The Charlie Kirk Show - Threats to the Republic + The Glory of America's Founding

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.

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00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

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00:01:17.000 Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:17.000 All right.

00:01:19.000 We are here at the YRefi Studios in Phoenix, Arizona.

00:01:23.000 How are we doing, Blake?

00:01:24.000 Oh, we're doing pretty well.

00:01:25.000 It is June 9th, 2026.

00:01:28.000 Lots to cover.

00:01:29.000 Right now, the Carmelo Anthony closing arguments are happening.

00:01:33.000 We're going to talk about that a little bit later in the hour.

00:01:35.000 But we're going to get right into the Ongoing saga that is unfolding in Los Angeles and in the whole state of California.

00:01:44.000 And we have such a treat for you.

00:01:46.000 I will tell you, one of my favorite guests of the show, one of my favorite thinkers in all of America, one of my favorite authors in all of America is Walter Kern.

00:01:55.000 Gosh, he's got My Hard Bargain, Mission to America, Up in the Air, Blood Will Out, Thumbsucker, all these great books.

00:02:02.000 And he is the editor at large of the County Highway, America's only newspaper.

00:02:08.000 They don't even have a digital version.

00:02:10.000 So, without further ado, let's welcome him in.

00:02:12.000 Walter, good to see you, my friend.

00:02:13.000 Thank you for joining us.

00:02:15.000 I'm psyched to be here at a high leverage point for American democracy because it either slides into the ocean or we pull it out.

00:02:24.000 Well, yeah, let's start right there, Walter.

00:02:26.000 I mean, you know, so a lot more intel is kind of coming out.

00:02:29.000 The internet sleuths are trying to figure out how the heck did somebody like Nithya Raman, who not many people in the country had even heard of, not many left wingers in LA knew much about her, how she went from about 21% of the vote from the first 65%.

00:02:44.000 That was counted.

00:02:45.000 And then the next 15%, she about doubled her, well, it was 23% of the vote to about 41% of the vote.

00:02:53.000 So now she has overtaken Spencer Pratt in the number two position.

00:02:56.000 And I'm told by, you know, all the lefties, this is just the way LA and California count their ballots.

00:03:04.000 They've prioritized participation, Walter, not speed.

00:03:07.000 Well, there's no way for them to know whether participation has occurred because the ballots are.

00:03:15.000 Enigmatic documents with people behind them, presumably whose faces we don't know, whose names we don't know, whose circumstances around filling out the ballot or allowing it to be filled out, we don't know.

00:03:32.000 So, if what we want is participation, I can propose a much better way everybody getting off their butts and standing in a line talking to each other without activists.

00:03:46.000 Bothering them or holding a pen over their ballot, and they participate in the ritual that has been time honored and proved to work and works in almost every other country but ours.

00:04:00.000 Well, and that's the big thing here, Walter.

00:04:02.000 When I was chatting with you yesterday about coming on, making lack of transparency stand for participation is an Orwellian inversion, like so many that are used in these circumstances.

00:04:19.000 They've turned elections that last forever into proof of their deliberate, slow, patient, careful way of counting, when in fact they're the opposite.

00:04:33.000 Exactly.

00:04:34.000 Well, and this is the thing.

00:04:35.000 So, you see, Ro Khanna is actually, in very Ro Khanna fashion, I will tell you, is sort of trying to split the baby.

00:04:44.000 He's at least saying in this tweet he just fired off a few hours ago, actually about an hour ago, you know, he goes, you know, a close friend of mine, he says this, is canceling his voter registration today.

00:04:56.000 He is convinced Spencer Pratt was robbed of the election.

00:04:59.000 I explained to him that in California, we can't count absentees first, which is older and more conservative.

00:05:05.000 And election day voters are younger and more democratic.

00:05:07.000 The slow count is largely because of policies to maximize participation, including postmarking a ballot on election day.

00:05:14.000 Regardless, we need to figure out how California can get the vote counted faster and results tabulated so it doesn't drag on.

00:05:21.000 This is classic rogue.

00:05:22.000 How can we figure it out?

00:05:23.000 This is such a.

00:05:24.000 We had it figured out.

00:05:25.000 Somaliland can do it.

00:05:28.000 And if you read on, his whole point is let's throw some more money at it so we can get the vote counted in 48 hours.

00:05:35.000 Because that's like the stretch goal in California.

00:05:38.000 But I kind of can't stand this, Walter, because he's justifying the fraud and he's calling it the impression of fraud and eroding trust conspiracy theories.

00:05:49.000 We used to have a concept called the appearance of conflict of interest, meaning that it was important that politicians not even appear to be working for outside forces or be taking money from the people that they're supposed to be writing laws to control and regulate and so on.

00:06:06.000 And we were always very careful.

00:06:07.000 And it was thought to be the.

00:06:09.000 Sort of height of liberal circumspection to make sure that there is no appearance of conflict of interest.

00:06:16.000 What we have now is not just the appearance of fraud or just the appearance of malfeasance, but the overwhelming stench of it rising so it makes your eyes water.

00:06:28.000 And now, in their classic fashion, they've taken what has now been identified as a problem, which they created, and they want to be the ones to solve it.

00:06:38.000 They want, you know, create homelessness.

00:06:41.000 Profit from homelessness. 0.99

00:06:42.000 Create election chaos.

00:06:45.000 Profit from election chaos.

00:06:49.000 But this is all fog.

00:06:51.000 This is all smoke.

00:06:52.000 You have to be able to walk through the storm and reach your destination, turning neither to the left nor the right.

00:07:01.000 We have to do that in our moral lives and our social lives.

00:07:04.000 We cannot be, every voice and every monster that jumps out of us can't. detract from our mission.

00:07:14.000 And our mission here is to get people elected in a way that their election will be respected by both sides.

00:07:24.000 Elections are by their nature enterprises in which half the people or around half the people are going to be dissatisfied with the result.

00:07:34.000 Thus, the essence of an election is to have it be fair.

00:07:40.000 Just like the essence of sports is, you know, one team is going to lose at the end of this game.

00:07:45.000 So that's why we need referees, rules, clear videotape of the play, and so on.

00:07:53.000 We don't have those in elections.

00:07:56.000 And in that sense, it really doesn't matter, legal, illegal. 0.55

00:08:00.000 Faith is the problem.

00:08:02.000 And when you systematically make it impossible to have faith, and when you also systematically allow the conditions in which fraud traditionally grows, which are silence and darkness, then you've got the end of your system on your hands.

00:08:21.000 What are you going to do about it?

00:08:22.000 And in this case, it's been so.

00:08:25.000 Statistically and in other ways, it's blatant that it almost feels like a what you're gonna do about it, buddy situation.

00:08:35.000 Like the last time we're even gonna try to make this look realistic.

00:08:39.000 Yeah, and it's so glaring, I think, because it's so unnecessary.

00:08:44.000 I don't think many of us are under the illusion that California is a swing state at this point.

00:08:50.000 I don't think any of us saw Spencer Pratt's run as anything but a long shot that we were very hopeful for because we love LA and we.

00:08:57.000 Would like it to recover.

00:08:58.000 And yet they have these laws that are so extreme.

00:09:00.000 You just look at it and you just think, this can't be legitimate because they don't need to do something like this.

00:09:09.000 But of course they're necessary.

00:09:12.000 Of course they're necessary because no matter how secure you might be in the thought that you have erected or constructed a one party state, there are always, as we saw with Spencer Pratt, or as we saw with past candidates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, there are all, Ronald Reagan.

00:09:30.000 Back when there are always cases in which a challenger in every league, in every boxing league, in every fight league, there are cases in which a challenger, um, taking advantage of opportunity, superior training, and circumstances, and maybe God's luck, God's given luck, can unseat a champion.

00:09:53.000 And when you get in there and you make the circumstances such that no challenger can arise and none can be successful, you no longer have a little action, you no longer have a No longer have a sport.

00:10:06.000 What you have is a ritual, and it is a ritual of domination and a ritual of intimidation.

00:10:13.000 And that's what we've been treated to.

00:10:14.000 Or, and I agree with you exactly, the insecurity is obvious.

00:10:20.000 But why would they be insecure, Walter?

00:10:22.000 Maybe they know that their house of cards has been built on fraud for a long time, and that they know how flimsy it all is.

00:10:30.000 I've written a lot about criminality over the years in my books and in my journalism, and criminals know better than.

00:10:37.000 anyone better than the cops how their schemes work.

00:10:40.000 They know where their vulnerabilities lie and they know exactly how the working parts come together.

00:10:46.000 The kind of elections that they're running now that involve bringing vast amounts of votes in late, you know, across public roads and so on, you know, in helicopters even, are very difficult operations.

00:11:03.000 At every moment, they're conscious of what they're doing.

00:11:07.000 As the ballot grows further and further from the voter, more detachable, it's sort of like the way we used to have money that was backed by gold.

00:11:15.000 For every dollar you had in your wallet, somewhere there was gold in Fort Knox, say.

00:11:20.000 Now, for every ballot you've got down at the registrar, there's a voter somewhere, maybe.

00:11:26.000 We don't know.

00:11:27.000 We don't know if the gold's in Fort Knox, and we don't know if the voter behind the ballot is even out there.

00:11:33.000 Maybe they're somewhere on Skid Row without a name, and any way to prove they're even from LA.

00:11:38.000 Maybe they got there yesterday.

00:11:40.000 Yeah, well, Walter, I think that's exactly right.

00:11:42.000 You talk about how the Skid Row thing.

00:11:45.000 So, you know, there are all these documents going around.

00:11:49.000 DSA is Democratic Socialists of America saying, and they've got a position paper here about how they're going to ballot harvest.

00:11:59.000 And they say, and this document, and you could throw it up there.

00:12:03.000 I'll tell the team which one.

00:12:05.000 You can see it.

00:12:06.000 They're deliberating back and forth, back and forth.

00:12:08.000 Ultimately, though, they say this Ultimately, we recommend a vote for Rahman to ensure a left candidate with a proven track record of delivering for working class Angelenos makes it to the general against Bass.

00:12:22.000 So, you know, the first part of these two paragraphs are saying, you know, some DSA LA members believe that we should vote for the candidate with the most radical and grassroots platform, you know, and they admit that Rahman has a rocky relationship with major constituencies on the left, but ultimately, let's just get rid of Pratt.

00:12:44.000 So it's very simple and it's highlighted right there.

00:12:46.000 And you could see it here.

00:12:49.000 What have they also accomplished here?

00:12:51.000 This is a post from Susan Shelley on X.

00:12:54.000 She goes, Late arriving ballots continue their enthusiastic embrace of higher sales taxes in Los Angeles County.

00:13:00.000 Yes, on Measure ER has overtaken no in the June 8 update of the vote.

00:13:05.000 So now they have just voted for higher sales taxes as well.

00:13:09.000 This is a little bit underreported.

00:13:11.000 So all the ballot harvesting from these DSA guys that were out on the streets, often illegal, by the way.

00:13:17.000 And we had Bill Asale on the show yesterday, Walter, and he said, listen, I'm going to go after the individual instances of Of voter fraud, and we're going to put a lot of these people behind bars.

00:13:27.000 He's like, but it's so baked into the cake that literally the fraud is basically legalized corruption at this point.

00:13:35.000 Yeah, but whenever there's legalized corruption, there's frosting, which is just pure illegality.

00:13:44.000 And most corrupt about all this is the, as I say, the opacity, the shadowiness, the darkness, the untraceability.

00:13:54.000 These are all almost academic questions because there's no way to go back and answer them.

00:13:59.000 You know, how did this stream of votes get this way?

00:14:03.000 Why are people voting for an increase in a sales tax?

00:14:09.000 Now, that's interesting because if we stipulate that her supporters are grassroots people, ordinary people, working people, sales taxes are the most regressive taxes in America.

00:14:23.000 You pay them on every, you know, Mountain Dew you pick up at the convenience store.

00:14:32.000 The idea that working people and people who live near the street and near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder would vote for a sales tax increase?

00:14:39.000 That's nuts. 0.95

00:14:41.000 Well, they're doing it, Walter.

00:14:43.000 And it's no, they aren't.

00:14:46.000 Well, there is evidence.

00:14:49.000 There is very thin and complex evidence that they have been represented as doing it in a legal way.

00:14:57.000 But whether they're doing it, we have no bloody idea.

00:15:01.000 I want to end this discussion about California's sham debacle, election debacle here that would make the Venezuelans blush and Maduro blush and so many others.

00:15:12.000 Walter, when I talked to you last night, you said you agreed to come on because you believe this is a critical moment for our constitutional republic and our representative democracy.

00:15:23.000 Explain what you mean.

00:15:25.000 Well, first of all, California, our biggest state, our most powerful and financially important state.

00:15:33.000 It's important to our food supply and our military, it's where the aerospace industry is headquartered and so on, is one that we cannot afford to have fall into political chaos and turpitude.

00:15:51.000 So that it's California is important.

00:15:53.000 But more importantly, the moment that people begin to despair of not just regular voting, but of having any potential weapon against people who will exploit them.

00:16:10.000 In other words, the minute you think, wow, no matter what is done to me by these officials, if they burn down my whole neighborhood or fail to put out a fire, no matter what they do, I have no weapon against them.

00:16:22.000 It's not just voting then that people despair of.

00:16:25.000 It's any counter, posing any counterforce to the powers that be.

00:16:34.000 That's when they start looking for separate deals.

00:16:37.000 They either leave or they form warlord groups to kind of in some way push their case in ways that no longer are possible by usual means.

00:16:51.000 I don't think, one thing I said to you real quickly is I don't think that the Democratic machine is free to have a fair election.

00:16:59.000 I think they are mastered and guided by corrupt elements that say deliver or else.

00:17:06.000 You better show up with the mayoral seat of LA or.

00:17:11.000 You're in trouble.

00:17:14.000 If you're about to turn 65 and you're already on Medicare, this message is for you.

00:17:20.000 Charlie cared about America's seniors.

00:17:22.000 He was outraged that so many were paying too much for their Medicare coverage and getting less than they deserved in return.

00:17:28.000 That's why he partnered with Chapter.

00:17:31.000 And we're still partnered with Chapter.

00:17:33.000 Chapter's licensed advisors search every Medicare plan to find what's actually best for you.

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00:17:51.000 So if you're nearing 65 or already on Medicare, make the call today.

00:17:56.000 Dial pound 250, pound 250, and say Charlie Kirk to make sure you're in the best available plan.

00:18:02.000 That's pound 250, and say Charlie Kirk or go to askchapter.org slash Kirk.

00:18:09.000 All right, Walter, we're going to turn our attention now.

00:18:14.000 To the Carmelo Anthony case, which the closing arguments I believe are happening right now.

00:18:20.000 A little bit of a twist here is that they are the judge has allowed manslaughter to be a potential verdict here, which would mean that they believe Carmelo Anthony acted recklessly but not with intent.

00:18:34.000 And I want to show you this image here.

00:18:36.000 This is actually a snippet from one of the reports on this case.

00:18:41.000 It says, Left Metcalf with a gaping two inch wound, and that the knife went so deep it pierced the bone of his chest and the right side of his heart.

00:18:54.000 So that was just recklessness, possibly.

00:18:56.000 But what do you.

00:18:57.000 Well, and it's not just that.

00:18:58.000 It's the fact that no one else knew he had a knife.

00:19:01.000 He knew he had a knife in his bag, and he's endlessly repeating over and over, like, touch me, see what happens, touch me, see what happens.

00:19:08.000 That's what he was saying over and over.

00:19:10.000 He knew what it would mean if someone touched him and they would see what happens. 1.00

00:19:13.000 He would pull out a knife and stab them. 1.00

00:19:15.000 Yeah. 0.75

00:19:16.000 The bigger picture thing, I think, is, Walter, is beyond the details of this specific trial, it's that, for example, we've had our front lines reporter, Savannah Hernandez, there.

00:19:25.000 She's been interviewing people.

00:19:27.000 Some of them have said they're black Americans and they've said, we're going to stick with our guy regardless of what the evidence shows.

00:19:34.000 She's interviewed people who have said that.

00:19:36.000 Others have shown themselves willing to believe like a very outlandish narrative that's taken hold where he was self defense.

00:19:45.000 He was surrounded by a mob of people.

00:19:47.000 Like he was basically about to, you know, about to be beaten up or murdered if he hadn't defended himself.

00:19:52.000 And now they're, you know, they're railroading him.

00:19:55.000 And we've also seen the narrative with the.

00:19:59.000 Who got onto the jury and the different demographics of it.

00:20:02.000 And a lot of people are thinking and watching this and just thinking, can the American tradition of a jury trial withstand this sort of modern pressure to racialize everything, view everything through a racial lens?

00:20:18.000 Can that work when you need 12 people unanimous in a jury to convict someone of a crime?

00:20:24.000 It can work.

00:20:25.000 It can go on in the sense that we can keep having trials and they might or might not result in.

00:20:33.000 Verdicts that the wider community finds just.

00:20:37.000 But the cost of it is that the gaming of these trials by jury consultants, lawyers, the media, because remember, the media often forms these arguments in advance.

00:20:50.000 What we see happen in the courtroom was also composed before the trial even started.

00:20:57.000 They will game these things and turn them into something completely different than what they were, which is a kind of theater.

00:21:05.000 And we've been seeing that obviously since OJ.

00:21:07.000 Race is only one way in which they sort of insert identity politics into trials.

00:21:14.000 You know, sometimes it's gender based, sometimes it's, you know, based on sexual preference and so on.

00:21:23.000 But what loses is the notion that there is an overarching transcendent set of laws that can be applied equally.

00:21:32.000 And when you no longer believe in the equal application of the law, You don't have the United States anymore because its entire basis was to create a state in which the law was equally applied.

00:21:47.000 We didn't need the United States if all questions could be decided in favor of this group or that group based on their inclusion in it.

00:21:59.000 The whole complex constitutional republic of the United States was based on the premise that we had to overcome superficial differences.

00:22:08.000 In order to preserve a kind of eternal or transcendent or deep order in our lives.

00:22:15.000 And that seems to have been abandoned.

00:22:17.000 So it's not what happens in the trials that I worry about.

00:22:20.000 It's what's going to happen in the streets as a result of the trials.

00:22:23.000 You're going to start to get people who think, you know, I can expect not so much a trial for what I do or for my misbehavior as an airing of my justifications and my excuses.

00:22:35.000 And I might even become famous.

00:22:38.000 I might even, you know, Come out of this, a celebrity.

00:22:42.000 So it's gone from deterrent to almost stimulant, this kind of justice.

00:22:51.000 Yeah.

00:22:52.000 I think the reason this has sparked such intrigue and interest across the country is that it seems like such a cut and dry case.

00:23:00.000 And yet, even when it's cut and dry, and I hate to use that expression, actually, now that I think about it, it's a poor choice, but it's a very clear case.

00:23:10.000 And, you know, the fact that there is still controversy, the fact that this man's family, this murderer's family, raised $700,000 from people that wanted to just support him because he's a young black man and they don't want to see another brother in jail, I think is the part that's really disheartening to me.

00:23:29.000 Now, I will say, it does seem to me that we've developed some antibodies as a culture, perhaps, since OJ, right?

00:23:36.000 The way that this is being handled in this Texas court seems to have been.

00:23:40.000 Pretty by the book.

00:23:42.000 I'm concerned about manslaughter.

00:23:44.000 I'm concerned about what happens in the streets.

00:23:46.000 But notice there's no Reverend Sharpton there. 0.95

00:23:50.000 You know, a lot of the race baiters and the grifters that we've become accustomed to aren't even showing up to this case. 0.60

00:23:55.000 And yet, and still, there is a portion of society that thinks young black man about to be thrown in prison can't let that stand.

00:24:05.000 Even though all the facts go against him.

00:24:06.000 And the surge of sentimentalism, too, where we mentioned that home invasion case where someone was murdered and that the jury four person said, Someone in this jury was just not going to convict because they just didn't want to see a person go to jail for life for murder.

00:24:21.000 They'll know they're guilty.

00:24:23.000 And we saw that in the jury selection where they dismissed potential jurors because they said, I just don't want to send a brother to prison, a young man.

00:24:33.000 I can't do it.

00:24:34.000 And all of this, Walter, happens on the back of Henry Novak.

00:24:39.000 But you want to dismiss a juror who says that, don't you?

00:24:42.000 Of course.

00:24:43.000 Of course.

00:24:44.000 That's common sense.

00:24:45.000 It's not controversy.

00:24:46.000 So there's a little common sense operating somewhere in the system.

00:24:50.000 I mean, the problem with in your face and cut and dried crimes not being prosecuted is that it's almost a physical blow.

00:25:03.000 You feel like your society has failed in its essential task of protection and common sense.

00:25:13.000 And so I think the fear here is that.

00:25:17.000 If this guy gets off for reasons that aren't perceived as legitimate, then we aren't really a country that protects each other using the law anymore.

00:25:29.000 We're just a country that referees political fights using real people.

00:25:34.000 Yeah.

00:25:35.000 And we can't forget about the backdrop here, though, Walter.

00:25:37.000 Henry Novak in the UK, right?

00:25:41.000 A poor white guy that was killed brutally.

00:25:44.000 We don't find out about it for six months until, you know, guys like Elon Musk expose it on X.

00:25:50.000 And now it's.

00:25:51.000 You know, this outrage is spreading across Europe, which is good.

00:25:55.000 Then we find another story that's going viral this morning about this. 0.99

00:26:01.000 It looks like an African immigrant in Northern Ireland that attempted to behead an Irishman.

00:26:09.000 Just confirmed a Sudanese asylum recipient who apparently came bonus stuff, comes to Ireland, and then Britain, thanks to Brexit, has this open border just in Ireland with the world. 0.92

00:26:22.000 So comes in, comes to Belfast, and, you know, does the natural. 0.96

00:26:25.000 Thing that anyone seeking safety would do, which is decapitate a random person in the street. 0.96

00:26:29.000 Right.

00:26:29.000 And thankfully, some bystanders saved this young man's life.

00:26:34.000 They came out with a shovel and actually hit the guy in the head with a shovel and saved his life.

00:26:40.000 Police arrested him.

00:26:41.000 But this is something that is a bigger conversation.

00:26:45.000 And we're probably going to have to get into the next segment here, though, Walter, is that it does contribute to this feeling like we're losing our society.

00:26:53.000 It's becoming more tribalized.

00:26:54.000 It's becoming.

00:26:55.000 You know, it's fraying at the edges. 1.00

00:26:57.000 You know, this oft used term, social cohesion, we're losing it partly by immigration, partly from stupidity, partly from woke. 1.00

00:27:05.000 And it's this witch's brew of garbage. 1.00

00:27:07.000 You know what we're really losing it from? 0.99

00:27:12.000 You need social cohesion when you have groups of people mingling in real life in public spaces.

00:27:19.000 If you're doing that a lot, then it's very important to you that some member of that group doesn't turn around and behead another one.

00:27:27.000 But as we withdraw into our phones, as we withdraw into our private worlds, as we withdraw into spaces in which we are insulated, we look at incidents like this.

00:27:39.000 As though they're reality TV shows that won't affect us.

00:27:44.000 Unfortunately, the people who make the laws anymore, the so called elites, are the people least likely to end up on that street in that situation.

00:27:54.000 And it is, if the poor are your concern, and they should always be our concern as human beings, then what are we doing by creating this arena in which they're beheading each other and we're standing back and making abstract arguments about it? 0.81

00:28:10.000 No freaking beheading.

00:28:11.000 But people who would be in that crowd know that in their guts. 0.93

00:28:15.000 They just don't go around anymore.

00:28:20.000 We're not together in ways that cause us to be in solidarity with each other's safety needs.

00:28:29.000 Walter, I'm going to mix it up here.

00:28:31.000 So we had some breaking news.

00:28:33.000 Blake just flagged it for me.

00:28:35.000 President Trump confirms that an Apache helicopter was shot down by Iran.

00:28:39.000 It was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, and both pilots have been recovered.

00:28:43.000 But he says, nevertheless, The United States must, of necessity, respond to the attack.

00:28:49.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:28:50.000 This obviously comes on the backdrop of ongoing peace negotiations where we're trying to get the nuclear dust.

00:28:56.000 Where he aggressively made Israel stand down, don't let this continue.

00:29:03.000 And it seemed like there was progress on that.

00:29:05.000 But as we've seen for months in this conflict, it's step forward, step back, step forward, step back.

00:29:11.000 And this seems like the latest.

00:29:12.000 Yeah.

00:29:12.000 So I want to take this in a slightly different direction, though.

00:29:15.000 So, we have this ongoing day in, day out saga with Iran. 0.85

00:29:18.000 Are we going to get peace? 0.69

00:29:19.000 We are pushing for peace.

00:29:21.000 We want peace.

00:29:23.000 That being said, it has exposed a fissure on the right.

00:29:27.000 You might call it America First versus MAGA.

00:29:29.000 You might call it neocon versus non interventionist, whatever you do.

00:29:33.000 But the point is that it has exposed a fissure that I think our enemies are exploiting.

00:29:38.000 They're trying, you know.

00:29:40.000 So, what do you make of that?

00:29:41.000 And can we get out of it?

00:29:43.000 Can we get out of the rut of this divisive nature in Iran in time for the midterms?

00:29:48.000 Well, I'm not sure. 0.97

00:29:50.000 I mean, predicting what's going to happen in war is a fool's game.

00:29:55.000 But the fact is, we have been at war. 0.53

00:29:58.000 I'm going to speak as a sort of old hand journalist. 0.50

00:30:00.000 We have been at war with Iran since the early 90s.

00:30:04.000 I sat in on a New Republic magazine briefing with an incoming Bill Clinton security official.

00:30:12.000 He had not yet taken office in the beginning of the 90s.

00:30:16.000 And he said, We are at war with Iran. 0.59

00:30:18.000 It's a war that we fought. in all sorts of proxy ways, silent ways, financial ways, diplomatic ways, but not militarily, not in an outright fashion.

00:30:28.000 Under Trump, we started to fight it that way with tanks, helicopters, missiles, and planes. 0.95

00:30:36.000 I think the thought was that we had to bring this thing to a conclusion, that it had gone on chronically for too long, that it had spread its tentacles into all sorts of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and so on, that it was regionally destabilizing, and it was time to bring the damn thing to a head.

00:30:55.000 It's a war that has been going on, but that we decided to fight in a new way.

00:31:01.000 I personally feel that because there is a nuclear component to it and a genuine one, which there wasn't in Iraq, and there certainly wasn't in Afghanistan, it's a slightly different situation. 0.64

00:31:16.000 And if there is a real prospect of reordering things such that we have a non nuclear Iran and an Iran that is no longer basically. headquarters for a worldwide terrorist organization that is also destabilizing the region immediately. 0.59

00:31:34.000 It was probably an incentive to go hot.

00:31:40.000 People's tolerance for that and their patience with it will vary.

00:31:43.000 It has not been a high casualty war for us so far.

00:31:48.000 That's a fact.

00:31:49.000 And I think that's probably caused people to be more patient with it than they might have been.

00:31:53.000 But I think he's perfectly aware that he's got elections coming up.

00:31:59.000 That he ran as a quote, peace candidate or, you know, non interventionist candidate.

00:32:04.000 But I would say again, this is a war that's, it's a war that they decided to finish, not when they decided to start.

00:32:12.000 So that's, I think that's right.

00:32:14.000 And President Trump has been consistent about that, certainly.

00:32:18.000 I mean, we were skeptical about going into it, wanted to focus more domestically.

00:32:23.000 But I've said it since the very beginning, Walter.

00:32:25.000 This could have been the geopolitically absolute right move to make, but politically costly.

00:32:30.000 Both things can be true at one point.

00:32:32.000 So, but my question is it does seem it has exposed these fissures, these fault lines that exist on the right.

00:32:39.000 I'm concerned that bad actors.

00:32:42.000 I don't know if it's exposed them so much as it's provided an opportunity to exploit them, and they have been exploited to the max.

00:32:48.000 That's where I'm going with this.

00:32:50.000 Yes.

00:32:50.000 Yeah.

00:32:51.000 Continue.

00:32:52.000 Yeah.

00:32:53.000 How has it been exploited?

00:32:56.000 Well, I think there's a spectrum.

00:32:57.000 You know, there are people who are, you know, more sort of isolationist, and there are people who are more.

00:33:04.000 Interventionist.

00:33:05.000 But that's not so much a fissure as a kind of gradient, a difference. 0.69

00:33:11.000 What's made it a cleavage, what's made it an absolute difference, is the insistence that this war was fought for Israel, on Israel's behalf, almost at their command.

00:33:23.000 And that is, I think, untrue.

00:33:27.000 Otherwise, we would not have been enemies before with Iran, which we have been for long standing.

00:33:36.000 Maybe Israel's cooperation in the war and the timing of it have something to do with how and when it took place. 0.71

00:33:43.000 But they turned it into a surrogate for a kind of decision about what you thought on Israel.

00:33:56.000 And that's what's turned it, made it divisive.

00:33:59.000 And the rhetoric around that conflict, pro, anti Israel, Zionist, anti Zionist, and some of it just outright anti-Semitic, Jew or hate Jew, has made it a real problem, not just for Trump, but for American society, for Western society.

00:34:19.000 Because I have not, because the fact is it does dip its toe in the rankest anti-Semitism.

00:34:25.000 But geopolitically, I also think it's a little bit absurd.

00:34:28.000 I mean, if Israel has the whip hand over the American military, and you see all this stuff now, oh, we've decided to merge our militaries, that's not accurate either.

00:34:41.000 Then Americans are going to be justly afraid if they believe it. 0.71

00:34:44.000 But it's hyperbola, it's exaggeration, it's not borne out, and it's a propaganda tactic.

00:34:50.000 And the propaganda tactic has been effective.

00:34:53.000 20 seconds, Walter.

00:34:54.000 Where can everybody find you and follow your stuff and support your work?

00:34:58.000 Well, I go back and forth between being a very reclusive writer, writing novels and screenplays, and a guy who does podcasts and things.

00:35:06.000 Right now i'm on twitter.

00:35:07.000 That's my main social media presence.

00:35:09.000 I have a sub stack.

00:35:10.000 I go on tv now and then, but I will return in my glory as a talking head at some point, um and and so people can await that moment, but for the moment, i'm finishing up some big projects that I hope to be everywhere Next year, Walter Kern, the great Walter Kern and County Highway.

00:35:28.000 Editor at large, novelist, thinker extraordinaire.

00:35:33.000 I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance.

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00:35:44.000 CHM is a faith based alternative to health insurance.

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00:36:41.000 That's chministries.orgslash Charlie and use promo code Charlie.

00:36:48.000 Man, I've been thinking about this conversation for the last couple days because there's a lot of stuff going on with Butler, Pennsylvania, and the attempted assassination against President Trump.

00:37:03.000 That just, you know, just keeps raising these questions.

00:37:06.000 What do we know?

00:37:07.000 What do we not know?

00:37:08.000 And one man, as we've become accustomed to, is like a dog with a bone on this, and that is Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.

00:37:15.000 And he's been FOIAing like a crazy man, getting all the information we can, but it's drips and drabs, and we don't know exactly what it is.

00:37:24.000 So I'll let him explain what he's found.

00:37:27.000 Tom, welcome back to the show.

00:37:29.000 It's great to have you.

00:37:30.000 How are you doing?

00:37:32.000 And tell us about this story.

00:37:35.000 You've got 48 pages out of like, You know, hundreds of thousands that are potentially out there.

00:37:40.000 What's going on?

00:37:41.000 Yeah, we've been asking for records of the FBI since the shooting happened.

00:37:47.000 And we've gotten stonewalled.

00:37:49.000 We sued last year.

00:37:51.000 Didn't get anything until just recently.

00:37:54.000 And the FBI first told us they had 45,000 records.

00:37:59.000 And then they said they had 75,000 records.

00:38:02.000 But they only give us a few hundred at most a month.

00:38:06.000 And most of those they withhold.

00:38:08.000 So that's 48 from like 300.

00:38:12.000 You know, so we put it out there, and, you know, what they gave us was heavily redacted.

00:38:16.000 It looked like the emails, you know, looking back on it, it still looks like emails were sent to a butler deputy by crooks.

00:38:24.000 Turns out that wasn't the case.

00:38:25.000 The FBI was withholding information that would have shown it was not the case.

00:38:31.000 So they attacked us.

00:38:31.000 They called me a liar.

00:38:32.000 They called Judicial Watch a liar. 0.61

00:38:35.000 Crazy, crazy response from the FBI and Kash Patel.

00:38:39.000 Disappointing, and frankly, You know, a malicious juvenile post that Cash promoted.

00:38:47.000 I'm just, I'm still kind of shocked by it.

00:38:51.000 In the meantime, they're hiding 75,000 pages of records from us.

00:38:54.000 And, you know, at this rate, we won't get them until, you know, I've been joking, until the Barron Trump administration.

00:39:00.000 Yeah.

00:39:01.000 Well, that's the thing that's so disconcerting here, Tom.

00:39:04.000 And, you know, I've known you for a number of years.

00:39:07.000 You were close with Charlie.

00:39:09.000 I trust you and I trust your integrity.

00:39:12.000 And I know that you're trying to get to the bottom of this and you're trying to get transparency here.

00:39:16.000 And when I saw the reaction to your push for transparency, and listen, You corrected the record.

00:39:23.000 You said, hey, it doesn't actually appear on, you know, as we're reviewing the documents that this was between a deputy and Crooks.

00:39:34.000 This actually appears that it was between a college instructor.

00:39:36.000 But the problem was they so redacted it, it made it almost impossible to tell what you were looking at.

00:39:42.000 And so I just want to say that, Tom.

00:39:45.000 On your behalf, as somebody who's known you, I was offended on your behalf.

00:39:49.000 I support a lot of what the FBI has done in this administration.

00:39:53.000 I support the lower crime rates, I support kind of reforming some of the bureaucracy and trying to work.

00:39:57.000 Putting agents back in the field.

00:39:58.000 There's so much to celebrate here, okay?

00:40:00.000 But when it comes to this story, it's so weird.

00:40:03.000 Like, why is it being shrouded in secrecy?

00:40:07.000 It makes absolutely no sense.

00:40:08.000 And if they have to redact this to keep up with statutes or laws or customs, change those because the guy's dead and we deserve to know what happened.

00:40:17.000 Yeah, you would think, given that President Trump was nearly killed as a result of Biden administration malfeasance and negligence, to put it charitably.

00:40:30.000 There'd be an interest in exposing that because I do think there are still risks to the president as a result of failures by the Secret Service and the agencies that support his security.

00:40:44.000 And so we're trying to figure out what went on to make sure it doesn't happen again.

00:40:48.000 And this issue to get attacked over for disclosing records in a good faith way and saying, well, you're lying because we have material you don't have, and therefore you're lying.

00:41:02.000 In disclosing what you do have, it's just crazy.

00:41:06.000 And in many ways, I want to move beyond it because all I want is the disclosure.

00:41:11.000 I want the records.

00:41:13.000 And this happened on Sunday.

00:41:16.000 And our focus, at least my focus, was at the time, is like, what's going on in California?

00:41:21.000 We're suing in California to clean up the voting rolls.

00:41:24.000 We've got a Supreme Court decision about to come down that is likely going to stop counting the counting of ballots that arrive late after election day.

00:41:35.000 So, like big issues, and of course, transparency about Butler, it's a big issue.

00:41:40.000 Instead, we get this juvenile attack from the FBI director and his people.

00:41:45.000 And, you know, he owes us an apology and he overreacted.

00:41:52.000 And I think they're upset because, you know, we give everyone guff.

00:41:55.000 I mean, we want the information.

00:41:57.000 You don't give us the information.

00:41:59.000 We sue in federal court and we alert the public to the lack of transparency.

00:42:05.000 So, Tom, you've been filing suits like this for a long time.

00:42:09.000 You mentioned you're seeking disclosure on this.

00:42:11.000 There are 75,000 documents outstanding.

00:42:15.000 Is there an explanation?

00:42:16.000 What's driving that level here?

00:42:18.000 Is the FBI basically just saying we don't need to release things unless we feel like it?

00:42:23.000 Do they have laws they fall back on?

00:42:25.000 Is there something Congress could do to make this a smoother process?

00:42:28.000 Because we were saying yesterday the best way for the FBI to just restore the public's confidence in general is to be brisker about.

00:42:37.000 Releasing documents they have with fewer redactions and having clearer explanations on the reasons they can't release other things.

00:42:44.000 What's going on here?

00:42:46.000 What does need to change?

00:42:47.000 Well, the laws are already the law.

00:42:49.000 I mean, they weren't following the law.

00:42:51.000 This FBI, not the last FBI, not Ray's FBI, but Cash's FBI, wasn't following the law and releasing the records to us.

00:43:02.000 And we're in litigation over it now.

00:43:04.000 So the answer is follow the law, be transparent.

00:43:11.000 We know the records can be produced quickly when there's political will.

00:43:15.000 We saw that with the Epstein records.

00:43:16.000 They went through how many millions of pages?

00:43:21.000 75,000 pages.

00:43:23.000 It should be able to release these toot sweet.

00:43:26.000 And what are the redactions that need to be held?

00:43:29.000 I tell you, everything should be released.

00:43:32.000 No redactions.

00:43:34.000 What secrets are they withholding?

00:43:36.000 You know, who are they talking to whose identity needs to be protected?

00:43:40.000 We're beyond that.

00:43:41.000 The president was almost killed.

00:43:43.000 An innocent was killed that day.

00:43:45.000 And we want to know what went on.

00:43:47.000 We have the right to the full information.

00:43:50.000 The president does, too.

00:43:52.000 Yeah.

00:43:52.000 And that's my concern, Tom.

00:43:54.000 You know, when you see these sort of bureaucratic, bureaucratic, uh, You know, I don't know, obstructionism, whatever you want to call it.

00:44:02.000 And then they go after somebody like you, who's our friend, who's on the right side of all of these issues, who's fighting to clean up the voter rolls, who's fighting for transparency.

00:44:13.000 And yeah, you're right.

00:44:13.000 You do give everybody guff.

00:44:15.000 You're an equal opportunity offender when people are blocking transparency for the American people.

00:44:20.000 My question is what are they keeping for President Trump here?

00:44:23.000 Do you have a firm handle or any confidence that President Trump has been given all the details on this matter?

00:44:30.000 I don't know.

00:44:31.000 I mean, it's 75,000 pages.

00:44:33.000 I doubt there's been full disclosure even internally.

00:44:37.000 I think this is what I would do if I were a Kash Patel.

00:44:40.000 I get a handle as to what the documents are that are outstanding, direct his agency, and the Justice Department, which is responsible for the FBI, should collaborate on this because they're defending this lawlessness in court right now in terms of transparency and secrecy, and just get the records out as quickly as they can.

00:44:58.000 It's not rocket science.

00:45:00.000 We know how to do FOIA, we know how to do FOIA lawsuits.

00:45:03.000 Just get all the records out. 0.90

00:45:05.000 Stop with the excuse making about the need to do redactions and then attacking Judicial Watch when we get it wrong because they hid crap from us. 0.53

00:45:14.000 I'm tired of it.

00:45:15.000 Yeah, Tom, we have your back 100% here.

00:45:18.000 I feel like the reaction from the FBI was not good, and they should apologize because you are an asset.

00:45:26.000 You are a friend.

00:45:27.000 You want what's best for the country and you want what's best for the conservative movement.

00:45:31.000 You want what's best for our voter rolls, for transparency, for trust in the system, all these things.

00:45:36.000 So, I think it's super counterproductive.

00:45:38.000 And I will tell you, as somebody that has had a lot of pressure on me, put on me personally, to attack the FBI, and, you know, when it comes to Charlie's case or whatever.

00:45:49.000 Right.

00:45:49.000 And listen, so this is not an easy place for me to be, but I just want to say once more, Tom, we have your back.

00:45:56.000 And I just appreciate all the work you're doing to try and bring transparency and actual accountability, communication from our Federal Bureau of Investigation.

00:46:07.000 Yeah, it's the work we do as a watchdog.

00:46:09.000 And I know I think the president appreciates the work, and I think Cash generally appreciates the work.

00:46:15.000 His nose is out of joint for whatever reason on this particular issue.

00:46:20.000 But he's got to stop calling us a liar and have his people calling us a liar because that type of language is dangerous language.

00:46:28.000 It's escalatory, and these are dangerous times.

00:46:33.000 And when you have the FBI going around targeting people like this with.

00:46:37.000 With what I consider to be outrageously false statements, you know, that's not good.

00:46:43.000 That's not good, and it's a dangerous smear.

00:46:46.000 So they should back down.

00:46:47.000 They really should back down.

00:46:49.000 And by the way, you guys did the honorable thing, Tom.

00:46:51.000 You changed your press release.

00:46:52.000 You updated it.

00:46:53.000 You said you got it wrong, that it wasn't an officer that was emailing with crooks.

00:46:58.000 It was a professor or some sort of academic contact of his.

00:47:03.000 I want to quickly change our focus here, Tom, because so much is going on in L.A., going on in California.

00:47:12.000 So we want to also highlight the good work you do there.

00:47:14.000 You have some recent cases you've been suing to highlight California.

00:47:18.000 You've, one of your most recent suits, you've exposed California has almost a million inactive voter registrations that have been hanging around for three or even four elections, which when California is sending out a million ballots every single cycle, that shows a lot of danger here.

00:47:37.000 Can you go into that?

00:47:38.000 Yeah, so the issue is: is California taking reasonable steps to clean up the rolls?

00:47:44.000 And we sued previously California, and LA agreed to, as part of a settlement, Ultimately, they remove 1.2 million dirty names from the rolls.

00:47:54.000 But the rest of the state is a mess.

00:47:57.000 And there are at least 873 dirty names on the rolls, 873,000 dirty names on the rolls, some of which are going back as long as 10 years.

00:48:07.000 And they say they're, quote, inactive.

00:48:10.000 Well, when you have the process break down and you're not cleaning the names out, it means that there are people who are, quote, active who are getting ballots, I suspect by the hundreds of thousands.

00:48:23.000 Because if they have 800,000 they're telling us about that are inactive and they know shouldn't be on the rolls, what about people who move away and the state doesn't even know they've moved away for two years?

00:48:35.000 These are people that they know or should have known have moved away.

00:48:39.000 But there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands who they just don't even check.

00:48:44.000 So when they say there's no evidence of impropriety, and that's the new media line, right?

00:48:49.000 No evidence of impropriety in the California elections.

00:48:52.000 No, there is evidence of impropriety.

00:48:55.000 They aren't following federal law to clean up the election rolls.

00:48:59.000 That's an indicator that there are dirty names on the rolls, likely receiving dirty ballots, and that lawlessness is resulting in less confidence in the elections.

00:49:11.000 So the whole system is being compromised.

00:49:14.000 This election is compromised by the failure to keep the rolls clean.

00:49:20.000 On top of it, we've got this litigation in California.

00:49:24.000 The underlying issue right now is before the Supreme Court.

00:49:26.000 We made the arguments a few months ago, our lawyers did, that counting ballots that arrive after Election Day is contrary to federal law.

00:49:34.000 Now, certainly in November, where federal law sets an Election Day, I'm hoping the Supreme Court will rule almost any minute now, practically speaking, that we're right.

00:49:45.000 I suspect they will.

00:49:47.000 They won't be able to do that anymore in California.

00:49:50.000 So there's a crisis ongoing.

00:49:53.000 We're seeking to address it.

00:49:55.000 But let's not pretend it's not there, and let's not pretend it's all lawful and normal.

00:50:00.000 None of it is.

00:50:01.000 Well, and Tom, we had Bill Asaley on, first assistant U.S. attorney of the Central District in California, yesterday, talking about you can use a gym card or a prescription pill label for proof of, you know, when you register to vote as your ID.

00:50:19.000 And look at this crazy clip from Steve Hilton, who, you know, by some miracle is going to be in the top two for the governorship.

00:50:27.000 In the runoff race.

00:50:28.000 But this is him telling Billy Bush how insane the system is.

00:50:32.000 SOT 24.

00:50:34.000 There's a line in the law that says that actually the proof that you mailed your ballot on or just before Election Day, even if it arrives after Election Day, it's not just the postmark.

00:50:50.000 You can write it, you can handwrite the date.

00:50:53.000 Wow.

00:50:54.000 You can backdate your ballot by hand.

00:50:58.000 By hand, and it will be counted.

00:51:01.000 That's how insane this system is.

00:51:04.000 I was double checking that myself.

00:51:05.000 That's 100% real.

00:51:06.000 They'll say, oh, yeah, send in a ballot, and as long as it's postmarked.

00:51:09.000 And I don't know why I should trust a postmark for that matter.

00:51:12.000 That sounds like the easiest thing in the world you could potentially scam.

00:51:16.000 But yeah, you don't even need that.

00:51:17.000 It's 100%.

00:51:18.000 You can look at it.

00:51:18.000 It just says, if they have dated their ballot and it's before election day, then it counts.

00:51:25.000 I can't think of how that could go astray when you have a month to count these things and you have thousands of city employees and volunteers and active.

00:51:35.000 Everything going into this and the amount of time they take to do this, there's so much room for shenanigans to come in.

00:51:41.000 And that's one of the reasons it's so important to at least count this stuff in a day.

00:51:45.000 And they won't do that either.

00:51:46.000 No, they can't get it counted in a day.

00:51:48.000 They don't want to do that.

00:51:49.000 And in California, they just passed a law, the leftists did, and Newsom's been celebrating it.

00:51:54.000 He signed it into law that makes it harder to challenge this issue.

00:51:58.000 So if you're an observer and you see the signatures aren't matching and you want to raise an objection, you're prohibited from doing so.

00:52:07.000 That's how sensitive they are about protecting this unsecure, unsupervised voting.

00:52:16.000 I mean, you know, it places your vote at risk to have all these mail in ballots out there because your honest vote can be negated by dishonest voting.

00:52:26.000 And I tell you, if you're not voting in the ballot place, in the voting precincts or the voting places, you can't be assured, or no sensible person can be assured.

00:52:40.000 That votes aren't being, voters aren't being threatened, coerced, or having their votes stolen out from under their noses.

00:52:47.000 Well, Tom, I moved, you know, after Charlie's assassination, I moved from California to Arizona.

00:52:53.000 And this is probably on me because I didn't inform the state and say that I was moving or whatever.

00:52:58.000 But I got a ballot, you know, and that's the thing.

00:53:00.000 I didn't ask for it.

00:53:01.000 They just sent one to my old home.

00:53:03.000 So I have no idea what happened to it, but hopefully it's sitting on my kitchen counter somewhere or something.

00:53:09.000 Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch, President of Judicial Watch, they do great work.

00:53:12.000 Please support them.

00:53:13.000 They are fantastic patriots.

00:53:14.000 Thank you, Tom.

00:53:15.000 Thank you, guys.

00:53:18.000 Before he ever stepped onto a debate stage or behind a microphone, Charlie understood something important.

00:53:24.000 If you want to lead, you have to learn first.

00:53:27.000 Charlie believed that ideas shape character, conviction, and give you courage.

00:53:30.000 That's why he spent years studying the classics, the American founding, and the Bible through Hillsdale College's free online courses.

00:53:37.000 These are real college courses taught by actual Hillsdale professors.

00:53:41.000 One of those courses is Great Books 101 Ancient to Medieval.

00:53:45.000 Where you'll study foundational authors like Homer, Augustine, Dante, and Chaucer, writers who shape Western civilization and still speak to the deepest questions about human nature, virtue, courage, family, and self government.

00:53:58.000 The course includes Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the epic stories of Achilles and Odysseus that have influenced the West for thousands of years.

00:54:06.000 And this summer, Hillsdale College is releasing a brand new course dedicated entirely to Homer's Odyssey.

00:54:11.000 Great Books 101 is the perfect way to prepare before the full Odyssey course launches in July.

00:54:17.000 Charlie understood that learning isn't just about gaining knowledge.

00:54:19.000 It's about forming the mind and character needed to face the challenges of life with wisdom and courage.

00:54:25.000 You can enroll today completely free, 100% free, just by visiting charley4hillsdale.com.

00:54:33.000 That's charley4hillsdale.com to start learning today.

00:54:36.000 Charley4hillsdale.com.

00:54:39.000 Learn deeply, think clearly, lead boldly, carry it forward with Hillsdale College.

00:54:46.000 I'm told Jasmine Crockett just went off on Charlie at this SPLC hearing.

00:54:50.000 We're going to get the clip and we're going to light her up in just a second.

00:54:54.000 And then, secondly, it is election day in South Carolina.

00:54:58.000 It's primary.

00:54:59.000 Vote Mark Lynch. 1.00

00:55:01.000 Put out to pasture Lady Graham. 1.00

00:55:03.000 Okay, so if you're in South Carolina, get Lady Graham out of there. 1.00

00:55:07.000 I'll even say there are other candidates. 1.00

00:55:08.000 If you really want to vote for them, we just need to keep them below 50.

00:55:11.000 Keep Graham below 50.

00:55:12.000 I believe head to head, he's toast.

00:55:14.000 Yeah, so go vote.

00:55:16.000 Keep it below 50.

00:55:17.000 That's right.

00:55:18.000 Okay, those are our PSAs.

00:55:19.000 Eric Metaxas, welcome to the Charlie Cook Show.

00:55:23.000 Welcome to the studio, my friend.

00:55:24.000 It's great to be in the studio with you guys.

00:55:27.000 Thanks for having me here.

00:55:29.000 I have no idea why you're here.

00:55:30.000 What's your favorite thing now that you're here and you can see the stuff on the wall?

00:55:33.000 We've got Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

00:55:36.000 I'll tell you what my favorite thing is there's a banner over there that my team sent you guys and you've displayed it.

00:55:41.000 It's USA 250.

00:55:42.000 You can see it over places.

00:55:44.000 Supercentennial.

00:55:45.000 The official term, I told President Trump this and he loved it and he spoke about it in Fox News and then he forgot about it.

00:55:51.000 But the official term for 250 is supercentennial.

00:55:54.000 I'm old enough to remember the bicentennial and the whole country was crazy.

00:55:58.000 It's our bicentennial.

00:55:59.000 We're celebrating our bicentennial.

00:56:02.000 This year, it's just America 250.

00:56:03.000 It's like, no, no, no.

00:56:04.000 We need to have a term.

00:56:05.000 So the term is super centennial.

00:56:07.000 This year, this is our super centennial year.

00:56:11.000 And it's on the cover of my book, which we are going to discuss starting.

00:56:14.000 That's why you're here.

00:56:15.000 Now.

00:56:15.000 Okay.

00:56:15.000 Now.

00:56:16.000 That's why you're here.

00:56:17.000 This, okay.

00:56:18.000 So Eric sent me this beautiful box right here.

00:56:22.000 And it had that banner in it.

00:56:24.000 It was filled with processed luncheon meats.

00:56:26.000 Beautiful.

00:56:27.000 Yeah.

00:56:27.000 It was like a box of cheese and cheese and a juice box.

00:56:33.000 Continental Army, right?

00:56:34.000 And I will confess the audience.

00:56:35.000 I've only read the first chapter, but I will tell you, Eric, and you know, I don't give out compliments, especially to you very easily.

00:56:42.000 You never have.

00:56:42.000 It's really hard.

00:56:43.000 I think you're getting better.

00:56:46.000 I mean, everybody knows Bonhoeffer.

00:56:48.000 They know Letter to the American Church.

00:56:50.000 I mean, you've written a lot.

00:56:51.000 Oh, yeah.

00:56:52.000 And you're, I hate to say it, but I think you are like now at that very elite level as a historian, as a storyteller.

00:57:04.000 This is so well done so far.

00:57:06.000 I'll tell you something, Andrew.

00:57:07.000 And I really mean that.

00:57:08.000 No, and listen, and I'm not.

00:57:10.000 Blown smoke back either.

00:57:12.000 When I was writing this book, I said to my wife, Suzanne, many times, I said, Suzanne, something's going on with the writing of this book.

00:57:20.000 I feel a confidence as a writer, kind of a joy that I have never felt in writing a book before.

00:57:28.000 It was really notable that it's almost like I've achieved something over the decades.

00:57:34.000 You know, you do something, you do something, you do it.

00:57:36.000 And then you get to a point where I just felt this kind of confidence and joy in some of the writing.

00:57:42.000 That I have never felt before.

00:57:44.000 So I always want my books to be extremely readable because everybody writes books and you're like, I got the book.

00:57:49.000 Did you read the book?

00:57:50.000 No.

00:57:50.000 I want my books to be readable.

00:57:52.000 This is summer reading, ladies and gentlemen.

00:57:54.000 If you're an American, it's not for history buffs, it's for Americans.

00:57:58.000 Any American should care about the story of how we came into being.

00:58:02.000 In fact, it is necessary.

00:58:04.000 It's kind of why I wrote the book.

00:58:05.000 We need to know this.

00:58:06.000 This is not like for people who are, you know, I'm sort of interested.

00:58:10.000 No, no, no.

00:58:10.000 It's an assignment.

00:58:11.000 You need to know.

00:58:13.000 How America came into being.

00:58:15.000 Maybe you heard it in school.

00:58:17.000 You probably forgot most of it, like I did.

00:58:19.000 No excuses.

00:58:20.000 Every American needs to know the story.

00:58:23.000 That's why I wrote the book.

00:58:24.000 This is a standard, fun gallop through our history, you know, starting in 1763, the end of the French and Indian War, which leads to the Revolution, all the stories of the Revolution and the heroes, the people, the stories.

00:58:37.000 Honestly, it's amazing.

00:58:39.000 It's a classic story.

00:58:40.000 You just think of it if you go back to the 1800s, Americans knew all these classic figures.

00:58:46.000 You don't need to go back to the 1800s.

00:58:48.000 You could go back to 1960.

00:58:49.000 I've said this, and I know this.

00:58:51.000 If you stick a microphone, anybody's face, Main Street America, 1960, Every single person, every American knew everything that's in this book.

00:58:59.000 Nathan Hale, you mentioned Nathan Hale.

00:59:01.000 There's a chapter in here on Nathan Hale, one of the great heroes of American history.

00:59:05.000 We should know everything about him.

00:59:07.000 What an inspiration and what a profound Christian.

00:59:10.000 I mean, amazing, brilliant Yale graduate.

00:59:13.000 That's before Yale went to hell, before my time.

00:59:15.000 But all these stories are beautiful and we all used to know them.

00:59:20.000 And that's why I wrote the book.

00:59:21.000 I said, I know there are folks who don't know this.

00:59:23.000 It's so hard.

00:59:25.000 Obviously, we care about America's actual religion with Christianity, but you need the country to have its secular religion as well, which is its secular heroes.

00:59:34.000 Especially because we're this diverse country, you actually need everyone to think George Washington rocks. 0.96

00:59:39.000 But, Blake, here's the problem all these quote unquote secular heroes are fire breathing Christians. 0.96

00:59:45.000 This is what I didn't know when I started to write the book. 0.94

00:59:49.000 And that's what the big news is for me.

00:59:51.000 When people said, Eric, you're writing a book on the revolution, what's your angle?

00:59:54.000 I said, I have no angle.

00:59:55.000 I'm just going to write.

00:59:56.000 A story that's in one volume, because you could read 30 books or 10 books.

01:00:00.000 I just want one volume.

01:00:02.000 Everything is right here.

01:00:03.000 This is what you need to know.

01:00:04.000 So I have no angle.

01:00:05.000 I'm just going to tell the story.

01:00:06.000 It's going to be fun.

01:00:08.000 When I did the research, everywhere I looked, I was astonished over and over and over.

01:00:14.000 This is a Christian story.

01:00:16.000 Every player in it is a Christian.

01:00:19.000 You could maybe say Franklin and Jefferson are iffy, and that's another story, but they still got the Christian narrative dramatically.

01:00:26.000 The whole way this comes into being.

01:00:29.000 Comes out of the Reformation, Puritan theology.

01:00:32.000 You get no America without God.

01:00:34.000 And the proof, the reason the title is Revolution, not the American Revolution, is because I make the case, and I think it's open and shut.

01:00:41.000 There's no other revolution that succeeded.

01:00:42.000 The French Revolution is a joke.

01:00:44.000 It ends in a bloodbath.

01:00:45.000 They get rid of a king, and what happens?

01:00:47.000 They replace him with, oh, yeah, a dictator emperor.

01:00:50.000 How did that go for you, France?

01:00:52.000 So every revolution that they call itself a revolution succeeds, fails.

01:00:58.000 Our revolution is the only revolution in the history of the world.

01:01:02.000 Where people said, okay, we want to govern ourselves, they actually pulled it off.

01:01:06.000 And that is because God was at the center.

01:01:09.000 That is not my Christian perspective.

01:01:11.000 That is historical fact. 0.83

01:01:13.000 And I prove it in the book.

01:01:14.000 I didn't set out to prove it, but when you just look at the facts, you're like, how have we not known this story?

01:01:19.000 How have we not known that it was born out of people wanting to create a Christian government where people govern themselves?

01:01:26.000 Because we used to assume it and understand it was an assumed truth.

01:01:30.000 Correct. 1.00

01:01:30.000 And then it got challenged by a bunch of wokies. 1.00

01:01:32.000 Yeah. 1.00

01:01:33.000 And then we had to build up antibodies.

01:01:35.000 I mean, I'm starting to realize that our modern environment is a series of onslaughts, attacks against, to Blake's point, our civic religion, our civic myths.

01:01:48.000 Totally.

01:01:49.000 And I use myths in a general term, but they're true histories.

01:01:53.000 And they're the stories that we tell our children. 1.00

01:01:56.000 And all of a sudden they start getting attacked by the wokies. 1.00

01:01:58.000 And then we need to figure out, oh, this is actually something we need to be able to defend. 1.00

01:02:02.000 And so then we have to gear up and tool up and defend them.

01:02:05.000 But I really want to make the point here.

01:02:05.000 Right.

01:02:08.000 Yes, you sort of reveal this through the telling of the story, through your own research.

01:02:13.000 But this is like really readable history.

01:02:17.000 Yes.

01:02:17.000 I mean, you just, the opening scene of the revolution, Parliament debates the Stamp Act.

01:02:21.000 Mob violence comes to Boston.

01:02:22.000 John Adams waxes prophetic.

01:02:24.000 The Stamp Act takes effect.

01:02:26.000 The Stamp Act is repealed.

01:02:27.000 The Townsend Act, Liberty Affair, on the road to bloodshed.

01:02:30.000 I mean, this is the actual history, and it's so readable.

01:02:33.000 And it's so insane they tear it down because we're really such a blessed country. 0.62

01:02:36.000 Like, if you're a modern French person, the French Revolution is the founding event of your modern country, and it is a bloodbath that goes horrible.

01:02:43.000 It's a joke. 0.91

01:02:44.000 Basically, genocide and just total justice.

01:02:47.000 U.S., we're so blessed that our founding events, a revolution which could have gone really awry, Ends amazingly.

01:02:53.000 We end up with this prosperous constitutional republic.

01:02:57.000 But you have to ask why.

01:02:59.000 And that's the point that came to me.

01:03:00.000 And again, I happily always confess my ignorance.

01:03:04.000 I'm not somebody who knew all this and said, oh, I need to put it in a book.

01:03:07.000 I didn't know this.

01:03:08.000 I only knew I want to write a readable story of what happened 250 years ago in time for the 250th supercentennial.

01:03:16.000 That's my goal.

01:03:17.000 In the course of doing a ton of research, this evidence comes to me.

01:03:21.000 I thought, how in the world did I not know this?

01:03:24.000 How does every American not know this?

01:03:26.000 It's because all of these guys in this revolution were looking directly to God.

01:03:31.000 They wanted to go back to the Sinai covenant of the Israelites in the wilderness.

01:03:34.000 They had this Old Testament theology that we're going to get rid of a king, we're going to get out from under Pharaoh, and we're going to look directly to God.

01:03:41.000 And only by doing that can we govern ourselves.

01:03:44.000 There's nobody in this book who didn't get that.

01:03:48.000 They all got the narrative.

01:03:49.000 I mean, everybody, including Jefferson and Franklin.

01:03:51.000 How have we gotten to a point where most Americans don't know this?

01:03:55.000 That's what stunned me.

01:03:57.000 And again, that's not the point of the book, but if you read the book, It's all through the book.

01:04:00.000 It's not avoidable.

01:04:02.000 And, I mean, you know, honorable mention.

01:04:02.000 I love it.

01:04:05.000 Like I said, I've read chapter one.

01:04:07.000 He starts the book out by talking about the death of King George II, which gave rise to King George III.

01:04:13.000 Right.

01:04:14.000 And there is a fascinating reference to Sir Thomas Crapper.

01:04:17.000 Sir Thomas Crapper, 19th century.

01:04:19.000 And then we get the colorful expression for a BM, for, you know, which is just fun.

01:04:26.000 The first, there's a lot of fun in the book.

01:04:28.000 And you know me, I can't help joking.

01:04:29.000 So I find weird, strange stuff, and it's like, I got to put it in there.

01:04:32.000 There's no way.

01:04:33.000 It's a beautiful book.

01:04:34.000 It's so well done, and I'm very proud of my friend of what he's accomplished here.

01:04:38.000 People don't realize writing a book is like birthing a child, it's a huge undertaking.

01:04:42.000 Yeah.

01:04:43.000 So, congratulations, Eric.

01:04:44.000 Thank you.

01:04:45.000 And I know because, listen, go buy the book, just get it.

01:04:49.000 But I know that Amazon, they printed out tens of thousands of these things and they're already sold out.

01:04:55.000 It's sound like hotcakes.

01:04:56.000 So, get yours today.

01:04:58.000 Do not wait, it will get to you.

01:05:00.000 Somebody said that Books A Million has copies.

01:05:04.000 Amazon is saying, like, they're sold out, or if you want one, you might not get it by Father's Day.

01:05:09.000 So I think Books A Million has enough books to give it.

01:05:12.000 But I think even if you order from Amazon, you'll get it before Father's Day, but they're not guaranteeing it.

01:05:16.000 But this is good news.

01:05:17.000 This means that people are buying the book.

01:05:19.000 And my assignment for America, you got to read this this summer.

01:05:22.000 I don't care if you steal it.

01:05:24.000 You got to know America's.

01:05:27.000 We can steal it from your brother. 0.86

01:05:29.000 From your brother.

01:05:31.000 But I guess the point is that we have an assignment.

01:05:33.000 We need to know our story.

01:05:35.000 And that's not like, it's not extra credit.

01:05:38.000 The reason we've drifted so far, you know this, you guys know this, is because we don't know this stuff.

01:05:44.000 We've forgotten this stuff.

01:05:45.000 We've taken it for granted.

01:05:46.000 We've let it slide.

01:05:47.000 If you don't know the biblical roots of the founding of America, that all of the founders understood that, then you're really missing it, and we can't sustain what we have.

01:05:58.000 You cannot have liberty without people looking to God, being virtuous.

01:06:03.000 And again, that's not what the book's about, but you just can't help but see.

01:06:06.000 George Washington, oh my gosh.

01:06:08.000 Oh my gosh, this was a man. 0.98

01:06:10.000 When they say he's a deist, that is like you might as well say he's a radical Muslim. 1.00

01:06:14.000 It's the dumbest thing. 1.00

01:06:16.000 These were men. 1.00

01:06:17.000 They were Christians.

01:06:18.000 You've given the country a great gift here, Eric.

01:06:22.000 Honestly, thank you for this. 0.71

01:06:24.000 We got to light up Jasmine Crockett.

01:06:25.000 Let's do it.

01:06:27.000 SPLC hearing, Jim Jordan Judiciary Committee is doing it.

01:06:31.000 I submitted a letter for this.

01:06:32.000 We have some of our students in the room. 1.00

01:06:34.000 Jasmine Crockett took it upon herself to make a fool of herself again. 1.00

01:06:38.000 Let's play 36. 0.91

01:06:40.000 I know some of y'all are, you know, caping for Charlie Kirk because I hadn't heard y'all talk about his organization over and over and over.

01:06:48.000 So, I'm not gonna play with anybody who's gonna play with my time, so I'm going directly to Ms. McCord. 0.96

01:06:53.000 If I see a black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified.

01:06:59.000 Does that sound like a hater or no? 0.87

01:07:02.000 That sounds like a racial stereotype. 1.00

01:07:04.000 Okay, sounds good to me. 1.00

01:07:06.000 We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid 1960s.

01:07:11.000 That sounds like someone who still adheres to racist views.

01:07:17.000 Okay.

01:07:18.000 America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank. 1.00

01:07:22.000 Large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America. 1.00

01:07:27.000 These all just happen to be comments from the fearless leader of Turning Point USA, so I could see where SPLC was going. 1.00

01:07:36.000 All right. 0.98

01:07:37.000 I'm an ugly woman. 0.97

01:07:38.000 And also, I will just note it's funny she's reading out this with SPLC. 0.94

01:07:42.000 Charlie never funded a Klan cross burning, whereas the SPLC has multiple times.

01:07:47.000 Paid millions of dollars to KKK members.

01:07:50.000 Okay, Jasmine Crockett, let's go one by one here. 1.00

01:07:52.000 Black Pilots.

01:07:53.000 That is a bastardized, out of context clip. 0.97

01:07:56.000 Bingo.

01:07:57.000 Where Charlie was reflecting on the fact that the CEO of United was going to mandate racial quotas and gender quotas on the new pilot class, taking it from about 85 15%, 85 straight white men or white men in general, to 15% minorities, and going to mandate that the new pilot class was 50 50.

01:08:17.000 Honest questions. 0.77

01:08:17.000 Are there enough black pilots to make 50%? 0.77

01:08:20.000 Are there enough minority pilots to make up 50% in the new pilot class? 1.00

01:08:24.000 Other honest questions. 1.00

01:08:26.000 Can you guarantee that?

01:08:27.000 The safety standards will continue to be met at 85 15 going to 50 50.

01:08:32.000 Lots of honest questions.

01:08:33.000 If you were going to force racial quotas into the system, every time that happens, quality is paid, standards drop.

01:08:41.000 You see this in medical schools, you see this in policing.

01:08:44.000 This is a joke.

01:08:45.000 So, Charlie responding to that says, I don't do this now, but if you're going to enforce it, I'm going to say, Hey, I hope he's qualified.

01:08:51.000 Because guess what?

01:08:52.000 That is an actual logical and rational reaction to that.

01:08:55.000 Charlie believed in equality, Charlie believed in having equal standards for people.

01:08:59.000 You accept whatever the consequences is. 0.71

01:09:01.000 If you say you have to be the most qualified person to become a pilot, and that means white dudes become pilots, great. 0.79

01:09:08.000 Everyone's safer because they're flying on planes with good pilots. 0.76

01:09:11.000 Yeah.

01:09:11.000 Let's go to the Civil Rights Act comment.

01:09:12.000 Civil Rights Act, Eric.

01:09:13.000 Did you know that the Supreme Court agreed with Charlie Kirk?

01:09:16.000 Because they just gutted the VRA, right?

01:09:18.000 Okay.

01:09:18.000 So the Voting Rights Act sucked something different, but it's the same era.

01:09:22.000 And Charlie was sort of making that comment about all of that.

01:09:25.000 It created racial gerrymandered lines.

01:09:27.000 Guess what else the Civil Rights Act has been used to do? 0.99

01:09:30.000 Civil Rights Act has been used to reinforce trans dudes, dudes that think they're women, to go into women's locker rooms. 1.00

01:09:38.000 Those laws have been bastardized and used to corrupt women's sports. 1.00

01:09:42.000 That actually is totally a fair critique that you could agree. 0.99

01:09:46.000 Charlie also said, I agree with the intent of the Civil Rights Act, but it went too far. 0.67

01:09:49.000 It became extra constitutional.

01:09:52.000 It became the new constitution, the new founding of America.

01:09:54.000 It did the opposite of what people thought it was going to do, which is they wanted to abolish discrimination.

01:09:59.000 Instead, it mandates discrimination.

01:10:00.000 A thousand percent. 0.90

01:10:01.000 The Civil Rights Act is why. 1.00

01:10:02.000 We have laws that just say, actually, your office needs to do affirmative action. 1.00

01:10:07.000 You need to do all this favoritism. 0.99

01:10:09.000 It's why we get anti white discrimination in university admissions and hiring and government contracts. 0.90

01:10:14.000 All of these things are downstream of that.

01:10:16.000 And Charlie said, no, America's principle is equality, equality under the law for individuals. 0.92

01:10:21.000 Well, and then they go off to the Islamic question. 0.85

01:10:24.000 So Charlie said, listen, it's not good to have whole neighborhoods that are established on like Sharia law.

01:10:30.000 Whoa, that's super controversial.

01:10:32.000 Oh, that's, and I just couldn't get over the fact that she goes to the SBLC rep and she goes, well, that seems like racial animus and that seems like bigotry. 0.56

01:10:40.000 And that seems, no, it's called common sense.

01:10:43.000 We don't want people that are subjugating other people, taxing them. 1.00

01:10:48.000 Creating streets named after Islamic conquerors. 1.00

01:10:52.000 It's worse than that. 1.00

01:10:54.000 They're beating their wives. 0.71

01:10:56.000 Let's be honest. 1.00

01:10:56.000 Child brides. 1.00

01:10:57.000 They are beating their wives, and they're saying, according to our laws, that is absolutely fine. 0.77

01:11:03.000 Well, according to the American laws, it's not fine.

01:11:06.000 So the idea that we're going to have an area that's not going to abide by the rules of the United States of America, obviously that's the problem.

01:11:13.000 Guess what?

01:11:14.000 I'll go one step further. 1.00

01:11:15.000 No more Islamic immigration into the country. 1.00

01:11:17.000 It's bad for the country. 1.00

01:11:18.000 We're a Christian nation. 1.00

01:11:19.000 We're Founded as a Christian nation, and we will continue to be a Christian nation if I have something to do about it.

01:11:24.000 God bless you, Eric Bataxas.

01:11:25.000 God bless you.

01:11:26.000 Thanks for having me.

01:11:31.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - June 09, 2026

Threats to the Republic + The Glory of America's Founding

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