Ep. 1812 - Charlie Kirk Would Have Been President
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Summary
Charlie Kirk would have been president. His friends, admirers, his admirers knew it, and his enemies knew it. He founded Turning Point USA at age 18, founded the Turning Point PAC at 18, and helped to lead the get out the vote efforts that helped to win the popular vote for a Republican for the first time in 20 years. He was the nexus for all of us on the right. He became extraordinarily important to the Trump campaign.
Transcript
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Charlie Kirk would have been president. His friends knew it, his admirers knew it,
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and his enemies knew it. I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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We have a lot to get to today, and it's not going to be anything that any of the other
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TV news shows are talking about. It's going to be personal, and it's going to be political.
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We're not going to focus on all the negative. There will be a time for that. There will be a
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time for the reaction to the reactions. We're not going to forget about that.
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That time will come, but today is not that day. We're going to focus on
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grief. We're going to focus on mourning. We're going to focus on what Charlie means.
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We're going to focus on the honors that have come to him from the president, from other presidents,
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from Yankee Stadium, for goodness sakes. We're going to get to all of that.
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I wrote a little obituary for Charlie on social media, which you can find. It's on the daily
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website, too. When I think about the guy, not just as my friend, but as a political figure,
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that's the point I keep coming back to. Everyone believed in this guy. Everyone believed this guy
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would be president. I first met Charlie many years ago. The first time we met, I was in a green room
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at Fox News in Los Angeles, tiny little green room, a little bureau there. It's three o'clock in the
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morning, four o'clock in the morning. I lived in LA, so I should have been used to waking up. I was
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doing that TV show a lot, and I'm half asleep in the chair. Charlie walks in. This is the first time
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I've ever met him in person. Charlie comes in, probably off some flight on a different time zone. He's
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just bouncing off the walls, just full of energy. Hey, Michael, just wants to talk about everything.
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We were talking about politics, talking about practical politics at that time, in the early
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days of Trump. We were talking about policy, just everything, four o'clock in the morning. I say,
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hey, buddy, it's nice to meet you, but come on, I'm trying to sleep here. Just absolute boundless
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energy. He looked the part, very tall, good-looking guy. He had all of the skills.
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You know, Charlie founded Turning Point at age 18. He gets out of high school. I think he was an
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Eagle Scout. He gets out of high school. He was going to go to college, realized there was not going
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to be a useful way to spend his time and money. Founds Turning Point USA at 18. Raises a ton of money.
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People believe in him. He inspires confidence from major donors and inspires confidence
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from the young voters that he was reaching. And he turned this into the biggest organization on the
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right. I don't even mean the biggest young voters organization. I mean the organization. Charlie was
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the nexus for all of us on the right. He became extraordinarily important to the Trump campaign.
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It is no exaggeration to say that President Trump in 2024 might very well not have been elected
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without Charlie Kirk. He just kept getting more and more responsibility. He found a turning point
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action, which then went on to lead, helped to lead the get out the vote efforts and therefore to win
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the popular vote for a Republican for the first time in 20 years. He started the faith division.
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So even of TPUSA, you had the nonprofit, you had the political action, you had the faith division,
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you had women's leadership, you had all of these different divisions.
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In the meantime, while he's doing all of this stuff, 18 founds the organization, 22 he's addressing the RNC.
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This rocket ship of influence in American politics reshapes the government. As the vice president
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pointed out last night, helped staff the government. And as he's doing all of this, he published five
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books. He married his beautiful wife. He had two wonderful children doing all of these things.
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A little bit that has not been discussed in his biography is, is how he grew his mind.
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Because he was so busy doing practical politics and practical politicians usually aren't that smart.
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They don't really read books and they just learn slogans and that's it. And Charlie could have done
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that. You know, I mean, they would have had a great career doing that, but he wasn't content with that.
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He wanted to make up for the education that he did not have one because he didn't go to college.
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And two, because most people who do go to college these days don't get an education either.
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And he wanted that education. And I remember I was sitting with another friend of Charlie's,
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mutual friend of ours. And we were talking about how he should do one of these fellowship programs,
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you know, to read great philosophy and, you know, the great books and all of this.
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And some other people were saying, well, I don't know, is he really suited for that? Is he,
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and I said, yeah, of course he is. Because he's got this unbelievable political talent.
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He's got this unbelievable skill. He's a thing. And he recognizes that he, you know,
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he doesn't have the most formal education and he wants that too. And he just wanted,
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you just an absolute sponge of knowledge and skills. And so he did it. He did extraordinarily
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well. He took it very, very seriously. And in some ways it was annoying because he became harder to
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debate. He got, he got incredibly skilled at debating and organizing and fundraising and staffing
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and communicating. Oh, he hosted that national three-hour radio show in there, in between all
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of the, he just, so for, so that's another reason people believed in Charlie. That's another reason
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why anyone you talk to, his friends, his admirers who didn't know him personally and his enemies
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alike all said, man, you know, that guy, that guy's probably going to be president. But
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for all those people too, and especially for his friends, what impresses me about the guy
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at what I think is more important than his political skills and accomplishments,
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even more important than his appearance, it's helpful to be tall. I mean, Charlie would joke with
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me. I'd say, I'd look, I was like six foot five slouching. And he would say, I'd say, Charlie,
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good, you know, you're just a giant. He said, well, yes, I'm descended from the Nephilim.
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I'm descended from the fallen ones and the, you know, the Old Testament. And we're all, we're all,
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we're all born fallen ones, you know, the fallen nature. And this really ties in with what's most
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impressive about the guy, because there are people in politics who, on the left and the right, for that
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matter, who present one way and live another way. There are, and some of them are fine politically,
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and you can hit the campaign trail with them. And sometimes they say something interesting on TV,
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but the image they're presenting is not the same as the person they really are.
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With Charlie, he really was that guy. And I just think about the virtues,
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and the four cardinal virtues, and then the three theological virtues, four cardinal virtues,
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prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude. Prudence is the paramount political virtue. And he had it
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in spades. He wasn't just some egghead ideologue. He was thinking, he was constantly growing,
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constantly thinking, constantly applying his deeply felt principles to changing political
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circumstances, taking in new information. A lot of people can't do that in politics or anywhere else.
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So he had prudence, which is how he was able to help build and help maintain this general coalition.
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This mass coalition with discordant parts that were actually able to get things done. The only
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other person who can really claim that is Trump, Trump himself. So he had that in spades.
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Temperance, I never saw the guy have a drink. He refused to have my cigars. He really was a
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teetotaler. He was very, very temperate. And he was a young conservative. Young conservatives love
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whiskey and cigars and hanging out and staying up late. And Charlie did not do that stuff.
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And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with doing that stuff. But it shows you that
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he was determined not to squander one second or one ounce of energy that he had
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that could go toward achieving his purpose, his political purpose, for which we now know,
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in retrospect, he had so little time. 31 years. That's it. He did all of that in 31 years. I'm
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skipping over countless aspects of his, of his resume of the things that he achieved.
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And he didn't, part of, part of the reason he was able to achieve all that is he didn't,
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he didn't go hang out. He didn't go have the third drink or the first drink for that matter. He
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didn't, he didn't go stay out all night for this. He was just doing stuff all the time.
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Justice, I think is clear. He was so fair to everyone. He's not underhanded in any way.
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Plenty of people in politics are. Even people on our side. He was not in any way. He was always fair.
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He was more than fair. Because an aspect of justice, at least an aspect of God's justice,
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is also mercy, which go, go hand in hand. And he was so gracious to his opponents. And this,
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I'll get back to when we talk about the, the political import of Charlie's assassination.
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He, he gave his interlocutors, he gave his sparring partners on the left and the right.
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He also loved debating his friends and his, his allies. And he loved, he just, he loved it. He
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loved the exchange of ideas. He, he even loved being proven wrong. He might not admit it in the
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moment, but he even loved that because then he would, he was, he'd deepen his ideas and he would get
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stronger. And he would, he would, he would become even more of a force. You know, he wasn't afraid
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of the truth. He wasn't afraid to be contradicted if what contradicted him led him even closer to the
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truth. A lot of people are, a lot of people, a lot of people don't want to grow. That's how,
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that's how he was able to grow. That's one of the reasons.
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Even beyond the cardinal virtues, the three virtues that are, I think, most clear from Charlie
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are the theological virtues, which are, which are the more important ones, faith, hope, and charity.
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That guy believed what he said. I promise you, I don't think anyone doubts it, but if any, if anyone
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who only had a passing acquaintance with Charlie on, you know, Instagram reels or something, if anyone
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doubts it, that guy believed his religion and it was more important to him than any politics, any sharing
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stages with the president, anything else in the world. He had a firm hope in the resurrection
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and he had immense charity for, for everyone around him, including and especially his, his opponents.
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And so we, we entrust Charlie to, as he confidently entrusted himself to God's care. And that's all
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that, all that we can really do about it. We pray for Charlie and we, we do all of the things that
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are attendant to religion, religion, which was the most important thing to him. There's one caveat to
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this. People are grieving. They're going to grieve in their own way. I don't tell people how to grieve
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really. I know there is going to be a broader impulse in the public for happy, clappy talk. Oh, well, you
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know, he's with his savior today. And isn't that, we should really should be happy. You hear this
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sometimes at funerals, funerals, which are no longer even called funerals. They're sometimes called
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celebrations of life. You can't even, you can't even admit that one is mourning at a funeral. You have to
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celebrate everything all the time. There's a, there is a deep religious truth as Christians to say, well, we
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entrust these souls to God's care. Friends of Christ, we entrust to Christ's care at the particular
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judgment and in heaven and in the life of the world to come. It's still sad. It's still really,
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really sad because death is still bad. Even in light of the resurrection, it is still a bad thing.
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It loses the sting. It loses a lot of the sting. But you know, Jesus wept when his friend died,
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before he raised his friend from the dead. Death is a very bad, evil thing. And we can mourn and we
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can grieve because the Christian religion doesn't contradict reality. Plenty of religions do.
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The Christian religion does not say, don't believe your lying eyes. Oh no, don't,
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the thing you're feeling. That's just totally fake. Just ignore that. Just deny that. Just be happy,
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clappy. No. The Christian religion tells you more about reality. The, the, the supernatural perfects
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nature. Grace perfects nature. It doesn't contradict it. So we should be sad. We should be sad. This is a
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very, very sad thing. It's good to mourn. It's good to grieve. It's good to be, it's good to recognize
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that this is really bad. And there are going to be other people. And I guess this gets us into a
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little bit of the political response to Charlie's murder. There are going to be people who say, well,
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they don't know what they've unleashed. You know, this, if you strike me down, I'll become a million
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times more powerful. And this is where we're going to get you. And this is, this is the beginning
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of something much, much greater. And maybe, yeah, maybe, but for the moment, let's just mourn.
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They're going to be, there's a, there's a deep, deep anger. Trust me. I know.
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Ah, that's for tomorrow. There is a greater commitment to, to our, our shared purpose.
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Yeah, that's good. And we should double down on that. I was supposed to see Charlie 11 days from
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now. I owed him a text. I'm very bad at texting and I owed him a text about, about actually some,
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about something religious and something later down the road, which will now likely not come to pass
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because we, we imagine these futures for ourselves, even though we're not promised
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tomorrow. We imagine these futures, which is part of, part of the sting of the, of this kind of a
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grief. As you say, no, but this was supposed to happen. No, we were supposed to do this. No,
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we're supposed to talk about this. No, he was supposed to be president,
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but we're not guaranteed a future. In any case, on our, on our political import here and on the
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shared purpose politically, Charlie and I were supposed to do an event together on campus in
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11 days in Minneapolis. I was on a show not long ago. Uh, we were talking about it on, on this tour.
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Uh, obviously I don't, I don't, I, I have not, uh, spoken to TPUSA. We're, uh, we're, we're letting them
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grieve of course. And, uh, uh, beyond personal messages and things like that. We're not, I don't,
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I don't know what's happening there. I'm sure they don't know what's happening there. This is a very
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live situation. So, you know, take everything with a grain of salt from the, from the 30,000 foot view
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though. I know some people are talking about canceling events and not going to the campuses
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anymore or anything like that. I had already pared back a number of those events. I do not intend to
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cancel any events. I don't intend to cancel any of them. Uh, I I'll be going out if, if the events
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are to occur, if the doors are open, uh, I will be doing that. I suspect a lot of other people on
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the right will be doing that too. Uh, we will, we will not, uh, be cowed by this. Uh, so, um, there
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will be more information about that coming. I don't know exactly what that's going to look like when
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these things are going to look like, but, uh, for now, at least while there's still so much
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confusion about what the future looks like, I, I will not be canceling a single event myself,
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but the events will, certain events will be canceled just generally in politics. That's
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just how these things go. And, and I think broadly speaking, the political import of Charlie's
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assassination beyond the personal side is that these kinds of events are broadly over, you know,
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what did Charlie do? What did she, he did a lot of, he did a million things. What was he best known for
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in this moment? What did he dominate in this moment? What did South Park feature him for as,
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as an amazing tribute toward the end of his life, though none of us knew it would be the end of his
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life. He showed up to campuses and debated ideas. He showed, he just wanted, he showed up to campuses
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and elsewhere and sat down and debated ideas graciously with people and they killed him for it.
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Which means we're probably not going to have as much debate in the future because Charlie did that.
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He did that really, really well. He did it actually better than anybody right now and they killed him for
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it. And in a battle, whether you're talking about a physical battle or a battle of ideas,
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your opponents get a say too. He showed up, he wanted to debate ideas and they killed him.
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Which means that we're probably not going to get as many debates in the future.
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If one side doesn't want to debate, we're probably not going to get as many debates in the future.
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I felt that the Harvard law professor, whom I greatly admire, Adrian Vermeule, had a good point
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yesterday on this. Which is, he said, you know, Charlie dedicated himself really in this beautiful way
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to the free exchange of ideas and the debates and his enemies found that intolerable. And so they
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assassinated him. And there are two responses that one can have to that. The bad response is
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repaying violence with private violence, not justified violence, which is self-defense and
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there are other kinds of, but, but some of this talk of retribution and, you know, you take one of
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ours and we'll take two, you know, that, that would be unjust. That's, that's one response.
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The other response, however, is to say, okay, uh, we like the free exchange of ideas. We endeavored to
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do that. We were, we did it in as good faith as one could possibly do it. Uh, Charlie Kirk was
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literally a boy scout and was just so wonderful to his opponents. And now we need to, uh, restrain the
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people who are doing violence against us. Now we, if, you know, if you don't want to engage in, in that
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kind of thing, then we need to arrest more criminals. We need to, uh, be less permissive
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of social pathologies and, and mental illness and threats of violence and all of the things
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that we've just kind of let run amok. We need to be a little clearer about what is good and what is
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bad, what is true and what is false. We need to be a little clearer about that. We need to be a
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little less hands-off. We need to, we need to assert our moral vision because if vigilantes on the
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left and some people with state power on the left are, are asserting their moral vision and in an
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unjust way, in a, in a way that no one, but the most despicable sorts of people would defend.
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Well, we need to do it in a just way, in accordance with the laws.
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That seems to be the inescapable political inclusion here. An event like this
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is, is massively significant. And a lot of us have been kind of just walking around in a fog and I
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was walking around, uh, at home, finally got home late last night and I was talking to Elise about it.
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And, and at first I thought that the heaviness of it all was just because we were friends,
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Charlie and I, I thought it was largely just personal. I don't think it's that because as
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we'll get to it momentarily, there were tributes from everybody, every major, all the presidents
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and Yankee stadium, Yankee stadium was the one that really got me. Yankee stadium had a moment of
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silence for Charlie Kirk before the game. Heads of government around the world were, were sending
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in eulogies and, and obituaries tributes to him. This is politically very significant
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and, and coincidentally, however, it worked out today's nine 11 is one of the most significant
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dates in American history. And there's an impulse when, when these significant events happen
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to just go on as if nothing happened to go on as if nothing's changed. So I just don't want to
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grapple with the fact that something's changed. Something's changed. Something has changed.
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And I know it's, it's sad. It's another layer of sadness to add, to add to this event. But I, for,
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for 10 years now, the right has endeavored in good faith to openly debate ideas in, in, when,
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in the case of Charlie, just in a field, you know, in just in the open physical space,
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it was totally open with ideas that were totally open. We really, really tried that and you killed
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him. You killed him for it. And now we got to do something else. Now we, we, we need to react to
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that. What you did, what you did is probably the end of that. As to the murderer, I'm not going to
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get into speculation. As of the beginning of this show today, I'm sure my team would have updated me
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if something had changed. The murderer was still on the loose. We don't know who it is. And I'm,
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I'm not going to speculate that the closest update we have, this is via daily wire, is that the FBI
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believes that it recovered the assassin's rifle and the authorities recovered what they believe to be
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the weapon. This is according to Robert Bowles, the special agent in charge of the, in charge of the
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FBI's Salt Lake City field office. He says it was a high powered bolt action rifle recovered in a wooded
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area where the shooter had fled. The investigators are currently analyzing the rifle. The FBI is also
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analyzing a footprint, a palm print, and forearm prints. That's it. They don't have the guy.
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Now, analysis of the analysis has led the daily wire to conclude that the suspected assassin appears to
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be college age. According to the Utah DPS commissioner, Bo Mason, the suspected assassin is a college age
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person. They said that they have good video footage of the assassin, but they are not releasing the footage
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to the public at this time. The quote is, we are confident in our abilities to track that
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individual. So there are leads and there are leads that have come from the leads, but there's no person
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yet. And I'm just not going to speculate on it. Charlie had enemies on the left, obviously. He should not
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have. He was basically the nicest one of us. He was really, really gracious to his opponents. And yet
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I won't even today get into the response of people on the left on social media and on the news networks.
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That's for tomorrow. But they were not so nice to him. So I think most people assume this is a person
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on the left and maybe that's the most likely. He did have enemies on the right or kind of on the
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right, the fringy parts of the right. Plenty of enemies, plenty of people who've made it their
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raison d'etre to ruin this guy's life and to go after him for years and years and years. So I suppose
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that's a possibility too. And there's a third possibility. Because when you stop thinking about
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this purely ideologically and you start thinking about it more politically, meaning more from the
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significance of the person relative to power structures in the country, Charlie was really
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big, physically giant, but really, really big. Part of the reason I think that this feels so
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politically significant is we're thinking about him as a nice kid who would give speeches and have
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debates. This is one of the most influential and important political figures in the entire
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country. I've said, I might've said it with Charlie actually somewhat recently, that the guy like
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runs the Republic, ran the Republican party, you know, ran like the American right in many ways,
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other than Trump, you know, he was like one of the, one of the big guys. And so there is a question
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of whether or not there's, it was not just some lunatic, most likely on the left, I guess it could
00:26:32.640
have been someone on the right, but then that maybe this was a more targeted assassination of
00:26:39.920
someone who wielded immense political power in the country, immense cultural influence, who had the
00:26:46.080
ear of the president of the United States for a decade, who, he was a big guy and who, who would
00:26:52.620
have been president. Those are the options. I'm not going to speculate. I, I, which is why I'm, I'm not
00:27:03.480
even invading today against the left or this or that. And it's just his enemies. Some enemy of Charlie's
00:27:13.480
got him. And that's significant enough. My friend Gaston Mooney, president of the Blaze, texted me
00:27:24.320
yesterday. He had a suggestion that Charlie should lie in honor the U.S. Capitol. He tagged Mike Johnson
00:27:32.540
in it. I think this would be fitting in many ways. Charlie was as thoroughly patriotic as any figure in
00:27:43.840
American life. He, he, he, he wasn't just another, another one, another talker, another organizer,
00:27:51.940
another, you know, he, he did something so generous, you know, he did something unique.
00:27:58.840
And I, I, I think it would be fitting if, if that is the wishes of his family who should, you know,
00:28:07.260
be considered first in all of this. And if, I think it would be very fitting because some people,
00:28:13.640
especially those who didn't follow Charlie too closely, they, they, they might recoil at that and
00:28:18.900
say, no, what are you talking about? He wasn't a, he wasn't a governor. He wasn't a senator. He wasn't
00:28:22.980
a president. He wasn't, why would he? Yeah, he, he was more important than most of those people. And
00:28:31.240
I don't know, other than the president of the United States himself, I, he probably had more
00:28:36.800
influence than, than any of those types of offices. I think it would be fitting. I think it's a really,
00:28:44.360
really good idea. Again, I, I have, I've really tried not to bother, you know, his family and,
00:28:50.620
and really closest friends just, just yet. But if, if, if they think it's the right thing to do,
00:28:57.460
I think it'd be a beautiful thing. And now as to the reaction that I mentioned,
00:29:01.600
to show you the significance of this politically, the president of the United States gave a somewhat
00:29:10.320
lengthy Oval Office address to, to speak to the nation about Charlie's murder.
00:29:18.360
To my great fellow Americans, I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of
00:29:26.460
Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah. Charlie inspired millions and tonight, all who knew him
00:29:33.940
and loved him are united in shock and horror. Charlie was a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of
00:29:42.900
open debate and the country that he loved so much, the United States of America. He fought for liberty,
00:29:49.980
democracy, justice, and the American people. He's a martyr for truth and freedom. And there's never
00:29:56.760
been anyone who was so respected by youth. Charlie was also a man of deep, deep faith. And we take comfort
00:30:06.360
in the knowledge that he is now at peace with God in heaven. Our prayers are with his wife, Erica,
00:30:13.880
the two young beloved children and his entire family who he loved more than anything in the world.
00:30:21.300
We ask God to watch over them in this terrible hour of heartache and pain. This is a dark moment for
00:30:29.680
America. Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith
00:30:37.320
debate. His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did better than
00:30:43.880
anybody ever, to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense. On campuses
00:30:53.680
nationwide, he championed his ideas with courage, logic, humor, and grace. It's a long past time for
00:31:01.620
all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of
00:31:09.160
demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and
00:31:16.240
despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like
00:31:23.540
Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is
00:31:31.580
directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right
00:31:39.400
now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to
00:31:47.380
other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who
00:31:53.940
go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.
00:32:01.340
From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, which killed a husband and father, to the
00:32:07.920
attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York,
00:32:14.360
to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political
00:32:21.160
violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to
00:32:28.740
commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died, the values of free speech,
00:32:36.420
citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God. Charlie was the best of America,
00:32:45.040
and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country. An assassin tried to silence him with a
00:32:52.220
bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy will live on
00:32:59.800
for countless generations to come. Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger
00:33:07.420
and grander than ever before, and it's not even close. May God bless his memory, may God watch over
00:33:15.860
his family, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
00:33:20.980
We've now gotten an update. Since that time, President Trump will award Charlie the Presidential Medal
00:33:28.000
of Freedom. He announced this when he was speaking at the Pentagon 9-11 ceremony. Absolutely
00:33:34.560
fitting honor. He deserved it before he was assassinated. He deserved it for years.
00:33:44.860
When Trump says, you know, Charlie's mission was to bring young people into the political process,
00:33:51.760
and he did it better than anyone ever, that might not have a hint of exaggeration to it.
00:34:01.100
Pericles, did he? I don't know. He didn't focus exactly on you. I mean, Charlie brought so many
00:34:09.480
young people into the political process, to the right side of the political process in the strongest
00:34:15.200
country in the history of the world. So much so that his side won the popular vote for the first time
00:34:25.040
in two decades, when Charlie was put in charge of a lot of it. Okay, so that's from President Trump.
00:34:32.840
He posted much, much the same, a truncated version of that untruth social. His wife, Melania,
00:34:42.600
had a really beautiful post. I don't have it here in front of me, but she said, you know,
00:34:47.220
she gave a very feminine take on it, a very motherly side of it, which is, you know, Charlie's
00:34:53.300
kids now are going to grow up with stories rather than memories. And they're going to grow up with
00:34:59.580
photographs rather than a father who bounces him on his knee.
00:35:06.960
I think for a lot of people, even more than the political significance, which is so great that
00:35:13.540
it merited an Oval Office address, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and declarations from all of the
00:35:18.420
other presidents, which we'll get to in a second. Somehow, even, we're talking about the height of
00:35:24.540
political significance in the world, heads of government around the world. And yet,
00:35:32.040
Melania's observation is even worse. That's where your heart really breaks, is for his wife and
00:35:39.480
especially for his kids. That someone murdered those kids' dad because he wanted to have an open
00:35:50.020
debate about mainstream ideas. They took their dad away for that because they didn't want him to
00:36:00.400
debate ideas, ideas that virtually everyone agreed with like 20 years ago. Because Charlie wasn't some
00:36:09.920
fringe guy by any stretch of the imagination. He was the most mainstream conservative and in many ways,
00:36:17.780
the most mainstream young political figure in the whole country.
00:36:27.000
I'm saddened and angered by Charlie Kirk's murder, and I hope we all go through some serious
00:36:31.800
introspection and redouble our efforts to engage in debate passionately, yet peacefully. Hillary and I
00:36:36.680
are keeping Erica. They're two young children and their family in our prayers. Nice statement.
00:36:43.360
We don't yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of
00:36:47.280
despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie's
00:36:52.200
family tonight, and especially his wife Erica and their two young children. It's good that he put out
00:36:57.020
a statement. Don't think we needed the preface before he expressed his statement. We don't yet know.
00:37:03.380
Just want to point out, we don't yet know. We don't yet know. Hey, hold on. Don't...
00:37:06.580
Kamala Harris put out a statement. I'm deeply disturbed by the shooting in Utah. Doug and I
00:37:13.660
send our prayers to Charlie Kirk and his family. Let me be clear. Political violence has no place
00:37:17.840
in America. I condemn this act, and we must all work together to ensure that this does not lead to
00:37:24.600
more violence. That's good to hear from them. We're hearing different things from other
00:37:32.660
mainstream elite people on the, not just the fringe, but the mainstream elite people on the left,
00:37:39.820
which we'll get to tomorrow. I don't have it here for some reason, but Joe Biden issued a statement
00:37:44.320
as well. So you have every living president. Here we are. Here's Joe Biden. There's no place in our
00:37:49.900
country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk's family
00:37:53.880
and loved ones. This was relatively early yesterday when Biden released his statement,
00:38:00.220
when it was still a little bit unclear. Oh, George W. Bush. I don't have his printed out here either.
00:38:06.800
George Bush said, today, a young man was murdered in cold blood while expressing his political views.
00:38:11.240
It happened on a college campus where the open exchange of opposing ideas should be sacrosanct.
00:38:15.720
Violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square. Members of other political parties
00:38:19.760
are not our enemies. They are our fellow citizens. May God bless Charlie Kirk and his family and may
00:38:25.140
God guide America towards civility. One can look at all of these statements pour in, and there will be
00:38:34.820
others, not just from around America, but from around the world, and say, wow, what an honor.
00:38:40.800
What a tribute to this guy's life. Obviously, this guy really mattered. This guy was really
00:38:45.660
significant. 31 years, and he mattered more to the political world, to society than, I don't know,
00:38:56.040
however many people in however many lifetimes. And yet, that's little consolation, isn't it,
00:39:05.180
to his family and to his friends and even to his many admirers. And this gets to a truth that Charlie
00:39:10.840
really got. And it's kind of funny that Charlie got it. It seems almost paradoxical because he was at
00:39:17.440
the very heights of politics, the very, very heights of politics. Other than sitting behind
00:39:22.620
the resolute desk himself, which most people thought he would do someday. He was at the very,
00:39:29.060
very height of politics. And yet, he paradoxically understood how little all of that ultimately
00:39:36.800
matters. It matters a lot in a contingent way in our life here to allow people to flourish and to
00:39:44.080
point them toward the good and to conduce to their natural happiness. He got all that. And that's
00:39:47.840
really important. I'm not saying politics doesn't matter. But ultimately, he saw that's not what
00:39:54.520
matters. And we're seeing this now. All the statements in the world, all the heartfelt statements
00:40:00.740
from all of the presidents, I strongly suspect, are not going to alleviate Charlie's family suffering
00:40:09.500
one iota. Or his friends or his admirers. It doesn't, there's got to be something deeper
00:40:21.920
that will ground your activity in the world, that will direct your energies and direct your purposes,
00:40:29.960
and will ultimately console you. And that's one of those three theological virtues I talked about
00:40:37.500
earlier, point to faith, hope, and charity. That's religion. It's knowing that the point of life from
00:40:42.320
the old Baltimore catechism is to know God, to love him, to serve him in this world, and to enjoy him
00:40:47.300
forever in eternity. That's really what we're after. And I know Charlie believed that. And I know that
00:40:58.540
that is a real consolation. And they, well, they say that all the way to heaven is heaven.
00:41:05.280
You could see that bear fruit in his life. And that, knowing that that's what he thought,
00:41:11.620
and that's how he believed, is a great consolation to me. The rest of the show continues now.
00:41:26.300
Okay, we're not going to do any games or anything today, obviously, but let's chat a little bit in
00:41:41.780
the member room segmentum on the iPad. Patterson Family says, I couldn't watch the video. There
00:41:47.960
should be nothing normal about seeing a real human being murdered on your iPhone. I did not watch it.
00:41:53.980
I had just gotten back to the office. Mr. Davies came in, said, Charlie has been shot at an event.
00:42:04.540
And, you know, in my mind, I said, well, that's very bad. I was quite concerned. You know, I was
00:42:10.900
looking up information. And I said, I hope they didn't get him. I hope they didn't hit him. And if
00:42:15.780
he was hit, I hope, you know, it was just a minor hit or something. I hope they didn't get him too bad.
00:42:19.960
I hope his recovery won't be too tough. I hope he'll be back in the gym playing basketball or
00:42:24.500
something soon. It did not penetrate that it was even a possibility that he could have been killed.
00:42:32.540
I know. I know. In retrospect, of course, it just didn't. Sweet little Lisa said the same thing.
00:42:41.440
We got him. It didn't. It didn't. And she saw the video. She said, even seeing the video, she said,
00:42:46.520
it just cannot be possible that he was murdered. And so I saw the far away video. There was a video
00:42:53.480
that was a little far away. I saw that he had been hit. That looked bad enough.
00:42:57.120
Then I heard that there was another video going around that was closer up. And I'm very,
00:43:05.180
very grateful that I heard about that before I had to see it on social media. I didn't watch it.
00:43:12.220
Don't need to watch it. I know he's dead. You don't have to convince me that he's dead.
00:43:17.640
And I hope that I think that video has been taken down. I hope it's been taken down.
00:43:27.120
Hope Cass, those people are fascists, Nazis, and threats to democracy. Someone takes them
00:43:32.560
seriously. Why would somebody do this? Yes. If you can't read the quotes in there, that's true. I
00:43:37.260
mean, you know, for goodness sakes, to call Charlie Kirk a fascist, as some of his enemies on the left
00:43:45.380
did, many of them, to call Charlie Kirk a radical, a reactionary, violent. Are you kidding me?
00:43:54.060
He was like the nicest one, the most mainstream, center-right. I don't mean that in any disparaging
00:44:04.760
way. I mean that in a really mainstream way, in moderation as the mean between two extremes. I
00:44:10.900
mean it in a, and his views evolved and changed and he adapted with new information. But
00:44:16.240
that guy was as mainstream as it gets. And I do think that's also part of the political significance.
00:44:26.400
If Charlie Kirk is so outside the bounds of what the left believes to be political discourse,
00:44:33.700
if that is the case, if that is how that went down, then that means that they want to murder all of us.
00:44:43.840
Because he, he, he was, he was the mainstream one. I think that's, that's what a lot of people
00:44:51.860
have in their minds right now, whether consciously or unconsciously. Man, if they're gonna, if they're
00:44:57.140
gonna shoot that guy, they'd shoot all of us. If they're gonna shoot that guy, wait till they hear
00:45:00.540
about, you know, my uncle or me or that. I think that's what that, I think that is a little bit of
00:45:07.700
what, what is nagging people right now as well. Uh, Wolverine222 at Waffle. Yes, please don't watch
00:45:16.400
it. Instead, take time to pray for the Kirk family. Yep. Yep, for sure. Screw destiny. I will say if I
00:45:28.480
lost my husband tomorrow, my world, uh, would be torn apart, it would be some small comfort to know
00:45:33.740
that millions upon millions of people were also grieving with me. Yes. Though, again, even on,
00:45:40.320
even on that side of things, uh, there are some people who are not grieving and we're not gonna
00:45:47.380
give them any attention today. But Charlie's family has to deal with that too.
00:45:55.020
And so, I, I just think, you know, it's not that, you know, well, the, the, the mourning voices are
00:46:01.660
outweighing the despicable voices or it's not, it's not, it's not any of that. It's just vanity,
00:46:08.540
vanity and all is vanity. You know, it's seek transit gloria mundi, thus pass the glories of this world
00:46:15.660
that the only consolation is eternal, which Charlie knew, which Charlie, you know, that,
00:46:23.120
that in itself is a consolation. The fact that Charlie knew that unlike statistically everyone
00:46:29.940
in politics, Charlie actually knew that Charlie got that. I watched the clip. I had to see the
00:46:42.620
ugliness of the left with no veil, says Honest Abe. Yeah, I get it. I get that perspective. I have
00:46:47.140
friends who did that. Chris Perez, nice Calvinist council of Westminster touching there, Michael.
00:47:09.220
I feel hopeless for America. I wouldn't do that. You know, Charlie wasn't hopeless and he was right.
00:47:14.200
I don't even mean that as well, you know, folks, we, uh, Charlie would have wanted us to just be
00:47:20.400
happy clappy. No, that's not, that's not what it is. I'm saying he wasn't hopeless. I'm not saying he
00:47:25.180
wasn't optimistic or pessimistic or I'm saying he had hope. Hope is a theological virtue grounded in
00:47:31.600
the fact of the resurrection, which really happened and which is recorded in acts of journalism.
00:47:36.960
So journalism these days has a bad connotation, but like reliable journalism that this thing
00:47:42.400
actually happened. So you have to have hope. Despair is a sin actually. And it's irrational.
00:47:49.180
That's the hope. But, but this is why somebody say, well, are you optimistic about the future? I
00:47:54.020
think, no, I know how it ends and it's going to get pretty bad there for a while. You know,
00:48:00.340
I don't know how history begins. I know the pivot. I know how it ends. I know the ending is good,
00:48:05.100
but it's going to get a little rough there for a while. But, but I have hope because hope is not
00:48:10.660
a mere sentiment or a feeling like optimism and pessimism, but it's a, it's a virtue grounded in a
00:48:17.760
fact. So you really need to have hope. It's crazy not to just got back from work. Still shocked,
00:48:29.000
says Catherine. Yeah. Yup. This is pretty weird. I gotta, I gotta tell you, you know, we gotta be
00:48:38.500
tough guys. We don't want to be blubbering on TV. We don't want to be, you gotta, for the men out
00:48:44.140
there, especially the men, you gotta be a tough guy. Come on. No blubbering. You gotta be tough. But
00:48:50.080
I will confess, this one is pretty weird. This one really just doesn't, this, this doesn't get out
00:49:01.020
of your head. Uh, Ruben Gonzalez, Michael, lead us in prayer for Charlie. Sure. Sure. Uh, and I'll say,
00:49:14.260
you know, Charlie and I would all, all the time, we'd be debating about religion. Though, uh, people
00:49:20.360
aren't really privy to our off-camera conversations, but it wasn't, we kind of razz each other, you know,
00:49:25.100
and especially in public. But Charlie, Charlie thought very, very deeply about religion. And
00:49:30.480
anyway, one of his last religious, uh, clips to go viral is he said, we need to venerate Mary more.
00:49:35.320
And Charlie was an evangelical Protestant, obviously. And he said, we need to venerate Mary more. And,
00:49:39.680
uh, which I was touched by. I thought that was a wonderful, uh, development. But so anyway,
00:49:46.040
sure. That's, uh, so, you know, there's, uh, you know, so Danny boy, you know, come, you know,
00:49:51.740
song about, you know, come to my grave after I've died and come and say an Ave there for me. So
00:49:56.000
I'd say an Ave. In nomine Patris et fili et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Ave Maria, grazie plena
00:50:01.460
Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus. Sancta
00:50:06.540
Maria Mater Dei, ora per nobis Sancta Dei Genitrii, ora per nobis Mater Dei, nunc et in ora
00:50:12.800
mortis nostre. Amen. Sorry. I'm so, uh, so overcome. I went into another Marian prayer there. Okay.
00:50:18.840
Uh, well, everybody hope you, uh, keep your chins up, keep praying for Charlie, uh,
00:50:26.780
mourn as it's appropriate to mourn and then pick up that virtue of courage, the prerequisite of all
00:50:34.840
of the other virtues and keep on, keep on going. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles