The Charlie Kirk Show - August 31, 2026


The Coalition of Alternative Gods + The Jerry Sandusky Case Returns


Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 27 minutes

Words per minute

181.04

Word count

15,898

Sentence count

1,174


Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
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 will end up purposeful.
00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.
00:00:26.000 You've 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 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:06.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at NobleGoldInvestments.com.
00:01:13.000 That is NobleGoldInvestments.com.
00:01:17.000 All right.
00:01:18.000 Welcome, everybody.
00:01:19.000 Monday, August 31st in rainy Phoenix, Arizona.
00:01:22.000 That's right.
00:01:23.000 It's raining outside, which is unusual.
00:01:26.000 But if you listen to Blake, it rains too much in Phoenix, and that's his big beef.
00:01:30.000 How are we doing, Blake?
00:01:31.000 Oh, we're doing all right.
00:01:33.000 We're doing all right.
00:01:34.000 You know, we're annoyed with certain people right now.
00:01:37.000 Well, we'll get to it.
00:01:38.000 Over the weekend, we had a.
00:01:40.000 Great event, make having a crowded tour stop in El Paso, Texas, with Jesse Waters.
00:01:46.000 Lucas Miles, who you've seen on this show, who runs Turning Point Faith, TPSA Faith, was there and interviewed him on stage.
00:01:52.000 Great event.
00:01:53.000 I'm going to start with the really, really positive stuff, which was actually tremendous.
00:01:59.000 And if you listen to Jesse Waters and what Charlie's death, how it impacted his life, it's hard not to get inspired yourself.
00:02:06.000 So let's play a couple of those clips first.
00:02:08.000 Sot 14.
00:02:09.000 When Charlie was shot, There was something inside of me that just yearned to learn more about Jesus Christ.
00:02:20.000 And that's how the whole country felt.
00:02:21.000 The whole country was awakened, and we wanted to experience a reawakening.
00:02:28.000 And so we have a little Bible study now at Fox.
00:02:34.000 By the way, that's kind of fascinating.
00:02:35.000 I remember him telling me about that.
00:02:36.000 I was texting with Jesse, you know, probably in the months after it happened, and he was saying, Yeah, we're all doing a Bible study.
00:02:42.000 I think he even does it with.
00:02:44.000 I think they go around, but it's literally just the five.
00:02:47.000 They do a, the co hosts of the five do it.
00:02:51.000 So he continues on, Sot 15.
00:02:53.000 Character is destiny.
00:02:56.000 And if everybody focuses on their own character and their own choices, then this country is going to become great again.
00:03:06.000 Which is 100% true, by the way.
00:03:08.000 And he continues on, last clip from Jesse, but this is my favorite one.
00:03:11.000 So we saved the best for last.
00:03:13.000 Sot 16.
00:03:14.000 I can tell you that ever since I've found God, my life has gotten better materially, professionally.
00:03:21.000 My family, like, I can tolerate my family now my sister, my crazy mother.
00:03:29.000 I have so much more patience than I used to.
00:03:32.000 But I just, I'm so grateful that I've found God.
00:03:38.000 So that was, what was that, Saturday night?
00:03:40.000 I don't know.
00:03:40.000 It was a great event.
00:03:41.000 It was great.
00:03:42.000 It was fantastic.
00:03:43.000 The clips were everywhere, flooding social media.
00:03:45.000 It was a beautiful thing.
00:03:46.000 And it attests to, I think we agree, one of the most beautiful things that has come from the tragedy of Charlie's death is people who you wouldn't necessarily have expected before really becoming, you know, making proclamations of the gospel you don't normally expect.
00:04:03.000 I mean, politicians.
00:04:04.000 We talked about Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance, both of them publicly Christians, but making much more ad hoc proclamations of the gospel at Charlie's morale, ones they weren't planning on making, but that have endured since.
00:04:18.000 And we've seen that.
00:04:21.000 It's a real force of inspiration to people.
00:04:23.000 So let's go ahead and throw up with all this renewed attention.
00:04:25.000 We have a graphic of the upcoming tour stops of Make Heaven Crowded.
00:04:31.000 So you throw up 145.
00:04:33.000 So this was El Paso and 829.
00:04:35.000 Next up is 920.
00:04:37.000 So a little less than a month away.
00:04:39.000 Honolulu, Hawaii.
00:04:40.000 Charlotte, North Carolina.
00:04:41.000 Tucson, Arizona.
00:04:42.000 Las Vegas, Nevada.
00:04:43.000 Austin, Texas.
00:04:44.000 Denver, Colorado.
00:04:45.000 San Jose, California.
00:04:46.000 Des Moines, Iowa.
00:04:48.000 Woodland Park, Colorado.
00:04:49.000 Eugene, Oregon.
00:04:49.000 And Phoenix, Arizona.
00:04:51.000 At Amfest.
00:04:52.000 Okay.
00:04:52.000 So massive upcoming tours.
00:04:54.000 We've already gone through dozens of these.
00:04:55.000 And the way that the tour works is that we are there at the generosity of a host church.
00:05:02.000 Okay.
00:05:03.000 So that means we go into their sanctuary.
00:05:06.000 We have, you know, experience all of the uniqueness of that particular church home.
00:05:13.000 They decorate it the way they want to.
00:05:15.000 We show up and we do an event, but we don't get to dictate the decor.
00:05:20.000 We don't get to dictate anything.
00:05:21.000 So this is what.
00:05:23.000 The controversy was this weekend that I found particularly annoying, and it's important to go through.
00:05:28.000 But there was an American flag and an Israeli flag, okay, that they put up apparently in the last week, unbeknownst to our team that runs the TPUSA faith tour, all right?
00:05:41.000 So I think we have an image of this, and it was a, I mean, and I put out on social media, I said, we didn't put it up, we didn't dictate, we didn't say, hey, Church in El Paso, you must have an Israeli flag up or we're not doing this event.
00:06:00.000 Like, none of that happened.
00:06:02.000 They did it on their own.
00:06:03.000 I don't know if they were sprucing up the joint before having this major event with Jesse Waters and TPSA Faith.
00:06:09.000 I don't know if they were trying to send a message.
00:06:11.000 The church apparently has a long history of being pro Israel.
00:06:15.000 If you read their statement of faith, they have it in there.
00:06:17.000 Yeah.
00:06:18.000 Very.
00:06:19.000 It's one that a lot of evangelical churches.
00:06:20.000 Maybe they wanted to use this moment to make that statement.
00:06:24.000 Now, My personal preference is you don't have flags in church.
00:06:29.000 You are obviously lifting up your spirit to God Almighty, to Jesus Christ.
00:06:35.000 You are praying to God.
00:06:37.000 If you want to have an American flag, I think that's fine.
00:06:39.000 My personal preference is you don't do that.
00:06:40.000 Okay.
00:06:41.000 I don't even like the dual lapel pin flags where it's like Ukraine and America or Israel and America.
00:06:46.000 We're American.
00:06:48.000 But I'm also not going to sit here and condemn a church that wants to put up a flag.
00:06:52.000 I'm not going to condemn a church that is really pro Israel.
00:06:55.000 I'm not going to condemn any of that.
00:06:57.000 And by the way, we don't micromanage.
00:06:59.000 Local churches.
00:07:01.000 So the whole thing turns into just this juice burging moment.
00:07:04.000 By the way, we got an email last time I said that word.
00:07:07.000 It's kind of an internet slang term for like Asperger's and Jew.
00:07:12.000 So, juice burging.
00:07:13.000 There's a whole corner of the internet.
00:07:15.000 This is the only thing they look for.
00:07:17.000 They don't care about anything except this one issue.
00:07:20.000 And so they spent Sunday flipping out about this, falsely claiming that Turning Point ordered that this was part of the event, that Turning Point ordered the church to put it up.
00:07:30.000 And even once this was corrected, which was trivial and easy to do, they just insisted upon it anyway.
00:07:36.000 And Andrew and I were discussing before the show what drives this.
00:07:40.000 And the truth is, there's a lot of people who the only thing they ever want to talk about is Israel, the Jews, and specifically how much they hate both of them.
00:07:51.000 There are podcasts where every episode is just about that.
00:07:54.000 They find a way to make every single topic.
00:07:57.000 If you talk about taxes, they say, we would be richer if not for the Jews taking all of our money.
00:08:02.000 If you want to talk about the border, they would say, it doesn't matter as long as we're enslaved by Israel.
00:08:06.000 And then they do this.
00:08:07.000 They attack Turning Point endlessly.
00:08:09.000 They've lied about the org.
00:08:10.000 They said, They say Turning Point is a huge champion for the Iran war.
00:08:14.000 When, if you've ever watched this show, if you've ever watched Turning Point, you know that's not true.
00:08:18.000 We've gotten a bunch of emails from you out there that are mad that we're not supportive as much as you should.
00:08:23.000 And it's that people so aggressively lie about this.
00:08:25.000 I just saw someone who fell for it, someone posted a Make Heaven Crowded advertisement, and it's like Erica Kirk with the Israeli flag in the background and an atomic bomb going off.
00:08:36.000 Obviously fake, obviously a Photoshop.
00:08:39.000 Someone points us out and they go, Oh, I fell for it.
00:08:41.000 But Make heaven crowded is still really suspicious.
00:08:44.000 I mean, it's not suspicious for any reason except that these people are obsessed with one topic and they make everything about it.
00:08:50.000 It's super annoying because there's a lot of more important things to do, and you have a whole corner of the internet that all they do is bitch and complain, pardon my French, about us and what we're doing.
00:09:01.000 And they're not doing anything.
00:09:04.000 They're not doing the organizing, the get out the vote, they're not chasing ballots, and they're not bringing people to Christ.
00:09:10.000 And they're not making heaven crowded.
00:09:11.000 So, anyways, that was a fun little excursion over the weekend.
00:09:16.000 But listen, Do not fall for the up, okay?
00:09:19.000 Do not fall that all of your problems could be heaped on one people.
00:09:24.000 It doesn't mean we don't have legitimate critiques with Benjamin Netanyahu or Likud party or our relationship with Israel.
00:09:30.000 Those are legitimate conversations to have, and we should have them.
00:09:34.000 But don't turn it into some sort of like diabolical fixation and scapegoating.
00:09:38.000 That's an ancient evil, and we reject it.
00:09:40.000 So, this is what we're talking about, might seem unique to us.
00:09:44.000 It might feel like a very unique turning point.
00:09:47.000 Story, but it's not.
00:09:49.000 Okay.
00:09:49.000 This is a headline this morning.
00:09:52.000 148.
00:09:53.000 Throw it up.
00:09:53.000 Jesus was a radical.
00:09:55.000 Progressives invoked Christ to sell left wing agenda on the campaign trail.
00:09:59.000 And associated with this graphic and this story is a picture of what's her name?
00:10:07.000 Angela Nixon, Angie Nixon in Florida, radical DSA candidate.
00:10:11.000 James Talrico, the beta male from Texas who thinks he's going to take Ken Paxton down.
00:10:17.000 Beta male?
00:10:19.000 Beta male.
00:10:20.000 And also, Abdul El Sayed.
00:10:24.000 So this is not limited to turning point, make Kevin crowded in El Paso.
00:10:30.000 Okay.
00:10:31.000 What's happening is a collision of ideas and a battle over who gets to own what piece of territory when it comes to messaging and communication and honestly, the moral high ground.
00:10:43.000 Because a lot of this, Democrats are classic at virtue signaling and invoking the name of Jesus.
00:10:48.000 El Sayed, by the way, when he does it, he's saying that he's a Muslim and they don't believe that Jesus is who he said he was, namely the son of God.
00:10:56.000 And the Messiah.
00:10:57.000 Or who got crucified.
00:10:58.000 Who got crucified.
00:10:59.000 They think of him as a prophet.
00:11:01.000 And they say they revere him, even though they don't revere the people that worship him as God.
00:11:05.000 They actually hate those people.
00:11:06.000 And they will enslave those people or kill those people.
00:11:09.000 But never mind the details.
00:11:11.000 Don't sweat the small stuff.
00:11:13.000 And then you got Tal Rico doing it and all this stuff.
00:11:14.000 And then, meanwhile, in New York, we've got.
00:11:20.000 There's a whole.
00:11:21.000 We could do a whole segment on crazy liberal women right now.
00:11:24.000 But you've got Kathy Hochul donning a hijab.
00:11:28.000 For Muslim men at an event, right?
00:11:31.000 This is Kathy Hochul, you know, hands off our bodies, medical autonomy, we're gonna abort till the sun don't shine.
00:11:39.000 All of this stuff until the Muslim men demand that she wears a hijab.
00:11:44.000 And she dutifully helps them out with that.
00:11:47.000 Sat7.
00:12:00.000 It's amazing because you remember a decade ago where all those anti Trump women would don those handmaid's tail costumes because the Amazon show came out.
00:12:09.000 And this is what Trump was going to impose on them.
00:12:11.000 He was going to make them all dress up.
00:12:12.000 Like, you know, this kind of vaguely kinky outfit version of colonial America, which of course never happened, was never going to happen.
00:12:23.000 But as you say, they'll race.
00:12:25.000 All the people who say, my body, my choice, will race to say, my body, their choice as soon as it's going to a mosque to talk to Muslim men about how we're going to bring more of them into America, let them have more power over American life.
00:12:39.000 Because the big strand uniting all these disparate groups.
00:12:44.000 Whether it's Islamic immigrants or Kathy Oakle or James Tallarico or anyone else or Hassan Piker, is hostility towards America and the historic American identity and the historic American people.
00:12:57.000 As long as you are against those people and against that concept, you have room in the Democrat coalition.
00:13:03.000 And it's not limited to New York, unfortunately.
00:13:06.000 Look at in California, 150 right here.
00:13:10.000 California Governor Gavin Newsom is set to sign legislation recognizing two Muslim holidays, Ayyad al Fitr.
00:13:18.000 Do you know how to say this?
00:13:19.000 You know, I'm not going to credit you for what's good that you don't know how to say.
00:13:22.000 As state holidays and allowing public schools to celebrate their significance.
00:13:26.000 Meanwhile, there are over 12 million Catholics in California, yet schools have no similar authorization to celebrate the religious significance of Christmas, Easter, or Good Friday.
00:13:35.000 Do you see what's happening here?
00:13:38.000 So while we're touring around the country in dozens and dozens of states, lifting up the name of Jesus, celebrating the church, getting off the sidelines and into the public sphere because.
00:13:48.000 We firmly believe, and Charlie firmly believed, that if we don't do it, people who don't share your values will.
00:13:54.000 We have ceded the public square as Christians to the atheists, the agnostics, the secular humanists, the communists, the DSA types, and the Muslims.
00:14:05.000 So meanwhile, California and New York are bending over backwards to give special honor to Islamic holidays.
00:14:16.000 And we don't even have Good Friday, Christmas, or Easter.
00:14:20.000 Authorized in California, Jesus Christ.
00:14:21.000 You know, we always advertise when we do the Hills, we talk about the Iliad and we talk about the Odyssey.
00:14:25.000 And I was flipping through it because I got my copy of the Odyssey.
00:14:27.000 Yes, you did.
00:14:27.000 And there's a line in Homer's Odyssey.
00:14:30.000 I believe Nestor says it, one of the guys.
00:14:32.000 And he says, All men have need of gods.
00:14:35.000 And I think about that often because it's very true.
00:14:38.000 Everyone needs some sort of God to worship.
00:14:41.000 And Charlie loved that point that you can submit to the one God that we believe in and his son and the civilization that emanates forth from that.
00:14:51.000 And the teachings that emanate from that.
00:14:53.000 But if you throw it out, you don't replace it with nothing.
00:14:55.000 It will be replaced with something else.
00:14:57.000 And we see what that replacement is.
00:15:00.000 It's an ideology of self love through things like abortion and materialism and drug use.
00:15:08.000 It's an ideal, or some of them race to an alternative God, Allah, or any other religion.
00:15:15.000 And they import those values, which are not what made the West, are not what made Western civilization.
00:15:21.000 But they will find a replacement.
00:15:24.000 And That's kind of what you might say the Democrat coalition is.
00:15:26.000 It's the grand coalition of replacement gods.
00:15:29.000 Yeah, that's a great way to put it, actually.
00:15:31.000 It's replacing everything that made Western civilization the place they all want to flock to.
00:15:35.000 So they come here because it's better, and yet they hate the underlying foundational elements that made it better.
00:15:42.000 This is Abdul El Sayed.
00:15:43.000 He's insisting after a radical Islamic terrorist attack on a mission in synagogue, he was only offering context.
00:15:50.000 This is a cool, crazy story, but it's all tied in.
00:15:52.000 11.
00:15:53.000 We condemned that terrorist attack, we condemned it outright.
00:15:56.000 What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn't the time for context, and you don't ever want to trample somebody's pain.
00:16:03.000 Oh, mask off moment for the Muslim from Egypt.
00:16:06.000 Oh, when there's a radical Islamic terrorist attack, you said hurt people, hurt people.
00:16:11.000 Oh, thanks for that context, El Sayed.
00:16:13.000 I think the context is that you truly dislike some people.
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00:18:21.000 All right.
00:18:21.000 Without further ado, we have the great Megan Basham.
00:18:24.000 She's the author of Shepherds for Sale, which was a bestseller, talking about the church.
00:18:29.000 And Megan, I have to start there.
00:18:32.000 And you do so much, by the way.
00:18:33.000 We have a great article that you've written about Dolly Parton, we're going to get to in the second segment about why we need to make sure the left doesn't claim her.
00:18:40.000 And I totally agree.
00:18:41.000 But I flagged for you this controversy about the Israeli flag.
00:18:47.000 We didn't set it up.
00:18:48.000 I'm literally getting community noted on it, even though I don't know.
00:18:52.000 We did not set it up.
00:18:54.000 I don't know how to say this any differently, but it doesn't matter.
00:18:58.000 There is a certain corner of the internet that either doesn't understand how the evangelical church works or they just hate evangelical churches.
00:19:06.000 Tell us, and for our audience, how normal this is within evangelical churches in America for them to have a statement of faith that also includes maybe a line about their support of the state of Israel.
00:19:16.000 Is it sinister?
00:19:17.000 Is it normal?
00:19:18.000 The floor is yours.
00:19:19.000 No.
00:19:20.000 And, you know, it's not something that everyone agrees with, but there is still a very strong dispensational theology that a lot of Baptists, in particular, non denominational Protestants, embrace.
00:19:29.000 And so, if you go into those churches, you know, it's a valid theological position that a lot of Christians debate, but those particular churches are going to telegraph and signal their support for Israel because they do believe that God still has promises and prophecies to fulfill for the state of Israel.
00:19:47.000 And so, you know, for those reasons, they look at those Old Testament verses about, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you, and they believe them.
00:19:54.000 And so, you know, you can disagree with that, but it is a legitimate theological position that many, many, many mainstream Protestant evangelical churches take.
00:20:03.000 So, you know, if you visit a lot of them, and I'm sure I too have been in churches that, you know, were strongly supportive of Israel, I didn't look around for the flags.
00:20:11.000 But, you know, if I found out I happened to be in a church with one, I wouldn't be surprised because certainly, you know, I have dispensational friends.
00:20:19.000 And yeah, so, you know, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
00:20:21.000 I think this is a really interesting question because Blake's Catholic and the Catholic Church has been, I think, pretty.
00:20:27.000 Steady on this.
00:20:28.000 They kind of pray for the salvation of Israel, which I believe all Christians do.
00:20:31.000 It's been a controversy because historically on Good Friday there's a prayer for the Jews, but it's very much in the tone of we pray for them to convert.
00:20:39.000 And that's created controversy over time, especially in the precise wording.
00:20:43.000 It's not dispensationalist.
00:20:44.000 It is not.
00:20:45.000 So, but Megan, I think we do ourselves a disservice in this dialogue if we sort of say, hey, you're replacement theology, that you believe the church has replaced Israel versus dispensationalist, which you believe the opposite of that.
00:20:58.000 But there's lots of in betweens, right?
00:21:00.000 There's lots of.
00:21:01.000 There's remnant theology.
00:21:02.000 Like, my point is, and we do this for foreign policy.
00:21:06.000 There's leaky dispensationalists.
00:21:07.000 What's that?
00:21:08.000 I said, if you're a John MacArthur fan, you know, there's leaky dispensationalists.
00:21:12.000 Okay, exactly.
00:21:12.000 That's what he called himself.
00:21:13.000 So, here's what I would say We do this with foreign policy.
00:21:16.000 You're either pro Israel or you're against Israel.
00:21:19.000 There's no iterations in between.
00:21:20.000 But from a theological standpoint, give the audience, educate the audience right now on some of, yeah, leaky dispensationalists versus replacement versus remnant.
00:21:29.000 There's lots of theologies in between that we never talk about.
00:21:32.000 Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't delve deeply into this issue myself.
00:21:36.000 I'm kind of one of those who goes, look, I don't think I'm going to know this for sure until Christ returns and we will sort it out then.
00:21:43.000 So I don't get especially worked up about this issue, but some people do.
00:21:46.000 And so you do have some Christians.
00:21:48.000 I don't know exactly which part of dispensationalism that leaked out for John MacArthur.
00:21:54.000 So, you know, I would have to go back and review what his doctrine was on that.
00:22:00.000 But yes, I mean, so you have those who believe that the church, the Christian church today, has fulfilled.
00:22:05.000 Fulfilled all of the promises that were made to Israel in the Old Testament.
00:22:09.000 So they believe that the church now represents Israel in those Old Testament promises.
00:22:14.000 And then you have a lot of Christians who don't believe that, who believe that no, these promises are yet to be fulfilled in Israel in the future.
00:22:22.000 And none of them, I don't think, think the entire state of Israel politically is going to be saved, but they are saying there is going to be a great coming to Christ by the Jews in the end times, that that's something we're going to see.
00:22:35.000 And so, regardless of where you stand on whether we have replaced The Jews in the Old Testament as the church, or whether those promises are still to be fulfilled, I think we can all go, that's a good thing.
00:22:46.000 We all want to believe that, yes, there will be a great coming to Christ in the end times by the Jews.
00:22:51.000 And so, like I said, I am not an expert on this subject by any stretch of the imagination.
00:22:55.000 So please don't send me your letters.
00:22:59.000 But the upshot is these are very legitimate, grounded, mainstream views.
00:23:06.000 And anyone pretending online like this is somehow some new nefarious development in evangelicalism.
00:23:12.000 Simply doesn't know evangelicalism.
00:23:15.000 Well, and you know, on that backdrop, right?
00:23:17.000 So, we're so distracted, you know, arguing about different theological positions about Israel.
00:23:23.000 But meanwhile, you've got stories that, whether or not, you know, the Girl Scouts has been doing this for years, that you've got Kathy Hochul wearing a hijab.
00:23:33.000 You've got the Girl Scouts giving out Muslim badges.
00:23:36.000 You've got El Sayed basically saying, hurt people, hurt people when terrorists do terrorism.
00:23:43.000 So, the whole like moral inversion that we're watching happening right before our very eyes on social media.
00:23:49.000 Is nonetheless troublesome.
00:23:51.000 Now, this was interesting.
00:23:53.000 Before this segment, we went and looked up Care actually weighed in on the Girl Scout controversy, which if you throw up 152, I accidentally helped spark.
00:24:02.000 Natalie Winters did the original reporting.
00:24:04.000 I just sort of put it out there.
00:24:07.000 And next thing I know, there's 3 million engagements on that tweet.
00:24:10.000 But it was Girl Scouts of America offers Muslim badges to be earned by learning pillars of Islam, visiting mosques.
00:24:15.000 Okay.
00:24:16.000 So Care comes out and says Care welcomes Girl Scouts' response to.
00:24:21.000 Quote unquote, manufactured outrage over Muslim badges.
00:24:25.000 So that would be image 151 if you want to throw it up.
00:24:28.000 The Girl Scouts response was there's a misinformation circulating online about Girl Scouts and religion.
00:24:36.000 Here are the facts Girl Scouts is not a religious organization.
00:24:38.000 It does not teach religion.
00:24:39.000 For more than a century, we've welcomed girls of every faith and background, et cetera, et cetera.
00:24:44.000 But this is, it does feel like this insidious hollowing out of some basic assumptions that Americans could make about their culture.
00:24:51.000 You can't make those anymore.
00:24:53.000 You've got Mamdani, El Sayed, you've got Chevalier, like there is a certainly a rise of the sound and the volume of the Muslim presence in America.
00:25:04.000 And when it starts, you know, coming into a collision course with our institutions, we're going to take note, maybe more than we should, but maybe more than we did 10 years ago.
00:25:13.000 Yeah, I think, you know, what we can do is look at what's happening in Europe and the UK in particular.
00:25:19.000 I just got back from the UK and you do see, you know, parts of London where the street signs are now written in Arabic, where old historic.
00:25:27.000 You know, London buildings have been taken over by Islamic centers and mosques.
00:25:31.000 So you're not going to be able to ignore the fact that we now have fair warning about where this goes.
00:25:35.000 And I think that's why you're suddenly seeing alarm bells where maybe people wouldn't have noticed so much before, because we're getting a little glimpse of our future and what's happening over in Europe.
00:25:45.000 And, you know, one of the things you noted there about the Girl Scouts is that they said, well, we have always served all faiths.
00:25:51.000 Well, here's the little contextual piece they don't offer, which is that the Girl Scouts were established in an assumed Christian environment.
00:26:00.000 So Juliette Gordon Lowe, who established the Girl Scouts, was a very, very strong Christian.
00:26:06.000 And part of the reason that she insisted that one of the key oaths and commitments that a Girl Scout makes is service to God and country, not a God, but God.
00:26:18.000 So there was assumed there is a particular God that we are serving here.
00:26:21.000 If she just, you know, in her intention in establishing it, she could have said, serve gods or serve your religion or your faith, but it was actually just assumed.
00:26:30.000 God, because that was our culture.
00:26:33.000 So, you know, we have to acknowledge that when you suddenly have the Girl Scouts allowing things like putting up booths to try on hijabs, that this is the opposite of empowering young women, because that's the other piece of this it's not like we're just talking about, you know, a stray random belief, yes, that has no impact on what women are, what we believe, what we are going to become.
00:26:54.000 We're actually talking about a very oppressive ideology against women.
00:26:58.000 We're talking about an ideology that makes women second class citizens.
00:27:02.000 That allows them to be raped and abused, particularly if they're infidel women, that allows men to have multiple wives but would never allow a woman to have multiple husbands.
00:27:11.000 So, this should be in fundamental conflict with the values of the Girl Scouts.
00:27:16.000 And that was what was so interesting about their statement is that even though they say, you know, we're interfaith, we have never prioritized a particular faith.
00:27:24.000 Well, no, but you were supposed to prioritize what is beneficial and empowering to girls.
00:27:30.000 And bringing in Islam is the absolute opposite of that.
00:27:34.000 It sets women backwards and it oppresses women.
00:27:37.000 So, you know, you can see Kathy Hochul right there bending the knee to it.
00:27:40.000 And if I just really quick make one more point part of the problem about this, Andrew, is that we have participated on the Christian conservative right.
00:27:48.000 I watched just a few years ago.
00:27:50.000 The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greer, said that Christians and Muslims serve the same God.
00:27:57.000 I watched the head of the lobbying arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, and again, this is the biggest Protestant denomination, so it matters.
00:28:03.000 I watched him say that Southern Baptists need to support the building of more mosques in the United States.
00:28:09.000 Governor Greg Abbott has, yes, that happened.
00:28:12.000 And we can look at Republicans too, who are suddenly acting like, oh my gosh, who knew this was happening?
00:28:17.000 Well, you did.
00:28:18.000 You knew it was happening because your biggest donor is a Pakistani born Muslim oil executive.
00:28:24.000 Who you put on the board of an important public education organization in Texas.
00:28:31.000 So, you know, these are the things that we have to start talking about on our side because, you know, this didn't come out of nowhere.
00:28:36.000 Here's the thing.
00:28:37.000 So, I, you know, I'm so tempted to talk about Lindsey Clancy, but we've talked about her too much, candidly.
00:28:42.000 But I did hear a rumor, we haven't confirmed it yet, that there were two jurors that showed up in pink this morning, but you are wearing some sort of, I'm not good with colors, pastel color ish.
00:28:54.000 Copper.
00:28:55.000 Okay.
00:28:55.000 It's Arizona.
00:28:57.000 Arizona copper color.
00:28:58.000 All right.
00:28:58.000 Well, she's not in Arizona.
00:28:59.000 I know, but you should see it like a laser everywhere.
00:29:02.000 I'm a little colorblind, actually, believe it or not.
00:29:05.000 So, Megan, there's a lot of crazy things with women right now.
00:29:09.000 I could have done a whole segment on crazy liberal quotes.
00:29:12.000 We have like 14 clips of just crazy liberal women quotes here, but I chose not to.
00:29:17.000 I resisted.
00:29:18.000 I resisted.
00:29:19.000 I'm not going to make it a gender war.
00:29:20.000 Here's what I will say, though Dolly Parton is famously apolitical.
00:29:25.000 And you wrote this great piece about why we can't let the left make Dolly Parton their socialist mascot.
00:29:32.000 So I think it's really important because I've seen dozens and dozens of old clips from Dolly, and I think your take on this is exactly right.
00:29:40.000 What did you see happening from the left and the right in the immediate aftermath of Dolly Parton?
00:29:45.000 And why does it matter to you if both sides are claiming her or if one side's claiming her?
00:29:50.000 Yeah, it mattered to me a lot.
00:29:51.000 I think this was the longest article I've ever written.
00:29:54.000 That's how much it mattered to me.
00:29:56.000 And part of it was in defense of Dolly.
00:29:57.000 So, what I saw happening in the immediate wake of her death is President Trump, who has at times made events that were maybe intended to be nonpartisan, a little bit partisan.
00:30:08.000 He's done that.
00:30:09.000 He actually honored Dolly's strident and very clear wishes all throughout her life to be a nonpartisan entertainer.
00:30:17.000 She didn't want to be claimed by any political side.
00:30:20.000 She was always very clear I hate politics.
00:30:22.000 I don't want to speak politically.
00:30:24.000 I'm not doing anything to speak politically.
00:30:25.000 And so, she would repeat this again and again.
00:30:27.000 President Trump honored this.
00:30:29.000 He said, We're going to fly the flags at half staff, and she was a great lady.
00:30:33.000 But he didn't say she was MAGA.
00:30:35.000 She was one of us.
00:30:36.000 He didn't do that.
00:30:37.000 But that is what the left immediately mobilized to try to do.
00:30:41.000 So essentially, what they were arguing and have been arguing and are still arguing is that even though Dolly said she was not political, she really was.
00:30:50.000 And we are going to tell you, for example, that she supported Black Lives Matter.
00:30:54.000 So that's one of the things you'll see out there that Dolly supported Black Lives Matter.
00:30:57.000 Well, no, she didn't.
00:30:59.000 Here's how the game works.
00:31:00.000 Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, these legacy entertainment outlets, they go to the star, they pressure them.
00:31:05.000 This is happening.
00:31:06.000 What do you want to say about Black Lives Matter?
00:31:08.000 The star doesn't want to get canceled, particularly someone like Dolly also doesn't want to make a political statement because she has that commitment.
00:31:14.000 So she says something very general, like, of course, Black Lives Matter.
00:31:17.000 Do we think white people are the only ones who matter?
00:31:20.000 And then she said, everybody matters.
00:31:23.000 And of course, that's supposed to be the offensive line, right?
00:31:25.000 That's all lives matter.
00:31:27.000 They cut that part of the quote and they used just a piece of the quote to pretend that Dolly supported Black Lives Matter wasn't true.
00:31:35.000 They did the same thing with socialism.
00:31:37.000 So they have now suggested that Dolly was sympathetic.
00:31:41.000 And I'm not kidding.
00:31:42.000 The menswear guy who has a huge following on Twitter claimed that Dolly's song, And film nine to five, which she stridently and directly said was not meant to be political, was not meant to send a message about capitalism versus unions.
00:31:57.000 She said it was just a funny story about some secretaries taking down a misogynist boss.
00:32:02.000 Well, the menswear guy says, no, it's reflective of Marxist surplus labor theory.
00:32:09.000 And so he is insisting that, no, no, no, even though she didn't realize it, this was a Marxist communist anthem.
00:32:14.000 Well, Dolly would absolutely reject that.
00:32:16.000 And what's so disgusting about it, Andrew, is they did this the minute she died.
00:32:21.000 So, they disrespected her own chosen legacy the minute she died by mischaracterizing and misquoting her out of context.
00:32:29.000 It's crazy that they had to be so eager to do this to me because it's not like they have a shortage of actually pretty famous celebrities that they could just point to as a left winger.
00:32:39.000 But naturally, they need Dolly, who shuns this precisely because, as we discussed, she might be the last universally beloved American.
00:32:47.000 Yeah, and the heart wants what the heart can't have, Megan.
00:32:50.000 You know, and that's it's it's a totalizing ideology.
00:32:53.000 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:32:54.000 We have this one clip.
00:32:55.000 From Larry King.
00:32:57.000 And he's asking, how did you become an LGBTQ sort of icon or like, you know, cause celeb?
00:33:03.000 They really loved her because she was loud and she wore the wigs and she had the big features.
00:33:11.000 And she said one time jokingly, if I was born a man, I would have been a drag queen.
00:33:16.000 I think she said that a couple times.
00:33:17.000 It was a joke she used a couple times.
00:33:19.000 She said it in 1987.
00:33:21.000 Way before.
00:33:23.000 Yeah.
00:33:23.000 Yeah.
00:33:24.000 Do you really think Dolly had in her mind that she was in?
00:33:26.000 Empowering the transgender community when she made that joke in 1987.
00:33:30.000 Listen, what she does here in this Larry King interview.
00:33:33.000 She basically, she's so gracious, but she says, Well, they've put this on me.
00:33:37.000 You know, I didn't mean to do this, but it's just because I accept everybody.
00:33:40.000 Very, very, she was very shrewd and like very poised in these interviews.
00:33:46.000 Sot 17.
00:33:48.000 Didn't you recently throw support to the LGBT community?
00:33:53.000 Oh, I'm always encouraged.
00:33:56.000 I'm not encouraged.
00:33:57.000 They've made me the poster child, I think, only because I'm so.
00:34:01.000 Outspoken as far as just being accepting of people in general.
00:34:04.000 I do not believe that we should criticize and judge other people.
00:34:08.000 I think we should be accepting and loving.
00:34:11.000 We are all God's children.
00:34:12.000 We are who we are and we should be allowed to be who we are.
00:34:17.000 I keep saying, well, if you're the fine Christian that you think you are, why are you judging people?
00:34:24.000 That's God's job.
00:34:25.000 We're not God.
00:34:25.000 We're not judges.
00:34:27.000 We're supposed to love one another.
00:34:29.000 We're supposed to not judge and we're not supposed to.
00:34:32.000 Take vengeance on other people.
00:34:34.000 That's God's job.
00:34:35.000 So I got too much to do on my own, try to do God's work too.
00:34:38.000 I mean, not to, you know, to get into trying to do all that.
00:34:41.000 So, you know, you could quibble with her theology.
00:34:44.000 And by the way, the Bible does say you can judge those within the church, but those outside the church, it's a different story.
00:34:49.000 She's, you could, like I said, you could quibble with her theology or her approach, but she's, she literally says, they did that to me.
00:34:55.000 They made me the poster child.
00:34:57.000 I'm just accepting everybody.
00:34:59.000 That's a very important distinction.
00:35:01.000 Yeah.
00:35:01.000 It's very different.
00:35:02.000 And, um, I don't agree with what Dolly said there theologically.
00:35:06.000 I think she's wrong.
00:35:07.000 And I love Dolly.
00:35:08.000 But what they did, for example, is they took statements like that.
00:35:12.000 They pressured, for example, Hollywood reporter Dolly when the North Carolina bathroom bill came up twice.
00:35:18.000 They asked, you know, what do you have to say about the North Carolina bathroom bill?
00:35:21.000 And she said something very general, like, well, I just think everybody wants to be themselves and I hope everybody can be who they want to be.
00:35:27.000 And then ends with a joke, as she always does, which is, but I'm going to pee wherever I want to pee if I have to pee.
00:35:33.000 You know, that's Dolly.
00:35:35.000 And they took that and they ran headlines after her death saying Dolly supported the boycott of North Carolina over the bathroom bill.
00:35:45.000 That's not true.
00:35:46.000 She never said a word about that legislation.
00:35:48.000 She did not join Bruce Springsteen or Bette Midler in saying she was going to boycott North Carolina.
00:35:54.000 And even more importantly, Andrew, when Tennessee instituted its ban on drag performances in public and in front of children, Dolly, a Tennessee resident, said not one word.
00:36:04.000 And when asked about it, once again, she deflected.
00:36:07.000 She refused to say anything about the legislation.
00:36:10.000 So every time the media tried to make her political, she refused.
00:36:16.000 Megan Basham, I think your point is well made.
00:36:19.000 And that's the beauty of Dolly.
00:36:20.000 Everybody can enjoy her, I guess.
00:36:22.000 You know, that's she wanted it that way.
00:36:24.000 She said it was a business.
00:36:26.000 She wasn't a communist.
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00:37:46.000 Mention the Charlie Kirk Show.
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00:37:52.000 Every so often, a story comes along, and it reminds both of us about Charlie, because Charlie would talk about these things kind of in passing, and it never really made the air, but Maybe it did in passing again, but we never got to a point where we got to cover it.
00:38:06.000 This is something we talked about.
00:38:08.000 He said we should have someone on, but we have to wait till we're less busy.
00:38:12.000 There's less stuff blowing up.
00:38:14.000 And of course, stuff was always going on with Charlie.
00:38:17.000 The news cycle was always crazy.
00:38:19.000 But this is one of them.
00:38:20.000 So throw up 157 accuser of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky expected to recant testimony.
00:38:29.000 So this just blasted out of nowhere at the end of last week, caught a lot of people by surprise.
00:38:35.000 Went viral.
00:38:37.000 But it's interesting because this was a little bit of a background story even before this occurred, which we all remember.
00:38:45.000 I suspect almost all of us remember the Jerry Sandusky story.
00:38:47.000 He was the assistant coach at Penn State.
00:38:50.000 He was accused by a large number of people of using his charity, The Second Mile, to procure boys who he allegedly sexually abused.
00:38:59.000 I should say he was convicted of this, sentenced to infinity in prison.
00:39:04.000 He has never admitted guilt.
00:39:07.000 And some people say that even though there were a very large number of accusers, that it was, that this was actually a large moral panic hysteria, and he is in fact innocent.
00:39:19.000 So, here to help us unpack this is John Ziegler.
00:39:22.000 He is the host of the Death of Journalism podcast.
00:39:25.000 John, good to see you.
00:39:26.000 But you actually did a whole podcast series about this, and I want to make sure people can get it.
00:39:30.000 It's called With the Benefit of Hindsight.
00:39:32.000 So, with the benefit of hindsight, John, welcome to the show.
00:39:36.000 Please set this all up and make it make sense.
00:39:39.000 Blake and I are sort of.
00:39:41.000 Skeptics, but we're really intrigued because there's a lot of smoke.
00:39:45.000 Maybe there's some fire here.
00:39:46.000 John.
00:39:47.000 First of all, thanks for having me on.
00:39:48.000 Second of all, I want to give a shout out to Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk was by far the most prominent commentator to express skepticism about this only a couple of weeks before he was assassinated, showing what remarkable instincts Charlie had because he didn't know, as far as I'm aware, all of the facts that I do, having Covered this and investigated this for 15 years, he just understood that the story didn't make any sense.
00:40:17.000 And kudos for Charlie for having the courage to express that.
00:40:21.000 And boy, I wish he was around to be part of this interview because I really wanted to tell him how right he was.
00:40:28.000 Because I have investigated this case for 15 years and I began it back when this moral panic started in November of 2011, presuming, like everybody else did, that Jerry Sandusky was obviously guilty.
00:40:41.000 I had questions about the so called Penn State cover up theory, but I presume, for the sake of argument, well, everybody couldn't possibly be wrong.
00:40:50.000 There's all these accusers.
00:40:51.000 Why is Penn State pleading guilty, firing Joe Paterno?
00:40:55.000 Jerry Sandusky has to be guilty of at least some of this, right?
00:40:59.000 But then, as I got deeper and deeper into it, and to be clear, I am an ardent anti conspiracy person.
00:41:06.000 I despise conspiracies, I despise the Candace Owenization of American commentary.
00:41:13.000 I am an ardent anti conspiracy person.
00:41:15.000 There's no major conspiracy theory here.
00:41:17.000 In fact, the conspiracy theorists are those that believe that Jerry Sandusky got away with this for 40 years and Penn State covered it up when there is absolutely positively no evidence of it, when there should be mountains of it.
00:41:31.000 And I believe that I, through this podcast with the benefit of hindsight, have told an alternative story which provides a far more logical scenario that is based in facts and evidence and basic human common sense.
00:41:48.000 That tells you that this was a moral panic, the likes of which we saw with the COVID panic, the likes we saw with Derek Chauvin, that this is an innocent man.
00:41:57.000 And the most remarkable part of this, guys, is it's not close.
00:42:01.000 It's not even close.
00:42:02.000 I've not lost a minute of sleep since I went out on the Today Show in 2014 and Matt Lauer declared my career to be over because I, along with Dottie Sandusky, said that we believe strongly that Jerry Sandusky is innocent.
00:42:16.000 I've not lost a minute of sleep because of that position because I know I'm right.
00:42:21.000 And it's not even close.
00:42:23.000 So, John, let's dive into the details.
00:42:25.000 So, to remind people, it does look like there's a lot.
00:42:29.000 I believe eight witnesses testified at Sandusky's trial.
00:42:35.000 32 were paid by Penn State at some point.
00:42:38.000 I think I haven't read Mark Pendergast's whole book, I haven't listened to your whole podcast, but I've dabbled in looking at this.
00:42:45.000 And it does seem obvious, at least some of the accusations must be false, because if you look at the timeline, basically any time.
00:42:53.000 Jerry Sandusky's not on camera.
00:42:55.000 He's alleged to be abusing a boy.
00:42:58.000 But that is a lot of people.
00:43:01.000 Eight witnesses at trial.
00:43:03.000 Are you saying that all of them were lying?
00:43:07.000 That all of them, for people who haven't followed this since 2011, what is the nature of the moral panic you're alleging?
00:43:15.000 Two separate questions.
00:43:16.000 Let me deal with both of them.
00:43:18.000 Is everyone lying?
00:43:19.000 The only people that are lying are those that got paid millions of dollars for their testimony.
00:43:25.000 So everybody.
00:43:27.000 Because everybody that testified against Jerry Sandusky, including the main only witness, so called former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueery, All got paid many millions of dollars, and the eight men, not boys, these were adult men from terrible backgrounds who testified against him.
00:43:48.000 All got paid many millions of dollars.
00:43:51.000 Let's be clear why everyone believed them.
00:43:53.000 Everyone believed them for two basic reasons number one was the moral panic that caused Penn State to fire Joe Paterno and therefore be perceived as pleading guilty when they didn't know what the heck they were even talking about.
00:44:07.000 Jerry Sandusky had not coached at Penn State for well over a decade at that point.
00:44:12.000 Penn State's Board of Trustees had no clue other than the fact that the media was bearing down on them and they needed to do something.
00:44:20.000 So they got rid of a very old coach, Joe Paterno, just before a home game that was going to turn into a PR disaster for them.
00:44:27.000 Once Penn State is perceived as pleading guilty and they pay out $130 million without any vetting whatsoever, it's all over.
00:44:35.000 There's no chance.
00:44:37.000 For Jerry Sandusky to get a fair trial because everyone presumes that eight men can't be lying.
00:44:42.000 Well, to be clear, when Jerry Sandusky was arrested, there were six men who were accusing him of various degrees of child sexual abuse out of hundreds and hundreds of interviews with former at risk boys who were from terrible backgrounds, many of whom had been sexually abused for real, but not by Jerry Sandusky, by other members of their family.
00:45:06.000 And out of those hundreds and hundreds of interviews, They were able to cobble together six guys who were adults who had major financial problems and criminal histories and had influence by plaintiffs' attorneys who figured out, you know what, let me find out where this is going.
00:45:26.000 This could be very good for me.
00:45:28.000 And guess what happened?
00:45:30.000 After they testified anonymously, because the media protected their identities, they got paid millions of dollars for stories that on their own, Never would have held up.
00:45:42.000 What if you take any one of these allegations, they are not credible, John.
00:45:47.000 How do we know they were?
00:45:47.000 I'm just not doubting you, but how did we confirm that they were paid millions of dollars?
00:45:51.000 I'm just curious.
00:45:52.000 We have the documentation from Penn State.
00:45:54.000 Who paid them?
00:45:55.000 Penn State paid them directly, Penn State, Penn State University.
00:45:58.000 Let's be clear Penn State, a liberal, state run academic institution, using other people's money, not their own money.
00:46:07.000 This is this is state tax money and insurance money to make themselves look good.
00:46:12.000 This is.
00:46:13.000 Really fascinating.
00:46:14.000 So I'm looking here.
00:46:17.000 There's basically, as you say, there was, it looks like there was one accuser before this started to gather momentum.
00:46:26.000 And like before there was an investigation, there was an ER accuser, and his name was Aaron Fisher.
00:46:32.000 I know that this case involves recovered memory therapy, plays a role in this.
00:46:39.000 Did that play a role in Mr. Fisher's testimony, or what do you believe?
00:46:43.000 Caused Fisher to make the first accusation in the first place.
00:46:47.000 I believe that Aaron Fisher, although it's possible since his therapist helped write it in his book, he wrote a book.
00:46:54.000 This is bizarre.
00:46:55.000 The therapist lost his state contract because he wrote a book with Aaron Fisher and his mother.
00:46:59.000 And the book, frankly, guys, is what convinced me that Jerry Sandusky is innocent.
00:47:03.000 That's not an exaggeration.
00:47:05.000 That was the final nail in the coffin for me when I read Aaron Fisher's book, because it is absolutely preposterous.
00:47:11.000 What I believe happened with Aaron Fisher was that Aaron Fisher's mother realized that this could be very, very good for them.
00:47:18.000 And we have a witness to the very, very first time that Aaron ever complained about Jerry Sandusky to his mother and how she told that neighbor that immediately her first response was, I'm going to own that M. Effer's house.
00:47:33.000 That's what the first thing she said to the neighbor was when Aaron Fisher, as a 15, 16 year old boy who was already dating lots of girls and didn't want to hang out with Jerry Sandusky anymore, figured out that the best way to do that was to tell his mother that Jerry makes me feel uncomfortable.
00:47:50.000 Not that he sexually abused me, he makes me feel uncomfortable.
00:47:53.000 And they didn't go to the police.
00:47:55.000 They went to the school district, not to the police.
00:47:58.000 And the school district rightfully didn't believe them.
00:48:01.000 It was only after a multi year investigation where they couldn't find anybody to back up Aaron Fisher.
00:48:06.000 Well, they're about to give up on this investigation.
00:48:09.000 The attorney general's office is they have Mike McQueery, the so called witness in this case, fall into their lap under highly suspicious circumstances the day after Tom Corbett is elected governor of the state of Pennsylvania, which is really bizarre.
00:48:25.000 And that's when everything changes because now all of a sudden they have a witness and an accuser and they can go on this fishing expedition with all these former at risk kids, interview hundreds of people, and as I've already told you.
00:48:37.000 A couple of them, a few, are cobbled together because they realize, and they're gamblers.
00:48:43.000 These are literally gamblers who realize, you know what, this is worth a bet.
00:48:47.000 And it turned out paying off to the tune of millions of dollars for them.
00:48:51.000 So you mentioned Mike McQueer.
00:48:53.000 I think that's the other very iconic image from that scandal is that if I remember right, it's that he was in a locker room at Penn State after this period.
00:49:07.000 It was like when it was empty otherwise.
00:49:09.000 And he heard, I think the claim was, He heard a slapping sound in the shower, like flesh on flesh.
00:49:15.000 And then he looked in.
00:49:16.000 I think this is what I remember hearing he looked in and he saw Jerry Sandusky in a compromising position with a boy seven or eight years old.
00:49:26.000 I think a lot of people remember that.
00:49:30.000 Is that testimony not true?
00:49:32.000 Was that testimony changed over time?
00:49:34.000 What's the story there with Mike McQueery?
00:49:36.000 Well, Mike McQueery's testimony changed quite a bit, especially after Joe Paterno died and there was no one that could check him anymore.
00:49:43.000 And Mike ended up making many, many millions of dollars in this case.
00:49:47.000 Almost everything you just said there is not accurate.
00:49:50.000 The first episode of our podcast, with the benefit of hindsight, is called The Date.
00:49:55.000 And all you need to understand about the McQueery episode is how the date dramatically changed in a way that is 100% inconsistent with having witnessed a sexual assault of any kind.
00:50:07.000 And the reality is that the first date that Mike McQueery testified to was admitted to be totally wrong by the prosecution because they later found emails.
00:50:16.000 Proving that it was off by 13 months.
00:50:19.000 He got the date, the month, and the year totally wrong.
00:50:22.000 He thought it happened after 9 11 when it actually happened before 9 11.
00:50:26.000 And that would have been bad enough when that's the only witness in your case and you're putting everything on this one account and the date is that wrong.
00:50:34.000 But after an enormous amount of investigation, I believe I have proven that the second date is actually wrong as well.
00:50:41.000 And that Mike McQueery waited six weeks before not going to police, but going to Joe Paterno.
00:50:48.000 To tell him about this episode.
00:50:50.000 And he didn't go to see Joe Paterno because he was worried about Jerry Sadovsky having sexually abused a young boy.
00:50:56.000 He went to go see Joe Paterno because the day before he learned that there was an open job on the Penn State coaching staff, the wide receivers coaching position.
00:51:04.000 And as a graduate assistant, Mike needed a job, a job that he would not get, which blows apart the cover up theory, but which he would get three years later, which proves that's the job he wanted.
00:51:15.000 Because Joe Paterno was not told about a sexual assault.
00:51:19.000 He was told that Jerry Sedusky had been in a shower with a boy.
00:51:23.000 Mike was uncomfortable about it.
00:51:26.000 Told his superiors, the athletic director, to tell Jerry to knock him off.
00:51:30.000 And that's what happened.
00:51:32.000 It was dumb.
00:51:33.000 It was stupid.
00:51:33.000 But it was with a 13 year old boy that Jerry Sandusky considered to be his son.
00:51:38.000 A boy who would later, as a sergeant in the Marine Corps, invite Jerry Sandusky to his wedding and take a picture arm in arm with him.
00:51:47.000 A boy, when Mike McCleary's story became public, he went to Joe Amendola, Jerry Sandusky's defense attorney, and gave it a lengthy statement saying, Michael Query is not telling the truth.
00:51:58.000 I was never abused by Jerry Sandusky.
00:52:00.000 He's the greatest thing that ever happened.
00:52:01.000 And by the way, never testified at Jerry Sandusky's trial.
00:52:05.000 The prosecution lied, telling the jury that the identity of that boy, victim number two, was known, quote, only to God.
00:52:12.000 That was a lie.
00:52:13.000 They knew who the real boy was.
00:52:15.000 They just didn't like his story, which is why they didn't call him to testify.
00:52:19.000 That was super compelling, what you just said, John.
00:52:21.000 All that whole story, that's crazy.
00:52:24.000 Explain, because I'm foggy on the details here.
00:52:29.000 Why the motivation of this to be?
00:52:32.000 I mean, we talk about this moral panic, but why?
00:52:34.000 Why did this happen?
00:52:36.000 Did it just start with this first witness and then everybody got freaked out and they were like, CYA?
00:52:42.000 Is that the whole story here?
00:52:44.000 Close.
00:52:44.000 You have a boy, a teenage boy, and his mom.
00:52:49.000 And by the way, there's a lot of history with that family.
00:52:52.000 The stepfather was a sexual abuser.
00:52:54.000 I believe that Aaron Fisher, victim one, was abused by his stepdad, a guy by the name of Eric Daniels, who Who ended up pleading guilty for 100 counts of child sexual abuse.
00:53:03.000 But I believe the mom realized that they could get money from Jerry.
00:53:07.000 I didn't think they think Penn State, by the way.
00:53:08.000 I think they thought about the high school first or maybe the second mile charity.
00:53:12.000 And then that investigation, that starts this investigation that goes nowhere, nowhere for two years until Mike McQueery comes into it.
00:53:22.000 And Mike McQueery brings Penn State into the story.
00:53:26.000 And that's where this story becomes political.
00:53:28.000 And look, I'm a conservative Republican.
00:53:31.000 But Republican politics plays a huge part in this because Tom Corbett was the attorney general who started this investigation.
00:53:38.000 I already told you he won the governorship.
00:53:41.000 He had a vendetta against the president of Penn State, Graham Spanier, who is a very liberal administrator.
00:53:48.000 They had a fight over education funding.
00:53:50.000 And once McQueery brings Penn State into this, I believe Corbett realizes this is a way to get Spanier.
00:53:57.000 And he does get Spanier.
00:53:59.000 Joe Paterno is collateral damage.
00:54:01.000 And everybody forgets about the allegations against Jerry Sandusky.
00:54:05.000 Nobody bothered to do the math in the middle of a moral panic.
00:54:09.000 I'm the only one that did the math.
00:54:11.000 The math isn't even close here, it doesn't add up.
00:54:13.000 Jerry Sandusky, as hard as it is to believe, is clearly totally innocent.
00:54:19.000 And religion plays a huge part in this because Jerry Sandusky and his wife Dottie are very, very religious.
00:54:25.000 And I think that they were rather naive about what they were up against.
00:54:29.000 And they thought that their belief in Jesus would save them.
00:54:33.000 They didn't believe they were in trouble until literally the reading of the verdicts in this trial.
00:54:38.000 They still believe that the state of Pennsylvania is going to provide them justice.
00:54:42.000 There is no chance of that.
00:54:44.000 The state of Pennsylvania is deeply invested against them.
00:54:47.000 The only way this can be fixed is in federal court, but unfortunately, it hasn't gotten that far yet.
00:54:52.000 So basically, if I'm going to understand this right, so you get this first witness that was probably sexually abused.
00:54:59.000 The family alleges, I don't know, that this kid had said that Jerry Sandusky made him feel uncomfortable.
00:55:06.000 Maybe the mom had financial motives.
00:55:08.000 Maybe she was just trying to protect her son and got overzealous.
00:55:11.000 Who knows?
00:55:12.000 Then you've got the second witness, the assistant coach, that saw him in a shower with a boy he considered as a son, felt uncomfortable about it.
00:55:20.000 Then these allegations pick up steam at some point, and they piece this all together.
00:55:24.000 They go on a fishing expedition, find these other guys that get paid millions of dollars that all have sketchy backgrounds to frame this guy.
00:55:31.000 That's the theory.
00:55:33.000 I don't like using the word framing, although I'll say it's called framing paterno, which was a mistake on my part because that was a decision made many, many years ago, but because that implies conspiracy.
00:55:43.000 This was a conspiracy of self interest.
00:55:46.000 Everyone in this case acted in their own self interest, including the prosecution, including the accusers, including the media, including the Penn State Board of Trustees.
00:55:58.000 Everybody had a perverse self interest, including, by the way, the Paterno family to this day has a perverse self interest to throw Jerry Sandusky under the bus.
00:56:08.000 All of which we explain in our epic podcast with the benefit of hindsight.
00:56:12.000 I understand that to people who have not followed this, this seems bizarre, but if you really break it down, it makes perfect sense every step of the way, and especially once we've seen what happened with the COVID panic and other stories like it.
00:56:26.000 Yeah, real quick, John.
00:56:27.000 So, this most recent witness that's going to recant the testimony.
00:56:32.000 He's saying he was coached.
00:56:34.000 He was told what to say.
00:56:35.000 This follows with your theory of the case, correct?
00:56:39.000 Yeah, but I'm actually so far ahead of the curve on this case.
00:56:41.000 I'm going to give you breaking news.
00:56:44.000 I don't believe this hearing is going to happen.
00:56:46.000 I don't believe, I think that the Sandusky team will be smart enough to cancel this hearing because I have interviewed this accuser, Ryan Rittmeyer, so called victim number 10, and I don't believe he's fully recanted.
00:56:58.000 I think he's a very, very bad person who is deeply invested in the idea that he was somehow abused by Jerry Sandusky.
00:57:05.000 It's Clear to me, having interviewed him for over two hours, he was not abused by Jerry Sandusky.
00:57:09.000 But I think this hearing, if it happens, would be a disaster for the Sandusky defense team.
00:57:14.000 Please unpack what you just said.
00:57:15.000 I think it's really fascinating.
00:57:18.000 Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so because my objective here has always been the truth.
00:57:24.000 And so everyone thinks I'm the Jerry Sandusky defender, so I must be really excited about this hearing.
00:57:29.000 I'm actually trying to get this hearing stopped.
00:57:31.000 And I believe I've been successful in doing that.
00:57:34.000 It's not official yet, but I don't think this hearing is going to happen.
00:57:36.000 Because this guy, Ryan Rittmeyer, this is the classic catch 22 of this entire situation or the checkmate circumstances that Jerry Sandusky faces.
00:57:44.000 Because all these at risk kids, the ones that took the bait, they're terrible people.
00:57:49.000 They have horrible backgrounds.
00:57:51.000 This Ryan Rittmeyer was in prison for robbery.
00:57:54.000 He's a drug addict, a gambler.
00:57:58.000 He's wasted all his money that he describes as being a lottery winner.
00:58:03.000 He is not going to give up the idea that he was a Jerry Sandusky.
00:58:09.000 Uh, victim.
00:58:09.000 Now, he does say all sorts of very good things for the defense that he was manipulated by the prosecution, that Penn State didn't vet his claims, that he lied in his testimony, that he committed perjury, that Jerry Sandusky didn't get a fair trial.
00:58:23.000 But he can't let go of one allegation that keeps changing its location.
00:58:29.000 It's very vague, it's, in my view, total BS because there is a value in him being a Jerry Sandusky victim because it basically is a get out of jail.
00:58:40.000 Free card for all the bad things that he's ever done in his life.
00:58:43.000 Everything he ever did after the age of 13 is erased.
00:58:47.000 And if he gives that up, that is a major problem for him, not to mention that he's not trustworthy.
00:58:52.000 These are all liars to begin with.
00:58:55.000 So relying on them to tell the truth now is foolhardy.
00:58:58.000 And I don't think that's going to happen at this hearing if this hearing occurs, which I hope it will not.
00:59:03.000 Really, really fascinating stuff.
00:59:05.000 With the benefit of hindsight, everybody should check it out.
00:59:07.000 John has done a lot of work on this reporting about the Jerry Sandusky trial.
00:59:13.000 And I didn't remember when you went on NBC in 2014.
00:59:17.000 It's so fascinating.
00:59:19.000 And it's so horrible.
00:59:20.000 It's dreadful to contemplate if you're correct and he's totally innocent because there's also a book on this called The Most Hated Man in America, and that's a well chosen title because he kind of is considered he's probably the most hated person in America.
00:59:37.000 He was in that moment.
00:59:37.000 If you imagine that he was totally innocent.
00:59:41.000 Yeah.
00:59:42.000 And it just feels like this giant CYA.
00:59:45.000 Once they were pot committed, everybody was so invested in the outcome.
00:59:49.000 It makes sense.
00:59:50.000 John, we got to go.
00:59:50.000 We got to bring in our next guest here for the.
00:59:52.000 For the next segment.
00:59:53.000 But that was really fascinating stuff, John.
00:59:55.000 Really well done.
00:59:57.000 Really compelling.
00:59:58.000 A lot of that stuff is really compelling.
01:00:00.000 John Ziegler, check out his Sandusky.
01:00:04.000 They can get it on podcasts still, the benefit of hindsight?
01:00:06.000 Everywhere.
01:00:07.000 Everywhere you get your podcast with the benefit of hindsight.
01:00:09.000 And once again, kudos to Charlie Kirk for seeing through this story.
01:00:12.000 My daughter, Grace, 14 years old, is a huge fan of Charlie Kirk to this day.
01:00:15.000 So this is an honor for me to be on this show.
01:00:18.000 God bless you, John.
01:00:18.000 Good to see you.
01:00:19.000 Thank you.
01:00:22.000 Hi, folks.
01:00:23.000 Andrew Colvett here.
01:00:24.000 I'd like to tell you about my friends over at Y Refi.
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01:01:15.000 Just go to YRefi.com and tell them your friend Andrew sent you.
01:01:21.000 Very excited about our next guest.
01:01:23.000 That's Frank Turek, who is a dear friend of Charlie's, remains a dear friend.
01:01:27.000 And he's one of the best apologists of the Christian faith out there.
01:01:31.000 He's a Absolutely amazing mind and a great guy to boot.
01:01:35.000 Frank Turek, Dr. Frank Turek.
01:01:38.000 And he's got a new book called The War on Reality.
01:01:42.000 Frank, welcome back to the show, my friends.
01:01:43.000 Good to see you.
01:01:44.000 Yeah, it's good to see you and Blake as well.
01:01:46.000 I can't believe we're coming up on a year now.
01:01:49.000 It's been a long year, man.
01:01:50.000 And you guys know it better than I do.
01:01:53.000 You guys work with Charlie every day.
01:01:55.000 I didn't work with him every day, but the void without Charlie has been dramatic.
01:02:01.000 Well, I'm looking at the forward to your book.
01:02:03.000 Was written by Erica, and I love the way this opens because it reminds us that Charlie was a guy who was excited to meet people he admired, and you were a person he admired.
01:02:14.000 This is Erica.
01:02:15.000 I'll never forget the moment several years ago when Charlie told me that he had reached out to Frank Turek via email.
01:02:21.000 He was so excited, but realistic in his expectations.
01:02:25.000 I'm not sure if he'll respond, but it's worth a try.
01:02:28.000 I hugged him and said, I'm glad you did.
01:02:30.000 If it's God's will, he'll respond.
01:02:33.000 If not, at least you tried.
01:02:35.000 Well, to say the least, you did respond.
01:02:38.000 Charlie and you had a fruitful partnership, and he was very proud to have you as someone he could work with and learn from.
01:02:45.000 And the same for you, Blake, because the night before he was murdered, I think I told you this, I may have told you it on the air too.
01:02:54.000 Charlie said, Hey, if you're free, why don't you and Danny go to dinner with Blake?
01:03:01.000 Blake's my secret weapon.
01:03:02.000 I said, I'm free, let's go.
01:03:05.000 And so you remember that?
01:03:06.000 We had dinner and then we had another session with Charlie.
01:03:10.000 You were always part of those sessions, Blake, you know, trying to figure out how we could answer questions better on a college campus.
01:03:17.000 He valued you.
01:03:18.000 Of course, Andrew, so much.
01:03:21.000 And then the next day, we all know what happened.
01:03:23.000 So, yeah, the book we wrote, The War on Reality, was actually in progress before the murder.
01:03:32.000 And of course, when Charlie was murdered, we dedicated the book to him because Charlie was fighting for reality when so many people were fighting against it.
01:03:42.000 And so the first chapter is all about what happened leading up to that day, what happened that day, and then what happened since.
01:03:51.000 And it's dedicated to him.
01:03:52.000 And as you mentioned, Blake, Erica wrote the forward.
01:03:55.000 And can I read one section of the forward a little bit later?
01:03:59.000 Of course.
01:04:00.000 Because I knew Erica was smart, but I didn't know she was this profound.
01:04:05.000 Here's what she says in the forward.
01:04:08.000 And by the way, friends, even if you don't get the book, you can read the forward and the war on reality.com.
01:04:14.000 Here's what she says Since September 10th, 2025, I've been faced with my own new reality.
01:04:23.000 One that I still wrestle with as I attempted to grasp its earthy permanence.
01:04:28.000 Quite honestly, I'll probably be like that for the rest of my life.
01:04:33.000 Yet, what I've realized is that redefining my reality isn't what gives me peace.
01:04:38.000 Surrendering to it does.
01:04:42.000 That's profound right there in my mind.
01:04:44.000 So many people are fighting against reality.
01:04:47.000 And Erica says the way forward is to surrender to it.
01:04:50.000 And the ultimate source of reality is Jesus.
01:04:52.000 He is the ground of all reality.
01:04:54.000 That's why he said, You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
01:04:58.000 Which implies if you don't have the truth, you're in bondage.
01:05:01.000 So, Erica is, she amazes me more and more every day.
01:05:05.000 I don't know how she's doing what she's doing, but she's incredible.
01:05:09.000 You know, I tell people all the time, you know, Erica Kirk is one of the most amazing people I've ever met.
01:05:18.000 And she has handled this entire saga with such dignity and poise.
01:05:23.000 It's really difficult to imagine anybody handling as well as she has.
01:05:28.000 And all the scrutiny, did she smile?
01:05:30.000 Did she cry too much?
01:05:31.000 You know, It's completely unfair, and that's like the understatement of the century that, um, what she's gone through.
01:05:38.000 But she's, and I tell people as well if you understood the inner workings of Turning Point, you would understand, you know, that she might have been the only person on this planet that could have brought the organization together in that moment and really like saved it and made it keep going, you know, and really grow.
01:05:58.000 By the way, people, you know, if you look on X, you know, it's like people want to.
01:06:02.000 Create their own reality that there is a turning point's demise or something like that.
01:06:07.000 This couldn't be further from the truth.
01:06:08.000 The organization's growing, and we have over a million students now that are part of the turning point in one way, shape, or form or the other.
01:06:15.000 And that's thanks to Erica Kirk and obviously the legacy of Charlie Kirk.
01:06:19.000 But had she not stepped in in that time with great bravery and tremendous courage in the midst of unthinkable suffering, you know, I don't know that all this is still here.
01:06:28.000 I really don't.
01:06:29.000 And so thank you for saying that because it's not said enough and it deserves to be repeated all the time.
01:06:34.000 But your book, go ahead, Frank.
01:06:37.000 I was going to say, I couldn't agree with that more.
01:06:40.000 And I'm not just saying this, but you guys too, both yet able to continue this radio program in the middle of a storm of what I think is just demonic.
01:06:54.000 You know, Jesus said Satan's a murderer, liar, accuser, and slanderer who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy.
01:07:01.000 We had a murder last 9 10, and after a memorial service where more people heard the gospel than any other time in human history at one time since then.
01:07:11.000 We've had lies, accusations, and slander seeking to steal, kill, and destroy.
01:07:16.000 And people don't believe in the demonic.
01:07:18.000 I don't know how it could be more obvious, gentlemen.
01:07:20.000 I mean, that's what's going on.
01:07:22.000 Satan's trying to tear down something that's good.
01:07:24.000 It's easy to tear down, it's hard to build up.
01:07:26.000 It can take you a year or two to build a house.
01:07:29.000 You can tear it down in five minutes.
01:07:30.000 And a lot of people are trying to tear something good down.
01:07:34.000 Yeah.
01:07:34.000 Well, and the book title, The War on Reality, I mean, I didn't realize actually that you had already started it before 910.
01:07:42.000 It's almost like you had a.
01:07:44.000 A providential guiding behind you because what we've seen in the aftermath is completely a war on reality.
01:07:50.000 Up is down, left is right, good is evil.
01:07:52.000 Woe to those, by the way, who call good evil and evil good.
01:07:56.000 But we see this with, you know, the Lindsey Clancy trial.
01:07:59.000 I mean, I'm predicting that's going to be a hung jury.
01:08:01.000 A woman who strangled three of her kids.
01:08:03.000 That's going to be a hung jury.
01:08:05.000 But we've seen it with so much that has happened since.
01:08:09.000 And I think there's so much confusion online.
01:08:12.000 And there's so much, you know, people, Putting out messages that, you know, Putin's good and China's good and Iran's good and America's bad.
01:08:20.000 And it's very hard to parse through.
01:08:24.000 So, what is your call in this book?
01:08:26.000 What are you telling people to get back to?
01:08:28.000 What we're telling people, Andrew Blake, is the fact that reality exists independent of what you think about it.
01:08:35.000 And reality's undefeated.
01:08:38.000 You can fight against reality, you can deny it, but ultimately it's going to win because we don't define reality.
01:08:46.000 We just discover reality.
01:08:47.000 And in this book, you know, we cover issues like battlefronts because people will say there's no truth, like that's a war on reality.
01:08:56.000 When they say that, we normally ask them, is that true?
01:08:58.000 Is it true that there's no truth?
01:09:00.000 You know, because it's a self defeating claim.
01:09:02.000 There's a war on God, a war on justice, obviously, a war on the whole Charlie Kirk murder.
01:09:08.000 You know, what's really true there?
01:09:09.000 There's a war with regard to conspiracy theories.
01:09:12.000 There's a war on Christians in politics, saying we ought not be involved as if only atheists are qualified to run the country.
01:09:18.000 There's a war on identity, a war on women's sports, quite obviously.
01:09:24.000 There's a war on the family.
01:09:26.000 There's a war on Hamas and Israel.
01:09:30.000 You know, who's right in that?
01:09:31.000 There's a war everywhere.
01:09:33.000 And what we're trying to do is shed light on that.
01:09:35.000 And hopefully, we're shedding the proper light on it because when you continue to deny reality, not only do you get hurt, all the people around you do as well.
01:09:46.000 So we're trying to bring people back to reality.
01:09:49.000 Chapter 5, you'd say, Why is there a war on reality?
01:09:54.000 What's the answer?
01:09:55.000 Well, the answer is the human heart because we want what we want.
01:09:58.000 You know, in fact, this goes back to the Garden of Eden.
01:10:02.000 Did God really say, you know, that Satan's lied to everybody?
01:10:05.000 Did God really say, you know, because I'm going to take you in another direction.
01:10:09.000 But Paul talks about it in Romans chapter 1 that we suppress the truth and unrighteousness to go our own way.
01:10:14.000 You know, we know God exists, his invisible qualities are clearly seen, but quite often we don't like it.
01:10:21.000 This is a question I ask on every college campus.
01:10:25.000 Charlie and I talked about this a lot.
01:10:27.000 Whenever we get somebody that's not a believer in Jesus, not a Christian, I normally ask them, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian?
01:10:35.000 And 99 times out of 10, as we say in Mississippi, the answer is no.
01:10:40.000 No, I, no, if it was true, I wouldn't be a Christian.
01:10:43.000 And I say to them, wait, you claim to be reasonable?
01:10:46.000 How is it reasonable that you wouldn't believe something that turned out to be true?
01:10:49.000 Because it's not a matter of reason.
01:10:50.000 It's not a matter of reality.
01:10:52.000 It's not a head problem.
01:10:52.000 It's a heart problem.
01:10:54.000 People are not on a truth quest or on a happiness quest.
01:10:57.000 And they're just going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy.
01:11:00.000 You know, so they're not concerned about truth.
01:11:02.000 Yeah, Frank, we had this whole, you might have seen it online where we had one of the churches we went to in El Paso over the weekend had a, An Israel flag and an American flag.
01:11:12.000 We didn't put it up.
01:11:13.000 The church decided that.
01:11:15.000 I've been community noted, I guess, because they think I'm lying that we didn't put it up.
01:11:19.000 But it was interesting.
01:11:20.000 I was talking to a friend over the weekend and I told him I was just frustrated by it because it was annoying.
01:11:26.000 And people are acting like we're controlled by Israel or something like this.
01:11:30.000 And he said something profound to me.
01:11:31.000 He said, Well, you're never going to convince those people because they don't want to be convinced.
01:11:37.000 You will never convince this person.
01:11:40.000 Virulent strain on social media that just wants to hate Israel and hate Jewish people to hate them.
01:11:46.000 And they want to scapegoat them.
01:11:47.000 You'll never convince them.
01:11:49.000 And I think you're pinpointing the reason why, because it's not a head problem, it's a heart problem.
01:11:55.000 Frank Turek, author of the new book, War on Reality, a book he started before 910, but Frank was there on 910 along with Blake and many other of our friends and colleagues around here.
01:12:09.000 And he's going to be going back to UVU on.
01:12:13.000 September 10th, and he's going to be speaking.
01:12:15.000 It's Glenn Beck, right?
01:12:17.000 Frank Turek.
01:12:19.000 And I think Andrew Seifer is going to be speaking, who is our chief field operations guy.
01:12:26.000 And it's going to be a powerful moment, Frank, that you're going back there.
01:12:32.000 It's sort of a deliberate act of reclaiming a location where something very terrible happened.
01:12:37.000 But we want everybody to come out and be a part of that.
01:12:41.000 I believe it's charliekirklegacy.com.
01:12:43.000 I'm going to double check the URL.
01:12:45.000 But if you want to, Get tickets to that.
01:12:47.000 Please, please, please come and join us at UVU.
01:12:52.000 And Frank's going to be there.
01:12:54.000 And I'm so happy you're going, Frank.
01:12:56.000 We're actually going to be tomorrow, just a little programming note.
01:13:00.000 I'm going to be off.
01:13:01.000 I'm going to be in Utah for the bind over hearing tomorrow.
01:13:05.000 So pray for me, pray for Frank, pray for the whole team as we kind of navigate this.
01:13:12.000 I don't know, this stuff we've got to do.
01:13:14.000 You know, I didn't want to go there for the preliminary hearing, candidly, because I. Just don't need to go back, but I.
01:13:21.000 But we'll be doing our full, just like we did with the July hearing.
01:13:24.000 We'll be having, we'll show the full hearing here.
01:13:27.000 We'll have guests during the breaks.
01:13:28.000 We'll analyze it afterwards.
01:13:30.000 As long as it takes, we're determined to show all of the in person court proceedings of the Robinson case because we know a lot of you care a lot about following that.
01:13:42.000 Frank, there's so much in this.
01:13:44.000 I haven't read the book.
01:13:45.000 It comes out September 8th.
01:13:46.000 So I haven't read the book.
01:13:47.000 So I'm looking at a kind of a.
01:13:51.000 Outline of it.
01:13:51.000 And you've got, you know, who, Chapter Seven, who decides what's right and wrong?
01:13:57.000 That's a pretty contentious question, actually.
01:14:00.000 Yeah.
01:14:01.000 Well, we go through a series of theories there as to what's right and what's wrong and what's the standard.
01:14:08.000 And of course, one of the standards is that people say everyone gets to decide what they want to do.
01:14:15.000 You know, you do you, I'll do me kind of thing.
01:14:17.000 And I can brag on this because my co author wrote this, Phoenix Hayes.
01:14:22.000 She's very witty.
01:14:23.000 Here's what she writes about that.
01:14:25.000 Particular question, Andrew, you know, what about you do you?
01:14:30.000 Isn't that the right standard?
01:14:31.000 Here's what she writes.
01:14:31.000 Sure, you do you works when you're picking ice cream flavors, but once you decide to scam your grandma, torture city, or double park at Costco, suddenly we're all wishing that you didn't do you quite so hard.
01:14:47.000 So that's great.
01:14:49.000 The book has a lot of levity in it because, you know, as the world's going to dystopia, you got to at least laugh.
01:14:56.000 And we're also trying to provide a lot of practical things to do if you're trying to get people back to reality.
01:15:03.000 Like we have a whole section in there.
01:15:05.000 What if your kid comes to you and says, Mom, Dad, I'm trans?
01:15:08.000 What you don't want to say is, What are you, crazy?
01:15:10.000 No, You want to ask some questions.
01:15:13.000 So we have some questions in there that they can ask.
01:15:16.000 And going back to your original question, What is the standard of morality?
01:15:19.000 The ultimate standard, of course, is God's nature.
01:15:21.000 If God doesn't exist, there's nothing ultimately right or wrong.
01:15:24.000 Everything's just a matter of opinion.
01:15:26.000 And of course, our founders knew this.
01:15:27.000 We hold these truths to be self evident that all men were created equal and endowed by their government.
01:15:33.000 No, it doesn't say government, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
01:15:37.000 Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
01:15:39.000 And governments are instituted to protect these rights.
01:15:42.000 Government doesn't give you rights.
01:15:44.000 If government gives you rights, they're not rights, they're just preferences because some other government can come in next and change those.
01:15:49.000 No, rights are given to you by God.
01:15:54.000 And as Mike Johnson pointed out on that tour you and I did, Andrew, not long ago, that the unique thing about America is we got rid of the king and we just said that rights came directly from God.
01:16:08.000 Two people, and that the people really govern themselves based on the rights given to them by God.
01:16:15.000 So that's what the book one of the aspects that the book covers.
01:16:19.000 You say here that, and by the way, amen, amen to that.
01:16:23.000 You say here that the internet is the greatest tool that Satan's ever got.
01:16:30.000 I'm paraphrasing.
01:16:32.000 What do you mean by that?
01:16:34.000 And are we totally cooked?
01:16:36.000 No, there's no hope.
01:16:39.000 No, um.
01:16:40.000 The internet, just like any other technology, is amoral.
01:16:44.000 The morality comes from its use by the people that use it.
01:16:48.000 And so, in there, we talk about AI, like what's good about AI, what isn't good about AI.
01:16:53.000 It depends on how you use it.
01:16:54.000 But one of the things we point out in there is that AI will lie to you.
01:16:58.000 In fact, let me give you an example of this AI is a consumer product.
01:17:02.000 So, there was a Muslim down in Australia that typed into ChatGPT, Did Jesus claim to be God according to the Bible?
01:17:10.000 And it responded with a confident no.
01:17:12.000 A Christian apologist in Canada, same chat bot, chat GBT, typed the same question in.
01:17:22.000 Did Jesus claim to be God according to the Bible?
01:17:24.000 Came back a confident yes.
01:17:27.000 Why?
01:17:28.000 Because these are consumer products and they want to please you.
01:17:31.000 They want to keep you using it so it gets to know what you're looking for and will often just lie to you.
01:17:40.000 I will tell you, it's interesting.
01:17:42.000 We've, in this whole battle for reality post 910, You know, Grok, which, you know, we support Grok, we support Elon, what he's doing at X, but Grok has been gamed multiple times to lie to people.
01:17:55.000 So the last questions about, you know, was the Aspen video AI, you know, with Charlie talking about Erica being the successor at Turning Point.
01:18:06.000 And it lied to them.
01:18:07.000 It told them that.
01:18:07.000 So many people, they, one, people will basically try to game AI so that it will believe false things.
01:18:16.000 And then they will use the repeating of false things by the AI as proof that it's true.
01:18:21.000 So many people are just eager to outsource their thinking to a machine.
01:18:25.000 And the truth is, once you decide to do that, why are you even alive?
01:18:30.000 You've chosen to outsource everything about your existence to a robot made by a company in Silicon Valley.
01:18:38.000 Why do you even let me tell you that's almost how I want to respond to this?
01:18:41.000 Well, it's an alternate reality, is what it is, and that's why we're trying to bring people back to reality.
01:18:47.000 There is a war on reality on so many different fronts.
01:18:50.000 And you know, 10 years ago, if you said some of the things that are said now, like men can have babies, or abortion is health care, or uh, you know, math is racist, that just doesn't add up with me, gentlemen.
01:19:00.000 But if you said those things, you know, 10 years ago, people would go, Are you crazy?
01:19:04.000 And now there are people going, Am I crazy or is the world crazy?
01:19:08.000 No, you're okay.
01:19:10.000 It's the world that's going crazy and reality hasn't changed, but people are saying different things about reality.
01:19:17.000 And you need to know how to bring people back to reality, including yourself sometimes.
01:19:21.000 And that's what the book, The War on Reality, is all about.
01:19:24.000 Frank, you're basically, I found it surprising that you dedicated an entire chapter of this book to chapter 10 Is Everyone Oppressed Now?
01:19:35.000 Marxism and the Invention.
01:19:37.000 Of perpetual victimhood.
01:19:39.000 I found that interesting that you did that.
01:19:40.000 Why?
01:19:41.000 Because I think it's the key to the entire culture war.
01:19:44.000 In fact, there's a chart that begins on page 192, Andrew, that I think once you see that chart, you're going to immediately see why there's a culture war.
01:19:54.000 And you're also going to see one reason why Charlie was murdered.
01:19:57.000 And let me just break it down this way Cultural Marxism, the view that's kind of taken over much of the left in our country, believes that there are two categories of people there are oppressed people and there are oppressor people.
01:20:11.000 And ironically, you're in one of those two categories, not based on your personal behavior.
01:20:18.000 You could be as virtuous as, say, Mother Teresa.
01:20:21.000 However, if you have certain qualities, you're automatically considered an oppressor.
01:20:26.000 For example, as the chart points out, if you're white, rich, like owning class, if you're a man, if you're a heterosexual, if you're a Christian, if you're able bodied, if you're a citizen, if you're a white settler, you're automatically considered an oppressor.
01:20:42.000 On the other hand, if you're a person of color, you're poor, middle class, you're LGBTQ, you're a non Christian, you're disabled, you're an immigrant, or you get bonus points if you're an illegal immigrant, you're automatically considered oppressed.
01:20:57.000 And it doesn't matter what your personal behavior is.
01:21:00.000 And if I go back to those oppressor qualities white, owning class, men, heterosexual, Christian, able bodied citizen, white settler Charlie Kirk met just about every one of those characteristics.
01:21:13.000 It wasn't because his behavior had nothing to do with his behavior, but it had to do with those qualities or those identity groups he was a part of.
01:21:21.000 And that's why the left looked at him as an oppressor.
01:21:25.000 This is why the alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, said, He's a fascist.
01:21:28.000 He must die, right?
01:21:30.000 I don't know about you, but I never heard of a fascist handing his opponent the microphone and saying, Hey, why don't you make your case?
01:21:37.000 I'll listen quietly and then we'll have a discussion.
01:21:39.000 No, the guy that killed him, Tyler Robinson, it appears, is the fascist.
01:21:43.000 He couldn't tolerate Charlie having a.
01:21:46.000 A different opinion on certain things.
01:21:48.000 And what did he use as justification?
01:21:50.000 That he was an oppressor, that he had all these qualities right here.
01:21:54.000 So I think once you understand this chart on 192, you'll see oh, now I get why I'm called a racist or why I'm called, I have white privilege, whatever that means, or I shouldn't be heard because I'm a heterosexual white Christian male.
01:22:10.000 It's just critical theory, it's just cultural Marxism gone amok.
01:22:15.000 I love that.
01:22:17.000 Yeah, and he couldn't tolerate the fact that Charlie had amassed so much influence being in a professor class.
01:22:24.000 No, yeah.
01:22:24.000 Some hate can't be negotiated out.
01:22:26.000 That's what he said.
01:22:26.000 That's right.
01:22:27.000 Let me mention one other thing that this book comes out on the eighth.
01:22:31.000 But if people pre order it and they go to thewaronreality.com and put their little receipt in the box there, we're going to send you chapter 10 right away.
01:22:38.000 And when you see this chapter, and particularly that chart on 192, 193, you'll go, oh, light bulb.
01:22:44.000 By the way, this is where you get gays for Gaza.
01:22:47.000 Why?
01:22:48.000 Gays for Gaza?
01:22:50.000 If they go over to Gaza, they're going to be murdered.
01:22:54.000 Why would LGBTQ people be for Gaza?
01:22:57.000 Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
01:22:59.000 Do you see that Muslims and LGBTQ people are all considered oppressed?
01:23:06.000 What apparently the LGBTQ people don't get, or at least some of them anyway, that are saying they're gays for Gaza, they don't understand that if Islam takes over, they're going to be the first one to lose their rights, their so called rights.
01:23:17.000 They're going to be the first one persecuted.
01:23:19.000 But this is the kind of futile thinking you get when you think in categories oppressed, oppressor, rather than judging people based on the content of their character, as Martin Luther King said, not the color of their skin.
01:23:31.000 Or, as the Bible says, that we're to treat people fairly, impartially.
01:23:37.000 Don't favor the rich or favor the poor.
01:23:40.000 Just treat people as they are, as their behavior warrants.
01:23:44.000 When you get into this kind of oppressed oppressor nonsense, everything goes bad.
01:23:48.000 Frank, you're a great communicator and you're a great defender of the Christian faith.
01:23:55.000 Why do you believe Christianity is real?
01:23:57.000 Why is it?
01:23:59.000 Only have to establish two facts.
01:24:00.000 Number one, God exists.
01:24:02.000 Number two, Jesus rose from the dead.
01:24:04.000 And can you show that God exists?
01:24:06.000 Yeah, I'll give you three short arguments.
01:24:09.000 One, the universe exists, and the universe had a beginning.
01:24:13.000 Space, time, and matter had a beginning.
01:24:14.000 If space, time, and matter had a beginning, whatever created space, time, and matter must transcend space, time, and matter.
01:24:19.000 So you've got to have at least a cause that's spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, and intelligent.
01:24:28.000 And that sounds a lot like the God of the Bible, but we don't know it's the God of the Bible yet because we don't know anything about Jesus at this point.
01:24:35.000 But it seems like we have a creator.
01:24:37.000 Cause.
01:24:37.000 And this creator cause, by the way, is also super intelligent because the universe is fine tuned.
01:24:42.000 And this creator God also is moral because we have a moral law written on our hearts.
01:24:47.000 And wherever there's a moral law, there has to be a moral law giver.
01:24:51.000 So we can show, without even referencing the Bible, that there exists a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, moral, personal, intelligent creator who created and sustains all things.
01:25:01.000 Well, how do we know it's the God of the Bible?
01:25:04.000 You then have to look at the historical evidence for Jesus.
01:25:07.000 And if you look at the historical evidence for Jesus, I think you can show beyond any reasonable doubt that not only did he exist and die on a cross, he actually rose from the dead.
01:25:15.000 And one of the reasons we know this, Andrew, is because the folks that wrote all this down and then paid the biggest price for it were actually people who didn't believe a guy could claim to be God and rise from the dead.
01:25:26.000 These people were Jews.
01:25:28.000 The folks that wrote the New Testament are all Jews.
01:25:30.000 Why are they inventing a resurrected Jesus that got them kicked out of the synagogue and then beaten, tortured, and killed?
01:25:36.000 They wouldn't.
01:25:37.000 So the evidence shows that not only did the universe.
01:25:42.000 Not only was the universe created, but Jesus actually came to this earth, added humanity to his deity, and died and rose again.
01:25:51.000 So when we trust in him, we're not only forgiven, but given his righteousness.
01:25:56.000 Now, we have a whole book on this called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.
01:25:59.000 In fact, Charlie was reading it when he was murdered.
01:26:05.000 Erica sent me a picture of it like a couple of weeks after.
01:26:09.000 And that book lays it out in great detail.
01:26:11.000 I've just given you a quick overview here.
01:26:14.000 Oh, I love it.
01:26:16.000 Frank Turek, I'm so glad that you responded to Charlie when he reached out.
01:26:22.000 Means I get to be your friend too now.
01:26:25.000 Yeah, well, same, Andrew.
01:26:26.000 No, I was going to say, I know you did too.
01:26:28.000 I saw an interview with you recently and you had coffee with Charlie at one point in LA, right?
01:26:34.000 And you're like, who is this guy?
01:26:35.000 Like, what?
01:26:36.000 Yeah.
01:26:36.000 You know.
01:26:36.000 Yeah.
01:26:37.000 I reached out to him over email because a guy I was working with said, hey, you should reach out to him.
01:26:42.000 He ghosted me for a little bit and then he got back to me kind of out of the blue and said, hey, I'm coming through LA.
01:26:47.000 Let's get together.
01:26:48.000 And I think it was dinner technically, but whatever it was, changed my life.
01:26:53.000 And my wife was the one that said, I think this is from the Lord.
01:26:57.000 So here I am, too.
01:26:58.000 But Charlie has a lot of such stories of people in his wake.
01:27:03.000 And Blake has his as well with Charlie.
01:27:05.000 So Frank Turek and Phoenix Hayes, The War on Reality, Recovering Truth in a World That Celebrates Lies.
01:27:13.000 Amen, Frank.
01:27:14.000 That's a book truly meant for this time.
01:27:17.000 And again, everybody, Frank is going to be at UVU's campus on 910, a deliberate act of reclaiming a place that is marked by tragedy.
01:27:26.000 We're going to celebrate Charlie's life there, and Frank and Glenn Beck and others are going to be helping us do that.
01:27:31.000 God bless you, Frank Turk.
01:27:32.000 Everybody, get yourself a copy of The War on Reality.
01:27:36.000 We need it more than ever.
01:27:38.000 So thank you, Frank.
01:27:39.000 God bless you.
01:27:39.000 Thanks, gentlemen.
01:27:40.000 See you next week.
01:27:45.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.