The Charlie Kirk Show - In Depth and In Person with Madison Cawthorn - A 24-Year-Old On His Way to Congress

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00:00:08.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:09.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:12.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:15.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:18.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:19.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:20.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:27.000 Turning point USA.

00:00:29.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:00:37.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:41.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:42.000 Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:44.000 I'm joined by my friend Madison Cawthorne, who has an incredible story.

00:00:47.000 He is going to probably be the youngest member of Congress come this November.

00:00:52.000 Probably the youngest you could possibly think of.

00:00:54.000 Madison, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:57.000 Tell us a little about why you're running and your story.

00:00:58.000 Oh, brother, it's great to be here.

00:01:00.000 The number one reason I'm running for Congress is because just like I'm sure you know, because I'm sure that's why you started Turning Point USA, there is no time to wait.

00:01:09.000 I look out at my country right now, and you know, I just got engaged to a beautiful young woman, very excited about it.

00:01:14.000 But, you know, we're having the conversation that almost every single engaged couple has, and that's, hey, how many kids do you want to have?

00:01:20.000 When do you want to have them?

00:01:21.000 And as I'm sitting there thinking about the world that I'm going to be raising these children in, you know, I shudder to think that one day they're going to look up to me and say, hey, dad, tell us about capitalism.

00:01:32.000 Tell us about freedom.

00:01:33.000 Why don't we have that anymore?

00:01:36.000 And then I have to hang my head in shame and say, well, the reason is because I wasn't willing to stand up and fight.

00:01:41.000 And so, you know, just like James Madison says he did, you know, he stood up at 25 years old to try and change our nation for the better, to create our nation.

00:01:49.000 You know, I'm wanting to stand up right now because I think it's time for a change agent.

00:01:53.000 And I think it's time for someone who isn't going to back down.

00:01:56.000 Someone who's got a backbone of titanium, as I like to say.

00:01:58.000 And you literally do.

00:01:59.000 I literally do.

00:02:01.000 Good.

00:02:02.000 That's the piece, but tell me about that.

00:02:04.000 Yeah, the accident is what you didn't get.

00:02:06.000 Okay.

00:02:07.000 So you literally have a titanium back.

00:02:07.000 Then we'll do that.

00:02:10.000 How did that happen?

00:02:11.000 Well, I mean, you know, my entire life was going as good as it could have been.

00:02:15.000 You know, I was born in 1995, grew up in the mountains, Western North Carolina, incredible family, incredible community.

00:02:21.000 I had always dreamed about going to the Naval Academy, had just gotten nominated, 18 years old, planned on playing football.

00:02:26.000 My entire life was going however you'd want it to go.

00:02:29.000 Sharp mind, incredible physical abilities.

00:02:33.000 But then, you know, as I'm on a road trip with my best friend, I'm taking a nap in the passenger seat.

00:02:38.000 For whatever reason, I assume he thought it would be better as a group activity.

00:02:42.000 And so he accidentally fell asleep behind the wheel of the car.

00:02:47.000 We were going about 70 miles an hour in a construction zone on the interstate, not really speeding, nothing bad.

00:02:51.000 But, you know, when there's no one on the wheel of the car, dangerous things happen.

00:02:55.000 So 70 miles an hour, we run headlong into a concrete barricade.

00:02:58.000 Wow.

00:03:00.000 And from there, you went through years in the hospital.

00:03:04.000 You're in a month in a hospital?

00:03:05.000 Year and a month in a hospital, three months in ICU.

00:03:09.000 You know, all that mental capacity, all those physical abilities all ripped away from me.

00:03:13.000 You know, I had traumatic brain injury.

00:03:15.000 I was terribly damaged, just my entire body.

00:03:18.000 I'm now bound to a wheelchair from now on.

00:03:22.000 But for the very first time after I came out of the hospital at about 150 pounds in a wheelchair, and I went to a professional baseball game, I realized what it was like to have people look over you in a crowd, to feel disenfranchised, to feel like the society had left you behind and that you were no longer a part of the process.

00:03:44.000 And so that enabled me to empathize with people and really want to walk a mile in someone's moccasins before I make a decision about what should happen in their life.

00:03:52.000 And so you started going across the country speaking about your story, right?

00:03:57.000 Of being a victor, not of a victim.

00:04:00.000 And then you had this idea, I'm going to run for Congress because you felt like we were losing our country.

00:04:04.000 You were the youngest candidate, probably by half, probably, in a very crowded primary.

00:04:10.000 How many people were in your primary?

00:04:11.000 We had 12 people in the primary.

00:04:13.000 So the way the system works in North Carolina, like a lot of southern states, they have a very crowded primary.

00:04:17.000 Then the top two vote getters have a runoff.

00:04:20.000 And so it was a surprise you even made the runoff, right?

00:04:23.000 It was.

00:04:23.000 You know, we were considered a dark horse in the race.

00:04:26.000 No one really ever gave us, thought we'd be able to do it.

00:04:28.000 But, you know, at the end of the day, what it came down to is hard work and a great message, you know, that message of conservatism, of freedom, of personal responsibility, of having the pen of destiny in your own hands.

00:04:40.000 And so no one gave us a chance.

00:04:43.000 But when all the votes came out, we realized we were in second place.

00:04:46.000 My team was actually frustrated because we thought we were going to be in first.

00:04:49.000 And so then we started into our runoff election.

00:04:53.000 And, you know, Charlie, you know how the odds are even stacked against us more at that point.

00:04:57.000 Yeah.

00:04:57.000 And I could speak personally to that.

00:04:59.000 You know, I met you at one of our events and you drove out there and I was really impressed by you.

00:05:04.000 And without getting into too much detail, the power structure was, you know, no, go to the other person or stay out of the whole race was basically the tone.

00:05:12.000 And I will never forget, I sat down with you, like, we're going to win.

00:05:14.000 I'm like, all right, Madison, like, just let's, you know, let's kind of plan this out.

00:05:18.000 And it's like, no, we're going to win. 0.60

00:05:19.000 I was like, okay, well, I remember saying, like, that's the attitude to have, you know, and I didn't doubt you because I, you know, would have been foolish to do that.

00:05:28.000 I was just very open-minded to the idea of a 24-year-old becoming a congressional member of Congress.

00:05:36.000 It was incredible.

00:05:37.000 And what I struck was you were so focused on victory.

00:05:40.000 You're like, we're going to knock on more doors.

00:05:42.000 We are going to have a grassroots revolution.

00:05:44.000 You're going to have a precinct-by-precinct model, right, that will be bottom-up, grassroots-focused.

00:05:49.000 And I thought to myself, like, this could work, you know?

00:05:52.000 And it did.

00:05:53.000 And so you shocked the world.

00:05:54.000 I think it was like June 23rd, June 24th, right?

00:05:56.000 June 23rd, yeah.

00:05:57.000 It came out, and we knew that we were ahead, but then President Trump endorsed my opponent.

00:06:02.000 Yeah, and so I want to be clear: you're not anti-Trump.

00:06:05.000 No, very far from it.

00:06:07.000 Because that's the way that some of this liberal media spun your victory.

00:06:10.000 Right.

00:06:10.000 Because they're like, oh, you know, look at this young guy who defied Trump's endorsement.

00:06:15.000 I think that's a misleading headline.

00:06:16.000 Well, it is.

00:06:17.000 You know, I try to make very clear, even with my very neck, my victory speech at night, that I by no means thought that was a referendum on Trump.

00:06:26.000 That's an important point.

00:06:27.000 You know, my voters, I guarantee over 99% of them will be voting for President Trump.

00:06:32.000 And the only reason there's a 1% missing from that is because they'll probably just forget there's an election.

00:06:36.000 That's funny.

00:06:37.000 But in all seriousness, I support our president.

00:06:40.000 I think his America's first agenda, his coming in and not playing Washington by Washington's rules.

00:06:46.000 That's what this country needs.

00:06:47.000 And I'm so thankful that I get to grow up in a generation that has someone actually fighting for me.

00:06:53.000 Well, I want to compliment you on one thing, which is when you won, you were so gracious and you were magnanimous because there were so many figures that opposed you and spent money against you.

00:07:06.000 And you were given opportunities by every way that liberal media works, the activist media, and you know this, is they'll say, oh, look, this guy defied Trump.

00:07:13.000 Let's try to give him 20 questions to try to say one bad thing against someone conservative.

00:07:20.000 And then they can write their favorite story, which is conservative-friendly fire continues.

00:07:24.000 They love writing that story.

00:07:25.000 And you didn't give them that opportunity.

00:07:27.000 You were very gracious.

00:07:28.000 You're like, let's think forward to the election.

00:07:30.000 And I think that really upset a lot of the activist media.

00:07:32.000 They're like, well, how many times do I have to bait him into this?

00:07:34.000 And you would just refuse.

00:07:35.000 You're like, no, actually, I love the president.

00:07:36.000 And I can't wait to see him soon.

00:07:39.000 Because they tried to lay that trap many times.

00:07:42.000 Oh, so I mean, we went on the View.

00:07:44.000 We went on MSNBC.

00:07:46.000 We went as far left as you could go.

00:07:47.000 But I was confident going into these viper pits because I knew that I know what I believe.

00:07:53.000 And I know that there are a lot of people.

00:07:55.000 And, you know, I've always portrayed this primary battle that we went through.

00:08:00.000 It was just a family feud.

00:08:01.000 You know, people always want to say, oh, you went to war with the establishment and you won.

00:08:05.000 I was like, no, we just, we just, the people of Western North Carolina were trying to make a discerning decision about who they wanted to go and defeat this liberal idea.

00:08:14.000 Well, and I will get into this in depth.

00:08:16.000 The president should be very thankful that you won because he needs to carry North Carolina to win the White House.

00:08:23.000 And you're going to boost turnout for him in North Carolina.

00:08:25.000 You're going to get new voters for him in North Carolina.

00:08:28.000 So when people support your campaign, they're also supporting the president winning in North Carolina.

00:08:33.000 They're supporting boosted turnout.

00:08:34.000 And so you had the highest level of millennial and youth engagement ever in the primary North Carolina.

00:08:40.000 Primary North Carolina, yes.

00:08:41.000 So you're bringing new voters into the Republican Party.

00:08:44.000 Indeed.

00:08:44.000 You know, we hear everywhere we go from people who are, you know, the largest voting demographic in my district and emerging in our entire state is undecided voters.

00:08:55.000 These unaffiliated voters, not Republicans, they're not Democrats.

00:08:58.000 They're people who are still just trying to have someone that represents them.

00:09:02.000 And they're very issues-based voters.

00:09:04.000 They vote on the person.

00:09:05.000 And we are bringing them out in droves.

00:09:07.000 One, because the far-left liberals have left the Republicans.

00:09:11.000 Not the Republicans, the Americans.

00:09:13.000 The normal average American citizen is no longer represented in the Democratic Party.

00:09:19.000 And I think they are just looking for a champion to go out and fight for them and not just be worried about virtue signaling and trying to say, oh, well, I'm the most woke person there is.

00:09:30.000 And no, we have a, this is the thing that I think delineates Republicans versus Democrats.

00:09:37.000 And let me say conservatives versus liberals.

00:09:39.000 Let's get away from the parties.

00:09:41.000 I stop at the Constitution.

00:09:43.000 You know, I can go as far right as just about anyone goes, but I have a line.

00:09:47.000 That's the Constitution.

00:09:48.000 That's where I stay.

00:09:49.000 I don't go any left.

00:09:50.000 I don't go any farther right.

00:09:51.000 I read it through the lens of original intent from the authors, mainly through James Madison's writings and the Federalist Papers, to understand what he really meant when he wrote this wonderful.

00:09:51.000 That's where I stay.

00:10:01.000 And of course, it's an imperfect document, but it's very nearly perfect.

00:10:04.000 But the liberals have no line.

00:10:06.000 You know, you can look at it, whether it was the feminist movement, whether it was the LGBT movement.

00:10:14.000 There were some people they would come up and they might come up with a rational idea saying, hey, you know what? 0.99

00:10:19.000 I want to have an equal position in the workplace and have equal pay as a woman.

00:10:21.000 So it's like, oh, that's fine.

00:10:23.000 Or whether it's the African American movement or people coming in with Martin Luther King saying, hey, judge us based on the content of our character and not on our skin color. 0.60

00:10:31.000 Yeah, totally for that.

00:10:32.000 Or the LGBT community saying, hey, we just want to get married. 0.98

00:10:37.000 Things that are pretty reasonable ideas that they want to move for.

00:10:41.000 But then I believe that now they've achieved those, you have this third wave feminism that comes in and says, no, we don't want to be equal to men. 0.85

00:10:49.000 We want to be greater than men at this point. 0.69

00:10:51.000 We want to put them down.

00:10:52.000 Or you have what started out as the Black Lives Matter movement has now been hijacked by Marxists who are taking it so far left, just trying to destroy. 0.83

00:11:00.000 What is it?

00:11:01.000 Joe Biden said they want to get rid of shareholder capitalism.

00:11:04.000 And I mean, I know that doesn't make a lot of sense to people, but shareholder capitalism is private equity in companies.

00:11:09.000 That is private ownership of our country.

00:11:12.000 Or, you know, the LGBT movement, it was just some two people wanted to be able to get married.

00:11:17.000 But now it's saying that we need to be able to have gender reassignment surgery for 12-year-olds.

00:11:21.000 There's funded by taxpayers.

00:11:23.000 Exactly.

00:11:23.000 They never stop at a line.

00:11:25.000 They always go further.

00:11:26.000 Yeah, and that's a very important point.

00:11:29.000 And I mean, you actually read the Constitution and understand it, unlike most of our leaders in both parties, and you actually know who wrote it and why they wrote it.

00:11:37.000 So that's a very important thing.

00:11:39.000 And so I want to talk generationally, then I want to go just issue by issue.

00:11:44.000 So generationally, first, there's something very exciting happening where young people are now introducing themselves into the political system, and they're saying The ruling class have made decades of poor decisions on our behalf.

00:11:59.000 And Madison, you spoke out against this wonderfully.

00:12:03.000 And I think the Republican Party has just decided to forget about this issue.

00:12:07.000 We have $26, $27 trillion in debt, and we're spending multiple trillions of dollars a year.

00:12:12.000 That's not good for the middle class.

00:12:14.000 That's not good for future generations. 0.75

00:12:15.000 And it's both parties, by the way.

00:12:17.000 It's both parties equally guilty.

00:12:19.000 And it's our generation that's going to now have to live in a sub, a sub-standard economic climate because of that.

00:12:27.000 And yeah, it's fine if you're, you know, I guess in your 60s or 70s, you're not going to have to see the whole program play itself out.

00:12:35.000 And what I'm very, what gives me promise is that now we have a generation that says, I'm just really kind of exhausted with just you telling me you're going to do that because you haven't.

00:12:45.000 Right.

00:12:46.000 And now you're actually assuming leadership into that position.

00:12:49.000 And you probably know the ages better than I do, but the founders of our country were in their late teens and early 20s when they founded this country.

00:12:56.000 John Hancock was 19 years old.

00:12:59.000 James Madison, 25.

00:13:00.000 Alexander Hamilton, 21.

00:13:02.000 And the framers, the people that we consider to be the architects of this beautiful country, were in their 20s.

00:13:09.000 And they were 20s and late 20s and early 30s.

00:13:13.000 I think there's something to that because when you're the age that you and I both are, 26 and 24, soon to be 25, there's a commitment to the ideal of creating something multi-generationally better.

00:13:25.000 And I'm not saying that I'm not against, obviously, leaders that are not in their 20s and 30s, but I do think that when it becomes your career, it becomes more about, I want to keep my job intact and less about I actually want to do something correct for the generation that I'm care about, which you should always be trying to make public policy for the next generation.

00:13:45.000 That's why you're in leadership, right?

00:13:48.000 We have civil government so that your posterity, literally in our framework, can be successful.

00:13:54.000 That's why we do what we do, right?

00:13:56.000 I mean, this idea that we're just trying to create laws for today, that's actually very short-sighted.

00:14:02.000 Countries don't actually succeed when you do that.

00:14:05.000 And so that's what gives me so much promise about what you're doing here is because there's a variety of reasons.

00:14:09.000 And that's one of the biggest ones is I can't actually probably think of a scenario in the U.S. Constitution that says you must be 25 to be seated in the House of Representatives.

00:14:18.000 So in American history, the only person who wasn't 25, he was 22, I think, but he was allowed to be seated.

00:14:23.000 He wasn't elected.

00:14:24.000 I believe there was some intricacy there.

00:14:25.000 And so you're not even 25 yet.

00:14:27.000 You will be 25 soon, August 1st.

00:14:29.000 August 1st, that is correct.

00:14:29.000 Is that right?

00:14:30.000 Coming right up.

00:14:31.000 So, and then, God willing, you'll win your election, and then you'll be seated as probably the youngest within a couple months that you could possibly even be to be seated.

00:14:39.000 And it won't be a Democrat, won't be a leftist.

00:14:42.000 They're going to try to ignore you that you even exist.

00:14:42.000 And just be prepared.

00:14:44.000 They're going to try to still say Cortez is the youngest congresswoman, even though actually she's much older than you.

00:14:49.000 And you can kind of be like, okay, boomer, Cortez, like, right?

00:14:52.000 And I think that will be, that'll drive her nuts, by the way.

00:14:55.000 So, but it's interesting because the left tries to make it seem like they have a monopoly on our generation.

00:15:01.000 They think they've cornered the market.

00:15:03.000 Talk about that.

00:15:04.000 They really believe that they have cornered the market.

00:15:06.000 And in many ways, I think that they have.

00:15:09.000 We've had so few people who are standing up to try and lead that people when they think of young conservative or young politicals, young politicos, young people in politics, they think of Elon Omar and Alexandria Casa-Cortez.

00:15:24.000 They think, oh, well, that's what the left is.

00:15:26.000 They look on, you know, they look on to BuzzFeed News to see what millennials are talking about.

00:15:31.000 God forbid.

00:15:32.000 But you know what?

00:15:33.000 I believe that the Republicans have had a really bad time of messaging for about the past two to three decades.

00:15:39.000 And that's why you see so many people in my generation, our generation, who are saying they're not registering as Republicans, and they're not registering as Democrats.

00:15:39.000 I completely agree.

00:15:47.000 This goes on to what I was talking about earlier, people registering unaffiliated.

00:15:52.000 It's because, you know, they, sure, maybe they like the environment, but aside from that, the Democrats don't represent them.

00:16:00.000 But if the Republicans would just tell our message better, articulate it in a way that people can understand, I think we would see droves and droves of our generation coming to it.

00:16:09.000 And I want to start something.

00:16:11.000 You know, I say, you know, we need a patriot revolution, but, you know, I'm really fortunate that my name is Madison.

00:16:17.000 I hearken back to James Madison.

00:16:20.000 You know, I want to lead kind of a James Madison revolution of young people.

00:16:25.000 And you know, he was 25 years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence.

00:16:27.000 He went on to write the Constitution of young people realizing there is a problem in my society and I'm going to need to stand up and do something about it because there's no time to wait.

00:16:36.000 And that is what I want to see for our generation.

00:16:39.000 I want to see this generation rise up and say, hey, you know what?

00:16:44.000 Not only is it a terrible financial decision for us to cast ourselves further and further into debt, but it's immoral.

00:16:50.000 You're saddling me, my children, all the future generations with this terrible substandard economic setting that they're going to put people into.

00:16:58.000 And so I think it's time for us to shake off these bonds and not listen to these people who say, oh, well, you know what?

00:17:05.000 You're going to do great one day, but it's time for you to wait in line.

00:17:08.000 Who are we standing in line behind?

00:17:10.000 Because the people that I see that are ahead of me, who have gone before me, there's not many that I look up to.

00:17:17.000 Yeah, that's very true.

00:17:19.000 Yeah, and it's a very important point because, you know, the tone of the conservative movement is we feel betrayed.

00:17:27.000 And that's why we love Trump so much, is that Trump actually did what he said he was going to do.

00:17:32.000 But we feel betrayed by people who said that they represented our value system.

00:17:35.000 And the reason we feel betrayed is because we really care about our value system.

00:17:39.000 We go to church for a reason.

00:17:40.000 We care about these ideas.

00:17:42.000 And this is not, it's not just like wearing a Carolina Panthers jersey, right?

00:17:47.000 And that's the way I think the Republican Party feels.

00:17:49.000 Like, oh, yeah, I'm going to put on the jersey when I go to a pro-life rally, and then they just take off the jersey and then they go do something else.

00:17:55.000 No, you live it.

00:17:56.000 You breathe it.

00:17:56.000 And if you don't go and fight for it, then you've turned your back on us.

00:18:00.000 And if there's some really good senators out there, and there's some really good Congress people, but there's not enough.

00:18:05.000 And we know that.

00:18:06.000 And we always go out of our way to mention the Jim Jordans of the world, to mention Matt Gates, to mention Senator Josh Hawley and Senator Tom Cotton.

00:18:13.000 The list is not very long, right?

00:18:15.000 And I think that one of the reasons, and we've talked about this, is the system and the structure in Washington has been so difficult for people like you to win, first and foremost.

00:18:27.000 And I think social media and technology really afforded you, you know, an opening to be able to kind of compete on this landscape.

00:18:36.000 And I think that's an incredibly positive thing, you know, for our country and for the next generation.

00:18:40.000 And you know, and I wrote a note here, you now have a burden of responsibility.

00:18:44.000 And you know this, is because now you will be the youngest elected member of Congress in the history of our beautiful country, youngest ever.

00:18:51.000 And you will get older, but that will probably never be taken away from you, right?

00:18:54.000 And with that, there will be an expectation of the media and people say, okay, now sell me the Republican Party, young Republican, like sell it to me.

00:19:03.000 And that's a big burden.

00:19:05.000 I think you're up for it because you had to defeat 12 other people and then a runoff with all this outside money coming in.

00:19:11.000 And outside of the legislative side of it, and I would love to get your thoughts on this.

00:19:16.000 Outside of the legislative side of it, which we all know is a very difficult, complicated, convoluted process.

00:19:20.000 And I think that that will take longer to change.

00:19:23.000 What won't take longer to change, though, is a 16-year-old in Boston, Massachusetts that will then see you as, wow, there's a young Republican.

00:19:31.000 I actually see millions of people coming to the conservative movement because of your singular victory and because what we're doing and our podcast and all that.

00:19:39.000 But now that it's not, now that it's a reference point where it's like, wow, you can actually be a lawmaker in your mid-20s, I think that's incredibly important.

00:19:46.000 What's your message then?

00:19:47.000 What does the Republican Party stand for for that 16-year-old in Boston or the 20-year-old in Austin, Texas, that quite honestly will see you and they said, I never thought that existed.

00:19:59.000 My message is very simple.

00:20:01.000 I feel like so often people try to overcomplicate what the message of Republicans is.

00:20:07.000 And I think that's why so many young people are turned off to the party is because you ask, go ask your average congressman on the GOP side, say, hey, what is your message?

00:20:16.000 It says, well, you know what?

00:20:17.000 We need to get GDP up half a percent.

00:20:19.000 And then we got to focus on the affordable housing crisis.

00:20:24.000 It's not exactly as simple as you think.

00:20:25.000 You got to look at it from a macro sense.

00:20:27.000 And that I want to get away from that.

00:20:30.000 My message to that six-year-old in Boston who's listening to this podcast right now is, hey, the Republicans stand for freedom.

00:20:39.000 We stand for personal responsibility.

00:20:41.000 And yes, it means that you're accountable for your failures, but it also means that you get to feel the exhilaration of victory when you have success.

00:20:48.000 It means that I want you to go work hard and have ownership and own a piece of land and know that you are a part of this country and you take ownership for where it goes, which direction it takes.

00:20:59.000 But the whole thing is it's getting the government out of our lives.

00:21:02.000 I mean, Charlie, you know, if we take this page right here, grab any three letters and put them together, it's going to most likely, odds are, it's going to resemble the initials of some major government agency that is designed to tell us what to do.

00:21:19.000 Like AOC.

00:21:20.000 Like AOC, yeah.

00:21:22.000 Like AOC, like EPA, like CIA, whatever it is.

00:21:26.000 Our government has grown so large, so overblown that.

00:21:30.000 It's the fourth branch of government.

00:21:32.000 Exactly.

00:21:32.000 They tax us to death, and then they over-regulate us to death.

00:21:36.000 And I want to get that.

00:21:37.000 I want to get us back to a constitutional government.

00:21:40.000 I'm so pleased to hear you say that.

00:21:42.000 And a couple of thoughts is that we as Republicans, I don't even call myself a Republican at times.

00:21:47.000 Me as a conservative.

00:21:48.000 I don't even know what a Republican means.

00:21:49.000 I'm a conservative.

00:21:50.000 Of course, I don't support the Democrats, but some of these people that call themselves Republicans, I'm like, thanks, but no thanks.

00:21:55.000 As a conservative, far too often, it's this technocratic jargon.

00:22:00.000 Like, oh, elect us, and we'll be able to get marginal corporate tax rates down 2%.

00:22:04.000 Like, if that's your vision for our country, that's really stale and vanilla and boring.

00:22:09.000 And short-sighted.

00:22:09.000 It's incredibly short-sighted.

00:22:11.000 And we have to think multi-generational and transformative in a very restorative is probably a better word than transformative because transformative sounds, you know, far too, you know, kind of Marxist and socialistic.

00:22:22.000 But I think restorative is a much better term for it.

00:22:24.000 And it's very interesting because you mentioned the fourth branch of government.

00:22:28.000 They're unelected, they're unknown, and they have unlimited amounts of power.

00:22:32.000 And we don't know who these people are.

00:22:34.000 They're able to investigate our lives.

00:22:36.000 They're able to, in a lot of ways, tie up our businesses.

00:22:38.000 They're able to audit on demand.

00:22:41.000 And the founders never anticipated a fourth branch, a bureaucratic class, if you will, of endless amounts of millions of people that have this kind of power.

00:22:49.000 It's civil service that is completely unchecked and unregulated in a lot of ways, unregulated by the people.

00:22:56.000 And so the more light you shine onto that, I think the better.

00:22:59.000 And so you mentioned some issues that younger voters care about.

00:23:05.000 Let's get into them.

00:23:06.000 So tech censorship is a big issue for young people.

00:23:10.000 You're going to be one of the leading voices on this issue.

00:23:13.000 I make the argument that we should be against centralized power in all forms, including when centralized power gets more powerful than the government.

00:23:21.000 And I think Google is actually more powerful than the federal government in a lot of ways.

00:23:25.000 What is your view on tech censorship and the tech companies?

00:23:28.000 The view is, I respect the idea of private businesses being able to do whatever they want.

00:23:35.000 That's a conservative ideology.

00:23:37.000 But right now, we do stand against monopolies.

00:23:40.000 And I think we need to do some kind of trust busting because what's going on is we have these ginormous tech companies, whether we're talking about the Facebooks or the Googles of the world, who have an undue amount of influence on everyday Americans, on the whole globe, really.

00:23:55.000 And for them to be able to operate in two different forms.

00:23:58.000 One, they say, oh, well, we're just a platform, so we're protected by First Amendment rights.

00:24:01.000 So government, you can't come in and help regulators tell us what to do.

00:24:04.000 But two, they also say, well, we're kind of like a publisher.

00:24:07.000 So I don't really, I disagree with what you're saying there.

00:24:11.000 So we're going to censor that.

00:24:13.000 And then all of a sudden you get a pop-up on your Instagram that says, oh, your post has been deleted because it does not abide by our community guidelines.

00:24:22.000 And then you can never go read what the community guidelines are.

00:24:25.000 It's this arbitrary benchmark that they really don't even have specified because they don't want to have to abide by it.

00:24:34.000 If they see someone really making waves, and Charlie, I'm sure that you are so frustrated by this, see someone really making waves and cutting into that young demographic that they want to hold on to so badly, then they're going to do everything they can to limit your influence.

00:24:48.000 Yeah, and these companies, they know exactly where you are right now.

00:24:52.000 They know your purchasing habits.

00:24:53.000 They know your health information.

00:24:55.000 They track you at all times.

00:24:57.000 And look, you read the Federalist Papers, you're a student of the founding, which is just so underappreciated.

00:25:02.000 And I'm so pleased you talk about it because our young people need to be proud of our country's founding.

00:25:07.000 And I want to get into that in a second.

00:25:08.000 But the founders, they were really worried about centralized tyranny and power.

00:25:13.000 And in the 1780s and 1790s and the early 1800s, understandably, the biggest power they could think of was a governmental power.

00:25:20.000 But really, the underlying theme is we don't like the weak being exploited by the strong.

00:25:24.000 That's basically the...

00:25:25.000 And so when you see the weak being exploited by the strong, and that happens time and time again, I think that we as moral people have an obligation to intervene when the weak can't defend themselves up against the strong.

00:25:38.000 And the strong are Google, the tech companies, right?

00:25:41.000 And we have waited years for a free market remedy against them.

00:25:46.000 And we have not seen that happen, unfortunately.

00:25:48.000 It's just, you know, there's some competitors and they just fall in flat.

00:25:51.000 It's so powerful.

00:25:52.000 Yeah, and some of it is because they hide behind Section 230, the Communications Decency Act, which is a government-created regulation that gave them their super governmental status.

00:26:02.000 And so when we as conservatives look at this, it should always come from the perspective of how do I protect that beautiful Bill of Rights?

00:26:09.000 And if the beautiful Bill of Rights is being violated in a macro sense by anything, we should have concern, especially speech, right?

00:26:18.000 So when you have Diamond and Silk, you have Lila Rose, you have the California Republican Party be described as Nazis by Google, you have all these examples, thousands and thousands of examples, that all of a sudden violates the first amendment of our Constitution.

00:26:33.000 Now, it's very tricky because, as you said, it's a private business.

00:26:36.000 But in modern day time, how can you petition your government without using the internet?

00:26:40.000 Is that realistic?

00:26:42.000 It's where we get the flow of our information.

00:26:45.000 Very few people would even know how to find the DMV without Google.

00:26:48.000 That's right.

00:26:48.000 They really wouldn't.

00:26:49.000 That's a great point.

00:26:50.000 You know, a big thing that I always love having historical context to things because I don't believe there's anything new under the sun. 0.78

00:26:57.000 You know, you look at the Protestant Revolution that is very, very much so a byproduct that led to America's founding and creation.

00:27:05.000 You know, Martin Luther went into the town square where he was and he nailed his theses to the doors, which changed the world forever. 0.80

00:27:12.000 And this Protestant Revolution broke out of this Prussian area, which is now Germany.

00:27:17.000 And, you know, the world's been forever changed. 0.88

00:27:19.000 America's here now.

00:27:20.000 Everything's been different.

00:27:21.000 The thing is, Charlie, if you had your 95 theses, if you wanted to go change your world, where would you go?

00:27:28.000 I got a lot of doors to knock to nail them on.

00:27:30.000 Exactly.

00:27:31.000 And it's really funny.

00:27:31.000 It was just the 500th anniversary, I believe, 400th anniversary recently.

00:27:36.000 And I was like, I want to go knock it on the college campus.

00:27:40.000 Not the 95. 0.58

00:27:41.000 Stop selling the indulgences of our kids saying they have to go to college, they have to get a job. 0.91

00:27:46.000 Exactly. 0.83

00:27:47.000 It's not a perfect analogy, but it works.

00:27:49.000 Well, yeah, but social media and Google are the new town square, and we have got to protect the speech in there.

00:27:55.000 And I'm now going to make a very quick segue because you brought up something I really like talking about.

00:27:59.000 Go right there.

00:28:00.000 I think we do ourselves such a disservice when our parents and our families think that the ultimate way they can find success is by getting their child to a four-year degree education.

00:28:11.000 So, can I stop you really quick?

00:28:12.000 Go.

00:28:13.000 Did you graduate from college?

00:28:14.000 I did not.

00:28:15.000 Nor did I. You didn't, Charlie, did you?

00:28:18.000 You went for a short time?

00:28:20.000 That would be a very generous interpretation of my time.

00:28:24.000 Maybe like showing up to enroll and then.

00:28:26.000 And then realizing that, hey, I can go make my mark outside in the world.

00:28:30.000 But this is a very, I have to stop you.

00:28:32.000 It's a very important point that I want you to build out the argument.

00:28:35.000 These are two future members of Congress, most likely.

00:28:38.000 I have to always cushion that.

00:28:39.000 God willing, let's put it that way.

00:28:41.000 And the show, no college.

00:28:44.000 What's happening?

00:28:45.000 I think people are realizing that, you know, you don't need a four-year degree in Egyptology to shape public opinion.

00:28:52.000 And I think people are also realizing that, you know, sending more doctors and sending more lawyers to Congress, people who wear ties to work every single day, might not be as effective as what we want it to be.

00:29:02.000 Because, you know, I think we need more people who put on steel-toed boots every single morning rather than a tie shaping our public policy.

00:29:09.000 So, Madison, I encourage you to own the fact you didn't go to college.

00:29:13.000 Don't be ashamed of it.

00:29:15.000 Early years of Turning Point USA, I'd always kind of like dance around it and kind of like get in a fetal position.

00:29:20.000 Like, I'm sorry.

00:29:21.000 Maybe I'll go later.

00:29:22.000 And, you know, the more I, you know what the number one response I would get from our amazing patriots is they'd say, you didn't go to college, good for you.

00:29:29.000 You know, I'm inspired by that.

00:29:30.000 That's an interesting thing.

00:29:31.000 I mean, I mean, we've kind of could become a boring society for young people.

00:29:35.000 Like, yeah, you go to some four-year college, you get really drunk and get, you know, get into debt.

00:29:39.000 You learn to hate America.

00:29:40.000 And if you survive, good for you.

00:29:41.000 But then you kind of don't really have much direction.

00:29:44.000 It's an expensive four-year networking program.

00:29:46.000 Let's have an exciting country again.

00:29:48.000 We're like, no, I'm going to go try and start Tesla.

00:29:50.000 Like, great, go do that.

00:29:51.000 Like, you might fail.

00:29:52.000 You probably will.

00:29:53.000 And then you will learn something.

00:29:54.000 Or, you know, I'm going to go join the Marines.

00:29:56.000 Or I'm going to go be an AmeriCorps.

00:30:00.000 I mean, I think that there's so much energy that is being just misdirected amongst our younger generation.

00:30:04.000 And I encourage you just to own it.

00:30:06.000 And I know that it's tough because the intelligentsia and the ruling class, they want to say, oh, you don't have your piece of paper.

00:30:12.000 You can't get in.

00:30:14.000 Okay.

00:30:14.000 I mean, that's an argument from authority, but you were kind of also busy, I don't know, saving your life.

00:30:19.000 Just dying in a hospital, but got through that.

00:30:21.000 Minor details.

00:30:22.000 A quick side note I'd like to make.

00:30:25.000 There is a guy named Lucas Botkin.

00:30:26.000 He runs a really great company called T-Rex Arms.

00:30:29.000 I don't know him at all.

00:30:30.000 Follow him on social media.

00:30:31.000 I really like the guy.

00:30:32.000 And he's really big into firearms.

00:30:34.000 But he was never in the special forces or anything in the world.

00:30:37.000 So a lot of people in the community say, well, ask him, hey, how are you able to be so successful even though you don't have, you know, you weren't in special forces?

00:30:45.000 Like, how are you able to do that?

00:30:46.000 And he says, because proficiency beats any credentials you could ever have.

00:30:50.000 Of course.

00:30:51.000 There's this intelligentsia of the world.

00:30:51.000 And you know what?

00:30:53.000 There is these people who have a lot of letters after their name who are going to say, hey, you know what?

00:30:57.000 Well, you can't come in here because you won't be able to face me on a debate stage.

00:31:01.000 You won't be able to compete with me.

00:31:03.000 Proficiency and knowledge of the issues in the historical context of our founding, I think is all you need to have to be able to come into.

00:31:11.000 Oh, yeah.

00:31:12.000 And look, the argument from authority is a logical fallacy.

00:31:15.000 And this is what the left uses all the time.

00:31:16.000 And so they'll say, oh, this professor has 27,000 degrees and is inherently smarter than you. 0.99

00:31:23.000 And then they'll say something foolish. 0.98

00:31:25.000 And then we're supposed to believe that it's true. 0.95

00:31:26.000 So, for example, they'll have this professor from Brown say there's 128 genders.

00:31:31.000 And it doesn't matter that if you have all these degrees, you're wrong.

00:31:35.000 I mean, something does not become correct because of how many credentials you have.

00:31:39.000 Exactly.

00:31:40.000 And so, and on the inverse of that, anyone can have the access to truth.

00:31:44.000 And that's why those of us that are Christians know that.

00:31:47.000 And that's why it's been so incredible as Christianity has spread rights across the world have spread because it's an idea that you can actually access the same truth as the person at the top of the ivory tower can.

00:31:58.000 And of course, there's different levels of understanding, especially when you get to molecular biology and all of those sorts of things.

00:32:03.000 But there's nothing that they can state unequivocally that another person can also stay.

00:32:10.000 And it becomes less true because they say it.

00:32:12.000 And I think the argument from authority has actually protected the ruling class from any sort of criticism.

00:32:18.000 Agreed.

00:32:18.000 Despite them being professionally wrong.

00:32:20.000 And so to be exactly right about something, it's actually a very low percentage percentage correlation.

00:32:26.000 And so Trump's not going to run for president.

00:32:28.000 Trump won't win.

00:32:29.000 Trump will not beat the Bush dynasty or the Clinton dynasty, all these things.

00:32:32.000 And these same people that have gotten all these things wrong professionally for the last five years, we still keep them in, and we still call them experts.

00:32:38.000 Like, oh, yeah, experts. 0.86

00:32:39.000 It's ridiculous. 0.92

00:32:40.000 And, but in a lot of different ways, the plumber in Asheville, North Carolina had way more wisdom about the future of the political process than some silly Berkeley PhD person who hates America and was just basically so angry that Trump might be president, he just wanted to project it onto the world. 0.92

00:32:58.000 And I think we're seeing a big disruption of that.

00:32:59.000 And I think it's very healthy.

00:33:00.000 And I think your candidacy embodies that.

00:33:02.000 You know, I agree.

00:33:03.000 And I also want to touch on that plumber in Asheville, North Carolina a little bit more.

00:33:07.000 Because you know what?

00:33:10.000 I believe our education system, pushing people to go to these extraordinarily expensive, which are federally guaranteed loans, let me remind you, funded.

00:33:19.000 Got to get rid of that.

00:33:20.000 You go to these higher education institutions, and then you're basically going to be forced to be a perpetual renter for the rest of your life.

00:33:27.000 You will never own anything because as long as you are in debt, you cannot build wealth.

00:33:27.000 That's exactly right.

00:33:31.000 You're either accepting interest or you are paying interest.

00:33:35.000 And let me tell you, the problem is with everyone taking these student loans, which you can't even get out of through bankruptcy, they follow you to the grave.

00:33:43.000 Everyone taking all of these ginormous student loans, it keeps people dependent on the government because they're never going to be able to create the wealth to have the freedom that they want.

00:33:55.000 You're exactly right.

00:33:56.000 And so we, in the 60s, really, we as Republicans don't brag on Dwight D. Eisenhower enough.

00:34:01.000 That's one of my big new things.

00:34:04.000 Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of the greatest presidents in American history, was a Republican, fought against segregation, brought in federal troops to desegregate the armed forces, built the interstate system, oversaw the greatest economic renaissance.

00:34:15.000 And one of the biggest things he talked about is how middle-class wealth must be around equity building, not on debt accumulation.

00:34:22.000 And he talked about this.

00:34:23.000 And he, post-World War II, he was a communicator of peace and prosperity.

00:34:30.000 And people that lived through the Eisenhower era felt a very stable society that was growing with a national ethos and a purpose of rebuilding.

00:34:36.000 And we just have forgotten about that as Republicans in a lot of ways.

00:34:39.000 And I think that's a mistake.

00:34:40.000 And what's really important is that we have now, in a lot of different ways, we have hypnotized ourselves to just continue to amass massive debt burdens and not try to actually build institutional wealth.

00:34:53.000 And that's why I think that we the more that we become a renting society, especially for young people, the more liberal and socialistic they actually become.

00:35:03.000 It's these high-rise buildings.

00:35:05.000 And I'm really radical on this.

00:35:05.000 Exactly.

00:35:07.000 You and I talked about this yesterday.

00:35:08.000 I think that the Republican Party should say no more buildings over 10 stories for like five years.

00:35:12.000 And I know that sounds like really extreme, but when you think about it, every time a story, you know, building goes over a certain level, you're going to have a higher likelihood of those people being very far left wing because it's the tragedy of the commons.

00:35:25.000 They don't own it.

00:35:26.000 They really don't have much regard for what's around them.

00:35:28.000 Like, oh, the park, someone will take care of that.

00:35:30.000 The school, someone will take care of that.

00:35:31.000 But if you go to Mahalis, Arizona, or you go to Pueblo, Colorado, and you have to go build a ranch.

00:35:39.000 You really care about what happens around you.

00:35:42.000 By definition, you have to.

00:35:43.000 And then, even to a greater extent in the suburbs, you own, the less extent in the suburbs, you own that piece of land.

00:35:48.000 That is your property.

00:35:49.000 And I think that property ownership, as it has declined in our country, has been a really troubling trend.

00:35:55.000 And this is the, I'm so glad you're talking about this, Madison, because this is actual real life stuff that the Republican Party has decided not to talk about over the last 20 years.

00:36:02.000 It's all about the minor incremental increases we can get to the GDP.

00:36:08.000 Yeah, but that's what the American people are.

00:36:09.000 First of all, I just have to say this.

00:36:10.000 The GDP is not even the best metric to take.

00:36:12.000 It's insane.

00:36:13.000 I'm so sick and tired.

00:36:14.000 I mean, Jeb Bush, God bless his soul.

00:36:16.000 I actually think he's a generally okay person.

00:36:18.000 He's just so misguided.

00:36:19.000 And no energy at all, like zero, no energy.

00:36:23.000 And I know him.

00:36:24.000 He's nice and he's probably right on education, but his whole thing is like, we have to get back to 3.6% GDP.

00:36:30.000 You know how GDP is even factored?

00:36:32.000 The number one factor in a GDP is government spending.

00:36:34.000 Number one.

00:36:34.000 There's a number one contributing variable into the factor of GDP.

00:36:39.000 And then it doesn't count wage growth.

00:36:41.000 It doesn't count how long you actually have to work to be able to sustain a family or debt or any of that.

00:36:46.000 All they care about is macroeconomic growth.

00:36:48.000 Anyway, you were saying something and I was bashing on the GDP metric.

00:36:51.000 No, no, we were talking about the same thing: the fact that I believe, you know, what you and I are talking about right now, it's what people actually care about.

00:36:59.000 I care about dining room politics.

00:37:02.000 When my brother, who has got four beautiful little daughters who are my nieces, they're great.

00:37:06.000 I care about when he is sitting around the dining room table with his beautiful little family, that those girls have food, that him and his wife know if they want to go out and see a movie, they can because they feel safe in this society to go out and do so.

00:37:21.000 And I care about the issues that matter to them.

00:37:24.000 And let me tell you, incremental changes to the GDP do not matter to them where they're sitting.

00:37:29.000 My brother's a financial advisor, and so obviously he cares about finances a lot, but I care about what happens to the middle-class American family.

00:37:37.000 And that's where the Republicans need to get back to. 0.67

00:37:39.000 I totally agree.

00:37:40.000 And your district represents them.

00:37:41.000 And so people say, well, how on earth is it that young people are becoming so socialistic?

00:37:46.000 And of course, part of it, a big part of it, is you send them to these universities where they professionally hate America.

00:37:51.000 But also there's an economic component of it.

00:37:53.000 And we, as Republicans, have just kind of ignored this.

00:37:55.000 And Donald Trump saw this so beautifully and so clearly, which is you have a 28-year-old who did what he was supposed to do, right?

00:38:01.000 He went into debt, went to Clemson, you know, or wherever he went, University of Florida, and studied something that he wasn't really passionate about.

00:38:08.000 But everyone told him you have to get that piece of paper.

00:38:10.000 And then he gets very, you know, he gets employed maybe, but he's getting underpaid.

00:38:15.000 And he definitely can't save any of his money because he has to pay off his student debt and everything costs so much.

00:38:20.000 He definitely can't even go buy a car, let alone a home, let alone have kids.

00:38:23.000 By the time that person turns 31, 32, when someone comes around in grievance-based politics and is like, I'm going to wipe your debt away and you might actually live a more meaningful life, it actually resonates.

00:38:32.000 It does.

00:38:33.000 And we, as Republicans, you know, we don't recognize there's a huge economic component to this and that not every single human being is going to be able to engage perfectly in the information sharing economy.

00:38:45.000 There's actually a huge labor gap in our country for plumbers and for carpenters and for HVAC and for people that lay tile.

00:38:53.000 And we have demeaned those trades a lot.

00:38:55.000 We've dishonored them to the point that people don't want to have them.

00:38:58.000 You know, in my very first debate for this congressional runoff, I think it was back in February.

00:39:04.000 We were sitting there and our moderator had gone through all the questions, but then we went to this moment where people in the crowd could ask.

00:39:09.000 And there were a few hundred people, maybe four or five hundred people there.

00:39:12.000 And anyways, there's this young woman who stood up and she said, you know, my daughter, she graduated, she has her master's degree.

00:39:20.000 And she just found out that this person who paints this factory right down the road from her, just literally painting the walls outside, is making more money an hour than she is.

00:39:29.000 So how are we going to fix that? 0.56

00:39:31.000 And, you know, a lot of the other opponents gave their answers of how they thought, you know, we could make sure that that woman could find a meaningful work.

00:39:39.000 And I said, you know what?

00:39:41.000 I think the number one problem right now is that you believe that just because your daughter has a master's degree, she should be making more money than that guy who's created that painting business is out there busting his butt to be able to make money for his family and to better society.

00:39:55.000 And so I think we've got to stop dishonoring tradesmen.

00:39:58.000 And that's why trade skills.

00:39:59.000 Yes.

00:40:00.000 You won because you actually answered the question honestly, unlike the other political class where they want to protect the master's degree. 0.98

00:40:06.000 Like, no, maybe you studied something stupid, and maybe the guy that's doing something with his hands actually is delivering more value to America. 0.95

00:40:12.000 You know, I want to touch on that. 0.99

00:40:13.000 You were talking about Eisenhower just a moment ago.

00:40:15.000 He's a phenomenal president.

00:40:16.000 Incredible.

00:40:16.000 But you mentioned something that there was this Renaissance, you know, he created the system, the Renaissance that comes to the United States.

00:40:22.000 Degregation of America.

00:40:23.000 One big thing you mentioned was that we had a national ethos.

00:40:27.000 Yes.

00:40:28.000 And Charlie, let's touch on that right now.

00:40:31.000 Let's define what a great national ethos could be.

00:40:34.000 Because, you know, I think in our country, so many people are just, it's that classic saying, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

00:40:41.000 I think so many people in our country do not have a true north.

00:40:44.000 They don't have a compass.

00:40:45.000 You know, me and many of my friends, we all wear these compass necklaces.

00:40:50.000 It's a compass that we wear around our necks.

00:40:51.000 And it's to remind us that we have a true north, that we know the direction we're going and that we know that, you know, we have a mission statement for our life.

00:41:00.000 So anytime we have to make a decision, we can just, you know, compare that decision to this narrowly defined one or two sentence mission statement.

00:41:07.000 Say, does this get me closer to that?

00:41:09.000 Does this get me closer to where I want to go in my life?

00:41:12.000 And do you know right from wrong?

00:41:14.000 You know, I think the only way you can truly know right from wrong is if you have a relationship with God.

00:41:19.000 Amen.

00:41:20.000 And Jesus Christ.

00:41:21.000 And of course, with Jesus Christ.

00:41:22.000 But I think that we have gotten so far away from that in the United States.

00:41:27.000 We have made God so small that people don't have that ethos anymore.

00:41:27.000 Yes.

00:41:31.000 And that's why we need big government because if people can't self-govern, they need a big government.

00:41:35.000 Well, we don't need it.

00:41:36.000 That's why they replace it.

00:41:37.000 But yeah, that's exactly right.

00:41:39.000 I know exactly what you're saying.

00:41:40.000 And I think that it's so important because in the 70s and 80s, we became so, because of Reagan, we became so phenomenally rich.

00:41:46.000 And God bless Reagan for that.

00:41:48.000 The downside of that, though, is that we became, I think, overly materialistic.

00:41:52.000 We decided to just get points on the deal, send our factories to China because a couple firms will really benefit from that.

00:41:58.000 And we didn't really realize the secondary and tertiary costs.

00:42:02.000 And when you shut down a factory in Boone, North Carolina, or in Asheville, North Carolina, or in Toledo, Ohio, and 600 jobs just disappear, well, the statistics show that 100 of those 600 people are going to stay perpetually unemployed for the rest of their life.

00:42:16.000 And 50 of those 600 people will probably either get into alcoholism or drug addiction.

00:42:21.000 Well, then they become a really issue for all of us.

00:42:24.000 Tax burden-wise, social fabric falls apart.

00:42:26.000 Divorces start to incur.

00:42:28.000 You know, domestic abuse skyrockets.

00:42:30.000 The school funding has issues. 0.99

00:42:31.000 And so we, as conservatives, we kind of fell in love with this endless materialistic import culture from China where decadence. 0.97

00:42:39.000 And it's really interesting. 0.97

00:42:40.000 I drive through suburban America and you guys have all seen this phenomenon.

00:42:43.000 And it's really troubling.

00:42:45.000 And it was always branded as a good thing.

00:42:46.000 And I don't think it is.

00:42:47.000 Where we have these garage sales and other countries really don't understand this culture we have in America where we basically say, take everything you can out of my house.

00:42:55.000 I'll give you a dollar for this.

00:42:57.000 And it shows, you know, I always love stopping at these garage sales and asking them, well, so why did you buy all this stuff?

00:43:04.000 Like, I don't know, Christmas gifts.

00:43:06.000 Like, I buy all this stuff.

00:43:07.000 Well, do you have any allegiance to this stuff?

00:43:07.000 Like, okay.

00:43:10.000 No, some of the stuff I've never even used.

00:43:12.000 We all know this stuff, right?

00:43:13.000 I never even wore this stuff.

00:43:14.000 I never did this.

00:43:15.000 It's like piles and piles of plastic garbage, right?

00:43:19.000 And then I asked him, I said, so if all this just went away and you knew that you would have just a little bit stronger community, would you be okay with that?

00:43:27.000 Like, of course.

00:43:28.000 And I think that's the conversation we need to have. 0.98

00:43:30.000 Like, what if you had half as much plastic crap as you have right now and you'd have a flourishing community? 0.97

00:43:35.000 And you had a relationship with your neighbor. 0.91

00:43:37.000 Yeah, and a neighbor, and a school that was properly funded and put together, and just a church that didn't have to beg for ties at the end of the year because there was actually middle-class wages.

00:43:48.000 Do you mind your kids walking down the street?

00:43:50.000 Exactly right. 0.98

00:43:51.000 Crime goes up when you send a factory to China. 0.98

00:43:54.000 Everything goes up. 0.98

00:43:54.000 Yeah, everything. 0.98

00:43:55.000 And what do we got in return is we overcompensated that.

00:43:58.000 Oh, we need as much materialistic stuff as possible.

00:44:00.000 And I'm not saying that's all bad.

00:44:01.000 I'm sure some of it's good.

00:44:03.000 But we have to go rent self-storage spaces to store our garbage and stuff that we don't care about.

00:44:12.000 And I think that's a really important conversation that the Republicans have always stayed away from.

00:44:16.000 Like, oh, no, GDP.

00:44:17.000 Like, well, GDP just means, in some ways, just more, you know, I don't know, Lego castles that you're never going to use or, you know, just dusty old, you know, shoes that don't yield allegiance to.

00:44:29.000 But the point is, this is that the country, I think, has to get back to a place of self-sufficiency, of production, but also what do we value, right?

00:44:36.000 Are we a country that has an economy in it, or are we an economy that happens to be in a country?

00:44:43.000 And in some ways, we're a country first, aren't we?

00:44:45.000 I mean, if you look at the Constitution, it's very clear that these are our values of a country and a fabric and a moral people, and that the economy will do whatever it wants.

00:44:53.000 And it should.

00:44:54.000 And I think that if we're serious about saving the fabric of America, we have to get back to that.

00:44:59.000 Agreed.

00:44:59.000 And Charlie, that all boils down to the home.

00:45:03.000 I really, really believe it does.

00:45:04.000 You know, I think that one of the greatest problems we have in our country is fatherless homes.

00:45:08.000 I could not agree more. 1.00

00:45:09.000 Yeah, especially in minority communities.

00:45:11.000 I really feel like.

00:45:12.000 And we subsidize father. 0.99

00:45:13.000 We subsidize fatherlessness because there are so many financial benefits to these young women to not get married and have more children because then they can get more subsidies for those children. 0.95

00:45:24.000 That's what I have. 0.96

00:45:25.000 And then, you know, you have a woman who has seven kids from three different fathers, but none of those dads are around.

00:45:33.000 And these children are all growing up.

00:45:34.000 You know, Charlie, I gave you a hatchet.

00:45:36.000 Thank you for that, by the way.

00:45:37.000 Yes, yeah.

00:45:37.000 But, you know, with that hatchet, it had one end that was a cutting in the blade.

00:45:42.000 The other side was the hammer.

00:45:43.000 And I had talked to you about how I really believe that in America, we're all like this.

00:45:48.000 And really all over the world.

00:45:49.000 But as men and women, we are all like that hatchet.

00:45:52.000 We have a destructive side, and we have also the propensity to be able to build something.

00:45:55.000 And let me tell you, I believe children who are raised in homes without strong discipline, and it's hard for a mother, although there's a lot of strong single mothers out there who do raise incredible children, are some of the best parents in the world.

00:46:08.000 It is very hard for someone to be the disciplinarian and also the loving figure in the home at the same time.

00:46:13.000 And that's why I think we have got to have a father and a mother in all the homes because these children are being raised and are not learning that, hey, you know what?

00:46:21.000 I need to be put in check.

00:46:22.000 I cannot be this destructive nature that is inside of our human flesh.

00:46:27.000 It's natural.

00:46:28.000 It's original sin.

00:46:29.000 It's original sin.

00:46:29.000 It's natural for us to destroy.

00:46:31.000 It's unnatural for us to build, but it has to be cultivated.

00:46:34.000 And it's incredibly beautiful because God created that union for a reason.

00:46:38.000 Because if you look at it, just from the character attributions trait, the masculine and the feminine traits, they balance each other very beautifully. 0.66

00:46:46.000 And again, single mothers do a phenomenal job.

00:46:48.000 This is not an indictment of single mothers.

00:46:50.000 I always do the same sort of prefacing that you do.

00:46:54.000 However, every single study shows that a child that is raised by just a single mother is far more likely to go to prison, far more likely to commit crimes.

00:47:01.000 So there was a study done by the Illinois Bureau of Prisons where they went and they did a survey of current prisoners.

00:47:07.000 And 60% of rapists grew up without a father in the home, 70% of adolescent murderers, 75% of violent criminals.

00:47:13.000 I mean, you're talking about not just a majority, but basically almost the entire prison was no fathers.

00:47:18.000 And so who pays for the prisons?

00:47:20.000 We as the taxpayers.

00:47:21.000 And then who pays for rehabilitation and the disrupted family unity and the empty chair at Christmas when Uncle XYZ, Uncle Mark is not there because he had to, he robbed a 7-Eleven.

00:47:31.000 And you think, wow, if only Uncle Mark's father was there, then maybe that social cohesion would have stayed together. 0.55

00:47:37.000 I completely agree.

00:47:38.000 And also, I think that we have the hyper-feminization of America where, and society can get too masculine too.

00:47:44.000 Don't get me wrong. 0.99

00:47:45.000 Right, but saying that all masculinity is toxic, it's foolish. 0.99

00:47:49.000 It's dangerous. 0.99

00:47:49.000 It is pernicious. 0.99

00:47:50.000 It really is. 0.54

00:47:51.000 And so, but when a society gets too masculine, you get like Libya with Moamar Gaddafi.

00:47:55.000 Okay, like, so you don't want to.

00:47:56.000 Where all of a sudden you're like a dictator, like, that's bad.

00:47:58.000 Okay.

00:47:59.000 But like you were saying, the masculine side of people and the feminine side, they blend so well together.

00:48:04.000 And if you look just from a character attribution, you know, attribute standpoint, it works for a reason and it's designed intelligently by a creator to be able to balance it out, to be able to create children.

00:48:15.000 And so children that can exist in a very brutal and likely suffering environment.

00:48:21.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:48:22.000 I mean, and we also don't communicate that to our children.

00:48:24.000 And you know this, Madison.

00:48:26.000 We give our kids a false impression of life.

00:48:28.000 As if in a lot of, we lie to our kids and we teach them self-esteem, not self-control.

00:48:28.000 We do.

00:48:33.000 And like, you're the greatest thing in the world when they're 15 years old and they're really not.

00:48:36.000 And no one is.

00:48:37.000 But in reality, we should be like, here's how not to do that.

00:48:40.000 Here's how not to indulge.

00:48:42.000 Here's how to control yourself.

00:48:44.000 And I think self-control is a lot more important to teach than self-esteem.

00:48:47.000 And then, but if you do not have a two-parent household, it becomes incredibly more difficult.

00:48:51.000 And so it's really interesting.

00:48:53.000 And let's get into BLM because that's a big issue.

00:48:55.000 Oh, let's go.

00:48:56.000 And so.

00:48:57.000 Especially in my city right now.

00:48:58.000 Yeah, because you represent Asheville.

00:49:00.000 I do.

00:49:00.000 And Asheville just voted to have reparations.

00:49:02.000 And so I would love to get your opinion on that.

00:49:04.000 And you could, you know, as comfortable as you want to get with that, I can comment on it as well.

00:49:09.000 But I want to just first to close the point on the two-parent households. 0.65

00:49:12.000 A black child who is raised by a mother and a father is more likely to succeed economically and else otherwise than a white kid that is raised by just a single mother.

00:49:21.000 And so it's really two-parent privilege that we talk about, not skin color privilege.

00:49:24.000 So let's transition.

00:49:25.000 Asheville, North Carolina.

00:49:27.000 Reparations.

00:49:28.000 Unanimously?

00:49:29.000 Unanimously, 7-0.

00:49:31.000 7-0, city council to give reparations to the descendants of slaves.

00:49:36.000 And now I would say that.

00:49:37.000 Is that correct?

00:49:37.000 I'm just reparing it.

00:49:39.000 So they have transitioned to where it's going to be to all of the African Americans in our community.

00:49:46.000 So let me just ask a very simple question, and you can just not answer.

00:49:51.000 Like a recent immigrant from Nigeria, are they part of that?

00:49:53.000 They are part of that.

00:49:56.000 So if you read the actual text that they have written, it's basically what Senator Tim Scott and President Trump have been doing, which is an opportunity zone.

00:50:06.000 It's basically the exact same thing. 0.52

00:50:08.000 They're saying that they just want to take money and give it to historical black and lower income areas that are predominantly black. 0.91

00:50:17.000 But that, so you can hear them be like, okay, well, that's helpful.

00:50:20.000 Yeah, of course, let's invest in communities.

00:50:23.000 But where it gets so dangerous is when they actually named it reparations.

00:50:27.000 This is setting such a dangerous precedent.

00:50:30.000 One, this is setting a precedent that, hey, you are a victim. 0.77

00:50:34.000 For the rest of your life, you're a victim no matter who you are because of your skin color. 0.75

00:50:37.000 You have a victimhood mentality, not a victor's mentality. 0.69

00:50:41.000 And so that's terrible for our society as a whole.

00:50:44.000 But on another part, it's saying that they are owed something.

00:50:48.000 Did we not pay enough when 600,000 Americans died to free slaves?

00:50:53.000 We are the only country, aside from, I believe, Haiti, that fought an actual war to free slaves.

00:51:01.000 Yeah, and so I just have some very basic questions about reparations, and maybe you can ask them on behalf of the Asheville City Council.

00:51:07.000 What happens if someone's half black, half white?

00:51:08.000 Do they pay themselves? 1.00

00:51:09.000 I mean, I don't really understand how that works.

00:51:11.000 Keep going with your questions.

00:51:12.000 I see where you're going, but I'm just trying to infuse some critical thinking.

00:51:18.000 No, here's another question.

00:51:19.000 What about a white immigrant from South Africa? 0.58

00:51:21.000 Do they get reparations?

00:51:22.000 Because they're African-American.

00:51:23.000 They're African-American. 0.99

00:51:24.000 I mean, that's a little. 1.00

00:51:26.000 I mean, so that would be an interesting thing to see.

00:51:29.000 And more interestingly, do the Asian Americans get reparations because they were put in concentration camps?

00:51:34.000 But no, it's only, it doesn't fit their narrative.

00:51:36.000 How about Jewish individuals who literally had an extermination order against them?

00:51:39.000 The incredible thing about Jews in the world is there are still not as many Jews in America today, in the world today, as there were prior to the Holocaust.

00:51:47.000 Just think about that.

00:51:48.000 You want to talk about extermination?

00:51:48.000 Wow.

00:51:49.000 Wow. 0.76

00:51:50.000 The Jewish population worldwide has still not repopulated themselves to the level prior to the Holocaust. 1.00

00:51:56.000 That's incredible. 0.99

00:51:57.000 And so I think it's incredibly, I'd love to get the answer by the Asheville City Council of what is their criteria of the necessary form of oppression that didn't happen to you, but happened to someone that was related to you to get a redistributed check from the government.

00:52:09.000 I want to know the criteria because then once I have the criteria, and if it's their skin color, then LeBron James, if he lived in Asheville, North Carolina, or Michael Jordan even better, would get reparations, right?

00:52:18.000 It doesn't make any sense.

00:52:20.000 Because if Michael Jordan had a beautiful mansion in Asheville, I don't know if he does or does.

00:52:20.000 Is it income?

00:52:24.000 Probably not.

00:52:24.000 It's probably different from North Carolina.

00:52:25.000 I guess he would get a check.

00:52:29.000 This is the murkiness that we're walking into with the far-left liberals.

00:52:33.000 There's no definitions.

00:52:35.000 And this is why it's so hard to debate a liberal, and I'm sure that you can agree with that.

00:52:38.000 Yeah, I've done it once or twice.

00:52:40.000 Really, I think I saw a video of you one time on a college campus or something like that.

00:52:43.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:52:44.000 But we can never agree on the definition of terms.

00:52:48.000 And so whenever they feel like they're losing an argument, they just change the terms of an argument.

00:52:52.000 And that's why it's so hard to have a rational conversation.

00:52:54.000 Well, and so you make a great point about the American Civil War, and we did fight a bloody civil war.

00:52:58.000 But even before that, we don't teach our history correctly.

00:53:01.000 And even some conservative organizations have played into this 1619 lie that our country was founded in 1619, which is a complete and total pernicious lie.

00:53:10.000 Some conservative organizations have written op-eds saying that our country is 400 years old.

00:53:14.000 And I don't say any names on air.

00:53:17.000 I believe in Reagan's 11th Commandment.

00:53:18.000 You don't speak ill of another conservative Republican, but happy to fill people in privately.

00:53:22.000 You can figure it out yourself.

00:53:23.000 And this is so incredibly wrong.

00:53:25.000 And so they say, well, our country was founded on slavery.

00:53:28.000 But if you actually look at the Constitutional Compromise, there is a huge agreement that slavery was at its end.

00:53:33.000 I mean, in the founding of our country, we almost didn't have a compromise to form the 13 colonies because of slavery.

00:53:38.000 The northern states were like, we don't want this.

00:53:40.000 Vermont abolished slavery in 1777.

00:53:42.000 And a lesser not talked about provision of the United States Constitution was actually the Sunset Clause on the import of slavery.

00:53:48.000 It's Article 1, Section 6, something, and we can get the exact article.

00:53:52.000 But what's interesting is that Thomas Jefferson, right, like the worst president ever, according to the left, who's on Mount Rushmore and his statues are being torn down, they say, oh, he's a slave owner.

00:53:59.000 Like, hold on a second. 0.93

00:53:59.000 He's horrible. 0.93

00:54:00.000 What president signed the end of the American slave trade?

00:54:03.000 Tell me who that is and what year.

00:54:04.000 They won't tell you because they're the left.

00:54:06.000 It's Thomas Jefferson.

00:54:07.000 Thomas Jefferson signed the end of importing slaves in 1807, the day that the 20-year, the 20-year window actually elapsed.

00:54:15.000 So in the Constitution, it's still there.

00:54:17.000 In that specific article, they said, okay, we're only doing the slavery thing for these southern states.

00:54:22.000 We totally disagree.

00:54:23.000 You got 20 years and 20 years and one day, it's getting done.

00:54:27.000 It's over with.

00:54:28.000 And that promise was fulfilled by Thomas Jefferson himself.

00:54:30.000 He signed the end of the slave trade.

00:54:31.000 So our country is founded on the end of slavery, not on slavery.

00:54:34.000 And it's a beautiful history.

00:54:35.000 And they say, well, what about the three-fifths compromise?

00:54:37.000 Like, hold on a second.

00:54:38.000 Understand the history of the three-fifths compromise. 0.55

00:54:40.000 The South, who did not have good intentions at all, they're like, no, let's count slaves as fully people, and then we can get more power. 0.62

00:54:48.000 We can make slavery there forever.

00:54:50.000 And that was the reason why they wanted, they didn't actually want to give dignity or the voting rights.

00:54:54.000 They wanted just for population counting.

00:54:55.000 That was the reason they wanted it.

00:54:57.000 And of course, that never gets clearly communicated either as well.

00:55:01.000 So I know that's kind of a tangent there, but can you just expound, Madison, on the founding of our country, how beautiful it is, how exceptional it is, and how we need to communicate that.

00:55:10.000 We do.

00:55:10.000 I think the big problem is, you know, with the Federal Department of Education being formed back in the 70s, I think the worst crime that it has committed is that it changes what our schools focus on in history class.

00:55:21.000 They focus on some atrocities.

00:55:23.000 I believe what's going on is our history classes are focusing on the wrong thing.

00:55:27.000 So, you know, there's this Project 1619, which is the first time.

00:55:30.000 Yes, New York Times project.

00:55:31.000 That's right.

00:55:32.000 But I feel like what the left is doing, it's more, I call it the Project 1692.

00:55:32.000 Yeah.

00:55:37.000 What they're doing more, it's more like Salem Witch trials.

00:55:40.000 Wow.

00:55:40.000 You know, they are looking for something that doesn't exist.

00:55:43.000 They're saying, hey, every single Republican is already a racist.

00:55:46.000 I know they've said that about you.

00:55:47.000 I know they said that about me. 0.95

00:55:48.000 They said that, you know, we probably want to run lynch mobs and all kinds of, it's ridiculous. 1.00

00:55:53.000 I think racism is repugnant and disgusting. 1.00

00:55:55.000 It's sinful. 1.00

00:55:55.000 And the left are racist. 1.00

00:55:56.000 But they want to hunt us down, and they want to say they're racist. 0.92

00:56:00.000 We need to take them out.

00:56:01.000 Yet they're the ones who try to divide us on race the most.

00:56:04.000 And I have a very strong opinion on this, and I've come to this recently, and it worked on a recent cable television appearance.

00:56:10.000 The left doesn't know how to handle it when you call them racist because they are.

00:56:13.000 And I'm done being called the worst thing you can call a human being while they're the ones that are actually racists. 0.96

00:56:18.000 And so every time you encounter them, you say, you're an unbelievably bitter racist.

00:56:21.000 And have them defend themselves because it's an awful thing to do, but they're actually racist. 0.95

00:56:25.000 They defend the Smithsonian document on whiteness.

00:56:28.000 You know, they're saying that showing up on time, speaking clearly, and working hard are attributes of whiteness.

00:56:34.000 I can't make any difference between that.

00:56:37.000 What?

00:56:38.000 Oh, you didn't hear about this?

00:56:39.000 This was the Smithsonian Museum, African American History Museum, funded by your tax dollars.

00:56:42.000 They recently took it down because we went so hard after it on cable television and otherwise.

00:56:47.000 And basically, they had a document that said that speaking clear English, showing up to work on time, working hard, individual initiative, going to church are attributes of whiteness.

00:56:56.000 And the interesting part is you had liberals defending it. 0.65

00:56:58.000 I said, if I just took your quote and copy-pasted it to a KKK leader in 1870s, there'd be no difference, right?

00:57:04.000 Basically, you're just arguing for racial hierarchy and supremacy.

00:57:08.000 I reject that because the Republican Party has always been on the side.

00:57:11.000 They've always been on actual racial equality, unlike you racists, and that's what they are.

00:57:16.000 And I have no tolerance for that.

00:57:17.000 But it's really interesting because the left has always been hyper-fixated on race.

00:57:20.000 And we as conservatives have always actually been hyper-fixated on colours.

00:57:23.000 That just makes me so upset.

00:57:24.000 My fiancé is, she works, we won't go into too many details about what she does, but she works in the medical field.

00:57:29.000 She's incredible, incredible.

00:57:31.000 She's also African-American.

00:57:33.000 And so for them, someone to come in and say, oh, you know what, people who show up on time, speak clearly, work hard, that's attributes of white people.

00:57:39.000 That's not you. 0.78

00:57:40.000 They want to tell that to my fiancé.

00:57:42.000 I'll defend her very aggressively. 0.99

00:57:44.000 But also, the fact that I am going to have children that are going to be biracial, you want to go ahead and give them this victimhood mentality. 1.00

00:57:54.000 This is disgusting. 0.96

00:57:57.000 It's an abomination what the Democrats are trying to do. 0.85

00:57:59.000 And they want these people to constantly be in need for the government.

00:58:02.000 They don't ever want them to be able to stand on their own.

00:58:04.000 And what's interesting, Madison, I've talked about this before, and I want to do this kind of fun thought exercise for you because we, and I recently came to it because I've been reading Orwell.

00:58:12.000 I encourage all of you to read Orwell.

00:58:13.000 It's just so clarifying.

00:58:14.000 And 1984 is probably the most dystopian prophetic novel.

00:58:18.000 And now, but now it seems so real.

00:58:21.000 I feel like I'm reading the New York Times.

00:58:23.000 I'm reading the daily news.

00:58:25.000 It's like, this is happening today.

00:58:27.000 And so Orwell was actually a socialist, allegedly.

00:58:30.000 And then he saw what the socialists were all about, went to the coal mines in northern England and saw the move.

00:58:34.000 And he's like, this is way more about hating the rich than helping the poor.

00:58:37.000 Anyway, Orwell wrote 1984.

00:58:39.000 And we always talk about 84 in just terms of surveillance, right?

00:58:42.000 But there are a lot other little amazing pieces of wisdom here.

00:58:45.000 So we always say the left lies, right?

00:58:47.000 The left lie.

00:58:47.000 And it's actually worse than that because a lie would be this.

00:58:51.000 So let's pretend Madison is eating some Oreos, right?

00:58:53.000 And I come up and I say, hey, Madison, how many Oreos did you eat?

00:58:56.000 And you really ate 10, but you said, I ate three.

00:58:58.000 Right.

00:58:59.000 Okay.

00:58:59.000 That would be a lie.

00:59:00.000 And so then here's what the left does.

00:59:02.000 It's actually called double speak or double think.

00:59:04.000 It's an Orwellian term, right?

00:59:05.000 I come up and say, hey, Madison, how many Oreos did you eat?

00:59:08.000 And you have crumbs.

00:59:09.000 I ate three.

00:59:09.000 You have crumbs all over, and you say, No, no, no, you ate the Oreos.

00:59:13.000 No, no, I didn't.

00:59:13.000 No, you're eating Oreos right now.

00:59:15.000 No, no, no, you ate them.

00:59:16.000 See, you eat them.

00:59:17.000 No, I don't.

00:59:18.000 Like, I literally see you're eating the Oreos.

00:59:20.000 No, no, you ate the Oreos.

00:59:21.000 That's what the left does every single day.

00:59:22.000 That's not lying.

00:59:23.000 It's actually, it's a completely different thing.

00:59:25.000 That is what they do on a daily basis.

00:59:27.000 It's double speak. 0.97

00:59:28.000 It's so incredibly.

00:59:30.000 And actually, psychologically, Orwell talked about this.

00:59:32.000 We're not prepared for that.

00:59:34.000 Like, we can deal with lies, right?

00:59:35.000 Like, oh, this doesn't matter.

00:59:37.000 Okay, like, we kind of had, but when all of a sudden it becomes so projected on the opposite of what the other person is doing, we get just so disarmed.

00:59:43.000 And in fact, Orwell argued that's how you can control a population because we're not psychologically prepared for that kind of brutal attack on our psyche.

00:59:51.000 Exactly.

00:59:52.000 Exactly.

00:59:52.000 To just instantly be called the exact opposite of what you are.

00:59:55.000 Exactly.

00:59:55.000 I mean, it's sure we're always ready to defend a defeat a lie.

00:59:59.000 You tell me the sky's green.

01:00:00.000 I'm like, oh, no, I can see it on the other side.

01:00:02.000 Right.

01:00:02.000 Exactly.

01:00:03.000 Yeah, but do you tell me you're green?

01:00:05.000 No, no, I'm not. 0.81

01:00:06.000 Like, I'm not.

01:00:07.000 And I promise I'm not a racist.

01:00:09.000 Like, that's basically where we get in, right?

01:00:10.000 And then people, they start, their arms start flapping, and then all of a sudden they get exasperated.

01:00:14.000 And conservatives then.

01:00:16.000 And then the Democrats say, well, why are you getting so defensive?

01:00:18.000 Right, precisely.

01:00:19.000 Yeah.

01:00:19.000 And because I actually care about what you're saying.

01:00:21.000 So I want to get into some issues here, Madison, and I'm willing to stay here as long as you're cracking down.

01:00:25.000 Let's go.

01:00:26.000 So what's great?

01:00:27.000 Well, again, we have plenty of time on my schedule.

01:00:29.000 I want to be respectful of your time, but we're good.

01:00:32.000 So, okay.

01:00:32.000 And this is kind of like Rogan style.

01:00:34.000 This will be good.

01:00:35.000 So let's just go issue by issue, if that's okay. 0.92

01:00:37.000 Abortion.

01:00:39.000 Abortion is an archaic ruling from the Roe v. Raid ruling from the Supreme Court is archaic.

01:00:44.000 One, we didn't even have the ability to do an ultrasound at that time. 0.97

01:00:48.000 So now women can look inside their wombs. 0.99

01:00:50.000 They can see that this baby has a heartbeat.

01:00:52.000 They can see that this lump of cells literally defends itself and reacts to pain.

01:00:58.000 If you tell me that's not a life, we can't agree on that.

01:01:01.000 And I'll give you a fun thing.

01:01:03.000 It's really interesting.

01:01:04.000 We do this all the time, and I encourage you guys to email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.

01:01:07.000 Any thoughts for Madison?

01:01:09.000 I learned something from Rush when we did the show: the combined intelligence of America is greater than one single host.

01:01:15.000 So some of the greatest pieces of wisdom I get are just random listeners that email me.

01:01:19.000 And so we were at the March for Life, Erica and I, with Falkirk at Liberty University of Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty.

01:01:24.000 And there was this eight-year-old girl who came up with her own sign.

01:01:27.000 I'll never forget it.

01:01:28.000 There was more wisdom in that sign than the halls of Yale.

01:01:31.000 And it was at the March for Life, and she had this poster.

01:01:34.000 And it was so beautifully put.

01:01:35.000 She said, if it's not your DNA, it's not your choice.

01:01:39.000 Whoa. 0.63

01:01:39.000 It's like, that's so perfect. 0.63

01:01:41.000 And I go up to her.

01:01:42.000 I'm like, who came up that?

01:01:42.000 She's like, I just thought of it.

01:01:44.000 I'm like, this is perfect.

01:01:46.000 I was like, that is so well.

01:01:48.000 It's not your DNA.

01:01:49.000 It's the future of America is going to be strong.

01:01:50.000 Right.

01:01:51.000 And but also, it's really interesting.

01:01:52.000 There's a whole there's very insightful.

01:01:54.000 But I think that it goes to show that if it isn't your specific composition of DNA, then do you really have the choice to disclose it?

01:02:01.000 Of course, it's murder.

01:02:02.000 It really is.

01:02:03.000 And it's hard to be able to call it out for exactly what it is because I'm sure, like you, I know many people who've had an abortion.

01:02:09.000 Well, yeah, and I think we need to be more compassionate people that have had abortions.

01:02:13.000 I think that we get to fire and brimstoney now. 0.53

01:02:16.000 Agreed.

01:02:17.000 But I will tell you that we have got to, while being compassionate to them, we have got to fight hard against it because this is a genocide that's happening on our soil.

01:02:25.000 It's sad.

01:02:26.000 We allow a million abortions a year. 0.85

01:02:28.000 The black birth rate completely has flatlined.

01:02:31.000 The black population is 14%, 14 to 15% of the American population.

01:02:35.000 And about half of that are women, 6 to 7%.

01:02:37.000 Half of that are infant-bearing age.

01:02:39.000 And so it's about 3% to 4% of the American population, which comprise about 47% of all the abortions in the country. 0.94

01:02:45.000 So there are 470,000 black abortions every single year, which I think is just inconscionable. 0.93

01:02:51.000 So just to give you an idea of what that means, if you go to New York City in particular and you see a pregnant woman on a subway, she's more likely going to the Planned Parenthood Clinic than the delivery room. 0.86

01:02:59.000 So abortion was promised as being safe, legal, and rare, and it now has become abundant.

01:03:05.000 It's a contraceptive part of birth control.

01:03:07.000 And I just think that so I'm glad to hear your position on that.

01:03:11.000 Firearms, Second Amendment.

01:03:13.000 Well, you know what?

01:03:14.000 Charlie, you know, it's written so you like hunting, right?

01:03:17.000 I do, yes.

01:03:18.000 Right, but that is not what the Second Amendment is about.

01:03:22.000 It's not about having a sporting rifle or going out and shooting clays or shooting does, although I enjoy all of those things.

01:03:28.000 The Second Amendment is a very grave and very serious amendment on our Constitution because it is designed for us as citizens to be able to stand up to a tyrannical government.

01:03:37.000 Because trust me, a tyrannical government is coming.

01:03:40.000 I'm not saying it's coming tomorrow.

01:03:41.000 I'm not saying it's coming in 10 years.

01:03:43.000 But there are greedy people who always want more power and they will stop at no ends to get that.

01:03:48.000 And so the greatest weapon we have to be able to fight against that is having a firepower in our own possessions, in citizens' possessions, to where we can offset and counterbalance the military.

01:03:59.000 Yeah, and this revisionist history by the left, that somehow we've never seen a usurptatious government.

01:04:03.000 I mean, just look at the 20th century.

01:04:05.000 I mean, every single continent, they disarm the citizenry and then they take complete and total power. 0.95

01:04:11.000 I mean, just imagine how the negotiation would be different in Hong Kong if they all had AR-15s. 0.99

01:04:18.000 Oh, yeah. 0.75

01:04:18.000 They would be like, you know what? 0.75

01:04:20.000 You guys can have your own country.

01:04:21.000 All of a sudden, sovereignty is recognized when the people are armed.

01:04:24.000 And actually, it's interesting.

01:04:25.000 If people are armed, it actually dissuades conflict.

01:04:28.000 It actually prevents conflict.

01:04:30.000 An armed society is a polite society.

01:04:32.000 I genuinely believe that. 0.76

01:04:33.000 There you go.

01:04:34.000 You do represent Western North Carolina.

01:04:36.000 So that is very, very clear.

01:04:39.000 So, any other thoughts on the Second Amendment?

01:04:41.000 I always say there's no First Amendment without the Second Amendment.

01:04:44.000 No, we actually released a really great video on the campaign where we were saying if we lose the Second Amendment and the end line's great, the first will fall.

01:04:51.000 Yeah, I mean, just right away.

01:04:53.000 But, you know, I honestly believe that the Second Amendment, it's women's rights.

01:04:58.000 It's rights for its disabled rights.

01:05:00.000 Because let me tell you, just as it works in a nation when people are armed, they have sovereignty.

01:05:05.000 But I'll tell you, I mean, you know, I'm able to defend myself in a wheelchair because I have a firearm.

01:05:11.000 And that dissuades people from ever coming up and wanting to mug me or hurt me or do anything like that because they know that I can defend myself even though I'm in this position.

01:05:20.000 I mean, there's a funny saying, which always gets a chuckle, but I think it's relatively pretty true.

01:05:24.000 God created all men, Smith and Weston made them equal. 0.53

01:05:26.000 That's very funny.

01:05:28.000 But it's something that I think is pertinent to the weak being able to defend themselves.

01:05:33.000 Yes, and that is a common theme, as you guys can tell, is: are we allowing the weak to be unfairly attacked by the strong, whether it be in the womb, whether it be in the streets, whether it, what do we do for those that can't defend themselves against the strong?

01:05:47.000 And I think that's what it means to be a conservative, right?

01:05:49.000 Standing up against the exploitation of the weak when the strong decides to be tyrannical.

01:05:54.000 And Charlie, you know, I'm not trying to sit here and say that you and I are strong, but I think you and I share that same passion to where we believe it is the God-mandated duty of the strong to protect the weak.

01:06:03.000 Amen.

01:06:03.000 And I think that's why you and I both probably wake up and work 18-hour days because we care so much about our fellow man that we want to work.

01:06:11.000 We will give our blood, sweat, and tears, our treasure.

01:06:14.000 We will give ourselves to be able to defend the weak and give them a better society.

01:06:18.000 Tyranny should never be allowed to exist without good people standing up against it.

01:06:24.000 When tyranny, even in the micro-tyranny, you know, a boss that is tyrannical or a neighbor and you don't do something about it, you're basically tolerating that tyranny to continue to grow.

01:06:33.000 And I have a very extended theory on how the Soviet Union actually came to be: is once they saw Lenin go to power and overtake the Romanovs, all of a sudden it gave license to all these mini tyrants to become into power.

01:06:45.000 So all the same thing in the Roman Empire right after Caesar fell. 0.74

01:06:49.000 Exactly.

01:06:49.000 But you all of a sudden, like, oh, Lenin is awful to people.

01:06:51.000 Well, maybe I can be the awful little mini Lenin in this small town.

01:06:55.000 And all of a sudden, the whole moral code gets thrown out at that point. 0.98

01:06:58.000 And then you have not just Lenin as the singular tyrant, you have a million Lenins. 0.93

01:07:03.000 And that's a different conversation for that's a longer conversation. 0.94

01:07:05.000 So immigration.

01:07:07.000 So, immigration, you're strong on the wall, right? 1.00

01:07:11.000 You're strong on being able to restrict the individuals coming into our country. 0.99

01:07:15.000 Tell us about immigration. 0.58

01:07:17.000 So, one, I feel like we've messaged that wrong.

01:07:19.000 We've made it seem like we're xenophobic, whereas I really believe it's a message of national security.

01:07:24.000 You know, we have cartels in our southern borders who do billions of dollars of revenue every single year.

01:07:29.000 They showed in October they can defeat the Mexican military whenever they want, and they can successfully get thousands of people across our border every single year.

01:07:36.000 I mean, that is a major national security concern that we've got to be able to defeat. 1.00

01:07:40.000 But more than that, especially right now in the middle of a pandemic, we should not be accepting new people into our country right now. 1.00

01:07:45.000 Amen. 1.00

01:07:45.000 You're right. 1.00

01:07:46.000 Although, I think immigration creates a very strong, adds diversity to our country, especially a merit-based immigration system.

01:07:53.000 If we could transfer over to that, I think that would make us the greatest because then, you know, we're basically an NFL team going out saying, Let's get the greatest talent the world has to offer, bring them here, let's create the greatest society the world's ever seen.

01:08:05.000 That's something I can get behind.

01:08:06.000 But I do not believe that it's my job as an American to be the caretaker of the rest of the world.

01:08:12.000 And there is a limit to our resources.

01:08:14.000 We cannot just continually bring people here because, one, we'll lose our national identity. 1.00

01:08:19.000 And two, we just can't support it. 1.00

01:08:21.000 That's exactly right.

01:08:22.000 And we take in more immigrants than any single country at any age.

01:08:26.000 Over a million a year.

01:08:26.000 Yeah, and I actually, you know, I've done a lot of thinking about this and studying.

01:08:30.000 I believe firmly that the Democrats want immigrants for low-wage, unskilled immigrants. 0.97

01:08:36.000 And I mean that as lovingly as I can for future voters. 0.99

01:08:39.000 And Republicans want them for cheap labor to bring down wages and maximize corporate profits.

01:08:44.000 And I don't think either of those things are good.

01:08:46.000 And the issue is all of a sudden you will see a state like Virginia almost get flipped politically because of that.

01:08:54.000 And so it's terrible.

01:08:55.000 It's that.

01:08:55.000 So, all right, we'll go really quick here.

01:08:57.000 How about defunding the police?

01:08:58.000 You believe we should defund the police?

01:08:59.000 That's insane.

01:09:00.000 I mean, the only reason I think people should want to defund the police is so the anarchy can reign out, then the people will cry out for a protector, and then we'll have a nationalized police force that answers to the federal government one step closer to tyranny.

01:09:14.000 Trade.

01:09:15.000 I used to be all for free trade.

01:09:17.000 I really was.

01:09:19.000 I thought we should get rid of the, you know, I just said, let's have free trade.

01:09:22.000 You know, that's the best system I can think of because I'm a free market capitalist.

01:09:26.000 But you know what?

01:09:26.000 When it comes to overseas trades, we're not competing on a fair playing field.

01:09:30.000 They don't have to operate under the same rules I do. 0.93

01:09:33.000 The People's Republic of China basically have unlimited slave labor.

01:09:37.000 They have to pay pennies a day.

01:09:39.000 And we cannot compete with that.

01:09:40.000 So I believe in fair trade and I believe in actually, you know, I don't even want it to be fair.

01:09:44.000 I want it to be unfair.

01:09:45.000 I care about Americans first more so than anyone else in the world. 0.65

01:09:49.000 That's well put.

01:09:49.000 I want to make sure that we have the greatest trade negotiators there are.

01:09:53.000 That's terrific.

01:09:54.000 You mentioned the environment.

01:09:56.000 Yeah.

01:09:57.000 So I did mention the environment.

01:09:58.000 And, you know, as someone who's a landowner, someone who cares about the land, like you were saying, and as a hunter and as someone who's a devout Christian, you know, in Genesis, we're called to be stewards of the earth.

01:10:08.000 Amen.

01:10:08.000 And I think we're supposed to take care of our earth.

01:10:11.000 We're supposed to make sure that it thrives.

01:10:13.000 But by no means am I some climate alarmist.

01:10:16.000 You know, I'm not going to use my beliefs behind that, oh, yeah, you know what?

01:10:20.000 Sure.

01:10:20.000 If we can have cleaner air, I'm all for that.

01:10:22.000 Although I don't think we need to be putting in new regulations in the middle of a pandemic.

01:10:26.000 In 2019, sure, you want to make a little cleaner emissions?

01:10:29.000 I'm okay with that.

01:10:30.000 Companies can handle that.

01:10:32.000 But right now, I think we should be slashing regulations.

01:10:35.000 And I think that we should always, the economy should come first.

01:10:39.000 And so if the economy is in a hard position, we should be able to say, hey, let's create opportunities in the entire country, slash regulations, allow companies to really build out and thrive until we get our country back on track.

01:10:51.000 I think that we as conservatives get this issue, the environment, so terribly wrong.

01:10:55.000 We should brag about Teddy Roosevelt.

01:10:57.000 Oh, my God.

01:10:57.000 I mean, Teddy Roosevelt.

01:10:59.000 Established in national parks.

01:11:01.000 Part of the blessing of living in America is we've been given the most incredible natural resources that we should develop for energy reasons, but also appreciate, protect, and enjoy.

01:11:08.000 I mean, the Grand Tetons, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone National Park, Bryce Canyon, Acadia National Park, so on and so forth.

01:11:16.000 So I'm really pleased to hear you say that.

01:11:18.000 Really quick, healthcare.

01:11:19.000 And the Blue Ridge National Forest.

01:11:21.000 That's right.

01:11:21.000 Healthcare.

01:11:24.000 So I want to be the face of healthcare reform in the Republican Party.

01:11:28.000 You know, I think for too long, we've really been this party.

01:11:30.000 Oh, we need to repeal and replace.

01:11:31.000 But I mean, Charlie, what is the Republicans' plan on healthcare?

01:11:34.000 Serve their corporate interests.

01:11:37.000 Wow.

01:11:38.000 You know, okay.

01:11:39.000 That is very, very true.

01:11:41.000 They serve these lobbyists, which is a major problem in our country.

01:11:44.000 Yeah, we can get into that.

01:11:45.000 The Republican plan is like whatever they tell me to do.

01:11:48.000 We're going to stay on healthcare, but trust me, we want to get money out of politics.

01:11:51.000 That's number one.

01:11:52.000 Amen.

01:11:52.000 But on healthcare, my plan, because I believe that the Republican Party, and it's because they're having to serve these corporate interests, they've never been able to give a concise plan to the American people that people want to get behind.

01:12:04.000 And it's always just saying, well, you know, we want to make sure we can make as much profit as we can.

01:12:08.000 No.

01:12:09.000 I mean, when I came out of the hospital at 19 years old, I had $3 million in medical debt.

01:12:14.000 It was obscene.

01:12:16.000 I believe what we need to do, and the reason we have that, is because there's no competition.

01:12:20.000 So I live in Hendersonville, North Carolina, at my house, and this is an extremely simplified analogy of what I think our healthcare system should be.

01:12:29.000 But at my house, there are six pizza companies that will all deliver to my house at any time, day or night.

01:12:35.000 If I pick up the phone and call one of them, they all know that when I go into Google Pizza Near Me, they know that they are at that moment all competing for my dollar.

01:12:43.000 So they are going to want to have the reputation of giving me the best pizza as fast as they can for the lowest cost.

01:12:48.000 And right now in North Carolina, Blue Cross Blue Shield has a virtual monopoly over the entire state.

01:12:53.000 And I think we've got to break that.

01:12:54.000 We need to reduce it.

01:12:55.000 It's a terrific answer.

01:12:56.000 Because, I mean, this is a problem we see in a lot of areas in our government is that we have these ginormous monopolies.

01:13:02.000 And it's stuff we've got to be willing to combat.

01:13:04.000 And the president talked about this, and the hospital lobbies are trying to shut it down, but price transparency is incredibly important.

01:13:08.000 When you go into a hospital, you should have a menu of what exactly everything costs.

01:13:12.000 And I think when you have no transparency on a price side, it's incredibly, you know, dangerous.

01:13:17.000 It's off of the consumer.

01:13:18.000 And again, we are free market capitalists.

01:13:21.000 Milton Friedman talked about very clearly, if you do not have a price system, you don't have a market.

01:13:25.000 In order to have a price system, you have to know what things cost.

01:13:27.000 If you don't know what things cost, you can't make informed choices.

01:13:29.000 And if you can't make informed choices, then you're not in a market.

01:13:32.000 They're like Crassus back in Ancient Rome.

01:13:34.000 You're in a hostage situation.

01:13:36.000 Crassus in Ancient Rome created the first city fire department system.

01:13:41.000 And so he would go, wait for your house to be on fire, then he'd look at you, and he became a real estate investor because of this.

01:13:47.000 He'd say, hey, I'll buy your house right now.

01:13:49.000 And their house is on fire.

01:13:50.000 Everything's going out.

01:13:51.000 And so they say, yeah, sure.

01:13:52.000 He's like, okay, here's a fourth of the value.

01:13:54.000 And then so they would give him ownership.

01:13:56.000 He would send his fire department in and save the property.

01:13:59.000 But I feel like that's what they do to us in our healthcare system.

01:14:01.000 They wait until you need an emergency surgery, say, hey, come in here and have this surgery.

01:14:06.000 But they're not going to tell you the price.

01:14:07.000 You can't negotiate.

01:14:08.000 It's a hostage situation, just like you said.

01:14:10.000 And the problem is that the left wants full Medicare for all and nationalization of health care.

01:14:14.000 And the right is we can't do anything because then it'll just be that.

01:14:18.000 And that's not true.

01:14:19.000 There's so much middle ground that we can do, I think, to make people's lives better significantly.

01:14:23.000 You've endorsed one bill, one subject.

01:14:25.000 So have I. Can you talk for a minute about that?

01:14:27.000 Absolutely.

01:14:27.000 You know, so I think one of the biggest tragedies in our governing system is that we have, and this is what we were just talking about earlier, there's a lack of transparency.

01:14:37.000 There is some, there's things called omnibus bills, which come from the Latin word omni, which is all.

01:14:43.000 And so it's these ginormous package bills where they say, hey, just slip everything you can into here.

01:14:48.000 Yes.

01:14:48.000 And then we'll, we'll roll it out.

01:14:49.000 And then, but then it's, you know, it's 2,800 pages long.

01:14:54.000 And the American people have no ability to read that.

01:14:56.000 The lawmakers don't even have to read.

01:14:57.000 They have like 45 minutes to read it.

01:14:59.000 It's insane.

01:15:00.000 Because they and you can't tell me that you don't want me to know what's inside of a bill before you vote on it.

01:15:06.000 Exactly.

01:15:07.000 Because you have my best interests at heart. 1.00

01:15:08.000 No, it's because you want to pull the wool over my ass. 0.99

01:15:11.000 So I think we should have one bill, one subject. 0.97

01:15:13.000 If the bill doesn't directly pertain to the subject, it shouldn't be allowed in.

01:15:16.000 For example, if you want to have NPR funding, have a clean bill on that.

01:15:19.000 If you want to have PBS funding, have a bill on that.

01:15:21.000 If you want to give everyone $2,000 because of the stimulus, have a bill on that and just vote independently on each one and one bill, one subject would solve so much of that because what they do is like, oh, there's so much nonsense in the bill and all that.

01:15:33.000 All right, Madison, we've been through a lot of topics.

01:15:35.000 How can people support you?

01:15:36.000 So big way you can support me, you know, as Charlie said, we are a grassroots organization and company.

01:15:41.000 And oh, you know, Siri is actually trying to jump in here.

01:15:43.000 This is big censorship. 0.97

01:15:45.000 Here's what they can do.

01:15:45.000 They can go to Siri and say, I want to donate to Madison Cawthorne's campaign.

01:15:50.000 So what you need to do is go to MadisonCawthorne.com.

01:15:54.000 There's a big, big donate button right there.

01:15:56.000 I really donate into our campaign.

01:15:57.000 Give us the money to buy the bullets to fight that.

01:15:59.000 And look, help out Madison, everybody.

01:16:01.000 He's not taking the traditional kind of corporate money cycle thing.

01:16:05.000 And I think it's really important.

01:16:06.000 And I've encouraged people to contribute.

01:16:08.000 I encourage you to do that.

01:16:09.000 And help out Madison.

01:16:11.000 Anything other thoughts in closing?

01:16:12.000 No, just final thoughts.

01:16:14.000 I really want to commend Charlie.

01:16:16.000 I want to commend the Turning Point USA organization.

01:16:18.000 I know you probably want to cut this short, but I can stay as long as you want.

01:16:21.000 I'm going to get on my soapbox to just talk about you for a second.

01:16:25.000 We are not in a policy battle in this country right now.

01:16:30.000 The way to fix our country right now is not going to be decided behind closed doors in a committee hearing.

01:16:36.000 We are in a culture war.

01:16:39.000 There is a far left, which used to be the fringe element of the Democratic Party, which is now the mainstream, who has taken over, who want to get rid of capitalism, who want to get rid of our Judeo-Christian faith, who want to get rid of our history, who want to fundamentally change our country.

01:16:55.000 And they are doing that by winning the hearts and minds of the future generations.

01:16:59.000 They use this because they are better at packaging ideas.

01:17:02.000 They can put it in shiny objects, which tug on your heartstrings and your sentiments.

01:17:06.000 But Charlie is fighting that head-on.

01:17:09.000 Not only does he have good ideas that will actually do good for you, it makes you feel good about them too, because he explains how it does good for all of society.

01:17:15.000 And so I just really want to commend you, Charlie.

01:17:17.000 Thank you.

01:17:18.000 You're building a better society.

01:17:18.000 Well, I appreciate that.

01:17:19.000 That's very kind.

01:17:20.000 And we need you in Congress.

01:17:21.000 And I think you'll get there.

01:17:23.000 And you have a really good team behind you and people that are helping you out.

01:17:27.000 And there will be a great amount of eyeballs and burden responsibility there.

01:17:31.000 And so you're going to do terrific.

01:17:33.000 We went through a lot of topics here.

01:17:35.000 That was fun, man.

01:17:35.000 We're going to get it again.

01:17:36.000 Yeah, everyone can email me, freedom at charliekirk.com and freedom at charliekirk.com.

01:17:40.000 Thanks for listening, everybody.

01:17:41.000 See you guys.

The Charlie Kirk Show - July 19, 2020

In Depth and In Person with Madison Cawthorn - A 24-Year-Old On His Way to Congress

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