The Charlie Kirk Show - Charlie's Vision: America As a Christian Nation

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

Charlie always insisted on reminding the public that America was a Christian nation, built from nothing on Biblical principles. Christian author Eric Metaxas joins for the first time since September's... tragedy to discuss Charlie's crucial insight into America and why it is our collective duty to spread that in his absence. Plus, he reacts to Charlie's favorite Seinfeld clips. John Daniel Davidson gives his take on how the Trump Administration should avoid retreat in Minnesota. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:03 My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You've got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a turning point USA college chapter. Go start a turning point you would say high school chapter.
Starting point is 00:00:35 Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.
Starting point is 00:00:52 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers. All right, welcome. Our two of the Charlie Kirk Show is underway. We are joined by one of my favorite thinkers, writers, journalists. That is John Daniel Davidson, who's been on the show a number of times. John Daniel Davidson, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
Starting point is 00:01:23 It's good to see you. Hey, thanks for having me. So you and I were chatting because, you know, we're reacting to what's going on in Minneapolis. And I think you share my perspective here that this is not the time where the administration can blink. This is not a time where we can bend the knee or back down. Please explain why you feel that way and what you're seeing. One of the main things I think that we're all seeing is this narrative shift. And we're seeing the Trump administration and the president respond to a narrative frame that's really being
Starting point is 00:01:55 set by the Democrats and by the left and by the leaders in Minneapolis. In some cases, leaders of what looks to be sort of an organized insurrection. anarcho tyranny. And instead of imposing the narrative that is the administration's policy that Trump was elected on to enforce our immigration laws to effectuate mass deportations of the millions of people that were let in during the Biden administration, you now have the president having to respond to these oftentimes disingenuous or distorted questions from the press. He's accepting the frame that there's been, you know, errors made in the enforcement of immigration law that somehow these agitators and rioters in
Starting point is 00:02:43 Minneapolis are legitimate, that their tactics in disrupting law enforcement are legitimate. And we're seeing him respond even in terms of personnel and some policy statements as well. I think it may be too soon to say, you know, that there's actually been a change in what those ice agents are doing on the ground. But certainly from the perceptive point of the media and of us who are watching it from afar and online, it appears to be that Trump has blinked and that he is retreating, at least rhetorically. And I find that very disturbing. He seemed like he might be, but also then he's very animated this morning. He seems annoyed with Mayor Jacob Frye. So I don't know. We've been around the block a few times with Trump. He's definitely, he's had a lot of showdowns
Starting point is 00:03:31 about things. We've had policies he's pursued, policies he's backed down on, policies he's then reignited after that. There's always this give and take with President Trump. We saw that with the Greenland thing where he seems all in on something and then it might have been a negotiation tactic. So how do you unpack maybe what the president's strategic thinking might be, John? I don't know. I honestly, I think I think Trump is a creature of instinct and of intuition. I don't think he is a he's a deep policy thinker. I don't think that he is super, disciplined in how he approaches things. I think part of his genius is that he does operate on instinct and he does operate on intuition. And he has great intuition and great instincts,
Starting point is 00:04:16 even at the level of like genius instincts when it comes to U.S. politics and leadership. But on something like this, you know, this immigration issue and the issue of deportations, this isn't one issue alongside a bunch of other issues like Greenland or Venezuela or tariffs or something. This is the issue. you. This is the thing that got him elected the first time. This is the thing that got him reelected the second time. This is what the American people voted for. And what polls show, they still say they favor in overwhelming numbers, mass deportations for all illegal immigrants. That's what he was elected to do. If he does nothing else, that's what he needs to do. And I don't think you see that
Starting point is 00:05:00 kind of urgency of the administration. And some of this comes down, I think, to the way administration's work. And it plays into some of Trump's weaknesses, which can be a lack of discipline, a lack of focus. One of the reasons, for example, that we saw the raid on Venezuela and the capture of Maduro is not necessarily, I don't think, and this is just a side example of what I'm talking about in terms of the dynamic. I don't think that the Maduro raid was number one priority on Trump's list, but it was on enough people's agendas inside the administration that the thing got done. And so that's the kind of push and pull that you're going to see in any administration. But I think especially in this Trump administration, when his focus isn't always laser-like
Starting point is 00:05:48 and he can get distracted and follow his intuition and his instincts, which is a blessing and a curse. But on immigration, this is the one thing that he does need laser-like focus on. He needs everybody in his administration to be on board. There can't be any room for compromising with a radical insurgent left that is essentially imposing a nullification of federal immigration law in Minnesota. And I guarantee you, I think we're already starting to see this, this is going to spread to other cities and other states. And it may become quite bad as the weather warms up in some parts of the country.
Starting point is 00:06:23 Yeah, and that's been my basic operating premise here is that you've got to squash it now in the winter, in many. Minneapolis because spring and summer it's going to spread. We're already seeing it spread, by the way, John. The signal chats, right, that we've now discovered were an organizing point focus for a lot of these activists have now been, they're being used in Portland. They're being used in Los Angeles. So this is going to spread. Somebody is training people how to do this, how to organize them. And there's a lot of data behind it. A lot of it's automated. A lot of it's being linked directly to air table. So that's a sort of a database app. that you can use, pretty user-friendly. But I do just want to make one point here. And we had this graphic up just a second ago. This is Kyle Kalinsky was absolutely freaking out yesterday. He said, major breaking.
Starting point is 00:07:08 Trump regime is increasing illegal DHS raids. That's what he calls him against protesters. That's what he calls them in Minnesota. Bovino firing was a PR stunt to head fake de-escalation. So I just, I want us, while I agree with you, John, of all the issues, we need to be laser-focused on immigration. And the president needs to be laser focused on it because I think viscerally, this is the most winning issue in this administration because people don't like to go to Costco or the DMV or the hospital and feel like they're living in a third world country. And that's what it's become. 80% of the population growth in the United States of the last decade has come from immigration. Not births, 20%. Right. But by the way, historically, even when we had a lot of immigration in the 90s, early 2000s, it was 60% of growth was native born.
Starting point is 00:07:56 American growth. Now that is 80% immigration. This has become untenable. And I want to just also encourage everybody. There was a big story in New York Times yesterday that showed we are on pace for this next upcoming year that ends, I guess it's, you know, they do it on a halfway mark. So it'll end in July of 26 for only 321,000 new people in the country. That's down from 2.5 million in 2024 under Biden. So like the ship is moving in the right direction. We got a, you know, correct course when we need to. And the left is freaking out. So I just want to, I want everybody to keep a center place here.
Starting point is 00:08:37 And sometimes Trump is prone to head fakes. Sometimes Trump is prone to operating on instinct. But things are moving in the right direction. But I completely agree with you. And John, why I want to talk to you about this, because I think the message that is sent to these insurgents needs to be firm. And there needs to be prosecutions. There needs to be the DOJ on the ground arresting these people. Explain that, that piece of it.
Starting point is 00:09:03 Because you have made a good point on your Twitter feed, on your ex feed, that the interior enforcement of immigration is actually what's saving the border. It's actually what's having all these downstream effects that are positive. Yeah, that's right. So I've spent many years reporting from the border, both sides of the border. I started following this back in 2014 when the unaccompanied minor. started showing up during the second Obama term, and nobody understood kind of what,
Starting point is 00:09:31 why are these unaccompanied children showing up? And that was the first indication to me that, like, well, there's something going on at the border we don't understand. What I came to realize, which a lot of people understand now, is that it was the industrialization of illegal immigration by the cartels that created a huge black market.
Starting point is 00:09:48 And then under Biden, you know, we had 10 million people, at least. Those are just the ones we know about, come into the country illegally, during Biden's four years in office. So when I say that where the real effects of deportation comes to its interior enforcement, what I mean is you can shut the border down at any time. Like Biden could have shut the flow of illegal immigration off in five minutes any time he wanted to.
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Starting point is 00:11:09 Call 972 Patriot today or go to patriotmobile.com slash Charlie, use promo code Charlie for a free month of service. That's Patriotmobile.com slash Charlie or call 972 Patriot and make the switch today. So, John, I want to keep talking about why interior enforcement is so important, but you were reacting to a report from Bill Malusion. We said the bipartisan co-chairs of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which sounds like the name to run away from very quickly. Goodness, what a cringe name. The Problem Solver Caucus. Brian Fitz from Pennsylvania and Rom Tom Susie from New York, Democrat from New York, a pen a letter to President Trump in which they urge him to take up immigration reform.
Starting point is 00:11:51 and I replied, immigration reform for reform is code for treason, telling him that his success at securing the borders is being overshadowed by the interior enforcement. And so what do they want? They want to codify Trump's executive order to have the border secured. Fix the broken asylum system, provide legal protection to millions of immigrants, whatever that means, because that means probably amnesty, that means path to citizenship, whatever you want to insert there. Mandate federal agents only take actions for which they are. thoroughly trained and urged local law enforcement to cooperate on public safety threats. Five, require all federal law enforcement involved in shootings must be subject to a thorough independent investigation. You reacted to this very strongly and you were making that point. So please continue. Yeah, I believe the point that I made was that we're done debating these things.
Starting point is 00:12:42 This is not, you know, this is something out of the past. This is sort of the gang of eight. This is amnesty. We've had these debates. And what, got for having these debates was at least 10 million illegal immigrants flooding over the border during the Biden administration in the greatest movement of human beings probably in the 21st century anywhere in the world, a global phenomenon that has completely changed the United States to your point earlier about population growth. That's where that comes from, is from Biden's border surge. When I was saying before about controlling the border, the way you control the border. It's easy to do. The operational capacity is there through CBP and Border Patrol. They're
Starting point is 00:13:25 very sophisticated, very highly trained personnel there. You control it by letting them do their job and enforce the border, which they can do, detaining everybody who the Border Patrol picks up, who's crossed into the country illegally, which the Biden administration did not do. And then imposing deterrent policies so that the people who are in Northern Mexico or in Central America or who are back home in their country of origin, who are thinking, about paying $5,000, $20,000 to a smuggling organization connected to a cartel will not actually take out the loan and pay that money and head north because they know there's no chance that they'll be allowed to stay. All it takes, I don't know if you guys remember the 15,000 Haitians that were
Starting point is 00:14:08 under the bridge during the Biden administration in Del Rio, Texas. I remember. Okay. Do you know what happened there? They went in because the Biden administration realized all this press is showing up with drones and all these images of these horrible conditions under this bridge. And they said, all right, we have to, we got to wrap that up. We got to get those people out of there. They went in and they took a couple hundred people out of 15,000 and deported them back to Haiti. About 8,000 to 9,000 of those people immediately went back across the river to Mexico. They self-deported because they did not want to be sent back to Haiti.
Starting point is 00:14:41 So in other words, it's deterrent policies that secure the border. and that can be done at any time, but what do you do about the 10 million people that already got into the country? You have to send ICE out into the interior of the United States and find those people and arrest them. And it's a lot easier to do that. And you can do it without any protests or any accidental shootings or tragic events if the local police will honor ICE detainer requests as they do through most of the country everywhere except these sanctuary districts. And so I think we have to like, we've allowed ourselves. and I think to go back to where we started, the Trump administration has allowed itself to kind of tumble down
Starting point is 00:15:19 this leftist rabbit hole of adjudicating these fake things, right? What we're actually talking about is enforcing the immigration laws that we have on the books. The ICE agents are not breaking the law. They're not warrantless doing warrantless arrests or kidnapping. And anyone in the mainstream corporate media who says that should be called out for it. They're just lying. They're acting under their lawful authority under Article 2. not Article 3, right? So they don't have judicial warrants, which is a whole other thing we can talk about. But all immigration enforcement is under the executive branch.
Starting point is 00:15:53 Immigration judges are administrative judges. And the warrants that ICE agents have for illegal aliens are administrative warrants. That's why they can't go into private homes. And they wait sometimes outside places of business or public places to make their arrests. But we've just got to get back to reality on this because we've gone, the administration has allowed the conversation and the narrative to go so far afield. it's i feel like i'm taking crazy pills no i i completely agree with that go ahead well it just occurs to me so people are freaking a lot of people who should know better are letting themselves have panic attacks because they can't handle you know an ugly image they're easily tricked by oh they they used a five-year-old this bait and i feel like the low-hanging fruit of it disincentivizes coming here it encourages people to self-deport and it doesn't create as many bad images is if the administration put more pressure on something we know is illegal, which is businesses knowingly employing illegal immigrants.
Starting point is 00:16:52 And I've often thought, like, the way you cut the Gordian knot is you make a really public example of one or two business owners who have very egregiously been hiring illegals and use that to put the fear of God in others. And so they self-deport their illegal employees out of their companies, and then those employees self-deport out of the country. What do you think of that? That great idea. I've been talking about that for years. This is the one thing. The reason that we got mass illegal immigration is because on the Democrat side, they wanted it to increase their voter rolls, which they have been saying for decades, right? That's not a conspiracy theory. And on the right, it was Republicans in sort of the Chamber of Commerce Republicans who wanted lower wages for their big business constituents. And so they kind of turned a blind eye and allowed cheap labor to flood into the country at the behest of, of those special interests. I think if you knowingly employ illegal immigrants, you shouldn't just
Starting point is 00:17:49 get fined or, you know, get some slap on the wrist. You should go to jail. And I totally agree that you don't have to get every business. You just have to send a message and to encourage the others, so to speak, and, you know, actually put real meat on the bone there and say, if you, if you break our immigration laws and knowingly hire illegals, you're going to, jail. You personally, owner of this business, are going to jail. And we don't talk about that enough. And that's a huge part of the incentive, the pull factors for illegal immigrants to come here. They won't come if they know they're going to get deported as soon as they get caught crossing the border. And they also won't come if they know there's no jobs for them here.
Starting point is 00:18:32 Well, and they also won't come if they know they're not going to immediately be put on the dole, right? Because that's another, that's another pool factors. They come here. They get, they were getting free debit cards filled with free cash, free flights into the interior. family reunification. And by the way, they expedited everything on the CBP1 app. So to your point earlier, they didn't like the bad PR. So they're like, listen, you don't have to come flood the border. That's bad optics.
Starting point is 00:18:57 You know, you got build illusion down there with drones. No, just get on the app. We'll get you a flight from Mexico City. You come up, go wherever you want, and then just get immediately on the dole. That's what they did with treason. It was absolutely treason. And by the way, everybody who wants scalps from the previous administration, if you're not bringing up Alejandro myorkis you're missing the point oh yeah so john john yeah that guy's traitor
Starting point is 00:19:19 yeah we i've talked completely we uh we're out of time here thank you so much very very the moral clarity is important thank you thanks guys thanks for having me i am very excited about our next guest who's been a long time friend of mine personally and of course to charlie and that is eric metaxus great american great patriot great christian man eric welcome back to the show my friend. I never left, Andrew. Where have you been? It's so good to see you. I just get blessed in my bones. Thanks for having me. God bless you. I, you know, I'm just sad that you didn't wear a pink shirt or something that I could have, I could have. Just to throw back to Charlie. Some golden boy quote. We got to get Seinfeld. Load up a good Seinfeld clip. We have to do it in Charlie's honor. I kid you not, Eric. I have been that, so I fall asleep to Seinfeld every night in honor of Charlie. I'm working my way.
Starting point is 00:20:13 through the entire 10 seasons. Okay. Now I'm going to have to interrupt you. I got to tell you what Charlie and I had like an ongoing disagreement and he eventually agreed with me. Oh. And here's what it is. Seinfeld, the last few seasons basically stink.
Starting point is 00:20:33 Now, when I say basically, there's still great moments and stuff, but it's like they handed over it to a bunch of younger writers who turned it into the cartoon version of Seinfeld. So when you watch like the first six, seven seasons, it's a certain show. And then it gets, you know, like when they do stuff like Kramer has the Merv Griffin set. It's like it's funny, but it's like cartoon funny. I know you weren't expecting to have this discussion with me. No, I mean, listen, I don't disagree. I'm slightly younger than you guys.
Starting point is 00:21:02 So we talk about this with The Simpsons. But the problem is at least with Sionfeld, Jerry Sionfeld had the wisdom to refuse four million an episode or whatever they offered him. to keep going. And yeah, and they just ended it. Whereas The Simpsons has been going for three times. It's been a bad show for three times longer than it was ever a good show. And it's still going. Well, it's still going.
Starting point is 00:21:21 You are host of Socrates in the city. Author of Bonhofer is atheism dead and letter to the American church. So I wanted to start this, Eric, because you are a man of God. And one of the core ethos central themes of this show, and it will forever be this way. because this is a show that is dedicated to the legacy of Charlie Kirk and continuing the mission of Charlie Kirk is to honor faith is to lift up Jesus Christ and to do it boldly, proudly, loudly and without apology. And so I want to play a clip. It's longer. This is the Charlie Kirk show. He deserves the time of Charlie, explaining why America's Christian roots must be, are Christian and why we need to keep it that way. And then I just, we'll let the conversation go wherever it is. So please enjoy this. Longer clip, 345. Remember that we were a collection of states and colonies, and you need to read the state
Starting point is 00:22:19 constitutions before anything else. 13 out 13 required a declaration of faith. 9 out of 13 required you to be a Protestant, except Maryland, which was Catholic, which still required a declaration of faith. Every single one of the original state constitutions, Pennsylvania included, they had, I profess Lord and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the original state constitutions. Secondly, 55-56 of the original signers of the Declaration were Bible-believing church attending Christians. You asked about common law. So a common law is inherited from Blackstone, who was Christian. A common law is an outgrowth of the scriptures. So let's go to three principles of common law. Due process and jury of your peers, wrapped into the ultimate biblical principle that you shall not favor justice if you are rich your report, which is in Leviticus 19, right before, the most famous part of Leviticus 19, which is that you should love your neighbors yourself.
Starting point is 00:23:05 but before that is that in the administration of justice, you shall not favor the rich or the poor, which is the idea of blind justice. We get that in the West, which is incorporated also in the New Testament ideal, neither slave nor Greek nor Jew, you're all one in Jesus Christ, which you get the idea of human equality.
Starting point is 00:23:19 These are all biblical ideas. They're not enlightenment ideas, which is they kind of get conflated at the time. But more importantly than that, they say that God was only mentioned four times in the Declaration of Independence. Well, that's a big deal. Okay, laws of nature and nature's God.
Starting point is 00:23:32 The last paragraph of the Declaration reads as a prayer. it says we appeal to the supreme judge of the universe, who's the judge of the universe, Jesus Christ, as it says in Revelation, that Jesus will judge the earth on his throne. So in the declaration, they were praying to Christ our Lord as a prayer very specifically. Thirdly, as I set on stage yesterday, Deuteronomy was by far the most quoted book, religious or non-religious, in the time of the founding when they were putting together constitution,
Starting point is 00:23:59 more than John Locke, more than Montesquieu, more than Blackstone. So the book of Deuteronomy, which talked about laws, customs traditions. It was Moses' farewell address as he's about to say goodbye, say, hey, good luck in Canaan, guys. Here's how you should set up your form of government. But finally and most importantly, let's look at actually what the founders said. John Adams seamlessly said the Constitution was only written for a moral and religious people. It was wholly inadequate for the people of any other. The body politic of America was so Christian and was so Protestant that our form and structure of government was built for the people that believed in Christ.
Starting point is 00:24:32 our Lord. One of the reasons we're living through a constitutional crisis is that we no longer have a Christian nation, but we have a Christian form of government, and they're incompatible. So you cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population. Your reaction. Listen, I could laugh, I could fall down laughing with joy because the fact that Charlie, only Charlie could rattle things off like, bo bo bo bo bo bo bo boom boom. Like enough. Like it's unbelievable. It's so beautiful. and it's so true. I tell you, Andrew, you and I haven't talked much
Starting point is 00:25:06 because I've been deep in the bowels of working on a book on the American Revolution. I have never in my life understood what Charlie just was talking about in the way that I do now. The book will come out in June.
Starting point is 00:25:20 It is outrageously inescapable, inescapable, utterly inescapable, that this nation is a Christian nation. Now, you have to define what that means. It doesn't mean that the government tells people you have to go to church or the government. The government has to be agnostic. The government has to sit back and we have freedom in America.
Starting point is 00:25:41 But the founders, as Charlie was just saying, there's no doubt. And when you know the details, you'll be embarrassed that you didn't see this before. You didn't learn this in school. There is no doubt. There is no America. There is no America, period, without Christian faith. All of the founders. and I'm really focused on the founders before the founders, right?
Starting point is 00:26:02 I'm talking about Samuel Adams, John Adams, in the 1760s. This is what I talk about in my book before I get to the actual war, the revolution. But they were radical Reformation Puritans. These were people who were just, they saw the whole world through a biblical lens, and they knew that God's model is for us to do what the ancient Israel, did in Sinai have a direct covenant with God, no king but Jesus, no king but the Lord. They all understood this. They all understood this. And when they created our government, that's what they were doing. And it's just so amazing to me how we have lived at a time where this is news to most people.
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Starting point is 00:27:39 That's the letter why then refi.com. And remember, why refi doesn't care what your credit score is. Just go to why refi.com and tell them your friend Andrews sent you. But as I've been writing this book, I have been so astonished. I cannot tell you. The name of the book is revolution. And as I say, you can't even pre-order it yet. But the reason it's called revolution is because every other revolution is not a revolution. It's a fake revolution. Fake and gay. The French Revolution is a demonic parody of a revolution. It's like it becomes a bloodbath because they take God out. The Bolshevik revolution, all these things we call revolution, they're not actual revolutions. The one true revolution in the history of the world in
Starting point is 00:28:25 terms of government is America. And it's so beautiful. And so I think I have to say that what's become clear to me is like a lot of people say, well, I'm conservative or I love America or whatever. It's like, if you really understand that, you understand apart from God, that makes no sense. You should be a liberal. You should be. In other words, to love America, to understand what America is, it points you back every single one of the folks who gave us this country understood it is about Jesus. It's about bringing biblical. You know, they basically said, well, if we wanted to form a government on biblical principles, what would that look like? It would look like America. That's what it is. And that's what, and many of them said it explicitly. Samuel Adams, I think, said it explicitly.
Starting point is 00:29:13 They looked at, you know, the authoritarian monarchies in the same way that they looked, at the Roman Catholic Church at the time. It's like top down, it's going to tell you what to do. You don't, you know, and the Reformation changed everything. So suddenly every single person has the ability to have a direct relationship with God. And they said, you know, that's the way it should be. Could we form a government that looks like that? Would it be possible? And as you just said, quoting John Adams, it's like, it is not possible unless the people get that. It is not, If the people aren't tuned into this, it's not going to work, which is why I hope in this 250th year of celebration, which we have called the supercentennial, in case anybody didn't get the memo, this is the supercentennial. President Trump agrees with that term that in this supercentennial year, we need to go back.
Starting point is 00:30:07 We need to understand that without that, America goes away. So, you know, nobody got this better than our friend Charlie. And just listening to that clip, I just get, I get joy. from that that he said all that. Yeah, no, I look forward to us discussing that book when it comes out. And one of Charlie's big causes was he just, he really flogged at that point. America is obviously a Christian country. And it obviously is, you almost have to feel like a moron.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Like you said, once you notice it, it's like, okay, so we were settled by a bunch of Protestant religious zealots of various stripes. Zealous. Yeah, they weren't just technically. Coming from a nation of huge religious ferment. Like, I think what is? that half the Protestant denominations in the world probably come out of England in this time period.
Starting point is 00:30:51 They're constantly coming up with new versions. They're the ones who translate the Bible into every language, send missionaries everywhere. They're constantly trying to convert the Indians in America. They're coming out of a very religiously infused revolution in the English Civil Wars. That's basically a religious infused revolt. They have the glorious revolution,
Starting point is 00:31:08 which I'm a Catholic. I don't even like that, but that's totally a religious infused revolt. And that's where we get our entire concept of the Bill of Rights. The original Bill of Rights is, basically born out of the glorious revolution in its aftermath. That's what's so interesting. Then immediately after the revolution, America is this Christian country, and that's what drives abolitionism.
Starting point is 00:31:27 That's what infuses both sides of the civil war. And then they want to tell you, oh, and then during the period where the country was founded, that was just a bunch of deists, no one really cared. Give me a break. Oh, that is something. It's funny you say that because I, you know, when the book comes out, there's like nine things that I'm just champing at the bit to talk about. the whole deist thing, complete baloney.
Starting point is 00:31:47 I never dreamt that I would discover that it's total baloney. I mean, almost nobody is a deist. Even the deists are not deists. I mean, you read what Franklin says. You read what Jefferson says. And these are the only two people that everybody points to, you know, like, oh, they're deists. They say radically Christian things. Ben Franklin and Jefferson, when they were going to design the great seal, you know,
Starting point is 00:32:14 we were going to design a great seal for the new nation. They both suggested Moses parting the Red Sea and the Israelites in the wilderness. And there's like, that's it. That's it. Those are the two quote unquote deists. And they say so many things that deists don't talk like that. Certainly Washington is not a deas. It's like hilarious.
Starting point is 00:32:34 Well, and you're you're making a point that they were so steeped in the language of the Bible and the language of scripture. It animated their turns of phrases. the way that they formed their thoughts, it was so innate to them that they couldn't help themselves. All right. So, Eric, in honor of Charlie, I have to play a Seinfeld clip. Here we go. How about this? This is the pitch for their show, 410. You want to go with me to NBC? Yeah, I think we really got something in. What do we got? An idea.
Starting point is 00:33:06 An idea for the show. I still don't know what the idea is. It's about nothing. Right. everybody's doing something we'll do nothing so we go into NBC we tell them we got an idea for a show about nothing exactly they say what's your show about I say nothing there you go I think you may have something here
Starting point is 00:33:26 I got one more I just have to play it Eric Tuesday has no don't don't say 411 what's today what's Thursday really feels like Tuesday Tuesday has no feel. Monday has a feel. Friday has a feel.
Starting point is 00:33:49 Sunday has a feel. I feel Tuesday and Wednesday. All right. Shut up to both of you. They're making me nervous. He's right. Tuesday doesn't have a feel. Tuesday has no feel.
Starting point is 00:33:58 I was around for a Tuesday yesterday. I didn't feel anything. I don't know if I told you, Andrew. I don't even know if I told Charlie. I was friends with Larry David before Seinfeld. He was no way. in his career and everybody said like, oh, this is a comedian's comedian.
Starting point is 00:34:17 And I went to watch him at a club here in the city, in New York. And we were friends. And I went to a dinner party at his apartment and the real Kramer popped in. Like, it's so bizarre. And I knew him through the woman that Elaine Venice is based on. So all those stories about Fat Camp and all that kind of stuff. It's so crazy.
Starting point is 00:34:40 And then when I became born again, and became politically conservative, he couldn't really handle it. And so our friendship evaporated. But it's such a bizarre thing to think that, you know, I knew him before Seinfeld was a thing. It's just crazy to me. I can't be that old, obviously. Yeah, well, I mean, you know what's interesting. I think, you know, Larry David's off obviously a crazy person, very lib.
Starting point is 00:35:08 He's given the world a great show, but so to Jerry. And Jerry Seinfeld is. not crazy woke. So we can take solace in that. And actually, if you watch Seinfeld back, this is the 90s. I mean, it started basic. I think season one was 1989 and it ended, you know,
Starting point is 00:35:24 around 2000, 1999, something like that. And it is not woke. The show is very not woke. And it sort of predicts so much of the weirdness that we're experiencing our modern culture. It predicts it, right? Like you got to wear a ribbon. I think we play that's, you know,
Starting point is 00:35:40 I don't know if it's a black square before the black. I think the takeaway is not that it predicts it. It's kind of a solace to it that it's actually always been there and it comes and goes. Well, and it gets accentuated by social media. Yeah. It's already making fun of it. It's already making fun of it. I actually remember when I graduated from Yale in the 80s, you had to wear a ribbon at graduation that showed that you stood against apartheid in South Africa.
Starting point is 00:36:09 And there was another ribbon for, I forget what. and you had to wear the ribbons. And like the jerk that I was, I wore the ribbons. It's like, oh, you got to wear the ribbons. This kind of virtue signaling has been going on for a long, long time. And of course, Seinfeld was mocking it. You know, there are so many episodes where they mock it, where they say the stuff that everybody's thinking. So that's called comedy.
Starting point is 00:36:32 And what comedy is is truth telling. I mean, the reason we find it funny is because it's like, yep, exactly. So, yeah, I'd love to. That's somebody I'd love to. to interview someday is Jerry Seinfeld. I think I could have a fun conversation with him. Well, we have, we have his Duke commencement speech. Our team, our crack team in the studios, like pulling Seinfeld stuff a lot. So here we go. I'm just going to play one. Let's go ahead and play 415. Privilege is a word that has taken quite a beating lately. Privilege today seems to be the worst
Starting point is 00:37:04 thing you can have. I would like to take a moment to defend it. Again, a lot of you are thinking I can't believe they invited this guy. Too late. I say, use your privilege. I grew up a Jewish boy from New York. That is a privilege if you want to be a comedian. My point is we're embarrassed about things we should be proud of and proud of things we should be embarrassed about.
Starting point is 00:37:32 Pretty smart. Well, the joy is that he clearly, it's like Ricky Jervais, he doesn't care. He's like, come at me. Like, come at me. tenure. I got comedy entertainment tenure. I'm Jerry Seinfeld. I can say this stuff and I can shove it in your face and what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do? It's kind of funny. Yeah. The team is telling me that these are all clips Charlie loved. So we're going to just,
Starting point is 00:37:56 this is all just an ode to Charlie segment with you, Eric, because that's, that's the right thing to do with you. Let's go ahead and play the next one, 416. You went to Duke. That is an unbelievable privilege. I now have an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree. from Duke University. And if I can figure out a way to use that, I will. I haven't figured anything out yet. I think it's pretty much as useful in real life as this outfit I'm wearing.
Starting point is 00:38:27 Unbelievable. Eric, I got an honorary doctorate from Liberty and from Hillsdale. Listen, Hillsdale's a partner on the show. We've got some news that's coming up. Very soon, we love Hillsdale. We love Dr. Larry on. He was just in our studio.
Starting point is 00:38:41 And it was Charlie's favorite university. The Beacon of the North, America's greatest college. So go to Charlie for Hillsdale.com. I got an honorary degree from Hillsdale and an honorary degree from Liberty. Are you ready for this, Andrew? On the same weekend. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:00 I left my house. I got two honorary degrees from the greatest from Hillsdale and from Liberty. And I came home and I had them both. It's like that was a pretty good weekend. It's been tough ever since. Eric Metaxis. you are a national treasure. I've missed you, my friend. Let's have you on again soon. There's so much to talk about and the country needs Jesus and we need comedy and you deliver both in
Starting point is 00:39:22 spades. And we appreciate you for that, my friend. We'll talk to you again soon. Thank you guys. Thank you both. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

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