The Charlie Kirk Show - 14 Years of TPUSA + Graham Platner Exposed (Again) + AMA 269

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

Friday marks fourteen years since Charlie founded Turning Point USA in an Illinois garage. The show looks back on what TPUSA has accomplished and the great work that still remains to be done since Charlie's martyrdom, and Blake reads a raft of emails from listeners explaining how Charlie changed their own lives, inspiring them to be better debaters, return to the faith, and even start having children.   Plus, Amber Duke of the Daily Caller calls out the New York Times for their efforts to softpedal new revelations about Democrat Nazi tattoo enthusiast Graham Platner. Alex Marlow joins for the AMA and takes questions on the pride flag, Spencer Pratt, and more. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter.

Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at nobelgoldinvestments.com. That is noble goldinvestments.com. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. This is Blake. I am flying solo today. Andrew is off in San Antonio for the Women's Leadership Summit along with a lot of our team, along with Erica, of course. We have thousands of young women going there to hear from Ali Beth Stuckey, Riley Gaines, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Kaylee McAnney. many others. It's going to be an incredible show and an incredible demonstration of all the ways that

the work of Turning Point is continuing forward because today is a very important day. Today is the 14th anniversary of Turning Point USA. 14 years ago on this day, one day before the D-Day anniversary, I'll note. Charlie started at Turning Point. He ran it out of a garage in Chicago. But, of course, today is a very different anniversary. This is the first anniversary of Turning Point without Charlie, without Charlie with us. Charlie built Turning Point up from nothing into one of the most important organizations in America. He would say the most important organization, and you know what?

He was right. The most important organization in America, a force known all around the world, a force others wanted to learn from, a force that changed the culture of America in the way, certainly in my lifetime, nothing else on the right was able to. And on this 14th anniversary, our first one without Charlie, I want to remind you of what Charlie was able to accomplish with his organization in his life, which was far too short. When Charlie started Turning Point USA, I remember it. I was in college myself when he started it instead of going to college.

which he thought was a scam. The belief was that young people were just incurably left-wing. They voted for Barack Obama in absolutely overwhelming numbers. Every cohort of college student was getting more left-wing by the year, and there was this huge sense of defeatism about it on the right. Oh, young people are left-wing. What are you going to do? It always involved this implicit concession that the left had better arguments than the right.

They were just better at winning over young people. if they had any hope at all, it was always in this cope that would be, oh, well, young people will leave college. They'll have to pay taxes. They'll have to get a job. Then they'll definitely become more right wing. And that was all they had was cope. There was never this belief that we could go and confront the left in its own territory, argue with them and win because our arguments were better. And that happened on economics.

It happened on foreign policy, but it also happened on faith. young people were getting less religious every single year. The decline was absolutely precipitous. And it was routine. Just hear Christians talk about, well, in the future, we'll be this tiny minority. We'll have to go through this dark age, perhaps of persecution. And there's no way to just win these young people back.

And Charlie rejected that. That's why he called it Turning Point USA. He believed that there could be a turning point for this country and it could come through young people. and it would come through confronting the problems with America at their source. He thought we can go on campus, we can go on social media, and we can win the argument. We can outperform the left. And the results have spoken for themselves in the 2024 election, which Charlie was one of the

chief players in, young people, they moved to the right in an election for one of the first times in ages. And on top of that, we can see in polls that the decline in faith, the decline in religious belief among young people. For the first time in memory, it stopped going down. Some polls show that it's going the other direction. And I strongly believe that it was Charlie's doing. Charlie as a major force in history played a central role in all of that happening. I wouldn't say, it would be going too far to say that Charlie won the battle. We know that's not true, but Charlie showed that the battle could be won. And that's of central importance. But

last year God called Charlie home to heaven as a martyr. Now it's the obligation of all of us who knew Charlie, who Charlie chose to work with him. It's our job to carry on Charlie's mission because we know the battle isn't won. We know the battle still has to be fought. And the work is continuing. As I said, today is the opening day of the Women's Leadership Summit in San Antonio. We have a lot of great speakers, including Erica Kirk, but also Ali Beth Stuckey, Riley Gaines, Sarah Huckabee, Alex Clark, Kaylee McAnney, a lot more. They're going to speak to thousands of young women about Charlie's message, which is that faith and family are integral to the best lives that you can live.

Charlie spoke above all to young men, but he always had a very special place in his heart for young women. He knew that young women were being harmed a tremendous amount by the modern lives of feminism, and secularism, and modern culture. And he wanted to use his own marriage, his own family, family as a model that they could look towards that a better life can be lived. And that message was getting through as at the end of Charlie's life. And we are going to be continuing to carry that forward. So for the rest of the show, I want to invite all of you who are watching,

sending your emails about how you started following Turning Point. Have you been with us for five years, 10 years, 13 years, 14 years? Send us emails about how you got involved and how Charlie impacted your life. And I'll try to read some of those. But I also want to, since it's the women's leadership summit, I want to, and also since actually first, they've just put this up. It's Charlie talking about how he started Turning Point USA 14 years ago. Let's get that plane, clip 38. It was June 5th, 2012. I was wrestling kind of what we're going to call this organization.

And my dad came up with a list of names and all of a sudden he said, turning point. I said, that's the one. Spoke at a Tea Party rally out in Rockford and the journey started. No money, no connections, and no idea what I was doing. Started the Barnstorm, Illinois, and in the Midwest, speaking at every possible tea party rally I could. That was the garage that we literally started in Lamont, Illinois. I had burning desire.

Looking back at it, I wanted to grow this thing more than anything imaginable. I poured every part of my being into this. As Napoleon Hill would say, conceive, believe, work achieved, CBWA was the daily mantra that I would have. Charlie lived by that mantra every day. Conceive, believe, do. He, more than anyone I knew, he was a person who really believed in the power of one individual through hard work, intense self-belief, intense self-discipline, he could change the world.

There's a sign that Charlie kept in his office that we still have there. And it has three things on it. And it's how can I honor God today? how can I serve others today? How can I do something in the world today? I'm going off memory here. I might have it wrong. But Charlie, more than anyone I know, lived by those principles. And as a result, he was able to change the world. 14 years later, we live in an America that it did reach a turning point. Things in this country changed because of the model Charlie set and the life he lived. We have a faith revival. We have different. beliefs among young people that we thought were impossible when this group was started 14 years ago. And we have Charlie to thank for that, and especially the faith revival. I really want to remark on that. All of us have heard here have heard firsthand stories of people who dedicated their lives to Christ because of what they saw Charlie say. And we'll be frank, because of how Charlie

lived his life all the way to the end. And he accomplished so much in the first 13 years of turning point. We're now at year 14. And we're going to carry on that legacy. We have some good breaking news today. We have a good jobs report has come in. We've had three months now of consecutive 100,000 plus job growth in America, and even CNN has to admit it. Let's play clip 24. U.S. economy adding 172,000 jobs last month that easily surpassed the forecast, which was for 105,000. Also, March and April were both revised. higher. That is encouraging, and that means that the U.S. economy has now added 100,000 jobs or more in three straight months. We haven't seen that in more than two years. CNBC has also been touting

the numbers. Let's get their version of it. Clip 22. It is out the made job, job, jobs report. 172,000. Is there any doubt that this anecdote, 11, it's about a good labor market, has been very correct. That is a really strong number. And last month, well, we had a revision from 115,000 to 179,000, which means the two-month revision has got to be over 90,000. We wanted to flag that. I think we've talked on this show, Andrew and I, how there's a lot of, there's a lot of dumerism going around on the right. And a lot of that dumerism is not justified. People decide they just forget about the border. and people decide that the economy is catastrophically bad,

even if it's not, because, like they said, first time in two years, over three straight months of 100,000 jobs added, but it's actually even better than that, because two years ago, you could be adding hundreds of thousands of jobs, but we also had an open border with all of planet Earth. We know that illegal immigrants were gobbling up jobs that could be taken by Native-born Americans. We know that H-1Bs were pouring,

and legal immigrants were pouring it to take jobs. So any job added is a lot more valuable now because we're not endlessly importing the rest of the world to take those jobs. So that's some good news because that's what we need for what Charlie cared most about, American young people. He cared a huge amount about the economic well-being of young people. He knew they were falling behind. They were struggling to meet the milestones that their parents and grandparents met of marriage, children, family, house. He knew they were struggling to hit those things. knew that the bedrock of them being able to achieve that is getting in, getting good jobs,

building careers that could actually pay for those things. But that is also at the same time a means to an end. Charlie cared a tremendous amount about the spiritual health of young people. He knew there was no point to getting rich if it was just spent on hedonism, if it was spent on emptiness. He knew you needed something more. And so I want to continue tying this to the women's Leadership Summit that's starting today by revisiting some of Charlie's remarks at past women's leadership summits. And this is a very good clip of his, on Clip 34, talking about his celebration with his family of the Sabbath, clip 34. I think that to our own detriment and to our own failure, we as Christians have decided to cast away resting on one of the seven days. God rested after

creation. That comes before the Hebrews. It comes even before the creation of the, of the of the modern world and civilization as we know it. And so we honor the Sabbath. We are very serious about it. We get to spend more time with our family. We do no news. We do no work. And it says very clearly in the scriptures.

For six days you shall work and the seventh day you shall rest. If you are feeling overrun by society, you might be feeling depressed or anxious. Here's this one way that you might be able to improve. Turn your phone off for one day. No contact. No social media. No work.

Your mental health will improve. prove dramatically. He was a man with a great deal of wisdom. Here's some more wisdom. This is another speech at the Leadership Summit. Clip 35, it's him talking about our responsibilities as ambassadors of our worldview. Let's play that, clip 35. What do we always do when we ask for questions? We ask for the disagreements to go to the front of the line, right? In fact, we demand it, right? We like extract the disagreement. And I think, and I'm not, and you guys can make your own assumption looking at the videos, we always treat everybody with respect, and we listen to what they have to say.

In fact, we want it to be a forum of discussion and debate and dialogue and that collision of ideas. And I totally agree because I think there's too much division and divisiveness. We have a responsibility as free speech advocates to be the ambassadors of decency and respect. We do. to hear what other people have to say and to find common ground. Charlie lived by, I think one of the reasons Charlie resonated so much with young people, including young people who weren't believers, weren't necessarily in full alignment with Charlie, but he had so much resonance with them because more than just about anyone I've ever seen in my life,

Charlie so truly lived everything he preached. He talked about the importance of decency and respect, and he went on to those. campuses, he confronted people who said only hateful things about him and he could respond with love. He could preach the gospel everywhere he went. And with the Sabbath thing, Charlie talked about being Christian. He said people should be Christian, but there are a lot of people in public life who say they are Christian. Charlie clearly had the gospel pervade every part of his life. Even when he was away from the public stage, I remember we would have conversations with Charlie and how he approached political topics, how he approached his own life, how he approached running a company.

It came through a Christian lens. What would a believer of the gospel do? What would Christ do? How should a Christian live their life? And I think that's how he was able to speak to so many people, including we're getting these interviews here. I have one from Twyla. She says, my husband and I watch Charlie every day on RAV. He was a very important part of our lives. We miss him every single day. We also have Christina. She says, says thank you TPSA. I was always so busy working in my younger adult life. I had little time for politics, but my mother told me about TPSA and she always praised Charlie. After listening to him, I understood why. I lost my husband in 2016. Thank you for the hope your organization brings in times of uncertainty and despair. Thank you, Christina. We've all been told to eat fruits and

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about his oyster business is kind of a nepo baby fake. He's getting possibly dubious maximum VA disability payments. And he's a man with a Nazi tattoo that he claims he had no idea about. And he is a man with several fraught prior relationships. He was caught a few days ago. They announced he admitted he'd been sending texts to women even while married. And now the New York Times did a dive into his relationships prior to his marriage. There are headline several women who dated Graham Platner recall unsettling behavior. That's a rather mild way of putting it. We're joined now by the editor-in-chief of the Daily Collar and an old friend of mine. Amber Duke, Amber, are you there? Hi, Blake. Nice to see you. All righty. Well, spell it out for us. Was Graham

Platner's behavior unsettling or is there something a little bit more to this? I think what the New York Times did here was what we could call a soft catch and kill. So what they did is they told. They these accusations from women, the primary of which, in the most serious, was from a conservative activist by the name of Lindsay Fyfield, who I also, full disclosure, know personally. And they tried to bury the most salacious accusations under a bunch of PR fluff, euphemism, and even under ex-girlfriend character witness from people that were provided to them by the Grand Platner campaign. So they apparently decided that these accusations were too serious for them to pass on. So they decided to run the story, but basically water it down significantly so they can say,

hey, we did our jobs, but also give enough wiggle room for Platner to say that these accusations are not damaging enough that he would need to drop out of the race. Because the most serious accusation that Fivefield makes is that Platner actually physically abused her, claiming that he would grab her shoulders so hard that he would leave marks on her that in one case he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a room, close the door, would not let her out, so she actually had to sleep there overnight until she was able to leave in the morning. And she also accused Plattner of definitely knowing what that Nazi tattoo was because she had provided the New York Times with corroborating text of her telling friends that he

had this tattoo and that it was indeed a Nazi symbol well before Graham Platner insists that he found out about it from the media. So they deliberately buried all of this information, 22 plus paragraphs down in the piece, slapped this headline on it to say that his behavior was merely unsettling because most people are not going to read past the first three to four paragraphs of one of these hit pieces. Yeah, exactly. I'm just thinking, I think all of us remember the Brett Kavanaugh saga from, oh man, that was nearly a decade ago, I think eight years ago now. and the way they spun that where they're taking kind of total nothing burger stuff

and suggesting that Brett Kavanaugh is this psychopathic abuser and then as you say here it's just yeah during one argument he twisted her arm behind her back shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn't get out telling her to remain there until she was calm I can think of a lot of other ways of describing this wrench your arm behind your back and imprisoning you in a room. I can think of how the New York Times would characterize that in many other

situations. And as you say, besides the fact that they lowball how it's described, it's also buried very deep in this article. It's that classic New York Times reverse Christmas tree construction. They lead with the absolute softest stuff. And then you're, gosh, this looks like about what, 25 paragraphs in. They go, oh, and by the way, he may be abused his girlfriend. That's exactly what happened here. And the other key point to make is that, and Fyfield has now confirmed this herself on her ex account, she was supposed to be in this story alongside two other accusers who were preparing to accuse Plotner of sexual assault. Now those two women's stories were ripped out of the piece at the last minute. Fifeield was not informed that their stories were not

going to be in there. So they basically put her on an island, making her the key accuser. There is one other named person in this piece, but she did not go into details about the quote-unquote unsettling incident that caused her to cut off contact with Graham Platner. So what they did is they basically served Lindsay up on a silver platter so that Plattner's allies in the Democratic media and in the influencer space could just focus on discrediting her, claiming that she was only doing this for partisan motivations and that they were unable to corroborate her story. Now compare this to the Christine Blasey Ford saga. There's no dispute here that Lindsay and Graham dated. There's no dispute that she believed he was toxic and engaged in ways that were quite awful to her. There is a

contemporaneous diary entry from shortly after they stopped dating where she describes him as the most toxic, abusive man that she's ever met. Friends who knew her at the time knew that she was dating Graham and also believe the relationship to be toxic. The only thing that the Times was not able to corroborate were these specific allegations of physical abuse. And I'm sure I won't surprise you to hear this, Blake, this is not uncommon for abuse victims because they're often embarrassed by the fact that they are in these relationships and continue to be after the physical abuse happened. So it's not super common for them to share it with their friends. Now, all of this is to say, I don't know whether or not the physical abuse actually happened. I do know,

Lindsay, as I said, I do believe her to be a credible, truthful person. But I think the key point here is that what the New York Times did was journalistic malpractice. They actually caused harm to a potential victim by feeding her false promises about what was going to be in this story and then fed her to the wolves in the area of the Democratic media and activist establishment that were able to go out and attack her, even preemptively before this story came out, but certainly after as well. Well, even if it was a soft catch and kill by the New York Times, really, Platner himself may be awkward enough that he manages to botch the gift the Times has given him. He went on MS Now last night on Chris Hayes to give an interview in response to this. And more than a few of the clips where he tries to explain himself come off quite odd.

Here's Chris Hayes. He says people were talking about your Nazi tattoo and you claim you didn't know about it. Let's do clip 39. How does she know it's a Nazi tattoo in August of last year, and you don't know it's a Nazi tattoo in August of last year? Well, she certainly didn't send that text to me. So whoever she sent it to and was talking to, that's, I can't say why, but I will say that I certainly didn't know. And the text messages she's sending to friends who may have recognized it, that's, they didn't tell me that. Now, Amber, as you know, they say in this article that supposedly he would show off this tattoo to his girlfriends and call it my toten comp.

He would joke about it being a Nazi tattoo. I think that sounds a lot more believable to me than this guy permanently put a thing on his body for a decade and a half and never wondered what its origin was or any facts about it. Sounds more plausible to me. Chris also asked him about the sexting story that came out last week. Let's play clip 29. When did this stop? If it stopped, if there was stuff that you're not proud of that you worked out with your wife, you don't want to talk about the details, when did it stop?

Well, it stopped when it was happening. I mean, like it was a, Amy and I, Amy and I, it happened soon after we got married. And we dealt with it very, very early in our relationship. And so that's when it stopped. That's a great response to, how did you? How did your sexting stop? It stopped while it was happening. Yeah. What do you make of that? It's truly incredible. It's incredible. I mean, clearly this guy is not being honest in this interview.

It's very obvious from the sort of fake, compassionate stare with the downturned eyes and the slight frown. And even the way he responded to Lindsay's accusations, he was asked directly about the allegations of physical abuse. and he said Chris Hayes asked him, is Lindsay lying? Is she lying about this? And he said, no, this is not true? That's not the question you were asked. It just seems a little sketchy to me. I mean, the Nazi tattoo thing, I think to me is pretty cut and dry. If your ex-girlfriend who is by no means a history buff or somebody who would recognize these symbols one-off is telling her friends, hey, my ex-boyfriend's now running for Senate. And he has a freaking Nazi tattoo, which nobody in the media knew about at the time. This was not public information. Only someone who had seen him shirtless would have known he had this tattoo. And only someone who would have talked to him about it would have known actually what it was. I doubt she would have gone home and Googled it afterwards. If he told her it was just a skull and crossbones, she's texting her friends about it in August. He says in October, I just found out about this.

You're telling me this for the first time. Come on. Nobody believes that. Exactly. This scam. This is getting more legs. Even if it's a soft catch and kill, the New York Times reporting unflattering things about a Democrat Senate candidate is usually not a good sign. So Democrat leaders are getting asked about this, though, and their response has been mostly a shrug. They asked Hakeem Jeffries about this, and he says, I haven't really been watching it, clip 25. In terms of the allegations that have been waged with respect to this particular candidate for the Senate, I haven't followed it closely. I will. continue to defer to Leader Schumer and Senator Gillibrand in terms of the best path forward in Maine.

He's deferring to Senator Gillibrand. That's a notable name to call out. Gillibrand really just, I was about to say distinguished, disgraced herself, dishonored herself in the late 2010s, tried to really brand herself as a Me Too Senator. And now we have this Me Too eruption going on with one of the Democrats, should we say, celebrity picks here. We've got another clip. and then we'll go back to Amber. They asked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about this clip 31.

Dave, you're reported by Grim Platner in this New York Times article, trapping a woman in a room of being physically. Yeah, I mean, as you all know, this all kind of just came out. I've been doing legislative business on the floor, so I need to dig into everything further before commenting on it. Yeah, because I think this reporting just recently came out, So I just want to make sure that I'm fully read up on it before I comments on it. Now, as you know, Amber, even if that report had just come out, there had been reports last week.

Reports in the last few months, there's plenty of stuff for her to know about with their Senate candidate who has stood out supposedly as a man of the far left, kind of an AOC brand. What should we make of the Democrat response to all of this? If you look at any one of these Democrats who is dismissing these allegations or giving these mealy-mouthed, answers. I would guarantee you that 99% of them you dig through their social media history and you will find something of the following, either a believe all women, a hashtag me too, or some kind of screed about how Kavanaugh does not deserve to be sitting on the Supreme Court. It's really without fail. I mean, Sheldon White House immediately smeared Fyfield as just a partisan, motivated political actor. He has numerous tweets in his history talking about standing

with women and believing all women. And so the hypocrisy here is really, really rich. And it just tells us what we already know about Democrats, which is that they are obsessed with power. They will do anything to get it. They don't have a great alternative in Maine. Janet Mills doesn't have any money. So even if she were to unsuspend her campaign and try to square off against Platner, she has less than a week before the primary. She has no money with which to campaign. Platner still has about eight to ten days before he has to drop out of the race. Other Otherwise, he's locked in. Where is this magical mystery candidate that's going to replace him and potentially go up against Susan Collins coming from?

So I think the Democrats feel that they have no choice now but to rally around Platner. They think that he has a strong chance of beating Susan Collins. The polls are pretty tight. So they're just going to go all in and try to brush off whatever scandals come through as being just Republican smear jobs. I just can't get over how we had to endure the smearing of Brett Kavanaugh, obviously a respectful, not just a respectable dude, but a very boring dude. It's practically unfathomable to imagine him sexually assaulting a woman. And then we had all these media outlets run with how Christine Blasey Ford, she was so believable. It was so compelling her testimony.

And then we have this where it's vastly more believable from everything we know about Platner with his history of infidelity, his history of Nazi SS tattoos. And then suddenly it's radio silence, no big deal. Let's forge ahead. Does this show a real transformation in the party? Or is this really how the party has always been, do you think? I think this is how it's always been. It's always been this partisan gamesmanship. We saw the same thing going back to Clarence Thomas. And I think when we look at the specific allegations in the New York Times piece as well, let's be really clear about the fact that they're not over-exaggerated by the alleged victim, right? She says, I he never punched me you know he didn't break my arm uh he never slapped me and she doesn't oversell what she's telling this outlet um she's clearly trying to be very measured and accurate in what she's saying and yet she has been accused of being this sort of manipulative um politically motivated person by the left and the other important element of this piece as well is that I started getting tax messages and phone calls yesterday morning that this piece was about to come out.

And we quickly after that saw numerous tweets from people on the left like Kyle Kaczynski, Crystal Ball, Emma Viglind saying, hey guys, the New York Times is about to do a hit job on Graham Platner. And we even had one Democratic strategist indicate that he heard that there were going to be sexual assault victims on the record. So all of the potential details that were going to show up in this story were apparently circulated by the Platner campaign preemptively so that they could start preparing their defense. So the New York Times basically gave them an open window for them to start preparing to attack the victim that they were supposedly trying to tell the story of. I mean, the other side of this as well is that these two alleged sexual assault victims who were supposed to be in the New York Times piece, they still. exist. They haven't had their stories printed, but they still exist. And my guess is if they see what the New York Times did to Fy Field, who she says, they've been in contact with each other. She's been talking to these other victims. They created something of a support group. There's still the possibility for them to come out and share their stories without the New York Times. And so I think what we're seeing from the Democrats and from their allies in the media is a level of panic of trying to tarnish Fyfield so aggressive. and thoroughly that these other victims no longer feel comfortable coming forward.

Exactly. And I want to take a chance. So Lindsay, the ex-girl, the woman whose arm was held behind her back by Platner, she posted something early today about how she was treated by the New York Times. In early April, the New York Times came to me. I asked how they got my number. I said I was not interested in sharing my story. They said, but wait, there are other women, women terrified to tell their stories. You need to band together. we will help you, we will protect you. It felt like fate. She says she'd seen the Eric Swalwell story happen.

She said she'd seen similar stories. So she says, I told them. I let them take pictures of my diary pages. I sent them screenshots of messages. It was excruciating. And then we don't have time for all of it here, but I invite everyone to go and find this online because, as you say, the New York Times,

they then hung her out to dry. And that's quite the thing for the Grey Lady to do after how they've handled so many other. their stories. Amber, thank you for coming on. Check her out. Check out her work at The Daily Caller. It's my old haunt. I highly recommend it. Thanks for coming on, Amber. Thanks, Blake. All right, I'm so excited to share with you guys C-15 from Fatty 15, the first emerging essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. It's an incredible scientific breakthrough to support our long-term health and wellness. And you guessed it, healthy aging. Fatty 15 co-founder Dr. Stephanie Van

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Sometimes he's mustachioed. Today he's not. We're joined by Alex Marlowe, host of the Alex Marlowe show. Alex, are you there? Blake, it's great to be with you. I kind of wish I was at the Women's Leadership Summit, though, but I did not get the invitation. I am a non-gestating parent, and I think that you guys tend to keep it to the gestating parents at the summit. But that's okay, and I'm honored to be here on the show.

All righty. Well, we look forward to next year's gestating parents leadership summit. Oh, that felt painful even to recite. Gassly. They're trying to sell us that. They're trying to sell us that that's going to take. Is there any chance that it actually takes hold that we just start referring to people as gestating. individuals or non-gest-dating?

I don't think it'll take, but it could take in the form of blue state laws. We've talked about the vibe shift. There's been a shift away. We've actually been winning on the trans issue. And in red states, there's been this turn. But blue states only seem to get bluer. And it's very bleak. But Alex, in addition, as you may know, today, along with the start of the leadership summit,

today is 14 years of Turning Point USA. So I've been asking our viewers and listeners to send an emails about how they first encounter Charlie how Charlie changed the life. And I want to read some of those throughout this hour. So I want to start with a few of those before we get to our first question. Kelsey, she says, I first learned about Charlie, ironically, when he was a guest on a certain woman's show on Prager You. I remember thinking, who the heck is this guy? I love what he's saying. His podcast quickly became my go-to. I remember so looking forward to the then only two days a week show. And when I went to it daily during the COVID days. Charlie has built my faith and awareness of how we have a duty to use it

in all areas of life. He helped solidify the conviction in me and my husband to start a family. We had initially not planned to have children. Charlie helped turn that around. And I'm seven weeks and two days today. Oh, God bless you, Kelsey. I didn't even know she was going to say that in the email. I'm so happy to see that. I want another one here from Sandra. I started following C.K. a little over a year ago to become a better debater in public speaker. And I learned way more than I thought I would. I learned we must be bold in our faith. We must stand for our beliefs. And I learned how to be a better debater. Since September, I've changed my life dramatically to live for faith every day. We have Mick or Mike, I'm not sure if it's Mick or Mike, but I got hooked on Charlie around

2017. I was in a very liberal middle school in Oregon. He gave me the words to defend my views when those teachers would question my politics and faith. I enjoyed seeing his TikToks, his debates, his clips and his ex postings up to the day he was taken from us. Thank you, Charlie, for working to save the West. Thank you for all those. We'll keep getting to those throughout the hour, but we want to get to our first AMA. So let's see who we have here. How about, let's do it, let's do David here. David, unmute yourself, and what's your question? My question is, thanks for reading those. Of course.

I met Charlie, when I read him but two years ago and turned my life around. So appreciate what he's done. My question is, is how in California, we're in Calvinist, California, how do we stop the legislature from cheating? Stop them from cheating. Alex, I saw in your preview, you were also mentioning specifically the Nick Shirley Act, which is this really galling act they have in California to basically make it illegal for Nick Shirley types

to, as they would say, harass, but we would say police, monitor, expose immigration support services, companies that are providing aid to immigrants, many of them we know illegal, many of them we know engaging in fraud. They're passing bills like this. in California, and we know they've passed a lot of sanctuary bills. Alex, how do you feel? Can we save California? It's very tough. I mean, this is the big. I think this is kind of the final test of what we're

seeing right now. If somehow Spencer Prack can survive the mail-in ballot fraud that we're going to see in L.A. and Steve Hilton can survive in California, then we'll have a chance to at least start resetting things. But some things are pretty bleak out here. First of all, the system is so rigged against fairness because again we count votes for 30 days in California. I know this sounds crazy to people, but the process is literally 30 days. Anything that's postmarked by the end of the day, an election day counts. It takes up to seven days to gather all those. And then there's a ballot curing period where you can technically change ballots if they meet certain conditions. And all this takes a month. And during that month is all time to cheat. That's why the

Democrats have designed that system. And the only way that we're going to fix it because a lot of this stuff is dictated by localities and by states is if the Republicans win. And there's just not that many Republicans left. I mean, there's a lot of them. It's the most Republicans in the country on California. But everyone who's here, myself included, we think about leaving every five minutes. We can't stop looking at real estate and other parts of the country in Arizona and in Texas and in Florida.

Yeah. It's really bleak. There's a study called by these academics. I know academics are often bad, but they're not always bad. And there's a paper, one of them that they called it the Curly Effect. There was a mayor of Boston named Curly a century ago. And he was basically a terrible mayor for Boston, but he was so bad, he drove all of his political opponents out of the city. And so he kept winning elections despite being terrible at running things.

And we've seen similar things take effect in other cities in Detroit, in D.C. As these cities have entered death spirals, they've had these mayors who can just stick around for a decade. plus on end because it's only their people who stick around. Same things going on in California. But I know people want white pills. I have a white pill for you. You mentioned their month to count ballots. That's before the Supreme Court right now. We may, by the end of the month, we might have the Supreme Court say, actually, it's not, it's not legal for you to just take a month on these. You have to count ballots that arrive by election day. Otherwise, you're breaking the rules. You're doing something that's against really our Republican principles, our Constitution. It's not.

widely known. We're required to have a Republican form of government in each state, and they've often interpreted it to basically say, you can't do obvious shenanigans. We can't have the U.S. be resembling some third world Latin American dictatorship. We found a new load of votes three weeks in. How convenient. So I think that's the way we're going to make changes. And I think Spencer Pratt is also showing us, obviously, we don't even know if he's going to make it to the runoff, but the energy around him, I think, is setting a template for where you can find hope. And maybe it'll be too late in Los Angeles. But it might be a way that someone who can run in his style might be able to get fire across California.

They can get those suburban voters who mostly vote Democrat, but they're not 100% left every single time. And they've moved to the suburbs of Los Angeles because the city's too crazy. I think there can be hope. I think Steve Hilton, he could potentially perform. Even if he won't win, he can perform well. We have to remain combative in California because as Charlie's shown with Turning Point, we never know how the zeitgeist is going to change. We never know what incredible individuals like Charlie are going to be able to do to change people's opinions,

whether it's young people or Hispanics or other groups that have been locked in as Democrats forever. So the trick is you may have to leave California, but if you're not going to, you keep fighting because it is the good fight to have. And there's always potential white pills. Sometimes the Supreme Court throws you a bone. We got an absolute flood of emails. I asked for them at the start of the show today, how people encountered Charlie, how he changed their lives.

We're getting some incredible ones. I want to read a few more of these. Shelly says, I discovered podcasts during the pandemic. When I found Charlie and TPSA, I was hooked. Charlie was the most gifted, articulate, intelligent young man I had ever seen and heard. I'm a single baby boomer woman from Minnesota with no kids, but I care so much about the U.S., its future, and the young generation. coming up. Charlie gave me so much hope. I saw him speak three times at Dream City Church in Phoenix. I didn't

know how precious those events would become to me. Thank you guys and gals for carrying on. Thank you, Michelle Shelley. Thank you so much for that. We have, uh, let's see. Anali says, I started getting to know Charlie when his show started on RAV in June 22. I loved his content and how he spoke about his faith. It gave me more strength as a Catholic. I used to only go to church on significant days as the Catholic church in the U.S. is not what I learned growing up in Cuba. Because of Charlie, I would became a more conservative person and even after becoming a mother and so on. After his assassination, I started to watch more of his speeches and how the Constitution is connected to God and the Bible. My passion for this country has grown stronger

every day and my faith has grown deeper. Thank you for that one. I want to get another one here. Katie says, for 20 years, church was a part of my past, a closed book. I had no intention of reopening. I had built a life outside it, comfortable in my routine. When Charlie left this world, that routine shattered. The silence Charlie left behind was deafening, and in that emptiness, a quiet urge began to pull at me. It was the prompt to seek solace in the cadence of a church service.

Walking back in after two decades felt surreal. The hymns sounded the same, the light filtered through the windows just like before, but it was entirely different. Charlie's passing broke my heart wide open, but in the wreckage, it reopened a path to faith that had sat dark for 20 years. Rest in peace, Charlie. Thank you for starting your amazing organization. We miss you. Thank you, Katie.

That's an incredible testimony. I've been reading these basically blind as I go through, and that's an incredible testimony. Alex, do you have anything to say about 14 years of training? How did you meet Charlie? So this is, I got to meet him from the very start, so I got two good meeting. Charlie stores. The first one is, of course, Charlie started his public life at Breitbart, which is just unbelievable. He sent us a story. He was a reader of Breitbart when he was a high school student in Chicago. And he had bias in his textbooks. And he sent us an article. And we did what we

always do at Breitbart. We encourage citizen journalism. And we said, well, why don't you write it up? And I think he was frankly somewhat surprised by the invitation, but took us up on it. And he worked on the piece really hard. He told me years later. And he caught lightning in a bottle. Completely caught fire. He was all over TV and radio, was on Fox News. Every journalist kind of dreams of this as their first piece hits this hard. And it did. And it really, turning point had started, but it was very, very nascent at that point. And I really helped Charlie get his foot in the door with, I think, some donors and start taking it from there and doing the amazing things he did with it.

It all started with a piece of Breitbart News, which is something I'll be telling that story for the rest of my life. Another fun story is about, I would say probably it was 2015, I think. think it was. So maybe a few years after it started, maybe it was earlier. Actually, it can't have been 2015. It might have been 2012 or so. But anyway, I met Charlie at a tea party event in South Carolina. This is definitely pre-Trump. And we were both there. And Charlie had basically a whole day to kill. And so we just hung out because I was emceeing part of the day. And Charlie never had a minute to kill in the last five years I knew him. But he apparently like a whole day, we just hanging out with this tea party.

And I spent the day trying to recruit him, trying to get him to come work for me at Breitbart. And he said, you know, the turning point is just, it's a little too big. I got to see where this goes. I got to see this through. And unfortunately for Breitbart, but positively for Charlie, I think he made the right choice. And he did a lot with his decision to stay at Turning Point and do that. That's a tremendous story. I love that.

You helped push him along, but I think obviously at this point, I think we see the hand of God in that. And also as a lot, as Charles, himself would endorse that luck is not just luck luck luck is when talent meets opportunity and when hard work meets opportunity and charlie had both talent and hard work in spades i want to get to another one of our a m a question anthony unmute yourself what's your question hi blake and hi er alix i was going to say Andrew for a minute happens every day it happened yesterday oh i'll try not to make it up again so my question is this um we're we're in pride month as we all know.

And why are we pushing it so much and why is a small group of people not understanding that like the United States flag represents everybody? It doesn't matter what if you're male, female, straight, gay, whatever, different color skin. Because in my town in Webster, New York, we have a new supervisor. He decided last Friday to just go out buy a pride flag and put on the flagpole on this past Monday because it hit close to home for him. It is now created a culture war in our town of a little over 40,000 people. There are some people that are not happy with it because he just did it on

his own. We've never had a pride flag put up in past years. And now last night at one of the town board meetings, it got preheeded from what my friends were telling me that were there. And there were a lot of people in the open forum that were in support of it, pride flag, there were some people that weren't but the two republicans and a moderate democrat put on a floor a resolution for and they motioned it to only allow the u.s flag the state flag and if the town has a town flag on the town hall flag poll and the flat the pride flag came down this morning at 90m it's made a lot of news in everything but like i said my question is wire is a small group pushing this when we have one flag that should represent everybody well i think i think you probably can suspect why

they push it. They push it because it is a show of dominance. It's to say this actually is a national flag for all of us. This is our ideology. Actually, you must embrace this. You cannot oppose this. You will get a far harsher penalty for damaging a pride

flag defacing a pride flag than you ever will for the American flag. And I think that says a lot about the ideology that they seek to impose on us. Before he ever stepped on to a debate stage, or behind a microphone, Charlie understood something important. If you want to lead, you have to

learn first. Charlie believed that ideas shaped character, conviction, and give you courage. That's why he spent years studying the classics, the American founding, and the Bible through Hillsdale College's free online courses. These are real college courses taught by actual Hillsdale professors. One of those courses is Great Books 101, Ancient to Medieval, where you'll study foundational authors like Homer, Augustine, Dante, and Chaucer, writers who shape Western civilization and still speak to the deepest questions about human nature, virtue, courage, family, and self-government. The course includes Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the epic stories of Achilles and Odysseus that have influenced the West for thousands of years. And this summer, Hillsdale College is releasing a brand-new

course dedicated entirely to Homer's Odyssey. Great Books 101 is the perfect way to prepare before the full Odyssey course launches in July. Charlie understood that learning isn't just about gaining knowledge. It's about forming the mind and character needed to face the challenges of life with wisdom and courage. You can enroll today completely free, 100% free, just by visiting Charlie4hillsdale.com. That's Charlie for Hillsdale.com to start learning today. Charlie for Hillsdale.com. Learn deeply, think clearly, lead boldly, carry it forward with Hillsdale College.

We got one from Eva just a few minutes ago. I started following Charlie in the year or two leading up to the 24 election. I think I first came across him from TikTok videos. Last year I took my younger sister to the Student Action Summit. I'm 31 and she's 23. Neither of us were ready to post anything publicly after the summit. But after Charlie's death, we both made posts honoring him. And it was shocking to see how many family members,

sorority sisters and former co-workers, unfriended and unfollowed us. But at the same time, we got a lot of private messages of support from surprising people. My sister, after the Student Action Summit and Charlie's assassination, got involved on her campus in Florida. And she also went to Amfest with her friends. I'm so glad she has an organization like this to be a part of and meet other like-minded people. By the way, I love all the from the archives episodes, and I love that thought crime still continues. Well, both of those things will continue.

Thank you, Eva, for that. We'll try to get to a few more of these as we go, but really overwhelmed by the response here. Alex, before the break, we got a question from Anthony. Why does the left love to really impose the pride flag as our second national flag, really our only national flag, you might say? What's the obsession with it? Yeah, it's interesting. I'm thinking about this in the context of the joke that I opened with that we're going to have the gestating humans or the non-gestating parents,

whatever it is. All of this is about their culture of death. They don't want to celebrate life. We have declining birth rate. We've declining marriage. Younger people are not even trying to find their significant other and get married and to procreate. And part of it is because there's no glorification. There's no romanticization about the concept of having a family and having children. In fact, it's looked down upon because we know that we're supposed to either be spending our whole 20s scrolling reels or we're supposed to be working for the corporation serving the corporation or both we're not supposed to be working on family formation our spiritual or immortal soul and that's part of what the left is about because they feel like those people are more controllable if they are

bending the knee genuflecting to the pride flag versus thinking about a higher power thinking about God thinking about country all that type of stuff hurts their political power and the pride flag and demanding adherence to it, I really think grows it. And that's why they insist upon it, because there's a power to it that they exert on us by putting that in our face every day. Yeah, there's something, I can't remember, there's an essay by an anti-communist writer who, I wish I remembered it off the top of my head. Charlie was better at this sort of thing. But he said a big point of communist propaganda was to humiliate someone with how insane it was or how ridiculous it was. And I think of that every time they update the pride flag. It wasn't

enough to have a rainbow. It's that every year there's a new group in the flag, and it looks more garish and ridiculous. And it's such a perfect encapsulation of the left's neuroses, their psychoses, and the way they have to voice them on everyone. Oh, now there's a purple circle in the flag. That represents... What is the purple circle? And did they

put the Ukraine colors in for a while with the bride flag? I saw that once. It was Pride Dublin. Pride Dublin in Ireland, added the Ukraine colors to the pride flag. And it made it look like the Death Star's laser. kind of was all pointed towards, I think it looked really bizarre. But really remarkable, but it really gets at how the left thinks. We have a right-in question.

I think you want to take the lead on this, Alex. Robin asks, why do you think Spencer Pratt hit a nerve with so many communities so far outside of California? Why has he become this national icon for what he's doing? Actually, I think I can tee that up since I'm not in California. I think we care so much, as much as we can say, oh, forget the big cities, abandon the big cities. All of us have a big cultural tether. Almost everyone's been to New York.

Most of us have been to California or L.A. And all of our movies and shows, so many of them are set there. All of us have at least some understanding of these places. And it wounds us to see them become so decayed and so decrepit. And it really inspires us to see someone stand up for those cities, even if we don't live in them ourselves. What do you think, Alie's? Yeah, I think this is, there's a really complex answer.

And it's just been fascinating to watch this campaign. And I've got a lot to say about it. But the one thing that's really, I think, important is that a lot of people in our hearts understand that we want California to be great, the symbol of going west, the beauty of it, the vacation destinations, the fact that so much of our culture comes from it, which up and until recently, you know, Hollywood was something that exported American culture around the world. Now we just think of it as a bunch of woke freaks running around trying to trans the kids. But it wasn't always like that.

And in Silicon Valley, like it or not, it is sort of the heartbeat. of innovation around the planet. We want these things to be great places. Think about how Breitbart started in L.A., Daily Wire started in L.A., Prager You started in L.A. think about so many of your favorite thinkers, they may have came from California,

L.A. in particular. And I think a lot of us would like to see it be great again. And what Spencer Pratt is saying is not that hard. Let's just be competent. Clean the poop off the street. Get the needles out of people's arms. Round up the drug dealers,

the killers and the junkies. Let's get ice in there and getting all the illegal aliens back south of the border. If we do that, then we can be great. It's not that hard. We just have a leadership class as unwilling to do that. And he does it with these ads, Blake, that are just revolutionary. They're hilarious.

They're brilliant. They're beautiful. And he makes it seem so easy. Democracy seems easy with a guy like Spencer Pratt. And the last thing I'll say on this, I know I've been ranting. His mess is discipline beyond belief. It's like he's been a politician for 20 years. You cannot get him to stop talking about the core issues that.

He wants to be on. He wants to talk about the crackheads and the homeless and the poop in the street. And that's it. And that's how you be a politician. So much. It's so correct. There's a part in Charlie's second glass book, Right Wing Revolution.

He has a part where he talks about if you live in a blue city, a really Democrat city, that doesn't mean you're off the hook for getting involved because you can make the difference in is your city run by a sane Democrat instead of a maximilian sane Democrat or a sane moderate, someone who will focus on those big issues. and I think Spencer Pratt's been wise about that. He knows it's Los Angeles. He's not going to run on I love Christianity and I love, you know, I'm pro-life and anti-trans. Those aren't issues that you're going to campaign on in L.A.

And you're not going to change anyone, anything in L.A. on those issues. But you can say, wait, we don't need to live in crap. We don't need to live in a giant homeless encampment. Those things are fixable, even if you disagree with me on any other issue. You don't need to run a maximal MAGA campaign in a city that we know is not. a MAGA city overall. And I think that really inspires people. And we also think back on Rudy Giuliani, he saved New York in the 90s,

that New York was in a more dire state than L.A. is today, you might say. And it actually was turned around with competent governance that focused on those raw quality of life issues. And that's more and more become a key conservative Republican, independent, even advantage over the left is we can deliver on making your life livable. It's it really we The person also asked if we think he can win Well we'll see if he can clear the month long

Counting of ballots in California But if he gets through I do think he has a potential to to win the full election I want to get to another question to make sure we get through all of these Elizabeth Unmute yourself and what's your question Yes hi Thank you so much for taking my call

So I think this year I've been a conservative forever And I've never seen so much progress being made in our primaries with getting out Cassidy and getting out Cornyn. And I kind of had a bit of a flashback to when Richard Murdoch had won his primary against the Rhino incumbent Indiana. And like they came up with some ridiculous scandal of a dumb quote and he actually ended up losing to a Democrat in Indiana. And I'm just thinking like I don't put anything past these people to sabotage.

Like they would rather have a deranged, heretic, vegan representing Texas than let Paxton win. And then they're going to say, oh, see, mega candidates can't win in the general. And they're going to try and destroy the mega movement that way. I think it's really important that we get Michael Watley to win in North Carolina

or Tim Tiltz are going to go, see, you should have stuck with me. You called me a rhino. At least I can win. So I don't want to be a dumer. I want to fight because I think if we can get these maggot people across the line, especially in Georgia, I think we really have a good chance of flipping Georgia. I think we can flip Michigan because they're a candidate in there as a maniac.

How do we keep the GOP and the rhinos and the establishment from sabotaging all of these candidates? I think this would give us so much momentum to take out Thune, Langford, and Murkowski in 2020. 28 if we do everything right. A great question, Elizabeth, and that's where we look to Charlie's example. How do we stop them? The first step is what are we ourselves doing? I, inspired by Charlie, I've actually become a precinct, I've signed up to be a precinct committee man here in Arizona.

I've been doing some door knocking in the last few weeks. And turning point in general, turning point action has been building out that apparatus of ballot chasing, chase the vote, finding, making those connections with low engagement voters and making them more consistent. That's one of the ways we do this is we do the work to win elections so that it's harder to sabotage us. And let's be frank, you're correct. In 2012, they did successfully pull off that sabotage. They did successfully sabotage Kerry Lake. Sometimes they're able to do it. But the long run trend is still a positive one. If you compare the Senate of today and the House of today with the ones we had in 2017, however many frustrations

we have. They are better on the issues. They are better on getting things done than they were then. That's one of the reasons we've been able to secure the border this time around when it was such a pain last time. The long, the arc of the universe bends towards being more MAGA, being more successful, being more based, being a better conservative movement, as long as we are holding these politicians accountable, even if they're trying to sabotage us the whole way. Alex, any thoughts? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a great summary. And I'll just say that I just don't think that the establishment in the Republican Party has any power at all. It's very, very little. There's very small pockets. They can be spoilers in the Senate. But put your head down and just nominate

MAGA candidates. We cannot have wishy-washy Republicans. That's part of how we got in this mess. It's part of the rise of Charlie, part of the rise of Breitbart. All of this is about fighting back against the GOP establishment. So never be deterred and never feel like you got a compromise on that front. Exactly. I want to get a few more. How do we get that message across the accelerationsists? Sorry, what was that again? How do we get that message through to the accelerationist and the doomers? Well, we're doing our best on that one because some people, there really is a will to doom. They love doom.

It's emotionally satisfying in a way. It's the same reason people like watching sad movies or horror movies. There's this rush you get from being really angry and being really upset. And it's a, honestly, it's a, I have to be frank, it's kind of a moral flaw to let that consume too much of your thinking. Charlie was so good about, you have to remain balanced, you have to focus on things. And it's always incorrect to say it will be better if we lose and things are a catastrophe and the left gets what they want. People have had that same line. They had that line in Soviet Russia right before the Bolsheviks killed millions of people.

They had that line in Nazi Germany. Oh, let Hitler fail. No, it is not ever good to abandon our principles and abandon the fight and intentionally lose. We have to always be ironclad on that message. And Alex, I think you'd agree with 10 seconds here. Yeah, I think that's right. on. The Dumeers, look, I don't try to give them a lot of extra attention. They get a ton. But I would say that we're learning that a lot of their numbers are inflated online. So don't feel like they're that powerful. It feels like the optimist are more powerful. True enough. Optimism wins. I want to get a few more of these emails. We got absolutely overwhelmed with them. So if I don't get to yours, I apologize. But thank you for sending it in. We love reading these. Barb says, I am a 78 years young lady. And I happen to see Charlie. I immediately knew he spoke the truth. and loved God. I miss him terribly. Thank you, Barb. We have Russell. I first emailed Charlie

about four or five years ago because I thought I had a couple of really good ideas for the Trump campaign and for getting messages across. I gained respect watching Charlie over the next few years. It's so very sad that someone felt they needed to take his life. I have always respected all of the people of Turning Point USA. God bless you and take good care. And he actually says he's sad that Charlie didn't respond to his email with ideas. I will say he did read it. I've actually, because Charlie always said, he read all the emails. And I've gone back and I've looked at his wave of emails from 2025, 2024. And literally every single one is read. There was an unread list of zero. I don't have that in my own personal inbox. I can assure you. And we have Lauren, super stoked, you may read this. I love everyone at Turning Point USA. I'm from Chicago and I moved there. I first heard of Charlie back when he was with a certain woman who she has an unkind word for. I went back to college in 2017 and I believe I was having,

sorry, I was a Trump supporter and was having a hard time. So I just did my work and left. But I would say when the show came on RAV in 2020, that's when I became an everyday watcher. My husband and I still watch every day. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you for that. All right. We want to get to a couple more questions here. Tim, unmute yourself. And what's your question? Hey, Blake and Alex. Good to see you guys. Last Thursday, I saw some posts on social media about Josh Holly presiding over a pro forma session in the Senate where they kind of gavel in and then gavel out a session. But I believe that works to effectively keep the Senate air quotes in session. And it keeps Trump from being able to make recess appointments, which, yeah, people were calling Josh Holly out on that because Democrats never do this kind of stuff to their president. and it's just infuriating when Republicans do it to our own guys. Is there a reason, a valid explanation for why Holly did this? Or I'm kind of a loss.

I thought he was a good guy. I think he is, but super disappointed in this move. So I want to get your thoughts on that. So I haven't closely followed this particular instance, but you are correct. That's a reason the Senate does that. They kind of have these fake sessions permanently in. And one of the reasons to do it is you block the president from making recess appointments

that can last for a while. it's especially frustrating here because the Senate, okay, if you guys want to have more weight with the Trump administration, one of the things you can do is vote on his nominees. I was just looking the other day. The president has sent nominees for ambassadorships to major countries like Australia, South Korea. Those were made months ago. They haven't been voted on.

There are other positions he's nominated people for. They're just not getting voted on. If the Senate was being on the ball where every time someone's nominated, they have that hearing right away, get it done in a few weeks. get them voted on up or down, I'd be more tolerant of them also being annoying and saying, oh, we don't want you making these recess appointments.

We want to meet full appointments. But when they're not being on the ball, on nominees or on the Save Act or anything else, and they're also being territorial, I find that really aggravating and upsetting. And if Josh Hawley doesn't have a better explanation for why he's doing that, I do find that disappointing because we have considered him a friend and ally.

But I don't know further details, so I don't want to condemn him. or rush to judgment about that. Alex, do you have any thoughts? Yeah, I have the same thought is that there's got to be an explanation for it because as far as I can tell the caller's correct, that he did gavel in this pro forma session that does prevent recess appointments. And I didn't see him respond.

I saw some of the posts online about it, and I didn't see any response to it. So, yeah, please reach out to the show if you guys have an explanation because I don't get it. And I'm a big fan of Josh Hawley. He's a bit of an iconoclass politically. I don't always agree with everything he says, but he's a super sharp and a high integrity person. So I don't get it.

I really don't. Very frustrating. I'll try to read more about that, though, to see if there is an explanation for it. We have a writing question from Kathy. Please help. Try as I might. I can't understand why the straight of Hormuz put us into a war

and why the end of the war is contingent on that. Do we trust that if it's open, the war will end? I love questions like that. We need to have Daisy back for another. one of those No Stupid Questions thing because it really is. It's straight of Hormuz.

It's this narrow body of water. You've heard about the Gulf, the Gulf War, the Persian Gulf. It's that inlet of water in the Middle East. And all those countries that have a ton of oil, the oil they have is mostly right below that Gulf, either on the land or in the water. So that's Kuwait, United Arab Emirates,

Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. It's all there. And they pump out the oil. They pump out the gas. And the easiest way to ship it is you put it on a boat and it goes through the Strait of Hormuz. The problem with it is one half of the Strait of Hormuz is Iran. And they have rockets, they have missiles, they have boats, fewer than they used to, because we've been actively taking those out. But they threaten, oh, if ships are

trying to go through this straight while we're in conflict with the United States, we're going to fire on them. And it's not fully clear if they have the capacity to sink a lot of those ships or damage them. But there's enough of a threat that, well, if you're not. you're on one of those boats, do you want to try running it? And so they've tried to use this straight as their weapon in this war. They're thinking the United States is going to say, uncle, because oil prices get too high before we crumble because our economy is a mess, because all of our weapons have been blown up, because our government is brutally unpopular. We think that the Trump administration is going to back out. That's why the straight is so important

and why you do have to reopen it as part of some deal. Ultimately, President Trump wants commerce to be happening. He wants oil to be flowing through the strait. He wants the world to be functioning again. And he's not going to let whatever conclusion he reaches. He's not going to allow the government in Iran to just hold the entire world hostage. Alex, any thoughts on that? Yeah, quickly. This is their one move. I mean, we've decimated their Navy and their Air Force. So their one move is to leverage the strait because they can do it with really unsophisticated weaponry, with just some basic drones, any ship missiles, mines. And then they can cause a lot of problems. I think 20% of the world's oil flows through that straight. And any sort of disruption

in the oil market is going to have gas prices going up in America. It's going to create all these terrible news cycles. You see in America where they act like Trump's a horrible person, a horrible leader. And that puts a lot of pressure on Trump to wrap up the war. It's Iran's best move they could make. And they made it. And it's having an impact. We have one minute. I want to get a couple more of these emails. Thank you for that question. It's always fun a question where I get to nerd out a little bit. But I want to close with a few more emails about how people got to know Charlie. 14 years of Turning Point today. Alexis says, I've been following Charlie since around 2018 when I was 15. In a lot of ways, I grew up listening to Charlie. I was blessed to listen to his words of

wisdom for years. And through his show and the work of TPSA, I learned so much about faith, American history, citizenship, and what makes America such a great country. Congratulations on 14 years. Thank you for continuing the mission. Go Max. Thank you so much. Alexis and then Ali says Charlie Kirk walked like he talked he did the hard things so we didn't have to going to correct that Ali he did the hard things so he could show us how to do them because now we carry on his mission here's to another 14 years and more of turning point thank you for joining us Alex thanks to everyone who sent in emails we'll see you on Monday and tune in to watch the women's leadership summit for more on many of these stories and news you can trust go to

Charliekirk.com.