Learn English with the Great Michael Knowles. He is a comedian, author, activist, and political strategist. He's also the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-American student organization fighting for the future of our republic.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000Without further ado, the great Michael Knowles.
00:02:26.000But 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.
00:03:57.000What do you make of it when you think of 2026?
00:03:59.000So, 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.
00:04:13.000Maybe you wish he didn't invite some people in.
00:04:15.000Maybe you wish he invited people in that he excluded.
00:04:48.000The heir apparent, obviously, is JD Vance.
00:04:51.000So whenever there's a transition like that, there's going to be a big shift.
00:04:55.000And 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.
00:05:03.000My view is we should try to work those out in a way that is productive, that offers grace to people.
00:05:13.000Because 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.
00:05:23.000And 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?
00:05:32.000And they will go after us all together.
00:05:54.000And Charlie insisted upon not just having this great Trump era, but getting the next guy in and building on that and building.
00:06:02.000And 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.
00:06:16.000And so I just think you have to keep the focus on winning.
00:06:18.000Not, yes, sort out your differences, have your fun debate club, really, you know, work those issues, but win.
00:06:24.000You 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.
00:06:34.000He's like, and we're going to build an institution, and it's going to be, you know, was he Al Capone?
00:07:53.000But 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.
00:08:03.000Yes, 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.
00:08:18.000Where 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.
00:08:26.000You need to adopt my migration policy, my foreign policy, or you're not a true conservative.
00:08:30.000That'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.
00:09:12.000Because politics involves applying internal principles to constantly changing circumstances.
00:09:18.000We 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.
00:09:26.000Does that tell us some eternal fact about the party?
00:09:52.000Not 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.
00:10:56.000So, 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.
00:11:07.000We're honored to be partnering with Allen Jackson Ministries.
00:11:10.000And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:11:12.000It's called Culture and Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:11:16.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:11:20.000He 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.
00:12:24.000If 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.
00:12:34.000You know, you've got to really defend the real American people.
00:12:56.000About what the core nature of a conservative party in America should be?
00:13:01.000No, they riotously disagree on a number of issues.
00:13:05.000What's kind of funny, though, as I was listening to their speeches, Ben adopts a more classically liberal approach.
00:13:11.000And Tucker's response and defense also took a classically liberal approach.
00:13:16.000He said, we should judge people as individuals.
00:13:19.000There should be no restrictions on free speech.
00:13:21.000And 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.
00:13:32.000You know, so there are ways in which you'd be like, so Pat Buchanan said.
00:15:11.000Yeah, Israel has been one of the dividing lines, especially for the online right.
00:15:15.000I think less so for the broader public right, but especially for the online right, especially for the young right.
00:15:20.000And I think it's perfectly reasonable that that would come up after this massive Gaza war.
00:15:27.000Not 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.
00:16:27.000I 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.
00:16:34.000When people say that the nation of Israel is the greatest ally that America's ever had, I don't see any evidence of that.
00:16:41.000It 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.
00:16:51.000Some people have said all these things.
00:16:53.000I think that's just taking the argument too far, and it turns people off.
00:16:57.000Now, 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.
00:17:08.000To 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?
00:17:20.000It's not to say that, you know, hey, guys, I know what we can do.
00:17:24.000We can form a Christian Islamic alliance and that will lead to a period of world peace.
00:17:31.000I 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.
00:17:36.000And 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.
00:17:47.000I thought that Trump's approach to this was quite right, which is that, look, you just want the war to end.
00:17:54.000You want to have some peace and stability in the region.
00:17:56.000And 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.
00:18:09.000It just shouldn't be the top issue, I think, for most people, maybe for anybody.
00:18:15.000People 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.
00:18:29.000I want to recognize long-standing alliances and be prudent about it.
00:18:32.000Yeah, 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.
00:18:44.000And 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.
00:19:33.000You know, Charlie was raging against the Islamification of the West.
00:19:37.000I 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.
00:19:49.000But, 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.
00:19:58.000You don't have to be anti these people.
00:19:59.000You 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.
00:20:08.000If 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.
00:20:16.000And I think what's happening is you're seeing that ripped and wretched open.
00:20:19.000And now we can finally have that debate.
00:20:21.000And not, you know, you know, that's all Charlie wanted, actually.
00:20:24.000Yes, 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.
00:20:32.000I'm going to upset everybody for two reasons in particular on these issues, because I really like Jews and I really like Indians.
00:20:39.000And the internet tells me I have to hate Indians and Jews for some reason.
00:20:42.000I don't know how Indians have got thrown into this, but I but I really have a H-1B.
00:21:17.000Like, I don't, I just have a different view of religion.
00:21:19.000And 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.
00:21:30.000I kind of take the King Baldwin option, but that's not really on the table right now.
00:21:34.000The Protestants in the room are really upset about you.
00:21:42.000And then there's the historical argument.
00:21:44.000Well, you know, the Jews were here for a long time, 2,000 years ago, and so they should be here again.
00:21:48.000And 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.
00:21:57.000And so I literally don't agree with that.
00:22:00.000But 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.
00:22:11.000And then the United Nations voted to recognize their nation.
00:22:14.000And then on top of that, they fought a war of independence and conquest to take that area.
00:22:19.000So by every single standard of modern nation states, Israel is a legitimate nation state.
00:22:25.000And so I say, so I support it in that way, and I have an affection for the Jews.
00:22:30.000You know, sorry that my answer isn't terribly ideological.
00:22:34.000But 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.
00:23:22.000We're honored to be partnering with Alan Jackson Ministries.
00:23:25.000And today, I want to point you to their podcast.
00:23:27.000It's called Culture and Christianity, the Allen Jackson Podcast.
00:23:31.000What makes it unique is Pastor Allen's biblical perspective.
00:23:34.000He 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.
00:25:28.000He's come, he's a Muslim, and he's assimilated, learned English, and started a business.
00:25:32.000So how can we educate people on the horrors that can happen if we ignore this threat?
00:25:38.000I think speaking to Muslims and ex-Muslims, but even current kind of moderate Muslims, is a good way to do it.
00:25:45.000I'm not surprised to hear that your family left after the revolution in Iran.
00:25:49.000Because 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.
00:26:01.000It's so beautiful to hear of your conversion story.
00:26:43.000That's going to clarify things a lot more.
00:26:45.000Well, you know, it's interesting, too, is seeing Trump go through the, you know, the Saudi, the tour through the Middle East.
00:26:54.000And 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.
00:27:09.000And so, you know, the fact that we are playing fast and loose with immigration from that region of the world, here's my thing.
00:27:15.000You know, Charlie was always very clear about making it macro versus micro Islam.
00:27:19.000Yeah, on the micro level, there's good Muslims.
00:28:16.000I mean, this, by the way, this goes back to the founding.
00:28:18.000John Adams wrote this to Thomas Jefferson, that the principles of Christianity are the principles on which the revolution was won.
00:28:23.000John Jay writes this in the Federalist Papers.
00:28:26.000He 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.
00:28:32.000And so it's not that we, you know, Washington writes his letter to the Jews.
00:28:35.000He doesn't write a letter to the Shiites, I notice, but he writes a letter to the Jews.
00:28:38.000And we do have a, they even tolerated some Catholics every now and again.
00:28:42.000Obviously, we have a history of toleration, but we got to be practical about it.
00:28:49.000A 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.
00:28:55.000Let's get another question or two here.
00:29:03.000My 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.
00:30:06.000And I would recommend not getting famous at 16.
00:30:10.000I think there's a real impulse, especially for Zoomers who are raised on the internet, basically weaned on TikTok.
00:30:16.000You don't want to get famous before you really formed, before you really have something to say and to do.
00:30:22.000So 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.
00:30:32.000But 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.
00:30:42.000That's going to set you up in a much stronger way to be then seriously involved in politics.
00:30:47.000And then you're not running for class president.
00:30:49.000Maybe you're running for president president.
00:31:08.000I would love your advice on two issues I'm seeing.
00:31:11.000First, we have a lot of students who want to get involved but are afraid, and that stops them from coming to meetings.
00:31:16.000And 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.
00:31:24.000So how can I best reach both of these groups?
00:31:35.000I 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.
00:31:48.000Maybe recognize that politics has something to say about religion, and religion certainly has something to say about politics.
00:31:56.000There 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.
00:32:06.000And, you know, Christianity is something totally different.
00:32:08.000You know, Christ is incarnate in history.
00:32:12.000That's what we're about to commemorate.
00:32:14.000He'll return again, by the way, in the second coming.
00:32:19.000And 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.
00:32:32.000You know, the historical and the political tells us something about the religious truth and vice versa.
00:32:38.000And 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.
00:32:44.000So 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.
00:32:50.000Maybe recognize that this is an integral whole because Christ is the God, not just of your church or some other church.
00:32:57.000He's the God of the whole cosmos, which means he's even the God of politics.
00:33:46.000And 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.
00:35:34.000My 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?
00:35:45.000So I just want to say that we miss Charlie so much and I got to meet Daisy.
00:35:50.000Thank you so much for what you've done.
00:35:52.000So anyway, I didn't expect to cry, but we just, it's happy.
00:35:59.000But anything you guys can give us on closing out, especially to this young youth that really is looking for some words of wisdom?
00:36:08.000Well, 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.
00:36:24.000And so you really, that's the formation, that period right up until the teenage years.
00:36:28.000You'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.
00:36:38.000I would say you have to keep a real eye on it.
00:36:39.000The reason homeschooling spiked during COVID is because kids went home.
00:36:43.000They 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.
00:36:51.000So you have to be very responsive to that.
00:36:53.000It sounds though from your story about Charlie, obviously all of us are, you know, this is a big one.
00:36:58.000This is the last event that Charlie directly left us that dawned on me yesterday when I was coming in here.
00:37:03.000And, you know, his picture's all over.
00:37:05.000And, you know, yeah, this is a particular America.
00:37:35.000And 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?
00:37:43.000Or is that not allowed unless he's canonized?
00:37:47.000Although 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.
00:37:56.000And I guess we'll have to save the Pope debate for the next one.