The Charlie Kirk Show - Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and Ben Shapiro Remember Charlie Kirk

00:00:56.000 Hey everybody, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:00.000 I am Andrew Colvet, executive producer of this show.

00:01:04.000 I am joined by some very dear friends of Charlie.

00:01:07.000 Um, and of course, they need no introduction.

00:01:11.000 That would be in no particular order from my right to left, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, and Ben Shapiro.

00:01:19.000 Um, and I want to explain how this even happened.

00:01:23.000 Uh obviously we had the vice president of the United States uh honor Charlie by guest hosting the show from the White House yesterday.

00:01:32.000 I was just in DC yesterday for that, and it was an amazing experience.

00:01:36.000 I've gotten so much great feedback, and of course, we are so honored that JD wanted to take time, you know, from running the country and leading the world to help honor his friend, Charlie Kirk.

00:01:50.000 And in the moments that uh passed right after we got the news, I was in a state of shock.

00:01:59.000 And one of the things that gave me some solace and gave me some comfort in those first uh few hours afterwards was I actually happened to see a tweet from Matt Walsh, and I could feel the visceral anger that was pouring out of his body onto the post on X. And I it's hard to explain why that gave me so much comfort,

00:02:22.000 but I knew that there was an army rising up with righteous anger at what had just happened uh to my friend and to the host of this show.

00:02:32.000 And within minutes of that, I got a call from the CEO of Daily Wire just asking if there was anything he could do, and I said, Yes, send send the team.

00:02:43.000 I'm gonna want them to guest host this show.

00:02:45.000 And so I asked, and they graciously granted the uh the request, and here they are on Tuesday.

00:02:53.000 It was originally gonna be Monday, but you guys got slightly outclassed.

00:02:58.000 We got bumped.

00:03:00.000 Just terrible.

00:03:01.000 First of all, th thanks for having us.

00:03:03.000 And uh uh no no place we'd rather be, obviously.

00:03:06.000 But if the idea is that Charlie's friends are gonna take turns stopping by and doing the show, then the show is gonna go on until about 2052, I think.

00:03:16.000 Charlie had a lot of friends.

00:03:18.000 You're gonna be aged out by that, so you'll be off the list, but uh, but we'll figure something out.

00:03:22.000 We'll we'll take care of you, Michael.

00:03:24.000 But Matt, first to you.

00:03:26.000 Um tell me what happened in your heart in that in those first moments, or or however you want to do this, what Charlie meant to you, however, you want to take this, but those first moments meant a lot to me, so I would love to just let me into that that head space.

00:03:42.000 Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for allowing us to do this.

00:03:45.000 Uh it's obviously a great, a great uh honor.

00:03:48.000 Um as well as of course in the midst of this of this great tragedy.

00:03:54.000 Uh I think you know Charlie was a great man, he was a patriot.

00:04:00.000 Uh he was, you know, he loved God, he loved his family.

00:04:03.000 All that came through.

00:04:05.000 But the word that keeps coming to my mind when I think about Charlie is it's like it's the word that I used after I met Charlie the first time, and I called my wife, and it's just impressive.

00:04:15.000 He was an impressive guy.

00:04:16.000 And that was that's the thought that I had when I when I met him.

00:04:19.000 And I knew he was impressive based on his work, but just meeting him in person, he's just this really impressive guy.

00:04:25.000 And he he did something that I don't think anyone else can do, certainly in this business, and that he was this compelling uh incredible charismatic speaker, but also this force uh behind the scenes and organizing built this incredible institution.

00:04:45.000 Now in this business, there are some people who can be personalities and can talk in front of the camera, uh, although I think no one did it as well as Charlie.

00:04:54.000 And then there are people who are kind of the organizers behind the scenes.

00:04:56.000 I don't know anyone who was in A plus talent in both areas, and yet Charlie was, which is why you kind of hear this conversation now, which is inevitable about well, who's going to replace Charlie?

00:05:08.000 Who's gonna be the new Charlie Kirk?

00:05:10.000 And I and I am truly sorry to say that the answer is nobody.

00:05:15.000 Yeah.

00:05:15.000 There is no new Charlie Kirk.

00:05:16.000 It's it's just like w r when Rush Limbaugh died, and there was a conversation about who's the new rush.

00:05:21.000 There is no new rush.

00:05:22.000 You only get one rush in your lifetime.

00:05:24.000 You only get one Charlie Kirk.

00:05:26.000 We're blessed to have Charlie once, and we're not gonna have him again.

00:05:29.000 Now, all the rest of us can try to pick up the legacy and and uh and live out his legacy and carry it forward, which we will, but we can't be Charlie Charlie Kirk.

00:05:39.000 And and I think that's why you mentioned the anger.

00:05:44.000 That was just like millions of other people.

00:05:47.000 When I I'll never forget where I was when I when I first saw and heard about this, I was sitting in my car, I was about to walk into a coffee shop and just get a cup of coffee, and I uh got a text from someone saying what's going on with Charlie Kirk.

00:06:02.000 And then I went on Twitter and I'm looking around, and there's all this, you know, the at the time it was kind of felt like rumors or something, and I didn't, I wasn't sure I started text texting Michael and Ben.

00:06:12.000 And then I heard about a shooting, and and in the back of my mind, I I kind of was I was concerned, but I wasn't that concerned because I thought, well, there's no way it what did they kill Charlie Kirk.

00:06:23.000 It's just like it can't happen.

00:06:25.000 That cannot happen.

00:06:27.000 And then uh, and I'll never forget uh just kind of frantically scrolling around, texting what the hell's going on.

00:06:35.000 And and uh and and the the video of uh the video just popped up on the screen, and I saw it, and uh I'll never unsee it.

00:06:48.000 And uh I I just put my phone down and I was filled with uh grief, shock, but but oh rage, just overwhelming anger.

00:07:01.000 And I've felt that ever since that moment.

00:07:05.000 It hasn't gone away.

00:07:06.000 In fact, I my anger is only intensified, and there's a lot of reasons for it.

00:07:10.000 It was a horrible atrocity what was done to him.

00:07:13.000 Uh anger for his family, most of all, anger for a lot of people, but also anger for the country, because you you took someone from us, from all of us.

00:07:27.000 That that's why I think there's this outpour, this just incredible outpouring of mourning and grief is because we all feel it, whether you knew him or not, whether you were friends or not, we all feel that you took some something from us.

00:07:42.000 You took someone from us that we that we needed, and you had no right to do that, which is why we could talk about the grief in the mourning and all of that, and we should.

00:07:56.000 But we also need to talk about justice.

00:07:59.000 We need justice for Charlie.

00:08:02.000 We need justice for all of us.

00:08:04.000 Um justice for his family.

00:08:07.000 You know, we can uh which is why I'm not interested in conversations about unity and togetherness and kumbaya handholding and all that.

00:08:16.000 I know some people it might comfort them to talk that way.

00:08:20.000 But we don't have time for that right now.

00:08:23.000 What we need is justice for this for this man who was robbed from us.

00:08:30.000 And and and we need it now.

00:08:33.000 Much was made about JD's closing yesterday when he talked about unity, and but he said first we need truth.

00:08:41.000 Did you have a chance to hear that?

00:08:42.000 And what's your take?

00:08:43.000 What did Yeah, I thought, well, I thought JD, I thought his in I thought it was incredible what what I I think, and in fact, J J D Vance's uh, you know, monologue trick triggered towards the end of his of the show yesterday.

00:08:56.000 I thought was tremendous.

00:08:58.000 Uh and and before that, I also want to say that that um Erica's speech was I honestly believe one of the greatest speeches I've ever seen anyone give.

00:09:09.000 I think I think it's one of the great speeches ever delivered when you consider the circumstances, but then also just the message.

00:09:17.000 And and look, Erica was under no obligation to give the country what it needs.

00:09:23.000 You know, Erica could just go out there and say how she feels.

00:09:27.000 And it's our obligation to comfort her and to be there for her.

00:09:30.000 And yet she did, in fact, give the country what it needs.

00:09:33.000 Yeah.

00:09:34.000 Because she didn't, she she didn't give us um she didn't withhold the anger.

00:09:40.000 Like we we saw that she is she is angry and she wants justice for her husband, righteous, loving anger, anger that's that's rooted in the love that she has for her children and her husband.

00:09:51.000 And I think it was so beautiful and important for us to see that.

00:09:54.000 And uh Yeah, guess what?

00:09:56.000 She did it right where you're sitting.

00:09:58.000 That's where that the Erica Kirk speech happened.

00:10:01.000 We put the podium right where your chair is.

00:10:03.000 Um guys, I'm gonna look over here.

00:10:05.000 Uh what do you remember about Charlie?

00:10:07.000 Um, you know, the first thing you say on the show is uh I I wanna I want to make sure each of you has uh your own moment for this, so uh we'll start with you, Mike.

00:10:16.000 Well, look, it's hitting everyone.

00:10:18.000 Obviously, it's hitting millions of people who never met the guy, but who felt very, very close to him because they were with him all day in their pockets and reels.

00:10:26.000 And uh for those of us who are friends with him for many years, uh, you know, it hits in a personal way, in the same way that it hits when any family member or friend dies, I realized, which is that part of what you're mourning is not just the person, but you're mourning this future that you had imagined for the person and with the person.

00:10:44.000 And I think that's especially true with Charlie, because this is not in any way hyperbolic.

00:10:51.000 Everybody who knew Charlie knew this guy was going to be the president.

00:10:56.000 I think I don't think I'm being hyperbolic at all.

00:10:58.000 I knew you just meet the guy, and or you just see him from afar, and you say, This guy's gonna be president for all the reasons that you were mentioning, Matt, earlier.

00:11:07.000 Not only did he kill it in front of the camera and on the stage, and we but he was this unbelievable operative organizer, extremely effective political figure behind the scenes.

00:11:18.000 And he just had it.

00:11:18.000 I just don't know.

00:11:19.000 He just had greater skill and talent than any other political figure of our generation.

00:11:24.000 And so you say, well, he's gonna be president.

00:11:26.000 And when when it happened, uh you know, I was texting my wife, and she texted me, she said, Do you see do you see what happened?

00:11:32.000 I said, Yeah, yeah.

00:11:33.000 She said, It can't that can't have happened.

00:11:37.000 She goes, I know, I saw it, we all saw it.

00:11:39.000 I actually didn't see the video, thank God.

00:11:41.000 But she said we all saw it, and so we know it happened and yet it couldn't have happened.

00:11:46.000 And I think that that's the feeling that a lot of us have.

00:11:48.000 And obviously, Charlie would have known more than anybody.

00:11:52.000 Nobody has promised tomorrow.

00:11:53.000 He understood the risks of a public life, he understood better than most people that the condition that the country is in right now.

00:12:00.000 But I think this is what really drives it home, because as you know, we don't need to even dignify them with much discussion, but there have been some very hideous responses to Charlie's assassination, not only from fringe lunatics, which you get all the time, but from mainstream voices from normie voices from the person you went to third grade with on Facebook and from uh elite media outlets.

00:12:23.000 And and I think that was uh that really shakes a lot of people because Charlie, being the premier political talent of our generation, being so generous, so gracious, so constantly charitable, be so totally mainstream.

00:12:40.000 I think a lot of people see not more not only this good man, this innocent man who was who was murdered, but they say, Man, would half the country cheer it if something happened to me too, or to my brother or to what my co-workers do, you know, there's this recognition that uh people are are feeling two things.

00:12:57.000 One, they everyone who's never even met Charlie is feeling this personal loss, but also this political loss.

00:13:04.000 We feel that something about our political order has gone down with this guy who who was the best example of it.

00:13:10.000 And it it's why people are not going to get over it for a long time, nor should they get over it, because it really has to impel action.

00:13:17.000 We cannot continue in this way.

00:13:19.000 And the people who are who are undermining the very uh basic foundations of our country and of our society, they need to be punished for it in a just and prudent and lawful Way, but they they need to be discouraged and suppressed because we we cannot tolerate this.

00:13:36.000 Yeah, I'm uh I love what you said there, and I I'm just struck, and we don't have to get into this now.

00:13:42.000 Um, but you know, I there was news this morning that the charges against Luigi Maggione had been downgraded.

00:13:49.000 Uh and he's now there's no option for life without parole.

00:13:54.000 So there's a chance that this assassin I hadn't heard.

00:13:57.000 Yes, this assassin degree could be released at some point.

00:14:02.000 And he's a young guy, so yes, in theory, this might man might walk the streets free again.

00:14:07.000 This is so utterly outrageous and infuriating to me.

00:14:12.000 And that's you know, I fired off a tweet this morning about it because I was I was like, you know, do you not understand the moment that we are in?

00:14:19.000 How dare you not if you're the judge and you think this is the way you're gonna go, at least kick the can a week or two.

00:14:25.000 Yeah, but to spit in our face.

00:14:27.000 Yes.

00:14:29.000 So I I get enraged by that.

00:14:32.000 And uh anyway, so candidly, when I first started working with Charlie, I mean, Ben, you were you were the campus guy.

00:14:42.000 And uh it's interesting how everything evolved, but you know, we looked up to you and what you were doing so much, and I remember actually meeting with you with Charlie in you know, Ventura Boulevard uh in Los Angeles, and you know, it's many moons ago, but uh you know, we're fondly remembering them now because uh it's how it's how this whole community community was knit together.

00:15:04.000 Ben, the floor is finally yours.

00:15:06.000 I feel bad as at 9 33 here.

00:15:08.000 Not at all.

00:15:09.000 I mean, it's um but yeah, please.

00:15:11.000 I I think the thing for all of us about Charlie is that everyone felt Charlie's used the word innocent earlier, Michael.

00:15:20.000 It wasn't just that he was innocent in the sense, obviously, that he was an innocent person.

00:15:23.000 He was truly innocent at heart.

00:15:25.000 Right.

00:15:25.000 Charlie didn't change from the time that I knew him at 18 years old.

00:15:29.000 I mean, the first time I met Charlie, and I've talked about this before was the breakers in Palm Beach, and he was walking around, he had just started turning point, and he was like very scrawny at the time, but very tall, his beanpole, and he was just a bundle of energy, which never stopped.

00:15:44.000 I mean, legitimately endless levels of energy.

00:15:46.000 Uh if if you're talking about meeting Charlie, Charlie was just energetic all the time, all the time.

00:15:50.000 I don't know where it came from.

00:15:52.000 And he was walking around the the breakers as a kid trying to gather donors, and he came up to me as Mr. Shapiro, you know, great to meet you.

00:16:01.000 Uh, and it is like I I wasn't used to being calling Mr. I was like 28.

00:16:04.000 Right.

00:16:05.000 And Charlie was 18.

00:16:06.000 And uh and and Charlie we I met him, I turned to Jeremy Boring, you know, the other co-founder of the The Daily Wire, and I I said to him, That that guy's gonna be the head of the RNC.

00:16:17.000 Like there's just no doubt.

00:16:18.000 And as I've said, uh the first meeting.

00:16:21.000 The first meeting right off the bat.

00:16:22.000 You could tell because this is the thing about Charlie.

00:16:25.000 The way that people know Charlie as this unbelievably talented debater and a terrific broadcaster and an unbelievably clear advocate for his values and for biblical values and for truth.

00:16:36.000 And the reason that legitimately tens of millions of people are mourning him.

00:16:39.000 And I mean, I I should just say, from a Jewish perspective, every synagogue that that I know of did a tribute to Charlie Kirk over the weekend, like on Shabbat, they stopped the services to do tributes to Charlie, which is an amazing testimony to to who Charlie was.

00:16:56.000 But you could tell that early that Charlie the the thing is Charlie got good at those things.

00:17:01.000 The thing Charlie was always amazing at, the thing he had an inherent talent for was coalition building.

00:17:05.000 He was always an unbelievably great coalition builder.

00:17:08.000 I mean, it's something actually the Tucker talked about yesterday on JD's show.

00:17:12.000 And that's and that's an amazing thing.

00:17:14.000 I mean, this is a fractious coalition, and America's a fractious country.

00:17:18.000 And to have somebody with the ability and to dedicate his time and effort to actually building those coalitions is is really tough to the point where you know he's able to bring together people who can you know disagree on an enormous number of things and still point their ships in the same direction.

00:17:34.000 I mean, Tucker Carlson and I talked on Friday.

00:17:36.000 Okay, now everybody knows that that Tucker and I have you know had our disagreements and have our disagreements about an enormous number of policy issues, and I'm sure at some point we'll we'll publicly discuss those issues and and talk about our differences and all that.

00:17:47.000 But that doesn't matter because we're gonna point our ships in the direction that Charlie wanted those ships to be pointed, which is in the the direction of making the country stronger and better.

00:17:58.000 And that's that was Charlie's gift.

00:18:00.000 That was a thing that Charlie was was amazing at.

00:18:02.000 He had innate talent for that.

00:18:03.000 All the other stuff, I watched him cultivate over the course of 13 years.

00:18:06.000 Right?

00:18:07.000 I I watched him get good at debate.

00:18:09.000 I watched him become a charismatic speaker.

00:18:12.000 Charlie was not a naturally charismatic speaker.

00:18:14.000 He became that is that is an unbelievable skill to be able to actually better yourself in all of these ways and get better every day at doing them.

00:18:21.000 So that by the time that this horrifying act of evil happened, he was just the best there was at it.

00:18:27.000 That that is just an incredible testament to not only the amount of determination and energy and grit that Charlie put into things and that rolled off him every time you met him.

00:18:36.000 He was just, again, bouncing around the room every time you met him because he had another thing to do, another thing to do.

00:18:40.000 The fact that I remember when I started getting the text – I yeah, obviously it's there.

00:18:50.000 I kept saying on on the show, and I've said it for days since like there are no words, and I'm I'm rarely at a loss for words.

00:18:56.000 Um there they're legitimately no no words.

00:18:58.000 But the the thing that I remember stunning me is when they reported hit when the headlines came up with his age.

00:19:05.000 Because I was like, I've known Charlie for a long time, and so you think of Charlie as you know, somebody who you know grew up with you, which is which is true.

00:19:13.000 The fact that Charlie was 31 years old and had accomplished all of these things.

00:19:17.000 I mean, just when when Matt you say irreplaceable, utterly irreplaceable, I mean they're just completely irreplaceable, which is why everybody, I mean, this is why his movement is gonna have to be the replacement, right?

00:19:28.000 Everybody is gonna have to do their part because when a giant drops the load, it's gotta be a bunch of normies who pick it up.

00:19:34.000 But I think that's the other thing about Charlie, aside from the fact that he was a giant.

00:19:38.000 I said this on the show a couple of days ago, is that you know, people describe people as larger than life.

00:19:43.000 Charlie wasn't larger than life, he just was life.

00:19:46.000 He was just so alive and so normal, so normal.

00:19:50.000 That's why people connected to Charlie, right?

00:19:52.000 He he wasn't a persona.

00:19:54.000 Right.

00:19:54.000 There are so many people in this space and in the political space who are just kind of like caricatures of themselves and personas and performative and all this kind of crap.

00:20:02.000 And Charlie wasn't any of those things, right?

00:20:04.000 Charlie was a guy who had to be taught not to wear a baggy suit as we were talking about off the air.

00:20:09.000 Yeah, Charlie was a guy who, as you mentioned, someone told me he had Riz, and he said, What the hell's Riz?

00:20:14.000 Right?

00:20:14.000 That that's who Charlie was.

00:20:15.000 And the fact that a normie can change the world that way.

00:20:20.000 I mean, and that's what Charlie was.

00:20:22.000 He was saying normal, good, innocent things, the kinds of things that you want your children to grow up with.

00:20:28.000 The kind of uh I'm gonna show my kids videos of Charlie.

00:20:32.000 Right.

00:20:32.000 My kids are like 11.

00:20:34.000 Right.

00:20:34.000 I I have four, and they range from 11 to 1.

00:20:36.000 I can show them Charlie Kirk videos.

00:20:38.000 You know, Charlie, Charlie used to always check us and say, no.

00:20:42.000 Like if we were had some content idea and you go, there's 10-year-olds watching.

00:20:46.000 There's 14-year-olds watching.

00:20:48.000 Always remember.

00:20:49.000 He brought in he brought an innocence to the world, but an innocence with a level of sophistication in how to approach the world, and that is that is so difficult to do because people who are innocent tend not to know how to do the other thing, the activism thing and the coalition building thing.

00:21:02.000 He's a five-to-believable, like truly amazing.

00:21:05.000 And developed tools that weren't even in his arsenal at the beginning.

00:21:09.000 This is why, you know, people talk about Charlie being talented, and and they think that talent is is a sort of compliment.

00:21:14.000 A lot of people are born talented at a lot of different things.

00:21:17.000 Charlie was born talented at a great many things.

00:21:19.000 And then there are the things that he legitimately made himself the best in the world at.

00:21:23.000 And that was an inspiration to people too, because if you go back and you just watch the sort of arc of his career and his trajectory, which as Michael says was going to lead to the White House.

00:21:31.000 I mean, like no one, no one believes any different.

00:21:34.000 If you if you watch that arc, the ability to continue to improve his own trajectory by becoming that that's part of the tragedy.

00:21:43.000 Is he was getting better at everything, and he was already the best.

00:21:47.000 He was getting better at all those things.

00:21:48.000 And and and that that's that's an amazing, that's that's an unbelievable thing.

00:21:52.000 And that's what was taken from us.

00:21:53.000 And the the other thing is that you just to kind of close out my monologue here.

00:21:59.000 No, you know, that it wasn't just that I received you know messages from everybody.

00:22:06.000 We all received messages from everybody, because if you knew Charlie, even tangentially, everybody knew how affected you were by Charlie's death.

00:22:13.000 It wasn't just that I received messages from all over the world, from obviously, you know, friends in Argentina and in Britain and in Canada and tons from Israel, obviously, because Charlie, of course, was publicly extremely pro-Israel.

00:22:24.000 Not not just not just that.

00:22:26.000 I got messages from people who are very prominent Figures who are liberal, who were deeply disturbed and upset, and who and who are not I I don't want to say that everybody who disagrees with us politically is a person who celebrated Charlie's death, because that's not true.

00:22:48.000 This is the opportunity that Charlie provides.

00:22:50.000 What Charlie was about was opening doors so all those kids he was talking to on campus, so many of those kids became conservative, became God fearers, went to church on Sunday because of trying and they weren't people who already were on Charlie's side.

00:23:01.000 Right?

00:23:02.000 That was that was Charlie's deal.

00:23:03.000 He took a bunch of people who weren't going to go to church last Sunday, and they all went to church last Sunday.

00:23:07.000 Right?

00:23:07.000 The church piece, from everything I'm hearing, were overflowing.

00:23:10.000 Yeah.

00:23:10.000 Overflowing Charlie.

00:23:12.000 He said make heaven make heaven crowded, Charlie.

00:23:15.000 I knew I saw the Charlie effect at church because I'm sitting there, we're kind of a buttoned up, more traditional parish.

00:23:21.000 Shocking, I know.

00:23:22.000 Not a lot of tank taps.

00:23:23.000 But I look around, I look around, and there were sweatpants and t-shirts.

00:23:27.000 And I was so happy to see the sweatpants and t-shirts.

00:23:30.000 I knew every single one of them was there for Charlie.

00:23:32.000 And so I think that we we shouldn't just use this as a as an opportunity to mobilize on behalf of the things that Charlie believed to carry forward his legacy.

00:23:39.000 His legacy was going to people we disagree with and getting those people to realize that Charlie's principles were right.

00:23:48.000 That's that's the unbelievable legacy that he leaves because again, being murdered in the way that he was, doing the thing that Charlie was all about, doing outrage.

00:23:57.000 He was doing outreach, right?

00:23:58.000 Religious outreach.

00:23:59.000 He was talking about Christ in the question before he was killed, right?

00:24:02.000 He's doing religious outreach, he's doing political outreach, values outreach, biblically based outreach.

00:24:07.000 And being killed in that way means that there is an opportunity to reach out to people who weren't going to be devotees of of Charlie or devotees of the ideas that he espoused.

00:24:18.000 And to ignore that, I think would be to ignore a huge part of what his legacy can mean.

00:24:26.000 So, yes, I totally agree with the vice president.

00:24:28.000 You can't have unity with people who celebrate the murder of Charlie Kirk.

00:24:31.000 You absolutely cannot.

00:24:32.000 Those people are I'm not going to curse, those people are the worst that humanity has to offer.

00:24:37.000 The people who celebrate the death of a wonderful person like Charlie and a husband and a father, and I cannot watch the tapes.

00:24:43.000 I mean, you're playing, you know, before the show started, the videos of Charlie with the I can't watch them.

00:24:48.000 I have such a hard time with that.

00:24:50.000 I mean, because we all have young kids.

00:24:53.000 It's so painful.

00:24:54.000 It's so painful to watch and knowing that those kids are going to grow up without their dad.

00:24:58.000 It's it's unspeakable, unspeakable.

00:25:00.000 And people who celebrate that, there are no there are no deaths in hell that are rich enough for for those people.

00:25:08.000 But I think that there are people that we can reach out to, and that was always Charlie's idea.

00:25:12.000 There are always people that we can react reach out to.

00:25:15.000 He convinced literally millions of young people to move to the other side of the political aisle.

00:25:20.000 And so I think there's an opportunity to make people make that choice.

00:25:23.000 Make that choice.

00:25:24.000 Choose between the demons who are celebrating Charlie's death and the rest of us who would like to have a functional country where we can talk to one another.

00:25:32.000 I love I love what you said.

00:25:33.000 I mean, I do think this is an opportunity.

00:25:35.000 This is a this is that fork in the road moment as a country where we and I and this is you know, we could get into the whole cancel is it cancel culture debate or whatever, which I personally find to be ridiculous because if somebody revived reveals themselves to be a ghoulish, nasty, vile person, then that employer should have every right to fire a ghoulish.

00:25:57.000 If you threaten to murder someone or encourage the murder of someone for speaking their mind, then it actually helps the marketplace of ideas to get that person out of it.

00:26:06.000 That person is undermining the marketplace.

00:26:08.000 To quote Chesterton, it's the thought that stops thought.

00:26:12.000 You can't it it's it's you need certain foundations in order just like any marketplace, you need certain rules and basic guidelines, or else you you can't even speak.

00:26:20.000 I can't have a conversation with you if you're gonna threaten to march.

00:26:23.000 It's a deliberate misread of what cancel culture is, of course.

00:26:25.000 And this idea that you as an employer owe it to an employee to continue to employ them after they post in celebration of Charlie's murder.

00:26:32.000 Yeah.

00:26:32.000 Of course you don't have an obligation to continue signing a track who is celebrating to somebody who celebrates Charlie's murder.

00:26:37.000 Like duh.

00:26:37.000 That's that's it.

00:26:38.000 That's a basic aspect of freedom, also.

00:26:39.000 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: There's no equivalence, also, because and this is this is the the really frustrating thing about this conversation.

00:26:44.000 Oh, the right's engaging in cancel culture.

00:26:47.000 Well, even even if I accepted that framing, there's a there's a difference here in the kinds of things the kinds of speech that are being quote unquote cancelled.

00:26:54.000 Um, the left will cancel you if you say that you know men can't have babies.

00:27:01.000 That that That's what cancel culture is on the left.

00:27:03.000 They'll cancel you for saying things that are true and normal and obvious.

00:27:08.000 And on the right, to the extent that anyone's being canceled, and it's not being done through force of law, certainly not through violence, it's just being done through you know free speech and people, freedom of association.

00:27:17.000 But to the extent anyone's getting canceled, they're getting it canceled for saying things that are objectively vile and disgusting.

00:27:22.000 And in some cases illegal.

00:27:23.000 Right.

00:27:24.000 And there's so there's just there's a there's a fundamental difference.

00:27:26.000 Like society should treat those things differently.

00:27:28.000 I love the point you're making because it's it's truth versus a lie.

00:27:32.000 It's and I think I hadn't seen it put that way yet, Matt, and I think it's really smart.

00:27:38.000 So Yeah, well, I just think I I think that uh when when we talk about the difference in in you know canceling on the right or the left, there are a lot of other differences too.

00:27:46.000 I mean, one of the big differences is that the right, uh, especially historically, you know, over the la over the last several decades, doesn't have the institutional power that the left does.

00:27:56.000 And so when the left cancels you, they're using institutional power to do it.

00:28:00.000 I mean, they're using big big tech platforms, they're using they're you know, they're using these big corporations, they're um so they they have they have that institutional power that the right doesn't have.

00:28:09.000 So there are a lot of differences, but I think I think the most important difference again, it goes down to the actual speech we're talking about.

00:28:16.000 I mean, not not all speech is exactly the same.

00:28:19.000 There's there's a there is just a difference.

00:28:21.000 And so it is good.

00:28:23.000 We we should in society react with revulsion to things that are revolting.

00:28:31.000 When someone says something revolting and disgusting, we should react with revulsion and disgust.

00:28:36.000 But when someone says something that is good and normal, we should not react with with revulsion and disgust.

00:28:44.000 But I think I've got you.

00:28:45.000 Yeah.

00:28:46.000 No, I mean it it this it's it's this common sense stuff that we all know it, and yet somehow it er erupts into a debate on X. I think that what happens is that everybody flattens out these positions into the dumbest version of the argument.

00:28:59.000 There's a sort of pixelation that happens where it's like, well, that means that I should be able to say anything, and no one should ever be angry at me.

00:29:05.000 No one should ever criticize me, no matter what I say.

00:29:07.000 And if you do, that's a form of cancel culture.

00:29:09.000 And it's like, no, you've now reduced the argument to the stupidest version of the argument.

00:29:13.000 The the argument that I think all of us on the right were trying to make, maybe sometimes ineffectually, but I think correctly, was if you say a man is not a woman, that is not a cancelable offense or should not be.

00:29:25.000 And yet that was a cancelable offense for half of our industry.

00:29:29.000 I mean, legitimately.

00:29:30.000 Yeah.

00:29:31.000 I mean, it th this is the thing that that's and there there was uh an incident that happened, yes, personal memory from 2014, where I was on CNN Headline News, and there was a transgender identifying person, a very large male transgender identifying person with extraordinary large female hands.

00:29:48.000 And I only remember the size of the hands because I was grabbed by the back of the neck during that television interview because I had the temerity to call him sir and ask about his genetics.

00:29:58.000 And the entire panel immediately responded by rushing to the defense of the person who is doing the physical assault on camera.

00:30:05.000 And that is the predicate to all of this.

00:30:08.000 There are permission structures that have been created on the left for violence.

00:30:12.000 And these permission structures are deeply evil, and they are not the same thing as saying a man is not a woman.

00:30:20.000 Like if you if you are if you are some of the people who we've been watching, we haven't played any of their tapes because they don't frankly deserve the airtime, who are out there and and making statements about how Charlie deserved what he was gonna get or other people shall the New York Times featured a Twitch streamer who has spent his days for the last several years defending terrorism, violently threatening people and calling for violence.

00:30:43.000 And the New York Times featured that person in the pages of the New York Times.

00:30:47.000 Are we not supposed to react to that with revulsion?

00:30:49.000 As Matt says, Of course we should react to that with revulsion.

00:30:52.000 It's not the same thing.

00:30:55.000 We we have to recognize the left and the right when people have, as you point out, what's often a degraded debate about speech.

00:31:02.000 You have you you have to begin with something.

00:31:04.000 You can't think from nothing, you can't speak from nothing.

00:31:07.000 You have to begin with basic truths and like uh men and women are different, for instance, or basic moral goods.

00:31:13.000 C. S. Lewis called this the DAO.

00:31:15.000 Uh others have called it the natural law or the first principles of practical reason.

00:31:19.000 It's like in math, you have to start with an axiom A equals A, A plus B equals B plus A. You can't it it's not that you can prove those things, but you can't prove anything else without those things.

00:31:29.000 If we now deny That murder is wrong.

00:31:31.000 We're past reason.

00:31:32.000 I just want to say again, guys, thank you for making the trip here.

00:31:35.000 Um, you know, you guys were so gracious about I mean, it was you were just like anything we could do, you know.

00:31:42.000 Can we do more?

00:31:43.000 And uh we felt that love and we feel that love.

00:31:47.000 And um, you know, so just thank you again, because I know getting the three of you in the same spot.

00:31:52.000 We don't even like each other.

00:31:53.000 That's it.

00:31:54.000 You're getting us to voluntarily be around each other, but what we all would uh, you know, uh we we've been talking to a lot of our friends in the conservative movement, just in the broader American culture.

00:32:03.000 And and right now it feels that not just the beating heart of the conservative movement or the Republican Party, but the it does feel like the beating heart of America is in Phoenix right now.

00:32:13.000 That's a TP USA, and so this this is the place to be, and uh however anyone can help.

00:32:19.000 Some people can help by spreading the word, starting a chapter, sending a donation, doing whatever they can do though.

00:32:24.000 This is this is where it's at right now.

00:32:26.000 Thank you.

00:32:26.000 Thank you for saying that.

00:32:27.000 And I I also want you guys to know that you know Erica feels that too.

00:32:33.000 Um I talked to Erica uh multiple times a day as as we're just you know, because on top of the show, duty, it was sort of you know, I don't think people realize this.

00:32:42.000 I was originally like comms PR, you know, Char dealing with incoming on Charlie, and then we started the show, and so I still have I still wear two hats.

00:32:52.000 You know, Charlie would do this, and then he would go around turning point.

00:32:55.000 Yeah, and it was sort of we just kind of did it together when we when we built this part out, it was kind of like our our side hobby, which became this moment every day to sharpen ideas.

00:33:06.000 And by the way, when you talk about how Charlie leveled up, it was this microphone, you know, that that did that for him because the m the number of reps he was putting in every day, he was sharpening and sharpening and sharpening, and and we had the sounding board and these these chats that we have, uh, you know, I'll never delete, I'm gonna, you know, where where we're working through, you know, this new news cycle came up, and we've got to figure out how to navigate it.

00:33:31.000 And every day doing that, you're just sharpening your mind, sharpening your mind so that when he would go on campus, um it would it would come out the way it did.

00:33:39.000 And it it was amazing how his life was like that, where every piece of it fed into the next, where turning you know, this show would feed into the campus events, which I'm now gonna call basically campus tent revivals.

00:33:51.000 It just it you know, it occurred to me this morning.

00:33:53.000 I was like, that's what they were.

00:33:55.000 And and you you start realizing it he buried this stuff in the in this political conversation, but he was telling people to follow Jesus, repent and be saved.

00:34:05.000 You know, listen to the gospel.

00:34:07.000 God wants some so much more from you.

00:34:08.000 He wants you to be a part of something bigger.

00:34:10.000 It was a tent revival, and thousands came.

00:34:13.000 Thousands came.

00:34:14.000 And yeah, they cast a ballot when it came time in November, God bless them.

00:34:17.000 But that was good.

00:34:18.000 That was a good that was all.

00:34:19.000 Because it was innocent and it was fun, and it was just basically true.

00:34:22.000 And you know, that some some of the pushback that people kept giving Charlie, which was, you know, why is he going to college campuses and talking to people?

00:34:28.000 And Charlie would answer that, right?

00:34:29.000 I mean, say, because that's where the people are.

00:34:30.000 You gotta talk to the people, right?

00:34:31.000 I mean, it's pretty pretty simple.

00:34:32.000 But they would say, well, you know, in his debates, he's what is he even doing?

00:34:36.000 All Charlie did was ask extremely simple questions that people on the other side could not answer.

00:34:43.000 They couldn't.

00:34:44.000 I mean, that's why the 10 set the revival 10 set on it proved me wrong because people had a very difficult time, as it turns out, proving truth wrong because it was true, and Charlie was uniquely capable of speaking to that truth.

00:34:53.000 I know we haven't played any clips of the city.

00:34:55.000 Well, we will we have another hour.

00:34:56.000 So we're gonna keep it.

00:34:57.000 I would I would love to play 38, where Charlie is talking to young men.

00:35:01.000 All right because they they really are in need of of this advice.

00:35:03.000 This is gonna live for it.

00:35:05.000 Play cut 38.

00:35:07.000 I I don't give advice to young women on how to find a man.

00:35:11.000 Uh I will say to young men, uh, get your act together and really make self-control and self-discipline uh a priority in your life.

00:35:22.000 One of the reasons why so many young women are upset with the dating pool.

00:35:27.000 I hear this all the time, is that they see men that can't control themselves.

00:35:31.000 And they and as you can tell, the young ladies are very enthusiastic about hearing this.

00:35:36.000 And by the way, here's a thought crime for you.

00:35:39.000 Women want to be led.

00:35:41.000 Women want to be led by strong men.

00:35:44.000 And you will.

00:35:50.000 Men are different than women, and women are different than men, and both need each other, by the way.

00:35:56.000 I mean, that's true.

00:35:58.000 And and you know, it sounds controversial when he says it, and then you think for more than twenty seconds, and it turns out that it's just true.

00:36:05.000 And Charlie had a unique gift in clarifying and crystallizing that truth and then weaponizing the truth and delivering it out there in viral fashion, which is why again, tens of millions of people are more his way giant marches chanting his name in South Korea and London.

00:36:19.000 And you have a and and squares being dedicated to him in Israel and New Zealand marches and like all over the world, people are mourning Charlie in a way that I think would have astonished frankly, I think it would have astonished Charlie.

00:36:29.000 If he if he had like I I you you knew him much better than than I knew him.

00:36:34.000 It would have blown his mind.

00:36:36.000 We knew that Charlie was getting uncomfortably, freakishly famous.

00:36:41.000 His name ID...

00:36:43.000 Some some polster did it for us without us knowing and told us afterwards.

00:36:46.000 It was like, you know, we knew Charlie was getting very famous to the extent.

00:36:54.000 You don't get buried on South Park without without a exact funny because I remember the first plane ride I took with Charlie years ago.

00:37:03.000 There was one kid that came up and like kind of on the sly, like fiss bumped him, and I was like, Oh, that's cool.

00:37:10.000 And it got to the point where it didn't matter if he was in London, it didn't matter if he was in Manhattan, it didn't matter if he was at some like random bar.

00:37:17.000 This is a really funny story, actually.

00:37:19.000 Is it some random bar with like in kind of the boonies?

00:37:23.000 It's a whole backstory, with a couple fox hosts.

00:37:27.000 And at this random bar, over the course of an hour and a half conversation, about a hundred and fifty people came up.

00:37:35.000 Literally heard the story from one of those box hosts two days ago.

00:37:37.000 Yeah.

00:37:38.000 Yes, this is a true story.

00:37:39.000 And kept getting selfies, and they would hand the phone to the Fox host and be like, Could you give me a picture of Trump?

00:37:45.000 And this, you know, like there was two rather famous people that he was have in engaged in this very long conversation with, and they would be like, sure.

00:37:53.000 You know, you know and so we knew he was getting weirdly, weirdly uh famous and uh uncomfortably so, but I he embraced it.

00:38:03.000 He had said, you know, he used to really kind of I think struggle with it a little bit, but as the years went on, he was like, I've just embraced it, this is my life.

00:38:11.000 And he would always he'd say yes to every selfie.

00:38:13.000 Every selfie, sure, come have a have a selfie.

00:38:15.000 And he go, you know, like this this uh very Charlie Kirk smile.

00:38:18.000 Uh but it anyways, we it we it was um he said he would to your answer your question, I think he would still be blown away because I I think I I it's hard to know when you're living it just what's happening.

00:38:33.000 And you know, I mentioned to a reporter it was fifteen billion views his content got uh in the fall lead up to the election across uh and uh TikTok did a a survey and after the election and they discovered that Charlie was the most trusted vo voice for Trump voters under 30.

00:38:52.000 And he was, you know, way more popular than President Trump.

00:38:56.000 And so when you look at what happened with the youth vote, especially knowing that the boomer vote fell off two percent.

00:39:04.000 So boomers went to the left two percent this last election.

00:39:07.000 Wow, and young people went like 13 per uh points to the right.

00:39:11.000 And so you you look at uh I think it's a completely fair thing to say that I don't think we have President Trump if we don't have Trump.

00:39:16.000 So the president said it the other day, didn't he?

00:39:18.000 As did Susie Wall.

00:39:19.000 Well, vice pr vice president has said it, certainly.

00:39:22.000 I remember when I when I was on with Charlie at uh at the last Amfest in in December uh right after the election.

00:39:29.000 Uh I remember saying that to Charlie.

00:39:30.000 I said, With without you, the president is not the president again.

00:39:34.000 And I think everybody who watches politics with even any remote level of in of intuition and understanding knows that that that is the case.

00:39:42.000 And again, that's an area where I remember when they announced the TP USA was going to be doing the vast majority of Trump's voter outreach.

00:39:49.000 I was like, do they have any prep in that?

00:39:51.000 Like normally you hire you know a group that has uh outside expertise in that sort of thing, and again, that's just an area he was constantly leveling up.

00:39:59.000 That's a crazy thing to level up.

00:40:01.000 And he never he never asked for any credit for that.

00:40:06.000 I mean, he is the reason that Trump got elected, but I never heard him ever say that.

00:40:11.000 And this is in our in our business, you know, you've got everybody always wants credit for everything.

00:40:16.000 Yeah, I think I was actually the first person to tell you that.

00:40:18.000 Yeah, well, I drive uh so but so for for Charlie to have that level of influence, but but to never play in fact he did the opposite.

00:40:28.000 He was he would deflect credit, he would give it to other people.

00:40:31.000 I I you're the perfect example for that because you had that incredible documentary, What is a woman?

00:40:39.000 And the question, Charlie took it and ran with it in such an amazing way, and he would always be like, I gotta give credit to Matt Walsh.

00:40:49.000 Like he would go out of his way, and I know he messaged you privately a lot saying, like, oh, you're doing amazing.

00:40:54.000 This was so good or whatever.

00:40:56.000 But uh you know, he gave you a lot of credit for that.

00:40:59.000 And I think I I saw you at the inauguration at some event, I remember, and I made it a point being like, I want you to know he he really like respects the heck out of you.

00:41:08.000 Yeah, well, he he gave me far too much credit as well.

00:41:10.000 One of the few times I disagreed with him is when he would when he would do that.

00:41:14.000 But I I do remember I I I mentioned it on air a couple days ago that um after after the the election that that Charlie made a point uh I mean he had just had this huge victory that that he was the pivotal player in it, and he made this point of of putting out a tweet to give me some small token of credit uh because of on the trans issue.

00:41:36.000 And um I just remember thinking again that that's too much credit, but but also nobody does that in this business.

00:41:46.000 No, no one ever, especially when you just had a huge victory and you're thinking, who can I who can I give this credit to so it's not going to me?

00:41:54.000 No one does that.

00:41:55.000 He's the he's like one of the very few guys I know who I I'll give you an insight on that because you know, there was a lot of people that would chirp at Charlie or attack, and he you had to be, I mean, you know, a certain level of doing something wrong for him to name you to put you to put to name check you.

00:42:16.000 And that was usually like, oh, you're you know, trying to you know come at Pete Hegseth, and he's our boy.

00:42:23.000 So if you're coming in the way of Pete, then there might be a com there might be a point.

00:42:26.000 But but uh but other than very very specific instances, and I I had a really long conversation with Charlie about this, and he was talking about sort of how the Greeks sort of had a uh hierarchy of virtues, but not not just that, it was like roles.

00:42:45.000 Um he put being an entertainer, no offense to you guys, because I I think you guys are all much more than that, but he put being an entertainer, and I think the Greeks did too, like the actors and all that very low.

00:42:58.000 Criminals and prostitutes usually it was it was really low on their their list.

00:43:04.000 What they put high was being a philosopher, was being a theologian was being a statesman.

00:43:10.000 And I remember Charlie very clearly saying our job is to keep the coalition together.

00:43:17.000 Yeah, our job is to be these three.

00:43:19.000 He's like, a lot of people can do that.

00:43:21.000 He's like, we have to do this.

00:43:23.000 Because you know, it was so easy and so tempting to get infuriated when these pot shots would come over, and nobody knew the work that we were doing and he was doing behind the scenes to sort of like assuage this person or bring this person back, or you know, make sure that they felt I mean there was a lot of that going on.

00:43:39.000 But to me, that is the skill, and and actually that is different from certainly than entertainment.

00:43:44.000 It's even different from philosophy.

00:43:46.000 There are a million dime store philosophers, a lot of people who have a brilliant idea.

00:43:50.000 Just ask them, you know, and they'll give you their white paper on it.

00:43:53.000 There are very, very few people who can build a coalition, and fewer people still who can maintain a coalition.

00:44:01.000 Uh, the the only other example I can think of in modern politics is Trump, who holds these disreports together.

00:44:06.000 And Charlie was the glue.

00:44:10.000 It is unbelievable.

00:44:11.000 The friendships he could maintain, the pieces that he could broker for the common good for a common purpose, that uh there there is simply no comparison.

00:44:21.000 And uh when you're looking at elections, when you're looking at moving the ball forward in the country, uh it was the most important thing.

00:44:28.000 I totally agree.

00:44:29.000 And I want to I promised you guys a by the way, there was like the very Charlie thing, because Charlie would always be like this.

00:44:35.000 And every so often I'd catch him where he wasn't like fully like tuned in and be like, Yeah, that was great.

00:44:39.000 Anyways, we'll be right back.

00:44:42.000 And by the way, you know that was that's real.

00:44:44.000 He was he he answered all of his uh audience questions.

00:44:48.000 Did he actually answer?

00:44:49.000 No, he's did he actually read all the questions?

00:44:52.000 Yeah, he did.

00:44:52.000 That's unfortunate.

00:44:53.000 I'm not even kidding.

00:44:54.000 He read them because I saw them going.

00:44:55.000 Unbelievable.

00:44:56.000 The the read uh unread anyway.

00:44:58.000 Matt, I wanted to pay tribute To you because it just became such a uh big part of the tour.

00:45:03.000 I wanted at least play one of those those videos that uh you helped uh inspire with Charlie.

00:45:08.000 Play Cut 68.

00:45:09.000 What is a woman?

00:45:10.000 It's a woman who it's a person who believes they're in the w they're a woman.

00:45:14.000 No, but that that's not a definition.

00:45:16.000 What objectively is a woman?

00:45:18.000 It's a woman.

00:45:18.000 No, what is that?

00:45:19.000 A woman.

00:45:20.000 Give me a definition.

00:45:21.000 Just anyone who believes they're a woman.

00:45:23.000 No, but what is that?

00:45:24.000 It's certain that's circular reasoning.

00:45:26.000 What is a woman without using the word woman in the answer?

00:45:30.000 Can you can you answer that question or no?

00:45:32.000 It's just a person who believes they're a woman.

00:45:34.000 I mean, what's wrong with that?

00:45:36.000 You can't answer the qu you can't use the word woman in your answer.

00:45:39.000 The inability to answer the most fundamental obvious biological question, what is a woman?

00:45:44.000 This is not troubling.

00:45:45.000 Like it's so simple, it's so obvious.

00:45:47.000 And I guess the question is when is womanhood then achieved?

00:45:51.000 Just like for the whenever they decide.

00:45:53.000 I mean, like last chance.

00:45:56.000 Can you tell me what a woman is?

00:46:01.000 Are you a woman?

00:46:11.000 Why are you so hateful?

00:46:13.000 What's the word?

00:46:19.000 I asked you what a woman was.

00:46:21.000 That's not hateful.

00:46:22.000 I gave you the definition.

00:46:26.000 Thank you for your time.

00:46:32.000 Yeah, I haven't seen that one in a long time.

00:46:34.000 Matt never gets old.

00:46:35.000 It never gets old.

00:46:36.000 Yeah, what did what did we just witness there?

00:46:38.000 And why was it?

00:46:40.000 Well, it's the I mean it's the question.

00:46:43.000 Still a question of uh of a generation.

00:46:45.000 That's still that they still they've had they've had now uh me several years to figure out a good answer to that, and they still haven't haven't quite gotten there.

00:46:55.000 Um and I you know, I always loved seeing that that and um and I I would I would certainly do, I know we all did the same thing with Charlie that he that he would he would stumble on like a certain point or a way of phrasing it, and you go, well, that's great, I gotta go use that.

00:47:10.000 Of course you got you always gotta give credit, but um that was the um not always because sometimes Charlie would be like I'm gonna steal that.

00:47:16.000 Don't worry, like he'll go, I'll give attribution 30% of the deck.

00:47:21.000 As long as as long as you're at 30 or 40% attribution, you're fine.

00:47:24.000 Um but um that kind of goes back to you know, I I hate to drag it drag it back down to the the depressing stuff, but uh that that goes back to what we've lost is like this this kind of give and take, this we're we're we're building off of each other.

00:47:40.000 And um and we've lost that.

00:47:43.000 Now I I also wanted to say just real quick that and I and I made this point a couple of times on my show and on X and stuff, but um we've been talking about all the tributes to Charlie and all the people that love him and and what a testament that is to to him and his character and and his his effectiveness.

00:48:01.000 And all that is true, and that that is the the greatest testament to the man is that um is that millions of people are are mourning his loss.

00:48:09.000 But I also do think, and I and I and I I don't we shouldn't lose sight of this, that the people all the people on the other side who are celebrating his death and dancing on his grave uh it's infuriating to see, it's disgusting, it enrages me.

00:48:28.000 But also that is a testament and a tribute to Charlie as well.

00:48:33.000 And um and and when I die, you know I I would like to think the same thing's gonna happen because that means that that I was effective.

00:48:45.000 You know, that you're your your enemies if you are a warrior, yeah, and Charlie Kirk was a warrior, he was a he's a peaceful warrior, he was a happy warrior, he was nonviolent, but he was a warrior.

00:48:56.000 If you're a warrior, then your enemies should celebrate when you're no longer there.

00:49:00.000 When you're out of the arena, they should be happy because that means that that you were winning.

00:49:05.000 You know, that that means that you were punching hard.

00:49:08.000 And so we should we should all want that for ourselves.

00:49:11.000 If if if if if if when we're no longer here, if our enemies couldn't care less, just another day at the office for them, then that means we didn't punch hard enough.

00:49:19.000 That means we didn't fight hard enough.

00:49:20.000 And so um I I I do also see that as a testament to that.

00:49:24.000 So can I ask you all three of you a question?

00:49:28.000 What are you going to do next?

00:49:31.000 I mean, nobody can replace Charlie.

00:49:33.000 We know it's going to take, I guess the question is sort of how has this changed you?

00:49:37.000 What practical things?

00:49:40.000 I mean, you're going to be going to campus.

00:49:42.000 I have a real answer to this, which is I owed Charlie a text.

00:49:47.000 Because unlike Charlie, I was not diligent or fastidious about these things.

00:49:51.000 He was just unbelievably good at constantly being in touch with people.

00:49:53.000 So I owed him a text a few days prior.

00:49:55.000 But I thought, well, whatever, I'm going to see him.

00:49:57.000 I'm going to see him in a couple weeks.

00:49:59.000 He and I were scheduled to speak together at University of Minneapolis, or as he called it, Mogadishu, in 12 days, 12 days after it happened.

00:50:09.000 And so it happens.

00:50:10.000 And then, you know, you're in a fog.

00:50:13.000 and then you're you're getting the news and then you and then later this popped into my head.

00:50:19.000 I said, oh my goodness I was supposed to do an event with Charlie uh a week and a half from now.

00:50:23.000 So and so your first instinct is well there's no way that that event can go on.

00:50:28.000 That's your just whenever something like this happens.

00:50:30.000 But then two seconds later you say there's no way it can't go on.

00:50:34.000 Especially given this man especially given this movement that he built and everything that he stood for.

00:50:40.000 He said there's no way that that we can cancel that.

00:50:44.000 And so I said, well look this is a a decision for TPUSA to make and you can speak to it more but it seems to me that the tenor around here is we've just lost the leader, this irreplaceable man we we don't even necessarily want to keep go going on but we have to do it.

00:51:00.000 Well yeah and that that's why we did our Friday show and um if I could you know I was not in a good place um I'm still not in a good place but I knew we had to do it because Charlie would want us to do it.

00:51:14.000 And I and it it I kinda likened it to what happened at you know Pentecost a little bit because what happened was Charlie died and his followers, his team his staff I mean it was we were trying to make sense of the chaos part of part of the team was in Provo part of the team was in Phoenix and we were trying to just I just put one foot in front of the other and then Erica got up and spoke to the world and it was like that was like our Pentecost where and all of a sudden we were filled with courage.

00:51:42.000 And I don't think that was just us uh on the team I think the whole country watched it and I think that's why you know I think Hannity played it twice he played it a second time from from top to bottom and I was I was incredibly grateful for that editorial decision and I think people wanted that and needed it and Erica was so brave and I can just tell you we have been inundated from the grassroots these young kids we're probably at 40,000

00:52:09.000 new maybe more uh new chapter requests to start new chapters and and i've said this on doing media hits to put that in perspective we had 900 college chapters and 1200 high school chapters and charlie just a few weeks ago was like we're going to be on every high school in america we're going to do 35 and a thousand and i was like i googled it i go charlie there's only um 23 000 high schools we're going to be on 23 000 we're going to find new high schools but and every you know the whole team's like

00:52:39.000 charlie we are you know and eventually he goes okay fine you know we'll we'll then he tells the the guy who's building the slide because this is a presentation because you can put 10 but you make him think he's doing 15.

00:52:50.000 And he was so committed to putting a Club America which is our high school brand on every single American high school and I just marvel because that is such a fresh memory it's two weeks two two weeks ago that we had this and I just marvel that now in death he is going to absolutely accelerate that that mission that goal so much faster than he could have ever possibly imagined.

00:53:14.000 And it that was the Charlieism more let's do more we have to go harder we have to go faster more and and the whole team knows that um and he was just and he covered it all in this amazing grace and and I I just want to give some kudos here.

00:53:28.000 I want to make sure I have enough time to the Daily Wire.

00:53:32.000 I just found out that the Daily Wire is donating a million dollars to TPUSA.

00:53:39.000 And I, from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys so much.

00:53:43.000 I'm blown away by that generosity.

00:53:45.000 And I know Erica is too.

00:53:46.000 Our pleasure.

00:53:48.000 Easiest board decision.

00:53:49.000 God bless you guys.

00:53:51.000 That's breaking news and an amazing, amazing gesture of confidence in what Charlie...

00:53:59.000 built and what we are going to keep moving forward and growing and multiplying.

00:54:03.000 Uh Ben you noticed something you picked something up about that clip that we showed of Charlie where he's asking what is a woman what is a woman what is a woman pause why are you so hateful?

00:54:14.000 Right and we we all laugh because it's inherently ridiculous, because Charlie obviously is not being hateful.

00:54:20.000 But that I think when when, you know, I think we're all feeling Matt's visceral rage, or at least if we're not, we should be.

00:54:27.000 And the question is where to direct it.

00:54:29.000 And I I I think that that visceral rage has to be directed at the ideological frameworks that create the impetus for violence.

00:54:37.000 In that statement, when she says, why are you so hateful?

00:54:41.000 That's kind of the whole thing.

00:54:43.000 The reason I say that is because that there is a basic framework for idea.

00:54:47.000 There's been this flattening where we pretend that all ideologies are equally likely to create violence.

00:54:51.000 This is a favor to the media, right?

00:54:52.000 It's just or or politicians.

00:54:54.000 Political violence is bad, however it's formed.

00:54:57.000 Both sides of it.

00:54:58.000 Everyone's doing here's the thing.

00:55:00.000 We all know which ideologies, everyone knows which ideologies are most likely.

00:55:05.000 We we are not burning down the country.

00:55:07.000 We're not burning down, we're not burning down businesses.

00:55:10.000 We're not throwing rocks at police.

00:55:11.000 We're praying.

00:55:12.000 Correct.

00:55:12.000 And and let's be real about this.

00:55:14.000 The minute, literally the minute I heard that Charlie was shot.

00:55:18.000 I don't know about you guys, but I had some pretty good suspicions as to what ideology was behind the murder of our friend.

00:55:25.000 It's always the ones you most expect.

00:55:27.000 Well, and and so the question is why, right?

00:55:28.000 The question is why.

00:55:29.000 And the answer is because there's a framework of mind that has been created in which people claim that there is the problems in their own life.

00:55:36.000 And this is what Charlie stood against, right?

00:55:38.000 Because Charlie was constantly talking about personal responsibility and making your life better and take your life in your own hands, and you can be a success, right?

00:55:43.000 That's the clip we played earlier for men.

00:55:45.000 Like be better, be better.

00:55:47.000 If you are a person who takes the failures in your own life, and you externalize those onto a shadowy group of people who are responsible for all of your failures, and then you say those people are victimizing me to the point where they are genocide, erasing me, trans erasure, right, transgenocide.

00:56:04.000 And then you say, Well, if those people are trying to kill me, it's self-defense.

00:56:08.000 Right?

00:56:08.000 Speech is violence, it's self-defense for me to shoot somebody like Charlie Kirk for saying that.

00:56:13.000 When she says, Why are you so hateful?

00:56:15.000 The reason she is perceiving fact as hate is because it is a denial of her sense of identity and a and a sense of threat that is now justifying violence.

00:56:25.000 That is the reality.

00:56:26.000 There's an undergirding to some of these ideologies, particularly this ideology, that that has violent extremism as an after-effect.

00:56:35.000 That's just a reality.

00:56:36.000 And there are multiple ideologies that are that are like that.

00:56:38.000 So I think that I think that the BLM ideology had aspects of this.

00:56:41.000 For sure.

00:56:42.000 I think radical Islam, as Charlie routinely talked about, particularly in the last couple of weeks before his murder.

00:56:47.000 Radical Islam, obviously, is is deeply ensconced in the sort of conspiracy theory about our failure is the fault of all these other people.

00:56:53.000 These people are trying to harm us, therefore, we are justified in doing violence to them.

00:56:58.000 And when I see the New York Times trotting out Hassan Hiker repeatedly now, this is like the second time repeatedly to talk about Charlie's murder, as though he is the representative of good faith debate.

00:57:09.000 When his he is backed every terror group that I can I can imagine, and it's legitimately openly called for said American Reserve 911, yeah, has openly talked about how his political opposition should be physically harmed.

00:57:21.000 You're you're a lawyer, right?

00:57:23.000 I mean, when does it cross the line into incitement?

00:57:26.000 Does it have to be when is a specific name has to be used?

00:57:30.000 Because this this is relevant to what happened with Pam Bondy and all the clip that's I mean you know, she was saying she basically said hate speech is illegal.

00:57:39.000 And Charlie, I mean, I think she ended up clarifying later to her credit that the clip is uh I'm told is incomplete.

00:57:46.000 She ended up quoting incitement, right?

00:57:48.000 Um Michael looks uh It's another unfortunate phrase to use.

00:57:54.000 If you're just saying that threats and incitement are illegal, of course they are.

00:57:57.000 You don't need to say hate speech.

00:57:58.000 No, exactly.

00:57:59.000 So that's what I'm saying.

00:58:01.000 Yeah, I mean, but it ties into it ties into what happens next here, and that's why I'm asking it because a lot of people, you know, there was a push to sort of smoke out all these people that were criticizing uh or that were dancing on the grave, rather, and that's perfectly fair.

00:58:15.000 It it's social media.

00:58:17.000 Social consequence, but not a legal one.

00:58:19.000 When does it become a legal consequence?

00:58:21.000 So I think that what they've been attempting to do, and Cash Patel is apparently talking about this is labeling Antifa a terrorist group, which absolutely they should be.

00:58:28.000 I mean, clearly they should be, At this point, and that if there are people who are funding groups that are violent, then we should obviously be looking into them, probably under racketeering laws and conspiracy laws.

00:58:40.000 If you are donating money to a ex-Mormon trans furry group that is openly planning violence, then you should be held legally accountable for that in the way that you would be, as we all know, if it were a white supremacist group and you're funding a white supremacist group.

00:58:55.000 We all know that that would be investigated by the FBI.

00:58:58.000 And I don't mean to step step on your point here, but I just want to underscore why what you're saying is so critical, and I want the audience to understand that is because one of Charlie's best friends in the administration was Stephen Miller.

00:59:09.000 And Stephen Miller came on our show yesterday.

00:59:12.000 I think he said the same thing on Hannity.

00:59:13.000 The last text message, and there's so many prophetic little nuggets, guys.

00:59:17.000 I I wish I could share them all.

00:59:19.000 The last text message he shared with Stephen Miller was we have to root out the people that are funding the violence.

00:59:28.000 What we're talking about here is organized crime.

00:59:31.000 All right, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Ben, but I I think it's important that people understand that Stephen Miller, one of his dearest friends, you know, this is the last thing he got from Charlie.

00:59:42.000 Do you not think that Stephen Miller is going to make this his I mean the immigration will always be his number one issue, but this is not going to go away, and the admin is going to take that would be the best thing because I think that what you're gonna see from the left now is an attempt, and you're already seeing it, to claim that the right is cracking down on free speech as a response to what happened to Charlie.

01:00:04.000 This is why they're retelling this this idiotic line that it's cancel culture to fire somebody who's cheering somebody's murder.

01:00:10.000 Uh it's it's why they're they're now trying to spin that quote from the attorney general into they're cracking down on free speech, being meticulous about your policy pursuits, which is something that Charlie very much was.

01:00:22.000 Yes.

01:00:22.000 Uh, you know, being meticulous in how you actually do the thing is the thing that the administration needs to do next.

01:00:27.000 And Stephen Miller is definitely going to do this.

01:00:30.000 I was talking with my my friend Chris Rufo about this because Chris is very much into this.

01:00:33.000 Uh just you you have to be incredibly meticulous in your use of power to achieve your goal, and that's the thing that needs to happen next.

01:00:40.000 I mean, we can we need to have the conversations that we've all been been talking about with people who disagree with us, and we need to you know obviously point our boats in the same direction to try and generate more power and and more and more victories and more successes behind Charlie's legacy and the things that he that he stood for.

01:00:56.000 But the thing that that the government can do needs to be really meticulous, and we need to be meticulous in in how we pursue that in the world.

01:01:02.000 And the government can be very we should be very, very clear that this was left-wing LGBT extremism.

01:01:09.000 I mean, all all all of the all the evidence we have right now points to that very, very clearly.

01:01:14.000 And that needs to be said, it can't be said enough.

01:01:18.000 And in particular, you know, the the the trans connection here is also very clear, and I think more's gonna come out about that.

01:01:26.000 Trans ideology is in inherently dangerous.

01:01:32.000 It is in inherently violent.

01:01:33.000 Trans ideology is inherently violent because it is a violent rejection, first of all, of the self.

01:01:39.000 You are rejecting yourself.

01:01:41.000 If you're if you're on in the throes of this ideology, you're you're doing violence to yourself.

01:01:46.000 Um we know the suicide, as as trans activists themselves are are always very quick to point out the suicide attempt rate is extreme astronomically high.

01:01:56.000 So this is an inherently violent um ideology.

01:01:59.000 And kind of going back to your point earlier, Ben, that how are these things incited?

01:02:05.000 Well, these people are being told that your very existence hinges on the the acceptance and affirmation of other people.

01:02:17.000 And so your not not just like your identity, but your life itself, your very life, your very existence, it depends on other people affirming it.

01:02:25.000 And if they don't affirm it, then they have caused you to not exist.

01:02:29.000 And and to those of us who are sane, that sound it sounds crazy.

01:02:32.000 We can't wrap our minds around that.

01:02:34.000 That's what these people believe.

01:02:35.000 That's what the ideology teaches, it's what the media's been saying, it's what the schools have been saying, it's what it's what Democrat politicians what the president you used to say in the under the old regime.

01:02:43.000 This is the message that used to come from the White House all the way on down that if you do not affirm these people, and that is to say, accept their their delusional perceptive perception of their own s of themselves, then you are killing them.

01:02:55.000 And so when you go to people who are already in the throes of this violent, inherently violent Violent ideology, they're already delusional, they're very they're deeply confused.

01:03:04.000 And then you tell them that, hey, those people over there, if they don't accept everything you say about yourself, they are killing you.

01:03:11.000 They are a threat to you, they're committing genocide.

01:03:13.000 They use that word, transgenocide, and they use that label against Charlie, they've used it against me, they've used it against you two.

01:03:20.000 That is not now we kind of laugh it off because it's silly, it's ridiculous.

01:03:24.000 Genocide.

01:03:24.000 What the hell are you talking about?

01:03:26.000 They should be.

01:03:26.000 But the people that they're telling that to believe it.

01:03:29.000 They believe that we are literally committing a genocide against them.

01:03:33.000 And so when you do that, when you go and tell people these people, if they don't affirm you, they're killing you, they're committing a genocide, and then one of those people goes and kills one of the people that you made that claim about, it it is a hundred percent also your fault.

01:03:45.000 You you intentionally caused that.

01:03:47.000 You you might as well have just told them, hey, go kill that guy.

01:03:50.000 Because that is in in effect, that is what you said to them, and that has been the message, it can't be stressed enough.

01:03:55.000 That has been the message not just from the left-wing fever swamps on the internet, but all from the very top of the Democrat leftist pyramid on down, that has been the message.

01:04:05.000 And so they they own this.

01:04:07.000 They own all this.

01:04:08.000 And by the way, this individual.

01:04:11.000 I'm gonna say his name.

01:04:12.000 I I uh you know, I chant you are my rage uh outlet, so just keep rage tweeting, please.

01:04:19.000 Because uh, but you know, he was bragging about it.

01:04:21.000 And and uh and there before it happened, he was saying this, but there was people with foreknowledge and they didn't come out, so shame on them.

01:04:27.000 I hope they burn in hell.

01:04:29.000 We'll be right back.

01:04:30.000 Said this before, and um, but it bears repeating.

01:04:34.000 The last message that Charlie sent me was um I think it was just the day before we lost him, which is that we need to have an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country.

01:04:48.000 And I will write those words onto my heart and I will carry them out.

01:04:52.000 If people ask me, you know, what emotions I'm feeling right now, this is something people say, I mean, you kind of know the answer, there's incredible sadness, but there's incredible anger.

01:05:02.000 And the thing about anger is that unfocused anger or blind rage is not a productive emotion.

01:05:08.000 Right.

01:05:08.000 But focused anger, righteous anger directed for a just cause is one of the most important agents of change in human history.

01:05:16.000 I've already showed that.

01:05:17.000 Amen.

01:05:17.000 And we are gonna channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.

01:05:29.000 So let me explain a little bit what that means.

01:05:30.000 So 30 seconds.

01:05:33.000 This would be quick, Stephen.

01:05:34.000 The the organized doctrine campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people's addresses, combining that with messaging that's designed to trigger incite violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence, it is a vast domestic terror movement.

01:05:54.000 With the God is my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.

01:06:06.000 It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie's name.

01:06:08.000 So, Ben, I want to go to you because again, you're the lawyer here.

01:06:12.000 He he mentioned terror network, domestic terror network, and with Luigi Maggione, the news this morning was that the judge dropped the the domestic terror sort of angle to uh the prosecution.

01:06:24.000 Is this legally defensible?

01:06:26.000 Is this just a New York bad judge?

01:06:28.000 No, I haven't actually read the the decision from the judge or the rationale for it.

01:06:33.000 I do not understand how it's not just clearly first degree murder.

01:06:36.000 I mean, it's obviously premeditated murder.

01:06:38.000 So uh dropping it to second degree murder as though it's a crime of passion, yeah, is totally crazy in every possible way.

01:06:45.000 Uh and again, when we talk about people who own it, Bill Burr shouted on multiple shows on national TV, free Luigi.

01:06:54.000 When we talk about inherently violent ideologies, it's not just the trans ideology that is inherently violent.

01:06:58.000 If you are a person who says the existence of wealthy people is a threat to me, that they are killing us, that there's a group of people and they are manipulating your life such that you're poor and they're rich and they are harming you.

01:07:11.000 They're actively harming you by their very existence.

01:07:13.000 The billionaires are actively harming you just by existing.

01:07:17.000 They are evil by their existence, then why should we be surprised when healthcare CEOs get shot on the streets, and then there's a post facto after the murder, justification in the same way that you saw with Charlie, there is something so hideous that has been bred on my the point I've been making on my show is typically nobody gets shot over marginal tax rate conversations, right?

01:07:36.000 It's not as though every political debate in America ends with somebody shooting somebody else, but there are particular types of political debates in America in which one side sees fit to murder the other side.

01:07:48.000 And it is baked into those ideologies.

01:07:50.000 And so I don't want to hear this nonsense from democratic politicians who just generically denounce political violence.

01:07:57.000 If you are unwilling to say, as a democratic politician, for example, Donald Trump is not a fascist.

01:08:06.000 If you keep calling Donald Trump Hitler, everyone said this, it's true.

01:08:09.000 If you keep calling Donald Trump Hitler over and over and over, someone might think, you know, he's Hitler.

01:08:14.000 And what do we do with Hitler?

01:08:15.000 We try to shoot Hitler in the head.

01:08:17.000 You know, there's on your both sides point, Ben, there's this meme that's come out.

01:08:22.000 Seth Moulton, this Democrat congressman goes on TV, he's been spewing this, that the vast majority of political violence in America is from the right.

01:08:29.000 And when I heard that, I said, well, look, I I don't know.

01:08:31.000 I haven't looked at the statistics.

01:08:32.000 Maybe maybe that's true.

01:08:33.000 It doesn't ring true to me, but maybe it's true.

01:08:35.000 So I I go and I look into the statistics.

01:08:37.000 And I say, Oh, there's this study, that study.

01:08:39.000 So I said, okay, well, let me just look into particular cases.

01:08:41.000 There was an event a couple years ago at University of Pittsburgh.

01:08:44.000 Two Antifa operatives show up.

01:08:46.000 These are members of an Antifa cell, go to Antifa meetings, uh, were caught going through TSA with explosive material on them multiple times, still led to board the airplane.

01:08:55.000 They sit off an explosive at the event.

01:08:57.000 Uh and it was over the transgender issue.

01:09:00.000 Injured, very seriously injured a female cop at the event.

01:09:03.000 I looked into that.

01:09:04.000 I said, Well, this would be an example of left-wing violence, right?

01:09:06.000 No.

01:09:07.000 It was not classified as left-wing violence.

01:09:10.000 It was pled down, it was classified as obstruction of justice, not included in any of the stats.

01:09:14.000 I I looked through some other uh cases.

01:09:16.000 Covenant.

01:09:16.000 They treated covenant as a non-left covenant.

01:09:18.000 Covenant attack.

01:09:19.000 They said that the shooter was seeking uh fame.

01:09:22.000 It was not a left-wing attack.

01:09:23.000 This is a transgender uh ideologue shooting through uh a window of a church and murdering kids.

01:09:29.000 Uh so I I realized the way that they get away with this is very simple.

01:09:33.000 They don't count the left-wing violence.

01:09:35.000 It's a completely bogus statistic.

01:09:37.000 And so to your point, Ben, yes, you have to call this out.

01:09:39.000 To Stephen Miller's point, this is largely organized.

01:09:44.000 There are groups that fund this, that promote this, that publicize this, groups with four knowledge of attacks.

01:09:49.000 This is organized.

01:09:50.000 And our government has taken on organized crime before, taken on the mob, taken on terror groups, taken on all of these things.

01:09:57.000 We have the ability to do that.

01:09:58.000 It is not only our right through our representatives, it is our responsibility to do that to restore order.

01:10:03.000 And if we are not treating this as an organized criminal political threat from the left, then we are just twiddling our thumbs.

01:10:11.000 And the the left will always be uh more violent.

01:10:14.000 I mean, it's it's not even it's not even close.

01:10:17.000 They have a near, a a near monopoly on political violence on the left, especially over the last ten years, fit in particular over the last five years.

01:10:26.000 Um they have a near monopoly on it.

01:10:29.000 And there's also a reason for that, which is that and there's a reason why conservatives generally don't there's uh to your point, everyone's mourning, no one boarded up their windows.

01:10:38.000 No, no, not only were there was there no rioting, nobody was even worried that there would be.

01:10:42.000 Everyone just knew that there would not be.

01:10:44.000 Right.

01:10:45.000 Um, meanwhile, if you were to flip it around and and somebody of Charlie's importance and status on the left were to be assassinated, God forbid, uh we we we know that immediately all the all the windows are being bored up in every major city.

01:10:58.000 And the reason is that the left they are enemies of civilization.

01:11:04.000 They they hate civilization, they hate Western civilization, they they want to they want, and this is the these kind of words that they use, dismantle.

01:11:10.000 They're always talking about dismantling.

01:11:12.000 They want to dismantle, they want to they want to tear everything down, and they'll and they'll tell you that tear down, dismantle, tear down, bring the tear down the patriarchy, dismantle the white heteronormative, whatever the family.

01:11:22.000 Um whereas conservatives, what are what are we most like at its essence, what are we trying to conserve?

01:11:28.000 We're trying to conserve civilization, Western civilization in particular.

01:11:32.000 And we have we have disagreements about how to do that and and all of that.

01:11:36.000 There are certainly disagreements about that, but all of us are fans of civilization.

01:11:42.000 And so we just in inherently recognize that when you see a guy walk up to a healthcare CEO and shoot him and kill him in the street, you cannot have a civilization if that is allowed to happen.

01:11:55.000 If we get to a point where that just happens and we're okay with it, then we don't have civilization where we have a third World country.

01:12:00.000 And so conservatives just uh fundamentally recognize that is a bad thing.

01:12:05.000 Um where on the left they don't they don't recognize that.

01:12:08.000 They don't they and it's cra again, it's it's hard for us to wrap our mind around this as normal people, but they do not see civilization itself as necessarily a good thing.

01:12:18.000 And uh and so f to them, violence is uh and if you're looking to tear down civilization, then violence is always going to be a tool in that RCP.

01:12:28.000 I think there's actually a deep nihilism implicit in that that doesn't exist on particularly the religious right.

01:12:34.000 Uh and and the reason I say that is because if you do, as Charlie believed it is all of us believe, that there is a God-centered universe, a God-ordered universe, that for the most part we can discern.

01:12:46.000 Right.

01:12:46.000 Not all of it, obviously.

01:12:47.000 We don't know why horrible tragedies, horrifying things happen.

01:12:50.000 I mean, everyone is suffering with the aftermath of of that.

01:12:54.000 But there is in fact a God-order universe, which is certainly something that Charlie believes.

01:12:58.000 If you believe that, then you also believe that you have a duty in the world to act within that universe in rational ways, and you have duties to God to do the things that God told you to do, including things like don't kill people, don't murder people.

01:13:09.000 And if you don't believe any of that, if you believe that the world is just a system of power, that every argument is just a guise for power, right?

01:13:16.000 The sort of Michel Foucault argument, that all arguments at their essence are just a way of me getting power over you, then the response to an attempt for me to get power over you is to use power in response.

01:13:26.000 And that leads to revolutionary violence.

01:13:28.000 And we've seen periods like this in American history.

01:13:30.000 It happened in the early 20th century, it happened again in the 1960s.

01:13:34.000 And I fear that we're headed into another period like that with a left that is so nihilistic in its desire to see every argument.

01:13:43.000 This is the thing they were trying to silence with Charlie, really more than anything else.

01:13:46.000 The thing they were trying to silence with Charlie was the argument.

01:13:49.000 It's the thing that he died doing.

01:13:51.000 They didn't want him making the argument.

01:13:52.000 Yes, he was an amazing coalition builder, and we've talked about this.

01:13:54.000 Yes, he was an amazing political activist.

01:13:56.000 The thing he was killed for doing was making the argument.

01:13:59.000 That's what he was killed for doing.

01:14:00.000 There are lots of political activists, and some of them are quite effective.

01:14:03.000 He was killed for making the argument.

01:14:05.000 Why?

01:14:06.000 Because there are too many nihilists on the left predominantly who believe that the argument is just a form of power that is to be met with a bullet.

01:14:13.000 Yeah.

01:14:14.000 Yeah, and Charlie, and I, you know, again, there's so many things that are gonna haunt me, I think.

01:14:21.000 But he in the last month, I would say multiple times, one of the most common arguments that he was warning everybody about was we America has two roads ahead.

01:14:34.000 We have a the fork in the road is MAGA or Magioniism.

01:14:40.000 And he would use that more than Mamdaniism, right?

01:14:43.000 Which was the more common, I think, refrain from most.

01:14:47.000 And that's haunting.

01:14:51.000 And I hope that I hope that you know, we have a joke around here.

01:14:56.000 It's like how many times Charlie's proven right?

01:14:58.000 How many times he told us something, and we're just like, ah, gosh darn it, he's right again.

01:15:02.000 And uh I'm you know, obviously this is something he would have never wanted to be right about, but um he was.

01:15:10.000 And I think in his memory, we have to do everything we can in our power to make sure that the country does not fray.

01:15:16.000 And I and I've said this before, but I'll say it again, Charlie what was he wanted revival, he didn't want revolution.

01:15:23.000 He wanted the blood of Jesus, he did not want blood in the streets.

01:15:26.000 And he wanted a country his kids could inherit and be and be prosperous and thrive and go to church and love their their spouses.

01:15:34.000 And um that is not the tone that we are getting from the American left.

01:15:39.000 And I found that you know, you brought up Hassan Piker.

01:15:41.000 I do have a clip that would I don't I don't know if you guys want to play it.

01:15:45.000 I'm I'm of two minds of it.

01:15:46.000 But you know, he's basically saying you've got to gutting your opponents, liberals, left wingers, you need to be showing your opponent's guts.

01:15:55.000 You need to be gutting them, you need to be shanking these somethings and letting the letting their intestines just ride on the stage.

01:16:02.000 Blood in the st soak the streets in blood, I think was one of his freaks.

01:16:05.000 Slice and dice him, he said.

01:16:07.000 And that guy is in the New York Times, so he's not a fringe player.

01:16:10.000 The New York Times featured him twice in the space of a week, twice.

01:16:14.000 This is the great exponent of rational debate that they've got on left.

01:16:20.000 Ours was Charlie.

01:16:21.000 And Charlie was murdered.

01:16:23.000 Their great exponent of rational debate is the guy who says slice and dice your opponents and leave their intestines writhing on the stage.

01:16:29.000 Aaron Powell And who won't be doing any of that himself, by the way.

01:16:32.000 Correct.

01:16:32.000 He he he will stay in his comfortable studio.

01:16:34.000 In his million dollar mansion is a socialist.

01:16:36.000 Yeah.

01:16:36.000 But these and he'll and he'll let he'll he'll offer up whatever leftist lunatic will take that and run with it.

01:16:41.000 He's fine to just offer that person that person also is a human sacrifice for him.

01:16:45.000 The person that that person kills, most especially, but the person who carries it out, because now they're they're like, you know, they go to prison and Hassan Piker gets to keep living his comfortable.

01:16:54.000 But people, you know, we we respond in a cultural way, which is very important, we respond in prayer in a spiritual way that's very important.

01:17:00.000 But we we can't neglect the political either.

01:17:02.000 And when people violate the law, when people incite violence, when people engage in direct threats, when people do things that are illegal, it is incumbent upon us to prosecute them, including those people to the fullest extent of the law.

01:17:15.000 Amen.

01:17:19.000 And I was just telling you guys, Charlie's main goal was that people would know Jesus.

01:17:24.000 But as political main goal was to keep the coalition together to keep Trump's coalition together.

01:17:29.000 And it was such an amazing guiding light for Charlie, and it was a North Star because it it would help dictate where do you where do you know dive in in and and correct people, maybe name check them if you have to, and when you wouldn't, when you would stay silent, what debates you would enter into, which ones you wouldn't.

01:17:48.000 And I guess my question is does this have to get worse before it gets better?

01:17:51.000 Is this gonna be or how do we keep the coalition together?

01:17:55.000 Yeah, I well look, I think that well, the question of where where we go next or what happens next is impossible to totally answer because everything is different now.

01:18:05.000 Yeah.

01:18:06.000 Everything has changed.

01:18:07.000 Everything changed.

01:18:08.000 And I think that we don't know exactly how yet.

01:18:13.000 Um and so that that's the first thing.

01:18:15.000 We we are we are really living in a new country now, I I believe.

01:18:19.000 And that you you have those moments, you know, these rare moments, and in our generation we've had a few of them where you wake up the next morning and okay, this is a different country now.

01:18:28.000 And uh, and this is this is this is one of those moments.

01:18:32.000 But what I can say is that there are a few things that have to happen going forward, and maybe on the sort of they have to get uglier first side of it, is that we have to re we have to establish order.

01:18:46.000 We were talking about civilization, protecting civilization.

01:18:48.000 Well, you you you need order for civilization, you need law and order.

01:18:52.000 And so that needs to be reasserted in a big way.

01:18:57.000 Um and that can be ugly.

01:18:59.000 Now, it's done through the law, you know.

01:19:01.000 No one is calling for uh again, we're we are the defenders of civilization.

01:19:05.000 We don't want to see random violence.

01:19:06.000 We don't want to see people uh killed in the street.

01:19:09.000 We don't want to see that.

01:19:10.000 But we want to see our legal authorities exercise that authority, and that that can be an ugly thing.

01:19:15.000 Like uh putting people in prison is not a happy thing.

01:19:18.000 No one we wish we didn't have to do that.

01:19:20.000 Executing murderers, people who commit crimes need to be executed, and it needs to be done legally and swiftly, not 35 years after they've been convicted.

01:19:31.000 Um I believe personally that that public execution should come back.

01:19:35.000 There's a reason why uh Western civilization had public execu execution in many places for you know hundreds and thousands of years.

01:19:43.000 Um I think that's it an example people people need to see.

01:19:47.000 And a lot of that stuff is ugly.

01:19:49.000 But here's the thing.

01:19:50.000 You're gonna have ugliness no matter what.

01:19:53.000 And either we can have ugliness in the street, we can have the kind of ugliness where a CEO walking down the street at 5 a.m. gets shot in the back of the head.

01:20:02.000 We can have the kind of ugliness where a man on a college campus is just trying to make the argument gets shot and killed.

01:20:08.000 We can have that kind of ugliness.

01:20:10.000 Um the ugliness that can affect anybody that anyone can fall victim to.

01:20:16.000 Or we can have the ugliness that's contained, where we have people in positions of authority who who uh use force to go and take the violent people and the dangerous people and punish them.

01:20:27.000 We can have that kind of ugliness, and uh and that's and that's what we need.

01:20:31.000 And then after that, we're at the same time, we've already talked about this a little bit, is uh unity, not not just uh not just random.

01:20:39.000 You know, you can't go, you can't just say, hey, everyone, let's let's unite.

01:20:42.000 Let's be united.

01:20:43.000 You can't go if you go up to a group of a thousand people and say, Hey, let's unite, guys, they're gonna look at you and say, and they're gonna ask, well, what do you mean?

01:20:50.000 To do what?

01:20:51.000 You unite around for what?

01:20:52.000 What are we uniting?

01:20:53.000 I don't want to I'm not gonna unite with you unless I know what we're doing.

01:20:56.000 Um and so that's why a lot of the calls for just sort of general generic unity in America don't really work, because uh there's always the question of uh around what um but uh as conservatives, as people on the right, you know, we can unite and we should.

01:21:13.000 And uh and I think what we need to do is put it put to the side a lot of our um inner inner, you know, our our squabbles, our family feuds, put all that to the side for now.

01:21:24.000 We can get back to a lot of that stuff.

01:21:26.000 We probably will.

01:21:26.000 I'm sure we will conservatives always do.

01:21:28.000 We will always get back to it.

01:21:29.000 But for right, but for right now, um there there we have more important things to do because one thing I know for sure.

01:21:38.000 And there are plenty of conservatives who I've had my own I've been known to get into feuds here and there with people.

01:21:44.000 Uh but here but here's what I know.

01:21:46.000 And we saw this with Charlie.

01:21:48.000 That if I walk out of this building and I get killed, that every conservative, even the ones that I've feuded with, that they will not be happy about that.

01:21:59.000 They will they will mourn that.

01:22:00.000 They will mourn that in it.

01:22:01.000 The same if it happened to any of us.

01:22:02.000 They'll mourn it.

01:22:03.000 Even even the people the conservatives didn't like us.

01:22:05.000 But I also know that on the left, they they won't share in that mourning for the most part.

01:22:10.000 And so kind of the friend-enemy distinction is easy for me to see.

01:22:13.000 The people who will mourn your death are your friends.

01:22:17.000 The people who will dance on your grave and laugh in the face of your grieving wife are Are your enemies in this in this battle?

01:22:25.000 And uh and so that's where the unity needs to come.

01:22:27.000 The wretched demons, honestly.

01:22:29.000 Please, yeah.

01:22:30.000 Where do we go next?

01:22:31.000 You you cannot have a marketplace of any kind of ideas or of goods if people are shooting up the marketplace.

01:22:37.000 And w it's it's not even just the murderer in this case, uh, because there are freaks everywhere and horrible events happen, but the the loud and widespread celebration of that sort of thing shows us that there are three steps.

01:22:54.000 Step one is we we want to have a robust conversation in a in a good country, right?

01:23:00.000 But we're we are where we are in a degraded and dangerous place.

01:23:04.000 Step two, question mark.

01:23:05.000 Step three, flourishing and speech and and national unity.

01:23:10.000 But there is that step two.

01:23:11.000 There is that question, how do we get there?

01:23:13.000 And there is no liberty without order, and there is no civilization in which half the country is is going to dance when when the other half is murdered.

01:23:20.000 And so that requires a cultural response.

01:23:22.000 I think you're starting to see that from a lot of companies.

01:23:24.000 That's very good.

01:23:25.000 That requires conservatives to let down their grudges that they're always holding all the time for just a little bit and and rally at least around a person and a person whose clear vision has led us for for a long time very successfully.

01:23:36.000 And it requires the government to get in and do its job as well.

01:23:39.000 And and then and only then can you get back to the kind of country that at least I want.

01:23:43.000 And if the people who celebrate murder don't want it, too bad.

01:23:47.000 I mean, I know we at Daily Wire, we trust you at TP USA to do it.

01:23:51.000 I mean, that's really the answer.

01:23:53.000 We're we're willing to provide and we are providing any level of material support, any level of support on the program, boots on the ground, helping you to do what Charlie would have wanted to be done here.

01:24:04.000 And I think that the reason that everybody trusted Charlie, the reason we're all mourning Charlie is because nobody did it better.

01:24:08.000 You spelled out two of Charlie's goals.

01:24:10.000 You said, you know, he wanted to bring people back to Christ and bring people back to church and back to biblical values, and he wanted to keep the MAGA coalition together.

01:24:18.000 And expand it.

01:24:19.000 And the question is how you do that.

01:24:21.000 And the answer is you focus on the first, and the second is a byproduct.

01:24:25.000 Okay, the answer is that as Matt says, you have to unite around something.

01:24:29.000 And yeah, we can unite in the short term around the fact that there are a bunch of people who hate our guts and want to murder us, uh, which of course is true.

01:24:36.000 But long-term unity, big movement change, which is what Charlie was really trying to drive, and why he went to talk to people who disagree, is about building around those core values.

01:24:47.000 And so the long-term vision, yeah, we'll have our petty squabbles, and yeah, some of those squabbles will be more than petty.

01:24:51.000 But the long-term vision has to be built around those original biblical conservative values that Charlie stood for, things like the Bible, things like free markets, things like family, you know, all those things are the things Charlie stood for.

01:25:02.000 You gotta build the coalition around values because we can't build it around the man, but we can build it around the values that he left behind that he spent his entire life fighting for.

01:25:12.000 And you know, we couldn't be frankly more honored to join you guys as much as we can in the fight.

01:25:18.000 Thank you for that, and thank you for donating uh the Daily Wire a million dollars uh breaking news on this show.

01:25:25.000 Thank you guys for honoring Charlie so well today.

The Charlie Kirk Show - September 16, 2025

Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and Ben Shapiro Remember Charlie Kirk

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