The Charlie Kirk Show - The Swamp Has Seeped Into Our Everyday Lives — My Interview with Vivek Ramaswamy

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's on the Charlie Kirk show.

00:00:01.000 Vivek Ramaswamy joins the program.

00:00:03.000 This is one of my favorite conversations I've had in recent memory.

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00:01:46.000 Here we go.

00:01:47.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:48.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:01:50.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:54.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:57.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:58.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:59.000 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.

00:02:08.000 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.

00:02:16.000 That's why we are here.

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00:02:28.000 Vivek, welcome to the program, man.

00:02:30.000 Good to be on, man.

00:02:31.000 How are you?

00:02:31.000 Vivek has the record for most appearances on the Charlie Kirk show as a presidential candidate.

00:02:36.000 So is that right?

00:02:37.000 Oh, good.

00:02:38.000 I'm punched.

00:02:38.000 Yeah.

00:02:39.000 Nikki Haley is not exactly.

00:02:39.000 All right.

00:02:40.000 She's not competing.

00:02:42.000 She hasn't come on.

00:02:43.000 She's getting on.

00:02:43.000 Next time you're going to invite me on, I yield my time to her so she can get some real questions for once.

00:02:48.000 You know, Vivek, if the only thing that you did was call out Nikki Haley, you are a hero in my eyes.

00:02:56.000 I got to tell you, you have done such a great job.

00:02:59.000 I got to be honest.

00:03:01.000 And so let's, how's the campaign?

00:03:05.000 You mate.

00:03:05.000 You good?

00:03:06.000 First of all, thank you.

00:03:07.000 I individually lobbied and you agreed to leave Iowa and come all the way to the desert.

00:03:13.000 I think it's well worth your time because there's no event quite like this.

00:03:16.000 And you guys should show your gratitude that he's taking time out of Iowa to be here, guys.

00:03:20.000 That's a big deal.

00:03:21.000 I appreciate it.

00:03:22.000 No, I want to make sure you know that.

00:03:24.000 And it's out of respect for the, it's out of respect.

00:03:27.000 Charlie is the one who lobbied me, but it's out of respect for the people who are here because I've been here before and I know patriots who love this country, especially people from the next generation, who our party in the Republican Party, which I increasingly cannot stand, writes off as somehow an undesirable population to actually go after, are the people you're drawn here.

00:03:48.000 And so I was important right now, but if we're talking about the future, you know, the people here give me energy, man.

00:03:54.000 And it's already been a great day.

00:03:55.000 Well, there's so much to talk about.

00:03:57.000 It means a lot to me, Vivek, and to our grassroots.

00:03:59.000 And that's really what is here, right?

00:04:00.000 Grassroots of all ages.

00:04:02.000 It is predominantly students, but we were just talking here.

00:04:05.000 We're talking about people that are now received training to run for delegate and precinct committee man.

00:04:10.000 It's just amazing.

00:04:11.000 So, a couple things.

00:04:12.000 Vivek, you changed all the, let's just say, debate norms when you went up on stage and you said that, by the way, Rana Romney should resign as RNC chair.

00:04:24.000 Yes.

00:04:25.000 And I think everybody agrees.

00:04:28.000 I stand by it.

00:04:32.000 She said that I wouldn't, and in many ways, she, it's a funny funny thing about her.

00:04:35.000 She accidentally proves my point by literally that night saying that I won't get another cent of funding from the RNC, which is like, okay, I'm fine with that.

00:04:45.000 That doesn't affect me one way or another.

00:04:47.000 But it proves the point that the people in charge think of the money that they're collecting as donations as though it's their money.

00:04:54.000 It doesn't belong to her.

00:04:56.000 It belongs to the people of this party.

00:04:58.000 And so, anyway, I stand by that.

00:05:00.000 I do think that it would be better for our party if she stepped aside sooner ahead of next year.

00:05:06.000 We have an important election to win whoever the nominee is going to be.

00:05:09.000 And I think that we need the best and the brightest.

00:05:11.000 And you and I both, you know, we're against affirmative action.

00:05:14.000 We will tell that to the left and mean it because we want meritocracy in America.

00:05:19.000 But how can we preach meritocracy to the other side if we're not even practicing it in our own party right here?

00:05:26.000 Is this the best person for the job?

00:05:28.000 It's not the best person for the job.

00:05:30.000 Hire the best and brightest, and the average person off the street in a weekend like this when you've got good people walking around in Phoenix would do a better job.

00:05:38.000 Any one of you would do a better job.

00:05:39.000 No doubt about it.

00:05:40.000 Anyone.

00:05:41.000 No doubt about it.

00:05:42.000 And one of the reasons is not just, I mean, again, I've known Rana for a long time.

00:05:46.000 We used to get along.

00:05:47.000 She obviously is trying to destroy us in turning point.

00:05:49.000 We're not going to let that happen, though, right, everybody?

00:05:51.000 It's not going to happen.

00:05:52.000 And by the way, what they've been trying to do is so nasty.

00:05:54.000 When this is all done, I'll tell the story.

00:05:55.000 It's unbelievable.

00:05:56.000 They're more focused on us than actually running the party, right?

00:05:59.000 Vivek, that's what they're doing.

00:06:00.000 Yeah, absolutely. 0.99

00:06:00.000 They're nasty. 0.99

00:06:01.000 I mean, look, I think that there's the, and I want people to understand this because it's less even about this one individual or whatever. 0.58

00:06:01.000 Absolutely. 0.58

00:06:08.000 This idea of the swamp, right?

00:06:11.000 The managerial class.

00:06:12.000 Is it just something that lives in D.C.? 0.98

00:06:14.000 We've got to drain the swamp in D.C., shut down the deep state.

00:06:17.000 We're going to talk about that.

00:06:19.000 But it lives in every sphere of our lives, right?

00:06:22.000 The HR department at every major company, the associate dean of God knows what at some public university, or even within the Republican Party itself, right?

00:06:33.000 It is the swamp, the managerial class that runs even the Republican Party itself.

00:06:38.000 And so even if it's not Rana, you don't want Rana 2.0, right?

00:06:42.000 In the same way, if it's not Christopher Wray, you don't want James Comey 2.0.

00:06:46.000 And so we've got to be careful, even in our, and this particular individual irritates the heck out of me too, but not to make it about one individual, it's a machine.

00:06:55.000 And that's what we actually got to take aim at.

00:06:57.000 Yeah, and so I want to just pinpoint this for a second because Vivek, you and I have some similarities, right?

00:07:02.000 You're millennial, right?

00:07:03.000 We're both millennials.

00:07:05.000 And we have a little bit of a different political perspective in the sense that there's a lot of urgency for both of us, right?

00:07:12.000 We're both husbands, we're both fathers, and we can kind of see things cross-generationally.

00:07:16.000 And I think that's one of the reasons why Turning Point is growing the way it is right now, where I really sense, I have such agreement with people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s where they remember America that was dead.

00:07:29.000 In some ways, I do, right?

00:07:30.000 And I also, at the same time, represent a next generation that does not have access to the same America that 50, 60, and 70-year-olds did.

00:07:38.000 It's just that all, right?

00:07:40.000 Owning property and all that.

00:07:41.000 And you and I have really no interest in the BS of like the feelings of Rana Mick Romney or like keeping the RNC in status quo.

00:07:49.000 There's a sense of urgency to kind of both of our work right now.

00:07:52.000 That's why you're running for president, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

00:07:56.000 And I don't feel that sense of urgency from the Republican establishment at all.

00:08:01.000 In fact, I feel the opposite.

00:08:03.000 They think things are going really well.

00:08:05.000 You got to know you're in a war to win one.

00:08:07.000 I mean, the first basic step, if you're in the middle of a war on a battlefield, but you don't know that you're on that battlefield, you have no chance of winning.

00:08:15.000 Let alone that sense of urgency.

00:08:17.000 I mean, if our, how old are your kids, Charlie?

00:08:19.000 We're just one, one year and three months.

00:08:22.000 One year and three months.

00:08:23.000 Similar zip code to mine, or three and a half and a year and a half.

00:08:27.000 It is fun, interesting, very convenient time.

00:08:27.000 Really fun.

00:08:29.000 By the way, it gives you a reason to fight harder.

00:08:32.000 It does, though.

00:08:33.000 That's exactly right.

00:08:34.000 Because if they are in high school before we get this right, I don't think we have a country left.

00:08:39.000 And I do think that we need that sense of urgency, which is to say that I don't talk that much about Republicans and Democrats anymore.

00:08:46.000 If you're pro-American, you share the ideals this country was founded on.

00:08:51.000 We're on the same team.

00:08:52.000 Let's actually stand.

00:08:53.000 And this is one of the things I actually want to do in the next phase of this race, and I've been trying to do this year: what are the cardinal principles of our America First movement, right?

00:09:06.000 This is a movement that lives, it's bigger than one man.

00:09:09.000 It's bigger than Trump.

00:09:10.000 It's bigger than me.

00:09:10.000 It's bigger than you.

00:09:11.000 It belongs to you, the people of this country.

00:09:15.000 I think it comes down to some basic ideas.

00:09:17.000 We believe the people who we elect to run the government should be the ones who actually run the government.

00:09:24.000 And that when they do, the sole moral duty that they owe is to the citizens of this country, not any other one.

00:09:33.000 I don't think that's too much to ask, right?

00:09:35.000 That's not even really a Republican idea.

00:09:36.000 It's bigger.

00:09:37.000 It's a 1776 idea.

00:09:39.000 Vivek, not only that, if you don't have that, your country's not going to continue.

00:09:42.000 It's a country.

00:09:43.000 I mean, it's just kind of like a necessary ingredient to civilization.

00:09:47.000 Which is to say that you're, in some ways, you don't want somebody to take for granted that this country is going to continue.

00:09:53.000 You're right.

00:09:53.000 Right?

00:09:54.000 That's what you need for a country to continue.

00:09:55.000 And so if we don't have that, that logically means this country is not going to continue to be the same one that we know.

00:10:02.000 But I don't think it has to stay that way, and that's why we're each doing what we're doing.

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00:11:11.000 I want to just applaud you because I hope you guys understand this.

00:11:14.000 You know, Vivek going on stage, going after Romney, going after Nikki Haley, he's picking the biggest enemies you can pick, right?

00:11:20.000 And it would be very easy for Vivek running for president.

00:11:23.000 You know, he's obviously very charismatic.

00:11:26.000 He obviously, you know, is a very talented speaker.

00:11:28.000 You know, he could be doing the Tim Scott thing.

00:11:30.000 God bless him.

00:11:31.000 It's morning in America and our best days are ahead and all, you know, this nonsense.

00:11:34.000 Actually, no, it's not morning.

00:11:35.000 It's midnight and it's really bad, right?

00:11:37.000 Honestly.

00:11:38.000 And but instead, Vivek is picking the right fights because he's in it for the right reasons.

00:11:43.000 I want to kind of go through this because Vivek, I had a really powerful conversation with an intellectual friend of mine.

00:11:49.000 He made such a strong point.

00:11:50.000 He said, man, you know, Trump skipping the bait's fine.

00:11:52.000 But if Vivek would not have been on that stage, imagine those debates.

00:11:56.000 Imagine those debates.

00:11:58.000 It just would have been the same thing, repurposed.

00:12:00.000 Let's go invade this country and let's go do that. 1.00

00:12:03.000 You were the glitch in their matrix, Vivek, because they thought they could have neoliberal programming, right?

00:12:08.000 They thought, okay, no Trump.

00:12:10.000 We can have five candidates basically all agree on open borders and reckless wars.

00:12:16.000 And you're like, actually, no, I'm going to represent the people of this country.

00:12:19.000 I'm going to represent the conservative grassroots.

00:12:21.000 That's right.

00:12:22.000 And I think that that's part of why, thank you for saying that, Charlie, but I think it's part of why in the early phase of this race or the first six months or whatever this year, they didn't mind, right?

00:12:31.000 I think that, okay, there's a, you know, yeah, young guy, check some boxes for us.

00:12:36.000 That's great.

00:12:36.000 But when we actually started to, you know, get traction, end up on the debate stage, start that first debate near the middle of the debate stage, that's really when the gloves came off from the establishment.

00:12:47.000 They had an anaphylactic reaction to my presence in this race. 0.96

00:12:51.000 The good news is I don't report to them.

00:12:52.000 And the sad part is it does take somebody who can avoid the mother's milk of politics, which is other people's money, to be able to do this.

00:13:01.000 But you have a lot of small dollar donors.

00:13:03.000 Oh, small dollar donors have lifted this up.

00:13:04.000 Absolutely.

00:13:06.000 But the mega donors believe they view politicians as their pawns on a chessboard.

00:13:11.000 And it takes somebody who actually is independent of that to be able to move this.

00:13:14.000 It used to be a left-wing point back in 2010 that they wanted to get rid of the super PACs and eliminate mega money in politics.

00:13:22.000 I don't care if that was a liberal point back in 2010.

00:13:27.000 I favor that today.

00:13:28.000 I think the super PACs are a cancer on American politics.

00:13:31.000 And one of the things I've seen is it's far worse than you'd imagine.

00:13:37.000 I mean, I think every one of these politicians is dancing to the tune of their biggest donor.

00:13:42.000 And I think it helps to have somebody whose biggest donor is me by dollars, but by numbers, is actually lifted up by, you know, hundreds of thousands of small dollar donors.

00:13:50.000 And I think that that's something that's been the character of this campaign and hopefully becomes more the character of our movement.

00:13:56.000 So I want to just kind of, I've never told you this, but, you know, and I want you guys to understand, Vivek writes this book, Woke Inc., and Vivek is a darling of like the billionaire class in Palm Beach.

00:14:09.000 Is that fair to say?

00:14:09.000 It's very interesting.

00:14:10.000 I've never talked to you about this, right?

00:14:12.000 Because I kind of swim in similar lanes here.

00:14:14.000 I raise money for a living, right?

00:14:16.000 It's not easy.

00:14:17.000 Constantly raising money.

00:14:18.000 And I would say that probably half of the billionaire elite in that Palm Beach area, they no longer give us money because we're too conservative, we're too radical, and all that sort of stuff.

00:14:29.000 And it was amazing to see Vivek, how some of them, I'm still friendly with a lot of them, right?

00:14:34.000 That you were, at the beginning, they were super high on Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:14:39.000 And then all of a sudden, now they're super low.

00:14:42.000 Do you agree, right, Meredith?

00:14:43.000 We talked about this?

00:14:44.000 Yeah.

00:14:44.000 Right?

00:14:44.000 And so talk about this because Vivek, you were like, you were almost kind of the cool thing to kind of present in Palm Beach, right?

00:14:54.000 Yeah.

00:14:55.000 But then you started to represent the grassroots.

00:14:57.000 I'm complimenting you by saying this, though.

00:14:59.000 Yeah, I appreciate that.

00:15:00.000 I mean, even for me, it's been a journey, right?

00:15:03.000 So I was a biotech CEO three years ago, right?

00:15:06.000 And if you told me, I said this to CNN the other day, I mean, if you told me three years ago that January 6th looked like an inside job or government entrapment, I would have said that was crazy talk.

00:15:18.000 No way.

00:15:18.000 That's fringe conspiracy theory stuff.

00:15:20.000 And that wasn't my job.

00:15:21.000 I was building a company.

00:15:23.000 And, you know, I was anti-woke.

00:15:25.000 I had conservative values.

00:15:26.000 That's what I believed.

00:15:28.000 Now that I'm in this profession, I go deep into the area that you're in.

00:15:32.000 Absolutely.

00:15:34.000 There is good reason to believe that this was the product of government entrapment.

00:15:37.000 But that's now a third rail.

00:15:39.000 Take the position I am on Ukraine, that we shouldn't give another dime of support to Ukraine because this war doesn't advance American interests.

00:15:44.000 That's a third rail.

00:15:45.000 And so my experience, this was interesting, was when I wrote Woke Inc. A few years ago, so when George Floyd died and I refused to bend the knee to BLM as every other CEO was supposing to do, I thought I was hitting the third rail of American politics by going on the crusade against wokeness. 0.82

00:16:02.000 And it felt like it, because I did take criticism from the left and otherwise, but I was wrong.

00:16:06.000 Actually, that was a safer space to be in than to go after the real deep sickness in our country, which is a permanent establishment,

00:16:17.000 sort of a permanent state that has objectives that are deeper than woke or not, mostly related to foreign policy and a national security overreach, and I would just say a national security overreach here at home that has lied to the people from everything from 9-11 to what happened on January 6th.

00:16:36.000 So to build this out, guys, is that in traditional Republican politics, there is this three-legged stool of sacred cows that you don't talk about, which is we're allowed to spy on as many Americans all the time, no matter what, and you cannot ask any questions.

00:16:53.000 Number three, we're going to have wars every 18 months.

00:16:56.000 Right?

00:16:56.000 You better get used to it.

00:16:58.000 Your sons and daughters are going to occupy every square inch of the Middle East, and you're going to like it, right? 1.00

00:17:04.000 And the third, which is kind of what you're talking about, not just civil liberties, but is immigration, right?

00:17:10.000 Which is we're going to bring in millions of people from the third world because diversity is our strength.

00:17:17.000 And the person who embodies all three of those is Nikki Haley.

00:17:22.000 Think about that, right?

00:17:22.000 She's the chosen one.

00:17:23.000 She is the chosen one.

00:17:26.000 My goodness.

00:17:27.000 And so, but what's happening, everybody, is there's this mass awakening where we're like, hold on a second.

00:17:34.000 No, I don't think it's good that you're able to spy on millions of Americans without a warrant.

00:17:39.000 Like, 702 should not be reauthorized by Congress.

00:17:42.000 There's no reason for it.

00:17:45.000 We should build our own country before.

00:17:46.000 These are the third rails, actually.

00:17:48.000 That's what I'm getting at.

00:17:48.000 That's the end of the day.

00:17:49.000 And the wokeness ends up being a distraction, actually.

00:17:52.000 And here's what I'm getting at, though, is, and you guys understand this, if you want to find a candidate who actually is ready to blow up the establishment as Donald Trump and Vivek aim to do and continue to go and do it, it's about these issues.

00:18:06.000 The administrative state spying on the permanent bureaucracy, who runs the country, the foreign policy stuff.

00:18:12.000 And Vivek, like 20 years ago, like conservative world was not where it is now on the foreign policy stuff.

00:18:18.000 It's moved dramatically, which is why don't we represent our own country before foreign countries?

00:18:22.000 That's a crazy concept.

00:18:24.000 And then the immigration thing.

00:18:25.000 Let's talk about the immigration thing in particular.

00:18:28.000 Sure. 0.66

00:18:29.000 Because Republicans are just as bad on the immigration thing as Democrats. 0.99

00:18:34.000 They don't do anything to secure the southern border.

00:18:37.000 We have massive amounts of foreigners coming into this country.

00:18:39.000 Just look at the result of it on these college campuses.

00:18:42.000 And the northern border, actually, is something we're not talking about enough.

00:18:44.000 Yeah, and they trolled you for that.

00:18:46.000 You were right.

00:18:46.000 I continue to stand by that.

00:18:47.000 I continue to stand by that.

00:18:48.000 So, because I think it's part of an ideology.

00:18:50.000 I mean, even this idea of the great replacement theory, these words you're not supposed to say.

00:18:58.000 I generally believe people and take them at their own word when they say what they're saying.

00:19:02.000 This has been a stated objective for much of the left, which is the idea that a lasting path to electoral majorities is to just change the underlying numbers in your favor.

00:19:12.000 Now, the funny thing is after the third, the fourth debate, whichever one it was, I'm going to be able to do that.

00:19:17.000 I'm talking to CNN.

00:19:18.000 I'm extracting there also.

00:19:19.000 I mean, you know, I like to keep things pretty fluid and not overly prepped on that stage.

00:19:24.000 But afterwards, we get off, I'm talking to this woman at CNN.

00:19:27.000 And she's hitting me hardest for pushing this anti-Semitic, has nothing to do with Jewish anti-Semitism or anything else, for saying about the great replacement theory being a theory of immigration.

00:19:36.000 And so we're sparring for about eight minutes.

00:19:38.000 And I cite for her Joe Biden, Maorkas.

00:19:41.000 You could go all the way to Stacey Abrams, to much of the Democratic Party.

00:19:44.000 And then immediately it flips to say, well, I'm not going to use the word, but suppose what you're saying, suppose that were true.

00:19:51.000 Why is it so, why is that such a bad thing?

00:19:54.000 This is the Michael Anton thing, which is amazing.

00:19:56.000 Michael Anton has the greatest piece.

00:19:58.000 I'm sorry to interrupt.

00:19:59.000 Yeah.

00:19:59.000 Which is, it's not happening, but it's good that it is.

00:20:02.000 Yeah, I didn't know about that.

00:20:03.000 That's exactly that moment.

00:20:04.000 No, it is exactly.

00:20:05.000 It's one of the most powerful articles I've ever read.

00:20:08.000 If there's one takeaway from this, start to interrupt.

00:20:10.000 That's odds, perfect.

00:20:11.000 It's not happening, but it's good that it is.

00:20:17.000 Christmas is here, everybody.

00:20:18.000 And that means that you might have to be moving boxes or just it's tough, a lot of stress, and that means inflammation increases.

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00:21:28.000 That's exactly it.

00:21:29.000 I mean, you go from critical race theory in the schools to sort of even more important and foundational issue, this question of the great replacement theory.

00:21:37.000 I would say let's at least get to the place, I think this is a win for the country, where if somebody earnestly believes that it is indeed a good thing for the country to pursue policy X, whatever that is, mass migration, including illegal migration to change the electoral composition of this country, but at least they honestly own that, and then we can have a debate about the policy merits of it.

00:21:59.000 That's a win.

00:22:00.000 But where we are today is somewhere else, which is to say that if you describe what the other side has offered as their own stated policy objective, but do it as somebody who disagrees, then you're a conspiracy theorist, a racist, a homophobe, a xenophobe censored from being able to have that debate on social media or in polite company.

00:22:17.000 That's where we are in this country.

00:22:19.000 So I think that the good news is the bar is so low for where we're able to get.

00:22:23.000 And that's part of what I'm trying to do here.

00:22:25.000 I think it was a win that we get to CNN's audience have to hear that.

00:22:29.000 Yes.

00:22:29.000 Because I say, hey, how about we then have this debate in the open?

00:22:31.000 She's falling into her own trap.

00:22:34.000 People are naturally sheep.

00:22:36.000 It's just a fact of human nature.

00:22:38.000 But what makes us human beings and we're not just sheep.

00:22:41.000 If you open your eyes to having been burned enough times, then you're going to start being skeptical of what you're force-fed.

00:22:47.000 And I think that's where we are in this turning point right now.

00:22:51.000 We're not quite there.

00:22:52.000 Turning point.

00:22:54.000 That's what we have.

00:22:55.000 We have a purpose here, right?

00:22:56.000 Yeah.

00:22:57.000 We're at that turning point.

00:22:58.000 And I think we're going to, you know, when you have, as I often say, if you have a people of sheep that breeds a government of wolves, that's in many ways what the Second Amendment's about. 0.77

00:23:07.000 But we don't have to stay a people of sheep, but it's going to take in burned enough times we have been to now wake up and say, I'm hungry to see it differently.

00:23:18.000 And I'm even seeing many people who would have considered themselves to be formerly liberal, especially amongst young people and otherwise.

00:23:24.000 I mean, you go to college campuses, Charlie.

00:23:26.000 I go to college campuses.

00:23:27.000 It's not what it was, what people assume it to be.

00:23:31.000 You know, the people who have the culture of fear that are told to shut up, sit down, do as they're told, that are sick of being told to shut up, sit down, and do as they're told.

00:23:38.000 And I think we're on the cusp of something potentially big happening here, but it's going to take more people willing to step up and be courageous.

00:23:45.000 And what you'll notice is that when you do, you're going to find other people picking up on that cue far more readily than you expect.

00:23:53.000 It just takes more of you when you're the only person in a room who believes what you do.

00:23:58.000 For God's sake, stand up for now more than ever and say it.

00:24:02.000 And you will find that there's going to be other people in that room who believed what you did too.

00:24:06.000 I love that.

00:24:07.000 I really believe we're on the verge of a great awakening.

00:24:10.000 We might be living through it.

00:24:11.000 I want to emphasize something Vivek said.

00:24:12.000 Three years ago, you were running a biotech company.

00:24:16.000 One of the speakers last evening that people loved was Patrick Bett David.

00:24:19.000 You've been on his show.

00:24:20.000 Yeah, I like him.

00:24:21.000 Yeah, three years ago, PBD had a financial podcast and was running a major company.

00:24:26.000 And you think about this.

00:24:27.000 Some of our top talent, everybody, is starting to get into this fight.

00:24:31.000 That's a great sign, right?

00:24:33.000 Vivek, who I mean, you've made hundreds of millions of dollars, right?

00:24:36.000 You don't have to be doing this.

00:24:37.000 He literally could be in Fiji with his family on a yacht.

00:24:40.000 Vivek is very successful.

00:24:41.000 Honestly, good for you.

00:24:42.000 I'm glad you're rich.

00:24:43.000 In America, we should support success.

00:24:45.000 We shouldn't shame it.

00:24:45.000 It's a good thing.

00:24:47.000 And PBD, same thing.

00:24:48.000 Like, why are you doing this?

00:24:49.000 And it's out of love for country.

00:24:50.000 And it goes to show the stakes are so high.

00:24:52.000 So, you know, you've isolated this too.

00:24:54.000 And we've talked about this before.

00:24:56.000 We are living through a cultural revolution.

00:24:59.000 And one of the ways that we defeat them is just enough of our best and our brightest, like Elon, like you, like PBD, like Tucker, go that extra step, the step you're not supposed to go.

00:25:11.000 Yeah.

00:25:12.000 And I'm hopeful.

00:25:13.000 I'm hopeful when I see it.

00:25:15.000 I think it could take 20 or 30 people that could move this whole thing.

00:25:19.000 I don't think it has to be, I mean, obviously the grassroots, but the 20 or 30 people that then can change the instrument of X and change the ability to speak.

00:25:32.000 I see no such movement on the left.

00:25:34.000 That's exactly, that's a great point.

00:25:36.000 I think that actually you're seeing, I think historically you've tended to have people who have been the most, whatever, innovative American entrepreneurs or whatever, historically lean left, but not joining and harnessing their innovation to advance a left-wing agenda.

00:25:51.000 Here, what we're seeing is the opposite is I think we're seeing, again, the beginning of what you call that awakening.

00:25:57.000 Some of the most talented people who feel a sense of purpose now to say, what the hell is the point of it all?

00:26:05.000 Yes, if you're not going to actually use the short time that you're given to use the skills for betterment.

00:26:10.000 There's only so many three-week vacations in Paris that you could take.

00:26:14.000 It's nice, like, okay, fine.

00:26:16.000 For the first week of it.

00:26:17.000 No, exactly.

00:26:18.000 And then people like us, what am I doing?

00:26:20.000 Like, okay, it's great.

00:26:21.000 You know, room service after five nights kind of gets old, right?

00:26:25.000 And again, I'm not against that.

00:26:27.000 It takes a very different type of person to enjoy like a six-week, you know, yacht vacation in the Aegean, like whatever.

00:26:34.000 But if you don't have a country, who cares?

00:26:37.000 Yeah.

00:26:38.000 And I think we're starting, and this is a good trend, is the people that don't have to fight are now getting into the arena and saying, honestly, there's more important things in life than comfort and money.

00:26:48.000 You're one of those people.

00:26:49.000 Absolutely.

00:26:49.000 And we've been, you know, I think I was initially, there's two ways you can do this if you're successful.

00:26:54.000 And for me, part of this has been trying to be philanthropic or otherwise.

00:26:58.000 But there's an element of this that you can't be a bystander watching from the sidelines.

00:27:04.000 I actually have stopped being a donor to major Republican Party-oriented stuff, though for a while I was trying that.

00:27:09.000 You know, donors to other causes, that's a good way to move the needle.

00:27:13.000 But I think it's just going to be each of us looking ourselves in the mirror and asking ourselves, how can we use the unique gifts that God has given each of us?

00:27:22.000 Every person in this room has a unique God-given gift.

00:27:27.000 Every one of you has it.

00:27:28.000 I think one of the hardest things in life is finding and figuring out what that is.

00:27:33.000 But once you do, then you have a moral duty to use that God-given gift in whatever way you possibly can to, I believe, better this country in the short time you've been given.

00:27:47.000 I like that gentleman's pants, red, white, and blue.

00:27:49.000 American pants right there, man.

00:27:50.000 I think that that spirit means something.

00:27:54.000 And, you know, I'm a, you know, this is one of the things that a little bit different about me.

00:27:59.000 I get asked a lot about.

00:28:00.000 I'm Hindu.

00:28:01.000 exactly traditionally the same Christian faith that most U.S. presidents have espoused when running.

00:28:07.000 Still the same shared value set that I was raised in.

00:28:11.000 But in many ways, it was my faith that led me to take this step, which is my belief that God puts us here for a purpose, and we have a moral duty to realize that purpose.

00:28:27.000 And I think that that's deeply consistent with the Judeo-Christian vision that this nation was founded on.

00:28:34.000 But the more we revive that sense of faith in this country, the more I think you're going to see people like Elon, like Patrick, like Tucker.

00:28:41.000 I'm not going to say like myself, but like many of us to step up to actually do our own unique work.

00:28:51.000 All right, I want to tell you about Herzog.

00:28:52.000 Herzog Foundation is amazing.

00:28:54.000 I want you guys to check it out right now.

00:28:56.000 We've been talking about how our nation's public schools have been captured by progressive ideologues teaching things that directly contradict the values of millions of American families.

00:29:04.000 For those of you worried about the best educational path for your kids and grandkids, I'm pleased to announce our new partnership with the folks at the Herzog Foundation.

00:29:10.000 They are the trusted source of American K-12 private education with a remarkable suite of resources for parents and grandparents.

00:29:16.000 From their online publication, The Lions of the new podcast, Making the Leap, Herzog Foundation offers a wide range of advice and information for Christian parents.

00:29:23.000 To learn more about how your family and faith and community can flourish through a quality Christian education, go to Herzogfoundation.com.

00:29:30.000 That is HerzogFoundation.com.

00:29:32.000 Herzogfoundation.com.

00:29:34.000 H-E-R-Z-O-G, HerzogFoundation.com.

00:29:41.000 It's a great trend.

00:29:42.000 And here's where I see happening.

00:29:43.000 It's a pincer movement.

00:29:44.000 If you know in the military, it's two different things happening that hit an intersection point on a combined target.

00:29:51.000 And I think I'm personally in the middle of it where we need a little bit of elite air support.

00:29:57.000 We need Elon.

00:29:58.000 We need Vivek.

00:29:59.000 We need, I hate to call Tucker an elite, but he's kind of an elite.

00:30:03.000 And, you know, Tucker, you know what I mean?

00:30:05.000 We need enough.

00:30:06.000 And then we need the grassroots.

00:30:07.000 And we need to meet in the middle.

00:30:09.000 So it's a pincer movement.

00:30:10.000 And it's happening.

00:30:10.000 You see what I'm saying?

00:30:11.000 Where Elon buys us enough time, right? 0.81

00:30:14.000 We have a couple mega donors pump in some money, right?

00:30:17.000 And by the way, praise God, turning point.

00:30:19.000 We have the most amazing donors that are supporting us more than ever before, despite this economic climate.

00:30:23.000 It's unbelievable, right?

00:30:25.000 And then we have this grand.

00:30:26.000 Come in for that too, Beth.

00:30:27.000 Oh, well, thank you.

00:30:27.000 No, I mean, that's going to say that today.

00:30:29.000 Thank you very much.

00:30:30.000 Thank you.

00:30:34.000 And then this grassroots just machine.

00:30:37.000 And I'm blown away.

00:30:39.000 I'm meeting these people and they've tried all 50 states, 20 countries, right?

00:30:43.000 And I think what the bad guys are recognizing is that pincer movement is underway.

00:30:48.000 And it's not like, this is what it's one of our greatest assets and also one of my biggest frustrations.

00:30:54.000 There's no war room.

00:30:55.000 There's no plan.

00:30:56.000 This is happening organically.

00:30:57.000 This is happening just out of nowhere.

00:31:00.000 It's happening out of love of country and duty.

00:31:03.000 And it is, it is, we might be on the precipice of the first successful counterrevolution to a cultural revolution.

00:31:10.000 I love that, actually.

00:31:11.000 And I think that that's the true optimism, actually, is it's not the, hey, it's morning in America again, guys, but it can be.

00:31:19.000 Yes.

00:31:19.000 It's not right now, but it can be.

00:31:22.000 I think we live in a 1776 moment right now.

00:31:27.000 And the positive side of that is, imagine if you were alive in the spring of 1776.

00:31:32.000 I mean, what a special time to be alive, actually.

00:31:36.000 You don't get that very often, right?

00:31:37.000 Was it morning in America in spring of 1776?

00:31:41.000 No, America didn't even really exist in spring of 1776.

00:31:45.000 But it came into existence.

00:31:47.000 And so I do think we live in one of those moments, though.

00:31:49.000 You used one of the words, what did you use?

00:31:53.000 Awakening, revival.

00:31:56.000 Yeah, the awakening led to 76, right?

00:31:58.000 The awakening led to 1776.

00:31:59.000 It was a decade of spiritual enlightenment that led to.

00:32:02.000 That led to July 4th, 1776.

00:32:05.000 And so I'll say a couple of things.

00:32:06.000 One is these revolutions and these revivals tend to be led by the next generation.

00:32:13.000 And people like Charlie, people like many of you sitting here, probably listening to this at home.

00:32:17.000 And that's a good thing.

00:32:19.000 I'd say the other thing is this is going to be the hard, the flip side of this is going to be hard for conservatives, and I'll tell you why.

00:32:26.000 I mean, it's even the word of conservative, it's in the part of our nature is to conserve.

00:32:32.000 What happens when the thing that you're conserving ceases to exist?

00:32:39.000 We then require creators, actually, to recreate that which we have lost.

00:32:46.000 And I think that's why you're seeing the Elons and the Patricks of the world. 1.00

00:32:49.000 Founders.

00:32:49.000 Founders, right?

00:32:50.000 That's part of what compels me with my sense of purpose is.

00:32:53.000 That's what a 1776 moment is.

00:32:56.000 I mean, Jefferson invented the swivel chair.

00:32:58.000 Benjamin Franklin invented the Franklin stove, bifocal spectacle.

00:33:02.000 He invented a remedy for the common cold, for God's sake.

00:33:05.000 These are the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

00:33:07.000 And so there's moments, you know, you'll have the Reagan Revolution.

00:33:10.000 It's not really a revolution, really, right?

00:33:13.000 It's a basic preservation and housekeeping function.

00:33:16.000 That's not to take away from the importance of what happened in the 1980s.

00:33:19.000 But we live in a different moment where I think that the very ideals that we seek to conserve, when those have disappeared, I really mean we live in a 1776 moment where it's on us to revive that.

00:33:32.000 And that's going to take creators and historically conservatives haven't had the emotional or skill-based orientation to be the people who create.

00:33:41.000 So that's going to be the challenge and the work we have cut out for us is we have to step up and create that which has been lost.

00:33:48.000 But if we do, and I think we're on the cusp of doing it, we might just have something that's even greater than the country that we grew up in.

00:33:56.000 But it's not going to happen automatically, but that'll be, I think, the closest version of optimism that I'll leave you with, which is not a fake optimism, but an optimism grounded in what's at least possible if we step up and do our jobs.

00:34:10.000 Let me build on that before we get Vivek on stage.

00:34:12.000 The left has never built anything.

00:34:14.000 They can't.

00:34:15.000 To tear down.

00:34:16.000 Their value system is to tear down. 1.00

00:34:18.000 They're parasites. 1.00

00:34:20.000 Their ideology is parasitic. 1.00

00:34:22.000 Everything they've ever done is to infiltrate, complain, destroy, erode.

00:34:28.000 They don't build businesses.

00:34:30.000 Now, you might say, well, these business leaders are liberal.

00:34:32.000 They don't build them on left-wing values.

00:34:33.000 They use our value system to build it, or they inherit it, and then they use the other value system, and it goes down.

00:34:40.000 Their value system cannot, because it has the lower parts of humanity, is what they believe in, which is greed, resentment, bitterness, complaining.

00:34:52.000 Our value system is gratitude, joy, purpose, enlightenment, spirituality.

00:34:58.000 And so the founding fathers were at a much higher spiritual level, which is why they were able to found something, right?

00:35:04.000 Yes.

00:35:04.000 If you look at Marxists, what are they best known for?

00:35:08.000 Destroying France, destroying Russia, destroying China, destroying every country they've ever come in contact with. 0.98

00:35:15.000 It does not take talent to destroy something.

00:35:18.000 I have a one-year-old.

00:35:19.000 She's great at it.

00:35:21.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:35:23.000 It's natural.

00:35:24.000 You know what does take talent?

00:35:26.000 To rebuild or to build something new.

00:35:29.000 And so not only do we have to do it, we're the only ones that can do it.

00:35:34.000 That's right.

00:35:35.000 That's right.

00:35:36.000 And this is our moment.

00:35:37.000 That moment doesn't last forever.

00:35:39.000 I think we're working with a short window of time.

00:35:42.000 If your daughter, my two sons are in high school before we get this right, as I said, I don't think we have a country left.

00:35:48.000 But this is our moment.

00:35:50.000 And I know you're going to do your part.

00:35:52.000 I'm up here to do mine.

00:35:55.000 But it's not going to be.

00:35:57.000 Charlie or myself or Musk or Trump or anybody else doing this single-handedly.

00:36:04.000 In our civic realm, maybe different from our spiritual realm, but in our civic realm, it's not somebody coming from on high from the White House to save us.

00:36:12.000 It doesn't work that way.

00:36:14.000 If we are going to be saved, it is going to be because we save ourselves.

00:36:21.000 Right?

00:36:22.000 So that's what I'll ask you all to do.

00:36:24.000 You all do your part.

00:36:26.000 I'm going to do mine.

00:36:27.000 Charlie is going to do his, but we each do our part.

00:36:30.000 And then I think it's possible that our country's best days, not in some cheesy, you know, fake kind of way, but in a true way, our best days, I think, can be ahead of us.

00:36:42.000 That's the moment we live in now.

00:36:44.000 And if the existing Republican Party apparatus isn't going to do it, heck, let's build a parallel one to do this instead.

00:36:50.000 And that's what Turning Point Action is doing.

00:36:51.000 And on the campus stuff, Turning Point USA.

00:36:54.000 And the Republican intelligentsia doesn't understand this whole thing.

00:36:59.000 Like, where did this come from?

00:37:00.000 I thought it was just a campus thing.

00:37:01.000 Oh, no, it's much bigger than campuses now.

00:37:03.000 The campuses are the life force.

00:37:05.000 And now this is people of all ages and all backgrounds and all states and multiple countries and 300,000 donors.

00:37:12.000 So, Vivek, we have to get you on stage, but I want to end with how I started.

00:37:15.000 I have gratitude for you because your presence in this Republican primary has completely changed the narrative.

00:37:20.000 You have smashed the sacred idols of the Republican establishment and have opened up literally millions of people's eyes.

00:37:28.000 And you prevented any one of these fake candidates from getting out of the gate, giving them free airtime, no free shots on goal.

00:37:34.000 You're like, nope, nope, voters don't like that.

00:37:36.000 Nope, voters don't like that.

00:37:38.000 Nope.

00:37:38.000 As soon as I saw the hit pieces against Vivek, I said, ooh, that's a good thing.

00:37:42.000 And they came.

00:37:43.000 And they came.

00:37:44.000 Let's give it up for Vivek Ronaldo.

00:37:45.000 I appreciate it.

00:37:45.000 Thank you, man.

00:37:46.000 I appreciate it.

00:37:47.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:37:48.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:37:50.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

00:37:57.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 27, 2023

The Swamp Has Seeped Into Our Everyday Lives — My Interview with Vivek Ramaswamy

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