The Charlie Kirk Show - March 12, 2024


Maine's War Against America's Children


Episode Stats

Length

33 minutes

Words per Minute

181.17879

Word Count

6,148

Sentence Count

530


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The fight for our children has never been more important, and the threats have never been clearer and present. 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.

Transcript

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00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today I'm Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:01.000 Should we ban TikTok?
00:00:03.000 That is the question.
00:00:04.000 Also, we go after trans surgeries and how it's happening in Tennessee and a bizarre new bill out of Maine that we address.
00:00:12.000 Get involved with TurningPointUSA at tpusa.com.
00:00:16.000 Become a member today at members.charlikirk.com.
00:00:19.000 Subscribe to our podcast, Charlie Kirk Show, and click on the podcast page.
00:00:23.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:25.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:26.000 Here we go.
00:00:27.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:29.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
00:00:31.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:34.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:38.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:39.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:40.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:00:42.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
00:00:47.000 Turning point USA.
00:00:48.000 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.
00:00:57.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:00.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:10.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:17.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:19.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:21.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:26.000 The fight for our children has never been more important and the threats have never been more clear and present.
00:01:32.000 Joining us now is the Attorney General of the Great State of Tennessee, Jonathan Skermeti.
00:01:39.000 Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time.
00:01:42.000 This story is breaking and it involves the state of Maine.
00:01:46.000 Walk our audience through it and thank you for your moral courage on this topic.
00:01:50.000 Thanks for having me on, Charlie.
00:01:52.000 So Maine is working on this bill, LB227, that relates to transgender and abortion issues.
00:01:59.000 And it basically says not only is Maine going to have shield laws to prevent investigators in red states from getting evidence from Maine, it also creates a cause of action that will let people in Maine sue law enforcement in states that have different laws, even if the connection with Maine is fairly tangential.
00:02:20.000 So if you have a gender clinic in Texas, but you're connected with Maine somehow, if you consult with Maine doctors or if you fly someone in from Maine to work, you could potentially, as a prosecutor in Texas, be sued in Maine state court for enforcing laws that are entirely constitutional in your state solely because they don't comport with Maine law.
00:02:42.000 Has there ever been a piece of legislation to your knowledge like this?
00:02:46.000 And this is effectively trying to create a sanctuary state for kind of trans surgeries.
00:02:53.000 Is that a good way to frame it?
00:02:55.000 Well, I mean, I think it's even more than that.
00:02:57.000 It's reaching into other states to try to punish people in those states for enforcing valid state laws that Maine disagrees with.
00:03:04.000 And I'm not aware of any law like this that's happened in the past.
00:03:08.000 It is completely antithetical to our Constitution, which says different states can have different laws.
00:03:15.000 They're allowed to choose the laws based on the will of their people.
00:03:18.000 The people of Tennessee don't want Maine law.
00:03:20.000 That's why they don't live in Maine.
00:03:22.000 And if the people who run Maine want Maine laws to be the way they are, they're limited to the territory of Maine for enforcing those laws.
00:03:30.000 So each state needs to stay in its lane and respect its borders.
00:03:34.000 This reaches outside those borders to try to inflict the Maine policies on every other state, no matter what the people of each state want.
00:03:42.000 Does that include people that have no affiliation with Maine at all whatsoever or have never been to Maine?
00:03:48.000 I mean, how would this even stand up constitutionally?
00:03:52.000 Well, I don't think it would stand up constitutionally, but we want to nip this in the bud.
00:03:56.000 You know, the states exist to be separate.
00:03:59.000 The Constitution provides some power to the federal government, but by and large, each state is governing itself and making a lot of important decisions based on the people who are close to that state government.
00:04:10.000 And, you know, I think the Constitution precludes this law.
00:04:14.000 I hope they don't pass it because it's setting a dangerous trend of states reaching into other states to mess with the business of law enforcement in those states.
00:04:23.000 So you're leading a charge to get more state attorneys general on board to fight this bill.
00:04:27.000 How many other state AGs have joined your fight so far?
00:04:30.000 We've got 15 plus Tennessee on this so far.
00:04:33.000 And this is moving pretty quick.
00:04:35.000 So I'm sure there are others that would be inclined to join on as well.
00:04:38.000 That's just amazing.
00:04:40.000 And so we have a lot of forward momentum here.
00:04:43.000 We've seen basically child abduction laws in California, but is this proposed bill in Maine the most widesweeping and expansive you've ever seen?
00:04:52.000 It is.
00:04:52.000 It is because of that private right of action.
00:04:54.000 So not only are they trying to stop law enforcement from enforcing laws based on evidence in that state, but they're letting people reach back into the states that have laws restricting pediatric transgender interventions and letting them mess with those enforcers for doing their job.
00:05:13.000 That goes even beyond what California's done.
00:05:15.000 And California's law is already constitutionally suspect.
00:05:19.000 Well, Attorney General Scrometti, anything else you want us to, on our audience, to be aware of this?
00:05:23.000 And just can you kind of talk generally about, have you ever thought you'd be involved in using the AG's office in regarding to the massacring and the butchering of children?
00:05:33.000 This must be a new phenomenon for you and your office.
00:05:37.000 Well, I mean, you know, we've been busy in Tennessee fighting the constitutional fight on juvenile transgender medical interventions.
00:05:47.000 You know, we have a case that might be going up to the Supreme Court, the LW case, where we won.
00:05:52.000 We were the first state to win in a case recognizing there is not a constitutional right for children to have these irreversible procedures.
00:06:01.000 So this is not a topic that is alien to us, but I never thought we'd have to worry about other states retaliating against us using their state judicial systems.
00:06:11.000 That's profoundly unconstitutional.
00:06:14.000 America was designed with the idea of each state governing itself.
00:06:18.000 And when people start to try to totalize what their states are doing and inflict their will on other states, that undermines the democracy that makes our federalist system work.
00:06:29.000 Attorney General Scrometti, thank you so much for joining us and for your leadership.
00:06:32.000 Thank you.
00:06:33.000 Thanks for having me.
00:06:34.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
00:06:39.000 So we have a great group of guests coming up.
00:06:43.000 We have Brendan Carr.
00:06:44.000 We're going to dive really deep into TikTok.
00:06:46.000 I had a great text exchange with Brandon Carr over the weekend, and I look forward to discussing that.
00:06:52.000 I want to dive a little bit deeper, though, into this trans surgery issue.
00:06:56.000 You see, under this idea of gender-affirming care, they're able to do some very sinister things.
00:07:02.000 There's no better expert than Dr. Miriam Grossman.
00:07:06.000 Dr. Grossman is going to be coming here to Phoenix.
00:07:09.000 I started listening to her book.
00:07:10.000 I listened to a lot of books.
00:07:11.000 I read, listening is the equivalent to comprehension of reading.
00:07:15.000 It's actually even better sometimes.
00:07:16.000 But, you know, when I'm on the run and working out or in the car, I try to listen to a lot of books and I've started listening to her book, Lost in Transnation, and I was blown away.
00:07:25.000 If you are even indifferent on the trans issue, you need to check out Dr. Miriam Grossman's book, Lost in Transnation.
00:07:32.000 She is a tough cookie.
00:07:33.000 I'll tell you what.
00:07:34.000 She is an actual clinician.
00:07:36.000 She's not just an academic.
00:07:37.000 She's not just somebody up in the clouds.
00:07:40.000 She is the A-team of the A-team on the trans issue.
00:07:43.000 And what she highlights is that, first and foremost, the majority of the people who are targeted under this gender-affirming care have autism.
00:07:54.000 They're on the autism spectrum.
00:07:55.000 So that just out of the gate should tell you something.
00:07:57.000 So these are people that might be a little socially awkward.
00:08:01.000 These are individuals that are suffering under something that is very, very hard to measure, very, very hard to overcome, very, very hard to deal with.
00:08:10.000 And why is it that a disproportionate majority of the people that get into the transgender cycle of self-destruction get into the gender dysphoric mindset, also of autism?
00:08:23.000 Well, Dr. Mirian Grossman has a theory on that, and she's going to join us to discuss.
00:08:28.000 And last week, there was some huge breaking news about WPATH, which is a world.
00:08:32.000 We should have covered this.
00:08:33.000 We ran out of time last week.
00:08:34.000 The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, WPATH, was exposed last week in a New York post-op-ed for pushing experimental gender surgery for minors with zero regard for the irreversible damage caused.
00:08:47.000 The international group even pushed for the experimental procedures designed to create sexless bodies that resemble department store mannequins.
00:08:54.000 Quote, WPATH documents demonstrate it's controlled by gender ideologues who push aside concerns about whether children and adolescents can consent to medical treatments that WPATH members privately acknowledge often have devastating and permanent side effects.
00:09:10.000 Look, it's very simple.
00:09:11.000 We're not going to stop until every single gender-affirming clear in the country, care clinic in the country is shut down.
00:09:17.000 Period.
00:09:18.000 Got to shut them all down for kids.
00:09:21.000 Adults, we can have another discussion.
00:09:22.000 I think there's a good argument that they should all be shut down for every age.
00:09:25.000 Let's build a coalition on the kids, on the minors.
00:09:28.000 These kids are not allowed.
00:09:29.000 All the things are not allowed to do.
00:09:31.000 They're not allowed to buy liquor.
00:09:33.000 They're not allowed to drive a car.
00:09:35.000 They're not allowed to even, I think, like rent a movie.
00:09:39.000 Like there's age verification across the board.
00:09:41.000 You can't get a tattoo, but you can get your breasts removed without parental consent.
00:09:45.000 And new evidence shows that you now can get life-altering chemical castration drugs sent to you by Amazon without parental consent.
00:09:53.000 Jordan Peterson has a bombshell interview about that, by the way, where Jordan Peterson recently sat down with a couple in Montana, and their daughter was able to get chemical castration drugs without them knowing via Amazon delivered to their house in the state of Montana.
00:10:09.000 We are butchering an entire generation.
00:10:11.000 If they can't kill the kids in the womb, they try to give them the ability to go into a gender-affirming clinic and start the cycle of self-mutilation, destruction.
00:10:22.000 This is one of the moral issues of our time.
00:10:24.000 And by the way, it's big money for big pharma.
00:10:26.000 Big, big money.
00:10:26.000 They're making a lot of money.
00:10:30.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
00:10:31.000 We're all getting the sense that we're being lied to.
00:10:33.000 Well, that's because we are.
00:10:35.000 Suspicious events are unfolding.
00:10:36.000 Even worse, it's hard to believe what anyone has to say about it.
00:10:39.000 And we all know the mainstream media has their own agenda.
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00:11:33.000 They're going to try to make this whole thing on Christian nationalism.
00:11:36.000 They're going to try to make it all about the people of faith.
00:11:40.000 They need to sit in their corner and come to heal.
00:11:44.000 If you ask any one of our pastors we deal with, and by the way, let me get the details.
00:11:51.000 This Thursday, I'm speaking at a church, influenced church with Phil Hots and Pillar.
00:11:58.000 It's in Anaheim, California.
00:12:00.000 That's on Thursday.
00:12:01.000 And then on Sunday, I'm speaking at Calvary Chapel, San Juan Capistrano.
00:12:06.000 If you ask any one of the pastors that we talk to, they want a restoration of the U.S. Constitution.
00:12:11.000 That's it.
00:12:12.000 Are you really a radical for wanting the U.S. Constitution?
00:12:16.000 We want to see the Constitution restored.
00:12:20.000 That is what unites us.
00:12:22.000 People of different faiths, backgrounds, people of no faith.
00:12:25.000 That is the center point.
00:12:26.000 That is how we should respond to every single media inquiry and just hold up the Constitution.
00:12:32.000 This is what we want, a restoration.
00:12:35.000 Now, we can talk about what inspired the Constitution.
00:12:38.000 What inspired the Constitution was Judeo-Christian morality.
00:12:41.000 Drives them nuts when they say that.
00:12:43.000 But even if you don't acknowledge what inspired it, that's fine.
00:12:46.000 Let's just apply it.
00:12:47.000 Let's read it as it was intended.
00:12:50.000 As James Madison would say, it's the structure of the U.S. Constitution that is its most important.
00:12:56.000 It's a beautiful document.
00:12:58.000 As we said before, the Constitution spreads power over space and time.
00:13:03.000 It does not concentrate all power in New York or all power in L.A. or all power in San Francisco over hundreds, thousands of miles and over time.
00:13:14.000 You cannot take over the entire United States government in less than in six years because the Senate comes up totally in election every six years.
00:13:23.000 So the Founding Fathers, they wrote about this repeatedly in the Federalist Papers.
00:13:26.000 They put a preference on deeply held beliefs that last.
00:13:34.000 Think about all the beliefs that haven't lasted.
00:13:37.000 This is why we're not a democracy and why we are a republic.
00:13:40.000 I want to point out to you the brilliance of what the founding fathers gave us and why if we had a democracy, not a republic, how awful the country.
00:13:50.000 You think you're in a bad spot?
00:13:51.000 Imagine this.
00:13:53.000 BLM, everybody was on board for racial justice.
00:13:56.000 If we were a democracy, democracies move fast, they're rapid, they're instantly responsive to the passions of the people, we would have had reparations.
00:14:04.000 How about during COVID?
00:14:05.000 There were people talking about jailing the unvaccinated.
00:14:09.000 If we were just the democracy, not a republic, and we played to the emotions and the immediate passions, what would have happened?
00:14:18.000 How about Ukraine?
00:14:19.000 School lockdowns.
00:14:21.000 But opinions change.
00:14:24.000 Now, it's not impossible to effectuate change in a republic.
00:14:27.000 The founding fathers wrote, though, that these changes must be things that can weather debate, current events, wars, famine, drought, natural disasters.
00:14:40.000 If your views, for example, the abolition of the unspeakable evil of slavery, Thaddeus Stevens, John Quincy Adams, the great abolitionists, they held that belief and they held that belief and they held that belief and they held that belief over a period of time.
00:14:59.000 And then they eventually were able to abolish slavery.
00:15:04.000 Republics slow down the legislative process.
00:15:08.000 And that can be so frustrating at times.
00:15:12.000 But it is tempting to want to have the instrumentation of your government move rapidly.
00:15:19.000 Not to mention, the Constitution recognizes who the sovereign is, the people, and where do your rights come from.
00:15:27.000 They come from the divine.
00:15:30.000 Whatever your picture of the divine is, it comes from the eternal.
00:15:36.000 That is the game changer.
00:15:39.000 You cannot have a free society if you believe rights come from the state.
00:15:46.000 It is impossible.
00:15:48.000 You can only have a free society if you recognize that there is an all-powerful being that granted you those rights.
00:15:58.000 That's why the Declaration and the Constitution are key and lock.
00:16:04.000 They come together, as Dr. Larry Arn would say, in the founder's key.
00:16:08.000 That's why it says one of the course of human events becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bans that have tied them to another.
00:16:13.000 This is an eternal call.
00:16:15.000 The framers didn't just put God into our founding documents.
00:16:19.000 Their belief in God was the driving and animating force of the Constitution.
00:16:24.000 So every time they mention Christian nationalists, just say, I'm a constitutionalist.
00:16:27.000 I'm a Christian, but I'm a constitutionalist, and I want a restoration of the republic.
00:16:36.000 Let's talk real risks and real safety for a second.
00:16:38.000 Right now, banks are juggling debts under the radar.
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00:17:56.000 Joining us now is Brendan Carr.
00:17:59.000 Brendan is really terrific, and I've known Brendan for a while.
00:18:04.000 And Brendan Carr, I think, is still on the FCC Commission.
00:18:08.000 I think that's right, isn't it, Brendan?
00:18:10.000 Yeah, I'm still here.
00:18:10.000 You know, a little bit of a version of Republican Deep State, maybe, but I'm still a commissioner at the FCC.
00:18:14.000 I'm here actually for another five years.
00:18:16.000 It was confirmed as well to another term.
00:18:18.000 Well, terrific.
00:18:19.000 So, well, Brandon, we're excited about you coming on the program.
00:18:23.000 We were texting, and you have some strong opinions about this piece of legislation that is moving through the House to, I don't know, ban TikTok is the right term.
00:18:33.000 Walk us all through it, Brandon.
00:18:34.000 We have plenty of time.
00:18:35.000 So kind of do a comprehensive overview.
00:18:38.000 Yeah, this is a really smart, narrow, targeted legislative bill that would require TikTok to divest its ties, its connections back to the CCP, but then would otherwise allow it to continue to operate here without that national security threat.
00:18:54.000 Now, of course, if TikTok or really the CCP does not agree with that divestment, in that case, it couldn't do business.
00:19:02.000 But there was some confusion, I think, because there was other TikTok bills that have been introduced, including in the Senate, that got a lot of pushback from the conservative right.
00:19:11.000 And this bill responds very directly to those concerns and it moves in a much more narrow way.
00:19:16.000 So for instance, it only applies to an app that is controlled by only four countries, which is China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
00:19:27.000 So it's only narrowly about apps that are controlled by those four foreign governments.
00:19:33.000 Second of all, it's not just enough that they're sort of controlled by those foreign governments.
00:19:36.000 They have to ultimately be a national security threat as well.
00:19:39.000 And then third, there's got to be process on top of that, including public process.
00:19:44.000 So, some of the concerns about this, giving the government power to go for individual users, that's not at all in this bill.
00:19:49.000 The argument that it could be sort of any application the government doesn't like, not in this bill.
00:19:53.000 But, you know, TikTok is a very real national security threat.
00:19:56.000 This is something that Trump led on in 2020.
00:19:59.000 And frankly, like a lot of things, Trump was ahead of the curve.
00:20:01.000 And now you see years later, people say, oh, yeah, Trump was right.
00:20:04.000 This is a big national security threat.
00:20:06.000 And so people are coming together from Chip Roy in the Freedom Caucus to the chairs of committees to advance this bill.
00:20:13.000 So can you just go further into the contrast between the last bill and this bill?
00:20:17.000 Why don't they just name TikTok by name?
00:20:20.000 They don't do that in this bill.
00:20:22.000 Is that correct?
00:20:23.000 This bill is narrow about TikTok and it does name TikTok by name.
00:20:27.000 In fact, some people have said, is that a bill of attainer problem to name a specific company in a bill?
00:20:31.000 And it's not, not at all.
00:20:32.000 The Constitution is clear about that.
00:20:34.000 As long as the actual thing the bill is doing it doesn't constitute punishment in a judicial sense.
00:20:39.000 If it's forward-looking, which is what this is, it's no bill of attainer.
00:20:42.000 So in the main, it is a TikTok bill and it's about just allowing it to continue to operate.
00:20:47.000 People love it.
00:20:48.000 I don't use it, but some people love it.
00:20:49.000 They can continue to do it as long as the ties to CCP are broken.
00:20:54.000 But then there's a small piece at the end that says, yeah, in a very narrow circumstance, if there's a similar app that, again, only if it's controlled by CCP, North Korea, Russia, and Iran, would the government be able to take action.
00:21:05.000 But again, in that context, it's really not new authority.
00:21:08.000 It's not expanding authorities.
00:21:09.000 It really just a way, in my view, is sort of further narrowing it in.
00:21:12.000 Again, very different than a lot of the other TikTok bills out there that raise some concerns on the right.
00:21:18.000 So can you just help educate our audience on the national security threat specifically that TikTok poses?
00:21:26.000 If you were to try to convince someone that knows next to nothing about this topic, what would you say to try to convince them?
00:21:32.000 Yeah, you know, look, TikTok is fundamentally different than other social media out there.
00:21:35.000 And, you know, far be it from me to defend Facebook or Google.
00:21:39.000 I've been with you wailing away on them.
00:21:41.000 And frankly, we absolutely have to do more to rein in big tech, whether in Silicon Valley or in Beijing.
00:21:48.000 But the reality is that TikTok is fundamentally different.
00:21:51.000 And here's why.
00:21:52.000 For years, TikTok represented U.S. lawmakers that U.S. user data, sensitive data, doesn't even exist in China.
00:21:59.000 And then in 2022, a blockbuster story came out that showed that that's nothing other than gaslighting.
00:22:04.000 Leaked material shows that, quote, everything is seen in China.
00:22:08.000 And the everything is not your average cat video.
00:22:11.000 It is search and browsing history, keystroke patterns, biometrics, location information.
00:22:16.000 And personnel in Beijing have already used that to spy on the location of specific Americans.
00:22:23.000 TikTok's different because their parent company, ByteDance, has a CCP cell literally embedded in its leadership.
00:22:31.000 Its parent is subject to this 2017 national security law in China that compels it to spy and not disclose it.
00:22:39.000 And TikTok's different because there's been independent risk analysis that has shown that there's cybersecurity issues with that app that are by this malcourt measure more than twice as bad as Facebook and Google.
00:22:51.000 So do we need to rein in Facebook?
00:22:53.000 And I've seen President Trump talk about this again, rightly so.
00:22:56.000 Yeah, we need to do that.
00:22:57.000 But there is something very different about TikTok that's a national security issue that is different than the very concerning issues with privacy and data flows and censorship.
00:23:07.000 We've got to do TikTok first.
00:23:08.000 And then, you know, we absolutely have to come in, as President Trump and others have said, and take care of the discrimination by big tech that continues.
00:23:14.000 Well, and it's a little revealing to me, too, because TikTok is majorly protesting this bill.
00:23:20.000 And you have to wonder, well, they could still operate.
00:23:23.000 They just have to sell to an American company.
00:23:26.000 Now, is that the data aspect or they can no longer have any ownership of TikTok whatsoever?
00:23:32.000 And who would potentially be an interested buyer in that?
00:23:36.000 It's a good question.
00:23:37.000 So the bill actually doesn't even require it to go to a U.S. company.
00:23:40.000 I've seen some people be concerned and say, well, is this about going to a U.S. company that might be sort of beholden to the CIA?
00:23:46.000 No, not at all.
00:23:48.000 All it has to be is just not a company or entity that is effectively controlled by those four foreign adversaries.
00:23:54.000 And there's been a lot of people that have sort of put their hand up and said, yeah, I'd love to continue TikTok going as long as it breaks from bite dance and CCP control.
00:24:02.000 I think, you know, when Trump was president, there were discussions about Oracle being in play.
00:24:06.000 I don't know if that would be the case now or not.
00:24:08.000 I saw Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank.
00:24:10.000 I saw in one interview said that he might be interested.
00:24:12.000 So there's any range of actors, either U.S. or non-U.S., that could step in.
00:24:16.000 And it could continue to be an interesting counterweight to Facebook and, you know, Google and others that are out there.
00:24:23.000 So I guess there would then be a bidding process.
00:24:23.000 Yeah.
00:24:26.000 And then I would love to see it just completely banned.
00:24:28.000 I think that it's a societal toxin.
00:24:31.000 What are the legislative prospects of this bill?
00:24:34.000 It's in really good shape.
00:24:35.000 Look, it was 50 to nothing bipartisan in the House Commerce Committee.
00:24:41.000 And now Leader Scalise has said it's going to come to a vote on the floor this week.
00:24:46.000 Speaker Johnson has been really good on this bill, leading the way on it.
00:24:50.000 Chair, Conference Chair Stefanik, as well as an original co-sponsor.
00:24:52.000 Look, there's a lot of people that look at Congress and they say, 118th Congress, you've had a tough run, tough to get stuff done.
00:24:58.000 Frankly, I think usually the problems come from over-legislating, not under-legislating.
00:25:02.000 But this is an example where, you know, the 118th can step up and say we can still get big, important things done for the American people on national security and on a tough issue.
00:25:12.000 It's an issue where there's technology and it's fast moving, but this is the right smart approach.
00:25:16.000 I like this bill more than some of the other ones that were out there.
00:25:19.000 So, Brendan, what would you say to some of the critics that say this is just YouTube and Facebook deploying their lobbying power on the rest of the, basically on DC, because they're just trying to throw a big curveball into TikTok's plans?
00:25:34.000 Do we have any evidence that the big tech companies are heavily lobbying for this?
00:25:39.000 Look, I've been deeply involved in these efforts.
00:25:39.000 No, not at all.
00:25:41.000 I haven't heard anything at all from any of those tech companies.
00:25:44.000 And I agree that we shouldn't be taking actions that's ultimately going to sort of give these entities more power to engage in sort of abusive practices.
00:25:51.000 That's exactly right.
00:25:52.000 But that's why the divestment is so smart because it could go to some entity that would be a counterweight to those, but yet not a counterweight that is to the communist left of those existing ones because it's beholden to the CCP.
00:26:04.000 And again, people talk about, you know, free speech and First Amendment.
00:26:06.000 Absolutely.
00:26:07.000 This bill can protect that.
00:26:09.000 And just real quick, you know, Supreme Court draws a distinction between regulation based on content on the one hand and regulation based on conduct on the other.
00:26:17.000 In fact, there's a Supreme Court case, Arcara Books, where the government shut down a bookstore because the owner was using it to run a prostitution ring out of the bookstore.
00:26:25.000 He went to the Supreme Court and said, you can't shut my bookstore down.
00:26:28.000 This is quintessentially First Amendment activity.
00:26:31.000 And the Supreme Court said, no, this is about the conduct taking place there, not the content.
00:26:36.000 And that's the same with TikTok.
00:26:37.000 So it's not the free speech rights of the Americans that are on TikTok.
00:26:40.000 Of course, they should get to express their views without government interference.
00:26:45.000 The problem is that TikTok has been engaging in these conduct of moving data back and surveillance and espionage.
00:26:51.000 The other analogy I'll give you is like, it's like someone could take a pen and they can write the most salacious anti-American propaganda they want.
00:26:58.000 There's nothing the government can do about that, rightfully.
00:27:01.000 But if you take that same pen and you pick a lock and you break into a building with it, that's a problem.
00:27:06.000 And you're going to lose the pen and you can't sit there and defend and say, well, I was using it to speak as well.
00:27:11.000 So this is a bill that's targeted to the conduct of TikTok, not its content.
00:27:15.000 And that's why it would be consistent with the Constitution.
00:27:18.000 Brendan, thank you so much.
00:27:19.000 Appreciate your time.
00:27:20.000 Thank you.
00:27:21.000 Thanks.
00:27:21.000 Good to see you again.
00:27:22.000 Thanks.
00:27:23.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
00:27:27.000 Look, I think that TikTok is a societal toxin.
00:27:30.000 So I'm open-minded to it.
00:27:32.000 However, I just wonder and worry about giving Joe Biden and the government the ability to ban apps that we don't like.
00:27:39.000 So I need to read the legislation.
00:27:43.000 I need to think about this.
00:27:44.000 I need to dwell on it.
00:27:45.000 I mean, for example, we use Telegram all the time.
00:27:48.000 And they say that Telegram is a harder case.
00:27:51.000 And it is apparently Russian-owned Telegram, or at least Russia-inspired or Russian-connected.
00:27:59.000 And so it remains a big question.
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00:28:45.000 So this is the question I want to open up for you guys.
00:28:47.000 Do you think we should ban TikTok?
00:28:50.000 And I'm currently undecided on the issue.
00:28:53.000 I think TikTok is societal poison.
00:28:55.000 And I just wish people would make the actual argument here.
00:28:58.000 Okay, they mine your data.
00:28:59.000 They're turning your kids trans and gay.
00:29:02.000 That's what they're doing.
00:29:04.000 That's the whole ballgame here.
00:29:05.000 They're turning your kids trans and gay.
00:29:08.000 That's what's the, by the way, this is not some sort of talking point.
00:29:12.000 They are the jet fuel of the trans agenda.
00:29:15.000 They are the transmission of the woke virus.
00:29:19.000 People complain about the woke virus.
00:29:21.000 Its ability to infect society is largely thanks to TikTok.
00:29:27.000 Data privacy.
00:29:28.000 Yeah, I get all that.
00:29:28.000 National security.
00:29:30.000 Can we get the Palmer Lucky clip, by the way?
00:29:30.000 I agree.
00:29:32.000 I like Palmer a lot.
00:29:33.000 Smart guy.
00:29:34.000 I know him.
00:29:35.000 Billionaire from California.
00:29:37.000 The Chinese Communist Party, they're modern-day Nazis.
00:29:40.000 I totally agree, ban it.
00:29:41.000 But going through all these calisthenics, oh, well, it can still exist.
00:29:44.000 Get rid of it.
00:29:45.000 Has no redeemable value.
00:29:48.000 And they're running all these advertisements.
00:29:50.000 Yeah, I'm Earl the farmer, and I use TikTok to film my pigs when they're born.
00:29:56.000 Like enough, okay?
00:29:56.000 Like this, this is pure try to pandering white, right-wing propaganda.
00:30:01.000 Can you get that TikTok ad they ran during the State of the Union of Earl, Earl the pig farmer?
00:30:06.000 He's like, Yeah, we educate a lot of people.
00:30:08.000 Let me just tell you about TikTok.
00:30:09.000 We have made dozens of attempts here on this program at Turning Point USA to have a TikTok page.
00:30:14.000 And the alphabet mafia, purple-haired jihadis there, they kick us off every single time.
00:30:19.000 We're not even able to have a TikTok, basically.
00:30:22.000 And any sort of semblance of like, you know, somebody who's a fan started the fan page, it gets struck down.
00:30:27.000 They are the worst for free speech censorship.
00:30:30.000 Facebook is way better.
00:30:32.000 You just want to talk about like honest.
00:30:35.000 Facebook is a far freer, better platform for us to be able to get our opinions out than YouTube and TikTok.
00:30:42.000 Here's how it works: Rumble is the best, obviously.
00:30:47.000 And then, well, Truth, Social and Rumble are in the same category.
00:30:50.000 Then X, then Facebook, Instagram, then YouTube, then TikTok.
00:30:54.000 If you want to talk about the spectrum of speech, and TwitterX has completely changed the game.
00:30:59.000 It's completely changed the game, but it doesn't have the same traffic.
00:31:02.000 YouTube is a constant battle.
00:31:04.000 Praise God, we just got over this strike.
00:31:06.000 How many YouTube views are we getting a day, Ryan, now?
00:31:08.000 2 million, almost?
00:31:09.000 Almost 2 million YouTube views a day?
00:31:10.000 It's almost 3 million.
00:31:12.000 We're doing very well.
00:31:14.000 Instagram, almost 4 million a day.
00:31:16.000 Wow.
00:31:17.000 Instagram, I think we have a streak going of over 130 reels in a row, over a million views.
00:31:24.000 180?
00:31:25.000 We have 180 videos in a row on Instagram that have over a million views.
00:31:31.000 I have a video on Instagram where I'm just debating some kid on inflation or something.
00:31:35.000 It's like 8 million views, 9, and these are like real views.
00:31:39.000 And TikTok does not even allow us to participate.
00:31:42.000 So I say get rid of them.
00:31:44.000 So I got to read more about this legislation.
00:31:46.000 At the same time, I say, wait a second, if it can be used against TikTok, can it be used against Rumble?
00:31:51.000 Can it be used against Telegram?
00:31:53.000 Can it be used against Twitter and X?
00:31:55.000 So I get a little bit hesitant.
00:31:57.000 Twitter has Saudi ownership.
00:31:59.000 Oh, okay.
00:32:00.000 Yeah.
00:32:00.000 So we have about three to four million YouTube views a day.
00:32:03.000 And by the way, we haven't even scaled our YouTube to where we want to get to yet.
00:32:06.000 And Instagram, we are, we're doing very, very well.
00:32:09.000 So we know these platforms intimately.
00:32:14.000 So I can speak from authority.
00:32:15.000 TikTok is the worst.
00:32:17.000 Not only are they the worst for they making your kids gay and trans, not only the worst for all the lies against Israel, all the lies against America, all the lies in favor of Hamas, but the dancing videos and stuff.
00:32:32.000 It is, it does not allow us an opportunity to compete.
00:32:37.000 I wouldn't mind TikTok if we could have a page.
00:32:40.000 We get struck down.
00:32:41.000 Hate speech.
00:32:42.000 Hate speech.
00:32:43.000 Can't misgender them.
00:32:44.000 So, for example, on TikTok, if I say that there's only men and women, you get kicked off.
00:32:51.000 If I say men can't give birth, kicked off of TikTok.
00:32:54.000 If I see that, you know, the race stuff, that we should have a colorblind society, hate speech.
00:32:58.000 We have been kicked off dozens and dozens of times.
00:33:00.000 TikTok is the Harvard University of social media platforms.
00:33:05.000 That is how restrictive they are on speech.
00:33:08.000 By the way, let's also be clear.
00:33:09.000 TikTok makes people more miserable.
00:33:11.000 It fries people's attention span.
00:33:14.000 We have to make a better argument.
00:33:15.000 If we're going to get rid of this thing, get rid of it.
00:33:16.000 Don't just say, oh, yeah, sell it to an American company.
00:33:18.000 Nuke it.
00:33:19.000 Get rid of it.
00:33:20.000 It's terrible.
00:33:21.000 It's tap-dancing around about data privacy.
00:33:24.000 It's just, it's weak.
00:33:25.000 It has no teeth.
00:33:26.000 It doesn't get to the essence of it.
00:33:28.000 We have the gayest generation in history.
00:33:30.000 We have kids that are turning trans, like a 4,000% increase in trans identification of kids.
00:33:35.000 You think they just come up with that on their own?
00:33:37.000 They're scrolling through a tailored algorithm that CCP oligarchs design for them to make them question their gender identity.
00:33:45.000 Thanks so much for listening.
00:33:46.000 Everybody, email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:33:48.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.
00:33:52.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.