The Charlie Kirk Show - Defunding Woke, Once and For All
Episode Date: October 22, 2025Cancel culture is bad, but does that mean anything goes with your taxpayer dollars? Of course not. Mikey, Andrew, and Hillsdale’s David Azerrad discuss what separates “cancel culture&rdquo...; from proper limits on taxpayer spending. Jordan Harmon from Angel Studios discusses Charlie's spiritual impact on the country both before and after his assassination. 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.
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My name is Charlie Kirk.
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All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
I'm Andrew Colvin, executive producer
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joined by Mikey McCoy,
chief of staff to everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So one of the things that Charlie loved most
was Hillsdale College,
and he took all the online courses.
you should check it out charlieforhillsdale.com charlieforhillsdale.com but more than that he just
loves some of the great thinkers that were a part of that amazing institution and we you know we just
talked about oxford union which is not part of oxford or cambridge but it is you know sort of
by name it's connected to it but it's an institution that's really important and hillsdale is
tremendously important here in the united states of america we have dr david azrad from hillsdale he
He is an assistant professor and research fellow at Hillsdale College's Van
Andle Graduate School of Government.
And he's probably of all the professors been the most frequent guest from Hillsdale
on the Charlie Kirk Show.
So we're honored to have him on our show today.
Dr. Azrad, thank you so much for making the time and joining us.
No, thank you for having me.
And I'm glad you're carrying on Charlie's legacy and you didn't cancel the show.
Good for you.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, we, you know, I'll never forget, and I don't know if I've said this on the show, but, you know, it was basically a day or two after, I remember Erica looked at us and she's like, you have to keep the show going. They will not cancel my husband's voice. They will not. And, you know, I do feel, and I know we've talked about this. We feel like we have like a Charlie GPT thing in my head. It was because we were having a discussion about something yesterday. And I was like, I know Charlie would disagree with me on this, but this would be my perspective. And everybody's like, Charlie would definitely disagree with
you all that. I was like, I know, I hear him in my head. But this would be our little collision of
ideas. Yeah, but look, you knew him much better than I did. But wasn't he all about
disagreement? I mean, isn't that the saddest, I mean, aside from the personal human tragedy
is that they murdered someone who dedicated his life to dialoguing. And, you know, I have hot
Mediterranean blood in me. I could have never demonstrated the patience.
and the forbearance that Charlie had
listening to these morons
ramble say the dumbest possible things
and the genuine patience he exhibited
in talking to them
and that's who they murdered.
I mean, they killed the guy
who I think best represented
the conservative ideal
of dialoguing with the other side,
which really raises the question
whether, you know,
we should keep on dialoguing with these people.
Oh, interesting.
Well, yeah, let me know.
what are your thoughts doctor i mean you know we just watched this no king's rally and i i confess i was having
i was having similar thoughts i mean if you're going and we just had the oxford union folks on
talking about what they saw as there was a president-elect that celebrated charlie's murder
said let's effing go on a private what's-app group message and there's a vote of no confidence
that succeeded to oust him from this role and it's not that we're anti-free speech but there is
line that you can cross and polite society whatever you want to call it common decency common
values in in the west like there is a line where we say i'm not arresting you for for doing that
we're not suggesting that but there but you do not deserve to represent uh this debate you do not
deserve to hold this position you do not deserve to be a teacher of and by the way we're still
waiting on lucy martinez stem teacher at nathan hale elementary school who motioned to her her neck with a with a
with their hand mocking Charlie's assassination for we're waiting for Lucy Martinez to be fired
there is a line and so maybe explain what you're what you're thinking there doctor i mean look
i'm not trying to suggest that everyone on the left uh longs for violence and it's completely
unreasonable there are still some i think genuine liberal voices on the left you know the famous
line i disagree to the death with you but i'll fight no rather i disagree with what you say but
I'll fight with the death for your right to say it.
There are reasonable Democrats.
The problem I see is that there is a growing chorus of radical, fundamentally illiberal voices.
We should not call them liberals.
They're opposed to free speech.
They don't believe in democracy.
They don't respect the outcome of elections.
And what worries me is that the supposed centrist liberal sane voices on the left don't
stand up to them. They always see threats coming from the right. So the people on the left who say
that I believe in dialogue and free speech and democracy, you know, Victor Orban, Donald Trump,
Buckelé, Charlie Kirk, immediately full-blown freak out. I mean, this is fascism coming to America.
Meanwhile, BLM, Antifa, no Kings rally, assassinating or trying to assassinate public officials,
murdering Charlie Kirk, silence, muted condemnations, or basically the sense that, well, he practically deserved it, or were better off without him.
And, you know, the real threat to democracy in America today comes from the left.
I think the right recognizes it.
And I would basically call on the reasonable voices on the left to realize that the threat today is on the left.
but it's almost as if it's in their DNA
and they have a very, very hard time
recognizing threats to their left.
They're just comfortable fighting, quote-unquote, fascists.
I think that's spot on.
And I did a whole segment in Hour 1, Doctor,
where I listed off all the tyrannical impulses
or actions of the left during the last four years of Joe Biden
that we don't hear anything about now.
All we're told is that, you know,
we are enabling this dictator and we're going to rue the day
when they get power back because it's like we already rue the day that joe biden was elected and all of us
got targeted charlie had to be questioned from the j6 committee i mean this this is what we had to do
and you know it was a there's other examples that we could discuss but i mean here's the thing
i mean they targeted grandmas they went after uh catholic schools they said hunter biden's laptop
was was uh russian disinformation they obscured or hid the or censored the origins of covid i mean there
is example after example after example, tried to throw Trump into prison. So we've already
lived through their totalitarian impulses, yet they have the gall to tell us that we're the ones.
So this is what's fascinating. So Corinne Jean-Pierre is on this book tour media blitz,
and she's kind of making a fool of herself everywhere she goes. I mean, even Colbert last
night was like, you lied about, you know, President Biden's mental decline. She said, you know,
I promise I didn't. And it's like, everybody, even Colbert's like,
Okay, I want to be really sweet to you, but you're leaving me no choice because, like, even we've given up the goat on that.
So here, but here's what's crazy.
She goes on MSNBC this morning and she's saying she needs, we need to see more teeth, more fire.
Play cut 167.
Right now in this moment, it is, there's an existential threat.
Our democracy is hanging by a thread.
Some people would say, would say we're already an authoritarian regime.
And I need to see teeth.
I need to see fire.
and not just me. Many people are worried and concerned.
So Dr. Azarad, we heard a lot of people say that, you know, maybe after November
2024, we're going to see the Democrat Party moderate. But no, they want more fire, more teeth.
I guess they want to see more activists in the streets celebrating political assassinations.
I don't know what she wants. And look at the unhinged diagnosis. I mean, what evidence is there
that we live in a tyranny that Trump is trying to be a king?
I mean, the guy ran on. We should secure our border. I'm going to deport illegals. I'm going to go after the worst excesses of wokeness. And I believe in economic growth. You may not agree with these ideas, but he was duly elected. He won the electoral college by decisive margin. Not that it matters, but he also won the popular vote by, I think it's two million votes. And so where exactly is the threat to our democracy? You brought up the,
the list of things that happened under Biden, I always ask my students, setting aside what you
think about, the particular policy, what do you think is a greater threat to democracy, to
enforce the existing laws on the books that were duly enacted by Congress and signed by presidents
that say that if you enter the country illegally, you should be deported, or to basically
announced de facto open borders that we will no longer enforce the laws, not on something that
doesn't matter crucially, let's say, underage drinking or, you know, an adult smoking pot in his
basement, but rather in allowing the country to be flooded by third old immigrants.
I totally agree with you. They don't look at just, you know, turning a blind eye to legitimate
laws and asylum laws, immigration laws, as a form of tyranny, but it is because they were
They are laws that govern our society.
If you're going to ignore whole sets of laws outright just because you don't like them anymore,
then you are, that is a dereliction of duty.
That is a treasonous act, certainly.
And that is a form of tyranny.
Is it not?
Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, I guess it goes down to, look, what does tyranny mean?
What does democracy mean?
I don't think you need an advanced degree.
You know, I think 10 minutes on Wikipedia could allow you to figure out that democracy.
he should mean that you have elections, the people choose a leader, and then within the bounds of
the rule of law, he gets to carry out his agenda. And then tyranny would be the naked abuse of power
with complete disregard for the rule of law. We were not a tyranny under Biden. I mean,
otherwise he would not have lost the election. But there are clear tyrannical impulses on the left,
which, by the way, go back a long time.
You know, there's, if your readers want to do a bit of reading, it's a tedious essay, but it's
quite insightful Herbert Marcusa, who's considered one of the founders, the fathers of the new left
in the 60s, another bad German export to America, wrote an essay on repressive tolerance
in which he basically redefines tolerance and democracy to mean what the left wants and
justifies violence and censorship against the right in the name of their conception of democracy.
And it's a revealing essay because he just says the quiet part out loud.
Democracy means the left.
Democracy means violence and censorship against the right.
And that's basically the way they look at it.
I think Karin, what's her name?
Saint-Pierre or Saint-Jean, I remember.
Jean-Pierre has never, I mean, I don't think she's ready.
many books. I can't even believe she wrote one, to be perfectly honest with you. But that idea
is alive and well. They've come to basically redefine democracy as our policy preferences. And if
you disagree with this, you're a fascist. And they just, I mean, at this point, I think I saw
poll 87% of Democrats think that Trump is a fascist. What does that mean? But what it does
is it lays down the predicate for just to find violence. Because if he is a fascist, then why shouldn't
we kill him. When we have been better off
had we murdered Hitler? Yeah, you're 100%
right. They dehumanize so
they can justify.
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Mikey McCoy, Chief of Staff here at Turning Point USA.
Actually, I want to welcome him into the conversation, Dr. Azarat.
He's with me here in studio.
Mikey, go ahead.
The floor is yours, Mike.
Yeah, doctor, I think there's a place where you graduate beyond reason, and the left is
really good at doing this.
men being in women's restrooms is beyond reason teachers that you entrust with your children doing
finger guns at their neck and a no king's rally to mock charlie kirk's death is beyond reason
and arresting grannies for being on the steps of the capital during january 6th is beyond reason
especially when those same people who celebrated the arrest of old ladies for for being on the steps of
the capital then then hit trump saying that it's not an insurrection and he shouldn't try to stop
crime in some of our biggest cities by enacting the Insurrection Act. And so, Doctor, the left is headed
to increasingly to a place where they just do not care about common sense or reason. And I'm a little
worried there's institutions like Hillsdale, but at these woke universities, I'm worried that these
teachers are continuing to teach their students that reason no longer matters. And this isn't just
on the universities. This is a thing as a whole when it comes to the left. What are you seeing
when it comes to that? But let me give you some good news. The 60s radicals where a lot of these
ideas basically entered the American bloodstream and became mainstream. Look, the 60s was a failure
because they failed to destroy the country. But it's succeeded insofar as these people grew up,
got PhDs, cut their hair, and became the professors who run the universities that are
the nerve center of the regime, and that credentialed and trained the elites. But the 60s
radicals, I think, were genuine revolutionaries who all in all did not want to be another brick
in the wall if you're old enough to get a Pink Floyd reference. I think the professors today,
and many of the students, are but for the most part, small sold. They do not have the courage
of their convictions. They talk a big game. But if you were to apply the slightest bit of
pressure, I believe most of them would fold like lawn shares. Let me give you maybe a flippant
example. Threatening to revoke their parking privileges at the call at the university, say in red
states at public universities, if they don't start behaving, if they stop pushing the crazy tranny
agenda, most of them will fall, fold. We're not, we're dealing with an enemy that in a sense
appears impressive because their pieties appear to be authoritative.
they make so much noise, they control the institutional high ground.
But on the other hand, my experience from debating them, reading their works, interacting with them,
suggests that most of them are not true fanatics.
They're just not used to encountering real opposition.
And I think Trump's agenda on the second term on the universities gives us a glimpse into what could be possible.
But we need a lot more of that, and we need red state governors to start putting pressure on their universities.
It is completely unacceptable that public universities in red states are subsidized by tax dollars
and continue to promote and teach completely unhinged theories.
You know, I would say to Governor DeSantis, shut down every sociology department at a public university in Florida.
It's a free country.
If you want to study sociology, go to Rollins College or go to another state.
But we, the taxpayers in Florida, will not subsidize these corrupt disciplines.
Same things with environmental studies, women's studies.
queer studies, black studies. If it's got studies in it as a rule of thumb, it's a corrupt,
bogus discipline, shut it down. Charlie would be cheering you on right now, doctor. So what do you say to
the rebuttal, though, where then they just say, well, I thought you were pro free speech. This is like
Nazis burning books. Well, I'm not forbidding the teaching of these disciplines. I'm saying they
will not be subsidized by tax dollars. So I brought up Rollins College as a private liberal arts
college in Florida. Let them teach whatever the hell they want. But why are red states
subsidizing, you know, entire disciplines that are corrupt and don't contribute to the common good.
Look, why do we have public universities? They're meant to serve the common good.
We can exercise a judgment and say that certain disciplines do not, and we won't subsidize them.
We'll shut them down. Go teach it somewhere else.
It's not, you know, not teaching a book is not the same thing as forbidding its distribution.
You know, when you go to Barnes and Nobles and they have these BS displays of balance,
books, removing a book from a public library is not forbidding Amazon to sell it. It's saying
the tax dollars are not going to be wasted on this garbage. You wrote an article in 2016
talking about the new red scare, and you basically made the argument that most people,
most Gen Zers and millennials, when they say, we like socialism and these polls that we've all
seen, they don't actually know what kind of social, well, they don't know what it means. They
think it just means we like being nice and maybe a little bit more subsidized health care or whatever.
So you wrote this article 2016. I read it this morning. I was like, wow, I just, I mean, talk about holding up. I mean, this thing just aged like a fine wine. What are young people when they say they like communism, socialism, or not with the, you know, protesting or they're on TikTok or whatever. What do they actually mean?
Yeah. So my point was simple. I wrote this when Bernie Sanders really first flared up nationally and became a big thing. And conservatives were, you know, ripping out their hair saying, oh, my God, have we learned no lessons from the Cold War, Marxism?
is coming to America. And my point was simply that Bernie Sanders and the overwhelming
majority of people who say that they like socialism are not Marxist communists. They don't want
the government to nationalize the means of industry. They don't believe in dialectical
materialism. They don't think that the state will one day wither away. They've never read
the communist manifesto. And if I don't think they have the IQ to read it and if they try to read
it, they'd find it boring because it doesn't talk about gays, climate change, women.
contraceptives, abortions, and minorities. My point was simply that a lot of people post-financial
crisis in 2008 are very angry at capitalism, and that what Bernie Sanders calls democratic socialism,
I think, is really just New Deal liberalism, i.e., you keep the private sector, the government
doesn't nationalize companies, but you have a lot of taxes on the wealthy, you have a lot of
free government programs, and then you heavily regulate the private sector to prevent it from,
you know, polluting, discriminating, abusing workers or consumers.
Dr. You're preventing it from growing. That's what you're doing. Yeah, but continue on.
I apologize. Yeah. So look, that's not free markets. It's not capitalism, but it's not Marxist
communism. I think the interesting question, the challenge would be, would in the long term,
will it lead to actual communism? So this was Hayek's argument in the road to surf them,
is that this ensnaring of the market by the government, ratcheting by ratcheting, step by step,
inevitably will lead to full-blown socialism. I don't know about that. That's, you know,
to quote Yogi Berra, I hate making predictions, especially about the future. But I just see in the
young people who clamor for socialism. I mean, what they're basically saying is give me free stuff.
And by the way, you know, there's a lot of that in America already. I mean, we have a huge welfare
state. We give a lot of quote unquote free stuff to the poor, a lot of quote unquote free stuff
to the elderly. They're saying, well, give free stuff to everyone else. So we have Medicare and
Medicaid. Well, then why not, you know, for the poor and the elderly, give it to everyone else.
We want free college, free daycare, free this, free that.
I don't approve of the longing, but this is not Marxism.
So we should counter it, but understand it for what it is.
And it goes way back in the American tradition.
I mean, it's basically a new deal liberalism.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I'm glad you got to explain that because that nuance is important.
We have to know the enemy that we're fighting,
and we have to address it head on for what it is, not what it's not.
And I think there's just a lot of confusion.
I think you're right.
But a lot of young people just want free stuff.
And they think, well, why can't we have, you know, free health care for everybody?
Well, you know, if we can find a way to pay for it, maybe it's not a terrible idea.
But in the meantime, as Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism, you eventually run out of other people's money.
So we're always going to be confronted by the shackles of reality.
Dr. Azrad, thank you so much for joining us and making the time.
Thank you for having me.
Enjoy the conversation.
Yeah, same.
Very much.
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So really quick, a couple news items just to get out of the way.
There was a planned meeting between the U.S. and Russia that has been called off.
Marco Rubis called that off, so I want to make sure the audience knows that.
So they're having productive calls, but the meeting has been called off.
So the little saber rattling and all that.
And then in other news, John Brennan has been referred for criminal charges by Jim Jordan.
So those are topics that we're going to probably have to unpack tomorrow, but that is all breaking.
And it's very fascinating stuff.
And we will get to it, I promise.
But in the meantime, we're going to welcome Jordan Harmon from Angel Studios.
Welcome to the set.
You walked in and you said what is, I think, you know, the first.
time that when you come to this set and you see Charlie's empty chair, it is a bit surreal.
Yeah, I mean, it's, um, I mean, obviously the last time I was here, the, you know, we had
lunch with Charlie and I remember, um, talking to him during lunch and asking him, you know,
do you ever worry about something, you know, some crazy going and doing something crazy on one of
these campuses? And he's like, you know, if that's the way God takes me, then that's the way
I go. And obviously that hits differently now because it's like, you know, he's not here
anymore and so yeah it's it's surreal for so many I have so many emotions walking into this room
because it's uh you know he just he was one of the best of us yeah well said I mean Mikey can
attest I mean we I think we all had our moment like that with him where we talked about that stuff
and he was incredibly courageous and brave and and I mean with with that being said like over
the last 12 years since we started angel it's obviously grown over the years but we've gone
through some many ups and downs and Charlie from the moment we met him became a fan of what we were
doing and he defended us in in the ups and the downs. I think that's kind of a testament to what
many people have said is when they were in their hardest times, you know, I was chatting with
Will Sharf a couple weekends ago and he was just saying he was in his darkest moment and the
first person to call him and text him was Charlie. You know, like, classic. It's just, that's just who
he was. And so, you know, there was many times whether it was through controversies or frustrations or
people you know angel going through different times in our company's history charlie was pretty
i mean he was constant like he was there he wanted a sport he loved what we were doing and so man i'm
i'm just honored and grateful to be here well thank you for making the time to come out but
mike i don't know if you want to chime in on that because that's so charlie what you're
explaining is like so charlie yeah when when somebody's down the first person to reach out to them
that's charlie and it's also the most loyal person ever and that it it didn't matter if you
had done something so bad if he was loyal to you
he would he would step up for you and be there when you needed somebody the most and it was
typical him so i'm not surprised yeah he's always an uplifting guy yeah and you actually you know
you guys put out a video um i guess like the week after it happened like maybe a week after whatever and
you just you honored charlie i thought it was so well done and i thought it was so tasteful you know
because there was people trying to i think i don't know they just would do it wrong they do it in a way
that was just not quite right and you just did it in a way where you you were um honoring charlie's
legacy you were honoring what he meant to you what he meant to angel and you were it was like a heart
cry of just your mourning and your grief and um i thought it was just really beautiful and i i i
remember sent it to a bunch of people and i said like listen if you want to honor charlie this is the
model this is how you do it because it really you could just see it came from your your heart and
and i knew that it you you were reflecting in the piece of just like everything that charlie had
meant to to you guys personally but what he had helped how he had helped champion your
company and how devastated you were that he wasn't there to do that anymore for you yeah i think
you know there it's funny because you say that i was i've read this message multiple times and i'm sure
that anybody who's had a direct relationship with charlie has probably gone back through their messages
and yeah read messages from him but i remember you know one of the last message he sent me was
because we had you know obviously king of kings have blown up he had been a huge part of promoting that
because he loved it for his kids and his family and i you know i deeply wish you could have seen
David, the movie coming out this Christmas, because it has that same impact.
But his text message just said, because I was just saying, thanks for fighting the good fight.
And he said, thank you.
And then he always included an incredible scripture, you know, that was always so timely.
Romans 10, 9, because if you confess your mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart,
that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved.
And he said, let's share the truth of the resurrection daily with boldness and love.
God bless you, my friend.
So he's just, I mean, he's just, that's like, everything he did was his testimony.
Jesus Christ and it's just like it's man sorry I told myself I was not going to get emotional
the day trust me and and it's impossible I've been there so many tears so anyway yeah um
you know it's one of those things like we have this terrible reality that we live in where like
people either think we're being like too happy or too sad or we're not doing it right and it's like
everybody's a critic it's like you know it's it's um it's one of those things where it's not I mean
You know, the morning process is not linear, and it comes in waves.
It does.
And you take it, Mikey.
Yeah.
You got that northern Europe here, that stoic blood.
Yeah, he lived his faith every day.
And every morning he would send a scripture to, he would go through his phone and just send off a scripture, everybody.
We talk a lot about people just living their faith.
And I've had a conversation with Erica and Frank Turk about how Charlie, when he was killed, died at the peak of his faith.
And it was like he had loved the Lord the most at that moment in time.
And how much he was reading the Bible and how much he was studying it and prepping for it.
That entire campus tour, he had a big notebook of things to reference.
It was the binder.
But then he had a second binder that was all just Bible-oriented.
And what Andrew said, these things were proved me wrongs, their debates, but they're really tent revivals.
And he was always proclaiming the name of Jesus said these things. And it's an amazing thing.
It's a challenge for all of us to not just live our faith, but hopefully one day we can die at the peak of our faith.
That's super powerful. I wish I, there was parts of me that wishes I had been, because, I mean, he was in Utah.
He was five minutes from our office, you know, when he was killed. And so that assassination, when it happened, I was actually in New York City because we were.
were going public the next day and and I got the message on Liberty Island with my wife and kids
and I was standing behind the Statue of Liberty and when I got the message like this can't be real
like one I knew he was at UVU had we not been going public that week I probably would have
been there at you guys at the tent but I was like um you know I saw the message and I was standing by
and and just like this huge like it settled in and that it was like the first the first thing I
thought it was like God why did you let them take like the one of the best of us who was just
like driving this forward and then it kind of came into my mind. No, it's because he's one of the best
of us that God let him take him because, and that God was going to, it became clear in my mind that
God was going to use that moment to do something special. And then you look at the last like, you know,
month and a half and how incredibly powerful it's been. I do believe, oh, I wish I could have been
there. I'm glad Jeff and Neil made it to the memorial, but I had some conflicts with family stuff.
But I do believe that that memorial service probably, I say probably has a caveat,
but I believe it was the most broadcasted moment of testifying of Jesus Christ.
That's ever happened in human history.
Yeah, I definitely believe.
It's at least one singular moment.
Yeah, I mean, we tracked over 120 million streams just like from our stuff.
And there was countless, I mean, I'm telling countless other accounts that were just taking the stream and broadcast.
so we had no idea how many how broad it was but at least 120 million but probably let's just
say double that maybe triple it's like god said i'm calling you home and i'm going to accelerate
your mission you know one of the things that i heard from multiple people was this vision and the
fact that you hear it from multiple people almost i think it actually strengthens the fact that it's
that it's that it's probably true is that and it's hard for me to talk about especially because
you got the emotions for me flowing, so I'm going to try my best here.
But, you know, they saw this picture of Charlie standing before the Lord and right as it
happened, and that he was perplexed.
He was joyful.
You know, he's standing before the Lord.
Of course, there's joy there, but he's also perplexed.
And he looks back and he said, I want to go back.
You know, I want to go back to Erica.
And I have this mission.
And God was like, and Jesus was like, yeah, you can go.
But before you do, I want you to see the harvest if you stay.
And if you come home, and the Lord showed him the harvest, and Charlie said,
okay, Lord, I'll come home.
I love that.
And I believe that we are just at the very beginning of seeing what the harvest ultimately
will be.
And how many more Charlie Kirkster is going to be just born out of this moment.
And how many, you know, make heaven crowded was what Charlie and Erica used to always say
to each other.
And I think that Charlie's life is ultimately the embodied.
of that very idea.
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Charlie.
I just, you know, for what it's worth, I mean, you know, the King of Kings, Charlie loved
promoting that project because it was right on Easter and, you know, it was one of, like,
I'll be honest, there's some projects you guys would do that.
He was more enthusiastic than others.
But King of Kings, King of Kings was one of the top, top ones.
Because, I mean, what's not to love about it was just about Jesus and it was right at
Easter and it hit for you really big. And I know Charlie played a big role in that because I kept
hearing like Charlie, Charlie's, you know, his reads are amazing. And like he's really getting a lot of
people out to this thing. So maybe just in the minute we have in this segment, tell us about that
particular project and what he did for it. And then we'll talk about the truth and treason in young
Washington coming up. Yeah. I mean, Charlie obviously with King of Kings that came out at Easter,
it was it was for us that we, the Angel Guild, our membership that has to greenlight every project
before we ever take it out in the distribution.
They gave that one of the highest ratings we've seen to date.
And it really was kind of the passion of the Christ for kids
where they could go and experience something that was monumental.
And there were so many moments, actually, in that movie
where we saw people would send in footage of kids just in tears watching Christ be crucified,
but in this way that was approachable and meaningful.
And I think Charlie caught that vision right off.
And so he went into that and just was constantly doing his reality.
and talking about it more than he ever needed to
and it did have an impact
it ended up being the number one biblical
animated opening of all time
and it's coming up on
80 million in the global box office which is
absolutely remarkable. Oh that's fantastic
and our team went and found
your tribute to CK video
so we're going to play that
our good friends
at Angel Studios I love Angel Studios
amazing new
film this Holy Week
phenomenal. As I think about
Charlie's life and how much of a supporter was of Angel.
It's hard not to feel so grateful for what he did.
He supported us in our darkest days and in our brightest hours as a company.
Jeff and I and Charlie were doing lunch together.
We asked him, he said, are you at all worried about one of these college campuses?
And he just said, there was so much peace in his eyes and so much peace in his heart.
If that's how God takes me, then that's how I'm supposed to go.
And I feel like that was a clear message that Charlie's life,
is a testimony to Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior.
And his relationship with him was the most important thing
that he would want the world to remember about his legacy.
Man, are we grateful to have gotten to be a little connection
in the multitude of connections that he made throughout his life
because it was so impactful to us.
Thank you, Charlie.
Love you.
We miss you.
We're going to continue to drive forward to good news.
Beautiful tribute that you did in the immediate aftermath.
I just thought it was so well done and so heartfelt.
So thank you for that.
But you have truth and treason.
That one's the one that's coming up soon.
It just came out this last weekend.
Oh, it did.
Opening weekend was this last weekend.
You can go get tickets right now.
I apologize.
No, no, you're good.
The interesting thing about this film is it's been,
the director's been working on it for almost 20 years,
and we've been involved for almost half a decade.
And this film,
when the whole Charlie thing happened
it was this moment where like
this film is more timely than ever
it's a you know it's about this young man
who and tell me if this sounds familiar
you have this young man who sees
culturally his entire society
going in a direction that he thinks
is absolutely atrocious
and he takes his faith
and truth and words
and he goes and types out these words
into pamphlets and spreads them all over Hamburg, Germany to try to get truth out to the German
people in a way, and, you know, anybody who's experienced real fascism, you know, you can't see
what you want to say. Yeah, exactly. And so this, but this, this young man, his name is Helmut
Hewinter, it cost him his life. And so when the whole Charlie thing happened, we were releasing
this movie literally in the next month, and we were just like, wow, this is Charlie's story.
It's this young man who spoke truth, who was unapologetic about his faith, and he sacrificed everything for it.
And he died it, what, 17 years old.
Oh, my goodness.
He's the youngest resistant fire to ever be executed.
That's just, that's incredible, an incredible story, and terribly tragic.
But a really powerful film here, 172 is a little bit longer trailer, but I just want to be able to soak in it.
Because these content is really important for our culture.
want to soak in it, 172.
Look what I found.
I'm looking at a little red leaflet which caused the fear of the great deceiver of the people.
And enough people find out what's really going on and stand up.
At an end to it, I'm in.
We can change things.
You just have to take the first step.
It must be stated that his treasonous actions are inexcusable.
There it is.
June.
I think it's just a muttery time, well.
I could hide you.
Mr. Big Shot, resistance, visor.
He can't even talk to that guy at work.
Careful.
You never know who's watching.
You know what happens if they catch you.
You thought this through before you planned your little coup, right?
Are you trying to get us all killed?
I'm not afraid to die.
and the nose of we begin to see through him
the truth will prevail
yeah I mean that's powerful
and you know something that Charlie was very well aware of
is that if you speak the truth clearly boldly
and you call out the lies of a culture
in this case obviously this was Nazi Germany
but if you do it and I mean the same thing happened to you know lots of people actually
I think of Socrates was that when you speak the truth and you you you attack the gods of any age
that the false gods of any age then you are confronting powers that that are hostile and that's
what this story is essentially about for me and I look at this story in a very unique way in
that there's been this really disconcerting behavior that's been happening
happening culturally where the far left is framing everybody as Nazis and Trump is Hitler.
And this story goes into what real fascism looks like.
Like what we're experiencing today where people get like, you wouldn't be able to do a no
king's protest in Nazi Germany.
You know, that doesn't exist.
And so I do think it's important that we get out there and that we put our foot down
and we say enough's enough on the, this.
branding of anybody who has an alternate opinion or as a conservative or a more liberty-minded
person as becoming a calling them a fascist or that they're a nazi well and we're running out
time here and i apologize but you also have young washington coming up right yeah amazing moving
that's going to be huge i yeah 250th i want to yeah for the 250 anniversary which also
sort of reminds me of charlie uh as i do think of him as a modern founding father
but i want to make sure people if they want to see it where do they go they go to angel you
go to angel.com slash kirk. You'll see all of our stuff on there. If you want to specifically
look up Young Washington Project, just still go to angel.com slash Kirk. You'll see all of our
projects upcoming, anyone that's streaming currently and all the ones that are in theater. So
again, we're grateful, honor to be here. So grateful for Charlie, his legacy, and what you guys
are doing. Thank you so much.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.
