The Charlie Kirk Show - August 01, 2023


The DeSantis Drop-Out Debate


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

176.35593

Word Count

6,243

Sentence Count

534


Summary

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

Transcript

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00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, should the primary be ended?
00:00:02.000 If you're a DeSantis supporter, Nikki Haley supporter, Mike Pence supporter, I hope you listen to this entire episode.
00:00:07.000 If you vehemently disagree, I mean this sincerely, I want to hear from you.
00:00:11.000 What is the counterpoint to what I talk about?
00:00:14.000 I think it's a very fair argument.
00:00:15.000 It's a very forceful argument.
00:00:16.000 Listen to it and email me your dissension, your disagreement.
00:00:20.000 I want to hear from you.
00:00:22.000 And more importantly, text this episode to a single friend who disagrees.
00:00:26.000 I'd love to hear what the counterpoint to this is, or what is the plan?
00:00:30.000 Is there a plan?
00:00:32.000 You'll know what I mean if you listen.
00:00:34.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:36.000 Get involved with Turning Point USA Today.
00:00:38.000 Turning Point USA is the nation's largest educational movement that is working every day to save Western society.
00:00:45.000 That's tpusa.com, tpusa.com.
00:00:49.000 I love hearing from you.
00:00:50.000 Freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:51.000 Make sure you're subscribed to our podcast and get friends that do the same.
00:00:54.000 Buckle up, everybody, here.
00:00:55.000 We go.
00:00:56.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:58.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:01:00.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:01:03.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:01:06.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:01:08.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:01:09.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:17.000 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.
00:01:26.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:29.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
00:01:38.000 It's the first day of August.
00:01:41.000 You know that July and August are straight from the Roman times, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus.
00:01:46.000 That's some nice trivia for you.
00:01:49.000 Honor to be with you.
00:01:50.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:01:52.000 No, I do not know as much about the Roman Empire as Blake, but I know enough to be dangerous.
00:01:58.000 Honor to be with you guys.
00:02:00.000 I want to tell you about a tweet I sent yesterday, which is a perfect lead.
00:02:03.000 But before I get into that, let me just build up to it.
00:02:05.000 I find in life, whether I'm doing meetings at Turning Point USA, giving people advice, receiving emails, there's a difference between activity and results-driven behavior.
00:02:16.000 Far too often, people meander through life.
00:02:20.000 They don't really know what their goal is.
00:02:22.000 They don't know where they're going.
00:02:24.000 What is the destination?
00:02:25.000 What does success look like?
00:02:29.000 This seems so obvious, but it's also helpful in your own life.
00:02:32.000 Have you written down on a piece of paper, what does success look like?
00:02:35.000 What does a 90-day, what does a 90-day goal look like?
00:02:41.000 What does a 120-day goal look like?
00:02:44.000 What does a six-month goal look like?
00:02:46.000 In politics, this is rarely ever said out loud.
00:02:50.000 The Democrats, they have very specific goals of ushering in a progressive, totalitarian, some would say Marxist or communistic version of government over America.
00:03:06.000 Now, Marxists need to do three things.
00:03:08.000 It's called the big three.
00:03:10.000 You've heard me talk about this before, but if you ever want to explain Marxism to a friend, it's very simple.
00:03:15.000 They must destroy private property, family, and religion.
00:03:18.000 That's it.
00:03:19.000 Marxism must get rid of those three things.
00:03:21.000 Karl Marx wrote extensively about removing those three things.
00:03:25.000 Family, religion, property.
00:03:27.000 Everything the parasitic left is focused on is making it harder to own private property.
00:03:32.000 They want you to be a renter, harder to raise your kids, destroy the family, and less attached to a religion or a belief in a higher power, a transcendent order.
00:03:42.000 So what is the goal here?
00:03:44.000 I have to ask this question, which again, I should not have to ask.
00:03:48.000 I have a chance to talk to some amazing people that are in the conservative movement, some people that have been unbelievably successful in business.
00:03:56.000 And I had a conversation recently with someone who wrote a seven-figure check to a super PAC that was not Donald Trump's, wrote a very big check in support of a certain candidate.
00:04:06.000 It's not Ron DeSantis.
00:04:08.000 And I was nice about it, but I asked, I said, what is the goal here?
00:04:11.000 Why are you writing a seven-figure check to a candidate who almost certainly is not going to win?
00:04:20.000 And the donor said, well, it's a good candidate, good message.
00:04:25.000 I think that this person would be a better choice than Donald Trump.
00:04:29.000 But I said, yeah, have you thought through, though, do we have ballot chasing, secure elections, grassroots workers in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin?
00:04:36.000 And he said, we can worry about that after the primary.
00:04:40.000 And I said, well, that's actually not true.
00:04:43.000 You have to make those investments now.
00:04:44.000 You have to hire the ballot chasers.
00:04:46.000 And it just wasn't resonating in the conversation, basically.
00:04:48.000 It went a different direction.
00:04:51.000 Reports are coming out that tens of millions and soon to be hundreds of millions of dollars are going into super PACs to boost candidates.
00:04:59.000 That absent a black swan event, that money is going to be burned.
00:05:04.000 That money is going to be incinerated.
00:05:06.000 Now, while Joe Biden is under legitimate accusations, because he's a traitor to the country, of selling on America for cash, and I just laugh.
00:05:14.000 People say, oh, yeah, Joe Biden was just talking about the weather.
00:05:17.000 Right.
00:05:18.000 And Loretta Lynch was just talking about golf and grandkids on the tarmac at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
00:05:24.000 Sure.
00:05:25.000 It's always just golf, grandkids, weather.
00:05:27.000 Joe Biden is under serious accusations, but the Democrats are confident because they don't have any such primary.
00:05:32.000 They're building billions of dollars of war chests for infrastructure.
00:05:36.000 Republicans are doing no such investments.
00:05:38.000 Instead, we are interested in vanity projects.
00:05:42.000 MSN.com, I know some of these donors, and I'm not going to criticize them.
00:05:48.000 I see things differently.
00:05:49.000 But at CNBC.com by Brian Schwartz, Peltz, Druck and Miller, Navarro give big to Tim Scott's PAC as DeSantis falters.
00:05:57.000 I know some of the people running Tim Scott's PACs.
00:06:01.000 Very sweet people.
00:06:02.000 I do not think this is the best expenditure of resources at all, given the set of circumstances.
00:06:09.000 Our money is getting flushed largely down the toilet while Democrats are building the real plumbing of elections.
00:06:17.000 So I had enough of it.
00:06:19.000 You know, we had a team meeting.
00:06:20.000 I said, let's send up a tweet.
00:06:22.000 I don't know if it's going to be a popular tweet.
00:06:24.000 I don't know if it's going to be an unpopular tweet.
00:06:26.000 Donald Trump is going to be the nominee absent a black swan event.
00:06:28.000 These indictments only boost him in the polls.
00:06:30.000 By the way, I'm being told by people that January 6th indictments are going to be filed today.
00:06:34.000 Maybe I'm wrong.
00:06:34.000 Maybe I'm right.
00:06:35.000 We'll find out.
00:06:36.000 It seems as if any moment now the January 6th indictments are going to come down.
00:06:40.000 Maybe my sources are wrong.
00:06:42.000 We'll see.
00:06:43.000 But it seems like it's imminent.
00:06:44.000 Plus, you got Fulton County and all this.
00:06:46.000 We're so desensitized to indicting the opposition leader.
00:06:49.000 We just say, oh, it's indictment day.
00:06:51.000 It's another day that ends in Y.
00:06:52.000 The fact that we're desensitized to it is sick.
00:06:54.000 It's cruel.
00:06:55.000 It's awful.
00:06:55.000 It shows how effective the Marxist etalitarian progressives have been at moving the Overton window.
00:07:01.000 So I said, let's send up a tweet.
00:07:02.000 This is a complete and total waste of time.
00:07:04.000 What's going on in this primary?
00:07:06.000 We are not building Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin infrastructure.
00:07:10.000 We are in a place where we have limited resources.
00:07:12.000 The left has unlimited resources.
00:07:14.000 We had an event at Turning Point Action Conference.
00:07:16.000 I'm telling you right now, Donald Trump is not going to have his support eroded.
00:07:21.000 I had another call with a donor recently, and he said, Charlie, Donald Trump is not going to win the nomination because Ron DeSantis, once he gets him on a debate stage, the country will see the contrast.
00:07:30.000 I said, with all possible due respect, you do not understand the Republican base.
00:07:34.000 You just don't.
00:07:35.000 The Republican base is not looking at this as a policy debate.
00:07:39.000 We've been through this in great detail.
00:07:41.000 I try to communicate this to people, and I do so unsuccessfully because there's just such a huge disconnect.
00:07:47.000 And I know that's kind of a very cliche thing to say.
00:07:50.000 I'm happy to try to explain it to you, but I'm also telling you, I'm in touch with the base and I'm part of the base.
00:07:56.000 Not going to happen.
00:07:57.000 Donald Trump's basement is now 50%.
00:07:59.000 His ceiling is upwards of 75 to 80%.
00:08:02.000 So it's going to be somewhere in that range, which, by the way, means he'll win like 95% of all the delegates.
00:08:08.000 So we sent out this tweet that made people so angry in the DeSantis camp and other places.
00:08:14.000 And I went out of my way to be nice.
00:08:16.000 In fact, I received criticism for being too nice to Ron DeSantis.
00:08:20.000 In fact, people said, Charlie, how dare you be so nice?
00:08:23.000 Okay.
00:08:24.000 I said this.
00:08:25.000 The newly released New York Times Sienna poll should confirm what many of us have suspected for months now: the GOP primary is over.
00:08:32.000 The poll showed Donald Trump up, what, 35 points, guys, right?
00:08:35.000 35, 40 points.
00:08:37.000 Is that right?
00:08:38.000 Something like, I want to make sure I'm precise.
00:08:40.000 Thank you.
00:08:40.000 37 points.
00:08:41.000 I like Governor DeSantis and have tremendous respect for him as a man and as a governor.
00:08:46.000 I consider him a friend and I believe he's America's greatest governor.
00:08:49.000 As such, I have refused to get in the mud and attack him.
00:08:52.000 He's a great American.
00:08:52.000 I want him to remain a dominant political player for years and decades to come, but his campaign has failed to gain traction.
00:08:57.000 Pause.
00:08:58.000 I got attacked for even that paragraph.
00:09:00.000 Now is the time for conservatives to unite and defeat the Democrats and their machine in 2024.
00:09:04.000 Yes, Trump will be facing four or five indictments, but the American people see through them as the political witch hunt that they are.
00:09:10.000 They recognize that the intel agencies and federal leviathan have been weaponized to eliminate their number one threat.
00:09:15.000 But our greatest challenge ahead of 2024 is the billions of dollars being spent on ballot harvesting, negative ads, and lawsuits by a well-funded and motivated left.
00:09:22.000 They will outperform polling in key districts because they are investing resources to get out low-propensity voters who otherwise couldn't be bothered.
00:09:28.000 Will the GOP do the same?
00:09:30.000 We cannot afford to waste $1.5 billion on a pointless massacre of a primary.
00:09:35.000 We will not have enough money left over to properly invest in ballot chasing in key states.
00:09:39.000 Investment must be made now.
00:09:41.000 We must unite.
00:09:42.000 And again, I will get back to how I started.
00:09:44.000 What is the goal?
00:09:45.000 Is the goal to spend a bunch of money, make yourself feel good, or is the goal to defeat the Marxist Democrats in November of 2024?
00:09:54.000 And I could be honest with you, based on conversations with some, not all, based on conversations with some donors, they don't care about beating the Marxist Democrats in 2024.
00:10:06.000 They would rather spend all their money to disrupt and confuse and upset Donald Trump than make any investments in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin.
00:10:18.000 And we're seeing that now.
00:10:19.000 It's going to be a billion-dollar primary.
00:10:21.000 Donald Trump has a chance to just run the table: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada.
00:10:27.000 But for what?
00:10:28.000 What is the goal here?
00:10:30.000 And the Democrats are delighting.
00:10:32.000 The Democrats know that their path to holding on power, despite them being unpopular, illegitimate, and traitors to America, is that our own side can't get its act together.
00:10:41.000 That we're going to have a $1.5 billion primary.
00:10:43.000 And then all of a sudden in April of next year, I guarantee you, some of these donors will change their tune.
00:10:48.000 They'll say, oh, Donald Trump's not that bad.
00:10:49.000 I've been through this.
00:10:50.000 I've seen it before.
00:10:51.000 And they're going to be like, well, where can we spend money?
00:10:51.000 Okay.
00:10:53.000 And you know what I'm going to say is too late.
00:10:56.000 It's too late.
00:10:58.000 While we were warning you, you guys wanted Tim Scott to become president.
00:11:01.000 Yeah, he finished fifth in New Hampshire and third in his home state of South Carolina.
00:11:05.000 Did we hire the ballot chasers?
00:11:07.000 Did we secure the elections?
00:11:07.000 No.
00:11:08.000 No.
00:11:09.000 But hey, you guys ran your super PAC ads.
00:11:12.000 How'd that work out for you?
00:11:15.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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00:12:20.000 What makes this show different is that we're doers.
00:12:23.000 The show is the main thing I do every day.
00:12:25.000 And then I do my day job, organize students on campus.
00:12:28.000 We're hiring 50 new people.
00:12:30.000 We raise a good amount of money.
00:12:31.000 Praise the Lord.
00:12:32.000 We have 280,000 donors.
00:12:34.000 Why does that make this show different?
00:12:35.000 I can speak from authority of what is working and what is not working.
00:12:39.000 Building an actual organization like our 501c4 Turning Point Action, it's not easy.
00:12:44.000 Tyler Boyer does a great job, Austin Smith, the whole thing.
00:12:47.000 The point is this: I'm able to give some insight, I believe, that these other people, you know, like this one guy who I'm not going to say who hosts the radio program, it's like, oh, the real reason they're indicting Trump is because they want to run against Trump.
00:13:00.000 I'm like, dude, just like stick to sports, okay?
00:13:04.000 It's ridiculous.
00:13:06.000 So I could tell you that one of the conversations I had recently was with some DeSantis advisors.
00:13:14.000 And they said, Charlie, how dare you send out these sort of tweets?
00:13:17.000 This is before the tweet, but at the essence, I've been not how dare you like Rhetta Thunberg, but they were pretty upset.
00:13:22.000 And they said that, you know, a vote has not even been cast.
00:13:27.000 That's true.
00:13:29.000 Sort of.
00:13:31.000 There were votes cast, not officially at the Turning Point Action Conference where you guys decided not to show up.
00:13:36.000 And 85% of our attendees support Donald Trump.
00:13:40.000 So my message or my question to anybody, and they're welcome on the program, Tim Scott or Chris Christie, or Nikki Haley, or Ron DeSantis, how do you plan to win over Trump voters?
00:13:56.000 You have to answer that question directly and you can't dodge, or you could do the Chris Christie thing, which is just be super against Trump.
00:14:04.000 And yes, you will get like 5% or 6% of the vote.
00:14:06.000 Okay.
00:14:08.000 So what is the plan?
00:14:09.000 What is the path?
00:14:11.000 And if you don't have an answer to that, you're running for president for the wrong reasons.
00:14:16.000 What is your path to beating Trump, to moving his ridiculously loyal supporters away from him?
00:14:24.000 Do you have any evidence that those voters will walk away from Trump?
00:14:31.000 Any evidence in a straw poll, in an event, in donations, in a primary previously?
00:14:38.000 Do you have any evidence that in a Republican primary, when Donald Trump is enthusiastically involved, that you can go head to head and beat him?
00:14:49.000 Not hopium, not that I'm sitting on $120 million.
00:14:52.000 That sounds like John Ellis Bush, Jeb, who sat on $100 million.
00:14:59.000 So I don't need to hear these like long lectures about how your campaign strategy is different.
00:15:06.000 And some people say, well, Charlie, you know, one of the DeSantis intelligentsia people, which again, I love DeSantis as a governor.
00:15:12.000 Terrific, 100%.
00:15:13.000 I refuse to say a negative word about him.
00:15:15.000 That nuance is lost on some people because they think I'm against him.
00:15:18.000 I'm pro-America because I want to defeat the Marxists.
00:15:21.000 Okay.
00:15:22.000 So I say to them, I say, they say to me, oh, we're going to expand the primary electorate to low-propensity Republicans and people that are outside of the Trump base.
00:15:32.000 Like, that's not going to happen.
00:15:35.000 Okay.
00:15:37.000 The only person to ever substantially and significantly expand the Republican primary electorate is Donald J. Trump.
00:15:47.000 And if that were true, why is it that Ron DeSantis does not have an avalanche of small dollar donations?
00:15:54.000 Small dollar donations, you cannot fake.
00:15:59.000 Even more than rally attendance, small dollar donations are the harbinger of everything.
00:16:07.000 How do I know that?
00:16:08.000 This is how you knew Bernie Sanders was going to give Hillary Clinton a run for her money.
00:16:13.000 Bernie Sanders should have been the nominee in 2016.
00:16:16.000 Not that I am a big Bernie Sanders guy.
00:16:18.000 He's a Marxist hates the country.
00:16:20.000 Hillary Clinton robbed it from Bernie Sanders.
00:16:23.000 In fact, I think some of that resentment actually resulted in Donald Trump winning the presidency in 2016.
00:16:29.000 That's a deeper conversation, but I think that the Sanders primary Trump general voter was actually completely ignored by the Clinton campaign.
00:16:38.000 Not my main point.
00:16:40.000 Bernie Sanders, Blake, you can get the numbers.
00:16:42.000 I think he had like 1.3 million donors.
00:16:45.000 Something unbelievable.
00:16:47.000 Small dollar donors results in caucus attendance.
00:16:51.000 It results in all the different metrics.
00:16:54.000 And here's the thing.
00:16:55.000 If anybody wants to listen to me, if you're going to give 20 bucks to Donald Trump, you're not a persuadable voter.
00:17:03.000 I was looking through FEC reports last night.
00:17:06.000 Unless I'm misreading it, Donald J. Trump in the last six months, his campaign, had 474,000 transactions.
00:17:17.000 Now, that's not donors because a donor can give more than once, but 474,000 transactions in a primary campaign.
00:17:25.000 What is the path, guys?
00:17:27.000 Even if you hate Donald Trump in this audience, you think he's the worst person ever.
00:17:31.000 You think he's what?
00:17:32.000 Show me a plan.
00:17:35.000 And if there is not a plan, this primary is a vanity project for consultants, not hopium, not bluster, not a bunch of vapor.
00:17:45.000 What is the plan?
00:17:46.000 No plan?
00:17:47.000 Get out so we could defeat these Democrats in November of 2024.
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00:19:56.000 So there are a couple other incentives that might be at play here as to why this primary will not be ended.
00:20:02.000 And the number one, the number one goal is not to get us to defeat the Marxist Democrats in November of 2024.
00:20:12.000 Do not underestimate the ideological component to this.
00:20:18.000 Populist nationalism, which in particular looks to reorient the conservative Republican movement on three main issues, is one of the main reasons why Republican elites do not want to see Donald Trump be successful.
00:20:36.000 What are those three issues?
00:20:37.000 There's a fourth that I could add, which is probably the most important for this particular election.
00:20:43.000 Free trade, open borders, endless wars.
00:20:47.000 Donald Trump has stood against those three things, which is a rejection of neoliberalism and neoliberalism is baked into the DNA of the Republican elites.
00:20:59.000 They're perfectly fine with endless piles of plastic coming from overseas.
00:21:04.000 They want no such immigration control.
00:21:06.000 In fact, they're running PSAs saying we need more people in our country, more people.
00:21:10.000 It's going to solve our problems.
00:21:12.000 And they are enthusiastically in support of escalating the conflict in Ukraine.
00:21:19.000 There is a sinister agenda here.
00:21:21.000 And I don't know what portion of the Republican elites believe this, but it's certainly a belief, which is this.
00:21:29.000 We're going to give it our best shot in the primary and make a lot of noise.
00:21:33.000 A lot of noise so it's memorable.
00:21:36.000 We're going to lose, but we'll make money while doing it.
00:21:41.000 And then Donald Trump will lose the general.
00:21:43.000 This is their calculation.
00:21:44.000 And we will be able to say, I told you so, and we'll be aggressively able to steamroll over populist nationalist ideas and put them into the dustbin of history.
00:21:58.000 That is without a doubt the driving and motivating factor by some of the Republican elites, the same way that they were able to eulogize the Tea Party.
00:22:08.000 It went away.
00:22:09.000 When in reality, the Tea Party didn't go away.
00:22:11.000 The Tea Party transformed into the MAGA movement.
00:22:14.000 Very same energy.
00:22:15.000 Donald Trump actually got a lot of his political start with the Tea Party.
00:22:21.000 Now, what's frustrating is that DeSantis, I actually think, believes in nine out of 10 of the conservative populist pillars.
00:22:28.000 He waffled on Ukraine, which was suspicious, but I think DeSantis actually believes in a lot of this stuff.
00:22:33.000 And some of the speeches DeSantis has been giving have actually been pretty good from a policy perspective.
00:22:37.000 They have, without a doubt.
00:22:39.000 Some people criticize the policy stuff.
00:22:41.000 It's actually pretty deep.
00:22:42.000 It's actually pretty good.
00:22:43.000 But that's not what the Republican base wants.
00:22:45.000 They just don't want prescripted policy because they don't trust you.
00:22:48.000 That's the difference.
00:22:49.000 They have to trust you.
00:22:51.000 And so the issue is that there's a fair amount of Republican cabal leaders that say, oh boy, they know Trump's going to be the nominee.
00:23:00.000 They know it even more than some of the candidates know it.
00:23:04.000 But they're doing this to make a lot of noise, like Chris Christie, raise some money, warn donors, be like, hey, we're heading off an abyss.
00:23:11.000 We're heading into a terrible direction.
00:23:14.000 Donald Trump, in their estimation, is going to lose the general.
00:23:16.000 They could do an unbelievably obnoxious November of December 2024 of I told you so.
00:23:24.000 This is a toxic movement.
00:23:26.000 We have to win over suburban women.
00:23:28.000 Donald Trump is terrible.
00:23:30.000 He should be thrown into jail.
00:23:33.000 This is their plan.
00:23:35.000 Yes, they are playing Russian roulette with America so they could say, I told you so.
00:23:42.000 That's sick.
00:23:44.000 Think about how demented you must be to worry about credit when we're up against this unprecedented destructive force and they're worried about who is going to say, I told you so.
00:23:59.000 After an election, they think certainly Donald Trump is going to lose.
00:24:04.000 What is the driving force of that?
00:24:05.000 Ego, pride, narcissism, not love of country.
00:24:13.000 So they want to eradicate populism and nationalism.
00:24:16.000 They want to make neoliberalism the premier.
00:24:20.000 But here's the problem is that Donald Trump, whether he becomes president again in 2024, which he has a great chance to do if we get our act together, but I'm also going to tell you, it's going to be harder than you think.
00:24:32.000 His legacy no matter what, no matter what, and he can be really proud of this, and he should, is that he has changed the conservative movement in so many profound ways.
00:24:44.000 We are a fighting movement now.
00:24:45.000 We play offense now.
00:24:47.000 We know the media is against us.
00:24:48.000 We have small dollar donors.
00:24:50.000 We're a movement of the muscular class.
00:24:52.000 We represent people that work with their hands.
00:24:54.000 We stand against neoliberalism.
00:24:56.000 These are long-lasting legacies that honestly is even more impactful sometimes than a single presidency.
00:25:02.000 Way more impactful.
00:25:03.000 Like, what's the long-lasting legacy of George Herbert Walker Bush's single presidency?
00:25:08.000 Awful immigration policy?
00:25:10.000 Probably.
00:25:10.000 That's like his lasting legacy.
00:25:13.000 The Persian Gulf War.
00:25:14.000 I mean, like, whatever.
00:25:15.000 Donald Trump has changed the entire half of the country and reoriented it and reconfigured it.
00:25:20.000 And if you think, if you look deeply at it and you listen carefully to how these people are talking on TV, it's not about Donald Trump's, you know, criminality or handling of documents or January 6th.
00:25:31.000 No, no, no.
00:25:31.000 It's his ideas that they hate.
00:25:34.000 And more than that, they hate that you all of a sudden have a seat at the table.
00:25:38.000 They hate that you're allowed to sit at the table and you're able to say, hold on, I'm a carpenter.
00:25:42.000 I don't think that's a good idea.
00:25:43.000 Like, why are we sending money to Ukraine?
00:25:45.000 They want to say, shut up, surf.
00:25:47.000 Go do opioids.
00:25:49.000 Shut up, peasant.
00:25:51.000 You're not allowed to have a voice.
00:25:52.000 We only listen to oligarchs.
00:25:53.000 It is this, Plato wrote about this in The Republic.
00:25:56.000 It's this idea of the secret knowledge.
00:25:59.000 It's very important.
00:26:00.000 Without getting too deep into this, Plato believed in two separate forms of knowledge, messaging to the commoners and then a secret gnosis or a secret knowledge or a secret mind.
00:26:10.000 They don't think that you are capable of being able to understand the deeper things.
00:26:16.000 They have contempt for you.
00:26:17.000 They say this out loud, right?
00:26:19.000 They call you deplorable, smelly Walmart people.
00:26:21.000 What is the essence of that?
00:26:22.000 The essence is that you are not part of the secret society.
00:26:26.000 You don't have the degrees.
00:26:27.000 You're not part of the Harvard Club.
00:26:29.000 We are going to wall off all of society so that we're in charge.
00:26:34.000 The founding fathers did not believe this.
00:26:36.000 The founding fathers believe that all men are created equal.
00:26:39.000 All of you have the ability to access wisdom.
00:26:43.000 They believe in a philosopher king.
00:26:46.000 We're the only ones that are able to actually call the shots.
00:26:48.000 The founding fathers believed in the empowerment of all citizens.
00:26:53.000 Huge difference.
00:26:54.000 That's really what's at play here.
00:26:55.000 Woodrow Wilson believes in a unelected technocratic elite.
00:26:59.000 Founding fathers believe that people are the driving force of a republic.
00:27:05.000 And so we're seeing these polls.
00:27:07.000 And I just want to reiterate, what is the plan, man?
00:27:12.000 I think Ron DeSantis has an unbelievably bright future in politics.
00:27:18.000 I think Ron DeSantis has a extraordinary role to play to keep Florida red, to keep Florida this beacon of freedom.
00:27:26.000 I am, and the fact I say this, people attack me.
00:27:30.000 I don't care.
00:27:31.000 I say things on this program that I get attacked every single day.
00:27:35.000 So bring it on, man.
00:27:38.000 With all due respect, Governor DeSantis and your team, you're messing up your future with this, the way you're running this campaign.
00:27:46.000 You are damaging future political prospects, and that pains me.
00:27:52.000 They refuse to acknowledge that.
00:27:54.000 They're like, no, we're going to figure it, we're going to pierce through.
00:27:56.000 I mean, I saw Ken Cuccinelli being interviewed by Matt Gates.
00:27:59.000 He's like, well, I've never known a frontrunner that is a leader in the summer who ends up in the fall, ends up winning the Iowa caucus.
00:28:07.000 First of all, Trump was winning all throughout that summer, especially post-Megan Kelly debate.
00:28:13.000 Number two, how many times do I have to say this?
00:28:16.000 And it's like I'm talking to myself.
00:28:18.000 The rules of politics do not apply to Trump.
00:28:23.000 You can argue with that.
00:28:24.000 You can not like that.
00:28:26.000 You could scream at the sky and be mad that it's raining.
00:28:29.000 It doesn't stop raining just because you start screaming at the sky.
00:28:33.000 Donald Trump can, he levitates against the forces of political gravity.
00:28:38.000 Oh, well, it's not fair.
00:28:40.000 He's a once-in-a-century political figure.
00:28:43.000 You can like it, you can hate it, but if you refuse to acknowledge it, you're delusional.
00:28:47.000 I don't like delusional people.
00:28:48.000 Usually they're in the trans lobby.
00:28:51.000 Stop acting in a different reality.
00:28:53.000 It's going to damage us ahead of November of 2024.
00:28:58.000 The fierce response to my take here is they say, you don't understand.
00:29:02.000 And again, with all possible due respect, I kind of do understand, okay?
00:29:07.000 We literally talk to millions of people every single week.
00:29:10.000 We receive 35,000 emails every 10 to 15 days.
00:29:14.000 Like we're pretty in touch with the Republican base, probably above most of the people online that talk a big game.
00:29:23.000 My number one driving motivator is not even like, oh, Donald Trump versus DeSantis.
00:29:29.000 I am deathly afraid, and I'm not afraid of a lot.
00:29:32.000 I'm not.
00:29:32.000 When I acknowledge my fears, it's very few things.
00:29:36.000 I am deathly afraid that the Democrats are going to steamroll us in November of 24.
00:29:41.000 Why?
00:29:42.000 Because we have a $1.5 billion vanity project and we are running out of time.
00:29:47.000 We are running out of time and we are running out of time.
00:29:53.000 You know, it's funny when you host a show like this, you can never host a show to make people happy.
00:29:57.000 You just have to tell the truth and whatever.
00:29:59.000 Do you know what the number one criticism I'm receiving is people think I'm being too nice to DeSantis?
00:30:05.000 That's the number one piece of, I don't care.
00:30:08.000 It's everything I've said about DeSantis is true.
00:30:10.000 Whatever.
00:30:12.000 This is a big problem.
00:30:17.000 So what are the Democrats spending money on right now?
00:30:22.000 The boring stuff.
00:30:24.000 Just look at America's votes 990.
00:30:27.000 $230 million, not on a primary.
00:30:30.000 Go to Americavotes.org.
00:30:33.000 Shows all the organizations that they work with.
00:30:36.000 That's just one of many ballot chasing operations.
00:30:39.000 They're a collaboration organization.
00:30:41.000 They call themselves the coordination hub of the progressive community.
00:30:46.000 We've done some deep dive into this.
00:30:49.000 They are laughing at us.
00:30:50.000 In fact, if I was a Democrat, I'm not saying they're doing this, but boy, if I was a Democrat, if I was a Democrat, I would try to have as many Republicans run for president.
00:30:59.000 If I was a Democrat, I'd have the loudest, most obnoxious people running for the presidency against Donald Trump, ones that don't have a snowball chance in hell, but ones that can make a lot of noise.
00:31:09.000 If I was a Democrat, I would get Republicans to care about a vanity project, not infrastructure.
00:31:15.000 If I was a Democrat who wanted to take over the country, I would do everything I possibly could to try to have Republicans think the primary matters and the general is subservient to that.
00:31:27.000 But of course, the primary is really important.
00:31:32.000 We have one email here.
00:31:35.000 Someone says, Charlie, I hate Donald Trump.
00:31:38.000 He's everything wrong with the conservative movement.
00:31:40.000 Just wait, DeSantis is going to win.
00:31:42.000 Yeah, that's not a good argument.
00:31:44.000 So keep it coming.
00:31:45.000 I want the best ones possible.
00:31:47.000 Kind of do this for a living.
00:31:48.000 I've thought about it.
00:31:50.000 Not a single, I mean, when we had Dave Rubin on the show, a lot of respect to Dave Rubin.
00:31:54.000 He was like, well, Donald Trump's terrible.
00:31:56.000 Again, not an argument.
00:31:58.000 Like, how are you going to win over telling 55 to 60 percent of Republican-based voters the person they adore and they admire and they follow and they have loyalty to is a liar, not exactly a way to win.
00:32:14.000 So what's the argument?
00:32:17.000 What's the plan?
00:32:18.000 You guys must have a plan, right?
00:32:19.000 Or are we just doing this $1.5 billion to kind of just entertain ourselves?
00:32:23.000 Is this just like the most sick and sinister Showtime special?
00:32:26.000 Like, oh, we're bored.
00:32:28.000 Let's do a $1.5 billion primary.
00:32:30.000 Democrats are bored and they're probably going to beat us.
00:32:30.000 You know what?
00:32:34.000 We got a lot of emails.
00:32:35.000 Charlie, how dare you say we're going to lose in 2024?
00:32:37.000 Again, I don't know if we're going to lose, but we're on pace to lose.
00:32:40.000 If this primary continues as it is and Donald Trump has to keep on spending money, we're going down a path where we're going to get obliterated and we're going to be like, oh my gosh, what happened?
00:32:49.000 And Chris Christie and Sununu and Nikki Haley and Mike Pence will go on all the Mockingbird CIA networks.
00:32:56.000 I already see it.
00:32:57.000 They have it all planned, right?
00:32:58.000 They probably already have it scheduled where they're going to go on all the shows and they're going to blame people like Charlie Kirk and they're going to blame Steve Bannon.
00:33:04.000 They're going to blame you.
00:33:05.000 And they say, oh my goodness, it's time to put MAGA to rest.
00:33:08.000 Let's give the eulogy.
00:33:09.000 Enough is enough.
00:33:10.000 Put it into the dustbin of history.
00:33:11.000 This is what they're planning to do.
00:33:13.000 It's all scripted.
00:33:15.000 And the primary plays a role in that.
00:33:17.000 The primary sets the base where they could say, well, Mika, I got to tell you, remember, I was running for president and I was booed and I was this and I was that.
00:33:27.000 And I think it's time for the Republican Party to get back to the roots of Ronald Reagan and of neoliberalism.
00:33:36.000 That's the plan.
00:33:38.000 Not once are they thinking, you know what?
00:33:40.000 I love my country.
00:33:42.000 I might not like Trump.
00:33:43.000 He might be not my flavor.
00:33:44.000 But by golly, my grandkids will live in a better nation if Donald Trump is a president.
00:33:50.000 Doesn't even process this.
00:33:52.000 No, he's terrible.
00:33:52.000 What?
00:33:54.000 He's loud.
00:33:55.000 He's a criminal.
00:33:57.000 I want to play this one piece of tape here of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
00:34:00.000 Why is Donald Trump succeeding?
00:34:02.000 Because Donald Trump understands this is a crusade against the administrative elite, the very same administrative state Eisenhower warned us against.
00:34:08.000 Play Cut 47.
00:34:10.000 In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
00:34:21.000 The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
00:34:28.000 We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
00:34:34.000 We should take nothing for granted.
00:34:37.000 Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
00:34:53.000 Why is Trump winning?
00:34:54.000 Why is Trump succeeding?
00:34:55.000 Because he understands the threat that Dwight D. Eisenhower laid out, the unelected Leviathan fourth branch of government, is the issue of the 2024 election.
00:35:03.000 It's not a policy debate.
00:35:04.000 It's not about courting donors.
00:35:05.000 It's who's going to crush the Leviathan.
00:35:10.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:35:11.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:35:15.000 Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.
00:35:20.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.