The Charlie Kirk Show - The Conservative Movement After 9-10: The Path Forward

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

00:00:45.000 Here I am, Lord Museman.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.

00:01:09.000 Without further ado, the great Michael Knowles.

00:01:14.000 Thanks so much.

00:01:15.000 Good to see you.

00:01:16.000 How are you?

00:01:18.000 Michael, you're always looking so dapper.

00:01:21.000 Stop it.

00:01:21.000 Get out.

00:01:22.000 Flattery will get you somewhere.

00:01:23.000 It will get you.

00:01:24.000 I did have this thought.

00:01:26.000 I said, yesterday I was on the main stage, you know, so I had to have my more official Republican blue suit, red tie.

00:01:32.000 But I said, this is more the casual day.

00:01:34.000 Is that purple?

00:01:35.000 It is a purple.

00:01:36.000 I like to call it aubergine, but it is purple, in fact.

00:01:39.000 Yeah.

00:01:40.000 All right.

00:01:40.000 So your boss said some crazy stuff last night.

00:01:44.000 You know, I don't know who put together the calendar, the schedule of events.

00:01:48.000 I look, I said, okay, Charlie actually did that.

00:01:51.000 It's actually, this is it.

00:01:52.000 This is Charlie special.

00:01:54.000 Opening night is basically all Charlie.

00:01:56.000 That's great.

00:01:56.000 Right toward the top, we got Ben, then we got Tucker.

00:01:59.000 And I looked, I said, okay, here I am right in the middle.

00:02:01.000 It's kind of like being in the middle of India and Pakistan. 0.87

00:02:05.000 In the middle of Iran and Iraq.

00:02:07.000 But it's funny, too, because the point of my speech was to say, okay, what did Charlie do?

00:02:13.000 Charlie did a million things.

00:02:14.000 We were just talking about this backstage.

00:02:16.000 Charlie did a million things, right?

00:02:17.000 He debated at the top levels.

00:02:19.000 He fundraised at the top levels.

00:02:22.000 He organized.

00:02:22.000 He campaigned.

00:02:23.000 He did this, that, and the other thing.

00:02:24.000 He wrote books, right?

00:02:26.000 But the distinctive thing that he did was build and maintain coalitions, often thanklessly behind the scenes, mediating, negotiating, sorting things out, keeping some people out.

00:02:36.000 You're too kind.

00:02:37.000 Keeping people in, even people in who hate each other's guts, and always moving forward toward a goal.

00:02:43.000 So I get up there and I say, you know, I think my thesis is going to be, blessed are the peacemakers.

00:02:47.000 This is Charlie's distinctive quality.

00:02:48.000 We need to emulate this.

00:02:50.000 Leo, Pope Leo.

00:02:54.000 And then what happens?

00:02:57.000 No one agrees with me and everyone starts throwing elbows the whole night.

00:03:00.000 And I said, okay, well, never mind.

00:03:02.000 I'll be over the bar.

00:03:03.000 Listen, the audience liked Russell Brand's prayer and his whole thing last night, right?

00:03:07.000 You guys?

00:03:08.000 Yeah.

00:03:10.000 They didn't have as high marks for you, but that's okay.

00:03:12.000 That's why you're here.

00:03:14.000 That's why you're here.

00:03:14.000 You're redeeming yourself.

00:03:16.000 I'm so glad that you had Russell come in because, you know, it opens up.

00:03:21.000 Erica gives her beautiful speech.

00:03:23.000 Then Ben just starts throwing elbows everywhere.

00:03:25.000 And I said, hold on.

00:03:26.000 And then you know Tucker's going to be punching back at Ben.

00:03:28.000 And I said, I really need Russell to come there, shirt buttoned down to the navel, I don't know, talking about some kind of hippie thing.

00:03:35.000 It was great.

00:03:36.000 Really, it was a nice palette cleanser.

00:03:38.000 It really was.

00:03:40.000 The evening went well, but then, of course, the headlines were MAGA Civil War, MAGA Mayhem.

00:03:47.000 They were like looking for all the M-words they could put the Daily Mail in a headline.

00:03:52.000 So what do you make of that?

00:03:54.000 Is this healthy?

00:03:55.000 Is this destructive?

00:03:57.000 What do you make of it when you think of 2026?

00:03:59.000 So, look, you know, I mean, my speech last night was contrary to maybe some of the other ones, which is that I think it's very important to recognize that there's a coalition Charlie built, and maybe you like that he invited some people.

00:04:13.000 Maybe you wish he didn't invite some people in.

00:04:15.000 Maybe you wish he invited people in that he excluded.

00:04:17.000 I don't know.

00:04:17.000 I don't really care.

00:04:18.000 He built a team.

00:04:19.000 This is the team.

00:04:19.000 This is the army, okay?

00:04:20.000 Everyone here, all of you, this massive gathering of people on the stage and more off the stage, you're on the team, okay?

00:04:26.000 And so the team has a purpose.

00:04:28.000 The team has a goal, and you got to move down the field, and you got to win.

00:04:31.000 And the losers make policy, the winners make policy, and the losers go home.

00:04:35.000 So my view is we don't want to paper over our differences.

00:04:40.000 We're in a period of extreme flux right now.

00:04:42.000 Obviously, we're coming to the end of the Trump era.

00:04:45.000 Trump has dominated.

00:04:46.000 He's been the big dog for 10 years.

00:04:48.000 The heir apparent, obviously, is JD Vance.

00:04:51.000 So whenever there's a transition like that, there's going to be a big shift.

00:04:55.000 And all the differences in the factions that have existed for decades are going to come out and people are going to vie for position in their view.

00:05:03.000 My view is we should try to work those out in a way that is productive, that offers grace to people.

00:05:13.000 Because if you take the infighting to its extreme and you say, look, give me what I want, or I'm taking my ball and going home, well, then we lose, you know, and then the left wins.

00:05:23.000 And I guess one of my very practical points in that speech is the left makes no distinction between any of those people on the stage, okay?

00:05:32.000 And they will go after us all together.

00:05:36.000 So we have to win.

00:05:37.000 This was an insight from Charlie that you don't always get from pundits because it's easy to have an opinion.

00:05:42.000 And opinions are interesting, and especially some of the drama online is really interesting and titillating.

00:05:48.000 But Charlie wanted to win, and Charlie did win.

00:05:53.000 And Charlie kept winning.

00:05:54.000 And Charlie insisted upon not just having this great Trump era, but getting the next guy in and building on that and building.

00:06:02.000 And so even these conferences would go from 1,000 people, or I don't know, like 50 people, to 1,000 people, to 5,000 people, to 15,000 people, to now, whatever, 30,000 plus.

00:06:10.000 It's just completely at capacity.

00:06:13.000 We need a bigger convention center.

00:06:15.000 Yes, that's right.

00:06:16.000 And so I just think you have to keep the focus on winning.

00:06:18.000 Not, yes, sort out your differences, have your fun debate club, really, you know, work those issues, but win.

00:06:24.000 You know what's crazy to me is when I see like 18-year-old Charlie, you know, like on Neil Cavuto, or it's like local Chicago news, and he's like, you know, we've got 15 chapters, and he's got the Chicago accent.

00:06:34.000 He's like, and we're going to build an institution, and it's going to be, you know, was he Al Capone?

00:06:39.000 Is that it blows my mind?

00:06:42.000 His first Neil Cavuto hit where he was like, we've been having tremendous success on Twitter.

00:06:46.000 And it's been, and I'm like, this is, it's like the guy was just so ahead of me.

00:06:51.000 He was always driven that way.

00:06:53.000 And, you know, so to your point, though, it's like, I want to, you know, talk about this coalition.

00:06:58.000 We did a thing before you got on here, but you should see it again.

00:07:02.000 And for the folks at home, just take my word for it.

00:07:04.000 So who last night appreciated the Ben Shapiro approach?

00:07:08.000 Hands up.

00:07:10.000 I'll put my glasses on.

00:07:10.000 Let's see.

00:07:11.000 Your glasses?

00:07:12.000 Half the room probably.

00:07:13.000 A little more than half the room.

00:07:14.000 And who appreciated the Tucker Carlson approach?

00:07:17.000 Half the room.

00:07:18.000 Red or right.

00:07:19.000 50-50.

00:07:20.000 So if you wonder why Charlie constructed an opening night the way he did.

00:07:23.000 You left one.

00:07:23.000 Hey, hold on.

00:07:24.000 Who appreciated the Michael Knowles approach?

00:07:26.000 Yeah, that's the whole room.

00:07:27.000 Look at that.

00:07:28.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:29.000 Thank you.

00:07:30.000 You even get a whoop in there.

00:07:31.000 Yeah.

00:07:32.000 So, but when we talk about what we are dealing with, you mentioned that this stuff had been simmering under the surface for years.

00:07:41.000 I mean, you could go back to Buckley and the Birchers, and it's like some of this stuff is as old as time, and it's not going to go away. 0.55

00:07:49.000 Go back to Roosevelt and Taft. 0.85

00:07:50.000 I mean, you know what I mean?

00:07:51.000 You can keep going.

00:07:53.000 But when we talk about where this goes and kind of a sifting, a settling, hopefully we come back together, you don't expect necessarily some of the fault lines to go away.

00:08:03.000 Yes, look, I think Ben made a very important point that I think most people would agree with, which is a political coalition has to have boundaries.

00:08:11.000 Not everyone gets to come in.

00:08:12.000 Just like not everyone gets to come into the country, not everyone gets to come into the coalition.

00:08:15.000 So that in principle is true.

00:08:18.000 Where a lot of the civil war is going to take place is what they're going to say, you need to adopt my economic policy or you're not a true conservative.

00:08:26.000 You need to adopt my migration policy, my foreign policy, or you're not a true conservative.

00:08:30.000 That's where those battles have been taking place going back to the 50s and into the 90s after the Cold War and in the 2000s and to the present.

00:08:39.000 I think that's BS.

00:08:40.000 And here's my proof that that's BS.

00:08:43.000 The Republican Party now, I guess, supports tariffs, though some people in the coalition hate that.

00:08:48.000 Previously, for most of my lifetime, the Republican Party hated tariffs.

00:08:53.000 But you know what's kind of funny?

00:08:54.000 The Republican Party was founded on tariffs.

00:08:56.000 It was like Abraham Lincoln said, give me a tariff, I'll give you the greatest country in the world.

00:09:00.000 Does that mean, therefore, that we have to support tariffs at any given time?

00:09:05.000 Or during the, I don't know, actually, Reagan kind of liked tariffs too, but the Reaganites hated tariffs.

00:09:09.000 Does that mean we have to hate tariffs to be a true conservative?

00:09:12.000 No.

00:09:12.000 Because politics involves applying internal principles to constantly changing circumstances.

00:09:18.000 We used to be the party of foreign policy restraint, and then we, you know, like bombed the whole Middle East, and now we're the party of restraint again.

00:09:26.000 Does that tell us some eternal fact about the party?

00:09:28.000 I don't think so.

00:09:30.000 I don't think it's hypocrisy, for instance, to change your economic views to some degree to meet new circumstances.

00:09:36.000 A generation that now can't afford housing, a generation that's being priced out of food.

00:09:41.000 Both issues, by the way, tied to mass migration, which was cheered on by conservatives after the conservatives opposed it.

00:09:48.000 So, no, you can change these things.

00:09:50.000 That's called being responsive.

00:09:52.000 Not being responsive is what caused the left to get completely blown out of the water in the last election because they were so detached from reality that they thought boys could be girls and all the rest of it.

00:10:01.000 We have to be responsive.

00:10:02.000 But I do think there are some non-negotiables.

00:10:05.000 So, one non-negotiable, I would say, and I think Charlie was so clear about this.

00:10:09.000 If you advocate injustice, if you are cruel, if you promote a vulgar hatred on the basis of race or sex or religion, you're off the team.

00:10:18.000 You know, that sort of stuff is wrong in itself and it's politically toxic.

00:10:23.000 And I thought Charlie has done a great job of keeping that riffraff out. 1.00

00:10:28.000 After that, things are kind of up for grab.

00:10:31.000 So, what are the low bar?

00:10:34.000 Yes, that's the low bar of exclusion.

00:10:36.000 What are the things that we affirmatively have to believe in?

00:10:38.000 I think you have to love the country.

00:10:41.000 You know, you have to be like Trump and hug the American flag.

00:10:44.000 Was that the cover of the MAGA Doctrine by Charlie Kirk?

00:10:48.000 I seem to remember that.

00:10:50.000 When Trump hugged the flag, I love that.

00:10:51.000 Some people thought it was weird or cheesy or something.

00:10:54.000 No, I thought that was so genuine.

00:10:55.000 This guy loves the flag.

00:10:56.000 So, if you're the kind of person who doesn't love the country, wants to fundamentally transform the country, to use Obama's words, wants to burn the symbol of the country, you're off my team.

00:11:07.000 We're honored to be partnering with Allen Jackson Ministries.

00:11:10.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:11:12.000 It's called Culture and Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.

00:11:16.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:11:20.000 He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today: gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.

00:11:28.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:11:30.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:11:34.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

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00:11:56.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:12:01.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:12:10.000 What else do you have to believe there's a real thing as an American people?

00:12:13.000 And people assimilate into that, just as Ruth assimilates into the Israelites and is in the genealogy of Christ.

00:12:19.000 But there's still Israelites, okay? 1.00

00:12:21.000 There's still particular nations.

00:12:23.000 There's still an American people.

00:12:24.000 If you don't believe that, if you think America is like just an idea or not an idea, like every idea floating in outer, if you think it's nothing, you're not on the team to me.

00:12:34.000 You know, you've got to really defend the real American people.

00:12:38.000 Yeah.

00:12:38.000 Go ahead.

00:12:39.000 So we accept there's a few, maybe a tiny number of things that you just exclude on.

00:12:44.000 You have ideas.

00:12:45.000 We have that clash between Ben and Tucker last night.

00:12:48.000 Do you believe that they have the same assumptions about those same core things, or is that in conflict at all between them?

00:12:54.000 About unpopularity.

00:12:56.000 About what the core nature of a conservative party in America should be?

00:13:01.000 No, they riotously disagree on a number of issues.

00:13:05.000 What's kind of funny, though, as I was listening to their speeches, Ben adopts a more classically liberal approach.

00:13:11.000 And Tucker's response and defense also took a classically liberal approach.

00:13:16.000 He said, we should judge people as individuals.

00:13:19.000 There should be no restrictions on free speech.

00:13:21.000 And I had this kind of funny thought, which is I don't think I'm exactly mediating between these two guys because if we debated those fundamental premises, they would probably agree and I would disagree with them.

00:13:32.000 You know, so there are ways in which you'd be like, so Pat Buchanan said.

00:13:37.000 Russell Kerb, definitely.

00:13:38.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:13:39.000 And so, no, they riotously disagree on foreign policy, on economic policy, and they probably agree on immigration, I guess.

00:13:48.000 But no, they disagree.

00:13:50.000 And I think those debates are good.

00:13:52.000 The debates that actually focus on real policy challenges, I think that is good and productive and healthy.

00:13:57.000 Look, and both of these guys condemned the thing that I also condemned.

00:14:02.000 Anything that gets down to, you know, injustice, hatreds, animosities based on race or religion or whatever.

00:14:10.000 You know, I think that that is so ugly and counterproductive that that, you know.

00:14:14.000 Stop trying to bait me into the Catholic debate. 0.82

00:14:17.000 Yeah.

00:14:18.000 And to quote Arthur Schlesinger, the deepest prejudice in American history is anti-Catholicism.

00:14:22.000 But, you know, we don't have to get into it.

00:14:24.000 So I'm going to put you on the spot here just a little bit.

00:14:27.000 You've never done that.

00:14:28.000 They only ask three or four piercing follow-up questions.

00:14:31.000 No, just kidding.

00:14:33.000 Yeah, I mean, listen, you exist at a company that's been at the sort of, you know, with Ben, obviously, he's Jewish.

00:14:39.000 There's been a lot of debate, yeah, it turns out.

00:14:42.000 I saw the Yarmulka myself.

00:14:43.000 I did.

00:14:44.000 Did you touch it, though?

00:14:45.000 No, I did not.

00:14:46.000 I know better than they did.

00:14:48.000 So, you know, this is the open question.

00:14:51.000 I was recently on the Ross Douthed podcast, New York Times, had a great time, really great guy.

00:14:55.000 I love it.

00:14:55.000 Good interviewer.

00:14:57.000 And, you know, he kept trying to get me to go into the Israel debate.

00:15:02.000 And my perspective, well, who cares about that?

00:15:04.000 You're on the show.

00:15:05.000 Tell us, what is your perspective about what, you know, we're talking about coalitions.

00:15:09.000 What do you do with Israel? 0.55

00:15:11.000 Yeah, Israel has been one of the dividing lines, especially for the online right.

00:15:15.000 I think less so for the broader public right, but especially for the online right, especially for the young right.

00:15:20.000 And I think it's perfectly reasonable that that would come up after this massive Gaza war. 0.95

00:15:27.000 Not only the realities of that war, but also the propaganda from both sides of that war that was, you know, but especially anti-Israel propaganda.

00:15:36.000 That is a real thing, obviously.

00:15:37.000 It happens in war.

00:15:39.000 So what do we do?

00:15:40.000 I guess I hosted a debate on this actually yesterday on my show, which is, should America continue to support Israel?

00:15:47.000 And I guess you have to get even more particular than that.

00:15:50.000 My position on the Gaza war was that the war had to wrap up.

00:15:54.000 That we have a long-standing affection for Israel.

00:15:58.000 Richard Nixon famously saved Israel.

00:16:00.000 Israel would have been destroyed in 73. 0.94

00:16:04.000 But he saved Israel.

00:16:08.000 I think we have more culturally and politically in common with Israel than with Israel's enemies.

00:16:15.000 And so I think there is a reason.

00:16:18.000 It's not a deceit.

00:16:19.000 It's not just a fraud.

00:16:20.000 There is a reason that we tend to look more favorably on Israel than on some of Israel's enemies.

00:16:26.000 But it can go too far.

00:16:27.000 I mean, when some people say that we have a religious demand that we must support the nation state of Israel in all things, I think that's kind of crazy.

00:16:34.000 When people say that the nation of Israel is the greatest ally that America's ever had, I don't see any evidence of that.

00:16:41.000 It can be a good ally, but that's such an extreme statement that we must always stand with Israel, that we need Israel more than Israel needs us.

00:16:51.000 Some people have said all these things.

00:16:53.000 I think that's just taking the argument too far, and it turns people off.

00:16:57.000 Now, on the flip side of that, when people, it's kind of like when people realize that feminism is wrong and they become misogynists for a period just out of their contrarian nature. 0.96

00:17:08.000 To recognize that the relationship with Israel is complex and there are reasons to support Israel, but there are obviously limits around that is not to say that we need to start wearing the kefias and marching with Greta Thunberg, okay?

00:17:20.000 It's not to say that, you know, hey, guys, I know what we can do.

00:17:24.000 We can form a Christian Islamic alliance and that will lead to a period of world peace. 0.90

00:17:29.000 I have about 1,400 years of history.

00:17:31.000 I don't know how much time we have on the show today, but about 1,400 years of history to say that's probably not going to work.

00:17:36.000 And of course, the migrant crisis in Europe and to a lesser degree in America is being driven in no small part by the unassimilability of Islam. 0.98

00:17:45.000 So how do we deal with Israel? 0.99

00:17:47.000 I thought that Trump's approach to this was quite right, which is that, look, you just want the war to end. 0.58

00:17:54.000 You want to have some peace and stability in the region.

00:17:56.000 And what would be best for the American right is not to pick all or nothing on Israel, but for the importance of Israel to diminish in the minds of right-wing voters.

00:18:09.000 It just shouldn't be the top issue, I think, for most people, maybe for anybody.

00:18:13.000 That would be my answer.

00:18:15.000 People are going to call that a moderate answer or an unsatisfying answer because it's either we need to be chanting from the river to the sea, the Arabs will be free, or we need to all put on yarmulkas or something.

00:18:25.000 But I don't want to put on a kefiyah. 1.00

00:18:28.000 I don't want to put on a yarmulke.

00:18:29.000 I want to recognize long-standing alliances and be prudent about it.

00:18:32.000 Yeah, it's a thing Charlie would talk about that it's just it would be a very dumb thing to destroy the conservative coalition over our attitude towards what is ultimately a foreign country.

00:18:43.000 Yeah.

00:18:44.000 And just for most people, that is not what matters in your life nearly as much as the economy, whether you can have a family, whether you own a home, what our immigration policy is.

00:18:53.000 And it's sort of a touch grass thing.

00:18:57.000 Get offline a little bit.

00:18:59.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:18:59.000 I mean, the notion, gosh, I mean, I have had people, kind of young, very online people, but they'll come up to me in public.

00:19:06.000 I'll be in a cigar shop or I'll be say, what do you think of Israel?

00:19:10.000 I say, I don't think about Israel all that much, if I'm being totally frank about it.

00:19:15.000 But if you want my really boring, dry answer, here you go.

00:19:19.000 You know, here are the recollections of Richard Nixon.

00:19:21.000 Does that work for you?

00:19:23.000 Yeah, well, you know, and I think we do a disservice to that debate by framing it in a binary.

00:19:27.000 Yeah.

00:19:28.000 You either have to be for or against.

00:19:29.000 And it's like, well, I like them better than the other guys.

00:19:32.000 Okay.

00:19:33.000 You know, Charlie was raging against the Islamification of the West. 0.99

00:19:37.000 I mean, I am very sympathetic to the fact that they are surrounded on all sides by people that have oftentimes a very hostile ideology towards them and want them dead, really.

00:19:49.000 But, you know, there's, I think if we presented more options on the menu that were, you know, that we gave young people to say, hey, you don't have to hate these people.

00:19:58.000 You don't have to be anti these people.

00:19:59.000 You don't have to rage against them or scapegoat them or create in them as a boogeyman that will, you know, that is the root of all evils in the world.

00:20:07.000 There are other options on the table.

00:20:08.000 If we simply presented that, but I think what is happening is that you have an older generation that does think in terms of the binary, and they're not really open to that debate.

00:20:16.000 And I think what's happening is you're seeing that ripped and wretched open.

00:20:19.000 And now we can finally have that debate.

00:20:21.000 And not, you know, you know, that's all Charlie wanted, actually.

00:20:24.000 Yes, I think in some ways, the way I think about this is it probably puts me on the outs with every, I'm in a bad position right now for the online right.

00:20:32.000 I'm going to upset everybody for two reasons in particular on these issues, because I really like Jews and I really like Indians.

00:20:39.000 And the internet tells me I have to hate Indians and Jews for some reason.

00:20:42.000 I don't know how Indians have got thrown into this, but I but I really have a H-1B. 0.89

00:20:48.000 Yeah, that is.

00:20:49.000 I do know how the Indians got thrown in.

00:20:51.000 But I was thinking this, I'm not even joking.

00:20:51.000 Yeah.

00:20:53.000 I was thinking this the other day when I was eating a pastrami and mustard sandwich on rye.

00:20:56.000 I was thinking, you know, I really like the Jews.

00:20:59.000 I say that.

00:21:00.000 But I don't, like, when I'm sure you've seen all of these debates, these questions, they say, are you a Zionist?

00:21:07.000 And I say, well, like, literally, I'm not, because I don't agree with the historical or religious claims of Zionism.

00:21:15.000 Because I'm a Catholic.

00:21:16.000 I don't know.

00:21:16.000 I'm an American Catholic.

00:21:17.000 Like, I don't, I just have a different view of religion.

00:21:19.000 And so if the claim is, you know, true religion tells us that this particular nation has an eternal right to this particular plot of dust, I would just say, no, I don't really buy that.

00:21:30.000 I kind of take the King Baldwin option, but that's not really on the table right now.

00:21:34.000 The Protestants in the room are really upset about you.

00:21:37.000 The land rights are in the Bible.

00:21:39.000 That's fine.

00:21:40.000 Okay, but so there's that.

00:21:42.000 And then there's the historical argument.

00:21:44.000 Well, you know, the Jews were here for a long time, 2,000 years ago, and so they should be here again. 1.00

00:21:48.000 And I think, well, by that same argument, we should turn over the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux, but I'm not giving them Mount Rushmore, you know, so we don't accept that logic in other contexts.

00:21:57.000 And so I literally don't agree with that.

00:22:00.000 But I also think the Jewish nation came about because the British Empire, which controlled that territory, made a promise to them to give it to them.

00:22:11.000 And then the United Nations voted to recognize their nation.

00:22:14.000 And then on top of that, they fought a war of independence and conquest to take that area.

00:22:19.000 So by every single standard of modern nation states, Israel is a legitimate nation state.

00:22:25.000 And so I say, so I support it in that way, and I have an affection for the Jews.

00:22:30.000 You know, sorry that my answer isn't terribly ideological.

00:22:34.000 But I think the way to deal with this issue, especially as a fracture is the right, is to stop being so freaking ideological about it.

00:22:40.000 I hate ideology.

00:22:41.000 I think conservatism in many ways is an anti-ideology.

00:22:44.000 You know, we prefer the real to the utopian.

00:22:49.000 We prefer present laughter to utopian bliss, you know, the limited to the unbounded.

00:22:53.000 This is all the kind of conservatism of Michael Oakeshott and other right-wing thinkers.

00:22:59.000 And so I just think like, yeah, let's get down to brass tacks.

00:23:02.000 What's your real issue with Israel?

00:23:04.000 You don't want the war in Gaza to go on?

00:23:06.000 Yeah, I'm glad that wrapped up.

00:23:06.000 I agree.

00:23:08.000 You know, that was great.

00:23:08.000 Good job, Trump.

00:23:11.000 We have alliances with all sorts of nations in the world.

00:23:13.000 They're complicated and we navigate them.

00:23:15.000 And yeah, okay.

00:23:17.000 Can I have my pastrami now?

00:23:17.000 Anything else?

00:23:19.000 Is that fine?

00:23:22.000 We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.

00:23:25.000 And today, I want to point you to their podcast.

00:23:27.000 It's called Culture and Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.

00:23:31.000 What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.

00:23:34.000 He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues we're facing today, gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump in the White House, issues in the church.

00:23:43.000 He doesn't just discuss the problems.

00:23:45.000 In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference.

00:23:49.000 His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies.

00:23:52.000 They've been great friends.

00:23:53.000 And now you can hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:23:56.000 Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

00:24:02.000 The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging.

00:24:05.000 You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:24:09.000 Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes.

00:24:11.000 Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to bring biblical truth back into our culture.

00:24:16.000 You can find out more about Pastor Allen and the ministry at alanjackson.com forward slash Charlie.

00:24:24.000 We're on a pretty tight schedule here, so I think we want to get to some questions from people.

00:24:28.000 Let's do it.

00:24:29.000 And we can get hopefully two, three, four of them.

00:24:32.000 Yep.

00:24:33.000 Emma?

00:24:34.000 Hi, guys.

00:24:36.000 Been praying for you a lot.

00:24:37.000 Keep doing what you're doing.

00:24:39.000 My dad was born in Tehran, Iran, and he came here in 1977 to escape the revolution that happened when Trump banned Muslims.

00:24:48.000 He was one of the first people to say that it was a good thing for the country.

00:24:52.000 And his thing was to say, why couldn't we not ask if they're going to care, love the country first over Islam?

00:25:00.000 And I think that that seems to be something that people are not realizing.

00:25:03.000 My dad is still a Muslim.

00:25:04.000 I was saved by Jesus Christ nine years ago.

00:25:06.000 And his parents were both Muslim and an atheist, and in hospice accepted Jesus Christ.

00:25:13.000 So he can save any of you.

00:25:16.000 I was an atheist for 24 years, and Jesus can change our life.

00:25:19.000 So I think putting Jesus first is the answer. 0.59

00:25:21.000 But with this stuff with immigration, we're seeing such an awful thing happen. 1.00

00:25:25.000 And not everyone over there is bad.

00:25:27.000 My dad's proof of that.

00:25:28.000 He's come, he's a Muslim, and he's assimilated, learned English, and started a business.

00:25:32.000 So how can we educate people on the horrors that can happen if we ignore this threat?

00:25:38.000 I think speaking to Muslims and ex-Muslims, but even current kind of moderate Muslims, is a good way to do it. 0.96

00:25:45.000 I'm not surprised to hear that your family left after the revolution in Iran.

00:25:49.000 Because if you want to hear the most trenchant critics of Iran, the people who most desperately want to just light up that country and blow up the mullahs, it is Iranians who left around the revolution. 1.00

00:26:01.000 It's so beautiful to hear of your conversion story.

00:26:03.000 You're so right about that.

00:26:05.000 You know, a friend of mine, a Jewish friend of mine, recently converted.

00:26:08.000 I said, wow, what did it?

00:26:09.000 He's very intelligent.

00:26:10.000 I said, was it this argument or this argument or this?

00:26:12.000 He said, no, I had a mystical experience of Christ.

00:26:15.000 I said, oh, that'll do it.

00:26:16.000 Yeah, that'll probably do it.

00:26:17.000 And then even I spoke to an ex-Muslim who has also converted.

00:26:22.000 And, you know, I think hearing those practical stories, this, again, this gets back to what we were just talking about.

00:26:27.000 You know, abstraction serves some purpose to clarify things.

00:26:32.000 But when you really want to get down into the brass tacks of politics, which is a practical art, you got to get into real examples.

00:26:38.000 You know, talk to the real people.

00:26:40.000 Talk to the real people who fled Iran.

00:26:41.000 Talk to real Muslims and ex-Muslims. 1.00

00:26:43.000 That's going to clarify things a lot more.

00:26:45.000 Well, you know, it's interesting, too, is seeing Trump go through the, you know, the Saudi, the tour through the Middle East.

00:26:54.000 And so many of those countries have done incredible amounts of labor and work politically, militarily, domestically to limit the reach of jihadism, of radical Islam.

00:27:09.000 And so, you know, the fact that we are playing fast and loose with immigration from that region of the world, here's my thing. 0.99

00:27:15.000 You know, Charlie was always very clear about making it macro versus micro Islam. 0.99

00:27:19.000 Yeah, on the micro level, there's good Muslims.

00:27:22.000 They're wonderful people.

00:27:23.000 They'll be a great neighbors.

00:27:24.000 They'll work hard, be good citizens.

00:27:25.000 I love Shwarma.

00:27:26.000 I love Pastrami and I love Shwarma.

00:27:28.000 Does that make me a moderate?

00:27:29.000 You're starting to sound like Piers Morgan here.

00:27:33.000 Dika Masalia, which is English, by the way.

00:27:38.000 But one last thing here, though, is that my point with importing Islam is that you might, say you import 10,000 of them. 0.83

00:27:48.000 You just need one that gets radicalized and then goes and drives through a market or detonates a device or something like that.

00:27:54.000 And my point is, the more you bring in, the more you're going to have of that.

00:27:58.000 We have seen this now historically play out.

00:28:00.000 So why play fast and loose with it at all?

00:28:04.000 And you said, put Christ first.

00:28:06.000 I'm on the team of we should probably do that with immigration too.

00:28:09.000 Just so just where of course.

00:28:10.000 I mean, we assimilate Christians in this country very well.

00:28:14.000 Why don't we just start there?

00:28:16.000 I mean, this, by the way, this goes back to the founding.

00:28:18.000 John Adams wrote this to Thomas Jefferson, that the principles of Christianity are the principles on which the revolution was won.

00:28:23.000 John Jay writes this in the Federalist Papers.

00:28:26.000 He says, I thank God for the providence that we come from a common people with a common experience of the revolution with a common religion.

00:28:32.000 And so it's not that we, you know, Washington writes his letter to the Jews.

00:28:35.000 He doesn't write a letter to the Shiites, I notice, but he writes a letter to the Jews. 0.64

00:28:38.000 And we do have a, they even tolerated some Catholics every now and again.

00:28:42.000 Obviously, we have a history of toleration, but we got to be practical about it.

00:28:49.000 A little bit of spice flavors the melting pot, but you don't want to pour in whatever that somali dish that Jacob Fry tried to choke down the other day.

00:28:55.000 Let's get another question or two here.

00:28:59.000 Oh, over there.

00:29:01.000 Hi, Michael.

00:29:01.000 My name is Brody.

00:29:02.000 I'm 16.

00:29:03.000 My mom and I wanted to know what you were doing when you were 16 and what advice you had for someone that might want to get into politics when they're older.

00:29:10.000 Oh, great question.

00:29:11.000 I was a political junkie as a kid, going back to when I was six, actually, even earlier.

00:29:16.000 I remember the Bob Dole election in 1990.

00:29:20.000 I was the most excited about Bob Dole winning, including Bob Dole.

00:29:23.000 And I was doing student government, class president, all that stuff when I was 16.

00:29:30.000 I was also smoking cigars.

00:29:31.000 I started doing that at 15.

00:29:33.000 I'm not recommending.

00:29:35.000 I'm not recommending, but I'm not legally.

00:29:36.000 I'm not allowed to recommend.

00:29:38.000 Contractually, you only got one company pitch for your cigars.

00:29:42.000 And everyone else I got to say for.

00:29:46.000 But I was civically engaged, and I would recommend starting in those small and local ways.

00:29:53.000 The great counterexample to this is, of course, our pal Charlie, who decided that he was going to be on the fast track to president at 18.

00:30:00.000 He got involved in local campaigning in Chicago a lot.

00:30:03.000 And so I totally agree with you on that.

00:30:05.000 You've got to start a little local.

00:30:06.000 And I would recommend not getting famous at 16.

00:30:10.000 I think there's a real impulse, especially for Zoomers who are raised on the internet, basically weaned on TikTok. 1.00

00:30:16.000 You don't want to get famous before you really formed, before you really have something to say and to do.

00:30:22.000 So I would recommend, on the one hand, get that practical experience that you can't get from books out of student governments, school board elections, maybe even a congressional helping out interning or something.

00:30:32.000 But then also read, immerse yourself in history and political philosophy, and really take the opportunity to be a kid, albeit a precocious kid, and to have a real education.

00:30:42.000 That's going to set you up in a much stronger way to be then seriously involved in politics.

00:30:47.000 And then you're not running for class president.

00:30:49.000 Maybe you're running for president president. 0.93

00:30:51.000 I know it stinks.

00:30:52.000 I think we only have time for one more, probably.

00:30:54.000 We have five minutes left.

00:30:55.000 All right.

00:30:56.000 Well, let's get another one.

00:30:57.000 Let's see how fast it goes.

00:31:00.000 Hi, my name is Katie.

00:31:02.000 I have the honor of serving as president of our turning point chapter at the University of Cincinnati.

00:31:07.000 Thank you.

00:31:08.000 I would love your advice on two issues I'm seeing.

00:31:11.000 First, we have a lot of students who want to get involved but are afraid, and that stops them from coming to meetings.

00:31:16.000 And second, we have a ton of students who want to know so much more about Christ, but they don't want to talk about that nearly as much as they want to talk about politics.

00:31:24.000 So how can I best reach both of these groups?

00:31:27.000 You guys run turning point.

00:31:28.000 I just show up every now and again.

00:31:32.000 It showed up for you, though.

00:31:33.000 Fair enough.

00:31:34.000 Okay, that's fine.

00:31:35.000 I would say you should embrace the fact that they are drawn to these two things and not even push against the fact that they find politics more titillating.

00:31:48.000 Maybe recognize that politics has something to say about religion, and religion certainly has something to say about politics.

00:31:56.000 There has been an impulse in American Christianity for a long time to try to divorce the two and to say that politics is icky and we shouldn't play with it.

00:32:06.000 And, you know, Christianity is something totally different. 0.99

00:32:08.000 You know, Christ is incarnate in history.

00:32:12.000 That's what we're about to commemorate.

00:32:14.000 He'll return again, by the way, in the second coming.

00:32:16.000 And he's born into an empire.

00:32:19.000 And that's significant because he's born into the Roman Empire, which claims the right to tax the whole world, which is a recognition that the civil authority has jurisdiction over the whole world, which means that the passion and the crucifixion of Christ saves the whole world. 0.60

00:32:32.000 You know, the historical and the political tells us something about the religious truth and vice versa.

00:32:38.000 And of course, St. Paul tells us the civil authority is there for our own good, is given by God and doesn't bear the sword in vain.

00:32:44.000 So I would just say, don't try to split them apart or say, you want to talk about politics, let's only talk about religion.

00:32:50.000 Maybe recognize that this is an integral whole because Christ is the God, not just of your church or some other church.

00:32:57.000 He's the God of the whole cosmos, which means he's even the God of politics.

00:33:01.000 I think we have time for one more.

00:33:03.000 Okay, I just want to add one other point to this, is that Charlie became an expert at integrating his faith into political answers.

00:33:11.000 But he started by being able to give you a political answer to any political question without bringing in politics.

00:33:20.000 So he spent a long time sharpening his arguments without politics at all.

00:33:25.000 And then as he got older, he started just incorporating them.

00:33:29.000 But you get really good at the logic with or without.

00:33:31.000 It's the first thing I would say.

00:33:33.000 And then, you know, to Michael's point, it's like politics can be the doorway in.

00:33:38.000 But Charlie used to always say that those who drink from the streams of liberty will eventually find its source.

00:33:44.000 But we believe that's Christ.

00:33:46.000 And so you may not know the order through which door they're going to walk in first and just be open, listen to the spirit prayerfully, and you'll get there.

00:33:55.000 All right.

00:33:56.000 Two minutes.

00:33:56.000 We have two minutes.

00:33:57.000 Two minutes.

00:33:58.000 Fast question.

00:34:00.000 My name is Jamie.

00:34:00.000 Hi, guys.

00:34:01.000 I'm from the state of California.

00:34:03.000 I don't know if I should be too full of that.

00:34:06.000 It's a beautiful state.

00:34:07.000 It is a beautiful state.

00:34:09.000 My family and I were so blessed to be here last year in this room, actually.

00:34:12.000 We saw the great back and forth, the friendly banter that Michael, you, and Charlie had last year about Catholicism and Christianity.

00:34:19.000 And that brings me to, I came with my family.

00:34:22.000 Like I said, I have my 11-year-old and my 13-year-old here.

00:34:25.000 They were here last year as well.

00:34:27.000 And my question for you is: my 13-year-old will be going into high school next year.

00:34:32.000 We've prayed on it a lot.

00:34:34.000 Unfortunately, it's kind of out of our scope right now to put him in a private high school.

00:34:38.000 So he will be going into a public school next year.

00:34:42.000 He's been in private school from kindergarten through eighth grade.

00:34:45.000 So I wanted to ask the three of you really words of encouragement, words of wisdom that you can give to just not just my son.

00:34:54.000 We actually brought five kids with us, ranging from seven-year-olds to 13.

00:34:59.000 Now we're talking.

00:35:00.000 So we'd love to hear what you guys have for them.

00:35:01.000 Thank you.

00:35:02.000 First, how many kids did you say?

00:35:03.000 Five.

00:35:04.000 So Mormon, Catholic, or Orthodox Jew. 0.75

00:35:04.000 Five. 0.75

00:35:09.000 We're actually here with three families.

00:35:11.000 The four, it's me and my husband and my 11-year-old and 13-year-old are here for the second time.

00:35:16.000 We actually brought two other families with us this year that we're so excited just to really hear of what Charlie left.

00:35:23.000 And I saw, I will say this in this room, the words of wisdom with Charlie.

00:35:30.000 I saw at firsthand the impact that Charlie had on these kids.

00:35:34.000 Yeah.

00:35:34.000 My 11-year-old came up to me the night that he was shot and he put his head in my lap when Erica was speaking and he's like, why did this happen?

00:35:45.000 So I just want to say that we miss Charlie so much and I got to meet Daisy.

00:35:50.000 Thank you so much for what you've done.

00:35:52.000 So anyway, I didn't expect to cry, but we just, it's happy.

00:35:57.000 We know Charlie's here.

00:35:58.000 We feel his presence.

00:35:59.000 But anything you guys can give us on closing out, especially to this young youth that really is looking for some words of wisdom?

00:36:08.000 Well, I would say on the very practical school point, you know, happily you've given your kid a great formation, you know, and even like with William F. Buckley Jr., great American conservative, he was homeschooled through eighth grade, you know, he had that, and then he went to whatever other school.

00:36:24.000 And so you really, that's the formation, that period right up until the teenage years.

00:36:28.000 You've done such a great job of making that really solid that I think you can have reasonable confidence that the teachers won't screw it up too much in the public school.

00:36:37.000 But you have to keep an eye.

00:36:38.000 I would say you have to keep a real eye on it.

00:36:39.000 The reason homeschooling spiked during COVID is because kids went home.

00:36:43.000 They looked at what their teachers, the parents looked at what the teachers were telling the kids over the computer screen, and they yanked their kids out of schools because they said, this is insane and it's poison.

00:36:51.000 So you have to be very responsive to that.

00:36:53.000 It sounds though from your story about Charlie, obviously all of us are, you know, this is a big one.

00:36:58.000 This is the last event that Charlie directly left us that dawned on me yesterday when I was coming in here.

00:37:03.000 And, you know, his picture's all over.

00:37:05.000 And, you know, yeah, this is a particular America.

00:37:09.000 It's always growing.

00:37:10.000 It's always big.

00:37:11.000 It's always spirit-filled.

00:37:12.000 And this one in particular.

00:37:13.000 So we're all kind of working through that a little bit and living that.

00:37:19.000 The fact that your kid would have that reaction to this event tells you he's in a good spot.

00:37:25.000 I think he's going to be all right.

00:37:27.000 No, we still have a lot of, of course, if they want encouragement on the other practical things.

00:37:31.000 There's a lot of videos of Charlie arguing with liberals in schools.

00:37:34.000 They can still show us.

00:37:35.000 And I guess because people like that, to close on a pedantic religious point, would they be allowed to pray for Charlie's intercession on their behalf?

00:37:43.000 Or is that not allowed unless he's canonized?

00:37:45.000 He's not formally canonized yet.

00:37:47.000 Although there was a bishop who, I forget which bishop it was, who said that Charlie was almost certainly a martyr, a martyr for the faith, though he's not the Pope.

00:37:56.000 And I guess we'll have to save the Pope debate for the next one.

00:37:59.000 Everybody, Michael Knowles.

00:38:01.000 Thank you, everybody.

00:38:02.000 Thank you so much.

00:38:03.000 Thank you.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 04, 2026

The Conservative Movement After 9-10: The Path Forward

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