The Charlie Kirk Show - July 21, 2022


The Curious Case of Ray Epps with Darren Beattie and David Sokol


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

173.80952

Word count

5,840

Sentence count

413

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

David Sokol talks about the American Dream and why we need to protect and preserve it. Darren Beattie joins us to talk about the curious case of Ray Epps and his attempt to take down the president of the United States.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:01.000 Darren Beattie and David Sokol join us.
00:00:04.000 David Sokol talks about the American dream and why we need to protect and preserve it.
00:00:08.000 Darren Beattie joins us.
00:00:10.000 Talk about the curious case of Ray Epps.
00:00:12.000 As always, email me your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:15.000 Support the Charlie Kirk Show at CharlieKirk.com/slash support.
00:00:19.000 Come to our Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, just hours away, tpusa.com/slash SAS.
00:00:25.000 It's still not too late to get your tickets.
00:00:27.000 That's tpusa.com/slash SAS.
00:00:29.000 Biggest speakers in the movement.
00:00:30.000 Trump and DeSantis will be there.
00:00:32.000 tpusa.com slash sas.
00:00:35.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:36.000 Here we go.
00:00:37.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:39.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:41.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:44.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:47.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:48.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:49.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:00:51.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:58.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:07.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:10.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
00:01:19.000 Young people feel as if the American Dream is a fiction. 1.00
00:01:24.000 Not all young people, but many young people do.
00:01:26.000 I spent a lot of time on college campuses.
00:01:27.000 I was at Berkeley.
00:01:29.000 I was at CU Boulder this last semester, and they feel as if it's out of grasp.
00:01:36.000 And somebody who is definitely qualified to talk about the American Dream is David Sokol.
00:01:42.000 He's the chairman and CEO of Teton Capital, and he's really a business legend on Wall Street.
00:01:47.000 And he has a fabulous new book out called America in Perspective: Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation.
00:01:55.000 David Sokol joins us right now.
00:01:57.000 Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:58.000 Thank you, Charlie.
00:01:59.000 I appreciate you having me on.
00:02:01.000 So tell us, why did you write the book?
00:02:03.000 You know, trying to save the American Dream, that's quite a task.
00:02:06.000 Yeah, you know, I was a rural, lower-income kid, and my father, his parents were immigrants from Poland.
00:02:13.000 And he always emphasized to us the American dream.
00:02:15.000 And that, you know, the reason we're here, the reason we're in this wonderful country is that we're now Americans and that you have to decide what you want to do, but you're going to have to work for it.
00:02:24.000 And I had that opportunity and through a lot of good fortune over the years, was able to become a CEO in the early 80s and continue in the energy industry throughout my career.
00:02:34.000 And we've really started losing sight of what's made America great all these years.
00:02:38.000 And it's our foundation as our Constitution.
00:02:42.000 It's our foundation as we the people, as our founding fathers put together.
00:02:46.000 And so Adam Brandon and I really felt that it was time.
00:02:50.000 This book's not about us.
00:02:51.000 I mean, there's a small percentage in there that just describes who we are, but it really takes us through this capitalistic meritocracy called America, the self-healing nation that was formed 246 years ago and how important it is.
00:03:06.000 In fact, the American Dream is alive and well today.
00:03:09.000 And in fact, America is that exceptional nation that we all know it is.
00:03:14.000 So many of our students would kind of disagree.
00:03:18.000 They're in debt.
00:03:19.000 They studied things that don't matter to find jobs that don't exist.
00:03:23.000 Homeownership affordability is kind of out of grasp.
00:03:26.000 And they're working hard.
00:03:27.000 I mean, I could just tell our employees here at Turning Point, they're getting poorer every month because of inflation.
00:03:33.000 I'm afraid we're losing that kind of, you know, the grasp of the American Dream.
00:03:38.000 What do you think we need to do to recapture that?
00:03:41.000 And do you believe the American Dream is still alive?
00:03:43.000 I do believe the American Dream is very much alive.
00:03:46.000 And what we have to do to recapture it is, first of all, the young people in this country, unfortunately, haven't been given courses in civics.
00:03:53.000 Our public school system for years hasn't taught much about our Constitution at all.
00:03:58.000 I mean, you've got a congressman, Ocasio-Cortez, who described the three branches of government as the Senate, the House, and the President's office.
00:04:07.000 You know, that's embarrassing around the world when we've got congressmen that apparently haven't even read the Constitution.
00:04:13.000 We have to get back to the basics.
00:04:15.000 Our founding fathers presented us with this opportunity that requires consensus.
00:04:22.000 They established the Constitution to separate our three branches of government, to have checks and balances, and to amend our Constitution, take 75% of the states to ratify it.
00:04:33.000 That was consensus.
00:04:35.000 They recognized that there'd be different populations in each state, so they only had two senators in each state, even though the House is then proportionally represented.
00:04:44.000 Today, we've got through the Obama administration and now the Biden administration, they think somehow that we switch to a parliamentary or an authoritarian government where they can just dictate the changes.
00:04:57.000 Because of that, they're shutting down the use of fossil fuel without any legislative authority to do so.
00:05:03.000 They've caused this enormous inflation through overstimulating the economy.
00:05:08.000 I mean, what President Trump had to do when COVID first started to protect American businesses, particularly small businesses, given that the government was shutting them down, perhaps was necessary.
00:05:19.000 In hindsight, it might have been more money than we probably should have spent.
00:05:22.000 But the amount of money that President Biden threw at it immediately getting into office was purely political.
00:05:28.000 It was purely, look, I can do this too.
00:05:30.000 I can throw money at things.
00:05:32.000 And by the way, I'm going to shut down fossil fuel.
00:05:34.000 We've got to get back to forcing consensus amongst our folks.
00:05:39.000 And by the way, a shout out to Joe Manchin because he seems to be the only Democratic senator that understands the criticality of the filibuster and how it creates consensus to actually force us to think these things through and not just ram them through.
00:05:53.000 So what do you think the message to young people should be?
00:05:57.000 Because I could tell you, they're incredibly cynical right now.
00:05:59.000 The American dream of the country that you grew up in is out of reach.
00:06:04.000 I mean, we have 25 to 30% inflation of a generation that is $100,000 to $150,000 in debt.
00:06:11.000 So what do you think our message should be from a public policy perspective?
00:06:16.000 Because I can understand why a lot of them want to go vote to the left.
00:06:19.000 They've been lied to.
00:06:20.000 They shouldn't have gone to college, many of them.
00:06:22.000 They have meaningless degrees.
00:06:24.000 Things are super expensive.
00:06:26.000 What do you think our message should be?
00:06:28.000 Their message should be is to learn from what's happened to you.
00:06:31.000 Those of you who get conned in to go get going to get an English degree and spending $200,000 to get it just because the government would loan you the money.
00:06:39.000 That's an example.
00:06:40.000 When government tries to interfere in this free enterprise, capitalistic meritocracy of America, they make a mess.
00:06:48.000 And, you know, I had to work my way through college.
00:06:51.000 There wasn't an opportunity to borrow money.
00:06:52.000 And my dad made it very clear to me: make sure you study something that will pay you for that education and then work hard.
00:07:01.000 Today, we went through this period where government, no one would loan you $250,000 to buy a Camry if the Camry is worth $23,000.
00:07:11.000 But somehow you can go to a very expensive Ivy League school and the government will loan you a quarter of a million dollars to get an English degree, or you can go to the University of Nebraska and get it for $15,000.
00:07:22.000 That's just silly, but that's how government looks at things.
00:07:25.000 They don't put rationale.
00:07:26.000 So young people need to stop and say, how did I get into this situation?
00:07:32.000 Because the American dream is there for them.
00:07:34.000 But you have to make good decisions on who our elected representatives are.
00:07:38.000 You've got to make good decisions in your life.
00:07:40.000 Government's not going to bail you out.
00:07:43.000 Yeah, I hear you.
00:07:44.000 But you got a whole generation that's 28 and 29 and 30, and they've been conned by their parents, right?
00:07:50.000 I mean, the parents are the ones that told them to go to college.
00:07:53.000 And just to tell you what I'm dealing with every day, it's such widespread cynicism, right?
00:07:58.000 They see, for example, billionaires got $600 billion wealthier during the lockdown.
00:08:04.000 Do you think that should be something we should talk about?
00:08:07.000 Well, I think we should talk about it.
00:08:10.000 I think we should praise success.
00:08:12.000 And that's the problem.
00:08:13.000 We've allowed the left to turn the tide in this conversation to turn it into class warfare, turning us against ourselves.
00:08:23.000 They're trying to make us a tribal nation where, you know, as a Polish American, I'm supposed to denounce being an American and only be Polish.
00:08:31.000 Well, my parents wouldn't allow, their parents wouldn't allow them to speak Polish because my grandfather told my father, you're an American now.
00:08:40.000 I'll teach you to speak Polish after you speak perfect English because that's the language of our country now. 0.93
00:08:45.000 And we have to get back to these simple, simple things.
00:08:49.000 And parents need to understand that when they teach their kids, it isn't every child does not need to go to college.
00:08:56.000 Some kids like to be outdoors.
00:08:59.000 Some like to be welders.
00:09:00.000 Some like to be electricians, construction workers.
00:09:02.000 There's all kinds of, you know, some people want to be artists.
00:09:05.000 The American dream isn't just about wealth.
00:09:08.000 But what we shouldn't do is criticize those who make a great deal of money by participating in our capitalistic system.
00:09:15.000 That's what a capitalistic meritocracy is.
00:09:17.000 It isn't perfect, but it's lifted the economies of the entire world, and we're only 5% of that world.
00:09:24.000 So something I want to explore with you, and I agree with everything you're saying, is the sustainability of a capitalist meritocracy, because you are going to have winners and you are going to have losers, and then you're going to have people that are going to try to mobilize the losers to have resentment against the winners.
00:09:36.000 I just don't know how sustainable it is long-term.
00:09:38.000 I know you addressed that in the book because you're going to have people that just want to hate those that have.
00:09:44.000 And it's very hard politically to go against that, especially when they misrepresent us as a democracy when we're not.
00:09:50.000 The book is America in Perspective: Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation by David Sokol, who is a legend in more ways than one.
00:09:57.000 I encourage everyone to pick up a copy.
00:09:59.000 And for young people, yes, the American dream is still alive and well.
00:10:05.000 Hey, everybody.
00:10:06.000 This common sense is brought to you by the folks at secondvote.com, amazing people who are fighting back against woke corporations.
00:10:12.000 Subscribe now at secondvote.com, promo code Charlie.
00:10:16.000 Good afternoon.
00:10:17.000 I'm Rebecca Hatfield, president of Second Vote.
00:10:19.000 We've had uniquely American common sense since 1776, but now we're in the age of common nonsense.
00:10:26.000 Today's nonsense comes from the big corporations fighting the Supreme Court.
00:10:30.000 They can't accept the conservatives have won three huge victories.
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00:11:05.000 It's just common sense that you have the right to carry a firearm everywhere.
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00:11:44.000 So please make sure to arm yourselves every day with the knowledge you need to shop smart and stop funding the left.
00:11:50.000 I'm Rebecca Hatfield, President.
00:11:52.000 A second vote reminding you that your first vote is at the ballot box, but your second vote is with your wallet.
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00:12:03.000 That's secondvote.com, promo code Charlie.
00:12:08.000 With us is David Sokol, who is the author of a fabulous new book, America in Perspective.
00:12:13.000 I encourage all young people, especially, to purchase a copy about the American Dream, Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation.
00:12:20.000 So David, I want to ask you what from a public policy standpoint should be done here?
00:12:25.000 I mean, we have out-of-control inflation.
00:12:27.000 You've been in the business world for decades and have been a remarkable success.
00:12:32.000 Have you ever seen inflation like this post-1970s?
00:12:35.000 And what does that mean for the future of the American dream?
00:12:39.000 No, I haven't.
00:12:40.000 I lived through the post-1970s.
00:12:42.000 In fact, my first mortgage on a house was 16% interest.
00:12:45.000 And it's a very dangerous thing that we have going on right now.
00:12:49.000 And it's policy-wise, I think the Federal Reserve has to continue to do what it's doing, at least until we see clear signs of the inflation coming down.
00:12:57.000 The reason I say that, it's unusual in that we also have this structural problem being created by the Biden administration to actually force energy prices up.
00:13:07.000 You know, they act that they really want to try to get gasoline prices down.
00:13:11.000 But I think realistically, I mean, I've sat in meetings where progressives have said they hope oil goes to $250 a barrel.
00:13:17.000 Are you serious?
00:13:18.000 Jeez.
00:13:19.000 And it's insane because, you know, I liken it to the fact that on energy policy, the Biden administration has put the port in in a transfusion of a body to take the bad blood out.
00:13:32.000 But unfortunately, they don't have the good blood to put in.
00:13:34.000 And so, but when you consider that energy prices are going to stay elevated well into the future under this kind of administration, inflation is going to be tough to bring down because energy affects fertilizer.
00:13:46.000 It affects farming in all kinds of categories.
00:13:48.000 And it affects transportation of every good we buy and sell.
00:13:52.000 And so it's going to be difficult, but the Fed's got to do it because there was too much money thrown in last year, $2 trillion of additional COVID relief that was unnecessary, and then a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending that's going to be administered by somebody who has never spent an hour understanding how to administer transportation funds.
00:14:14.000 And so they've really got to, unfortunately, they're going to have to slow the economy quite a bit.
00:14:14.000 That's exactly.
00:14:20.000 But it's what happens when we allow government to get out of control.
00:14:24.000 And that's what we've done.
00:14:26.000 I think the American people are prepared to stop this nonsense.
00:14:29.000 Yeah, I mean, you're right.
00:14:31.000 I want to ask you what you think that looks like slowing the economy down because that's exactly right.
00:14:35.000 I mean, we lived on this sugar high, this artificial sugar high of cheap money, I think unnecessarily for not just the last couple of years, I think almost the last decade.
00:14:45.000 And it just kind of hit, kind of hit a climax in the last year, year and a half.
00:14:50.000 And that's all, by the way, that six to seven trillion dollars of spending you just articulated is on top of a $4.4 trillion annual spending budget that the government has that is completely too big and bloated.
00:15:02.000 So that's just, that's gravy and icing on top of what we're already doing.
00:15:07.000 And I mean, so I know that predicting economic circumstances is very difficult, but I mean, forgive me if I'm being too blunt, but there's going to be some economic suffering coming here.
00:15:18.000 And in fact, it's almost necessary, isn't it?
00:15:21.000 It's already happening.
00:15:22.000 You know, unfortunately, the lower income and middle income folks, you know, every statistic I've seen says that the average middle income family pays $400 more a month today to do exactly what they did this time last year.
00:15:34.000 That's right.
00:15:35.000 Where does that money come from?
00:15:37.000 You know, it's easy for a bunch of politicians that get every benefit in the world and who can trade on inside information to look the other way.
00:15:44.000 But the average family, you know, this is a big issue.
00:15:49.000 And so, I think people are waking up that this fantasy land that government can just dictate things and everything will be okay doesn't exist.
00:15:56.000 And fortunately, the one good thing we have is this incredibly powerful capitalistic meritocracy called the American economy.
00:16:03.000 If we don't kill it, it will pull us out of this.
00:16:06.000 But we've got to get intelligent energy policy.
00:16:09.000 We have no energy policy today.
00:16:10.000 We have a political sound bike called the Green New Deal.
00:16:14.000 There is no deal, there is no detail to it.
00:16:18.000 And that's really astounding when you think that energy is the lifeblood of any economy.
00:16:23.000 And we're talking about people just saying, Let's just kill the lifeblood now and we'll figure it out later.
00:16:29.000 No one in the right mind would follow that path.
00:16:32.000 But we are.
00:16:33.000 It's ideological, is what it is, is that they don't care about the casualties or the catastrophe.
00:16:40.000 But as long as they're marching towards their utopia where they're in charge, they could rule over the ashes.
00:16:44.000 Very important book written by someone who knows about the American Dream because he lived it.
00:16:48.000 America in Perspective: Defending the American Dream for the Next Generation by David Sokol.
00:16:53.000 I wish we had more time.
00:16:54.000 Thank you so much, David, for joining us.
00:16:56.000 Thanks for having me on, Charlie.
00:16:57.000 I appreciate it.
00:16:57.000 Thank you.
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00:18:06.000 With us right now is Darren Beattie from the phenomenal website Revolver.news.
00:18:11.000 Darren, welcome back to the program.
00:18:12.000 There was a very bizarre piece written by the New York Times, like a puff piece defending Ray Epps, and you have a response to that piece on Revolver.news.
00:18:22.000 Walk us through it.
00:18:24.000 Yes, well, it's great to be back.
00:18:27.000 And I think it's important to start off with just letting it sink in at how bizarre it is that of all of the January 6 riot participants, the one about whom the New York Times writes a puff piece.
00:18:43.000 That's a simple, utterly sympathetic puff piece.
00:18:46.000 Poor guy.
00:18:47.000 So we have to feel sorry for him.
00:18:49.000 Like, what?
00:18:50.000 No, it's Ray Epps.
00:18:52.000 The one person caught on camera repeatedly urging people into the Capitol as early as January 5th is the one January 6th riot participant about whom the New York Times writes a sympathetic puff piece.
00:19:09.000 That's just a motivating starter to understand how bizarre this is, how dirty this is, how corrupt this is.
00:19:19.000 The New York Times gained access to this individual who had been, he's a key individual, whether no matter what you think, if you think, oh, this is some evil insurrection, he's an evil Trump supporter, then you still want to talk to him.
00:19:34.000 You still want to get to him because he's the only guy caught on camera as early as January 5th dedicated to this mission to go into the Capitol.
00:19:43.000 And if you're like me and think, okay, this is deeply fishy, you also want to talk to him.
00:19:48.000 So, the New York Times has access to this guy, very special access.
00:19:53.000 And they write a whole piece and don't think to ask the following questions.
00:19:58.000 Number one, the entire piece, there's no blanket denial of involvement with the federal government.
00:20:05.000 There's a reiteration of the very specific legalistic denial he issued through his lawyer, by the way, a 10-year veteran of the Phoenix FBI field office, saying he was never involved with law enforcement.
00:20:17.000 Well, of course, that leaves open a number of possibilities, including the Department of Homeland Security, JTTF, military intelligence, and so forth.
00:20:26.000 Okay, so no explicit blanket denial in the whole piece.
00:20:29.000 Number two, the piece describes Epps as a Trump supporter who wanted to go to Washington, D.C. to support Trump.
00:20:37.000 And just as a last-minute thing, he went with his son to D.C. because he wanted to hear Trump's speech about election fraud.
00:20:48.000 Well, the only issue with that is that this individual, Ray Epps, apparently on a last-minute whim with his son, traveled all the way from Arizona to D.C. to hear this speech, but he didn't go to the speech.
00:21:01.000 And the New York Times piece doesn't even point that out or think to explore: well, shouldn't we report on why he claims he didn't go to the speech?
00:21:12.000 It's totally non-existent in the piece.
00:21:14.000 So he doesn't go to the speech.
00:21:17.000 I don't even know that part.
00:21:18.000 Yeah.
00:21:19.000 So that's the thing.
00:21:20.000 And in fact, in the indictments against the Proud Boys, the government itself has said, oh, this is a major indicator that they had some kind of malicious intentions.
00:21:29.000 The fact that they didn't even bother going to the Trump speech.
00:21:33.000 And the additional thing about Ray Epps is not only did he travel all the way from the guy with the Trump hat, he's wearing the red Trump hat when he tells people to go into the Capitol.
00:21:43.000 And yet the man with the Trump hat doesn't even bother to listen to the Trump speech that he traveled across the country for.
00:21:52.000 And furthermore, this is very important.
00:21:54.000 And furthermore, not only does he just mosey around anywhere when he's skipping the speech, he happens to be positioned right there at the Peace Monument, which is the site of the initial breach of the Capitol.
00:22:09.000 And he's hanging out there before the Proud Boys even get there.
00:22:12.000 And it's the official story that the Proud Boys.
00:22:16.000 What a coincidence that he just happens to end up at the right place at the right time after having skipped this speech that allegedly he crossed the country to attend.
00:22:25.000 And no, no exploration of what his excuse is for this.
00:22:31.000 And then the last and most egregious omission in the piece: the piece doesn't explore where did you get this idea, Mr. Epps, to urge everyone to go into the Capitol.
00:22:45.000 And why are you so doggedly insistent on pursuing this mission when the buying temperature of the crowd was extremely negative?
00:22:53.000 In fact, it was so out of place on January 6th that the crowd immediately accused him of being a Fed.
00:22:59.000 So where did you get this idea to go into the Capitol?
00:23:02.000 No.
00:23:03.000 Which is, by the way, the central question that the January 6th committee is allegedly exploring.
00:23:08.000 And so this New York Times has access to this guy and is in a position to explore these deeply important questions to everyone, no matter what your perspective on January 6th, and instead foregoes exploring these questions and attempts a sympathy piece, which is the only sympathy piece on any January 6th participant the New York Times has ever done.
00:23:31.000 I will add to that: Epps' most wanted poster was taken down off the FBI's website.
00:23:38.000 Also, Epps whispered into somebody's ear just seconds before the barricades come down, very suspiciously.
00:23:45.000 Now, look, I will admit, I would not be able to use this in a court of law, nor could you, but it kind of gets 10 out of 10 on the Richter scale of, you know, something's up on suspiciousness, right?
00:23:56.000 It's not, it's not verifiable evidence, but it's circumstantial, where he's whispering into somebody's ear almost as if he's in on it, right, Darren?
00:24:04.000 Like there's some for there's some knowledge.
00:24:07.000 He's directing traffic with almost alpha male confidence and military precision.
00:24:13.000 And I want to replay this tape here.
00:24:16.000 This is the tape you mentioned.
00:24:17.000 This is on the night of January 5th.
00:24:20.000 I want you to listen to how he's talking, the annunciation, the almost forced nature of the words.
00:24:27.000 Again, all circumstantial.
00:24:28.000 It's a little bit subjective.
00:24:30.000 I think it's convincing for me.
00:24:32.000 Where he's surrounded by people in the streets of Washington, D.C., saying not that we need to go to the Capitol, Darren.
00:24:40.000 No, no, no, no.
00:24:41.000 He says we need to go into the Capitol.
00:24:44.000 That's a bizarre way to word it.
00:24:47.000 Play cut 274.
00:24:49.000 Tomorrow.
00:24:50.000 We need to go into the Capitol.
00:24:53.000 Into the Capitol.
00:24:58.000 Now, tragically and ironically, some of the people saying no right there actually end up going into the Capitol tomorrow, the next day.
00:25:07.000 Right.
00:25:07.000 So very people denouncing it are actually some of the people that actually end up going.
00:25:13.000 So maybe they should have kept their own gut instinct, right?
00:25:16.000 Yes.
00:25:18.000 A couple of very important things to say there.
00:25:20.000 First of all, I wish you'd had a little bit of a longer clip there.
00:25:25.000 There are two clips on January 5th where he very emphatically urges people to go into the Capitol.
00:25:31.000 And you gestured toward this quite correctly, which is the scripted, almost artificial quality of his intonation and cadence.
00:25:43.000 And both times he prefaces it in a very interesting way.
00:25:48.000 He said, I probably shouldn't say this because I'll go to rest, get arrested.
00:25:53.000 The next time he says, I probably shouldn't say this because I'll go to jail for this.
00:25:58.000 Both times, this same structure as though this is some rehearsed speech, it's a very bizarre thing.
00:26:04.000 And these are the sort of subjective aspects.
00:26:07.000 When you look at how calm he is, he's an expert in crowd control.
00:26:12.000 It doesn't look like he's really personally invested in this.
00:26:15.000 He's not somebody who's caught up in the emotions of it.
00:26:18.000 He's someone who's very methodical in the way that he conducts himself with the crowd, controls the crowd, and so forth that suggests some kind of professional operation.
00:26:29.000 And I know this is silly, but honestly, it looks like he bought that hat at some sort of third-rate store on the way.
00:26:35.000 I mean, I only say that because the majority of people who wear Trump hats, they're kind of, it's part of their identity.
00:26:42.000 They've been to many rallies with them, and it just looks very artificial, but that's a side point.
00:26:47.000 One quick thing, if I have time, just really quick and important.
00:26:50.000 You say that, oh, this the whispering in the ear and these things wouldn't hold up in a court of law.
00:26:56.000 Well, there is something that he did.
00:26:57.000 By the way, like, there's no question that he trespassed.
00:27:00.000 And there have been a number of people who have been charged simply with trespassing.
00:27:03.000 Simone Gold being one of them.
00:27:05.000 There's no question, you know, Owen Schroyer, Mark Ibrahim.
00:27:09.000 There are a bunch of people who have been charged simply for trespassing.
00:27:13.000 More serious charge, and there's a direct parallel to another January 6th case.
00:27:19.000 There's a guy called George Tanios who's facing very serious, stacked conspiracy charges.
00:27:25.000 They're charging him with conspiracy to assault an officer because his co-defendant asked him for the bear spray.
00:27:32.000 He said, is it time to get the bear spray?
00:27:34.000 And he responded, no, no, not yet.
00:27:38.000 And by responding, no, no, not yet, that is said by the government to establish a conspiracy between those two individuals to assault an officer.
00:27:46.000 There's another clip that's in the Revolver.news piece of Ray Epps telling somebody, he says, when we go in, leave this here.
00:27:56.000 Ironically, referring to a can of bear spray.
00:27:58.000 But the when we go in indicates a knowledge that they're about to go in.
00:28:03.000 And the guy he talked to actually did go into the Capitol and is one of the more egregious participants in the riot.
00:28:12.000 So the parallelism between that suggests very strongly that the same type of conspiracy case they're using to railroad an individual called Tanios is readily available to them in the Epps case.
00:28:24.000 And for whatever reason, this very vocal participant whose behavior was so egregious that he was put on the FBI Most Wanted list.
00:28:32.000 He was featured on a New York Times' own video documentary on the thing.
00:28:37.000 They don't want to use it.
00:28:38.000 And now he's the only January 6th participant about whom Adam Kinsinger has nice things to say.
00:28:44.000 And the New York Times will write puff pieces for it.
00:28:46.000 Makes you wonder what his role really was.
00:28:48.000 Darren, I'm going to ask you to speculate a little bit.
00:28:51.000 Why does Ray Epps matter so much that the New York Times has to deploy their best propagandist to frame him as a victim?
00:28:59.000 In fact, the headline of the Ray Epps story is quite fascinating.
00:29:04.000 It is how Ray Epps became the victim of a January 6th conspiracy theory.
00:29:11.000 And it had a picture of him and his wife outside of a trailer.
00:29:14.000 It says Ray Epps and his wife, Robin Epps, became the face of a conspiracy theory that rocked their lives as it spread into the mainstream.
00:29:22.000 So we're supposed to feel sorry for him, even though every other January 6th defendant gets labeled as an insurrectionist.
00:29:31.000 He has not been charged.
00:29:33.000 And there's all these articles that are being written about him.
00:29:39.000 Why does he matter so much to this equation?
00:29:41.000 Why do they have to defend him?
00:29:43.000 Well, that's a fantastic question.
00:29:46.000 And I'd like to preface the answer by reminding the audience that in the New York Times' own video documentary on January 6th, titled The Day of Rage, Ray Epps is a star.
00:30:00.000 And in fact, Ray Epps is depicted directly as one of the quote handful of rioters who plan to storm the Capitol all along.
00:30:10.000 The New York Times' own video documentary, and they're going out of their way.
00:30:15.000 They're looking for the most egregious clips that they can.
00:30:19.000 And Ray Epps appears multiple times in their very own documentary.
00:30:23.000 And this is the same outlet that later on, when Ray Epps really is clear, he's the smoking gun of the entire Fed surrender.
00:30:32.000 And, you know, people understand what an operation this was.
00:30:37.000 Now, the New York Times is all of a sudden in aggressive damage control mode.
00:30:42.000 I think they understand that the Ray Epps situation is so embarrassing and so devastating to the narrative.
00:30:49.000 And I anticipate material coming out that further undermines the official narrative and that relates to Ray Epps as January 6 cases kick into gear.
00:31:03.000 And you got maybe a reference to it in the New York Times piece itself in the reference to this text message that Ray Epps regrets.
00:31:10.000 And I think this is likely front-running even more damning evidence to come out in the coming weeks and months.
00:31:18.000 And they want to make any talk of Ray Epps that is not sympathetic so toxic that you just have to shut up.
00:31:26.000 And they're doing that.
00:31:28.000 I have to read from this story, Darren.
00:31:29.000 It says here, Ray Epps has suffered enormously in the past 10 months as right-wing media figures and Republican politicians have baselessly described him as a covert government agent who helped to instigate the attack on the Capitol last year.
00:31:44.000 Okay, just putting all that aside, New York Times, why don't you mention in your piece that he says we need to go into the Capitol repeatedly?
00:31:53.000 Why is that not mentioned?
00:31:54.000 Instead, it says, well, he regrets it.
00:31:57.000 One of the moments he regrets the most was getting near there.
00:32:00.000 They did mention Revolver.news in the New York Times, though, Darren.
00:32:04.000 Multiple times.
00:32:05.000 No, they and they had to say, oh, the obscure outlet, Revolver.news, the obscure outlet that helped to bring the case of Ray Epps to national attention and how egregious it was.
00:32:19.000 But no, it's quite something.
00:32:23.000 It's clearly a very aggressive effort at damage control.
00:32:26.000 Just another example.
00:32:28.000 So I don't think this necessarily relates to whatever, to Ray Epps' participation in the January 6th riot, but it's an interesting detail that in any other circumstance, the New York Times would include in his description of Epps.
00:32:43.000 And that is he was the former president of the Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers, the most condemned and vilified militia pertaining to January 6th.
00:32:53.000 Well, and also, I don't mean to cut you off, Darren, but by the way, we're going to put your book up.
00:32:58.000 You're writing the forward to the January 6th report 262.
00:33:01.000 Darren, also, when asked directly, Ted Cruz asked the FBI directly whether or not he was a Fed.
00:33:09.000 Right.
00:33:10.000 They were struck in silence.
00:33:12.000 Well, we can't answer that.
00:33:13.000 Well, why don't you say no?
00:33:15.000 I don't understand.
00:33:16.000 Darren Beatty, Revolver.news.
00:33:18.000 Check it out.
00:33:19.000 Thank you so much.
00:33:20.000 Thank you.
00:33:23.000 Thank you so much for listening, everybody.
00:33:24.000 Email me your thoughts as always.
00:33:25.000 Freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:33:27.000 Thanks so much for listening.
00:33:28.000 God bless.
00:33:32.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.