The Charlie Kirk Show - The Disaster of Marijuana Legalization with Alex Berenson

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show, Alex Berenson, Why Weed is Really Bad For You and Why Legalization Has Been Awful for the Country.

00:00:08.000 We then talk about the COVID vaccine and recent news regarding that, campus protests and more with a very smart, smart man, one of my favorite guests, Alex Berenson, who joins us.

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00:03:05.000 Yesterday, there was some news.

00:03:07.000 Joe Biden made marijuana, weed, reclassified it, put it a Schedule 3 drug.

00:03:18.000 U.S. Drug Control Agency will move to reclassify marijuana.

00:03:24.000 Alex Berenson joins us, independent journalist, unreported truth substack.

00:03:30.000 Alex Berenson, welcome.

00:03:31.000 Anything regarding weed or marijuana?

00:03:34.000 I always think, get Alex on the show.

00:03:37.000 He wrote a great book.

00:03:38.000 I want to keep on plugging it.

00:03:39.000 Remind the audience what the book is and your reaction to Joe Biden's announcement.

00:03:43.000 It might not be the worst thing, in your opinion.

00:03:46.000 Yeah, so the book is called Tell Your Children.

00:03:48.000 If I had any sense, I'd have a copy of it right here for you, Charlie, but I don't.

00:03:51.000 So just imagine a black cover with smoke drifting up.

00:03:56.000 But it's called Tell Your Children.

00:03:58.000 Came out in 2019.

00:03:59.000 And to my surprise, actually continues to sell pretty well.

00:04:04.000 Because I think people, you know, when their children start using heavily and they see sort of negative consequences, they're like, oftentimes, especially on the left, they're like, I didn't know that this could happen.

00:04:14.000 Oh, there you go.

00:04:15.000 You got the book up for me.

00:04:17.000 They're like, I didn't know this could happen.

00:04:19.000 And so they're looking for, you know, some kind of scientific evidence and something to help them understand what's happening.

00:04:26.000 And so the book, I still hear from a fair number of parents on a regular basis.

00:04:32.000 But so, yeah, so the rescheduling of cannabis.

00:04:36.000 Look, I hear from a lot of people, you know, I've heard from a lot of people in the last few months as this has come up.

00:04:42.000 And then again, yesterday, as the Biden administration said, they're actually going to move forward with this.

00:04:46.000 How can they do this?

00:04:47.000 You know, this is terrible.

00:04:50.000 I don't think it's as terrible as a lot of people might think, or a lot of people sort of who are in the anti-cannabis camp might think.

00:04:57.000 And here's why.

00:04:59.000 A Schedule I drug that's like LST, it's heroin.

00:05:03.000 It's drugs that are really, you know, viewed extremely negatively and have absolutely no medical value and are, you know, are essentially just dangerous.

00:05:14.000 Okay.

00:05:15.000 And so one of the things the cannabis legalizers would say was, cannabis is not like this.

00:05:21.000 Weed is not like this.

00:05:22.000 You know, nobody overdoses and dies from injecting weed.

00:05:27.000 This is crazy.

00:05:28.000 You know, putting it up here ahead of cocaine, let's say, which is a Schedule II drug, doesn't make any sense.

00:05:36.000 And the country basically agrees with them.

00:05:39.000 Okay.

00:05:40.000 Most of the United States lives in states where cannabis is legal, either recreationally or medically, or both.

00:05:51.000 So in some ways, this argument's already been lost.

00:05:53.000 So moving it from Schedule I to Schedule III is a way for Joe Biden, who I don't actually think wants full federal legalization, to do something to shut up the people on the left who want full national federal legalization without really doing anything.

00:06:08.000 And there's one other thing.

00:06:09.000 People who are pro-cannabis always say, oh, this is such a great medicine.

00:06:14.000 You know, it has so many medical properties.

00:06:16.000 And if it only weren't Schedule I, we'd be able to figure out what all those things do.

00:06:20.000 You know, it'll cure your diabetes and your gout and your cancer.

00:06:23.000 And I mean, just total nonsense.

00:06:25.000 All right.

00:06:26.000 And by the way, cannabis and its compounds have been scheduled, have been researched, especially outside the United States for many years for all these things.

00:06:35.000 And guess what?

00:06:36.000 You know, smoking a plant doesn't actually cure cancer.

00:06:40.000 All right.

00:06:40.000 You know, by the way, like tobacco, anybody?

00:06:44.000 So let them make it Schedule 3.

00:06:47.000 Let them do a bunch of research that's going to show that cannabis doesn't actually do all the things that the pro-cannabis people say it does.

00:06:55.000 Let's shut up about, you know, this argument that it's some that making it schedule one says it's worse than heroin.

00:07:01.000 And then we can continue to talk about all the bad things that cannabis really does from the fact that it causes some people to vomit uncontrollably to the fact that it causes paranoia in a lot of users to the fact that it ruins motivation to the fact that you know people under 21 really shouldn't be using it to the fact that legalization has done nothing to dent the black market in places like California.

00:07:23.000 There are lots of arguments that I want to have about the problems with cannabis that are in my book that are in Tell Your Children.

00:07:31.000 And this one to me is a distraction.

00:07:33.000 And if Biden wants to do this, let him have it.

00:07:37.000 So Alex, I want to talk about all that.

00:07:38.000 So people, I sent out an anti-weed tweet yesterday, and I didn't even say we should ban it.

00:07:43.000 I just said that it's not good for you.

00:07:45.000 We need to talk about the dangers.

00:07:46.000 We need to talk about the issues with it.

00:07:48.000 And I would say that honestly, Arizona was a better state.

00:07:51.000 One, it was illegal, but the people don't want it.

00:07:52.000 So like, okay, so be it.

00:07:54.000 You get the country you vote for.

00:07:55.000 But I think we have to be drumbeat about the risks and we have to communicate the dangers associated.

00:08:02.000 So let's start with one in particular that we have not talked about.

00:08:05.000 And you've been on the show many times here, Alex, which is the black market.

00:08:12.000 One of the guarantees from the weed lobby when I was growing up is that this would weaken the cartels.

00:08:17.000 This would make the cartels go away and that the black market would basically disappear.

00:08:24.000 We now have cannabis dispensaries and weed shops on almost every corner in Arizona, in Nevada, in California.

00:08:31.000 However, the black market is robust and the cartels are richer than ever.

00:08:34.000 What happened, Alex Berenson?

00:08:36.000 No, you're right.

00:08:37.000 It's actually a really amazing phenomenon.

00:08:39.000 So it turns out that, guess what?

00:08:41.000 A lot of people who smoke cannabis smoke a lot of it.

00:08:44.000 Okay.

00:08:44.000 And a lot of those people aren't necessarily fully employed.

00:08:48.000 And so they're looking for the cheapest possible sources.

00:08:51.000 All right.

00:08:52.000 So if you have any kind of, you know, and California is a high tax state.

00:08:55.000 It's a high regulation state.

00:08:57.000 But, you know, even a state like Arizona, which isn't quite as expensive, if there's any taxes, okay, plus there's, you know, costs associated with running a legal business.

00:09:07.000 You pay rent.

00:09:08.000 You have employees you pay on the books.

00:09:10.000 You have insurance.

00:09:11.000 The black marketeers have none of those costs.

00:09:14.000 So their cannabis tends to be significantly cheaper.

00:09:18.000 And all these people who bought all this weed for all these years on the black market, you know, basically saw no reason to switch.

00:09:27.000 And so there's still a huge illicit market, which guess what is much harder to control than it used to be because, you know, you can have legal forms growing cannabis.

00:09:38.000 And certainly there's a ton of hemp being grown.

00:09:40.000 And guess what?

00:09:40.000 The easiest way to hide a high THC cannabis plant is in a bunch of low THC hemp plants that's basically the same plant.

00:09:49.000 It's just the amount of THC that the plant is generating.

00:09:54.000 And so guess what?

00:09:56.000 Legalization has done essentially nothing to help the illicit market to the point where some of the legalized dispensaries are now begging for crackdowns on the black market.

00:10:08.000 And in California, there's been two in the last two years, including one that I think was just a couple of months ago, terrible mass shootings at giant illicit cannabis farms, where multiple people died, cartel related almost certainly.

00:10:23.000 And so this idea that cannabis legalization was going to destroy the illicit market has just proven completely false.

00:10:30.000 The second contention, Alex, was that they said that it will actually lower user rates.

00:10:35.000 They say that once it is legal, it will get rid of the allure that it is and that we will then be able to lower the rates of weed.

00:10:47.000 This was a guarantee or a prediction by the weed lobby.

00:10:51.000 Has that proven to be correct, Alex Berenson?

00:10:54.000 No, it has not.

00:10:55.000 And you wouldn't expect it to be correct because there are going to be a certain number of people who are going to do, who will not do something if it's illegal.

00:11:01.000 Okay.

00:11:01.000 And if it's legal, they'll try it.

00:11:04.000 And some of those people with an addictive substance, whether it's alcohol or, you know, or a prescription opioid or whatever, are going to wind up addicted to it.

00:11:12.000 So no, it is absolutely not true that rates have gone down.

00:11:16.000 And the most interesting thing is that the rates of really heavy use have gone up.

00:11:21.000 Again, prices are down, I think, in both the illicit and the legal market.

00:11:26.000 And so that makes it easier for people to use a lot.

00:11:28.000 And I think people who might have used only on weekends or curtailed their use, now they'll smoke all the time.

00:11:34.000 They'll get high and drive and they'll sort of almost dare the cops to stop them.

00:11:38.000 And so, you know, you're absolutely correct.

00:11:42.000 Use has not gone down.

00:11:47.000 Remember as a kid, your parents and grandparents making you try all the vegetables on your plate or when they coaxed you to eat fruit instead of sweets?

00:11:53.000 That's because they knew what was good for you.

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00:12:42.000 So, Alex, the other thing that some of the pot advocates will say is that it is very good for you for relieving pain, treating anxiety and depression.

00:12:53.000 What does the data show, Alex Berenson?

00:12:55.000 The data shows that's nonsense.

00:12:57.000 Okay.

00:12:58.000 You might be able to get some temporary pain relief from cannabis, but when you try to use it long term for pain, it doesn't work very well.

00:13:07.000 It doesn't actually reduce the amount of opioids that you're consuming.

00:13:11.000 They've looked at this.

00:13:12.000 There was a very good study years ago in Australia that showed this.

00:13:18.000 It's a drug, okay?

00:13:19.000 People, we one of the things that I said and tell your children, and it's only become more true, is that the great lie about cannabis is that it's somehow medicine.

00:13:28.000 Okay, it's not medicine, it's a drug people take because they want to get high.

00:13:32.000 And you know, you can argue about whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

00:13:37.000 You know, it's personal freedom.

00:13:39.000 On the other hand, as you, as you correctly said, it makes people lethargic and lazy, and it's certainly not great for society to have a bunch of stone people on the roads. 1.00

00:13:47.000 Is it, you know, is it more dangerous than alcohol?

00:13:49.000 Is it less dangerous than alcohol?

00:13:50.000 They're all tons of tons of legitimate debates to have about cannabis, okay?

00:13:55.000 But it's not a medicine, it will never be a medicine.

00:13:58.000 And by the way, even if it were a medicine, it had real good medicinal properties.

00:14:03.000 What doctor would prescribe something that you have to smoke to get benefits for?

00:14:07.000 Again, this is already, you know, this is one of the many lies around legalization.

00:14:13.000 And so, no, it is not great for pain in the long term.

00:14:17.000 And in terms of psychiatric conditions, it really shouldn't be used by people who have a predilection to any kind of paranoia, much less psychosis.

00:14:26.000 And as an anti-anxiety drug, it's a terrible idea because, first of all, all anti-anxiety drugs are really not great to use long term because if you try to get off them, and I'm including prescription drugs in that too, you're going to have bad rebound anxiety.

00:14:40.000 And that's certainly true of cannabis.

00:14:42.000 But cannabis also produces paranoia.

00:14:44.000 And so if you're somebody who's prone to anxiety, it's a really bad idea to use a lot of a drug that can cause you to become paranoid.

00:14:53.000 And so, so I just, I mean, it's so frustrating to me that this drug has been legalized under such false pretenses.

00:15:02.000 Yeah.

00:15:02.000 And so the advocates are rather enthusiastic about its benefits.

00:15:09.000 What can we say then about the other guarantee they'll say, Alex, is that legalizing it will prevent children from accessing it?

00:15:17.000 What does that show?

00:15:19.000 Are more teenagers using weed than 10 years ago or 20 years ago?

00:15:24.000 Yeah, and they're using more of it again because prices have come down and teenagers are particularly price sensitive.

00:15:29.000 And this idea that somehow legalizing it is going to, you know, a legal dispensary is going to have stricter rules on who can access.

00:15:38.000 Okay, let's just say that's true.

00:15:39.000 It's not entirely clear that is true, but let's say that's true. 0.99

00:15:42.000 Somebody who's 22 and wants to deal can walk in to a legal dispensary, buy a bunch of cannabis and walk out to the nearest school and sell it there.

00:15:53.000 So, no, all legalization does is increase the marketing of this because it's a legal substance that can be marketed like any other legal substance and advertised.

00:16:03.000 And so, you see advertising in legal states and increases accessibility and lowers the costs in, again, in both the illicit and illicit markets.

00:16:12.000 So, what you see are sort of slowly increasing rates of use.

00:16:17.000 There hasn't been a dramatic increase in use.

00:16:20.000 And I honestly think that one reason for that may be that cannabis today is so is so potent, it's so high in THC that a lot of, I think a lot of kids, um, you know, sort of 12 to 18, see their friends using and are like, you know, like that doesn't actually look like that much fun.

00:16:37.000 That guy just passed out and like did nothing for the entire party after he after he, you know, hit his, you know, his bake pen four times.

00:16:45.000 And so, unfortunately, what you're getting is a small group or a medium-sized group of people who are really, really heavy users and have a lot of problems that go with that.

00:16:55.000 And then, you know, there's a larger group of people who are using casually, but there hasn't been a giant increase in sort of once-a-year users.

00:17:05.000 So, yeah, those kind of passive users, if you will, not a giant increase.

00:17:09.000 Alex, this is an incredibly important and interesting topic because parents are dealing with this every day and it's just kind of been normalized and it's just kind of been accepted as if, oh, you know, it's perfectly fine.

00:17:22.000 It's just part of culture.

00:17:23.000 It's important to remember: every generation has a drug that is supposed to be all fun with no side effects and no addiction.

00:17:30.000 And it's always a lie.

00:17:32.000 And it is always a lie.

00:17:34.000 If you're using weed and you're using marijuana, you need to know about the downsides and the side effects.

00:17:38.000 You have to know about it.

00:17:40.000 And it's not talked about enough.

00:17:42.000 Informed consent is very important.

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00:18:28.000 Alex, what is your immediate take on these protests that have been enveloping the Ivy Leagues?

00:18:35.000 You are somewhat of a class trader of yourself, formerly with the New York Times.

00:18:39.000 I'm just curious of what you're hearing, seeing, witnessing, and your take on all this.

00:18:43.000 I mean, it's funny.

00:18:44.000 Look, I'm Jewish, right?

00:18:46.000 I mean, just look at my hair, right?

00:18:48.000 But I think I believe in free speech as like a foundational U.S. principle.

00:19:00.000 Maybe the, you know, it's the First Amendment.

00:19:02.000 It's the most important amendment.

00:19:03.000 And, you know, I know there are other people out there that might say the Second Amendment is the most important or the right not to have to, you know, testify against yourself is the most important.

00:19:11.000 I think the right to free speech is absolutely foundational to the United States.

00:19:15.000 And I do think that colleges should kind of bend over backwards to let people protest.

00:19:20.000 And, you know, look, there's things that these people say that is just, it's disgusting, right?

00:19:26.000 Like, you know, there's there when you use the word genocide to talk about, you know, an Israeli invasion when a genocide was committed against Jews 75 years ago, you know what you're doing.

00:19:38.000 You know, you know the game you're playing when you say that, okay?

00:19:41.000 And there's no evidence that Israel wants to eliminate every Palestinian. 0.90

00:19:47.000 It's nonsense. 0.87

00:19:49.000 It's sort of a disgusting way to hint at the Holocaust without saying it. 0.96

00:19:52.000 All right.

00:19:53.000 And these people know what they're doing, at least some of them. 1.00

00:19:55.000 Some of them are too stupid and ahistorical to have any idea. 0.98

00:19:58.000 So, so, so, even though I find the protesters and some of what they say, you know, awful, I think that really they should be treated generally with kid gloves because we have a tradition of free speech in this country, and universities are central to that. 0.99

00:20:17.000 That said, you start occupying buildings, you start, you know, actually making it impossible for, let's say, a Jewish student to cross the lawn without being, you know, attacked.

00:20:29.000 You can't do that.

00:20:30.000 You're breaking the law.

00:20:31.000 The First Amendment doesn't protect any of that.

00:20:34.000 The schools have a responsibility to enforce the laws on their campuses.

00:20:40.000 And by the way, the most important thing of all is whatever rules are being set for these protests, they have to be applied to every protest.

00:20:51.000 Okay.

00:20:51.000 So if some Nazis at Columbia or wherever want to come and say terrible things about black people, that's got to be allowed if this is being allowed.

00:21:01.000 The rules have to be the same for every kind of protest.

00:21:06.000 And, you know, I was talking to Tommy Lauren at Outkick about this a couple of days ago.

00:21:12.000 I don't, as I've said, I don't really like the red state crackdown, but I don't have a huge problem with it as long, again, as the rules are applied equally. 0.86

00:21:23.000 So, so if the rules are going to be applied this way, you know, by the University of Florida against this protest, then they have to be applied against a pro-police protest that goes too far at the University of Florida.

00:21:35.000 The most important thing of all is that whatever guidelines are set, they're applied equally.

00:21:41.000 I mean, the older I get, the more I understand that that's at the heart of the rule of law.

00:21:46.000 Whatever rules you make, you have to apply them in a content-neutral manner.

00:21:51.000 So, Alex, I really agree with everything you said there.

00:21:54.000 And I mean, I think Jew hatred has no place in decent society, but you have a constitutional right to say really vile things. 0.99

00:22:00.000 I think when you start to smash windows, and I know you agree, and take over the interior of a campus building, we're not going to put up with that.

00:22:07.000 That's force, that's violence.

00:22:09.000 Um, and so there's a there's an let me be very clear: there is no such thing as hate speech, it's hate speech is a subjective term.

00:22:17.000 There is things that are vile that one person can say, there are evil things someone can say, but I hate the term hate speech.

00:22:24.000 Do you see what I'm saying there, Alex?

00:22:26.000 Because it is so speech is speech.

00:22:31.000 I, I, I agree with that.

00:22:33.000 I mean, I do think these protesters they've hurt their own cause because they're so clearly out over their own skis, right?

00:22:40.000 Half of them don't know what they're protesting, and the other half-I mean, there was this great um clip that got pulled from this press conference yesterday with this, uh, you know, this woman graduate student at Columbia saying, We're gonna, you know, we're gonna die of dehydration if you don't get us water.

00:22:57.000 Basically, don't let us, um, you know, order DoorDash.

00:23:01.000 I mean, they're so embarrassing.

00:23:03.000 Um, you know, that part, I think, I think they're hurting their own cause.

00:23:07.000 And I think to some extent, it's emboldened the schools and emboldened people like, you know, people at places like the University of Florida, where they, you know, they came out with this great statement a couple of days ago where they said, We're a university, we're not a daycare.

00:23:20.000 That's right.

00:23:21.000 So, if you want to protest, go for it.

00:23:23.000 If you're going to break the rules, if the rules have been set out to you in advance, you can't do X or Y, and certainly you can't occupy this building and you do it.

00:23:32.000 Do not start whining when the police come in and take you out because you have broken the law.

00:23:38.000 And that's, you know, and I do think what we're seeing is a revulsion at the fact that these entitled children want it both ways.

00:23:47.000 I totally agree with that.

00:23:48.000 So I want to play this here.

00:23:50.000 And this is the press conference.

00:23:52.000 So when you went to Yale, is this how the people were?

00:23:54.000 I think the Ivy League's little lost a step a little bit, Alex.

00:23:56.000 I think you would agree that there's a little bit of a pomposity and arrogance and smugness that might not have been there a couple decades ago.

00:24:03.000 Let's play Cut 77.

00:24:05.000 Well, first of all, we're saying that they're obligated to provide food to students who pay for a meal plan here.

00:24:10.000 But you mentioned that there was a request that food and water be brought in.

00:24:14.000 Unless I missed an audience.

00:24:15.000 To allow it to be brought in.

00:24:16.000 I mean, well, I guess it's ultimately a question of what kind of community and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students.

00:24:23.000 Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill, even if they disagree with you?

00:24:29.000 If the answer is no, then you should allow basic, I mean, it's crazy to say because we're on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we're asking for.

00:24:37.000 Like, could people please have a glass of water?

00:24:39.000 But they did put themselves in that very deliberately in that situation and in that position.

00:24:46.000 So it seems like you're sort of saying, we want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building.

00:24:52.000 Now would you please bring us food and water?

00:24:54.000 Nobody's asking them to bring anything.

00:24:57.000 We're asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in basic humanitarian aid.

00:25:02.000 They're stopping the delivery of the we are looking for a commitment from them that they will not stop it.

00:25:08.000 We haven't stopped it yet.

00:25:10.000 Well, I don't know to what extent it has been attempted, but we're looking for a commitment.

00:25:16.000 Alex, respond.

00:25:18.000 What is there to say?

00:25:20.000 You know, and of course, she's a lesbian writing her graduate thesis on Marxism or pre-Marxism in 1800. 0.91

00:25:28.000 It all couldn't be a bigger joke.

00:25:30.000 All right. 0.98

00:25:31.000 But what's not a joke is that this woman's going to be running NPR one day, right? 0.97

00:25:37.000 I mean, this is the problem is that, yes, these are children and they, you know, they look and they act like children, even if they're in their 20s.

00:25:44.000 But, you know, some of them are going to go on to positions of real power.

00:25:48.000 And, you know, look, I do, I think history is not going to look fondly upon this moment in American higher education.

00:25:56.000 It's not going to look fondly on these people.

00:25:58.000 And I think you can very clearly distinguish between this and Vietnam.

00:26:02.000 Okay.

00:26:03.000 Vietnam, by the time the student protests really accelerated, I mean, there were student protests in the, you know, in the mid-60s, but by 67, 68, the country had really turned against the war.

00:26:14.000 Okay.

00:26:14.000 And it was pretty clear that the war was out of control and that Americans were dying for no good reason.

00:26:22.000 And people, and it wasn't just students who were angry about that.

00:26:24.000 They may have been on the front lines, but a lot of people were angry about that.

00:26:28.000 And the student protesters were sort of in the vanguard.

00:26:30.000 These people aren't in the vanguard of anything.

00:26:32.000 They're just out in space protesting for what is basically ISIS.

00:26:37.000 And, you know, and of course, the biggest joke of all is that if that, you know, same-sex protester went to Gaza, she would not be treated particularly well.

00:26:48.000 And, you know, we all know it.

00:26:50.000 She must know it in her heart of hearts too.

00:26:52.000 So, you know, it's all cosplay. 1.00

00:26:54.000 It's all a joke, except that, you know, for people who actually want to go to school and get an education, they're being denied that by these idiots right now. 0.99

00:27:01.000 So, Alex, I want to just get your take institutionally. 0.96

00:27:05.000 Do you believe that the institution itself is taking is lost a step that it is slipping in its prestige of how people view these Ivy League institutions?

00:27:16.000 I mean, on the one hand, I think, I think, yes.

00:27:20.000 On the other hand, you argue with these places are more powerful than ever.

00:27:23.000 I mean, Yale, you know, Yale had an endowment of a couple billion dollars when I went there.

00:27:28.000 Now I think it's 40 billion.

00:27:29.000 You know, they've gotten a huge amount of money's been given to them.

00:27:33.000 They've been and they've made great investments.

00:27:35.000 And, you know, that's true of Harvard.

00:27:37.000 It's true of all these places.

00:27:38.000 They're bigger than ever.

00:27:40.000 They're more powerful than ever.

00:27:41.000 In some ways, they're less beholden to outside forces than ever because they have so much money.

00:27:46.000 And if you look at the number of applications, you know, when I, when I went, I think, you know, 16 or 18% of the applicants got in.

00:27:53.000 Now it's 4%.

00:27:54.000 So clearly, the brand is more valuable than ever.

00:27:59.000 I don't think these kids are getting a better education.

00:28:02.000 I think it's all, you know, there was a statistic a few that came out a year or two ago where Yale had one administrator for every student.

00:28:02.000 That's for sure.

00:28:10.000 I mean, really, insane.

00:28:13.000 Oh, come on.

00:28:13.000 No, no, I could find that for you.

00:28:16.000 It's an insane number.

00:28:17.000 I should have written about it.

00:28:19.000 But in terms of the branding and in terms of their ability to put people at the top of sort of the U.S. government or U.S. companies, it's as powerful as ever, you'd have to say.

00:28:30.000 Please plug your books.

00:28:31.000 I want to talk about because there's a slow drip of vaccine news that's been happening the last couple of days.

00:28:37.000 I don't know if you saw this or not.

00:28:38.000 AstraZeneca is saying, like, yeah, it might be some issues associated with Pandemia.

00:28:44.000 All your books.

00:28:45.000 You're terrific.

00:28:45.000 Plug them, Alex.

00:28:47.000 Well, you know, so there's Tell Your Children, which is about cannabis.

00:28:50.000 And then Pandemia, which I wrote in 2021, actually the last book that I wrote.

00:28:55.000 It's hard for me to believe.

00:28:56.000 I haven't gone three years without writing a book since about 2000, but my substack, my unreported true substack has sort of taken over my life.

00:29:04.000 But Pandemia is all about, you know, sort of the first 18 months of the epidemic or of the pandemic.

00:29:11.000 And it sort of ends with my being kicked off Twitter, which I, you know, in June, in August of 2021, Twitter banned me under pressure from Pfizer, speaking of vaccines, and under pressure from the Biden administration.

00:29:24.000 I sued.

00:29:25.000 I forced Twitter to let me back on before Elon Musk took over.

00:29:29.000 And now I am in the middle of suing the Biden administration and two very senior people at Pfizer for their roles in this conspiracy.

00:29:37.000 So Pandemia talks a little bit about that.

00:29:42.000 Three-star general Michael J. Flynn, head of the Pentagon Intelligence Agency, knew all the government's dirty secrets.

00:29:49.000 He was one of the most respected generals in the military.

00:29:52.000 Flynn knew what the Intel world had been up to.

00:29:54.000 He understood its funding.

00:29:56.000 He ordered the first audit of the use of contractors.

00:30:00.000 This set off alarm bells.

00:30:02.000 The explosive new documentary, Flynn, deliver the truth, whatever the cost, and covers the facts behind this scandal.

00:30:09.000 Flynn told the truth.

00:30:11.000 He was the most dangerous person for Donald Trump to hire.

00:30:14.000 I find out the worst enemy that I'm going to face in my life is right here in America.

00:30:19.000 They took my assessment and they wanted me to change it.

00:30:22.000 I was like, I'm changing it.

00:30:23.000 They had to get rid of Flynn.

00:30:25.000 With in-depth interviews, archival footage, and never before seen personal records of the man behind the headlines.

00:30:32.000 I just felt like I was drowning.

00:30:34.000 Flynn, deliver the truth, whatever the cost.

00:30:36.000 Available now.

00:30:37.000 Watch it today.

00:30:38.000 Go to salemnow.com.

00:30:40.000 Salemnow.com.

00:30:45.000 Missouri v. Biden, I'm super interested.

00:30:47.000 Please walk us through it.

00:30:49.000 So, Missouri v. Biden, the Supreme Court's going to decide it probably in mid-June.

00:30:55.000 You know, that's the case where Missouri and several prominent academics sued the Biden administration and said, you know, you've had this big censorship scheme, not just on Twitter, but on Facebook, on other social media platforms.

00:31:10.000 You tried to get them to prevent us from having our views heard, especially about COVID and the vaccines.

00:31:16.000 And so, you know, there's an issue, what's called standing in that case.

00:31:21.000 In other words, you have to show a particular injury.

00:31:24.000 The courts, you know, courts are not in the business of making legislation.

00:31:28.000 They're in the business of deciding particular cases.

00:31:32.000 And these plaintiffs are going to need to prove that they suffered a particular specific injury.

00:31:38.000 And the Supreme Court may or may not decide to reject the claim on that basis.

00:31:44.000 We will find out.

00:31:45.000 I don't have that problem.

00:31:46.000 I have a very specific injury that I can show was attributable to the Biden administration, to these people from Pfizer.

00:31:54.000 I can show that they all were talking to each other.

00:31:56.000 I can show that there was a conspiracy.

00:31:59.000 And so I'm very hopeful that whatever happens with Missouri B. Biden, that my case will be allowed to move forward.

00:32:06.000 I will say it's been upsetting to me.

00:32:09.000 I sued in federal court in New York, and it's a Biden administration judge who's hearing this.

00:32:16.000 Hopefully, she will give us a fair shake.

00:32:19.000 That's all I can hope for, and we'll find out.

00:32:22.000 But to see the way New York State and the New York State courts have sort of perverted these cases, both the civil case and the criminal case against Donald Trump is very upsetting to me.

00:32:34.000 Because again, the rule of law is what really matters.

00:32:37.000 And whatever you think of Donald Trump or I think of Donald Trump, and I know that my opinions on Donald Trump are probably not the same as yours or most of your audience.

00:32:45.000 Donald Trump is entitled to the protection of the law and he's entitled.

00:32:49.000 If he's going to be tried for something, it can't be for being a bad guy or, you know, or having had sex with a porn star or for having political views that a lot of people in New York don't like.

00:33:01.000 He has to be tried for a specific crime.

00:33:03.000 And if you actually look at the indictment that was brought against him in New York State, the criminal indictment, it is a terrible case.

00:33:10.000 All right.

00:33:11.000 It is, it is, it should never have gone this far.

00:33:15.000 It should never have gotten to trial.

00:33:17.000 And I think Democrats and Republicans are going to regret this.

00:33:22.000 I think this is politicizing just the justice system in a really dangerous way.

00:33:27.000 I totally agree with you.

00:33:28.000 Alex, in closing here, the vaccine, AstraZeneca all of a sudden came out with a story.

00:33:33.000 Are we getting closer to an admission here?

00:33:36.000 What is the latest news?

00:33:38.000 It seems as if the majority of Americans think that this, that we were lied to and that there were more problems than benefits from the mRNA shot.

00:33:46.000 Well, yes, if you just look at, you know, and I've written a lot about this on Unreported Truths, if you my sub-sack, if you just look at the uptake on the vaccines, you know, each booster has gotten fewer people than the last.

00:33:58.000 And, you know, the last one, almost nobody under 65 took, and even a minority of people over 65 took.

00:34:04.000 So Americans have turned away from it.

00:34:06.000 Whether or not we're ever going to get any real justice or any real admission by the companies that, you know, that they overstated the benefits, that there were a lot of people who took this who shouldn't have, that there were a lot of people who were injured.

00:34:20.000 I don't know.

00:34:21.000 I don't know if we're going to get there, Charlie.

00:34:23.000 I fear that a lot of Americans, you know, again, not your audience, not the unreported truth readers, but a lot of Americans just want to forget all about COVID and that includes the mRNA.

00:34:33.000 And that's what these people are hoping for, unfortunately.

00:34:36.000 Yeah, but it's going to be a fervent minority of a couple million folks that are not going to let this go because you're right, Alex.

00:34:43.000 The majority of people, they want to just get back to NFL football because it's just too much for them, right?

00:34:48.000 It's just, they don't have the stomach for it, and you can't blame them.

00:34:50.000 They don't have it.

00:34:51.000 It's just too much lying.

00:34:52.000 It's like my whole world's going to collapse.

00:34:54.000 Do you have a thought on that?

00:34:56.000 Imagine if you gave this to your kids, right?

00:34:58.000 You would hate having to accept that, right?

00:35:00.000 No, you want the lie to be true, actually.

00:35:02.000 And I kind of sympathize with that, which is, you know, your uncle, your aunt, your kid, your eight-year-old, maybe your 18-month-old all got the shot, and you just kind of just tune it out and you just don't want to hear it.

00:35:14.000 Alex Barrinson, you're doing a wonderful job.

00:35:15.000 Thank you for being so generous of your time.

00:35:17.000 Thanks so much.

00:35:18.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:19.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:21.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

00:35:26.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com

The Charlie Kirk Show - May 02, 2024

The Disaster of Marijuana Legalization with Alex Berenson

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