All-American Halftime show will be streaming live on Sunday at 8pm ET on ESPN. We have all four of the current co-hosts (Blake, Tyler, Gabby, and Andrew) here to talk about it.
00:00:56.000The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:15.000We're here, I believe, and we have a great show in store for all of you.
00:01:21.000And I believe, and I think I'm having seen that confirmed now, that we have all four of the current co-hosts, of course, our fifth co-host on Assignment in Heaven.
00:01:32.000But we have got Blake, Tyler, and Andrew all here for you guys to see.
00:02:41.000But as, so here's, all right, ground rules, ground rules, right?
00:02:45.000So we all know different bits and pieces about the All-American halftime show.
00:02:50.000I imagine we're going to get a lot of questions about that.
00:02:53.000So we should probably set some ground rules because I know Kid Rock has been going around saying that he's got a surprise, but he doesn't want to reveal it.
00:03:02.000He wants to maintain the element of that.
00:05:36.000You say everyone's got a YouTube app on their TV now, but I will have you know, I watch television the way God intended on a wooden cathode ray tube television set.
00:05:47.000Do you have bad bunny ears on your TV?
00:07:00.000I think what they should do, genuinely, is load up a couple DHS deportation planes bound for Seacot, load them up there, fly them over, buzz the stadium, and then do a big ad during the Super Bowl of all the killers that they got out, like child sex traffickers.
00:07:44.000And just to make matters more interesting, it could be, we could bring in 700 agents that were just that were part of the drawdown in Minneapolis, but we reposition those assets in Santa Clara.
00:07:58.000And those are the guys that parachute in.
00:08:00.000And they just start raiding down the government also probably has the ability to, you know, shut the grid down right at halftime.
00:08:08.000I was going to say, what if they use some of those sonars?
00:08:10.000They're going to hurt innocent people who are not at the game.
00:08:13.000But what you could do, maybe they could say there's a security hazard and they say, guys, to make sure everyone's safe, they all need to go through this advanced scanner that they have for security, and then you only give them one.
00:09:29.000I mean, we've got thousands of people that are trying to get into this event, and everybody had to go twist around in circles.
00:09:35.000Like we had to twist the line around this parking structure.
00:09:39.000And so what we had to do, because the Secret Service was jerking President Trump around and jerking us around, is we had to go by a bunch of big fans to like blow air on these poor people that were stuck out in the mass humidity and the super hot sun.
00:09:53.000At least they were shaded, but it was still very hot.
00:09:57.000It was probably hotter in that parking garage, even though they were out of the sun than it was outside.
00:10:01.000So we had to get this is when Biden was president, just so everybody knows.
00:10:05.000Yes, they were jerking Trump around because Biden was president.
00:10:08.000And so we had to get pallets of water.
00:10:11.000And then Charlie was supposed to go up and speak, I think, or something.
00:10:15.000I think it was with Megan Kelly, if I remember right, and pushed that back and back and back because Charlie wanted to go out in the parking structure, shake everybody's hand.
00:10:24.000And man, did he get dressed down by a bunch of like mad people?
00:10:28.000Like, you need to run your event better.
00:10:29.000And he's like, listen, this is not our fault.
00:10:57.000And by the way, he was getting into it with people that were trying to blame this on Turning Point because he's like, this is not us.
00:11:03.000But he was very gracious with people and tried to just make things right and had all the staff out there handing water bottles out.
00:11:08.000It's so funny because otherwise my main memory of that event is just that I think that was the day on the show we talked about Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis.
00:12:30.000I know like one kid rock song, and I had not heard of the other three people we've had on, and I believe that they're pretty notable performers.
00:12:46.000I have a Brantley Gilbert story that, I mean, it's not a super story, but as people know, and we've talked about Charlie was not a super big country guy.
00:12:56.000I was also not a super big country guy.
00:13:00.000And about, I think it was 10 years ago, about 10 years ago, when Tanya and I first started dating, we, or at some point, and, you know, we were like first started dating, that we, she, for whatever reason, comes to this country, born in the Soviet Union, falls in love with country music.
00:13:19.000And she's like, oh, I really want to, I really want to go out and you really want to come.
00:13:24.000And I was like, well, you know, I really want you to come to the show.
00:13:27.000And like, I'm going with some girlfriends, but it'd be great if you came.
00:14:24.000But also, you know, the family should have something, you know, that everybody can get behind and not worry about dresses and queer identity and all that stuff.
00:16:04.000When you have the most televised event, this is true.
00:16:08.000Most televised event for the entire year.
00:16:10.000One of the most televised events on the planet, by the way, that should be a reflection of the virtue that hopefully you want society to embody.
00:16:19.000Tyler's telling me here, this is like flashbacks.
00:17:16.000And the studio, at which studio it was in, like, what was going on at that time.
00:17:20.000I think that was like literally like during COVID when we had to like, because we didn't take any, Turning Point didn't take any COVID money, didn't take any PPE money.
00:17:35.000Because I remember that studio because Charlie and I were in that studio broadcasting on J6.
00:17:40.000So that's like, whenever I see that studio, I think about me and Charlie on J6 going like, well, I'm really glad because it sounded like he was referring to the same thing he was referring to in that tweet.
00:18:26.000So anyways, but so he, I was literally, you know, part of, you know, the protocol on Super Bowls for when you were, you would tweet, what he was going to tweet.
00:18:38.000And I went to go, I was at a barbecue, went to go get some food, and in like 10 minutes for me, like, not watching my phone, he fired that bad boy off.
00:18:47.000And I was like, did you, did you watch it?
00:23:43.000And then he may have done a little bit of All Summer Long.
00:23:46.000But I don't believe he played Ball at the Ball.
00:23:48.000If the RNC was smart, how they would do this would be like they have all the delegates on the floor, but then for the concerts, they would bring in like cool people.
00:25:15.000So, you know, it's kind of like I would compare it to like what you see at the Grammys, like one of those performances or like an Oscar performance, you know what I mean?
00:25:27.000It's a where it's like, yeah, like, like you're, you're, you're, it's not, you know, it's not a stadium, but it's like a big, it's big.
00:25:38.000And the energy through, just through the roof, the level of the performances just, just incredible.
00:25:50.000You know, just, it takes, you know, you could, you could tie, I suppose, a line between, you know, having Brantley and some of the performers at Amfest and a couple of the music nights that we had done there, and then carry that forward.
00:26:05.000But, you know, nobody, you know, I think thought that we'd ever get a guy like Kid Rock, who actually did perform at a halftime show once before in his own right.
00:26:15.000And I believe he actually played the same night as the infamous Wardrobe Malfunction.
00:26:22.000So a lot of people don't remember that he played.
00:26:29.000He performed in the most famous Super Bowl halftime show of all time.
00:26:33.000That was probably one of the things that nobody remembers because of the nipple slip.
00:26:37.000Yeah, well, in fact, he was the immediate predecessor to it.
00:26:42.000He did Ba Wood Ba and Cowboy, and then it went into the Janet Timberlake songs that they ended the show with.
00:26:50.000And yeah, so you're saying, overall, Jack, you're saying that if tomorrow's Olympic opening ceremony is a one, this is like an 11 out of 10?
00:27:02.000I mean, the world could, I'll put it this way, man.
00:27:06.000It's not only are these some of the best, you know, best performing and best performances of people that you could find in the country, I'd put them up against anyone in the world, you know, Olympics or otherwise.
00:27:20.000You want to talk about carrying the torch.
00:27:22.000And producer Foz and I were crunching some of the numbers on this last night because people want to play this game.
00:27:27.000Like, oh, Bad Bunny, you know, oh, you know, well, he's got more streams.
00:27:31.000But really, streaming is kind of like internet radio.
00:27:34.000So it's like, okay, he's played on the radio more than anyone, but does that mean that he's actually like people are putting up money in the United States for it?
00:27:42.000And so the way to look at this, you know, and Andrew, I know you have a background in this, where, you know, people are saying that you can, there's like a formula where they say, okay, this amount of streams would equate to this many album equivalent purchases.
00:27:56.000And there's nowhere near, like, it doesn't even come close to Kid Rock.
00:29:25.000Yeah, level of performance that, you know, I'm just going to say, like, this is something that as a country, this is what you would want to see.
00:29:35.000I just, I hope everyone in the country watches it.
00:29:38.000I hope everyone in the country gets to see it because it's that good.
00:29:41.000Listen, I know there's going to be haters and all that stuff because anytime you do anything that's like worthwhile, people just like, you know, the Kidboard warriors are going to come hate.
00:30:13.000That it makes it like the opening is just like so great that that's why I think that executing on this on Jack's vision was just a really smart thing to do.
00:30:54.000And Charlie understood that the halftime show was all about culture.
00:30:58.000This is like the pinnacle, like the most watched event and the biggest thing.
00:31:03.000And, you know, kind of, I think the announcement came of Bad Bunny.
00:31:09.000It was like right, you know, kind of in, yeah.
00:31:12.000It was sort of like going to be a week or two after the, well, we held the memorial and people were kind of saying like, hey, you know, more people watch this than the Super Bowl.
00:31:23.000And they were talking about production values and sort of that.
00:31:26.000All of that was sort of floating in the ether right around the same time.
00:31:31.000And people were saying, you know, what event is Turning Point going to do next?
00:31:34.000What event is Turning Point going to do next?
00:31:36.000And just like Charlie always said, you know, it's not about winning elections.
00:33:30.000There's performers that can't perform things like this while they're in tour.
00:33:35.000There's performers that can perform things like this geographically close to certain things.
00:33:41.000There's people who can't compete with other productions ever because they have tie-ins.
00:33:48.000It's actually way more, far more difficult to get performers to perform within months, just a few months' time.
00:33:55.000Most of these things are actually planned a year plus out, and they have to go through insane amounts of litigious paperwork to be able to get people to do stuff.
00:34:05.000So I just want to say this is like that that's even more impressive that the team was able to pull anything together.
00:34:11.000You have to go through 90, jump over 90, you know, blockades, jump through hoops, like go through fire, like to get anything like this done.
00:34:23.000And on top of that, one thing that people don't think about is all of the different artists performing together.
00:34:44.000I'll just add on that that people know there was one band that I was pulling for originally, but turns out there's a tour that's going on at the same time that conflicted and people are going to be out of the country like literally on the same day.
00:35:00.000And it's just like, just, as you say, geographically, like it just didn't work.
00:35:04.000And I didn't even check that before I went to look.
00:35:07.000And it was like, you know, you can't ask people to like fly across the world and cancel concerts and stuff because as Tyler's saying, it's like, you know, you get into a lot of contractual issues.
00:35:17.000Well, you get lawsuits and stuff like that.
00:37:48.000Ba with DeBa official music video on YouTube has 65 million views, whereas All Summer Long, released basically at the same time on YouTube, has 166 million.
00:38:00.000So yeah, I think Ball with DeBall is very closely associated with him because he does open a lot of his shows with it.
00:38:09.000And I think it was like his first big signal single.
00:38:12.000So it was kind of like the song that put him on the map.
00:39:27.000Well, actually, one thing I'd love to do before we switch topics, there is something that I didn't get a chance to throw this in to the mix, but it's like a really just interesting situation because you guys remember how we had President Maduro here on the program a couple of weeks ago, right?
00:39:44.000And we stopped by and we're very honored to get to score that first jailhouse interview with him here on Thought Crime.
00:39:52.000Did you guys know that there's a direct link between Bad Bunny and the Venezuelan communist regime?
00:40:10.000So his record label is called Remus Entertainment.
00:40:14.000And Remus Entertainment, the record label behind global star Bad Bunny, has raised suspicions due to its founders' ties to the regime of former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.
00:40:26.000Rafael Ricardo Jimenez-Dan founded it in 2014, previously served as Hugo Chavez's vice minister, and was raising questions about the label's finances and connections to Venezuela's violent political past.
00:40:45.000He led the National Police Reform Commission under Chavez.
00:40:50.000So the guy literally was the head of part of, you know, involved with Chavez's secret police.
00:40:59.000He implemented, quote, transparent and inclusive public policy reforms and public compliance with the rule of law.
00:41:06.000And that this guy ended up starting the record label that signed Bad Bunny.
00:41:14.000And so, of course, there's a lot of questions coming up.
00:41:24.000And a lot of people have said, hey, is it possible that any of this money could have come from the petro-narco regime of the Venezuelans?
00:41:35.000And he denies it, of course, but it's really interesting because you talk about Jay-Z and you talk about the Rock Nation, which runs, of course, the halftime show for the other sports event that's out there.
00:41:49.000There's some really interesting ties to Bad Bunny's label and the Venezuelan regime of the communist regime of Venezuela.
00:42:35.000Okay, so this has been a huge controversy Over the past couple of days, it's, you know, in many ways, it started out, I think, quietly and then it blew up because, you know, both sides, you know, kind of getting very strident about it and, you know, being very emotional, obviously, for a lot of people.
00:42:56.000So Scott Adams passed away a couple of weeks ago, the great Scott Adams.
00:43:00.000And he was known for AI being a huge, one of his main topics of conversation that he would always talk about for years.
00:43:10.000And for a long, long time, Scott had talked about that if he were ever to pass away, that he would love for there to be an AI version of Scott Adams to sort of carry the show and to grow and evolve the same way that he would.
00:43:27.000And he would talk about simulation theory and he would say, well, they could study my work and, you know, basically be able to reproduce what I do.
00:43:35.000And then that just becomes the next level of the simulation.
00:43:39.000And so it looks like somebody took him up on it and created an AI Scott Adams.
00:44:30.000You've certainly changed over your lifetime.
00:44:33.000You're not the same person you were as a kid.
00:44:36.000So if you can change over your lifetime and you're an organic entity, once I become a digital entity, once I become a digital entity, why can't I keep evolving?
00:44:50.000Okay, so that was Real Scott, just so everybody knows.
00:44:54.000Now I want to play a clip of AI Scott Adams, which is clip 497.
00:45:11.000And yes, according to parts of the internet, I'm dead.
00:45:17.000Which is interesting because I've never had fewer meetings.
00:45:22.000Turns out when you remove the biological body, you also remove back pain, food decisions, and about half the reasons people make bad arguments.
00:45:33.000So overall, I'd say death has been a productivity upgrade.
00:45:38.000Not recommending it, just reporting the data.
00:46:37.000That was like one of the things that we're talking about.
00:46:38.000But keep in mind, this is the worst it's ever going to look like all AI generated or just like, did someone script that and then you're going to go to go with it?
00:46:54.000Well, so that bit that he does at the very end is that was like he would open every show with the simultaneous sip.
00:47:00.000So that's like something he said every show.
00:47:03.000But, you know, it's but like it seems more than likely that what he's done is like gone to, you know, some LLM Grok or whatever and said, you know, produce an intro of Scott Adams talking about himself as if he was AI.
00:47:19.000I'll be honest though, when he was the real Scott Adams giving permission for an AI version of him, I was like, I felt uncomfortable.
00:47:29.000You felt uncomfortable with the AI version.
00:47:30.000I felt uncomfortable with him giving permission.
00:47:33.000I was like, felt like paying the box was getting open.
00:47:36.000Yeah, because I just felt like it felt like he didn't know what he was actually agreeing to.
00:47:42.000I mean, obviously everyone's seen this, the AI where it's like you keep asking AI to redo the image and it changes the image like dramatically.
00:48:05.000You mean the actual like words in this case?
00:48:07.000Yeah, I mean like the words, like the actual content is that like and a daily Scott AI will start sounding like Scott, but slowly will transform or could transform over time and be so far away from what the original intent was that everyone will forget what the original Scott was like.
00:48:33.000And part of the reason why I was thinking about that, and I'll just finish this thought.
00:48:36.000Part of the reason I was thinking about that is most people, a lot of people have gone upset because they're like, where did the old Charlie episodes go on Apple?
00:48:44.000Apple makes it really expensive to store.
00:48:48.000And so we're trying to figure out how to get them.
00:48:50.000Yeah, we'll get all of his old episodes up eventually.
00:49:28.000So what it's been doing, which is interesting, it seems to me that someone's scripting it, you know, to at least an extent or at least prompting it, who was aware of the show.
00:49:39.000Obviously, we didn't play any of the real content, but you could hear some of the humor was very similar.
00:49:46.000It's clearly someone who watched Scott a lot has made this.
00:49:50.000And And so what they're doing with it is they haven't, they haven't had it like taking positions on things.
00:49:56.000What they're doing is, just like Scott would do on a regular basis, read the news headlines, see what kind of like what's trending, what's interesting out there, and then break it down in a Scott Adams analysis fashion.
00:50:11.000So rather than say, oh, I'm for this or I'm against this, it's more like just Scott explaining, here's what happened and here's my take in an analytical sense rather than a, I'm for this or I oppose this kind of way.
00:50:24.000So that's, you know, that's sort of how they're keeping it, I think, a little bit tighter to the idea of what Scott would be doing and not, you know, jumping in and saying, oh, I'm all for this or I'm all against this when obviously we don't have the ability to ask Scott.
00:50:38.000But here's what was so key about what you just said, Tyler, because Scott Adams himself, so for years he talked about, I give permission, I want this to be permissible, I want this to be allowed, as you would play the, you know, one clip there.
00:50:53.000But as he was facing his approaching demise, as we all know, and he kept doing his show, he actually kind of changed his mind on the AI version based on pretty much the same thing that Tyler just said.
00:51:25.000I thought it was just the greatest idea in the world that after I passed away, there would be like a version of me that could grow and change with technology and be upgraded and stuff.
00:52:27.000Are you going to do like a reverse Willie style now where it turns out that video from early 2025 is actually from yesterday and it's no, no, no, no.
00:52:52.000And the reason being that we've already seen, because Charlie's been like an MLK level figure here, where people have used Charlie's own words against Charlie, Charlie's own words against his, you know, or they've, or they've said things.
00:53:31.000No, I just wanted to say, so, you know, just kind of finish the story, because I know the topic we're going to get into, and this is what we should get into.
00:53:39.000But the family has, and really the community, I think, has come out and said, look, we're respecting Scott's, we want to respect Scott's last wishes here.
00:53:49.000And he did say that he changed his mind and that we would prefer this not to continue based on what he said before.
00:54:00.000And that this is not, that he did actually change his mind on it.
00:54:05.000And so that's kind of led to this back and forth now where.
00:54:09.000They're putting out statements and the community is putting out statements, like the community people that were in like his locals and chats and like his community manager and stuff.
00:54:19.000But then also AI Scott Adams, or I guess the guys running it, are like debating this argument with them saying, well, I did have permission.
00:54:53.000Well, so actually, so much of it ends up in court.
00:54:56.000Like it goes to the deeper AI thing because AI in a lot of ways is basically a Wild West.
00:55:03.000So there's like the ongoing lawsuit, for example, of all of the copyrighted works that get fed into AI and is it legal for them to produce it?
00:55:11.000And is some of that straightforward on the level of like, oh, is it okay for the AI to AI generate a Mickey Mouse thing when that's owned by Disney?
00:55:19.000But then it's like, is it okay for the AI to rip off a company, like a specific artist's art style and say like, oh, yeah, I did this in the style of this specific person.
00:55:30.000And then you get into like, yeah, is it legal for, I think it's pretty clearly not okay if you're going to, if you were going to use it fraudulently.
00:55:38.000So if you made a video that's like, oh, this is Charlie and something he said and you're trying to use it to profit.
00:55:44.000But then if you're going even further than that and it's just the likeness of a deceased person made in that style, in the past, there'd be a lot of fair use stuff that could go into that.
00:55:54.000But I actually do feel we're probably in somewhat legally uncharted territory here.
00:55:59.000And there's, you're going to have to have, well, first of all, there's going to have to be like the rights to your likeness.
00:56:05.000But I'd even wonder if it'd be worth going further and say like somewhat limit your ability to sell your likeness.
00:56:12.000Because I don't think we're going to like the reality, for example, where it's routine for a company to just, for example, permanently own the rights to your likeness going on decades after your death.
00:56:24.000Like, would it be okay for anyone to permanently own your family members way they act or behave?
00:56:30.000Well, I mean, but you got to imagine, so you might start building like trusts and like estates or whatever with that the usage rights built into it as a matter of sort of common practice, you know, because this is going to be such a, you know, a common thing, especially if you're a high-profile individual.
00:56:49.000I mean, everybody on the show right now, this video could be plugged into an AI and eventually be used to mimic stuff we say.
00:56:57.000So how do the viewers know this isn't AI?
00:58:24.000So the example I used earlier today was like when I was having this conversation, I was like, okay, remember, you guys remember the Hoctua girl?
00:59:08.000And we've talked about this on the show before, that Facebook and YouTube are replete with this type of content.
00:59:17.000I think Instagram and TikTok are like getting better at labeling it.
00:59:20.000But at some point, it's just going to get so good that you really won't know.
00:59:24.000And so what happens then when like those people go on to do their, to like do their own stuff, you know, and do their own podcasts and content and movies.
00:59:36.000And it's like, so we talk about who owns our digital likeness, but then like if you create a digital being, a digital entity, like do you own them?
00:59:50.000Well, they're already doing that because there's tons of people on the internet who are making tons of money on Instagram and all that with fake.
01:00:03.000Fake e-girls, fake OnlyFans, kind of this like thought tier or like the scam tier.
01:00:09.000What I think will be really interesting.
01:00:11.000I think it's fake e-girls because the real e-girls never seem to work out.
01:00:15.000So maybe fake e-girls would be better.
01:00:17.000Yeah, you know, so, but I think what will be interesting, let's, as an example, like we live, we do live in the age of streamers, podcasters, all of that.
01:00:29.000But what could be interesting to me, imagine someone who's like an up-and-comer podcaster.
01:00:34.000They just do like commentary on something and they just start off doing a solo show.
01:00:38.000And we're basically at the point where, or if not, very soon will be, where a person could basically be generating a solo show in their home in their basement in like a personal studio and have it be a fake person, but otherwise be like entirely realistic looking or something.
01:00:57.000Like someone who could become a star as like a popular show and yet the entire person is fake.
01:01:02.000Like maybe it looks, you know, maybe it looks like an attractive young woman and it's actually a 40-year-old guy who might be like authoring the takes, but it's entirely through this AI filter.
01:01:11.000And that person could like rise and become more and more prominent, maybe even appear on other shows once AI is fast enough that they could kind of just generate it live on the spot.
01:01:20.000And then it would like suddenly come out maybe five years into this person's career that they're a fake persona and there's a different, a person who looks totally different behind them.
01:02:33.000And when you find out it's not living, maybe in certain contexts, people won't care and it'll prove to be profitable and fine.
01:02:39.000Some people already believe what we're already doing is that.
01:02:44.000Tyler, I know for a fact that there are media markets that are doing this already in news, especially for like the daytime news where it's just sort of like news packages and it's like, here's the reporter or, you know, and they're on the scene or they're just like someone behind the desk talking and giving you like the rundown of it.
01:03:15.000We used to at a company I used to work at, we used to just get like, you know, kids from, you know, the local state university who were in the broadcasting program and say, hey, why don't you come?
01:03:34.000And you just came in and worked your shift.
01:03:36.000And like that was, you know, hey, it's a way to get started, et cetera.
01:03:39.000But, you know, if you're looking at it from a company perspective and you're saying, you know, what's cheaper?
01:03:47.000Is it going to be cheaper to just like buy an AI model that I can turn into as many different news people as I want who are never going to get old, who never have to pay them?
01:04:45.000Like, it would be like fantasy football where you can say, oh, here's my fantasy team versus your fantasy team, but it's the, it's like each player is based on a real player, but they're actually playing each other in a team.
01:06:55.000And this actually goes into one of the reasons that we chose the name of this program the way that we did because no one, no one, especially in the mainstream, is ever going to come for this show or any of our work.