The Charlie Kirk Show - September 20, 2024


Tony Robbins and the City of Dreams ft. Tony Robbins and Mohit Ramchandani

Topics
City of Dreams City of Dreams movie
Hosted by
Charlie Kirk
Mentioned
Tony Robbins Roger Ebert Uncle Tom's Cabin Donald Trump Jr. Rotten Tomatoes Mo Ramchandani Dreamer Harry Beecher Stowe Aria Beecher Stowe Turning Point USA Larry King Show Slumdog Millionaire Christopher Nolan Michael Phelps Close Encounters Rodrigo Ramirez Gavin Newsom Mira Cervino Mark Cuban Gingrich and 11 more
Iran Hacks the Election? Are Humans Good or Bad? — Part 2 with Tucker Carlson

Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

200.3

Word count

6,650

Sentence count

495

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Tony Robbins and Mo Ramchandani join me to discuss their new film, City of Dreams, directed by Charlie Kirk and starring Amy Poehler. We also talk about the importance of children's rights and the work they do to fight for them. Thank you so much for listening to The Charlie Kirk Show. Please remember to share it with a friend or become a supporter of the show. The show is sponsored by Noble Gold Investments, a company that specializes in gold and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investing. That's where I buy all of my gold. It's where my gold comes from. I buy it in person, I deliver it around the world, and I give it back to the people who need it the most. I don't own any of the gold I'm giving away. I'm just passing it along. It's not for sale, it's for donation. If you can't afford to buy it, you're not going to get any of it, but if you can do your part to make a difference in the world and you want to give back, then you should do it. You're going to be a better person than you think you can be. Thanks for listening. - Charlie Kirk, CEO and Founder of Turning Point USA, the most important organization in the country, thank you for being a part of something bigger than you know you can change the world. Charlie Kirk - Thank you Charlie Kirk is a great guy, and you should know who you are! - M.A. Thank you for supporting the show, M.R. Ramanchandani - I want you to be part of the movement, not just one of the most powerful people in the most influential people in this country, you'll get a chance to help change the next generation of people in a better place than you'll ever get the chance to be in a place like that, because you'll learn how to do it, and it's not just a good one, it'll be better than that, and that's a good place to be there, because it's a day to help you do it in a way that helps you do that, not only in the next one, and there's more than you can help you know that's not only that, but you'll be there in the rest of it in that place, and they'll get it, they'll help you, too.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, 10 to Charlie Kirk show!
00:00:02.000 Tony Robbins.
00:00:03.000 Also, Mo Ramchandani.
00:00:05.000 Get involved with Turning Point USA, the most important organization in the country, at tpusa.com.
00:00:09.000 That is tpusa.com.
00:00:11.000 Start a high school or college chapter today at tpusa.com.
00:00:15.000 Email me, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:17.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:17.000 Here we go.
00:00:18.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:20.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:22.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:26.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:29.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:30.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:31.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:00:33.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:39.000 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.
00:00:48.000 That's why we are here.
00:00:52.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:02.000 Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:08.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:10.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:12.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:01:17.000 Okay, everybody, welcome to this episode of The Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:19.000 Honored to have two amazing guests with us, one of which has changed my life, and he knows that, and it's worth repeating.
00:01:25.000 I've been listening to him for well over 20 years.
00:01:27.000 It is Tony Robbins, who could just best be called a force for good in this world, but also executive producer of what we're here to talk about today, City of Dreams, an amazing film, and also Mo Ramchandani, I think I got that right, who's the writer and director of City of Dreams.
00:01:41.000 Welcome to you both, welcome to the program.
00:01:44.000 Thanks very much.
00:01:45.000 Tony, let's start with you.
00:01:46.000 Tony, what led you to want to partner with this film and be the executive producer of this very powerful movie?
00:01:51.000 Well, about eight years ago, my wife and I, you know, we're involved in all kinds of things, feeding people, because I was fed when I was a child, and we've had the privilege now of feeding over a billion people through our partnership in Feeding America just in the last 10 years.
00:02:02.000 So, I've been involved in a lot of projects, and because of that, when I do business programs, I invite the audience that are making more money to say, what are you going to do for the world?
00:02:11.000 You're going to be fulfilled by things you give, not just by what you get.
00:02:15.000 And one woman got up and shared this story about her own child, a dear friend's child being abducted and so forth.
00:02:22.000 And she was crying, talking about she wants to save children.
00:02:24.000 And she said, there's an organization that really is making a difference and she wants to sponsor and didn't have enough money.
00:02:29.000 And I said, well, how much does it cost to save a child?
00:02:30.000 And she had $3,500.
00:02:32.000 I said, to save a child from slavery?
00:02:34.000 She said, yes.
00:02:34.000 I said, I'll put up a quarter of a million dollars.
00:02:36.000 Let's matching funds.
00:02:38.000 Let's see how much you're going to raise.
00:02:39.000 We raised a couple million dollars in about 35, 40 minutes.
00:02:42.000 And so that started me on a journey. Then I went out actually undercover.
00:02:46.000 They use movie makeup, put scars all over me and I spent four and a half days down
00:02:50.000 in Haiti while we rescued 37 children. And it was the ugliest thing I've ever 1.00
00:02:54.000 seen in my life. 0.53
00:02:55.000 Children tied to a bed, 10 years old, doing tricks all day.
00:02:58.000 But it was also the most beautiful thing I've ever done, seeing them be freed and seeing them on the other side now
00:03:03.000 here.
00:03:04.000 So my wife and I got involved and now we've funded about 51,000 children's rescues during that time.
00:03:10.000 But there's only so much you do by yourself and a film can change that.
00:03:13.000 So I helped executive produce, uh, you know, another film that you may have seen called the sound of freedom last year and it caught hold, but it also showed it more overseas.
00:03:23.000 And I was really interested in not just sex slavery, but labor slavery.
00:03:26.000 And because, you know, 10 million, 11 million people come across the border, we know we've lost 325,000 children, the government's reported, but it's just too big.
00:03:35.000 People get overwhelmed when they hear numbers like that.
00:03:37.000 You go numb, it's a headline.
00:03:39.000 But if you can follow, you know, through a movie, one child's life and experience what they go through, First of all, it's a thriller.
00:03:47.000 I mean, this puts you on the edge of your seat every moment.
00:03:50.000 It's just pure entertainment.
00:03:51.000 But while you're doing that, instead of educating someone or preaching to them, you're firing people up and waking them up.
00:03:58.000 And so the purpose for me is, you know, if you say, what ended slavery in the United States?
00:04:02.000 You know, the number one factor was a person who wrote a book who told the story to everybody.
00:04:07.000 You know, Harry Beecher Stowe created Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852 because she lost a child and it made her feel for women who were slaves whose children were sold off.
00:04:16.000 And so it made her emotionally associated.
00:04:19.000 She was mad because a new law got passed that said the people in the North had to send these slaves back. 0.94
00:04:24.000 So she wrote this book, and it captured the imagination of the country.
00:04:28.000 It sold 3,000 copies the first day, 300,000 copies the first year, a million copies in the 1850s the next year.
00:04:34.000 And guess what?
00:04:35.000 Lincoln read it.
00:04:37.000 And so the storytelling woke people up, and then people started saying, enough of this.
00:04:41.000 That's how things change.
00:04:42.000 So to me, you know, this isn't do that by itself.
00:04:45.000 But this film will wake you up to what's really going on, and it'll wake you up that it isn't just numbers coming across the border, what these lives are happening, and I think people will be, I know they will, they'll be deeply moved.
00:04:55.000 It's got a 92 score on Rotten Tomatoes, so the audiences are really responding to it.
00:05:00.000 It's an incredibly powerful film, and Tony, you're right, it takes, okay, so we hear that there are 320,000 missing kids in the country, according to the Department of Homeland Security, but then it personalized it, because that's just an abstraction, it's a number, okay, it's a statistic.
00:05:13.000 So, Mo, you have a family story that connects you to this.
00:05:16.000 You're the writer and director here.
00:05:17.000 Introduce yourself to the audience.
00:05:19.000 What is your family's history, your father, that makes this more than just a typical Hollywood film?
00:05:26.000 Yeah so you know I'm my family originally from a province in Pakistan called Sindh that used to be India and then of course you know when the British left the partition happened and my father was seven years old he was kicked out of his home he had to move into the Hindu majority of India and that's where you know his his my grandfather was a public defender and they didn't have a lot of money and this was a new system so he worked in a sweatshop he worked as a t-boy he worked in sweatshop like conditions and it sort of informed I mean he got out of that And he became, you know, he sort of went, he had the American dream.
00:06:00.000 And I will say that that experience though traumatized him.
00:06:04.000 And in the film, I based three of the characters on him, the little boy, one of the enforcers, and ultimately the guy that runs the sweatshop.
00:06:12.000 Because really for me, I didn't write this initially thinking, you know, when I started writing the movie, this wasn't the hottest issue in the country.
00:06:21.000 It was something that you barely heard about.
00:06:23.000 For me, I wrote it as a way to forgive my dad, as a way to understand why he was the way he was.
00:06:29.000 And so that was deeply personal for me.
00:06:32.000 And obviously now it's become this whole thing that I didn't expect.
00:06:37.000 Again, you know, I wrote the first draft of the script 10 years ago when I read about the Almonte case in Southern California where there were 72 immigrants trapped in a residential location.
00:06:48.000 They couldn't see light for seven years.
00:06:50.000 They were sewing.
00:06:51.000 It was interesting because it wasn't sex trafficking.
00:06:53.000 And as I started working on it and trying to get it made, more and more cases were coming to light.
00:06:59.000 And that was really sort of shocking to me.
00:07:02.000 But my heart was always in wanting to tell my father's story.
00:07:06.000 Yes, so Mo, I just want to follow up really quickly and telling your father's story because it adds a personal element.
00:07:11.000 Introduce the audience to at least a picture of, I believe it's Jesus in the film, is that correct?
00:07:16.000 Who is a young Mexican farmer who travels to LA with the promise of training at a soccer camp and the movie really goes off from there.
00:07:24.000 So just kind of, now speak about the movie itself of the story you guys tell.
00:07:31.000 Yeah, so it is about this young boy who, you know, he has dreams of being a soccer star like many, many kids in Mexico.
00:07:37.000 And when I went to Mexico, I noticed even in the poorest areas, these kids were wearing soccer jerseys of their local teams.
00:07:43.000 Like that's the only shirt they had.
00:07:45.000 So what I did was I wanted this character to be a metaphor for the 12 million children that are enslaved around the world that don't have a voice.
00:07:55.000 So in the film, he's a mute.
00:07:57.000 He doesn't speak, and the way we learn about him, his goals, his aspirations, his fears, is through his dreams.
00:08:05.000 So, you know, even when the movie opens, he ends up, you know, he's playing a game with his friends, and the camera goes around, and we're transported into a soccer stadium, and later, you get to see his nightmares as well, and his hero's journey, because it is a hero's journey.
00:08:17.000 It's about a boy who, ultimately, whose voice was lost, and by the end of the movie, he gets his voice back, and he fights back, and he fights, you know, as a Almost modern-day messianic figure.
00:08:29.000 I mean, you know, I've always been deeply curious with Christianity after I saw Passion of the Christ, and so that's why his name is Jesus, his mother is Maria, his father is Jose, and even the guy who punishes him, before he punishes him, he washes his hands.
00:08:43.000 There are all these little, little allegories and archetypes in the movie that make it a relatable modern-day messianic tale.
00:08:49.000 And that's what was really interesting to me, is giving people Hope through the movie.
00:08:53.000 I love that.
00:08:54.000 I want to play the trailer.
00:08:55.000 And Tony, part of this though, and Mo mentioned it, and you do this at Date with Destiny,
00:08:59.000 and you've changed my life here, is we must not forget once they're freed of this, they
00:09:03.000 have to also, they got to work through the trauma, right Tony?
00:09:08.000 And we believe Christianity is the way, I believe, the way to partially do that.
00:09:12.000 But can you talk about that Tony?
00:09:13.000 Because your life is about improving people's lives, and you've done a great service to
00:09:18.000 Billions of people have been impacted literally by all of your work, but that's probably one of the harder ones you ever have to encounter, right, Tony?
00:09:24.000 I mean, you deal with people that are suicidal and depressed, but they come to a seminar and they say that they were a sex slave at age eight?
00:09:30.000 I mean, talk about that.
00:09:32.000 Well, it doesn't get solved in a minute, as you might guess.
00:09:36.000 It has to have an experience where safety and certainty can be returned.
00:09:39.000 If you can imagine, human beings, you get more and more crazy the more you think events control you versus you control events.
00:09:47.000 That's how our entire self-esteem is wired.
00:09:49.000 The more you feel like events control you, the more out of control you feel, the more crazy you feel.
00:09:53.000 And so the ability to get somebody back to where you can anchor in their body that sense of certainty, that sense of security, that sense that, hey, that's over.
00:10:03.000 This is a different life.
00:10:04.000 That's the process.
00:10:05.000 We have to take people through it.
00:10:06.000 And quite frankly, you know, you can make a huge change in a few hours.
00:10:10.000 But what we have is a whole process.
00:10:11.000 We work with several different organizations that do this.
00:10:14.000 That don't do it over a period of six months to two to sometimes three years.
00:10:18.000 But most of these kids, there's a group I work with in Indonesia, for example, also that does this.
00:10:23.000 They're some of the most effective because they use big data and they use what he called AI to track who the kingpins are and get them out.
00:10:31.000 But the kids that will go through this process and be rescued, a huge number of them go back in to help us rescue others.
00:10:38.000 They work within the organization.
00:10:39.000 So my pain has a purpose.
00:10:41.000 You follow me?
00:10:42.000 It's like we can all deal with a horrible today if we have a compelling tomorrow.
00:10:46.000 And what gives our life meaning is to serve something more than ourselves.
00:10:49.000 You'll never be happy by what you get, but who you become will make you really happy or really sad.
00:10:55.000 And so these kids become something more.
00:10:57.000 They become rescuers, they become social workers.
00:11:00.000 And so that's the ultimate healing that happens when you can take your worst experience of your life And converting to one of the best experiences of your life.
00:11:08.000 That's in my own experience, even what really transforms life and makes it worthwhile.
00:11:12.000 So the, again, the film is think of this film as a heroic journey, but also a thriller.
00:11:17.000 You're on the edge of your seat every moment.
00:11:20.000 So it's not preachy, but in the end, boy, you're definitely moved.
00:11:23.000 And you know, what's really going on when you're these abstract numbers and you'll be called basically to want to do something, right?
00:11:29.000 You're Congressman.
00:11:32.000 Maybe after you show this clip you can ask Mo a little bit about some of the solutions that are possible that really can put a dent in this.
00:11:42.000 If your approach to everyday aches and pains is to mask them, you know, feel better for a few hours only to have the pain return and then repeat the cycle all over again.
00:11:51.000 It's time to try Relief Factor.
00:11:53.000 And the good news is Relief Factor makes it quite easy.
00:11:56.000 Their 3-week quick start is just $19.95, less than a dollar a day.
00:12:02.000 Instead of masking pain, relief factor helps eliminate it.
00:12:05.000 How?
00:12:06.000 Well, its unique formula of natural ingredients helps support your body's response to inflammation.
00:12:12.000 Relief factor was developed by doctors.
00:12:14.000 It's 100% drug free.
00:12:16.000 And for so many people, the results are game changing, even life changing.
00:12:20.000 So give it a try right now.
00:12:22.000 Their three-week quick start is just $19.95.
00:12:25.000 Go to relieffactor.com or call 1-800-4-RELIEF.
00:12:29.000 That is 1-800-4-RELIEF.
00:12:31.000 See how in a few weeks or even a few days, Relief Factor can reduce your pain.
00:12:35.000 Fight naturally with Relief Factor.
00:12:35.000 So don't mask your pain.
00:12:37.000 Relieffactor.com.
00:12:41.000 This is the trailer.
00:12:41.000 Let's play Cut 151.
00:12:42.000 Again, the film is City of Dreams, and I believe it's available everywhere now, right guys?
00:12:47.000 In theaters, is that correct?
00:12:48.000 So, okay, it is out right now.
00:12:50.000 Let's play Cut 151, please.
00:12:53.000 Any reason you rolled through that stop?
00:12:55.000 I'm sorry.
00:12:56.000 That your son?
00:12:57.000 Yes.
00:12:58.000 Any ID for the boy?
00:12:59.000 Yeah.
00:13:02.000 Watch the stops.
00:13:03.000 To a 2018 red Mustang belonging to Rodrigo Ramirez.
00:13:06.000 Rise and shine, homie! 1.00
00:13:10.000 Rise and shine!
00:13:14.000 First shift, 6.30.
00:13:15.000 Second shift, 12.30.
00:13:18.000 Last shift, 2.11 and boom.
00:13:20.000 Lights out at midnight.
00:13:21.000 You crush it.
00:13:24.000 I know there's more of them in there.
00:13:25.000 Well, fake password isn't gonna cut it.
00:13:27.000 Yes, sir.
00:13:28.000 These people have no criminal history whatsoever.
00:13:30.000 What kind of business you in?
00:13:31.000 The busy kind.
00:13:32.000 We've got evidence that they're harboring illegals.
00:13:35.000 Plus four warrant denied.
00:13:36.000 Copy that.
00:13:37.000 I'd quit poking around.
00:13:38.000 Catch my drift.
00:13:39.000 Wow.
00:14:03.000 So, Mo, again, that is so chilling, and it's tempting for us in America to turn a blind eye to this kind of evil.
00:14:10.000 It's happening here in the States, is it not?
00:14:12.000 And then, if so, let's talk about some solutions as we proceed.
00:14:16.000 Yeah, I mean I think when for a long time when you said the word sweatshop it was India and China, India and China.
00:14:21.000 You know like that's what would come to your mind but I think today made in the USA doesn't mean what it did you know 15 or 20 years ago.
00:14:29.000 I think it's gotten a lot worse. I think the last four years has been, you know, the inflow of, 1.00
00:14:34.000 you know, people to this country that are now being in the supply chains of the biggest
00:14:39.000 corporations in America. And look, you know, I'm not a politician.
00:14:42.000 I'm not a lawmaker.
00:14:43.000 I'm a filmmaker.
00:14:44.000 My job is to inspire people and move people emotionally.
00:14:48.000 But I did have an idea.
00:14:50.000 I did go to London School of Economics, so I had some sense of government.
00:14:55.000 My idea, which I presented to the Labor Department last year, is I said, look, I worked on Wall Street for about three months and every single Wall Street third party trading office, if Goldman Sachs opens an office in any country in the world and in multiple offices, every single trading office has to have an SEC compliance officer there.
00:15:12.000 It's that simple.
00:15:13.000 That's mandatory.
00:15:14.000 It's law.
00:15:14.000 If that same law was applied to every single industry and every single corporation in America,
00:15:21.000 what it would do is cut off the demand for this cheap labor because there would be financial 0.97
00:15:25.000 consequences to every time they violated it and there would be someone reporting it.
00:15:31.000 And there were these initiatives, even in India, they had a, India and Pakistan, they
00:15:36.000 Like you had to have a rug mark approval on all the carpets in order to prove that you weren't made with child labor or with bonded labor.
00:15:43.000 And so to me, that's a very simple solution.
00:15:45.000 It's something I presented to the labor department.
00:15:48.000 And it was interesting because the lawyer for the labor department last year was like, Hey, that's a good idea.
00:15:53.000 And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm, I'm, I'm a nobody.
00:15:55.000 Like you're the labor department.
00:15:56.000 You guys should be figuring out way more complicated stuff than this.
00:16:00.000 But I noticed that.
00:16:02.000 You know, this is going to be something hard to enforce to get all these major corporations to basically agree to be monitored and penalized financially for every single human rights violation in every single facility.
00:16:16.000 So Charlie, the challenge is a lot of these companies.
00:16:19.000 A lot of these are really big companies that you and I might really enjoy and like, but they, you know, they subcontract and then subcontractors subcontract.
00:16:27.000 So it may not be them actually trying to take advantage.
00:16:29.000 They just want the cheapest product.
00:16:31.000 They just don't know what's happening.
00:16:33.000 But if, if you made a requirement where people have to be able to report that, that's one way it could shift.
00:16:38.000 But again, it's, if you can take out the demand, the only reason it happens is because they make money doing it.
00:16:44.000 So, Tony, I have a question.
00:16:45.000 Your career has been about understanding the human mind, understanding what drives us.
00:16:50.000 Certainty, significance, variety, love, connection, growth, contribution.
00:16:54.000 I think I got them all, right?
00:16:55.000 And so help me understand why the way we're wired, the way God made us, why this topic and topics like it, we don't seem to care as much as we should.
00:17:04.000 Why films like this are necessary?
00:17:06.000 What is it about the human condition that seems to be indifferent towards evil that might not be right in our face?
00:17:12.000 I think people do care, but I think what's happened is we become so overwhelmed.
00:17:16.000 You know, people used to call this the information revolution, the information age,
00:17:20.000 the information age died a long time ago. There's too much information. We're drowning in information
00:17:25.000 and we're starving for wisdom. And so what happens today is people are just constant inflow. That's
00:17:31.000 so overwhelming. And we also hear so much negativity because, you know, in the news,
00:17:36.000 we know it's happened for decades. If it, you know, if it bleeds, it leads, right? That's how
00:17:40.000 it works. People know that's what drives eyeballs. And so the economic models of the news, the
00:17:46.000 economic models today.
00:17:48.000 You know, the news comes to you in your pocket, and something happens in a country you didn't even know anything about, and somebody drowns, and it's the first thing that you're going to hear about.
00:17:55.000 So people's brains can't take it all.
00:17:57.000 So what we do is, the human brain distorts, deletes, and generalizes.
00:18:01.000 If you try to take in everything that's going on in this moment, your brain will be overwhelmed.
00:18:05.000 Your conscious mind, at least.
00:18:06.000 The clothing touching your skin, you're not thinking about that until I mention it.
00:18:10.000 The heartbeat, or the sound of something, the smell of things.
00:18:13.000 So we mostly delete, distort, and generalize to get through our lives.
00:18:17.000 What's useful about movies is when you take this massive problem and you bring it down again to just one human being's life, that's when people connect to their heart.
00:18:27.000 When they see and they feel and they have a chance to process it and you're cheering for this person.
00:18:32.000 You know, in the end this is like a Rocky film because in the end this kid is the one that fights back against all all odds and you just free himself, he frees everybody else
00:18:40.000 And so that set of emotions, it's like, you know, I use this example.
00:18:40.000 as well.
00:18:45.000 Usually it's like, you know, where you were at nine 11, if you weren't even
00:18:48.000 American, I traveled the world by saying who members, where you were, who was
00:18:51.000 around you the moment you were at about nine 11, everybody knows if they were
00:18:54.000 alive at that time, if I ask you where you were at eight 11, no one can tell
00:18:58.000 you because information without emotion is barely retained.
00:19:02.000 All these headlines don't mean anything.
00:19:03.000 It doesn't mean people don't care.
00:19:05.000 It just means they don't have time to emotionally digest something because it's overwhelming.
00:19:10.000 So it's not a lack of caring for human beings.
00:19:13.000 And here's the other part.
00:19:14.000 It's the idea that someone else will handle this because I'm so overwhelmed.
00:19:17.000 That's right.
00:19:18.000 I, you know, it's like someone else has got to do this.
00:19:20.000 And so some of us have a mindset because we've been emotionally hit.
00:19:24.000 I mean, I've witnessed this directly.
00:19:26.000 I didn't read about it.
00:19:28.000 And so the direct experience, you can never get it out of your head.
00:19:31.000 And so it's driven me to do both these films.
00:19:34.000 And we did sound of freedom.
00:19:35.000 And now this film that this film though, I think has even potentially more power because it's happening right here.
00:19:40.000 Those 12 million children that are in slavery right now around the world, a third of them, are in America and in some first world countries. I mean,
00:19:47.000 people don't have any clue. So we need to wake up and the storyteller, this is the most power. The
00:19:54.000 storyteller has the capacity to wake people up. Again, that's what, you know, Aria Beecher Stowe
00:20:00.000 did with Uncle Tom's Cabin. This is, this is just another one of those hits that hopefully
00:20:04.000 wakes people up. And right now, unfortunately, it's also become politicized.
00:20:08.000 I'm personally an independent.
00:20:11.000 I've voted on both sides of the aisle.
00:20:13.000 I've worked with both sides of the aisle.
00:20:15.000 I remember working with President Clinton and leaving his office and going over to work with Gingrich on the same day. 0.97
00:20:21.000 Today, somebody would shoot you in the head if you tried to do that.
00:20:27.000 We're forgetting that we all, like, people say, let's take guns. 0.75
00:20:30.000 Some people are, guns should be confiscated.
00:20:32.000 Some people say we have to have guns.
00:20:33.000 What we agree on is we want our kids and our families safe.
00:20:36.000 Yes.
00:20:37.000 We just disagree about how.
00:20:38.000 And what's been a bit frustrating, I know for Mo, is he's not, he wasn't political in making this film, but oh my gosh, we've got, you know, it first came out and it had 100% on Rotten Tomatoes amongst critics and testing.
00:20:50.000 The highest rate the studio's seen in five years.
00:20:53.000 And then, you know, 92 from the audience itself.
00:20:56.000 But then, you know, Variety does an article and they gave him zero out of four stars, you know, and they complained.
00:21:02.000 So it's interesting.
00:21:04.000 But Mo, you want to share what you've experienced?
00:21:06.000 Yeah.
00:21:09.000 I don't know what to say, man.
00:21:11.000 Charlie, I've got to tell you, like Tony said, I've actually been a Democrat my whole life, and today I'll say that I'm a frustrated and confused independent, and I feel that we're incredibly divisive at the moment.
00:21:25.000 I don't personally believe in pointing fingers.
00:21:27.000 I believe in bringing people together and having conversations.
00:21:30.000 That's something that I learned from my hero, Tony Robbins.
00:21:33.000 That's the only way change is going to happen.
00:21:36.000 I think what Tony said was shocking.
00:21:40.000 When I finished the movie, I couldn't get anyone to watch it.
00:21:43.000 No superheroes, no werewolves, too much violence.
00:21:46.000 It's no more violent than Slumdog Millionaire.
00:21:50.000 It's less violent than 12 Years a Slave.
00:21:53.000 It's less violent than Euphoria, less violent than Narcos.
00:21:56.000 And I truly was naive.
00:21:57.000 And I will say that, you know, I pride myself on my intellect, but I almost feel like, how could I not have seen this?
00:22:03.000 We didn't get into some of the major festivals.
00:22:06.000 We got into one festival.
00:22:08.000 We won it.
00:22:09.000 We won everything.
00:22:10.000 We got the 100%.
00:22:11.000 And then as the movie came out, It was really interesting.
00:22:15.000 We got this scathing review in Variety.
00:22:18.000 It started where it looked like what I was told by somebody from the studios, this is a Latino beating down a non-Latino for telling a Latino story. 0.90
00:22:27.000 Because it was like City of Dreams director squanders top cast.
00:22:32.000 Like I had this great cast of actors, all Latin Americans, and it talked about the cinematography and how great everything is, but the story was terrible.
00:22:39.000 And it was the tabloid interpretation of what this issue really is.
00:22:44.000 And then the same thing happened with Roger Ebert.
00:22:46.000 They gave us zero out of four stars and they, in Roger Ebert, they started complaining about,
00:22:50.000 well, yeah, they were like, if this movie's mission was to raise awareness, done.
00:22:58.000 You did it.
00:22:58.000 Now what?
00:22:59.000 Why don't you have a website that says all this stuff on it?"
00:23:02.000 And I'm like, dude, I'm a director!
00:23:04.000 Is that what you say to Christopher Nolan when he makes Interstellar?
00:23:08.000 Why haven't you solved the space-time continuum at the end of his movie?
00:23:12.000 Like, I was really pissed off.
00:23:14.000 I was like, are these people, are they serious?
00:23:16.000 And then they're upset because I had people from, you know, I had conservatives like Vivek Ramaswamy, who's my Indian brother, And he's a Hindu, and I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, but I love the fact that he wants to make a difference in the world.
00:23:29.000 He came on and supported me as well, and I'm getting attacked for that.
00:23:32.000 Like it has been so heartbreaking for me.
00:23:36.000 And it was only recently that somebody said to me and they didn't want to be quoted.
00:23:41.000 They said, Mo, look, you do have liberals.
00:23:43.000 You have Michael Phillips who won an Oscar for a taxi driver and Close Encounters as an EP.
00:23:48.000 You have Tony Robbins, you have, but you do have the VEC.
00:23:51.000 And it doesn't matter how many of these like, you know, liberals you have.
00:23:54.000 The truth is you are pointing at the biggest vulnerability of one of the two largest political parties
00:24:01.000 the country in an election year.
00:24:04.000 And what do you think's going to happen, man?
00:24:06.000 And I just, I didn't see it because as I was making the movie, it wasn't the biggest political issue in the country.
00:24:13.000 When I started making this movie, everyone was anti-Donald Trump, you know, like that's what was going on.
00:24:18.000 And I thought, okay, you know, he talked about the wall and everyone was pissed off them.
00:24:22.000 I thought, oh, this is, we're going to look good because we're actually fighting for migrants' rights here.
00:24:27.000 We're actually showing, you know, in the film, I show Mexico as a heaven.
00:24:32.000 I show it really beautiful, green, lush.
00:24:35.000 I don't show Mexico as this dirty, like, deserty place that American films always portray.
00:24:40.000 And I did that purposely to say, the American dream is where you are.
00:24:44.000 You don't need to go anywhere.
00:24:46.000 And in fact, this kid being brought into the L.A.
00:24:49.000 garment industry was his nightmare. 0.99
00:24:51.000 That was the sort of garbage heap that he got thrown into.
00:24:55.000 You know, I'm sorry I'm a little animated.
00:24:57.000 I'm on day five of a water fast.
00:24:59.000 So I'm very passionate.
00:25:01.000 You know, when I'm challenged, I fast.
00:25:03.000 I love that.
00:25:04.000 But you know what's so crazy is the audiences love it.
00:25:08.000 I mean, that's like, go look at the ratings, you know, it's got an A rating and cinema rating, you know, 92 and rotten tomatoes from the audience.
00:25:17.000 So that's what matters.
00:25:18.000 So hopefully more and more people will be exposed and people like you, Charlie, Getting people to know what this is about that they don't have to go to be educated.
00:25:24.000 It's not a documentary It's a it's a film that takes you on a wild ride But at the same time it'll it'll move you emotionally and it's about something that really matters to all of us our kids As students begin heading back to school, I want to tell you about a great learning opportunity.
00:25:41.000 Look, I know you're part of the most informed audience in radio after all.
00:25:44.000 You listen to my radio show.
00:25:45.000 Well, I'm happy to tell you that my good friends at Hillsdale College have made it so easy for you to learn even more with the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.
00:25:53.000 You can learn more from Hillsdale by listening to one of its excellent podcasts while taking a walk or driving to work.
00:25:59.000 The content and quality of Hillsdale podcasts include the Larry Arnn Show, the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, and the Online Courses podcast are top-notch.
00:26:07.000 I listen to them all the time.
00:26:08.000 You can find them on all major podcast platforms.
00:26:11.000 With more than 2 million downloads, the Hillsdale College Podcast Network is one of the many ways my friends at Hillsdale are defending liberty on the battlefield of education.
00:26:19.000 Find your new favorite podcast today on the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.
00:26:23.000 Go to CharlieForHillsdale.com.
00:26:25.000 That is CharlieForHillsdale.com.
00:26:26.000 CharlieFORHillsdale.com.
00:26:31.000 These types of films usually are actually ones that are most celebrated in Hollywood, that have a missional component, where it's not just Superman, Superwoman, you know, Avengers 92, or Fast and Furious 76, right?
00:26:44.000 It's something that has some sort of redemptive quality Either one of you, can you speculate, is there something I must have missed?
00:26:52.000 I'm a very political person, obviously, but that's not what we're here to talk about today at all, and I didn't ask a political question.
00:26:56.000 Is there something I missed in this film that makes it so verboten where Roger Ebert says you get zero out of four stars?
00:27:05.000 Yeah, well I have two things I can say to that, right?
00:27:08.000 The first thing is this.
00:27:11.000 My job as a filmmaker, the reason I became a filmmaker is because of how much films inspired me.
00:27:16.000 They're where I got my education.
00:27:17.000 They were almost my religion, right?
00:27:20.000 It was movies and Tony Robbins videos.
00:27:22.000 That's all I did growing up.
00:27:23.000 So what happened for me is I just wanted to deeply move people and this is what I noticed.
00:27:31.000 I now take The zero out of four stars from Roger Ebert as a massive compliment.
00:27:38.000 Because you know what?
00:27:39.000 I moved that person.
00:27:41.000 I affected them.
00:27:42.000 I got them out of their apathy.
00:27:44.000 And I don't care how long it takes, at some point they're going to have to come to the reality of the situation.
00:27:50.000 And what I think it does is when you go and watch a movie, one like this, it's going to emotionally trigger you.
00:27:56.000 And if it aligns with your ideals and values, you're going to support it.
00:28:00.000 And if it doesn't align with your ideals and values, you're going to reject it, like anyone.
00:28:06.000 It's like Tony Robbins going to someone who doesn't want to grow and change, who isn't ready for that yet, and trying to get them to take action in their life.
00:28:13.000 They're going to go, Oh my God, this guy's not a good guy.
00:28:16.000 He's forceful.
00:28:17.000 He's a charlatan and whatever it is.
00:28:18.000 So I think that's sort of number one.
00:28:22.000 And I think number two is, I don't want to say his name, but I spoke to someone who was a senior advisor to the Biden administration for Latino rights and other rights.
00:28:34.000 And at that time, the movie was called Dreamer.
00:28:37.000 And this was about eight months ago.
00:28:39.000 And he said, change the name.
00:28:41.000 Don't call it Dreamer.
00:28:42.000 And I said, why?
00:28:43.000 And he goes, well, because that's going to, you know, that's the whole Obama act.
00:28:48.000 And You're going to point a further finger at what happens to Dreamers, which, you know, the Dreamer Act was supposed to protect these children, and you're going to point a further finger and you're not going to get support at all from the left, which is why I actually changed the title to City of Dreams.
00:29:03.000 I personally didn't believe it.
00:29:05.000 I thought that the movie was emotional enough and powerful enough That we wouldn't be rejected.
00:29:11.000 But seeing now what's happening, I mean, Tony will tell you, we've had a bunch of influencers come back to us and say they're being shadow banned on Instagram.
00:29:20.000 There were all these rumors on Twitter that AMC was turning people away.
00:29:24.000 And the CEO of AMC actually came out and made a statement, which to me was, you know, ridiculous.
00:29:31.000 Like, I can't believe that this is happening in the same week that Donald Trump Jr.
00:29:35.000 posted about the film.
00:29:36.000 And I don't understand why We're not able to look at these people because whether it's Donald Trump Jr.
00:29:43.000 or whether it's Mark Cuban and Gavin Newsom, it doesn't matter.
00:29:46.000 At the end of the day, they're human beings and we can all agree that, you know, modern day slavery is wrong.
00:29:52.000 But I think because of the election year and because the way the mainstream media, I mean, I'll tell you something, man.
00:29:59.000 We haven't been invited to mainstream media.
00:30:01.000 Like, we have not gotten one mainstream media interview.
00:30:04.000 You know, we were supposed to go on Morning Joe, and then it was canceled.
00:30:08.000 And that's also kind of unheard of for a movie like this that's released by Roadside Attractions, which is one of the most liberal companies in Hollywood.
00:30:17.000 Howard and Eric, who run it, are good friends of mine.
00:30:19.000 They're really good guys.
00:30:20.000 They're also, you know, they believe the issue is bipartisan.
00:30:23.000 So it's been shocking and crazy, and it's why I started this water fast.
00:30:29.000 Also, Uncle Tom's Cabin was celebrated in the North, and it was outlawed in the South, right?
00:30:34.000 Some things don't change.
00:30:35.000 When you're trying to make change like that, and people have their own alignment, they forget, again, the deeper issue.
00:30:40.000 The deeper issue is our kids, and that's an issue that everyone cares about.
00:30:44.000 So, I think that's why the audiences are responding, because they're thinking about their own kids.
00:30:48.000 I think that's the difference.
00:30:50.000 So, Tony, I know you gotta dash.
00:30:51.000 It's City of Dreams.
00:30:52.000 Tony, last question here for you.
00:30:54.000 What did you learn in the exploration of this film?
00:30:57.000 What you did not know prior that you now know that you want the audience to know?
00:31:01.000 I didn't realize that the... I was familiar with the slavery of children for sex trafficking, but I didn't realize how big it was here in the United States for labor.
00:31:10.000 Like you said, the very first, you know, story he read about, and then he got all these other ones that were sent to him by a friend of the Labor Department, Was, you know, 70 children underground, working in a sweatshop, never seeing light for seven years.
00:31:23.000 I mean, these are, you know, I thought of a sweatshop as a bunch of people working really hard and they're, you know, they go home at night type of thing.
00:31:29.000 I really did not know this.
00:31:30.000 I understood the other side because I'd experienced it.
00:31:33.000 But what this is happening in LA and Miami and New York, I mean, it's happening right here, right now.
00:31:37.000 We've got to do something about it.
00:31:39.000 So this film's the first trigger to say, go on a wild, beautiful, thriller, emotional ride where you see a hero being formed.
00:31:46.000 But also be inspired about this issue.
00:31:48.000 And there's lots of things you can do.
00:31:50.000 And by the way, we do have a website with a listing of things you can do.
00:31:53.000 So you can see that as well.
00:31:55.000 Thanks so much.
00:31:56.000 The movie is City of Dreams.
00:31:57.000 Mo, just one minute.
00:31:58.000 Final thoughts here.
00:31:59.000 And I'm sorry you guys are being treated this way.
00:32:01.000 I mean this.
00:32:02.000 There's not a political element to this.
00:32:04.000 I wish you guys were celebrated and lauded.
00:32:06.000 But you know who is political?
00:32:07.000 Mainstream media becomes political if they think a non-political movie is somehow not going to be resonant with their audience.
00:32:14.000 Mo, final thoughts, please.
00:32:16.000 Yeah, I just, you know, I'd like to say I hope everyone goes and watches this film.
00:32:22.000 It's in theaters right now.
00:32:23.000 It's releasing on Video On Demand on the 27th.
00:32:26.000 We'll be doing, you know, we'll be having media for that.
00:32:30.000 And please visit our website cityofdreamsmovie.com There are lots of things to do.
00:32:35.000 Mira Sorvino, who's one of our executive producers, she's been in the fight for human trafficking for the last 20 years.
00:32:40.000 She has all her resources up there. 0.97
00:32:43.000 You know, she was also in Sound of Freedom, so there is a lot that people can do.
00:32:47.000 And I hope that those who watch this movie get angry and join me and Tony and everyone on our team to save and protect these innocent children.
00:32:57.000 I mean, that's simple.
00:32:59.000 God bless both you guys.
00:33:00.000 Thank you for your time.
00:33:01.000 City of Dreams movie.
00:33:02.000 Everyone should check it out.
00:33:03.000 Thank you, guys.
00:33:03.000 Thank you, Charlie.
00:33:04.000 Appreciate it, man.
00:33:05.000 Thank you so much, Charlie.
00:33:07.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:33:08.000 Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:33:10.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.