00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show, we are joined by Molly Hemingway, author of Rigged.
00:00:04.000We talk about also what is it with these prosecutors, these Soros-funded prosecutors across the country that are basically saying we're not going to put criminals in jail.
00:00:14.000We explore that story and so much more.
00:00:26.000And if you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com, start a high school chapter or start a college chapter today at tpusa.com.
00:00:51.000His 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.
00:00:59.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:11.000Brought to you by Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage.
00:01:14.000For personalized loan services, you can count on.
00:01:16.000Go to andrewandodd.com, the wonderfulandrewandtodd.com.
00:01:23.000There is this nationwide trend of George Soros-backed prosecutors, district attorneys across the country, who are basically getting rid of any sort of harsh sentencing at all whatsoever.
00:01:35.000This is happening in New York, Los Angeles, basically getting rid of prison time as we know it.
00:01:40.000New York City, unfortunately, is becoming a third world city.
00:01:44.000New York used to be such a great place.
00:01:46.000Now New York is basically and totally unrecognizable.
00:01:50.000And New York City has this new district attorney prosecutor.
00:01:53.000And what's amazing is he's actually doing everything he ran on.
00:01:57.000Is that it's not like he ran as some sort of moderate.
00:02:00.000No, he ran on basically getting rid of prison time.
00:02:03.000And in New York City, Mayor Eric Adams, who is hardly a moderate mayor, he's just continuing a lot of what Bill de Blasio did, is covering for it.
00:02:41.000Alvin Bragg has told prosecutors in his office to seek jail or prison time only for the most serious crimes, unless the law requires otherwise.
00:02:51.000Jonah Bromwich for the New York Times wrote, quote, Manhattan's new district attorney began this week to adopt the lenient policies he campaigned on.
00:03:00.000This is what's so shocking about this.
00:03:02.000He told the voters he was going to do this.
00:03:07.000This is not some sort of bait and switch.
00:03:11.000It's not some sort of like, I was going to do this.
00:03:13.000No, they told the voters, like, you elect me, people aren't going to go to jail.
00:03:19.000Setting the stage for potential conflict in set and outside his office, inside and outside his office, as he tries to change the way criminal justice is administered in the borough.
00:03:30.000The district attorney Alvin Bragg told prosecutors in his office in a memo that they should ask judges for jail or prison time for only the most serious offenses like murder, sexual assault, economic crimes involving vast sums of money, unless the law requires them to do otherwise.
00:03:45.000The crimes he instructed prosecutors to avoid seeking jail time for, including robberies, assaults, gun possession.
00:03:54.000He also directed that they no longer request prison sentences of more than 20 years absent exceptional circumstances.
00:04:01.000He says his goal is to find alternatives to incarceration, especially for first-time offenders, a name he seeks to balance with the need to keep the public safe.
00:04:12.000And the way they take into account the experiences of those who are charged, his policies resemble those of several prosecutors in big cities around the country who have been elected over the past five years.
00:04:24.000So let's just ask a very simple, rational question.
00:04:28.000If people know they're not going to go to jail when they steal stuff, do you think people are going to steal more stuff?
00:04:36.000If people know they're not going to go to jail when they commit assault and robbery, do you think that assaults and robberies are going to go up or they're going to go down?
00:04:45.000If people know they're not going to go to jail for assault and robbery, do you think that other murders might occur because of the assault and the robberies or other rapes or arsons?
00:04:57.000Jen Saki was asked about these progressive prosecutors failing to prosecute certain crimes in Democrat-run areas.
00:05:05.000And she says, we're not going to wade into the actions of prosecutors.
00:05:30.000Well, he pushed on the progressive prosecutors that are, for example, here in New York City saying that things like using, taking a gun into a store, robbing it, but then leaving and nobody gets killed, that that's a misdemeanor.
00:06:18.000Violence is a much greater threat to our children in Chicago than COVID.
00:06:23.000But you're not allowed to say that because the narrative or the facts of black-on-black violence in Chicago is at direct odds with the regime narrative of systemic racism.
00:06:37.000The final 2021 totals in Chicago, finally, the murder tallies are in.
00:07:21.000San Francisco, they're doing something very similar.
00:07:24.000And when are the upper middle class or the business class members going to push back against this?
00:07:35.000And there's something that I have learned about the business class the last two, three years, I'll be honest.
00:07:44.000I used to have this belief that business and people that run companies are going to actually make prudent and responsible decisions.
00:07:55.000This is something when you spend a lot of time in free market literature, most of which is very true, by the way, you are convinced that profit motives and competition and entrepreneurialism and startups is always going to push forward towards the best possible outcome.
00:08:12.000That those forces, given no interventions, you're going to be able to have a desirable outcome.
00:08:20.000But if you actually look at history, business or the money changers or the people that are engaged or invested in just seeking a profit, they will go whichever way the wind blows.
00:08:41.000You see that with the major companies in New York City where they know how dangerous New York is becoming.
00:08:48.000You're trying to tell me that if you took the top 100 employees for Goldman Sachs and you put them in a room and you said, hey, do you feel comfortable, those of you that have children, do you feel comfortable having your child walk 20 blocks at night from Goldman Sachs headquarters to NYU at 14th Street, Union Square?
00:09:15.000You ask any reasonable person in New York City or Los Angeles or San Francisco, regardless of their political affiliation, they know crime is going up.
00:09:24.000That's why security guards are costing more than ever.
00:09:38.000And yet there is this tension between what people empirically see what is happening around them that you can use your reason and almost a, I don't say this lightly, a pseudo-mystical religious belief that we just need to abolish all white racism and somehow the guy that is stabbing the women on 37th Street is going to stop.
00:10:02.000Christianity gets under attack a lot by being, who could possibly believe that?
00:10:06.000Christianity is far more rational and reasonable than believing that abolishing the police and unraveling every aspect of a civil society is going to result in a peaceful place to live.
00:10:22.000It's really something I fail to understand.
00:10:49.000Well, you can play it safe, but some of your assets into precious metals will keep your money away from volatility in the markets and will let you sleep at night.
00:10:57.000This month, Noble Gold is giving away a free one-tenth of an ounce solid gold American Eagle coin with any qualifying plan you start.
00:11:04.000So talk to an expert at Noble Gold and they'll run through the options for keeping your money safe.
00:11:09.000No pressure, no hassle, no call centers, just a chance to speak to someone who knows what they're talking about for once.
00:11:28.000Germany has said the German producer price inflation jumps 24.2% in December year over year, the highest increase in history of the index post-World War II.
00:12:22.000They want to get you on government programs.
00:12:24.000They want you to be disenfranchised from owning property.
00:12:27.000If you own property right now, then you're going to benefit.
00:12:31.000Most young people listening, though, are renters, and they're being permanently priced out of an opportunity to buy a home.
00:12:40.000I hear this all the time with our employees and our students, recent graduates, 25, 26, 27, 30 years old.
00:12:46.000They say, Charlie, even if I want to buy, let's say, a $350,000 home, which by the way, a $350,000 home in Phoenix will get you in a rather shady area.
00:12:58.000That's not exactly anything that would be safe, comfortable, and reliable, but whatever.
00:13:05.000Not diminishing people that have home values of that.
00:13:08.000You're still going to have to put 5% down if you're lucky.
00:13:12.000Some banks are requiring 7.5%, 10% down.
00:13:15.000Where is a working class person who is getting poorer because their currency is getting deteriorated and everything else is getting more expensive?
00:13:24.000Where are they supposed to go to to get their down payment?
00:13:26.000Well, the answer is many of them go to their parents.
00:13:32.000Or do you know that some people are taking out loans just to be able to get their down payment?
00:13:46.000The down payment is anywhere between $17,000 to $25,000.
00:13:50.000And they are taking out a loan just to be able to take out a loan.
00:13:56.000So you're probably spending way too much because of all this inflation on your cell phone bill.
00:14:02.000Everything else is going to get more expensive, but I'm about to tell you something that actually is going to save you money.
00:14:08.000This New Year's, resolve to get this country back on track by supporting causes and companies that share our values.
00:14:15.000I'm proud to tell you about my friends at Patriot Mobile, America's only Christian conservative cell phone provider.
00:14:21.000They offer broad nationwide coverage because they use the same towers as the major carriers.
00:14:25.000So you get the same great service plus the peace of mind that your money isn't supporting the left.
00:14:30.000Patriot Mobile has plans to fit any budget and their 100% U.S.-based customer support team.
00:14:35.000More importantly, Patriot Mobile shares your values and supports organizations like Turning Point USA that are fighting for religious freedom, constitutional rights, sanctity life veterans, and first responder heroes.
00:14:45.000Save some money today in a climate of inflation.
00:14:48.000You see, when producer Connor switched to Patriot Mobile, he considered it to be a tax cut because he has to pay $600 more a month for his rent.
00:14:56.000Go to patriotmobile.com slash Charlie or call 972 Patriot.
00:15:00.000Get free activation code with offer code Charlie.
00:15:03.000Veterans and first responders save even more, so make the switch today.
00:15:07.000Support a company that loves America, loves you, and shares your values.
00:15:34.000And Biden said yesterday at his press conference, we want more inflation.
00:15:37.000We want to create more currency out of thin air to further deteriorate it, which would only allow the ruling class, the elites, and the people that are in debt a greater opportunity to be able to spend and borrow into the future.
00:15:55.000We don't talk enough about our national debt and deficit.
00:16:57.000But what if one day you come out of the bathroom and your laptop is gone?
00:17:01.000Every time you connect to an encrypted network, cafe, hotel, or airport, any hacker on the same network can gain access to your personal data.
00:17:08.000It doesn't take much technical knowledge to hack someone.
00:17:41.000I use it on all my devices and you should as well.
00:17:44.000So secure online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash Charlie, E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-PN.com slash Charlie, and you can get an extra three months free, expressvpn.com slash Charlie.
00:17:58.000With us right now is one of the sharpest and smartest minds, someone who has been ahead of the curve on almost every single topic, Molly Hemingway from the Federalist.
00:18:07.000She does a wonderful job and she has an amazing new book out called Rigged.
00:18:10.000Molly, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:18:24.000Now they're saying elections domestically could be illegitimate.
00:18:27.000How did we go from the 2020 election was the safest, most secure, most amazing election in history to just a year later, all of a sudden they're questioning the legitimacy of our elections.
00:18:36.000Well, I actually think Joe Biden is doing what Democrats have been doing for a very long period of time, going back to the 90s, where they tend to question elections where they don't think they're going to do well or where they don't do well.
00:18:54.000We saw it with, we saw this when George W. Bush won his first election.
00:19:02.000They said he was selected, not elected.
00:19:04.000When he won reelection, you had a ton of people, including a senator and members of Congress, challenge the election results based on their belief that Karl Rove controlled the voting machines in Ohio, which determined the outcome of that election.
00:19:19.000And then 2016 through 2020, of course, was nothing but a belief that, or a claimed belief, that Donald Trump stole the election and was an illegitimate president.
00:19:30.000And it wasn't just Biden who believed stuff like that.
00:19:33.000Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, John Lewis refused to go to the inauguration in 2017 on these grounds.
00:19:39.000So did one out of three Democrats, the entire media complex.
00:19:42.000So really the only aberration we have is that 2020 to the current moment where only Republicans are allowed to have any, are disallowed from having any problem with any election, even though of all those elections, 2020 was far and away the most aberrant in terms of how we ran it.
00:20:03.000Yeah, the most interfered with, the most corrupt, the most questioned, and you detailed that beautifully in your book.
00:20:08.000You have an article here on the Federalist.
00:20:10.000You say GOP's old guard out of touch with their voters on election integrity.
00:20:14.000And it's a picture of Mitch McConnell talking and President Trump looking at Mitch McConnell.
00:20:20.000So this is something that I'm curious about, which is that the establishment or the old guard, really all they care about is power.
00:20:28.000And therefore, if all they cared about is power, shouldn't they care about election integrity?
00:20:33.000So they I think their main concern right now is for power within the GOP.
00:20:40.000And so what we saw also happen in 2016 was a real change in the Republican Party where its policies went away from some of those failed Republican policies that we became quite familiar with, whether it was mismanaging when we got into war or how we managed those wars, mismanaging financial crises, the border, et cetera.
00:21:03.000But it was kind of a good moment for the establishment of the GOP.
00:21:06.000They were able to exert a lot of control over the party, over the people, and they liked that era.
00:21:10.000And so what they'd like to do is go right back to it.
00:21:13.000The party itself, by which I mean the actual tens of millions of voters, are done with that.
00:21:18.000They would like to move forward into a new era where we do have a more, we have a strong national defense that is restrained from getting involved in wars that don't have a clear purpose or way of being won.
00:21:30.000They want policies that help the middle class.
00:21:33.000And so they're ready to keep going with what got started in 2016.
00:21:37.000But that internal conflict still isn't totally settled.
00:21:40.000And so because of that, and because the establishment can have as their allies the corporate media in their battle against Trump and the policies that he promotes, they're just seeing this as a short-term way to marginalize Trump and his most ardent supporters, even though, as you point out, it's not a really great long-term strategy to lose control over the integrity of elections.
00:22:05.000So I'm holding in my hand here rigged.
00:22:11.000You know, I cite your book, Molly, anytime I get questions about the election because it's such a thoughtful, can I use the D word, Connor, dossier?
00:22:26.000That word's been so contaminated in the last couple of years.
00:22:30.000It's so good and for a variety of different reasons.
00:22:32.000So I want to read from your piece here.
00:22:34.000So what you say here, you mention kind of this back and forth between Senator Rounds from South Dakota and also Senator Kramer.
00:22:41.000You say that Senator Rounds basically said something that I'm kind of done with voter integrity.
00:22:48.000And he went on television basically to say that.
00:22:51.000And then Senator Kramer, a North Dakota Republican who contended Democrats took advantage of more voting rules eased during the pandemic, said, quote, I've moved on a long time ago.
00:23:00.000And most members of Congress have, including Mike.
00:23:04.000You go to say, quote, it is absolutely charming that Kramer has the luxury of moving on from the important election integrity battle, but Biden sure hasn't moved on.
00:23:14.000North Dakota, you say, is a state that voted for Trump in 2020 by 33 points, not exactly a battleground state.
00:23:21.000Its senators should probably use some political capital to tackle the top issue of the week, this issue of the week for American voters.
00:23:29.000How does one come to a conclusion that they want to move on from the $450 million from the Center for Technology and Civic Life?
00:23:47.000And you know that the whole news of the week, last week and this week has been Biden attempting to federalize elections, take them over, have Nancy Pelosi put in charge to make sure that we permanently have the corruption of the system that they put in place in 2020.
00:24:02.000So even if they weren't interested in it in a normal week, which would be absurd, they have to understand that this is the battle right now for their voters.
00:24:10.000This is an issue that not just the entire Republican Party, but a good chunk of the rest of the country cares about.
00:24:16.000You know, Joe Biden's out there saying that voter ID is Jim Crow 2.0.
00:24:21.000Meanwhile, 80% of the country, not Republicans, the country supports voter ID, which of course they do because nobody wants to have an election where it's too easy to cheat.
00:24:33.000And that's, you know, that's what we have right now.
00:24:37.000And that is sometimes something that bothers Republicans.
00:24:39.000It's sometimes something that bothers Democrats.
00:24:41.000So of course it's a unifying issue, but the geniuses in the Senate can't figure that out.
00:24:46.000So they just accept the corrupt framing of these media opponents who want to destroy the Republican Party.
00:24:53.000It's infuriating for the average Republican voter.
00:24:56.000Yeah, so I'm going to ask you to speculate here.
00:24:58.000How does one in a position of power in the Republican Party, being a senator from North Dakota, what do you think goes into that kind of thought process?
00:25:11.000You read this, says most members of Congress, Congress have included me.
00:25:15.000Is that basically an exposure of a greater fault line between the disconnect between voters and the politicians?
00:25:21.000Or is it because this issue is considered to be kind of untouchable in the beltway?
00:25:26.000Yeah, I think, I actually think the issue is one of courage.
00:25:30.000I mean, probably ultimately the issue is that a lot of elected representatives and senators don't really care about the constituents so much as other benefits of being in political power, whether they're looking forward to their future of lucrative earnings or something else.
00:25:46.000But I think this issue is one that requires both competence and courage to talk about.
00:25:51.000You see people on all sides say things that are untrue or they come up with conspiracy theories, whether they're saying there were no problems with the election, which is an absurd conspiracy theory, or whether they push some of the unfounded conspiracy theories about foreign meddling and vote changing that just have not been verified.
00:26:08.000And so it takes competence to actually know what went on, as you point out, Mark Zuckerberg taking over the government election offices in blue areas of swing states.
00:26:17.000That's a huge crisis, but it's complicated.
00:26:23.000And that's the thing that Republican leadership lacks.
00:26:27.000So, I mean, it lacks in a way that is, again, frustrating, but scandalous because the country is not doing well right now.
00:26:35.000And so a lot of Americans are hoping for courage in this political class that they haven't seen and haven't seen for a long time from most of them.
00:26:42.000And it's so rare that any sort of semblance of courage gets platformed almost immediately, like Ron DeSantis.
00:26:53.000And you kind of become an overnight hero.
00:26:55.000So I want to ask you, Molly, there's been a lot of momentum, but little follow through, I should say, in some of these states like Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and changing these voting laws.
00:27:06.000In your book, Rigged, where you talk about the Center for Technology and Civic Life, I'm going to read page 213, where you say, quote, Zuckerberg should be in jail.
00:27:15.000Quote, the $350 million from Zuckerberg would turn the relatively new and narrow focus CTCL into a power player in the 2020 election.
00:27:24.000In 2018, it had a budget of $1.4 million, now flush with cash, would distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to election officials and local governments across the country.
00:27:33.000Are you seeing progress in the states to fix this problem?
00:27:38.000Okay, so first off, I just have to note that's actually a quote from Donald Trump.
00:27:49.000And I thought that was just, you know, again.
00:27:51.000This is important that people understand what actually happened and then communicate what actually happened.
00:27:57.000States have been making some progress on it, but, you know, like in Wisconsin, which has a history of having really good voter integrity concern and laws, I asked those people, how did this happen?
00:28:10.000You know, you normally are better than this.
00:28:11.000And they said, we just had no idea that it was possible to take over government election offices.
00:28:16.000And I tell the story in the book about how one of their offices was literally taken over by these Zuckerberg funded groups, kicking out the actual government workers who were in charge of the election.
00:28:28.000So they did vote to ban this private funding of election administration.
00:28:34.000But then their Democrat governor, knowing how key it was to Democrats' election victories in the state, vetoed it.
00:28:40.000Now, I believe they did have some kind of workaround where they kept pursuing it, but it takes, you know, this is exactly what legislatures should be doing is what they're charged with doing by the U.S. Constitution.
00:28:50.000They've been making a little bit of progress, but nowhere near enough.
00:28:54.000And then, of course, the other problem is you have states that are completely controlled by the Democrat Party, like New York, that are not allowing any reform for increasing the integrity.
00:29:04.000And that does affect, you know, Republican members of Congress who are increasingly seeing these shenanigans affect their races.
00:30:35.000But it was the way that President Biden speaks so slowly makes it particularly difficult to just sit there and listen to him.
00:30:43.000And he kept saying things that you knew were going to get him in trouble, like when he questioned the legitimacy of the upcoming elections if they don't pass his radical voting bill, when he awkwardly discussed his attempt to downplay or to downgrade tensions with Russia in Ukraine.
00:31:03.000But what I thought most interesting was that he seems to think he's done a good job, which is very alarming.
00:31:08.000If he'd come out and said, listen, guys, I see everything you see.
00:31:14.000There's a reason why you're all freaking out about the state of the country and why you're particularly angry with me.
00:31:20.000Here's what I'm going to do going forward.
00:31:22.000would say, I don't believe him, or I'm not sure I believe him, but you'd be like, at least he's aware of the seriousness of the problem.
00:31:27.000And instead, he said, I'm the best president in the history of the world.
00:31:31.000I've actually overachieved relative to my promises.
00:31:34.000And you just thought, oh boy, this guy is, it just seemed like he was struggling to have a grasp on the actual reality that we're all living through.
00:31:43.000Yeah, there's, there's multiple ways to govern in a crisis.
00:32:17.000But I think it probably would have won some people over.
00:32:19.000But Molly, I mean, I feel like it's this massive gaslighting operation, which is like, you know, actually, there is no famine and everything is wonderful.
00:32:34.000It's like if you're in a relationship with someone and they're unwilling to address the issues, you start sort of panicking about how bad things really are.
00:32:43.000And so it seems unwise to me, but it also seems like this is what happens when you're in a bubble where the media all support you.
00:32:49.000Because of course, after this disastrous press conference that anybody who watched was kind of horrified by, Yamish Alsendor, who is a hero, heroine of the Washington Press Corps, she is an award-winning journalist.
00:33:03.000She sounded like she was hoping to date Joe Biden in her praise of him as the most amazing press conference giver she'd ever experienced and a brave truth teller.
00:33:15.000And it was just a reminder that the media aren't helping Biden.
00:33:19.000Because if that's the way they're acting with him, he might actually think that it's working.
00:33:25.000And if he's protected from the polls, and he said he doesn't believe the polls, which is really unwise for him because polls always are favorable to Democrats.
00:33:32.000So if he doesn't even believe those polls, you know, he's just kind of out of touch.
00:33:36.000Yeah, out of touch would put it lightly.
00:33:38.000What advice would you give to Republicans?
00:33:40.000It seems as if there is that, I'm really worried about this, to be honest, Molly.
00:33:44.000There is this kind of arrogance that's starting to set in, confidence that is translating quickly to arrogance.
00:34:04.000He can regain the Senate without doing anything.
00:34:07.000But I think Republican voters are sick to death of Republicans not having a really good agenda going forward to actually put the country on the right path.
00:34:17.000And so Republicans do need to not just say what they're for, but start building the infrastructure to make sure that they can accomplish it as soon as voters do give them the majority in the Senate and the House.
00:34:28.000And to that end, and to the point of the book, Republican voters themselves need to be totally on top of their local elections to make sure that they are being managed in as good of a way as possible.
00:34:39.000And they need to get involved and they need to get involved now.
00:34:42.000Molly, you made me remind me with the Yamichi thing and Biden, this kind of, this amazing advertisement that was on TV, the one that it's not about the nail.
00:34:50.000I don't know if it's an advertisement.