The Charlie Kirk Show - THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 88 — Tucker v. Cruz? The Bloodthirsty Base? Charlie Goes to the WNBA?

00:00:00.000 Okay, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Thought Crime with Blake, Jack, Tyler.

00:00:05.000 Great conversation.

00:00:07.000 We talk about a lot of things, including Israel, Iran, the WNBA, and federal lands.

00:00:11.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:14.000 And become a member today, members.charliekirk.com.

00:00:16.000 That is members.charliekirk.com.

00:00:19.000 And get involved with Turning Point USA today at tpusa.com.

00:00:22.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:25.000 Start a Turning Point USA chapter today 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 campus.

00:00:35.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:39.000 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.

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00:01:21.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

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00:01:30.000 Okay, everybody.

00:01:31.000 Welcome.

00:01:31.000 We are doing thought crime right now.

00:01:33.000 We have Blake.

00:01:34.000 We have Jack.

00:01:35.000 We have Tyler.

00:01:36.000 We have lots to talk about.

00:01:38.000 I feel like a few things have happened this week, Charlie.

00:01:40.000 Just a couple things.

00:01:41.000 What do you mean?

00:01:42.000 There's nothing news this week we talk about.

00:01:45.000 I don't even know what we're going to get into, really.

00:01:47.000 And I've just kind of been sitting at home this week.

00:01:49.000 No real idea what's been happening.

00:01:52.000 We need to get Charlie in.

00:01:53.000 Tyler, are you at the beach?

00:01:54.000 Are you at the beach right now, Tyler?

00:01:57.000 I am in Jack's world outside of Philadelphia.

00:02:03.000 That's right.

00:02:04.000 You had an Eagles game?

00:02:05.000 Saw that on your Instagram.

00:02:07.000 We know how much Jack loves the Eagles.

00:02:10.000 It will be NFL season soon.

00:02:12.000 Excuse me, I love the champion Eagles.

00:02:14.000 Thank you.

00:02:15.000 Charlie, speaking of you, you were saying whether you were in the news or not, I feel like it would be really funny if we could get you into Catholic-level religious retreats.

00:02:24.000 Go out for a week, put your phone away.

00:02:26.000 I've been reading a biography of an old emperor during Holy Week.

00:02:30.000 He's the emperor of the largest empire in Europe.

00:02:32.000 Holy Week, he would just go to a monastery for a week and do no official business.

00:02:36.000 That's amazing.

00:02:37.000 Imagine if you started doing that.

00:02:39.000 And then you just come back after a week and they'd be like, Charlie, we're, you know, World War III started.

00:02:44.000 And you're like, oh, oh gosh.

00:02:45.000 No, but Charlie does that.

00:02:47.000 I do that every Saturday.

00:02:48.000 Charlie, do you do that every Saturday though?

00:02:49.000 I do, yeah.

00:02:50.000 No matter what's going on.

00:02:51.000 You do the Saturday no phone.

00:02:52.000 Friday night, turning off.

00:02:54.000 So that's right.

00:02:55.000 Shabbat Shalom.

00:02:55.000 We get the message.

00:02:56.000 But Charlie, I gotta say though, I'm silent for a week.

00:02:59.000 What about when there's an event?

00:03:01.000 That is the exception.

00:03:02.000 It's hard.

00:03:02.000 I actually turn off my phone, but I do have to work.

00:03:05.000 But I did it without a phone, at least.

00:03:07.000 And it makes it actually a lot more relaxing, and I'm more present, for sure.

00:03:11.000 But I'd say four or five weekends a year, I have to work.

00:03:14.000 But it's just the nature of the beast.

00:03:16.000 So you have to sometimes have an exception.

00:03:18.000 Do you try to rotate it at all?

00:03:20.000 We're like Sunday then?

00:03:21.000 Yes, I try to make up on Sunday.

00:03:22.000 I try to.

00:03:23.000 It's harder because- And I was like, yeah, you've got to go through someone else.

00:03:38.000 But then I did get a message from you in the chat, and I was like, oh, maybe he is on his phone.

00:03:45.000 Yeah, so last Saturday at Women's Summit, I had it on in the morning, and then I turned off my phone the rest of the day.

00:03:52.000 I was like, yeah, this is too much.

00:03:54.000 By the way, it was like the Minnesota terrible story in Minnesota.

00:03:57.000 It was just like all this about Israel Iran.

00:03:59.000 I'm like, I can't.

00:04:00.000 It was crazy.

00:04:01.000 Yeah, it was too much.

00:04:02.000 It was literally information overlooked.

00:04:03.000 Speaking of which, so this episode might get a little dated, so let's try to make this in more of a timeless way.

00:04:11.000 We'll do it, but yeah, we can zoom out.

00:04:12.000 We're not obviously...

00:04:16.000 Let's actually, you know, do we have a piece of tape from the nuke boomer, Shane, that we can pull?

00:04:21.000 I actually think it's a very interesting place to start.

00:04:25.000 Right?

00:04:26.000 So on our program, there was one of our members, and I don't want to insult him.

00:04:31.000 He's a member.

00:04:32.000 He pays money.

00:04:33.000 Good for him.

00:04:33.000 I think it's an insane view that he has.

00:04:36.000 And thank you for being a member.

00:04:37.000 Two different members called us in during the hour, and this was non-sarcastic, right? 0.60

00:04:41.000 one of which said that there is no cost great enough if we were to invade Iran with ground troops.

00:04:50.000 Yes.

00:04:51.000 What's his name?

00:04:52.000 Haman? 0.64

00:04:52.000 Haman. 0.64

00:04:53.000 Haman.

00:04:53.000 He is the Persian vizier official in the Shah's court.

00:04:59.000 Just to be clear, Haman is closely to Hitler. 0.63

00:05:02.000 Like the Ayatollah is threatening to be Hitler, but he actually hasn't killed nearly as many Jews as like Haman. 0.86

00:05:07.000 I was telling Charlie this week that a lot of people don't realize – So there used to be hundreds of thousands of Jews in Yemen, in Egypt, in modern Iraq.

00:05:24.000 Those communities are gone.

00:05:25.000 They've moved to Israel or to the United States, and they're basically extinct.

00:05:30.000 Iran used to have far more.

00:05:31.000 Most of them did leave.

00:05:32.000 But there is a remnant of about 10,000 to 20,000 Jews in Iran.

00:05:37.000 You can look online.

00:05:38.000 There are Jewish-themed tours that you can go to in Iran that are marketed at Persian Jews who live in Los Angeles, sort of that.

00:05:46.000 They go on vacation there.

00:05:47.000 And I think this is my favorite part.

00:05:49.000 There is a constitutionally required Jewish affirmative action representative in the Iranian legislature that they have.

00:05:57.000 There's them.

00:05:58.000 They have one for them.

00:05:59.000 They have a couple for the Armenian Christians.

00:06:01.000 And I think they have one for Zoroastrians. 0.99

00:06:03.000 Yeah.

00:06:04.000 And so.

00:06:05.000 The Iranian government says that they're anti-Zionist, but they do not call for the extermination of the Jewish people.

00:06:11.000 That's good.

00:06:12.000 They're moderates, Charlie.

00:06:13.000 No, I don't know about that.

00:06:14.000 But, I mean, they did say this, though, that I don't think they're moderates, but it's important to note they say that.

00:06:29.000 But they say, Jewish Iranians have said, we are Iranian, we are not Zionists.

00:06:34.000 That distinction protects them politically, so there's 15,000 Jews still in Iran.

00:06:38.000 It's not a lot, but I mean, it's interesting because you would think that they would kill all the Jews.

00:06:44.000 To be clear, I think they basically are required to disavow Israel effectively to avoid harassment.

00:06:49.000 It's not it is not great, but.

00:06:55.000 You can go to Egypt.

00:06:56.000 I think there are literally like three Jews remaining in Egypt, and that used to be one of the largest Jewish communities in the world.

00:07:02.000 That's right.

00:07:03.000 So, all right, this is it.

00:07:04.000 So this is 419.

00:07:05.000 This is, okay, this is the boots on the ground one.

00:07:09.000 I think it's important because we have to try to define what the consequences of some of this stuff would be and how bad these ideas are, how morally troubling these ideas are.

00:07:18.000 Let's play cut 419.

00:07:20.000 So, very interesting question and thoughtful.

00:07:22.000 How many American troops are you comfortable with to effectuate regime change in Iran?

00:07:28.000 Oh, I don't know.

00:07:29.000 Whatever is necessary.

00:07:32.000 So if 10,000 American troops died, would you be okay with that?

00:07:36.000 I would.

00:07:36.000 I think this is the main enemy, not Iraq.

00:07:38.000 This is it.

00:07:40.000 Do you think Iran is a greater enemy than China? 0.74

00:07:43.000 Well, we can't defeat China. 0.79

00:07:45.000 See, that's an impossible scenario.

00:07:47.000 Okay, so just to be clear, you would be okay with boots on the ground in Iran?

00:07:51.000 I would.

00:07:53.000 Okay.

00:07:54.000 So, yeah, and then he was followed up by another guy.

00:07:56.000 But, Blake, so let's just take that one first, then we'll do the nuclear weapon one.

00:08:01.000 Why is Iran, even if we're like, we're going to invade Iran, why would that probably be a really bad idea?

00:08:07.000 Exactly.

00:08:07.000 This is actually why, well, I'm sure we'll get to this later, that, you know, that viral exchange between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, like, how many people are in Iran?

00:08:15.000 A relevant question, especially if you're doing boots on the ground.

00:08:18.000 When we invaded Iraq 20 years ago, it had slightly over 20 million people.

00:08:22.000 I want to say 22 million or so.

00:08:25.000 Iran today has over 90 million people.

00:08:28.000 So that is more than four times the size.

00:08:31.000 And it's pretty spread out.

00:08:33.000 They're not all concentrated in one city or anything.

00:08:35.000 It's a – and then geographically, the country, Iraq, I want to say is like – I think you say like three times the size of Texas, about?

00:08:50.000 Two and a half times the size of Texas.

00:08:52.000 But also, even to get to Tehran, isn't it nestled within mountains all around it?

00:08:56.000 Yeah, it's a very mountainous country.

00:08:58.000 Very mountainous.

00:08:59.000 When we invaded Iraq, Iraq is Tigris River, Euphrates River, and almost all the people kind of live along those rivers.

00:09:06.000 You have some large cities, but it's all sort of in a line going down to the Persian Gulf.

00:09:11.000 It's a very fertile crescent.

00:09:13.000 Yeah, literally the fertile crescent.

00:09:16.000 Iran, it's, yeah, you have Tehran, a city of 16 million people, so that's about the size of New York, plus its immediate suburbs.

00:09:24.000 The Zagros Mountains to the south.

00:09:26.000 Yep, yep.

00:09:27.000 I can't remember all of it.

00:09:28.000 Come on, Blake, you have to know.

00:09:30.000 I used to compete in the Geography V. I forgot.

00:09:32.000 You've got to know every single city.

00:09:33.000 The Zagros Mountains.

00:09:33.000 Blake, can you not name every person that lives in Tehran?

00:09:36.000 I cannot do that.

00:09:37.000 I cannot.

00:09:37.000 I can name at least three cities in Iran, which I think that's the fun follow-up to how many people live there.

00:09:43.000 Name four cities in Iran.

00:09:45.000 Well, I can't now.

00:09:46.000 I mean, like, Mashhad, Nantz, Tabriz, Tehran.

00:09:54.000 No, all right, you're good, you're good.

00:09:55.000 Isfahan is a good one. 0.95

00:09:57.000 Bandar, Mas.

00:09:59.000 Biggest Navy base.

00:10:00.000 QOM, like Q-O-M. 1.00

00:10:01.000 I have no idea how they're supposed to say that.

00:10:05.000 Chabahar.

00:10:05.000 Yeah, so it's large.

00:10:07.000 It's very geographically buried.

00:10:08.000 Tons of mountains, so the landscape is...

00:10:12.000 Just tons of mountains, tons of valleys, tons of caves in those mountains.

00:10:17.000 There's desert, of course.

00:10:19.000 Like, the entire southeast quarter of it is the most barren wilderness ever.

00:10:24.000 Alexander the Great once marched his army across it, and about half of them died in the process.

00:10:30.000 So even though Romans wanted to take Persia, right?

00:10:33.000 And for a thousand years they couldn't get it, right?

00:10:37.000 Yeah, they invaded it multiple times.

00:11:10.000 can't remember if he was already dead at this point, but they supposedly pour molten gold down his throat because he was the richest man in Rome, and so they were kind of styling on him a bit with that.

00:11:21.000 So, Jack, I want to get this from a military expertise.

00:11:23.000 So, Jack, even if everyone was like, let's go to Iran, how many Americans would die to displace the Iranian regime? 0.90

00:11:31.000 I mean, this is a major country.

00:11:33.000 I mean, 100,000?

00:11:35.000 Well, so, I mean, yeah, if you're talking about You know, so not special operations or one of these bombing runs, but an actual invasion scenario.

00:11:50.000 Keep in mind that the Iraq troop surge was over 100,000 troops just there.

00:11:57.000 And so Iran is a country that is.

00:12:06.000 Also, by the way, the people of Iraq would most likely come in in some way, shape or form here because at least 50% or more of Iraq currently supports Iran.

00:12:17.000 There's massive protests right there.

00:12:19.000 You would need a larger force right now than Russia has in Ukraine to go into Iran, to be able to hold the country if you were trying to actually occupy it. 0.50

00:12:31.000 Just to be clear, just to get to Tehran.

00:12:37.000 There's no launching off point.

00:12:38.000 There's a couple of ports.

00:12:40.000 I mean, this is such a bad idea, militarily.

00:12:43.000 Much more deep into the interior.

00:12:45.000 Basically, it's like the Rocky Mountains are between the Persian Gulf and Tehran.

00:12:49.000 Exactly.

00:12:50.000 And by the way, there's also tanks.

00:12:54.000 Can't go across parts of the desert because there's sand traps in it.

00:12:58.000 It's super hot.

00:13:00.000 And let's just frame it in terms of...

00:13:01.000 So I think our peak force when we invaded Iraq was 170,000 troops.

00:13:10.000 So if you just want to maintain the same number of troops per people in the country, you'd need over half a million.

00:13:18.000 You would have to basically – you would have to move basically all of the troops of the Indo-Pacific, all of them, like all of the troops of Europe and just say we're going all in on Iran. 0.89

00:13:29.000 For what exactly?

00:13:36.000 Yeah, it's a bad idea, Charlie.

00:13:38.000 The whole thing is bad.

00:13:39.000 It's a horrible idea.

00:13:40.000 I don't know if there's a single person online that I've seen that thinks that that's a great idea.

00:13:47.000 Oh, no, no.

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00:15:00.000 So the second, again, I think this one really kind of took our entire team, like, speechless.

00:15:08.000 Would you agree, Blake?

00:15:11.000 What's funny is I saw, you know, we get some heads up on what the question will be, and I saw that was in the queue.

00:15:16.000 I'm like, we've got to make sure we get to this.

00:15:18.000 This is going to be content.

00:15:19.000 I didn't know.

00:15:20.000 I was totally taken by surprise.

00:15:21.000 I'm not usually speechless on my show, and this guy's not a troll.

00:15:26.000 By the way, a lot of people hold this view.

00:15:28.000 This is actually a view that people have.

00:15:31.000 All right, playcut 420. 0.99

00:15:33.000 We should drop a neutron bomb on Tehran. 1.00

00:15:36.000 Okay, so just to make sure I'm going to say your question, are you recommending dropping a neutron bomb on Tehran? 0.99

00:15:43.000 Yes.

00:15:43.000 Okay.

00:15:48.000 No, keep going.

00:15:48.000 No, I just said, the thing is...

00:15:54.000 If World War III breaks out, if we hit Toronto with a neutron bomb and they don't even know why it hit them, I don't know.

00:16:02.000 So just so you're clear, like three million people would die, including kids and civilians.

00:16:10.000 That's a proposal?

00:16:12.000 How many people would die if we let this go to World War III?

00:16:16.000 Okay, so then I pressed him further, and he didn't really know the difference in a neutron bomb.

00:16:22.000 By the way, a neutron bomb is actually even more inhumane, because all the buildings stay intact.

00:16:28.000 They're an interesting thing.

00:16:29.000 It's like the idea is normal nuclear bombs, they shoot out a ton of neutrons, but they're kind of contained by the nature of design.

00:16:35.000 This sort of intentionally shoots out, and it's like a pulse of radiation.

00:16:40.000 It can kill tons of stuff. 0.62

00:16:42.000 I know they would use it.

00:16:44.000 It would be like a tactical nuclear weapon because you can use it to kill armor really easily.

00:16:48.000 It's all complicated.

00:16:50.000 It figures a lot in conspiracy theories.

00:16:52.000 Did you know this?

00:16:53.000 No.

00:16:53.000 There's a conspiracy theory that the U.S. used a neutron bomb on Baghdad's airport to capture it in the Iraq war.

00:17:00.000 Really?

00:17:00.000 So I once ran into a guy who was pitching that conspiracy theory to me.

00:17:05.000 This was a decade ago.

00:17:06.000 But, yeah, so the idea is it's supposedly the – Clean nuke, because it's just designed to kill people.

00:17:15.000 It doesn't kill buildings, and building lives matter, Charlie.

00:17:19.000 So, so Jack, I mean, I can't help but be somewhat speechless by all of this.

00:17:23.000 I mean, is this really an op?

00:17:26.000 Like people are thinking the cruelty.

00:17:28.000 By the way, I asked him if he was a Christian later, and he said yes.

00:17:30.000 I was like, how could you as a Christian even, like, begin to, like...

00:17:42.000 Jack?

00:17:42.000 Yeah, and these are serious ethical questions that, of course, come up in the context of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

00:17:51.000 They come up in the context of the Allied strategic bombing of World War II, many of which, as we know, because with these atomic weapons, they don't discriminate.

00:18:02.000 They don't discriminate between combatants and enemy combatants.

00:18:05.000 They don't discriminate between any of that.

00:18:07.000 So civilians, children, women.

00:18:10.000 You mentioned the Jewish population of Iran.

00:18:12.000 Many of them happen to be within the blast radius of this thing.

00:18:15.000 They're all gone.

00:18:16.000 They're all absolutely gone.

00:18:18.000 And if they live, if they're in the next radius and then beyond that, you've got radiation sickness, you've got cancer, you've got all sorts of things going on there.

00:18:28.000 My wife comes from Belarus.

00:18:31.000 And people know, fortunately, she's from the western side of Belarus.

00:18:37.000 The eastern side is where the Chernobyl fallout hit.

00:18:41.000 And the Chernobyl fallout still affects people to this day in eastern Belarus and people who were born around that time, so late 80s, early 90s.

00:18:53.000 You do have a lot of malformations.

00:18:55.000 You have a lot of cancers.

00:18:56.000 You have a whole host of issues.

00:18:58.000 Because even though Chernobyl is in Ukraine, it's right on the border of Belarus.

00:19:01.000 And the way the winds were blowing, it really, really went into the civilian population.

00:19:07.000 And it was right around the same time as May Day.

00:19:10.000 And in the Soviet Union, May Day was this huge parade.

00:19:13.000 So again, you just had all these civilians.

00:19:15.000 And that was just an accident.

00:19:17.000 That wasn't an actual nuclear strike.

00:19:20.000 Again, that was just an accident.

00:19:21.000 And we know how bad Chernobyl was.

00:19:24.000 And she's told me, put it this way.

00:19:27.000 When HBO put that movie out, or the miniseries out about Chernobyl, I showed her the trailer for it.

00:19:34.000 And she couldn't even make it through the trailer.

00:19:37.000 She couldn't even watch the movie itself with me.

00:19:40.000 So I watched the miniseries alone because she said this is just too personal.

00:19:44.000 It's too close to home.

00:19:46.000 I know too many people or have had families who were affected by this, and I just I mean, just like where are I mean, it's really a sick thing that people would just say go kill 3 million civilians.

00:20:01.000 Babies and women that have nothing to do with this? 1.00

00:20:04.000 This is a moral darkness that has to be confronted.

00:20:07.000 It's sad, and what's kind of...

00:20:10.000 I've read one of the darkest things actually about World War II's impact on humanity is it did very much normalize in Christian European civilization. 0.98

00:20:21.000 It kind of brought back the idea it was okay to just go...

00:20:25.000 Total war on someone like absolute war against an entire country and all of its people, which I feel at the peak of Western Christian European civilization. 0.97

00:20:35.000 We had we had rolled that idea back like the US Civil War killed tons of people, yet there were.

00:20:43.000 They did occur, but they were war crimes and people got hanged for them.

00:20:46.000 The American Revolution, despite certain inaccurate Mel Gibson movies, does not involve mass atrocities against civilians.

00:20:55.000 The Napoleonic Wars, a lot of people die in those.

00:20:58.000 But again, you do not have it as a norm that you just roll into a town and just kill everybody.

00:21:03.000 Or when it comes close to that, people are horrified and it's hugely controversial.

00:21:09.000 Now, you know, World War II, it was, you know, they normalized the idea of total war. 0.62

00:21:13.000 You wage war on an entire country and all of its people, and people are a resource, so you're okay to attack them because you have to attack them.

00:21:21.000 I do think I should, since we are on ThoughtCrime, I do think if you're going to say that, I probably should bring up that the march to the sea, Sherman's march, was not exactly the cleanest.

00:21:32.000 No, you see, that's where you're mistaken, Jack.

00:21:39.000 No, no, no.

00:21:40.000 You see, that is where your mistake is.

00:21:42.000 I once went and researched.

00:21:43.000 I invite you all.

00:21:44.000 This is one of my favorite things.

00:21:45.000 I once did this.

00:21:46.000 I looked up every county that the March to the Sea went through, and we have the 1860 U.S. Census, and we have the 1870 U.S. Census.

00:21:55.000 Every single place that the Sherman's March to the Sea went through had more people in 1870 than it did in 1860.

00:22:01.000 Like, the funny thing is, is in the South, you'll have like all these small towns will have this story about- Basically, there were, like, no atrocities in the March to the Sea.

00:22:13.000 Like, they destroyed a huge amount of infrastructure.

00:22:15.000 like they destroyed every railroad but like the rules that Sherman gave his men They burn Atlanta deliberately, but they don't, like, kill everyone in Atlanta.

00:22:29.000 They put the people in Atlanta on a train, and they send them to the north, and not to, like, scary train ride.

00:22:34.000 They just evacuate.

00:22:36.000 They do destroy Atlanta.

00:22:38.000 Columbia and South Carolina is burned probably basically by accident.

00:22:41.000 Sherman says he doesn't mind because it's South Carolina and they deserve it, but it is accidental.

00:22:45.000 But other than that, like, they don't obliterate any towns.

00:22:48.000 They don't destroy Savannah.

00:22:59.000 And what this gets at is actually the greater truth, which is just they didn't really destroy any towns other than Atlanta and Columbia.

00:23:07.000 And, like, he has these rules.

00:23:08.000 He says you can't destroy anyone's personal home.

00:23:10.000 You can destroy storehouses.

00:23:11.000 You destroy stuff relevant to the economy, but you can't destroy people's personal homes.

00:23:15.000 You destroy stockpiles of food.

00:23:17.000 You do not destroy food that is necessary for individuals to feed themselves.

00:23:21.000 So it's very funny.

00:23:22.000 Like this is an example where people will say this is total war.

00:23:26.000 But if you dig into the details of it, it's actually a perfect example of how our values have changed that in the 1860s, this qualified as total war.

00:23:35.000 Yet it's utterly incomparable to what we did in future wars or what, frankly, a lot of people want us to do now to Iran. 0.78

00:23:45.000 But so, Jack, help me understand where does this come from?

00:23:48.000 Where does that kind of cruelty and darkness versus like we're just going to drop a nuclear bomb on an entire population?

00:23:54.000 How did we get here?

00:23:56.000 So I think a lot of it is unfortunately a lot of it is Marvel movie thinking.

00:24:07.000 You get this sort of war fervor also from cable news.

00:24:13.000 Unfortunately, some people just watch too much cable news and they think that, hey, all these people are evil. 1.00

00:24:19.000 We have to kill them all. 1.00

00:24:20.000 We have to get them out. 1.00

00:24:21.000 And we were actually playing on human events.

00:24:26.000 Earlier today, just, you know, sort of B-roll of city scenes in Tehran.

00:24:32.000 And yeah, you know, it looks like the Middle East and it's different from us. 0.95

00:24:35.000 and you see the burqas, but you do see families and just people sort of walking around and, you know, buying food and going shopping and going to work and living their lives.

00:24:45.000 And so it's it's you know, again, it's They're still just people.

00:25:02.000 And even if you have your differences with the regime and you, you know, morally want things to happen, you really need to be careful when you're Purposefully targeting civilian populations.

00:25:16.000 And unfortunately, I think that is an unintended side effect of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where some people think, well, that's just what you got to do.

00:25:28.000 You know, that's just what you got to do to end the war, to stop them, just just nuke them, just nuke them all the way down. 0.95

00:25:34.000 And to the point where Truman himself, you know, didn't obviously people remember.

00:25:41.000 Even though he had dropped the nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did not elect to use nukes on China.

00:25:49.000 After they got involved in the Korean War, and in fact, basically fired MacArthur for publicly speaking out against him.

00:25:59.000 They had a huge disagreement about it.

00:26:01.000 And MacArthur was saying, let's nuke Beijing, let's nuke Shanghai, and prevent China from going communist.

00:26:08.000 Well, not going communist, but defeating the communists once and for all.

00:26:14.000 Obviously, a whole alternate history that could have happened had that taken place.

00:26:18.000 And so it's hard to say, but at the same time, I think there's serious moral and ethical questions here that get glossed over because when people hear about the war drums beating, there's a tendency, a very human tendency to be tribal.

00:26:34.000 And in that very human tendency to be tribal, it's us versus them. 0.89

00:26:38.000 And all of us need to defeat all of them.

00:26:41.000 And if you're on the other side, then, you know, You're going to get you're going to get beaten. 0.99

00:26:45.000 You're going to get killed. 0.99

00:26:46.000 And that's the end. 0.97

00:26:46.000 And and to the point, you know, Charlie, in this country, even in World War Two, you know, we did intern any Japanese Americans. 0.97

00:26:54.000 Many German Americans also faced a lot of this.

00:26:56.000 By the way, a lot of German, Italian American German and Italian Americans went and volunteered to join the Axis.

00:27:02.000 So these wars are very complicated and wars get very messy.

00:27:06.000 And it is it's never occurred once in all of history that there was a war that that went well and went exactly as the initial planners and promoters said it was going to.

00:27:17.000 So, Blake, it's hard to even comprehend.

00:27:21.000 Is there like a older generation problem where they just haven't learned like any foreign policy lessons the last 20 years?

00:27:28.000 You know, it's sad because like we think of learning from things, but the truth is for a lot of people, they get their ideas about the world, I think, largely fixed in their teenage years, their 20 something years, and then...

00:27:46.000 And I think just like we see in Washington, where a lot of people got in a Cold War mindset, so that's why they're always paranoid about Russia.

00:27:55.000 And I think that's actually driving a lot of the Iran stuff.

00:28:00.000 The U.S. and Iran had far more direct conflict in the 1980s.

00:28:05.000 I mean, we have the Iranian hostage crisis.

00:28:07.000 We had, We're planes getting shot down, things like that.

00:28:12.000 And I think a lot of people wanted some sort of payoff for that.

00:28:16.000 They never quite got it.

00:28:17.000 So instead, we've just had this infinite semi-occasionally flaring up conflict with Iran. 0.59

00:28:25.000 But people have always wanted that payoff.

00:28:26.000 And they never got it.

00:28:28.000 And it's just coming roaring back.

00:28:30.000 And it will never really go away until people who have been craving that for decades either die off or get their payoff.

00:28:36.000 Tyler, what do you make of the generational difference that the older that you are, the more likely it seems that you're open to dropping a nuke or boots on the ground?

00:28:45.000 Talk about the age difference dynamic here.

00:28:47.000 Well, I actually think it's really interesting, too.

00:28:49.000 Just, again, we bring in the Russia issue, which is, you know, what is the outcome if you do some kind of massive drop into Iran?

00:29:02.000 What kind of outcome?

00:29:04.000 What's the outcome going to look like with Turkey, your Turkish relationship, your Russian relationship, obviously the conflict that's happening there?

00:29:13.000 What does that do for American day-to-day life outside of the immense amount of life lost that we've discussed?

00:29:23.000 We're talking about the impacts that we would have with gas and everything else.

00:29:27.000 It is absolutely insane what would happen.

00:29:32.000 Sorry, guys.

00:29:33.000 Everywhere I'm going, I'm just getting beeping in the background here.

00:29:38.000 But I think the older generation, as they're thinking about everything else that we see, activists on the ground, which are the loudest that we hear, especially within the Republican Party, they're just completely detached from what this would mean for younger people.

00:30:00.000 And what their day-to-day impact would look like right away with how they live their lives, what the cost would be, because largely older people are pretty much taken care of. 0.66

00:30:10.000 It's the younger people that would feel the brunt of things.

00:30:14.000 And on top of that, you're talking about the draft.

00:30:18.000 You're talking about, you know, who would actually be sent the massive operation to backfill our military.

00:30:27.000 I just don't know that there's a single person over the age of maybe 55 that is thinking about this in the same way that now the majority of our population is thinking about it, and definitely Republican voters.

00:30:40.000 Well, so what other dynamics are we missing here, Blake or Jack, on this conversation that are important that people should know about?

00:30:48.000 I was going to say, you do have the age.

00:30:52.000 That you mentioned you have how people get their media, how people get their news.

00:30:58.000 Some people, you know, and this came up with like Tucker and Ted Cruz.

00:31:02.000 Some people have religious differences on this, saying that, you know, some people say they they look at Ted Cruz cited Genesis and said, you know, this is why we have to do this.

00:31:12.000 And Tucker asked, why is that?

00:31:13.000 And that sort of has ignited this massive debate online that I'm seeing as well.

00:31:19.000 So, I mean, look, when you're talking about anything involving the Holy Land, it's absolutely going to bring up religious beliefs, and in some cases, conflicting religious beliefs.

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00:32:38.000 Blake, do we want to get into the Tucker and Ted Cruz thing?

00:32:41.000 It got sent to me by people who are not even in this country, who don't usually always follow U.S. It's the biggest thing on the internet right now.

00:32:48.000 It's the biggest thing on the entire internet.

00:32:50.000 Yeah, a ton of people saw the question about how many people live in Iran.

00:32:56.000 I saw people say, when I watched the whole video, it was more evenly matched between Tucker and Ted, that Ted occasionally got Tucker's sort of back off, or he got in some good blows.

00:33:06.000 But what went by far the most viral, we can play it if you want, was, let's play clip 416.

00:33:13.000 How many people living around, by the way?

00:33:14.000 I don't know the population.

00:33:16.000 At all?

00:33:17.000 No, I don't know the population.

00:33:19.000 You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?

00:33:23.000 How many people live in Iran?

00:33:25.000 92 million.

00:33:25.000 Okay.

00:33:27.000 How could you not know that?

00:33:29.000 I don't sit around memorizing population tables.

00:33:32.000 Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government.

00:33:36.000 Why is it relevant whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million?

00:33:40.000 Why is that relevant?

00:33:40.000 Because if you don't know anything about the country, Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran?

00:33:46.000 They are Persians and predominantly Shia.

00:33:49.000 Okay, this is cute.

00:33:50.000 You don't know anything about Iran.

00:33:52.000 Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran.

00:33:56.000 You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of the government and you don't know anything about the country.

00:34:01.000 No, you don't know anything about the country.

00:34:03.000 You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump.

00:34:05.000 No, I'm not saying that.

00:34:07.000 You're the one who can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and you said it was bad.

00:34:11.000 You don't believe they're trying to murder Trump.

00:34:12.000 Yes, I do.

00:34:12.000 Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation.

00:34:16.000 Okay, we are carrying out military strikes today.

00:34:18.000 You said Israel was.

00:34:20.000 Right.

00:34:20.000 With our help.

00:34:21.000 I said we.

00:34:22.000 Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them. 1.00

00:34:24.000 Well, you're breaking news here because the U.S. government last night denied, the National Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied on behalf of Trump that we were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity at all.

00:34:36.000 No, we're not bombing them.

00:34:36.000 Israel's bombing them.

00:34:37.000 You just said we were.

00:34:39.000 We are supporting Israel.

00:34:41.000 This is high stakes.

00:34:41.000 You're a senator.

00:34:42.000 If you're saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening. 1.00

00:34:45.000 Blake.

00:34:47.000 It's so...

00:34:48.000 I want to highlight for people why that question about like the ethnic makeup and population is so resonant is when we invaded Iraq.

00:34:56.000 One of the most amazing things is apparently even before we invaded Iraq, a large number of people in the Bush administration, possibly including Bush himself.

00:35:05.000 They did not know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

00:35:10.000 And Iraq is like one of the only countries where there's a large number of both. 0.57

00:35:14.000 And Saddam was from the Sunni minority.

00:35:16.000 The majority of Iraq is Shia.

00:35:18.000 And they were kind of, you know, on the they were the bottom rung of Iraqi society and the Sunnis ran stuff. 1.00

00:35:25.000 And they were just unaware of this.

00:35:27.000 They were unaware of that fundamental split in Iraqi society and what that would mean or how the Shia majority would have close ties with Iran because they're one of the only places that has other Shia Muslims.

00:35:39.000 And that ended up being so important.

00:35:41.000 Besides the insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq, there was also just sectarianism.

00:35:49.000 They would target Shia holy days for attacks.

00:35:53.000 And they just had no idea about that.

00:35:55.000 And so that's why it's very relevant to ask that.

00:35:58.000 One of the things I've heard said about Iran is one of the reasons they're relatively tolerant of the handful of Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians that they have in Iran is actually no one there has it worse than the tiny Sunni minority they have in Iran because they're heretics. 1.00

00:36:15.000 They're not just a different faith. 0.51

00:36:16.000 They are the true infidels against proper Islam. 1.00

00:36:21.000 If you're not aware of that, you just realize we could walk into this thing where you can just step on a landmine and you have no idea where any of them are buried because you don't know what you're doing.

00:36:32.000 Jack, your thoughts on the thermonuclear viral conversation?

00:36:36.000 Well, it's one thing that struck me.

00:36:41.000 But what what's really struck me as much as the conversation itself and a lot of these questions that I'm just going to say, you don't hear these types of questions on Fox News.

00:36:51.000 These are deep questions.

00:36:52.000 These are serious questions.

00:36:54.000 They're not surface level questions.

00:36:56.000 They're questions that, as Blake has described, really matter if you're going to get into a war or as as as occurs.

00:37:06.000 The counterinsurgency after a war, like a civil war.

00:37:09.000 And so the almost important, almost as important as the conversation itself, is how this thing has taken on a life of its own online.

00:37:17.000 This is the number one most viral thing with all of Gen Z. And that's only because, of course, Charlie's not on campus right now.

00:37:25.000 But it's all over TikTok.

00:37:28.000 You can see this on the left, on the right.

00:37:32.000 widespread support for Tucker, widespread condemnation for Ted Cruz's position.

00:37:38.000 And this is the entire, you know, 18 to 39, whatever you wanna call it, demographic, of millennials, Gen Z, people saying,

00:38:08.000 Just being so tremendously glib about something that could get a lot of Americans killed.

00:38:14.000 All right, so let me tell you the one where I like Tucker a lot.

00:38:19.000 I like Ted a lot.

00:38:20.000 They're both friends of mine.

00:38:21.000 I haven't gone to the social media thing because I just think it's, everyone's fighting right now and like, blessed are the peacemakers and I'm trying to like, I don't know, figure out what the hell's going on in Iran. 0.90

00:38:29.000 We will have to be a party after this.

00:38:31.000 Yeah, and I'm also just, I don't know, I think there's, so I just, I wasn't interested in that.

00:38:35.000 But the one thing, I will say this though.

00:38:37.000 Actually, yes, this is 429.

00:38:38.000 Maybe I'm just kind of like a Bible nerd, but...

00:38:45.000 I think that's very rudimentary scripture.

00:38:49.000 I'm sorry.

00:38:50.000 That was one where I was like, ooh, you've got to know that.

00:38:55.000 Okay, it's loaded.

00:38:55.000 429.

00:38:56.000 Growing up in Sunday school, I was taught from the Bible, those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed.

00:39:04.000 And from my perspective, I want to be on the blessing side of things.

00:39:07.000 Of those who bless the government of Israel?

00:39:10.000 Those who bless Israel is what it says.

00:39:11.000 It doesn't say the government of, it says the nation of Israel.

00:39:14.000 So that's in the Bible.

00:39:16.000 As a Christian, I believe that.

00:39:17.000 Where is that?

00:39:18.000 I can find it to you.

00:39:19.000 I don't have the scripture off the tip of mine.

00:39:22.000 You pull out the phone and use it.

00:39:24.000 It's in Genesis, but so you're quoting a I'm confused.

00:39:32.000 I'm talking about the political entity of modern Israel.

00:39:35.000 Yes, and that is Israel.

00:39:36.000 You believe that's what God was talking about in Genesis.

00:39:39.000 I do.

00:39:40.000 That country's existed since when?

00:39:42.000 For thousands of years.

00:39:44.000 Now, there was a time when it didn't exist and then it was recreated just over 70 years ago.

00:39:48.000 I'm saying I think most people understand that line in Genesis to refer to...

00:39:58.000 That's not what it says.

00:40:00.000 Okay, Israel.

00:40:01.000 But you don't even know where in the Bible it is.

00:40:05.000 This drove me crazy.

00:40:06.000 You know how population tables?

00:40:10.000 Everybody is wrong here.

00:40:12.000 Everybody's wrong.

00:40:13.000 Israel is not mentioned in Genesis 12. Israel hasn't been born yet.

00:40:16.000 Correct.

00:40:17.000 Israel is Jacob. 0.98

00:40:18.000 It wrestles with God.

00:40:21.000 correct.

00:40:21.000 The word Israel is not in Genesis 12.3.

00:40:24.000 However, it does say This is God's covenant with Abram before he became Abraham.

00:40:30.000 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the peoples of the earth will be blessed through you.

00:40:36.000 So yes, eventually that does mean the Jewish people and the people of Israel.

00:40:40.000 Now Ted's theological view I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to.

00:40:46.000 But he just, Ted, here's the way you should say it next time.

00:40:48.000 Tucker, I don't anticipate you to agree with me theologically.

00:40:51.000 So let's just talk about this geopolitically.

00:40:53.000 But we, in our specific camp, believe that the reconstitution of the state of Israel is a fulfillment of prophecy in Ezekiel 36 that I will graft you from around the world and I'll scatter you and bring you back into a nation. 0.98

00:41:08.000 But that's not the most relevant thing.

00:41:09.000 That's all he had to say.

00:41:10.000 Right?

00:41:11.000 Genesis 12.3 and Ezekiel 36 is actually a better theological argument than Genesis 12.3 because Genesis 12.3 is like, well, what is Israel and Catholics?

00:41:21.000 It's fine, I don't want to get into it.

00:41:22.000 You know, it's the church and it's, you know, it's the Jewish people.

00:41:26.000 And it's like the Ezekiel argument for those of us that are sympathetic is a much stronger argument.

00:41:33.000 But it should have just been diffusing instead.

00:41:35.000 Ted was almost getting, in my opinion, I have a lot of respect for Ted, he was almost like, this is what Christianity believes.

00:41:41.000 Do you notice whenever I talk about it, I say, this is just a theological interpretation I'm sympathetic to.

00:41:46.000 That's a much better way to approach it than just saying, like, this is doctrine.

00:41:51.000 And so there are closed-hand issues and open-hand issues in Christianity.

00:41:55.000 Closed-hand issues are ones that, if you do not believe this, you're not a Christian.

00:41:59.000 Divinity of Christ.

00:42:00.000 Virginity of Mary, right?

00:42:02.000 The resurrection of Christ, the creation of the world, the inerrancy of Scripture.

00:42:06.000 And there's open-hand issues, right?

00:42:07.000 Which is like eschatology or what is Israel?

00:42:10.000 And that's the way I wish you would have explained it.

00:42:13.000 Instead, here's what drove me the most crazy.

00:42:15.000 Is it made anybody like myself that has this kind of view that God has a plan and prophecy very well might be unfolding seem as if we're like...

00:42:27.000 Does that make sense?

00:42:28.000 And it goes into...

00:42:34.000 This is a very common belief abroad that the only reason conservatives in the U.S. are sympathetic to Israel is they'll just be like, oh, it's just because they think it will bring about the end of the world to build the third temple.

00:42:48.000 Correct.

00:42:48.000 Or they just think that the Bible requires them to just do whatever Israel tells them to do.

00:43:01.000 People who support Israel, including pretty aggressively, do it because they think it is good for the United States or represents good values, that Israel is civilization, Israel is Western, and they're in conflict with this, you know, barbaric country. 0.65

00:43:16.000 And that's the best argument for it.

00:43:18.000 I totally agree.

00:43:19.000 And so my whole point is that And it should be closed-hand Christianity issues, right?

00:43:30.000 So, for example, if all of a sudden Tucker and Ted were debating whether or not Bethlehem should be bombed, okay?

00:43:41.000 A closed-hand issue is like, don't bomb it because Jesus was born there, right?

00:43:46.000 That's a good reason to introduce theology into geopolitics, right?

00:43:50.000 Now, if you're going to do that, which, again, Jack Hibbs would be, like, super equipped to do this.

00:43:54.000 A friend of mine, he's, like, not super well.

00:43:56.000 But it's just kind of what it, unfortunately, what it did is it played into a stereotype that, like, they're using Christianity and they don't even know, like, the fundamental, the elemental scripture.

00:44:06.000 So, and I like Ted a lot.

00:44:08.000 And I think, actually, Ted made some really good points later in the argument, later in the whole kind of dialogue, that I think were missed in some of the online back and forth.

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00:45:02.000 And right now, when you make a qualified investment, Jack, what would you say?

00:45:22.000 I have a lot of pastors that I'm trying to tell.

00:45:26.000 Would you say Gen Z's view of Israel, has it improved or gotten worse because of this interview?

00:45:37.000 Well, there's a multi-layered question there because Gen Z's view of Israel has already been quite negative, and that's not because of this interview.

00:45:49.000 Particularly because of the images that they see coming out of Gaza every day on TikTok that are just going up and down all over the place.

00:45:57.000 You know, here's this bombing, here's this that bombing, another hospital, et cetera, et cetera.

00:46:01.000 And I'm not going to get into the efficacy of that or, you know, whether whether or not that's that's true or all the rest of it.

00:46:09.000 You're recycling old footage.

00:46:10.000 I'm just saying this is Gen Z's general view.

00:46:13.000 And so.

00:46:15.000 It's already preset to be quite negative.

00:46:18.000 Then they see Israel launching this attack on Iran one week ago, give or take, I think a week and a day ago, and saying, well, here's Netanyahu again taking off another bomb, picking another fight, even when he hasn't finished his first fight because of political issues at home.

00:46:35.000 And then this interview comes around on top of it to say, well, here's a politician who And then they see Ted Cruz and he's making these arguments.

00:47:00.000 And I say, hey, Charlie, you know, it's confusing for someone who doesn't know all of the backstory or someone who hasn't read the Bible or someone who, you know, it's like, what's the citation?

00:47:10.000 Can you even explain what you're talking about?

00:47:12.000 And, you know, it's just not there.

00:47:14.000 It's just not there.

00:47:15.000 So no, I think if you're someone who is a supporter of Israel, and you're looking at this, it's not going the way you want.

00:47:22.000 Just to be clear, like, Like, that's basically what, like, because it's just, you kind of get found out and exposed, and it just, like, because his, here's the reason.

00:47:40.000 He was like, well, as a Christian in Sunday school, I was told that we must do this.

00:47:44.000 Like, this is a guiding principle.

00:47:45.000 And the talker's like, okay, tell me why.

00:47:47.000 Like, what's the scripture?

00:47:48.000 Because some people disagree.

00:47:50.000 Does that make sense?

00:47:56.000 And it makes sense not just from a—because we're not just talking about theological, right?

00:48:00.000 We're talking about effective communication.

00:48:03.000 And so in effective communication, and if you're trying to communicate an idea to someone, then you really need to know it inside out because that person is going to ask you questions about it and perhaps challenge you on your view.

00:48:15.000 And so if you're going to use effective communication, you have to think, okay, where is that person at?

00:48:20.000 I'm trying to talk to them.

00:48:21.000 I'm trying to communicate my view to them.

00:48:24.000 So you have to know your view.

00:48:25.000 You have to know what you're trying to say.

00:48:27.000 And that's on you as a communicator.

00:48:29.000 And I mean this in the sense of, you know, Charlie, you and I, we do this every day.

00:48:34.000 You know, you're communicating.

00:48:35.000 So effective communication always means you have to be able to explain yourself.

00:48:39.000 And if you don't, then you are going to run the risk of what I think happened here is making yourself and whoever side you are taking look really bad.

00:48:50.000 So, just to kind of put a cap, let me just play one more piece of tape here from this debate.

00:48:55.000 I actually enjoyed, I encourage everyone, if you have an opinion on the Tucker-Ted exchange, listen to the entire thing, because I really believe that Ted actually made some really good points at times.

00:49:10.000 I think some of the clips put him in a bad light, and honestly, as U.S. Senator, you should know the population, the top three, like, you should know.

00:49:17.000 I'm sorry, you should know that.

00:49:18.000 Like, there's no excusing it. 0.85

00:49:19.000 But Ted is not dumb. 0.89

00:49:21.000 He's a high IQ person.

00:49:23.000 Let's play cut 417, please.

00:49:25.000 Does Mossad share all of its intelligence with us?

00:49:28.000 Oh, probably not, but they share a lot.

00:49:30.000 We don't share all of our intelligence with them, but we share a lot.

00:49:33.000 It's a close alliance.

00:49:33.000 Do they spy domestically in the United States?

00:49:36.000 Oh, they probably do, and we do as well.

00:49:38.000 And friends and allies spy on each other, and I assume all of our allies spy on us.

00:49:42.000 And that's okay with you?

00:49:44.000 You know what?

00:49:45.000 One of the things about being a conservative is that you're not naive and utopian.

00:49:48.000 You don't think humans are all...

00:49:59.000 As a conservative, I assume people act in their rational self-interest.

00:50:02.000 So it's conservative to pay people to spy on you?

00:50:05.000 It's conservative to recognize that human beings act in their own self-interest, and every one of our friends spies on us.

00:50:13.000 That's my question.

00:50:13.000 I'm not asking whether they have motive to do it.

00:50:15.000 Of course they do.

00:50:16.000 I understand that.

00:50:17.000 And I'm not mad at them, but you're an American lawmaker, so I just want to know your attitude.

00:50:23.000 You said that you're...

00:50:27.000 In fact, the only principle, the only criterion.

00:50:29.000 I said guiding.

00:50:30.000 The overwhelming.

00:50:31.000 I wouldn't say only.

00:50:32.000 Is it in America's interest?

00:50:33.000 Is it in America's interest for Israel to spy on us, including on the president? 0.69

00:50:37.000 It is in America's interest to be closely allied with Israel because we get huge benefits for it.

00:50:45.000 And you want to see the clearest?

00:50:48.000 It takes place, as you know, including on the president of the United States and several precedents.

00:50:55.000 I just want to know if that's okay and why is it okay?

00:50:58.000 Wouldn't an American lawmaker say to a client state, you're not allowed to spy on us.

00:51:03.000 I'm sorry.

00:51:03.000 I know why you want to.

00:51:04.000 I'm not mad at you, but you're not allowed to.

00:51:06.000 Sure.

00:51:06.000 And I don't care for it.

00:51:07.000 I don't want to be spied on by you.

00:51:10.000 It's kind of weird not to say that, but you don't seem able to say that.

00:51:14.000 So, Blake, for the audience that's listening to this for the first time, what is the cultural impact of such an interview like this right now?

00:51:24.000 It really can set the tone of things.

00:51:26.000 And it's really important.

00:51:28.000 Like I said, it's an interview that was over an hour long.

00:51:31.000 It's a quite long, sustained interview that hits on a lot of topics.

00:51:35.000 But the nature of media these days is the vast majority of people, 99% of people who see anything from this interview, will probably see those two clips.

00:51:46.000 They'll see the Mossad spying clip, and they'll see the Bible clip that we saw. 0.83

00:51:52.000 Or the population clip.

00:51:54.000 So they'll see a handful of these things.

00:51:57.000 And as we said, I think both of us agree, Cruz did better in the full interview, but it's a handful of really interested people who are seeing the full interview.

00:52:05.000 And what can really set the cultural zeitgeist is the stuff that goes viral with other people and that question about population that I got sent by people in other countries.

00:52:16.000 What were they saying?

00:52:17.000 They were just amazed by it.

00:52:20.000 I think the impression, if you are coming in very superficially, is, wow, there are people in the U.S. who want to do regime change in Iran or intervention in Iran, and they don't know that much about Iran.

00:52:32.000 And it fits into a script we have, because we know the U.S. has gone in without enough information into Iraq, into Libya.

00:52:42.000 It fits a mental image that people already have in their head, and that makes it more powerful, I think.

00:52:48.000 And it has a great ability to set the tone for it.

00:52:54.000 for what the debate is right now.

00:52:55.000 So I would not be surprised if whatever ultimate decision we reach, if that meaningfully lowered the odds that we go into Iran because it's going to shift how people are talking about it.

00:53:09.000 Absolutely.

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00:54:20.000 Do we want to do WNBA? 0.93

00:54:21.000 We could do that.

00:54:23.000 We've had a debate.

00:54:24.000 Now that YWLS is over, we've been having a debate about chores that we wanted to have.

00:54:30.000 Men and women household roles. 0.95

00:54:33.000 We could do that one, or we could do that another time.

00:54:35.000 I think WNBA is pretty hot. 1.00

00:54:36.000 WNBA is – It's very popular. 0.93

00:54:42.000 I'm just saying right now, this is the most I've ever seen because now there's two WNBA players people care about. 0.93

00:54:50.000 But the reason that it's kicking off is not because of the basketball.

00:54:54.000 It's because of the WWF stuff that's going on.

00:54:58.000 Oh, yeah.

00:55:00.000 It's pure UFC.

00:55:01.000 So, Caitlin Clark, of course, got targeted again.

00:55:04.000 We all know why she's being targeted.

00:55:06.000 It's not.

00:55:06.000 A huge mystery.

00:55:08.000 And a ridiculous flagrant foul. 0.95

00:55:09.000 They throw her to the ground. 0.88

00:55:10.000 Do we have a clip of the flagrant foul?

00:55:12.000 And then a minute and a half later, a girl that we've never heard of before, Sophie Cunningham, comes out and just throws the other team to the ground and just starts a New York Piston-style brawl. 1.00

00:55:29.000 Remember the brawl?

00:55:31.000 Yeah, the malice at the palace.

00:55:32.000 I saw the brawl.

00:55:33.000 Young people might not remember this.

00:55:34.000 Oh my goodness.

00:55:35.000 The brawl was one of my greatest childhood memories.

00:55:38.000 I was walking into a restaurant called Dennajo's.

00:55:41.000 It was right near my house.

00:55:42.000 And they had these TVs.

00:55:43.000 Old TVs.

00:55:44.000 And the game was on.

00:55:45.000 And all of a sudden I was like, oh.

00:55:48.000 The fight's breaking up.

00:55:49.000 And, like, it was, like, a 15-minute brawl.

00:55:51.000 I think they had to end the game early.

00:55:53.000 Oh, no, they did.

00:55:54.000 And do you remember, like, it was, like, Rasheed Wallace or somebody that, like, stormed in.

00:55:58.000 It was Ron Artest, wasn't it?

00:56:00.000 Yeah.

00:56:00.000 Who later became Metta World Peace.

00:56:01.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:02.000 And he went into the crowd.

00:56:05.000 And, like, he was, like, laying down or something.

00:56:08.000 And then someone threw a water bottle at him.

00:56:12.000 Ron Artest just went and fought random civilians at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

00:56:17.000 Game was called with 46 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

00:56:20.000 So anyway, here's Caitlin Clark with her bodyguard, Sophie Cunningham.

00:56:26.000 The WNBA, these other girls in the league, they are so mad at Caitlin. 1.00

00:56:30.000 So here's Caitlin Clark.

00:56:31.000 Then they just throw her to the ground after the whistle's blown. 0.69

00:56:34.000 Like, what is that?

00:56:36.000 And so then Sophie Cunningham says, okay.

00:56:39.000 She just takes down this woman. 1.00

00:56:41.000 And then, look, then she just throws a punch. 1.00

00:56:45.000 And it's just literally like, we're not going to put up with this.

00:56:48.000 And, of course, she gets ejected.

00:56:50.000 She got fined $400.

00:56:52.000 That's like 40% of the WNBA salary. 1.00

00:56:55.000 I know.

00:56:55.000 I mean, in the NFL, they're like a $200,000 fine.

00:56:58.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:56:58.000 And so, look, this is Sophie Cunningham.

00:57:01.000 She just goes full Ron Artest on her. 1.00

00:57:03.000 Like, for female basketball, that's like a very violent move. 1.00

00:57:08.000 For men's basketball, that's a pretty violent move.

00:57:10.000 She's gone, like, super viral now.

00:57:12.000 Sophie Cunningham.

00:57:14.000 I mean, look, I'll be honest, like, Caitlin Clark is growing on me because we know why this is happening, obviously.

00:57:19.000 I mean, they're mad that, like, a Midwestern white girl who's very wholesome and is straight and has a boyfriend has become, like, the face of the WNBA and, like, nobody cared before.

00:57:28.000 But now there's two faces of the WNBA. 1.00

00:57:30.000 Let's put up the picture here in the thought crime chat of Caitlin Clark and her bodyguard, Sophie Cunningham.

00:57:37.000 There it is.

00:57:38.000 So, Tyler, people are talking about the WNBA.

00:57:41.000 It's going up like a rocket ship.

00:57:44.000 Charlie, it all happens in Indiana.

00:57:46.000 You've got the Pacers now going to Game 7. You had the Ron Artest, Malice in the Palace.

00:57:52.000 you have Sophie Cunningham who used to play for the Mercury.

00:57:54.000 I just, the only thing I regretting, I wish this was the actual Mercury.

00:57:59.000 So we had a reason to go to Mercury games because it is so impossible to watch WNBA games with the amount of, We may have now a reason to go watch the WNBA, and I actually think they should insert new rules.

00:58:21.000 Hold on.

00:58:22.000 No.

00:58:22.000 No, no, no.

00:58:23.000 We're not.

00:58:24.000 This may be straighter than Lord of the Rings.

00:58:27.000 That said, Charlie, Indiana Fever at Phoenix Mercury, July 30th.

00:58:34.000 Are you going to go?

00:58:35.000 That may be straight night.

00:58:37.000 That might be a straight night for Phoenix fans, is to show up, support females fighting on the court. 1.00

00:58:47.000 They should make this a rule.

00:58:48.000 They should allow fighting, like the NHL.

00:58:50.000 I think this would increase sales immediately.

00:58:54.000 I don't know.

00:58:55.000 Wait, hold on.

00:58:56.000 That one's in Indiana.

00:58:56.000 No, August 7th.

00:58:58.000 Thursday, August 7th, 10 p.m. Eastern.

00:59:01.000 Indiana Fever at Phoenix Mercury.

00:59:03.000 So wait, Charlie.

00:59:05.000 We should make that Turning Point night at the PHX Stadium.

00:59:10.000 We have to have a Protect Caitlin sign.

00:59:14.000 Charlie, do you think that they're pushing this that they want?

00:59:19.000 You know, they finally found a way to get people interested.

00:59:22.000 So there's people actually, you know, WWF style back there saying, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:28.000 Like kind of goading this type of stuff on.

00:59:31.000 We should have NIL for straight white females in the WNBA because that's the only way you're going to get men interested. 1.00

00:59:41.000 You could actually triple their salary just with NIL for straight white females that are in the WNBA overnight. 1.00

00:59:52.000 They could be the most predominant player within the WNBA and that's saying something.

01:00:01.000 For where we're at.

01:00:02.000 So, I'm advocating for it.

01:00:05.000 Conservatives should start funding, you know, patches and things like that on WNBA jerseys. 0.97

01:00:11.000 It could be incredible.

01:00:13.000 I think, I mean, look, the tickets would be like $3 apiece, Blake.

01:00:17.000 We could do a thought crime episode live from the WNBA.

01:00:19.000 We could just probably take a large portion of the stadium because I can't.

01:00:24.000 Did these games sell out?

01:00:27.000 No, no.

01:00:28.000 If we showed up, we would almost double the amount of people who go to W. No, by the way, we would come up with Protect Caitlin shirts.

01:00:35.000 Okay, Stan.

01:00:37.000 The big signs that say Protect Caitlin.

01:00:39.000 I mean, look, we know why she's being targeted, obviously.

01:00:42.000 Okay?

01:00:43.000 And so, Fever games do sell out regularly, they say.

01:00:46.000 But I don't know.

01:00:47.000 But like people are...

01:00:48.000 But you understand how mad the home teams get?

01:00:55.000 They're like, we've been doing this for 10 years.

01:00:57.000 No one cares about you, actually.

01:00:59.000 So it's pretty amazing.

01:01:01.000 You wonder how many people in Phoenix learned that we have a WNBA team because Caitlin Clark came to play here. 1.00

01:01:08.000 I didn't know we had a WNBA team. 0.97

01:01:09.000 It was called the Mercury?

01:01:11.000 Phoenix Mercury, yeah.

01:01:12.000 It's pretty amazing.

01:01:13.000 I think the Miami team is the Sun, which obviously is maximally confusing.

01:01:17.000 We went through all the names last week.

01:01:18.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:01:20.000 The Mercury Games have been so poorly attended forever, and if you show up there as a male, you get spit on.

01:01:29.000 They don't like it.

01:01:30.000 They don't like when men show up.

01:01:33.000 There's a lot of women who look like men who show up. 1.00

01:01:35.000 There's not a lot of actual men.

01:01:38.000 I'm telling you, we would make big news.

01:01:39.000 I'm just telling you right now, we would make very big news.

01:01:42.000 I think we should do it.

01:01:43.000 I think this would be incredible.

01:01:47.000 The Atlanta Dream, one of the WNBA teams, they play in a stadium with a capacity of 3,200 people.

01:01:54.000 Yep.

01:01:56.000 A lot of people are now pushing for Caitlin Clark to leave the WNBA because they're trying to basically push her out is what they're trying to do. 0.97

01:02:04.000 Do they have the conceit that she could play in the regular NBA? 0.92

01:02:06.000 That would be pretty funny.

01:02:08.000 I don't know where she would go, but I mean...

01:02:12.000 I mean, she's great. 1.00

01:02:17.000 I mean, she did say that stupid thing about white privilege or whatever. 1.00

01:02:20.000 But I mean, she's a norm-adjusting woman. 1.00

01:02:22.000 It's like table stakes.

01:02:23.000 I know, that's like table stakes.

01:02:25.000 But like, I mean, they're really going after her.

01:02:28.000 And now, hey, more women are rising up. 1.00

01:02:30.000 So this is 437.

01:02:32.000 This is the full beef.

01:02:38.000 Let's go to 437.

01:02:40.000 This is...

01:02:52.000 It always makes me laugh when women fight. 1.00

01:02:55.000 They really don't know how to fight.

01:02:57.000 It's a lot of hair pulling.

01:03:00.000 Yeah, there's a reason for that.

01:03:02.000 A lot of arms, teeth, and fingernails.

01:03:05.000 There's a lot of...

01:03:10.000 Kind of gets into what we were saying before about Just War Theory.

01:03:16.000 She's completely remaking women's basketball as we know it. 1.00

01:03:21.000 It's pretty amazing.

01:03:22.000 Alright, last thought.

01:03:23.000 There's Sophie Cunningham.

01:03:24.000 They're going to go after her too because women can't stand the attention thing. 1.00

01:03:29.000 It's going to drive them crazy.

01:03:31.000 Alright, final thoughts, guys.

01:03:33.000 Blake.

01:03:34.000 Oh, man.

01:03:35.000 I kind of want to see Charlie go to a WNP again.

01:03:38.000 I want to see Charlie get really into it.

01:03:41.000 He's initially going just to do the support Caitlyn thing, and then he starts watching the game, and the wheels start turning.

01:03:48.000 He gets into the strategy of it.

01:03:51.000 I'll bring my daughter.

01:03:52.000 We'll start coming into the office and be like, Charlie, we've got breaking news, the president. 0.99

01:03:57.000 And he'll be like, shut up! 1.00

01:03:59.000 Shut up! 1.00

01:03:59.000 And he'll be on his phone and he'll be watching a stream, not even of the fever, he'll be watching a dumpster game between the two worst teams in the league that are out of the playoffs, but he's riveted to it. 1.00

01:04:11.000 He'll start babbling to us about the stats of these players and he'll be like, this rebounder who plays for the Miami Sun, she's better than Dennis Rodman and he's watching the women's basketball.

01:04:26.000 World Cup or whatever they have.

01:04:28.000 I think we could see Charlie.

01:04:30.000 He could go full.

01:04:31.000 The madness could consume him.

01:04:33.000 I think so.

01:04:34.000 So, Tyler, this is a good idea.

01:04:35.000 We're going to go to the WNBA game together.

01:04:37.000 I'm going to wear the Caitlin Clark jersey with the MAGA hat.

01:04:42.000 Yep.

01:04:42.000 And then we're going to hand out Let Sophie Fight shirts.

01:04:47.000 We're going to shoot that.

01:04:48.000 We actually have, at Turning Point, we actually have big t-shirt guns. 0.93

01:04:51.000 What we should do is we should bring the big, we have the big rotary thing.

01:04:55.000 You know what I'm talking about, Charlie?

01:04:56.000 That's just sitting in the warehouse. 0.93

01:04:58.000 We should shoot those off. 0.96

01:04:59.000 I bet we could sneak it in. 0.99

01:05:02.000 Yeah, we'll sneak it in.

01:05:03.000 We'll pretend like we'll hire two very short haircut women just rolling in through the back door. 1.00

01:05:13.000 You'll never see so many Subarus.

01:05:16.000 Jack, final thoughts?

01:05:19.000 Sorry, you got me on the Subaru.

01:05:21.000 My dad has a Subaru and we're constantly blowing him up about it.

01:05:27.000 No, no, this is great.

01:05:31.000 Charlie, you had a whole thing this week about going to college for your MRS. I think all of this, even the fighting and the rest of it, gets into this question about gender roles in our society and what we're pushing people towards.

01:05:44.000 Very good.

01:05:45.000 God bless you guys.

01:05:46.000 Till next week, keep committing thought crimes.

01:05:48.000 Trust President Trump.

01:05:49.000 He's doing a great job.

01:05:50.000 See you guys next week.

01:05:51.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

01:05:52.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - June 21, 2025

THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 88 — Tucker v. Cruz? The Bloodthirsty Base? Charlie Goes to the WNBA?

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