The Charlie Kirk Show - May 12, 2024


The War Between Civilization-Builders and Barbarians: My "Live Free" Appearance at the University of Washington


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 50 minutes

Words per Minute

192.42282

Word Count

21,298

Sentence Count

1,723


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
00:00:00.000 Happy Sunday, everybody.
00:00:01.000 My conversation at University of Washington, Seattle with lots of liberal students.
00:00:06.000 So enjoy this back and forth and this dialogue.
00:00:08.000 As always, you can email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.
00:00:13.000 Open up your podcast application, type in Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:16.000 And if this show has impacted you at all, become a member at members.charliekirk.com.
00:00:21.000 That is members.charliekirk.com.
00:00:24.000 Get involved with the most important organization of the country, Turning PointUSA, at tpusa.com.
00:00:29.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:30.000 Here we go.
00:00:31.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:33.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
00:00:35.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:38.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:42.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:43.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:44.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:00:46.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:52.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:01.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:04.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:14.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:21.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:23.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:25.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:30.000 They are counting on your surrender.
00:01:34.000 If you give up, they win.
00:01:37.000 But what if we look back and we realize we were just inches away from victory, and that's when we decided to give up.
00:01:43.000 Join us and thousands of American patriots for the summer convention that all are invited.
00:01:51.000 We're going to hear how we're going to win in 2024.
00:01:55.000 The biggest speakers in the movement, featuring President Donald J. Trump.
00:02:00.000 We're going to fight and we're going to win.
00:02:02.000 Charlie Kirk, Devek Ramaswamy, Governor Christy Noah, Dr. Ben Carson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens, Lara Trump, Senator Rick Scott, Congressman Matt Gates, Benny Johnson, Jack Pisovic, and more.
00:02:24.000 June 14th through 16th, 2024 is our final battle in Detroit, Michigan.
00:02:30.000 The great silent majority is rising like never before.
00:02:34.000 Join us for the People's Convention.
00:02:36.000 This is a new ballgame, everybody.
00:02:38.000 You send a message.
00:02:40.000 We play to win.
00:02:41.000 Register now at tpaction.com/slash peoples.
00:02:57.000 Thank you, everybody.
00:02:58.000 Thank you.
00:02:59.000 Sorry, I'm late.
00:03:00.000 Joe Bob, that was really impressive.
00:03:02.000 I said, Joe Bob, I need you to buy me five or ten minutes because I went out to go apologize.
00:03:07.000 We had over a thousand people outside that were not able to come where you guys are right now.
00:03:11.000 So glad you guys made the cut.
00:03:13.000 So I went out to go to apologize, all of them.
00:03:15.000 I did it just in time before the six Antifa people ran over to try to interrupt me doing that.
00:03:20.000 So Joe Bob bought some great time.
00:03:21.000 Good after Joe Bob.
00:03:22.000 That's not easy to do.
00:03:23.000 You know, it's you have these, you kind of have some idea what you're going to, you know, say.
00:03:30.000 And I say, Joe Bob, just buy me some time.
00:03:31.000 So he was just going and going.
00:03:33.000 I said, I half expect me to come up.
00:03:34.000 And he says, that's the 47th reason I like Seattle.
00:03:37.000 And number 48.
00:03:39.000 So good job, Joe Bob.
00:03:40.000 We really appreciate you.
00:03:41.000 Great to be here, everybody.
00:03:42.000 I'm not going to speak for too long.
00:03:44.000 The most fun part of tonight is we just open up the mic and you guys can ask whatever you want.
00:03:49.000 And disagreement goes to the front of the line and we'll stay here for quite some time until they, I guess they kick us out.
00:03:55.000 And so I want to talk about a couple things here in particular.
00:03:58.000 I'm told that there's some sort of encampment happening on campus or something.
00:04:01.000 Are you guys supportive or not supportive of that?
00:04:03.000 Do you like it and you don't like it?
00:04:04.000 No?
00:04:08.000 The people have spoken, not very supportive.
00:04:10.000 So look, I want to just try to do a reset on the Israel Hamas issue.
00:04:14.000 I want to talk about that.
00:04:15.000 I want to try to connect it with some other themes.
00:04:18.000 And then we'll just do some questions and then we'll see what's on your mind and what you want to talk about.
00:04:21.000 Nothing is off limits, and we'll have some fun.
00:04:24.000 So the Israel-Hamas thing has enveloped the entire country.
00:04:27.000 Obviously, we see what's happening here on campus.
00:04:29.000 Passionate people on both sides.
00:04:32.000 I did three hours today, by the way.
00:04:33.000 Anyone was there today on campus?
00:04:34.000 I did three hours out of the campus today answering questions, meeting a lot of you guys.
00:04:39.000 And I'd say that probably one out of four questions were all about the Israel issue.
00:04:43.000 And I get it, because there's a lot of passion and there's a lot of misinformation about the topic.
00:04:48.000 And I understand both sides.
00:04:50.000 It's not the most important issue for me, but it's obviously one where I have certain opinions that derive, I guess I'm a recipient of a lot of hate because of that.
00:04:58.000 I think it's first important to understand there's three questions that you need to ask about the Israel-Hamas issue.
00:05:03.000 And then you must be very clear, first and foremost, who the actors are.
00:05:06.000 This is not Israel-Palestine.
00:05:08.000 It's not Israel-Gaza.
00:05:10.000 It is Israel-Hamas.
00:05:11.000 And what group stands for what?
00:05:13.000 What is in their charter and declaration?
00:05:15.000 What are their stated beliefs?
00:05:16.000 And what have they done?
00:05:17.000 So first, let's rewind the clock.
00:05:19.000 On October 6th of last year, was this the most important issue at University of Washington?
00:05:25.000 Now, I have to disclose something to you.
00:05:27.000 Probably the most important issue on October 6th was you guys wanted to beat the Oregon Ducks the next week on October 14th.
00:05:34.000 Now, this is a very sore topic for me because my whole family went to University of Oregon and we're huge Ducks fans.
00:05:47.000 And it was on my birthday on October 14th.
00:05:50.000 We're right there at Husky Stadium.
00:05:52.000 You guys beat the Ducks.
00:05:53.000 A better team beat it twice.
00:05:54.000 It's not even a question of being touched.
00:05:56.000 And so now I'm going to get you back.
00:05:59.000 I'm here at the National Runner-Up University of Washington Huskies.
00:06:03.000 See, now I really, now you guys are going to start throwing stuff at me.
00:06:06.000 However, I am a Chicago Bears fan, so I'm super excited that Romo Dunze is coming to Chicago.
00:06:12.000 We can all agree on that?
00:06:13.000 Okay, all right.
00:06:14.000 Someone can ask about college football if you want, but no, definitely that in the ducks.
00:06:18.000 However, on October 6th, that wasn't the number one topic here.
00:06:20.000 It was a bye week.
00:06:21.000 It was like, oh my goodness, Oregon's coming to town.
00:06:23.000 Game day is coming to town.
00:06:24.000 It's not the most important thing.
00:06:25.000 No one's camping out on the lawn, thinking about Israel, maybe camping out to go get a nice seat on college game day.
00:06:30.000 That's it.
00:06:31.000 But all of a sudden, now it's the most important thing on campus.
00:06:33.000 What changed?
00:06:34.000 October 7th is what changed.
00:06:35.000 I think there's been a lot of rewriting of history, a lot of what-about-ism.
00:06:38.000 And what happened October 7th, regardless of your own affiliation, your own beliefs on it, you must be committed to the truth and committed to what is real, is that what happened on October 7th was a dress rehearsal and was the coming attractions of a Holocaust 2.0.
00:06:55.000 There is no other way to spin it.
00:06:56.000 That you had people coming over from Gaza into Israel that killed 1,200 women, children, and babies.
00:07:03.000 They did not go after military targets.
00:07:05.000 They didn't go after tanks.
00:07:07.000 They didn't go after installations that would, you know, for Air Force.
00:07:10.000 They went after nurseries.
00:07:12.000 They went after, individually went after civilian targets.
00:07:15.000 That is very important to set the moral framework is that on the morning of October 7th, it was one of the high holy days where they celebrate the completion.
00:07:23.000 Jews can celebrate the completion of reading the entire Torah, where they on Shabbat were going to celebrate one of their high holy days and they were attacked viciously.
00:07:32.000 1,200 people killed.
00:07:33.000 Now, some of you might say, but Charlie, what about the XYZ amount of children murdered in Gaza?
00:07:38.000 Every single child who dies is a tragedy.
00:07:41.000 No one is saying otherwise.
00:07:42.000 However, what started this tragic sequence of events is very important, and we must be morally clear about it.
00:07:50.000 And when you talk about a conflict, who started it is very important.
00:07:54.000 You might say, well, Charlie, that's kind of how, you know, if you're trying to break up a fight between two fourth graders, he started it.
00:07:59.000 He started it.
00:08:00.000 Well, in war, that's actually very important.
00:08:02.000 For example, when we were attacked on Pearl Harbor, we did not start it, but we finished it.
00:08:07.000 When we were attacked on 9-11, we didn't start it.
00:08:10.000 I don't know if we finished it.
00:08:11.000 We got into way too many endless wars as a result of it, but it was very important.
00:08:15.000 Now, there might be a fair amount of what about ism in the question and answer line.
00:08:18.000 Charlie, they've been at war for the last 50 years.
00:08:20.000 They've been at war for the last 60 years.
00:08:22.000 That is rubbish.
00:08:24.000 They might have had adverse relations with one another for the last 40 or 50 years, but all of a sudden, when you go into another country's territory with military sophistication and planning and go into nurseries and you go into homes and kibbutz with the intent to kill as many civilians as possible to not go after military targets, that is a declaration of war.
00:08:47.000 And when you declare war and then you get really upset that the people you declared war on are better at war than you are, well, maybe you shouldn't have declared war in the first place.
00:08:59.000 And I understand that is an unpopular opinion.
00:09:01.000 Some people say, but they're a bigger military.
00:09:04.000 They're stronger.
00:09:05.000 Correct.
00:09:06.000 And they knew what they were doing.
00:09:08.000 When they went, they invited that massive military force upon them.
00:09:12.000 So Israel was left with a couple options.
00:09:15.000 You can respond kind of in a halfway, or you can treat it as what it was, which is another attempt to exterminate Jews from this planet, which no one here in this audience obviously supports or wants.
00:09:26.000 Second, so that first question is: which side started it?
00:09:29.000 What happened on October 6th and the day after on October 7th?
00:09:32.000 If you want a ceasefire, people say we want a ceasefire.
00:09:35.000 There was a ceasefire on the 6th of October.
00:09:38.000 October 7th changed that.
00:09:40.000 Okay, this is a very important topic when you look at the moral equivalence.
00:09:43.000 Israel is far from a perfect nation, and I am not an apologist for the Israeli government.
00:09:47.000 There's a lot that they do that I do not like.
00:09:49.000 There's a lot I've spoken out that I do not like.
00:09:51.000 So I'm not going to apologize for everything they've done.
00:09:53.000 In fact, I received a lot of flack very early on when I said it's very suspicious to me the intelligence breakdown that led to the events on October 7th, and it's one of the most fortified borders.
00:10:03.000 I'm not an apologist, but I am committed to truth.
00:10:06.000 And this is a very fundamental question.
00:10:08.000 Which side, Israel Hamas, has actually started and built and sustained a civilization that is closest to one that all of you enjoy?
00:10:17.000 The one that you enjoy is one that respects private property rights, one that allows you to engage in commerce, one that allows you to, if you want to go to church, that's fine.
00:10:26.000 If you want to protest against me, that's perfectly fine.
00:10:30.000 Which side has a form of government or a civilization that is closest to the Western form?
00:10:36.000 And it's not even close.
00:10:37.000 In Hamas, it is under terroristic control, the furthest thing from the Western government.
00:10:42.000 In Israel, they have built a flourishing civilization and economy and against all odds.
00:10:46.000 And the final of which, which I don't anticipate to be very persuasive for you, but it is for me, and I think it's very important.
00:10:52.000 The third question: which side has supporters that the more you hear from them and the more you see them, the less likely you are to be sympathetic with their cause?
00:11:03.000 And I, again, you might not find you like, well, what do you mean?
00:11:06.000 You go look at the people that have filled that encampment, you say, whatever they're protesting for, I'm against.
00:11:10.000 Like, by definition, like, they haven't showered in three weeks.
00:11:12.000 They're constantly screaming at me.
00:11:14.000 They mobilize with, you know, umbrellas, like we're going to come and put like umbrellas in your face.
00:11:19.000 Like, okay, whatever you're advocating, you're the very same people that called what happened in the summer of 2020 a mostly peaceful uprising during the riots of Floyd-Palooza, when we decided to destroy our country because of a lie from hell, saying a bitter lie from hell that we're systemically racist, which of course our country is not.
00:11:38.000 We're the least racist country in the history of the world.
00:11:40.000 Which side has supporters that actually want to uphold civilization, and which side has supporters that actually want to de-civilize our country?
00:11:49.000 And this is what is so important, is that the very same people that are doing the encampment right now, no matter what the cause is, they would be out there.
00:11:57.000 If it's against the power system, if it is against civilization, if it's against our code and custom, they would get very angry.
00:12:05.000 If it's transphobia, if it's systemic racism, if it is Hamas, if it is gun control, maybe it's not as much about Israel and Hamas, and maybe it's more about these are deeply unhappy people that find meaning and purpose in trying to tear down the United States of America, a country that we cherish and enjoy.
00:12:25.000 How about you go get a job and stop complaining all the time and start immerse yourself into society and build something useful?
00:12:35.000 And there's a lot in common here between the Floyd riots that we saw, from attacking police, from trying to take over territory or ground that is not yours.
00:12:44.000 Again, if you're engaging in speech on the encampment, fine.
00:12:46.000 Are you breaking school policy?
00:12:47.000 Some people say yes or not.
00:12:48.000 I don't want to spend too much time on that.
00:12:50.000 What I am saying, though, is what, for whatever reason, a foreign conflict for them necessitates like a civil rights era type response.
00:13:00.000 Why exactly is that?
00:13:01.000 It's because if you complain more than you produce, you're typically on the left.
00:13:06.000 And if you produce more than you complain, you're typically on the right.
00:13:12.000 Because of that, we have seen this pattern time and time again that those that are willing to take to the streets and are willing to destroy and get engaged in very nasty tactics, we must remind ourselves that there is a reason for it.
00:13:28.000 Because the enemy is not necessarily even Israel.
00:13:31.000 The enemy is not even America.
00:13:33.000 The enemy is our way of life.
00:13:35.000 It is freedom of speech.
00:13:36.000 It's the Constitution.
00:13:37.000 It's the fruits that we enjoy fundamentally.
00:13:40.000 And it is a de-civilization movement.
00:13:43.000 And what do they want?
00:13:44.000 It's not actually even clear, but they want to destroy what already is.
00:13:49.000 And I think that's what separates what many of you believe here tonight from the forces that you've been seeing outside, which is if you go through those three questions, it is very, very important to emphasize that it is hard, nearly impossible to build the country that you've grown up in.
00:14:06.000 You are growing up, and it's less and less the case, a wealthy country, a decent country, a country that affords you opportunity.
00:14:13.000 Why is it that so few countries have been able to replicate what we have here in the United States of America?
00:14:19.000 Is it because we have better founding documents?
00:14:21.000 Our founding documents are pretty awesome.
00:14:23.000 But other countries have tried, and just because you have a good constitution doesn't mean you have a great country.
00:14:28.000 Just ask Liberia.
00:14:30.000 Is it because we have a lot of natural resources?
00:14:32.000 We do have a lot of natural resources, but that's not the reason why we're wealthy and powerful.
00:14:35.000 Russia has a lot of natural resources, and they're 1 30th as rich as we are, despite being one-third the size of we are.
00:14:43.000 1 30th as rich, 1 3rd the size.
00:14:45.000 Tons of natural gas, tons of natural resources.
00:14:48.000 Is it because we have the most people?
00:14:49.000 We don't have the most people.
00:14:50.000 India is quadruple the population of America, and they have a GDP per capita around $800 per person.
00:14:57.000 In India, there are 600 million people without running water or toilets in India.
00:15:02.000 And for them, that's actually a number that has gone down.
00:15:05.000 It used to be 750 million, and it's now gone to 600 million.
00:15:08.000 What is it that makes this country so unique?
00:15:10.000 It is our values that make us unique.
00:15:13.000 And the fundamental American value that needs to be repeated to every young person in this country is that this country is not nearly as bad as you've been taught.
00:15:21.000 It's actually better than you've ever believed.
00:15:23.000 And if you work hard and play by the rules, you can make something magnificent of your life.
00:15:29.000 And at the fundamental core of all that is gratitude.
00:15:34.000 How many of the people that are protesting endlessly and screaming at the sky are filled with gratitude or are they filled with ingratitude?
00:15:43.000 Gratitude requires, first and foremost, recognizing that you are not the most important thing ever to exist in the history of the world.
00:15:50.000 If I were to venture a guess tonight, the majority of you believe two things, that there is a God and you are not him.
00:15:57.000 Those two things are critically important.
00:15:59.000 Because believing those things will then make you realize that you have somebody, something to be grateful for.
00:16:07.000 Secondly, and I must end on this point, then we'll do a question and answer.
00:16:11.000 It is not a leap in my belief that Seattle being the most atheist city in America happens to be the hotbed of some of the most radical activity in this country.
00:16:22.000 You might say, Charlie, that's a causational correlation.
00:16:24.000 It's not that man fails to believe in God.
00:16:27.000 It's who does he call God.
00:16:30.000 There is no such thing as an atheist.
00:16:32.000 There's just somebody who has replaced the traditional belief in the biblical God with the God of LGBT or the God of earth worship or the God of anti-racism or the God of I want to protest because I'm so bored and tired of smoking weed and playing video games all day long.
00:16:49.000 Whatever you call God is what you will dominate.
00:16:52.000 In fact, dare I say the God of Seattle life is much closer to a pagan belief system than an atheistic belief system, which is that there's symbols, there are incantations, there are parades that make you feel as if you're important and part of something.
00:17:06.000 My belief system is that the death of the ethical monotheistic God, which I believe is the God of the Bible, the founding fathers agreed, but we don't have to talk deeply about that if you don't want to, is also the death of the West.
00:17:19.000 Who are you to say what is good or what is evil if you cannot tell me what good and evil actually is and if that is transcendent or not?
00:17:26.000 If it is everybody's personal opinion, then all that matters is power.
00:17:32.000 If it is if up or down, right or left, good and evil are merely an opinion, then it matters who is actually issuing the opinion.
00:17:40.000 What made America different, that value system that I've articulated, is a Christian value system that we can call a Western value system, that if you believe that there is a God and you are not him, and that God has commanded you to live a certain way.
00:17:54.000 The best way I could distill this, and I know this is probably the least popular thing you could say on a college campus, so I will repeat it for clarity to make sure you remember it, is that if you live by the Ten Commandments, your society will flourish.
00:18:07.000 If you do not live by the Ten Commandments, your society will collapse.
00:18:10.000 You'll have no other gods before me.
00:18:12.000 You shall not make any craven images.
00:18:14.000 You shall not take the Lord's name in vain.
00:18:16.000 Remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy.
00:18:18.000 Honor your mother and father so I may live long in the land of which you are in.
00:18:21.000 Do not steal.
00:18:22.000 Do not commit adultery.
00:18:22.000 Do not murder.
00:18:24.000 Do not covet.
00:18:25.000 And the 10th, I can't remember.
00:18:26.000 Someone can fill it in for me.
00:18:27.000 But I might have repeated one.
00:18:29.000 That's not bad, though.
00:18:30.000 Nine out of ten is not bad.
00:18:31.000 Thank you, though.
00:18:32.000 It was just from memory.
00:18:33.000 So I said covet, murder, steal, adultery.
00:18:37.000 Bear fault witness.
00:18:38.000 Thank you very much.
00:18:38.000 Thank you, do not lie.
00:18:39.000 Do not bear false witness.
00:18:40.000 There they go.
00:18:40.000 Thank you very much.
00:18:41.000 If you live by the Ten Commandments and you believe that there is a God that has issued those Ten Commandments to you and you believe that they are transcendent outside of your own opinion, you will act differently.
00:18:54.000 I don't believe this will be awfully persuasive for many of you, but I believe it's important to say that you are about to see the excesses of secularism in this modern era, and you are living through it.
00:19:07.000 You are living through the most depressed, suicidal, anxious, alcohol-addicted generation in history.
00:19:12.000 A generation that has been told that God is not cool.
00:19:15.000 Go pursue your own truth.
00:19:17.000 And it is a catastrophe.
00:19:19.000 It's a catastrophe of kids that are looking for meaning, that do not know what is right or wrong.
00:19:24.000 And what I am arguing for you is when you do that, you have moral chaos.
00:19:28.000 Be very careful crashing down the gods of yesterday or the God of yesterday and saying, I don't need that.
00:19:34.000 What you are living through is that moral chaos.
00:19:37.000 And I would love someone to go up to the open mic and tell me by what code of conduct you guys can live under or come from that has proven to have a flourishing, prosperous society that is better than the one that I have just articulated.
00:19:48.000 Because we know that the one that I've articulated, it doesn't just work for one people, but for all people.
00:19:53.000 So, in closing, I'll just say this: is that I am so encouraged by what we see tonight.
00:19:59.000 We could not find a room big enough to fit all of the students that want to hear from this message here at the University of Washington.
00:20:06.000 We had to turn away over a thousand people.
00:20:09.000 This is remarkable because if you look at the polling, Gen Z men are the most conservative that they have been in the last 50 years.
00:20:23.000 Why is that the case?
00:20:26.000 Because for all of you 18, 19, and 20-year-old men out there in the audience, you are sick and tired of being told that every problem in the world is because of you.
00:20:38.000 Is that just because you are a young man and specifically a young white man, that you have to apologize when you walk into the room?
00:20:46.000 That you have to apologize for quote-unquote rape culture and being toxically masculine.
00:20:51.000 That if you might use the wrong pronoun, which is the stupidest thing ever.
00:20:53.000 We got to get rid of all pronouns, by the way.
00:20:55.000 The pronoun thing is so dumb.
00:20:57.000 And it's unnecessary, by the way.
00:20:59.000 You know, there was a world that existed before this pronoun stuff, and it was pretty awesome.
00:21:02.000 And it is totalitarian, just so we're clear.
00:21:04.000 It's totalitarian.
00:21:05.000 If you don't use the right pronoun, I'm going to punish you.
00:21:08.000 Young men, especially, they want their country back.
00:21:11.000 They want to be able to own property, get married, have children, not have to live under the fear that if they do not say the right thing, the HR manager might walk into their office and obliterate their career.
00:21:23.000 They want to be able to say it's a good thing that we have men in society, that we need strong men to defeat evil in this society.
00:21:32.000 And there is only one place where that sort of a message is resonating, and it certainly is not on the American left.
00:21:39.000 On the American left is where androgynous beta males find a home where they're able to, you know, complain about their feelings all day long.
00:21:48.000 You guys can do that while the ascendant men in this country that are serious about their future, serious about fighting evil, join the conservative movement in record numbers to go build a country worth living in and to reject the forces that have been destroying it from within.
00:22:04.000 Let's do some questions.
00:22:05.000 God bless you guys, and we'll do an open mic.
00:22:07.000 Thank you.
00:22:14.000 Okay, so this will be the question line.
00:22:16.000 So, let me go through some ground rules, guys.
00:22:18.000 A couple things.
00:22:19.000 If you disagree, we will make sure you guys come to the front of the line.
00:22:24.000 Secondly, this is a majority conservative audience.
00:22:26.000 Yes?
00:22:27.000 I could sense it.
00:22:30.000 If a left-winger comes up to the microphone and says something silly, do not mock them.
00:22:39.000 Do not laugh at them.
00:22:40.000 Do not interrupt them.
00:22:42.000 Show the liberals here tonight the respect they never give us conservatives on campus, okay?
00:22:53.000 All right.
00:22:54.000 Hi, Charlie.
00:22:54.000 What inspired you to become such a passive advocate for conservative values, and how do you see those values positively impacting society?
00:23:02.000 Yeah, I started Turning Point USA when I was right out of high school.
00:23:05.000 I didn't go to college.
00:23:06.000 I know someone might use that against me later on.
00:23:08.000 I fully own it.
00:23:09.000 I think college is largely a scam.
00:23:11.000 Sorry, guys.
00:23:11.000 But a lot of you guys are being scammed.
00:23:14.000 And yeah, look, I got to work.
00:23:15.000 And so I've been doing this for 11 years.
00:23:17.000 I took a gap year.
00:23:18.000 It's been 11 gap years and worked out well for me.
00:23:21.000 And I love this country.
00:23:23.000 And the way I'm wired, and the way I hope many of you are wired, is I will not sit idly by when something beautiful and God-given is destroyed in front of me.
00:23:30.000 I'm going to do everything I possibly can with the power that God gave me to try to make a difference.
00:23:36.000 Thank you.
00:23:36.000 Thank you.
00:23:38.000 Hi, I just had a quick question.
00:23:40.000 Do you see any hope in Gen Z in terms of like long, healthy, lasting relationships?
00:23:46.000 Like, for example, like a rise in marriage rates or like possibly a decrease in hookup culture?
00:23:51.000 Hookup culture is one of the most destructive trends.
00:23:51.000 I sure hope so.
00:23:54.000 I mean, obviously, on college campuses, it's kind of the home of hookup culture.
00:23:58.000 I sure hope, first and foremost, as I rot, if I build up the young men in this audience, I hope young men stop watching pornography and get away from that spiral of addiction.
00:24:12.000 I hope young ladies will open up and entertain the idea of getting married at younger ages and not prioritizing their career.
00:24:23.000 See, not as much applause for that one because everyone will applaud the anti-male sentiment.
00:24:28.000 Yeah, stop watching porn.
00:24:30.000 How about getting married early?
00:24:31.000 No, no, no, I want to go become a.
00:24:32.000 There you go, right?
00:24:35.000 I said entertain.
00:24:36.000 Everyone makes their own decisions, but I think we can largely agree the trend has not been very promising.
00:24:42.000 I sure hope so.
00:24:44.000 Both men and women have to change the way that they engage in the dating pool.
00:24:48.000 Men have to stop looking at women as just potential orgasms and objects, and women have to value themselves enough to be able to say no to the men that just want to use them as objects.
00:25:00.000 And in fact, it actually makes them more attractive to men when they say no to men that look that way.
00:25:05.000 You might say, Charlie, that's just a bad way to categorize men.
00:25:07.000 Well, it's quite honestly true.
00:25:09.000 If you look at the baseline of hookup culture, that is kind of the truth of it.
00:25:12.000 Look, we all have natures given to us by God, okay?
00:25:16.000 So the best possible way I could summarize this, and social media and pornography, online pornography, have been the two worst ways to basically address this.
00:25:26.000 Men desire lots of sexual attention and satisfaction almost constantly.
00:25:32.000 So pornography has, quote-unquote, filled that void.
00:25:35.000 Women, they desire community and attention almost relentlessly.
00:25:41.000 And social media has filled that void.
00:25:43.000 So instead of actually having intimate personal relationships, we've gone digital in both areas, and we have seen a widespread deterioration of customs and norms because of that.
00:25:55.000 Thank you.
00:25:56.000 Thank you.
00:26:00.000 Firstly, just wanted to thank DEI got me here.
00:26:03.000 I'm the only furry here, so I think that's why they put me through the line.
00:26:06.000 So thank you.
00:26:09.000 So, two things.
00:26:12.000 I have, actually, the woke mind virus right here.
00:26:17.000 No, it's not like COVID.
00:26:19.000 It doesn't require mass shutdowns, closing the economy.
00:26:24.000 It only lasts two hours.
00:26:26.000 If you would like to take it, 30 minutes.
00:26:28.000 I think we'll have a very lively conversation.
00:26:30.000 This is some pretty good stuff.
00:26:33.000 But if you don't, that's completely fine.
00:26:36.000 My question, I don't want to waste anyone more time.
00:26:38.000 Did you expect that to be funny?
00:26:40.000 A little bit, yeah.
00:26:42.000 It was so funny the audience forgot to laugh.
00:26:46.000 True!
00:26:47.000 Charlie, you're a very attractive man.
00:26:51.000 I didn't hear what.
00:26:52.000 But my question today is: your take on single motherhood in this country, you recognize that African Americans are disproportionately committing more crimes, right?
00:27:02.000 And they're in more, and they take up a larger percentage of our prisons, or 40%, well, maybe only 13% of the population.
00:27:10.000 And then you attribute that, I think you said, to the culture and then single motherhood in the country, starting from the 1960s.
00:27:16.000 My question to you is: why did it affect specifically African Americans as opposed to other races?
00:27:22.000 Because other races can also get married.
00:27:24.000 So, why specifically African Americans?
00:27:26.000 It's a good question.
00:27:27.000 Not totally sure.
00:27:28.000 I mean, a working hypothesis according to Thomas Sowell is culture, is that there was a cultural breakdown in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s where paired with government programs and subsidizing single motherhood, we saw a breakdown of the black family.
00:27:41.000 And unfortunately, that has continued where the norms in black America are no longer that the man has to stay alongside the woman that he impregnates, and that three out of four young black kids in this country are not raised alongside of a stable father in the home.
00:27:54.000 So we don't know exactly the answer, but culture is probably a good explanation.
00:27:59.000 Okay, thank you for your time.
00:28:01.000 Anytime.
00:28:05.000 Hi.
00:28:07.000 First of all, as an Israeli, I wanted to thank you in the last six months for advocating for my country's right to exist, and I really appreciate that.
00:28:18.000 One thing is in my home country, we do have our own civil internal problems of some religious extremism.
00:28:26.000 We have a lot of ultra-Orthodox, Haredi religious people who aren't serving in the military and still taking money from the government.
00:28:36.000 When you talk about the Ten Commandments being a framework, I guess when you think about other public intellectuals, maybe on the left, like Sam Harris, that advocate for some kind of secular humanism and mindfulness and don't advocate for the crazy stuff we see 100 feet outside of our window, why do you think there's a flaw in non-religious kind of secular humanistic philosophy?
00:29:00.000 It's an excellent question because it was made by man, not by the divine.
00:29:06.000 And so in order for the Ten Commandments to work, you must believe that there's an element of something transcendent that either wrote it, that delivered it, or that was behind it.
00:29:16.000 The Ten Commandments lose its potency if they're just 10 suggestions for life by some PhD.
00:29:23.000 They no longer, the Ten Commandments worked to build Western society because you had a population that believed that if they didn't follow the Ten Commandments, that God would judge them and that God wanted them to live that way.
00:29:39.000 And so if Sam Harris, who is allegedly a public intellectual and all this, he's very smart, but I think his ideas are silly.
00:29:45.000 He's trying to solve the religious problem with a quasi-religious solution without ever actually getting to the baseline of this.
00:29:53.000 And this is something that even the atheists in this room will hopefully end up believing in, which is this, is that before I persuade you on the existence of God, I bet I can get you closer to the idea of the necessity of believing in a God.
00:30:07.000 And then if you do not believe in a God, in a God that is transcendent above you, how do you act?
00:30:13.000 Where do you know what is right or wrong, or good or evil?
00:30:15.000 And before you say it's, oh, it's just built into me, that's complete rubbish.
00:30:19.000 You can visit country after country in the third world of how they treat children, of how they treat women.
00:30:19.000 We know that.
00:30:25.000 It is not natural to do what we've done here in the West.
00:30:27.000 You think it's natural because you've been raised in a Western construct.
00:30:31.000 And so when the population looks at the Ten Commandments, for example, and they just look at it as like some nice life advice or some good ideas, it loses its zing or its spice to be able to actually put a population back towards ethical behavior.
00:30:46.000 Thank you.
00:30:51.000 Hello, Charlie.
00:30:52.000 Hope you've enjoyed your stay in Seattle so far.
00:30:56.000 It's wonderful.
00:30:58.000 I'm glad.
00:30:59.000 I'm Feron and happy to be here.
00:31:00.000 In my hoodie, I got straight from the Joe Biden re-election campaign.
00:31:04.000 So I wanted to ask about, so when we look at all the countries in the world, we generally see that the conservative backwards countries exist mostly in the third world.
00:31:14.000 I guess my question is, why do countries like the Western countries which support LGBTQ, support women's rights, support just liberal policies?
00:31:24.000 Why do those tend to thrive over the backwards conservative ones?
00:31:29.000 Well, you've got to be more specific.
00:31:30.000 Well, first of all, the LGBTQ thing is a recent phenomenon that is actually destroying these countries.
00:31:35.000 It's not what made them thrive or flourish.
00:31:38.000 So let's get into some examples.
00:31:39.000 Do you mean like France, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland?
00:31:42.000 Yeah, all the Western ones that are thriving based on their...
00:31:46.000 Do you think France is thriving?
00:31:48.000 Oh, yeah, based on their standing in the world, the presence they have, the GDP of their country.
00:31:54.000 Yeah, I think they're doing a lot better than places like Iran, Iraq, places that subjugate women.
00:31:59.000 Okay, well, I'm obviously not a fan of...
00:32:01.000 If you want to get into Islam, that's something.
00:32:03.000 So you're conflating Islam with conservatism, which is interesting.
00:32:06.000 There's plenty of Christians in the Middle East.
00:32:09.000 Right, they're a vast minority, like less than 5% of the population of the Middle East.
00:32:12.000 Not in every country.
00:32:13.000 There's significant Christian populations all over Africa and the Middle East.
00:32:17.000 Well, that's less than 15% in Egypt, Coptic, Christian.
00:32:20.000 What is it?
00:32:20.000 Can you name one Christian majority country in the Middle East?
00:32:22.000 Besides Armenia?
00:32:24.000 I don't know about majority, but I know that several have a very large Christian bloc.
00:32:30.000 I don't know if it's necessarily the majority.
00:32:31.000 It might be a plurality.
00:32:32.000 We're kind of losing the script a little bit, but I just want to be clear.
00:32:35.000 Christians in the Middle East don't mutilate their women.
00:32:38.000 The Muslims in the Middle East mutilate their women.
00:32:40.000 So let's just be very clear.
00:32:41.000 So you're conflating Islam and conservatism.
00:32:44.000 And so I just want to make sure I understand your argument.
00:32:46.000 Do you think that LGBTQIA plus, which by the way, you're a bigot for not having the IA plus in there?
00:32:51.000 Just to be clear.
00:32:52.000 No, you're behind on the revolution.
00:32:54.000 I don't mean to offend you, by the way.
00:32:56.000 Well, not offending me.
00:32:56.000 Sorry.
00:32:57.000 You're offending the high priestesses of wokeism for not getting the LGBTQIA plus, right?
00:33:05.000 And by the way, the new flag is not just the triangle, it's also a circle.
00:33:10.000 Did you know that?
00:33:11.000 I didn't.
00:33:12.000 Man, you got to really, you got to be up to date because what is the rule of modern wokeism?
00:33:17.000 The revolution is never over.
00:33:18.000 Constantly updating, constantly expanding.
00:33:20.000 Okay, so anyway, so I just want to make sure I understand.
00:33:23.000 Let's talk about Japan.
00:33:25.000 Japan is one of the most conservative countries in the world, super low immigration, and they don't have any of this LGBT nonsense.
00:33:33.000 Why are they so wealthy?
00:33:34.000 They're wealthy because they allow people like women to get into the workplace and have protections for their workers.
00:33:42.000 Again, I'm not against any of that, but I want to talk about it.
00:33:43.000 Can you tell me why the LGBTQI plus equals wealth?
00:33:48.000 Well, I'm not saying it necessarily equals wealth.
00:33:50.000 I'm just saying that the liberal ideologies that dominate in Western countries and in places that tend to have a dominant place in the world like the United States, why do places that prioritize diversity and inclusion of all people, like they seem to be able to dominate countries that are highly restrictive and democracies.
00:34:12.000 You're conflating a couple things here.
00:34:13.000 What you're talking about is a free market inheritance that Western countries received, and then they've plastered on this LGBTQI plus nonsense on top of a multi-decade free market inheritance that gave them these multi-trillion dollar economies, and they say, oh, we're rich because of the gay flag.
00:34:32.000 No, you're rich because of private property rights and the Western tradition for the rule of law and separation of powers and free market capitalism.
00:34:41.000 That's why you're rich.
00:34:42.000 You're not rich because of diversity standards.
00:34:45.000 As a liberal capitalist, I don't disagree with any of your points.
00:34:49.000 I'm sorry?
00:34:50.000 I don't disagree.
00:34:51.000 I'm a capitalist just.
00:34:52.000 I like that.
00:34:53.000 But let's zero in on diversity.
00:34:55.000 Can you give me a single example of a company, a college, or institution that has prioritized diversity and has not sacrificed excellence?
00:35:05.000 Oh, like you could look at the most valuable companies in our country, actually, that have explicit diversity and inclusion policies.
00:35:16.000 They seem to be well.
00:35:18.000 That's not one of the most valuable companies in the world.
00:35:20.000 It's worth a couple hundred billion dollars.
00:35:22.000 So let's think about Boeing.
00:35:24.000 Oh, let's look at what we're doing.
00:35:25.000 Well, hold on, let's talk about Boeing's a local phenomenon here.
00:35:28.000 When your airplane is being made, do you want a qualified mechanic from Boeing or a black mechanic from Boeing that might have been accepted for lower standards?
00:35:38.000 I'm not in favor of lowering standards to include...
00:35:41.000 So you're against affirmative action?
00:35:41.000 Excellent.
00:35:44.000 Affirmative action, by definition, is the lowering of standards to accelerate and prioritize diversity.
00:35:50.000 It is not the lowering of standards.
00:35:52.000 Hold on.
00:35:54.000 Every example of diversity, equity, inclusion, from Harvard to Goldman Sachs to Boeing to Stanford is that you do need to relax and lower the standards.
00:36:03.000 Absolutely not.
00:36:03.000 Yes, you do.
00:36:04.000 There is not a single example.
00:36:05.000 In Harvard, for example, they had to lower the SAT quota by 200 to 300 points per racial demographic for Asians and whites comparable to black application students.
00:36:15.000 We know this because of the Supreme Court case that came out of it.
00:36:19.000 But I just want to make sure that I'm clear.
00:36:22.000 Why does it matter, though, to advance the melanin content in certain people's skin more than saying we are going to have a colorblind, excellent-driven, merit-based practice?
00:36:35.000 What does the push of diversity matter so much?
00:36:37.000 So I don't know who you're debating because I didn't advocate for any of that, actually.
00:36:43.000 Well, no, you did.
00:36:44.000 Let's not rewrite the script.
00:36:44.000 Hold on.
00:36:45.000 You came up here and said that the countries that embrace diversity, equity, inclusion, diversity, and LGBTQ plus are the wealthiest and the greatest.
00:36:52.000 So don't try to reverse history here.
00:36:55.000 I'm asking you why then you are talking favorably of diversity while you could instead say we should stop doing that and instead talk favorably about why these countries are rich in the first place, which is a merit-based, excellence-driven belief system, not a diverse one.
00:37:12.000 You're responding to a completely different question I didn't ask.
00:37:14.000 So I'm not in favor of lowering standards.
00:37:17.000 I am in favor of promoting people that generally don't, like people of different backgrounds that generally don't find themselves in certain industries.
00:37:25.000 I'm in favor of promoting them to be able to compete in those marketplaces.
00:37:30.000 That's by definition lowering standards because it wouldn't be because here's the answer, is that if you didn't have to have a whole new program, then you just allow the hiring to continue and they would hire whoever the best person for the job is.
00:37:43.000 The whole idea of diversity, equity, inclusion is that we have to change the criteria because we're not hitting some sort of abstract diversity goal because the computer science department isn't black enough or some nonsense.
00:37:55.000 Or Microsoft needs more lesbian women coding for them or something.
00:38:00.000 It's ridiculous.
00:38:01.000 And here's you asked a very specific question.
00:38:03.000 I'll give you a specific answer here at the end.
00:38:05.000 You said, why is it that Western countries are so much richer than their totalitarian counterparts in other parts?
00:38:11.000 It's because in the rules-based World War II order, we didn't have this DEI nonsense for the last 50 or 60 years.
00:38:18.000 And we've built this treasure chest of wealth and prosperity that is now being plundered by the DEI commissars of the West that are now spending down our inheritance with terrible ideas.
00:38:30.000 And when that money runs out, when all of a sudden that wealth disappears, it's not LGBTQI plus that is going to build the next Google, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Starbucks, or Boeing.
00:38:40.000 It is color-blind, merit-based hiring practices that build beautiful and excellent things.
00:38:46.000 I don't know.
00:38:46.000 Thank you so much.
00:38:47.000 I'm not debating against.
00:38:48.000 I don't know who you're talking to.
00:38:50.000 You're not talking to me.
00:38:51.000 But I am.
00:38:52.000 I already answered your question.
00:38:52.000 No, you did it.
00:38:54.000 Not at all.
00:38:55.000 Next question.
00:38:55.000 Thank you very much.
00:38:56.000 Thank you.
00:38:56.000 Thanks.
00:38:59.000 Thank you.
00:39:00.000 Hi, Charlie.
00:39:02.000 So my question is, you support Christian values, as do I. How do you support a man who, in many ways, is the antithesis of those values in Donald Trump?
00:39:13.000 I thought you were going to say Joe Biden.
00:39:17.000 You've supported Trump in the primaries, too.
00:39:19.000 Yeah.
00:39:19.000 So there was other options at that point.
00:39:22.000 Well, yeah, so you're asking why do I support a sinner?
00:39:25.000 Well, why do you support someone who...
00:39:26.000 Because you're obviously not a sinner, right?
00:39:28.000 No, I'm a sinner, but his whole life and his values are all the antithesis of what the Ten Commandments are and things like that.
00:39:36.000 Okay, so I'm not even sure what to make of that.
00:39:39.000 Let's just look at his presidency.
00:39:41.000 I mean, was he not an excellent president?
00:39:43.000 Do you disagree?
00:39:44.000 Well, I believe that character matters in the world.
00:39:46.000 I do too.
00:39:47.000 So actually, here's my number one mark of character for a politician.
00:39:50.000 Did you do what you say you were going to do?
00:39:52.000 And Donald Trump did what he said he was going to do.
00:39:54.000 Sorry, do we have a wall across the whole southern border right now?
00:39:58.000 Well, we built a couple hundred miles of border wall.
00:40:00.000 But he said he was going to build a full wall.
00:40:02.000 Right, there were limitations for that.
00:40:03.000 He shut down the government for 60 days over that.
00:40:06.000 Who is you?
00:40:06.000 Hold on a second.
00:40:07.000 I'm sorry?
00:40:08.000 You said you shut down the government.
00:40:10.000 Donald Trump shut down the government for 60 days to try to get $4 billion in border wall funding.
00:40:10.000 Who is you?
00:40:15.000 He put Schumer and Pelosi in his office.
00:40:17.000 He did everything at his disposal while he was facing two impeachments and one ridiculous special counsel investigation.
00:40:23.000 Southern border crossings went down to a 30-year low under Donald Trump.
00:40:26.000 We had asylum seekers that were rejected back to their country of origin.
00:40:30.000 You can nitpick certain things from the right to say, oh, I could have, would have, and should have.
00:40:34.000 But let's go through the promises.
00:40:35.000 Number one, Donald Trump gave us and fulfilled the promise three excellent Supreme Court justices so that we had the reversal of Roe versus Wade.
00:40:43.000 Hold on.
00:40:44.000 As a Christian, will you give him credit for that?
00:40:46.000 I give him credit, but are you saying any other Republican president would have done the same thing?
00:40:50.000 George W. Bush gave us a liberal Supreme Court justice.
00:40:53.000 Just John Roberts.
00:40:54.000 John Roberts voted against us on critical issues.
00:40:59.000 Roe versus Wade.
00:41:00.000 It was a 5-4 decision, I believe.
00:41:00.000 He was against us on the state.
00:41:02.000 I could be incorrect.
00:41:03.000 I thought it was 6-3, but I'm maybe.
00:41:05.000 You might be right on that.
00:41:06.000 I don't want to speak out of turn.
00:41:07.000 However, he voted against on many of the other issues recently.
00:41:10.000 By the way, Roberts is very liberal.
00:41:12.000 Okay.
00:41:13.000 So secondly, George H.W. Bush gave us Kennedy, Anthony Kennedy.
00:41:18.000 Either Reagan or Bush gave us Kennedy.
00:41:18.000 It might have been Reagan.
00:41:20.000 They wouldn't have been elected in 2016.
00:41:22.000 If you had Ted Cruz, if you had Marco Rubio, they would have given us three people that match Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Holmes.
00:41:29.000 But Bush gave us liberal tilt justices.
00:41:32.000 That's number one.
00:41:33.000 But let me just ask a question.
00:41:34.000 George W. Bush, did he ever speak at the March for Life?
00:41:37.000 I'm not aware of it.
00:41:37.000 No, he didn't.
00:41:38.000 Because he was a pro-abortion Republican because his wife was pro-abortion.
00:41:42.000 Trump can't even sort out his own take on abortion now.
00:41:45.000 You keep on changing the script here.
00:41:45.000 Hold on a second.
00:41:47.000 You came here as a question: how can I, as a Christian, support a sinner?
00:41:50.000 We all agree we're all supporting.
00:41:52.000 Other candidates who probably have better character in the primary.
00:41:57.000 What do you mean by character exactly?
00:41:59.000 Like not having a history of adultery, not having a history of immorality, mocking Mike Pence for praying in the white house.
00:42:06.000 Okay, so you believe that anyone that has wrongfully cheated on their wife should be disqualified from leadership, public office, all that stuff.
00:42:13.000 Yes?
00:42:14.000 So your standards are higher than God's since King David became king over Israel.
00:42:19.000 So you haven't shown the proper remorse for those actions.
00:42:22.000 Okay, well, you don't know what remorse he has shown or has not shown.
00:42:25.000 But secondly, I'm not going to get into the deep thicket here of defending Donald Trump's personal life because we're in a binary right now.
00:42:30.000 And the binary is very simple.
00:42:32.000 Instead of moralizing against a man who's facing 700 years in federal prison for trying to put the American citizen first, I think we as Christians should get on our hands and knees and thank God that we have a fighter that is willing to actually go to D.C. and fight for us against that very regime.
00:42:50.000 So hold on a second.
00:42:51.000 You say, how can I as a Christian, I look at Samson, I look at David, I look at sinners throughout the Bible that were used for God's purposes.
00:42:58.000 Do you recognize that?
00:42:59.000 Yeah, but are you saying that sinners are better than people who have less sins?
00:43:04.000 Because if you looked at someone, just for example, like Ron DeSantis, who has, in my opinion, a much better character than Donald Trump, are you saying that he wouldn't have gone to D.C. and fought for the values that you're saying Trump would fight for?
00:43:16.000 So I didn't support DeSantis.
00:43:17.000 I like DeSantis.
00:43:18.000 Let's talk about character.
00:43:20.000 By all objective measurements, George W. Bush had better character than Trump.
00:43:24.000 Loyally married, never accused of adultery, Christian.
00:43:28.000 He gave us the Iraq war.
00:43:30.000 He gave us the Afghan war.
00:43:31.000 You could point to one person.
00:43:32.000 Hold on, no, no, no, hold on.
00:43:33.000 I'm talking about the only other Republican president of the 21st century, not one other person.
00:43:38.000 Want me to point to his father, H.W. Bush?
00:43:41.000 What about Reagan?
00:43:42.000 Reagan is not as good of a president as Donald Trump.
00:43:45.000 Reagan gave us no-fault divorce, mass amnesty.
00:43:48.000 Reagan also expanded the national security state.
00:43:50.000 Reagan was a fine president, but nowhere near as ineffective a Donald Trump president.
00:43:54.000 So that's the question ahead of us, which is if you only look at character, which is your version of character, I don't share that version of character.
00:44:00.000 It's does the politician do what he says he's going to do?
00:44:03.000 And he did what he said he was going to do.
00:44:05.000 He did that in abundant terms.
00:44:08.000 Well, he did some of the things he said he would do.
00:44:10.000 So let's get to another one.
00:44:12.000 Blessed are the peacemakers.
00:44:13.000 You and I as Christians both believe that, right?
00:44:14.000 How many new wars were started under Donald Trump?
00:44:17.000 But zero were started under Jimmy Carter also.
00:44:19.000 I mean, is that really like, hold on, we're talking.
00:44:22.000 Yeah, you're right.
00:44:23.000 And zero was started under, like, I don't know, William Buchanan or something.
00:44:27.000 I don't know.
00:44:28.000 Like, you can go way back into the presidential register here.
00:44:32.000 I'm not advocating for Jimmy Carter's presidency from hospice, okay?
00:44:37.000 It's a very simple question, which is, in the modern era, from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden, those are five presidents, okay?
00:44:47.000 Only one of those five did not start a new international, reckless, adventurous war in any theater.
00:44:54.000 And that guy is named Donald Trump.
00:44:57.000 And that for me is like a decision.
00:44:59.000 It's like a massive, massive issue, especially when you look at the carnage and the funding.
00:45:05.000 I mean, you don't want war.
00:45:06.000 No, I'm not saying everything Trump did was bad.
00:45:06.000 You're a Christian.
00:45:09.000 Fair enough.
00:45:10.000 Okay.
00:45:10.000 But so let me ask you a question.
00:45:11.000 I mean this sincerely.
00:45:12.000 Is there anything he can do to win you over?
00:45:15.000 I mean, I'll probably end up voting for him just because I don't like the other side.
00:45:19.000 But I would have much rather preferred someone else from the primaries.
00:45:23.000 I think you're coming after this from a fair perspective, but I would challenge you not to just throw around.
00:45:23.000 Fair enough.
00:45:28.000 I like RFK, though.
00:45:29.000 I might vote for him.
00:45:30.000 Okay, well, then you're going to vote for a pro-abortion, you know, pro-choice guy who would put radical left-wingers on a Supreme Court that would never win.
00:45:37.000 You live in Washington, so your vote doesn't matter that much anyway.
00:45:37.000 But it's fine.
00:45:40.000 But it's true.
00:45:42.000 I mean, it's unfortunately a super left-wing state.
00:45:45.000 But, and just so we're clear, RFK is also an adulterer.
00:45:48.000 I don't know if you've looked into that, so if your criteria is kind of falling apart.
00:45:52.000 So I will just emphasize this, which is, as a Christian, it is tempting to try to impart our disciplined moral walk on every single politician that runs for office.
00:46:03.000 I totally get that.
00:46:04.000 Instead, I take a step back and I say, who has actually done the things to fulfill the policy agenda that I think glorifies God?
00:46:11.000 And that is Donald Trump.
00:46:12.000 It's not even close.
00:46:13.000 Thank you.
00:46:14.000 Appreciate it.
00:46:21.000 Firstly, as a liberal, I would like to say I'm shaking right now and I'm coming here with respect because I do not want to end up on a highlight reel.
00:46:27.000 And I also am intimidated as I think you are very beautiful.
00:46:32.000 It is my belief, correct me if I'm wrong, that you are not completely against immigration as long as the people coming here share the values present in this country.
00:46:40.000 That being said, don't you believe we have a duty to take in Muslim refugees who oftentimes have different values than ours, as we have directly or indirectly disabilized dozens of Muslim countries from Iraq and Iran by invading them and pushing our values down their throats, democracy, which has proven to be a failure in other countries.
00:46:58.000 No, we don't have an obligation to take them in.
00:47:02.000 Thank you.
00:47:03.000 Okay, but hold on.
00:47:04.000 I want to just try to drill in on something that bothers you and it should, which is our reckless foreign policy agenda.
00:47:11.000 So then would you entertain voting for Trump, who started no new wars for four years of his presidency?
00:47:17.000 But he continued like the Afghanistan war.
00:47:19.000 No, he tried to end it.
00:47:20.000 He did everything he could to actually troops were getting out.
00:47:23.000 You know how many troops died under Donald Trump's last 18 months?
00:47:26.000 Zero American service members were killed over the last 18 months.
00:47:30.000 And under Joe Biden, the withdrawal was reckless and terrible, and you saw what happened.
00:47:34.000 That's true, but he didn't end the war.
00:47:36.000 He tried to.
00:47:38.000 But the way that Biden ended it, I don't think is something we should ever praise, right?
00:47:38.000 Well, fair enough.
00:47:42.000 It's like saying you got to get an appendix removed.
00:47:44.000 You take out a pocket knife and you just start like...
00:47:46.000 I mean, it was one of the most catastrophic, humiliating withdrawals and moments in American history.
00:47:52.000 But so I will just, I'm curious, though, because with Biden, we have new wars everywhere, right?
00:47:56.000 We're dropping bombs in Yemen, we're dropping bombs in Syria.
00:47:59.000 You know, we're giving $100 billion just this last time to Ukraine versus Russia.
00:48:03.000 We have Israel-Hamas.
00:48:04.000 So does the actual concrete data that shows that Trump was a peacemaker and kept stability abroad, is that persuasive to you?
00:48:14.000 With Ukraine, I feel like the Ukraine war is justified.
00:48:17.000 I feel like war is not always justified, and I think you agree with that, because I think you support what Israel is doing in Gaza right now.
00:48:23.000 But I feel like the world is going down and American influence is leaving, and we have the right, and we must aid Ukraine.
00:48:31.000 Okay, yeah, I mean, I disagree with that.
00:48:33.000 Took a lot of courage for you to get up to this mic.
00:48:35.000 I appreciate it.
00:48:36.000 We have clarity, but not agreement.
00:48:37.000 I hope you vote for Trump.
00:48:38.000 Thank you.
00:48:39.000 Thank you.
00:48:43.000 Oh, hello.
00:48:46.000 Yeah, so I've seen you talk a lot about objective morality.
00:48:51.000 And my big question is: it feels like you can make good statements and bad statements without referencing some kind of moral book.
00:48:59.000 So I can say, something is good, right?
00:49:01.000 I had a good day today.
00:49:02.000 And it doesn't really feel like I need to reference religion for that.
00:49:06.000 So can you explain to me why you think we need to have some kind of absolute standard for morality?
00:49:13.000 Excellent question.
00:49:13.000 It's really good.
00:49:14.000 If you say you have a good day, are you describing the experience you had, or was it morally a good day?
00:49:21.000 So yeah, it would be a good day.
00:49:22.000 So I can narrow it down more, I guess.
00:49:24.000 Or I can ask, I guess, like a better question.
00:49:27.000 So if I don't have religion, right, let's say I am an atheist or something, and I were to go up to, I find like two books.
00:49:36.000 One's the Quran, and then one is the Bible.
00:49:39.000 And I read both of them, and then I have a feeling of preference towards one or the other.
00:49:44.000 That makes me feel like morality probably isn't objective because I read two moral codes.
00:49:49.000 I didn't have one before, and then I derived one after reading it.
00:49:54.000 But one is true.
00:49:56.000 Well, yeah, obviously, if you go in with the presupposition that one is true, let's play this out.
00:50:01.000 Sorry to interrupt.
00:50:02.000 If I'm on an island and let's just demystify part of this, and there's the Bible, and then there's Lord of the Rings, and I end up believing in one of those, which is true.
00:50:12.000 Well, what's true is just what corresponds with reality.
00:50:14.000 We're talking about...
00:50:14.000 Ah, I agree.
00:50:15.000 So which one has evidence and when applied in the natural world actually shows a flourishing people and society and a way to live?
00:50:22.000 Because you would agree, at least out of eight out of ten of the Ten Commandments, they're pretty good rules for life.
00:50:27.000 No, yeah, well, of course, yes.
00:50:29.000 No, so the thing that I'm talking about is doesn't have to do with whether or not Christianity is good or bad or whether I agree with most of the.
00:50:36.000 Yeah, it's just regarding like, yeah, one can be true, but even if one is true, it doesn't really feel like I'm influenced in terms of what I feel is good or bad.
00:50:47.000 Because obviously, you know, there are people who are Muslim who have read the Bible and still are more persuaded by Islam.
00:50:55.000 I mean, you could be persuaded by anything, right?
00:50:55.000 No, of course.
00:50:57.000 That doesn't.
00:50:58.000 I believe that there is a transcendent way of living.
00:51:01.000 I call that the Bible, right?
00:51:02.000 And I believe it's the perfect catalog from creation to the end of the world.
00:51:06.000 You don't have to agree with that.
00:51:07.000 I'm talking strictly from a moral sense.
00:51:09.000 So let's just ask a separate question, which is, do you think people are naturally, naturally, outside of religious teaching, good or not so good?
00:51:21.000 The nature of humanity.
00:51:22.000 The nature.
00:51:23.000 I wouldn't be comfortable making a statement about that.
00:51:25.000 Fair enough, and I appreciate that.
00:51:26.000 So we believe, as Christians or those in the space, human beings are pretty awful.
00:51:32.000 That we're broken, that we're sinful, that we fall short of the glory of God, and that we need to teach people how to be good.
00:51:38.000 A common left-wing belief is that human beings are actually awesome, and they're terrific.
00:51:42.000 And the reason why things are not so good is because of capitalism or the patriarchy or feminism or whatever.
00:51:48.000 So you're asking a question of, you know, why do we need objective morality?
00:51:52.000 Well, or what is specifically...
00:51:56.000 Yeah, so not necessarily why we need objective morality, but you seem to be, because obviously I don't believe that it's a thing, but you seem to make the claim that...
00:52:04.000 Do you believe that absolutely?
00:52:06.000 No.
00:52:08.000 Okay, good, but you're consistent.
00:52:10.000 Yeah, the big thing is, is for me, even if I have a God, there is no thing telling me, like, you know, it's just like the is-ot problem, right?
00:52:19.000 That's like my big contention, right?
00:52:21.000 How am I ever going to derive a claim about what I should do from only statements about the nature of being?
00:52:27.000 Got it.
00:52:27.000 So you would believe murder is wrong?
00:52:30.000 Yeah.
00:52:31.000 Why do you believe that?
00:52:33.000 Because in its definition, it says it's wrong, right?
00:52:35.000 It's wrong killing of somebody.
00:52:36.000 At least that's my understanding of it.
00:52:38.000 Okay.
00:52:39.000 So, I mean, so for example, you go to an African village, happens all the time.
00:52:42.000 They leave a fullborn baby by the fire.
00:52:45.000 They don't want it.
00:52:45.000 They discard it.
00:52:46.000 Any missionary will tell you that.
00:52:46.000 Happens tons of times.
00:52:48.000 They just discard babies.
00:52:49.000 They don't believe it's wrong.
00:52:50.000 It's just in their code and custom.
00:52:51.000 No one feels bad about it.
00:52:52.000 Just discard kids you don't want.
00:52:54.000 Are they wrong?
00:52:55.000 For me, yeah, they're wrong.
00:52:56.000 Yeah.
00:52:57.000 It's a bullet I do have to do.
00:52:59.000 Hold on.
00:53:00.000 Are they objectively wrong?
00:53:01.000 Is it objective?
00:53:02.000 No.
00:53:02.000 So I don't believe in objective morality.
00:53:04.000 So that can apply to me.
00:53:05.000 So it's not objectively wrong to leave a fullborn baby by the fire and just say, you're on your own.
00:53:10.000 Well, yeah, I'm calling into question objective morality.
00:53:10.000 Have a nice life.
00:53:13.000 So I obviously have to say that.
00:53:14.000 No, I know.
00:53:14.000 I'm just trying to make you hear back how insane what you are saying.
00:53:18.000 Well, you're making a claim about the objectivity of it.
00:53:20.000 No, I know.
00:53:22.000 Let's get more graphic.
00:53:23.000 So you put a thousand Jews in a gas chamber, and the Nazis thought what they were doing was good, and they pressed the button.
00:53:31.000 Were they right or were they wrong in gassing millions of Jews?
00:53:34.000 Objectively, you can't, like, when you say, is it objectively wrong?
00:53:38.000 Hold on, wait, wait.
00:53:39.000 If you say it's objectively wrong, you're implying that you can derive a truth value from it.
00:53:43.000 And I don't think you can.
00:53:44.000 So I don't think that you can make a true statement regarding whether something's good or bad.
00:53:49.000 Got it.
00:53:49.000 So just to be clear, the Nazis could have been right in their actions, in your view.
00:53:53.000 That implies that right is an actual thing.
00:53:56.000 I don't believe you can determine a truth value from a moral claim.
00:53:59.000 So the Nazis were not objectively evil.
00:54:02.000 Yeah, I've said that like four times.
00:54:03.000 Like, yet, you can't derive objective moral statements from like things.
00:54:08.000 I'm not saying they're not wrong.
00:54:10.000 Like, they are wrong.
00:54:11.000 Well, no, no, no.
00:54:11.000 No, it's okay.
00:54:12.000 Yeah.
00:54:13.000 No, I just want to make sure this is important because what you are saying, and you're saying it very clearly, is that we look at the Holocaust and it's just a matter of opinion.
00:54:23.000 Yeah, that's kind of the problem of being an atheist.
00:54:26.000 You have to bite the bullet.
00:54:28.000 I respect your intellectual clarity.
00:54:30.000 And I will say that.
00:54:31.000 And I think I obviously think the Holocaust is wrong.
00:54:34.000 If anyone's questioning me, it's just your opinion.
00:54:37.000 I believe that it's objectively wrong, no matter who you are or where you come from, because it transcends opinion.
00:54:43.000 Do you think, last question, I appreciate your clarity on this.
00:54:47.000 Do you see how your view could result in a lot of dead people?
00:54:51.000 Well, I don't think my view is really a...
00:54:53.000 I'm not making a claim that we should behave in a way.
00:54:55.000 No, no, you're making claims.
00:54:57.000 Well, I am making claims, yeah, but I'm not making a claim that, like, we should behave in a certain way or like that we ought to like, you know, not have Christianity or some kind of...
00:55:05.000 No, no, no, I'm not saying that, but let me play this out, and I think you'll understand.
00:55:08.000 I understand because you're going to say, well, there's all these bad things that could happen if people or that did happen.
00:55:11.000 No, no, no, I follow you.
00:55:13.000 If your view becomes a view of a country, and for example, putting a thousand Jews in a gas chamber is not deemed as objectively wrong, transcendent above anyone's opinion, then all of a sudden, what would prevent that evil thing from occurring and nobody questioning it?
00:55:30.000 So, my main idea, I guess, with the worldview is: I'm not making a claim again about how things should be.
00:55:30.000 Sure.
00:55:36.000 I'm making a claim that this is how things are.
00:55:38.000 So, within my worldview, this is all fine.
00:55:41.000 You can have people agreeing that things are wrong.
00:55:44.000 Generally, I think most people's moral intuitions will lead them to thinking that things like murder is wrong and stealing is wrong because it makes you feel bad, right?
00:55:51.000 Well, if I see somebody get hurt, that makes me feel bad.
00:55:53.000 If you see somebody die, that makes you feel bad.
00:55:55.000 Yeah, the SS guards didn't feel bad when they killed Jews, and that's okay.
00:55:58.000 But do you see where this might unravel into mass murder and societal chaos?
00:56:03.000 Yeah, that happens in the real world.
00:56:05.000 I'm making a description about the way people derive their morals.
00:56:08.000 I'm not saying how we should or shouldn't.
00:56:09.000 I'm saying this is how you derive your morals.
00:56:12.000 If you have two books there, the trueness or correspondence with reality has zero anything to do with your preference towards one moral system or another.
00:56:21.000 Or maybe the true one says, don't gas the Jews.
00:56:21.000 Hold on.
00:56:25.000 That would be murder.
00:56:26.000 That would be awful.
00:56:27.000 Because God will judge you harshly.
00:56:29.000 Yeah, but maybe the true one.
00:56:31.000 I mean, just hear me out.
00:56:32.000 Maybe the true one says that life is good and that there is a creator who loves you.
00:56:36.000 But now what you're doing is you're just making claims about what you think.
00:56:36.000 But maybe.
00:56:39.000 Like, yeah, obviously it would be awesome if I had a moral code that everyone had to follow that agreed with.
00:56:44.000 I know, if only a book existed.
00:56:46.000 Yeah, I know, if only.
00:56:47.000 But my point is that.
00:56:49.000 If only there was this amazing book.
00:56:51.000 Yeah, but my point is that you're being super clear.
00:56:53.000 I appreciate it.
00:56:54.000 No, and you're the first person ever to your credit to answer the atheist Nazi question clearly, which is that an atheist cannot objectively say that the Holocaust is wrong.
00:57:06.000 I'm arguing against objective, like the idea that...
00:57:08.000 No, you're being usually there's some withering there.
00:57:10.000 You went right into there.
00:57:11.000 Well, yeah, I can't go in here and like not bite the bullets of like what my argument implies.
00:57:16.000 Like we have clarity but not agreement.
00:57:19.000 Thank you, my friend.
00:57:19.000 Appreciate it.
00:57:20.000 Thank you.
00:57:20.000 Thank you for talking.
00:57:27.000 Hey, Charlie.
00:57:28.000 I am 19 years of age at the UW, and I stand before you wearing PJs because I'm a hardworking foster student.
00:57:35.000 I have a question aside from politics today.
00:57:39.000 And I mean it in the most authentic way possible.
00:57:42.000 I recently just received my coaching certification as a life coach, and I love what I do.
00:57:47.000 I also love my mom, who is also a life coach, an inspiration in my life to be the best that I can be.
00:57:55.000 Collectively, we believe in the law of attraction to attract more of what we want to the universe energetically.
00:58:02.000 Do you believe in the law of attraction as well?
00:58:04.000 No.
00:58:05.000 What?
00:58:06.000 Because it's new age voodoo?
00:58:10.000 Hey, fair enough.
00:58:11.000 That's your opinion?
00:58:12.000 Thank you.
00:58:13.000 Okay, thank you.
00:58:17.000 Yes, ma'am.
00:58:19.000 Hi, Charlie.
00:58:22.000 So I grew up in a community where Christians were a minority with primarily Muslim and Jewish people.
00:58:31.000 And we had the Jewish high holidays off.
00:58:34.000 And it's really interesting that we're just casually talking about Jews being murdered as a debate point.
00:58:41.000 Anyway, I was wondering to what extent you agreed or disagreed with Christian Zionists like John Hagee and the late Pat Robertson about the expulsion of Non-Jews from Israel's territory, as allegedly indicated in the Bible, as being a necessary prerequisite for the second coming of Christ.
00:59:12.000 I don't have strong opinions on that.
00:59:14.000 My opinions on Israel are, I don't get into the specific politics or theology there.
00:59:18.000 I instead say that Israel has a right to exist, a country the size of New Jersey that has half the world's Jewry, that is in the Middle East, where there are over 20 Muslim-majority countries, that a single Jewish nation state has a right to exist in the Middle East.
00:59:31.000 Absolutely.
00:59:32.000 That's my contention.
00:59:32.000 When it gets into those specific issues, I don't get too far into that.
00:59:38.000 And I want to say there's a lot of pastors that know much more about the theology of the end times than I do, so I point people to them.
00:59:44.000 So as we speak, Rafah is being bombed right now.
00:59:50.000 And as an analogy, after 9-11, which I remember clearly, I watched it on the television with my parents, around 3,000 Americans were killed on that day.
01:00:05.000 As a result, Afghanistan was invaded, and estimates say that around 70,000 civilians died as a result of that invasion.
01:00:17.000 And then later, despite having no connection to the Saudi militants who were responsible for the Iraq was invaded.
01:00:31.000 And a 2013 study by the University of Washington estimated that over 400,000 Iraqis were killed as a result of that action.
01:00:40.000 Try to get to the question.
01:00:41.000 I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying, but sorry to get to the question.
01:00:44.000 Look how long the line is.
01:00:45.000 No, I understand.
01:00:46.000 I just, I think context is vitally important.
01:00:49.000 Okay, what is the question?
01:00:51.000 So those actions were used to justify America keeping ourselves safe.
01:00:58.000 What proportionate force is justifiable for Israel to keep itself safe?
01:01:05.000 Do they need to expel the entirety of the Palestinian population and bomb city centers and hospitals in the name of safety?
01:01:22.000 What is proportionate force?
01:01:24.000 How about this?
01:01:25.000 Any person that is an outspoken terrorist of Hamas needs to be killed.
01:01:30.000 And until that happens, then the war will continue.
01:01:34.000 Okay, I understand.
01:01:35.000 Yes.
01:01:36.000 But can't you?
01:01:38.000 Can dunk bombs and cluster munitions differentiate between a Hamas militant and an innocent child?
01:01:46.000 Okay, again, every death of a child is a tragedy.
01:01:49.000 I don't want you to get too worked up.
01:01:50.000 I think we can.
01:01:51.000 No, I also want to understand, do you think that Christians are superior to people of other faiths and they have more of a right to self-determination in terms of allocating borders?
01:02:03.000 No, I don't believe that Christians are superior.
01:02:05.000 Okay, so then why are you supporting allocating $3 billion to Israel?
01:02:11.000 Okay, happy to answer that.
01:02:12.000 I believe, just to clear, I believe in two types of people, saved and not saved.
01:02:17.000 Very simple.
01:02:18.000 Okay?
01:02:19.000 So that's a binary category that doesn't exist in reality.
01:02:24.000 Okay, well, you'll find out one day.
01:02:24.000 Got it.
01:02:25.000 Okay.
01:02:29.000 So yeah, secondly, I don't even know how to answer.
01:02:32.000 Israel has a right to exist.
01:02:34.000 They were at...
01:02:36.000 At what cost?
01:02:37.000 To destroy Hamas.
01:02:38.000 And hold on.
01:02:40.000 Okay, but How do you differentiate between an innocent civilian and a Hamas militant?
01:02:48.000 Yes, this is part of the tragedy of war that they did not invite, but Hamas did, which is that you have collateral damage.
01:02:55.000 So, if the level of collateral damage is acceptable for Israel to defend itself, there is not some sort of equation.
01:03:02.000 Here's the tragedy of it: until Hamas is defeated, innocent people are going to die.
01:03:09.000 So, do the entirety of the Palestinian people need to be expelled?
01:03:12.000 No, I don't.
01:03:13.000 And Rafah needs to be bombed as smithereens?
01:03:15.000 No, I think that, first of all.
01:03:17.000 Israel needs to keep itself safe, Charlie.
01:03:19.000 Well, hold on.
01:03:20.000 What's the necessary cost?
01:03:22.000 Well, first of all, let me ask you a question.
01:03:23.000 What's the necessary trade-off?
01:03:24.000 Let me ask you a question.
01:03:25.000 What human life is more valuable?
01:03:28.000 Is Israeli or a Palestinian?
01:03:28.000 Let me ask you a question.
01:03:30.000 Can I ask you a question?
01:03:31.000 First of all, all people are equal under God.
01:03:34.000 We're talking about a question of which nation state is morally fighting a war and which is not.
01:03:40.000 So let me ask you a question.
01:03:41.000 Very simple.
01:03:42.000 Are we justified in killing 400,000 people?
01:03:44.000 I'm not going to have to come.
01:03:45.000 I don't support the Iraq war.
01:03:47.000 I never thought of it.
01:03:47.000 So why are you supposed to be a woman?
01:03:48.000 I was eight years old, so I don't know what you're talking about.
01:03:50.000 Eight.
01:03:52.000 But let me just ask a very simple question.
01:03:54.000 If it's true and Israel only wanted to kill as many Gazans as possible, why are they putting ground troops into Rafah where they will assuredly lose their own defense forces?
01:04:05.000 Why don't they just carpet bomb Rafah to be a parking?
01:04:08.000 We are blocking civilian aid.
01:04:10.000 No, no, no.
01:04:11.000 Answer the question.
01:04:12.000 If it was just about killing, if it was just about kids.
01:04:15.000 They are blocking humanitarian aid and the people there are starving, Charlie.
01:04:20.000 They're actually letting U.S. aid in.
01:04:22.000 They are not.
01:04:23.000 It's alternative facts, Charlie.
01:04:25.000 Well, hold on.
01:04:26.000 Hold on.
01:04:27.000 Where are you hearing that?
01:04:28.000 Citations needed, buddy.
01:04:29.000 Where are they?
01:04:30.000 Okay.
01:04:30.000 Give your citations.
01:04:32.000 I want them.
01:04:32.000 Yeah, okay.
01:04:33.000 First of all, let me just ask a very, I want you to answer the question that I think is very important, which is, sorry, just, you're very excited about this, and I'm honestly not that worked out.
01:04:44.000 I'm excited about the U.S. funding genocide against innocent people.
01:04:49.000 Hold on a second.
01:04:50.000 This is where I really find this objectionable.
01:04:52.000 Everything you said was funny up until then.
01:04:56.000 We should not throw around the word genocide when it is not a genocide.
01:05:01.000 It is a feeder of war.
01:05:01.000 It is.
01:05:04.000 Let me tell you why.
01:05:05.000 It is a genocide.
01:05:06.000 Hold on.
01:05:06.000 Hold on a second.
01:05:09.000 Hold on a second.
01:05:10.000 They have disrupted humanitarian aid.
01:05:12.000 They have made a humanitarian corridor between Egypt and the United States.
01:05:16.000 Let me answer the question.
01:05:19.000 Let me answer the question.
01:05:20.000 Very simply.
01:05:22.000 Give me the facts, Charlie.
01:05:23.000 How do you define it?
01:05:24.000 Give me the facts.
01:05:25.000 How do you define a genocide?
01:05:27.000 An active feeder of war?
01:05:29.000 So, genocide.
01:05:30.000 No, no, no, hold on.
01:05:30.000 Where do you go from war to genocide?
01:05:32.000 Because here's the problem.
01:05:35.000 I got three words in.
01:05:36.000 Let me try to get four in.
01:05:37.000 Let me try to get four.
01:05:38.000 Genocides are super rare.
01:05:41.000 No, they're not.
01:05:42.000 Yes, they are.
01:05:44.000 Okay?
01:05:44.000 The Rwandan genocide, the Turkish-Armenian genocide, the Stalin genocide against the Kazakhs, and finally, Hitler's genocide.
01:05:52.000 What's even the genocides against white people?
01:05:55.000 What about the genocides against non-white people?
01:05:57.000 Yeah, how about Mao Zeitong's genocide against the working class?
01:05:59.000 Iraq war, which was a genocide.
01:06:02.000 Again, not an Iraq war.
01:06:04.000 That is a genocide.
01:06:06.000 Okay, again.
01:06:06.000 I'm not a...
01:06:07.000 So why are you...
01:06:08.000 Israel is engaging in genocide.
01:06:10.000 Similar to the United States, why don't you hold them to the same standard as with the United States?
01:06:15.000 Hold on, guys, hold on.
01:06:16.000 Let me just be very clear.
01:06:18.000 People dying in war is not a genocide.
01:06:21.000 You know what a genocide is?
01:06:22.000 It's a deliberate, systematic attempted elimination to eliminate Muslim people.
01:06:32.000 So now we're going to...
01:06:33.000 That is a genocide.
01:06:34.000 Hold on a second.
01:06:35.000 We're going to now take you at your own words.
01:06:36.000 If it was a genocide, why doesn't Israel just drop a nuclear bomb on Rafah?
01:06:42.000 They've been dropping.
01:06:43.000 I'll answer the question.
01:06:45.000 Why don't they just end it if they wanted all the Arab Muslims dead?
01:06:49.000 Because they don't.
01:06:50.000 Because they're fighting a humane war and dropping leaflets beforehand because they don't want them all dead.
01:06:57.000 I have had enough of this Israel hatred.
01:06:59.000 Instead, Israel has been patient and deliberate.
01:07:03.000 They warn before they attack.
01:07:05.000 They try to get citizens out of the way.
01:07:08.000 They offer humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.
01:07:11.000 They have funded hospitals.
01:07:12.000 They say, hey, we're about to bomb you.
01:07:14.000 We're about to bomb you.
01:07:16.000 If they're trying to commit genocide, they're doing the worst job you can imagine.
01:07:20.000 Instead, and I want to get to the final question here, but next question, but I think it's very important.
01:07:25.000 The same way the left uses its racism.
01:07:28.000 It's racism.
01:07:29.000 So do Muslim lives matter, Charlie?
01:07:31.000 Of course.
01:07:32.000 They do.
01:07:33.000 Do they matter?
01:07:34.000 Yes, every life.
01:07:36.000 Why do you support sending $3 billion in aid to Israel to fund this?
01:07:42.000 Well, I actually support more than that.
01:07:44.000 Yes, exactly.
01:07:45.000 You support this whole project.
01:07:47.000 It is a part of the Christian Zionist project that John Hagee and Pat Robertson embrace.
01:07:55.000 I'm not defending these people, but let me ask a final question.
01:07:58.000 I just want to make sure.
01:07:59.000 You want the second coming of Christ.
01:08:01.000 Let me ask you a final question.
01:08:02.000 You want to be eliminated because you believe in Christian supremacy.
01:08:06.000 I really don't, actually.
01:08:08.000 I want all people to come to Christ.
01:08:10.000 You want all people to come to Christ.
01:08:12.000 Even my Jewish family members.
01:08:12.000 Yes.
01:08:14.000 You want us to come to Christ.
01:08:16.000 Yes, I hope you accept Yeshua as the Lord and Savior because Christ is king.
01:08:22.000 I hope you come to Jesus.
01:08:27.000 You want my the Jewish community that I grew up with to come to Christ.
01:08:32.000 Yes.
01:08:33.000 And what if we don't come to Christ?
01:08:35.000 Because the Messiah you've been waiting for at Passover already came and lived and died and resurrected for you.
01:08:42.000 The Son of the living God is alive.
01:08:44.000 And if you give your life to Christ, you'll be transformed from within.
01:08:47.000 What if we don't come to Christ?
01:08:49.000 What are the consequences of the Jewish people?
01:08:51.000 I have no idea.
01:08:52.000 I don't make statements on that.
01:08:53.000 Christ, my family members not coming to Christ.
01:08:56.000 I don't know.
01:08:56.000 Here's what the scriptures say.
01:08:57.000 What are the consequences politically?
01:08:59.000 What do you want to happen to the Jews?
01:09:01.000 Solve the Jewish question, Sharon.
01:09:03.000 I love Jews so much I support Israel.
01:09:05.000 Which side am I on?
01:09:12.000 Next question.
01:09:13.000 Give your life to Jesus.
01:09:14.000 Christ is king.
01:09:15.000 Thank you so much.
01:09:20.000 Next question, please.
01:09:21.000 Thank you.
01:09:21.000 Thank you.
01:09:22.000 God bless you and may Christ keep you.
01:09:25.000 Yes.
01:09:25.000 Okay, so we talked earlier.
01:09:27.000 I wanted to clarify.
01:09:29.000 I meant by Dalak.
01:09:30.000 That's not relevant to the questions I want to ask now.
01:09:32.000 But when I make mistakes, I like to take ownership and circle back and correct them.
01:09:37.000 We talked earlier, I make clear that me and you do not see eye to eye on many issues, likely most of them.
01:09:42.000 But that doesn't mean that I don't have conservative friends and conservative role models that have been there for me.
01:09:47.000 And I know my stepdad would be very proud that I'm talking to you right now.
01:09:50.000 And he's been there for me when no one else has.
01:09:53.000 So to start this conversation, I'm hoping to reach across the aisle because I think it's important to mobilize the left and mobilize the right.
01:09:59.000 I remember you from earlier, very pleasant.
01:10:00.000 Okay.
01:10:01.000 Do you support veterans' rights and disability rights?
01:10:03.000 Say that one more time.
01:10:04.000 Do you support veterans and disability rights?
01:10:06.000 No, I don't support rights for certain groups.
01:10:09.000 I support human rights, but I support those communities.
01:10:12.000 Yes, I support veterans and disability people.
01:10:14.000 So you think civil rights violations in those communities is wrong?
01:10:17.000 Of course.
01:10:18.000 I believe that if anybody's human, God-given rights are your natural rights.
01:10:21.000 Let me use that word.
01:10:23.000 Civil rights is kind of a very abstract term.
01:10:25.000 Natural rights.
01:10:27.000 Your right to life, your right to liberty, and your right to own property.
01:10:30.000 If those things are violated, regardless if you are in a wheelchair or a veteran or not, then it's wrong.
01:10:35.000 Okay, so sorry, the semantics here.
01:10:37.000 I see what you're saying.
01:10:38.000 So I think the University of Washington is violating these rights.
01:10:41.000 They're violating students' freedom of speech.
01:10:42.000 They're retaliating against students.
01:10:44.000 Our generation, likely because of the way we did remote school.
01:10:48.000 And I think you can agree with me that the way the universities across the nation handled the pandemic was terrible.
01:10:54.000 Yes.
01:10:54.000 So I think we can both find common ground there.
01:10:58.000 What is the question?
01:10:58.000 Really quick.
01:10:59.000 Yeah, because we got like a long line, man.
01:11:01.000 I get it.
01:11:01.000 I'm sorry.
01:11:03.000 I wanted to bring attention to the fact that the University of Washington has retaliated against students with disabilities, veterans who didn't have their rights.
01:11:14.000 Veterans who would need a scribe in a class, for example, who was denied a reasonable accommodation of a scribe, who could barely move their hands.
01:11:20.000 They're given basically a speech-to-text software that two-factor authentication forced onto the machine.
01:11:25.000 And it had the 2FA, it had to verify that they're human.
01:11:29.000 They couldn't verify they're human to turn the thing on.
01:11:31.000 And they didn't do that to all students.
01:11:33.000 They targeted certain students.
01:11:34.000 What is the question, man?
01:11:35.000 I know you got a lot of gripes against this university.
01:11:37.000 I do too.
01:11:37.000 So what is the question?
01:11:39.000 Will you clip this and put it online?
01:11:41.000 I want to give this a question.
01:11:42.000 No, no, your question is so specific, I don't even know what it is.
01:11:45.000 Okay.
01:11:47.000 Yeah, I'm just asking for help.
01:11:49.000 I'm trying to reach across the aisle.
01:11:50.000 I'll talk to anyone I can about this issue.
01:11:52.000 Our chapter is happy to help you.
01:11:54.000 Liberal media?
01:11:55.000 I'm sorry that that's been infringed upon, and we're happy to help you.
01:11:59.000 Okay.
01:12:00.000 Thank you.
01:12:01.000 Okay.
01:12:02.000 I'm a fascist.
01:12:03.000 No, no, no.
01:12:04.000 Someone's screaming.
01:12:04.000 I don't know.
01:12:05.000 Yeah.
01:12:05.000 Okay.
01:12:05.000 All right.
01:12:06.000 Thank you very much.
01:12:06.000 I'm sorry, man.
01:12:07.000 We're happy to talk to you, okay?
01:12:08.000 Okay.
01:12:10.000 All right.
01:12:12.000 Hi, Charlie.
01:12:14.000 Yes.
01:12:14.000 Nice to meet you.
01:12:15.000 My question today is: why do you think college is a scam?
01:12:19.000 And I know that you went through this question like every day, so just I did it seven times today, but yes.
01:12:23.000 Okay, so just to give some Hey, I love that!
01:12:28.000 Okay.
01:12:30.000 Okay.
01:12:47.000 Stop hitting each other.
01:12:49.000 It's like children up here.
01:12:51.000 Why is college a scam?
01:12:52.000 Well, just to give some context, my name is Evan.
01:12:56.000 I'm 18.
01:12:56.000 I'm a junior studying finance and information systems.
01:13:00.000 And just recently, I did an analysis on human capital and financial capital.
01:13:05.000 And college turns out to be one of the best investments you can make because it increases your human capital over your lifetime, allowing you to earn more money and overall have a better quality of life.
01:13:16.000 And why do you believe that college is a scam, knowing that?
01:13:20.000 So let's just go through a couple numbers here.
01:13:25.000 All right.
01:13:28.000 Okay.
01:13:35.000 All right, let's go through a couple numbers.
01:13:45.000 All right.
01:13:46.000 So we got that over with.
01:13:46.000 Okay.
01:13:51.000 The national graduation rate, only 41% of 41% of people that enter college will not graduate.
01:13:56.000 Half of this audience, when you enter the job market pool, if you get a job, you will not need your college degree when you actually end up getting that job.
01:14:05.000 About 50%.
01:14:06.000 It's a chilling number.
01:14:07.000 There are 11 million job openings in this country that pay very well that do not require a college degree.
01:14:13.000 My contention is, of course, some people are able to make the most of being in college.
01:14:17.000 They're able to maximize it.
01:14:19.000 However, for many of you, you have been sold a bill of goods and lied to to unnecessarily go into college to study things that don't matter to go find jobs that don't exist.
01:14:30.000 And so let me ask a question.
01:14:31.000 In this audience, how many of you have been forced to take a class that is a waste of time or money that you wish you would not have to take?
01:14:39.000 Look around, yeah.
01:14:40.000 And so this is not about putting the student first.
01:14:45.000 It's about enriching the administration.
01:14:48.000 It is about keeping them powerful at your expense.
01:14:51.000 They could get you out of here quicker, charge you less money, and give you a higher product.
01:14:57.000 And so that's why I use the word that I use.
01:14:59.000 Okay, building up on that question, do you know that the dropout rate after freshman year is only about 24%?
01:15:04.000 That's right, yes.
01:15:05.000 And building on top of that, the average college graduate earns more than $900,000.
01:15:11.000 A college, sorry, a male college graduate earns more than $900,000 compared to their high school graduate counterpart.
01:15:18.000 And a female college graduate earned more than $630,000 over their lifetime.
01:15:23.000 My problem with your statement is that you're possibly discouraging future doctors, engineers, and professionals from taking the college child.
01:15:31.000 No, I'm definitely discouraging that.
01:15:34.000 And so, but secondly, you have to factor in what they're studying.
01:15:37.000 So that study only makes sense if you factor in the degree.
01:15:41.000 And so if you're here studying computer science, which is a great program here at UW, that's fine.
01:15:47.000 But if you're studying sociology, life sciences, or communications, it brings down the average dramatically.
01:15:52.000 And so we have 11 million job openings we can't fill because we have way too many people going after the credential in college and not getting the skills that are necessary for advanced manufacturing, things of that nature.
01:16:05.000 And we don't have to agree on that, but I mean, I'm here to just tell you guys that you're getting ripped off and you're getting scammed and it's not worth the time or money that many of you guys are putting in.
01:16:14.000 So is it correct to my understanding that you still think college is a scam and you do discourage future students from becoming doctors?
01:16:23.000 I say it depends.
01:16:24.000 I say that if I'm discouraging somebody from going $280,000 into debt to go be filled with ideas that don't matter if they have a really good skill or an idea to start a business or they have an opportunity that they say no to at the age of 18 to go endlessly into the college circuit, yes, I'm absolutely discouraging them to automatically go into a college four-year cycle.
01:16:46.000 Absolutely.
01:16:47.000 So you're discouraging the idea of taking useless classes and also majoring in something that doesn't provide value.
01:16:54.000 But you're not discouraging going to college inherently for studying something that can add value to the overall society.
01:17:00.000 Only less than 10% of kids that go to college will study engineering, doctor, you know, medicine, or so forth.
01:17:05.000 10%.
01:17:06.000 So that other 90%, what is that all about?
01:17:09.000 Well, there are other majors such as chemistry, biology, and other, many different kinds of majors that are...
01:17:15.000 No, I agree.
01:17:16.000 There's also diversity majors.
01:17:18.000 You guys had to take a diversity class here by mandate is what I'm told, right?
01:17:22.000 It's a scam.
01:17:23.000 Yeah, but my, again, what I said, like, my problem with your message is that.
01:17:27.000 That's fine.
01:17:28.000 We just are not going to agree.
01:17:29.000 That's fine.
01:17:29.000 Okay, so we agreed to disagree.
01:17:30.000 Yes?
01:17:31.000 Okay, thank you so much.
01:17:32.000 Thank you very much.
01:17:32.000 Appreciate it.
01:17:33.000 Yes.
01:17:33.000 All right, we're already over time.
01:17:35.000 I'm going to try to get to some more.
01:17:36.000 If you disagree, go to the front of the line.
01:17:38.000 We're going to stay a little later.
01:17:39.000 Thanks for watching.
01:17:39.000 Absolutely.
01:17:40.000 Hello, you dub, and hello, Charlie.
01:17:42.000 Thank you so much for being here today.
01:17:43.000 My name is Griffin, so I am a leftist and an atheist, and I think we disagree on a lot of things, but I respect you coming here for this dialogue.
01:17:51.000 What I really want to focus on today is not problems, but solutions.
01:17:54.000 So you have repeatedly called Trump the only anti-war candidate, and that's directly to quote you, and blame the current conflict in Gaza, at least somewhat, on Biden and his policies.
01:18:06.000 What concrete steps, if any, do you believe Donald Trump would or should take to actually end that conflict or help save lives and save people?
01:18:15.000 Excellent question.
01:18:16.000 First and foremost, you shouldn't give Iran the $50 billion back, which is then funding Hamas.
01:18:21.000 Day one.
01:18:22.000 So through multiple steps and measures, Joe Biden has released or unfrozen over $50 billion that went to the Iranian mullahs, and they send that money back for rockets and assistance.
01:18:35.000 And through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, they were the intel operation arm of what happened with Hamas on October 7th.
01:18:41.000 So that's some concrete actions immediately.
01:18:44.000 So you can cut off the funding.
01:18:46.000 Yeah, so another great kind of point or a subset of that is Donald Trump has made it very clear that he is in support of Israel's war and even before has been in support of the not genocide, but the apartheid that has been occurring in Gaza with the mass displacement of people from their homes, whether or not you think they are entitled to the land or not.
01:19:07.000 Do you think that continuous support to Israel will do much in stopping a terrorist group that, well horrible, is formed primarily in objection to individuals being displaced from their homes?
01:19:19.000 Well, first of all, Donald Trump recently said he wants to see Israel, quote, wrap up the war.
01:19:24.000 And so, you know, great policy plan.
01:19:27.000 Well, I mean, he was actually a pretty awesome president when he came to war.
01:19:30.000 Biden, who I'm guessing you're voting for, has us in more wars than he can even count to, which is not very high, obviously, just looking at him.
01:19:36.000 I mean, we have active theaters in Yemen and Syria.
01:19:40.000 We have re-emergences in Iraq.
01:19:42.000 We have Iran attacking Israel, Israel with Hamas.
01:19:44.000 We have Hezbollah Israel, Ukraine, Russia.
01:19:47.000 We have BRICS forming.
01:19:48.000 The world is completely falling apart.
01:19:49.000 And so you can criticize all you want with Trump.
01:19:52.000 What specifically can he do?
01:19:53.000 I can't speak for his entire agenda.
01:19:55.000 You can freeze the funding.
01:19:57.000 He said that he wants Israel to wrap up the war.
01:19:59.000 He would end the Russian-Ukrainian war.
01:20:01.000 And here is just a fact.
01:20:02.000 If you're a leftist, thank you for, by the way, for being here.
01:20:05.000 It's great.
01:20:06.000 Free speech keeps this country strong.
01:20:07.000 I mean that.
01:20:08.000 Which is if you want to see less war and less unjust human suffering, which we all agree with, there's only one president that was able to keep Vladimir Putin from taking more Ukrainian land.
01:20:18.000 Under Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea.
01:20:22.000 When Donald Trump was president, he did not get an extra inch of Ukraine.
01:20:25.000 Under Joe Biden, he invaded Ukraine and we spent $200 billion and 100,000 dead Ukrainians.
01:20:30.000 Your response?
01:20:31.000 So yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
01:20:32.000 And I think that's really important to talk about here because I want to note that Russian leadership has time and time again been in favor of a Trump presidency.
01:20:41.000 My question to you is what exactly would Donald Trump have done differently than Biden to stop the current annexation of Ukrainian land?
01:20:50.000 It doesn't need to be so speculative.
01:20:51.000 You're asking for a policy answer.
01:20:52.000 I could just point to that he didn't do it when he was president.
01:20:56.000 And that's because Trump was able, he was willing to threaten Putin when Putin got a little too uppity.
01:21:01.000 And he was also willing to not make Russia into an unnecessary enemy in the 21st century and configure us instead against China and the Chinese Communist Party.
01:21:10.000 And so I don't need to like ask, oh, what would Trump do or not?
01:21:14.000 He did.
01:21:14.000 It worked.
01:21:15.000 We had more peace and less unjust human suffering because Trump's business instincts worked.
01:21:21.000 Trump was able to bring people to the table.
01:21:23.000 He did the summit with Helsinki, with Vladimir Putin and Helsinki.
01:21:26.000 And Joe Biden has operated the war machine even more enthusiastically than George W. Bush in some ways.
01:21:33.000 There's more money going to the war manufacturers than we've ever seen.
01:21:36.000 And I'm that's.
01:21:37.000 Yeah, no, no.
01:21:37.000 So first, I want to make it very clear.
01:21:39.000 I am in no way supporting Biden.
01:21:41.000 I do not believe that Biden is great policy.
01:21:42.000 I'm intellectually honest.
01:21:43.000 You deserve credit for that.
01:21:44.000 No, no, and I'm not supporting Trump either.
01:21:46.000 I mean, I probably would end up voting for Biden just in the comparison between Biden and Trump.
01:21:51.000 I'll be honest about that.
01:21:52.000 But neither candidate benefits me when we see wars that hurt thousands to benefit tens of people.
01:21:58.000 My ultimate question to you is this showmanship or this idea that Donald Trump was this amazing negotiator is fundamentally not backed up by...
01:22:06.000 Well, hold on, it's totally backed up because we have four years of a presidency to look at.
01:22:10.000 If Trump was just a candidate, your point would be fair.
01:22:14.000 Look at the four years.
01:22:15.000 Tell me where the new war was.
01:22:17.000 I mean, I don't think a new war is necessarily the only indicative way to determine who's a good negotiator.
01:22:22.000 Hold on, okay, another question.
01:22:23.000 Okay, let's get another one.
01:22:24.000 Who brokered an Israeli peace deal, Biden or Trump?
01:22:28.000 I want to say specifically that Israeli peace deal has not helped.
01:22:31.000 Hold on a second.
01:22:32.000 Well, yeah, because we changed presidents.
01:22:34.000 But it was called the Abraham Accords.
01:22:35.000 It was between Israel, Bahrain, United Emirates.
01:22:38.000 I just want to know his historic.
01:22:40.000 I want to note that most of the things that happened during the early years of Biden's presidency were actually set up during the Trump presidency.
01:22:48.000 Now we're blaming Trump for what's happening immediately.
01:22:51.000 Do you notice I don't blame Obama for anything that Trump inherited?
01:22:55.000 I instead am able to brag because Trump has accomplishments while Biden has nothing but destructive impulses.
01:23:01.000 Trump has been the worst president for U.S. foreign relations, for democracy, and fundamental rights.
01:23:07.000 It's easy to say those things.
01:23:09.000 Let's just even play your whole thing out.
01:23:11.000 Did NATO funding go up or down under Trump?
01:23:14.000 I'm not exactly sure.
01:23:15.000 It went up to historic highs, okay?
01:23:17.000 This whole idea of democracy, which is very hard for the left to ever define, but let's just kind of play this out: is that when Donald Trump was president, we weren't worrying about Putin invading Ukraine.
01:23:29.000 We weren't worrying about Israel fighting Hamas.
01:23:31.000 It was stability around the world.
01:23:33.000 And it's not a question.
01:23:34.000 You're trying to find an answer.
01:23:35.000 Maybe it's this.
01:23:36.000 Maybe he's just really good at being president.
01:23:39.000 So, no, no, no, no.
01:23:40.000 So, I really want to make this clear because I think that that point kind of talks about like, it doesn't actually answer my question whatsoever.
01:23:47.000 I could say the same: like, why is it that under Trump, the economy fell faster than it has?
01:23:52.000 Well, hold on.
01:23:52.000 Since 2009, I could tell you why.
01:23:54.000 Because of corona.
01:23:54.000 No, I could tell you why.
01:23:55.000 It's because we locked down the country and we shouldn't have, and we got it all back by the time the election was happening nine months later.
01:24:01.000 You asked a question: why did the economy fall?
01:24:04.000 We decided to lock down our country, something that we should never have done, and we decided to close businesses unnecessarily.
01:24:12.000 And by the time the election was occurring, the market had already recovered and jobs were already coming back.
01:24:16.000 So you asked a question.
01:24:17.000 No, no, and I agree with you.
01:24:18.000 I agree with you.
01:24:19.000 No, no, I 100% agree with that point.
01:24:20.000 Not necessarily that we shouldn't have shut down the economy, but that outside factors influence basically what happened during a president's time.
01:24:28.000 Now, I actually think that the war in Gaza, as it happens, is not directly related to the policy that Biden has done, other than supporting Israel and providing military aid in that sense.
01:24:38.000 And also, for example, the war in Ukraine is actually largely because they no longer have a president like Donald Trump who they believe they can manipulate and like Russian leadership can use the way they were.
01:24:47.000 In fact, as Biden has taken actually more of an anti-Russian stance, it means they maybe Trump is manipulating Putin.
01:24:54.000 I've seen him talk.
01:24:55.000 I'm not sure that that happens.
01:24:57.000 Okay.
01:24:57.000 Yeah, that's an easy thing for someone to say because you think that he's no, but that's exactly what you say all the time.
01:25:02.000 You make fun of Biden because he stutters a little, or you make fun of protesters because they're ugly.
01:25:07.000 Hold on.
01:25:07.000 Let me tell you what Biden did the other day.
01:25:09.000 Thanks for being here, folks.
01:25:10.000 Pause.
01:25:12.000 He read pause on the teleprompter.
01:25:16.000 He has trouble with stairs.
01:25:18.000 Stairs are like a daunting task.
01:25:19.000 When he gets up the stairs, they're like, thank goodness, he didn't fall again.
01:25:23.000 Joe Biden confused Jill Biden with his sister.
01:25:28.000 This is not a well-known.
01:25:29.000 Trump confused his wife with his daughter, so I don't know.
01:25:32.000 Hold on, that never happened.
01:25:33.000 But secondly, hold on.
01:25:34.000 Let's just be very clear.
01:25:35.000 But besides poking fun at Joe Biden's senility, let me just ask some three very simple questions.
01:25:41.000 When Trump was president and when Biden is president, because now we have four independent terms, right?
01:25:47.000 It's not like, oh, here's what I think.
01:25:48.000 For the first time since the 1892 election, we actually have two people that have previously been president running up against one another, right?
01:25:54.000 1892, Grover Cleveland versus Benjamin Harrison.
01:25:57.000 So when independent terms, which one was managing the border better?
01:26:02.000 I think Joe Biden.
01:26:08.000 I will justify that.
01:26:09.000 I will justify it.
01:26:10.000 Please.
01:26:11.000 Economically, when an immigrant comes to this country, even an illegal immigrant, even someone who does not have high-level, high-earning skills, they contribute more to the economy as a whole than they take away.
01:26:25.000 They contribute to fixed expenses like the military.
01:26:27.000 They provide more into social benefits than they take.
01:26:31.000 And if we're talking about issues with like job scarcity, what we actually have is an issue with job distribution and the way our systems are set up to take advantage of poor working class Americans.
01:26:42.000 So, do you believe in borders at all?
01:26:45.000 I believe that practically, yes.
01:26:46.000 I believe that there does need to be major reform in the way we deal with borders.
01:26:49.000 I just want to make sure you understand how many people do you think are coming across the border every day?
01:26:53.000 I do not have the exact numbers on that, but I think it's a reasonable amount.
01:26:56.000 I'd probably say in the thousands, tens of thousands.
01:26:59.000 Yeah, 10 to 15,000 a day.
01:27:00.000 So, to put that annualized, that's 3.65 million a year minimum.
01:27:04.000 Sure.
01:27:05.000 Right?
01:27:05.000 That is the population more than some U.S. states.
01:27:08.000 You're saying it's all a benefit.
01:27:09.000 First of all, tell that to the family of Lake and Riley, okay?
01:27:12.000 Secondly, I asked you a question: who is managing the border better?
01:27:19.000 We don't have a border under Biden.
01:27:21.000 You arrive, you're in.
01:27:22.000 We've gotten rid of DNA testing.
01:27:24.000 That's just not true.
01:27:25.000 Hold on a second.
01:27:26.000 How many people are being turned away at the border?
01:27:28.000 Are we doing DNA testing, background checks?
01:27:30.000 But you mean, like, turned away at the border?
01:27:32.000 Lots of people are turned away at the border.
01:27:34.000 Immigrating to the U.S. legally, the majority of them don't have to be afraid of the city.
01:27:38.000 If you show up in Ciudad Juarez at the other side of El Paso and you claim asylum, welcome, buddy.
01:27:43.000 You get a free ticket to the interior United States, cell phone, benefits, social security number, and you are now in the United States of America despite breaking the laws.
01:27:50.000 And that's fine.
01:27:51.000 We just have a difference of opinion on this.
01:27:52.000 I just find it so interesting of someone who's trying to justify the breaking, coming into our country and the breaking of our laws.
01:27:58.000 But you have a right to that opinion.
01:28:00.000 No, no, no.
01:28:01.000 I don't think it's an opinion.
01:28:02.000 I don't necessarily know where you're getting these statistics, but I don't think Joe Biden is just like, come on in.
01:28:07.000 Everyone's opened the border.
01:28:09.000 He absolutely did that.
01:28:10.000 No, he has not.
01:28:11.000 He has not been like that.
01:28:13.000 And more than that, what actually we need when we're talking about immigration reform, we need to make immigration more accessible for legal immigration.
01:28:19.000 So how about this?
01:28:20.000 Or we need to put our own U.S. citizens first ahead of foreigners.
01:28:24.000 Yeah?
01:28:26.000 Isn't the whole idea of a government that the citizens of the country should come above the citizens of another country?
01:28:33.000 United States citizens, we are immigrants.
01:28:37.000 Hold on, no, no, no.
01:28:38.000 Hold on a second.
01:28:39.000 A second.
01:28:40.000 Some are immigrants here.
01:28:41.000 Some are descendants of settlers.
01:28:43.000 Settlers and immigrants are two different things.
01:28:46.000 Settlers come to a barren land and build something new.
01:28:48.000 Immigrants come to a country that's already barren.
01:28:51.000 Yeah, barren.
01:28:52.000 Like, I don't know, Plymouth Rock.
01:28:53.000 Okay, I won't get into that.
01:28:56.000 You know what?
01:28:56.000 I'll let more questions get in.
01:28:57.000 No, I appreciate the clarity.
01:28:59.000 I just want to be just a final question here.
01:29:02.000 Do you believe the Biden presidency has been a success for the country?
01:29:06.000 I believe Joe Biden has time and time again gave into corporate greed and behaved in ways that do not benefit the American people.
01:29:14.000 I agree.
01:29:16.000 And then let me say one last thing, and then I'll let you.
01:29:18.000 You're honest.
01:29:19.000 Yeah, it's been a very productive discussion.
01:29:22.000 What I believe is that Donald Trump inherently and his supporters are making a show of it.
01:29:29.000 He is a reality TV star.
01:29:31.000 And if you actually took the time yourselves to read the policy, to actually read the legislation and the real impact it's had on the day-to-day lives, economies, or global foreign policy that Donald Trump has impacted, you would see it's by and large negative.
01:29:45.000 I do not just not support Trump because he made fun of a disabled reporter, despite the fact that I find that appalling that an elected official would do that.
01:29:55.000 I do not think his policy has benefited America, benefited the world at all.
01:30:00.000 Hold on, so let's.
01:30:01.000 Hold on.
01:30:01.000 So, but you don't think that, but actually, in every public opinion poll, they say the Trump economy is way better than the Biden economy, and they were richer than ever before.
01:30:09.000 And so that's fine.
01:30:10.000 You're entitled to that.
01:30:11.000 But it's very simple.
01:30:13.000 I have a difference of opinion than you.
01:30:14.000 Mine is rooted in reality.
01:30:16.000 I don't think yours is, and we don't agree.
01:30:18.000 Thank you very much.
01:30:19.000 Appreciate it.
01:30:19.000 Wonderful.
01:30:22.000 All right, we're going to keep going.
01:30:24.000 Yes?
01:30:25.000 Hi, Mr. Kirk.
01:30:26.000 Thank you for coming to UDub.
01:30:28.000 I'm the vice president of the College of Democrats of Washington, but I love having debates with and learning from folks with whom I disagree.
01:30:35.000 My question is about the corporate tax rate and specifically the top marginal corporate tax rate.
01:30:42.000 Why do you believe that increasing the top marginal corporate tax rate would stifle innovation and harm our economy?
01:30:51.000 Well, I mean, by definition, first of all, the government is already way too big and we shouldn't raise taxes as it is.
01:30:56.000 I mean, we have a $6 trillion federal budget right now.
01:30:59.000 But it depends on what you mean by a corporation.
01:31:01.000 Do you mean Apple or do you mean your local laundromat?
01:31:04.000 Well, the top marginal corporate tax rate, so let's just say for large cap companies over $10 billion.
01:31:09.000 Fair enough, yeah.
01:31:10.000 Because the way that the tax code is written is that you could form an S Corp or a C Corp or an LLC and they get treated very similarly.
01:31:18.000 But what is your question?
01:31:19.000 Why do I think it will stifle innovation?
01:31:20.000 Well, the more the government takes, then the less money the companies will have to actually invest in products for research and development.
01:31:26.000 And I'm not a defender of corporations.
01:31:27.000 In fact, I think corporations are doing a lot of damage to this country, right now.
01:31:30.000 Yeah, but I would personally advocate for increasing it perhaps to double what it is right now at 21%.
01:31:37.000 Of course, you're a Democrat.
01:31:38.000 You want more money that doesn't use it.
01:31:39.000 No, because when you say that increasing this tax rate will stifle innovation, the entrepreneurs themselves disagree with you.
01:31:47.000 Bill Gates himself called this idea quote-unquote nonsense.
01:31:50.000 Yeah, it's easy for Bill Gates.
01:31:52.000 He's worth $120 billion, so he can jet around the world complaining about climate change and trying to get people to take vaccines they don't need.
01:31:59.000 It doesn't affect him, right?
01:32:00.000 Microsoft is worth $3 trillion.
01:32:02.000 They're too big to fail.
01:32:03.000 This is very simple.
01:32:04.000 All taxes ultimately do this.
01:32:06.000 They forcibly take money away from an efficient part of our country and they transfer it to an inefficient, bloated, corrupt part of our country.
01:32:14.000 That's that simple.
01:32:15.000 So it's not that we should have zero taxes.
01:32:18.000 It's that you're calling for doubling, which is to take more money from a efficient part of the economy towards a bloated federal government that is already spending $6 trillion a year, the biggest the government has ever been.
01:32:30.000 I mean, I would push back on the idea that it is an efficient part of the economy.
01:32:34.000 Look at, for example, Microsoft and Apple.
01:32:36.000 Both of these companies have over $150 billion in cash on hand, not cash that is being used for R ⁇ D, cash that is just sitting in bank accounts.
01:32:46.000 And I would like to point out that these two companies, the two most valuable companies in the world, were founded while the corporate tax rates were significantly higher than they are right now.
01:32:55.000 So of course now, like they're massive behemoths, it doesn't affect them.
01:32:59.000 But when these companies were getting started, like the corporate tax rates were incredibly high.
01:33:05.000 Because they were getting started.
01:33:06.000 It didn't impact them.
01:33:07.000 They were getting started, like you said.
01:33:09.000 No, but even when they, after they got started, and they were...
01:33:12.000 But let's play this out, because they weren't turning a profit for the first 30 years.
01:33:16.000 Like, learn something about Microsoft's history.
01:33:18.000 No, no.
01:33:19.000 They didn't pay any taxes for 20 years.
01:33:19.000 Hold on a second.
01:33:21.000 No corporation worth any salt or an accountant that knows what they're doing is not going to pay any taxes for 20 years.
01:33:26.000 Why?
01:33:27.000 You're going to intentionally show losses to not pay taxes.
01:33:30.000 Taxes, by definition, are only going to be on profits.
01:33:32.000 So Apple and Microsoft being very nifty, they said, we're just going to keep on showing deficits and showing losses, therefore evading all corporate taxes for 20 years.
01:33:41.000 And where do they get their money?
01:33:42.000 By boosting the stock price by going through an IPO, an initial public offering, and then eventually going on the public market and boosting their valuation by showing losses, but their valuation is actually much greater than the quote-unquote profit.
01:33:53.000 Does that make sense, the profit margin?
01:33:55.000 So the argument doesn't matter.
01:33:57.000 No, no, but when you look at the profit margins, Microsoft was an incredibly profitable company, even within 15 years.
01:34:02.000 They are now, obviously.
01:34:03.000 Even at the beginning, software is the biggest money printer in the history of the company.
01:34:07.000 They weren't profitable, that's the point, is that they spent more than they brought in.
01:34:10.000 They had good revenue.
01:34:11.000 You know the difference in revenue and profit, obviously.
01:34:13.000 No, yeah.
01:34:14.000 Okay, yeah, but these companies intentionally did not turn a profit for the first couple decades.
01:34:18.000 They'd be silly to do that.
01:34:19.000 No, no.
01:34:20.000 They were profitable.
01:34:21.000 That's my point.
01:34:22.000 They had a price to earnings ratio.
01:34:23.000 Microsoft in the 80s and the 90s was a profitable company.
01:34:26.000 No, I understand, but the point being is that these startup companies, I'd have to go all the way back into the business literature of every single year, they intentionally, just using as an example, their stock as leverage to not actually post earnings.
01:34:39.000 So if you want to tax revenue, that's a separate issue, right?
01:34:41.000 Because a lot of these companies aren't...
01:34:43.000 Not revenue.
01:34:44.000 Okay, that's a separate issue.
01:34:46.000 But again, we have a difference of opinion here.
01:34:47.000 I don't want to give the government any more of our money, and you do.
01:34:50.000 And so we just disagree.
01:34:52.000 Thank you, Charlie.
01:34:53.000 Thank you.
01:34:55.000 Yes?
01:34:56.000 Hey, Charlie, as a fellow Christian brother, I agree with a lot of Christian values you have, but I do have a dilemma.
01:35:03.000 When a couple of days ago, Hamas calls for a ceasefire, they're reeling, I mean, they have no shot against the Israeli army.
01:35:10.000 Is it biblical to reject the ceasefire, in your opinion?
01:35:14.000 And I'm all for fortifying the Israeli border as I also believe Israel is God's chosen people.
01:35:19.000 So my question is, is it biblical to reject a ceasefire?
01:35:25.000 Because in the Sermon on the Mount, like you know, Jesus preaches, blessed are the peacemakers and pray for those who persecute you and love your enemies.
01:35:33.000 So my thing is like maybe we should pull back to the border and just fortify the border and protect the Israeli people and like our Muslim brothers and sisters like give them a chance to like...
01:35:43.000 Great question.
01:35:44.000 The answer is it depends.
01:35:45.000 It depends if it's actually a peace deal.
01:35:47.000 And I don't know.
01:35:48.000 The point is that Hamas says that they wanted to broker peace.
01:35:51.000 What were the terms?
01:35:52.000 Israel said they were totally unacceptable.
01:35:54.000 We don't know.
01:35:55.000 And if it turns out that Israel, and I'm willing to say this as someone who's pro-Israel, if they actually turned away a good deal, then they're in the wrong.
01:36:02.000 But if they turned away a fake deal, which it probably was, because I don't trust Hamas at all because they're modern Nazis, almost assuredly it wasn't, then it is okay to turn away.
01:36:10.000 Because just because it's called a peace deal doesn't actually mean it's a peace deal.
01:36:14.000 Do you know any because I don't know much about the peace deal either.
01:36:17.000 I was just hearing.
01:36:18.000 I know almost nothing about it.
01:36:19.000 Okay, that's all I was going to ask.
01:36:21.000 Appreciate it.
01:36:21.000 Thank you.
01:36:22.000 If you disagree, you guys can come to the front of the line.
01:36:22.000 All right.
01:36:24.000 We're going to try to go a couple more.
01:36:26.000 Go ahead.
01:36:26.000 We're already over time.
01:36:27.000 Yeah.
01:36:28.000 Hi, everybody.
01:36:28.000 I'm a liberal.
01:36:30.000 I think that Joe Biden's policy in Ukraine has been very effective.
01:36:34.000 And I want to know why you think it hasn't.
01:36:36.000 Effective for who?
01:36:38.000 Effective for the geopolitical interests of the United States.
01:36:41.000 Which are?
01:36:42.000 Which are to contain Russian and Chinese authoritarianism as well as their allies.
01:36:48.000 Okay, why is containing Russian authoritarianism a necessary geopolitical interest?
01:36:54.000 Because it is the United States' sole obligation to ensure and protect democracy, especially in Europe.
01:37:00.000 Oh, interesting.
01:37:01.000 Where is that in the Constitution?
01:37:02.000 It's not in the Constitution.
01:37:04.000 Why is that a prime directive of the United States?
01:37:07.000 Or like, where do you get that from?
01:37:09.000 Where is democracy, international affairs?
01:37:11.000 Why is that super important?
01:37:13.000 Because it has been our ethos for decades, and it has proven effective for allowing us to do it.
01:37:18.000 What if that ethos is not right?
01:37:20.000 It is right.
01:37:21.000 Tell me why.
01:37:22.000 Okay, I'll tell you why.
01:37:24.000 Because through that ethos, we've been able to enable the creation of strong market economies in Eastern Europe through the downfall of the Soviet Union.
01:37:31.000 And by continuing to expand those market economies, we've increased the amount of consumer products available, raised the standard of living throughout the world, and have continued to spread democracy as well.
01:37:41.000 So just to be clear, you think Ukraine's a democracy?
01:37:44.000 I think that it will become a democracy with our help.
01:37:46.000 Got it.
01:37:46.000 So when's the last time they held an election?
01:37:49.000 Before the war.
01:37:50.000 2018, I think.
01:37:51.000 Why don't they hold one during the war?
01:37:53.000 Because it's pretty hard to have people voting in polling centers when they're having...
01:37:57.000 Tell that to Abraham Lincoln, who held a war during the midst of the Civil War.
01:38:01.000 The states in the South did not vote for the government.
01:38:03.000 Maybe they don't want to hold an election because Zelensky is not a legitimate leader of Ukraine, because our government displaced the old leader in the Maidan Revolution and installed Zelensky.
01:38:12.000 So let's just go through this.
01:38:14.000 Just morally, I want to make sure, because you made your position.
01:38:17.000 If you had to choose which is Preference or priority of Ukraine or the U.S.-southern border, which one matters more?
01:38:28.000 The U.S.-southern border.
01:38:29.000 Okay, I totally agree.
01:38:30.000 Thank you for that moral clarity, and that's very good.
01:38:33.000 So, are you?
01:38:34.000 I don't think we have to choose.
01:38:35.000 Okay, but we have chosen, and we've chosen Ukraine.
01:38:39.000 We can choose both.
01:38:40.000 But we haven't.
01:38:41.000 Why is that?
01:38:42.000 I think that Joe Biden has failed to adequately address the southern border.
01:38:45.000 Great.
01:38:45.000 Thank you for your honesty on that.
01:38:46.000 I agree.
01:38:47.000 So, I can move on from that.
01:38:49.000 So, what does success look like in Ukraine?
01:38:52.000 Success looks like fully repelling the Russian invasion or at least stopping it, turning it into a meat grinder, so that Russia is weakened for perpetuity.
01:39:02.000 Does that include Crimea?
01:39:04.000 Not necessarily.
01:39:05.000 Okay, so you disagree with the Biden administration?
01:39:07.000 That's fine, because they want to get rid of, they want Crimea to come back to Ukraine.
01:39:10.000 So, would you agree that it was wrong for the U.S. government to go into a meeting with Putin's auxiliaries in Istanbul and blow up a potential peace deal 10 days into the war, which we did?
01:39:22.000 Could you elaborate on what that means?
01:39:23.000 Yeah, people don't know this.
01:39:24.000 Ten days into the war, in Istanbul, Turkey, Tony Blinken and Boris Johnson went into a meeting with the Russian Federation, and there was a proposed peace deal on the table that would have given eastern Ukraine to Russia, part of it, and ended the war.
01:39:37.000 And we blew that up.
01:39:38.000 Was that the right decision?
01:39:40.000 Yes, because basically, that's exactly what we allowed to happen with Crimea.
01:39:44.000 We allowed them to invade.
01:39:46.000 We did not encourage them to go to war over it.
01:39:48.000 And basically, just by allowing people to...
01:39:49.000 But just to be clear, that is less of eastern Ukraine than Russia has now.
01:39:54.000 So we basically rejected a deal.
01:39:56.000 100,000 Ukrainians died.
01:39:58.000 Putin has pushed even further west, and that would have been a worse deal for Putin than what stands on the table now.
01:40:04.000 They would have just made more demands in the future.
01:40:06.000 No matter what, Russia is going to roll into Ukraine.
01:40:08.000 Oh, okay, okay, fair enough.
01:40:09.000 But they are going to roll into Ukraine.
01:40:11.000 Why didn't they roll into Ukraine under Trump?
01:40:13.000 They were planning to do so.
01:40:14.000 They rolled into Ukraine in 2014.
01:40:16.000 No, no, no, no.
01:40:17.000 They rolled under Obama and they rolled under Biden and they didn't under Trump.
01:40:21.000 Trump was their chosen candidate for president.
01:40:23.000 But if they were chosen, then why didn't they take all of Ukraine?
01:40:27.000 Because they weren't prepared to invade in 2018, 2019, but they were in 2022.
01:40:33.000 That's why they want Trump to win now, because he knows it's not going to be a good idea.
01:40:35.000 Let's think about this.
01:40:36.000 So when Trump was president, they didn't have missiles or tanks.
01:40:40.000 If Trump was really their selected chosen candidate, they didn't advance their lands by one square inch, which is the stated goal of Vladimir Putin's whole presidency.
01:40:50.000 So how is...
01:40:51.000 And by the way, what evidence do you have that he's their chosen candidate?
01:40:54.000 Like, did you hear about the Russia investigation?
01:40:56.000 No, not the Russia investigation, but the multiple intelligence sources, all of our intelligence departments.
01:41:02.000 Like Christopher Steele?
01:41:03.000 What?
01:41:04.000 Christopher Steele?
01:41:05.000 Sure, the Steele dossier, James Comey, all of them said.
01:41:08.000 You're going to brush down the Steele dossier?
01:41:10.000 Okay, yeah.
01:41:11.000 They did all actively interfere on behalf of Donald Trump in the election.
01:41:15.000 That's undisputed.
01:41:15.000 I mean, sure, you're not.
01:41:16.000 No, it's like the most disputed, most.
01:41:18.000 The collusion is disputed.
01:41:20.000 But the fact that they interfered on behalf of Trump is obvious.
01:41:24.000 You mean like maybe bots and farms and troll farms out of Moldova?
01:41:28.000 Like maybe?
01:41:29.000 No, maybe, but it makes a difference if you have hundreds of thousands of fake accounts and even real accounts actually advocating for this person.
01:41:35.000 I'm just so enjoying this.
01:41:36.000 So you really believe that the Russian Federation chose Donald Trump and helped them become president?
01:41:42.000 Yes, it's no different than calling the TikTok operation a PSYOP.
01:41:46.000 It's no different.
01:41:47.000 Okay, well, let's just be very clear.
01:41:50.000 Did Russia make Hillary Clinton not visit Wisconsin in November of 2016?
01:41:57.000 I did not say that.
01:41:58.000 No, it's just.
01:41:58.000 You made a bad decision.
01:41:59.000 It's just such a laughable thing because I don't want to go too far in that direction.
01:42:03.000 So success is to stop the meat grinder?
01:42:06.000 Yeah?
01:42:07.000 It's to at least grind down Russian forces.
01:42:09.000 We do not want them to have a stronger.
01:42:11.000 Oh, okay, got it.
01:42:11.000 So to have Ukrainians be human shields for us?
01:42:14.000 Because no matter what, they're going to roll.
01:42:16.000 Let me answer the question.
01:42:17.000 So let's have more Ukrainian men die to slow down Russian forces so we can feel good about protecting democracy?
01:42:24.000 If it's not the Ukrainians, it will be the Poles, the Lithuanians, or the Germans.
01:42:27.000 No matter what, people are going to die because of Russian aggression.
01:42:31.000 So best to stop it as soon as possible.
01:42:33.000 Or we could have an exact opposite view, which is like, yeah, take Eastern Ukraine.
01:42:36.000 They want to be part of Russia.
01:42:37.000 They're just going to take more.
01:42:38.000 They're going to take Western Ukraine.
01:42:40.000 First of all, what evidence do you have for that?
01:42:42.000 That they're going to keep on going.
01:42:43.000 You can see Dmitry Medvedev standing up in front of a big screen with the giant map of Ukraine becoming Russia.
01:42:47.000 And it's more than just UK.
01:42:48.000 And now they're saying that because of us, because we've antagonized them, and they've now turned their entire economy into a war machine.
01:42:55.000 And you know what?
01:42:56.000 They might actually take all of Ukraine because of us.
01:42:58.000 And now 100,000 Ukrainians are dead because of us.
01:43:01.000 So if it's about stopping the meat grinder, we, the American Foreign Policy Project, thanks to Joe Biden, we have more Ukrainians dead than we could ever comprehend, and over 2 million displaced.
01:43:13.000 And for what?
01:43:14.000 What can we show for it?
01:43:15.000 We really showed Putin?
01:43:17.000 They do not control the entirety of the country or in the majority of it.
01:43:20.000 They control the eastern part far more than they would have got in the peace deal.
01:43:24.000 And every day, Eastern forces are not.
01:43:25.000 You already agree that they would have just demanded more eventually.
01:43:27.000 They're not to just keep taking and taking.
01:43:29.000 No, no, hold on a second.
01:43:30.000 That's only if you have, I was going to use a certain word, a super weakling as president of the United States called Joe Biden.
01:43:37.000 If you had a real president like Donald Trump, they wouldn't move a square inch into there.
01:43:41.000 And again, you can try to spin all you want.
01:43:44.000 Not a single person can come up here and answer the question, why didn't Putin invade when Trump was president?
01:43:49.000 Oh, he wasn't ready.
01:43:50.000 Give me a break.
01:43:50.000 So he had his chosen president and he wasn't ready.
01:43:54.000 So Putin then invaded Biden when Biden was president, who was more outspokenly adversarial to him?
01:44:00.000 No matter what, Trump was going to weaken NATO.
01:44:02.000 So maybe he wanted to sit back while that happened.
01:44:05.000 But he knew that he had to invade sooner rather than later when Biden became president.
01:44:08.000 It was actually.
01:44:09.000 NATO had more money under Trump than at any other time.
01:44:11.000 I don't know what reality you're living under.
01:44:14.000 NATO was stronger.
01:44:15.000 There was less war.
01:44:16.000 It was not stronger.
01:44:17.000 There was a significant strife within NATO, specifically because of Trump.
01:44:20.000 Oh, yeah, you know why there was strife?
01:44:22.000 Because Germany actually had to pay into NATO for like the first time in 20 years as proportion to their GDP.
01:44:28.000 And he went to the French, it was like, you guys are underpaying.
01:44:30.000 And went to the Dutch and was like, you guys are underpaying.
01:44:32.000 And went to the Italians and said, you guys are underpaying.
01:44:35.000 And Americans shouldn't have to disproportionately shoulder that burden.
01:44:38.000 And so I just want to be clear.
01:44:39.000 So success is just throw as many Ukrainian bodies at the meat grinder to slow down Putin.
01:44:44.000 So a lot of people unnecessarily die for what, like just to send a message for democracy.
01:44:49.000 I understand your soundbite, but I do believe.
01:44:52.000 No, it's not a soundbite.
01:44:53.000 It's a reality where now another 100,000 Ukrainian boys are going to die for our own pride.
01:44:58.000 It is a good idea.
01:44:58.000 It's not a joke.
01:44:59.000 You want to talk about a genocide?
01:45:01.000 That is more of an elimination of Ukrainian men than anything that's happening in Rafa right now.
01:45:06.000 And you think that that's our fault?
01:45:07.000 That Russia is committing genocide and you still have to say that.
01:45:09.000 Hold on a second.
01:45:09.000 Of course it's our fault.
01:45:10.000 We blew up a peace deal and we are funding this war unnecessarily.
01:45:14.000 We have rejected peace deal after peace deal after peace deal and we're the ones that are supplying munitions.
01:45:20.000 We're the ones that are supplying cluster bombs.
01:45:21.000 That's us.
01:45:22.000 That's wrong because they'd still be taking the children of Ukrainian parents and deporting them into farther into Russia to give them to the Russian parents.
01:45:29.000 Even if they had annexed the Ukrainian government.
01:45:30.000 Last question.
01:45:31.000 We've spent $200 billion on this so far.
01:45:34.000 What is a number that we'd reach is too much?
01:45:37.000 Honestly, it's not really about what the number is.
01:45:40.000 Obviously, if you're reaching into the trillions of dollars to fund this war, it probably isn't worth it.
01:45:44.000 We'll hit a trillion in two years.
01:45:46.000 At that point, will you say enough is enough?
01:45:47.000 It's been two years, and we've only spent $200 billion.
01:45:49.000 You're saying it's going to increase five-fold over the next two years?
01:45:51.000 Oh, that's $200 billion that we know of.
01:45:53.000 So the government is secretly spending more money than what's in the bills?
01:45:57.000 Yes.
01:46:01.000 The entirety of the country, the media, the government.
01:46:04.000 We have $750 billion Department of Defense budget, nearly a trillion dollars every year.
01:46:07.000 We don't know how much of that money is actually going to Ukraine.
01:46:10.000 Would you support cutting that defense budget?
01:46:11.000 Yeah, of course.
01:46:12.000 But that's a separate issue.
01:46:13.000 Interesting.
01:46:13.000 It's almost a trillion dollars of a defense budget, okay?
01:46:16.000 We don't know how much of air reconnaissance support, CIA.
01:46:19.000 So what I'm getting at is that's $200 billion of just cash for Zelensky.
01:46:23.000 We don't know how much of our other $6 trillion budget is being used to support him as an auxiliary.
01:46:28.000 So look, I think America matters a lot more than Ukraine.
01:46:31.000 I know you agree with that.
01:46:32.000 And quite honestly, I think it's one of the great moral tragedies of our time that we're supposed to hate Russia so much that an entire generation of Ukrainian men are supposed to die for it.
01:46:40.000 Okay, I appreciate you.
01:46:41.000 Thank you very much.
01:46:42.000 Yep.
01:46:46.000 Okay, one or two more, then I got to run.
01:46:48.000 Thank you for letting me disagree with you.
01:46:50.000 I disagree with your stance of small government is better and that we should shrink many parts of our federal government.
01:46:57.000 I think some of them should expand.
01:46:58.000 So for example, you're very adamant about your total abolition of abortion.
01:47:04.000 It's a stance that I hold as well.
01:47:05.000 However, with the revoking of Roe versus Wade, we see that the power has then been divested into the states, whereas I believe that we should have a federal abolition on abortion, that it is a federally, or sorry, the life of a child should be a federally protected human being.
01:47:26.000 And I was wondering if I could have your stance on it.
01:47:29.000 I think we should also have, for example, federal increases in border security.
01:47:33.000 Yeah, I agree with both of those.
01:47:34.000 Yeah, but we're nowhere near that on the abortion thing anyway, anytime soon.
01:47:38.000 Got it.
01:47:38.000 Okay.
01:47:38.000 Just because of public opinion.
01:47:39.000 It's nowhere near that.
01:47:40.000 Yes.
01:47:41.000 But we agree.
01:47:43.000 I believe in a small but strong federal government.
01:47:46.000 Got it.
01:47:47.000 But you also mentioned that you want to decrease the federal defense budget.
01:47:51.000 Does that not then weaken the federal government?
01:47:53.000 Not necessarily.
01:47:54.000 I mean, it weakens part of the federal government.
01:47:56.000 I mean, I don't think that we should be funding the Ukraine nonsense.
01:47:56.000 Yeah.
01:47:58.000 I don't think we should have as many military bases as we have across the world.
01:48:01.000 Not even close, yeah.
01:48:02.000 Got it.
01:48:03.000 So then I'm just wondering, if the rhetoric is to divest into local solutions, why should we allow states such as California, Oregon, cities like Portland to run themselves into the ground without federal intervention?
01:48:17.000 Well, let's be clear.
01:48:19.000 I mean, it's been a huge win to send it back to the states because beforehand, abortion was the law of the land as per the decision of Roe versus Wade.
01:48:26.000 But eventually I'd love to be able to build consensus and do something nationally, but we're not there yet.
01:48:30.000 All right, next question.
01:48:30.000 Got it.
01:48:31.000 We've got to get to it.
01:48:32.000 All right, I think this is the last question.
01:48:32.000 Thank you.
01:48:33.000 Yeah.
01:48:34.000 Okay.
01:48:35.000 Final question, make it a good one.
01:48:36.000 So before I attack your position, I want to see if I can accurately restate it.
01:48:40.000 So it sounded like you were espousing the position earlier that the moral, the idea of moral discernment is not built in or inherent.
01:48:50.000 Is that a correct restatement?
01:48:52.000 We have some moral discernment, but most moral action, ethical action, is taught and/or transmission.
01:49:00.000 Yes.
01:49:00.000 Do you believe that that, I mean, aside from being taught through listening or preaching, you can get that through praying or meditation if you were like an uncontacted tribe, right?
01:49:13.000 Or something like that.
01:49:14.000 I had a very specific pointed question.
01:49:16.000 Yeah, then go through it.
01:49:17.000 Yeah.
01:49:18.000 Yeah, so I think if you say that if you were not specifically taught from the Bible, you can't be a moral person.
01:49:26.000 I didn't say that.
01:49:27.000 Yeah, I said that the Bible is the source of ultimate moral truth.
01:49:29.000 Okay, I just think it's very important to be precise because if you're not very clear about what you mean and someone's listening who doesn't understand the minutiae of Christian dogma, they're going to think that you're absolving non-believers of their moral responsibility and it makes salvation seem, to someone who's uninitiated into the idea of how universal Christianity is, it makes it seem like salvation is kind of a game of luck where if you're born in rural China and you can't get the teaching, you're kind of just out of luck.
01:49:59.000 Okay, so what's the question?
01:50:00.000 My question, I just wanted to clarify the point.
01:50:03.000 If it sounds like you agree with me, I think we agree, so I won't bother.
01:50:06.000 All right, cool, man.
01:50:07.000 Appreciate it.
01:50:07.000 All right, I want to just say thank you guys for sitting through all that.
01:50:10.000 I have an important announcement, though.
01:50:11.000 There's a ton of Antifa out there that are wanting you guys to engage.
01:50:15.000 Just ignore them, go the other way.
01:50:16.000 Please, we don't want to give them what they want.
01:50:19.000 They've mobilized out there.
01:50:20.000 They hate what we stand for.
01:50:22.000 Thank you guys for so warmly receiving us.
01:50:24.000 God bless you guys.
01:50:24.000 Thank you so much.
01:50:28.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
01:50:29.000 Email us as alwaysfreedom at charliekirk.com.
01:50:32.000 Thanks so much for listening.
01:50:37.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieHurt.com.