The Charlie Kirk Show - What is An American?

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin dot com studio.

00:00:04.000 What is an American?

00:00:06.000 That's right, we asked the question of what is an American and we have a great discussion here.

00:00:10.000 I want your emails, freedom at charliekirk dot com.

00:00:12.000 What is an American?

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00:00:26.000 We also have Chris Wright and we talk about how President Trump set the table for peace between Russia and Ukraine in a brilliant way.

00:00:32.000 I think you're really going to enjoy it.

00:00:34.000 And as always, you can email us freedom at charliekirk dot com that is freedom at charliekirk dot com.

00:00:38.000 Buckle up. 0.96

00:00:38.000 Kirk.com. 0.96

00:00:38.000 Buckle up, everybody. 0.96

00:00:39.000 Here, we go.

00:00:40.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:42.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:44.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:47.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:51.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:52.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:53.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job, building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:01.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:10.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:14.000 What is an American?

00:01:15.000 That sounds like an easy question to answer.

00:01:18.000 Our argument begins that being an American is more than paperwork.

00:01:22.000 Can we all agree at that?

00:01:24.000 I think so.

00:01:24.000 By the way, I want you to email me a flood of emails, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:01:28.000 What is an American?

00:01:30.000 We really have not had any discussion.

00:01:33.000 We have not had a conversation on this topic.

00:01:36.000 What is an American?

00:01:37.000 Is Zoran Mamdani an American?

00:01:38.000 Is Elon Omar an American?

00:01:40.000 Also, bigger picture, what is America?

00:01:43.000 Is America just an idea?

00:01:45.000 as some people would say.

00:01:46.000 Even I parodied that nonsense like 10 years ago.

00:01:48.000 I'm like, oh, goodness, I used to say that.

00:01:50.000 No.

00:01:51.000 Is America only a people?

00:01:53.000 Is America a people?

00:01:54.000 Is it a creed?

00:01:55.000 Is it a philosophy?

00:01:56.000 Is it a worldview?

00:01:58.000 Mind you, we have not had this sort of robust discussion.

00:02:03.000 And I want your thoughts.

00:02:06.000 Email me freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:02:08.000 What is an American?

00:02:10.000 I'm formulating the best way I can in a one or two sentence crisply delivered description.

00:02:18.000 We're also going to have Victor Davis Hansen from the Great Hillsdale College, professor on it this week to discuss what is an American.

00:02:24.000 But I think we can start by the process of elimination.

00:02:30.000 We can start by saying what is not an American.

00:02:35.000 Americanism is more than paperwork.

00:02:38.000 Right now, all American has been reduced to is just paperwork.

00:02:43.000 If you have your documents, you're an American.

00:02:45.000 I'm sorry, that makes no sense whatsoever.

00:02:48.000 By the way, not even paperwork if you count all the illegals, but at least the American rights argument is, well, if you have your paperwork, then you're an American.

00:02:56.000 I want you to tell me.

00:02:58.000 Whether or not Todd Jajera, Musha Ramaxalaka, Duda, Mag, Misabela, that's literally the speaker's name for Omar Fatah,

00:03:27.000 who's going to be the next mayor of Minneapolis, just so we're clear.

00:03:31.000 Here's a little longer speech here.

00:03:35.000 Are these people Americans?

00:03:36.000 Have they assimilated?

00:03:38.000 they dedicated their soul, their spirit, their FUMOS to the United States?

00:03:42.000 The best way that I could describe it in my head is the first thing that we ask out of an American is you must be all in.

00:03:48.000 You must learn the language.

00:03:50.000 You must assimilate unapologetically.

00:03:53.000 You must burn the boats, cut the ties, no dual loyalty.

00:03:56.000 Play cut 391.

00:03:58.000 That is Omar Fafta who is basically going to be the next mayor of Minneapolis.

00:04:23.000 People say, oh, it's just a small number.

00:04:25.000 No, he's going to be a mayor of one of America's largest and one of most important cities.

00:04:30.000 I want you to email me, freedom at charliekirk.com, what is an American?

00:04:36.000 And if you have not thought about it, that's okay, but that shows how we've kind of been a prisoner in the American right of not asking the most important question.

00:04:46.000 People say, well, an American is just someone who comes here legally.

00:04:49.000 That's complete propaganda.

00:04:51.000 That is absolute nonsense.

00:04:53.000 That is Bill Crystal neoconservatism.

00:04:56.000 When you come to America, you should literally leave your country behind. 0.94

00:05:01.000 So you need to become an American.

00:05:02.000 Learn the language.

00:05:03.000 You need to be all in.

00:05:04.000 You need to demonstrate it.

00:05:06.000 You need to learn the documents and commit yourself to our creed and we need to outlaw this dual citizenship nonsense enough. 1.00

00:05:12.000 No more of this dual citizenship stuff. 0.98

00:05:15.000 We all love legal immigration.

00:05:17.000 People have always said that.

00:05:18.000 I'm sorry.

00:05:19.000 No, no, no.

00:05:20.000 It really depends and we're still formulating it.

00:05:23.000 It's okay that I don't and you don't are not able to word it as crisply as we'd like because now this has been forced.

00:05:31.000 By the way, some people say, well, an American is just a race.

00:05:35.000 That's not true at all.

00:05:36.000 Actually, like Thomas Sowell is a great American.

00:05:39.000 I would say he's a he Clarence Thomas is an American.

00:05:43.000 So that's not correct.

00:05:45.000 So you got to figure it out everyone says well we just need immigrants to come legally we just need immigrants to come legally that's not true omar fatah came here true came here legally elon omar came here legally rashida talib her parents came here legally zoharan mom dani came here legally here's another piece of tape now this you might think i want you to guess actually i'm going to play this piece of tape where is this is it mogadishu Is it Brussels?

00:06:14.000 Is it Berlin?

00:06:15.000 Is it Minneapolis?

00:06:16.000 Let's play guess the state.

00:06:18.000 Guess the state here live on the Charlie Kirk show.

00:06:22.000 And I'm not allowed to say that this guy's not an American.

00:06:24.000 I'm sorry.ry he's not an american playcut 393 that is in anybody oh hio how'd that danny your state's doing great that is an ohio victory party 0.65

00:06:54.000 for islami muhammad now when we think of what it means to be an american is someone by the name of islami muhammad yeah Yeah, I don't think so.

00:07:04.000 Producer Andrew's take is this, and I think he gets it mostly right, but I'm not quite there yet.

00:07:09.000 I think it needs, I think the idea of the thumos, like going all in, the spirit investing into the nation, meaning that you have committed your innermost being into the nation.

00:07:20.000 I think there's something there that I, that from classical work, I talked about with this Dr. Orr.

00:07:26.000 This is Andrew's paragraph.

00:07:28.000 An American is first and foremost someone born in America who speaks English, who was raised here, who is steeped in Anglo traditions of common law, blind justice, equal rights, and believes in or at least has reverence for Christian traditions that have undergird our law and customs.

00:07:39.000 An American is also someone who we allow to move here, who works without criminality nor harbors animosity for this country, and who, after time of painstaking pursuit, gains the incredible rights, freedoms, privileges of our citizenship.

00:07:51.000 The former should be given extreme deference, and the latter should be given away with supreme caution and sparingly far less than is currently allowed.

00:07:59.000 I think that's pretty good, Andrew.

00:08:01.000 But there's still something about the allegiance that you need to have the signal markers.

00:08:06.000 You need to have the proof that you are all in.

00:08:09.000 None of this like multiple passport stuff, none of this dual citizenship stuff. 0.97

00:08:14.000 By the way, how many members of Congress are dual citizens?

00:08:17.000 That's a good question.

00:08:18.000 That's an important question.

00:08:20.000 And step one is speaking English.

00:08:22.000 If you don't understand the language, you cannot understand our values.

00:08:24.000 Step one, make English the official language of the United States.

00:08:27.000 President Trump deserves credit for this.

00:08:30.000 The defining issue of the year of our Lord 2025 going into 2026 and 2027 on the American right is one that we are totally unprepared for, which is what is an American? 0.54

00:08:41.000 And most people look at me and they say, an American is just someone that has a U.S. passport.

00:08:45.000 Zoran Mandani has a U.S. passport.

00:08:47.000 Omar Fatah has a U.S. passport.

00:08:49.000 Elon Omar is a member of Congress.

00:08:51.000 you consider that to be a fellow American?

00:08:54.000 If America is just a passport, then America is dead. 0.52

00:08:57.000 We It's reverence for the constitution.

00:09:04.000 It's all in for not just the ideas, but the story.

00:09:09.000 You need to come with humility that you are part of this project.

00:09:12.000 If America is just a passport, then we are just the colony for Earth, a pile of wealth to loot.

00:09:17.000 And that's how Somalis treat it. 0.92

00:09:20.000 In the era of mass transportation and cheap airfare, this was inevitable, that mass migration would become the story of the 21st century.

00:09:28.000 including the feeding our future scam and all this stuff.

00:09:30.000 And I don't say this with any hate for the individuals.

00:09:34.000 I'm just asking the very simple question.

00:09:35.000 If you're not an American, that's fine. 0.97

00:09:38.000 Go back to your place of origin. 0.93

00:09:40.000 I'm not going to hurt you.

00:09:41.000 I'm not going to harm you.

00:09:42.000 I'm not going to imprison you.

00:09:44.000 Just go back.

00:09:45.000 Hasta la vista.

00:09:46.000 But we have a culture to protect.

00:09:48.000 We have a country to love.

00:09:50.000 No man can serve two masters.

00:09:52.000 Christ, our Lord, said that.

00:09:55.000 We have a heritage to preserve.

00:09:57.000 And people say, oh, Charlie, you're just talking about white supremacy.

00:10:00.000 Now, I literally have just carved out, Clarence, not carved out, but I've mentioned, you know, Clarence Thomas.

00:10:07.000 Thomas Sowell.

00:10:08.000 I mean, I could go on and on.

00:10:10.000 Our entire Blexit team, they're 100% amazing Americans.

00:10:13.000 So you have to try to, you have to be willing to have this conversation while they call you all these nasty words.

00:10:20.000 And my Cuban-American friends are amazing.

00:10:22.000 Marco Rubio.

00:10:23.000 Marco Rubio's an American.

00:10:25.000 I could run the gambit.

00:10:26.000 Are you kidding me?

00:10:29.000 One after the other.

00:10:30.000 But the question is it's more than that.

00:10:32.000 It's kind of one of those things.

00:10:33.000 Like you know an American when you see one and it's not skin color. 0.91

00:10:38.000 It's something that is, again, in classical writing, in classical Greek literature.

00:10:45.000 They had this idea of the thumos.

00:10:46.000 And I've really been thinking about this since my time with Dr. Orr.

00:10:50.000 It's the spirit.

00:10:51.000 It's the spirited element linked with pride, honor, righteous, anger, courage.

00:10:55.000 For Plato, it's what made people defend justice or seek honor, sitting between rational thought and bodily desires.

00:11:01.000 By the way, Lamar Jackson is an American.

00:11:03.000 He loves Jesus.

00:11:05.000 So this is not a racial thing.

00:11:07.000 Aristotle simply used thumos to mean passion.

00:11:10.000 So the best way I could think about it in classical terms, again, this is going to be worthy of introspection, prayer, reflection, discussion, dialogue, is once we can contemplate the thumos, the thumos must, There's something there worth exploration, worth dialogue.

00:11:32.000 Even Francis Fukuyama used Thumos in the end of history, the last of man.

00:11:37.000 Here's what I could tell you, though.

00:11:40.000 What is not an American? 0.99

00:11:41.000 Dual loyalty, dual passport, speaking Somali.

00:11:44.000 Let's play this again.

00:11:45.000 Do you really think this is an American?

00:11:47.000 Again, I'm not trying to insult.

00:11:48.000 I don't know if she's a good person or a bad person, but this is not America.

00:11:53.000 Play cut 358.

00:11:54.000 Congresswoman at the chain.

00:11:57.000 Yeah.

00:11:57.000 Congresswoman at the chain.

00:12:09.000 This is not a racial thing.

00:12:11.000 People are going to try to categorize this entire conversation to be an ethno-nationalist racial thing.

00:12:16.000 Ain't wrong.

00:12:19.000 It's something else.

00:12:20.000 And again, I will repeat, if being an American is only a passport, if being an American is only paperwork, then we're cooked.

00:12:28.000 Teddy Roosevelt said, quote, in the first place, we should insist that if an immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin.

00:12:42.000 But this is predicated upon the person becoming in every fashion American and nothing but an American.

00:12:47.000 Amen, TR.

00:12:48.000 There can be no divided allegiance, no dual loyalty.

00:12:51.000 Any man who says he's an American but something else also isn't an American at all.

00:12:55.000 We have room but for one flag, the American flag.

00:12:57.000 We have room but for one language, and that is the English language.

00:13:00.000 And we have room but for one sole loyalty, and that loyalty is the United States of America.

00:13:03.000 I think it's pretty solid.

00:13:04.000 Teddy Roosevelt.

00:13:06.000 No dual passports, no dual loyalty, no dual citizenship.

00:13:09.000 I don't care what the country is.

00:13:10.000 Your Thumos must be all in. 0.99

00:13:12.000 You must be dedicated to the United States of America.

00:13:15.000 And if we're nothing more than paperwork, then we are just organizing desk, let's just say organizing deck chairs on the Titanic.

00:13:24.000 I love this country, and I hate to see what mass migration is doing to it.

00:13:28.000 It's not a racial thing.

00:13:29.000 I think it's a thumos thing. 0.99

00:13:32.000 And as America goes, the entire civilization goes.

00:13:37.000 Have you ever heard anyone say this is unconstitutional?

00:13:40.000 Do you assume it's just hyperbole?

00:13:42.000 Have you taken the time to study and understand the Constitution so you know for yourself what is and what isn't constitutional?

00:13:49.000 That's why I'm so excited that Hillsdale College is offering a brand new free online course called The Federalist.

00:13:55.000 The Federalist papers were written primarily by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

00:13:59.000 Together they explain how the U.S. Constitution established a government strong enough to secure the rights of citizens and safe enough to wield that power.

00:14:09.000 And today it's our responsibility to pay attention, to be vigilant, and you might say, in order to preserve and protect Republican self-government.

00:14:17.000 Hillsdale's online course on the Federalist includes ten lectures, each about 30 minutes long.

00:14:23.000 You could take the course at your own pace.

00:14:25.000 There's no cost to sign up.

00:14:26.000 Go right now to charlieforhillsdale.com to enroll.

00:14:30.000 There's no cost and it's easy to get started.

00:14:32.000 charlieforhillsdale.com to register charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:14:39.000 Okay, yesterday there was a lot that happened at the White House.

00:14:42.000 President Trump deserves enormous and repeated and public credit.

00:14:47.000 He does not have to be doing this.

00:14:49.000 He's spending so much of his time and his political capital to now end his seventh war.

00:14:54.000 By the way, if he did nothing, if he just did two things and just went golfing the last four years, if he just ends wars and deports illegal criminal invaders, that's legendary stuff.

00:15:06.000 That's it.

00:15:07.000 But he's doing so much more.

00:15:08.000 He's getting woke out of the military, DEI.

00:15:10.000 He is reinvigorating the American economy.

00:15:12.000 No tax on tips, no tax on overtime.

00:15:14.000 And almost none of this gets into the mainstream dialogue.

00:15:19.000 Almost none of it.

00:15:21.000 Seven wars.

00:15:21.000 Can you even name this?

00:15:22.000 India, Pakistan, Congo, Rwanda.

00:15:24.000 I think he ended one in Southeast Asia the other day.

00:15:27.000 And how is he able to end these wars with the threat of tariffs?

00:15:29.000 And this is why Liberation Day was so important.

00:15:31.000 And the media misses it.

00:15:32.000 Honestly, some people in the conservative movement missed it.

00:15:35.000 Remember during Liberation Day, we told everyone, hey, everyone.

00:15:38.000 Buy the dip.

00:15:39.000 It's going to be okay.

00:15:40.000 It's going to be a little shaky.

00:15:41.000 Do you remember Liberation Day? 0.97

00:15:42.000 President Trump comes out with this big chart and people said, he's a madman. 0.68

00:15:46.000 What is he doing?

00:15:47.000 What President Donald Trump was doing was he was setting the world stage up for an expectation that he was willing to use the threat and the power of a tariff.

00:15:57.000 And it was not just bluster.

00:16:00.000 You see, that's why the tariffs had to be implemented.

00:16:03.000 That is why that tumbling of the stock market, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 points, was necessary.

00:16:08.000 He needed to show that this was not just a bluff.

00:16:12.000 See, President Donald Trump on Liberation Day, it was a shot heard literally around the world.

00:16:16.000 There it is right there.

00:16:17.000 Thank you guys.

00:16:18.000 Great work.

00:16:18.000 And everyone was freaking out and panicking and running around in circles and they were losing their mind.

00:16:24.000 And Speaker Mike Johnson, who I really like, you know, called them up and said, sir.

00:16:30.000 People are panicking.

00:16:32.000 And President Trump says, I like that.

00:16:34.000 Panicking.

00:16:35.000 And the word panicking was born.

00:16:37.000 And people were running all over the place.

00:16:39.000 And understandably, again, it's not a a criticism toward Speaker Johnson because he was getting calls and calls and calls from business leaders.

00:16:45.000 People were losing it.

00:16:46.000 But why does it matter?

00:16:47.000 Now, looking back in August, the market is up.

00:16:50.000 We've rebuilt all those gains.

00:16:51.000 If you would have just bought the dip or held your stocks, you're doing even better than before.

00:16:55.000 All of our advice was correct.

00:16:57.000 However, this is why it mattered.

00:16:59.000 President Donald Trump set a groundwork for a new mental model, for a new working relationship with the planet.

00:17:07.000 You see, the prior working relationship is America had only certain tools at our disposal to be able to effectuate change and to be able to broker peace.

00:17:15.000 The tools at our disposal were diplomatic.

00:17:18.000 They were angrily worded letters.

00:17:20.000 That's what Biden would love to do. 0.89

00:17:21.000 Let me send you a worded letter because your gay pride flag is not high enough in downtown Seoul, South Korea. 0.94

00:17:27.000 How dare you not do gender affirming care in Tokyo? 0.96

00:17:31.000 I'm going to go send Rama Manuel, my U.S. ambassador to Japan, to go scold you, Japanese. 1.00

00:17:36.000 Over time, the strongly worded letters and the diplomatic stuff.

00:17:41.000 Now, there's other stuff you could, you know, remove passports and visas.

00:17:44.000 But no, no, no.

00:17:45.000 If you want to get down to the heart of it, the fact that the United States is still the world reserve currency status, the fact that we are now reemerging as a superpower with hegemonic Western Hemisphere dominance.

00:17:56.000 President Donald Trump, then he said to the entire world, even though the market went down, I'm willing to basically ruin your entire economy if you don't play ball.

00:18:07.000 Donald Trump changed the incentives of war.

00:18:10.000 Donald Trump changed the incentives of not playing along.

00:18:13.000 And it is creative.

00:18:14.000 It's bold.

00:18:15.000 It's ambitious. 0.95

00:18:16.000 And people thought he was just being a madman.

00:18:18.000 Instead, it was the master at work.

00:18:20.000 And that sets the table then for the Russia-Ukrainian discussion.

00:18:24.000 It sets the table for why...

00:18:25.000 why Europe comes in very respectfully oh yes we love mr Trump he's wonderful he's so good please don't tell of me mr Trump they're smiling I mean you have a Macron here he is mr Trump You got the Europeans.

00:18:43.000 Whatever President Trump does, he points, they go.

00:18:45.000 A completely different working relationship than Trump 1.0.

00:18:51.000 There's a lot of parts to it, but largely because they've resigned to kind of his.

00:18:55.000 alpha dominance of the West.

00:18:57.000 But one of the most important components that is lost on people is that, and look at this, he's just that classes in session, boys.

00:19:03.000 You got Italy, you got Germany, you got Finland.

00:19:06.000 Boom, boom, boom.

00:19:07.000 You got the UK.

00:19:09.000 Classes in session.

00:19:10.000 The teacher is teaching.

00:19:12.000 Take notes.

00:19:14.000 That's NATO.

00:19:15.000 He's just commanding presence over all of NATO.

00:19:18.000 And what is the profundity of that?

00:19:20.000 One of the reasons why they are allowing Trump to lead is they are so afraid that President Donald Trump could just drop the sword of Damocles.

00:19:29.000 Oh, nice auto industry you got there, Germany.

00:19:32.000 Be ashamed if something happened to it.

00:19:33.000 Follow my lead.

00:19:34.000 Oh, French wine, Mr. Macron.

00:19:37.000 Do you want to keep on importing it to America?

00:19:40.000 Then do my bidding.

00:19:41.000 And they're all looking at the Ukrainian war map.

00:19:43.000 So the context of how President Trump is able to get these European elitists, the chaperones of Zelensky, even into the table and willing to negotiate, the context working relationship all started when President Trump thanked the markets, even though they're back to higher levels.

00:20:02.000 It's hard to believe it was even possible, but the Democrat-run states are now more pro-abortion than ever and will only get worse unless you join me standing for life. 0.64

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00:21:04.000 Okay, so that table is set.

00:21:06.000 So President Donald Trump is leading the Europeans.

00:21:08.000 And by the way, deep down, the Europeans want to be led.

00:21:11.000 It's kind of in their psychology.

00:21:13.000 It's in their temperament.

00:21:14.000 The Europeans are not at this current moment, post-World War II, with the battered psychology and the post-World War II order.

00:21:22.000 They need to be led either by the East or by the West. 0.95

00:21:25.000 They're going to be led by the Chinese Communist Party or they're going to be led by President Trump and the American nation.

00:21:32.000 Europe used to be great.

00:21:34.000 And really, honestly, World War II and the EU totally messed them up.

00:21:39.000 If you look back post-World War II, yes, the Allies won, but all of Europe lost.

00:21:45.000 That's the best way that you could put it.

00:21:47.000 The allies won.

00:21:51.000 Now, of course, we defeated the Nazis, and that's amazing. 0.96

00:21:54.000 We should celebrate that.

00:21:56.000 But Europe needs a leader who will tell them, it's okay to have an economy.

00:22:01.000 It's okay to have cheap energy.

00:22:03.000 It's okay to have a military, and it's okay to have a border.

00:22:06.000 And so the United States, all of a sudden, hey, dad's home, unlike Joe Biden, which was just allowing all the maniacs for four years run the entire operation.

00:22:16.000 Europe has been searching for this leader for the last couple of years.

00:22:21.000 And they deep down want the United States to be the superpower because they have far more in alignment of values and worldview than the Chinese Communist Party.

00:22:29.000 Now, We risk playing our hand too heavy.

00:22:31.000 That's part of it.

00:22:32.000 If you antagonize the European leaders too much, but I think President Donald Trump has done the harsh tariff lesson with a little bit of a charm offensive as well.

00:22:41.000 You got Maroney there.

00:22:42.000 You got Macron.

00:22:44.000 Great working relationship with President Trump.

00:22:46.000 So all of that is the table set.

00:22:49.000 Meanwhile, President Trump just had a very important and warm meeting as well with Vladimir Putin.

00:22:58.000 So the meeting goes yesterday and Mr. Zelensky came far more prepared for the meeting than he did previously.

00:23:05.000 He said the right things.

00:23:06.000 He was polite.

00:23:07.000 He was cordial.

00:23:09.000 He was respectful.

00:23:10.000 He was very grateful.

00:23:12.000 He dressed nicer.

00:23:16.000 This was happening during our show yesterday.

00:23:18.000 We're going to go through some tape here, but now you know the table is set.

00:23:21.000 Let's go to 350.

00:23:23.000 Will Zelensky continue to send troops to their death, or is he ready to end it?

00:23:27.000 Play cut 350.

00:23:29.000 President Zelensky, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple years, or are you going to agree to redraw a map?

00:23:40.000 Thank you for your question.

00:23:41.000 So, first of all, you know, we live under each day attacks, you know, that today have been a lot of..

00:23:47.000 attacks and a lot of wounded people and the child was dead, a small one, one year and a half.

00:23:55.000 So we need to stop this war, to stop Russia, and we need support, American and European partners.

00:24:02.000 We will do our best.

00:24:04.000 And look at the balancing act that President Trump has had to do here.

00:24:07.000 So the Liberation Day set the table for why Europe has come to the table.

00:24:14.000 Now, what set the table for why Vladimir Putin flew across Asia to Alaska?

00:24:21.000 Well, that can be best explained in the hills of Iran.

00:24:25.000 The fact that President Donald Trump was able to show the American Air Force might fly all the way out and take out the Iranian nuclear facilities, that he was able to thread that needle, he was able to put on a master class.

00:24:38.000 You see, Vladimir Putin said, oh, got it.

00:24:44.000 See, all they understand is force.

00:24:45.000 And then President Trump starts to feed more armaments to Ukraine, which again, we were not big fans of, but I always put the asterisk.

00:24:51.000 If President Trump is going to send more arms to Ukraine to get a peace deal, then I'm all for it. 0.90

00:24:56.000 And we're going to have the confidence in President Trump to be able to do that because he has more than earned our confidence.

00:25:01.000 And NATO bought the arms.

00:25:03.000 And so it was a little bit different than Joe Biden just ACHing the money right into the Ukrainian pension fund.

00:25:10.000 But it's all about leverage.

00:25:12.000 So President Trump, if you look back, like, wow, if he's able to get this done, it did not just happen in an isolated moment.

00:25:19.000 It happened from flying B-2 bombers all the way across the planet to Iran.

00:25:24.000 And also the tariff setup happened on Liberation Day.

00:25:29.000 Let's go this.

00:25:30.000 Here, this is President Trump.

00:25:32.000 This is Ursula von der Leyen.

00:25:34.000 That's quite a European name.

00:25:36.000 Ursula.

00:25:37.000 Play cut 377 of Ursula von der Leyen.

00:25:42.000 Together with the two largest and biggest economies in the world, we had the largest trade deal ever agreed.

00:25:50.000 And now we are here to work together with you on a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.

00:25:56.000 Stop the killing.

00:25:57.000 This is really our common interest, stop the killing.

00:26:00.000 And indeed, it's very good to hear that we're working on the security guarantees, Article 5 lies security guarantees, so important.

00:26:08.000 But I want to thank you also that you mentioned the thousands of Ukrainian children that have been abducted.

00:26:15.000 And as a mother and grandmother, every single child has to go back to its family.

00:26:21.000 This should be one of our main priorities also in these negotiations to make sure that the children come back to Ukraine, to their families.

00:26:29.000 Honestly, the most impressive part about Ursula, I was just looking this up, she has seven kids.

00:26:34.000 Good for you, Ursula.

00:26:37.000 Not only are you the head of the European Commission, but you have seven children.

00:26:40.000 That is quite rare in Europe to have anybody with seven kids.

00:26:45.000 that doesn't have the last name Khan or the first name Muhammad.

00:26:48.000 So good for you, Ursula.

00:26:50.000 The Ursulas of Europe need to have seven kids. 0.97

00:26:54.000 Now, what was she saying there that is so important?

00:26:56.000 She was basically saying we need to stop the killing.

00:27:00.000 And that is the main priority here.

00:27:02.000 And then it sets the table for yet another meeting.

00:27:05.000 You cannot get to the third meeting if you didn't meet with Putin and then you didn't meet with Zelensky.

00:27:10.000 Seven thousand people dying a week.

00:27:13.000 And if you want to have some hope, it's that both sides are saying they want to stop the killing.

00:27:18.000 So eventually they're going to break and hopefully come to some negotiated settlement.

00:27:23.000 We hope.

00:27:24.000 Let's play this one here.

00:27:25.000 Let's play cut.

00:27:26.000 374.

00:27:27.000 It's President Trump's closing remarks.

00:27:29.000 Again, he is the CEO.

00:27:31.000 He is the managing director of this entire thing.

00:27:34.000 Only the United States of America could end this.

00:27:37.000 Only.

00:27:38.000 And he deserves enormous moral credit for inserting himself.

00:27:45.000 7,000 people dying a week.

00:27:47.000 For what?

00:27:49.000 What is the objective?

00:27:51.000 He is acting as the chief executive officer of the Western world.

00:27:57.000 Play cut 374.

00:27:59.000 We're going to solve this or is this horrible fighting going to continue?

00:28:03.000 We'll do our best to get it ended.

00:28:06.000 And I believe you have two willing parties, and usually that's good news, but two willing parties that want to make a deal.

00:28:13.000 And we'll journey together and we'll go over and we'll see.

00:28:17.000 if it can be done.

00:28:18.000 And it's possible it might not be able to be done.

00:28:21.000 On the other hand, it's possible it will.

00:28:23.000 It will save thousands and thousands of lives a week.

00:28:26.000 And so it's something we really have to do.

00:28:30.000 Or at least we have to give it our best.

00:28:31.000 It's all you can do.

00:28:32.000 You can give it your best.

00:28:33.000 But I think we may have a very good outcome.

00:28:36.000 By the way, people always say all the time, oh, President Trump isn't presidential.

00:28:40.000 That right there, that 40 seconds, what could be more presidential than that?

00:28:44.000 What could be more presidential than weighing the human cost, establishing your perspective and the balance?

00:28:52.000 Because you can't overly antagonize Vladimir Putin, you see.

00:28:55.000 You can't overly antagonize the Russian Federation because Russia gets a vote here as well.

00:29:01.000 This is, now we have this here.

00:29:04.000 Hopefully that will allow us to get to a trilateral meeting.

00:29:09.000 Here is Susan Rice, who was Obama's national security advisor, reacting to President Trump's masterclass of bringing both parties to the table.

00:29:22.000 being able to satisfy the Europeans very positively, keeping Putin and his entire camp warm enough to bring him to a third meeting.

00:29:30.000 Here's Susan Rice, play cut 362, total fraud. 1.00

00:29:34.000 I mean, really, Nicole, it's pathetic.

00:29:37.000 It's been clearly and repeatedly established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election by disinformation campaigns, by social media efforts, by all sorts of means short of manipulating the actual vote. 0.74

00:29:55.000 And that's just a fact.

00:29:58.000 Literally, this is all they have.

00:30:00.000 We now know that the quote-unquote Russian interference was just to sow discord and disunity and not to favor a certain canon.

00:30:09.000 In fact, we have overwhelming evidence that Russia resisted helping Donald Trump despite very, very negative stories about Hillary Clinton that they could have dropped.

00:30:19.000 Honestly, I thought that clip was from 2018.

00:30:22.000 I thought that was from the Helsinki Summit.

00:30:26.000 Was that really recent?

00:30:27.000 I thought that was like a Helsinki Summit.

00:30:31.000 I actually thought that was a seven-year-old clip from Susan Rice.

00:30:34.000 She could have said that exact same thing right after the Helsinki Summit with President Trump back.

00:30:40.000 I think it was in the summer of 2018, if I'm not mistaken.

00:30:42.000 Yeah, summer of 2018.

00:30:44.000 No, I think it is recent because it showed Trump on the tarmac with the red carpet.

00:30:49.000 Let's go to cut 363.

00:30:51.000 Instead of doing the things that would strengthen the Ukrainian, Western, NATO, U.S. partnership on their side of the table against Putin, he is rolling out the red carpet, doing military flyovers, giving him a ride in the presidential limousine, and getting none of what he went to Alaska to get.

00:31:14.000 No ceasefire.

00:31:15.000 No imposition of tough consequences and sanctions.

00:31:19.000 It was, as I said earlier, it was just melting.

00:31:22.000 Susan Rice, please come on our show.

00:31:24.000 You're welcome.

00:31:24.000 You have an open invite anytime, Ms. Riceice, we will allow you to answer uninterrupted, but we will ask you questions.

00:31:30.000 I don't think anyone's ever asked you because we're going to have to reprogram some of that muscle memory there.

00:31:35.000 Rice participated in Russia Gate on December 9th, 2016.

00:31:40.000 She was in the famous meeting.

00:31:43.000 How much blame does Susan Rice deserve for all those dead Ukrainians? 1.00

00:31:46.000 She has blood on her hands and President Trump is trying to clean up and stop the bleeding. 0.90

00:31:52.000 She helped mismanage the Russia relationships that led us to this pile of unnecessary carnage. 0.98

00:32:01.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:32:04.000 I want to play one other tape here and just complete the point here.

00:32:08.000 here, which is President, because President Trump has a third party he also has to keep happy, the American people.

00:32:14.000 So he's got to keep Putin happy.

00:32:16.000 He's got to keep the Europeans happy.

00:32:18.000 And obviously the most important, the infinitely important thing is why he's here.

00:32:22.000 And that is why Cut 359 is so important.

00:32:25.000 The triangulation, keep Putin, keep Zelensky and the whole European cabal, and then us. 0.87

00:32:31.000 Play Cut 359.

00:32:32.000 What kind of assurances do you feel like you have that going forward and past this Trump administration, it won't be American boots on the ground defending that border?

00:32:46.000 Well, you have my assurance.

00:32:47.000 You know, I'm president.

00:32:48.000 And I'm just trying to stop people from being killed. 0.54

00:32:52.000 I'm just trying to stop people from being killed.

00:32:55.000 No U.S. troops, full assurance.

00:32:58.000 So that is the triangulation strategy.

00:33:00.000 Boom, boom, boom.

00:33:01.000 Europeans with a little bit of fear, a little bit of carrot, a little bit of stick, a little bit of sweet.

00:33:06.000 Putin, that's a whole different operation on the American people.

00:33:10.000 You keep all three happy.

00:33:11.000 You can end this endless pile of carnage.

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00:34:19.000 The great man who's doing phenomenal work that deserves more praise and attention.

00:34:24.000 It's all about energy dominance and rejecting the green scam of the left.

00:34:30.000 It is the Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright.

00:34:33.000 Mr. Secretary, welcome to the program.

00:34:35.000 First time, great to see you.

00:34:37.000 First, Mr. Secretary, you come from a very accomplished business career.

00:34:41.000 and now you are in government.

00:34:42.000 How has that transition been and what have you learned now that you have to fight bureaucrats all day long and the environmental lobby?

00:34:49.000 Thanks for having me, Charlie.

00:34:51.000 Yeah, look, I'm one of those people.

00:34:52.000 I've been an entrepreneur my whole life.

00:34:54.000 I've always said I'm never going to be in government.

00:34:56.000 They move slow.

00:34:57.000 I don't even want to be in a big company.

00:34:59.000 I want to be hard driving and make stuff happen.

00:35:02.000 But in this government with President Trump, it is fast moving.

00:35:06.000 It is business like.

00:35:08.000 If we want to lean in and take a risk, we should fix this policy.

00:35:12.000 The president says absolutely find some more things to fix.

00:35:15.000 So it isn't the slow moving bureaucratic thing.

00:35:19.000 I feared under President Trump's leadership and the rest of the cabinet.

00:35:23.000 So it is a wild change.

00:35:25.000 My powers or ability to do things are quite different in the government than they are in business.

00:35:30.000 But in this government, I am I'm highly confident we will make massive changes in these four years and I'm proud and honored to be here to do it because it matters.

00:35:39.000 We have needlessly victimized Americans with expensive energy and pushed industries overseas.

00:35:45.000 That's just wrong.

00:35:46.000 And with this president, we're going to stop it.

00:35:49.000 That's phenomenal to hear.

00:35:50.000 And that's a great setup.

00:35:51.000 So let's take a step back.

00:35:53.000 Talk about what you inherited.

00:35:55.000 What was the Department of Energy doing before your leadership under Joe Biden?

00:36:00.000 What were their priorities?

00:36:01.000 What were their investments?

00:36:02.000 What was their worldview?

00:36:04.000 And how does your now daily grind contrast with the last administration?

00:36:09.000 we talk a lot about, of course, the Ukraine-Russian war and ending that.

00:36:12.000 We talk about the border.

00:36:13.000 We talk about the economy.

00:36:14.000 But the energy is literally, in the most literal sense, not metaphorically, the life force of a civilization.

00:36:21.000 It is the lifeblood.

00:36:22.000 You cannot have growth.

00:36:23.000 You cannot have AI.

00:36:24.000 You cannot have people flying from New York to LA.

00:36:27.000 affordably if you do not have energy.

00:36:29.000 So talk about what you inherited.

00:36:31.000 Talk about what the previous Department of Energy was doing and then contrast that with your work.

00:36:36.000 Yeah.

00:36:36.000 So the previous Department of Energy, as you heard.

00:36:39.000 for those four years, and you didn't hear much for them, they were kind of behind the scenes, but they were part of this all of government battle against climate change as they would describe it.

00:36:48.000 So all of the money, all the focus, all the effort was on wind, solar, batteries and electric vehicles.

00:36:56.000 Collectively, wind, solar and batteries are three percent of United States energy, hundreds of billions of dollars.

00:37:03.000 It's three percent of our energy.

00:37:05.000 And everywhere they've achieved meaningful penetration, you get more expensive electricity prices.

00:37:10.000 So just a train wreck that was not going to change the energy system of the United States.

00:37:16.000 They actively stood in front of natural gas, our fastest growing source of energy and our fastest growing export.

00:37:23.000 You heard about the LNG pause, and I don't know if I have time to go into that, but they actually made a whole report before the pause that showed economically it was positive for the United States, and it was going to slightly lower greenhouse gas emissions, more LNG exports.

00:37:38.000 And they hated that answer so much that they buried the report, never spoke about it, although when I got in, we found it.

00:37:45.000 A much longer report than they ultimately released later.

00:37:48.000 But just so again, they were against energy, the energy that powered our world.

00:37:55.000 And they thought all of the nonsense they were doing was somehow going to stop climate change and make the world safer.

00:38:02.000 Just again, also completely contrary to the facts and the data.

00:38:05.000 So it's been quite a change.

00:38:07.000 Yeah.

00:38:07.000 And so that and you've taken on the entire kind of climate science world, energy department attacks client Simon's in contentious report.

00:38:16.000 By the way, you're in safe company here.

00:38:18.000 We think this is all politicized.

00:38:20.000 This is driven towards an environmentalist agenda that is trying to weaken American energy dominance.

00:38:27.000 The agency asked five client skeptics to write a report criticizing the consensus on global warming.

00:38:32.000 First of all, science does not have consensus.

00:38:34.000 This is a very important thing, right?

00:38:36.000 Science says nothing.

00:38:38.000 Scientists say things, okay?

00:38:40.000 Science never talks.

00:38:41.000 Science is silent.

00:38:42.000 This is a good thing that could apply to everything.

00:38:44.000 Scientists say things.

00:38:46.000 And scientists, like we learned during COVID, we learned during the lockdowns, learned during the vaccines, can say a lot of different things with the data.

00:38:53.000 Now, again, global warming does not have consensus like the second law of thermodynamics.

00:38:59.000 Global warming does not have consensus like an object at rest will stay at rest.

00:39:04.000 Your reaction, mister Secretary, and how you think about this because they again, let me read this New York Times articlele, The Consensus on Global Warming.

00:39:14.000 What an outrageous claim.

00:39:17.000 Your thoughts, sir.

00:39:18.000 Yeah, I always give the contrast between the science, which is what the left likes, which is the opposite of science.

00:39:24.000 Science is a process of challenge and engagement and debate and wrestling with data, and if the data doesn't agree with your model, your model is wrong.

00:39:32.000 Where the science is this top down authority driven thing used with COVID, to me was the climate movement and fast forward, the science told you what to do.

00:39:43.000 But as you said, Charlie, look at those critics.

00:39:46.000 They criticize the authors, five skeptiptical of what they presented.

00:39:51.000 These are five highly distinguished scientists.

00:39:54.000 One of them was Under Secretary for Science in the Obama administration, Provost at Caltech, PhD from MIT.

00:40:01.000 All of those scientists were accomplished scientists that are also tired of this censorship of the science, censoring real science and real process of engagement.

00:40:11.000 But even on my CNN interview a couple of weeks ago, I went on to talk about the Climate Report.

00:40:16.000 There were zero questions about climate change, zero.

00:40:19.000 They want to impugn the writers or impugn the way we reference people.

00:40:23.000 They want to find little things.

00:40:25.000 What we want to talk about is the data.

00:40:27.000 Let's talk about climate science.

00:40:29.000 It's a real phenomenon.

00:40:30.000 It's a slow moving phenomenon, not even remotely close to the world's biggest problem, but it's used by the left to justify big government and top-down control of everything.

00:40:41.000 Let's be honest.

00:40:42.000 Let's engage in real science, as you said.

00:40:44.000 That's what we're about.

00:40:46.000 And I'm excited to have that debate over four years.

00:40:49.000 We're going to end a lot of children's nightmares.

00:40:51.000 We're going to end a lot of people trying to be pushed around and bullied by people that don't know what they're talking about.

00:40:56.000 Like I've spent twenty years studying climate science as physical data, and the people who were passionate about it never want to debate me because they don't know anything about it.

00:41:04.000 But we're going to have that debate, whether they want it or not.

00:41:07.000 Science is a process.

00:41:08.000 It doesn't tell you anything.

00:41:10.000 People tell you science is a method.

00:41:13.000 It's a methodology.

00:41:15.000 And good science, which again is a verb, they act as if, well, science, you know, puts something out.

00:41:20.000 No, you do science.

00:41:23.000 You go in exploration of truth.

00:41:26.000 And then once you have a conclusion, you have to measure it.

00:41:29.000 You have to analyze it.

00:41:30.000 You have to inquire it.

00:41:32.000 You have to cross-reference it.

00:41:34.000 And by the way, we're bringing back that methodology to our government, RFK at HHS and you at the Department of Energy.

00:41:41.000 Last question, Secretary Chris Wright, doing a great job, Department of Energy.

00:41:45.000 How are we going to be able to scale up our electricity output drastically in years to come.

00:41:51.000 We see the United Kingdom with the highest electricity rates in the world.

00:41:55.000 What is your plan to do that?

00:41:56.000 Because Americans inherited very high electricity rates and some are still paying too much for electricity.

00:42:02.000 We need to solve that.

00:42:03.000 Exactly.

00:42:04.000 And you mentioned the United Kingdom and Germany, two countries that went down the policy pathway the Biden administration wanted to go down.

00:42:11.000 They tripled their electricity prices.

00:42:13.000 They pushed all their industry out of their countries.

00:42:15.000 And yet the Biden administration wanted to do that.

00:42:18.000 That's just crazy.

00:42:19.000 So we're going to bring common sense back to energy.

00:42:22.000 We're going to let have mandates or subsidies to build unreliable electricity generating systems.

00:42:34.000 People want to build solar, fine, go build it.

00:42:36.000 But most all wind and solar and new transmission lines that have been built have been because they're heavily subsidized.

00:42:43.000 We paid people to put unreliable electricity on the grid.

00:42:47.000 We knew where that was leading, more expensive electricity and less stable grids.

00:42:51.000 That's the direction we've gone.

00:42:52.000 We're going to reverse that direction, build new generation.

00:42:55.000 It will, of course, in the short term, it'll mostly be natural gas.

00:42:59.000 Nuclear will also come online, but we're going to let market forces make those decisions.

00:43:03.000 Every state in America that has expensive electricity prices.

00:43:07.000 They have it because the politicians chose it.

00:43:09.000 It isn't bad luck.

00:43:11.000 It isn't anything.

00:43:11.000 It was chosen by their politicians.

00:43:14.000 California decided to have expensive electricity and push their industry out and impoverish their people, as did New England and New York and now New Jersey.

00:43:22.000 These are all bad choices.

00:43:23.000 This is one of the most important things happening in the country.

00:43:27.000 Thank you so much, Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright.

00:43:29.000 Thank you for your time.

00:43:30.000 Thank you.

00:43:31.000 Thanks, Charlie.

00:43:32.000 Great to be with you.

00:43:32.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:43:34.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:43:36.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - August 19, 2025

What is An American?

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