The Charlie Kirk Show - Zelenskyy Addresses Congress

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show, Zelensky addresses Congress.

00:00:03.000 We go through his speech, which objectively was a phenomenal address from a presentation standpoint.

00:00:10.000 Should America get involved? 0.67

00:00:12.000 Can we handle it?

00:00:12.000 Can our leaders pull it off?

00:00:13.000 These are questions that we explore.

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00:02:52.000 Just a couple minutes ago Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, addressed Congress.

00:02:58.000 This is the number one news story right now, really in the world, where Zelensky, who was under siege from the aggression of Vladimir Putin, addressed Congress.

00:03:07.000 Now we're going to go through his speech, we're going to play some tape from it, and But it was an objectively phenomenal performance.

00:03:15.000 It's almost as if Zelensky was an actor or something in a previous life.

00:03:19.000 Whoever wrote his speech, they knew exactly how to weave in the emotion of American history, the diction and the syntax of how to try to motivate a response.

00:03:31.000 So we're going to go through that.

00:03:33.000 We're going to judge it fairly, but it still begs the question of what should we do in response?

00:03:39.000 What is the prudent course of action?

00:03:41.000 And also the argument we've continued to make here, which is do you trust our leaders to be able to do highly complicated tasks when the stakes are so high?

00:03:52.000 Now, some of what Zelensky said in his speech when he was speaking to Congress was obviously wrapped in hyperbole.

00:03:59.000 However, I'm going to give Zelensky a little bit of a hall pass here.

00:04:03.000 Again, I'm no fan of Zelensky.

00:04:05.000 I have said before that he's awfully corrupt and has done many things in the past that I disagree with and was probably implemented in an undemocratic way and silences his political opponents.

00:04:17.000 However, I'm going to give him a pass because when your country is under siege and you engage in some hyperbole, who wouldn't do that in a situation like that?

00:04:27.000 Zelensky says, look, this is a terror that Europe has not seen for 80 years.

00:04:32.000 He says, is it too much to ask for to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people?

00:04:37.000 Is this too much to ask?

00:04:38.000 Now, we have not focused a lot on the no-fly zone question.

00:04:42.000 Creation of a no-fly zone is an act of war.

00:04:44.000 Basically, it would be policed by the greatest Air Force the planet has ever seen, the United States Air Force, and the consequences would be that we will shoot down any Russian jet if it dares fly over Ukraine. 0.74

00:04:56.000 If that were to happen, well, then we might be stumbling towards something I don't think any American wants to happen.

00:05:02.000 Now, let me say this: that looking at this speech and watching it, I can understand the impulse to want to get engaged and involved.

00:05:10.000 However, we must not only make decisions with our emotion, but we also must make them rationally and empirically and game them out.

00:05:18.000 We went into great detail, and I encourage you guys to check out the podcast on how, because of what's happening in Ukraine, that is actually unraveling the petrodollar and the United States as the world reserve currency.

00:05:29.000 You see, a mature foreign policy understands how one thing can lead to the other.

00:05:34.000 We would call it a kind of domino theory, but that's been used, unfortunately, 80 years ago.

00:05:41.000 Let's play Cut 60.

00:05:43.000 This is a terror that Europe has not seen, has not seen for 80 years, and we are asking for a reply, for an answer to this terror from the whole world.

00:05:55.000 Is this a lot to ask for to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine to save people?

00:06:02.000 Is this too much to ask?

00:06:03.000 Humanitarian no-fly zone.

00:06:06.000 So, asking for a no-fly zone sounds pretty simple, right?

00:06:10.000 It sounds like, hey, we're just going to kind of put a TFR, a temporary flight restriction over LAX or over O'Hare or over JFK.

00:06:18.000 It doesn't work like that.

00:06:19.000 It has to be policed.

00:06:21.000 And so, therefore, if a Russian jet were to fly into Ukraine, we'd have to do something about that.

00:06:26.000 And if we were to shoot down that Russian jet, what would be the response?

00:06:29.000 A full-fledged NATO kind of reaction.

00:06:32.000 Now, some people are beginning to say, you know what, Charlie?

00:06:34.000 It's better to go to war against Putin in Ukraine right now than in Warsaw or in Paris. 0.98

00:06:40.000 I think that's foolish.

00:06:42.000 I think that would result in an unraveling of civil society as we know it. 0.63

00:06:49.000 Zelensky continues in Cut 61, where he says, Look, Joe Biden, you are the leader of your nation.

00:06:55.000 I wish for you to be the leader of the world.

00:06:57.000 Being the leader of the world means being the leader of peace.

00:07:01.000 Now, that's an interestingly constructed sentence.

00:07:04.000 Joe Biden was not elected to be leader of the world.

00:07:06.000 He was elected to be leader of America.

00:07:08.000 He's not even doing that.

00:07:10.000 However, what Zelensky is trying to do, and this is something that is very effective in messaging to Americans, is basically playing into the desire that Americans have to be the leader of the world.

00:07:21.000 And we are the leader of the world.

00:07:23.000 Now, it's interesting where he says we want to be the leader of peace.

00:07:27.000 That's an interesting sentence.

00:07:28.000 Now, there might be some translation misfitting here.

00:07:32.000 There might be some translation difficulties.

00:07:34.000 Probably not.

00:07:35.000 The stakes are too high for a translator to not get the words totally precise.

00:07:39.000 I'm not suggesting the translator is getting the words not correct.

00:07:42.000 I'm saying sometimes there's not a great word to fit in the language.

00:07:46.000 You see this a lot in ancient Hebrew.

00:07:49.000 There just sometimes are not words that fit in the English equivalent.

00:07:52.000 You have to find synonyms.

00:07:53.000 They're not the exact perfect fit.

00:07:55.000 But I'm not suggesting the translator got anything wrong.

00:07:57.000 But this is what basically Zelensky said is being the leader of the world means you must be the leader of peace.

00:08:02.000 I agree.

00:08:03.000 So how does establishing a military enforce no-fly zone or sending more weapons, how is that going to get us peace?

00:08:10.000 That will probably prolong the conflict.

00:08:13.000 What is the off-ramp to peace?

00:08:15.000 And can you trust the person under siege to be the brokering or be the communicator of what peace could potentially be?

00:08:23.000 Play Cut 61.

00:08:25.000 At the leader of my niche, I'm addressing the President Biden.

00:08:31.000 You are the leader of the niche of the Operation.

00:08:38.000 I wish you to be the leader of the world.

00:08:43.000 Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

00:08:49.000 To be the leader of peace.

00:08:51.000 Well, in order to broker peace, we need to have some sort of an idea of what success could potentially look like.

00:08:59.000 What would success look like at this particular moment?

00:09:03.000 The peace talks between Russia and Ukraine continue.

00:09:05.000 They don't seem to be bearing much fruit as the killing and the slaughtering continues.

00:09:10.000 Zelensky continues on Cut 62 saying to Congress, remember Pearl Harbor.

00:09:16.000 Remember September 11th.

00:09:19.000 Our country experiences this every day, right now at this moment, every night for three weeks now.

00:09:25.000 Obviously using imagery in American history to try to prove his point.

00:09:28.000 Play Cut 62.

00:09:30.000 Remember Pearl Harbor terrible morning of December 7, 1941, when your sky was black from the planes attacking you.

00:09:40.000 Just remember it.

00:09:43.000 Remember September the 11th.

00:09:46.000 Our country experience the same every day, right now, at this moment, every night for three weeks now.

00:09:58.000 That is very effective, but it is designed to guilt you into action.

00:10:05.000 It is created to try to motivate you as the American citizen to want to fully get into a conflict into Ukraine.

00:10:15.000 Now, it's very dangerous to want to get into some of these situations if you are not willing to see it all the way through.

00:10:24.000 And some lawmakers are saying, look, we need a no-fly zone.

00:10:26.000 We need troops on the ground.

00:10:28.000 We might as well go to war right now.

00:10:31.000 Could not disagree more.

00:10:33.000 Could not disagree more that getting involved in a messy and murky situation in Ukraine against a nuclear armed power, just as we finally have been able to get out of all of this COVID tyranny and now we're going to turn the page and get full-fledged into potential kinetic war with the Russians in the mud season of winter in Ukraine. 0.87

00:10:55.000 That is really what he's asking for.

00:10:57.000 He's not that blunt.

00:10:59.000 Zelensky basically was able to camouflage his direct ask.

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00:12:03.000 Zelensky addressed the Congress of the United States.

00:12:07.000 Zelensky obviously was engaging in emotional arguments to try to get people to help him out.

00:12:16.000 You can't blame him for that when your country is under attack.

00:12:19.000 The question is, how do you receive it?

00:12:21.000 And it seems as if Congress received it enthusiastically.

00:12:24.000 Many members of Congress are now ready, willing, and able to give Zelensky whatever he wants.

00:12:28.000 Now, I guess all Donald Trump had to do to get the southern border wall built, I guess, was do a Zoom call to Congress and ask for it and could have got a standing ovation.

00:12:39.000 It's just very interesting to me, isn't it?

00:12:41.000 How the Uniparty in Washington, D.C. is enthusiastic to stand with applause with a foreign president, which very well might be the right thing, all the while never actually prioritizing so many of our own domestic problems, so many of them that they completely and totally ignore.

00:12:58.000 Obviously, the one that we talk about is our porous invasion of the southern border, our drug addiction issue, the sprawling urban crime problem.

00:13:11.000 It's very telling.

00:13:13.000 Let's go to Cut 65. 0.74

00:13:17.000 I need to protect our sky.

00:13:20.000 I need your decision, your help, which means exactly the same.

00:13:25.000 The same you feel when you hear the words, I have a dream.

00:13:31.000 Ladies and gentlemen, friends, Ukraine is grateful to the United States for its overwhelming support.

00:13:40.000 So he is using the Martin Luther King speech to try and motivate you to create a no-fly zone.

00:13:47.000 Seems to be a little bit of a jump, a little bit of a, let's say, unrelated situation there.

00:13:57.000 Zelensky also showed a movie that was screened for the U.S. Congress, a featurette, PlayCut 66.

00:14:23.000 This is a kind of montage of a video that shows the destruction and the suffering in Ukraine.

00:14:33.000 That was a video that kind of shows the destruction what's happening in Ukraine.

00:14:36.000 Very emotional.

00:14:38.000 So it continues to be the question of what should America's response be.

00:14:43.000 Even the most enthusiastic neoconservatives can't quite answer that question.

00:14:48.000 What gets us to the ceasefire?

00:14:49.000 Do we want to ceasefire?

00:14:51.000 Do we want to get to a place of peace?

00:14:55.000 It sure doesn't seem that way.

00:14:57.000 It seems as if the only way we're going to get this over with is to try and defeat the Russians once and for all. 0.85

00:15:06.000 I'm reading that the Russian army logistics are very poor, very bad.

00:15:10.000 They have about another one to two weeks of supplies remaining.

00:15:15.000 And so who knows where the kind of situational, let's say, the situational advantage is.

00:15:24.000 So Zelensky has an upper hand in one way, that for every mile the Russian army gets further away from Moscow, they have to build supply lines.

00:15:36.000 They also will lose troops and they have to resupply those troops.

00:15:40.000 It is 10 times as hard to invade a country than it is to defend a country.

00:15:47.000 To defend a country, you just basically have to not lose.

00:15:51.000 To invade a country, you have to win.

00:15:53.000 In order to not lose, you can lose almost battle after battle after battle as long as you don't lose the war.

00:16:00.000 For the invading country, they can win every single battle, but if they're not able to break the resolve, if they're not able to break the back of the invading country, well, then the war continues.

00:16:14.000 This is very similar to the American Revolution.

00:16:17.000 But the question is, does a prolonged conflict in Ukraine, one that goes on for another couple months or another couple years, does that help the United States?

00:16:24.000 Does it help the people of Ukraine?

00:16:27.000 And I find it interesting that there is NATO.

00:16:32.000 There is an entire European conglomerate.

00:16:35.000 Yet it falls on the Americans to try to get engaged and involved, which again, we signed up for. 0.51

00:16:42.000 We are the leaders of the free world.

00:16:45.000 But I find it interesting that if there were to be intervention in Ukraine, it has to be kind of solely on the back of the American foreign policy apparatus or the American military.

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00:17:54.000 So I want to kind of build out, reinforce an argument we've made.

00:17:58.000 So Congress is enthusiastic about sending weapons and sending military aid.

00:18:04.000 However, the stakes are really high, and the chance of failure is much higher than the chance of success.

00:18:12.000 And so we all want to avoid a war with Russia, except, of course, the neoconservatives that have wanted to have a war with every major country.

00:18:20.000 Just get it over.

00:18:20.000 A war to end all wars.

00:18:22.000 Right, sure.

00:18:23.000 Look, you cannot have two nuclear powers having a skirmish between our fighter jets.

00:18:28.000 And so a no-fly zone is a very dangerous idea, despite Zelensky's well-tailored arguments in front of Congress.

00:18:35.000 Very effective arguments, I might say.

00:18:37.000 It's a really bad idea.

00:18:39.000 Now, I would say maybe and maybe only Donald Trump, when he was president and his phenomenal national security team, I'm talking about people like Rick Grinnell and others, maybe they could have pulled this off.

00:18:52.000 But our current commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, no way would he be able to pull this off.

00:19:00.000 We do not trust Biden to oversee a no-fly zone.

00:19:05.000 Why?

00:19:06.000 He couldn't get our own citizens to fly out of Kabul.

00:19:11.000 If we can't get our own citizens to fly out of Kabul, why should we be able to pull off a no-fly zone in Ukraine?

00:19:19.000 And so, this is the point that I keep on making, and I'm just waiting for other people on television to bring this up, which is: okay, Zelensky, best guy ever.

00:19:27.000 Fine.

00:19:27.000 I don't think that.

00:19:28.000 We've gone into great detail of Azov Battalion and the money laundering and the corruption and the World Economic Forum ties and all that stuff.

00:19:34.000 Whatever.

00:19:35.000 That's obviously not resonating with people.

00:19:37.000 People think Zelensky's the next Churchill, which is insane, but whatever.

00:19:41.000 Fine.

00:19:42.000 I'm going to leave that argument aside.

00:19:43.000 Zelensky, let's pretend he's Nelson Mandela and Churchill, and he's being compared to Queen Esther.

00:19:51.000 I saw that article this morning.

00:19:53.000 Today is Purim for all of our Jewish friends.

00:19:55.000 Have a wonderful Purim.

00:19:57.000 And so, which I think, of course, is obviously equally as insane to compare Zelensky to Esther and to compare Zelensky to Churchill and Nelson Mandela, but I'm seeing it all.

00:20:07.000 Okay.

00:20:08.000 That argument obviously is resonating with people.

00:20:11.000 People want heroes.

00:20:12.000 And obviously, Vladimir Putin is a villain.

00:20:15.000 People don't like the idea that there might be a villain and a corrupt government fighting one another. 0.80

00:20:20.000 They don't like the idea of corrupt versus evil, but whatever, fine.

00:20:26.000 A sophisticated military maneuver, if done incorrectly, could result in the unraveling of decent and civil society.

00:20:37.000 And so, for everyone out there that is saying, we got to get involved, we got to get there.

00:20:41.000 You have an open line to me, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:20:44.000 What gives you the confidence and the assuredness, the peace of mind, that it can be done?

00:20:51.000 That the people in charge will not be too corrupt or too ideologically captured by some sort of group or too incompetent to mess this up.

00:21:02.000 Now, you might say, well, Charlie, how could you mess up a no-fly zone?

00:21:05.000 I'll give you an example.

00:21:06.000 Okay?

00:21:07.000 Let's say you shut down a Russian civilian airliner.

00:21:13.000 The Russians are known for playing games.

00:21:16.000 So let's say that we institute a no-fly zone.

00:21:18.000 We're doing a no-fly zone, according to Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney.

00:21:24.000 So what would you do if you were the Russians and you wanted to push the boundaries of the West? 0.76

00:21:31.000 It's very simple.

00:21:32.000 You would load up a civilian airliner and in a deceitful and evil way, you would fly it right on the boundary of the no-fly zone and make it indistinguishable from a military aircraft.

00:21:45.000 If you were the Russians, you'd pull off a false flag, is what I'm saying. 0.99

00:21:47.000 Not that the Americans would, but then what if all of a sudden the Americans shut down a civilian airliner?

00:21:52.000 What would that mean?

00:21:53.000 That would give the Russians all of their domestic support that they would need to go full-fledged into this. 0.85

00:22:05.000 These things could get messed up really quickly.

00:22:08.000 Let's listen to some of the congressional response after Zelensky's speech.

00:22:13.000 No one remembers how incompetent our military was.

00:22:17.000 Not our military on the bottom, of course, not the boots, but I'm talking about the suits of Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin.

00:22:25.000 Seems as if they have the full confidence now.

00:22:27.000 It's like, hey, they're the best, even though we can't get the Americans out of Kabul. 1.00

00:22:32.000 13 Marines died doing, unfortunately, traffic duty.

00:22:36.000 We gave up Bagram Air Base.

00:22:39.000 It was one of the great disasters of American military history.

00:22:44.000 And somehow a couple months later, we're like, yeah, now we could take on the Russians on their own border. 0.91

00:22:50.000 Mitt Romney, he is leading the parade to make sure your grandson gets drafted.

00:22:59.000 Play Cut 70.

00:23:01.000 Like many of you, I had the occasion to listen to President Zelensky just a few moments ago, and I came away, one, very moved, a very heroic, monumentally courageous man.

00:23:13.000 At the same time, I feel fully committed to doing everything in our power to help defend the people of Ukraine against the monstrous actions of Vladimir Putin.

00:23:23.000 Cut 671, Kevin McCarthy was asked about implementing a no-fly zone, and Kevin McCarthy said Ukraine should just implement their own no-fly zone.

00:23:31.000 That's a wise take by Kevin McCarthy.

00:23:34.000 He has some very, let's say, he's wise in his approach in answering this.

00:23:39.000 Play Cut 71.

00:23:41.000 Scenario where a no-fly zone, the no-fly zone that he requested would be supported by you and by the United States.

00:23:48.000 Look, I think right now, provide them the MIGS that they can create a no-fly zone. 0.52

00:23:53.000 The entire time speaking with those in Ukraine and the president himself, he's never asked for American men or women to be in a battle.

00:24:02.000 All he's ever asked for is give us the opportunity to defend ourselves.

00:24:06.000 Don't let us fight with sticks.

00:24:09.000 Cut 72, McCarthy attacks Biden for not providing Ukraine with more military aid.

00:24:13.000 Play Cut 72.

00:24:15.000 I've had conversations with the president long before this moment came.

00:24:20.000 My advice to him was provide them the armament earlier to deter Putin from ever making these decisions.

00:24:26.000 And the entire time, President Biden always said it would be the sanctions afterwards.

00:24:31.000 And then when the sanctions came, he said he'd take months to work.

00:24:35.000 Ukrainian people cannot wait months.

00:24:37.000 The world cannot wait months if we sit by and watch innocent people being murdered.

00:24:42.000 With that, let me turn it over to our wick.

00:24:45.000 That's a smart point.

00:24:47.000 So what Kevin is saying there, and I think this deserves a little bit of time to dive into, is that if you actually want to have a successful policy of deterrence, the penalty must be on the front end, not on the back end.

00:24:59.000 And so Biden's entire portfolio proposal was like, okay, Putin, if you do this, then I'm going to sanction you on the back end.

00:25:08.000 Well, Putin's like, all right, well, I'm going to do it because you're probably going to sanction me anyway.

00:25:12.000 Where Donald Trump was like, hey, you dare cross a line?

00:25:17.000 Not only will I engage with you diplomatically, not only are we going to be energy independent, not only are we going to crater the price of oil to help American consumers and destroy the Russian petro currency, but not only will there be sanctions on the back end, you're not going to like what happens next.

00:25:35.000 And just as a little bit of history, Trump provided the Ukrainians with lethal weapons.

00:25:40.000 But Trump was smart.

00:25:42.000 Despite all of the mockery and all of the backlash, we had better relations with Russia.

00:25:47.000 China was finally on defense.

00:25:49.000 Iran was not able to enrich uranium or try to develop a nuclear weapon.

00:25:54.000 And one of the reasons why Russia was not empowered to try to go invade any other countries was that as soon as America became energy independent, that which fuels your entire civilization, it became a lot harder to justify a ground invasion.

00:26:10.000 They didn't have the dollars to do it.

00:26:12.000 Trump was always on an offensive posture.

00:26:16.000 And what's the best way to have an offensive posture?

00:26:18.000 When your economy is roaring, when your people are behind you, when you have a strong economy domestically and you put your own house in order, you're able to have an offensive posture.

00:26:30.000 One of the great stories is when Donald Trump was having chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago with Xi Jinping, and he turns to Xi Jping and he says, oh, by the way, I just put airstrikes in Syria because they crossed a red line. 0.83

00:26:44.000 Now, at the time, I was very nervous.

00:26:46.000 I'll be very honest.

00:26:46.000 When the airstrikes happened in Syria, I was super nervous.

00:26:50.000 I thought that was going to result in an escalation with Vladimir Putin.

00:26:57.000 But Trump knew what he was doing, and Xi Jinping and Putin feared Donald Trump.

00:27:02.000 They feared that he was going to be willing to do what was necessary.

00:27:07.000 Taking out El Baghdadi via a drone strike, taking out, I'm sorry, taking out Qassam Solomoni, taking out El Baghdadi via a military operation.

00:27:16.000 All of these things sent messages, small strategic strikes, and Donald Trump being prudent did everything he possibly could to make us avoid long, prolonged ground wars.

00:27:29.000 And this is the other thing that I'm trying to say about this current situation in Ukraine, is that our current military bureaucracy, the people at the top, they know no different other than 20-year conflicts.

00:27:40.000 President Trump is like, wait a second, if I could just drop a bomb or do a drone strike or engage in diplomacy or do preemptive sanctions, we can avoid getting into these countries altogether and building bridges and trying to have literacy sites and all this nonsense.

00:27:55.000 When you're not captured by ideology or defense contractors, then you're able to make decisions in an unpredictable and nationalistic way, nationalistic in a good way.

00:28:06.000 You remember when Donald Trump dropped the Moab, the mother of all bombs?

00:28:11.000 He did that intentionally.

00:28:13.000 That was a public spectacle of deterrence.

00:28:17.000 We are not in a position right now at all.

00:28:19.000 Deterrence has passed, by the way.

00:28:23.000 So you're in different stages.

00:28:24.000 The stage of deterrence is over.

00:28:27.000 And so now my fear, and I have yet to have anyone be able to respond to this, is what's going to prevent an escalation.

00:28:36.000 And I do want to say something, though.

00:28:38.000 I find a massive, let's say, issue with some of the generational divide behind this.

00:28:46.000 I can just tell you this, that almost all of our younger listeners, all of our younger students, all of our younger commentators, all of our younger influencers, all of our younger business owners and moms that listen to our program, they're very much on the side that we've been taking, which is we need to stay out of this.

00:29:03.000 But I'll be very honest.

00:29:05.000 Our listeners over 50 are enthusiastic about bombing Russian military assets, sending troops to Ukraine.

00:29:12.000 We get the emails.

00:29:13.000 I get emails.

00:29:14.000 Charlie, it's time for Ukraine, for us to go to war against Russia. 0.82

00:29:19.000 And I don't want to say anything on too shaky ground here, but it does seem the generation that wouldn't be drafted at this current moment is super excited to go get into a war with Russia. 0.72

00:29:32.000 Not all of them, by the way.

00:29:33.000 Not every person over 50 wants that.

00:29:35.000 That's a generalization, obviously.

00:29:37.000 I'm just saying, just kind of reading between the lines, and I guarantee you, the polling would reflect this as well.

00:29:42.000 I guarantee it.

00:29:43.000 In fact, we could probably find some polling, Connor, that would reflect this.

00:29:46.000 I know young people are war fatigued.

00:29:48.000 We know nothing but it.

00:29:49.000 Since I was eight years old, we had a nonstop perpetual occupation of Afghanistan only to be humiliated by our withdrawal, which was nothing less than a defeat.

00:29:58.000 Yeah, I just want to reinforce this generational thing.

00:30:01.000 And I'm not saying that anyone's wrong.

00:30:02.000 I just find it interesting.

00:30:03.000 I mean, I obviously have my own opinions here.

00:30:05.000 We got an email here from somebody, and they said, Charlie, your position on Ukraine is making me sad.

00:30:12.000 You're coming across like a guy whose neighbor's house is on fire.

00:30:15.000 The family is inside likely to burn, and you don't want to participate in helping put out the fire because they didn't join the Neighborhood Block Association, or because some reason you don't like the dad.

00:30:23.000 Hold on a second.

00:30:24.000 Is Ukraine our neighbor? 0.99

00:30:25.000 Is Ukraine Mexico? 0.74

00:30:27.000 No.

00:30:28.000 Also, how exactly could I put out the fire in Ukraine right now?

00:30:33.000 What could we do?

00:30:34.000 Bombs are going to put out the fire in Ukraine?

00:30:36.000 Right.

00:30:37.000 Additionally, this is very likely to be another one of those situations where Despot goes from country to country, taking them over, gathering strength as he goes, and later on we look back in shame for what we didn't do.

00:30:47.000 We can all find kinds of reasons why we shouldn't help and what could go wrong, but we're allowing a horrible thing to happen.

00:30:52.000 Okay, so should we stop every time a horrible thing happens?

00:30:55.000 Because there's a civil war happening in Yemen.

00:30:57.000 Why don't we get emails about the civil war in Yemen?

00:30:59.000 That's weird.

00:31:00.000 Or how about the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria?

00:31:03.000 Huh.

00:31:04.000 Putin isn't worrying about whether or not his actions will bring on a larger war, but aside from sending a few pieces of armament, we'll sit back and watch him do it.

00:31:11.000 I'll become far less proud to be an American.

00:31:14.000 That's really interesting to me.

00:31:15.000 I find that fascinating.

00:31:17.000 That the lack of an involvement in a foreign theater makes you less proud to be an American.

00:31:23.000 That's interesting to me.

00:31:24.000 I just, I find my pride of being an American is not solely rooted in our ability to intervene in foreign conflicts.

00:31:33.000 But I just view it differently.

00:31:35.000 Someone says, Charlie, just heard you suggest a significant portion of your listeners over age 50 are in favor of striking Russian assets. 0.51

00:31:41.000 I'm 66 and I do not know a single person in my age group in favor of direct engagement with the Russians.

00:31:45.000 Well, good.

00:31:45.000 That's great.

00:31:46.000 I appreciate that.

00:31:48.000 We're getting lots of people that want that.

00:31:50.000 I'm just saying one thing about the generational divide, and it's real, is that there is a narrative, especially for people that are over the age of 50, and the polling shows it.

00:32:04.000 It's not just anecdotally.

00:32:05.000 We've seen some of this.

00:32:07.000 That we need to get involved.

00:32:11.000 And if you want to send MiGs, why wouldn't you send U.S. troops then?

00:32:14.000 Half-measures?

00:32:15.000 Do you not care enough?

00:32:16.000 I mean, the house is on fire, I thought, right?

00:32:18.000 Why don't you just go send 100,000 Marines? 0.94

00:32:20.000 Let's get it over with, right?

00:32:22.000 Oh, you don't want that.

00:32:24.000 But then I thought you said you cared.

00:32:26.000 You don't care enough to end the war.

00:32:28.000 So you care enough to send virtue.

00:32:30.000 You're like, oh, I want a virtue signal.

00:32:31.000 I want to go send, you know, planes and weapons.

00:32:36.000 And you're not willing to see it all the way through.

00:32:38.000 These things can be very complex.

00:32:40.000 Not to mention, do we have any problems here at home?

00:32:44.000 Is everything great?

00:32:47.000 It's amazing to see how the media continues to kind of be a 24-7 network around this.

00:32:54.000 We're not getting calls back from the Saudis.

00:32:57.000 We're asking Venezuela for oil.

00:32:59.000 Macron is meeting with Putin, not Biden.

00:33:02.000 Iran is wiping the table with us in the JCPOA 2.0 talks. 0.91

00:33:07.000 We have 100,000 dead, mostly young people from fentanyl.

00:33:12.000 Our southern border is wide open.

00:33:14.000 We have double-digit inflation minimum.

00:33:16.000 24,000 homicides last year.

00:33:19.000 24,000 homicides happening in our inner cities.

00:33:23.000 Our educational literacy rates are going down.

00:33:26.000 It's the most depressed, suicidal, alcohol, alcohol-addicted, drug-addicted, anxious, and Medicaid generation in history. 0.95

00:33:34.000 Yet I have to be lectured about our leaders that the American thing to do is to go enforce a no-fly zone 5,000 miles away because something bad is happening.

00:33:44.000 I get it.

00:33:44.000 Something's bad is happening.

00:33:45.000 Vladimir Putin is evil. 0.99

00:33:47.000 I agree. 0.99

00:33:48.000 Something bad is happening here as well.

00:33:50.000 Why are our priorities so upside down?

00:33:52.000 Why do we get out of our chair enthusiastically and go buy a Ukrainian flag to go fly outside of our home? 0.99

00:33:58.000 And yet, the kind of destruction and deterioration of our own citizens just kind of makes, whatever, kind of scoff at it.

00:34:05.000 The same Americans, by the way, the same leaders, by the way, who just lectured us the last two years, it's the American thing to go get vaccinated and go stay at home and be locked down.

00:34:13.000 Why do we want to ignore our own problems?

00:34:17.000 And you put all of that together.

00:34:18.000 No one has yet to answer the question: okay, the house is on fire.

00:34:22.000 Fine, I'll take the analogy.

00:34:23.000 We don't know what we could do about it, but do we even have the competent fire department to put out the fire?

00:34:28.000 No.

00:34:29.000 You know what they would do?

00:34:30.000 The house is on fire.

00:34:32.000 The fire department that we are calling, they bring out their hose, they open it, and out comes gasoline, not water.

00:34:41.000 That's who's running our country.

00:34:43.000 So I want to read one of these emails here that we got, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:34:46.000 And I just want to say I love our listeners.

00:34:48.000 You guys are so smart.

00:34:49.000 And you guys can listen to all of our podcasts on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

00:34:53.000 Here's one that says, Charlie, we are watching the modern-day Hitler, and you're taking a stand that appears to be okay with what's happening, which is not your intent. 0.57

00:35:00.000 Your optics are horrible.

00:35:02.000 You are providing reasons to not care, and it looks bad on you.

00:35:05.000 We all get the no-fly zone, but making decisions on MiGs because Putin says it will be met with war, et cetera.

00:35:11.000 He has said that about any aid.

00:35:12.000 He's blowing up women and children right in front of us.

00:35:14.000 There's a lot of history that says we should stop this.

00:35:16.000 So Hottent Cliff said this.

00:35:17.000 So, but wait a second.

00:35:18.000 You don't want the no-fly zone.

00:35:20.000 You don't want troops.

00:35:21.000 If it really is Hitler, if Putin is legitimately Hitler, wouldn't you go to war to try to prevent that? 0.64

00:35:27.000 There's a lot of flaws in that argument, obviously.

00:35:30.000 You're providing reasons not to care.

00:35:32.000 I never said not to care.

00:35:33.000 We should care, obviously.

00:35:34.000 The question is: should we act?

00:35:36.000 That's unclear.

00:35:37.000 And then can we act, which we absolutely know that the people in charge of our country will probably be unable to do something as complex and consequential as pulling off a military operation all the way in Ukraine.

00:35:48.000 And I remain this, and anyone can email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:51.000 I remain with this argument, I should say.

00:35:53.000 If you don't trust our leaders, if you think the deep state is wicked and evil and corrupt, if you think the deep state that was full of James Comey and all of these criminals and these charlatans are rotten to the core, what gives you the shot of confidence, the boost of affirmation that suddenly these people will be able to do this right?

00:36:13.000 Because the downside is pretty significant.

00:36:16.000 If you don't trust Mark Milley, why would you make Mark Milley more powerful?

00:36:22.000 And that's really what we're talking about here.

00:36:24.000 Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin are the big winners in this entire equation.

00:36:28.000 So if you don't like that Mark Milley testified in front of Congress saying that white rage is the greatest threat in our military, the greatest threat to national security, if you support Ukrainian intervention, he's your player, whether you like it or not.

00:36:40.000 He's on the roster.

00:36:42.000 You've got to deal with the roster that you have in front of you.

00:36:45.000 That should be part of your calculus and your decision.

00:36:49.000 If you don't like what's happening in Ukraine, no one likes what's happening in Ukraine.

00:36:54.000 So then what do you want to do?

00:36:55.000 What do you do about it?

00:36:58.000 Do you want an escalated conflict?

00:37:01.000 Are we willing or able to be able to engage in that?

00:37:03.000 Let me read another email here.

00:37:05.000 Hi, Charlie.

00:37:06.000 I'm a 66-year-old retired police officer and was once an enthusiastic supporter of yours.

00:37:11.000 Therefore, it pains me to say goodbye to you forever.

00:37:13.000 Okay.

00:37:14.000 Your characterization of those over 50 as being warmongers and neocons or simply because our desire to defend a sovereign country against evil murdering despot is not only insulting, but erroneous as well.

00:37:22.000 First of all, I didn't say that. 0.98

00:37:24.000 It's ridiculous.

00:37:26.000 I said that over 50 tends to want more military intervention than under 30.

00:37:31.000 And I said that's a generalization, but it's not a rule.

00:37:33.000 Whatever.

00:37:34.000 He said, quote, if Russian warships or submarines parked off the coast of Florida started lobbying shells around your condo in Florida, killing innocent people, wouldn't you want someone with the power to come and defend you to your aid?

00:37:45.000 Of course I'd like that.

00:37:46.000 We also have a United States military to try to prevent against that.

00:37:49.000 That's not the point.

00:37:49.000 I'm sure the Ukrainian people want support.

00:37:51.000 I'm sure the Yemenese people want support.

00:37:53.000 I'm sure the Nigerians in Africa who are being slaughtered want support.

00:37:56.000 I'm sure the Iranian people want support.

00:37:58.000 There's a lot of corners of the world where we can make arguments for military intervention.

00:38:03.000 He says, quote, how dare you compare the invasion of our southern border to the death, destruction, and suffering taking place in an already war-ravaged Ukraine?

00:38:13.000 Wait a second.

00:38:13.000 What's happening on the southern border is worse than what's happening in Ukraine.

00:38:16.000 Over 100,000 people have died from fentanyl that came across our southern border.

00:38:20.000 100,000 people have not died in Ukraine yet.

00:38:22.000 I hope it doesn't get to that.

00:38:23.000 It's also, what country does this listener think that we run?

00:38:28.000 The United States Constitution, does it give the limits of us to run the entire world?

00:38:32.000 At times we can intervene if it's in our national interest, but the entire country is on fire right now.

00:38:38.000 The invasion of the southern border is resulting in death, destruction, lower wages, crime.

00:38:45.000 He says, you need to get your priorities right, pal.

00:38:47.000 Actually, my priorities are right.

00:38:49.000 My priorities are to put the American people first.

00:38:51.000 That's what we're sworn to do.

00:38:53.000 It says in the Bible that you should care about the nation that you are in because your nation is tied to your nation's welfare.

00:39:01.000 If we can't even get our own country in order and our own deep state elites are now going to go run some war game in Ukraine, we can't even get $85 billion of our own weapons out of Afghanistan and we're supposed to overly involve ourselves in Ukraine.

00:39:15.000 I'm not buying it.

00:39:16.000 Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

00:39:18.000 Email us your thoughts as alwaysfreedom at charliekirk.com and support the Charlie Kirk show at charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:39:24.000 Thank you so much for listening.

00:39:25.000 God bless.

00:39:28.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 16, 2022

Zelenskyy Addresses Congress

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