Hall of Fame Songwriter Jeffree Steele joins the Charlie Kirk Show to discuss his new song, A Voice, written in memory of the late country music legend Charlie Kirk. The song is a tribute to Charlie Kirk, and is dedicated to his memory.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:41.000He's written hits like Cowboy and Me by Tim McGraw, Rascal Flat, Flat's What Hurts the Most and My Wish, Montgomery Gentry, My Town, and Hell Yeah.
00:01:54.000I mean, this guy has done some absolute bangers, some huge, huge hits.
00:01:59.000And he released a song called A Voice, and it mentions Charlie.
00:02:04.000It was a beautiful tribute to Charlie.
00:02:06.000And when he released it, I got this song sent to me by about, I'm not kidding, maybe 15, maybe 20 people saying we should have him on.
00:02:14.000So I'm going to play his song and we'll welcome Jeffree Steele 385.
00:02:18.000We're the coal miners, the firefighters, the Charlie Kirk choir, all Latinar liners finally waking up.
00:02:26.000Yeah, we've had enough of the liars setting the world on fire.
00:02:35.000So Jeffree Steele, Hall of Fame songwriter, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:02:43.000Well, it's an honor that you chose to honor Charlie in that way.
00:02:47.000And to just tell us, it felt like the right time to do this interview because we just had our All-American halftime show and millions tuned in.
00:02:56.000We're still working on a final number.
00:02:57.00040, 50 million people watched that thing.
00:03:00.000We had obviously a bunch of country acts and Kid Rock even did Tell You Can't.
00:03:05.000So it felt like the right time to do this.
00:03:06.000Tell us what inspired you to do this song and this tribute to Charlie.
00:03:10.000Well, I mean, the message of the song speaks to what you're just talking about, the numbers you're talking about.
00:03:16.000People do feel unspoken for, and we just saw it with these numbers that you've got.
00:03:22.000The song was written about me wanting to try to make a point of talking about the people that are unspoken for and the people that are always neglected in this society.
00:03:35.000And after Charlie was assassinated, I went, after the song was written, I went to a hometown vigil in Franklin, Tennessee, my hometown, and I showed up with a bunch of friends and there were 5,000 people in the town square overflowing with people just praying and singing.
00:04:55.000And I try to represent that the best I can.
00:04:57.000And I just figured I could work this song on my own grassroots if I couldn't get the help from the industry that was kind of frowning upon what I wrote about.
00:05:06.000So I just figured I'd try to go for it myself with the help of some people like John Rich and others.
00:05:13.000I got a few platforms where I could launch this thing and get it heard and with accompanying video.
00:05:20.000And the next thing I know, I'm off to the races with a hit song on my hands because people want to hear it.
00:05:26.000People do feel like they're not spoken for and they do need a voice.
00:05:31.000And I think Blake's probably going to have some thoughts on this too.
00:05:34.000But when we set about doing the halftime show, we hit some serious pushback from venues, from not really artists.
00:05:46.000A lot of the artists were really excited to be a part of it, but then their agents and their managers would get involved and they'd be looking at dollar signs and then there was some sort of hesitancy.
00:05:55.000Explain that piece of the industry that people maybe don't understand.
00:06:00.000Why would there be reticence to use the name Charlie Kirk in a song?
00:06:03.000Why would there be reticence to be a part of something like the halftime show?
00:06:06.000And when we push through and we get 40 to 50 million eyeballs on it, does that change things?
00:06:11.000Yeah, I feel like they're pushing a narrative as hard as they can.
00:06:17.000And it started a few years ago with the national anthem and taking the knee.
00:06:21.000And the public immediately showed what they thought about that.
00:06:26.000And you've got basically a country that so many people are watching.
00:06:31.000Everybody in the world is watching this game, but the American audience is so vast.
00:06:36.000And what they want to see on that field is a representation of what they feel America is.
00:06:43.000And I think that every year this thing gets crazier, more outlandish, more sex-driven, less morality, less about faith, less about country.
00:06:54.000And I just think there's quite a few hundred million Americans out there that have just said, enough, we've had enough.
00:07:00.000And that was the reason to try to be a voice for those voices that are just being completely silenced by the music industry.
00:07:09.000For me to try to get this song out, I can give you a great example.
00:07:12.000The week after I released this song, Bruce Springsteen comes out with an anthem about Minneapolis.
00:07:19.000And it's an anti-Trump and it's an anti-ICE lyric.
00:07:23.000And it's immediately embraced and wrapped around and it goes to number one, where my song, they won't even, they tell me it's too right wing.
00:07:32.000And that's what we're up against as a conservative music listener.
00:07:39.000You can't find the music unless I find a way.
00:07:42.000I have to creep and crawl to find a way to get it out there to the public that really wants to hear it.
00:07:47.000And the main thing is, Andrew, everywhere I've gone playing this song live before I released it, everywhere I went and played the song live, people are on their feet.
00:07:55.000They're just immediately on their feet cheering.
00:07:58.000And I knew that I was hitting a nerve.
00:08:01.000And so to have them push back at me and not help me promote it, it was a tough thing for a guy that's been around for 45 years.
00:08:09.000It's a tough thing, but you just have to find ways.
00:09:04.000We should be able to get it all out there.
00:09:06.000Either we get all of it out there or we get none of it out there.
00:09:09.000And the one thing that Charlie was, was a voice for everybody.
00:09:13.000He was a voice for everybody that felt like they didn't have a voice.
00:09:16.000That was his whole mission, to bring what he knew and just try to bring some common sense to everything he spoke about and let people have a microphone and have a voice to speak their minds.
00:09:27.000And that's really was the basis of the song.
00:09:29.000So there was no way I couldn't include that in the song.
00:09:32.000I had to speak to him and what he did for young Americans.
00:09:40.000Okay, through all the traditional means, whether it's iTunes, Spotify, all the streaming services, you can go to jeffresteel.com and that will link you right to it.
00:09:50.000And look for me, I'll be around all around the country playing this song, but it's available at all your normal streaming, Spotify, Pandora, all of them, anywhere, iTunes, and jeffreysteel.com.
00:11:47.000And I'm so happy I get to represent USA.
00:11:52.000Blake, isn't it just so nice that all of our Olympians are just, you know, honoring the flag, patriots, just being so gracious in their interviews in Milan?
00:12:10.000What was the most offensive this year?
00:12:13.000Well, first of all, I'm going to say the real villain here, of course, are the press because they're the ones who ask the questions.
00:12:18.000I don't think it's not like the Oscars where everyone goes up on stage and they're instantly chomping at the bit to go out and be like, by the way, screw America.
00:12:26.000It's that every single person after they compete, after they win a medal, there's some hack with a media badge who's like, oh, does it feel awkward to compete for your evil demon fascist country?
00:12:39.000Which they'll never ask anyone in any other country.
00:12:41.000So the one that's been in the news lately that stood out is freestyle skater Hunter Hess, who had some negative vibes.
00:13:40.000And anytime Chinese internal policy of any kind comes up, she's like, I just, I do not comment on internal matters within the People's Republic of China.
00:13:49.000Like, 100% to double standard, 100% nonsense.
00:13:54.000Oh, how do you feel about internal events in Hong Kong, or that treatment of dissidents, this or that political action by the Chinese government, which is vastly more authoritarian than anything going on under President Trump?
00:15:30.000We're rolling back some of the transgender insanity.
00:15:33.000And then the other day, because of the rule that they said, stop waving pride flags at government facilities, they took down the pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument, which I got a big kick out of.
00:15:43.000But I feel like that's the biggest atrocity.
00:15:45.000Obviously, they're not doing anything on, certainly not their right to exist or whatever hyperbolic rhetoric you'll find online.
00:15:53.000It's so offensive to me because, listen, all these people enjoy wonderful lives.
00:15:58.000They have amazing opportunities because of this country.
00:16:02.000If you can't say nothing nice, just don't say anything at all.
00:16:06.000It's these media villains that come in and they try and bait athletes that have no media training, that don't know how to kind of weave out of a stupid question.
00:16:14.000They were doing this, by the way, at the Australian Open as well.
00:16:18.000It was one guy who kept going around saying, What is it like in this terrible time in your fascist dictatorial country?
00:16:48.000When you travel abroad, the foreign media covers like half of their own country and then half of their programming is just devoted to anything that's going on in America.
00:16:56.000So the entire world feels like they're entitled to opine on American domestic politics.
00:17:03.000We are 100% victims of our own success and just how fascinating we are.
00:17:08.000I've seen people joke where it's like Canadians notoriously follow, often follow American politics more than their own politics.
00:17:17.000A lot of Europeans, as you say, it's 50-50.
00:17:19.000And I guess we're also just victims of the nature of modern sports media.
00:17:23.000If you're a sports journalist, probably no one's going to care that much about your curling athletes unless, oh, if you can get them to say something bashing ice, bashing the administration, it's now a general story, which they were completely successful at.
00:17:39.000But we'd be remiss if we didn't at least mention what's going on in Minnesota and what a tough time it's been for everybody.
00:17:45.000I am a lawyer, as you know, and we do the constant.
00:17:49.000We have a constitution and it allows us to freedom of the press and freedom of speech, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and makes it that we have to, you know, have probable cause to be pulled over.
00:18:09.000And what's happening in Minnesota is wrong.
00:19:03.000You're not there to pop off about politics.
00:19:06.000So when Olympic athletes enter the political arena, they should expect some pushback.
00:19:10.000But most Olympic athletes, whatever their politics, are doing a great job, are certainly enjoy the support of the entire country.
00:19:17.000And I think recognize that the way to bring the country together is not to show up in a foreign country and attack the president of the United States.
00:20:46.000So I started seeing, we made a bunch of announcements about endorsements in the state of Texas.
00:20:51.000I started seeing a bunch of chatter online.
00:20:54.000Why don't you walk us through it and then we're going to go race by race, where we're looking and how Turning Point Action is getting involved and what the audience can do to help.
00:21:02.000Yeah, so we actually just made a lot of different endorsements.
00:21:06.000You can actually go see all of Turning Point Action's endorsements live in real time as they come out.
00:21:12.000And this is kind of peak endorsement season.
00:21:15.000Usually the first quarter of the year of the election is when a lot of endorsements are coming out.
00:21:20.000So you see a lot of different organizations making them.
00:21:23.000We've been pretty judicious about our endorsements at Turning Point Action.
00:21:28.000Most of it's based off of our scorecard.
00:21:30.000But you can go see our endorsements at tpaction.com slash endorsements.
00:21:48.000We've been kind of hailed as the toughest graders.
00:21:52.000Other issues we particularly emphasize?
00:21:54.000We have an all-encompassing scorecard.
00:21:56.000So if you go to our scorecard, we have a bunch of different issues.
00:22:00.000The key issues that we cover are typically a scorecard will cover one issue.
00:22:03.000Like, for example, the NRAs covers Second Amendment issues.
00:22:06.000Ours covers American culture, big tech and free speech, border security, educational freedoms, our school choice, election integrity, health and medical freedom, Second Amendment, taxes and spending.
00:22:52.000Ken Paxton, who's running for U.S. Senate, who's leading the polls right now, doing very well, supported by the conservatives across the state.
00:23:00.000And then Chip Roy, who has been a member of the Freedom Caucus for AG to replace Ken Paxton.
00:23:05.000We're kind of the two big, big movers and shakers.
00:23:10.000And Tyler, just if we pause there, I saw people commenting.
00:23:14.000So it's sort of a well-known fact that, you know, Ken, who we endorsed for Senate, and Congressman Chip Roy, who we endorse for AG, have a little bit of history.
00:23:27.000People are like, I can't believe you endorsed both or whatever.
00:23:48.000So there's always going to be a situation when you do endorsements where, you know, somebody's upset.
00:23:56.000We don't generally wade into endorsements lightly.
00:23:59.000So again, we have a very judicious approach that we take, which is, you know, it's not you're just endorsing someone because they're friends with somebody.
00:24:15.000Blake just brought up on a recent podcast that we did, the Buckley rule, which is you want to try to elect the most conservative candidate that has the best chance of winning.
00:24:28.000And so that's kind of the approach that we take with things is they need to have a great record.
00:24:34.000They need to bring back the questionnaire.
00:24:36.000They need to be recommended by people we trust.
00:24:39.000But then, you know, we kind of grill them.
00:24:42.000We court them, talk to them for a long time and see kind of where they end up.
00:24:48.000And based off of that, that's how we come to things.
00:24:51.000We also prioritize states that matter the most.
00:24:54.000So you'll notice on our scorecard, most of the states are swing states.
00:24:59.000And then we just started wading into a state like Texas, which has a primary that's coming up here in the next week, week or two here, where you have early ballots starting to drop and the election is going to take place in March.
00:25:14.000So that's kind of the approach that we take with everything.
00:25:22.000So you're always going to have a situation where you feel like somebody has some, you know, susceptibility to lose or that they have a quality that you don't like or a vote that they made that you don't like or a statement that they said that you don't like.
00:25:42.000You kind of, in most cases, want to find the person that aligns most with the value system and then has the most importance for us to win long term and help the elections in 2026 and 2028.
00:25:56.000And so if you look at our statewides right now, obviously one of our earliest endorsements, Charlie's endorsement, Andy Biggs, you know, former chairman of the Freedom Caucus here in Arizona, Byron Donald's running for Florida.
00:27:04.000Incredible, incredible talent, great family, beautiful, beautiful family.
00:27:10.000Joe Mitchell, who's in Iowa, who will, again, also be one of the youngest members of Congress.
00:27:16.000So yeah, there's just some really exciting, really exciting hope for the future, I think, when you go through this.
00:27:24.000And again, a great place to put your focus, energy, money, time, energy, and to help us chase votes ultimately when it comes to the end of this election, the end of this year.
00:27:34.000So there's a lot of questions about that.
00:27:36.000And I do want to just reiterate real quick that this is, we've got Michael Alfonso and Joe Mitchell.
00:27:47.000Really, one of our focuses here at Turning Point Action is finding that next generation of talent of next generation of conservative leaders that really can not only do a good job in Congress, but that have bright futures ahead of them wherever they choose to go, whether that's stay in Congress or run for Senate or governor.
00:28:02.000So Joe Mitchell in Iowa and Michael Alfonso in Wisconsin are two really great shooting stars that you want to keep your eye on.
00:28:11.000And we'll have more of those coming out in the months ahead.
00:28:14.000Also, so Tyler, there's a lot of question about where Turning Point Action is going to be deploying resources, paid staff, ballot chasing ahead of the midterms.
00:28:23.000Now, we have kind of a 2028 vision for things, but we're also working on 2026.
00:28:28.000Maybe walk the audience through where we're focusing our attention the most.
00:28:32.000Yeah, so our top, so we are the only national organization in the conservative movement that has full-time staff in all the swing states.
00:28:40.000So, you know, actually right now, as we're speaking, we have a training class that's over in our Turning Point Action building that I just came from, that I just spoke to, where we are training up staff to be deployed to Indiana.
00:28:53.000We have staff that are being deployed to all the swing states.
00:28:56.000Indiana, of course, has just as a refresher, we had the individuals in the state senate that blocked redistricting.
00:29:03.000That would have given us at least another House seat in Indiana.
00:29:07.000And so that's of utmost importance to hold those people accountable.
00:29:12.000And so we have staff that are being deployed out there for candidates that are running.
00:29:17.000But then in the swing states, of course, so Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, those are all the key states where there are key races,
00:29:32.000fundamental races in many of those states, a majority of those states in 2026 that are crucial for us to win and set the stage for 2028 for a candidate JD Vance or a really strong Republican ticket that is going to come forth, of course, through the pathway, the normal pathway of Iowa, the Iowa caucuses, and the New Hampshire where we have full-time staff.
00:29:56.000So again, we're laying the ground game now, and anyone getting involved with Turning Point Action now is directly helping, again, set the table, lay the foundation for 2028.
00:30:09.000And this couldn't be more critical because 2028 is going to define whether we win or lose long term, specifically around the census and redistricting for 2030.
00:30:20.000If we lose the presidency in 2028 and we do not set the table correctly in 2026 in all these states, you lose 2028, you lose the country, maybe for a generation.
00:30:30.000So it's really, really critical that we win.
00:30:32.000Blake, since you spent so much time in D.C., I want to get into staffing.
00:30:38.000Like, what would the implication of staffing?
00:30:41.000If you have four years of President Trump and then let's just say another four years of JD, maybe Marcos is VP, maybe you get eight years.
00:30:49.000What kind of momentum you can build from a staffing perspective?
00:30:52.000Because one of the things that's good about President Trump having a term off, so we got to kind of clear the table and bring in real, real talent, right?
00:31:00.000But it also meant that Joe Biden had four years to kind of keep staffing and replace people in the bureaucracy, which was a problem.
00:31:08.000Also, breaking news here, the U.S. House has approved a rule for the Save America Act.
00:31:13.000The bill requires proof of citizenship to vote.
00:32:48.000So, we just found out that Thomas Massey is apparently anti-the Save Act, which puts him out of step with the entirety of the conservative movement, basically.
00:33:55.000He's from the impoverished town in Kentucky.
00:33:58.000He goes to MIT, marries his high school sweetheart, builds his off-the-grid house, has his battery-powered national debt clock that he wears around.
00:34:05.000A very impressive guy in a lot of ways.
00:34:08.000But I do think he's feuded with President Trump a long time.
00:34:13.000And I do think that's warped him a bit over time.
00:34:17.000But you could offer more perspective on that maybe.
00:34:19.000I think what happens is you just get a certain people in Congress unfortunately get sucked into just talking to the people who fund them the most, which I think is actually antithetical to what the idea of Congress is supposed to be.
00:34:34.000The idea of Congress is supposed to be originally was that you are representative of the people.
00:34:40.000It was a lot smaller of a group of people in America at the time when it was originally devised.
00:34:45.000And you were deeply influenced by your actual community.
00:34:50.000And unfortunately, congressmen, you know, have, I think it's 700 and some odd thousand people that they represent.
00:34:57.000And so the reality of representing people just doesn't happen.
00:35:00.000And so when you're peppered by people who talk to you the most, which end up being your fundraisers and the people who give you money and the people who influence you the most or have been your ideological fanboys or fangirls, you listen to those people the most and they warp your sense of representation.
00:35:18.000And I think that people fall prey to that on the left, for sure.
00:35:24.000Obviously, we see that with the entire Democrat Party, but we see it happen on the right, you know, fairly frequently, where these people just become fairly warped and inaccessible, and they just become full of vitriol for, again, the president or for a specific piece of legislature.
00:35:43.000They get warped, and then it crashes their career instead of being balanced, which I think Thomas Massey has been balanced for most of his career, and it's unfortunate to see him go against the Save Act.
00:35:53.000Yeah, and I think, you know, genuinely, I felt terrible for Thomas Massey when he lost his wife.
00:36:00.000The president's been opining on Truth Social, though, that his new wife is leading him down this very liberal path.
00:36:48.000That was the illustrious Constitutional Republic in action.
00:36:52.000No, yeah, she was mad that they had Wexter's name blacked out on something, which evidently they knew he was there because he could call it out.
00:36:59.000And then they put it in within 40 minutes.
00:37:41.000I think it's like, you know, when they talk about women changing their hair color dramatically, it's like either it's really good or really indicative of something not going well.
00:38:11.000Before we close, Andrew, I just, I do want to emphasize that point you mentioned, why it is so important that we win, because it does come down to who's staffing things in D.C.
00:38:19.000And as much as we think Trump did have the chance to improve because they spent four years in the wilderness and they learned a lot from mistakes and they came out like a cannonball, the biggest loss they had was they had four years of appointments, interrupted four years of Biden, and then they resume.
00:38:34.000And you saw this with Obama especially.
00:38:36.000A lot of consolidation happens in the second half of an administration and especially in a second term.
00:38:42.000You just, you have a full, like a kind of generation of federal hires who are controlled by a process.
00:38:50.000You basically need till the end of this term for President Trump to win every Supreme Court case he's going to have to win to have strong control over federal hiring.
00:38:58.000And then you'll get that in the second half.
00:39:00.000So that's why all of these turning point endorsements, these turnpoint action endorsements matter.
00:39:05.000That's why we need them to win so that we can win in 28.