The Charlie Kirk Show - The Charlie Kirk Show Responds to Candace Owens

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA high school chapter.

00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

00:00:56.000 The 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.

00:01:09.000 Welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:12.000 We're going to be talking to Frank Turek about the Sabbath and Charlie's upcoming book in just a moment.

00:01:16.000 But first, we wanted to use this segment at the top of this hour to say something important, something very important.

00:01:24.000 For the past two and a half months, there is a topic that has flooded our Freedom Inbox.

00:01:29.000 It has been non-stop on social media, but which we have almost totally avoided on this show.

00:01:35.000 You probably already know what I'm talking about, which shows just how ubiquitous it has been.

00:01:42.000 Ever since Charlie's murder, Candace Owens has leveled a flood of allegations against people at Turning Point USA, people at Turning Point Action, and people who work for this show. 0.63

00:01:54.000 She's made them against some of Charlie's closest friends and against some of his most dedicated employees.

00:02:00.000 She has suggested that Michael McCoy, Charlie's chief of staff, knew Charlie would be murdered, was happy that he died, and stayed silent because he was told he would be the next Charlie.

00:02:10.000 She has suggested Michael is not his real name.

00:02:13.000 It is.

00:02:14.000 I have seen his birth certificate myself.

00:02:16.000 She has called it suspicious that Mikey's wife, who works at Turning Point, helped plan the campus tour event where Charlie was murdered, which she didn't, by the way.

00:02:25.000 She doesn't work on campus events.

00:02:27.000 Candace has suggested the Utah Valley University event was unusual and its details suggested a quote inside job.

00:02:35.000 She has claimed that foreign aircraft have followed Erica Kirk around the country and that Turning Point has lied about this happening.

00:02:43.000 She has accused us of lying about Charlie wanting Erica to take over for him if he died.

00:02:49.000 She has suggested Charlie's security team intentionally denied him first aid after the shooting to ensure that he died.

00:02:56.000 She has raised suspicions about the head of our technical team because he took an SD card out of a camera.

00:03:03.000 She has spread absurd claims that Tyler Boyer, who we just had on the show, sexually abuses male interns.

00:03:11.000 She has suggested that TPUSA faith-affiliated pastors like theologian Frank Turek, who we'll have on in a moment, and Pastor Rob McCoy are part of a military, quote, infiltration of Turning Point, either because they are veterans or because they have family members who are.

00:03:28.000 Even if not everyone has been named specifically, though, Candace has effectively tarred everyone here with complicity in Charlie's death by repeatedly saying he was, quote, betrayed by, quote, everyone.

00:03:41.000 She has said Charlie's murder, quote, had to be approved by Charlie's friends and then suggested those friends might have her murdered too for quote knowing the truth.

00:03:52.000 She has made claims of financial impropriety and fraud at turning point, adding up into the millions of dollars, which again is not true.

00:04:00.000 Charlie made sure the organization was audited by a third party every year.

00:04:05.000 He personally reviewed and he signed off on every expense report and literally every single bill paid by the organization down to a single United States dollar.

00:04:16.000 We have never missed a 990 deadline.

00:04:19.000 Candace has made other stranger allegations involving French paratroopers in maroon shirts, Egyptian Air Force planes flying out of Provo, Utah, and potential underground assassins traveling through unseen tunnels.

00:04:32.000 At one point, in early November, she started wildly throwing suspicion on members of Utah Valley's soccer team for wearing hoodies.

00:04:41.000 I could go on.

00:04:42.000 There is always something new coming up, and none of it ever pans out because, from the start, there has been nothing there.

00:04:50.000 The attacks and allegations from Candace are either lies or they are innuendos thrown around with a total, reckless disregard for the truth, so that Candace can manipulate and string along an audience of people who don't realize they are being played.

00:05:06.000 Instead of being able to grieve properly after one of the most heinous murders in American history, a murder many of us had to witness, my friends have had to endure harassment from people who have gotten whipped up by what Candace is saying.

00:05:21.000 In fact, I would say we have suffered more harassment from these people than we have from Antifa supporters who overtly celebrate Charlie's murder.

00:05:30.000 And just like a lot of those Antifa members, many of these people take this delight in how gross and unpleasant they can be.

00:05:38.000 What our friends have had to endure is not funny and it's not insignificant.

00:05:43.000 It is evil.

00:05:44.000 I have seen it.

00:05:46.000 For months, we have received hundreds, thousands, I suspect, emails and calls asking us to respond.

00:05:53.000 People have wanted us to invite Candace on the show.

00:05:56.000 But for a long time, our approach was to say nothing.

00:06:00.000 We did that for several reasons.

00:06:02.000 First, we thought that her prevarications were so absurd that nobody would believe them.

00:06:08.000 We shouldn't have to answer questions about secret tunnels or Egyptian Air Force planes.

00:06:14.000 That sort of thing is just, it's beneath contempt to respond to.

00:06:18.000 The second reason we've said so little, though, is because there's a good rule of thumb which Charlie followed.

00:06:23.000 Do not feed the trolls.

00:06:24.000 Focus on the mission.

00:06:25.000 Reviving America.

00:06:26.000 Uplifting young people.

00:06:28.000 Making heaven crowded.

00:06:29.000 Don't give air to people who want to tear you down and sow discord.

00:06:34.000 Lastly, we didn't respond because Charlie always viewed Candace as a friend, and we were holding out hope that she would return that friendship and stop what she was doing.

00:06:47.000 But a week from now, it's going to be three months since Charlie's murder.

00:06:52.000 Candace has not changed her behavior.

00:06:54.000 She has continued to spread falsehoods about Charlie's friends, and she continues to concoct new ones about new people.

00:07:02.000 She's using these falsehoods to enrich herself while dividing the conservative movement at an absolutely critical time for this country.

00:07:11.000 And far too often, we here have heard from ordinary people, people who loved Charlie and who Charlie loved so much in return.

00:07:18.000 These people have expressed the worry that we are staying silent out of cowardice or as some sort of tacit admission that some of the attacks are true.

00:07:27.000 Neither is the case.

00:07:28.000 Our silence has never been and it will never be equal to complacency or approval.

00:07:35.000 Still, we decided Charlie would not allow this to go on.

00:07:40.000 Charlie was not a coward.

00:07:42.000 Charlie was a fighter.

00:07:43.000 Charlie would not allow someone to spread lies about the people closest to him with impunity.

00:07:49.000 And he would feel ashamed if other people were stepping up to defend his friends while he never did so himself.

00:07:57.000 Candace has mentioned several times that the ball is in our court.

00:08:02.000 So here's what is going to happen.

00:08:04.000 In the near future, there will be a live stream here in Phoenix where we address in a clear and comprehensive way the claims and accusations, the false accusations that have been made against Charlie's family, friends, and the people here at Turning Point.

00:08:19.000 We plan to walk through everything carefully and thoroughly.

00:08:22.000 If Candace is available, we would sincerely welcome her participation in that live stream at our studio here in Phoenix.

00:08:31.000 At this point, we believe the ball is back in her court.

00:08:35.000 Our motivation for doing this is not out of any obligation to Candace.

00:08:39.000 It is about honoring Charlie.

00:08:41.000 We feel a deep responsibility to protect his legacy, his work, and the truth.

00:08:46.000 I feel that.

00:08:47.000 I owe Charlie everything in my life.

00:08:51.000 I feel it immensely.

00:08:54.000 And that is why we feel compelled to speak clearly and openly now.

00:08:58.000 We'll have more on this in the near future.

00:09:02.000 All right.

00:09:03.000 Frank Turek, are you there?

00:09:05.000 Well said, Blake.

00:09:06.000 Yes, I'm here.

00:09:08.000 And I just want to say that the night before Charlie was murdered, and I'm not just saying this, but I went into his office.

00:09:18.000 This was after we had a meeting.

00:09:19.000 You were in the meeting, Blake, me, you, Charlie, and some other folks.

00:09:23.000 And he was going to dinner and he said, hey, you're going to dinner with Blake and Danny.

00:09:30.000 He said, Blake is my secret weapon.

00:09:32.000 He's the smartest man I know.

00:09:36.000 And he loved you.

00:09:39.000 And for anybody to suggest, whether it's Candace Owens or any other person within TPUSA, was somehow complicit in his murder is to say that Charlie Kirk was such a bad judge of character that he put a bunch of traitors around him.

00:09:58.000 If there's anything I knew about Charlie Kirk, he knew how to spot talent and integrity and people that wanted to make a difference for the Lord and the country.

00:10:12.000 Charlie was brilliant at that.

00:10:15.000 It takes a lot more faith to believe that Charlie didn't know who his friends were and picked all the wrong people to surround him to build an organization that came from nothing to the most powerful conservative organization in the country.

00:10:35.000 I mean, in 13 years, he built it and it was big before 13 years.

00:10:40.000 You know, he really got it moving about seven or eight years later.

00:10:46.000 It strains credulity to suggest that people within that organization, people that he handpicked himself, somehow murdered him.

00:10:56.000 If you're going to suggest that, you better have a lot of evidence.

00:10:59.000 And I have seen none of it.

00:11:02.000 It's unconscionable that anyone would say this without evidence.

00:11:08.000 You can slander.

00:11:10.000 You can say what if.

00:11:11.000 You can have all sorts of innuendos and insinuations.

00:11:15.000 That's not evidence.

00:11:16.000 You can have dreams.

00:11:17.000 You can have hunches.

00:11:18.000 You can have vibes.

00:11:20.000 That is not evidence.

00:11:25.000 Look, I know there are a lot of choices when it comes to who you choose for your cell phone service.

00:11:29.000 There are new ones popping up all the time.

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00:12:09.000 Charlie and Glenn over at Patriot Mobile, dear, dear friends.

00:12:13.000 So I'll give the last word to Charlie.

00:12:14.000 Call 972 Patriot today or go to patriotmobile.com/slash Charlie.

00:12:18.000 Use promo code Charlie for a free month of service.

00:12:21.000 That's patriotmobile.com slash Charlie or call 972 Patriot and make the switch today.

00:12:28.000 Thank you so much for that.

00:12:30.000 It means a great deal.

00:12:32.000 Charlie, Charlie meant so much to all of us, and that's made so much of what we hear so painful, so raw.

00:12:41.000 It remains raw and painful.

00:12:43.000 Andrew's talked about on this show, you know, he thinks about Charlie every day when he gets up and he thinks about him every night when he goes to bed.

00:12:50.000 And he just looms large in all of our heads and all of our hearts.

00:12:54.000 And I suspect he will for the rest of our lives.

00:12:58.000 And I wanted to take a chance to talk about this.

00:13:01.000 So, you know, Charlie did get the chance to finish Stop in the Name of God just before the tragedy.

00:13:07.000 We're extremely happy that he did that.

00:13:08.000 And it's out next, I believe on the 9th next Tuesday.

00:13:12.000 Every book comes out on a Tuesday for some reason.

00:13:15.000 And I know you were one of the pastors he was closest to.

00:13:17.000 Yeah, there you do.

00:13:19.000 You got your advanced copy.

00:13:21.000 And I just thought I'd ask you, throw out to you, if you could talk about what the Sabbath means.

00:13:28.000 And if you had any, if you had any funny interactions with Charlie about his own relationship with the Sabbath, I'm sure he had that conversation with you.

00:13:34.000 Well, yeah, Charlie was wanting to keep the Sabbath, not necessarily because he thought it was an obligation, but because he thought it was a fabulous idea that helped him recharge every week and refocus back on God and his family.

00:13:51.000 He would take, as you know, Blake, he would take his cell phone, turn it off, put it in a drawer, and for 24 to 30 hours, however long the Sabbath was, you could not reach him unless there was some sort of emergency.

00:14:04.000 There was a special line that people could call.

00:14:06.000 But he wanted to be out of touch so he could be in touch with the Lord and in touch with his family.

00:14:12.000 And that's what he did.

00:14:13.000 And in this book, I was shocked because he and I talked about this a lot.

00:14:17.000 And I knew you probably did too, Blake.

00:14:19.000 I was shocked at how good the book was because he's not a trained theologian.

00:14:25.000 But man, did he do his research, Blake?

00:14:28.000 And he's got chapters in here on arguments why the Sabbath is still in place and another chapter on why it's not.

00:14:36.000 And he, of course, lets the reader decide.

00:14:39.000 But he was so serious about Christianity, so serious about the Bible, that he wanted to put this down because it was such a blessing to him.

00:14:50.000 And if we're going to be serious about being Christians, then we ought to follow the Bible too.

00:14:56.000 And unfortunately, I don't see people following the Bible and following the admonition to ensure that you don't accuse people without evidence in this whole debate we're having over who really killed Charlie.

00:15:12.000 It's a shame.

00:15:13.000 If people took the Bible as seriously as Charlie did, we wouldn't have what's going on with all this speculation now.

00:15:20.000 Amen.

00:15:21.000 Amen.

00:15:21.000 I think there's people have been posting the different warnings.

00:15:24.000 I think it was the book of Proverbs that we had going yesterday about, I don't have it right in front of me, but lies.

00:15:31.000 You have to reject the way of lies.

00:15:32.000 Lies. 0.99

00:15:33.000 Yeah, Proverbs 6, 16 says, God hates one who sows discord among the brothers.

00:15:39.000 And it also talks about a lying tongue and false witness.

00:15:43.000 And there's a lot of discord out there.

00:15:46.000 And we don't need discord.

00:15:48.000 We need people to ask good questions, but not imply people are guilty when you don't have evidence.

00:15:55.000 You know, there's such a thing as a complex question, as you well know, Blake, because you're well schooled in logic.

00:16:00.000 The complex question would be like me asking a married man, when did you stop beating your wife? 0.93

00:16:05.000 Yeah, there's this baked-in assumption to it.

00:16:08.000 And that's right.

00:16:09.000 It's a baked-in assumption.

00:16:10.000 And that's what I see in so much of what's going on with online conspiracy theories.

00:16:15.000 There's a baked in assumption.

00:16:18.000 And with regard to people convicting innocent people in the court of public opinion without evidence, it's very similar to what happened to Jesus because Caiaphas, the high priest who sentenced Jesus to die, of course, did so much wrong.

00:16:37.000 He had a trial at night.

00:16:38.000 He was the judge, the jury, the executioner himself.

00:16:41.000 He had to get Pilate to execute him.

00:16:43.000 But he already had the verdict in his mind.

00:16:45.000 He was not trying to discover the truth.

00:16:47.000 He already had the verdict in his mind.

00:16:50.000 And so he brought false witness after false witness to accuse Jesus of something he did not do.

00:16:56.000 And then ultimately, Jesus under oath did admit he was the Messiah, did admit he was essentially God. 0.98

00:17:05.000 And that's where, of course, Caiaphas tore his robes and said, blasphemy, you must die.

00:17:10.000 But to that point, he had done everything against the proper use of authority. 0.88

00:17:18.000 You don't judge people.

00:17:19.000 You're not the judge, jury, and executioner.

00:17:21.000 You don't find a verdict and then try and get people to falsely accuse the victim or the person on trial.

00:17:31.000 But that's what Caiaphas did. 0.92

00:17:32.000 And I see too many people doing that now.

00:17:34.000 They already have a verdict in their mind.

00:17:37.000 They can't substantiate it with hard evidence.

00:17:39.000 They have a lot of innuendo.

00:17:40.000 They have a lot of coincidences, but they don't have hard evidence.

00:17:44.000 And they're looking for a way to validate what they want to be true.

00:17:49.000 This is not the way our judicial system works, thankfully.

00:17:53.000 It's not the way the Bible puts it forth.

00:17:55.000 It's not the way, which, by the way, our judicial system and our laws are taken largely from the Bible.

00:18:03.000 That you're supposed to have two or three witnesses.

00:18:05.000 In other words, you're supposed to have corroborating evidence.

00:18:07.000 You're supposed to have impartial judges.

00:18:09.000 You're supposed to have an independent judiciary.

00:18:12.000 You're supposed to be able to confront the witnesses.

00:18:14.000 The Bible talks about this.

00:18:16.000 And that's incorporated in our Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

00:18:20.000 How can you confront witnesses in the court of public opinion?

00:18:24.000 You can't, not in a systematic way.

00:18:28.000 All this has to go to trial.

00:18:31.000 And I understand, Blake, and I know we're all suspicious of government sometimes, but we can't be cynics.

00:18:38.000 We can't say that every single thing the government does is corrupt or wrong.

00:18:43.000 We can't do that.

00:18:44.000 We won't have a society if we do that.

00:18:46.000 Yeah, you know, a lot of this, you know, the events of the past few months, it's made me, it's expanded my appreciation of Charlie and again, how strong he was.

00:18:55.000 And one of those things is I've really realized since this happened, what Charlie had to put up with in private that he never complained about.

00:19:04.000 He never complained about to me, certainly.

00:19:06.000 And I was one of his closest associates.

00:19:09.000 And, you know, he endured a lot of pressure.

00:19:11.000 He endured in private things that were so hurtful.

00:19:14.000 And he just had this strength.

00:19:15.000 He wouldn't let it perturb him.

00:19:17.000 And that's why I wanted to talk about this, about this book, because I do think the Sabbath Shabbat, he would say that helped so much.

00:19:25.000 It was he for six weeks, he would labor for six weeks.

00:19:28.000 He would endure the slings and arrows of his political enemies, his political allies, quite often.

00:19:35.000 But he had to stay.

00:19:37.000 He was with Erica.

00:19:38.000 He was with his children.

00:19:39.000 The phone was off.

00:19:40.000 He was unplugged.

00:19:41.000 That was, he really makes the point in this book.

00:19:45.000 The Sabbath is not this duty.

00:19:47.000 The Sabbath is a gift.

00:19:48.000 It is God's gift to you that you shall not, you shall not labor all seven days like a slave.

00:19:53.000 You shall have this freedom from God given to you.

00:19:57.000 And he really wanted to share that.

00:19:58.000 It wasn't just, look at how great I am that I can do this.

00:20:01.000 I'm looking here.

00:20:02.000 Chapter 12, Sabbath Made Simple, how you can, how you can incorporate it into your life by, you know, making your Sabbath start ritual, turning off your phone 24 hours, planning screen-free meals with friends and family.

00:20:15.000 And it goes on like this.

00:20:17.000 And he really sketches out how you can imitate him.

00:20:21.000 And we were saying in the last hour that Charlie was so great for Gen Z because he offered this model of strength and self-improvement.

00:20:28.000 Don't blackpill.

00:20:29.000 Don't be downbeat.

00:20:31.000 You can improve yourself and make your life better.

00:20:33.000 30 seconds, Frank.

00:20:34.000 Now, I was also going to say it's not just about the Sabbath, too.

00:20:37.000 The first two chapters deal with the fact that there's evidence that Christianity is true.

00:20:41.000 It's more an apologetic, which is a word we use to say we're giving evidence for what we believe.

00:20:46.000 It's an apologetic for Christianity. 0.83

00:20:48.000 So it's not just about the Sabbath.

00:20:50.000 It's a very well-written book, very well-researched book.

00:20:53.000 It comes out December 9th.

00:20:54.000 It's called Stop in the Name of God, Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life. 0.98

00:20:59.000 Get it.

00:21:00.000 Amen, Frank.

00:21:03.000 I think people will be able to get a lot from it.

00:21:06.000 I think people are really going to appreciate it.

00:21:07.000 And I'm so happy he was able to finish it before he was taken from us by the hand of God.

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00:22:41.000 To have a very interesting conversation right now, we're joined by Bill Glan.

00:22:46.000 Are you there, Bill?

00:22:48.000 I am.

00:22:49.000 So I want to introduce you a bit.

00:22:49.000 Welcome, Bill.

00:22:51.000 So we've talked a ton recently about all these stories coming out of Minnesota.

00:22:55.000 It's got to be the top political content producer state per capita in the union recently.

00:23:01.000 We've got stories about widespread fraud in the Somali community. 1.00

00:23:06.000 We have some outrageous criminal justice decisions that we'll outline here.

00:23:10.000 It's the state that gave us Ilhan Omar. 0.90

00:23:12.000 We love to talk about her.

00:23:14.000 And I wanted to shout you guys out because Bill, you are one of the three authors at Powerline Blog.

00:23:19.000 That is a blog so old.

00:23:21.000 I was reading it when I was in high school.

00:23:23.000 And I'm an old fuddy duddy here.

00:23:25.000 And Powerline Blog is one of the great American blogs.

00:23:29.000 They're guys in Minnesota.

00:23:31.000 They're doing what any one of you out there could do because I think a lot of your two fellow bloggers, I think, work as lawyers.

00:23:37.000 They're not just writers by trade.

00:23:39.000 And you guys have a lot of accomplishments.

00:23:41.000 You were some of the first guys to be talking about these fraud stories that are happening.

00:23:46.000 And most memorably, I've got to shout you out.

00:23:48.000 You were the original ones who wrote about Ilhan Omar marrying her brother, correct?

00:23:54.000 She did marry her brother.

00:23:54.000 Correct, correct.

00:23:56.000 She did.

00:23:56.000 She denied it as recently, I think an hour ago.

00:24:00.000 An hour ago, really?

00:24:01.000 As recently as that.

00:24:03.000 You are on top of it.

00:24:04.000 She didn't marry her brother, but she did.

00:24:07.000 This should be investigated.

00:24:07.000 She did.

00:24:09.000 I'd really love to see.

00:24:10.000 I want the full story on that.

00:24:11.000 Somehow, it's just treated like a total, like a total black box.

00:24:14.000 We just will never know the truth somehow.

00:24:16.000 Absolute lunacy.

00:24:18.000 But the more recent thing that's been going on, of course, is the Somali fraud story. 0.92

00:24:23.000 It went viral because of a report from Chris Ruffo and Ryan Thorpe at City Journal.

00:24:28.000 But you guys have justifiably pointed out it has been known in the state of Minnesota for a while, and it's more that the nation is getting, it's coming to their attention.

00:24:37.000 And it's really wider than even just the list of stories in that.

00:24:40.000 I think we have a chart here that I want to bring up.

00:24:44.000 It's made by you.

00:24:45.000 It's just the scale of different fraud schemes that have been unfolding in Minnesota.

00:24:50.000 Can you lay that out for us?

00:24:51.000 Yeah, so I created something I called the scandal tracker for exactly the reasons that you were pointing out before.

00:24:57.000 And the phrase that I use is Minnesota.

00:25:00.000 This is a Churchillian phrase.

00:25:01.000 Minnesota produces more dues than can be consumed locally.

00:25:04.000 So we've had a couple of these huge industrial scale welfare frauds that have gone on to the state.

00:25:10.000 And I think it was a reader of mine asks, well, what other scan?

00:25:15.000 How deep does this go?

00:25:16.000 And so I started putting together this tracker where I have tracked 28 separate scandals involving money, taxpayer money, state or federal taxpayer money that have been stolen through fraud.

00:25:28.000 And I need to update it because there was a news story that came out in the last day or so, yet another fraud unrelated to the Somali frauds that we've been talking about.

00:25:37.000 And some of those numbers are kind of low as federal investigators or state investigators dig deeper, the dollar amount keeps growing.

00:25:46.000 We have the chart up next to you right now, actually.

00:25:48.000 And yeah, it's 300 million feeding our future.

00:25:52.000 We have 100 million for the child care assistance program.

00:25:55.000 But I know now we're estimating the total here is 660 million, but I know they're throwing around the B word, a billion dollars for a lot of us now.

00:26:04.000 So this is a dated chart.

00:26:06.000 I need to update it.

00:26:08.000 But our local prosecutor, the head prosecutor for white-collar crime at the federal U.S. Attorney's Office, he is on record as saying his office is prosecuting over $1 billion with a B dollar's worth of fraud.

00:26:24.000 And he's only got half a dozen prosecutors in his office.

00:26:29.000 He has openly admitted, I can't prosecute all the cases that come to me.

00:26:34.000 So when he puts a dollar amount together, he thinks the total is over $2 billion.

00:26:39.000 Again, plural, more than $2 billion worth of fraud.

00:26:42.000 And you've seen other numbers thrown around, $6 billion, $8 billion.

00:26:46.000 But Joe Thompson, he's got access to all the bank records and all the FBI reports.

00:26:52.000 And he's personally prosecuting $1 billion worth now.

00:26:56.000 And he thinks he could productively prosecute another full billion dollars.

00:27:01.000 So you're a Minnesota resident.

00:27:04.000 You focus on Minnesota.

00:27:05.000 It does seem to produce more content than it consumed locally as far as news goes.

00:27:10.000 What do you think is the secret sauce of Minnesota where it's like you have this kind of perfect combination of old-fashioned, maybe call it naive liberalism, call it Tim Waltzism, and then also this new immigration-driven dimension of left-wing problems in American life?

00:27:30.000 That's the lethal combination.

00:27:32.000 Minnesota was founded by a diverse group of immigrants, a lot of them from Scandinavia, but also German, Irish, other groups.

00:27:41.000 But you had in Minnesota until maybe 30, 40 years ago, a fairly homogeneous population of Northern Europeans.

00:27:50.000 And again, it's not, I don't think it's racist to point out that in Scandinavia, you can run a Scandinavian style socialist welfare state in a fairly homogeneous nation and be successful with it.

00:28:05.000 And Minnesota tried that and succeeded at some level with that approach, the Scandinavian style.

00:28:12.000 You can do that in a high trust society.

00:28:14.000 But as we've brought in people who don't come from that background, who don't come from high functioning or high trust societies, who don't have the experience with the cradle to grave welfare societies, some individuals in those communities, certainly not most, certainly not all, but some individuals, we're talking a few hundred to maybe a couple of thousand people have found the loopholes in the safety net and have exploited it to make themselves extremely wealthy.

00:28:43.000 And more than a few have gone to prison and dozens and dozens have been convicted.

00:28:48.000 And I think it's that lethal combination of the Scandinavian style cradle to grave welfare state designed for a homogeneous high trust society being exploited by a society that has evolved and perhaps for the better into a multicultural, multi-ethnic society. 0.96

00:29:07.000 But those just two fundamental approaches to running a society don't match.

00:29:11.000 So this has gotten a ton of attention from the Trump administration.

00:29:16.000 They've talked about sending all these IRS agents to review everything.

00:29:18.000 Although it seems like the local prosecutor has a lot of this well in hand, though we'd be grateful to find more.

00:29:24.000 He has a lot of it well in hand, but I'm sure he would appreciate the additional assistance.

00:29:28.000 I believe it.

00:29:29.000 I believe it.

00:29:31.000 Do you have anything you think?

00:29:33.000 So what would you recommend if now that it's getting more federal attention?

00:29:38.000 Where do you think focus could be most rewarding in terms of making additional fines that could be good for the country to expose?

00:29:46.000 Yeah, so it's a target-rich environment.

00:29:49.000 And it's gotten to the point where somebody responded to me on Twitter that maybe it's just time to put the state into receivership.

00:29:57.000 The federal prosecutor, instead of prosecuting criminals one at a time, the fraud is being conducted at an industrial scale, but the prosecutions by necessity under our constitution happen at a retail scale, one defendant at a time who has the full suite of civil rights and rights in court.

00:30:16.000 And they exercise them, which is their right.

00:30:19.000 But to prosecute a trial, the first batch of Feeding Our Future, the original scandal, those indictments, the first batch came in September of 2022.

00:30:28.000 We didn't have our first trial until 2024.

00:30:32.000 And we have trials scheduled into 2026.

00:30:35.000 And that's just for the defendants that have been indicted to date.

00:30:40.000 And again, it seems like one or two a week, additional indictments come down.

00:30:44.000 But it's got to be a holistic approach.

00:30:48.000 You know, the fraudsters figured out how to defraud one program in one state agency and applied that same technique to another program in a different state agency.

00:30:57.000 The agencies weren't talking to each other.

00:30:59.000 I really think we need to have a top-down review of the social welfare programs, maybe consolidate fewer programs, put more investigators on it, put more restrictions on it.

00:31:11.000 A little bit of due diligence would have gone a long way in these frauds.

00:31:15.000 Have somebody just visited site locations or done some basic background checks.

00:31:21.000 Hundreds of millions of dollars could have been prevented from going out the door, but they didn't.

00:31:25.000 It's a system.

00:31:27.000 Minnesota has the system Which I characterize as the honor system.

00:31:34.000 So, all of state governments on the honor system.

00:31:36.000 If you apply for a benefit or you send the state an invoice, their first instinct is just trust that you're doing it, you know, under penalty of perjury.

00:31:44.000 You sign the document.

00:31:45.000 It's unbelievable to me.

00:31:46.000 Yeah, the honor system, it just doesn't work.

00:31:48.000 It's clearly getting looted, and you really have to make the case.

00:31:51.000 They're just plundering the entire rest of the state.

00:31:55.000 We still have a fellow producer here, Danny, who's with us.

00:31:58.000 Danny, you wanted to ask a question?

00:32:00.000 Yeah, Bill, thanks for coming on.

00:32:01.000 I wonder: do you think other states are just as bad?

00:32:04.000 Like, I assume Michigan's probably pretty bad with all this welfare fraud and stuff.

00:32:09.000 Do you think that Minnesota is the outlier, or do you think all of them?

00:32:15.000 The short answer is it's everywhere.

00:32:17.000 In the early days of my reporting on the Feeding Our Futures scandal, I was contacted by people in other states as far away as Alabama, where they had almost identical scams being perpetrated, but at just a much smaller scale.

00:32:29.000 It's interesting that we had the past U.S. attorney, the outgoing U.S. attorney, who was a Biden appointee, he went on local TV and he said Minnesota has a fraud problem, that fraud is occurring everywhere in America.

00:32:45.000 This was referring to the COVID-era frauds, but the scale in Minnesota is unique.

00:32:51.000 So, yes, I think the fraud is happening anywhere, everywhere, and anywhere, but I don't know if any state on a per capita basis has seen the level of fraud that Minnesota has.

00:33:01.000 It really, the thing that stood out to me so much in the New York Times article, which was remarkably frank and honest, finally, about what's going on, it was sort of two things.

00:33:10.000 It was the way it was caught immediately or caught pretty quickly, and they just did nothing because they directly feared being called.

00:33:18.000 They literally caught on day zero.

00:33:20.000 The original fraudsters in that food program were their applications were denied by the State Department of Education.

00:33:26.000 They applied, Department of Education said no because they realized from just a review of their applications that they weren't bona fide operators, but there were lawsuits and accusations of racism, and they never had the courage of their convictions.

00:33:41.000 And they just let it slip through, figuring it was somebody else's problem.

00:33:44.000 Yeah.

00:33:44.000 And the other thing, which is they were warned about this, and then they said it's their important political block, and they don't want to offend them.

00:33:53.000 That listen, there's no way around it when it comes to healthcare.

00:33:58.000 People are really frustrated with how much it costs and how to pay for it.

00:34:03.000 The usual ways we've been doing this have only gotten more expensive, more complicated, and honestly, just aggravating.

00:34:08.000 And that's why MetaShare is such a welcome relief.

00:34:10.000 It's called healthcare sharing.

00:34:12.000 It's different and it really works.

00:34:15.000 More than a million Americans are now doing this, and MetaShare has been a great option for more than 30 years.

00:34:20.000 So, really, you could save thousands of dollars a year on your healthcare and be happy.

00:34:24.000 Imagine that.

00:34:26.000 For many families, joining MetaShare means saving about 500 bucks a month, which is a game changer for a lot of people.

00:34:34.000 If you've heard about it and you want to know more, there are two easy options: go to metashare.com, M-E-D-I share.com slash Kirk.

00:34:42.000 That's Metashare.com/slash Kirk, or just grab your phone and send a text.

00:34:46.000 You'll get the info, which could really help you and your family out.

00:34:49.000 Save money, get great health care.

00:34:51.000 Text the word Kirk, K-I-R-K to 70246.

00:34:55.000 That's Kirk to 70246 to get the facts.

00:34:58.000 That's Kirk to 70246.

00:35:04.000 Danny, we were talking in the break about, in addition to all the fraud in Minnesota, there's some very interesting judicial rulings that we've been getting from the state's criminal courts.

00:35:14.000 Why don't you set this one up?

00:35:16.000 Yeah, so there's this convicted sex offender in Minnesota who served no prison time for previous rapes.

00:35:24.000 And so if you guys want to throw it a 252.

00:35:27.000 Abdimahat Billy Mohammed, but prosecutors say the 28-year-old uses the names Kareem and Altesto on Snapchat, and that is where investigators say he met his latest victim as well as his two previous ones.

00:35:40.000 His profile was already in the database from previous cases involving sexual assaults in Minneapolis in 2017 and another one in 2024.

00:35:49.000 A Henneman County judge sentenced Muhammad in May in those cases, including one involving a 15-year-old girl.

00:35:56.000 Prosecutors say two other unidentified men took part in that assault and one threatened the victim with a gun.

00:36:04.000 But Muhammad never spent a day in prison, as we said, because he got credit for time served while awaiting trial as part of a pair of plea deals.

00:36:12.000 So, Bill, this really seems the other side of the coin.

00:36:15.000 It's the you allow fraud to happen with practical impunity.

00:36:18.000 And even when you have someone dead to rights on most heinous violent crimes, it just seems there's this breezy devil-may care attitude.

00:36:27.000 They're released back into the wild to hurt people again.

00:36:30.000 Is that really what's going on?

00:36:32.000 Exactly.

00:36:33.000 The key words in that report that you just aired were Hennepin County.

00:36:37.000 Hennepin County is the largest by population county in Minnesota.

00:36:41.000 It includes the city of Minneapolis, which got mentioned in the report as well.

00:36:45.000 And that crime, if I recall correctly, the most recent one occurred in the city of Bloomington, which is also in Hennepin County, home to the Mall of America. 0.98

00:36:53.000 Hennepin County's prosecutor, the lead prosecutor, elected official Mary Moriarty, notorious soft on crime.

00:37:01.000 And the officials, the judges rather, in Hennepin County are notoriously soft on crime as well.

00:37:08.000 So it's entirely the pattern you see time and time again.

00:37:12.000 Convicted felons, even violent felons, it's almost impossible to get sent to state prisons, at least on the first or second try.

00:37:20.000 The stayed sentences, time served, we heard that in the report, the plea deals.

00:37:26.000 They think the idea is prison is the wrong.

00:37:29.000 We have an over-incarceration problem, according to Mary Moriarty and a lot of judges.

00:37:34.000 They think the solution is never sent somebody for prison.

00:37:37.000 I don't know what the solution is in their view, healing circles or alternatives to detention, but it's nearly impossible to actually get prison time, no matter how violent the crime is.

00:37:48.000 To the point where we've seen exactly what happened with these white-collar crimes, these fraud crimes.

00:37:53.000 It's the federal prosecutors that have stepped in and filled the gap.

00:37:58.000 They have literally taken over cases from Hennepin County prosecutors and prosecuted them in federal court with the knowledge there was a much higher likelihood that the offendant, if convicted, would actually serve a prison sentence and serve a full prison sentence at that.

00:38:15.000 So especially the gang problem, this didn't sound like a gang problem, but there's a big gang problem in Minneapolis, ethnic gangs.

00:38:22.000 You know, the president says they're running amok.

00:38:24.000 He's not wrong. 0.53

00:38:25.000 But the feds have stepped in.

00:38:27.000 Andy Luger, the Biden appointee, and then the new Trump appointee have been vigorously prosecuting gang violence, some of the more notorious violent crimes, because Barry Moriarty, the county attorney, and the judges just won't take care of the job.

00:38:43.000 I don't really blame the law enforcement folks.

00:38:46.000 They make the arrests.

00:38:47.000 They make the cases.

00:38:48.000 They hand it over to prosecutors.

00:38:50.000 The prosecutors cut plea deals.

00:38:52.000 The judges won't impose prison sentences.

00:38:55.000 All right.

00:38:55.000 I want to give you, I shouted out your blog.

00:38:57.000 Tell people where they can read your work.

00:38:59.000 Yes, I write for the Center of the American Experiment at AmericanExperiment.org, or you can reach me also at PowerlineBlog.

00:39:07.000 Powerlineblog.com.

00:39:10.000 They are real MVPs.

00:39:12.000 I've loved them.

00:39:13.000 I've been reading them for 20 years.

00:39:14.000 That's how old they are.

00:39:16.000 Thank you so much for coming on, Bill.

00:39:17.000 And it's probably not the last time if Minnesota keeps at it.

00:39:25.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 03, 2025

The Charlie Kirk Show Responds to Candace Owens

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