The Charlie Kirk Show - Permanent Bans and Political Actors with Darren Beattie

00:00:00.000 Jack Visobic filling in for Charlie Kirk here at the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:04.000 We've got an incredible interview here for you today with Darren Beattie talking all about whose fingerprints are really behind the trust and safety initiatives.

00:00:14.000 Also a discussion about leverage.

00:00:17.000 Who has it?

00:00:18.000 Who wields it?

00:00:19.000 And why?

00:00:20.000 Here we go.

00:00:22.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:24.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:26.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:29.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:33.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:34.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:35.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:42.000 Turning point USA. 0.65

00:00:43.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:00:52.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:55.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:04.000 Folks, there's so much going on in our world.

00:01:06.000 People are saying, who has the power?

00:01:09.000 Who has the leverage?

00:01:11.000 Things feel like they're spinning out of control.

00:01:13.000 What are we going to do?

00:01:14.000 What's the plan forward?

00:01:16.000 Where is the still point in a chaotic world?

00:01:20.000 Well, I'm going to tell you something.

00:01:21.000 There is a still point and there is a still point coming because there is a summit.

00:01:26.000 There is a summit afoot.

00:01:27.000 There is a summit that's being planned and your attendance is requested.

00:01:32.000 And that summit is America Fest.

00:01:34.000 A meeting of the minds.

00:01:36.000 Charlie Kirk, myself, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Tim Poole, so many others.

00:01:42.000 Make sure you come because we are going to lay out the plan forward for America.

00:01:48.000 The plan for America 2024, 2025.

00:01:52.000 And maybe, by the way, a few last-minute surprises.

00:01:55.000 Producer Andrew is mentioning here a few surprises that can't quite get into yet, but they're big.

00:02:04.000 Some might say, some might even say huge.

00:02:07.000 We'll see.

00:02:08.000 We'll see.

00:02:08.000 Some surprises coming forward, but folks, make sure you come.

00:02:12.000 And we've got the promo for Amfest.

00:02:15.000 Let's play that now.

00:02:16.000 Pro-American Patriots from Sea to Shining Sea are coming together to reclaim our foundational truths of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

00:02:23.000 Charlie Kirk here.

00:02:24.000 2022 is the year we take back America. 0.73

00:02:27.000 So let's make history again.

00:02:29.000 The movement starts here at Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona.

00:02:32.000 Join us December 17th to the 20th at America Fest.

00:02:36.000 Purchase your tickets right now for the biggest conservative party in America at amfest.com.

00:02:42.000 That is amfest.com, amfest.com.

00:02:45.000 See you there.

00:02:49.000 And I love that ad, but I also want to add the thing that I would love to add to it is that this is not just a party.

00:02:55.000 It's not just a celebration.

00:02:57.000 This is going to be a working group.

00:02:59.000 And so you need to come.

00:03:00.000 As Steve would say, you got to bring your number two pencil.

00:03:04.000 Of course, as Steve would say, your number two brunzel. 1.00

00:03:06.000 He had an R in there.

00:03:06.000 I love it.

00:03:07.000 And we are going to meet and we are going to discuss the way forward for America, the way forward for the movement.

00:03:14.000 And so you need to be there.

00:03:16.000 Phoenix, Arizona.

00:03:18.000 I'm coming, by the way.

00:03:19.000 I'm bringing the family.

00:03:20.000 I'm bringing the boys.

00:03:21.000 I'm bringing Tanya Tay.

00:03:23.000 My parents will be there.

00:03:24.000 Kevin K. Poso, we've yet to confirm his attendance at this point.

00:03:30.000 So I put him down.

00:03:32.000 I said, Kev, I'm going to put you on the list.

00:03:34.000 Make sure you go amfest.com, promo code pozo, get your tickets.

00:03:37.000 But I said, Kev, if you want to come, you can come for the national audience.

00:03:40.000 If you know, Kevin is my brother.

00:03:42.000 We have him on Human Events Daily all the time.

00:03:46.000 We did the trip to Israel.

00:03:49.000 We did the trip to the Holy Land, walked all the way through the lands of the Old Testament, the lands of the New Testament, broke down everything that was going on in there.

00:03:56.000 We traveled to Ukraine together and we rode the night train to Odessa, which became sort of this famous podcast that we did where I actually was able to record on the back of an old Soviet-era train traveling through some of the war-torn area between Lviv and Odessa.

00:04:14.000 We then traveled all the way forward to Mikolaev, Mikolaev, which at the time was the front before Kherson had been before the drawdown of the Russian forces in Kherson across the river.

00:04:25.000 So ton of stuff.

00:04:26.000 Kevin Posobic, my brother, my co-man, my co-co-host, my wingman, what can I say?

00:04:32.000 What can I say?

00:04:32.000 He's been, as he likes to say, he's my first follower.

00:04:35.000 But when we look out at the waterfront today, we see so much that's going on.

00:04:41.000 And one of the key points, getting back to our initial theme of leverage, is power within the United States and power within our country.

00:04:49.000 And a big story, huge story that we've seen come across right now is this defense spending bill because it's coming up with a lame duck session.

00:04:58.000 However, comma, we know this is going to be, all right, we know this is going to be one of the last pieces of legislation that comes before the Republican takeover of the House.

00:05:09.000 And that will happen on January 3rd, speaker's race.

00:05:13.000 However, what we're now seeing, what we're now seeing is news out of the House and news out of the Senate.

00:05:20.000 I've got it from my sourcing that McCarthy's there in the White House, that meeting he had with Biden.

00:05:26.000 One of the demands that he put down on the table was about the vaccine mandate for military.

00:05:31.000 And we were told that the vaccine, and specifically on the House side, we're seeing it on the Senate side as well.

00:05:37.000 Lindsey Graham's on board with this.

00:05:38.000 And, you know, we do bash Lindsey Graham on this show a lot. 0.87

00:05:42.000 If you follow me on Twitter, you know, not exactly a fan of Lindsey Graham, but he's teaming up with Rand Paul this time around.

00:05:48.000 He's teaming up with Rand Paul to get hold of the next military funding bill.

00:05:52.000 Because unless the military gets rid, that they're going to hold it up, unless the military gets rid of its vaccine mandates.

00:05:58.000 And that's actually pretty remarkable.

00:05:59.000 Graham has never once voted against cloture for a defense funding bill.

00:06:04.000 Graham himself is joking that teaming up with Rand Paul like this might be a sign of the end times.

00:06:08.000 Yeah, there's a lot of signs of that right now.

00:06:10.000 But so right now, 20 GOP senators are on board.

00:06:13.000 Here's the count.

00:06:14.000 They would need 21 more to be able to block cloture on military funding bills via filibuster.

00:06:18.000 Of course, if Graham is even open to it, it's mysterious why other Republicans are not.

00:06:22.000 And this isn't just about the rights of soldiers.

00:06:25.000 The Biden vaccine mandate really is damaging our entire military.

00:06:29.000 The military that I was a part of.

00:06:30.000 I'm a proud veteran.

00:06:32.000 But recruitment is down a lot.

00:06:35.000 In fact, according to Bloomberg, it's our worst recruiting crisis since the military went all volunteer 50 years ago.

00:06:42.000 And remember, during that span, we had two deadly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

00:06:45.000 Right now, the vaccine combined with the decay of American people is beating out two point deadly and pointless wars.

00:06:54.000 We might actually be sure.

00:06:55.000 Is this number right?

00:06:56.000 The producer just sent me this number.

00:06:59.000 It can't be that huge.

00:07:00.000 23,000 troop deficit.

00:07:04.000 23,000.

00:07:06.000 This is horrific.

00:07:08.000 This is bad.

00:07:09.000 This is bad, folks.

00:07:10.000 And this shouldn't just be a COVID policy stunt.

00:07:13.000 Republicans should be serious about demanding this, by the way, for the sake of medical freedom and the sake of military readiness.

00:07:18.000 And I'm looking at it now.

00:07:20.000 The U.S., okay, they're sending me the number.

00:07:21.000 The U.S. Army fell short of its 2022 recruitment goal by 25% and recently cut its projection for its total force for this year by 10,000.

00:07:30.000 And I want to couple this, by the way, with John Mearsheimer's warning this week.

00:07:34.000 And by the way, that's the Army alone, not the whole military.

00:07:36.000 That's just the Army.

00:07:37.000 I was Navy.

00:07:38.000 John Mearsheimer and the Mearsheimer warning are very important.

00:07:41.000 I think Steve was talking about this.

00:07:43.000 We talked about it last night on Human Events Daily.

00:07:47.000 Mearsheimer is the man who in 2014 predicted the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

00:07:52.000 Okay.

00:07:53.000 However, what's he talking about now?

00:07:56.000 He's saying that the United States and NATO writ large are currently escalating crises along two axis, two fronts, a potential two-front global conflict.

00:08:11.000 Because as Mearsheimer points out, we're already in a proxy war with Russia.

00:08:17.000 We just are.

00:08:18.000 Okay, we are.

00:08:18.000 Everyone's admitted it.

00:08:21.000 And you don't even need Mearsheimer to say it.

00:08:23.000 It's very obvious.

00:08:24.000 We're actively egging on and escalating things in Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait.

00:08:28.000 Okay.

00:08:29.000 Look, I've been a Chinahawk for 15 years.

00:08:32.000 I moved there in 2016, or excuse me, in 2006.

00:08:38.000 I went to study Mandarin.

00:08:41.000 I went to work there.

00:08:43.000 Ended up living for about two years.

00:08:45.000 Then I joined the U.S. Navy afterwards.

00:08:47.000 And John Mearsheimer, like very respected foreign policy guy, old guy, been around forever, University of Chicago professor, leader of what's called the realist school of thought.

00:08:57.000 And what he says is that the unipolar moment is over.

00:09:02.000 This idea that it was the end of history, that the United States is going to be the global hegemon of the United States, our financial system, our military system, the U.S. dollar, the petrodollar, all of this, moving manufacturing to East Asia while we outsource our energy policy to the Middle East, right?

00:09:21.000 That that system would live forever, but that's done.

00:09:23.000 That's what Mearsheimer is saying.

00:09:24.000 He's saying that system is done.

00:09:26.000 And now that we are in a three great power world, three great powers, United States, Russia, and China.

00:09:35.000 We're already in a hot proxy war with one.

00:09:38.000 And we're potentially another hot war with the other.

00:09:43.000 Is he talking about World War III?

00:09:45.000 Send it a question.

00:09:46.000 Senators your comments on this.

00:09:47.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com, the Mearsheimer warning.

00:09:50.000 Remember, this is the guy.

00:09:51.000 This is the guy who in 2014 predicted the outbreak of war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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00:10:52.000 And if you knew someone paying rent, tell them about Andrew and Todd.

00:10:55.000 Go to andrewandtodd.com and tell them the Charlie Kirk show sent you.

00:11:02.000 Okay, and remember, send in your emails, freedomatcharlikirk.com.

00:11:06.000 We're going to start going through those because I want to ask you guys about these.

00:11:10.000 Let's focus on two questions right now.

00:11:12.000 Let's focus on two questions.

00:11:13.000 Number one, first off, the question of power when it comes to freedom of speech over the internet.

00:11:18.000 You heard Senator Warren there.

00:11:20.000 Should one person have the power over what we are and we're not allowed to say?

00:11:25.000 And we have a specific question, and it's really, put it this way.

00:11:28.000 We have a specific question and then we have a wider question.

00:11:31.000 The specific question is, should Kanye West have been permanently banned from Twitter?

00:11:37.000 Okay.

00:11:38.000 And I'm not, I don't want to argue whether or not, you know, what he posted was controversial.

00:11:42.000 It's obviously controversial, right?

00:11:44.000 Of course, it's controversial what he posted and everything that he said yesterday, too.

00:11:48.000 But the question we have, the broader question is, should we agree with permanent bans?

00:11:53.000 Do we want this?

00:11:55.000 And, you know, we got our first email in here from Lynn saying saying something and or doing something are two different things. 0.79

00:12:03.000 How many parents have said, I'm going to kill him, but of course never do.

00:12:07.000 Free speech isn't free if someone or something says you can't.

00:12:10.000 We've lost the ability to shrug it off.

00:12:12.000 That's what too many in power want.

00:12:14.000 However, Ye does sound like he needs specific help.

00:12:18.000 That was interesting.

00:12:19.000 Let's see what our next one.

00:12:20.000 This is from Yan.

00:12:21.000 He said he should not be banned as he had not incited violence.

00:12:24.000 Many labels have been placed on him, but it just goes to show if Jesus was alive today, he would get crucified all over again.

00:12:30.000 Ye said quite clearly he loves everybody who is a human, be it the people who are against him or the people who are with him.

00:12:36.000 I don't see any hate coming from him, but I do see a lot of hate going towards him, though.

00:12:41.000 Interesting.

00:12:42.000 And so, so here's my take before was that I remember Elon saying that he didn't agree with permanent lifetime bans.

00:12:49.000 And I think that's right.

00:12:51.000 But I also do understand that, okay, if you're going to have an app, if you're going to have something that's on the app store, which by the way is a total monopoly that we need to get away with, that's actually a duopoly because you have the Apple Store and you have the Play Store at Google.

00:13:02.000 But are there going to just be, is it going to be a complete free-for-all on Twitter?

00:13:06.000 Well, no.

00:13:06.000 Of course, there are certain things that are legal that you have to get rid of.

00:13:09.000 And there are certain content guidelines that are required by many areas like the EU.

00:13:14.000 So if you're going to, if you're going to have something like that, then it needs to be specifically outlined, needs to be specifically outlined.

00:13:20.000 But at the same time, ALX, who is going to be coming up, I'm going to steal his thunder yet.

00:13:24.000 He's coming up later on the show.

00:13:26.000 But this is, he's got an idea for us.

00:13:29.000 He's got an op-ed that he wrote in the Washington Times a little while back with where he talked about a potential phased system, whereby if you do end up breaking one of the rules, you do end up breaking one of the guidelines that you can still get your account back.

00:13:42.000 And look, obviously, Elon's facing pressure as well, right?

00:13:46.000 So when you look at Twitter, you have to understand Elon's running it as a business.

00:13:51.000 And so his pressure is advertisers, the EU threats.

00:13:54.000 They're valid.

00:13:56.000 However, the EU bureaucrats are threatening to ban Twitter if they don't censor more.

00:14:01.000 Why should the U.S. put up with this?

00:14:04.000 Right.

00:14:04.000 And this is something, by the way, let's go back to the leverage question, because if we have leverage, right?

00:14:12.000 Our Congress has leverage too.

00:14:14.000 Why are we paying for Europe's defense?

00:14:16.000 Why are we paying for the proxy war in Ukraine if they're going to turn around and tell our companies what they can and can't do?

00:14:24.000 How about you buzz off Euros because we're the United States of America and this is how we decide?

00:14:30.000 Who are you to tell our companies what they can and can't do and who they can and can't have on their platforms?

00:14:35.000 I don't like that power dynamic either.

00:14:37.000 Okay, I don't like it at all.

00:14:39.000 And so I would, you know, the Republicans in Congress or anyone in Congress who has a backbone, has any spine whatsoever, show your leverage.

00:14:48.000 Show your leverage.

00:14:49.000 Say, okay, well, if you guys want to go and handle your own defense, that's fine.

00:14:53.000 Go ahead and do it.

00:14:54.000 But of course, if we're going to pull back, sorry about that. 0.73

00:14:58.000 Sorry about the cold, cold winter that you guys have put yourselves in because you outsourced your energy policy to a crazy young girl who has no idea what she's talking about.

00:15:07.000 And now you don't have any way to heat your homes and the Germans are chopping down the forest like it's the Middle Ages again. 0.99

00:15:14.000 All right.

00:15:15.000 You put yourself in this situation, not us, not us.

00:15:19.000 So don't come to us trying to tell us how it is that we are supposed to conduct ourselves, our companies, how they are supposed to conduct ourselves.

00:15:27.000 Who are you?

00:15:28.000 Who are you? 0.60

00:15:28.000 Buzz off. 0.60

00:15:29.000 Buzz off.

00:15:30.000 Don't like that energy at all.

00:15:32.000 And again, this, by the way, this weekend on human events, we've got a huge special for you guys, myself, Matt Tierman, all about Brazil, the uprisings in Brazil and the CCP, what's coming on there.

00:15:43.000 Next up, Darren Beattie, a bombshell news story exposing more of the partisan tampering of Eric Holder when it comes to Apple, when it comes to what I call the disinformation archipelago.

00:15:58.000 These NGOs, these shadowy, sinister groups that operate outside the confines of our government and yet come in the same way the Europeans are trying to come in and tell us who can and can't on the internet. 0.83

00:16:14.000 This is the new, the new MAGA, right?

00:16:16.000 The new MAGA, Meta, Apple, Google, and Amazon, the new MAGA that's out there.

00:16:21.000 I don't know if I like that MAGA.

00:16:22.000 I'm going to stick with the OG MAGA.

00:16:25.000 I've been OG MAGA since 2015.

00:16:27.000 I don't know if I like this new MAGA.

00:16:28.000 Let's get rid of them.

00:16:29.000 Buzz off. 0.81

00:16:30.000 You can all buzz off.

00:16:31.000 For us, it's just MAGA forever.

00:16:36.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:17:38.000 And we have Darren Beatty, editor, publisher, founder, Revolver News, is coming up right here for us with an excellent story about Eric Holder.

00:17:47.000 But Darren, I got to ask you first: the Kanye West permanent ban.

00:17:52.000 So we're talking about that today and we're talking about the question of leverage and power in America, leverage and power over Twitter.

00:17:59.000 What do you make of the Kanye West permanent ban?

00:18:03.000 Let's ask that before we get into this Eric Holder situation.

00:18:07.000 Well, we'll have to see whether it's actually permanent.

00:18:12.000 I mean, there is a special advantage to having a direct line to Elon, and it's clear that Kanye or Ye or whatever, whatever he's called, he has that direct line.

00:18:23.000 And so I think deep down, you know, Elon, just like Jack Dorsey, you know, nobody believes in sort of permanent punishment without any opportunity for redemption.

00:18:36.000 So we'll just have to see how it plays out.

00:18:39.000 As to the policy itself, I mean, it certainly contradicts Elon's previously stated preference that basically we go by what legal speech is.

00:18:51.000 So assuming that Kanye said nothing illegal, which I don't think he did, he shouldn't be banned for it.

00:18:58.000 But it's a practical matter.

00:19:00.000 We live in a practical world.

00:19:02.000 Elon is far more practical, I think, than a lot of people imagine.

00:19:07.000 And it could very well just be the practical, messy reality that Elon's done a tremendous amount for Twitter already.

00:19:17.000 And he needs to offer a couple sacrifices to the censors in order to keep up what he's been doing, at least at these initial stages.

00:19:28.000 And I think we can all probably agree that Ye was certainly testing the limits and making things difficult for Elon.

00:19:37.000 So maybe it's just as a matter of practical reality, that's what Elon had to do, even though it violates his stated preference of just saying, okay, if it's legal speech, it should be allowed on Twitter, at least for American users.

00:19:52.000 Do you think it could be argued that this banning specifically is actually less about content and more about timing?

00:19:59.000 In what sense?

00:20:01.000 Well, in the sense that he's just purchased the thing.

00:20:05.000 He's just getting it under his reins, so to speak.

00:20:10.000 He's really in this situation.

00:20:12.000 However, this is a decisive climactic period.

00:20:17.000 And with his tweet, of course, Elon with his mess around and find out tweet, he seemed upset, obviously.

00:20:25.000 To your point, he seemed personally upset.

00:20:28.000 Well, he's personally, yeah, I think he's personally upset because I think he has a personal relationship with Ye, and I think they got along great.

00:20:36.000 And, you know, based on his public statements, again, you know, we can, in theory, support free speech, but based on his public statements, Ye would make things pretty damn difficult for Elon.

00:20:48.000 He put Elon in a very difficult position.

00:20:50.000 Right, right.

00:20:51.000 My point, I guess, is, let's say this happened six months from now, right?

00:20:55.000 Would it have been the same situation?

00:20:57.000 Would it have been as decisive for Elon?

00:21:03.000 We'll have to see how it plays out.

00:21:04.000 You know, Elon could be in a worse position in six months, depending on how things equilibriate.

00:21:10.000 That's still very much an unwritten story.

00:21:12.000 But I think your basic point is extremely valid.

00:21:15.000 And the difference between Elon and Ye is very instructive, like irrespective of all the stuff that he's saying.

00:21:24.000 But Ye is seemingly on a kind of kamikaze mission, whereas Elon is not trying to be a kamikaze.

00:21:32.000 Ye is actually trying to build something sustainable.

00:21:36.000 And in the early stages of doing that, I mean, frankly, I think he's already gone a lot farther and a lot harder than I would have ever imagined in these initial stages without building up the infrastructure.

00:21:48.000 And it seems like at least initially his first real test was how is he going to negotiate things with Apple?

00:21:55.000 That was a real lever point the regime had against him.

00:21:58.000 And it looks like for now, at least, he was able to smooth things over.

00:22:01.000 He was able to say, look, I'm not going to back down from this.

00:22:04.000 So if you want to have this fight, we'll have this fight.

00:22:07.000 He met with Tim Cook, and it looks like the Apple lever is neutralized, at least for the time being.

00:22:15.000 So I think he's doing an excellent job under the circumstances.

00:22:20.000 What's your take?

00:22:21.000 What's your sense of this other take that's been out there as well of the idea of Musk the monarch, Elon I of Twitter, that he has these policies, but then when it comes to someone like the Alex Jones, where he said he's not going to bring him back and he meant he brought up his own son and a situation that personally had affected him, here you're pointing out that obviously there is a personal direct situation with Kanye.

00:22:50.000 So is that one way to look at it as well, that we may get more of Elon I type situations where there's one set of rules for sort of the common user, but there may be these sort of, I don't know, idiosyncratic bans along personal whims?

00:23:06.000 Well, I mean, I think that's unavoidable in any kind of regime.

00:23:10.000 It's just the question of how transparent it is.

00:23:12.000 And I think it's more transparent under Elon's tutelage.

00:23:17.000 But as we've seen a little glimpse of what happens behind the curtain and, you know, Twitter under previous management, which is far more censorious, it's the same kind of deal.

00:23:26.000 It's just, you know, the government saying, oh, you got to get this person.

00:23:29.000 And, you know, but ultimately it's people making these decisions on the basis of arbitrary standards.

00:23:38.000 And I guess you could advocate some kind of principle to make it less arbitrary.

00:23:44.000 But even those principles would have to be interpreted on a case-by-case basis.

00:23:49.000 And as I kind of mentioned on my last appearance on Tim Pool, I think if we're looking to maximize speech and freedom on Twitter, the seemingly arbitrary approach can actually probably get us further than principles that have to be kind of neutrally applied everywhere.

00:24:10.000 Because unless Elon's willing to go First Amendment standard, which I don't think is tenable as a practical matter in this early stage, instead of just saying, okay, in Alex Jones's specific case, I'm banning him, he'd have to come up with a principle.

00:24:26.000 And that net would entail banning a bunch of other people along with Alex Jones.

00:24:31.000 So if you actually look at it, I think we might be better off with the kind of the arbitrary standard plus transparency to go with it, which we didn't have under the previous.

00:24:43.000 I certainly agree with you that having the transparency of Elon, just telling you, just tell, I am banning this person and here is why.

00:24:51.000 Even yesterday, you know, and I've been on Twitter for way too much and far too long, but he even posted something and said, hey, we are conducting a bot ban.

00:25:00.000 You may lose followers.

00:25:01.000 Twitter has never said that before, ever.

00:25:03.000 You would wake up and followers would be gone.

00:25:05.000 You have no idea what's going on.

00:25:07.000 So I do agree with you that it's been far more transparent than this sort of Kafka-esque, you know, labyrinthine process of I actually love in Kafka's trial in the original German, the title is Der Process.

00:25:23.000 That's just so perfect.

00:25:25.000 Yes, Der Process, because that's what we had before.

00:25:28.000 We had Der Process, and you had never, even in the novel, Kafka's never actually told what the crime is that he's being charged with.

00:25:35.000 And at the very end, he's led off to execution.

00:25:37.000 No, it's a perfect point.

00:25:38.000 That's basically what it was before.

00:25:40.000 It's a perfect point.

00:25:41.000 Before, what we had was an arbitrariness without transparency and therefore without accountability.

00:25:48.000 And at least like with Elon making these decisions, and again, I think he's pretty close to limiting the concessions to the regime to the, you know, the bare minimum of what he has to offer.

00:26:07.000 But even in those cases, it's very clear what's going on.

00:26:10.000 And so there is a form of accountability to Elon for what he's doing.

00:26:16.000 And, you know, even, yeah, the bot ban thing, it's like, you know, if Twitter were to just do that before, it could help to sort of clarify a lot of things.

00:26:26.000 People aren't thinking, oh, they're, I'm losing followers because of this or that.

00:26:30.000 Okay, well, you're getting rid of spam bots.

00:26:33.000 So I think he's really approached it from a kind of sensible, he's taken a sensible approach, and it's a difficult thing.

00:26:42.000 He's playing with for the highest stakes.

00:26:45.000 And so I continue to give him the benefit of the doubt and see how things work out over the course of the next six months or so.

00:26:52.000 I appreciate that.

00:26:53.000 No, let's get into a little bit, though, about their process and their process is dare punishment, because you have a new story up at Revolver that's basically all about how this sausage was being made, not just to Twitter, but Apple and others.

00:27:09.000 And an interesting name that I think everyone will be familiar with that I don't even, but I don't think people knew they were associated.

00:27:15.000 He was associated with what you and I have referred to in the past as the disinformation archipelago.

00:27:20.000 And we did a great episode.

00:27:22.000 I think it's actually still our number one episode at Human Events Daily on Rumble.

00:27:27.000 Went absolutely viral talking about all of this.

00:27:30.000 Tell us about your new piece.

00:27:32.000 Well, there was this recent kerfuffle with Apple.

00:27:35.000 Apple has insane, a really obscene amount of leverage over everything on the internet, including Twitter, any kind of app.

00:27:45.000 And, you know, it begs a question because, you know, Yoel Roth, the former head of trust and safety, was calling for, you know, the regime, calling for Apple to use its leverage to basically kneecap Twitter and say, well, who's the trust and safety equivalent and Apple who would play a critical role in this decision-making process?

00:28:05.000 Now, the current person there has zero online footprint other than a lesbian wedding registry.

00:28:12.000 Zero, which is amazing.

00:28:14.000 Someone of that level having zero online footprint.

00:28:17.000 But her predecessor, who was in charge during the critical months leading up to and during the 2020 election and the whole aftermath involving the January 6th censorship blanket, this is someone that we were able to find out about.

00:28:33.000 And this person just happens to be Eric Holder's right-hand woman.

00:28:37.000 And Eric Holder, the Eric Holder himself, apparently was involved in this trust and safety department during the 2020 election.

00:28:47.000 Well, he was involved by proxy, by inference, because the story is Margaret Richardson, the woman who was head of trust and safety, was basically Eric Holder's right hand throughout the entirety of his tenure in the Obama regime.

00:29:04.000 She was, you know, it's partisan enough.

00:29:07.000 She was part of the Women for Obama.

00:29:09.000 She joined the presidential transition committee and then went straight to work as Eric Holder's counselor at the Department of Justice in January 2009.

00:29:24.000 And she remained with Holder throughout the entire regime, going all the way up to Eric Holder's chief of staff.

00:29:30.000 And then just to give a sense of how connected she was to Holder, she followed him everywhere in post-administration appointments.

00:29:39.000 She followed him to Airbnb and to Covington, the law firm.

00:29:45.000 Like she was everywhere with him.

00:29:47.000 So this is the person that we need to pay attention to.

00:29:54.000 The 2020 election, trust and safety.

00:29:57.000 I love the names, by the way.

00:29:59.000 Trust and safety.

00:30:01.000 I feel like, sure, you could trust us.

00:30:05.000 It's amazing.

00:30:06.000 I digress.

00:30:06.000 Please continue what you were telling us about Margaret Richardson, this person, and why did she have the level of influence?

00:30:12.000 And specifically, what did she use this influence and again, leverage for? 0.99

00:30:17.000 No, it's a great question.

00:30:18.000 And yes, in case anyone doesn't know, trust and safety is sort of the Orwellian label whereby many major tech companies sort of conduct their censorship, content moderation, disinformation type operations.

00:30:38.000 Yeah, the Ministry of Trust and Safety.

00:30:40.000 Exactly.

00:30:41.000 Sometimes it's called trust and safety.

00:30:43.000 There's another word that all of these people love to use, ironically, integrity.

00:30:52.000 Trust and integrity.

00:30:54.000 There are variations, but the standard version is trust and safety.

00:30:58.000 And it's amazing when you actually look at the people who are placed in these positions because you would think companies at this level would at least try to maintain appearances.

00:31:11.000 They would at least be, so to speak, optics pilled and have people who conduct themselves with the pretense of a kind of disinterested, nonpartisan, Non-profit.

00:31:25.000 Have taken a marketing class or something exactly.

00:31:28.000 And just to give you a sense of how ridiculous is so, the the recently departed head of trust and safety for Twitter yes, um Yoel, who has no kind of distinguished background to speak of at all, but for his much celebrated dissertation.

00:31:46.000 I'm not making this up. 0.78

00:31:47.000 The guy wrote a dissertation on the gay dating app Grinder and this guy goes from that to heading trust and safety on Twitter, which gives you a sense of how ridiculous it is. 0.93

00:32:01.000 And the case of Apple, which is arguably even more ridiculous and sinister, it was run by this woman, Margaret Richardson. 0.91

00:32:10.000 And again, Apple is like the biggest company in the entire world by market cap.

00:32:16.000 They have a market cap of like $2.4 trillion.

00:32:21.000 It's mind-boggling what a huge and serious company this is.

00:32:27.000 And of all the people on the planet that they could have chosen to be the public face of their content moderation decision making, they choose a woman who was on the Obama campaign as a woman for Obama.

00:32:41.000 And of all the people that she was associated with the Obama administration, she's associated with as the right-hand woman by his side as of January 2009, Eric Holder, arguably the most partisan and aggressive hack in the entire Obama apparatus.

00:33:02.000 And this is who's making the critical censorship decisions for Apple.

00:33:07.000 It really just exposes the entire sham of trust and safety.

00:33:12.000 They don't even bother to fake it.

00:33:14.000 They pick people like this.

00:33:16.000 And, you know, it's one thing you see how partisan she is with the censorship.

00:33:21.000 But let's think about the trust version too.

00:33:24.000 People forget about the scandals that Eric Holder is involved in.

00:33:28.000 I think as one of the few cabinet officials to be held in contempt of Congress, he was the guy behind Fast and Furious gun running operation.

00:33:39.000 Margaret Richardson was by his side while the entire Fast and Furious thing was conducted and then blew up in Eric Holder's face.

00:33:49.000 That doesn't sound like a trustworthy person to me.

00:33:52.000 And so if you go to this woman's Twitter and it's just like littered with, you know, she's retweeting Michelle Obama's tweets about George Floyd.

00:34:01.000 It's like you just can't make it up.

00:34:04.000 And it's so egregious to think that someone who's this aggressively and nakedly partisan would be placed in that kind of position at the world's largest and most powerful company.

00:34:17.000 I mean, you take someone like that and have them in charge and incredible work, by the way.

00:34:23.000 And everyone should go to Revolver because, you know, we've discovered, you've discovered another revolver in a sense, but in this case, it's a revolving door, a revolving door.

00:34:34.000 But instead of it's not just the bankers going into government, which we saw in the Obama administration, particularly with Goldman Sachs, we're now seeing political actors going into tech, going back to tech, going back into government, in and out and in and out the entire time.

00:34:49.000 It's like a, you know, but, you know, they're still, they're still all agents of the foot clan, you know, right at this point.

00:34:56.000 They're still all working as maybe that's what Kanye was trying to show us yesterday with his mask, you know.

00:35:05.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:07.000 Email me your thoughts as always freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:10.000 Thank you so much for listening.

00:35:11.000 God bless.

00:35:16.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 02, 2022

Permanent Bans and Political Actors with Darren Beattie

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