The Charlie Kirk Show - My Speech LIVE at University of Illinois-Chicago

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's Anna Charlie Kirk Show, University of Illinois Chicago.

00:00:03.000 I give a speech about Sweet Home Chicago.

00:00:06.000 It's a great talk talking about how we can save Chicago.

00:00:11.000 And also, I take some questions from some very heated people, but some honestly some great folks.

00:00:16.000 I think you'll really enjoy this chat.

00:00:17.000 If you want to support our program directly, go to charliekirk.com slash support.

00:00:21.000 If you want to get involved with TurningPointUSA, go to tpusa.com.

00:00:25.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:27.000 Get engaged and get involved.

00:00:29.000 At charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:00:31.000 You can support us.

00:00:32.000 I want to thank David from Illinois.

00:00:33.000 Thank you.

00:00:34.000 Dustin from Wisconsin.

00:00:35.000 Thank you.

00:00:36.000 Rachel from New Jersey.

00:00:37.000 Thank you.

00:00:37.000 Eva from Texas.

00:00:39.000 Susan from California.

00:00:40.000 Annette from North Carolina.

00:00:42.000 Leslie from Arkansas.

00:00:43.000 Emily from North Carolina.

00:00:45.000 Alita from Wisconsin.

00:00:46.000 Ronald from Alaska.

00:00:48.000 Great.

00:00:49.000 It's a great spot.

00:00:50.000 Rita from Illinois.

00:00:51.000 Jonathan from Arizona.

00:00:52.000 Jay from North Carolina.

00:00:53.000 Thank you for supporting us.

00:00:54.000 CharlieKirk.com/slash support.

00:00:57.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:58.000 Here we go.

00:00:59.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:01.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:01:03.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:06.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:10.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:11.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:12.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:01:14.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:19.000 Turning point USA.

00:01:20.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:29.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:32.000 Thank you, everybody.

00:01:33.000 Thank you.

00:01:35.000 Please take a seat.

00:01:36.000 So I have the hardest job of the evening here.

00:01:40.000 One of my favorite Bible verses is Exodus 2:23, and the people groaned.

00:01:45.000 So you can all groan together.

00:01:47.000 Unfortunately, because of weather, Candace was unable to leave Nashville.

00:01:50.000 You can groan now.

00:01:52.000 So you're stuck with me for the evening.

00:01:54.000 So don't groan at that part, okay?

00:01:56.000 But we're going to still have some fun tonight.

00:01:58.000 We're going to talk about Chicago.

00:01:59.000 We're talking about Illinois.

00:02:01.000 And then we're going to take some questions and then we're going to have a lot of fun from there.

00:02:04.000 So, and Candace feels terribly, but unfortunately, the weather was too terrible.

00:02:09.000 She wasn't able to get out.

00:02:10.000 And airlines are not what they used to be.

00:02:12.000 Just chalk that up to many different things.

00:02:15.000 It's great to be back home.

00:02:17.000 It's great to be back home.

00:02:21.000 I want to thank our amazing Turning Point USA chapter leaders.

00:02:25.000 They're doing an amazing job putting this together.

00:02:28.000 It takes a lot of courage, and it takes, quite honestly, conviction.

00:02:34.000 It's easy to be a liberal on campus.

00:02:38.000 It's not easy to be a conservative.

00:02:41.000 And you should ask the question then: why continue to be a conservative on campus if it's not easy?

00:02:48.000 Obviously, because we believe it and we know it to be true, but if you're looking for hope and you're here tonight and you say, Charlie, everything's terrible, everything's falling apart, this should give you hope.

00:02:58.000 The amount of young people that care for the cause of freedom and for America.

00:03:04.000 Now, I have to do this.

00:03:07.000 Anyone remember when the Chicago Tribune was a respectable newspaper?

00:03:10.000 Do you guys remember that?

00:03:12.000 I saw this.

00:03:13.000 Somebody sent me this article of the Tribune's coverage of our upcoming event here, which was basically a press release for the Apparatch outside.

00:03:21.000 And it's so incredible because the lack of self-awareness of how they try to attack our events.

00:03:26.000 Did anyone else see this article?

00:03:28.000 So, okay, I just have to read part of this.

00:03:30.000 Students at UIC are planning to protest a Turning Point USA college event Thursday featuring far-right speakers, Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens.

00:03:39.000 This is what's amazing.

00:03:40.000 Known for their rhetoric, often targeting various minority groups.

00:03:46.000 Candace Owens is known for her rhetoric targeting various minority groups, and that's what we're best known for.

00:03:54.000 This is the statement that UIC Against Hatred said, who asked to remain anonymous because they're cowards.

00:04:00.000 Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens' past use of hate speech and discriminatory language against marginalized groups indicates that these figures are in search of furthering divisions and triggering people rather than engaging in meaningful discussion.

00:04:16.000 The main goal of our rally is to create a space for UIC students to feel free to express their concerns regarding the TPUSA event.

00:04:24.000 This is what's so amazing.

00:04:25.000 And the university's failure to act and the need for more solidarity and community among students.

00:04:32.000 And so they say they want the event canceled.

00:04:34.000 And this is why they say they say we want the event canceled because it's unacceptable that this extremely diverse campus is allowing other opinions to come on campus.

00:04:45.000 Wait a second.

00:04:46.000 I thought welcoming is your core value.

00:04:48.000 Like you're just preaching about how wonderful and diverse and open-minded we are.

00:04:53.000 Except you.

00:04:53.000 If you disagree, you're not allowed on campus.

00:04:56.000 That's totalitarian.

00:04:58.000 That is not welcoming or diversity, everybody.

00:05:04.000 So I just get a kick out of this.

00:05:07.000 I'm very concerned because Kirk and Owens have a very vicious anti-trans rhetoric, which is dehumanized, and they go on from there and all this stuff.

00:05:14.000 Okay, but it's interesting and it's fascinating.

00:05:16.000 And here's how you know that there is something to the conservative movement.

00:05:22.000 If our ideas were terrible, they would not work so hard to shut us up.

00:05:27.000 If our ideas did not have merit, if our ideas did not resonate, then they would not do everything they possibly could to try to silence us, to try to stop us from speaking.

00:05:37.000 Because when you live in an ideological bubble, it is easy to think that there are no other ideas out there.

00:05:44.000 But actually, it turns out that there are millions of people, yes, in Illinois and across the Midwest, that think it's absolutely insane to defund the police.

00:05:55.000 They think it's wrong to try to talk about race all the time.

00:05:58.000 They think that maybe we should have a border in our country.

00:06:00.000 That maybe we should care more about fentanyl deaths than some abstract foreign conflict 5,000 miles away.

00:06:08.000 Like they actually look at this.

00:06:09.000 Wow, that's not right.

00:06:11.000 And so when we look at things today into the prism of the immediate, I think it's really interesting and compelling that if universities have four years with a student, our argument is give us 90 minutes and they might be able to actually see the world differently.

00:06:29.000 Give me 90 minutes, you get four years, and we'll see who's able to make an impact.

00:06:36.000 So I want to talk about the immediate and the personal and the local here.

00:06:42.000 I love this city.

00:06:44.000 Full disclaimer, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago before somebody says I'm not actually from Chicago, okay?

00:06:50.000 Full disclaimer, because I get correct.

00:06:53.000 Charlie, you're not from Chicago.

00:06:54.000 Okay, I'm from Wheeling, okay, for the record, but I still consider myself a Chicagoan, albeit suburban Chicagoan, but that's fine.

00:07:03.000 And but it actually is not exclusive because the damage that has been done is the whole area.

00:07:12.000 It's not just downtown Chicago, it's gone well into the suburbs.

00:07:15.000 And I'll be very honest: you know, when I visit here and I drive through a city that used to be the greatest city in America and might be the greatest city in the world, it still is.

00:07:26.000 Okay, we could talk about that.

00:07:28.000 I hope you're right.

00:07:29.000 I hope you're not delusional.

00:07:30.000 I hope so.

00:07:31.000 I actually mean that.

00:07:32.000 I want Chicago to be great, but I also know what it used to be.

00:07:36.000 I remember MAG Mile that didn't have a bunch of stores vacant because of looters and because of criminals.

00:07:46.000 I remember a city where people were not afraid to walk on Michigan Avenue because they were going to get slammed over the head.

00:07:55.000 I remember a city where the rest of the country didn't say, oh, you're going to Chicago?

00:07:59.000 You go for the food and you stay because you get murdered.

00:08:02.000 Like, that's not a good thing to hear other people say.

00:08:05.000 Okay?

00:08:05.000 It's the laughingstock of the country, is what Chicago has become.

00:08:09.000 If you don't believe me, go travel and go ask other people.

00:08:11.000 They're like, oh, is it safe?

00:08:12.000 Is it this?

00:08:12.000 All this.

00:08:13.000 And you might think it's perfectly safe.

00:08:14.000 I totally disagree with that.

00:08:16.000 That's fine.

00:08:17.000 But the point is, I actually have a yearning for this place to be strong once again because I remember what it was.

00:08:23.000 And I think a memory is really important.

00:08:26.000 We can't allow that to disappear to take a second and say, why was this city so spectacular?

00:08:32.000 What was it about Chicago that made us so incredibly wealthy, that the center of industry, of entrepreneurial activity?

00:08:44.000 And there's many things.

00:08:45.000 First of all, growing up in this place and being raised by amazing parents, but also having really good friends and mentors in the local area, and then traveling and seeing the contrast, you could start to see, okay, New York, it's all about money.

00:09:01.000 D.C., all about power.

00:09:03.000 LA, all about fame.

00:09:05.000 Miami, sex and other things.

00:09:08.000 But Chicago seemed to always be about work.

00:09:13.000 Chicago was a place where we valued the merit and the input into your effort more than who your father was, more than what skin color you are, more than who you work for.

00:09:28.000 And Chicago became the industrial capital for many reasons, not just because of our good geographic location, but for a short period of time, this was a place where largely people from the Midwest, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, they saw Chicago as a portal to the American dream.

00:09:47.000 And it's not just the Chicago location or industry, it was the values of this place.

00:09:55.000 And you know one of the values that I was taught by some of you in this room?

00:10:00.000 I was taught that your skin color does not matter.

00:10:03.000 When I grew up in this state, I was told that your skin color doesn't mean anything.

00:10:09.000 And now, in the school district right down the street that I went to, District 214, a place where I went to a high school that was a majority Hispanic high school, 53% English is a second language.

00:10:20.000 Now they're doing the opposite.

00:10:22.000 They're teaching kids that your race does matter.

00:10:24.000 They're teaching kids that you should be looking at the melanin content in somebody's skin.

00:10:28.000 That creates more racists.

00:10:30.000 That creates more division.

00:10:32.000 That creates more bitterness.

00:10:34.000 Chicago was not made great because of these ideas.

00:10:38.000 In fact, it was a pursuit of trying to prove the rest of the country wrong.

00:10:44.000 You see, Chicago was always called the second city, and that bothered me.

00:10:48.000 It always bothered me that we were considered to be some stepchild to New York or kind of like an uglier Los Angeles.

00:10:54.000 It really bothered me.

00:10:55.000 You know what?

00:10:55.000 I think some of you, it bothered you throughout your career.

00:10:58.000 And there was a grittiness to a Chicago in, wasn't there?

00:11:01.000 There was an attitude where it's like, you know what?

00:11:04.000 Okay, fine.

00:11:04.000 New York has more population.

00:11:06.000 LA has better weather.

00:11:07.000 We're going to outwork you.

00:11:08.000 We're going to build a good team.

00:11:10.000 And we're going to not just win sports championships.

00:11:12.000 We're going to create better businesses.

00:11:14.000 We're going to create good families.

00:11:15.000 And that chip on the shoulder created this city to be the envy.

00:11:18.000 Or all of a sudden said, wow, there's something special happening in Chicago.

00:11:22.000 And we look at the amazing stories the last 20 or 30 years of what came here.

00:11:26.000 And then something changed.

00:11:28.000 And it didn't happen immediately, but boy, it happened gradually than suddenly, didn't it?

00:11:34.000 Where a couple things happened, if I can pinpoint them.

00:11:37.000 The first thing that started to happen is that your decency was taken advantage of.

00:11:45.000 Most people in Illinois did the right thing for 20 or 30 years.

00:11:49.000 You paid your taxes, you raised your kids, you went to work, and your leaders abused you.

00:11:56.000 And I have to be honest, it's not just like one party thing.

00:11:59.000 I honestly don't care about that.

00:12:00.000 It's just about an ideology of deceit and plunder of what happened in this state the last 20 or 30 years.

00:12:07.000 And the only reason Chicago and Illinois is not what it used to be is because people that had political power lied to you, looked after their own self-interest, and did it repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly, and eventually that damn broke.

00:12:23.000 And it wasn't just in one thing or there.

00:12:25.000 It's not just the pension system or the taxes or how we fund schools and all that.

00:12:29.000 It was a culture.

00:12:31.000 And you know what the culture was?

00:12:32.000 The culture was the silly people of Illinois are too polite and too decent to ever challenge me, Mike Madigan.

00:12:40.000 And I mean, finally, Mike Madigan is out of office, but it's not like things are about, there's just another creature that's going to fill the void, right?

00:12:49.000 Yeah, Madigan should have been in prison when I was born in 1993, okay?

00:12:53.000 Not just in prison recently.

00:12:55.000 My whole life, Mike Madigan was head of the Illinois House of Representatives, Speaker of the House.

00:12:59.000 And so, but it bothers me, and it should bother you, when good people are taken advantage of and they're just asked to roll over.

00:13:07.000 And honestly, when I look around what's happened, the outward migration of this great city and this great state, it makes me bitter because it has become kind of a relic to a memory of once was.

00:13:22.000 And the other thing that has really bothered me in the last couple years is the hyper emphasis in this city and in this state on race.

00:13:32.000 I don't think that has helped anybody at all.

00:13:34.000 And the hyper emphasis, I think, has actually created deep fissures and not just division, but conflict where it's not necessary.

00:13:46.000 And I have to be lectured by leaders in Chicago about systemic racism.

00:13:52.000 Where it's like, okay, stop lying to me.

00:13:54.000 There's 500 murders in this city, and most of them are black on black crime.

00:13:58.000 So why don't you just shut up about systemic racism and actually talk about some of the root causes in this city?

00:14:05.000 No, it's white supremacy.

00:14:09.000 No, it's not.

00:14:09.000 It's not white supremacy.

00:14:10.000 Okay, it's not.

00:14:12.000 It's, yeah, white supremacy is killing people in West Chicago.

00:14:16.000 That's brilliant.

00:14:17.000 How many white people are killing black people in West Chicago?

00:14:21.000 I'll let you count for a second.

00:14:27.000 White supremacy is so rare in Chicago, you have to fake your own hate crimes to try to get attention.

00:14:39.000 But we can talk afterwards if you would like.

00:14:42.000 I would actually enjoy that.

00:14:43.000 But this city still has great potential, and it could be turned around.

00:14:51.000 It can be.

00:14:52.000 But one of the things it's going to take is it's going to take an attitude to re-embrace what Chicago once was.

00:15:04.000 If my message could be condensed to one thing, I want that chip on the shoulder back in Chicago.

00:15:15.000 I want not just the 85 Bears and the 90s Bulls, which showed the world that this city can produce championship sports products, but also the fans that supported them that was able to understand that even though we are insulted by the national news media and never taken seriously, we could do great and ambitious things.

00:15:34.000 So what does that mean?

00:15:35.000 I want Chicago to kind of just tell BLM to go to hell.

00:15:44.000 I want Chicago to say, you know what?

00:15:46.000 It's not racist to go arrest looters and put them in prison for a long period of time.

00:15:51.000 It's not.

00:15:55.000 Because you do that out of a love for your home.

00:15:59.000 You do that out of a love for something that is greater than you.

00:16:02.000 And unfortunately, we have allowed false narratives and ideological lies after ideological lie to put us into a place of paralysis.

00:16:11.000 When you know it's not a good thing, when you know so materially in front of you, what is happening is not sustainable, is not good, is not beautiful.

00:16:21.000 And I'm not even talking about the school system issue here in Chicago, which is just such a catastrophe.

00:16:26.000 What we've allowed to have, you know, what the cartel has done to the kids in this city.

00:16:31.000 The cartel, of course, which is the Chicago teachers' union, that has done unbelievable damage to the children in this city.

00:16:42.000 And again, I'm not going to weigh in on any politics.

00:16:44.000 We're here just to talk about education, hopefully to teach something.

00:16:48.000 If you guys want to talk about it, whatever.

00:16:50.000 I literally don't care that much except for the fact I'm glad to see people starting to wake up in one regard.

00:16:55.000 But nothing is actually going to structurally change until you break the back of the Chicago Teachers Union and allow parents to be able to send their kids to better school.

00:17:03.000 Nothing is actually going to structurally change.

00:17:05.000 It's not.

00:17:09.000 And it's a tragedy.

00:17:10.000 It's a shame because the people that suffer the most are the ones that the left tells us they care about the most.

00:17:15.000 Isn't that something?

00:17:17.000 It's the ones that they say, oh, you know, we care the most about the victimized, marginalized minority groups.

00:17:23.000 You have been in charge of every instrument of power in Illinois and Chicago for 30 years.

00:17:28.000 How have you done?

00:17:30.000 Almost every major business has left.

00:17:32.000 You can't get a U-Haul, literally at times, in Illinois, leaving the state.

00:17:38.000 Yeah, or boxes.

00:17:39.000 There you go.

00:17:40.000 South Barrington is basically Naples, Florida now.

00:17:43.000 It's basically what it is.

00:17:44.000 Like, oh, yeah, I live in South Barrington, otherwise known as Naples.

00:17:47.000 That's great.

00:17:47.000 Oh, really?

00:17:50.000 And it's something.

00:17:54.000 I don't mean to be all negative because you guys are here, and you could change it.

00:17:59.000 And you could change it because of something I mentioned earlier, which is the power of memory.

00:18:04.000 It's easier to restore something you remember than to build something that people won't believe in.

00:18:09.000 And I'm afraid they're trying to eradicate any sort of memory of this place being the beacon of hope that it once was.

00:18:17.000 And so one of my messages I want to reinforce here is I'm touched by the stories of people that came here into the city with absolutely nothing.

00:18:28.000 Nothing.

00:18:30.000 And they built a life for themselves.

00:18:32.000 And they lament and they say, boy, I wouldn't raise a family in Chicago.

00:18:35.000 And I mean this with 100% clarity.

00:18:39.000 I really wish I could still live in Illinois.

00:18:41.000 You might say, Charlie, why don't you?

00:18:43.000 It makes zero practical sense at all.

00:18:45.000 It's just it is impossible to run a business of our size and our scale to attract people that see the world the way we do.

00:18:52.000 You got to go to the Sun Belt if you want to grow, if you want to expand.

00:18:55.000 And also, just honestly, I also want to be in a place that shares my values, or at least in some way shares my values.

00:19:03.000 But that's an interesting point, isn't it?

00:19:06.000 Which is how much is Illinois actually fallen and what can be done to save it?

00:19:12.000 That's a deeper question than it is to have actually a serious answer.

00:19:15.000 But I'll close with this, and then we could do some questions, which I really look forward to.

00:19:19.000 Which is, the attendance tonight demonstrates that there's a lot of fight still in this city and in this state.

00:19:26.000 And thank you.

00:19:32.000 I'll be very honest, selfishly I was upset in one way that Candace couldn't be here, but selfishly I was glad I actually had the soapbox to talk about my home to you guys because this is very close and personal.

00:19:44.000 I get angry when I see Chicago continue to descend.

00:19:48.000 This place has such untapped potential.

00:19:51.000 And for those of you that are making a decision to stay, God bless you for that.

00:19:58.000 For those of you that say, I'm going to stay as long as I can, and we're going to keep building a family, and we're going to keep building communities, and we're going to keep building churches, and we're going to keep building businesses.

00:20:07.000 I'm with you 100% of the way to revive this place.

00:20:10.000 Because I still believe at a deep fundamental level, this place can be brought back to greatness.

00:20:19.000 The goodness that so many of you have demonstrated was derailed and detoured and taken advantage of.

00:20:26.000 And I've had the opportunity to travel all 50 states twice over.

00:20:29.000 There's no place like Chicago.

00:20:30.000 There is no place like this.

00:20:32.000 And I want to see it restored.

00:20:35.000 But unfortunately, this is not an infection that has just happened in Chicago.

00:20:41.000 This has happened around the rest of the country.

00:20:43.000 And it's also, it really is an argument of material reality versus ideological pursuit, right?

00:20:50.000 At some point, good people have to rise up and say, this is insane, and we're not going to stand for this any longer.

00:20:57.000 For example, for example, when somebody says that men can become pregnant, you should say, you're insane.

00:21:04.000 I'm not going to stand for this any longer.

00:21:12.000 When somebody says that America is a racist country, you should say, we're the least racist country ever to exist in the history of the world.

00:21:20.000 We are the greatest example of a multilingual, multiracial country.

00:21:24.000 And instead of focusing on victimhood narratives all the time, maybe we should focus on how the heck have we been able to get along pretty well with each other over the last couple decades, and what can we do to actually lift the standard of living of people and white supremacy.

00:21:41.000 We'll have a chance to talk about that.

00:21:43.000 It's amazing.

00:21:44.000 End white supremacy coming from a city that just had a black mayor that was one of the worst mayors in the history of the city.

00:21:44.000 It's interesting.

00:21:56.000 Yeah, but the problem's white supremacy.

00:21:59.000 No, maybe the problem is stop electing dumb people.

00:22:05.000 Anyway, you sir can get the mic.

00:22:09.000 I mean that in a second.

00:22:10.000 So that's part of what we do here tonight because we want to hear other ideas and see who's right.

00:22:15.000 You got to fight.

00:22:17.000 And you have to love your home enough to sacrifice for it.

00:22:21.000 I'm touched and honored to be here.

00:22:22.000 It is a great encouragement to me to see so many of you still care.

00:22:26.000 The rest of the country is written off Chicago and Illinois as a hellscape and a wasteland.

00:22:31.000 I know you have not.

00:22:33.000 And I think that's really beautiful.

00:22:34.000 And I'm here to help.

00:22:35.000 God bless you guys and let's do some questions.

00:22:49.000 All right.

00:22:51.000 Okay.

00:22:53.000 A couple ground rules on the questions, please, and thank you for that warm reception.

00:23:00.000 This is obviously an ideologically sympathetic audience.

00:23:04.000 Thank you for that.

00:23:05.000 If somebody comes up to the microphone and says something that you think is laughable or objectionable or on the left, but I repeat myself, let them finish.

00:23:14.000 Don't mock them.

00:23:15.000 Don't laugh at them.

00:23:16.000 Don't interrupt them.

00:23:18.000 The left is out there trying to cancel our event.

00:23:21.000 I get death threats every single day because I believe in things that are very simple.

00:23:26.000 I never want to become the monster that we oppose.

00:23:29.000 So, if a liberal comes up to the microphone, let them speak and we can have dialogue, okay?

00:23:33.000 All right, thank you.

00:23:36.000 And we'll start with the questions here.

00:23:39.000 The white supremacy person is you're able to come up.

00:23:42.000 Anyone who disagrees, you're allowed to go to the front of the line and you're able to ask questions and we're able to have dialogue, okay?

00:23:49.000 We're going to start here, and then we'll go from there.

00:23:51.000 And again, please allow just allow the dialogue to happen.

00:23:57.000 If you feel inspired to say something, then get in line and you'll have an opportunity to do that.

00:24:03.000 Okay, let's have a question.

00:24:07.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:24:07.000 How are you?

00:24:09.000 It's actually, I want to share a little thing with you.

00:24:11.000 It's actually my first time in Chicago.

00:24:13.000 I'm from southern Illinois, and I've never been to Chicago.

00:24:15.000 So, yeah.

00:24:18.000 I understand that you have a family, a wife, a daughter, and I just want to ask: how is your daughter?

00:24:23.000 Has she hit any big milestones yet?

00:24:25.000 She's amazing.

00:24:26.000 Thank you.

00:24:27.000 I encourage all young people to get married and have children.

00:24:30.000 It'll change your life.

00:24:31.000 It's a moral good for you and a moral good for society.

00:24:34.000 Be fruitful and multiply.

00:24:38.000 And she's amazing.

00:24:39.000 She's six months old now, and it happens fast, doesn't it?

00:24:44.000 And it's a great blessing.

00:24:45.000 And people say, I get asked the question all the time: Charlie, how has it changed you?

00:24:49.000 It's certainly radicalized me.

00:24:52.000 And it's radicalized me in a sense of it makes me more motivated to fight and to win of anyone that would dare to harm a child in this country.

00:24:59.000 Unfortunately, there's a lot of them.

00:25:01.000 Thank you.

00:25:02.000 Thank you.

00:25:05.000 John Hersey High School, I won't hold that against you.

00:25:08.000 Wheeling, even though they won't claim me.

00:25:11.000 How's it going tonight?

00:25:13.000 Make sure the mic is on.

00:25:13.000 Good.

00:25:14.000 I have a question.

00:25:15.000 What was the process of starting this organization in the first place?

00:25:20.000 What was the process?

00:25:22.000 Started June 5th, 2012, suburbs of Chicago, right after I graduated Wheeling High School on June 3rd.

00:25:22.000 Yeah.

00:25:28.000 No money, no connections, no idea what I was doing.

00:25:31.000 Great mentor of mine, who I wish was still alive.

00:25:34.000 He used to come to all these events, Bill Montgomery.

00:25:36.000 Some of you might remember Bill, one of the most amazing men, and his legacy lives on.

00:25:42.000 Without him, the organization would not exist.

00:25:44.000 And then Foster Freeze, who also passed away, unfortunately, wrote us our first check.

00:25:50.000 And people laughed at me and scoffed at me and thought we couldn't succeed or do anything from there.

00:25:55.000 And now we are the nation's largest conservative organization of its kind, and we're just getting started.

00:26:01.000 Thank you.

00:26:01.000 God bless you.

00:26:06.000 Hey, Charlie, how's it going?

00:26:08.000 My question is about the Second Amendment and also policing.

00:26:12.000 And I've been discussing with my friend, and then we figure it would be the best if we ask you.

00:26:17.000 So we all know the approval of the Second Amendment.

00:26:20.000 It's not for sporting, hunting.

00:26:23.000 It's actually for standing up against a government that's turned tyrannical to power.

00:26:29.000 So let's say if today some law enforcement agency they've turned tyrannical and they've been harassing people type stuff.

00:26:37.000 Do you think it's the right of the people to use their arms against these government agencies that is harassing people and that is overreaching with their power?

00:26:49.000 Obviously it depends.

00:26:51.000 I think we're far away from that and I hope we stay far away from that.

00:26:53.000 But you are correct.

00:26:54.000 The intent of the Second Amendment is not for duck hunting.

00:26:57.000 It's not even for self-defense.

00:26:59.000 It is to make sure that if a CCP-like power ever tries to colonize Hong Kong, the people are able to defend their right, their moral right to self-government.

00:27:09.000 If every single person in Hong Kong had an AR-15, the CCP would have thought twice and three times and not have gone in and just annexed the entire sort of country.

00:27:20.000 But let's just say city of Hong Kong.

00:27:22.000 All throughout history, we see a pattern.

00:27:24.000 We see bad guys that are able to do really bad things because people do not have the ability to defend themselves against their armies.

00:27:30.000 It is not a popular argument, but it is a true argument.

00:27:33.000 The Second Amendment is the one that protects all the other amendments.

00:27:37.000 We need to be able to have a power balance between the federal government and the people.

00:27:43.000 Ask anybody that lived under totalitarian communism over the last hundred years, Stalin, Mao, Cuchescu, I know we have some Romanians here somewhere that could tell you all about it.

00:27:53.000 What do they always do?

00:27:54.000 They take the guns, they confiscate them, and they try to limit your other freedoms and liberties.

00:27:58.000 And so, yes, I hope we're far away from that, but that is the reason why we have the Second Amendment.

00:28:05.000 It is the ability to protect all the other amendments, and it's not just for personal defense or duck hunting, of which I do enjoy.

00:28:11.000 God bless you.

00:28:12.000 Thank you.

00:28:13.000 Yeah, Charlie, I also want to thank you specifically because I used to be a Bernie Sanders reporter.

00:28:20.000 I used to be a Democratic Socialist.

00:28:22.000 It was one of your videos that really woke me up.

00:28:25.000 And you're an inspiration.

00:28:26.000 You're awesome.

00:28:27.000 Thank you.

00:28:36.000 You are why I do what I do.

00:28:43.000 All right, so I've been watching this for some 20-odd years.

00:28:51.000 Oh, ma'am, you've been doing it forever.

00:28:53.000 Welcome to the First Amendment.

00:28:56.000 I thought you were a family.

00:28:56.000 Sir, can you just stay focused on your pay jacket?

00:28:58.000 Sir, thank you.

00:28:59.000 Thank you.

00:28:59.000 I brought it overseas.

00:29:00.000 All right, sir, just ask me the question.

00:29:03.000 So what is it about conservatives and this whole racism thing?

00:29:06.000 Like, you guys are always just saying that it's either not a thing or it's, you know, just not in any of the institutions or the police department.

00:29:13.000 But it seems that over the past 18 years, we've had several race riots.

00:29:17.000 And the biggest one being in 2020.

00:29:20.000 So it's like, how are we still denying segregation in a city where we can clearly see what fucking neighborhoods are white, which ones are black, which ones are Latino?

00:29:28.000 And we know how we got there.

00:29:29.000 So it's like, what is it with conservatives and admitting that there's a problem and not addressing it?

00:29:33.000 Because it seems like you guys want to be obsessed with, oh, the gender thing or the racism thing.

00:29:38.000 And then you guys say, oh, it's not here.

00:29:39.000 It's not a big problem.

00:29:40.000 But why are millions of people rioting every couple years?

00:29:45.000 So let me ask you a question.

00:29:46.000 We can say that it's Democrats and shit, right?

00:29:48.000 Well, let me ask you a question.

00:29:49.000 So what do you think is a bigger problem facing America?

00:29:52.000 Single fatherhood or racism?

00:29:54.000 Racism, by far.

00:29:55.000 That's a problem.

00:29:56.000 Can you say that in the microphone?

00:29:58.000 Racism, by far, because racism gets people killed, not single fatherhood.

00:30:02.000 Well, no, a single motherhood.

00:30:03.000 Let me be more specific.

00:30:04.000 So single moms or fathers leaving the home, you think is a bigger problem than racism.

00:30:10.000 No, sir, sir, sir.

00:30:11.000 You're going to have, I'm going to repeat that one again for you.

00:30:13.000 I think racism is a bigger problem than fathers being outside of the home.

00:30:18.000 However, I do see fathers not being in the home as a problem.

00:30:22.000 Let's make sure we're defining our terms.

00:30:24.000 How would you define racism then?

00:30:26.000 Racism is a system of oppression used by a certain group using prejudice, institutional power.

00:30:32.000 And it's situated by the media, government, and all these things.

00:30:35.000 Give me an example of one thing you as a black man cannot do that I as a white man can do in America.

00:30:40.000 Got you.

00:30:41.000 Okay, so about two weeks ago, right, I went to a DeSantis rally, got my ticket, all that good bullshit, been to a million different rallies of a kind, whether I was a conservative at the time or whether I was a liberal, right?

00:30:56.000 I know that as a black person, I am far more likely to be arrested for expressing my view whether I am a conservative or a liberal.

00:31:06.000 And I've done it on both sides.

00:31:08.000 Oh, yes, I was.

00:31:09.000 I was afraid of the people.

00:31:10.000 You're probably being a jerk.

00:31:11.000 That's what I'm saying.

00:31:11.000 Oh, actually, and that's the best part.

00:31:13.000 And that's the best part, right?

00:31:14.000 That's the best part.

00:31:15.000 I wasn't even being a jerk.

00:31:17.000 And the courts even found our beloved courts.

00:31:20.000 Let me make sure I understand this.

00:31:21.000 You think the bigger problem than fathers not being in the home is a abstract conspiracy theory that you have that hecklers and jerks at political events are arrested because of the color of their skin.

00:31:33.000 That's the best definition of institutional racism.

00:31:35.000 No, that's not my definition on racism.

00:31:37.000 I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do.

00:31:37.000 Let me tell you what I'm saying.

00:31:38.000 I'm going to give an example of something a white man like me can do that a black man like you can't do.

00:31:42.000 Because guess what?

00:31:43.000 If I showed up at a DeSantis event and started heckling, I'd be kicked out and arrested.

00:31:47.000 No, you would not.

00:31:49.000 In fact, I even have evidence.

00:31:50.000 You know how I know that's true?

00:31:51.000 You want to know that?

00:31:52.000 You want to do that?

00:31:53.000 White suburban kids from Highland Park and they're arrested a lot more actually when you see the mug shots.

00:32:00.000 Yeah.

00:32:00.000 So white kids are arrested a lot more.

00:32:02.000 Could that possibly be?

00:32:03.000 Could that possibly be a matter of time?

00:32:05.000 And I'm just, and I'm just guessing here.

00:32:07.000 Could it possibly be that white people are arrested more because you have a higher population and therefore by proximity, you are more like...

00:32:15.000 Because it's math.

00:32:15.000 It's basic math.

00:32:16.000 I know we hate math.

00:32:17.000 I know we hate it, but I passed it.

00:32:20.000 So let me ask you a question.

00:32:21.000 How does racism contribute to black on black crime in Chicago?

00:32:25.000 How is white people to blame for that?

00:32:27.000 Oh, as a matter of fact, that's actually a whole other issue.

00:32:30.000 So let's talk about.

00:32:31.000 So you want to talk about intra-communal violence as it pertains to people.

00:32:35.000 Yes.

00:32:35.000 What does the white man have to do with it?

00:32:37.000 So, oh, and that's a great thing.

00:32:39.000 I love the red herring that you threw in there.

00:32:41.000 Yes, because hey, intra-communal violence is proximal, right?

00:32:47.000 So when we have segregation and we got racists sitting in one area and you got another race in another area.

00:32:52.000 Now, we never asked white people, why is white on white crime so high with white people?

00:32:57.000 And never.

00:32:58.000 But instead we focus on black people.

00:33:00.000 Yeah, so out of the 530 murders in Chicago of the last year, how many were black on black crime?

00:33:06.000 Hey, I wasn't looking, but you know what I do know, 420 of them were black on black gang related crime.

00:33:12.000 How is that racism to blame for that?

00:33:15.000 Let's talk.

00:33:16.000 So now are we going to talk about over policing?

00:33:21.000 I'm sorry sir, you're kind of demonstrating, you can't answer, would you?

00:33:24.000 Would you, would you like to talk about?

00:33:25.000 I mean, we can talk about it, we can.

00:33:27.000 Are you ready to address it though?

00:33:28.000 Well, are you ready to address it?

00:33:31.000 Are you?

00:33:31.000 Because we can talk about, because we can talk about black on black crime, but we need to talk about it as it pertains.

00:33:36.000 We need to.

00:33:37.000 Okay, let's talk about it.

00:33:38.000 Sister, i'm ready to talk about.

00:33:40.000 All right, hold on.

00:33:40.000 So let me talk about it.

00:33:41.000 Let me just narrow this down, so let me just.

00:33:43.000 Let me just say this, okay, so you were to rank the hundred biggest problems in America.

00:33:47.000 Yeah, the fact that I know we're not a racist country is the best example you have is okay so, so you know where the story of you getting kicked out of a Desantis rally.

00:33:55.000 If we were a racist country, you'd say Charlie, I can't go in a convenience store Charlie, I can't go into school.

00:34:01.000 No, we actually live in such a live, a amazingly recent country that whoa whoa whoa, don't worry about racism, let's not, let's not do that.

00:34:09.000 Okay, all I did, all right, mostly peaceful everybody, mostly peaceful.

00:34:16.000 Okay, I didn't lay hands on you.

00:34:18.000 I didn't lay hands on you.

00:34:19.000 I got witnesses.

00:34:20.000 I did not touch you.

00:34:21.000 No, all right, I touched the mic.

00:34:23.000 We're gonna wrap this one up, but let me just let me say this, we got racism and we got racism all over the U.s.

00:34:30.000 We just had a race riot two, three years ago In 2020.

00:34:35.000 Oh, my God.

00:34:36.000 And then we had all 50 states plus 18 countries.

00:34:38.000 Don't worry, I was going to say that.

00:34:39.000 Wait, so by race riots, you mean mass looting of TVs?

00:34:44.000 Let me tell you, it is not an argument in your favor that we're a racist country because blacks decide to start burning down Wendy's and stealing stuff.

00:34:52.000 That's called action.

00:34:53.000 That's how it is because you're not already up.

00:34:56.000 You're not even looking as to why it happened.

00:34:58.000 And that's cool.

00:34:59.000 You know, we can definitely play obtuse on the whole issue.

00:35:03.000 Yeah, black people were burning it down.

00:35:04.000 Why?

00:35:05.000 Racism.

00:35:06.000 Racism was a big issue, and we can pretend that it's not a big issue, but hey, hey, if you don't want to, then that's just called being obtuse.

00:35:13.000 And that's why I asked you, and that's why I asked you, why did you have such a big problem with talking about racism?

00:35:16.000 You want to claim that it's not there, and you can say all you want.

00:35:20.000 But that still doesn't prove.

00:35:21.000 That's still, that's still, that still does not.

00:35:24.000 If you want to talk about why we have racism, let me give you some examples of racism that could be proven.

00:35:30.000 How about affirmative action at this college that discriminates against Asian students and white students?

00:35:37.000 How about affirmative action hiring practices in the federal government?

00:35:40.000 We are such a decent, non-racist country.

00:35:44.000 The best example that he has is to show that he was mistreated.

00:35:48.000 And if he acted like this at the DeSantis event, I can see why he was kicked out of the DeSantis event.

00:35:57.000 Hi.

00:35:58.000 So you were talking earlier about teachers' unions.

00:36:01.000 You know, there's a lot of corruption in unions lately.

00:36:03.000 I see this issue happening.

00:36:04.000 It's very hard to fire a bad teacher.

00:36:06.000 You know what I'm saying?

00:36:07.000 I want to see our Chicago schools succeed.

00:36:10.000 I want excellence in our students.

00:36:12.000 You know, all that good stuff.

00:36:14.000 Would you agree that it's too hard to fire a teacher because of teachers' unions?

00:36:18.000 Yes.

00:36:18.000 The teacher unions instituted those practices.

00:36:21.000 And I don't like the cycle of mediocrity we see in the teachers' unions that perpetuate it.

00:36:25.000 Would you say the same about police unions?

00:36:28.000 Not as much, no.

00:36:29.000 I actually think police are treated like garbage and they have a much tougher job than teachers.

00:36:34.000 Also, yeah.

00:36:38.000 One follow-up to, I'm just going to leave it at this point, and I'll prove it to you.

00:36:41.000 There's not a defund the teacher movement out there.

00:36:44.000 Well, you guys have been trying to remove schools from books from public schools.

00:36:47.000 No, no, no.

00:36:48.000 We want school choice so bad teachers can be fired and parents can be found.

00:36:51.000 I'm sorry.

00:36:55.000 How does school choice improve the schools in decaying neighborhoods, the ones that have been neglected for decades on end?

00:37:02.000 Competition.

00:37:03.000 Competition.

00:37:03.000 Parental agency.

00:37:04.000 So then bad teachers could be fired.

00:37:06.000 Administrators are put actually under pressure.

00:37:08.000 So that, for example, you do a 20-school survey in southwest Chicago.

00:37:12.000 You cannot find a single kid that can read at fifth or sixth grade level.

00:37:16.000 Not a single kid.

00:37:16.000 That's probably a failure, and a bunch of teachers need to be fired almost immediately for that.

00:37:20.000 And parents have a moral right to send their kid to a better school.

00:37:24.000 All right.

00:37:28.000 I'll just end with this.

00:37:30.000 Just picking up on something the last gentleman said.

00:37:33.000 You know, race riots, policing.

00:37:35.000 I know we have a lot of division, but I draw the line when the Wendy's gets burned down.

00:37:40.000 That is unacceptable.

00:37:42.000 We need to put a stop to that.

00:37:43.000 Thank you for coming out.

00:37:44.000 May God have mercy on your soul.

00:37:46.000 I'm glad that's your line.

00:37:48.000 My line is when cops started to get killed, but that's a weird line to have.

00:37:51.000 Next question.

00:37:53.000 All right.

00:37:54.000 Hey, so I know your buddy buddy with Michael Knowles recently he said the phrase, quote, we should eradicate transgenderism.

00:38:03.000 That is correct.

00:38:04.000 Yeah, you got it right.

00:38:05.000 So I know you.

00:38:05.000 From public life, yeah.

00:38:07.000 I know you agree with him on some level.

00:38:11.000 How would you go about that?

00:38:13.000 How do you eliminate transgenderism without eliminating transgenders?

00:38:18.000 I warned you about this.

00:38:22.000 I love the passion.

00:38:24.000 Let the process play out, okay?

00:38:26.000 Jeez.

00:38:27.000 So specifically, he said transgenderism, right?

00:38:30.000 Which is an ideology.

00:38:32.000 And he said it should be intertwined, like Judaism and Jewish people.

00:38:36.000 Well, he said from public life, okay?

00:38:40.000 So, you know, that's not the best example.

00:38:42.000 Just don't use that one.

00:38:45.000 But so, but let me kind of zero in on this.

00:38:48.000 Yeah, I do agree with it 100%.

00:38:50.000 The best way is that we should not be platforming or acting as if a mental delusion is normal, good for children, or something that is acceptable in decent society.

00:39:02.000 So, in what way is it?

00:39:05.000 Okay, so throughout history, we've had these medical breakthroughs where we learn that things are just like how people are.

00:39:12.000 You know, who's to say that somebody is not born the wrong gender?

00:39:17.000 Like, what is there?

00:39:19.000 Guys.

00:39:22.000 Do it again.

00:39:22.000 We're going to have to kick you out.

00:39:23.000 Please don't interrupt.

00:39:24.000 How do you know that what's happening right now isn't like a medical breakthrough?

00:39:28.000 How do you know it is a mental illness to be eradicated?

00:39:32.000 Yeah, 5,000 years of recorded history and common sense that men can't.

00:39:36.000 But back in history, were there not like skeletons being dug up with female artifacts around them?

00:39:42.000 Were there not sculptures of two married women?

00:39:45.000 I mean, it's been a thing forever.

00:39:46.000 It's been, I mean, transgenderism.

00:39:49.000 Let's play this.

00:39:51.000 So, how do I know that biological reality is true?

00:39:54.000 Chromosomes.

00:39:54.000 I'm arguing about biological reality.

00:39:56.000 Well, chromosomes instruct my opinion first and foremost.

00:40:00.000 So, XX, XY chromosomes.

00:40:02.000 And I reject the term gender, actually.

00:40:04.000 It's sex.

00:40:05.000 And you have a sex at birth, and you cannot change that.

00:40:09.000 So, let me just kind of ask a question: medical advancements, the medical community can be very wrong.

00:40:15.000 We used to do lobotomies, and I'm glad we stopped doing that.

00:40:18.000 So, doctors have been wrong before.

00:40:21.000 And, in fact, doctors have been wrong about a lot of things over the last hundred years.

00:40:25.000 And, in fact, if all of a sudden the medical consensus from the AMA, which is headquartered right down the street, by the way, is that we have to have these pediatric gender-affirming reassignment clinics that have breast reduction surgery or literally mastectomies for 12 or 13-year-olds to then assign them luperon, estrogen, and testosterone treatment for somebody that might just be going through puberty and having anxiousness and unease.

00:40:53.000 I'm probably going to call that doctor a fraud.

00:40:55.000 And any person with common sense should do that too.

00:40:58.000 Okay, super quick.

00:40:59.000 Last thing.

00:41:01.000 So, my main question was about the term eradicate transgender.

00:41:07.000 Can I give you some examples?

00:41:08.000 We shouldn't teach it in our schools.

00:41:10.000 We also shouldn't allow men to compete against women in NCAA sports.

00:41:18.000 Okay?

00:41:21.000 What about the people who are transgender that have converted, are currently forcibly detransition though?

00:41:29.000 Why couldn't Thomas still compete against men despite his mental delusion?

00:41:34.000 Why do we have to reaccommodate all female sports for a single individual that obviously has an advantage with bone density and testosterone production?

00:41:43.000 Why is it now our problem?

00:41:45.000 Why does society have to reorganize and reconfigure for one very loud, obviously disturbed person?

00:41:52.000 Would it be more fair to say, okay, you have a problem, so keep competing in the category that you were born to?

00:41:57.000 You can still wear whatever you want, I guess, and dress and do the treatments you want.

00:42:01.000 But since you're such an excellent swimmer, go swim against boys.

00:42:04.000 Oh, because he's a narcissist and he used to finish 200 against boys, and when he competes against girls, he wins the championship because he's a cheat.

00:42:13.000 Because it's all about him, not about the competition or about fairness.

00:42:20.000 Okay, I mean, that's all I was wondering.

00:42:22.000 Thanks.

00:42:30.000 My question is about college students like us who are more conservative.

00:42:35.000 How do we kind of survive such a very liberal environment that is so hostile towards some of our ideologies?

00:42:42.000 As a moderate conservative, how do I have discourse with people without being labeled as such an evil bad person when in reality I'm just trying to have like express my opinions?

00:42:55.000 To be honest, so far in college, I've learned to just really be quiet and not say anything because just the overwhelming majority of people are so against like the fact that I'm pro Second Amendment or freedom of speech.

00:43:10.000 So how do you go about like for you it's easy because you're always like next to people who like agree with you and the older people who work like you know you guys have jobs and you're next to people who agree with you but like when you're young and you're in a place where everyone disagrees with you I actually think you're hitting on something.

00:43:27.000 Actually I now have the easier job.

00:43:30.000 It wasn't easy for the first five years when you don't have a significant organization and all that.

00:43:35.000 But you're right.

00:43:35.000 I get to leave here and go home and you have to go back to class with all these people, right?

00:43:39.000 No, that's a real thing.

00:43:41.000 So this is a moral question.

00:43:43.000 And I believe one of the biggest reasons the country is in the shape that it's in is good people that have the right worldview have been silent for too long.

00:43:52.000 I believe that firmly.

00:43:54.000 I believe that good people know what is happening is wrong like you.

00:43:59.000 And what do they do?

00:43:59.000 They bully you and they intimidate you into the number one form of censorship in America, which is self-censorship.

00:44:08.000 We complain a lot about censorship and we should.

00:44:10.000 But the most effective form of censorship is you shutting up you.

00:44:15.000 And I'm not going to tell you to speak out unless you're willing to pay the price.

00:44:19.000 And you know what that price is.

00:44:20.000 Here's what I will guarantee you, though.

00:44:22.000 When you first speak out, it's going to be really tough.

00:44:25.000 But then over a period of time, you'll get tougher.

00:44:28.000 And then you'll be happier.

00:44:30.000 And then you don't have to monitor your speech as if there's Big Brother looking over your shoulder all the time.

00:44:35.000 And then you don't have to be somebody different in private than you are in public.

00:44:38.000 And you'll be freer.

00:44:40.000 So it's a choice.

00:44:41.000 You'll be less free personally if you continue to be silent.

00:44:44.000 You might be more monetarily successful.

00:44:47.000 You might get better grades.

00:44:48.000 But if you want to be happier, tougher, and freer, the earlier and younger you speak out, the better.

00:44:55.000 God bless you and thank you.

00:44:56.000 Thank you very much.

00:44:56.000 Thank you.

00:45:03.000 Hi, thank you for your.

00:45:05.000 Hi, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.

00:45:07.000 How are you doing?

00:45:08.000 Good.

00:45:09.000 How can the Conservative Party encourage bipartisan cooperation and urgent action to resolve the impending U.S. debt ceiling crisis, which could potentially result in severe economic consequences for Americans, regardless of their political affiliation?

00:45:23.000 Specifically, what strategies can be employed to rally a coalition and work with Democrats to pass legislation that will mitigate the effects of a potential default on the government's interest payments while safeguarding vital social and government programs?

00:45:37.000 You just asked a very thoughtful question.

00:45:39.000 It is.

00:45:40.000 The national debt is a national security crisis.

00:45:43.000 It is a sovereign crisis.

00:45:45.000 Both parties are to blame for this, and that needs to be emphasized.

00:45:50.000 This is not a partisanship issue.

00:45:52.000 I actually got my start at Turning Point USA trying to warn people about the mounting debt and all that, and no one listened, and here we are.

00:45:58.000 When I started Turning Point USA 10 years ago, the national debt was $12 trillion.

00:46:02.000 It is now $31 trillion.

00:46:04.000 Both sides are going to have to compromise, and that's not a word people like.

00:46:08.000 How about this?

00:46:08.000 Let's stop spending $200 billion in Ukraine and maybe put that towards reducing our debt and deficit.

00:46:14.000 Just to start, right?

00:46:15.000 Probably a good idea, right?

00:46:18.000 There's going to have to be some concessions by conservatives on tax increases, and there are going to have to be concessions by liberals and Democrats on spending cuts, legitimate spending cuts, and not just the spending cuts that they want, which are always to our core military functions or to border security.

00:46:34.000 We're going to need to have real spending cuts on some social welfare programs and some of these bloated, just not this kind of ATM machine of government that we have.

00:46:43.000 But it takes political courage.

00:46:45.000 So both are going to have to happen.

00:46:47.000 And I'm an ideologue.

00:46:48.000 I don't want to see tax cuts, you know, taxes increased.

00:46:52.000 But if there can actually finally be some package of reform that, by the way, doesn't tax middle-income people, right?

00:46:59.000 But instead has something.

00:47:01.000 I'm not arguing for tax cuts.

00:47:03.000 But at some point, if we don't get a handle on our debt, the inflation is going to crush us.

00:47:08.000 I cannot tell you how critical this is.

00:47:10.000 It might seem wonky or abstract or up in the clouds.

00:47:13.000 That's why I think your question is so incredibly important.

00:47:15.000 It does not excite people.

00:47:16.000 Like the debt, why does it matter?

00:47:18.000 It matters a lot.

00:47:19.000 And so I hope that helps answer your question.

00:47:22.000 Spending cuts are necessary now to get inflation under control and also the spending spree that the government is currently on.

00:47:30.000 Given the gravity of the situation, how can we foster a sense of collective responsibility and engagement among citizens, particularly younger generations who feel disengaged or disillusioned with the political system?

00:47:40.000 That's tough.

00:47:41.000 I don't have a good answer to that, honestly, because this is so if I were to kind of way backtrack to the beginning of what is a bigger threat to the future of America, racism or the national debt, it's the national debt.

00:47:51.000 And that's one of my biggest complaints is talking about these esoteric, abstract, hard-to-define, emotionally charged political issues.

00:48:01.000 There are several things that are happening imminently that we actually end up not caring about, and that's deeply destructive.

00:48:07.000 So let's de-emphasize the woke stuff and actually balance our budget.

00:48:10.000 That's the best answer I have for you.

00:48:12.000 Thank you so much.

00:48:16.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:48:17.000 So my question is a little slightly different.

00:48:20.000 So I have a boyfriend.

00:48:21.000 He is pretty liberal, and I fall somewhat moderately conservative.

00:48:25.000 And it works.

00:48:28.000 It works.

00:48:29.000 But I mean, I was long term, I was asking, can a relationship work if you have fundamentally different ideological values?

00:48:35.000 Like long-term, could it work?

00:48:36.000 So be careful.

00:48:38.000 I have seen it work rarely.

00:48:42.000 Here's a sad reality.

00:48:44.000 About half of marriages end in divorce anyway, and most of those divorces have people with the same values.

00:48:49.000 You are going to debate everything if you end up marrying somebody that doesn't share your values.

00:48:55.000 Where are you going to send them to school?

00:48:57.000 What kind of television programming are you going to watch?

00:49:00.000 Are they going to be religious?

00:49:01.000 Are they going to be secular?

00:49:03.000 What radio programs are you going to listen to in the car when you're driving?

00:49:06.000 What podcasts are you going to talk favorably about America or negatively about America?

00:49:11.000 Are you going to teach them that entrepreneurs are good or entrepreneurs are bad?

00:49:15.000 And then here's what ends up happening: parents will then turn against each other and try to take the kids hostage ideologically in a very, very bitter dispute.

00:49:23.000 I know that sounds cynical, and you might have a love for this person, and maybe you can make it work.

00:49:28.000 It can work rarely.

00:49:29.000 But when it does work, unfortunately, they stay married, but they really are far apart.

00:49:35.000 Aristotle said, the closest form of friendship are two beings that are looking at the same ultimate destination.

00:49:41.000 Thank you for coming.

00:49:41.000 Thank you.

00:49:42.000 Thank you.

00:49:48.000 Hello, Charlie.

00:49:50.000 Hello, Charlie.

00:49:51.000 My name is Jaylen.

00:49:53.000 I'm a first year at UIC.

00:49:56.000 In the classrooms, they're talking a lot about the woke stuff, like male privilege, like oppression from religion.

00:50:05.000 I just wanted to know, like, what are your thoughts and your suggestions for me as a first year confronting people?

00:50:11.000 Well, thank you for the question.

00:50:12.000 You said male privilege?

00:50:14.000 Yeah.

00:50:14.000 This one always makes me laugh, right?

00:50:16.000 Because they can't tell you what a man or woman is.

00:50:17.000 And so that they just appropriate these terms just for the pure purpose of victimhood, race, gender, class politics, right?

00:50:27.000 It's so sick.

00:50:27.000 And then they say, oh, there's no such thing as gender, and you can be whatever you want.

00:50:30.000 It's simultaneously contradictory.

00:50:32.000 But look, male privilege, let's pretend we actually have agreed upon terms, what those are, which we should.

00:50:36.000 Men are more likely to commit suicide.

00:50:38.000 Men are more likely to die at work.

00:50:41.000 Men are more likely to die at war.

00:50:43.000 Men are less likely to graduate college, get a master's degree, get a PhD.

00:50:48.000 There are more unemployed men than unemployed women.

00:50:51.000 Men are suffering in ways we've never seen before, and we have to be lectured about a patriarchy or male privilege.

00:50:58.000 It's actually the opposite.

00:50:59.000 We're seeing a crisis of the young American male, and nobody wants to say that out loud.

00:51:08.000 And so I would encourage facts.

00:51:11.000 What was the second part of your suggestion for me as a first year in college?

00:51:17.000 Yeah, learn as much as you can outside of the classroom.

00:51:21.000 And if you have a couple great professors, praise God, and you can learn from them and lean into them.

00:51:26.000 And then build community.

00:51:28.000 Get involved with the Turning Point USA chapter.

00:51:30.000 Find people that share your values.

00:51:31.000 Again, friendship is that are two people that are looking at the same ultimate destination.

00:51:35.000 That is the most beautiful form of friendship.

00:51:38.000 So find those people, seek them out, and then make learning for your own sake a priority.

00:51:38.000 Okay?

00:51:44.000 You have a cool thing in college because you have a window to be able to learn.

00:51:47.000 My recommendation is: if you're not going to drop out of college, you stay in college, it's fine.

00:51:51.000 Then expand your time of learning outside the classroom.

00:51:55.000 Podcasts, Hillsdale online courses, reading books.

00:51:58.000 Use your four years to become an incredibly deep and thoughtful person, even beyond your classroom.

00:52:04.000 Because you have a four-year where you don't have to pay bills, you don't have to pay a mortgage.

00:52:08.000 You have a four-year window to become a super weapon against whatever ideology you don't like, right?

00:52:16.000 And so lean into that.

00:52:18.000 And if you need book recommendations or podcasts, I can give you a couple.

00:52:21.000 But that would be my big recommendation: become so dedicated to learning, finding truth, finding goodness, finding beauty, finding virtue, and understanding what that means.

00:52:31.000 God bless you and thank you.

00:52:32.000 Thank you.

00:52:37.000 He's going to cut you in line.

00:52:37.000 Sorry, Mark.

00:52:39.000 Mark, I love you, but we see the world the same way.

00:52:42.000 So I'm going to just get a.

00:52:43.000 We'll get to you, Mark.

00:52:44.000 Don't worry.

00:52:45.000 Just make sure you speak up.

00:52:46.000 Hey, Charlie.

00:52:47.000 I guess I had a question pertaining to racism.

00:52:50.000 There was a lot of back and forth about how esoteric this all is and abstract.

00:52:57.000 And I wanted to take things to a more basic level.

00:53:01.000 It seems like a lot of the problems that pertain to the black community just have to do with class and wealth in general.

00:53:08.000 And I guess my question is: if black people just are at a lower place as a group, how can they advance themselves if there are so many things getting in the way of people making money, just like working multiple jobs, having to raise a family and all these things?

00:53:24.000 I feel like that's a big problem here that people don't really talk about.

00:53:28.000 Sure.

00:53:28.000 So I'm not trying to put you too on the spot, but just if you had an approximate, what percentage, if you were to guess, of black kids grow up with both a mom and a dad?

00:53:38.000 I don't know.

00:53:38.000 Yeah.

00:53:40.000 25%.

00:53:41.000 So three out of four black kids in America grow up without a father.

00:53:41.000 Okay.

00:53:46.000 If you want a ticket into middle-class America, put a mom and a dad in a home.

00:53:55.000 I can understand that, but I say, like, as things stand, that's not how they are.

00:54:00.000 And there's so many like building blocks and so many roadblocks that have been placed.

00:54:05.000 And I'm just curious, like, what substantive policy would you actually recommend?

00:54:08.000 So I am curious: what is the building block that is preventing black men to stay with the women they impregnate?

00:54:15.000 I'm not exactly sure what that building block is, except be a man and don't abandon the women that you impregnate.

00:54:24.000 Minor detail, but I will give you a policy detail.

00:54:27.000 We do subsidize single motherhood via Lyndon Baines-Johnson Great Society program, where sometimes, in some circumstances, black women or any woman can receive more money from the federal government by remaining single than actually getting married.

00:54:40.000 This is an ultimate example of a good intention that leads to an awful policy, okay?

00:54:46.000 The intention is we want to help single moms, right?

00:54:50.000 But then it actually encourages the woman to stay single because as soon as they get married, they might lose the check from the federal government.

00:54:57.000 Now, that is not a simple, that is one solution of many, but more than anything else, that number, the target number that impacts all the other numbers, and here's how I know this is true, okay?

00:55:07.000 Because a white kid in America that grows up with just a single mom is less likely to succeed by all agreed-upon objective metrics than a black kid that grows up with a mom and a dad.

00:55:19.000 If you have a strong parent presence of mom and dad, you're more likely to graduate high school, get a job, stay out of prison, and enter into middle-class America.

00:55:29.000 That right there is the one thing that has been proven.

00:55:32.000 Guess who agrees with me?

00:55:33.000 Barack Obama agrees with me.

00:55:35.000 He used to say this all the time until the left realized that this was a political liability for them.

00:55:41.000 The left used to talk about putting fathers back in the home.

00:55:43.000 Chris Rock used to joke around, he still jokes about it a little bit, but Dave Chappelle, they all said, why is it that we are putting up with a culture in the black community of fathers or dads abandoning their kids?

00:55:54.000 That number right there can fix a hundred other numbers, and it's not racism that is doing it.

00:55:59.000 Do you have a thought really quick?

00:56:00.000 I guess my question is: who created that culture by forcibly taking all these people to America?

00:56:07.000 Like, that's all I have to say.

00:56:09.000 Well, so that's that's an interesting question.

00:56:12.000 So, more blacks have voluntarily emigrated to America since 1980 than were ever actually brought in the slave trade from West Africa and the Caribbean.

00:56:20.000 So, more blacks are here today due to their own voluntary movement than ever being forcibly brought to this country.

00:56:29.000 I'm not sure if you knew that or not.

00:56:30.000 But those aren't the people who have had like decades and generations of not having wealth.

00:56:37.000 These new people are like some of the top people within their society.

00:56:40.000 There's a brain drain from the people.

00:56:42.000 I wouldn't say that about Haitians because they come here with very, very poor earning potential, but they build a life.

00:56:49.000 You could say that about some Nigerian immigrants, but especially from the Caribbean, they enter at the lower rungs, and they have to make decisions.

00:56:57.000 Every person's an individual.

00:56:58.000 But you make an interesting point about intergenerational issues, right?

00:57:02.000 So, here's the good question.

00:57:04.000 And I could tell you're coming at this from a good place.

00:57:06.000 Do you think we're more racist or less racist than we were in the 1960s, generally as a country?

00:57:12.000 I'd say generally less.

00:57:13.000 Okay, I agree.

00:57:15.000 So, in 1963, 20% of all blacks were single-mother homes.

00:57:23.000 Now, it's 75%.

00:57:25.000 What changed?

00:57:29.000 The decline of unions is a big one, in my opinion.

00:57:32.000 Okay, fine.

00:57:34.000 I disagree.

00:57:35.000 But you see what I'm getting at here?

00:57:37.000 Instead of just focusing on racism or policing or this abstract, the thing that is staring us in the face that is so obvious is that generation of generation of young blacks are raised without a father figure.

00:57:51.000 And that's unfair to the mother.

00:57:52.000 It's unfair to them.

00:57:53.000 It's unfair to the rest of the community.

00:57:55.000 I guess we'll just have to disagree with our solutions to that then.

00:57:59.000 Thank you.

00:58:00.000 Okay.

00:58:01.000 Thank you.

00:58:07.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:58:08.000 I immigrated from Brazil three years ago.

00:58:10.000 Brazil is a socialist country and in middle school.

00:58:12.000 I used to have to do projects on how communism is great and even worship people like Mao and Stalin.

00:58:19.000 I used to agree with these points until I immigrated to America.

00:58:23.000 Actually, I live in Skokie.

00:58:25.000 You've probably been there?

00:58:26.000 I have been there.

00:58:28.000 And I changed my mind after coming here and realized that after seeing all the opportunities that I have here, that just isn't the way to go.

00:58:36.000 So my question is, how can we make our educational environment in America healthier?

00:58:42.000 Man, well, first of all, praise God for your testimony.

00:58:44.000 That's very powerful.

00:58:45.000 It really is.

00:58:46.000 I mean, it angers me because I have to be lectured at times by uppity-class white liberals that socialism is the answer.

00:59:00.000 And you lived it.

00:59:02.000 And Brazil is a beautiful country with great people, but it's a broken country.

00:59:07.000 And that's a fact.

00:59:08.000 So why is it?

00:59:09.000 Why is Brazil not America?

00:59:12.000 Well, we have an amazing constitution and a tradition for things that they don't have in Brazil.

00:59:17.000 Private property rights, entrepreneurship, impartial courts, checks and balances, separation of powers.

00:59:22.000 So first, I just want to say something to you personally.

00:59:25.000 You need to tell as many Americans as possible the hell that Marxism can bring to this country.

00:59:32.000 You have to do that.

00:59:35.000 It's so important.

00:59:36.000 Secondly, the education system, we just got to keep on doing what we're doing.

00:59:41.000 But I find the testimony of especially Central and South American refugees to America to be some of the most powerful.

00:59:48.000 And some of my favorite conservative activists are people like you from Brazil and Venezuela that at Columbia, they're screaming at me, Charlie, why don't Americans get it?

00:59:55.000 You probably feel the same way, right?

00:59:57.000 For sure I do.

00:59:59.000 And it's easy if you've grown up in an affluent, rich society to be generous with other people's money.

01:00:07.000 When you have to go a week without eating, or you have to be displaced like so many people in Venezuela has, all of a sudden, those Marxist songs and poems and mantras start to fall apart.

01:00:17.000 We need more of you.

01:00:18.000 God bless you.

01:00:19.000 Thank you for being here.

01:00:20.000 Thank you.

01:00:25.000 And again, if you disagree, you have an open invite to the front of the line.

01:00:28.000 Our staffer will help you with that.

01:00:29.000 Thank you.

01:00:31.000 Hi.

01:00:31.000 Okay.

01:00:32.000 So my question is on the topic of abortion.

01:00:36.000 So I am involved with Greek life at my school, and the culture that is currently being promoted is that you hook up with random dudes and then you can go and get that baby gone.

01:00:45.000 What do you think we should do as college students to prevent that culture from continuing to build and build?

01:00:52.000 Well, first, praise God for your moral clarity.

01:00:56.000 Hookup culture is awful and it's especially awful for women.

01:01:01.000 It actually makes women very miserable because men and women view sex differently.

01:01:05.000 Women do not view sex as transactional as men do.

01:01:08.000 It's a very personal and emotional experience.

01:01:11.000 And when they start to have sex with a lot of men, it actually leaves them psychologically damaged and broken.

01:01:15.000 And that is a fact that we're seeing manifest of a generation of young women that think that they can participate in hookup culture and they get a lot happier.

01:01:22.000 And they're actually the most miserable they've ever been.

01:01:25.000 The second thing is this, we have to educate that that is a human being.

01:01:29.000 You're not just going to go get plastic or cosmetic surgery.

01:01:33.000 I ask people sometimes, how many abortions do you think happen in America every single year?

01:01:37.000 I got an answer at a recent campus event.

01:01:39.000 They said, oh, about 20,000.

01:01:40.000 It's a million.

01:01:42.000 I know.

01:01:42.000 It takes people's breaths away, right?

01:01:44.000 There's 3,000 abortions a day in America.

01:01:47.000 That's not good for anybody.

01:01:48.000 And nobody likes to say this out loud, and the people in Highland Park will scream at you if you say this.

01:01:53.000 But abortion has become a type of birth control as a last chance measure.

01:01:59.000 Do you agree with that, that people look at abortion that way?

01:02:02.000 Yeah, I mean, personally, my mom had me at 21.

01:02:06.000 She was a young adult living in the city, and she made the choice to keep me.

01:02:11.000 Praise God she made that choice, by the way.

01:02:14.000 I come from a place where it's like she raised me.

01:02:17.000 She took ownership of her actions and raised me to be a great young woman.

01:02:22.000 So I can only imagine that if more young women take that step, what this society could be.

01:02:30.000 So there's two things.

01:02:31.000 It's not just the woman that needs to take responsibility for their actions.

01:02:34.000 It's the man that needs to take responsibility for their actions, too.

01:02:37.000 And these weak men.

01:02:40.000 I could go on and on and on about how awful that whole culture is.

01:02:43.000 But you said something important.

01:02:45.000 Take responsibility.

01:02:46.000 We have a generation that prioritizes pleasure over duty.

01:02:52.000 One of the reasons we're in the mess that we're in is we want to do what feels good over what is right.

01:02:56.000 And the abortion industry hinges on an entire flawed moral argument that my temporary orgasm matters more than a baby being able to live in this world.

01:03:08.000 Nobody wants to say that out loud, but that is exactly what drives the abortion industry.

01:03:12.000 We need to educate people that you might have done something you regret.

01:03:17.000 You might not have been proud of yourself.

01:03:19.000 But terminating another human being because you made a mistake is not good for you, and it's not good for them, and it's not good for society.

01:03:26.000 Thank you for your moral clarity, and thank you for being here.

01:03:29.000 Thank you.

01:03:36.000 Hello.

01:03:37.000 So the left continues to claim that they are the party for minorities.

01:03:41.000 I'm a Mexican-American, but I'm also a proud conservative.

01:03:45.000 Thank you.

01:03:49.000 The thing with that is that I've broken away from this lie, but I have seen many family members and members of my community continue to believe this lie.

01:03:56.000 As a young Hispanic conservative, what can I do to change this and to break the lie that the left has told us for years?

01:04:04.000 I'm really moved by these testimonies tonight, aren't you?

01:04:04.000 Wow.

01:04:07.000 There's a lot of hope out there that is not covered by the media.

01:04:09.000 This is really powerful stuff.

01:04:11.000 I got to tell you.

01:04:13.000 You need to keep speaking out.

01:04:14.000 I'm going to keep saying that.

01:04:15.000 But honestly, the Hispanic one I think is very interesting.

01:04:19.000 In the Hispanic community, Mexican-American community, do you think most people would laugh if you say men can become pregnant?

01:04:26.000 Absolutely.

01:04:27.000 Everyone in my community, from uncles to parents, they're all like, what in the world are you talking about?

01:04:33.000 Yes.

01:04:34.000 So I think wokeism, which is really white liberal imperialism put into minority communities of these ridiculous, deranged ideas that are being forced into black and Hispanic neighborhoods, I think it's going to break.

01:04:48.000 I think that Hispanics are going to revolt on the idea that 10-year-olds should be exposed to pornography in classrooms.

01:04:55.000 I think that Hispanics are going to push back against the devaluing of man and womanhood.

01:05:00.000 But we need more voices like yours.

01:05:03.000 And I believe firmly, I believe it's the black community and Hispanic community, they are far more conservative than we ever give them credit for.

01:05:10.000 And we need more voices like you to make sure that message gets out.

01:05:14.000 God bless you, my friend.

01:05:15.000 Thank you.

01:05:17.000 We'll go a little later on questions because we started later.

01:05:20.000 Is that okay?

01:05:20.000 Keep going.

01:05:21.000 Yeah.

01:05:21.000 I'm willing to stay if you guys will stay.

01:05:23.000 So, yeah.

01:05:27.000 Good evening, Mr. Kirk.

01:05:28.000 I want to say thank you so much for coming to our campus.

01:05:31.000 You're a personal hero of mine.

01:05:33.000 This is my last semester at UIC, and I'm just so thankful that you came to our school right before I leave.

01:05:39.000 Thank you.

01:05:42.000 I wanted to, so a very good friend of mine, he's been a social worker on the South Side, and he's seen himself, he was lucky enough to have a mother and a father in the picture growing up, but he's seen himself working with kids in elementary school, like visible changes in behavior from people who have only a mother in the home or only a father in the home.

01:06:04.000 And I wanted to ask you, As a father, as a husband, what can young men do today to prepare themselves to be a high-quality father and a high-quality husband?

01:06:13.000 It's a great question.

01:06:14.000 When they're older.

01:06:15.000 Okay.

01:06:17.000 Stop watching pornography, number one.

01:06:20.000 Save yourself for marriage and improve yourself every single day, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

01:06:27.000 What I've just said used to be agreed upon morality and simply stated truths that people in America would say over and over and over again.

01:06:34.000 One of the reasons why men are so afraid of marriage is because they're grown infants and they haven't actually become men.

01:06:39.000 Genesis 12 is a great instruction for what we need in men.

01:06:42.000 Get up and go on an adventure.

01:06:44.000 Men need an adventure.

01:06:45.000 Abram was called to adventure by God, and man needs a call to adventure.

01:06:50.000 More specifically, a call to responsibility.

01:06:54.000 Here's the test of whether or not you have responsibility in your life.

01:06:57.000 If you don't show up to something, will somebody miss you?

01:07:01.000 If the answer is no, you do not have responsibility in your life.

01:07:03.000 Find it.

01:07:05.000 Go find a job where if you don't show up, somebody's going to have a tough day.

01:07:09.000 Go find a friend that needs you so badly that if you don't show up, they're going to have a tough day.

01:07:13.000 We have a society where if you go missing, people can go on their happy way.

01:07:16.000 That is a society without responsibility.

01:07:19.000 Thank you, Charlie.

01:07:20.000 God bless you.

01:07:21.000 Thank you.

01:07:26.000 God bless you, man.

01:07:28.000 It's an honor to speak to you.

01:07:32.000 So I just had a question.

01:07:36.000 Why do you think gun violence is sorry?

01:07:42.000 Why do you think Chicago has such a bad gun violence problem?

01:07:45.000 And what do you think politicians should do to change this?

01:07:48.000 Yeah, great question.

01:07:50.000 It's a symptom of broken homes and fatherlessness.

01:07:55.000 You know, Kim Fox has really been, she's been a delight.

01:08:00.000 It's not because of the Indiana gun loophole thing pouring in.

01:08:04.000 And look, I also, I want to be very clear.

01:08:06.000 I'm very pro-Second Amendment.

01:08:07.000 I think it is utopian to say that you're ever going to get gun violence or gun deaths down to zero.

01:08:12.000 There is a price to have guns in your society.

01:08:15.000 People will do bad things with them.

01:08:17.000 The amount of gun violence that we have is completely and totally unacceptable.

01:08:21.000 And so a Washington, D.C. example that I think applies to Chicago as well, but it was just so alarming.

01:08:29.000 They say the average assailant in D.C., murderer, has been arrested 11 times prior to committing that crime.

01:08:39.000 We are now having to relearn all of the tough lessons of the 1990s.

01:08:44.000 We pander more to criminals than we do to decent, law-abiding people that want to raise their kids and start businesses and go to church.

01:08:54.000 We have gone way in the wrong direction.

01:08:56.000 So what do we need?

01:08:57.000 We need to have harsher sentencing for criminals that do the stuff that then leads to the tougher crime.

01:09:03.000 Carjackings, for example.

01:09:05.000 We need to increase the sentencing requirements for carjackings.

01:09:08.000 Here's the thing.

01:09:09.000 Here's a thought crime.

01:09:10.000 You're jacking a car at 2 a.m.

01:09:12.000 You're probably on a road to go murder somebody in the next decade.

01:09:15.000 That's a thought crime.

01:09:16.000 I don't care.

01:09:17.000 I'm not going to go out of my way to go pander to carjackers or arsonists.

01:09:22.000 And what I think is the problem is Kim Fox and all these ridiculous people that George Soros comes in and pumps this money in to destroy your city is they prioritize the criminal over the law-abiding citizen.

01:09:33.000 And so we need tougher sentencing.

01:09:35.000 We need DAs with a backbone.

01:09:37.000 And I'll tell you, cities that do this are safe and flourish.

01:09:40.000 New York was once the safest city in America.

01:09:42.000 Now it's just becoming a complete catastrophe.

01:09:45.000 And they've done it successfully in Chicago for quite some time.

01:09:49.000 Thank you.

01:09:49.000 Appreciate it.

01:09:50.000 Thank you.

01:09:55.000 Hi, Charlie.

01:09:57.000 I just wanted to know what do you think among the 800,000 parents in federal and state prisons, 92% of them are fathers, and how do we go about avoiding that?

01:10:08.000 Yeah, that's a good question.

01:10:11.000 Well, they should stop committing crimes.

01:10:17.000 And that might sound harsh, but I don't go out of my way to pander to people that commit violent crimes, especially.

01:10:25.000 I just don't.

01:10:26.000 What do we do about it?

01:10:28.000 Yeah, look, I think that there's a growing culture of acceptability of allowing for criminality and violence and for activity that isn't, let's just say, virtuous.

01:10:42.000 I said this the other day and the media came after me, so I'm going to be very specific with how I say this.

01:10:46.000 In the last 20 years in the black community, has the music and the culture and the art has it platformed piety and virtue and nonviolence, or has it probably platformed violence and gang behavior more than the other?

01:11:01.000 Let's be honest, right?

01:11:03.000 And that culture manifests into action.

01:11:06.000 Is that the only reason?

01:11:07.000 Of course not.

01:11:08.000 But I also just think very simply and solely that over a period of time, you show behavior, you commit crimes, you go to jail, and you encourage men to stay loyally married to the women that they are with and to go into the proper course of action.

01:11:25.000 I think there's also some negotiation and compromise of the trade deals that we're signing, the jobs that we shipped overseas, the muscular class that has disappeared.

01:11:36.000 And also, an issue that really animates me, I'll be honest, is our complete and total open, poorest southern border that disenfranchises black Americans directly.

01:11:46.000 Why the black community is not angry about 5,000 low-income, let's just say, let's say, entrants into the country is perplexing to me, right?

01:12:01.000 If you want a real America-first immigration policy that puts black Americans first, close the border.

01:12:06.000 And guess, you know who said that?

01:12:07.000 Jesse Jackson used to say that.

01:12:10.000 But now, for other reasons, they want a complete and poorest southern border.

01:12:14.000 Thank you, though.

01:12:14.000 Appreciate it.

01:12:18.000 Too many agreements.

01:12:20.000 We need more opposition, but sure, hope maybe you're one of them.

01:12:22.000 I don't know.

01:12:23.000 Hi, Charlie.

01:12:24.000 I'm so glad to be here today.

01:12:28.000 Yeah.

01:12:29.000 I'm a delivery driver here in Chicago.

01:12:31.000 It's one of the most dangerous jobs in Chicago, except for our brave Chicago police officers, first of all.

01:12:36.000 You said you're a what driver?

01:12:37.000 A delivery driver.

01:12:37.000 Oh, that DoorDash delivery driver.

01:12:39.000 That's it.

01:12:41.000 And I want to just say I keep attuned to AM 560 here in Chicago all the time.

01:12:45.000 I'm on AM560 every day, by the way.

01:12:46.000 Yes, I listen to your show all the time, and I want to thank you for standing up against the woke Democrat mafia here in Chicago.

01:12:53.000 And for saying the truth that the 2016 election was rigged, it was stolen.

01:12:53.000 It's so important.

01:12:58.000 And that is why, that is why 2020.

01:13:01.000 You said 16.

01:13:02.000 What's that?

01:13:03.000 2016, right?

01:13:04.000 No, 20.

01:13:04.000 Oh, 2020.

01:13:05.000 I'm sorry.

01:13:06.000 I'm so nervous, Charlie.

01:13:07.000 I'm so excited to speak to you.

01:13:08.000 I'm so sorry.

01:13:09.000 I like it.

01:13:10.000 2020.

01:13:10.000 Yes, the 2020 election was rigged.

01:13:12.000 It was stolen.

01:13:13.000 Yes, no.

01:13:15.000 It was stolen, right?

01:13:16.000 And I want to thank you for standing up for that.

01:13:18.000 And that's why when the 2022 elections came around, I told all of my friends and family, I said, there's only one way to stop this woke Democrat mafia, and that is to boycott these elections because they're never going to hear us if we don't really stop from participating in their lives.

01:13:33.000 It's a farce.

01:13:34.000 It's a farce.

01:13:35.000 And why should we participate?

01:13:36.000 You said it yourself.

01:13:37.000 Why should we participate?

01:13:38.000 Okay, let me tell you why.

01:13:40.000 So I love the energy.

01:13:42.000 You buttered me up perfectly, right?

01:13:43.000 But I got to disagree.

01:13:46.000 It is not rational to stop engaging in the civic process that decides who is in charge.

01:13:52.000 Hold on.

01:13:53.000 Even if it is, hold on, let's hold one second.

01:13:56.000 Even if it is rigged, okay?

01:13:57.000 Even if it is rigged, going through a tradition of voting at least opens an opportunity, a chance, a micron that you actually might still be able to have representative government.

01:14:09.000 What you are doing, respectfully, is a guarantee that you'll never have a voice.

01:14:14.000 The other side yearns, hear me out, they yearn for a day where we decide to stop voting ourselves because we're so disenfranchised.

01:14:22.000 So, it's a chicken and the egg thing.

01:14:24.000 But the right answer is not to stop, you know, stop showing up and boycotting all that.

01:14:28.000 It's a guarantee the other side will win in that regard.

01:14:35.000 It makes no sense to me just because we know they're stealing our votes.

01:14:37.000 Here in Chicago, they say vote early and often because the Democrat mob is stealing the vote.

01:14:41.000 They make sure they control these elections.

01:14:43.000 We have no power here.

01:14:44.000 There's no point in voting.

01:14:45.000 So I say we have to resist this.

01:14:47.000 We have to fight this.

01:14:48.000 We have to find other ways because we just can't vote.

01:14:50.000 It can't be the only answer.

01:14:52.000 You know, I don't think it's the only answer.

01:14:54.000 However, the other side is salivating that our best and most reliable patriots will disenfranchise themselves.

01:15:03.000 I got to get to the next question.

01:15:04.000 Love the energy, though.

01:15:05.000 Thank you.

01:15:06.000 Thank you.

01:15:12.000 Hi, Mr. Kirk.

01:15:13.000 Not showing up is not the only way to beat them, unless you're a liberal.

01:15:16.000 Hi, Mr. Kirk.

01:15:17.000 Thank you so much for being here.

01:15:19.000 I'm a third year at UChicago.

01:15:21.000 I helped run a conservative libertarian publication and was actually called a fascist by protesters for my hoodie.

01:15:29.000 But I wanted to ask you, as a conservative, I do strongly disagree with you on college.

01:15:34.000 You just said this about Chicago, and you actually just said to the guy in front of you about voting that these are things, even if the odds are stacked against us, we shouldn't abandon these institutions.

01:15:46.000 Why would you not feel, especially given that college, you know, you have to go to college to have certain positions of power, why would you not apply that same logic to college?

01:15:57.000 So to the previous example, it doesn't cost you $200,000 in debt to go vote.

01:16:03.000 Right.

01:16:04.000 Fair.

01:16:04.000 And four years of time.

01:16:05.000 It's like 15 minutes and a piece of paper, and you show up and you do it again in two years, right?

01:16:09.000 So it's not exactly a one-to-one.

01:16:11.000 But there is a need for some of our people to go to college.

01:16:14.000 We just have way too many of our people going to college.

01:16:16.000 There's way too many people going to college in America.

01:16:18.000 It is largely a scam.

01:16:19.000 I literally wrote the book.

01:16:20.000 You can read it and challenge me on it.

01:16:24.000 But look, if you go to the University of Chicago and you're a conservative libertarian, God bless you, man.

01:16:28.000 We need you.

01:16:28.000 We need you to go infiltrate the highest places of power and fight for freedom and liberty.

01:16:32.000 I'm all for that.

01:16:33.000 What I'm not for, though, is perpetuating a lie where 41% of people that enter college do not graduate.

01:16:40.000 That's way too many people going into college.

01:16:43.000 You want all of a sudden reform college?

01:16:45.000 Then stop taxpayer funding of the anthropology, sociology, feminist studies, all this left-wing nonsense that has just taken over the academy in a very terrible way.

01:16:56.000 So I'm not for abandoning.

01:16:58.000 I am for a large retreat, though.

01:17:00.000 Fair enough.

01:17:01.000 I agree.

01:17:02.000 Way too much attendance.

01:17:04.000 So fair enough.

01:17:04.000 Cool.

01:17:05.000 Thank you.

01:17:05.000 I appreciate it.

01:17:06.000 God bless you.

01:17:07.000 We'll take a couple more.

01:17:09.000 Hey, Charlie, thank you for coming to UIC.

01:17:12.000 I'm actually a student here, and I'm part of Turning Point USA on campus.

01:17:15.000 Awesome.

01:17:16.000 So I'm a third-year student, and many of the people my age have normalized pornography and OnlyFans.

01:17:21.000 This has caused many of them in my age to become addicted to this garbage and messed up their minds and made them weaker.

01:17:27.000 As someone who has struggled with this when I was younger and was able to recover from it, what are some of your suggestions that you can give me to break this ideology that is so normalized amongst people my age?

01:17:38.000 Yeah, I don't mean to moralize on the topic.

01:17:40.000 I've been very open.

01:17:41.000 I mean, when I was younger, I struggled with it too.

01:17:43.000 Almost every young man in America has struggled with this cancer, this pathogen in one way, shape, or form.

01:17:48.000 Praise God that you could break free from that.

01:17:51.000 And only, in my opinion, Jesus Christ, can get you free of that.

01:17:55.000 But let me.

01:17:58.000 There's a great book by Gary Wilson.

01:18:01.000 I don't mean to moralize.

01:18:02.000 I'm not saying you're a bad person.

01:18:03.000 It's just the facts.

01:18:04.000 Read Gary Wilson's book, Your Brain on Pornography.

01:18:06.000 It'll change your life.

01:18:08.000 And you just have to understand that if you don't, you're basically doing the neurological equivalent of hallucinogenic drugs, and you are destroying your body's ability to create dopamine, which is the reward molecule in your brain.

01:18:22.000 And it changes the entire way you view the world.

01:18:26.000 And if people are positive on that, they're wrong.

01:18:30.000 And it actually, I believe, is contributing to a lot of social ailments and a lot of other issues.

01:18:36.000 And what it's actually doing even more than that, it's really sad is that young men, there's a percentage of young men, 20 to 30 percent, that are so addicted to online pornography, they will not engage in real-person relationships.

01:18:50.000 And that's not some speculation, it's a real research study.

01:18:54.000 So the message, I don't know, it could be factual, it can also be very compassionate, but it's harming you.

01:18:59.000 I just want to make that very clear.

01:19:01.000 It is bad for you.

01:19:04.000 And so I wish you the best in that crusade because unfortunately, pornography rates have nearly doubled over the last decade, and it's not good for anybody.

01:19:13.000 Thank you.

01:19:14.000 Thank you.

01:19:18.000 Hello, Mr. Kirk.

01:19:20.000 My name is Alejandro.

01:19:22.000 I'm thanking you for being here.

01:19:24.000 My question is: I'm a third-year Mexican-American, Republican, and raised by a single mother.

01:19:34.000 And I have a question.

01:19:36.000 What do you think about the emasculation of men in universities and the less and less amount of men that are going into furthered education?

01:19:45.000 Women being more present in the classroom, which is not a bad thing, but I think it is when there's less men versus women per se.

01:19:54.000 How do you think we can combat that in a sense to strengthen young men once more?

01:20:01.000 Yeah, I mean, it's so funny.

01:20:03.000 You read some of these articles, they say the mystery of why men don't want to attend college.

01:20:07.000 I don't know, they're told they're the problem of every single thing in society for four years and to go into debt for that.

01:20:13.000 They're like, yeah, I'm not going to go do that, actually.

01:20:15.000 It really isn't a mystery.

01:20:17.000 Society needs strong men and strong women.

01:20:19.000 We need to understand those archetypes and their roles and their duties and responsibilities clearly and how they complement one another and how they need each other.

01:20:27.000 And our society has become hyper-feminized.

01:20:30.000 And men have gone into the Peter Pan, lost boy-type mentality.

01:20:35.000 And it creates, like I've said, the most suicidal, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted, depressed generation in history.

01:20:43.000 And so we see that in the testosterone rates that are declining considerably.

01:20:48.000 So how do you go about fixing it?

01:20:49.000 I don't know.

01:20:50.000 We need a society that actually will be willing to say out loud that it's not toxic masculinity.

01:20:55.000 It is necessary masculinity in our society.

01:21:00.000 Thank you for the question.

01:21:01.000 I appreciate it.

01:21:01.000 Thank you, Nick.

01:21:02.000 Thank you.

01:21:03.000 Two more.

01:21:05.000 Hi, Mr. Kirk.

01:21:06.000 How are you?

01:21:07.000 Good.

01:21:07.000 So I'm from New York.

01:21:09.000 I actually just moved here not too long ago.

01:21:10.000 And you spoke about carjackings earlier.

01:21:12.000 My car last week just got stolen down this road.

01:21:16.000 Sorry to hear that.

01:21:17.000 Yeah, the police did absolutely nothing.

01:21:19.000 You know, that's just how it is.

01:21:21.000 Born and raised in Long Island as a conservative.

01:21:24.000 My family is also very conservative.

01:21:26.000 So I'm also a computer science student.

01:21:28.000 I do a lot of software work.

01:21:29.000 So my question to you is: what are your thoughts on big tech?

01:21:32.000 Do you think it's beneficial to society?

01:21:34.000 Do you think that it is something that we need in the future?

01:21:38.000 Something more of, something less of?

01:21:40.000 Startups, what are your kind of thoughts on that?

01:21:42.000 Yeah, it's definitely not good for society, especially in its current form.

01:21:46.000 Big tech has been an incredible damaging effect on society and on young kids.

01:21:52.000 I could go onto this at length, but we need more entrepreneurs.

01:21:55.000 We need to break up Google, especially Google is a monstrosity in more ways than one.

01:22:01.000 And I hope people go to jail for what they did when they used the social media companies to interfere with the 2020 election and prevent voters from being actually able to hear the truth.

01:22:10.000 People need to go to jail for that.

01:22:12.000 So there's a mostly good documentary on Netflix called The Social Dilemma with Tristan Harris.

01:22:19.000 The end is absolute garbage.

01:22:20.000 75% of it's really good, though, which talks about screen time and algorithms and addictive person.

01:22:26.000 You know, that's terrific.

01:22:27.000 The end actually defeats their argument that they say we're never going to be able to solve climate change because these companies only push people what they want.

01:22:34.000 Like, okay, maybe I don't hate them as much as I thought I did.

01:22:37.000 But the movie's actually pretty good about the health of children.

01:22:40.000 And a study literally just came out where it shows that if young women do social media fasting or they limit their social media intake, their body image, their self-body image improves dramatically.

01:22:51.000 After 30 days, depression thoughts, anxious thoughts, suicidal thoughts plummet.

01:22:57.000 These things are doing more damage to our children than we could ever put into words.

01:23:01.000 That's why I don't think a kid should get a smartphone younger than the age of 18.

01:23:04.000 I think it's more damaging than even some of the drugs that they're doing in high school.

01:23:07.000 Thank you.

01:23:08.000 I appreciate that.

01:23:11.000 All right, the final question.

01:23:15.000 Hi, Charlie.

01:23:16.000 I just want to say thank you so much for coming out here, and God bless you.

01:23:19.000 So being from the suburbs of Chicago, I'm pretty sure that you've taken public transport at some time.

01:23:25.000 I'm also from the suburbs of Chicago.

01:23:28.000 And I take the train to school daily.

01:23:31.000 And honestly, the conditions on the train are pretty atrocious.

01:23:36.000 And public security isn't what it used to be.

01:23:38.000 So if some drugged up guy comes running at you, there's really not much you could do.

01:23:42.000 It's terrible.

01:23:42.000 And that's actually happened to me a few times, unfortunately.

01:23:47.000 So my question is: what role as an American-born Middle Eastern, more specifically an Assyrian, could I do to try to not only survive, and I'm not even kidding when I say that, but also to help stop the insanity on the trains?

01:24:01.000 First of all, I just want to emphasize that most of the cowards outside that didn't want to come here tonight said that we were racist.

01:24:09.000 And the vast majority of the comments tonight were from people of every single corner of our beautiful planet because we don't care about race around here.

01:24:19.000 We care about your ideas and your values.

01:24:21.000 So I just think it's been one of the most beautiful question lines we've ever done that make those idiots outside look like what they are.

01:24:28.000 Because all week they're like, they're racist, they're this, they're that.

01:24:31.000 And I mean, think about Brazil, Assyrian, Mexican-American.

01:24:35.000 It's a beautiful picture, right?

01:24:37.000 Because it's values that matter.

01:24:38.000 Skin color does not.

01:24:39.000 Okay, that's a side note.

01:24:40.000 I was just moved by that.

01:24:42.000 Look, here's what I want to encourage you not to do something, though.

01:24:46.000 Don't take things into your own hands.

01:24:48.000 I know that sounds opposite, but where we're at now is that the good guys are actually getting penalized by these DAs, not the actual bad guys.

01:24:59.000 It is such a messed up situation right now.

01:25:01.000 And where if you actually interject yourself and you might, I don't know, let's say that you took like a deranged drug addict, homeless person comes up to you and does something and you slam him down and he has a concussion.

01:25:14.000 The DA might then all of a sudden come after you for assault.

01:25:17.000 That's true.

01:25:18.000 And so I just want to make sure I give you proper advice for self-preservation.

01:25:22.000 There are lines, I think, that if someone is legitimately getting harmed, then insert yourself and do the right thing.

01:25:27.000 And this is, this really, really bothers me.

01:25:32.000 There was a situation in New York about 20 or 30 years ago called the Kitty Genovese Story.

01:25:37.000 I don't know if any of you guys remember that or not.

01:25:38.000 It was largely overblown, but it was a woman that was raped in an alley, and allegedly 20 or 30 people heard it happen, and they did nothing.

01:25:46.000 It really wasn't that many.

01:25:47.000 It was more like three or four people.

01:25:48.000 But the point being is that it really bothered people.

01:25:51.000 This kind of country is this.

01:25:51.000 Who will we do?

01:25:52.000 Little do people know that in Philadelphia, a year and a half ago, a year and a half, summer ago, an illegal was on the train and for 45 minutes raped a woman in broad daylight.

01:26:05.000 No one did anything and stopped six times.

01:26:08.000 And I had a torn take on that on radio because I said, our country is not the country it used to be.

01:26:14.000 You should take it in your own hands.

01:26:15.000 And then I got emails from people in Philadelphia.

01:26:17.000 They said, well, Charlie, if we take it into our own hands, we'll go to jail.

01:26:20.000 And boy, is that the heroes are now getting treated like criminals.

01:26:24.000 And the criminals get off scot-free.

01:26:27.000 And so I don't have a good piece of advice for you personally, but it's a tragedy.

01:26:31.000 I used to take the Metro all the time.

01:26:33.000 I mean, all the time.

01:26:34.000 And literally, it was safe and it was clean.

01:26:36.000 It was on time and orderly.

01:26:38.000 You're telling me that it's not.

01:26:40.000 The Metra is not that bad.

01:26:41.000 It's the CTA.

01:26:42.000 That's more of the problem.

01:26:43.000 Especially the red and blue line.

01:26:44.000 It's horrible.

01:26:45.000 It's actually horrible.

01:26:46.000 So, I mean, that was, I don't know if that's also, you know, declined or descended.

01:26:50.000 So, but that's why I want that Chicago attitude back, that chip on the shoulder.

01:26:55.000 Thank you so much, Charlie.

01:26:56.000 God bless you.

01:26:57.000 Let me close by saying this.

01:26:59.000 I want to thank two groups of people.

01:27:01.000 The university received a lot of pressure not to have this event happen, and they deserve credit for allowing this event to happen.

01:27:06.000 So please give it up for them.

01:27:11.000 Secondly, I want to thank the amazing amount of police that made sure this event could happen tonight.

01:27:17.000 So thank them for that.

01:27:23.000 And the activists outside said they wanted to have a 2.0 of Trump and 16 here at UIC.

01:27:30.000 They lost and we won.

01:27:32.000 And the police were able to have this event go on.

01:27:34.000 As I mentioned earlier, you need to fight for your home.

01:27:37.000 I love this place.

01:27:38.000 Fight for every inch.

01:27:39.000 And that might just mean raising your kids with your values, homeschooling your kids, building and starting churches that are lights in your community, whatever it might be.

01:27:48.000 But my call to action for you tonight, summarizing all of that, is good people need to do more.

01:27:55.000 Good people need, whatever that means for your life, it might just, you might just all of a sudden be hearing a little prick like, oh, I could do more.

01:28:01.000 Everybody can do more.

01:28:02.000 I can do more.

01:28:03.000 You could do more.

01:28:04.000 I know a lot of you here tonight have said, Charlie, I've done everything that's been asked of me.

01:28:07.000 I watched Trucker Carlson.

01:28:09.000 I bought the pillow.

01:28:10.000 I've done everything that has been asked of me.

01:28:13.000 By the way, promo code Kirk at mypillow.com, just so we're clear.

01:28:16.000 And those Giza dream sheets are amazing.

01:28:19.000 It's more than just being a spectator.

01:28:22.000 We need people in the arena.

01:28:24.000 We need participants.

01:28:26.000 And yes, we need it in Chicago and Illinois more than ever.

01:28:29.000 I love this place.

01:28:30.000 I want to see it revitalized.

01:28:32.000 You matter in that.

01:28:33.000 Be courageous and bold and fight for your home.

01:28:36.000 God bless you guys.

01:28:36.000 Thank you so much.

01:28:40.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

01:28:42.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

01:28:45.000 Thanks so much for listening.

01:28:46.000 God bless.

01:28:50.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 15, 2023

My Speech LIVE at University of Illinois-Chicago

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