The Charlie Kirk Show - The MAGA Legal Counteroffensive with Darren Beattie and Brian Mueller

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Tan Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:01.000 Darren Beattie joins us about how we fight back and some breaking news regarding Grand Canyon University.

00:00:07.000 As always, you can email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.

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00:00:24.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:25.000 Here we go.

00:00:26.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:28.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:30.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:33.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:37.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:38.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:39.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:00:46.000 Turning point USA.

00:00:47.000 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.

00:00:56.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:59.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:08.000 We have an exclusive breaking story here, very important story.

00:01:12.000 So pay attention.

00:01:13.000 Grand Canyon University is one of the most important institutions in the country.

00:01:17.000 It's a Christian school.

00:01:18.000 They do an amazing job here in Phoenix.

00:01:21.000 And they are being targeted by the federal government in a way that is so unbelievable.

00:01:26.000 Joining us now is President Brian Mueller of Grand Canyon University.

00:01:31.000 President Mueller, thank you for taking the time.

00:01:33.000 And I know you're breaking some news with us today.

00:01:35.000 Please tell us all about it.

00:01:37.000 It's something that started in, you know, we have an interesting history.

00:01:40.000 We started as a nonprofit institution in 1949, small private Christian university, and changed to a for-profit status in 2008 because we were in debt.

00:01:50.000 We had down to 900 students.

00:01:51.000 We came in at that time and we went to the public markets to get access to capital so we could grow this thing out in a big way.

00:01:58.000 And that worked.

00:02:00.000 And it was incredible growth from 2008 to 2018.

00:02:03.000 In 2018, we decided to go back as a nonprofit university and executed that transaction with the blessing of the IRS.

00:02:12.000 And the IRS has always been the determiner of whether a university is a nonprofit or for-profit.

00:02:17.000 The department took unprecedented action, the Department of Education, in saying that they're going to treat us as a for-profit institution.

00:02:24.000 It took us a little bit while to figure out why they did that.

00:02:28.000 We were looking for a path forward with them.

00:02:30.000 But in 2021, the department, along with the VA and the FTC, came out and said, we are going to crack down on for-profit institutions because historically the default rates are higher than nonprofit institutions.

00:02:46.000 And at that point, we realized why they were doing what they were doing.

00:02:51.000 We were, number one, a nonprofit university and operating that way.

00:02:54.000 But number two, our default rates are less than the national average.

00:02:58.000 And so their rationale for cracking down on for-profits, even if we were, didn't fit us.

00:03:04.000 We worked hard with them for four years.

00:03:06.000 We worked hard.

00:03:07.000 They didn't, to try to get a solution to this thing because we wanted the university's long-term legacy to be insured.

00:03:14.000 Could never get there.

00:03:15.000 They wouldn't change their mind.

00:03:16.000 And so in 2021, we filed a complaint.

00:03:19.000 It's an ongoing legal action, but that precipitated then the retaliation.

00:03:26.000 And they've opened up four different investigations that are unbelievably exhaustive.

00:03:30.000 It costs us millions of dollars in legal fees, et cetera.

00:03:35.000 And they announced a couple of weeks ago that in one of the cases, they're going to accuse us of misrepresenting our programs.

00:03:41.000 No students have complained about misrepresentation, or very few, nobody officially, but they looked at our website and said, you misrepresented something and they're going to issue a big fine.

00:03:52.000 So what we're doing is we're coming out and saying, listen, this has all got to stop.

00:03:57.000 We have been a model institution for everything that they've said is important to them.

00:04:02.000 We have good graduation rates.

00:04:04.000 We have low cohort default rates.

00:04:05.000 Our 90-10 calculation is 65%.

00:04:08.000 Gainful employment, almost all of our programs pass it.

00:04:13.000 We haven't raised tuition in 15 years, which is unheard of.

00:04:17.000 We have an extremely diverse student body as a result, and we've grown to 118,000 students.

00:04:21.000 And so why we're getting this harassment that's non-stopping is a question we're asking and trying to get some support for.

00:04:30.000 Yeah, and I mean, I think I know why.

00:04:32.000 You guys are effective.

00:04:33.000 You're Christian.

00:04:34.000 When I visited the campus with you, President Mueller, I was so impressed by the quality of the students, the joy, the worship that was happening.

00:04:42.000 And so do you believe that this is ideological in nature, that you guys have pioneered a path for innovative, entrepreneurial, low-cost, faith-based education, and that the current government in Washington, D.C., specifically the Department of Education, finds this to be a problem, which I find hilarious and also tragic because there are actual other colleges, like other colleges that are doing really,

00:05:08.000 really bad stuff that are untouched by the Department of Education.

00:05:13.000 Do you think that this is ideological, the hit from the federal government?

00:05:17.000 You know, they certainly won't tell us.

00:05:20.000 They won't give us their reasons.

00:05:22.000 And so you're left with that.

00:05:25.000 There are serious problems in higher education today.

00:05:27.000 Tuitions keep going up at an alarming rate.

00:05:30.000 Students are taking on too much debt.

00:05:32.000 Programs take too long.

00:05:33.000 Programs aren't tied directly enough to the economy and where the jobs and careers are going to be.

00:05:39.000 And every time tuition goes up, diversity goes down.

00:05:43.000 And we have created a model that's resolved all those issues.

00:05:48.000 We haven't raised tuition in 15 years.

00:05:50.000 Our average student pays less than an average state university student, which is heavily subsidized.

00:05:57.000 Our students take out less debt than the average state university student.

00:06:00.000 Over 40% graduate in three or three and a half years, not four or five or six.

00:06:05.000 And so all those issues that plague higher education and is causing people not to want to engage in the percentages they have in the past, we resolve those things.

00:06:16.000 In addition to the free speech thing, we're a Christian university.

00:06:22.000 We have a doctoral statement, a set of ethical position statements.

00:06:25.000 We teach from that viewpoint.

00:06:27.000 But about 30% of our students come here for a different reason and they're free to express their worldview in the classroom and out of it.

00:06:33.000 We're not a church, we're a university.

00:06:35.000 And so we think we've hit us, well, we know we've hit a spot of that we're incredibly attractive.

00:06:42.000 We've grown our ground campus from 900 students to 20.

00:06:48.000 And so people are responding very positively to this, which makes all of this harassment very difficult to understand.

00:06:57.000 Yeah.

00:06:57.000 So, and by the way, the campus is super impressive and what you've done to the area, I mean, you have brought jobs and opportunity to an area of Phoenix that is typically overlooked.

00:07:07.000 So, President Mueller, what exactly then is the state?

00:07:10.000 So you have multiple investigations from multiple departments.

00:07:15.000 So explain to us what it are you going to do legal action against the Department of Education or the Federal Trade Commission.

00:07:22.000 So to walk us through kind of the current investigations and how you plan to respond.

00:07:28.000 Yeah, the first one came from the VA and they're looking at our advertising, our communication.

00:07:33.000 They're saying we miscommunicated and they were going to hold us accountable because we said cybersecurity experts are in huge demand in today's society and that every company needs cybersecurity.

00:07:43.000 I looked at that and said, number one, the VA has never looked at advertising material before.

00:07:48.000 I had no idea why they were doing that.

00:07:49.000 But secondly, I said, oh wait, and God we're ever going to agree to that.

00:07:53.000 Those are both factual statements.

00:07:55.000 Well, they backtracked.

00:07:57.000 And then the department, I'm sorry, yeah, the department came with a open, what we call open program review around what we were counting as attendance in our online program.

00:08:10.000 We have students post a bio, which is critical to the learning process for working adults.

00:08:14.000 And they claim that that was not legitimate academic work.

00:08:17.000 And we disputed that.

00:08:18.000 And we had to do, that's an ongoing thing.

00:08:21.000 Nothing's happened about that.

00:08:22.000 The third thing.

00:08:24.000 is they claim we've misrepresented the cost of our doctoral program, which we absolutely have not in any way done that.

00:08:31.000 And it's that one that they sent us a letter two weeks ago and said that they're going to fine us for that.

00:08:38.000 They're going to have a press release and they're going to fine us for that.

00:08:41.000 And the reason we're getting out in front of that is because we want to make sure everybody that is associated with the university knows that we in no way, shape, or form misrepresent cost and time of our programs.

00:08:52.000 In fact, we go way overboard and do a lot more than you have to do in that vein.

00:08:57.000 And so obviously we're going to contest that in whatever way we need to.

00:09:03.000 We do have an ongoing litigation about our nonprofit status.

00:09:07.000 That started a couple years ago and that's ongoing.

00:09:11.000 We're not asking for much.

00:09:13.000 All we want is for them to recognize us as a nonprofit institution, which we duly have earned by virtue of the IRS look into what we do.

00:09:22.000 All we're asking to do is do that.

00:09:25.000 A very simple thing.

00:09:27.000 They don't want to do it because they can't treat us then differently and they want to treat us differently and they want to do all these investigations.

00:09:35.000 And it's this second thing that they're going to come out with, we think in a couple of weeks about we misrepresented the cost of our doctoral program, which we absolutely do not do.

00:09:44.000 We go way above and beyond, in fact, in the opposite vein of that.

00:09:47.000 Geez, I'm 100% behind you, President Mueller.

00:09:51.000 This is a pattern and a theme of anybody that is successful that is in the Christian world or in the center right conservative world, whatever it is, is just experiencing the wrath of the government.

00:10:01.000 The VA, the veterans administration is coming after you?

00:10:06.000 Well, the VA should probably worry about how many veterans are committing suicide every single day, not attacking one of the most successful, low-cost, effective Christian universities in the country.

00:10:17.000 President Mueller, we're behind you.

00:10:18.000 What is the action item for our audience?

00:10:20.000 Well, if you're in Arizona, we'd love for you to call the two U.S. senators who are behind us, by the way.

00:10:25.000 Everybody in Arizona is behind us.

00:10:27.000 But we really like you to call your local congressperson, call the two U.S. senators, and just tell them that Grand Canyon University is important to the state.

00:10:36.000 We're doing really, really good work.

00:10:39.000 We're helping people across the socioeconomic strata, which is extremely important.

00:10:46.000 We're really impactful as it regards social mobility, and that they would like the Department of Ed to back off and treat us fairly.

00:10:53.000 We're with you.

00:10:54.000 Thank you, President Mueller.

00:10:55.000 Keep us updated, and we have your back.

00:10:57.000 Thank you so much.

00:10:58.000 Thank you.

00:10:59.000 Appreciate the time.

00:11:00.000 Thanks.

00:11:03.000 Listen, as students begin heading back to school, do you think they'll be learning about the founding principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in history?

00:11:10.000 Will they learn that our unalienable rights are God-given and not granted by government?

00:11:14.000 Will they be given a full and honest account of our nation's history?

00:11:17.000 The answer to all these questions is yes for students at Hillsdale College.

00:11:21.000 And these days, in addition to teaching college students, Hillsdale has extended its teaching to K-12 students and lifelong learners like you and me.

00:11:29.000 If you're not doing so already, one of the best ways to start learning from my friends at Hillsdale is through EnPrimus, Hillsdale's Free Digest of Liberty.

00:11:37.000 My listeners can sign up for free at this special website, which is available for a limited time.

00:11:42.000 It's at charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:11:45.000 I look forward to In Primus each month, and you can too.

00:11:48.000 It's interesting, useful, and free.

00:11:50.000 The best and smartest in conservative constitutionalist thought.

00:11:54.000 Find out more about Hillsdale and in Primus at charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:11:58.000 They're an excellent college, America's greatest college, charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:12:06.000 Breaking news, Donald Trump might be coming to D.C. sometime soon, maybe going to D.C. to put his name out for Speaker of the House.

00:12:16.000 Now, I don't want to say it's an impossibility, but do you really see Dan Crenshaw voting for Donald Trump for Speaker of the House?

00:12:23.000 I think that that would be rather unlikely.

00:12:26.000 Or even Chip Roy, who has endorsed Ron DeSantis or Dusty Johnson.

00:12:31.000 It would be first time since President Polk that that has happened.

00:12:35.000 A lot of people are proposing it out here.

00:12:37.000 And there's certainly a lack of clarity on who the next speaker needs to be.

00:12:43.000 Congressman Troy Nells believes that Donald Trump is the way to go.

00:12:48.000 He has proposed Donald Trump, and we'll see how it happens in the Republican conference meeting.

00:12:53.000 Trump has just been at the civil trial in New York.

00:12:58.000 Letitia James comes out and attacks Donald Trump, obviously. 0.98

00:13:03.000 Play Cut 61.

00:13:05.000 Trump's comments were offensive.

00:13:07.000 They were baseless.

00:13:09.000 They were void of any facts and or any evidence.

00:13:13.000 What they were were comments that unfortunately fomented violence.

00:13:19.000 Comments that I would describe as race-baiting.

00:13:23.000 And comments, unfortunately, that appeals to the bottom of our humanity.

00:13:28.000 This case was brought simply because it was a case where individuals have engaged in a patent and practice of fraud.

00:13:36.000 And I will not sit idly by and allow anyone to subvert the law.

00:13:41.000 And lastly, I will not be bullied.

00:13:45.000 And so Mr. Trump is no longer here.

00:13:47.000 The Donald Trump show is over.

00:13:49.000 This was nothing more than a political stunt.

00:13:52.000 I think it was really smart for Trump to show up.

00:13:55.000 Trump didn't have to show up.

00:13:56.000 It was a civil trial.

00:13:57.000 He decided to show up and sit through it.

00:14:00.000 What he did is he changed the media narrative around the whole thing.

00:14:04.000 Very, very smart.

00:14:06.000 Trump did what Trump does best.

00:14:08.000 He draws all the attention to himself, the magnetic energy.

00:14:12.000 So instead of this sideshow where all of a sudden there's this penalty, Donald Trump leaned right in, sits right there during that trial where that judge is smirking and smiling for the cameras.

00:14:22.000 You know this, but it's worthy of repeating.

00:14:26.000 We are now in the next phase of the cultural revolution.

00:14:29.000 We're living through lawfare.

00:14:31.000 We just talked about it with Grand Canyon University. 0.99

00:14:33.000 118,000 students, Christian, huge impact to the community in Phoenix, take them out.

00:14:39.000 NRA, try to take him out.

00:14:42.000 Project Veritas, try to take him out. 0.65

00:14:44.000 Steve Bannon, try to put him in federal prison.

00:14:46.000 Dinesh D'Souza, try to put him in federal prison.

00:14:50.000 It's across the entire landscape.

00:14:54.000 One of the reasons why our Republicans are nearly coming to blows with one another is I don't think the rank and file in D.C. understand what's really going on with the regime.

00:15:07.000 They are going name by name, name by name.

00:15:11.000 Take out this guy.

00:15:11.000 Take Tucker Carlson off the air.

00:15:14.000 Isolate James O'Keefe.

00:15:16.000 Project Veritas, gone.

00:15:17.000 Forget it.

00:15:18.000 Name by Surgical strikes.

00:15:23.000 They have a whole war room dedicated to this.

00:15:26.000 And of course, Donald Trump's at the top of the list, but doesn't stop there.

00:15:29.000 Leonard Leo, who runs the Federalist Society, Washington, D.C. Attorney General, deploy him.

00:15:35.000 Because you can't have good judges.

00:15:37.000 Leonard Leo also has a billion-dollar fund that he runs.

00:15:40.000 Boom.

00:15:40.000 Isolate him with criminal investigations.

00:15:43.000 Bottom up, top down.

00:15:46.000 No such war room to counter this stuff.

00:15:49.000 No such strategy as to how we solve it.

00:15:53.000 When I talk to Republican lawmakers, they're always like, oh, I hope it gets better.

00:15:56.000 Or they don't really have an answer.

00:15:57.000 They're terrified.

00:15:58.000 They're afraid.

00:15:59.000 They know deep down they actually live in an enemy-occupied country.

00:16:04.000 And the Democrats, they smell blood.

00:16:06.000 They see that they can eliminate basically the entire infrastructure on the right.

00:16:12.000 They see that they'll be able to take people's stuff like in New York.

00:16:17.000 And I think it was Ruth Marcus from the Washington Post.

00:16:20.000 Is that right?

00:16:20.000 Who wrote this piece?

00:16:23.000 Yeah, it was Ruth.

00:16:23.000 Okay.

00:16:24.000 It's Ruth Marcus.

00:16:25.000 I've met her before.

00:16:26.000 Actually, a sweet person.

00:16:27.000 We see the world completely differently.

00:16:29.000 She became kind of nasty against Trump and stuff, but I've met her before.

00:16:33.000 She wrote this piece.

00:16:34.000 She says that the op-ed on op-ed, Trump's fraud case is completely unprecedented, completely and totally unprecedented.

00:16:42.000 So even some Democrats might be wondering, like, guys, are we creating the KGB?

00:16:48.000 Yeah, you are.

00:16:49.000 And they're going to come after you next.

00:16:50.000 AOC, they're going to come after you. 0.57

00:16:52.000 The beast will eat itself.

00:16:53.000 It is the snake eating itself.

00:16:55.000 And they might come for us first, but eventually there will be a knock on the door for Rashida Talib, Elon Omar, and all of them.

00:17:05.000 Look, I'm going to tell you about Donor's Trust.

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00:17:15.000 According to its report, its account holders recommended in 2022 $11 billion to nonprofits in the mix.

00:17:22.000 Planned Parenthood Foundation of America.

00:17:24.000 In fact, according to the report, Planned Parenthood was the sixth most popular nonprofit among Fidelity charitable account holders.

00:17:31.000 Last year, six out of nearly 200,000 unique charities.

00:17:35.000 Does that upset you?

00:17:36.000 Well, it upsets me too.

00:17:38.000 The good news is that if you have Fidelity Charitable Giving Account, it's not too late to roll over your charitable dollars to a giving account provider that shares your values.

00:17:46.000 Roll over your giving to Donor's Trust so you can actually help expectant mothers and families in crisis.

00:17:52.000 I love Donor's Trust.

00:17:53.000 Donors' Trust givers have recommended grants to dozens of pro-life organizations and crisis pregnancy centers, including Priests for Life, Students for Life, Susan B. Anthony, List Education Fund, Americans United for Life, CareNet, and others.

00:18:05.000 Visit donorstrust.org/slash Charlie to learn more about Donor's Trust.

00:18:09.000 We work with them very closely.

00:18:10.000 I really like them.

00:18:11.000 If you are giving money away from now to the end of the year, you guys should look at Donor's Trust as a way to set up a donor-advised fund that is donorstrust.com/slash Charlie to discover how you can partner with a giving account provider that shares your values.

00:18:24.000 That's donorstrust.org/slash Charlie.

00:18:29.000 It's a perfect segue to our next guest, Darren Beattie, who has a powerful piece, Revolver.news: The Definitive MAGA Legal Counteroffensive, Striking Back Against the Regime's Political Prosecution Spree.

00:18:43.000 Darren, welcome to the program.

00:18:44.000 Take as much time as you need.

00:18:46.000 Finally, a roadmap, finally a blueprint, because Darren, they are coming after everybody, one by one.

00:18:52.000 And you detail this in your piece just for you keeping score at home.

00:18:56.000 James O'Keefe, Tucker Carlson was lawfare by other means, but it was civil.

00:19:00.000 Douglas Mackey, Donald Trump, Bannon.

00:19:05.000 Again, I'm not even mentioning everybody, right?

00:19:08.000 But they are enthusiastically using the instruments of state level, federal level, and civil level to destroy the American right.

00:19:17.000 And it's time for us to do the same to them, Darren Beattie.

00:19:22.000 Absolutely.

00:19:22.000 Well, it's a pleasure to be here, as always.

00:19:26.000 And especially so because this piece, in large part, is a product of conversations that we've had about this very issue throughout my various appearances on this show.

00:19:39.000 And we've both been in agreement for some time now that number one, the foremost impediment to political progress for the right, but more importantly, the foremost threat to American liberty right now is no longer the issue of big tech censorship, which I think for a long time was the number one issue.

00:20:01.000 That is now supplanted by a deeper and more existential threat, which is the complete political weaponization of the justice system by the left, by the Democrats, in order to imprison anyone associated with Donald Trump or any patriotic American generally.

00:20:22.000 That's the number one issue.

00:20:23.000 And if we don't solve that issue, nothing else that we're talking about matters.

00:20:28.000 Even winning an election, what's the point in getting the most votes if it becomes literally illegal to question the integrity of an election?

00:20:38.000 You're giving them carte blanche to do what they want.

00:20:40.000 So this is so critical, all the way up from the burying Trump in indictments to ordinary random citizens who get convicted for felonies facing 10 years for a Hillary Clinton meme.

00:20:53.000 This is the issue.

00:20:54.000 So the question is: what do we do about it besides just complain?

00:20:59.000 And this piece, I'm hoping, is the first major step toward sketching an actual solution, an actual plan, actual blueprint.

00:21:09.000 So simply put, the answer is tit for tat.

00:21:12.000 We have to impose some kind of cost for what the left is doing in order to deter them from going further.

00:21:19.000 Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of institutional power at the federal level, but we could potentially create our own sort of reciprocal retaliatory prosecution factories at a more local level, like a Fulton County of the right, or even at the state level, at the state AG level.

00:21:41.000 And so the first part of this piece, basically, just because a lot of people in the GOP are not only cowards, but they're lazy, this serves up prosecutions, potential indictments on a silver platter, a number of them.

00:21:54.000 And a number of them are along the lines of what we discussed.

00:21:57.000 For instance, the Attorney General of Alabama is a Republican.

00:22:03.000 There is absolutely an indictment to be made associated with the corruption of the SPLC.

00:22:12.000 The SPLC was a scandal-ridden organization.

00:22:15.000 Their leader was recently disgraced just a handful of years ago under allegations of not only harassment, but ironically also discrimination.

00:22:26.000 There's so much more to be told about that story.

00:22:29.000 And I would suspect criminality.

00:22:32.000 Given the standards on which the left is prosecuting their political enemies, there is absolutely a legitimate indictment in there.

00:22:40.000 So the Attorney General of Alabama, get on it.

00:22:44.000 We want an indictment for SPLC.

00:22:46.000 The other example, there are many.

00:22:48.000 I'm just highlighting the most important ones.

00:22:51.000 Our friend, our hero, Ken Paxton.

00:22:56.000 There's a great indictment in this for all the border chaos going on in Texas.

00:23:01.000 It doesn't have to just be a federal issue.

00:23:04.000 He could indict Majorkas for the violation of Texas law, for all kinds of violations.

00:23:11.000 And we adduce exactly how that might play out.

00:23:16.000 And the list goes on.

00:23:17.000 Eric Holder, not only fast and furious, but his involvement in probably unconstitutional practices in relation to discrimination, all sorts of possible indictments for Eric Holder at the local level through Arizona.

00:23:36.000 So that's the first step is we need to line up potential prosecutions and we need to identify who would be responsible for this.

00:23:44.000 So they feel a little bit of pressure saying, hey, if they wanted to, they can go for it.

00:23:49.000 Basically, what we need, you know, the recent issue in the House, we saw the amount of difference that somebody like Matt Gates can do.

00:23:57.000 What I'm saying in effect here is we need Matt Gates's in the DA's offices.

00:24:06.000 We need Matt Gates's in the state's attorney general's office.

00:24:09.000 We need people like that in order to launch a sufficiently robust retaliatory measure against the abuses happening.

00:24:19.000 And I'm just going to cut in.

00:24:21.000 So I'm going to isolate something you said that was really smart.

00:24:23.000 So, Darren, starting around 2018, we started to really launch a campaign about how social media censorship is the existential threat.

00:24:36.000 And in 18 and in 19, and then January 6th, they kicked Trump off.

00:24:41.000 I'm not saying we've solved the issue, Darren, but think about how far we've come.

00:24:44.000 Twitter X is far better.

00:24:46.000 It's liberated because Elon Musk purchased it.

00:24:49.000 The American people are distrustful of tech, and we have Missouri going after these tech companies.

00:24:54.000 And we have Rumble, a legitimate YouTube competitor.

00:24:57.000 What I'm getting at, Darren, is that things can improve if we focus and we put our energy behind them.

00:25:04.000 Not saying we've solved the big tech issue.

00:25:06.000 It's still a problem.

00:25:07.000 But, Darren, I feel much better with that topic than I did two years ago.

00:25:14.000 Do you agree with that and connect it with how we can improve the lawfare landscape now?

00:25:20.000 As now, that is now the number one threat on the horizon.

00:25:24.000 Indeed.

00:25:25.000 Well, it's a great point because I think it's absolutely true.

00:25:29.000 We're very, very far from where we should be, but it is completely fair to say that we're in a much better position now than we were two years ago.

00:25:39.000 That's simply the case.

00:25:40.000 And you know what's interesting is I think the improvements that we've made on the free speech front have actually played a role in the regime's shift in their approach to lean more directly on the kind of brute force technique of throwing people in prison.

00:26:00.000 It's desperation.

00:26:01.000 You can't platform somebody anymore.

00:26:04.000 You throw them in prison.

00:26:05.000 That's the logical next step.

00:26:07.000 And we've seen not only that we have more speech online, which is great, but the effectiveness of hit pieces has diminished considerably, I would say, in the past five years. 0.98

00:26:19.000 And so, in one sense, that's great because, you know, these journalists who do the hit pieces are scum and disingenuous and all that. 0.89

00:26:28.000 But on the other hand, if they're no longer able to use that sort of soft power, if you can even call it that, because it's so dirty and disgusting, but that kind of soft power, then their next option is: okay, we can't destroy their reputation if we can't silence them from speaking online. 0.94

00:26:47.000 What's the next step?

00:26:48.000 Either put them in bankruptcy or put them in jail.

00:26:51.000 And that's why we're in the position we're in.

00:26:53.000 I think it's very much linked, ironically, to the progress that you correctly described in relation to the censorship issue.

00:27:03.000 Yeah.

00:27:03.000 And again, you think about it.

00:27:06.000 You know, we would have Darren on the show years ago be like, you know, it's a big threat that we're kicked off of Twitter.

00:27:13.000 And now we're at a place like, yeah, it's a big threat when the government throws you in prison for 100 years.

00:27:18.000 This is an act of desperation.

00:27:23.000 There's going to be a moment where finally our side gets it.

00:27:27.000 There's an adjustment period.

00:27:29.000 And Darren, let's talk about this.

00:27:30.000 The adjustment period, we have to kind of close that window.

00:27:34.000 Remember, for the social media fight, there was an adjustment period, right?

00:27:38.000 For years, when we were starting to bubble this up, people said, Oh, free market.

00:27:42.000 And then, you know, we won't.

00:27:43.000 Exactly.

00:27:44.000 We won that, right?

00:27:46.000 Through brute ideological force.

00:27:48.000 We pummeled them because their arguments were terrible.

00:27:50.000 The ideological adjustment period for the old school lawyerly types that still have a belief that our justice system is fair, impartial, and the best in the world.

00:28:02.000 That's a big concern of mine.

00:28:04.000 Yes, I mean, it really is.

00:28:06.000 I think it's partly a generational issue, and it's a tough pill to swallow to really fully accept and digest just how far we've gone in the gutter.

00:28:16.000 You know, just every single institution in the country being so corrupt and being so actively hostile to the well-being and the livelihood and the freedom of everyday Americans.

00:28:32.000 That's very hard to accept, especially because I think the psychological disposition of many conservatives is to want to, you know, venerate these legal institutions, institutions of authority generally.

00:28:47.000 But just like, you know, with the tech issue, I think the necessity of recognizing this will have to do the heavy lifting here when we're looking and we see that the front runner for president right now, you know, the favored guy to win not only the nomination, but the entire election is getting hit with all of these ridiculous, obviously politicized charges, criminal and civil.

00:29:17.000 There's no other choice.

00:29:18.000 Either we develop a robust hit-for-tat system and we recognize that this has to be done.

00:29:27.000 It's all about deterrence, mutually assured destruction.

00:29:30.000 I don't like it.

00:29:31.000 You don't like it.

00:29:32.000 But if one side has nuclear weapons, we're going to build a bomb.

00:29:37.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:30:40.000 Darren, we have to change the mentality.

00:30:43.000 And this is not a cause for celebration, but it is a moment of necessity saying that we have political power too, and it's time to use it.

00:30:53.000 When I speak to some people that are in these orbits, they'll say, but that makes us no better than the other side.

00:30:59.000 How shall we respond to that, Darren B?

00:31:02.000 Well, I mean, the other side is destroying us.

00:31:05.000 The other side has total full-spectrum dominance of every institution in the country.

00:31:12.000 So that's going to be the default reality unless we make some major changes to our approach.

00:31:22.000 So, I guess the imperative on the other side is to say, okay, so the consequence of your position is losing and everything that follows from that, given what the left's agenda is. 0.69

00:31:34.000 You know, the drag queen agenda, the open borders agenda, the anti-white agenda, you name it. 0.58

00:31:40.000 That's going to continue, going to accelerate, and there's going to be no viable opposition whatsoever. 0.78

00:31:48.000 In fact, there was a recent piece out in Newsweek saying that the most robust terrorism category from the standpoint of the FBI and other agencies in the government is MAGA.

00:31:58.000 And keep in mind, Trump is the frontrunner for president.

00:32:02.000 And the FBI and National Security State's posture is that this is the number one threat.

00:32:08.000 It's going to get a lot, lot worse.

00:32:11.000 So we just don't have the luxury.

00:32:14.000 We just don't have the luxury of these outdated delusions from the 80s.

00:32:22.000 It's just not that country.

00:32:23.000 It's not the country that Ronald Reagan grew up in or whoever it is.

00:32:28.000 It's just, we're in a very different landscape here, and we either adapt or die.

00:32:36.000 But unfortunately, a lot of people have the psychology that they'd rather die.

00:32:41.000 They'd rather die than be called racist by the media. 0.93

00:32:47.000 They'd rather die than be called authoritarian by the, you know, it's a simple choice, but it's amazing that people are so brainwashed and so cowardly and so unimaginative as to what things could actually be like if we got smart that they just don't see it. 0.86

00:33:09.000 But we have to see it.

00:33:11.000 There's simply no choice at this point.

00:33:13.000 And I think some people on our side would rather say, I don't want to be, I don't want to dirty my hands, but I'm perfectly fine if the whole country collapses.

00:33:13.000 Yeah.

00:33:23.000 And that kind of like fake piety and moral pomposity is going to collapse the entire republic.

00:33:30.000 And that's where we're at.

00:33:31.000 And, you know, I got to say, you know, it's people have a range of motivations, but from what I've found is the reluctance here is more a product of just a lack of imagination because people don't understand how much leverage there is at the state and county level.

00:33:52.000 And that's really where the big play is to create this robust retaliatory infrastructure.

00:33:58.000 It's not at the federal level yet.

00:33:59.000 And people are so, you know, federal, you know, presidential election brain that they don't see the actual opportunity here in the way that George Soros saw the opportunity when he effectively bought up all the DAs for the left. 0.88

00:34:15.000 You know, there needs to be a little bit of imagination there to see and also prioritization is that, you know, think of how much dumb money there is. 0.74

00:34:24.000 Think of how much money is wasted on meaningless stuff. 0.75

00:34:28.000 The money is there.

00:34:30.000 We need the efficient allocation of resources and the awareness.

00:34:34.000 And hopefully this article contributes to that.

00:34:38.000 And the last point is there's a lot of cowardice because so much of the right is set up to play this kind of fake and performative low stakes game.

00:34:49.000 A lot of people are scared to actually step inside the playpen because I guarantee you, this is just the reality.

00:34:56.000 If the GOP starts making moves in the direction of this article, in the direction of a real retaliatory response, things will get very difficult and very dangerous.

00:35:10.000 And it's hard to do.

00:35:11.000 People don't want to be the person in the arena subjecting themselves to the pain box, subjecting themselves to the prosecutions, the indictments, buried in lawsuits and so forth.

00:35:23.000 You're playing a different game when you're actually playing for keeps.

00:35:26.000 And unfortunately, so much of the GOP infrastructure is just not set up for people to really play for keeps.

00:35:33.000 They're playing for scraps.

00:35:35.000 That's right.

00:35:36.000 Darren, thanks so much.

00:35:37.000 Revolver.news, check out the piece.

00:35:39.000 Thank you.

00:35:42.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:35:43.000 Everybody, email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:47.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.

00:35:52.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 05, 2023

The MAGA Legal Counteroffensive with Darren Beattie and Brian Mueller

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