00:00:00.000Hey everybody, we go into detail about Robert Francis O'Rourke's barnstorming the stage like a teenage activist in front of Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, and Dan Patrick while they are trying to basically give a eulogy.
00:01:04.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:44.000And so the whole thesis that we had here was that Democrats are going to overly politicize this and make it all about themselves and their political agenda.
00:01:55.000And as if right on queue, Robert Francis O'Rourke couldn't allow Governor Abbott to host a press conference on mental health and the facts related to it and barnstorms and bum, rushes the stage like an unhinged activist and starts screaming with his flailing arms, of which there's not a detectable ounce of testosterone or muscle mass on the entire being of the wannabe Hispanic Irishman.
00:02:24.000Trust fund baby open border advocate, gun grabbing activist from El Paso Texas who, hell yes, is going to take away all your guns.
00:02:31.000Soon to be three times failed candidate in Texas, where he can't win a Senate race, he can't win a presidential race and he's not going to win the governor's race.
00:02:54.000You've done that, as you bum, rush the stage and make yourself look like a fool, make your entire political party look like nothing more than opportunists.
00:03:34.000If we come to a deal like this to make a political issue, I'm not quite sure what Robert Francis O'Rourke was saying, but he felt necessary to bum rush the stage, and Ted Cruz was just losing it.
00:04:00.000And I think just kind of like the local sheriff came up and was like, You're an embarrassment.
00:04:57.000So Robert Francis O'Rourke said, it's on you.
00:05:00.000The recount, which is a left-wing propaganda site, said, quote, in a striking moment, ridiculous.
00:05:06.000Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke interrupts Greg Abbott's press conference on the Uvalde shooting.
00:05:12.000What did I tell you at the beginning of our broadcast here that they are going to force our hand now to defend our Second Amendment rights and our ability to protect ourselves?
00:05:25.000We wanted to depoliticize this moment.
00:05:29.000Occupy Democrat says, quote, breaking a courageous Beto O'Rourke interrupts a press conference held by Greg Abbott and NRA Stooges, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn in the Uvalde High School Auditorium.
00:05:42.000It's like I predicted all this before I even saw it.
00:05:49.000Now, mind you, the interruption of speakers and all that is something we're very used to on college campuses.
00:05:54.000What happens on college campuses doesn't stay on college campuses.
00:05:57.000This clip is going to be widely circulated because it's going to kind of become a metaphor of people that actually are interested in governing our society, like Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick, who actually I thought give a very good summary of what happened, what could be done in response to it, and then just political children who bum rush the stage.
00:06:16.000Now, look, Robert Francis O'Rourke, he could have had a press conference right outside a competing press conference, but he felt it necessary to go interrupt what was basically a quasi-funeral, a eulogy that was being given,
00:06:32.000and also kind of like a fact and circumstance summary that was being tabulated for the people that are experiencing so much suffering in Uvalde, Texas.
00:06:48.000I want to get to some more sound here.
00:06:49.000Michael Moore, who has been increasingly irrelevant in recent years, decides to try to make him relevant by just opening his opening argument.
00:06:57.000Not even 24 hours, not even everybody has been identified.
00:07:01.000Michael Moore says we need a moratorium on all gun sales.
00:07:28.000So Michael Moore wants to make women and minorities who want to protect themselves against potential criminals more vulnerable.
00:07:35.000The entire Second Amendment to be repealed.
00:07:37.000Now, they've never had an understanding of what the Second Amendment is.
00:07:39.000They've never had an appreciation for what the Second Amendment is.
00:07:44.000Chuck Schumer kind of engages in the political circus created by the left, pleads for more gun control following the elementary school shooting in Texas.
00:07:57.000Please, please, please, damn it, put yourself in the shoes of these parents for once.
00:08:04.000Maybe that thought, putting yourself in the shoes of these parents instead of in the arms of the NRA might let you wriggle free from the vice-like grip of the NRA, might free you to act on even a simple measure.
00:08:21.000The problem in the Senate is simple: too many members on that side care more about the NRA than they do about families who grieve, victims of gun violence.
00:08:35.000Now, what's interesting about this line of attack is how shallow it is.
00:08:40.000Now, the National Rifle Association, interestingly, is having an event in Houston, and they're going to continue to have that event in the coming days.
00:08:46.000That will obviously be contentious and met with lots of protests and opposition.
00:09:00.000I think they've gotten a bad rap on a lot of different stuff.
00:09:03.000I think they do a good job on a lot of different things, and I know they've been working through a lot of leadership challenges there.
00:09:08.000But this idea that it's this kind of like clandestine organization and not the people behind the NRA, meaning the members, is a tactic by the left to act as if there is not widespread support for what the NRA is actually fighting for.
00:09:22.000And I think that's a very important distinction to build out here.
00:09:28.000How many years have I been telling you about Relief Factor?
00:09:30.000Producer Andrews right here doing an Iron Man thanks to Relief Factor.
00:09:33.000And truth is, I know there are millions of people.
00:09:36.000In fact, some say over 100 million people struggling with some kind of pain, maybe from exercise or just getting older.
00:09:41.000That can do it, getting older, which is why I'm so impressed with the people at relieffactor.com.
00:09:46.000You rarely see this kind of focus and commitment.
00:09:48.000They recently shared with me that they are doubling down and want to literally double their total number of happy customers in the next year.
00:09:55.000So here's the deal: if you're struggling with back pain, neck pain, shoulder, hip, or knee pain, even general muscle aches and pain, then I'm suggesting you order their three-week quick start, still discounted, only $19.95.
00:10:25.000It's just hard to stop thinking about it.
00:10:27.000I mean, once, you know, there's an interesting part of human psychology, which is you don't quite know to the depths of hell human beings can go.
00:10:34.000Jordan Peterson talks about this a lot.
00:10:36.000I'm by no means an expert at being able to articulate it like he can.
00:10:39.000He gets a lot of heat from some people on the right for even talking about this.
00:10:42.000But I mean, this idea of school shootings is actually somewhat of a recent phenomenon.
00:10:48.000There was a school shooting back in the 30s or 40s that was just massive.
00:11:09.000I'm not going to say it because I just, it almost, I believe it further incentivized future people to do this.
00:11:14.000And Columbine is famous not because of how many people died, which was tragic and terrible and awful, but it was famous kind of because it was first, is that it kind of totally took America by surprise in 1999, where in beautiful, you know, Columbine, Colorado, out of nowhere, you have these two people that come in and kill 13 and then, of course, both commit suicide.
00:11:42.000Now, there was a ton of controversy because the police didn't intervene and they weren't allowed to intervene because of certain laws.
00:11:49.000And that's one kind of wrinkle with what happened with here in Uvalde, which is this border patrol agent.
00:11:55.000If he was just probably following it by the book, he had no jurisdiction as a federal agent to go in there.
00:12:03.000It's like, who cares what the book says when children are being massacred in a classroom?
00:12:07.000The book probably says that as an armed federal border patrol agent, that's not his jurisdiction.
00:12:16.000But he just went in as a concerned citizen with a gun and stopped the shooter.
00:12:23.000Unfortunately, it wasn't soon enough, tragically.
00:12:26.000But you kind of look at Columbine, unfortunately, Columbine created in the sickest and most darkest way imaginable an entire genre of new activity.
00:12:37.000And so this is something that I want to kind of express and explore with you: which is once a new level of kind of human darkness is reached, it almost becomes something that other people then kind of see as a standard that then can be met.
00:12:53.000And the point is that Columbine began this entire dark genre of shootings in America in schools.
00:13:03.000I mean, they were like a one-off thing or a gang shooting or this, but this idea that I am oppressed and I am so mistreated by the world that I'm not just going to take my life, but I need to go take other innocent life.
00:13:18.000Okay, yeah, the University of Texas massacre was in 1961, which would be an exception.
00:13:23.000And there was another one like the 30s or 40s.
00:13:25.000And of course, there's exceptions, but Columbine started this process, the rolling process.
00:13:30.000And it's not a good thing that I'm 1966, thank you.
00:13:35.000But it's not a good thing that I'm able to say that Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois, Sandy Hook, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida.
00:13:46.000I mean, the San Bernardino shooting, which wasn't a school shooting, it was kind of an Islamic terrorist deal where a guy walks into the streets and just starts shooting everybody.
00:13:55.000A Fort Hood shooting, which was mislabeled as workplace violence.
00:13:58.000But this whole idea of the school is something that, from a psychological perspective, really bothers us.
00:14:05.000And it should, because school, especially elementary schools, is a metaphor for the innocent.
00:14:13.000And it kind of goes to how dark can a human being go?
00:14:17.000Not only can a human being take their own life, which is terrible and tragic and happens every single day in America.
00:14:22.000But now the new thing is that I want to go take as many other people that have done nothing wrong with me.
00:14:30.000And that's a new level of darkness that most human beings will ruin your day.
00:14:38.000You're like, how can I get that you have struggles with yourself, but get to a level where to cope with that in your final levels of existence and to go even darker and to go even just even deeper than that, to go take the lives of fourth graders.
00:14:54.000Again, that's where the Sandy Hook and this one, this particular tragedy and horrific event are very similar in that regard.
00:15:01.000And so you look at the Columbine shooting, which was kind of the beginning of now 23 years of these sorts of events that happen almost monthly.
00:15:13.000And here's the point, though, is that it's not about the guns.
00:15:17.000Is that in 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, we didn't really have mass school shootings.
00:15:25.000But it's as if it's psychologically, once this kind of dark activity got introduced into the zeitgeist of America of mentally disturbed, isolated, anti-social youth, they're like, oh, wait, I could do that and I could become famous too.
00:16:07.000So when you want to consolidate your debt and use equity in your home to do so to lower your monthly expenses, you have to use my friends, Andrew and Todd, at andrewandtodd.com.
00:16:18.000You have to know what you're going through.
00:16:20.000So look, I just had dinner with Andrew and Todd in Orange County.
00:17:16.000I hang out with them casually and I've got to know them really well.
00:17:19.000They'll treat you right and that when you use them, you're not using Citibank or Chase or these people that hate your values, that believe in this trans nonsense.
00:17:27.000Don't use those banks, diversity, equity, inclusion banks.
00:17:36.000You might say, oh, Charlie, I don't need to refinance or whatever.
00:17:38.000Well, maybe you will two months from now.
00:17:40.000Maybe you young millennials out there, maybe the millennials listening to our show, my fellow millennials, you're going to buy a home soon.
00:17:46.000Maybe you're getting married and you want to buy something.
00:17:47.000It's AndrewandTodd.com for a quick mortgage checkup.
00:17:51.000Use the equity in your home before it's too late.
00:18:15.000With us right now is the great American patriot Steve Cortez.
00:18:19.000Steve, we plan to talk about economics.
00:18:21.000We can talk about that, but obviously the kind of news of the day is unfortunately a tragedy in Texas.
00:18:27.000You've made a good point, which is we protect our banks, our sporting events, and all of the things of value with armed guards and secret point entry and cameras.
00:18:35.000But our schools, our most precious resource, our children, are very surprisingly vulnerable to evil infiltrations as we've seen in Texas.
00:18:47.000Look, the reality is that evil walks the earth, far too much of it these days, because I think in many ways we're a sick society, but that's a larger point.
00:18:54.000The reality is because evil walks the earth, we need to guard the things that we treasure, the things that we really care about.
00:19:00.000Unfortunately, as a society, I think we've decided that we really do treasure things like casino chips or gems in jewelry shops.
00:19:08.000We do treasure adults who work in high rises that are extremely well guarded, yet we disregard what we should most value, and that is our children, the people that we should most cherish, the most vulnerable and innocent among us.
00:19:38.000I was still living in Chicago at that time, the day after the Parkland shooting, went into my Chicago high-rise where my office was, and I had to scan myself in three different times just to get into my building, which was guarded by a lot of security, some of it armed, cameras everywhere, armed guards, scan yourself three times to get to my office.
00:19:56.000And it dawned on me: you know, if that kind of precaution is being taken for me and for adults who work in this office tower in Chicago, how is it possible that we don't take at least the same measures for children?
00:20:15.000So I think as a society, we really need to decide what is it that we value most.
00:20:19.000And if we truly do cherish children and we better, then let's start guarding them like it.
00:20:25.000Let's guard them at least the way that we guard adults or chips in a casino.
00:20:30.000So do you think there's a priority problem where our leaders rushed with great urgency to go send $40 billion to Ukraine, where we have so many problems here?
00:20:41.000And look, I'm not saying that they could have anticipated this, but this has been a looming problem for years.
00:20:46.000I mean, this has been something where you and I believe it's not a firearm problem, but that it's obviously a soul of an individual problem.
00:20:56.000We know that this unfortunately is a sick and disgusting and sadistic, like weird, growing genre for social, anti-social teenage youth to try to go and create mass tragedy.
00:21:07.000Wouldn't it make sense for Congress to maybe make a list of the hundred biggest problems facing America and do something to address that?
00:21:15.000Maybe before, you know, giving all the money to Zelensky, $40 billion?
00:21:24.000$40 billion that we are borrowing, making the inflationary spiral in this country even worse.
00:21:29.000$40 billion that we are borrowing to send over to a very corrupt country.
00:21:34.000Doesn't justify them being invaded, but to a very corrupt country to further escalate a regional battle that does not involve a U.S. national security interest.
00:21:42.000But to your point about the perverse priorities of the permanent political class in America, it's true.
00:21:48.000They couldn't have foreseen this tragedy, this evil that would unfold in Texas, but we know that there's been this unfortunate pattern going on for years.
00:21:55.000And the priority has been interventionism and globalist warfighting and nation building around the world rather than fixing the systemic problems that we have here.
00:22:05.000And, you know, also, Charlie, to your point, look, we've got to fix this sickness, this cultural and spiritual sickness in our society.
00:22:13.000But in the meantime, we know there's a vulnerability here.
00:22:16.000We know that we have soft targets and that sick people, evil people, will seek out those soft targets.
00:22:22.000My point is, let's not give them soft targets.
00:22:24.000Let's harden these targets and make it difficult for any deranged person to attack our children.
00:22:31.000So I didn't say this on air because I didn't want to speak it into existence, but I remember right when the lockdowns were beginning to end, I remember I turned to our team.
00:22:40.000I said, there's going to be some very fanatical behavior, some, let's just say, suppressive type behavior in a way that we, it's just so off the wall.
00:22:50.000And I don't want to kind of do the blame thing on ones because there are people that did crazy things before lockdowns and all that, obviously.
00:22:57.000But it does beg the question: did the lockdowns and the social isolation and the over-medication of children and all of these interventions that were done to try to keep people safe, does it contribute to this?
00:23:18.000Or what's your thought on how the lockdowns in the last couple of years very well might have created the preconditions or a foundation for some of this incredibly evil and demonic behavior to only be accelerated?
00:23:31.000Well, you're right, Charlie, that there was a pre-existing problem, clearly.
00:23:35.000So, it's not brand new, but it has been massively exacerbated, I do believe, yes, by the lockdowns and the psychological and societal damage that did to so many Americans, but particularly to young men, right?
00:23:45.000So many young men were told, here, look at this screen all day and fed a steady diet of nonsense, which in many cases probably includes a lot of pornography, a lot of toxic culture at the least, through those screens, had their sports taken away.
00:24:00.000Far too many of them, fatherless, don't have that role model in the home.
00:24:03.000When you put all of that together, you know, look, idle young men or young men who don't believe that they have significant purpose in life can be incredibly dangerous.
00:24:12.000You know, young men can be the most heroic figures in society.
00:24:18.000And unfortunately, I believe that a long-term effect that we're going to deal with probably for many years, long-term effect of the lockdown, is going to be that a lot of vulnerable young men who are perhaps psychologically troubled anyway or sort of on the border of having problems or trauma were pushed into deep trauma because of what we did with the lockdown.
00:24:36.000So the consequences are vast and far-reaching.
00:24:39.000And I fear in this case, probably at least contributed to the sickness of this individual.
00:24:45.000But again, number one, let's never do lockdowns again, clearly, obviously.
00:24:49.000But number two, while we get about the work of healing the culture and building the culture of life, and I think all of us need to do that, whether it's in grand ways or in very small ways, in the meantime, Charlie, we know that our children are vulnerable.
00:25:02.000Let's, and this is what we can do quickly.
00:25:04.000That cultural work takes years and decades.
00:25:07.000But what we can do quickly, what should take weeks, is to say we are going to guard our children the way we guard everything else that we value in life.
00:25:18.000And, you know, to bring this back to that idea of $40 billion for Ukraine, the idea that we're going to guard their border, but disregard our own border.
00:25:26.000And by the way, thank goodness, a customs and border patrol agent is one of the heroes of this terrible story in Texas, somebody who showed up apparently without backup, you know, just showed up because he's a brave citizen, wasn't on duty, showed up without backup, and thankfully prevented this tragedy from being even worse.
00:25:43.000How about we spend $40 billion on things like hardening schools, securing schools, and making sure that that border is secure?
00:25:50.000I mean, how about that instead of escalating the conflict that has been going on for generations in the Black Sea region, instead of inserting America into that conflict and escalating it into a global risk?
00:26:08.000And I mean, we have a set of circumstances where the foreign almost takes a higher priority in the minds and the fascination of the American ruling class than the immediate or the domestic, whether they're just kind of bored with it or they don't, they consider it to be an annoyance.
00:26:47.000And my theory of this case, at least, is that when a lot of people, many of them with good intentions, when they go to Washington, D.C., because I've been very disappointed, by the way, in a lot of people who are normally, I think, sensible politicians, I'll name a couple, people like John Kennedy, the senator from Louisiana, for example, Mo Brooks, Congressman from Alabama.
00:27:04.000These are people who normally are on our side.
00:27:08.000I think the problem is a lot of them, people of good intentions, they go to Washington, D.C., and to an extent they go native to Washington.
00:27:14.000What I mean by that is that they buy into the supposed expertise of the administrative state of Washington.
00:27:21.000And there's nothing that that cabal, that Beltway Cabal, loves to do more than to view the world as a chessboard.
00:27:27.000And I think there's a lot of hubris to that, right?
00:27:29.000And because America has been the superpower of the globe for roughly a century and really the lone superpower for the last generation, you know, they've gotten a little bit intoxicated with that kind of power and they view the world as a chessboard for them to play.
00:27:44.000And I'm talking about the administrators at the State Department in Foggy Bottom.
00:27:47.000I'm talking also about the so-called foreign policy experts at the think tanks in Washington, D.C.
00:27:52.000And then, of course, there's also a lot of money wrapped up in this.
00:27:55.000So it's not just a matter of their arrogance.
00:27:57.000It's also that it's very, very lucrative for defense contractors, for K-Street lobbyists.
00:28:02.000So I think unfortunately, too many people when they go to Washington start to lose sight of the people who sent them to Washington, D.C. and instead want to look beyond our borders at the broader world and think that they can sort of fashion this world.
00:28:16.000And it's really a hubris and an arrogance.
00:28:18.000And it's incumbent on us, though, then, in these primary elections are going on right now to connect this back to politics and what we can do as regular citizens.
00:28:30.000We should voice our opposition, but also vote and make sure my recommendation to all the patriots out there is in any primary race, ask these candidates, would you have voted for this $40 billion if you're not in office?
00:28:41.000If you are in office, explain your vote.
00:28:44.000This should be, to me, a foundational and critical differentiator among Republican candidates to decide who's truly an America first stalwart, who's truly a fighter, who's focused on the problems here at home, which again are intense.
00:29:05.000With the left in a total panic over Twitter and DHS essentially creating their own Ministry of Truth, it is safe to say we're facing the biggest threat to the First Amendment in our lifetime.
00:29:13.000That's why I'm proud to support Patriot Mobile, America's only Christian conservative cell phone provider.
00:29:19.000So you get the same great service without funding the major carriers who donate to the left.
00:29:24.000Patriot Mobile has plans to fit any budget and their U.S.-based customer support team provides exceptional customer service.
00:29:30.000Most importantly, Patriot Mobile shares your values and supports organizations fighting for religious liberty, the rights given to you by God and protected in the Constitution and the sanctity of life.
00:30:08.000So Steve, I want to get your thoughts on some economics that are happening right now.
00:30:11.000I think we as conservatives tend to not believe that economics are the most important thing in dictating human behavior.
00:30:17.000We believe that spiritual, social, family influences also are very important.
00:30:23.000However, I want your thought on how inflation might also have unintended consequences in crime, in social isolation, in family units disintegrating.
00:30:33.000Talk about how bad economic policy can also destroy the social fabric of a nation.
00:30:45.000Not that I'm saying economics should take priority, but it's all linked.
00:30:48.000And let me give you a concrete example of that.
00:30:50.000Housing prices right now are absolutely out of control because of Biden's inflation.
00:30:55.000And by the way, I would say Biden and Pelosi and Mitch McConnell's inflation, because I think all of them are basically equally complicit in the exorbitant borrowing and spending that has sent the prices of tangible physical goods soaring, whether it's a bushel of wheat, a barrel of oil, or a new home.
00:31:10.000One of the consequences of homes being so expensive is that young families are largely priced out of that market.
00:31:17.000So that is a deterrence to young people to get married, to have children, or if they have children, to have more children.
00:31:23.000So there are very real cultural consequences of economics.
00:31:27.000And regarding the economy, unfortunately, Charlie, the news is dismal.
00:31:31.000And listen, I'm by nature an optimistic guy.
00:31:33.000I wish I could report good news, but when it comes to the economy, it's almost all terrible.
00:31:37.000And we have to view it, though, dispassionately.
00:31:39.000And let me give you a couple of data points that I think are important.
00:31:42.000Just last week, we had both Walmart and Target report earnings, and they were disasters.
00:31:46.000Now, I'm not a fan of the management of either of those companies.
00:31:49.000They can frankly go pound sand, but nonetheless, they are so big.
00:31:52.000Walmart, by far, the biggest retailer, Target right there.
00:31:55.000They are so big that it's an important read into the health of the U.S. consumer.
00:31:59.000Both of them gave dreadful reports, and each company's stock had the largest single-day drop since 1987, since the historic crash of the 1980s.
00:32:09.000In the case of Target, it lost 25% of its value in a single day.
00:32:13.000Walmart CFO told us that they see a trend within their stores of people buying not gallons of milk, but half gallons.
00:32:49.000The first thing on everyone's mind, Charlie, when I meet regular Americans that I've met now thousands in these trips, the first thing on everyone's mind is inflation.
00:32:57.000They have other concerns, to be sure: crime, public safety, immigration, a lot of things matter.
00:33:02.000But number one on literally almost every person's mind is inflation.
00:33:06.000And when they talk to me about it, I can sense the anguish in their voices.
00:33:34.000Terrible policy got us here, particularly exorbitant borrowing and spending, as I mentioned, combined with an attack on American domestic energy production.
00:33:43.000It created a confluence of factors that have resulted in massive runaway inflation.
00:33:48.000So I think this is a foundational issue.
00:33:50.000And we as a movement have to provide answers and an agenda to get out of this quagmire.
00:33:55.000And if we do that effectively, I think we're going to elect the right people in the fall of 2022, which will then set the stage for electing the right president in 2024.