The Charlie Kirk Show - June 22, 2023


Sinking Feeling with Blake Neff and Ann Atkinson


Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

181.15048

Word count

7,243

Sentence count

567

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

35

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

On this episode of Freedom, the crew of a Boeing submarine is missing, and the search and recovery efforts are on. Will they make it back to port in time? or will they be crushed to death by the pressure of trying to get back to the surface before it s too late?

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Tana Charlie Kirk Show and Atkinson, who is right in the middle of the Arizona State University controversy that we were involved in, joins our program.
00:00:09.000 And then Blake from our new Rumble show, smart guy, we riff on the submarine story that we just can't stop thinking about or talking about.
00:00:18.000 Time is running out.
00:00:19.000 It's a tragedy.
00:00:20.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and get involved with TurningpointUSA, tpusa.com.
00:00:25.000 That is tpusa.com.
00:00:26.000 Sorry, high school or college chapter today.
00:00:28.000 And email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:31.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:32.000 Here, we go.
00:00:33.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:35.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
00:00:37.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:40.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:44.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:45.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:46.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
00:00:53.000 Turning point USA. 0.65
00:00:54.000 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.
00:01:03.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:06.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
00:01:15.000 Blake, welcome back.
00:01:16.000 Hi, Charlie.
00:01:17.000 So we have this submarine story, and so I figured we'd have our resident submarine expert, Blake Neff, walk us through this.
00:01:24.000 This is like the number one news story on the planet right now.
00:01:26.000 Yeah, it feels very much like it's like 2013.
00:01:29.000 Remember, before Donald Trump changed everything, you'd have dry periods in the news where we'd just talk about a missing aircraft plane.
00:01:37.000 Remember the black hole theory on CNN?
00:01:39.000 Exactly.
00:01:39.000 Yeah, the plane disappeared into a black hole, or this person went missing in a Caribbean island, and we're going to explore everything about it.
00:01:46.000 This is what the news used to be.
00:01:48.000 We used to have stories that weren't about politics.
00:01:50.000 And, you know, it's kind of refreshing.
00:01:51.000 And, you know, you get invested in human drama that's not just about an election or whatever.
00:01:56.000 So let's go through the facts.
00:01:57.000 So this is, it actually has a lot of interesting layers to it, right?
00:02:01.000 So many.
00:02:01.000 There's like actually a political, there is a political angle to this.
00:02:05.000 A little bit.
00:02:05.000 Surprisingly.
00:02:06.000 Well, there's a piece of tape that is a little bit political, right?
00:02:11.000 As far as his selection of who is involved.
00:02:14.000 Well, so we'll start with the, you know, the big picture, which is this is a company that does dives down to the Titanic wreck.
00:02:22.000 That's a pretty formidable endeavor.
00:02:23.000 It's almost three miles underwater.
00:02:25.000 That's that's a lot deeper than like a U.S. Navy sub will have to go for example.
00:02:29.000 Is that right?
00:02:30.000 You really have to design a special submarine.
00:02:33.000 The pressure is enormous.
00:02:34.000 It has to be totally airtight or it'll just get crushed to the size of that coffee cup there.
00:02:39.000 And really, like a whole sub just going down to I'm guesstimated on those guys, but you can get crushed really, you know, it takes a lot of technology to do that.
00:02:47.000 So this company has a sub that does dives.
00:02:50.000 It's very expensive.
00:02:52.000 I believe the people who are participating in these dives, they pay up to $250,000 to ride on this submarine down to explore the wreck of the Titanic.
00:03:04.000 And so this company is selling these, and there's all these clips that have come forward since it went missing.
00:03:09.000 So, you know, people have noticed the submarine, they pilot it with this video game controller.
00:03:15.000 Which we actually have one right there to use our camera, right, Terrell?
00:03:18.000 We use a video game controller, don't we?
00:03:20.000 Yeah.
00:03:21.000 So then you guys could run a submarine, Terrell.
00:03:24.000 Terrell, he could do it.
00:03:26.000 It's literally like a Logitech controller.
00:03:28.000 Like it's got, you know, the Xbox, you know, green, yellow, red, blue buttons.
00:03:32.000 And, you know, maybe that works fine, but it's sort of, it adds a slight element of absurdity to it.
00:03:39.000 Yeah.
00:03:39.000 And then also, can we put a picture of this on?
00:03:42.000 It's an Xbox controller, is what it looks like.
00:03:44.000 Is that Xbox?
00:03:45.000 I think it's literally a third-party controller.
00:03:47.000 I think I saw Logitech, but don't trust me on that one.
00:03:51.000 But you could definitely use it for something like that.
00:03:54.000 And then there's also this video that we might have where, you know, they're talking about who they hire to pilot.
00:04:00.000 No, we do.
00:04:01.000 I want to play this.
00:04:02.000 So just so we're clear, they pay $250,000 a head for this.
00:04:05.000 It's been up to that high.
00:04:06.000 It might have been less on this one.
00:04:08.000 But this had a lot of fanfare and a lot of buildup.
00:04:12.000 I saw an article before this.
00:04:13.000 I was like, okay, whatever. 1.00
00:04:14.000 Rich guy doing something weird and stupid. 0.98
00:04:16.000 But now this is becoming a real thing because there was a fair amount of skepticism on the buildup of this of like, do you really know what you're doing? 0.99
00:04:24.000 You're going 13,000 feet deep, which is an extraordinary dive.
00:04:28.000 I mean, just to go 200 feet deep, the pressure is incredible.
00:04:31.000 13,000.
00:04:32.000 Okay, this is cut 50 on who they hire and why they hire them.
00:04:37.000 Play cut 50.
00:04:38.000 Yes, I mean, when I started the business, one of the things you'll find there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military sub-mariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys. 0.54
00:04:53.000 I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, and I'm not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology.
00:05:02.000 Okay, so he said, usually you have a bunch of 50-year-old white guys military.
00:05:06.000 I want our team to be inspirational, but are they operational?
00:05:10.000 They're inspiring people a lot as we try to rescue them, I suppose.
00:05:14.000 Yeah, so what is the latest?
00:05:15.000 We're hearing, I'd imagine that if we're hearing noise, they're inside trying to.
00:05:20.000 So they are picking up some sort of like a banging sound.
00:05:24.000 We don't know for sure that it's them, but they seem to believe it's something unusual.
00:05:29.000 And it's hitting at some sort of regular interview.
00:05:32.000 I think they said every half hour, which makes sense because this thing has about four days of oxygen.
00:05:38.000 It can last 96 hours.
00:05:40.000 96 hours.
00:05:41.000 And you're going to lose oxygen faster if you're bang, bang, banging on this thing constantly.
00:05:47.000 So it makes more sense to just do something regularly every 30 minutes or so to show like we're here, but we're not, you know, going crazy.
00:05:55.000 So with an interval, spacing it out.
00:05:57.000 Spacing it out.
00:05:58.000 So it sounds, you know, it doesn't sound natural that you can pick up that it's some sort of artificial human done thing.
00:06:03.000 But I mean, again, I'm a bit a layman on this.
00:06:07.000 You still have to approximate the source of the noise, right?
00:06:09.000 I mean, you now maybe have a hundred mile radius.
00:06:12.000 Yes.
00:06:12.000 And so we have to be honest, it is still, I don't even know.
00:06:14.000 It's probably much larger than that.
00:06:16.000 Like they are picking this up, but they haven't found the sub yet.
00:06:18.000 And they don't even know the depth, though, either.
00:06:20.000 That's the other question.
00:06:21.000 And they don't know the depth.
00:06:23.000 Or, you know, is it one of the theories is it inside the Titanic or is it just somewhere near the Titanic?
00:06:29.000 We don't know.
00:06:29.000 We haven't found it.
00:06:30.000 And they have basically until tomorrow afternoon, I believe, before they think it runs out of oxygen.
00:06:36.000 And so the Titanic is off of Newfoundland, right?
00:06:42.000 It's off Newfoundland, but it's pretty far out.
00:06:43.000 We're several hundred miles out, but that is the closest.
00:06:46.000 So but the search area was the size of Connecticut, right?
00:06:48.000 Yeah, it's a huge search area.
00:06:51.000 And if especially if it lost power, you know, it could have floated who knows where.
00:06:56.000 And they've been covering a huge, they thought it might have popped up onto the surface and lost communication.
00:07:01.000 So they searched a huge area for it on the surface.
00:07:03.000 They haven't found it yet if it is there.
00:07:06.000 And so they do seem pretty confident that it is underwater somewhere near the Titanic, but it is a very, it is a very challenging search and mix.
00:07:14.000 So even if they found it, what would they do?
00:07:18.000 How do you in time get another sub to that depth safely to then careen or carry the other sub up?
00:07:27.000 Yeah, you definitely would need to.
00:07:29.000 It does.
00:07:30.000 And if you have to like pull it up, then yeah, you need a submarine that can go down three almost three miles, two and a half miles, attach some sort of cable and essentially winch it up.
00:07:40.000 And that's not every submarine that can dive that deep can actually do something like that.
00:07:45.000 And so they said there's only three operating submarines in the world that can go to the depth of the Titanic.
00:07:49.000 My guess is Russia has two of them.
00:07:52.000 Russia does have submarines like this.
00:07:54.000 One of them had a fire on it a few years ago.
00:07:56.000 It was a big deal.
00:07:56.000 Oh, really?
00:07:57.000 They're known for submarine culture, right?
00:08:00.000 That was like a big thing World War II, post-World War II.
00:08:04.000 Soviets loved investing in submarines. 0.91
00:08:06.000 Yeah, and they had a very good tech for it because you would dive really deep and then you can do things like bug an underseas cable or do other sorts of unconventional surveillance.
00:08:16.000 So they do have a history of that.
00:08:17.000 I don't know what the status is right now in terms of what subs they have operational and what everyone else has, but it is a huge technical feat.
00:08:25.000 If I would say, if you want to put it in perspective, if they successfully salvage this submarine, it will probably be like as impressive as getting Apollo 13 home, for example.
00:08:36.000 Yeah.
00:08:36.000 Really?
00:08:37.000 The Houston, we have a problem.
00:08:39.000 Yeah, like getting that deep into the ocean.
00:08:42.000 But this quickly, though.
00:08:43.000 But I mean, this quickly.
00:08:44.000 I think it's even crazier than Apollo 13.
00:08:46.000 Yeah.
00:08:46.000 I mean, you have to mobilize a sub of somebody who knows what they're doing, find the other sub, and then be able to bring it up.
00:08:52.000 Yeah, actually, it might be a comparison might be if to rescue Apollo 13, you had to shoot another Apollo into space to rescue it.
00:08:59.000 Whereas Apollo 13, we could get home.
00:09:01.000 We were still in community.
00:09:01.000 Yeah, but you have to find a crew that's also like willing to do it.
00:09:05.000 And just to get to that atmosphere, I think it's ATM is what they call it, right?
00:09:10.000 Atmosphere equivalents.
00:09:11.000 Atmosphere equivalents.
00:09:12.000 You can't go quick.
00:09:13.000 You have to descend, or else you're under massive hyperbaric pressure, right?
00:09:19.000 I mean, meaning you just can't be like, it's not like an airplane.
00:09:22.000 Go to 30,000 feet in six minutes.
00:09:24.000 From what I understand, there's a descent limit.
00:09:27.000 You have to pressurize as you go.
00:09:28.000 Is that that is approximately?
00:09:31.000 I don't understand.
00:09:32.000 I don't have in front of me.
00:09:33.000 I don't know how quickly they can do it in these cases, but yes, that's pretty standard.
00:09:38.000 So there might not be as bad.
00:09:40.000 When you really have to pressurize, it's often when they have to do like work underwater, like when they, you know, Navy deep sea divers.
00:09:46.000 Sure.
00:09:46.000 So I don't know if it's exactly the same with just a ship that's descending, like, you know, a submarine like this that's descending.
00:09:52.000 So we really don't know what the issue is.
00:09:53.000 And so my other question is: how did all their comms get cut off?
00:09:57.000 That's for sure.
00:09:58.000 All their sonar, does sonar works at that depth or no?
00:10:01.000 I'm not sure on the exact technical specs of that.
00:10:05.000 They do claim to have a lot of redundant safety features, but people have pointed out that like, well, the company claims they have these safety features and also their submarine just sank.
00:10:15.000 So, okay, I want to talk about another lesson from this, which is when you have a one of the guys is a billionaire. 0.99
00:10:23.000 How should we, as laymen, think of rich people spending their money in a really stupid way? 0.91
00:10:29.000 Because this was not exactly, this is not like I'm going to go climb Everest, okay? 0.98
00:10:33.000 This is something that is a lot fringier.
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00:12:07.000 Blake, am I being unfair and play the devil's advocate that we should just roll our eyes when rich people do really stupid things? 0.90
00:12:15.000 Well, I think there's something very beautiful about humanity that we want to go out and find and achieve things. 0.97
00:12:23.000 Like we want to climb the tallest mountain.
00:12:25.000 Like why would you climb Mount Everest?
00:12:27.000 Like we're not going to find anything.
00:12:28.000 That's been a goal of mine.
00:12:28.000 I agree.
00:12:30.000 We want to do it because it's there, as Mallory said.
00:12:35.000 You want to go beyond.
00:12:37.000 You want to find something new or go where very few people have gone.
00:12:42.000 And yeah, sometimes this manifests in ways that are a little silly or quixotic, as I think the vocab term would be.
00:12:50.000 And in this case, it resulted in what could very well be a tragedy where five people die.
00:12:56.000 But I think we would lose a lot if we didn't have people doing that sort of thing.
00:13:00.000 And so I guess, I mean, let's pretend they die, which unfortunately the smart money is on their death.
00:13:05.000 Is that correct right now?
00:13:06.000 I mean, I don't want to be morbid, but that's just the way it's looking.
00:13:08.000 It is a very tough rescue mission that they're looking at at this point.
00:13:12.000 Unless something changes and they're able to ascend.
00:13:14.000 And by the way, somebody emailed us.
00:13:15.000 They said, you can go down fast.
00:13:17.000 You must come up slow.
00:13:20.000 I've worked with offshore divers for years.
00:13:22.000 I learned that you can go down quickly, but they must come up slowly or decompress on the surface to allow gases, primarily nitrogen, I think, in the body to be reabsorbed.
00:13:31.000 Thank you.
00:13:31.000 We have some amazing listeners.
00:13:33.000 But I guess this is an interesting philosophical question or a moral one. 0.93
00:13:37.000 Should they be remembered as heroes that went into the abyss to go find a, to just to solve a mystery and to see the unknown, or as fools with more money than they know what to do with that didn't check and balance and did something dumb? 0.75
00:13:52.000 How should they be thought of? 0.65
00:13:53.000 Heroes is probably too strong.
00:13:55.000 Like it's not, it's not heroic to be a tourist, even where it's dangerous to be a tourist. 0.97
00:14:00.000 But I don't want to say fools.
00:14:02.000 I think these people were probably aware there was danger to this. 0.81
00:14:05.000 That's the appeal of Daredevil Things is there is real danger to it.
00:14:09.000 It is more dangerous than going on a walk in a nature park or something.
00:14:14.000 To go to Grand Teton National Park, it's a little more dangerous.
00:14:17.000 Maybe a little bit.
00:14:18.000 But, you know, so that's the appeal of doing wild things like this that are extremely expensive.
00:14:25.000 And I think that element of it is dangerous and they sort of knew it.
00:14:30.000 And maybe we could have been a little more careful.
00:14:32.000 It creates a tension.
00:14:33.000 And that's why it's such a fascinating news.
00:14:34.000 Well, yeah, no, I think that's right.
00:14:36.000 And by the way, this is interesting people of all backgrounds, political affiliations.
00:14:41.000 And everyone has their own take.
00:14:43.000 There is like a woke element where we played the clip.
00:14:46.000 I think there was another clip, though.
00:14:48.000 Oh, yeah.
00:14:49.000 The captain he chose was a young woman or something intentionally because he didn't want it. 1.00
00:14:53.000 I don't know.
00:14:53.000 Somebody told me that.
00:14:54.000 I don't know if that's true or not.
00:14:56.000 And, but the other reason I think this is fascinating people is it's the why question or the should you question.
00:15:03.000 If you have a ton of money, should you do this?
00:15:08.000 Yeah, I don't want to say like you should not.
00:15:10.000 It's just, it's, you know, in the end, people can spend their money the way they want for the most part if they're not hurting anyone.
00:15:17.000 And this didn't hurt anyone except themselves.
00:15:20.000 And it's not like something like drugs or whatever where, yeah, there's like a big socially damaging effect of it.
00:15:26.000 It's like they did a risky thing.
00:15:28.000 And in this case, it did result in a tragedy.
00:15:30.000 And if we successfully rescue them, you know, maybe we'll have to bill them for the rescue effort.
00:15:34.000 Yeah.
00:15:35.000 And they can probably pay for it. 0.95
00:15:36.000 They can afford it.
00:15:37.000 So apparently, if you launch it repeatedly, which they have, the sub gets beat up, according to Bellingham, who is an expert on this.
00:15:46.000 He described the Titans' cylinder shape as the second best option.
00:15:51.000 The spherical design is inherently safe because the water pressure can apply equally, but they decided not to use the spherical design, right?
00:15:59.000 This is a cylinder design for slightly less secure shape in exchange for more passenger room, which is the point.
00:16:05.000 They want to go down with people and have their nice viewing experience, but it is slightly less safe.
00:16:11.000 Yeah, so from a geometric standpoint, they chose a slightly riskier option for seating capacity.
00:16:19.000 They did, they did.
00:16:20.000 But that's, I mean, I think that's going to probably be what most subs like this do.
00:16:23.000 Like the original sub that they found the Titanic with, I believe it was called the Alvin.
00:16:28.000 Like, that's also a cylinder design so that I think was it Ray Ballard?
00:16:32.000 Ballard, I think, was his name.
00:16:33.000 Like, you could go down and find the Titanic.
00:16:36.000 And so, yeah, like they chose a less safe version because of their goal, which was we want to bring people down to the Titanic.
00:16:45.000 And I think they've done it successfully before.
00:16:47.000 Well, so, Blake, we will know how this ends up tomorrow at our Rumble show, 8 p.m. Eastern.
00:16:50.000 Is that fair to say?
00:16:52.000 They say I think it runs out at 2 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.
00:16:54.000 So we'll.
00:16:55.000 So, really quick, why isn't the Titanic crushed by the pressure, by the way?
00:16:58.000 It actually, I'm not sure about that.
00:17:00.000 It will eventually really go.
00:17:02.000 That's all rusted.
00:17:02.000 Apparently, in 100 years, why doesn't it just, well, because it was an open system?
00:17:07.000 Is that right?
00:17:08.000 I don't know.
00:17:09.000 That's a question we're going to solve on our Thought Crime Show tomorrow.
00:17:12.000 Blake, good job filling us in on this infinitely interesting story.
00:17:17.000 You just can't look away from it.
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00:18:42.000 I was invited by a friend and supporter of Turning Point USA, good man who we've had on the program, Tom Lewis, to join an event at Arizona State University with Dennis Prager, who I admire.
00:18:55.000 And I've studied well over 400 hours of Dennis Prager's lectures and content.
00:19:01.000 I'm still doing that.
00:19:02.000 His lectures on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy are life-changing, as is his publication, his publishing of the Rational Bible.
00:19:10.000 I was invited to do this event, Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
00:19:13.000 Yeah, sure.
00:19:14.000 And so then in the days coming up to the event at Arizona State University, the weeks, I should say, all of a sudden, all these professors start clamoring about the event.
00:19:26.000 Now, this was not just any campus event.
00:19:28.000 This was technically an officially hosted event by the T.W. Lewis Center on campus.
00:19:33.000 So it was the university hosting different ideas.
00:19:36.000 It just wasn't a student group.
00:19:37.000 It wasn't like most of my other campus events, which is one of the reasons why this is noteworthy.
00:19:42.000 So, all these professors, I think it was 37, Blake or Ryan can get the number, 37 or 38 different professors spoke out and said, We don't want Charlie Kirk on campus.
00:19:54.000 We don't want Dennis Prager on campus because they stand for all these different things.
00:19:58.000 And 39 out of 47 in a specific department.
00:20:02.000 What was the name of the department?
00:20:03.000 I think it was the Honors College at ASU, if I'm not mistaken.
00:20:06.000 39 out of 47.
00:20:06.000 Yep, yep, yep.
00:20:08.000 And this was an optionally attended event.
00:20:11.000 This was not a mandatory thing.
00:20:12.000 This is not something where I was going to give a multiple-day credit-required seminar.
00:20:18.000 And the response from the professors was super typical.
00:20:22.000 And so I show up on campus with Dennis, by the way.
00:20:25.000 Dennis came to our office early and we had a fun time.
00:20:28.000 I had a lot of questions about Exodus with him, and he answered them very well and says, Hey, let's drive over together.
00:20:34.000 So we did.
00:20:34.000 And there were, you know, some protests, not too much, but the police presence was just overwhelming.
00:20:40.000 And the woman that was hosting it, the executive director, really sweet woman, she did a great job.
00:20:44.000 And Atkinson, I'll never forget, as I pulled up to this event, I said, boy, I don't really feel welcome here.
00:20:50.000 She said, oh, no, that's not true.
00:20:52.000 You are welcome here.
00:20:53.000 We're glad you're here.
00:20:53.000 I said, well, great.
00:20:54.000 That's great to hear.
00:20:55.000 And thank you.
00:20:56.000 She ran the event, the first class did a really wonderful job.
00:20:56.000 And she was great.
00:20:59.000 And the event was packed, by the way.
00:21:01.000 2,000 people showed up.
00:21:02.000 Might have been a little bit less, like 1,450, even more.
00:21:05.000 It felt like 2,000 people.
00:21:05.000 I don't know.
00:21:07.000 And so I spoke, and then Dennis Prager did a panel with Robert Kiyosaki, who's amazing, who we should have on the program, by the way.
00:21:15.000 He lives here in Phoenix.
00:21:17.000 And my speech was pretty simple.
00:21:19.000 It was about honoring your parents and how most colleges are trying to turn you against your parents and honoring the Sabbath.
00:21:26.000 That was literally my speech.
00:21:28.000 Now, professors, the professors there didn't want to see me or come and talk to me or whatever.
00:21:37.000 And I think this one tweet really encompasses the vibe of all this madness.
00:21:45.000 This person says, sometimes there are not two sides to any issue.
00:21:49.000 Charlie Kirk does not belong anywhere near a college campus because of my views on Juneteenth.
00:21:56.000 You can't have different views.
00:21:58.000 So we're going to attack you.
00:22:01.000 Okay.
00:22:02.000 So I do go on college campuses.
00:22:04.000 I have some fun doing that.
00:22:08.000 And it's interesting.
00:22:10.000 The Arizona Central wrote an article about all this.
00:22:15.000 And Arizona Central, they did it in kind of a sarcastic, sardonic way, attacking me.
00:22:21.000 Arizona State University faculty think students are too fragile to hand these ideas.
00:22:26.000 And they say, Charlie, basically the article is Charlie Kirk is such a joke.
00:22:29.000 Why should college kids be afraid of him or professors be afraid of him?
00:22:34.000 Okay, yeah, you can call me a joke all you want.
00:22:36.000 Well, then just debate me.
00:22:37.000 Come on my show.
00:22:39.000 Have a conversation with me.
00:22:41.000 They don't want to do that because we actually have a track record and a pattern of being pretty good at the talking thing.
00:22:50.000 So they don't want to do that.
00:22:51.000 So therefore, we kind of have this back and forth with the university and the event went off fine, but the issue didn't go away.
00:23:00.000 The issue didn't disappear.
00:23:03.000 And so the woman who greeted me and who ran the center very well, the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at Barrett, the Honors College at ASU, this story has now come back up to the surface with a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
00:23:17.000 Because of my visit to Arizona State University with Dennis Prager, she's getting let go.
00:23:24.000 She's getting fired and the center will cease to exist.
00:23:27.000 Her official title ends on June 30th.
00:23:30.000 It is her last day.
00:23:31.000 And Arizona State University is getting rid of it.
00:23:33.000 They want nothing to do with it anymore.
00:23:38.000 You have to wonder why.
00:23:41.000 Well, the answer is pretty clear.
00:23:44.000 First and foremost, they find my views and Dennis Prager's views objectionable.
00:23:50.000 Seth Liebson, who hosts a program on AM960, does a great job, sent me his monologue on this, and it was super smart.
00:23:59.000 His argument was, hey, health, wealth, and happiness are absolutely controversial to academic professors.
00:24:08.000 And I thought, of course.
00:24:10.000 Being a healthy person, what's the last time that's actually talked about?
00:24:13.000 Instead, it's take as many vaccines as possible, and it's okay to be overweight.
00:24:18.000 Wealth is at odds with a socialist Marxist agenda.
00:24:18.000 Wealth?
00:24:22.000 Happiness, if you're happy, you are not a good communist revolutionary.
00:24:28.000 If you're content, you do not want to, if you're content, why would you want to fundamentally transform that which you are happy with?
00:24:36.000 Brilliant point by Seth Liebson.
00:24:38.000 Brilliant.
00:24:39.000 And so the event, health, wealth, and happiness, my coming and speaking with Dennis Prager, unfortunately is now resulting in people losing their jobs.
00:24:49.000 Lynn Blake, the events operation manager at ASU Gammage Theater, who I met, and she was wonderful, by the way, very sweet to me.
00:24:56.000 She was probably too kind to me.
00:24:58.000 Before her firing, she said that, quote, she was berated by the Arizona State University Gammage leadership for coordinating an event that did not align with the values of ASU Gammage.
00:25:08.000 What are those values?
00:25:09.000 I guess it's health, wealth, and happiness.
00:25:12.000 You could be many things, but you are not allowed to be a happy person at Arizona State University.
00:25:18.000 You could be angry.
00:25:19.000 You could be ticked off.
00:25:22.000 You could be looking for good trouble.
00:25:26.000 But think about it.
00:25:27.000 A happy nation, a joyful nation, is one that is also grateful, less likely to want to change the beautiful republic.
00:25:37.000 You can't have that.
00:25:38.000 Happiness is a direct threat to totalitarianism.
00:25:44.000 This story has not really led me to much public commentary.
00:25:48.000 And I'll be very honest.
00:25:49.000 I mean, we're talking about it, obviously, but you could probably tell in my tone, none of this shocks me at all.
00:25:57.000 I'm not going to get like righteously indignant because I know ASU is a Marxist hellhole.
00:26:02.000 I've tried to tell people that.
00:26:05.000 I know very wealthy donors in Paradise Valley and in Scottsdale that give millions of dollars to Arizona State University that literally confront me at some of our parties or turning point parties.
00:26:17.000 They say, Charlie, lay off ASU.
00:26:18.000 It's a great school.
00:26:19.000 I said, you're wrong.
00:26:22.000 You're wrong.
00:26:24.000 You're wrong.
00:26:26.000 And now this evidence plays into it.
00:26:28.000 I don't just say that college is a scam because it gets clicks.
00:26:32.000 I say it, it's because it is true.
00:26:35.000 And so Arizona State University, funded, by the way, by the Republican legislature of Arizona.
00:26:41.000 I wonder why they're still doing that.
00:26:43.000 They go all out because Charlie Kirk spoke, and I kid you not, my speech was 17 minutes.
00:26:52.000 17 minutes.
00:26:54.000 And that's a reason to fire people, terminate them, end dissenter.
00:26:59.000 A 17-minute speech.
00:27:01.000 If you listen to Dennis Prager's speech, it is not controversial.
00:27:05.000 He was talking about how happiness is a choice, how it's a moral obligation, talking about his book, happiness is a serious problem. 0.95
00:27:15.000 Academia, and especially Arizona State University, is small-minded, brittle, parochial, and quite honestly, pathetic. 0.99
00:27:24.000 This entire exercise at Arizona State University is pathetic. 0.99
00:27:31.000 This is not a big, this is not like a life-changing thing for me. 0.90
00:27:34.000 is for Ann Atkinson, who's now losing her job because she had the courage to host me, who had the courage to host Dennis Prager.
00:27:44.000 This is a disgrace.
00:27:47.000 And then you wonder, well, why is it that our biggest corporations don't share our values?
00:27:52.000 Well, hello, you're sending them to college.
00:27:57.000 This is what they believe in.
00:27:59.000 And by the way, why is it that 39 out of 47, I want you to, 39 out of 47 of these professors signed an open letter saying that I should not be allowed on campus.
00:28:10.000 Every one of them have an open invite to come on my show.
00:28:12.000 Charlie Kirk is a threat to democracy.
00:28:14.000 Really?
00:28:15.000 Why?
00:28:15.000 Tell me why.
00:28:16.000 What is a democracy?
00:28:17.000 Are we a democracy?
00:28:18.000 How am I a threat to that? 0.97
00:28:20.000 Charlie Kirk's a white supremacist. 0.75
00:28:21.000 Tell me, tell me why I'm a white supremacist. 0.90
00:28:21.000 Really? 0.90
00:28:23.000 I don't like Juneteenth because I think black crime is a big problem in America. 1.00
00:28:27.000 Oh, really? 0.54
00:28:27.000 What kind of white supremacist would be working with Blexit to do black outreach liberation events in the urban corridor of New York City? 0.54
00:28:34.000 Can you explain that to me?
00:28:35.000 Professor whatever? 0.98
00:28:36.000 No, they don't want to come on the show because they're intellectual cowards. 0.98
00:28:39.000 And I called them that at the event.
00:28:42.000 As Dennis Prager beautifully said at the Arizona State University event, he said, come on my show to 3 million people.
00:28:49.000 It's a much bigger audience than the 30 you get in your classroom.
00:28:52.000 I'll give you an opportunity to state your views uninterrupted.
00:28:57.000 But then that would validate us, wouldn't it?
00:29:00.000 So it's easier just to sign a letter, back away, call us names.
00:29:06.000 White supremacists, these are people with PhDs. 0.99
00:29:10.000 If I'm such an intellectual midget, if I'm such a moron like the Arizona Central tries to infer, I didn't go to college, then come on my program. 0.99
00:29:20.000 Talk to me. 1.00
00:29:23.000 Oh, Charlie's such a moron that I can't speak to him. 1.00
00:29:29.000 Welcome back, everybody. 1.00
00:29:30.000 With us is Ann Atkinson.
00:29:32.000 And thank you so much for joining.
00:29:35.000 I want to make sure I get your title right, as it is the title as of today, the executive director of the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at Barrett, the Honors College ASU.
00:29:43.000 I'm told that is ending on June 30th.
00:29:45.000 And your op-ed was heard all around the world.
00:29:48.000 You were an excellent host to me.
00:29:50.000 What happened after the event?
00:29:53.000 It seems as if the controversy didn't end.
00:29:55.000 The controversy did not end.
00:29:57.000 After the event, after the deans, you know, remember how they told us what you were not allowed to say, what you were allowed to say.
00:30:04.000 They took our marketing posters down.
00:30:06.000 They made me read a warning.
00:30:08.000 They told me to read a warning at the opening of the program.
00:30:11.000 I thought that was it.
00:30:12.000 Over the past several months, I've taken these concerns all the way up, but the harassment and threats have continued.
00:30:18.000 The Barrett faculty have been, some of the Barrett faculty have been really egregious towards me.
00:30:25.000 I faced a culture of chilling and condemnation that's continued.
00:30:29.000 And I've taken all of these concerns to ASU leadership.
00:30:32.000 I got the attention of President Michael Crowe, the provost Nancy Gonzalez.
00:30:36.000 I like and respect both of them, but I was not pleased with their response when I was able to address all these concerns directly with them.
00:30:45.000 They basically, when it came to censorship, told me that the event was handled.
00:30:51.000 They knew it needed to be handled, and that might be perceived as if they were trying to suppress.
00:30:57.000 And then they also told me that we allowed the speaker, but you then have to pay the consequences.
00:31:04.000 So it's continued.
00:31:06.000 And look, I understand why people would attack you, why they would attack Robert Kiyosaki, why they would attack Dennis Prager.
00:31:13.000 You are public profiles.
00:31:15.000 You have a lot of things to say.
00:31:17.000 I'm just a mother.
00:31:19.000 I'm a business owner.
00:31:21.000 I'm doing a job in a company, putting programs together, and I have faced the wrath of this liberal faculty mob.
00:31:30.000 And it's really unfortunate that this can happen to anyone, not just me.
00:31:35.000 It can happen to students.
00:31:36.000 And I'm hoping to spread this message today that even within free speech policies, even though ASU allowed the event to happen, there are consequences to those who dare to represent thought that's different from the prevailing orthodoxy.
00:31:54.000 So, Anne, you're exactly right.
00:31:55.000 I mean, you can attack me all you want. 0.98
00:31:57.000 The fact that you're out of a job is disgusting. 0.97
00:31:59.000 And also, the operations manager at Gammage, who I met while I was there, this really sweet woman who I bet somebody got a picture of her being too nice to me, so they had to cut her head off.
00:32:09.000 So, Anne, what can you share with us that is not in the public domain that is helpful to know?
00:32:15.000 That you're getting the message out.
00:32:17.000 You're playing offense, which I think is terrific.
00:32:19.000 The Wall Street Journal piece was excellent.
00:32:22.000 But what is private that you want the rest of the world to know in regards to all of this?
00:32:26.000 And a lesson for other people watching from other states.
00:32:29.000 Two things.
00:32:30.000 Number one, ASU's response indicated that the elimination of my position was solely due to the loss of funding from TW Lewis.
00:32:39.000 And while that is true, TW Lewis terminated the donor funding agreement this spring following the Health Malton Happiness program.
00:32:46.000 I have since brought in new diversified funding to keep the intent of the Lewis Center going.
00:32:52.000 Now, the intent of the Lewis Center includes things like traditional American values, hard work, personal responsibility, faith, family, and community service.
00:33:01.000 When I proposed that to the dean at Barrett the Honors College, she expressed no interest.
00:33:06.000 So it's not that TW Lewis ended funding, therefore the center does no longer exist.
00:33:12.000 It's that I brought a solution and new funding.
00:33:15.000 And as I've illustrated in my Wall Street Journal op-ed, I've been a very successful fundraiser.
00:33:20.000 I've raised over half a million dollars in the last year to benefit ASU and its students.
00:33:25.000 So that's a really important detail in this.
00:33:30.000 The other part I would say, ASU at the top of the hour submitted an article and published an article in the journal in response to this.
00:33:38.000 And they're characterizing me as they say employee Ann Atkinson has lost the distinction between feelings and fact.
00:33:46.000 And again, this can happen to anyone.
00:33:49.000 They're telling the world that I'm an emotional, disgruntled ex-employee or something in that light.
00:33:56.000 And when in fact, I'm conveying the facts and conveying what happened.
00:34:00.000 And in my view, the story is less about the fact that I was fired and more about what happens to anybody that dares to bring in views that, again, are not incongruent, that are not congruent with the prevailing orthodoxy.
00:34:15.000 It's not right.
00:34:17.000 I mean, you can attack me all you want, try and cancel me, get in line, Dennis Prager, whatever, but it's the other people that start to lose their livelihoods, their jobs, and their careers.
00:34:28.000 So cruel, isn't it?
00:34:29.000 Why?
00:34:30.000 Because there was an optional event on campus to talk about health, wealth, and happiness.
00:34:36.000 Okay, so Anne, let me ask you if you could elaborate on something.
00:34:39.000 You said in the days or weeks leading up to the event, there were kind of either recommendations or requirements of what can should be said or not said.
00:34:49.000 Is that correct?
00:34:50.000 That is correct.
00:34:51.000 The leadership at Barrett the Honors College told me that it is important for the future of the Lewis Center that we only talk about health, wealth, and happiness, and that these speakers don't attempt to use this as a platform to make any political comments or to say anything that can be perceived that might isolate the audience.
00:35:12.000 And it was my job as the moderator of the panel with Robert Kiyosaki on wealth, Dr. Radha Gopalin on health, Dennis Prager on happiness, according to the deans, to keep things under control.
00:35:26.000 But my view is that I'm bringing in people because they have opinions and experiences.
00:35:31.000 So the suppression is a major part of the story.
00:35:35.000 This is a public university that should celebrate people's ability to say what they want about these topics.
00:35:42.000 So what can you share as far as just the cultural pressure?
00:35:46.000 I mean, you went through it, but afterwards, they didn't, even though the event was a success, even though my events, my speech, I think was something that really find hard to disagree with what I said in my speech.
00:35:59.000 It's kind of like honor your parents and the Sabbath is a good thing and try to find truth in your life.
00:36:05.000 But that actually, that didn't stop them.
00:36:08.000 So there were 39 professors that kind of combined here.
00:36:14.000 And yet ASU says that free speech is a value.
00:36:16.000 Well, free speech is a value.
00:36:17.000 Why are 39 of their professors demanding that an optional event and a heterodox speaker is not allowed on campus?
00:36:27.000 Exactly.
00:36:27.000 And there were so many minor examples.
00:36:30.000 You know, I was pulled into a number of meetings with a lot of people over minor things.
00:36:36.000 For one example, I learned that the Lewis Center was no longer allowed to use trash cans at our facilities.
00:36:43.000 We had to bring our own trash bags and tape over those trash cans.
00:36:46.000 And I had people taking pictures of trash in the trash cans after.
00:36:50.000 I mean, I had someone pull me aside in a big meeting with people in front of everybody, actually, and tell me that when I smiled and said goodnight to her, that it just felt so demeaning.
00:37:00.000 So there's a lot of that.
00:37:01.000 There are a lot of those examples.
00:37:02.000 There are the Barrett faculty colleagues who threatens to, they threatened to write a media hit piece focused on me.
00:37:09.000 And then I had their reporter followed up on that a couple of days later.
00:37:14.000 I mean, there's been a lot of that, but it's really a mood, a culture, a chilling, right?
00:37:21.000 We're a personal development center.
00:37:22.000 We're not political.
00:37:24.000 We focus on traditional American values, but our speakers are incredibly diverse of industry, background, but it was a massive chilling.
00:37:34.000 And then suddenly I went from being having incredible feedback from Barrett leadership to my reviews where my next review is very negative.
00:37:43.000 And I need to, I have been isolated from Barrett and it's my fault and I need to collaborate more with others in Barrett, although the Lewis Center had been highly collaborative and invited others from Barrett into our program.
00:37:57.000 So a lot of little things like that, none of which I think is a headline, but all of which collectively is really an environment of chilling that tells me that the intent of the Lewis Center is not welcome.
00:38:10.000 And again, my job is just to fulfill the intent, which I didn't even negotiate.
00:38:16.000 That was negotiated by ASU's foundation and the donor and the former Barrett dean.
00:38:21.000 In final question, you said that you were underwhelmed by the response from ASU leadership.
00:38:27.000 Do you feel as if that if President Crowe would have come out and said decisively, handle this differently, do you think this could have had a different outcome?
00:38:36.000 Or do you think he was afraid of all these professors?
00:38:39.000 For example, he sent me a letter saying, you know, please take down all these professors on your website.
00:38:44.000 I was like, no, I'm not.
00:38:45.000 They publicized.
00:38:46.000 I mean, I think that he's being controlled by some of these professors.
00:38:50.000 Is my speculation probably right?
00:38:52.000 I don't know.
00:38:53.000 I mean, I won't begin to speculate on President Crow.
00:38:56.000 All I'm doing is sharing my firsthand account here.
00:39:00.000 And I would have imagined somebody could have reached out and said, look, we don't tolerate a culture of harassment and threats and chilling and censorship without telling people what they could or couldn't say.
00:39:12.000 I don't know.
00:39:13.000 I can't put myself in his shoes.
00:39:15.000 I do respect him as a leader, but in this certain situation, to handle our event, meaning this taking down our marketing and censoring what our speakers can say, and then to blame all of the callout and the culture at Barrett on me, who's just doing my job, I thought was quite unfair.
00:39:34.000 Well, I have a feeling you're going to find a good place to work after this.
00:39:37.000 And I want to thank you for your courage and for writing the op-ed.
00:39:40.000 It's opened up millions of people's eyes.
00:39:42.000 And thank you so much.
00:39:45.000 Thanks so much for listening.
00:39:46.000 Everybody, email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:39:50.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.
00:39:55.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.