, your test date is, you know, this Saturday at Hollywood High to take the written test.

00:11:29.000 I was like, okay, I was a carpenter at that point.

00:11:32.000 Probably gave up my dreams about being a fireman many years ago.

00:11:36.000 But I'd been waiting for so long that I just thought, no, I'll just go down to Hollywood High on Saturday and take the test.

00:11:43.000 And I was waiting in line and I was so dumbfounded by the fact that I'd put my application in and, you know, six years later they processed it that I kept asking everyone around me, like, when did you put in your application? 1.00

00:11:58.000 And there was a young woman of color behind me, very diminutive. 0.96

00:12:03.000 And I said to her, when did you put in your application? 1.00

00:12:07.000 And she said, Wednesday.

00:12:09.000 And I thought, oh, my God.

00:12:13.000 But I never looked at myself as a victim.

00:12:16.000 No one ever told me I was a victim.

00:12:18.000 I was happy no one ever told me I was a victim.

00:12:21.000 I wasn't a victim.

00:12:22.000 I grew up in a poor family and I was uneducated.

00:12:27.000 And I didn't have any of the I didn't have any of the modalities in place to try to get me a scholarship or help me be a fireman or all that kind of stuff was around.

00:12:37.000 But I certainly never thought of myself as a victim.

00:12:40.000 I just thought, well, you're poor, you're uneducated.

00:12:43.000 You're just going to have to outwork people.

00:12:45.000 And that's what I did.

00:12:47.000 Well, and that's a great lesson.

00:12:48.000 That's why I think that whether intentionally or unintentionally, you are actually the narrative form against the criticism, which is why it makes it such an effective film, because it's one thing to say stop being a victim, but then you actually need to have kind of stories and heroes that are able to portray the opposite.

00:13:06.000 Where Dennis in the film is much more of kind of a philosophical critique where he talks about basically, I've been warning against this since I've been in the Soviet Union when I was nine years old, not nine, but you know, since he was 18.

00:13:18.000 And it's just the narratives I think form together really well.

00:13:25.000 Look, let's talk about censorship on social media sites and what you can do about it.

00:13:29.000 The left wants to silence and remove any voices they don't agree with.

00:13:32.000 It's true.

00:13:33.000 Twitter and Facebook were supposed to be open platforms, but I don't need their content moderators acting like the op-ed section of the New York Times.

00:13:41.000 So instead of letting social media sites revoke your right to free speech, how about revoking their right to your data?

00:13:47.000 Now you could just deactivate all your social media accounts, but that would be giving the left exactly what they want in the first place.

00:13:53.000 Instead, I use ExpressVPN.

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00:14:25.000 It's finally time to say no to censorship and take back your online privacy at expressvpn.com slash Charlie.

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00:14:37.000 Again, that's expressvpn.com slash Charlie, expressvpn.com slash Charlie to protect your data today.

00:14:46.000 And so now we're kind of living in a country where the college campus radicals and the culture that comes from it feel more emboldened and more empowered than ever.

00:14:58.000 And the kind of story that you outline in the film, we are being told can't happen and is now a near impossibility.

00:15:06.000 Can you talk about, I mean, you're also, I heard your son, I think, on Dennis Prager's program.

00:15:12.000 I could be wrong, Adam, but I was very impressed.

00:15:16.000 Can you talk about how what you're now seeing in the younger generation, or at least amongst his friends, and how it's different than when you grew up?

00:15:24.000 I'd be fascinated kind of of your kind of intergenerational critique there.

00:15:29.000 Well, when I was growing up, it was just something that wasn't discussed.

00:15:34.000 I mean, we understood there was such a thing as racism in this country and that this country had sinned a few times for sure in its past.

00:15:45.000 I watched Roots with my mom and we understood that this was this horrific chapter in the past.

00:15:53.000 But now it was modern times. 0.95

00:15:55.000 You know, it was the late 70s or the mid 80s and people were very much just into living their life, you know, black, white, Hispanic, whatever.

00:16:07.000 I mean, everyone knew there was a difference, you know, between this group or that group, but it's not, it didn't become who you were.

00:16:15.000 So if you were a woman or you're gay or you're lesbian or you're black or white or whatever, none of that was who you were.

00:16:22.000 You were an individual.

00:16:24.000 And we're in a country with so many examples of people being successful from every walk of life that it would have seemed insane to say that you couldn't be successful if you were of this group.

00:16:40.000 Now there's a narrative and the narrative is just something that is kind of spoon-fed to kids, whether it's CNN, whether it's just popular culture, whether it's the NBA, whether it's Hollywood or whatever it's going on on their school campus.

00:16:56.000 And it's fed to them in such a way where it just is.

00:17:01.000 It's sort of like a religion.

00:17:03.000 You know, I think people who grow up in religious households, they don't go, well, explain this or why is it or prove it to me.

00:17:12.000 Like I need proof that there's a God or I need proof that there's X, Y, and Z.

00:17:17.000 They just go, this is.

00:17:19.000 And so if you took my daughter, I have 14-year-old twins.

00:17:26.000 My daughter is in the world or in the camp of this just is.

00:17:31.000 You know, if you said, well, give me some examples of racism, she'd just go, it is.

00:17:36.000 It's ubiquitous.

00:17:38.000 It's around us.

00:17:39.000 It's beyond.

00:17:43.000 It's much deeper than here's my proof.

00:17:47.000 Again, it's like a religion.

00:17:49.000 Like, I don't need to prove to you that God exists.

00:17:52.000 He exists.

00:17:54.000 It is.

00:17:55.000 No, that's exactly.

00:17:56.000 And I feel as if that kind of religious fervor is, that's a perfect comparison because like, why are we even discussing it?

00:18:04.000 This is the, this is the base, this is the starting point.

00:18:06.000 The starting point is that we all live in kind of this massive leftist religion and everything's racist.

00:18:12.000 You actually don't control your own actions.

00:18:15.000 You don't have agency.

00:18:16.000 And a lot of young people are now, for lack of a better term, infected with this ideology and it impacts their decisions and where they decide to go to school, if they decide to go to school at all, and the decisions they make beyond that.

00:18:30.000 And so I want to build this out further.

00:18:32.000 What do you think are actually some of the solutions to this?

00:18:35.000 Because the movie is very strong on the criticism.

00:18:39.000 Where do you think are the, how do we actually fix this?

00:18:42.000 The cancel culture, the rush to censor, to obliterate a political opponent at all costs.

00:18:49.000 How do we actually get to a place of fixing this?

00:18:54.000 I think the people that are being accused of being racist or misogynistic or homophobic or whatever are going to have to stop backpedaling and explaining themselves and kind of telling these people, I'm not going to apologize, and sort of go a little bit more on the offense versus the defense.

00:19:17.000 I have found with these people, when they accuse somebody of something, the second that person takes a step backwards, they take two steps forward.

00:19:29.000 If you don't take a step backward, then they don't take the step forward.

00:19:33.000 They're really looking for opportunities.

00:19:37.000 And once they find out that you don't apologize or that you're not going to genuflect in front of them, they almost you're of no use to them and they move on.

00:19:49.000 For instance, I say things all the time that may sound horrible.

00:19:55.000 No one ever asks me to apologize because they know I don't apologize.

00:19:59.000 So I'm left alone.

00:20:01.000 The people that don't apologize get left alone almost immediately.

00:20:06.000 So it's kind of a two-parter.

00:20:08.000 I think the side that's being told that they're bad or that they're racist or that they're oppressive or misogynist, they need to start standing up.

00:20:18.000 And instead of trying to have a dialogue and explaining why they're not racist, and by the way, how can you ever explain why you're not racist if you really think about it?

00:20:28.000 You know what I mean?

00:20:28.000 Like they're telling you, this is what's in your heart.

00:20:31.000 And then you're trying to explain to them they're not. 0.99

00:20:34.000 Those people just need to say, shut up. 1.00

00:20:37.000 This is insane. 1.00

00:20:39.000 And you owe me an apology for calling me racist. 0.85

00:20:42.000 That's number one.

00:20:44.000 Number two, I think that groups of people, large groups of people are going to have to understand that this is not effective.

00:20:55.000 It's not helping.

00:20:57.000 It's not getting anything done.

00:20:59.000 It's kind of that Donald Trump thing when he was on the campaign trail saying to the black community, what do you have to lose?

00:21:07.000 We're just going to need more people saying, has this been effective for you?

00:21:12.000 Are your schools working?

00:21:14.000 You have representation now.

00:21:16.000 Are they representing you?

00:21:18.000 Is your job better?

00:21:19.000 Is your 401k better?

00:21:20.000 Do you have a 401k?

00:21:22.000 Like, at some point, the people who are claiming the powers that be that are saying we're going to help these people, at a certain point, they're going to have to wake up and realize nothing happened for them.

00:21:38.000 They're not doing any better.

00:21:39.000 They're going to have to humble themselves a little, realize that maybe they backed the wrong candidate and that it was always just lip service.

00:21:50.000 Never did anything for them.

00:21:51.000 It never gets any better because it can't. 0.54

00:21:54.000 Joe Biden can't do anything for the black community.

00:21:58.000 He'll talk about it, but he can't do anything for them.

00:22:01.000 And neither can almost any or any politician other than open things up, create jobs, and create opportunities.

00:22:11.000 No, that's really well said.

00:22:13.000 And so speaking of just lip service and not delivering results, I loved your interview a little while back with Gavin Newsom.

00:22:21.000 And so you are now, if I get, if I'm understanding this, leaving California.

00:22:26.000 Is that right?

00:22:27.000 Well, at some point, I got to get my kids out of high school.

00:22:31.000 If they ever go back to high school, they're not in high school now because all the schools are closed.

00:22:36.000 But at some point, one must leave California unless things change dramatically.

00:22:42.000 And so California is really a tragic example of this where had everything going for it, had the largest population, the best weather, amazing entrepreneurs, lots of talented people gathered in a kind of a geographic area.

00:22:57.000 And somehow it all got screwed up.

00:23:00.000 You've lived in California your entire life.

00:23:03.000 Can you kind of walk us through this and how it's connected with some of the other themes we've talked about?

00:23:07.000 Because we've seen Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro leave.

00:23:10.000 You've signaled that you're going to leave.

00:23:12.000 I can imagine for every one Joe Rogan, there's another 100 people that are leaving that aren't making a big public thing about it or 1,000.

00:23:20.000 Can you talk about how California has just become almost unrecognizable?

00:23:27.000 Well, California has always sort of prided itself on being the tip of the spear for change and progress.

00:23:37.000 You know, so we always said, we're going to set the trends.

00:23:41.000 You know, we're going to, and we did it with fashion.

00:23:43.000 We did it with entertainment.

00:23:45.000 We did it with tech.

00:23:46.000 You know, California's always been like, we will be the first.

00:23:52.000 We will be the most progressive.

00:23:53.000 We will lead the way.

00:23:55.000 And so, you know, it's heavily Democrat.

00:23:58.000 It's got a Democrat supermajority.

00:24:00.000 And they've said, we are going to enact things that are going to be the most progressive.

00:24:08.000 And the problem with the most progressive is it's the least friendly for taxes.

00:24:14.000 It's the least friendly for business and many other endeavors and rarely yields results.

00:24:21.000 So we're going to have the most progressive schools.

00:24:23.000 We're going to have the most progressive taxes.

00:24:25.000 We're going to have the most progressive legislation.

00:24:30.000 And unfortunately, that always just means more rules, more regulation.

00:24:35.000 You know, there's a funny little example because I made a documentary about Carol Shelby, the race car driver, automotive builder, Shelby Cobra, Shelby Mustang, that Shelby.

00:24:48.000 He lived in Texas and he came from Texas to Venice Beach, California, so that he could build his supercars, so he could build his Shelby Cobras.

00:25:01.000 Could you imagine someone coming from Texas to Venice Beach, California to construct automobiles today?

00:25:09.000 That's a great point.

00:25:10.000 Obviously, it would be insane.

00:25:12.000 If you were in Venice, you would then be moving to Texas so that you could build your business up in a place that wasn't over-regulated and taxed and everything else.

00:25:21.000 So they tried an experiment.

00:25:24.000 They're still in the middle of it.

00:25:27.000 And the problem is it never yields results.

00:25:33.000 They go, we're going to raise taxes so we can have more money.

00:25:36.000 It never works.

00:25:37.000 We're going to have more regulation so we can be safer at work.

00:25:40.000 It never works.

00:25:41.000 All it does is drive people out of the state.

00:25:45.000 And so if you want to know if those plans work once implemented, then you just look at California.

00:25:54.000 And they also had this sort of mindset of, let's not punish people.

00:26:00.000 Like, let's not punish criminals.

00:26:02.000 Let's not punish the homeless.

00:26:03.000 If you're homeless, then you should be allowed to be where you are.

00:26:07.000 And of course, everything just gets worse immediately.

00:26:11.000 You either do something about the homeless situation or you don't and you sit back and you just watch it grow 25% every year.

00:26:20.000 And that's what's happening with California.

00:26:23.000 So it's kind of an interesting little petri dish, which is how fast can you ruin a state with these policies?

00:26:33.000 And the answer is fairly quickly.

00:26:35.000 And then the other little experiment is, what shall the people of the state do once you start ruining it?

00:26:43.000 And the answer is for Elon Musk and many others, they shall leave.

00:26:48.000 That's the answer because they're smart. 1.00

00:26:51.000 You know, my whole thing with California, and especially Gavin Newsom, who's really a dumbass. 0.99

00:26:58.000 Do you not think that Elon Musk is smarter than you? 1.00

00:27:03.000 No, I bet he is.

00:27:05.000 I think Gavin thinks he's smarter than Elon Musk. 1.00

00:27:08.000 Well, that's part of what makes him dumb. 0.98

00:27:11.000 So he's, well, Gavin is arrogant, but Elon is smart. 0.99

00:27:17.000 And how long is Elon going to put up with Gavin's BS?

00:27:21.000 And the answer is for a little while.

00:27:23.000 And then he's going to pick up.

00:27:25.000 And the world's richest man is moving to Texas.

00:27:29.000 And it seems as if some people in California, I don't know if you ever noticed this, Adam.

00:27:33.000 When I visit, you know, I ask people, how long have you been here?

00:27:39.000 And it's almost they know the exact date they moved in.

00:27:41.000 They have celebrations, how long they're there.

00:27:43.000 And it's almost become like a pseudo-Stockholm syndrome.

00:27:45.000 You know, I've been in L.A. for exactly six years and two months now.

00:27:49.000 We're making through it.

00:27:50.000 It's going okay, especially with the lockdowns.

00:27:53.000 It's almost people have pride in like the surviving of the new California.

00:27:57.000 And it used to be a really enjoyable place.

00:27:59.000 I mean, even just a decade ago, a lot of these complaints just kind of, it might have been on tax policy or some social thing, but now it's cross-politics.

00:28:08.000 People are completely fleeing the state.

00:28:10.000 And I agree with you that, you know, Gavin Newsom has, he is, he is in particular one of my least favorite types of politicians because not only is he making bad choices, he's arrogant about it.

00:28:23.000 And he completely defies his own rules and doesn't even allow criticism at all whatsoever.

00:28:30.000 Well, he shuts the schools down.

00:28:33.000 There's no proof that schools should be shut down.

00:28:36.000 The guy says follow the science is not following the science whatsoever.

00:28:41.000 And his biggest donor are the unions, the teachers' unions.

00:28:45.000 So you do the math.

00:28:48.000 Why are the schools shut down in California?

00:28:51.000 They're shut down because school teachers don't want to go back to work.

00:28:56.000 And their unions are pressuring Gavin Newsom, who's being a coward, and he's sacrificing children along the way.

00:29:05.000 I don't know what would be more sort of tyrannical than that.

00:29:09.000 Kids are suffering.

00:29:11.000 They're languishing.

00:29:12.000 They haven't been in school for coming up on a year.

00:29:15.000 And there is no evidence whatsoever that schools should be closed down.

00:29:20.000 But yet the teachers' unions, who you have in your back pocket, or I should say they have Newsom in their back pocket, don't want to go back to work.

00:29:30.000 So Newsom, so kowtow to them. 0.97

00:29:34.000 And meanwhile, your kids can suck it at home. 1.00

00:29:38.000 That's the kind of governor he is. 1.00

00:29:42.000 It's insane.

00:29:44.000 And I'm frankly, the most concerning part about it is the citizens.

00:29:49.000 I have no idea why they put up with this guy.

00:29:52.000 They don't speak out.

00:29:53.000 They don't stand up.

00:29:54.000 They don't make their voices heard. 1.00

00:29:56.000 They're such cowards. 1.00

00:29:57.000 It drives me insane. 0.99

00:29:59.000 Yeah, and I mean, Gavin Newsom's response is that, quote, all the new billionaires created by the initial public offerings, noting that its richest people are doing pretty damn well.

00:30:10.000 That's his response: that the ruling class in Menlo Park is doing better than ever.

00:30:14.000 So it sits down and shut up.

00:30:16.000 Everything's remaining closed forever.

00:30:19.000 Well, yeah.

00:30:20.000 First off, rich people always do well.

00:30:23.000 You know, hard times aren't really hard times for them.

00:30:28.000 And we're not worried about the rich people.

00:30:31.000 The rich people have their kids in private schools and the private schools are open.

00:30:35.000 We're worried about the poor people and the middle-class people who rely on the public school system and that remains closed.

00:30:43.000 So, Adam, I have a question just on how you're planning things out.

00:30:43.000 Absolutely.

00:30:47.000 A lot of people are suddenly disappearing from social media.

00:30:51.000 Are you making any plans to go to alternative platforms?

00:30:56.000 Just generally, what do you think our position should be on a lot of this social media issue?

00:31:00.000 I know Dave Rubin's talked about it a lot.

00:31:02.000 Dennis Prager's talked about it a lot.

00:31:04.000 Are you making any moves or kind of how are you playing that issue right now?

00:31:11.000 I'm not actively making any moves at this point.

00:31:16.000 I do understand that that day will come, sort of like physically making the move out of state versus virtually or digitally making the move to other platforms.

00:31:28.000 I definitely applaud and encourage these other platforms that have arisen.

00:31:34.000 And I think that the tech guys and Gavin Newsom and whomever, they're making big calculated errors.

00:31:45.000 And I feel the same about CNN and many of these other legacy news outlets, which is you are showing your hand now.

00:31:53.000 You're being so obvious about your politics now that you're going to lose, you know, clientele.

00:32:01.000 When I, you know, you go back two years ago and two or three years ago, and I would have these discussions where people would say, you know, don't talk about politics on your podcast.

00:32:18.000 You're going to lose sponsorships.

00:32:20.000 They're pulling out.

00:32:21.000 Every time someone says something that's conservative, you lose sponsors.

00:32:25.000 And if you went and you looked at the iTunes charts, you would see almost all progressive political shows and rarely ever a conservative voice.

00:32:40.000 If you look now, you see many conservative voices, including your own, on that chart.

00:32:47.000 So what happened?

00:32:48.000 Well, what happened was they pushed so hard to the left that it gave an opportunity for so many people on the right to be heard and to come into prominence.

00:33:04.000 You know, like you take a voice like Dan Bongino.

00:33:08.000 Dan Bongino, we might not know who Dan Bongino is today if people didn't go so crazy hard to the left that people were looking for some alternative.

00:33:20.000 You know, this is, I think CNN is in danger of doing this.

00:33:27.000 Look at the Oscars.

00:33:28.000 The Oscars have done this.

00:33:29.000 They've gone so hard left, the ratings drop every year.

00:33:33.000 People lost interest.

00:33:35.000 You say to me, you say the average American now, hey, who won the best picture last year?

00:33:41.000 You go, I don't know.

00:33:42.000 You go, you know, who won this year?

00:33:45.000 And the person will go, let me guess.

00:33:47.000 It was about transgendered woman of color.

00:33:51.000 And they go, yeah, okay, I'm sure that was the best picture.

00:33:54.000 I'm sure.

00:33:55.000 And by the way, when is the last time the best picture no one would watch?

00:34:00.000 That's exactly right.

00:34:01.000 Usually it was like it was Godfather or Lord of the Rings, not Purple Water or whatever the one was two years ago.

00:34:07.000 I'm sure it's a fine film.

00:34:08.000 I just never heard of it before.

00:34:11.000 Right.

00:34:11.000 And no one seeks it out.

00:34:12.000 No one rewatches it.

00:34:14.000 So they have hurt their brand.

00:34:18.000 That's my point.

00:34:20.000 And given opportunities to other entities that flew in the face of that narrative.

00:34:29.000 No, I think that's exactly right.

00:34:30.000 I was watching either Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon the other night, and I saw one of their YouTube clips, and they did a very harsh takedown, as you would expect, of President Trump and the tragic events that happened on the Capitol.

00:34:49.000 But I didn't feel as if I was watching, it was Jimmy Fallon.

00:34:53.000 I didn't feel as if I was watching a comedy show.

00:34:56.000 I felt like I was watching a political show.

00:34:59.000 And I think you're exactly right that some of these institutions and some of these platforms, for lack of a better term, have become so overly politicized that all of a sudden these new creators are given an opportunity to fill that void.

00:35:14.000 I think that's really, really well put.

00:35:15.000 And so the final question I have, Adam, is what is your advice to specific people that are on these college campuses that are dealing with all the nonsense that you talk about in the film?

00:35:24.000 They are losing friends.

00:35:25.000 They're getting kicked out of fraternities.

00:35:27.000 They're under pressure.

00:35:28.000 And I encourage everyone to check out No Safe Spaces.

00:35:31.000 I think they can find it on SalemNow.com, amongst other places.

00:35:34.000 What is your specific advice for them, Adam?

00:35:38.000 I would say that the folks that are doing this to you rely on breaking you apart.

00:35:47.000 They're sort of hyenas chasing a pack of gazelles.

00:35:52.000 They got to single one out.

00:35:53.000 They got to pull them from the pack and then they're going to pounce.

00:35:57.000 If you stay together, if you don't back down, if you don't apologize, you'd be amazed at how many people are like-minded but scared, don't want to say anything, and how many folks will step up.

00:36:12.000 And you will also empower them to step up.

00:36:16.000 You know, if 100 restaurants just reopened in Los Angeles on Monday, then there'd be 500 open by the next Monday.

00:36:27.000 But it's the one or the two or the three that have to go first.

00:36:31.000 Those are the people that are going to, they're going to get hit the hardest.

00:36:36.000 But we need those people.

00:36:38.000 So if you get out and you get thrown out of your fraternity and then you immediately start apologizing to get back in your fraternity, then nothing will ever change.

00:36:48.000 Such a good point.

00:36:49.000 But if you stick with your convictions and if you get kicked out of your fraternity, it's going to suck for a little while.

00:36:56.000 But eventually, enough people will get kicked out of their fraternity that you'll start your own fraternity and it'll be a better fraternity.

00:37:03.000 So you just have to weather the storm.

00:37:06.000 And a great point you've made a couple times this podcast, Adam, is apologizing is their currency.

00:37:12.000 That is how they chart success.

00:37:14.000 When you don't apologize, unless you've done something, if you've done something legitimately wrong, then apologize.

00:37:19.000 But a forced apology is how they actually get there.

00:37:23.000 That's how they get their points on the board.

00:37:25.000 That is really, really well put.

00:37:26.000 That's how they determine success.

00:37:28.000 Well, the film is No Safe Spaces, the great Adam Corolla.

00:37:31.000 And Adam is the most downloaded podcaster ever.

00:37:34.000 So it's an honor always to talk to you, Adam.

00:37:36.000 And thanks so much for joining.

00:37:38.000 Thanks, Charlie.

00:37:39.000 Appreciate it.

00:37:40.000 Talk to you soon.

00:37:40.000 Thanks.

00:37:44.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:37:45.000 Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:37:49.000 As always, you can support us at charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:37:53.000 And I encourage you to get involved with Turning Point USA, where we play offense with a sense of urgency to win America's Culture War, tpusa.com.

00:38:01.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:38:03.000 God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 14, 2021

How to Stop the Coming 'Cancellation' of Conservatives

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