The Charlie Kirk Show - Charlie's Empty Chair — In His Honor, Never in His Place

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Charlie's chair is empty as Andrew Kolvet, Jack Posobiec, Tyler Bowyer, and Blake Neff host The Charlie Kirk Show in his honor. They share their favorite memories, moments, and tributes to their fallen friend.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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...an... ...the... I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I talked to a lot of young people on campuses at our events, on my radio show, podcast, and social media. Said differently, I visit college campuses so you don't have to. We're talking to so. many voters that know it is time for change. They know that something is wrong. America's future

is a series of choices. Our current state of slow motion national decline is a choice. Today is our two-year-old's birthday. And I look at my daughter, and that is my why. For those that are parents, you know exactly what I mean. that stands tall as your faithfulness. There is no river that runs wide as your goodness. We were starting these out and... It was that like that... No, it was like this.

It was like your average... First three rows. It was like your average political meeting where there was like 12 people in a room and this is awesome. This, in my personal opinion, was the most over-the-top Trump event that I've ever covered.

This is the number one boots-on-the-ground operation in the country. We're working directly in harmony with the Trump campaign. It's been vetted. It's been cleared. It's been blessed, as you could see there. And we're going to try to win this. thing. No guarantees. It's what we do that matters. Mr. President, I can tell you this room is

100% with you and we have your back. God bless you. We're going to do. Thank you. We are excited to continue this cultural movement that we have started at Turning Point USA. More high school chapters, more college chapters, and disagreement is not just welcome. It is invited. We want to have those tough conversations. That's what it's all about. because you're not supposed to be involved in this you're supposed to just kind of be on the vote for me every four years give me more political power and stay out of my business and what has happened is we are seeing an explosion in citizen participation All of my days, your mercy follow me.

Oh, there is nothing else I'll ever need. Knock on that extra door. Go that extra mile. Talk to that extra friend. Because throughout voting month and culminating on the 5th of November, I believe it will go down as a day that people remember. as a day that is written about in history books, as the final battle, from the golden escalator on down, from defeating Hillary Clinton, from the nonsense of 2020, from Butler, Pennsylvania,

November 5th at all culminates, where we restore the promise that the founders gave us. And they said, hey, if the people want it, the people get it. And we, the people, take back America. God bless Arizona. And thank you so much. Every day the American people demand certain accomplishments and victories. Disagreement is what keeps a movement alive, keeps a movement fun. Here in this country, we are a country of flourishing.

We're a country of risk-taking. We're a country of building. We will achieve American greatness, and we are just getting started. your mercy follow me welcome me welcome in the filling in for the one and only Charlie Kirk nobody can

and we wanted so badly to do this show for all of you today and I wanted the friends of this show and of Charlie that knew him best, the thought crime crew to be here in the studio to commemorate our friend, our dear brother for this sacred and solemn moment, this occasion none of us ever dreamed we would have to do. And here we are, because Charlie would want us to be here.

He would be upset if we weren't here. And we, of course, have left his chair open and empty because nobody will ever fill it. Nobody could ever hope to. But by all of us together, we want to honor him, and we want to be more like him and we want to be inspired by him and we want you in the audience to know him like we knew him and to be up close and personal to the front row seat to history to a legend to an American icon that we got every single day and I don't know why we were so

fortunate and blessed to be those people those few I got to see it so up close he touched millions. He personally knew tens of thousands, and somehow we were the blessed ones that got to be close to him. And in the chats, we got yelled at by him, we got pushed to more and to be better because of Charlie and by Charlie. And so we have, to my right, Jack Posobic, Blake Neff, and Tyler Boyer, and myself, Andrew Colvert, the executive producer, the Charlie Kirk Show. And we are so honored to share what we know about Charlie and to do it on a day where the authorities tell us that his killer has been brought into custody. And I want to say personally thank you to Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, Governor Cox. You told us you would not stop

until you got him. And I admit that my faith wavered at times as the hour stretched on. but you appear to have the suspect in custody and we're grateful that you have not slept, you did not rest, just like you promised, and you are men of your word, and we are grateful to you. And so with that, I just want to, again, welcome my friends, and Jack, I'm going to start with you. Tell us what's on your heart right now, brother. well you know it's like I know the seat looks empty

but it's not the seat isn't empty at all because in a way Charlie is the only thing we're all thinking about right now we can't think of anything else really we can't think straight and we can read and we can talk but at the end of the day all we're thinking about is Charlie

and we know that Charlie is looking down on us and i know that when we all gather here it's like he's here yeah and that's and that's why no one wants to sit there because he is there i um we are saying thank you is just there and the only thing that i guess i would add is you know we're hearing these reports that um family members of the suspect were involved particularly the father in bringing him to the police bringing him to the authorities and if that's true um i just like to extend a sincere thank you and gratitude to something like that as as a father i can't even imagine i just i can't even imagine what that

what that must be like but to have done that is is just shows the ultimate goodness and the ultimate righteousness that still does exist in this country and the fact that people are willing to step up and do the right thing even in impossible odds and that's the charlie kirk spirit that's always been the charlie kirk spirit is to stare down impossible odds and say i'm going to do it anyway when everybody told him he couldn't and that's that's the charlie kirk i know that when you told him he couldn't do it he'd say figure it out Tyler I'm sure he told you that more times that you can count I I've just it's been really hard I mean we've we've been able to lean on each other I think talking a lot to one another about the memories and that's probably I think the most

the most important thing that we can do today is share those memories I've been telling everybody that's reached out on our staff. I mean, we've hired thousands of people in Turning Point. And it hasn't been easy. It's been part of the battle on Charlie. It's like, I'm going to miss those, right, Tyler? You know, conversations when we are sitting around. Because it's, you don't really know the battles unless you've been in them.

But there's so many people that have looked at Charlie. along the way as a mentor that all have different emotions and they have different stories and I've told people, write them down. Every single person that's reached out to me. I'm so sorry, I'm like, please just write down your memories that you had because some of these stories are so unbelievably funny. They're so unbelievable in general because God's hand has been such a big part Charlie's story and legacy. I'm so sorry. No, it's, we're all right there.

We're all right there. And for those of us that have been close, like we've talked about, we've seen, Evan Sand is part of that. And that has to be, that has to be, uh, exiguated because that's what Charlie wanted. We talked about that all the time with, uh, people invested in attorney point, uh,

all the major stakeholders. that you know a lot of people look at this as political dynamo uh the dynamics of all of that but all of this has been uh you know even through this tragic this tragic week um i believe that uh that god has been with charlie from day one and and will continue to be i like i want to you're next buddy so get ready but um i want to Just comment on what you're saying, because one of the last trips that I took with Charlie was a couple weeks ago, and we were flying all over the country, spent hours on the plane. And I said to him, isn't it crazy?

Like, you know, we were talking about South Park. We were talking about just everything. Like, we just kind of had a moment. And he was just like, yeah, it's all God. Just he just instantly goes, yeah, it's all God. It's all God. And as I was driving to the office in the studio this morning, I thought to myself, it was always God.

And God has not pulled his hand away from Charlie Kirk. It did not pull his hand away from turning point. He did not pull his hand away from this country. It was always God that got us here. There were so many times, and I want the audience to know this, there were so many times where we felt like our backs were so against the wall that we were not going to get through whatever it was. that this thing happened or you know this it was just so many things it's impossible right now

and i was not the time getting into the details there was just so many things and charlie and i would feel the weight of the world when we talked to each other and i know you felt it i know you felt it i know you felt it and then we got through it and it was god and somehow we came out stronger and better and uh with and charlie had more influence and our reach and our staff and everything just kept growing time and time again and he knew that it was all god's hand he knew it was all the blessing of god on him and on this organization and on the show yesterday i said i said charlie's on assignment from god and he always has been you every time you filled in for charlie he said well charlie's on assignment and so now he's on assignment from god he's on and he always was all right blake

it is your turn and I want everybody to know that probably nobody traveled with Charlie more than Blake in the last I'd say 18 months except my maybe Mikey you know Mikey for sure Mikey but you traveled to London with him you went to Korea with him like the floor is yours thanks I feel I feel unworthy to be here You guys all knew him a lot longer than I did compared to a lot of people here. Charlie entered my life pretty recently. I remember you called me out of the blue almost exactly three years ago, first week of October 22. And I don't want to get into the details of it, but I can say Charlie had a drastic impact on my life.

He basically gave me my life back. I don't know how to express how grateful I am for that and how, just over the past three years, how much I came to admire him, not just for how talented of a person he was, but how good of a person he was, and how everything he fought for was because he believed it would be good for. country and good for every single person in it and I'll always think one of the you know the final things I was doing with him I mentioned with you Jack yesterday the last speech he gave was in Japan to an audience no Buddhist Shinto no no Christians in it maybe a handful but not many and you know it was about immigration it was about other stuff but he wanted to include I should witness to the faith, you know, regardless of where we're going.

And we talked about how we could do that. And we put it into the speech five minutes before he went up there. And he did it. And because it was that important to him that he do that. It wasn't about just, you know, he wasn't catering to any audience. This is a speech almost nobody in the U.S. would ever see or watch. And most of the audience in Japan might not even get it. But he wanted to do it because it was important to him.

And, you know. get that just a minute before when it happened uh you know he was witnessing to the gospel there at the college and blake i'm it makes me it gives me some solace and some comfort to know that you were there with him on campus that day and um i was just grateful to be able to call you and know that I at least had somebody that was there and that loved him and that was close and I could call you and I'm just glad you were there and it's not good it's not fair to you that you had to be there but I'm glad that I'm glad that you were and you and I and Charlie were texting literally moments before he went out to the crowd and we were talking about

arguments and finer points that he could make and he going over you know this kind of question you know we should what it was about he was what are the good arguments in favor of of marriage marriage monogony in the christian version of marriage yes and it was you know that gets back to you know one of the other core things how much she how much he loved erika how much he loved their how much and how much he cared for them and how it really demonstrates the power of that you know familial love because we all talked about how they made him better too and is that the truth you see you see charlie like pre-erica and then charlie post erika and it's and it's it's still charlie but it's like more better and better clothes they actually fit him no we were just talking

about this yesterday i and he's a father and i i no it was like night and day different so we used to like i used to be worried about charlie jericho is legitimately the real mb and i don't just mean the fashion i don't just mean the fashion we were talking about it's charlie's talking about that it's it's it's it's the visible but charlie's in about a month and and we used to i used to buy him clothes on his birthday as an excuse to buy him like sneakers because he wouldn't wear sneakers he would only wear dress shoes that's right and then Erica came and then he worked I was like so relieved because he would wear clothes that like he he'd look better than anyone like a normal person no he looked better than everybody because Eric is incredibly stylish and great and it was just like

he went from like the Stone Age to like he now had this incredibly well-manicured dress for let me let's I love this this vein we want to tell you about Erica we're gonna uh the before and after Erica Kirk story is a really amazing story and I was trying to make a point no I know you were going emotional I listen I have I have been basically crying for two and a half days and I was just I remember remembering Charlie being when I first met him it was like everything was baggy and like the suits didn't fit and like the collars were always like out like this I was I was so They're playing those videos now when he's younger. I was showing, I was showing Andrew an image.

It was so funny because. Studio, can we get like an OG CK shot with his baggy suit? I'll send one. That's like a perfect one. That's, but he was, it was again, before and after a shot. It was like a very baggy suit. And it just, but you know what?

This is kind of very, this isn't with a suit, but this was like. No, no, no. I got it. I've got a, I've got a perfect one. But anyways, the point is, is like, but his, his spirit shined through so brightly that it didn't matter. No, like, that's what it was like, I remember being in some of these meetings. I was like, oh, my gosh, like, because he would carry around the backpack. He had this big black backpack that has his initials on it.

He had that forever. And he had forever one, one pair of shoes, dress shoes that he wore. And then these big, but it didn't matter. Like, none of that mattered. Every single person that talked to them, every one of these big time donors early on, like, big time i mean they had he would just just be able to break through to every single one of those people and well it was always it was it was his unique voice and this is why charlie um would go viral on campus he would never pull any punches the guy would say uh he would say

the truth with a hundred percent fidelity do you know what i mean it was like men and women like you know are different you know two two sexes like like Like, you know, it was never like, there's no, there's no equivocation. No, there was no like, well, some people feel this. No, it was like, you know, it's wrong when people steal. Does it make it okay that they were poor? No, it's wrong, right? You know, and it was just, he had this moral clarity that he was just blessed by God with,

and he would not cut any corners with it. And so, yeah, it didn't matter the suit he was wearing. It didn't matter his fashion, although I will tell you. But Erica. Erica made his looks much better. And I will also tell you that his friends, John Jr. Gentry Beach. You know, they gave him like a gift card at one point, a $10,000, like, credit at the Trump Taylor in New York City in Manhattan to get him some proper suits.

It was like one of these things that they were working on. Charlie, if you're going to be around. Yeah, if you're going to hang around with us, Charlie, we need you to, you got to look a little bit more put together here. We're going to take care of that a little bit. Yeah, it was, I mean, it was a, oh my gosh, Tyler, get this, get this up. You have to see. This is the pre-Erika, and then Erica came in and then looked immediately.

I love it. I mean, no. Immediately better. I mean, I'm not even kidding. Sorry, Charlie, we got to. The real miracle is that Erica went for it. You know what I mean? She's seeing the, you know, the baggy shirt.

I mean, she knew. He knew. No, but that's, that's, that's female, right? That's the female. Tanya was the same with me. It's the female. I see, I see the thing. And I want to nurture it.

Michael Angelo could see a block of marble and he would just bring the David out. He's like the David's already in there. I just have to reveal it. I want to say it's typically not a good idea to say I think I could change this man or something for women watching. But you can polish it. They're not changing. No, not the deeper. They're bringing forth.

And you could never change Charlie's spirit, right? That's exactly right. But what she did, I think, if anything, just in terms of this, is. make it so that the external match the internal. Yeah, sure. And I will say as well, though, that Charlie's faith became so much stronger as soon as Erica came around. And he started vocalizing it more.

And for those of you in the audience that don't know Erica Kirk, the woman is a lioness. She is fierce. She is strong. She's obviously distraught and hurting, as we all are. but she is fierce and she is strong and I want you to know that about her that I have seen her up close and Tyler you've been there as well with us and she is so strong and Charlie wanted to marry her because of how strong she was and ultimately he knew that she could she could do this life that he was leading and charlie was already leading a crazy life when they met and when they fell in love

and they got married and he he knew that she had the strength in her core and she was also she is also such an incredible woman of faith he knew that she could do this and he was a hundred percent right about erika kirk she is truly something amazing and we all love her dearly Tyler why don't you tell the story of how you inadvertently connected Charlie with his wife. So it's, this is the miracle of the entire thing,

which is incredible. And I don't think we can talk about it enough. It's Trump. It's Erica. It's Arizona. It's turning point. You couldn't script this any better. Can I, let me tell, let me just set two points. I told it a little bit of it yesterday.

Tyler, I think you've told this story a few times on the show. So let's like big big big big big picture context here Tyler pulled off the first Trump rally the very first one in Arizona and there's a lot of crazy details that go into it but the first one Tyler gets the credit but the most important part of that truly in the background is that Erica Kirk is at that rally and we don't focus on it we've talked about the rally and all that with Trump being reelected she's in the background of the main shot so right behind Trump people don't know this I we can put it up there is right behind Trump on stage first

Trump rally ever. And again, they were expecting this to be a hundred person rally. They were like wanting to give, uh, like refreshments. You didn't even call it a rally, right? Well, so the original was supposed to be. Cory Lewandowski was like, can you get 100 people in a room? We'll provide refreshments. We'll give you money, whatever. And I'm like, no, no, no, we don't, we don't need any of that. We can get lots of people there. And we started doing this and it starts to go bonkers, right? Because I'll give credit to Jake Hoffman, who is the, the president of the freedom caucus here. He's a state senator. He was my unpaid. Cade comms director who was actually the guy that helped start Charlie's Instagram with me and start

all the turning point like all the turning point assets that we we have on social media now by the way too but we started just going bonkers with all the media and so then I started fielding calls from everywhere it was crazy everywhere and one of the calls I got was from Erica she's like hey I was Miss Arizona I love Donald Trump can I be involved I'm like absolutely so I met I met her and i was like we've got to put her behind the presence so i had my family behind the president my grandpa who just passed away just a few months ago who loved charlie loved the show everything listen daily it was my grandpa my dad-in-law Lauren my wife and erika is up there yeah so Erica after we got to find the picture after this route i'll pull it up after this rally

uh i meet with erika and i'm like there's a way that we can she she's faith-based so this is the funniest part. She's faith-based. She's so centered on Christ. We've got to lean in and involve her here with, because we were starting the initial talks about turning point faith or TPSA faith. And I was trying to recruit her hard to come work for us. And so through all that, I had introduced her to Charlie. I was like, I think she could be great. She could be wonderful. And Charlie was immediately in love. Absolutely love. And I was like, it was straight away going back and that's where it's like the tee up with yeah the clothes everything else i was like charlie i don't know like this is who you're trying to press her a little more he's

well this is miss arizona so i was nervous i'm like i don't know if we we don't want to scare our way right like we learn to work for us you know so but like that's great let's just let's feel out and so charlie did the right that he did everything perfectly as charlie always does uh did everything perfectly i dropped him i dropped him off he was at the office here which he was rarely at the office because he was always on the plane and he had set up a date to go meet her at the gym because she was it's a it's a fancier gym that's in the north valley and i dropped them i took him over i dropped him off there and i was it was the whole car right over that was pep talk so all right this is what you got to do this is what this is what you got to say hey if she says this don't do that

and he's like oh what do i do if they like this because charlie had had a number of dates but not that many people he's busy he's a busy guy he just didn't yeah yeah and so uh he it went immaculately and after that they met again in new york where she was living at the time and he had made a special trip just to go there yeah he made an excuse this is what charlie would do he would he would he would go somewhere and he would make an excuse that was like a formal reason to be there but there was always kind of like an ulterior motive where you know but it was i'll never like and this these are the memories i'm i'm putting out a tweet right now that's saying just write down these memories because i until this now i just forgot about that was like

driving him over in in my car just having that conversation which was just like and again andrew i know you've had many of these all of us have had many of these conversations one-on-one with charlie just like the pep talks because you know even though charlie was such a a line of of a man it takes a village i think of like having those conversations with one another it takes a family yeah but he he would position position people in places to be able to speak to him and give him like that like before he took the stage like okay okay okay okay you know but he would always it's like he would always just want that even though you knew that he didn't need it and he right no but you know the other thing is

he you'd think you had a really good idea and you're like hey no no and I give it to him and be like okay okay and then he would always take chew the meat and spit out the bones he was always so good at filtering out your your bad ideas without like making you feel terrible well and that's like to that point Erica became that person like you were saying yeah right Erica became the person that would uh you know and it was a two-way road you know you'd have to filter out some of charlie's bad ideas too at times and Erica is you know has become the best at that she is the uh the go-to and i know that um that was the most valuable thing but to put a pen in it that that weird situation though which was that moment where I was

sitting there with Charlie and the Trump rally culminated and Eric was there and then became his white like the entire thing is like again you talk about God things clearly God has his hand and watching over Charlie it constantly well this is the Charlie Kirk show and I want we played sorry we played a a an opening and we put together a Charlie Kirk uh which number is it Blake, do you have it? We put together a just a montage of some great Charlie Kirk moments and I think it is 443

is the number. We put together a montage for the audience of Charlie in his own words and he loved this show so much. He loved this show. And I remember one time when I talked to him and I said

who's your greatest hero and this space you know obviously Donald Trump's the president and you know that was the obvious answer but like no Trump you know like who's and he said Rush Limbaugh and Charlie got to know Rush personally I think we had basically the last big event that that Rush did was introducing the president yeah the last two yeah so he never made public appearances yeah and he's very private person he came to our event Mara Lago so we were one of the first groups to do anything with fundraisers, things like that at Marlago. People don't know that. We actually did it very small, but Rush had such a personal connection with Charlie. And this is kind of early too

before Charlie was kind of a known quantity everywhere, really leaned in and showed up. Yeah. And Charlie actually went to Rush's house, picked him up in the car and drove him, drove him there. And we had, yeah, we gave, he lived right up the street. Yeah, in West Palm Beach. Or he We would have in Palm Beach. So he, yeah, but Rush was his hero. And he listened to Rush. Rush was so influential in just the way Charlie thought about politics. And if you want to know why Charlie never lost the grassroots, he was always so into the grassroots.

It's because you emailed him. It's because he looked at all your emails. He looked at all the comments. He could do 48 things, it seemed like, at once. the the most amazing multitasker I've ever seen when I would be here and we'd be on the show during breaks even I'm going to say it even sometimes when interviewing people he'd be looking at the camera and yet somehow also on his computer switching between tabs texting emailing reading faster than you could even like grasp what was going on emails he would share like in the middle of a show segment, like right after you came out or even, like, in between someone else giving an answer. He's like, oh, Jack, you got to check out this email. Here's this email I got from. Look at this. And you're like reading the last three things that he sent you. No, he's always two

steps ahead. And his speed was, I have no idea how he did it. And he's, and these are, and what's crazy too is you could see it would be like, oh, hey, I got something from the speaker of the house. Oh, here's the president's son. And then like, here's a guy I met walking his dog. And he needs a ballot Tyler make sure this guy gets a ballot you know like like it didn't make any difference to him who we was talking to but he never lost sight of the grassroots and one of the one of the guiding lights for that and we set up freedom at charley kirk dot com and please send your tributes to charlie kirk your prayers anything that's on your mind uh to freedom at charley kirk dot com and i will do my best to read them and blake you're going to help read them and jack and tyler and we want to see what

you have to say to charlie that's freedom at charley kirk dot com and Rush always had his email dialogue with his listeners and Charlie took note of that and that it kept him close to the people because this world can get very insulating and it's and Charlie never let that happen that's why he went to college campuses because he learned and he knew and he he saw what kids were really thinking he always made such a point to stay so close to the public even though he was so stratosphericly like famous we couldn't take him anywhere and it was really at that point of stardom and fame that we couldn't take Charlie anywhere. But it all started with the love of the spoken word and what Rush Limbaugh told him. And he would take lunch breaks from school just to listen to Rush Limbaugh. And so to have this show and to be behind the microphone was one of the greatest honors of his life. And he did not take it for granted. He loved it.

And he saw it as a way to pipe the vanguard of the current thinking on the, the current debates into the zeitgeist and to keep the base steady and keep the coalition together. So without further ado, I want to play the show tribute that our team put together. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't wait to watch it. This is 443. I want to thank my great friend, Charlie Kirk. He's done something that is just incredible for somebody really of his age. You need tremendous talent to do what he's done, building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created Turning Point USA and I want to thank you

really Charlie incredible job I have the greatest I feel as if what I'm saying what I'm saying what I'm doing is making a difference giving people meaning Charlie you should have emotion This is a moment. You totally reformed the GOP. And look what you guys have done. I hear some words here from you, Charlie. You put all this together, my man. Let's hear it.

I am just humbled by God. God's great. It's all God. It's all God. God alone. It's done. It's beginning. We did not earn this. This is God's mercy on our country. Yes. You're on, you're on the Lord's side. Last week, we welcomed our beautiful daughter into the world. Most important thing that one can do except giving your life to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. We, Erica and I and our family, were celebrating the birth of our son. I'm finding out how honest you are, Charlie, and so far, I think you're doing good, and I hope I'm doing good with you. Candace Owens, welcome back.

Yes, good to be back. I'm a Charlie Kirk show. So, Megan, there's a lot happening right now, and I recently. went on the Bill Mars show. I want to get your reaction. Matt, walk us through the decades-long journey from 2015 to today on the public opinion battle. Michael, why are people going back to church? People going back to church because the atheism ran out of steam. Ben, thank you for taking the time. I was moved by your podcast on Monday about how we must stare the evil in the face. Pete, you're doing a phenomenal job. I just want to say that from the American people that you don't get the credit

that you deserve obviously in the mainstream media. We are here with Stephen K. Bannon. Charlie, I never roll through this town without seeing you. It's always the highlight. That's the advantage of being in Phoenix is that you're like one of the only shows in town, so everyone kind of just comes on by. I'm sick. I'm people stealing my stick.

Wait, so a campus thing I've been doing for 13 years to debate random college kids has now been so important that it gets prominent prime time placement on Comedy Central I think the whole thing is just awesome. Bobby Kennedy, welcome back to the program. Charlie, thanks for having me. They canceled the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world when it was my father. If they can do that to him, they can do it to anyone.

If they can't do it if we're all banded together and we're fighting one battle. Don Jr., everybody. Very special our episode for you today. My wife joins us, Erica Kirk, the beautiful legendary Erica. I love you so much. I love you. You're my best friend.

Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. Thanks, baby. but now I see Thanks so much for listening, everybody, and God bless. Oh, that's a great job, guys. Really good job. We miss him. That last shot.

I missed my friend. I miss my friend. You know, one of the things that Charlie was kind of interesting. early in Charlie's career was he wasn't he's a prolific speaker obviously he's a genius on stage but he wasn't really interested in you know spotlight it's a really interesting piece to him was that he was it was I think that's kind of like almost like we were talking with I was talking with people and the best analogy to Charlie was that he was very much um in the come follow me spirit of of christ i think that's what the most christlike thing about him was was that people

wanted to follow him sorry i just can't can't get through all this um but he didn't want spotlight and i think that was part of his his and so when i had suggested with our events team that we do bigger things that we do consider because we have more people who want to show up and we have more kids and all that it wasn't about that for him it wasn't i people watch these things and they're like we i mean we went rock star we went full rock star on charlie kirkins a lot of that is thanks to andrew i mean without a doubt you know we give we give erika america 100% made a rock star uh i give you more credit for that because you you forced him to do it and then eventually he embraced it but but it was he was not he wasn't interested in that but he also like wasn't

your sort of like central casting character to do it no and you made him enter out on you know embark out on a much bigger vision but but this is the point with charlie is that he was a he was a very humble person and i don't want that to change with like how people start to take um the memory of charlie because he's big his he wasn't interested in what the steeps look like or like who was there what the spotlight looked like he just wanted to tell the truth he just wanted to tell people what was what they needed to hear and uh And he was really good at that, really good at that. But everything else was built around him for the right reasons.

I'm so sorry. I'm like spitting like tears everywhere and everything else. It's like splash them. But he is, his legacy is going to be what you said, Andrew, is that he was an incredibly humble person that was thrust into something that was so much bigger than all of us. so much bigger than him but he was the perfect person for the perfect time he um he always told young people be a part of something bigger than yourself and he is the um the most iconic example of that that i think any of us can imagine you know i wasn't going to do this uh but um i think the team

uh was absolutely spot on people want something to remember charlie by i've been getting message after message email comment this huge outpouring of people saying and and because Charlie as as we all know he loved t-shirts apparel hats I was like get me one that says that give me one that says like literally the team would screen press them almost it's on a two hour turn and it's because it's because he understood that that is a a physical real messaging platform that you can wear in the real world, in the real space. That would be seen billions of times in Charlie's instance. And he wanted, so whatever the message that he wanted to send or what he was thinking about

would usually be what he would wear. And there'd be times where he'd have, you know, a different one on five days a week if you watch the show. And that was all very, I just wouldn't mean to say it's very deliberate. It was not like some random thing. No, no, no. He loved his different shirts. and so please put them back on screen guys so here they are and they are available for purchase

we're going to as many as everybody wants we don't have a made yet so please be gracious with us we're going to get them out as fast as we can um charlie kirk store.com charlie kirk store.com and i think the team did an amazing job with them and um the the middle one is i'm charlie kirk i've seen so many people saying that. Yeah. And it's a beautiful testament and I love it and I want one. And the other one is I'm just humbled by God's grace. And that of course was from election night November 2024 when Charlie got news that Pennsylvania had been called by Fox News for Donald Trump and that he would be the 47th president of the United States. Right in this room. That viral video it happened right here right in this chair and charlie put his hands up to his face and a man who doesn't cry very

often got misty-eyed and um and he gave all the glory to god and i love that and i'm so glad that they've picked that that that that moment and then the other one is um the freedom shirt and it has the date that it happened and that's the shirt that he was wearing and we put the turning point hook on that sleeve as well and so if you want to honor charlie and obviously you want to help the show um that that would be amazing um can i shout out you guys real quick i mean we have so many good people who work for it for charlie his show his his his personal side uh people don't talk about this i i was careful not to talk about this because charlie again didn't like the spotlight of it all. But part of the reason why this show exists is because Charlie didn't want to do things that

would cost money from Turning Point. For years and years and years and years, Charlie didn't take a salary from Turning Point. He paid himself. I know this because I was the one that had to approve payrolls at Turning Point for seven years. He paid himself like $30,000 a year, then a little but yeah he didn't take a wage for the first five years and then his first wage i think was like 20 it was tiny 15 000 the first year 20 and i know that because mine was tiny too when i gave it was like insane and and then he the part of the show was that he was able to give back so it cost turning point nothing for for charlie to run turning point yeah people don't know this charlie gave there was this stupid AP article i'll never forget where they tried to i don't want to

give i know but they tried to make it sound like charlie was was somehow taking money from donors or something or fleecing the donors but here's the truth charlie paid back his salary and then some back to turning point every year he donated back all that go ahead tyler well i was just i was just going to say this is that that he he was able to do something beyond anyone else so there's i mean there's great people that people admire a lot rush is one of those people but rush didn't build in his spare time a turning point USA a turning point action and and all that right like Charlie did all that, gave it all back essentially for that. And then we have the whole point of what I'm saying this is we have so many good people here at the show that have that work here that that produces to get truth out.

Because again, what that Charlie was interested in wasn't spotlight. It was getting the truth out. It was doing something bigger than himself. And every single person that's here that are back behind the class right now and that are in this building that are across campus here at Turning Point. quarters join charlie on that vision and are part of that and so uh with that we talk about the shirts and everything else please support you know this this mission to continue charlie's voice with with charlie's show because there's so many good people here that that have done that and i know andrews erika looked at me yesterday and she said the show has to keep going and turning

point has to grow even bigger and um i hope i'm at liberty to say that i think she would want me to say that yeah um and so we don't know what the future holds for everything uh at least you know with fine detail but we know that that will happen that we will honor that and i know charlie would want that to happen that's the only way to honor charlie is to for everything to get bigger and to again again that point which is that this is bigger than any singular person uh but honoring Charlie's memory permanently with making turning point bigger in the mission, which is activate as many human beings as possible to do the work, to do the Lord's work, and to do the work to save the Republic.

So put those shirts back up for the radio. If you can, you can go to charliekirkstore.com. Charlie Kirkstore.com. We have three options. The election night shirt is the drawing of him, putting his hands on his face. after he found out that Trump was going to be elected the 47th president and he said I'm just humbled by God's grace and that's a beautiful one is I'm Charlie Kirk and people love that I'm Charlie Kirk I've been seeing that everywhere and then we have

the shirt the freedom shirt that he was wearing and with the date on it and the the turning point hook also on that on that sleeve I think that message in the center shirt there I'm Charlie Kirk that that speaks to what Tyler's talking about, it's that, it's the Charlie Kirk spirit, right? It's, I was saying this yesterday on an interview, you know, who's the next Charlie Kirk? Well, there isn't an next Charlie Kirk, but Charlie, if you asked him that in public, right, he would say, you know, you go get a megaphone or, you know, a chair and go to your local park and set up a folding table on camp, whatever it is, right?

whatever public place you can be and go do this too. And so it doesn't mean, you know, it doesn't, it's not about him, right? It's about you take that Charlie Kirk spirit and go and be the next one and go set up your chapter or go set up your thing and go be that person. And that, I think, is the message that's now, and you see this, it's around the world. It's completely, we'll talk about it later, but it's totally around the world. I'm getting messages from like, I don't even want to say, but just countries that you wouldn't even believe had heard of Charlie are doing vigils for Charlie.

I actually do want to talk about that at length because one of the things that I've realized, and I tweeted about this or posted about this last night on X, there was a video of a vigil that was sent to me. And I just, and I said, I've constantly had to recalibrate my internal clock because you kind of know. exactly what you mean how famous charlie is and then like something else would kind of blow your mind

and be like whoa he's actually way bigger and like i'm sure you had a bunch of those even in soul you're like whoa people know him here um but yeah i i am realizing that as much as i tried to recalibrate i'm i'm probably two years behind like actually how famous he was like in my internal clock and i in his death um and trump said this beautifully actually this morning on fox um i don't know what clip it is i'm sure we have it we'll we'll play that yeah that that he's now he's even bigger he was huge and now he's a worldwide icon and um before we before we get away off the topic um i'm as i want to piggyback on tyler and just say thank you to the staff for being here today and yeah and yeah their hearts are broken too impossible

task we and all of our turning point staff right now are at home with family as we as as expected but again for here being part of the show and honoring charlie i mean that's just such a hard thing to ask people to do and i i can't thank you each enough everybody behind the glass seriously thank you for being here thank you to our amazing team they really are amazing and charlie loved them dearly here we are at the charlie kirk show studio um i remember building this studio and i remember it so Charlie would be here and then he decided he liked it here better so we flipped everything and he had to have his Oregon duck thing over there it was the original original was a straight line yeah it was a straight well this desk

actually is modular and so you can kind of fold it so that the two levels fold into one another and it was just a desk and it was supposed to be designed so if you had guessed it could fold out right right but he just liked it like this well no wasn't it wasn't it we did we did one of the election night's dreams or something and we set up the v and he just liked it he just liked it left it and he just left it that way well this when we i remember walking into so the story of this complex is really interesting because we were in chicago we came over here and we found this this this space because we wanted to have a building for turning point that was by itself yeah and

fast forward to we had to go through and talk every single one of the people in this complex to sell the buildings so I had to get on the phone with these guys and luckily we had this incredible kid that was in real estate that helped and we talked to him into it but I remember walking through this building for the first time and this is a garage this was actually a garage so this was like a shop like they they had like a bunch of machines and stuff in here and they had they used to have all this equipment that was like hanging off and we just started going through just yanking stuff out or like this will be the home for Charlie Kirk studio and I feel bad for the audience because I'm not sitting in Charlie's seat you're seeing the the profile shot of

Tyler because he's looking at me when he's talking so I apologize that's been everything on the show that I'm always you're here I'm always looking at Charlie because that's Tyler C I know and I kept I kept telling the studio I was like can we like get that camera Andrew Andrew's pointing out this is a this is a blocking violation for for film yeah but it's worth it so but like kind of always done it so like I you know I I'm going to ask, let me ask you this when radio gets back on, but I was just talking with the, we took a quick bio break, as they call it, in the business.

And I was asking the team, I was like, what do people want to hear right now? And the whole team is out there in the bays, and they were like, people want to hear stories about Charlie. And they want to see the behind-the-scenes stuff. And so I want us to share that with him and with the audience, our interactions with him. And I don't want to force you to start when we,

going to be welcome back national radio in about a minute. But that's, there are, there's that line in the Bible about Jesus where it says, you know, there, there would be the writing of endless books about all the things that Jesus did. And I feel like, um, not to compare Charlie to Jesus, but his life is like that where if you compiled all the little things that he did for all the tens of thousands of people that he interacted with, there would be no end of the that we could write about his life and um that is um that is a true it's like so true like i'm not even that's not even at like 31 years on this planet and that's not even a hyperbolic thing to say that's not me exaggerating is um a really remarkable feat and so like like where's you're

going to go around the table i was just going to put you on the hot seat first so it wasn't me so our our team is telling us that people want to hear more personal stories that you wouldn't have seen if you didn't know Charlie. So Blake, the floor is yours. Tell us the story about Charlie that you think people would like to hear or that they haven't heard yet. Man, I'm thinking of a few things. Gosh, personal stuff. I think one of the things that always impressed me about Charlie was his immense

personal discipline about everything he did. He had, you know, his day was very ordered. Everything he did was very ordered, and he didn't deviate from that. And if you, you know, asked him about that, he'd be like, well, this is the smart thing to do. Why would I do something different? And the thing I'd always tease him about is the number of foods he ate, which is about four or five. Yeah. Like, I would joke about this. And I'm not exaggerating.

The variation of food Charlie ate was like grilled chicken, avocado, hot sauce, like, cabbage, lettuce, salmon, I guess. And I think he used to have beef, but I think he later, like, decided. red meat was probably more on the bat than to start doing that he said it was like a couple years ago that he just because he wanted he said he wanted to get back in fighting shape or something yeah and charlie as long as i've known charlie has always been very focused on what he puts inside his body yeah from day one it was i remember because i've always when i was my first met charlie i was skinny and then i got you know you know dad fat less skinny got your road layer i got dad fat i put on the pregnancy weight a few times throughout that that cycle campaign 30 but Charlie was always and he

would always kind of yell at me you know and Andrew I'm probably sure you had some of these situations like probably hasn't but you never got yelled at for what he eats but he would be like because I would like pound sodas and like I was like oh yeah and then it caught up with me I was like Charlie's like sin eater because I like I eat everything but he would eat like piles of singular foods so it would be like stacks of like stacks of broccoli um He would order that, like steamed broccoli, or he would order just, just meat, right? It would just be like meat. And then he would just, he would pound through it.

He would eat, like, as we're talking, like, like, we didn't have time to waste as we were going. It would just eat later life he enjoyed. I think he enjoyed meals a little bit more. But the early was like, we were going, going, going. He was always in the travel, ready to go. And he would just eat. I would just sit there and be like, because I would order like a normal sandwich and like drink a drink. But he would just eat to eat.

but he was always healthy and he would always be like you're going to eat that like he would look at me like you're going to eat that you're going to put that I actually remember I think the night I'm pretty sure we were all there too was the night of the RNC when he gave his speech there not the 16-year-and-20 but the 24 and I think I want to correct me for wrong but didn't he have like a couple of chicken wings and he like made a huge deal about it he had a couple and we had like a huge pile of it was a cartoonishly vast pile and but it was like each and but it was like each and As Tyler was saying, like, each box was a separate food. And then we had a whole bunch of chicken wings that we were all just chowing down on. And he goes, I will allow myself to have a few. And that was like a huge. He would find something he liked. And early on, he used to say it was all the time. He'd be like, you could build a religion around this thing.

Yeah. Have you ever heard that? Have you ever heard of say that? We could build a religion around this? You could build a religion around this. He'd be like, you could build a religion around those things or that thing or whatever. But it's like the first time he's eating it. No, it would be like, if you'd be like, I'd be like, oh, I mean, I think it's just great.

He's chicken rings. You could build a religion. I think I heard Charlie say that no short of like 500 times. Yeah, it that would you say there's certain set phrases that were just like the Charlie phrases. And, you know, when you say him, you could just hear it in his voice because that's, that's the only guy who talks that way. What about, what about you, Jack? do you have a fun charlie story that you think the audience hasn't heard or would like to hear oh man uh you know look i mean there's a lot of stuff that's just private so that's like how do you

how do you steep through that um you know i'll tell the story that in uh you know from last year though that i think is just just kind of a funny thing so charlie works so hard on these campus tours that people don't realize that he worked himself sick last year and there were I don't know two three weeks where he just he had no voice he completely lost his voice out there on the campus tours the campaigns between everything he's traveling so much and just picking up whatever germs and bugs and all the rest and obviously with his health regimen that he you know he did what he could but you know sometimes it just kind of doesn't work that way and i remember we had we had talked about and he was like hey jack you know you're pennsylvania guy we're

doing this penn state i think it's going to be big do you want to come and i was like yeah you know we'll see if it works out with the schedule etc and and then a couple days before the event he sent or no the day before the event he sends me this text and and says jack we need to talk so like we need to talk i lost my voice so then i call him and he immediately hangs up and he texts me back and I said he said jack I can't talk I lost my voice I can only text and so he he's like I need you up here um and and and and so we we I get up to Penn State and the entire time we're there and I'm I'm with him or spending time and he's like sending me text messages or just writing stuff on it you're like right next to him yeah and he's like showing it

and I'm like saying it or tweeting it or whatever it is and then as we're about to go you know we have this whole thing set up and there's thousands of kids I mean 5,000 maybe because I know we brought it was insane I know we brought see of red hats we brought we brought 30,000 hats but then we ran out and like only about half of the kids had hats so that's why I know you would not believe the number of hats that turning point bought and still managed to run out and it was insane and then and then the and then the campus ended up shutting down the the speakers anyway that many boxes i want to just we just throw out hats it was so many like the logistics of getting that many hats is actually to each campus was actually a marvel in and of itself and you're you're reminding me of uh go ahead i don't know if you had something you wanted to add tyler i was just going to say that the the miracle of the organization of turning point uh being able to do all those things is what in enabled so much of Charlie Kirk, right? Charlie was wanted to be enabled all the time with every little crazy idea that he had. I would call Charlie Kirk Wild Goose Chases with stuff. We would just be like constant stuff, right? It was just like trying to channel where those things would go. But the enabling of the staff to do the things that needed to be done. Because Charlie was almost always right on these things. He was he was always right on where. He was annoyingly.

almost always right almost always right and when you did when you got one that was right you you were like you would make a mental date be like yeah because it was it was 99 to one but the but where he wanted to go with everything was always right and he and he knew he had the vision and the people who helped execute that uh deserve a ton of credit every every person every could i look at the the videos from the campus tours every one of our activists that is there that's volunteering to help hold microphones to you know standing in the in the gap there especially in such scary times as where we're at today they have been such incredible warriors and uh and that honors charlie so much um yeah we we have this let's go ahead and play we have just enough time this is charlie

eating with chopsticks in japan with blake 479 is it like a big thing yeah of course am i doing it okay Yeah, perfect. This is noto. Why is it so gooey? It's very good. It's so gooey. It's very good. Why is it so gooey?

Because it's fermented, I think. That's great. It's very good for you. Blake, I remember you and I were on a chat when this was happening or moments after it happened, and he was like, there was literally 11 dishes in this thing. It was amazing. Oh, the Japanese food.

I mean, you can have a religion around this. People don't realize, like, how he would just get fixated on. Yes, I would just love how he would, you know, he would like interrogate me about things because Charlie love to learn things, love to pick new things up. And yet he was also so busy all of the time.

So he would even just, he would send me on. He's like, Blake, you have to learn all about this thing so that you can just tell me about it when I need to learn about it later. So I'll go read, you know, a 300 page book about this so that I can just be ready when Charlie interrogates me I remember once on a flight

it was like an hour and he's just like Blake tell me about the Roman Empire I'm like the start or the end he's like whatever you want and just started going off about that I also asked you about that Blake is a very good resource if you want to learn about the Roman Empire and he was he was very you know sometimes just to he would ask Mikey he would be like Mikey

just ask Chad GPT to make some trivia questions and then let's just see if Blake can get them and he was very proud that You know, he's like, okay, Blake, I'm going to lose to you on, you know, history. I'm going to probably lose to you on geography. But he was very proud that he was competitive with me on, you know, biblical stuff because he was very, he loved to study the Bible, you know, book by book. He was really into that. He was very, very proud of that.

And he was right. He was better at Bible trivia than I was. Actually, that's something I could share, and I'm sure we all could, that, you know, late night, whatever it is, people would say, well, what is Charlie like in, you know, off air? he would be constantly going through books of the Bible and then he would send you, you know, some file or a podcast or something and be like, Jack, I just did this five hour course on the book of Deuteronomy. You need to go through all five hours and come back to me with it. Yeah. And not even for the show. I have a story like this actually from recent. We were in Aspen doing an investor summit. And it was an amazing trip. And we had a Cambridge professor who, who was actually, we played that the last live, it was a pre-record, but it was like the last radio live hour before he started speaking at campus. And it was with Dr. James Orr, he's an amazing Cambridge professor.

And he flew back from Aspen and Charlie was like, what are you doing tomorrow? and James was like, well, I don't fly out until Monday, and it was a Sunday. So Charlie was like, well, do you want to have breakfast with us and we'll do our morning worship and then I'll pick you up and can you just like teach me all day? And James was like, well, you just want to, you know, you just want to do class. And he's like, yeah, like I just want to do class. And so they sat in a room and Charlie peppered him with questions.

And you have to understand, Dr. James Orr not only sees the world similarly the way we do, but he has like a photographic memory of the classical Western canon, of all the texts that make up the Western. He can remember almost page and verse of all of these great books, and he can connect them how they relate to now and where we got this word and how it evolved from this. And so Charlie was gathering this three-dimensional understanding of the last. Latin and the Greek and how it made up European history, which gave birth to America, obviously, the Western, Western canon. But that was Charlie's idea of a Sunday well spent. And I remember being so jealous. That's a day off for Charlie. That was a day off. I remember being so jealous because I had to go back home. I had to catch a flight Sunday morning to get back

home. And I mean, I got to be with my family and it was great. And that's where I should have been. But Charlie got to spend the day with his family and learning from one of the great minds. and Christendom. And it was amazing. That was Charlie in a nutshell. I also, it's weird things that I remember right now. Charlie walking around all the time with like, he'd wear shorts on planes with like his tall socks.

Yeah. So he always, it was just like, the tall socks. The tall socks. It improves circulation, Andrew. No, he would always tell him to talk to me about this. He's like, it's a thing for tall people, Jack. It's compression socks. You wear them.

You wear them on planes, the pressure. He had it all like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to make a choice. No joke. A week ago, I was getting, when I was actually flying out to Korea for a thing, I was like, okay, I've got to see if there's something to this. And I just put on socks and I pulled them all the way up. And I wore them that for about half the day.

And then I thought, this is way too annoying. And I slid them back down. Well, he would take because you're not tall enough. Yeah. Yeah. But you probably did have really good circulation. Maybe. He is right most of the time.

I wanted to read something that Danny on the team. team. Danny's young guy. Charlie loved Danny so much. And Danny's quiet. It doesn't always say a whole lot. But when he speaks, you better listen because he's been thinking about it for a long time. And Danny wanted to just, he's shared this to me. I hope it's okay. I think it is. He says, Charlie's story. Last year when I was living out here interning, I was living in the hood off of GCU campus Charlie found out and goes

okay you're going to either live at my apartment or at my in-laws and he's like I convinced him I would be fine and I stayed where I was for a few months

he was one of the kindest people I've ever met and I love that story because somehow this was true about Charlie that he was balancing huge organizations

a thousand relationships, donors, friends, the show, politicians, other organizations. He had all these plates spinning in his head all the time, and he would somehow find time to worry about my well-being, or is your wife and kids, are they going to come? Do you need me to set them up with something? Do you want me, can I get them here? Are you okay? Do you want me to put you at this hotel? Like, he would, his brain was just always moving and spinning, and he was always thinking about other people in their well-being and how many stories i heard of that tyler i mean right it's like you saw in the organizational feats of turning point how he would think about the speaker coming in to make sure they were all taken care of and he had it built into the

schedule they had to go backstage to meet so-and-so at such a time because he wanted to just say thanks for coming and it was it the intricacy of his mind and the details he was able to hold all at one time truly amazing one of the things that uh i i just keep seeing over and over is everyone telling the stories of how they got introduced to Charlie. And I've received again thousands of messages. I can't even respond back. I know Andrew feels the same. All of us probably feel the same. Jack is a savant at keeping up with people. I don't know how he does it, but I just can't even keep up. So I'm not even going to try. So I apologize. But everything I keep seeing over and over is Tyler, I know you were close to Charlie. I didn't know him personally, but I want you to know

how I was introduced to Charlie. And nine times out of ten, you know what the answer is? one of my kids turned me on to Charlie they show me Charlie and this is like and this kind of goes hand in hand a little bit with what you're talking about it's just

it's always shocking to me how again the Charlie Kirk phenomenon how he led his life how everything just ultimately ended up you know in front of people and for so many young people

again and that's the mission of turning point turning point we always were we're trying to get young people involved and engaged. But to not only see young people getting involved and engaged in loving Charlie and being interested in this content, whether it's TikToks to all the way through long form podcast, is that they were taking their parents, in most cases, old Gen Xers or baby boomers and saying, you need to listen to this or grandparents. And it's so interesting to me.

And this is the legacy that that has to carry on in such a profound way is that young people can be the spur they can be the dynamics they can be the activating element and charlie was right no one believed this by the way when we started there was no one and charlie would get that face you know when he would tell you he'd get psychies he'd be like i'm going to prove you wrong and he'd get that voice in his he literally took on the hardest i can't the hardest job at the time it was unfathomable and it was like you have chosen potentially the dumbest career mission imaginable Obama era college campuses, guys, you don't understand. That is the definition of the belly of the beast.

And where we are today is where young people are carrying on their shoulders the Charlie Kirk voice to the older generation in a lot of cases. And I'm so that I never have really spent time thinking about that. I mean, I know it and we're really excited about it because I do that with my parents and grandparents. But it's been so rewarding to see. And if Charlie could sit here and read all these messages that I'm, I'm receiving that are saying that exact thing, he would be ecstatic. And we used to send those in the chat all the time, but I actually have some breaking news.

I don't know if I should share it or not, but I'm going to. It looks like the Cubs are going to be recognizing Charlie today. I've got a lesson. I don't even want to tell that story. I can't tell that story. But they should have a, they should have a. It's very important to try it. And, and, and I, he loved the Cubs.

His grandma was a. lifelong cubs fan and she got to see the cubs win the world series and then passed away and charlie was like that was she lived and she lived to see like that the greatest thing as a sports fan for her and that meant a lot because no one thought it was ever going to happen yeah Charlie loved the cubs um love the bears too but it was a little bit harder to be a bears fan i actually was it was hard to be a cubs fan a lot of the time you remember one one of the last chats that we had um we were We were just, you know, because on... By the way, that picture right there that's up on screen,

that was really recent. A couple weeks ago, right? I was with him, and we went to that game. And there's a great, yeah, it's a picture with the Cubs team. And then those, you know, all these haters online, tried to, like, shame that player. I forget his name, but he lives in Phoenix as well. And it's the third baseman.

Hit a home run that day. I think just for Charlie which was like amazing and I actually have a couple pictures from that day so go ahead Jack I No no I was just going to say on on Sundays especially you know people don't realize how big of a sports fan

Charlie was and on Sundays you know the the group chat would turn into basically whatever game he was watching and just yeah one of our last things was just you know busting his balls about the bears and the bears choking away yeah that's what I was saying I was scrolling through

actually that's a story people would like I was scrolling through and Charlie was so focused and it was always that we'd have, you know, America Fest is right before Christmas and that's when the bowl games are ramping up. And I think even maybe some of the playoff games were going on this last year, I can't remember what the schedule was. But he wanted to see what was going on. No, he was mad. What game was it? He was mad that he wouldn't be able to watch a game in real time because. But we would literally have, we have the big stage at Amfest and then behind it is our.

kind of command center or green room. There's a table and Charlie had a place he could sit and he had a TV monitor set up to be showing one of these football games and he's just sitting there like watching it during his literal two minutes of downtime before the next thing at Amfest and he'd have his bowl with his chicken and lettuce that he was able to eat. He just was sitting there and he was watching it really intensely and I'd walk by. He's like, Blake, come here, come on.

Let's watch a game Blake. Okay, Charlie. I, please put this B-roll up. Just don't play the sound on it because I haven't reviewed it for anything. I never shared this, but this was just from a couple weeks ago. That's me filming and Charlie and Erica, and we went out. That was the first time Charlie got to walk out onto, into Wrigley Field, onto the field right there. It was before the game, and it was so awesome.

And the Ivy right there. And this is Charlie, of course. Looking back, give me the thumbs up. And, man, we had just a heck of a time getting into the stadium because there was all these security barriers, but they had arranged it with us beforehand to let Charlie get right up close so that he could just kind of get out of the car

and get on there onto the field. And this was his childhood favorite team, the Cubbies. He got his Cubs hat. I kept wanting to get him one of the new era, or like the actual field hats. No, he would never do it. But he liked his little like low profile one and it was the one he wore.

I think that's the same Cubs hat he wore at Student Action Summit when he was doing the, prove me wrong with the students there. And it was just so fun. It was so fun. He wanted to be there with him. He wanted to be, he loved that field and that stadium. This is way back of the day,

but we had to actually. actually taken we used to we used to have our headquarters in chicago so it was it was a ways out from from chicago and i remember at the early time this is like right after we had made some changes to really grow turning point usa um we did a team builder at at the cubs stadium at rigley field and so we charlie and i had driven over to the the cubs you know to rigley very difficult to park you have to like basically just parking people's garages and things like that

but we took all of the staff there and it was at the time I think we have like 20 people and I remember we're just there and we're sitting and he just nonstop would be talking about to everybody how because we had staffed from all over the country at the time

just different places about how great the Cubs were how much you loved it and you knew from that moment how much that mattered to Charlie and there are a few things that were like Chicago boy things I mean he loved Chicago he told me Tyler Chicago is the greatest city on planet Earth I'm never going to leave and I was really nervous you know what we but then you you were instrumental in him falling in love with Phoenix he's really a Chicago boy at heart he is and the in the Riggly the Cubs yeah everything else was

was such a big part of the things that he loved right here in a studio in Phoenix Arizona his seat is empty because we are honoring one of the greatest people any of us will ever meet a legend an icon a martyr a man who lifted up god above all his faith in jesus christ was the most important thing to him and then it was his family erika his two beautiful kids and then it was the country and turning point and everything that our family founders built and um i'm just realizing jack and tyler and blake that how much i've been changed by this person it was funny even why we were starting the show and it didn't occur to me while i was doing it and so i hope it didn't come off as some like fake like emulation but i was

sitting here going like hey send so and so in hey send so and so and then like like i remember that's what Charlie would do before the show. It was always like, and it's like, I don't think I'm going to fully understand how much I've been affected and transformed and changed by Charlie. And I don't think I'll ever fully understand it.

Because you're not, you're not purposefully doing it like Charlie. No, it's just Charlie's imprint. We were so saturated with so much Charlie Kirk at all times that. No, the way I put it was like, like people ask you what about this question what about this question what charlie wanted this with charlie wanted that and it's like it's like i can hear him in a way but like not like he's

speaking to me but it's just if you know him you kind of know what he would say yeah you know you almost know not on like you know certain things but but just little basic things you just well that's what charlie would say this well charlie would say this charlie would do this and you just you just you just know you just know that that's what he would have wanted And it's weird because, you know, talking to everybody throughout all of this, it's, you know, even having heard that Erica said that she wanted the cameras on and wanted this up, I know that's exactly what Charlie would have wanted that he would say, get on the stream, get the rumble up. It's almost like we are the large language model for Charlie Kirk because we've, we've had so much input from this. person um well i mean that's that's what a life is right when you know somebody yeah that's that's what they do they imprint on you people people didn't give charlie enough credit uh for how funny he was

charlie could be hilarious charlie was funny but it was his own very distinct brand of it like because he was so distinctly charlie and so rigidly charlie kirk when he would kind of come you do that look what he go you know but he would make oh man the plane rides were the best we would just get on topics yes it was it was topics and it would almost kind of turn into the best way to describe charlie kirk's humor is probably Seinfeld you know I've been only watching Seinfeld Charlie I've needed it to fall asleep the last couple nights he lives love Seinfeld but it was like kind of these weird funny just like situational things with personalities involved

where it's like we would kind of talk about those things and it would be like well I was just like what's this guy doing and that's that and like this is funny how this is connected

that's connected and it was like kind of smart humor but it's like that's the very in real life reality show type he was a good storyteller too and I almost feel bad that so many of the funniest ones

you can't tell because it's private information but when he could actually tell you something and him relating at second hand was so funny. I'll give you a good Seinfeld moment from Charlie Kirk's life. I think about this all the time and I don't know why it just sticks with me. So Charlie and I were going back and forth to LA for like every week for like a year. It was there's a reason for it.

It was crazy. It was stupid, but my life got like completely uprooted and I was going to L.A. every week. So the horrible part about this is we had to find L.A.X. And L.A.X is like a third world country. And it just is. And like you just like. And again. for people who have patience you can probably get through lax charlie kirk cannot and we were flying

just back and forth and so one day we cut it really close on the uber that we're going back to lax and you get in the loop around lax it's like a horseshoe and it's and if it's stopped and there's like that uber spot re after but you're so close to the terminal but you're really not yeah yeah are you talking about just as you enter the airport no just the horseshoots i just are going around but if it's packed no sometimes you can just bounce and then you can run faster than going. People who don't know L.A.X, that's a total thing where you're stuck in your Uber outside the airport and you can see the whole string of cars and people are getting out

running in. But you can cut across the thing. You can cut, yeah, because it's a horseshoe and in the middle, they have parking and there's some pathways you can actually cut right in through. So anyways, this guy, this guy was dropping us off and, you know, he wasn't communicating very well. And we're going through anywhere where, we're, that basically, scenario played out and he's like oh well it's just right up here it's right up there and we just kept

going and going and going he's like and i just remember the guy had messed up and then missed he cut through the middle because there's this kind of a road through the middle and actually missed he's like oh we're going to have to go back and do this all over again and we just flew open the doors he's like this is crazy like you just like looked at the guy's like this is actually crazy and we like grabbed her stuff out of the car we're like having to walk across the airport but i just wring in my ear the whole time because the guy was like oh no it's fine I do this all the time but the interaction

between Charlie and this guy and that's trying to get into the airport you can almost hear it down oh yeah yeah he loved this clip by the way he actually thought that Seinfeld had really profound like deeper like parallels he thought it basically thought our entire modern world could be

there was a there was going to be a Seinfeld episode that that mocked in parody, that, what we're experiencing now. And so he loved this ribbon clip. So let's just go ahead and play the ribbon clip. If we have it, uh, I don't know what number. It doesn't have a number, but it's the ribbon clip. You're checked in?

Yeah, thank you. Here's your AIDS ribbon. Uh, no, thanks. You don't want to wear an AIDS ribbon? Uh, no, no. But you have to wear an AIDS ribbon. I have to. Yes.

Yeah, see, that's why I don't want to. But everyone wears the ribbon. You must wear the ribbon. What you are? You're a ribbon bully. Hey, hey, you, come back here. Come back here and put this on.

Hey, where's your ribbon? Oh, I don't wear the ribbon. You don't wear the rhythm? Who do you think you are? Put the ribbon on. Hey, Cedric. Bob, this guy won't wear a ribbon. Who?

Who doesn't want to wear the ribbon? And remember Charlie loved this because it was the parallel to the black squares during George Floyd. And this coercive, you have to put it up. And if you don't, you're guilty. And that was just one instance. of Charlie

using Seinfeld and I'll never forget he always brings Eric Metaxus on the show and the first thing he does when Eric Metaxus comes on and he he'll make like an inside Seinfeld joke reference because Eric loves Seinfeld as well and it's a beautiful thing

man it's just watching that clip Charlie love that clip Charlie love saying that line you must wear the ribbon like yeah oh i'm gonna miss joking around with him so much that's how did you get him to wear this hat this is hilarious Tyler this is my greatest moment by the way Tyler got him to wear this hat put this hat up I can't believe you got you got you got him to wear that the what the one thing that I feel oh yeah this was the I feel happiest about is I was able to get Charlie to do crazy

things for a long time again for for that but we did we had these hats that said precincts sheriff on them because we're focused on recruiting for precincts and this is how serious about it and Charlie was very serious about chapters and in our political side we talked about precincts and getting everyone involved in the precinct level and so I was like Charlie if you're serious about this you got to wear this and we I think we wore about for a thought crime episode yeah everybody had to wear a hat Charlie I think Charlie probably took that off pretty quickly but it was great that he that he was always a good sport like no he had it on he had it on for quite a bit of the episode. Charlie was always a good sport, actually. And what? It's like the South Park. They didn't understand the South Park. We found the clip 477 of Rush talking about Charlie.

I'm going to play it before this show is out because this show is the Charlie Kirk show. And Rush Limbaugh inspired Charlie to pursue this line of work. There's no question about it. That's not me speculating. I know for sure that's why. And so I'm going to play the Rush Limbaugh clip because they were both two men that we lost way, way too early.

And I'm pretty sure that was the clip. I just saw it. And Rush saw, yeah, it's 477. Let's go ahead and play it. They brought Charlie Kirk to the golf course to meet me about a month ago. He was in town to set up this turning point. thing and they brought him to the golf course to meet me it was during we're getting ready for a uh 845 a m start and they brought him out while i was getting ready to go to the range

loosen up and i spoke with him for about a half hour and he told me how he grew up in a home where my program was on all the time he was just effusively uh complimentary to me which which i of course understood and told him he's very wise his family's very wise he chuckled he laughed this is the kind of guy um that you can see really becoming big in politics as he gets older it just has the kind of the character the personality charisma i you may think this sounds weird but i remember when bill clinton became president there were all of the these stories about bill clinton at oxford and bill clinton at yale and bill clinton here and all these people that went school with him there were story after story after story where people were

saying that they just knew bill clinton was going to be president someday in college he just had that kind of ambition and he impressed people and i'm telling you that people are saying the same things about charlie kirk yeah rush saw it and Rush knew and Rush didn't want people to know this and then we asked Catherine after he passed and she said it was okay to share that Rush was a seven-figure donor to Turning Point and because he believed so much in Charlie and what he was building in the mission of Turning Point USA and I want all of you to rest assured that are wondering what's next. Turning Point USA is not going anywhere. The mission that Charlie started, he always wanted it to be an institution that would

outlive him. And we obviously wanted so much more time with him, but that was very clear, that was spoken of expressly. And I know all of us are ready to get to work on that. We're honored by all our partners at Real America's Voice who believed in this show and they've always been so supportive by the way they would send crews halfway around the world to have our back Rob Sig, Parker Sig,

we love you guys, you know what you mean to us and I've talked with both of you in the moments after and since and Jack I know you work with them directly as well and your show's coming up next and we're going to keep going for... Yeah, but I'm not just

It'll be the Charlie Kirk show today. We're just going to continue this. Yeah. And anyways, we love them. And there's so many people that we should remember and thank. Thousands and we're not going to, this probably is not the show to do that just because it's impossible and we're going to forget too many people. But I just can't tell you how many people believed in Charlie. and gave us a shot and as a matter of fact i am i'm gonna daisy do i have my permission

do you have do i have your permission to to read this all right so this is from daisy phelps daisy um she was originally daisy dibley when she joined us uh and she got married and now she's uh expecting her first child and we love daisy she um you were joking tyler you were like my life was really hard and then you came along and then i was like yeah and then my life was really hard you're like i felt bad i didn't want to tell you like how much easier my life got what i could and my life was really hard until daisy dibley came around um and now daisy phelps 100% and then blake candidly uh changed everything as well um i'm trying to make sure i got my show clock right here so this is from daisy who would do charlie's makeup and make sure his eyebrows because he had

these crazy eyebrows like he had he had like 60 year old eyebrows at 27 like they would just spark up like this and i was like daisy make sure his eyebrows are like it his hair he had this crazy mop that would just fight you and daisy got really good at kind of putting it all together and daisy also ran his instagram account and so much more so much she did so much around here she said charlie was a force a believer a patriot he was my friend i've had the privilege of speaking to him every day for the last four years and I can't tell you that I've ever known someone with more integrity. He was exactly who he said he was, except better. There wasn't one thing that was fake or fabricated. He believed in what he said and he lived out what he believed. He loved Jesus more than anyone. The truest thing

about him was his belief in God. He was constantly researching new ways to defend the gospel and making sure we all knew them. It was that important to him. I can still hear him say, good morning sports fans coming into our studio every morning. I can still hear the worship music coming out of his office. I and everyone in the building was watching. I can still hear, oh, I can still hear the Cubs games he'd turn on all the TVs to make sure everyone in the building was watching. I can still hear his kids running to hug him during breaks. He's not only, he not only took a chance on me at 21 years old, but he pushed me, trusted me, and listened to me. Our show was everything to us. We lived and breathed the Charlie Kirk Show because we believed in it.

We still do. He consistently raised the bar for everyone on our team by first raising it for himself every day. He saw greatness in you and he brought it out by first being great himself. Just being around him, being in the background, made you want to fight harder. He was ecstatic when I told him I was pregnant. He made sure to ask about the baby every day. He wanted to see every ultrasound and when we found out it was a girl he yelled, I told you.

My faith is completely different had I never met Charlie. My career, my adult life, my marriage from watching the way he loved Erica, everything is different had I never met him. I'll never be the same and I wouldn't want to be. If there was one thing to know about Charlie, it's that he loved Jesus. He is with God. He spent so much time learning about and teaching others about. We just miss him.

And I know we're all very honored to be here. We're going to keep going for another hour, Jack. at least and I'd like to have an opportunity for people in the audience to call in and tell their stories and how they remember Charlie so I want to do that so I don't know if we're planning in doing that today I think we probably should just keep going and so let's set up let's make sure the studio's ready to do that in a little bit but go ahead there's a few people to you know And again, it's really important. Yes, please do this.

This is not the show to everybody because there's so many people who are influential, but there's a few people who are so dear to Charlie that I know of that just loved him to pieces. Mike Miller, who's been one of our longtime board members, it's like a father figure to Charlie. And in fact, he's one of the individuals who has been there from, really day one when i met charlie he was a big time big game hunter africa everything else he's a jeweler a big jeweler in illinois he's from barrington illinois and he's so american the guy his address i think for his jewelry shop is one two three main street or something so yeah uh incredible and i've i've i've slept at his house like like this is great man incredible love charlie

love charlie so much love charlie so much but this is i mean there are people that that have that were so influential our board members we have so many incredible board members but you know dug de group for example has just been there has been a rock and a stalwart for charlie tom sedeka who is going through some health things and we're praying for him every single day i mean there's just so many people and so and those early people especially the chicagoans that were there who believed in charlie uh bill montgomery who was one of the first kind of in Bill's ending magnetic energy was like a tea party guy that wanted to just show Charlie to everyone.

And it was many people like that who created, gave the way that enabling of Charlie Kirk to be introduced to the world. And if you're one of those people, and I didn't name you, I'm so sorry. David Englehart. David's there. On the board. Obviously, Rob McCoy, so many others that have been. so close all of our board members truly

Jeff Webb others that you just you took Charlie around to expose him to the world to others we're just we're just thinking about you so much today because you know you did this and you knew your and there were literally hundreds of not thousands of people who Rebecca Dunn who did that Feinberg these people were just champions

of Charlie Ed Zeman so many yeah we shouldn't start because we're going to miss people that really but I want to foster freeze Oh, Foster, I guarantee you, Foster was waiting right there for him when he came out. We were sharing pictures of Foster. I remember sitting with Foster, actually, just right before he passed in the Trump Hotel in D.C. And he scolded, he was always scolding, you know, for, you know, giving that advice to Charlie, to me, to anyone that would listen.

And he loved Charlie. Everyone has loved Charlie so much. I just also want to say thanks just in these few final moments of the live show. And again, we're going to keep going. But we want to thank all the Phoenix PD that has been stalwart. And just from a security standpoint, cops blocking off roads, making sure our staff was safe, making sure these buildings were safe, making sure all the families felt safe going home and coming in. The buildings are closed for all intents and purposes. and that's great.

That's fine for right now. The first responders at the scene, we want to thank them. Thank Charlie's personal security detail. You cannot imagine how tough that was for them. And I really love those guys and they love Charlie. You've got to believe me that if anybody loved Charlie and had his back and was fight the warriors by his side,

it was those guys. Dan and Brian, guys of the... best. Incredible. I can't. I mean, we've known Dan from the very, very beginning. There is not a person that loves Charlie Kirk for. Absolutely. We would have taken a bullet for Charlie. And the PD at the vigils, I know that there's just, we're running out of time. We have 25 seconds left here before we lose radio. But Charlie loved being on radio. And so there's a radio audience listening all across the country just know that charlie was inspired by rush rush believed in charlie and charlie took this medium to the next level and he was rewarded with it in ratings and the performance of the show

and all of your amazing belief in it thank you so much and sorry i just it's the way this thing works man like uh you see somebody you haven't seen yet you haven't grieved with yet and it gets the motions flowing in uh in you know guys that I know who have lost people in the military they say it's it's waves yeah it's waves it feels like it feels like waves that's the best way and it's and it's you know certain certain phrases certain people certain faces certain memories like like for me I didn't expect a Seinfeld clip would just you know yeah and everybody deals with it differently and Charlie was not much of a crier unless

you know he literally helped elect the future president and the 40 45 and 47 um and uh you know just hat tip to everything he just accomplished by sheer will and i really truly believe that without charlie kirk we would not have president trump and um vice president vance we would definitely not have him and thank you to president vance and to usha vice president vans and uh first second lady usha for just their just how wonderful they were with erika yesterday they're through and through they came to salt lake city and they picked up erika they picked up charlie and all of us and took us on air force two back to phoenix and it was a beautiful ceremony um both getting on and uh getting off and um jd came back and talked with us and he spent most of his time with erika

and I mean just class act class act hugged us all he is he's genuinely i want to say this about the vice president he's been genuinely interested in individuals and this is the same thing with charlie this is the same thing with president trump to to be very point blank is very interested in individuals and his his touch his warm touch on this of making sure that charlie was honored the way that he deserves to be honored is never going to be forgotten. It's never going to be forgotten by this team. It's never going to be forgotten by the conservative movement, by obviously the entire turning point family.

But that is such a testament to our vice president's character. Yeah. It's just as easy to say, I, I, I, we can't. And you got to understand J.D.'s hurting too. Yeah. J.D. love Charlie as a brother and as a friend. they talked almost i'm i really mean this uh probably on text at least almost every day if not every day and jd was strong he understood the moment was probably not his moment to grieve he's

grieving in private and he was there and he was strong husha was strong and um yeah i just i love i love him for it and um there's a lot to love about jd but that was a really amazing um a really moment and uh for our members and by the way thank you jack this is your hour um and you're you're graciously um letting us continue this show and i i wouldn't have this hour if it wasn't for charlie so it doesn't mean anything just let just keep going and um i appreciate that brother and um i just a quick programming note we're going to be sending our members at members.charleykirk.com, we're going to be sending you a phone number to call in and share your thoughts. So if you're one of the members of this show, you know who you are. You are the

nearest and dearest to us out there and you believed in this show and you put your money where your mouth is and we adore you for it. And Charlie believed in his members in such an amazing way. And so if you're a member of the Charlie Kirk show, you are about to get an email with a phone number and you can call in and you can share your thoughts and your remembrances of charlie and what he meant to you and we would love to hear from some of you we'll try and fit in as many as make sense and um how you got to know charlie how you discover charlie is incredible your interactions with charlie and your interactions with the show your interactions with turning point uh please like coming to events whatever we want to hear all of it and we please send those thoughts

if you don't call in to freedom at charlie kirk.com. I'll just say that, you know, and we haven't really addressed it here. Obviously, we, you know, you know what we do. We see all the information that's coming in about the suspect. We've even got stuff that hasn't been put out yet. And we just, there'll be a time for that. And we know there'll be a time for that. There will be justice for Charlie Kirk.

But that's not what we're doing right now. That's all I'm saying. Can I share one more thing that I saw that was a, frequent thing that was really touching. We have, of course, tons of people who have worked for us, tons of people who have worked with us alongside us that have helped build Turning Point into what it is today. But so many people, even people who, you know, again, there are people who aren't always that don't always agree with every single thing that comes out of turning point. I think this is really important, but their life was dramatically changed because

of turning point and they had met their spouses the one common theme I saw was people reaching out to me saying Tyler I've always had this unbelievable respect for Charlie and for turning point because it changed my life for the better I found my spouse I have my kids because of turning point I heard so many stories like that and exact phrase and that consistent message that Charlie gave about the family and building your family and everything else reinforced all of that. And so so many people are like almost coming back home because they're like, oh, you know, I didn't always agree with Trump or like Trump or whatever and or I didn't like X, Y, and Z. And now they're on, they're on the team.

And it was because Charlie, they stuck with it and listened. They're like, yeah, actually, you know what? This is the life I want to live. My family is important. My religion is important. Christ being the center of my life is important what Charlie said. And so it's been really a beautiful, actually, honestly, a miraculous thing to watch is these people came back. Who I haven't heard from for almost 10 years maybe that have said, hey, this is how much this has impacted and changed my life.

And, you know, and some of those people are saying, I'm sorry, I didn't say something before. And that was because of Charlie and what he built. Like, I just, you know. You know, I keep thinking about, there's a poem that's a favorite of mine. It's from, it's a poem during, it was written during World War I by Lawrence Binion. It's titled, For the Fallen, and it was about the men they lost in World War I. I think about just a few lines from it and about Charlie. they went with songs to the battle they were young straight of limb true of eye steady and aglow they were staunched to the end against odds uncounted they fell with their faces to the foe

they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them. And that's how Charlie will always be for us. All of us are going to grow old. All of us are going to die. But Charlie will forever be how he was on September 10th. Brave, strong.

out there could be like that forever the end the end of that one is well said there's a couple lines where the next line of those actually they mingled not with their laughing comrades again they sit no more at familiar tables of home they have no lot in our labor of the daytime they sleep beyond england's foam is a british poem and the very last part as the stars that shall be bright when we are dust moving in marches upon the heavenly plain as the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness to the end to the end they remain so much of this in retrospect and you don't have eyes to fully appreciate it in the moment but where you realize that you were encountering greatness and

the moment you get the news you realize that you were around somebody that was so so incredible and and in kind of in a weird way like in retrospect it all kind of makes sense that we were that we only get him for such a short time yeah because he was too great for this world in so many ways and um he was a shooting star he was a mythological creature you know you hear these pictures here these images of uh descriptions of george washington and how he's this huge man and and like especially for his time well charlie we always joked he was a nephilum he is literally the only chair the only chair that we could get i this is actually really funny third when we first started getting charlie the chairs for his

studio was like nope not that was like it was like mattress shopping it was like nope not that one not that one literally this chair this is a shack chair yeah from it's a shekel o'neal it's a A fairly inexpensive chair. Yeah. But it's made for huge people like Shaquille O'Neal. And from Staples. Yes. And from Staples.

Locally. Like, oh, this is the one. And he's worn it out. Got like a little, like, you know,

the very cheap, you know, veneer on it or whatever. I don't know if you know what you call it. Like it's definitely not, it's definitely not leather. It's like the vinyl. It's vinyl.

And he wore it out and he loved that big chair. And I have to say like when I've sat in it in the past, like you've sat in it. It's like, you're like, okay i see what he was kind of you know it's a good chair um it's like a hug but he was larger than life and we all saw it and we all you know he was younger than us everybody at this table he was younger than us and so we just you know you assume that you're going to probably go before him and

um but in retrospect like he was so larger than life and he packed so much into every single day that it's pretty impossible to it's impossible to to fully grasp just how much life he lived and how much he accomplished in 31 far too short years but we do have our first caller do we want to you guys ready for that um his name is Evan Evan uh the floor is yours gentlemen it's it's an honor to just be on and talk about Charlie for a second I'll keep this quick. Charlie was a friend. I considered him a dear friend, even though I never, ever met him. I've listened to him for a very, very long time. I run and operate along in landscaping business and also host a podcast. And what Charlie really taught me was he was always continually learning.

And even with my show that it helps me, you got to know things. You got to know body equipment and things like that. And Charlie was always learning. He's always listening to books and things like that. And his boldness to stand on the Word of God. And Jesus is what I've tried to do with my business and in life and even my family too. Like I have a two and a half-year-old son and a kid on the way. And when I heard the news just a couple days ago, I was on the more I stopped and I cried. It was just, it's devastating. But we know that God's going to work this together for good.

And through his tragic death guys, more people are going to know about Jesus. And that's the one thing that we have to remember through this. And it's just, I've never been, he had, I consider him a friend even though I just never knew him. And I want you guys to hold on a God's word because that's what Charlie would want for us to do. I'm going to stand on God's word and hold on to it right now and not let the enemy just blind us from the mission that he had set. Guys, I appreciate all that you do. And just Charlie, just thank you. And thank you, Lord, for putting him on this earth for 31 years.

Well said, Evan. And I think I just want to echo what you're saying. I've gotten so many notes and I've seen so many comments in social media of people saying their kids are coming back to church because of Charlie and because of this and what's happened that people are coming back to the Lord. and i just um jack it is your hour but i'm just going to say a quick prayer um i'm going to say a quick prayer um for that um heavenly father we ask that you would um bless charlie's legacy right now in this moment across the country and across the world as we mourn his his passing is far too early and too soon we ask holy spirit that you would enter the hearts of millions of people across this planet, across our nation,

and that you would bring people to faith in you, Jesus, saving faith in you. He loved you, and I know that he is getting his reward in heaven right now, and that's what he wanted, and the beautiful eulogy that Blake helped write, that all he wanted was thriving young people that went back and found their faith in you and thriving young families that made this country strong and great so that more could follow that same path. And I know, Lord, God, that getting married and having a family and knowing you were his greatest accomplishments

on top of everything else he did. And so, Jesus, we just blessed this country and everybody that loved Charlie or that heard about him and that only heard about him even from his death, Lord, that you would make so many new believers, met so many new members of your heavenly kingdom right now and in the days and weeks to come, Lord Jesus. We ask in your precious name. Amen.

If you guys want, we could follow that up. Tyler, I know you just put the hat back on, but we could all say together, our Father, our Father, who are in heaven, how it will be done. That kingdom come. That will be done on earth.

as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses. We forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Charlie would have wanted people going back to church

more than anything. More than anything. But more than politics or campaigns or whatever the next election was, or whatever the next turning point was the core belief was that was it he was he was a true believer in what Andrew Breitbart said and we talked about this all the time I actually remember visiting we were visiting a donor we stood in the spot where Andrew Breitbart passed which is a kind of a I think it's in LA you've been there right it's on sunset yeah it's it's really

interesting just right outside a restaurant well it's in it's in Brentwood at least I don't know yeah it's it's it's kind of an industry place but we He had always had kind of this infatuation with the concept, and we actually leaned into it, talking about culture wars and all of that, but that culture is what dictates your politics. And culture is dependent upon your faith. The fate's the bedrock. There's nothing that impacts that.

So the politics that is really downstream from cultures, really, and this is kind of like, I would say, Andrew Breitbart next level, which was Charlie Kirk, is that that's why I'm, I believe Charlie was so adamant about faith being so important is that he was a true believer in that statement, but that faith was what was dictating how our politics would end up, which is absolutely correct and true. And so there's nothing that can be more important right now. You can just tie it up and say politics is downstream from culture, culture is downstream from faith. That's right.

And Charlie led by example. and embracing faith, embracing the Christ-like attributes that are necessary to impact culture in the positive way that needed to happen. And I think that's why you're seeing that turn of so many young people that were influenced by this, maybe starting with politics, but walking themselves backwards and going, oh my gosh, well, my politics is dictated by my faith. and that's a great legacy that is the most important legacy which charlie himself said which is that's all that's all he cared about is that people would know that well i was interesting i saw a clip yesterday

from uh larry o'connor who worked for bright bart uh Andrew brightbart and they were talking about he was talking about this memory at CPAC and they were doing an Andrew brightbart panel and Larry put it together he was kind of he's like well all of us worked directly with Andrew you never knew him he's like and Charlie says I can't wait to be on this panel you know this is so amazing and so he's like I'll call you and tell you about it like my thoughts and he's okay we probably should talk because the rest of us knew Andrew and Charlie said that I was so inspired by Andrew Breitbart that I created turning point and Larry realized that he started turning point in 2012 yeah the year that it happened and he realized that that that Charlie in many ways is the blossom of

the seed planted by the death of Andrew Breitbart. And so when you think about how that can keep going forward, and I know Charlie would want that, that we would have many such stories like that, not just turning point or whatever. And it's really an interesting point to make for those that study modern conservatism. There aren't very many people, I mean, let's,

if you had to pick the top three, It would probably be, you know, and again, we're setting Charlie aside, but Andrew Breitbart, Donald Trump, and the third being Rush Limbaugh. And when you look at that and you start to go, wait, what's the connection between all three of those men? It's really, you look at that, you go Charlie Kirk. And Charlie was a, again, enigma. He had a personality that was unlike anything else. But he was the continuation. He picked the baton up for all three of those men in different ways

and carried the entire conservative movement on his back and created something. Again, the culmination of that, you know, what is the representation of Charlie? And people are like, well, what can we do to, you know, keep Charlie? You have it. It's turning point USA. It's turning point. the entire ecosystem he did it yeah he was he was able to do all the things i all of the things all i i promised we would we would mention this and before we go to the next caller um i saw some

people saying that you know they thought i was trying to brush it off i just i wanted to give the vigils a moment because the and i wanted because i knew we were up on a clock before it's unbelievable and they're they're worldwide um south africa i've seen australia australia i've got a video from sydney this morning someone sent me sweden sweden all across europe i just got one from hungarians i'm sure and and then all across the country and and there's like there's like little ones popping up you know like just hey this is the one in our town And if you want to come, just come on. Someone sent Westchester, PA, and, you know, I hear there's, I hear there's going to be a,

I think, I hear there's, they're trying to put together one, not like an official one, but like at the, at the White House at Lafayette Square Park. There's just some local people we're trying to get a permit. And it's that spirit of individuals becoming activated and coming together around, round one core concept principle value that's what charlie kirk stood for that's what he was all about he lived his entire life trying to inspire a turning point in this country and and he's done it he i i've i take so much solace in a couple of things he got to see young men and the youth vote win a president yes he got to see it and he got to do it

and he got to see he got to see the decline in church start going back up he got to see that bounced and he got to see just just before that NBC poll that said that young men want to get married and have babies as their top priorities yep and I can't tell you how much that means to me that he got to see the fruit of his work because so many people don't they don't get see what they've accomplished and he actually got to see it and all of you that came out to the campus events all of you that came out to our turning point events all of you that subscribed to the show that gave him like one of the biggest shows and reaches and platforms in the entire country day in and day out and we had millions of people listening to charlie every day every

day. We tried our best to estimate it in the way of modern analytics with fast channels versus radio versus podcasts. And then you take clips. It was basically impossible to measure. But even just in the fall going up to the election, it was 15 billion views of Charlie Kirk content just ahead of the election. And every day, there was between two and three million people that tuned into this show to the charlie kirk show or listen to the podcast or um and that's just the live show that's not even counting clips so that was podcast radio and it was truly truly a feat for anybody but the fact that he was able like we said tyler to be like a rush limbaugh to be like an andrew bright bar and to be he brought all that together he brought all that together in one of it

human that took and by the way and i want to give a shout out to all of his assistant staff and his chief of staff, Mikey, who made his day-to-day possible. They were really amazing. We're going to get to another caller. And this one is Anthony. Anthony, the floor is yours, my friend. Tell us about Charlie. Thanks, Andrew.

Well, first, my condolences to you and everybody. So Charlie and I, I've been listening to the show since it probably started, and I've been a member for a while and everything. But the one time that it stood out to me, And this might have been the funniest disagreement was probably at the end of July, early August. It was the weekend before he had to go on Fox and Friends, and he put out the question to everybody in the first hour, does baseball need a salary cap? And he knows that I work in the industry, and it's on the college side of athletics. And we talked about the political question I sent into him, and then he goes, all right, Anthony, give me your, I need to know.

You're the professional. I go, I already emailed you my answer in the first hour. He goes, I know. I'm not letting you go until you tell me. And I said, well, I believe I'm on the fence. And he literally starts laughing and goes, you can't be on the fence about this. You have to be on my side. And I'm like, and then I'm like literally sitting there.

And I'm like, he's yelling at me. He's yelling me because the guy in the industry won't side with him. And I'll be honest, I always wanted a salary cap until I did more research. And then he's like, well, you have to, and Blake, you can relate to this. You've got to find me that research and send it. So I said, all right, I will look for it. I sent it to him next Saturday morning when he's live on Aaron Fox the following week. He goes, I got your emails.

I haven't read them yet. But he goes, but it was the funniest to see his facial expression. Just light up because he's like. Anthony, I just want to, you're reminding me of a very unique detail of Charlie Kirk that unless you emailed in the show, you didn't know. He would argue with emails. and he would get into these during the show during the show he's sitting there

hosting the show going welcome back to the Charlie Kirk show press send and then he'd be like you know they'd keep the show going but he would he was arguing with people as we went he could be talking like

giving a monologue and writing a separate argument to an email well we would all be debating too so he would your emails that you would make he would drop into the chat and it would be like rolling a grenade into the chat yeah or sometimes you know he'd be like what do we think and he'd be like well this person just agrees with me and we and we would take sides with all of you so like there we would we would have all of that and and and truly and this is the one

grassroots part because one of our our our culture point that we have at turning point is grassroots humility and this is the really interesting part and again Andrew deserves a ton of credit for this because they framed the entire show the charlie kirk show here around your feedback your commentary your conversations individual every individual in america that talked to charlie or would email in or would dm had a voice and and again that that's just that's not most people that do this and it helped with the work because it helped frame charlie's opinions about things it help frame from a grassroots perspective how we think about things at turning point at and we think about issues issues that would be covered on charlie's show every single day that everybody listened to

everybody the white house would listen to you and i mean i twitter would change because we the three like between jack and charlie alone them dropping something changes the whole direction on twitter anyways and then benny yeah benny johnson yeah um you just throw this up i just want to So I don't know all the details about this, but there is a prayer vigil planned in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, September 14. So this Sunday at 6 p.m. location to be announced soon. I think I may have just accidentally said it. Oh, whoops. Well, if you did, I, you know, that's fine.

I wasn't given the full confirmation on that. Sunday, I mean, who knows, but it'll be at 6 p.m. in Washington, D.C., and I think it's a beautiful way to honor Charlie. Charlie candidly didn't love Washington, D.C., didn't love going to Washington, D.C. I mean, he was pretty open about that. Imperial Capitol. Imperial Capitol. But he would stomach it because he loved his country and he would go there. And so, I mean, I think it's a fitting tribute. Can I just say if you are at Washington, D.C. or if you're in any other blue area and you're going to one of these vigils and protesters come up. or something like that

just I'm not going to say you know don't get into it but just we're not there for that we're just we're really not there for that

Charlie Charlie his message was peace I mean Charlie he was a master swordsman but his sword was the word the logos

and debating and he didn't believe in peace per se he believed in verbal combat and he believed in intellectual and ideological combat and he believed that we were in a war of ideas and a spiritual battle and so I'm not here to give you some rosy you know prescription about the state of the

world we're in a battle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities and obviously close yeah understanding of the state of the world a couple days ago yeah but like Charlie ultimately believed in the promise of America and the fact that our institutions will hold I guess Speaker Johnson will be at that one along with Anna Polina Luna and you know more details coming about that which is very fitting because Anna is you know by her own admission is our is the turning point Congresswoman she you know tell this fun story again I know some people have heard it but Anna was thinking about going to med school and she had engaged with us online we had I found her we saw that she was saying

some smart things on Instagram and we actually reached out to her invited her to young women's leadership summit and she came and she was like hey I'm applying to med school and she was with, again, Air Force veteran, everything else. And that one experience of her being there at Young Women's Leadership Summit, which, by the way, that was Young Women's Leadership Summit was the brainchild of Charlie. We started that many, many years ago. He knew that was important. I wanted to do that, but it culminated.

It started at a tiny little thing in Illinois, and then we moved to the airport. We were at the airport, you know, kind of a three-star hotel at... The Hyatt and DFW? At DFW. It was tidy. It was like inside. It's like literally inside the airport. airport so you don't even leave the airport when you show up and it grew and grew and grew but

anna showed up there and we convinced her to not go to medical school to quit basically move to Arizona and start touring and learning how the the ropes of how to debate on campus and to do that that was like the Charlie Kirk model by the way APL she has been so fierce in Charlie's defense since all this I've been texting with her she has been The person. She's so great. And I just love it. Anyways, she's part of the legacy, too.

She left here, wanting to run for Congress, wanted to change the country. She's doing just that. And she's a tremendous friend and ally. And she's been incredible for the last few days here. We're going to take another caller. Caleb, you are on. Caleb and Michelle.

How are you, my friends? My friend, Andrew. Well, you know how we are. but it's such a privilege and an honor to that Charlie called me his friend. And, you know, even though we were occasional acquaintances, and I loved how he, every time we would meet, he would treat us like family, you know. And I have, what I wanted to talk about is maybe just a couple stories about how he elevated, those around him. And I know it's been said before that that was the kind of person he was. He wanted everyone to be their best. And, um, but, you know, we, we, and Michelle's already

emailed you guys, the story of how we first met in 2020. And, you know, we, he introduced us to people. We, you, you, I think you were there, Andrew. We'd come back. He says, these are my 2020 friends, because we met, you know, met him in 2020 just after the election at the headquarters. And it was, what was so cool is that every time afterwards we would go to an event that Charlie was speaking at, and he did this like at least twice to me, he's like, oh, hey, Caleb, he's out in the crowd. I'm just sitting out in the crowd. He says, oh, there's Caleb and Michelle. I should tell you the story about how we met in Arizona.

And he remembered you when he saw you again and welcomed you in. And Michelle and I just were so happy. But, you know, three weeks ago, he was in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, we're in North Carolina now, and we're like, we could drive. We could go to that. And, you know, and so we went to see him. I saw you there. Charlie. Saw you there, Caleb.

Yep, saw you there. And it was so cool because Charlie invited us backstage, or, you know, Mikey did. And he brought us into the green room. And there's Alex McFarland, and Charlie introduces us, you know, Caleb Michelle, you know, my super fan. these are guys are Charlie Kirk's show super fans. And he said, you know, Charlie, Charlie said, you know, Caleb just sends me the, you know, the best feedback. I love reading his emails.

You know, he always talked about how he loved Michelle's emails. She's always so encouraging to him. And then he says, so, Caleb, what's on your mind? He just puts me on the spot, you know, like, you know, I'm not the guest speaker or anything. He says, what's in your mind? And I throw out a couple ideas. and he says, you know, I'll let you choose. Here's a couple ideas. What are you going to talk about?

And he's like, oh, that's a great topic. Hey, Alex, you and Caleb, you guys should debate this topic. And then he just puts this on the spot and he facilitated, you know, he kind of moderated. He jumps in on my side, you know, gives a good point here from the Bible because it was a, you know, a biblical discussion. By the way, Caleb, I want to give you credit because Charlie threw it to you to make a point. remember backstage with McFarland and you crushed it man you crushed it and I remember

looking at I walked away with Charlie and I said Caleb did well and he goes oh yeah he's been paying attention I want to throw up another image here this is from some friends here a memorial rally tribute ride

in Lynchfield Park here in Arizona arrive at 5 p.m., ride at 5.30, and speakers to be announced, candlelight vigil at 7.30. This is just, this is what's happening.

People want a way to help, and I think it's incredible that so much of this is happening so organically, nobody's planning this. There's no like organization, by the way, doing like the D.C. one. It's just like,

People in D.C. that love Charlie. Charlie would have loved this. And it's just, people are grabbing the bull by the horns, and they're doing this because they loved him. But Charlie would also say, he'd say, okay, but don't stop there. Of course. He would say, don't stop there. Do not stop there. Thank you, but do not stop there.

Speaking of which, this is like, I had my team coming to me going, like, how can I help? Like, can I make a tribute video? And I'm like, sure. I haven't seen this one either. Let's go ahead and play. This is from Noah on our team. And I haven't seen it. So 419. Thank you, Noah. This is why your faith is the most important thing. You are commanded to go do something productive with your life. You are not commanded to go sit idly by and just receive. You are commanded to go give and to produce and to risk to then go so into other people.

That is a biblical idea that has made the world a profoundly better place. We must put God first in everything that we do. We are nothing here but just for a short instant, short little glimpse. We act not out of outcome, but we act out of obedience. Everybody, this was not earned. You guys were a vessel. We were a vessel. Psalm 107.1.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good or his steadfast love endures forever. I have to say this without getting emotional, but I'm very proud of my husband. You are so intentional with your faith. and you are so intentional with just how you are as a father and a husband. Becoming a father has made me, first of all, understand that what I'm fighting for is beyond even yourself. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and darkness and spirits. Because at its core, what we are fighting is a spiritual battle. And if you're here and you don't believe in God, okay, fine, I'll pray for you.

And I hope you find Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, because it will change your life. how do you want to be remembered i want to be i want to be remembered for for courage for my faith that that would be the most important thing most important thing is my faith in my life wow good job noah great job noah that's great um noah's pretty new to the team and uh you captured it brother um we got a note here uh from a john He said, Charlie sat down with me after my dad died. He says, hey, thought crime crew, I look back fondly on the time I spent with Charlie for my time as a student at GCU to working for NFP and then chase the vote.

Charlie inspired me and was my hero. I specifically remember when Charlie came to GCU in 2022, he was informed that my dad had died. He personally spent time with me backstage before his event, and that has stuck with me forever. Charlie was an incredible man and made me the man I am today, sending love and prayers, John. Now he's working for President Trump

in D.C. And we have Sarah. Sarah, you're on with the crew. It's on your mind. Hi. I am holding back tears. It's been a rough couple of days, as I'm

you all know. I just wanted to say to all the people listening and all of you folks who are continuing this movement, thank you, especially to Charlie. I really believe he has been the turning point of our nation for, I guess, what those words are worth. And I'm grateful to him. I'm grateful to his words. I'm grateful to how he held himself and was able to hold conversations with people. And I do think that in this tragedy, I'm hoping that it really is the turning point of our nation and that we can move forward as a nation in a way that Charlie would be super proud of. Beautiful, Sarah. Well said. Thank you. And I think we're all praying that. That the reach and the impact that Charlie has, I don't think any of us have any idea just how big it is.

And that's what I'm realizing. I feel like, Tyler, you and me specifically and kind of what we had to do the last couple days, I think we were a little insulated from it, and I feel like I'm just starting to see it of what I've been kind of ignoring and the calls I haven't been taking and the texts I haven't been responding to. but that's probably just the tip of the iceberg of how huge his impact is. I don't think we have any idea. I woke up this morning realizing that. Yeah.

Just because of the people, like the layers of people talking to people who talk to people, who talk to people who are coming back. And people have been so good to all of our team. Like, you know, people were worried about the safety of our team. And so, you know, Phoenix PD and Mesa PD. have been incredible i know it's got stealthy d and everyone else i there's been so many people impacted by this by the way aren't even seeing anything and when we we landed in phoenix yesterday there was a huge crowd hundreds like gathered outside of the airport and as we drove away in the procession

there was people lining the streets like american flags and maga hats probably half of them that Charlie threw to them. And when we got to our final destination, again, there was a huge crowd gathered waiting for us and for him. And it was really, really amazing. And it was just kind of a little insight. And Blake, I joke with you because we couldn't take him anywhere. In life, we couldn't take him anywhere. Like he would get absolutely mob. Can I get a selfie? Can I get a selfie? I mean, it didn't matter if you were in Seoul. It was unbelievable. Yeah, just in soul. Japan just the number of people or even we realized it when we went to Cambridge and Oxford last spring the number of people who would recognize him all over the place yeah and I I took him to a like

a very very private place in California and I was like don't worry we'll be we'll be left alone because we had business to attend it we had a like pretty important like discussion we were having we needed to work out some details and some planning and I was like don't worry we'll be fine and it was like no it was not it was like people would come candidly they were a bit rude but i looked at him and i because you know we're obviously having a private discussion and they were like oh my gosh can we get a selfie and as he was driving away after i mean there was like very private place there was still about i would guess to me about 30 people in the course about 40 minutes like and we were trying to hide and uh and then as he's driving away these two kids were like rode

their bikes after him and they were 14 14 15 years old they're like is that charlie car I was like, can we get a selfie before he leaves? And I was like, Charlie, you know, and Mikey was in the car with him as they're driving away. And of course, he's like, I got him to stop. And I asked him in the middle of it. I said, are you okay with this? He's like, honestly, it's just, I've accepted it. This is life.

And I just, I want, like, I know that I can make somebody's day by doing it. It's fine, you know. Always, always say yes to every poet. The one funny. Yes, he would always say that. Always say yes to every photo. Even if he was in the biggest hurry. The one funny moment that I have that's like,

there was the opposite of that with Charlie. And I don't know why this memory sticks with me, but it was during that whole time when he lost his voice. And we were trying to get his voice back. So it was like me, Charlie, and Mikey. And we were just, because the way the travel route, we were just driving through like central Florida where it gets kind of rural. And we had this idea to get him like a humidifier with like medicated humidifier.

but we couldn't figure out where to get one and Charlie wanted a specific one and then we were just driving down the street and Charlie goes, well, there's Walgreens. Let's just, let's just go to the Walgreens. And you know how he is when he like, when he wants something and he wants something specific? So we're like, are you coming in? And we just, we just went to Walgreens and we're just like walking around. And it was just so surreal because like nobody came up for like the one time among all these times where it was just like the most normal, simple. And of course, we couldn't find the one he wanted and we had to get very Seinfeld you know kind of thing and then we just go check out and it's like in the middle of all this craziness it's just a random trip

to Walgreens trying to find something for my buddy because his throat hurts you know it's funny actually now thinking of thinking about that you inspired this I remember when he was in Seoul just like a week ago two weeks ago it was and he he went out and explored the city he got up early and explored the city and I remember going alone are you like and he was like yes alone LOL like it's safe here like it's clear like that actually meant a lot to him and I'm so glad now that he got to do this thing that he hadn't been able to do in so long and just go explore a city by himself he hadn't been by himself for so long he hadn't like and he loved it he kept sending us pictures in our chat and like videos and you were there right with I mean you were I mean

you did do some exploring with him and then later we were in this old town neighborhood and he's like all right Blake just tell me about Korea and I'm just babbling this is the palace where they do the Confucian examination he loved it and of course it was also a trillion degrees out so we were all in you know nice clothes because we had to go to the thing

later and it was a swamp and I was dying but it was so much fun man we have that's such a good point though Andrew I mean the thing that I think most people don't realize especially in these last years that Charlie was with us was that he was never alone i mean the weight and pressure of having to beat that celebrity

like that's a lot it's a lot to do and and that has an impact on most people and the one thing i think that was really astonishing about charlie is he didn't change as a person at all he didn't he by the way he wasn't like the party animal either like so a lot of people get in this role and they they they you i don't know you see him at clubs you see them drinking you see them partying or like enjoying all this Charlie would go home at like the first instant that was socially acceptable for the programming. Like at America Fest, maybe the program didn't get over until 7.30. He would go straight home back to the hotel as soon as he could after meeting with donors or supporters. He would do like, he would do a circuit of like four stops, five stops, meet with donors, and then he go straight back to be with Erica.

Like immediately. And he, but his personality never changed. No. His demeanor never changed. I mean, his busyness level was never different. He was always busy in different ways throughout his career, throughout the time as he grew. But the thing that was always really difficult, that I was always really worried about him, was that you're never having that reprieve from the public eye or be able to go out and just do normal things.

And the one thing I really appreciate about Erica and you guys, actually specifically that are here, with Andrew and Blake because you guys spent a lot when he did have alone time it was with you and so it was like that that was as alone as he got or with Mikey and he got to do some normal things in that way right which was like going to get to the Cubs game he was always just the kid from Chicago and wanting to be always was and wanting to eat the rush I was like I'll always remember again just after we had a long day of doing something extraordinarily exhausting and I feel like it was like 10 p.m. And you guys know this. Like Charlie loved to just go sit down and break bread and eat. By the way, the way he would order was hilarious. He'd sit down. We'd be at a restaurant and be like,

you know, four or five of us gathered around. And he would take the menu and go, get to some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this, some of this. Some of this. Get these out for shareable plates. You guys are going to love this. You're going to love this. You're trust me. And then it would go. And can I get some hot sauce and olive oil and some salt pepper please thank you yeah it was like he would order like a crazy person like 15 items and then so you're just like i guess i'll just eat what charlie's having and the the table would be filled and he like get some more of this you're gonna you're gonna love that you know they eat some more of that and then everybody's around eating talking you know again kind of decompressing from whatever the

crazy was that we're going through where there was the travel or the event or the donor meeting or whoever or whatever you're doing the show the speech the I mean on the rally the activist event that was the consistent thing is that you if you got that opportunity to sit down and then you talk and then you wasn't just talking about nonsense it was usually talking about big ideas and having the conversation similar to like what we have on thought crime so like if you you as an individual out in the world and I don't know if you agree with thought crime is probably the closest uh visual video videoed version version of what it was like to kind of like hang out with Charlie and some shows he was more distracted like our like it we used to joke about it because it was just it was like our group chat on camera that's right yeah and that's what it was like to sit down with Charlie like in a in a scenario where it's like you're sitting there talking about there's these things going on these topics and like everybody's going around the horn just like you know talking about it

debating it and you know you say isn't that interesting or like you know you get into it and ideas would spark and he'd do that smile and he would think about it. My favorite, I was just sharing with Daisy that my favorite segments in thought crime were... You made him so uncomfortable. Yes, that was the point. Was when we would explain memes to him.

Yeah, just like Charlie's like entire knowledge of pop culture froze when he was 17. Yeah, like what, what, Charlie, you don't, you mean you don't know what a bonus hole is, Charlie? Don't use that one. Or just, just whatever the mean, Riz, what is Riz? No, no, I'm not going to get into it. I just mean, like, whatever, whatever the thing was that was going around, he'd be like, is that good?

Yes. No. Okay. Yeah, is this good. Yeah, he just wanted the binary. Like, is it a good thing or a bad thing? Remember the J.D. Vance memes? Yes.

But the J.D. Vance memes came out. He's like, are they making fun of J.D.? Kind of. But in a good way. Cortum. In a good way. Is it good? Charlie,

Charlie didn't necessarily speak meme fluently or natively, but he understood the power of them. I have a story I just want to share. He loved him. Yeah, he loved them. I have a story I want to share from Emma on our team. And she said the night after the election, Charlie wrapped the stream and came out to the bullpen and sat and ate his dinner with the team and told us stories about the behind-the-scenes work he was doing that nobody knew about for like two hours.

It was one of my favorite CK memories of all time. he told us how much we can trust J.D. as vice president and the work he did to get him to that spot. It's really beautiful. Charlie had the thing that makes me the saddest about Charlie's passing and that he was ripped away from us so abrasively is that that man had probably a library of books to write about the things that he knew that have gone to rest with him, things that he he saw that are really interesting for politics because again piggybacking on that you sat down with charlie he could tell you about things that nobody knows i mean there's things that we know there's memories that i have that i can tell you and i i don't when the time is right at some

point i hope that i can share some of these stories that that they come out andrew has a gazillion of them blake since you've been traveler jack knows these things because he lives this lifestyle every day but and that's what i mean about stuff that i'm sad that will never I don't want like we we can't you know what I mean I just can't I can't process because I people are like sharing text messages and I was going back and look at because I look at some of the ones that I have and I was like can't share that can't share that where do you even begin no I know the Riz what is funny like we should probably put that up that's why I brought up the that's a thing talk about put the Riz one up this is funny this is like perfect Charlie

and so I always like to like hound Charlie a little bit and I it looks like I was making fun of the cough drop thing because the the cop and by the way that was the one thing that he's in the south park yeah people thought it was zen when he was on campus and he would pop the cough drops in so this welcome to the inside chat guys this is about as close up as you can get and um and i i would be like actually charlie i love the car makes you look really cool like when you're like pop it you got this kind of like nonchalant look when you're just popping the cough drop and Daisy says everyone thinks his cough drops are zins and I was like nicotine cough drops and Charlie ha ha ha ha ha and I go Charlie's Riz secret for the record it's a great Riz crutch makes you look

nonchalant plus the athleisure wear versus the suit Charlie goes what is Riz and I go like swagger and Blake has to go car Riz ma but no question mark right what is Riz what is Riz what is Riz period is it good it's probably because he was hosting a show or something yeah And that was always his follow-up, though. Is it good? Is it good? Is this good? We have one more caller I want to get to, and that is Julie.

Julie, hopefully you're still with us. The floor is yours. Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, I'm Julie. This is me letting Charlie inspire me to be more joyful, bold, and brave. I'm calling instead of emailing, calling the scariest thing in the world.

So I learned about Charlie after he followed Steve Bannon on Rav. I listen to his podcast every morning on my walks. I love thought crimes and the glimpse that gives you into the secret world of men. I was glued to the Rumble late night election coverage. I was blessed to see Charlie interact with college students at normal Illinois when he was here this spring. I was so afraid to go because I thought there's no mute button because I'm kind of like banning like on the cold open. Stop, stop, stop. I can't take anymore.

But I didn't need it because Charlie was fantastic. And then lastly, I'm most thankful for Charlie for introducing me to Jack Gibbs. real life network and reinvigorating my faith. Thank you. Beautiful. Well said, Julie. Thank you for calling. Thank you for sharing that, Julie. And sharing that. And your bravery was rewarded. And by the way, I want to say this. Like people describe Charlie as fearless. He wasn't fearless. He was courageous. He looked fear right in the eye and he overcame it again and again and again. And I can tell you how many moments I spent with Charlie in this behind the scenes.

and quiet before he walked out on stage or before he had to tackle something or a setback, bad news and Charlie just looked at the fear right in the eye and he knew there was no way but through and he just was so courageous and he just did it and

he always won. He always won and he kept coming back and he was stronger and fiercer and frankly I think I said this to Erica yesterday I said probably for the last two years I knew Charlie actually was fearless because he'd overcome so much

and that's pretty great. He was an absolutely fearless individual. I mean, since the day I met him and I showed a story yesterday, I won't repeat it, but the times where I had the greatest fear of people and there's lots of people to fear in politics and I had this privilege of getting to know what President Trump would label as bad ambris

and Charlie was always the person that said Stand in the pocket, fight these people, fight, fight, fight these people I saw him do it to you in our chat too Many times, many times We have to wrap It's been a pleasure to be with the audience Thank you Jack Thank you Blake, thank you Tyler

Thank you Charlie Kirk You are our hero and you always will be You love you Charlie You love you You love you dear friend Thank you.