The Charlie Kirk Show - My Full Conversation With Gavin Newsom, Annotated

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, this is the entirety of my conversation with Gavin Newsom, but also with my commentary.

00:00:05.000 If you want to listen to it without any commentary, that is on Gavin Newsom's podcast page, which I have an obligatory, let's just say, duty to say.

00:00:15.000 If you want to listen to that, you can go to This is Gavin Newsom.

00:00:17.000 But if you want to listen also with my commentary throughout, that's why you are here.

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00:00:37.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:38.000 Here we go.

00:00:39.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:40.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:42.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:46.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:49.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:50.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:51.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:53.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

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00:01:37.000 Okay, everybody, you've been asking for the entire conversation with Gavin Newsom.

00:01:41.000 And myself.

00:01:42.000 I'm going to be giving commentary throughout this conversation about some of my thoughts, but it is the entire thing that you'll be able to watch.

00:01:49.000 Also, the full unedited, let's just say with no commentary, is on Gavin Newsom's YouTube page, but I think you want to stay right here.

00:01:56.000 Make sure you guys hit subscribe on this extremely viral conversation that I had with Gavin Newsom.

00:02:02.000 Starts out with Gavin Newsom talking about how his son is a big fan of mine.

00:02:07.000 History of Turning Point USA. History of what we've done at Turning Point USA. And our goals and mission.

00:02:12.000 By the way, anyone out there, you guys should get involved with Turning Point USA. You should start a Turning Point USA chapter.

00:02:17.000 You should get involved with Turning Point Action.

00:02:19.000 We are moving the dial.

00:02:21.000 We are bringing this generation to the finish line to be a conservative generation.

00:02:25.000 So here it is.

00:02:26.000 The beginning of my chat.

00:02:28.000 With Governor Gavin Newsom.

00:02:30.000 By the way, what brings you to California, your favorite state?

00:02:33.000 It is my favorite state in the union.

00:02:36.000 You're doing such a great job here, by the way.

00:02:39.000 No, I'm honored to be on the show.

00:02:41.000 Thank you.

00:02:41.000 You were just down at USC? I was at USC yesterday, drew a big crowd.

00:02:45.000 By the way, I knew you were at USC early because my niece, who graduated... 0.99

00:02:50.000 She was the one with the MAGA hat on.

00:02:52.000 By the way, I do have to watch.

00:02:54.000 But she was down there, and she was like...

00:02:55.000 You never know.

00:02:56.000 These kids are going to the right.

00:02:57.000 I'm aware.

00:02:58.000 She said, this crowd's crazy.

00:03:01.000 And the only reason she said it, she would have said it perhaps otherwise, but she knew you were coming on.

00:03:05.000 The worst part, though, Charlie, no BS, true story.

00:03:08.000 Literally, last night, trying to put my son to bed, he's like, no, Dad, I just...

00:03:13.000 What time?

00:03:13.000 What time is Charlie going to be here?

00:03:14.000 What time?

00:03:15.000 And I'm like, dude, you're in school tomorrow.

00:03:17.000 He's 13. He's like, no, no.

00:03:18.000 This morning, wakes up at 6 o'clock, and he's like, I'm coming.

00:03:22.000 He literally would not leave the house.

00:03:24.000 Did you let him take off school?

00:03:26.000 No, of course not.

00:03:27.000 He's not here for a good reason.

00:03:28.000 But the point is the point.

00:03:29.000 You canceled school for like two years.

00:03:30.000 The point is the point, which is you are making a damn dent.

00:03:36.000 Thank you.

00:03:36.000 I'm kidding.

00:03:37.000 No, but I know, but I appreciate that.

00:03:39.000 I mean, it's the reason you're here, because I think people need to understand your success, your influence, what you've been up to, and the fact that you're on these college campus doors.

00:03:47.000 And to your point, man, you just open up.

00:03:49.000 I mean, you're like, ask me anything?

00:03:51.000 Anything.

00:03:52.000 Challenge me?

00:03:53.000 Challenge me, whatever.

00:03:54.000 When did this whole thing...

00:03:55.000 When did you start putting this together?

00:03:57.000 I've been at this for 13 years, and it's been a wild movement.

00:04:01.000 Really accelerated once President Trump kind of came on the scene.

00:04:05.000 Right around, I'd say, 2021, we had a goal.

00:04:09.000 Could we move the youth vote 10 points over 10 years?

00:04:13.000 And it was literally you sat down and put that numerical together.

00:04:16.000 Yeah, like, can we move it 10 points over 10 years-ish, you know, approximate.

00:04:20.000 Because our whole hypothesis was, and we did this alongside President Trump and his great team, was that this demographic is disproportionately to the Democrat side.

00:04:30.000 We believe Democrats were taking them for granted.

00:04:32.000 We think that your side had no message whatsoever and an ideological monopoly.

00:04:36.000 We saw some of the fault lines there.

00:04:38.000 And to President Trump's credit, he also harmonized with this strategy by going on podcasting and using TikTok.

00:04:45.000 But, yeah, I mean, we did it in four years, not ten, large in part, thanks to you guys.

00:04:48.000 And we'll get to that, and sincerely get to that, because I want a stress test.

00:04:53.000 Some of those fault lines as it relates to the reality of our party and where we are today vis-a-vis your ascendancy, not just individually as an organization.

00:05:01.000 But where was that sort of moment for you?

00:05:03.000 Because it's interesting.

00:05:04.000 I mean, you're such a young guy, so it's not like deep biography here.

00:05:07.000 It's not like 20 years in the wilderness, writing his first book, getting a TV show that was canceled, coming back.

00:05:13.000 It's more just this immediacy of ascendancy.

00:05:17.000 I mean, were you sort of born and bred with an ideological mindset, or were you more open-minded, and you started to realize a lot of BS was out there?

00:05:26.000 Yeah, I've always been conservative, obviously grown in that over the last 10-ish years.

00:05:32.000 Was more libertarian, I'd say, in the first couple of years, as to be expected, as I got married and have kids become more conservative.

00:05:39.000 But no, look, just one of the things we saw in the last couple of years that the Democrats completely ignored, and your side was, Basically, not acknowledging it was happening, was the crisis that young people were experiencing.

00:05:52.000 It's the first time in America's history that a 30-year-old is going to have it worse off than their parents.

00:05:57.000 It's a breakdown of the social compact.

00:05:59.000 They are the most alcohol addicted, most drug addicted, most suicidal, most depressed, most medicated generation in history.

00:06:06.000 And the message that was largely being fed to a lot of young people...

00:06:10.000 Lower your expectations.

00:06:11.000 You're not going to have the same American dream that your parents would have.

00:06:15.000 And we saw this as an opportunity, especially with young men.

00:06:18.000 And again, this got ridiculed a lot by the press that, oh, you know, they're creating this manosphere thing.

00:06:22.000 Look, they're half of the population and necessary for any society and civilization to succeed, which is to have both strong men and strong women. 0.82

00:06:30.000 And we went about that in a very unique and creative way.

00:06:35.000 And again, the president...

00:06:37.000 He became a cultural phenomenon where no matter what you threw at this guy, he rose above it.

00:06:42.000 You'd even have to give him credit.

00:06:43.000 I mean, 700 years in federal prison, you know, states tried to kick him off the ballot.

00:06:47.000 I know you spoke out against it, but California did have a faction that tried to kick him off the ballot, right?

00:06:51.000 And despite all of that, of course, being shot, and that was kind of the crescendo of all of it, he kind of became this figure of an American comeback story.

00:07:00.000 So he personified...

00:07:03.000 What a lot of young people, especially young men, wanted back in their politics, which was an ascendant rebel attitude against these institutions that have failed them so miserably.

00:07:12.000 It's interesting.

00:07:13.000 And you keep saying we, which is interesting, and that's the organization that you created.

00:07:17.000 We would be like conservative movement MAGA. But yes, I have Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action, Charlie Kirk show.

00:07:23.000 But when I'm saying we, I mean...

00:07:26.000 More specifically, kind of those of us that saw this political moment three or four years ago.

00:07:32.000 Right.

00:07:32.000 But you were at this even before then.

00:07:34.000 Correct.

00:07:35.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:35.000 So when did you decide to sort of just shift your gear?

00:07:38.000 I mean, you were working for another Kirk, for his campaign.

00:07:40.000 Mark Kirk, yeah.

00:07:41.000 Mark Kirk.

00:07:42.000 So you had a political, obviously you had strong political leanings, or at least desire to sort of be in the political sphere, but not in elected office necessarily?

00:07:50.000 You just want to be behind the scenes?

00:07:51.000 Yeah, I mean, like, the biography's been written about a million times, but, I mean, Didn't go to college, wanted to go to West Point, didn't get in.

00:07:58.000 I'm an entrepreneur.

00:07:59.000 Yeah, love it.

00:08:00.000 Started this organization, and it became far more successful than I ever could have realized.

00:08:06.000 As we started to grow the organization, I recognized that there was an ideological imbalance on a lot of these college campuses, and we wanted to go about trying to offer a counterpoint of conservative...

00:08:22.000 You know, pro-freedom, pro-liberty, you know, America first ideals.

00:08:25.000 And you saw the college campuses as sort of the underbelly of the opportunity?

00:08:28.000 Or is it just more just experiential in terms of your own sort of animus towards the institution?

00:08:33.000 Well, I mean, both.

00:08:34.000 I mean, you have a sitting population of about 20 million kids that are there for four years.

00:08:38.000 There's that.

00:08:39.000 And also, again, you had nowhere to go but up.

00:08:42.000 I mean, when we started in 2012, 75% of kids on college campuses would vote for Democrats.

00:08:48.000 Yeah.

00:08:48.000 Now, fast forward to today, this last election cycle, Democrats lost the youth vote in Michigan, nearly lost it in Wisconsin, nearly lost it in Arizona.

00:08:55.000 So our goal was, hey, let's move at 10 points.

00:08:58.000 We moved at 13 points.

00:08:59.000 And this is important for your audience to know and for Democrats to reckon with, of which I see no signs that Democrats care at all that they're losing the next generation.

00:09:06.000 We're drawing record crowds.

00:09:07.000 Our ranks are expanding.

00:09:08.000 The most support that President Trump has is voters under 30.

00:09:12.000 60 percent of voters under 30 support President Trump.

00:09:14.000 That's according to Rasmussen.

00:09:15.000 You might say that's a little rich.

00:09:16.000 It might be, but it's directionally true.

00:09:19.000 Yeah.

00:09:19.000 And one of the main reasons that this has all been happening is that baby boomers have actually seen their wealth increased the last four years.

00:09:27.000 They don't buy into this whole idea that our institutions are broken or that they're in need of massive bottom-up revolutionary change.

00:09:35.000 And we see that actually Kamala Harris did three points better with baby boomers than she did in 2020. And the number one story that...

00:09:42.000 You know, James Carville, who everyone takes seriously for some reason, should have been saying, is like all Kamala Harris had to do was just do the same with younger voters that Joe Biden did in 2020. And she would be president right now.

00:09:51.000 And remind us what Joe Biden did in 2020 with younger voters.

00:09:54.000 It was 13 points better, approximately.

00:09:55.000 Oh, in terms of just the numeric system.

00:09:56.000 Again, this is kind of a combination of exit polling.

00:09:58.000 So it's really, it's a difficult science to pinpoint.

00:10:02.000 So that goes back then, I mean, to your point, in order to do that, you've got to stand for something, you've got to assert yourself, you've got to have a strategy, and you've got to implement it.

00:10:09.000 You also have to not believe crazy stuff.

00:10:11.000 And not believe crazy stuff.

00:10:12.000 And so for you, I mean, it's interesting, just, you know, this last week, I guess you were at USC, you were at University of Florida, you had thousands and thousands of folks.

00:10:20.000 So you get, to your point, your crowds are growing.

00:10:22.000 2012, where were you?

00:10:23.000 You were coming in and people were, I mean, you were taking, I mean...

00:10:27.000 You were, like, getting threats.

00:10:29.000 I mean, you still get tons of threats.

00:10:30.000 But it was, I mean, what was it like just to paint a picture of you walking to a college campus?

00:10:35.000 I had no money, no connections, and no idea what I was doing.

00:10:38.000 And, yeah, I mean, we were, I didn't even have a social media account.

00:10:42.000 I mean, it was just the ultimate startup.

00:10:44.000 And what did you just say, I'm available, and you started at this sort of debate format?

00:10:47.000 No, it was even more scrappy.

00:10:49.000 I would literally show up to UW-Madison with a card table and a big cardboard sign saying, debate me.

00:10:54.000 You know, like, here's some provocative statement.

00:10:55.000 So you're 20-something.

00:10:56.000 And I wouldn't even film it.

00:10:57.000 I was 18 or 19. 18 or 19. And you just, by the way, where does that end?

00:11:01.000 And sincerely, to be able to debate anybody at any time, anywhere, and in that environment, it's just, I mean, you can say it's just confidence, or it's just absolute, I mean, narcissism.

00:11:14.000 What is it?

00:11:14.000 I mean, just, or just...

00:11:16.000 I hope it's not the other.

00:11:17.000 But no, I mean, I guess it would just be, I mean, at the most charitable reading, it could be confidence.

00:11:21.000 It'd also just be that...

00:11:23.000 I wanted to try and challenge the predominant view.

00:11:28.000 I always loved debate and disagreement.

00:11:30.000 I love the kind of spar.

00:11:31.000 And, yeah, I also find it to be exciting.

00:11:34.000 And I wanted to try to, you know, figure out where my idea is actually that good and to kind of draw.

00:11:39.000 Stress test.

00:11:40.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:11:40.000 And were you 10x better than you were in 2012 at the format?

00:11:44.000 Probably.

00:11:45.000 And do you study it?

00:11:46.000 Or are you just participating?

00:11:47.000 I mean, if you look at the old great debates or you're reading debating books, you're watching sort of the best.

00:11:52.000 I mean, yeah.

00:11:52.000 I mean, less about debate.

00:11:54.000 I mean, debating is a practice that can really only be refined, you know, with lots of routine and reps and repetition.

00:12:00.000 Just more about studying, you know, the great books, philosophy.

00:12:05.000 Right.

00:12:05.000 All those.

00:12:06.000 And so you make a point prior to that.

00:12:08.000 I mean, to the point you never went to community college.

00:12:12.000 I didn't even graduate community college.

00:12:13.000 I didn't even graduate community college, which is great.

00:12:15.000 By the way, I was going to college in Marin.

00:12:17.000 I got lucky.

00:12:18.000 I got a baseball coach that called me and allowed me to get to a four-year university.

00:12:21.000 I was joking with you before we started.

00:12:23.000 960 SAT. I asked you about your SAT. I don't even know.

00:12:26.000 I took the ACT. You took the ACT, which proves two things, how young you are.

00:12:30.000 Okay, so the conversation continued about college.

00:12:33.000 I wrote an entire book called The College Scam, and I should have emphasized even more.

00:12:39.000 About how the UC system, which Governor Newsom oversees, is a complete failure.

00:12:45.000 Didn't quite have time to do that, but looking back, hindsight is 20-20.

00:12:49.000 I should have interjected and talked about how broken the UC system is, how much indoctrination is happening in the UC system.

00:12:55.000 Also, Lomez, who came on our program, great guy, educated me about AB101, about how kids are required to learn DEI and critical race theory in California schools.

00:13:07.000 I did a lot of research and prep in anticipation for this conversation.

00:13:10.000 I was unaware of that, so I probably should have interjected that.

00:13:14.000 College tuition has skyrocketed dramatically, and the Democrats and Gavin Newsom have done nothing to lower the cost of college, nothing to increase career preparedness.

00:13:23.000 In fact, more and more kids are not even learning basic American history, basic civics, or basic world history.

00:13:29.000 We also talk a little bit more in this segment about my political history and some of my political leanings.

00:13:36.000 Continues.

00:13:37.000 You grew up in Illinois, right?

00:13:38.000 I grew up in Illinois.

00:13:39.000 The Midwest was traditionally more of an ACT. But this has been a point of pride for you, that you didn't do a four-year degree.

00:13:45.000 Well, yeah, because I represent most of the country.

00:13:47.000 Actually, still the majority of the country does not have a college degree.

00:13:50.000 And if I may bluntly critique the Democrat Party, you guys have become so college-credentialed and educated that you guys snobbishly look on the muscular class of this country, the people that kept things afloat and running during COVID. And yeah, I mean, the majority of the country didn't go to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Caltech, or Cal Berkeley, right?

00:14:11.000 Thank you.

00:14:11.000 And the Republican Party has become far more representative of them, large in part thanks to Trump.

00:14:17.000 But yeah, and look, I say it with some pride also because as an entrepreneur, I tried to build something, not just seek a credential.

00:14:25.000 Love that.

00:14:25.000 And there are, what, 11 million folks?

00:14:27.000 There are 11 million jobs out there.

00:14:28.000 You make this point all the time.

00:14:29.000 Oh, yeah.

00:14:30.000 Open jobs that don't require a college degree.

00:14:31.000 That do not require a college degree.

00:14:33.000 So when you say, and it's interesting because there's sort of that critique of the Democratic Party that we are captured by this sort of college elite.

00:14:40.000 In what respect?

00:14:41.000 I mean, stress test that for a second.

00:14:43.000 Allow me to.

00:14:44.000 What specifically are you referencing in that context?

00:14:47.000 Well, your voters.

00:14:48.000 Your voters have become nearly...

00:14:51.000 I mean, the higher you go up the education ladder, the higher the correlation it is that you vote for the Democrat Party.

00:14:56.000 It's almost a one-to-one with PhD.

00:14:58.000 It's like 75% for master's degrees, and it's 65% for four-year-old.

00:15:02.000 Why do you think that's the case?

00:15:03.000 What are the issues that sort of are identified that align in that respect?

00:15:06.000 The sloppy analysis is like, oh, they're smarter, therefore they must be Democrats.

00:15:10.000 And I think that's silly and insane.

00:15:12.000 And insulting.

00:15:13.000 I totally agree.

00:15:15.000 The deeper and more profound analysis is that...

00:15:18.000 A lot of ideological bubbles that exist on these college campuses.

00:15:20.000 They are homogeneous, not heterodox when it comes to what ideas are expressed.

00:15:25.000 And then secondly, the value system that you leave on college campuses is high trust of institutions.

00:15:32.000 So the biggest divide in America is not right versus left.

00:15:34.000 It's whether or not you generally trust institutions.

00:15:36.000 Or you don't trust institutions.

00:15:38.000 And this has been largely inverted the last 20 years.

00:15:40.000 So back in the early 2000s, Democrats were low trust of institutions.

00:15:43.000 Iraq War, anti-Bush, anti-NSA, anti-Patriot Act.

00:15:47.000 And that's when you guys had a lot of activist spark and energy.

00:15:49.000 That has been completely inverted.

00:15:51.000 So the right is now low trust of institutions, where the left is high trust of institutions.

00:15:55.000 We're the ones that challenge the COVID vaccine.

00:15:57.000 We're the ones that think that public health authorities might have lied to us during COVID. We're the ones that don't necessarily believe the government when it says that we should keep on sending money to Ukraine.

00:16:05.000 Again, that's a general rule.

00:16:07.000 There are some exceptions to that.

00:16:08.000 But when you go to college, you are trained to trust the experts, trust the scientists, trust the people that are leaders of authority.

00:16:14.000 And the Democrat Party is largely the gatekeepers of...

00:16:18.000 That kind of ideological and intellectual regime.

00:16:20.000 It's interesting.

00:16:21.000 And so from your perspective, I mean, as you advocate for people to sort of open up a worldview that is life without a four-year degree and all the opportunities that present themselves anew in that respect, are you arguing for the disestablishment, the end?

00:16:39.000 I think it's going to happen no matter what.

00:16:41.000 I mean, in 10 years, artificial intelligence is going to change everything.

00:16:44.000 And I don't know what these four-year degrees are actually doing to prepare these kids for that.

00:16:48.000 But no, as far as like, I'm not, I mean, am I advocating for the end of the pursuit of learning?

00:16:52.000 Of course not.

00:16:53.000 That's one of my big critiques, is that at a lot of these schools, they're not pursuing what is good, true, and beautiful.

00:16:57.000 It's become the oppression Olympics and a weaponized complaint seminar of people sitting in the circle and finding out.

00:17:03.000 Who's been offended the most that day?

00:17:06.000 That's not doing anybody any good.

00:17:07.000 And in fact, it creates a very weak political movement, which I think plays into one of the reasons why we were able to steamroll you guys back in November is that once there's a little opposition against a group of people that have never actually had to build the muscle mass of a very difficult and unpredictable world, whereas those of us that are conservatives, we're insulted all the time.

00:17:28.000 So think about the experience of a kid on a college campus.

00:17:31.000 They say they're graded differently because of their views.

00:17:33.000 They may or may not be right.

00:17:34.000 I think they are.

00:17:34.000 But they're definitely in the ideological minority.

00:17:37.000 You wear a Trump hat on a college campus, at least until we came around.

00:17:40.000 That was like a big sign of cultural rebellion.

00:17:43.000 So you have two choices.

00:17:44.000 You can either stop fighting for what you believe in, or you become really tough.

00:17:47.000 And you create that...

00:17:49.000 That muscle that allows you to then carry and shoulder a heavier burden.

00:17:54.000 Right.

00:17:54.000 I don't want to belabor the issues of the establishment plot called higher education.

00:18:00.000 Some have not you referred to it, though maybe you align yourself.

00:18:03.000 I wrote a whole book called The College Scan.

00:18:06.000 It's sort of stress testing that in the context of some would argue.

00:18:11.000 The contra-argument is, you know, a million dollars more in lifetime earnings, more likely to get married, less likely to get divorced, more likely to be civically engaged, and longer life spans with college degrees.

00:18:24.000 And you would say to that...

00:18:25.000 All of this is true.

00:18:26.000 It's just, not everyone that goes to college graduates.

00:18:28.000 The national graduation rate...

00:18:30.000 41% drop.

00:18:30.000 Yeah, 41% dropout.

00:18:31.000 Exactly right.

00:18:33.000 Also, half the kids that graduate college will not even end up using their degree when it comes to the affiliated jobs.

00:18:38.000 So the numbers are true at the highest income.

00:18:40.000 So about 10% of kids that go to college stretch out the averages to be really, really high.

00:18:45.000 And so, for example, you go to Caltech to study computer engineering and applied AI, man, you're crushing it, right?

00:18:51.000 You go to Cal to go study North African lesbian poetry, like... 0.91

00:18:55.000 Is that an actual degree there?

00:18:56.000 You tell me, Governor.

00:18:57.000 I don't know.

00:18:58.000 I mean, we funded, but I'm not sure.

00:19:00.000 That's one of the courses.

00:19:01.000 See, the fact you don't know?

00:19:01.000 Well, I don't know every single damn course.

00:19:03.000 I know.

00:19:04.000 It should be like, no way!

00:19:06.000 But if the fact it's a maybe, we got some problems.

00:19:08.000 Well, the fact, you know, a lot of people have explored different disciplines.

00:19:12.000 That's fine.

00:19:13.000 It's just the taxpayers shouldn't have to fund it.

00:19:14.000 Well, yeah, I mean, increasingly individuals are funding, as you know.

00:19:18.000 No, that's true.

00:19:19.000 Talk about the inversion of how we fund education.

00:19:22.000 Look, I... And by the way, just FYI, having just put together a career master plan, we had a master plan in the state of California that created the UC systems, the CSUs, and the community college system half a century ago.

00:19:33.000 We've applied the same discipline to a career master plan in the state of California.

00:19:37.000 And so I'm completely aligned with you in terms of a focus and energy there and looking at pre-apprenticeships, looking not even at apprenticeships in the traditional sense, but valuing and highlighting and signaling the value of a life without a degree, etc.

00:19:52.000 I'm not as far off on this as you are.

00:19:55.000 That said, I've got to admire what you've been able to do, not to weaponize, but to organize on these college campuses a different point of view.

00:20:05.000 And again, let's talk about some of that.

00:20:07.000 When you go to these college campuses, I love watching your TikTok, which is next level.

00:20:10.000 Clearly, that's expressed by my 13-year-old son.

00:20:13.000 I want to meet this guy.

00:20:15.000 He's coming to a Turning Point event this summer, Tampa, Florida Student Action Summit.

00:20:19.000 I actually am concerned, by the way.

00:20:21.000 You should be concerned.

00:20:22.000 But let me say, here is why I'm concerned, because you have expressed that I should be concerned as a Democrat.

00:20:28.000 That we're getting clobbered.

00:20:31.000 Yes.

00:20:31.000 That you've figured something out.

00:20:34.000 It's not me.

00:20:35.000 The president first deserves the credit.

00:20:36.000 But why?

00:20:37.000 No, no, hold on.

00:20:37.000 You were at this before Trump was Trump.

00:20:39.000 No, I know, but he...

00:20:40.000 He was a Democrat back in 2011 and 2012. Yeah, but the president deserves huge credit.

00:20:44.000 And I just have to say that as an obligatory thing, because without him, our movement would be small.

00:20:48.000 And you can appreciate that in politics.

00:20:50.000 You have to appreciate the person who is the catalyst.

00:20:52.000 For you, that's what you sort of attached an identity with him?

00:20:55.000 It was also just the catalyst.

00:20:56.000 It was a cultural moment that just opened us up.

00:20:58.000 But go back just on that, because I'm curious.

00:21:01.000 In 2012, 13, 14, who were you identifying with from the movement perspective?

00:21:05.000 I was more, like, as I mentioned, Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Libertarian.

00:21:08.000 That's where the energy really was, right?

00:21:10.000 And then President Trump comes on.

00:21:12.000 Again, I was still very early.

00:21:13.000 Especially in my political journey.

00:21:16.000 So you're looking up a lot.

00:21:17.000 You know, who's the top voices?

00:21:18.000 What do you believe?

00:21:19.000 Why do you believe it?

00:21:20.000 Yeah.

00:21:20.000 So more of a libertarian friend.

00:21:22.000 And I still have some libertarian leanings on something.

00:21:24.000 And when Trump came down that escalator, you're like, boom, that's my guy.

00:21:27.000 Not day one.

00:21:27.000 No, I was mystified at first.

00:21:30.000 Why?

00:21:30.000 Just saying this guy, there's no chance.

00:21:32.000 No, it's funny.

00:21:32.000 I actually sent out a tweet very, like 2011, when I was in high school, saying Trump should run for office.

00:21:36.000 But I was not mystified negatively.

00:21:38.000 I was like, can this really happen?

00:21:40.000 Can a guy that has no political experience come down an escalator, challenge the whole establishment?

00:21:45.000 Right.

00:21:45.000 But you didn't expect Donald Trump to come down the escalator and start talking about illegal aliens or, you know, rapists?

00:21:51.000 I didn't disagree with it.

00:21:52.000 But you didn't?

00:21:53.000 Yeah.

00:21:53.000 I didn't see that coming.

00:21:54.000 And again, this is well documented.

00:21:56.000 Early in my journey, I underestimated the silent majority that really wanted a rebalancing of the American political landscape.

00:22:04.000 So interesting.

00:22:07.000 While we may have won this election, the fight to restore our great nation is only beginning.

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00:22:36.000 If you have a cell phone service, Or call 972-PATRIOT. So

00:23:08.000 now, then, Gavin Newsom asked me about the impact that Turning Point Action made this last election cycle.

00:23:14.000 I bragged on it a little bit, but just to reiterate, at Turning Point Action, we had over 1,000 people on the ground in Arizona, Wisconsin, chasing ballots.

00:23:20.000 We were registering voters.

00:23:22.000 In fact...

00:23:23.000 A poster from Signal Polling showed that when we visited college campuses, students moved dramatically more in President Trump's direction versus campuses we did not.

00:23:32.000 So we have two arms.

00:23:33.000 We have Turning Point USA, which is our high school and our college chapter beast.

00:23:37.000 Also, Turning Point Academy, TPUSA Faith, Blexit, all the great work that we do on digital social media.

00:23:44.000 And you guys should get involved with Turning Point USA.

00:23:46.000 And then Turning Point Action, our 501c4 organization, all about how we are recruiting candidates, trying to make the Republican Party more conservative and more Republican, how we are chasing ballots.

00:23:56.000 That is tpaction.com.

00:23:58.000 And they kind of harmonize together towards an overarching view to save Western civilization.

00:24:03.000 Now, is Governor Newsom being authentic here?

00:24:07.000 I don't think so.

00:24:08.000 I think that he was just trying to bring the temperature of the conversation down.

00:24:13.000 I always try to meet a guest at their frequency.

00:24:15.000 At the same time, you have to challenge that guest.

00:24:19.000 You have to challenge them on what they believe and why they believe it.

00:24:23.000 So this is a little bit of a conversation about how we dominated this last election cycle and what President Trump was able to do.

00:24:32.000 I believe that Turning Point Action was one of the most important outside groups.

00:24:35.000 The ballots we chased, the ground game.

00:24:38.000 And by the way, the media was always like, oh, Charlie Kirk is going to ruin the ground game for the right.

00:24:42.000 Turns out it wasn't ruined.

00:24:44.000 Turns out that we were more successful than ever before.

00:24:47.000 Watch.

00:24:47.000 So Trump then became the catalyst.

00:24:50.000 And so Turning Point became sort of next level.

00:24:52.000 Your events start growing.

00:24:54.000 You organize around that.

00:24:55.000 Turning Point Action becomes what?

00:24:57.000 The political arm.

00:24:58.000 So one is more educational.

00:24:59.000 One is more political.

00:25:00.000 And we did ballot chasing in Arizona and Wisconsin.

00:25:04.000 We were successful in that.

00:25:06.000 Alongside the Trump campaign, Arizona was the best-performing swing state.

00:25:10.000 And you're not modeling yourself out of anything because the flatness of the surrounding terrain, meaning we're the Democrats.

00:25:15.000 Are we looking at other organizing?

00:25:17.000 We were modeling off of some of the ballot chasing, ballot harvesting practices of the left.

00:25:23.000 But, I mean, again, that's a self-limiting principle.

00:25:27.000 You can't ballot chase if no one wants to vote for you.

00:25:30.000 That's right.

00:25:30.000 So, I mean, you could have the best organizers in the world, and you have 2,000 people chasing ballots in Arizona, and you're running Kamala Harris in Arizona.

00:25:38.000 What we ended up tracking through our data is that the Democrats were chasing for us, is that they were chasing low-propensity Hispanics thinking that they were all for Kamala.

00:25:47.000 And, in fact, we were looking at the precinct numbers of areas we didn't hit that moved, like, 20 points in Trump's direction.

00:25:53.000 We're like, well, thank you very much, Kamala Campaign, for getting out and chasing our ballots and, you know, for all these Hispanic men that are mechanics. 0.99

00:26:00.000 We appreciate it.

00:26:01.000 Thanks for making sure that we also won Dave McCormick's Senate seat.

00:26:05.000 Right, right.

00:26:06.000 So again, chasing is only one part of the...

00:26:08.000 Democrats, of course, are better organizers than us.

00:26:11.000 I mean, it's in your blood.

00:26:12.000 Barack Obama was a community organizer.

00:26:14.000 We make fun of it.

00:26:15.000 It's who you guys are.

00:26:16.000 You guys have labor as a backbone, clipboard and tennis shoes.

00:26:19.000 Labor less and less.

00:26:20.000 We can talk about that in a moment.

00:26:22.000 But what we always felt that we had is we felt we had better ideas and a better message and all that.

00:26:28.000 The idea was, can we combo a little bit of organizing practices with a mass movement, which is how you get a national popular vote victory and an overwhelming electoral landslide.

00:26:38.000 And so what do you see?

00:26:39.000 I sort of talked about the flatness of the surrounding terrain, meaning the Democratic Party in some respect, as it relates to it.

00:26:46.000 I appreciate your point about...

00:26:48.000 Organizing, but also coercion versus, you know, sort of forcing people to vote versus an enthusiasm and a desire to actually proactively get out.

00:26:57.000 Actually, that has a backfiring effect, too.

00:26:58.000 I totally appreciate that.

00:27:00.000 And so what do you see right now?

00:27:01.000 I mean, you know, I think you talked about it the other day.

00:27:04.000 A lot of folks were talking about that Carville article where he talked about...

00:27:08.000 Roll over and play dead.

00:27:09.000 Roll over.

00:27:10.000 In essence, he said that.

00:27:11.000 I think it was a strategic retreat, right?

00:27:13.000 That we need to come back.

00:27:14.000 Trump's starting to implode.

00:27:15.000 His numbers are getting soft.

00:27:17.000 This was even before the tariff issues, etc.

00:27:20.000 And then come back and strike went hot.

00:27:22.000 And immediately, nobody else thought about you, who's just 24-7 flooding the zone, back to my 13-year-old, owning this space, every day getting a convert, every day picking up 1, 2, 10,000 folks, continuing the momentum, coming out of this damn election.

00:27:37.000 And then I'm thinking about, we're going to stand back?

00:27:39.000 And watch you run circles around us for six months, the next two or three years, waiting for the moment to finally strike.

00:27:48.000 Strike struck me as not necessarily the best advice, and it's not a knock on Carville, who I have deep respect for.

00:27:54.000 What's your thoughts?

00:27:55.000 I don't have to.

00:27:56.000 He's read about one thing in the last 40 years, it's economy stupid, and boy, he spent down that one line pretty amazingly.

00:28:02.000 But yeah, look, I don't want to make this about Carville, but yeah, I hope you guys retreat.

00:28:07.000 You kind of like the advice.

00:28:08.000 More for us?

00:28:08.000 I mean, there's no opposition.

00:28:10.000 There's no activist spark.

00:28:12.000 You guys are posting these cringe videos on social media.

00:28:15.000 What are the videos?

00:28:16.000 What are the ones that are most cringy?

00:28:16.000 I don't know.

00:28:17.000 This, like, harmonious thing of, like, 22 senators all saying the same thing.

00:28:21.000 I didn't like that, yeah.

00:28:21.000 I didn't like it.

00:28:22.000 Go ahead.

00:28:23.000 Go do more of that. 0.99

00:28:24.000 What do you do?

00:28:25.000 What do you do?

00:28:26.000 Seriously, Charlie Kirk, give us some advice.

00:28:27.000 Get better ideas, Governor.

00:28:28.000 For example, I mean, like, if you want to, like, you have an opportunity to, like, you know, run to the middle and seize this mantle.

00:28:34.000 Obviously, you're talking to me about people.

00:28:36.000 Governor Newsom then asks my advice for the Democrat Party.

00:28:38.000 What you are about to see is the most viral part of our entire conversation.

00:28:42.000 It's Governor Newsom that has pivoted away from the consensus on the Democrat Party on a major issue.

00:28:48.000 It is an 80-20 issue against the Democrats, and it's a major debate.

00:28:53.000 We believe we are on the right side of this debate, obviously, and Governor Newsom is receiving huge backlash for this very tape.

00:29:00.000 And I politely but very firmly pushed Governor Newsom.

00:29:04.000 On why he would not speak out on this critically, I believe, civilizationally defining issue.

00:29:11.000 Here it is, the most viral element of this entire discussion.

00:29:15.000 So, like, you right now should come out and be like, you know what?

00:29:18.000 The young man who's about to win the state championship and the long jump in female sports, that shouldn't happen. 0.98

00:29:24.000 You as the governor should step out and say no.

00:29:26.000 No, and I appreciate...

00:29:27.000 But, like, would you do something like that?

00:29:29.000 Would you say no men in female sports? 0.99

00:29:30.000 Well, I think it's an issue of fairness.

00:29:32.000 I completely agree with you on that.

00:29:33.000 It is an issue of fairness.

00:29:34.000 It's deeply unfair.

00:29:35.000 Would you speak out against this young man, A.B. Hernandez, who right now is going to win the state championship in the long term?

00:29:40.000 I can see you wrestling with it.

00:29:42.000 No, I'm not wrestling.

00:29:43.000 I'm not wrestling with the fairness issue.

00:29:45.000 I totally agree with you.

00:29:46.000 By the way, as someone with four kids, you've got two daughters, right?

00:29:48.000 Two daughters.

00:29:49.000 I have a daughter, too.

00:29:50.000 And a wife that went, God forbid, to Stanford and played on the junior national soccer team. 0.96

00:29:55.000 And a guy who got into college only because I was left-handed and could throw a baseball a little bit or hit the ball for a little bit.

00:30:03.000 So I revere sports.

00:30:05.000 And so the issue of fairness is completely legit.

00:30:07.000 And I saw that the last couple of years.

00:30:10.000 Boy, did I saw how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.

00:30:14.000 Not weaponized.

00:30:15.000 Well, weaponized may be pejorative.

00:30:17.000 You're right.

00:30:17.000 But you were able to- Shine a light on?

00:30:19.000 Highlight it in a way that, frankly, I- There are not that many.

00:30:23.000 We're talking about, I think, NC2A, what, 510,000?

00:30:26.000 No, no, but I just didn't realize.

00:30:28.000 It's 890 medals and trophies that we know of in the last five years.

00:30:31.000 That's a lot.

00:30:31.000 No, so let me step back and say completely fair on the issue of fairness.

00:30:35.000 I completely agree.

00:30:37.000 So that's easy to call out, the unfairness of that.

00:30:39.000 There's also a humility and a grace that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression.

00:30:46.000 And the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that...

00:30:51.000 I have a hard time with as well.

00:30:53.000 So both things I can hold in my hand.

00:30:55.000 How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that I think is inherent in you, but not always expressed on the issue?

00:31:03.000 No, I get it.

00:31:04.000 At the same time deal with the unfairness.

00:31:06.000 You asked a good faith question, like how do we Democrats get out of the wilderness?

00:31:10.000 This one is an 80-20 issue.

00:31:11.000 New York Times poll, right?

00:31:12.000 No, I agree with you.

00:31:13.000 We're getting crushed on.

00:31:15.000 Crushed.

00:31:15.000 And you have an opportunity in the state to be like, look, I have a heart for A.B. Hernandez.

00:31:18.000 I have a heart for the San Jose volleyball player.

00:31:21.000 Let's give them compassion.

00:31:22.000 What's not fair is just for like a woman's entire woman's sports. 1.00

00:31:26.000 I agree.

00:31:27.000 By the way, I agree with you.

00:31:28.000 I agree with you.

00:31:29.000 And it's interesting.

00:31:29.000 I stress tested this, Charlie.

00:31:30.000 I was wondering.

00:31:32.000 You know, in California, and I've been a leader in the LGBTQ place, as you know, back in 2004, was marrying same-sex couples.

00:31:38.000 And I know we have different opinion on marriage equality.

00:31:42.000 And so I've been at this for years and years.

00:31:44.000 I take a bad seat to no one.

00:31:45.000 But I was actually on the issue of sports, which in the last few years has just exploded, trying to understand and understand the 10 athletes in the NCAA, 510,000 athletes, but 10 athletes.

00:31:56.000 But how profound, and even my own friend cohort.

00:31:59.000 People saying, what the hell is going on?

00:32:01.000 Why aren't you calling this out?

00:32:03.000 When did this happen?

00:32:04.000 So in 2000, it turns out in 2014, years before I was governor, there was a law established that established the legal principles that allow trans athletes in women's sports.

00:32:15.000 But the issue of fairness is completely legit.

00:32:18.000 So I completely align with you.

00:32:19.000 And we've got to own that.

00:32:21.000 We've got to acknowledge it.

00:32:22.000 And I don't say that through the prism of politics, because you disagree with same-sex marriage on principle.

00:32:28.000 And so I'm not...

00:32:29.000 And by the way, I value the fact that you're not trying to walk away from that principle because electorally...

00:32:35.000 I'm in the minority of it.

00:32:37.000 Yeah, in the minority.

00:32:38.000 And I don't want to walk away from this principle because it's electoral, but it is an issue of fairness.

00:32:43.000 And I think Democrats have lost it.

00:32:45.000 I think that...

00:32:46.000 I wish that we would have done this podcast last week.

00:32:49.000 Last week?

00:32:49.000 Well, because the U.S. Senate just voted...

00:32:51.000 Every Democrat voted against that bill.

00:32:53.000 And I'm just telling you, like, again, I'm not one to give...

00:32:56.000 Governor Newsom advice.

00:32:57.000 You guys are giving us an 80-20 issue that is just permeating the country.

00:33:02.000 It's such an affront to our senses.

00:33:04.000 And you look at these videos, Governor, because it's not just that it's, okay, you read an article about it.

00:33:07.000 But these young men that are, you know, are in these sports, they're throwing around girls.

00:33:13.000 And it is an issue of fairness, but it goes to a broader arch narrative.

00:33:16.000 There you go.

00:33:17.000 Which is important.

00:33:18.000 No, and this, I want to hear this.

00:33:19.000 Which is this, that the Democrats, you guys will tend to view an incident through an oppressed or oppressed lens.

00:33:25.000 Yeah.

00:33:25.000 It's your training.

00:33:26.000 It comes from college.

00:33:27.000 It comes from, and we as conservatives tend to view things through right or wrong or just or unjust.

00:33:33.000 And the country is going far more in our direction and away from your direction because...

00:33:39.000 The problem with oppressor oppressed is eventually you run out of oppressors and you start creating them out of thin air.

00:33:45.000 And you start trying to say, well, these people must be blamed for all of our problems.

00:33:50.000 And that's where you get a lot of the, let's just say a lot of, for example, there's a Wall Street Journal editorial like, when will the white men shut up or stop complaining?

00:33:58.000 That does no good for anybody, right?

00:34:00.000 So what I'm getting at, though, is it's a worldview difference, right?

00:34:04.000 So that's why the issue is so much more powerful.

00:34:08.000 Of course it is, but it's also pattern recognition.

00:34:10.000 It's pattern recognition of a Democrat party that post-2020 decided to go all in.

00:34:15.000 We call it woke.

00:34:15.000 You might call it justice or whatever it is, but it's so outside of what we would consider traditional Americans' norms and customs.

00:34:23.000 And again, so...

00:34:25.000 A Democrat strategist would say, oh, Charlie, you're weaponizing stuff.

00:34:28.000 Not you, but that's a typical thing.

00:34:31.000 But the most effective ad of this election cycle, the most effective ad, you know what it is.

00:34:36.000 Devastating.

00:34:37.000 Trump's for you, she's for they, them. 0.87

00:34:39.000 Devastating.

00:34:41.000 Devastating.

00:34:42.000 And she didn't even react to it, which was even more devastating.

00:34:45.000 And let's talk about why it was devastating.

00:34:46.000 Number one, it was the trans issue that was just...

00:34:48.000 Yeah.

00:34:49.000 You know, monopolizing.

00:34:50.000 And this was even more challenging because it's issues of people that are incarcerated.

00:34:55.000 And illegal.

00:34:55.000 And illegal, incarcerated individuals getting taxpayer funded.

00:34:59.000 Yes.

00:35:00.000 Gender reassignment searches.

00:35:02.000 That is a 90-10, not an 80-20.

00:35:04.000 Right.

00:35:04.000 And then she's like enthusiastically defending it, bragging, being like, I'm all for this.

00:35:09.000 So then the conversation shifted, as you're about to see, all about wokeism.

00:35:12.000 Now, how do you define woke?

00:35:14.000 Woke is calling something racist or unjust until you control it.

00:35:18.000 I probably should have chimed in there with this chat with Governor Newsom.

00:35:21.000 I actually think I did pretty well here.

00:35:23.000 We're talking about the border crisis, all of the crimes that BLM allegedly committed, also Robin DiAngelo's white fragility. 0.76

00:35:32.000 In California, they are the petri dish of these very ideas.

00:35:36.000 Again, I was able to get some of that into this conversation.

00:35:39.000 I probably could have done an even better job of listing up one, two, three, four, five examples.

00:35:46.000 But there's only so much you could prep on.

00:35:47.000 We are prepped on homelessness and cost of living and cost of housing.

00:35:50.000 But understand, Gavin Newsom, he is the Anthony Fauci of CRT. He is the person that has been pushing forward CRT and DEI for his entire career through California.

00:36:03.000 And California is the Wuhan Institute of Virology of woke-ism.

00:36:07.000 From the UC system, Cal Berkeley, Stanford, it all happens in California and it's being taught to kids on a daily basis.

00:36:15.000 And then you had the video that, oh, it was a validator.

00:36:18.000 Brutal.

00:36:19.000 Yeah, and so...

00:36:20.000 Tens of millions, brutal.

00:36:21.000 And then the targeted focus from the Trump campaign, Next Level.

00:36:25.000 And then Charlemagne comes out on Breakfast Club is like, this is insane.

00:36:28.000 And they ran it on NFL football.

00:36:30.000 Brilliant.

00:36:31.000 Yes, and so you're trying to reach men.

00:36:33.000 It's not like...

00:36:35.000 It's a brilliant campaign commercial.

00:36:36.000 It was brutal.

00:36:37.000 It doesn't require...

00:36:38.000 By the way, we were running around just for the what the hell it's worth.

00:36:41.000 For you, she was AG at the time.

00:36:43.000 She was addressing the issue of illegal settlement.

00:36:45.000 The courts were intervening on this topic.

00:36:48.000 But she had the video where in the video she was obviously expressed support.

00:36:55.000 And so 100% right.

00:36:56.000 She was being a cheerleader for a very unpopular thing.

00:36:58.000 It was a great ad.

00:37:02.000 And I say that lightly.

00:37:04.000 But this is important.

00:37:05.000 And I want to make sure it's not just that this was like the Willie Horton ad of the 2024. It wasn't just like a Lee Atwater brilliance.

00:37:12.000 It's that it reflected truth that the voters felt.

00:37:16.000 Yeah, I appreciate that.

00:37:17.000 Because voters felt as if their country was slipping away.

00:37:21.000 Now, the Democrats have a choice.

00:37:23.000 You can say to those people, you're racist, you're Nazis, you're fascist, you're terrible.

00:37:26.000 Or you can listen and be like, why is it?

00:37:29.000 That a steel worker in Pittsburgh who's voted Democrat his entire life is voting for Trump despite all of the stuff that's been thrown at him.

00:37:37.000 And all the rhetoric that he's thrown at us in that context.

00:37:41.000 But it's a pattern, and the trans thing is just one of those things. 0.99

00:37:45.000 But the second element was also what we saw under Joe Biden was if you came to the southern border from any country and you spoke the magic words, you could go to any city you're choosing, CBP1 border app, All of a sudden, that steel worker in Pittsburgh is like, why am I paying all these taxes?

00:38:02.000 I can't afford beer.

00:38:05.000 I can't afford anything.

00:38:06.000 And so I guess my question is to you, what are the Democrats going to do about it?

00:38:11.000 I'm going to answer that in a second, but let me pull a few more threads.

00:38:16.000 You said 2020 is when you started to see the Democrats sort of...

00:38:21.000 It advanced this notion of wokeism.

00:38:23.000 It's when the awokening really started.

00:38:27.000 You know what I'm talking about.

00:38:28.000 So is it the Latinx stuff?

00:38:31.000 By the way, not one person ever in my office has ever used the word Latinx.

00:38:35.000 So can we finally put that to bed?

00:38:36.000 No more Latinx, everybody. 1.00

00:38:38.000 Well, I just didn't even know where it came from.

00:38:40.000 I'm like, what are people talking about?

00:38:41.000 Was it the pronouns?

00:38:42.000 By the way, once, once.

00:38:44.000 You'd think California invented the frame of the pronoun.

00:38:47.000 Literally, I had one meeting.

00:38:49.000 Where people started going around the table of pronouns.

00:38:51.000 One, there's been a hell of a lot of days between 2020 and today, and one meeting.

00:38:56.000 So it's not like this is...

00:38:57.000 I'm like, what the hell is...

00:38:58.000 Why is this the biggest issue?

00:39:00.000 Well, in corporate America, it's everywhere.

00:39:02.000 Okay, all right.

00:39:02.000 And college campuses.

00:39:04.000 It must...

00:39:04.000 See, that's where you reside a lot, in the college campus.

00:39:07.000 So you've got to defund these schools if they're doing the pronouns.

00:39:09.000 I'm not defund this.

00:39:10.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:39:10.000 Okay.

00:39:11.000 And so number three, what else?

00:39:13.000 I mean, you started...

00:39:15.000 What was also the big wokeism thing?

00:39:17.000 I mean, first of all, it wasn't just the projection of certain narratives, which we could obviously go through.

00:39:22.000 But it's when policy started to come forward.

00:39:25.000 And what kind of policy?

00:39:26.000 Hiring practices.

00:39:27.000 When it was, there was, we're not going to hire...

00:39:28.000 There was DEI decades ago.

00:39:30.000 Yeah.

00:39:31.000 I mean, it was just called outreach and inclusion.

00:39:34.000 But we saw mass adoption, what we saw.

00:39:36.000 And not only that, we saw pledging of billions of dollars of donations to racial justice.

00:39:43.000 Fair point.

00:39:44.000 And that was sort of post-George Floyd.

00:39:45.000 That's what I'm saying.

00:39:47.000 You had a combustible effect.

00:39:48.000 And was that wrong, I mean, to address the issue of racial inequality?

00:39:51.000 I mean, there's legitimate issues as it relates to past practices.

00:39:54.000 What was insulting to a lot of people is, number one, where's the money going?

00:39:58.000 Because the top premier BLM charity ended up being a racket, right? 1.00

00:40:02.000 With Patrice Cullors, like, where'd that $100 million go?

00:40:05.000 So all of a sudden we learn that, and all these pledges of corporate dollars were going to this woman that's, like, higher.

00:40:12.000 No, that became the poster child for the broader movement.

00:40:18.000 But number two, which I think was most important, was that it elevated then this scholarly community that was otherwise fringe, like Robin DiAngelo and other people.

00:40:28.000 And her book, White Fragility, literally the entire premise of her book is that white people need to stop being so fragile about race.

00:40:34.000 You need to sit down and shut up and hear how racist you are.

00:40:38.000 to corporations across the country.

00:40:40.000 And by the way, just so you understand, this was a phenomenon over months and months, and it didn't quite catch up in time for the 2020 election.

00:40:47.000 I do believe that if you guys would have been a little less insane on crime in the summer of 20, you would have completely clobbered us in November of 20.

00:40:54.000 It was the riots that even made 2020 close.

00:40:57.000 Right, right.

00:40:57.000 But then it was the extension of all of the, what we would call woke stuff.

00:41:02.000 Right, defund police.

00:41:04.000 Yeah, I mean, Minneapolis literally had to hold a special vote saying like, should we still have a police department?

00:41:09.000 Yeah, that's, I mean, that was lunacy.

00:41:12.000 I mean, but Governor, I don't want to- Lunacy, and by the way, you're talking to someone who's never supported a defund police movement.

00:41:17.000 No, I'm not saying, I know, but- I was explicit, but- Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:41:22.000 Brand new year, brand new opportunities to change the world for the better.

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00:42:23.000 So then I asked Governor Newsom about the Prop 16 debate and the public school debate.

00:42:28.000 He was on the side of what's called Prop 16 in 2020, which would have had legal racial discrimination.

00:42:34.000 He's like, oh, I got to go look at my notes.

00:42:36.000 No, no, no, no.

00:42:37.000 You know what it is.

00:42:38.000 You know what it was.

00:42:39.000 You pushed this deeply unpopular, anti-white, anti-Asian, legal racial discrimination that lost at the polls.

00:42:46.000 And again, AB 101 has critical race theory in the schools of California.

00:42:50.000 We also talk about how the Democrats have become defenders of the corrupt establishment, FBI, EPA, critical race theory.

00:42:58.000 But also, you did support Prop 16 in 2020, which would have legalized racial...

00:43:04.000 Prejudice, right?

00:43:05.000 Prop 16 literally would...

00:43:06.000 I have to go back to my Prop 13. No, no, no.

00:43:09.000 Prop 16...

00:43:10.000 I taught 960 SAT, so a little humility.

00:43:12.000 Hold on, you're the governor of the largest state in the country.

00:43:14.000 No, no, no.

00:43:14.000 I saw your debate against DeSantis.

00:43:16.000 You're good at this stuff.

00:43:17.000 You know what I'm talking about.

00:43:17.000 Prop 16 would have had legalized racial prejudice, which got defeated by 16 points despite all the institutions.

00:43:24.000 So you're asking me, what did wokeism look like when California, when all the institutions, yourself included, with all due respect, embraced this insane ballot measure?

00:43:33.000 Guess what?

00:43:34.000 Even the people of California didn't want racial racial discrimination.

00:43:37.000 I remember California since 1996 has had Prop 209.

00:43:40.000 So the affirmative action case came from the Supreme Court as well.

00:43:42.000 It's the institutions of higher learning had no impact on California.

00:43:46.000 So we've actually it's an issue.

00:43:47.000 California also codified as a constitutional amendment marriage between a man and a woman.

00:43:53.000 And that was in the 2000s.

00:43:56.000 California runs an interesting...

00:43:57.000 I found it to be illuminating, though, that despite...

00:44:00.000 I mean, there was really, like, no opposition.

00:44:01.000 It was, like, a couple hundred, like, Asian activists.

00:44:04.000 But I just want to say, you asked the question, what did wokeism look like?

00:44:08.000 Prop 16 in California that would have had legalized racial discrimination.

00:44:12.000 That was not a major...

00:44:14.000 There was a broader national narrative.

00:44:16.000 I'm just bringing it home to you because there were hundreds of such ballot referendums, right?

00:44:20.000 There was, you know, city council meetings where they said the white people aren't allowed here, right?

00:44:24.000 That's not good.

00:44:25.000 No, it's not good.

00:44:26.000 And so what ends up happening is a broader question of sensible, not racist suburban moms that are like, wait a second, I have an eight-year-old white son. 1.00

00:44:37.000 Are you trying to say he's a racist?

00:44:38.000 And it creates a backlash that then bubbles up, right?

00:44:42.000 I appreciate the perspective.

00:44:44.000 And I appreciate not just the perspective, I totally appreciate what you just said.

00:44:49.000 As an explicit statement of fact, to make an eight-year-old feel like they're racist is absurd and outrageous.

00:44:55.000 But Governor, with all the respect, that's happening right now in California public schools.

00:44:58.000 And I'm not trying to drill you on it.

00:45:00.000 I'm just being honest.

00:45:01.000 You could say that, but maybe you should convene a special session and say no more race-based teaching against white people in the schools of California or Asians.

00:45:12.000 I'm just saying, though, that this is not a conjecture.

00:45:15.000 It's not a hypothetical.

00:45:16.000 It is embedded into the DNA of the Democrat Party.

00:45:19.000 Yeah, okay.

00:45:19.000 I appreciate it.

00:45:20.000 I mean, the CRT stuff.

00:45:22.000 Yes.

00:45:22.000 I mean, I was trying to find it.

00:45:24.000 Do you think we have CRT in K-12 education?

00:45:27.000 Well, you have the principles of it.

00:45:28.000 I mean, of course, critical theory is like a PhD level course taught by Derek Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw.

00:45:33.000 But the same way that you have advanced physics and the theories of physics in eighth grade...

00:45:38.000 It's like saying you don't have the elements of it.

00:45:40.000 But for example, I mean, it's very simple.

00:45:42.000 But at least that explains why, because I'm just trying to find it.

00:45:45.000 We know of over at least 50 schools in California that do things called privilege walks.

00:45:50.000 Do you know what privilege walks are?

00:45:51.000 What are privilege walks?

00:45:51.000 Where they make kids walk ahead based on certain questions, and they try to make a point saying, well, you see, the white people are ahead.

00:45:57.000 They must have white privilege.

00:45:58.000 Okay, I get it.

00:45:59.000 Yeah, no.

00:46:00.000 See, like...

00:46:01.000 All right, I got to get back into the classroom.

00:46:03.000 No, you got to get your...

00:46:04.000 I got six million kids.

00:46:05.000 You got to get your educations up.

00:46:07.000 1,050 school districts, the largest school system applied.

00:46:10.000 I know that.

00:46:10.000 No, but no excuse, because these things are important.

00:46:12.000 And by the way, it's the reason we're having this conversation.

00:46:16.000 This is very illuminating and helpful to me to understand sort of the animus.

00:46:20.000 What is it about...

00:46:21.000 You know, I joke with people.

00:46:23.000 I say, you guys don't like DEI, CRT, ESG, DOJ, FBI, IRS. It's all the acronyms.

00:46:29.000 It's all the damn three-letter acronyms.

00:46:30.000 What the hell is the issue?

00:46:32.000 What's going on with all that?

00:46:33.000 You know, you missed some.

00:46:35.000 Which ones?

00:46:36.000 Which others?

00:46:36.000 What have I missed?

00:46:37.000 EPA? The EPA. The Employment Prevention Agency.

00:46:41.000 Oh, okay.

00:46:42.000 You're about to get that, 65%.

00:46:44.000 Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, the...

00:46:47.000 So it's not just acronyms that we dislike for the record, but it feels like that sometimes.

00:46:53.000 And now this is the second most viral part of our conversation, where Governor Newsom thought he had me bringing up book banning.

00:47:00.000 I should have probably said this in the discussion, but saying that the Bible is pornographic is so insulting to faithful Christians across the country.

00:47:09.000 Governor Newsom thinks like, oh, I can get you on book banning.

00:47:13.000 This is how every conservative, every Republican should talk about the Banning of books.

00:47:18.000 That every single conservative Republican should talk about how the books that very well might be banned in our schools.

00:47:25.000 What are they exactly?

00:47:26.000 This is how you should stand up for it.

00:47:28.000 For decency, for truth, and for our children.

00:47:31.000 How about the book ban stuff?

00:47:32.000 On a serious note, 4,240 books or titles, libraries and schools were banned in 2023. Is that not as a conservative?

00:47:42.000 Well, it depends.

00:47:43.000 I mean, like, I think we can both agree pornography should not be taught to nine-year-olds.

00:47:47.000 Fair point.

00:47:47.000 Okay.

00:47:47.000 So that's a book ban.

00:47:48.000 All right.

00:47:48.000 Well, there are some other books.

00:47:50.000 No, no, no, no, no.

00:47:51.000 That was the Moms for Liberty contention. 1.00

00:47:53.000 Time out.

00:47:53.000 Like, I agree on Bill O'Reilly.

00:47:54.000 The Moms for Liberty movement that you made a big thing of was just no porn to 10-year-olds. 1.00

00:47:59.000 Yeah.

00:47:59.000 We agree.

00:48:00.000 So those books should be banned.

00:48:01.000 Well, okay.

00:48:02.000 So what we should do right now is every California school that has porn in their library should be kicked out.

00:48:07.000 Does that include the Bible?

00:48:09.000 Well, I wouldn't say the Song of Solomon is porn.

00:48:11.000 No, but I mean, some have made that point.

00:48:13.000 Is that a fair point?

00:48:14.000 I don't think that's fair at all.

00:48:16.000 And as a man of faith, and I deeply admire that about you.

00:48:18.000 Thank you.

00:48:19.000 Yes, but no, I mean, again, the Song of Solomon is rather risque.

00:48:22.000 No, it's very.

00:48:23.000 But what we're talking about in these books is not just the words, it's also the images.

00:48:26.000 And again, your audience can look at the images themselves.

00:48:29.000 It's highly graphic.

00:48:30.000 But again, what I... But it seems a banning binge.

00:48:33.000 I mean, at next level, sort of cancel.

00:48:35.000 But why do you think moms are doing that? 1.00

00:48:37.000 Do you think it's because they want to have mind control, or do you think that they have come across incident of incident of highly provocative material?

00:48:45.000 I love moms, but this moms, I mean, we don't have to get into Moms for Liberty. 1.00

00:48:48.000 I mean, you brought up the book bans, though.

00:48:50.000 Deeply organized for a larger agenda, but that's my humble opinion.

00:48:55.000 But let me just, you know, kind of complete the point, is that it's easy to just call it kind of a book ban, but when you actually have to read some of these books, it will take your breath away.

00:49:04.000 Of some of this stuff, right?

00:49:05.000 You're like, okay, you know, we're teaching a 10-year-old how to put a condom on.

00:49:08.000 I know.

00:49:08.000 I just have a problem with, you know, who the hell is going to decide that government?

00:49:11.000 I mean, Doron DeSantis is going to decide what I can read or say in the boardroom and the classroom.

00:49:15.000 This is the exercise of politics, though.

00:49:17.000 The exercise of politics is the highest form of community because it blends morality and sociability.

00:49:21.000 So what we do is we have discussion and elections and we have boards and commissions, right?

00:49:26.000 And we as a people say, okay, no porn for 10-year-olds.

00:49:29.000 And that's politics, right?

00:49:30.000 I mean, I'm not saying that there's like some sort of...

00:49:32.000 We've got to stress test whether the Bible's included in that.

00:49:34.000 I don't even want to go forward anymore on this.

00:49:37.000 No, it's tough, but this becomes a dialectic.

00:49:40.000 I have heard a lot.

00:49:41.000 I've never heard...

00:49:42.000 That's interesting, though.

00:49:43.000 No, I mean, it's a provocative...

00:49:45.000 I don't think it's fair.

00:49:46.000 I don't mean to offend.

00:49:46.000 Again, I deeply don't mean to offend.

00:49:48.000 By the way, Father Kaz would be offended with me.

00:49:50.000 If you think the Bible's pornographic, we have a whole...

00:49:52.000 Most of these books are quote-unquote, not pornographic.

00:49:56.000 There's sections that are...

00:49:58.000 Of images that are very violent to young kids.

00:50:00.000 Some, we would agree.

00:50:01.000 Can I just say one of those?

00:50:03.000 If you want to learn, Governor, and I'm happy that there is a movement of moms that is not, that's growing, where they feel as if our kids are being hyper-sexualized.

00:50:11.000 And I agree with them, that they are being, that they have to hear topics.

00:50:15.000 Social media?

00:50:16.000 Well, both in the social media and the classroom.

00:50:19.000 And then Governor Newsom talks all about this assembly bill.

00:50:23.000 About the most radical elements in our country when it comes to parental notification and kids' well-being and children's well-being.

00:50:33.000 You signed a law where school districts can't even tell parents if their kids are trans.

00:50:37.000 Not true.

00:50:38.000 Okay, then.

00:50:39.000 No, they can.

00:50:40.000 They just can't get fired for not doing that.

00:50:42.000 And it wasn't just trans.

00:50:44.000 They can't get fired for not doing that.

00:50:44.000 The law was explicit, said you can't be fired for not.

00:50:51.000 Snitching on a kid, not just for being trans, for being gay. 0.86

00:50:55.000 And my point is, how in the hell...

00:50:57.000 But shouldn't the parents know?

00:50:58.000 Is telling parents snitching?

00:51:00.000 No.

00:51:00.000 The teachers themselves have the right...

00:51:03.000 The law is...

00:51:04.000 They can do that.

00:51:06.000 They can do that.

00:51:06.000 We're not saying you can't do that.

00:51:07.000 We're saying you shouldn't be fired if you choose not to say Johnny was talking about liking some other boy or something.

00:51:15.000 That's a charitable reading.

00:51:15.000 It's not charitable.

00:51:16.000 It's actually the freedom not to snitch.

00:51:18.000 Let me tell you the other way to say this.

00:51:20.000 That a teacher of course should be fired if you don't notify a parent of what's happening to their kid.

00:51:26.000 Of course they should be terminated for that.

00:51:28.000 I want these teachers to teach.

00:51:33.000 And by the way, if they feel like the health or safety of the kid, they have a responsibility to communicate.

00:51:37.000 They still can.

00:51:38.000 By the way, we're not selling these teachers they can't.

00:51:40.000 We're saying they won't be fired if they don't look around and say in the recess, there were two boys.

00:51:46.000 Why didn't you see that?

00:51:47.000 You're fired.

00:51:47.000 You should have said something because they're talking about...

00:51:50.000 But there of course should be a penalty measure, whether it be termination or whatever.

00:51:55.000 If a teacher withholds information from a parent, because what you're saying is that there's no way to hold them accountable.

00:52:01.000 Accountable to what, though?

00:52:02.000 Accountable to two kids talking about the fact that they're talking about subject matter.

00:52:08.000 All of a sudden now we have to have teachers policing speech or conversations that kids are having.

00:52:13.000 I think you would even agree, Governor, that is an over-extreme example.

00:52:15.000 What we're talking about is if, which happens a lot, unfortunately, is if a young girl says that, hey, I want to transition.

00:52:24.000 And the teacher accommodates and affirms it, and the parent doesn't even know.

00:52:28.000 I have met parents like that in this state.

00:52:30.000 I heard Trump, and then they come back, and they're away.

00:52:32.000 There's so much extreme work in this space.

00:52:34.000 I will say, and we don't have to wrestle too much on this topic, but you guys will lose on these topics, and you might disagree.

00:52:39.000 But again, I'm one of those guys, and Charlie, I appreciate, and I, by the way, appreciate the civility in which we're engaged in this conversation, sincerely.

00:52:47.000 I don't mind losing.

00:52:49.000 Sometimes you lose on principle.

00:52:50.000 It's one of those things, everything's not political, is the point.

00:52:53.000 And sometimes the principle, and by the way, mad respect for you, abortion and same-sex marriage.

00:52:58.000 I hold views where the American people don't agree with me.

00:53:00.000 Exactly.

00:53:00.000 But I admire that on principle.

00:53:03.000 But for me, it's not just political.

00:53:04.000 And I appreciate you making that point.

00:53:07.000 I deeply am mindful of the politics of this, which are very unhelpful.

00:53:11.000 Personally, it's unhelpful.

00:53:13.000 More broadly, professionally, the Democratic Party and our brand.

00:53:16.000 And one of the reasons, to your point, the Democratic Party brand has just been crushed.

00:53:22.000 Your self-awareness is helpful to know, because it is deeply unpopular, and I think that is an ascendant political force that is not going away.

00:53:33.000 No, I appreciate it, but I also appreciate you hold deeply unpopular beliefs as well.

00:53:37.000 Of course I do, but I... But you're not running for office.

00:53:39.000 I'm not going to run for president as a moderate.

00:53:41.000 What are you running for office?

00:53:43.000 I'm not running for anything.

00:53:44.000 I saw a poll in Arizona that you were like one or two.

00:53:47.000 You have the highest name ID and a favorability.

00:53:49.000 When are you running?

00:53:50.000 Is that what this is all about?

00:53:51.000 No, it's definitely not about that.

00:53:52.000 By the way, you're not even old enough to be president.

00:53:54.000 You're only 31 years old.

00:53:55.000 I mean, you and AOC. You're going to run against AOC? I'm running for, you know, head of, you know, most popular TikToker.

00:54:02.000 But, no, I'm not running for anything.

00:54:05.000 So then Governor Newsom asked me about running for office.

00:54:07.000 I'm not running for office.

00:54:08.000 Do you guys think I should run for office?

00:54:10.000 You guys should put in the comments of whether or not you guys think I should run for office.

00:54:13.000 I think I'm more effective doing what I'm doing here, reaching millions of people, starting a mass movement, running Turning Point USA. So go in the comments and let me know what you think.

00:54:24.000 If you are a private student loan debt borrower, listen carefully.

00:54:28.000 Great patriots here.

00:54:29.000 Private student loan debt in the U.S. totals about $300 billion.

00:54:32.000 About $45 billion of that is labeled as distressed.

00:54:35.000 Why refi refinances distressed or defaulted private student loans that others will not touch?

00:54:40.000 Why refi does not care?

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00:55:23.000 By the way, should we ban TikTok?

00:55:24.000 No, we should not.

00:55:25.000 I used to say that.

00:55:26.000 Yeah, why did you change your position?

00:55:28.000 Because it was politically expedient or Trump told you to?

00:55:30.000 Well, no, definitely not Trump.

00:55:31.000 I sent out a tweet, and I'm perfectly honest about this.

00:55:34.000 I think you'd respect this, is that I was so mad at them because they would ban me all the time.

00:55:37.000 And I sent out a tweet saying like, hey, if you guys are really for free speech, as a creator, like, let's see it.

00:55:43.000 Get a call from TikTok a couple hours later.

00:55:45.000 We're going to show you that we're for free speech.

00:55:47.000 We're going to show you the power of the platform.

00:55:48.000 Right.

00:55:49.000 And I saw real changes where our campus interactions went from being banned to now well over two and a half billion views on TikTok.

00:55:56.000 And so I wouldn't say expedient.

00:55:58.000 I'd say impact.

00:56:00.000 And also...

00:56:01.000 They now have changed some of their speech codes.

00:56:03.000 They've changed some of their...

00:56:04.000 Hey, enough for your son.

00:56:08.000 Your son finds my content somehow.

00:56:10.000 Look, I used TikTok.

00:56:11.000 I wasn't out there trying to champion the band.

00:56:14.000 I just love this conversion.

00:56:15.000 It's a hell of a conversion.

00:56:17.000 Hey, I'm open about it.

00:56:19.000 I appreciate it.

00:56:21.000 And then...

00:56:21.000 French Laundry comes up.

00:56:23.000 There's a major platform difference between Democrats and Republicans.

00:56:26.000 Long-form media versus legacy media.

00:56:29.000 Politics is now culture, and we dominate the new media landscape.

00:56:32.000 I do not think Democrats are able to exist in a long-form podcasting environment.

00:56:37.000 They can't defend their ideas.

00:56:39.000 As soon as you turn off the teleprompter, they freak out.

00:56:42.000 We are ascendant.

00:56:43.000 Those of us that believe in America, believe in freedom, believe in liberty, believe in borders, want a strong country, want men to be men and women to be women.

00:56:51.000 We are the dominant political force because we could defend our ideas without someone whispering in our ear, giving us prepared notes.

00:56:59.000 Governor Newsom seemed a little uncomfortable.

00:57:01.000 So back to the Democratic Party.

00:57:04.000 We're not aligned with them.

00:57:06.000 They don't trust us.

00:57:07.000 I think we have 31% favorability, 57% unfavorability.

00:57:09.000 I'm surprised it's that high, Governor.

00:57:10.000 And by the way, thank you.

00:57:11.000 31% favorability is not good enough.

00:57:14.000 So back to just the basics.

00:57:17.000 You talked about wokeism, broadly defined.

00:57:20.000 We talked about some specific examples of that.

00:57:22.000 You began on the transport, which is interesting, and I respect and appreciate.

00:57:26.000 I want you to speak out against that one, Governor.

00:57:28.000 I appreciate it.

00:57:28.000 We just did, of all of you.

00:57:30.000 By the way, I've been saying that.

00:57:32.000 It's so interesting it gets picked up.

00:57:35.000 And that maybe goes to the question.

00:57:37.000 We live in these filter bubbles.

00:57:39.000 We're talking to ourselves.

00:57:41.000 We're in the sort of, you know, it's Newsmax, One American News, Fox, and then it gets into all the stuff that you guys are doing and everybody else.

00:57:48.000 And meanwhile, I'm safe over here at MSNBC and CNN, reading the New York Times, feeling really great about things and having a nice glass of Chardonnay, listening to Rachel Maddow, self-medicating and just going, yes, yes.

00:58:01.000 At the French Laundry, of course.

00:58:02.000 Yeah, at the French.

00:58:02.000 That's, of course, the only place I eat.

00:58:04.000 Can you get me a table?

00:58:05.000 I'm struggling.

00:58:05.000 Great takeout and the whole thing.

00:58:07.000 Well, I should have been at Applebee's.

00:58:08.000 I get it.

00:58:09.000 Applebee's America.

00:58:10.000 I read the books.

00:58:10.000 Come on, man.

00:58:11.000 In-N-Out Burger.

00:58:12.000 Jesus Christ.

00:58:13.000 And here's a guy who makes 25 times more money than I do.

00:58:17.000 Sitting here with a jacket.

00:58:19.000 And I'm sitting here with a senior t-shirt.

00:58:20.000 And you control the fifth largest economy on the planet.

00:58:23.000 We don't control.

00:58:24.000 The people control the fifth largest economy.

00:58:26.000 And by the way, proud that you know it's a $3.89 trillion economy.

00:58:29.000 With a declining population.

00:58:30.000 No, the population went up last year.

00:58:32.000 The population went up last year.

00:58:33.000 Yeah, because of the illegal border.

00:58:34.000 We'll talk about that later.

00:58:35.000 I got a whole thing.

00:58:38.000 290,000 net last year.

00:58:39.000 By the way, 394 National Guard that I put down at the border six years ago.

00:58:44.000 You should be championing that as governor of California.

00:58:47.000 394 we have down at the border.

00:58:49.000 We've been focused on fentanyl.

00:58:50.000 I've been working on this.

00:58:51.000 But anyway, you're getting somewhere complimentary.

00:58:53.000 Yeah, I was.

00:58:54.000 Going back to...

00:58:55.000 You're talking about your whining and dining at French Laundry.

00:58:58.000 Yes, I was talking about the importance of never.

00:59:02.000 Well, I can't help you with a reservation.

00:59:05.000 I get such a kick out of this whole shtick.

00:59:06.000 I've got to be honest.

00:59:07.000 Very nice.

00:59:08.000 By the way, we couldn't have this conversation with that conversation.

00:59:11.000 Dumbest bonehead move my life.

00:59:13.000 Own it.

00:59:14.000 Move on.

00:59:15.000 Grow up.

00:59:16.000 Is that you talking to yourself?

00:59:18.000 That's me talking to myself.

00:59:19.000 I'm staring right at you in the eyes as I say that just to get your reaction.

00:59:23.000 That said, we are...

00:59:27.000 We're losing.

00:59:28.000 I feel it's asymmetry of Donald Trump and Elon Musk sending out tweets or you doing social media and me doing a three-minute hit at three o'clock in the afternoon on CNN. I mean, how the hell do we compete?

00:59:44.000 We're toast.

00:59:45.000 Well, I mean, part of it, and credit to you for doing long-form podcasting, because long-form podcasting does penetrate different audiences, right?

00:59:53.000 And our show does very well.

00:59:55.000 Part of the problem of the Democrat Party, that for the health of the country would be great to change, is that Democrats cannot survive in long-form podcasting environments.

01:00:04.000 Why?

01:00:05.000 It's too unscripted.

01:00:06.000 It's too masculine, honestly.

01:00:07.000 And the Democrat Party's become too feminine. 0.97

01:00:09.000 What is masculine about a podcast?

01:00:10.000 Honestly, because I get the whole manosphere, this bro podcast stuff.

01:00:13.000 To go into the wilderness with no rules and duel it out and see who's better or who's stronger.

01:00:17.000 No, seriously.

01:00:18.000 Democrats can't.

01:00:20.000 We don't do it.

01:00:21.000 You're right.

01:00:21.000 For whatever reason, don't do it.

01:00:22.000 You can laugh, but who in the Democrat Party...

01:00:24.000 We're not.

01:00:25.000 You're right.

01:00:25.000 We'll go.

01:00:26.000 I mean, maybe Bernie Sanders.

01:00:28.000 RFK when he was a Democrat.

01:00:30.000 Bobby, who's now HHS. But there's something to be said that if you want to earn the respect of forgotten America, you have to show them that you can intellectually joust.

01:00:39.000 With no script, no hard breaks, no producers in the ears, no teleprompters.

01:00:44.000 That's where new media is going.

01:00:46.000 Now, I will only challenge one thing you say.

01:00:48.000 I am reaching new audiences.

01:00:49.000 I'm not talking to my bubble.

01:00:51.000 Because our content is so appealing, it goes in a decentralized way.

01:00:56.000 And it's not just political.

01:00:57.000 No, it's not political.

01:00:58.000 But again, our conversation here is going to go far and wide.

01:01:01.000 A lot of people are going to see it.

01:01:03.000 A lot of people are going to consume it.

01:01:04.000 Because it's also politics and entertainment have...

01:01:08.000 Right.

01:01:09.000 Right.

01:01:09.000 And the old adage is, well, politics is downstream from culture.

01:01:12.000 I think politics and culture are indecipherable from one another now.

01:01:15.000 Donald Trump became a cultural phenomenon, right?

01:01:18.000 You go in to, you know, inner city Compton, you'll see guys with Trump shirts with, you know, the hand up, you know, fight, fight, fight.

01:01:26.000 So what Democrats are doing is you're still playing in a very old, hypersanitized media environment.

01:01:31.000 And my advice is you got to go where it's unpredictable, where it's treacherous, where it's dangerous.

01:01:36.000 I would make a more provocative argument that you wouldn't necessarily resonate with, which is that you guys have not built the intellectual muscle over 30 years because you all agree with each other all the time.

01:01:48.000 Not like conservatives are massively disagreeing at the moment.

01:01:52.000 Trump has completely collapsed the conservative movement.

01:01:55.000 I would push back a little bit.

01:01:57.000 I would disagree.

01:01:58.000 We have a robust discussion.

01:02:00.000 It seems like Congress is really doing great oversight of Trump right now.

01:02:03.000 They're holding him to account.

01:02:05.000 That's an important but separate issue.

01:02:06.000 I just want to finish the point and we can talk about Congress, which is that in the Republican Party, we have immense and vocal and public spats all the time.

01:02:15.000 I think you would agree.

01:02:16.000 We fight about foreign policy.

01:02:18.000 Look at Ukraine, right?

01:02:19.000 We're talking about primary challenging some of these senators that were meeting Zelensky last week.

01:02:23.000 The Democrat Party would never do that.

01:02:25.000 Now, I think that is a symptom of an underlying thing.

01:02:28.000 We're constantly trying to find the approximation of what truth is.

01:02:32.000 We're trying to use dialogue towards, hey, who's right?

01:02:36.000 What do you believe?

01:02:37.000 Why do you believe it?

01:02:38.000 And it's by no coincidence that out of the long-form podcasting genres, the top ten, eight of them are conservative or center-right.

01:02:46.000 Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Theo Vaughn.

01:02:49.000 The Paul brothers, our program, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh.

01:02:52.000 There's a singular one on the left, which is Pod Save America, which is just like a bunch of Obama bros agreeing with each other for 90 minutes and saying that we're not very smart.

01:03:02.000 And, you know?

01:03:03.000 And so, anyway, but I... I appreciate it.

01:03:05.000 No, but it's an objective truth, right?

01:03:07.000 I mean, you just dominate this media.

01:03:09.000 It's medium, but so what, I mean...

01:03:12.000 Everything Democrats do and everything how Democrats operate is from the mindset of oppressor versus oppressed.

01:03:19.000 Not what is fair or just.

01:03:21.000 You see, we as conservatives talk about what is right or wrong, not just who the biggest victim is.

01:03:27.000 Every way the Democrats look at issues, and you can see Gavin Newsom has been programmed to believe this throughout his life, is to look at where is the victim in the situation.

01:03:36.000 We look at what is moral or immoral, right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust.

01:03:43.000 We then talk about how I do not drink.

01:03:46.000 He seemed very surprised by this, considering he owns a very nice vineyard in Napa Valley.

01:03:50.000 So you can see I kind of slipped that in there.

01:03:52.000 He asks what Democrats I like.

01:03:54.000 I want you to guess before you watch this how I answer what Democrats I actually like.

01:03:59.000 But there is this unhealthy purification process that Democrats go through where they kick any nonbelievers out of their ranks.

01:04:08.000 Democrats are pushing people out of their own party.

01:04:11.000 And we are far more ideologically healthy and diverse.

01:04:16.000 You see, for us and in our party, we believe the best ideas win.

01:04:21.000 Democrats believe the most oppressed wins.

01:04:24.000 And what I should have probably brought up, and looking back, hindsight, again, I thought I did pretty well, but looking back, I should have said, Governor, you guys had to nominate Kamala Harris under these rules. 0.99

01:04:36.000 You could not jump over Kamala Harris because she was a black woman. 1.00

01:04:42.000 Since she was a black woman, you were not able to jump over her. 1.00

01:04:46.000 Otherwise, they could have got to a better candidate.

01:04:48.000 And deep down, I think Gavin Newsom knows that he has no place in the Democrat Party as a white man.

01:04:53.000 Deep down, they hate him.

01:04:54.000 His whole party is configured against him.

01:04:56.000 But it's interesting.

01:04:57.000 You're making a deeper argument that we're not, and you didn't say it again in a maligning way, but that we're just not capable because we're not hardwired.

01:05:08.000 Well, I think it's two things.

01:05:09.000 Well, I think that it's two things.

01:05:12.000 Number one, your upbringing in college campuses does not foster debate like it used to.

01:05:16.000 It just doesn't.

01:05:17.000 It's that it's about silencing the critic and the elevation of the victim.

01:05:22.000 So you do not have the practice of robust having to defend your position.

01:05:27.000 It's very monolithic.

01:05:28.000 It's very centralized.

01:05:29.000 It's very top-down.

01:05:31.000 It's quasi-authoritarian.

01:05:32.000 And then secondly, I would just say that the philosophy on the worldview, as I mentioned earlier, that you guys have adopted, is that thou which is oppressed will get the most points.

01:05:42.000 You guys don't have thou that has the best idea wins.

01:05:45.000 And because of that, you guys have an elevation of, like, hey, we're going to eventually, we're just going to have a small subset of a minoritarian, hectoring, hall monitor assistant principal vibe.

01:05:57.000 Of people telling you that you're not allowed to say these words and you can't say that.

01:06:01.000 And we call that political correctness, which in and of itself is hyper-authoritarian.

01:06:05.000 So if you seek to understand why young men are rebelling, it's like, no, I'm not going to go along with this anymore.

01:06:12.000 For example, maybe I'm going to send out a stupid tweet when I'm 17 years old.

01:06:16.000 When I'm 26, I shouldn't have to get fired because of that, right?

01:06:20.000 I'm glad to hear you say that.

01:06:22.000 I remember back when I was lieutenant governor, I think Bill Maher was trying to get on the UC campus or something.

01:06:27.000 They were saying, Bill Maher was too conservative a voice, and we called that out at the time.

01:06:31.000 But it's equally insane that people are boycotting Bud Light.

01:06:36.000 I mean, how is that not called out?

01:06:37.000 I don't drink.

01:06:38.000 You don't drink at all?

01:06:40.000 By the way, that's interesting.

01:06:41.000 You don't?

01:06:42.000 Never have?

01:06:43.000 I have, yeah.

01:06:44.000 What happened?

01:06:45.000 What, a couple years ago you stopped?

01:06:46.000 I stopped, yeah.

01:06:47.000 Why'd you stop?

01:06:48.000 I just wanted to be more successful.

01:06:50.000 I love that.

01:06:51.000 What were you drinking?

01:06:53.000 Napa Valley wine.

01:06:54.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.

01:06:55.000 Here we go.

01:06:56.000 Right?

01:06:56.000 Are we going to get a little...

01:06:57.000 Stop using my Lord and Savior in vain like that, man.

01:06:59.000 By the way, forgive me.

01:07:00.000 I deeply respect...

01:07:01.000 And by the way, do respect your faith.

01:07:03.000 I'm serious.

01:07:04.000 It's like the fourth time.

01:07:04.000 Come on.

01:07:07.000 No, I don't drink.

01:07:08.000 But yeah, I mean, look.

01:07:09.000 But first of all, we have the agency to boycott whatever we want.

01:07:12.000 But understand...

01:07:12.000 No, but I mean, isn't that cancel culture in reverse?

01:07:14.000 I mean, a lot of cancel culture on the right right now.

01:07:16.000 It's something completely different.

01:07:17.000 First of all, cancel culture is someone in power using their power to cancel somebody that doesn't have power.

01:07:21.000 That's cancel culture. 0.99

01:07:22.000 Time out.

01:07:23.000 Hold on.

01:07:23.000 Bud Light was people that don't have a lot of power, consumers using their agency to say, no, powerful corporation, I'm not going to voluntarily associate with you.

01:07:30.000 But cancel culture has always been the incumbent person with power, a governor, a principal, a boss, a CEO, a corporate board, going against the weaker.

01:07:39.000 What we did with Bud Light was just a bunch of decentralized folks doing a good old-fashioned boycott.

01:07:44.000 Completely different.

01:07:45.000 But a boycott is not...

01:07:47.000 I mean, well, there's boycotting speakers.

01:07:49.000 There's boycotting.

01:07:49.000 That is a derivative of cancel.

01:07:51.000 But the culmination of cancel culture is somebody who has a power position wrongly canceling, filing, terminating.

01:07:57.000 I appreciate that perspective.

01:07:58.000 So let's go back to Democrats being totally incompetent, incapable of spending 30, let alone 45 to an hour having a conversation broadly on podcasts.

01:08:07.000 I said you're becoming the exception.

01:08:10.000 You're in the process of becoming.

01:08:12.000 You're not there yet.

01:08:14.000 It's like becoming Gavin, like becoming Michelle, right?

01:08:17.000 So who do you, are the Democrats you do, literally, any Democrats you admire out there right now?

01:08:24.000 I mean, even beyond just the podcast thing, that you look and say, Jesus, there's hope.

01:08:28.000 You've got to stop saying that.

01:08:30.000 Forgive me.

01:08:31.000 There's hope.

01:08:32.000 We can edit that out.

01:08:33.000 No, I don't care.

01:08:34.000 You can keep it in.

01:08:36.000 I used to have respect for Bernie on his anti-war stance, and now he's a complete neocon.

01:08:40.000 He's a complete neocon now, so he's not there. 0.88

01:08:45.000 Democrats, I respect.

01:08:46.000 Oh, yeah.

01:08:47.000 I mean, Bobby Kennedy, I respect.

01:08:49.000 Tulsi Gabbard.

01:08:51.000 Why are you laughing?

01:08:52.000 Why are you smiling?

01:08:52.000 Because, like, they're on our team now because you guys kicked out, like, your best people.

01:08:56.000 It's like the people that were...

01:08:57.000 This is a great point, though, Governor, is that Bobby Kennedy was a heterodox opinion on a thing that a lot of people were concerned about.

01:09:03.000 Get him out! 0.98

01:09:04.000 He's an anti-vaxxer.

01:09:05.000 Tulsi Gabbard, who was an anti-war, get her out! 1.00

01:09:07.000 She's a Russian agent.

01:09:08.000 You guys see how you have an unhealthy purification process where eventually you're left with just a 31% approval rating?

01:09:14.000 And a bunch of people that are talking to each other.

01:09:17.000 And meanwhile, we're the ones that have Democrats in our cabinet winning the electoral majority vote.

01:09:22.000 Because there needs to be said, if Democrats are serious about being a majority party ever again...

01:09:28.000 When somebody has a disagreement, for example, if there's a pro-life Democrat, is there a place for a pro-life Democrat in the Democrat Party?

01:09:34.000 I mean, there should be.

01:09:35.000 Okay.

01:09:36.000 On principle, there should be.

01:09:37.000 Absolutely.

01:09:37.000 That's a deeply held personal point of view.

01:09:40.000 God bless.

01:09:40.000 I agree.

01:09:41.000 Not every party or Democrat official would say that, right?

01:09:44.000 And so certain states have different opinions on that.

01:09:46.000 And I say this as one of the biggest champions for reproductive freedom on the planet.

01:09:50.000 Trust me, I know.

01:09:52.000 But the issue, though, is that that is a one-stop purity test.

01:09:58.000 We have pro-choice Republicans.

01:09:59.000 Susan Collins is a pro-choice Republican.

01:10:02.000 No, and Trump himself decided to pivot a little bit.

01:10:05.000 He's more pro-choice than I am, for sure.

01:10:07.000 But what I'm saying, though, is what you see in the Republican Party is the best, in my opinion, culmination of modern politics, and it doesn't get appreciated.

01:10:13.000 Look at that ideological diversity.

01:10:15.000 We have people...

01:10:16.000 That, you know, geez, they want to go to war with every country that says something bad against us.

01:10:20.000 And then we have people that are far more dovish, you know, like Rand Paul.

01:10:23.000 But that is a better, more, dare I say, diverse picture.

01:10:26.000 You could say diversity is our strength.

01:10:28.000 Oh, look at you.

01:10:29.000 Look at Charlie Kirk.

01:10:30.000 Diversity is strength.

01:10:31.000 I mean, I want to end the podcast right there.

01:10:33.000 But first...

01:10:34.000 I said you could say.

01:10:35.000 You could say.

01:10:36.000 I want to...

01:10:37.000 Do we have ultimate editing here?

01:10:39.000 No, you better not edit any of this for the record.

01:10:41.000 We're not going to edit any of this.

01:10:43.000 And by the way, no reason to edit any of this, despite my use of inappropriate words here and there.

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01:11:55.000 Here's the final advice that I gave to Gavin Newsom.

01:11:58.000 Not my best advice, as you'll see.

01:11:59.000 I only gave him my B or C advice.

01:12:01.000 I asked him if he's working with ICE. This is just so fraudulent, by the way.

01:12:04.000 I probably should have called this out even more.

01:12:06.000 It's just so nonsensical.

01:12:08.000 He's not doing anything on the southern border.

01:12:10.000 He's not assisting with detainers.

01:12:11.000 There were 7,000 people in California that had ICE detainers on them that were not touched at all.

01:12:17.000 Also talking about the quality of life.

01:12:18.000 Everyone here in this audience, your quality of life has slipped dramatically in recent years thanks to big government Democrats just like Gavin Newsom.

01:12:27.000 Thanks to the one-party rule of states like California.

01:12:30.000 California has the highest housing prices, the most homelessness, the second highest housing prices, the highest cost of living.

01:12:37.000 And what are they doing about it?

01:12:39.000 Blaming Republicans?

01:12:40.000 The quality of life has slipped dramatically in the great state of California.

01:12:44.000 And Gavin Newsom is solely responsible for the downfall of San Francisco and the downfall of California.

01:12:50.000 Let me ask you, just on the Democratic Party side, forgive me, I do want to just, look, where, so our effort to get out of the wilderness, you know, on the woke culture wars, on some of these issues, on providing a more diverse campus, dare I say, of opinion and pulling people in.

01:13:12.000 But what else do you, I mean, do you feel this party, I mean, you had a point that the Republican Party is now going to be the dominant and Senate party.

01:13:18.000 I'm not saying that, I don't have that kind of pride.

01:13:21.000 I'm not saying, I'm saying right now we are the ascendant worldview, but we could screw this up easily.

01:13:26.000 You have to have the humility to say that.

01:13:27.000 But like, as of the recording of this podcast, we have a majority approval rating, won the electoral, I mean, all that stuff.

01:13:32.000 Right.

01:13:32.000 And in both houses, I mean, we could screw it up.

01:13:34.000 And you guys could adjust or adapt.

01:13:35.000 Okay, so this was the question that I'm not articulating very effectively.

01:13:41.000 But I remember so many of the similar contours of this conversation we were having in 2004 and 2005.

01:13:47.000 You just got shellacked both houses of Congress.

01:13:49.000 Republicans, you had a Republican president that won the popular vote, the last Republican president to win the popular vote.

01:13:55.000 And two years later, you had Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

01:13:58.000 Four years later, you had 53% of the vote, the highest since 19, what, I don't know, '64.

01:14:03.000 It's conceivable that could happen now.

01:14:04.000 I don't say that's impossible.

01:14:07.000 If you were in my camp.

01:14:11.000 What is that?

01:14:11.000 Oh, I'm not going to give you my best advice.

01:14:12.000 I want your best advice.

01:14:13.000 I'll give you like the B or C level advice.

01:14:15.000 Okay, give me the B plus advice.

01:14:17.000 All right, because the secret stuff, I'm not sharing.

01:14:18.000 No, what is your secret stuff?

01:14:20.000 Why don't we go right to there?

01:14:21.000 That's secret for a reason.

01:14:21.000 What is it?

01:14:22.000 Is it technical or is it substance?

01:14:23.000 Oh, it's all of it.

01:14:24.000 I could design your presidential run in a way where you would win.

01:14:26.000 I'm not talking about a presidential run.

01:14:27.000 We're not talking about a presidential run.

01:14:28.000 This is not about that.

01:14:29.000 No, no, no.

01:14:29.000 By the way, you guys are so obsessed with the idea that every goddamn thing I do, I said it again.

01:14:35.000 Yeah, I said it again because I needed your emotional reaction.

01:14:38.000 That everything I do...

01:14:41.000 It's framed in that context.

01:14:43.000 Talk about Trump derangement syndrome.

01:14:45.000 I think you got one with California.

01:14:48.000 First of all, it's not new to have someone from California run for the presidency.

01:14:52.000 We just beat someone from California to the presidency.

01:14:54.000 California is the politics to the Democrat Party as Florida is our party.

01:14:58.000 You guys have the former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, right?

01:15:01.000 You have a lot of the ascendant political voices come out of the state.

01:15:06.000 Derangement syndrome.

01:15:06.000 No, it's knowing your enemy and looking at the horizon and understanding what's coming.

01:15:10.000 But anyway, if I were to give you or somebody advice, I'll give you the BNC-level stuff, which is very simple.

01:15:15.000 You have to go to war with your own party on three major things.

01:15:18.000 You've got to say, we are not going to do this illegal immigration thing anymore, which includes, like, are you going to work with ICE? We do work with ICE. By the way, just so people can do this.

01:15:28.000 We have been.

01:15:30.000 I, in fact, directly, we actually put out the data.

01:15:34.000 I actually reached out to the administration saying, are you not aware that California coordinates and cooperates with all CDCR releases over 10,000?

01:15:42.000 That's great.

01:15:42.000 So explain the sanctuary state thing then.

01:15:44.000 What is the difference?

01:15:45.000 You've got the statewide sanctuary state and you've got local sanctuary cities.

01:15:47.000 Which Governor Brown signed it, not you.

01:15:48.000 Yeah, which in the statewide framework allows us to work as it relates to issues of criminals and coordinating the release of criminals from our state prison population.

01:16:01.000 We coordinate with ICE on the deportation.

01:16:04.000 We've done that over 10,000 times since I've been governor.

01:16:07.000 We're not denying access.

01:16:09.000 We're not...

01:16:12.000 I'm glad to hear that.

01:16:13.000 That's why I asked.

01:16:14.000 For criminals.

01:16:14.000 Sanctuary policy was never...

01:16:16.000 I would say if you break into the country illegally, 8 U.S.C. 1325 is breaking a federal law, right?

01:16:21.000 I get it.

01:16:21.000 It's civil, not criminal.

01:16:22.000 But it is a federal law.

01:16:23.000 I get it.

01:16:23.000 So, by the way, if you're serious about moderating the party, 8 U.S.C. 1325, the vast majority of Americans...

01:16:29.000 Let me just go through it.

01:16:30.000 The vast majority of Americans want mass deportations.

01:16:32.000 It's just the thing.

01:16:33.000 Until they don't.

01:16:34.000 That's my humble opinion.

01:16:35.000 Until they don't.

01:16:36.000 Someone who's been here 10 years paying taxes, I don't buy it.

01:16:40.000 But at the moment, you're right.

01:16:42.000 You might be right.

01:16:42.000 We'll see.

01:16:44.000 Number two, we mentioned the trans stuff.

01:16:45.000 It's an affront to all of our senses.

01:16:47.000 It's out of control.

01:16:48.000 You don't believe in it fundamentally.

01:16:50.000 It's not just sports.

01:16:51.000 It's not stuff.

01:16:52.000 You just don't.

01:16:54.000 Charlie Kirk's views are separate than the political advice.

01:16:56.000 But if you'd like me to do a whole...

01:16:58.000 No, I get it.

01:16:58.000 Charlie Kirk asked me anything and you could show up to Cal State Northridge on Thursday.

01:17:02.000 I've got 25 TikToks of what your feelings are.

01:17:05.000 So actually, that was a question I didn't even ask.

01:17:08.000 If you want it, it's fine.

01:17:09.000 I just don't think that's the best use of our time.

01:17:10.000 But on the political advice is that Americans increasingly believe...

01:17:14.000 That their good-heartedness and charitable nature towards the LGBT issue has overblown, especially with youth sports, youth curriculum, and the chemical castration of our kids when it comes to this medical therapy. 0.93

01:17:26.000 And you seem that you want to really...

01:17:27.000 I encourage you, Governor, to learn about some of the butchery under the guise of health care that is happening under chemical castration in this state and in other states.

01:17:35.000 We don't have to spend a lot of time on that, but the American people are overwhelmingly against it.

01:17:38.000 They're overwhelmingly against it.

01:17:40.000 I think we have to be more sensitized to...

01:17:43.000 Youth should be off limits. 1.00

01:17:45.000 I think that's the political direction things are going.

01:17:47.000 You might be right on deportations. 0.96

01:17:49.000 I know I'm right on this.

01:17:51.000 I know that this issue is picking up steam.

01:17:53.000 There is no good counter to it.

01:17:55.000 The CAST report, the United Kingdom CAST report, the NHS came out and said there's no good reason to ever operate surgically on a young person.

01:18:02.000 Puberty's not the problem.

01:18:03.000 Puberty's the solution.

01:18:04.000 I'm not an expert in this, but I appreciate your broader...

01:18:07.000 But I'm saying politically, it's a turbocharged issue that is kicking the tail of Democrats.

01:18:12.000 The third one, though, is quality of life.

01:18:13.000 Is quality of life...

01:18:14.000 I agree with you on this one, especially.

01:18:16.000 But, like, I mean, look...

01:18:16.000 No, but homeless encampments out of control, unacceptable.

01:18:20.000 Yes, but...

01:18:21.000 Issues of just quality of life is right to the crime.

01:18:23.000 You know where I'm going with this.

01:18:24.000 Why is it you were able to clean it up for Xi Jinping, but you can't clean it up?

01:18:26.000 Oh, that was you guys.

01:18:27.000 That was the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

01:18:28.000 By the way, you guys weaponized that?

01:18:30.000 I saw that on 25 things.

01:18:31.000 It was the most ridiculous.

01:18:32.000 Yeah, that was...

01:18:33.000 That was...

01:18:34.000 You know what?

01:18:34.000 I will happily...

01:18:36.000 Happily revert back to your counterpoint.

01:18:38.000 Can I have the streets as clean as Xi Jinping?

01:18:40.000 In this case, weaponized.

01:18:42.000 In this case, weaponized.

01:18:44.000 Can I get the Xi Jinping streets back? 0.84

01:18:45.000 It was ridiculous.

01:18:45.000 Give me a break.

01:18:46.000 Governor, with all due respect, I saw a beautiful picture of San Francisco that looked like Singapore.

01:18:51.000 And then Xi Jinping leaves and the Walking Dead come back.

01:18:53.000 By the way, it was AIPAC. You had dozens and dozens of foreign leaders.

01:18:57.000 And California is not San Francisco.

01:18:59.000 But I'm the governor of California, not the mayor of California, not the mayor of San Francisco.

01:19:03.000 You were the mayor, but I just want to understand.

01:19:04.000 Why is it that we have a cleaner?

01:19:06.000 But you have to admit, it's emblematic of something that if enough important people show up, it can get clean.

01:19:11.000 So why not make it clean all the time?

01:19:12.000 That's exactly my...

01:19:13.000 By the way, that's my energy.

01:19:14.000 I think you've missed a lot of my...

01:19:16.000 I've been saying that to all these mayors.

01:19:18.000 State vision is realized at the local level.

01:19:21.000 It's about accountability, transparency.

01:19:23.000 If you can't clean up the streets, we're going to redirect the money.

01:19:25.000 I hope the new mayor can do that, right?

01:19:27.000 He seems to be more moderate than the other.

01:19:28.000 Great progress is being made.

01:19:29.000 By the way, what's going on with homelessness in all these red states?

01:19:32.000 You're seeing it through the roof.

01:19:33.000 Went up 18% across the country.

01:19:35.000 I'm not here defending every red state of what we're doing, right? 0.62

01:19:37.000 But I'm making the point.

01:19:38.000 This is hardly unique to California.

01:19:40.000 I'm sure there's a lot of governors and mayors.

01:19:41.000 Quality life's huge, right?

01:19:42.000 And the housing crisis, of course, came up.

01:19:44.000 What are we going to do to help young people buy more homes?

01:19:48.000 Do we actually agree on something?

01:19:49.000 This actually was the few moments where we agreed on something.

01:19:53.000 Gavin Newsom and I find common ground.

01:19:56.000 And then, look, the number one thing, which I know you're going to agree with, and I'm sure you'll have a super slick response, right?

01:20:01.000 That's about half true.

01:20:03.000 Which is the cost of housing.

01:20:06.000 Average home in California, $850,000.

01:20:08.000 I like what you said about BlackRock.

01:20:11.000 But that was interesting to me.

01:20:13.000 I think that is, but again, that's not a majority of house purchasing.

01:20:16.000 About one in four houses are bought by private equity.

01:20:18.000 Would you agree to say that BlackRock should not be able to own homes in California?

01:20:22.000 I think, and then turning around and renting them?

01:20:23.000 It's insane, right?

01:20:24.000 This is a huge problem across the country.

01:20:26.000 You should propose a bill in the California state house.

01:20:28.000 We've had one.

01:20:29.000 It didn't get very far last year, and there's more conversations.

01:20:32.000 A 10 trillion dollar fund shouldn't be able to come in and buy homes.

01:20:34.000 But it's not just BlackRock specifically.

01:20:35.000 No, it's the idea of mass...

01:20:38.000 Mass asset managers that have $50 billion asset under management are now competing against our college grad from Cal State Fullerton.

01:20:47.000 I love that you say this.

01:20:48.000 By the way, just in that spirit, don't you agree one of the Doge things should be dealing with the $1.5 billion of subsidies on carrying interest?

01:20:55.000 Oh, carried interest, I think, is a huge problem.

01:20:57.000 And by the way, you know President Trump has proposed in his tax bill to get rid of it.

01:20:59.000 I know he proposes it all the time, but it doesn't actually have a good effect.

01:21:02.000 Oh, hold on, but I mean, Joe Biden didn't get rid of carried interest.

01:21:04.000 That is the holy grail of private equity.

01:21:07.000 You know that, right?

01:21:07.000 No, trust me, I get it.

01:21:08.000 Carried interest, I mean.

01:21:09.000 I get it, but let's go back to housing equity.

01:21:11.000 And by the way, you're going to have a revolt in Palo Alto if you get rid of carried interest.

01:21:14.000 Yeah, I should be careful on that one.

01:21:16.000 They're going to light torches and run to Sacramento.

01:21:20.000 On the issue of housing, you couldn't be more right.

01:21:22.000 It's the original sin in the state of California, affordability, period, full stop.

01:21:26.000 And it has more impact on the issue of homelessness than any other issue because of the cost of living.

01:21:31.000 By the way, we had 188,000 people in 2005, 20 years ago.

01:21:38.000 No, I'm not saying it's unique, but it's been a long-term issue.

01:21:46.000 And housing is at the core.

01:21:47.000 We agree on the problem, but help me understand this.

01:21:50.000 You guys control the House.

01:21:52.000 The Senate will suit majorities.

01:21:53.000 You control everything.

01:21:54.000 Why can't you fix it?

01:21:55.000 You said you were going to build 3.5 million homes.

01:21:57.000 You're building like $111,000 a year.

01:21:58.000 Well, there was something called a pandemic that may have had a little impact.

01:22:02.000 Issues of interest rates may have had a little impact on housing production across the country.

01:22:06.000 You guys are still outpacing every other state.

01:22:07.000 But hold on, hold on.

01:22:08.000 Except Hawaii.

01:22:09.000 42 CEQA reform bills created a housing accountability unit.

01:22:13.000 And we're making big progress.

01:22:15.000 We've done all the rezoning.

01:22:17.000 We've been pounding in this space.

01:22:19.000 There's no administration in modern California history that's done more to reform the housing space and the regulatory space as it relates to the issue of housing.

01:22:27.000 Biggest challenge right now is NIMBYism.

01:22:29.000 The biggest challenge we have is local planning and zoning, and that's why we've been very aggressive.

01:22:34.000 NIMBY is a disaster.

01:22:34.000 We agree on that.

01:22:35.000 And so I have a YIMBY mindset on all this stuff.

01:22:38.000 I'm in the front lines of this.

01:22:39.000 Your friends, and they are your friends down in Huntington Beach, that I'm suing.

01:22:43.000 They're conservatives.

01:22:44.000 Pastors or what?

01:22:45.000 The city council?

01:22:46.000 They love you.

01:22:47.000 The MAGA faithful.

01:22:48.000 You're 99.9%.

01:22:49.000 Who's living who in rent free and whose head is one of those smaller towns?

01:22:53.000 We're suing them because of their rank NIMBYism. 0.94

01:22:56.000 We have been...

01:22:57.000 Very aggressive in this space.

01:22:58.000 I'm waiting for one big thing we all are waiting for.

01:23:00.000 And I think it had a biggest, perhaps one of the biggest impacts that we don't focus on enough in the last election.

01:23:05.000 That was interest rates.

01:23:07.000 As interest rates, that environment...

01:23:08.000 I believe they will come down.

01:23:09.000 And you're going to see an explosion of housing production.

01:23:12.000 I'm very confident in that in California.

01:23:14.000 Yeah, but you also might see an increase in housing prices, of course.

01:23:17.000 Well, to me, it's...

01:23:18.000 It's all about supply, right?

01:23:19.000 ECO 101, supply.

01:23:20.000 Yeah, it's just the biggest issue.

01:23:22.000 It's been our biggest...

01:23:22.000 California and Hawaii have the two highest housing prices in the country.

01:23:25.000 Hawaii has an obvious...

01:23:26.000 Excuse.

01:23:26.000 They only have so much land.

01:23:27.000 You guys don't have a lack of land.

01:23:29.000 By the way, I haven't been governor for a century, okay?

01:23:31.000 I mean, Jesus.

01:23:32.000 I mean, we've been six years.

01:23:34.000 And by the way, no excuse.

01:23:35.000 I get it.

01:23:36.000 You can't take credit for all the assets.

01:23:38.000 You know, number one AI, number one nanotechnology.

01:23:41.000 But you also got to take responsibility for some of the problems.

01:23:44.000 I can take a little more credit on the general AI. 32 of the top 50 market companies.

01:23:48.000 But I'm saying you have to balance both the credit and the blame.

01:23:51.000 But quality of life, right?

01:23:53.000 So when I talked to a college kid, one of the reasons they saw Trump as a vessel for a better life is that under President Trump, those first four years, we saw a material increase in their livelihood, wages, easier to buy a home, four years.

01:24:09.000 Four years, just the facts are the average wage to be able to own a home in L.A., to be able to own a home.

01:24:15.000 Oh, yeah.

01:24:15.000 It used to be $75,000 a year.

01:24:18.000 Now it's $145,000 a year.

01:24:19.000 I mean, what it does, and this is, again, it's creating...

01:24:23.000 This kind of belief system of Russian serfs of a generation that will never have the material American dream that their parents once enjoyed. 1.00

01:24:30.000 Yeah, no, and look, I think it's a full circle on this conversation where you began by identifying...

01:24:35.000 We'll circle back.

01:24:36.000 And then finally, Gavin Newsom's meeting with Trump.

01:24:38.000 Again, the fact that he would kind of still cover what Joe Biden just goes to show.

01:24:43.000 You should not trust anything this guy says.

01:24:45.000 He's like, oh, you know, Biden had great mental competency.

01:24:48.000 No, but it's a point.

01:24:50.000 The point you're making, Scott Galloway and others have been making, as it relates to this generational theft, he's spot on on this, and I think there's so much validity to you recognizing that problem.

01:25:00.000 So diagnosing is one thing.

01:25:02.000 And President Trump as well.

01:25:03.000 He deserves credit.

01:25:04.000 I mean, I think, yeah, he deserves credit.

01:25:08.000 I'm going to get you to say the words.

01:25:11.000 By the way, I just spent almost 90 minutes with him in the Oval Office a couple weeks ago.

01:25:15.000 Isn't he the greatest?

01:25:16.000 And I think it was the first Democrat invited in in Trump 2.0.

01:25:19.000 I mean, you've got to admit, there's something magical to that guy.

01:25:22.000 Joe Biden couldn't do five minutes with you.

01:25:24.000 By the way, I did almost 90 minutes with Biden right before he left in the Oval.

01:25:28.000 Do you remember?

01:25:29.000 By the way, that would be a hell of a book.

01:25:30.000 You know, 180 minutes.

01:25:32.000 I should do a book of that bookmark.

01:25:34.000 By the way, he 100% was.

01:25:37.000 Oh, come on, Governor.

01:25:37.000 Just a fact.

01:25:39.000 Do you think there was any mental decline?

01:25:41.000 No, no, seriously.

01:25:42.000 You went around the country being like, I'll take him at 100. There was one exception.

01:25:47.000 Just the one debate?

01:25:48.000 No, no, no.

01:25:49.000 Before the debate, I was about to say.

01:25:51.000 And that was the big fundraiser down in L.A. where I saw a different person.

01:25:54.000 The Clooney.

01:25:55.000 And Clooney called that out.

01:25:57.000 But it was not.

01:25:59.000 That was.

01:26:00.000 But, you know, so much of that focus was, all right, he just got back from Europe.

01:26:03.000 But that was the one time we don't need to get it.

01:26:06.000 But I just say, Governor, just on that one topic, we saw with our own eyes for three years.

01:26:11.000 And the media told us, no, no, he's perfectly fine.

01:26:13.000 And then we saw the debate.

01:26:15.000 And look, it makes us not trust our leaders.

01:26:18.000 When we say everyone is perfectly fine, the emperor is fine.

01:26:21.000 Have you seen any mental decline in Donald Trump right now?

01:26:23.000 No, I see the more sharp acuity.

01:26:25.000 You tell me you sat with him in the Oval Office for 90 minutes.

01:26:27.000 The guy has a memory of an elephant.

01:26:29.000 No, I'm just asking.

01:26:30.000 I mean, I know.

01:26:31.000 I'm just asking your personal impression.

01:26:33.000 How often do you talk to Trump, by the way?

01:26:35.000 Once or twice a week.

01:26:36.000 Is he checking for advice or is it you give him advice?

01:26:39.000 A little bit of both.

01:26:39.000 It depends if there's something I want to talk to him about.

01:26:41.000 But, I mean, he's just the machine.

01:26:43.000 He'll take every call.

01:26:43.000 You've got to give him credit for that.

01:26:44.000 Isn't it amazing?

01:26:45.000 Right?

01:26:45.000 Every call thing's big, right?

01:26:47.000 It's amazing.

01:26:47.000 And he'll listen to every idea.

01:26:49.000 He'll joust it out.

01:26:50.000 He'll talk about it.

01:26:51.000 He always goes back to, what did I promise the voters?

01:26:53.000 What was the last idea you gave him?

01:26:55.000 The last idea I gave him?

01:26:57.000 Yeah, it was like, Mr. President, here's what you need, or here's the thought.

01:27:00.000 Here's my observation.

01:27:01.000 Actually, it was interesting.

01:27:02.000 I said, I don't think Canada should be the 51st state.

01:27:04.000 We already have California, and we have enough libs in our country. 0.88

01:27:07.000 Jesus, on that, Charlie Kirk.

01:27:10.000 Thou shall not take the Lord's name in vain.

01:27:12.000 No, on that.

01:27:14.000 Governor, this is Gavin Newsom.

01:27:16.000 This has been a Gavin Newsom production.

01:27:21.000 Thank you.

01:27:21.000 This was fun.

01:27:22.000 Thanks, man.

01:27:22.000 Thanks for having me.

01:27:23.000 Thanks for coming on.

01:27:24.000 Thanks.

01:27:24.000 Whatever.

01:27:25.000 Having?

01:27:25.000 Jesus Christ.

01:27:27.000 Don't get over it.

01:27:29.000 So in closing, what are my thoughts?

01:27:31.000 I think Gavin Newsom wants to run to the middle.

01:27:33.000 Should we trust him?

01:27:35.000 No.

01:27:35.000 I don't think it's legitimate.

01:27:37.000 I don't think it's authentic.

01:27:38.000 I will say their team told us they would not edit a piece of footage, and they didn't.

01:27:44.000 And they deserve credit for that.

01:27:45.000 In a world where a lot of people will say one thing and do another, they were honest brokers.

01:27:49.000 But I don't think that Gavin Newsom is actually having a metamorphosis on any issue.

01:27:53.000 I don't think Gavin Newsom has any closely held issues.

01:27:58.000 I think he cares about what will keep him in power and get him closer to the presidency.

01:28:03.000 So, hope you guys enjoyed my conversation with Gavin Newsom.

01:28:06.000 There is now a Democrat Civil War underway, large in part thanks to our conversation.

01:28:10.000 It was good to be able to challenge one of the leaders of the Democrat Party on who they are and why they have failed the American people and also to continue to remind them they are losing young people.

01:28:19.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

01:28:21.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 08, 2025

My Full Conversation With Gavin Newsom, Annotated

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