The Charlie Kirk Show - Graham Platner, Democrat Standardbearer

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Along with James Talarico, Graham Platner has become the signature figure of the 2026 Democrat push to retake the Senate, with a history of Nazi tattoos, repugnant Reddit comments, adultery, and more. The show dissects what he says about the Democrats of today. Bo and Gabe from TPUSA Frontlines give firsthand reporting on the left's siege of a New Jersey ICE facility. Dr. Rob Henderson discusses the fertility collapse, its causes, and whether it can be fixed, and Fox's Rachel Campos-Duffy shows off her new book celebrating America's 250th with an introduction by Erika Kirk. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!    Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at noble gold investments.com. That is noble gold investments.com. All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. It's Monday, June 1st, which you know, of course, means heterosexual awareness month. Heterosexual awareness month has begun. We will hopefully not have to get into that. I've seen that the MLB has already stepped in it. So we might have to cover this in some detail. point, but I am holding out hope that we have returned to our senses. The golden ear is upon us for

June being reclaimed by saying people, but we will see, all right? We also have the hearing in the Tyler Robinson case that has just begun in Utah. We are monitoring that. We have the feed live. We're looking for decisions from Judge Graff on basically two main things. One will one of the members of the prosecution be held in contempt. He, as you, you might remember made some comments very subtle comments they weren't he wasn't being bombastic in any way shape or form but following that daily mail headline that we made much noise about on this show saying the bullet didn't match the gun that was fake news clickbait and they made a comment this prosecutor made a comment to the media clarifying the record he has the defense wants him held in contempt the judge

is going to make a decision on that today secondly there are some issues involving video whether the media will have access to the video. Now, they already ruled that the trial itself will have cameras. Yes. This is specifically on the preliminary hearing, which we've had a year of song and dance about getting to the preliminary hearing. And there's essentially two main videos that are in question that are of the incident. I'm told the prosecution gave a bit of a lukewarm defense of.

These videos apparently are already public. I feel mixed. I don't want any blocking of any media access to anything. But on the one hand, this is, to Blake's point, in the preliminary hearing, these are videos of the incident. I don't want to see those. I don't think it is edifying in any way to sort of re-show those videos. So the possibility would be, would the media cameras be able to be locked on Judge Graff as opposed to showing the videos themselves? And I guess you would just see his reaction. action to watching the videos. So, and there's a couple other videos that are less noteworthy that are in question with that ruling. So you might get a split ruling where he allows some of them to be covered by the media, some of them not to. Again, these are videos that are in the public domain already. And anyway, so we're, we're, oh, we have, we have news. They found this prosecutor in contempt. I don't believe that that will mean that he'll be removed from the case, but he has been found in contempt for violating said gag order.

And so we'll get that clip in just a second to see if we can get details on that. So hang tight right there. More coming. We're going to have details in just a second. So that's the first breaking held in contempt. But we're getting those clips right now. So lots happening today. Obviously there's a Ron.

And then there's Platner. There's Delaney Hall. We're going to have Rachel Campos Duffy join us at the half. hour here. She's got a great new book out about celebrating America's 250th. Erica Kirk wrote the four words. So we want to celebrate that book. It's apparently flying off the shelves doing very well. And we're going to talk about some other things. Delaney Hall. We've got our frontlines, TPSA frontlines journalists that have been covering it all weekend, joining us, tell us their firsthand experience. We should tell them what Delaney Hall is. This is an ice facility in New Jersey. It's become one of those,

the latest thing that the left has one of those long running sieges of fascination with. It's one of those things about the left. They can fixate on something, have kind of jobless goons show up from around the country, and just permanently fixate on it in a way that the right doesn't really do for things. Well, they've got foot soldiers. It's one of their biggest strategic assets. Yeah, they've got foot soldiers and there's complaints about the food and, you know, all this kind of stuff. By the way, they did publish a menu that is available for detainees at the ice facility.

And it's like omelets, fajitas. It's so ridiculous and you just know that if they have their way in five years, 10 years, really for decades on end, they'll turn this into some sort of all-timer atrocity. It'll be like, it'll literally be like Auschwitz and then Delaney Hall. That's the mythology they want to create. A lot of the left's ideology is endlessly attempting, frankly, endlessly attempting to recreate the Nazis. everything they they have no morality other than fighting Nazis they have no moral conceptions other than make sure World War II in the Holocaust doesn't happen again it's a very childish and immature morality but it's one that they've gotten a lot of mileage out of

well and so while we're sort of waiting for those clips from the the hearing we are going to be talking a little bit about Graham Platner because this race I don't believe we've given enough attention to. But he's, of course, running to be the next senator from the state of Maine. He's going up against Susan Collins, who is, yeah, she's a Republican. She's a moderate. She votes with us, votes against us. But in Charlie's words, we always graded Susan Collins on a scale, on a sliding scale, because she was always there when we needed her, whether that be justices, judges. There's a lot of vote trading that goes on. And if that makes her electable in the state of Maine, a blue state where we're not going to get anybody better, I'm here for it. We

lay off Susan Collins, even though it can be frustrating at times. But the big news over the weekend was that Graham Platner, this guy who used to have a Nazi tattoo on his chest, he got it removed, he said he didn't know what it was. He didn't even remove it. He covered it up. And then he's also made comments about military vets, Purple Heart recipients saying they didn't deserve to live. The guy's a total creep and a scumbag in basically every conceivable way. But he's kind of going the John Federman route where he doesn't wear a suit and tie. He just wears like a sweatshirt. He's an oyster farmer. He's one of us.

He's one of the man of the people. But it's worse than that. He's actually just a scumbag. He's a really nasty guy that, you know, that essentially every form of degeneracy you can imagine he's engaging in. Right. So now we find out that he's got profiles on these really salacious dating apps. We'll call him dating apps to be generous. But some have accused this specific app called the Kick app to be essentially a sexual exploitation app.

He's quoted as saying he's got really loose moral. when it comes to this type of thing. It's very flexible about it, but he is married. And what's interesting now is that his wife, this has become a big controversy, but his wife has now come out and basically defended him. So we'll give her her due. Stop 30.

I find it really shameful that there's a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip, instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on. I just really wanted to make sure that everyone knows that Graham and I have a great marriage. Being married is hard. Our marriage counselor helps. My personal counselor helps. Graham's personal counselor helps.

and we work on our mental health every day no marriage is perfect so when there are news articles about our marriage it's just extra shitty what is just absolutely wacky just so you know there's not one counselor that's dealing with their mental health there's not two counselors that are dealing with the mental health

there's three they have a personal for each and then they got a marriage counselor that's an extraordinary amount of mental health work that's being done just to keep a run-of-the-mill marriage together. You be the judge. More on that in just a second. I also want to give a shout out to Tina Peters in Colorado. Congratulations to Tina Peters on being released. She was on War Room earlier this morning, so we just want to say a quick word to her.

Governor Polis actually commuted her sentence with a lot of pressure from President Trump. So God bless Tina Peters. I want to hit an update. We have several updates on the unfolding Tyler. Robinson hearing that's going on. First of all, it's not quite the case that they've been found in contempt. The judge, instead, he granted a defense motion for

an order to show cause. Basically, they had claimed there's contempt issues because members of the prosecutor had spoken to media outlets, and now the judge has set an evidentiary hearing for that for June 12th. Basically, each side is going to present 90 minutes of evidence, and then

that will determine, then the judge will be a determination on the contempt issue. So not a ruling, basically, just said it merits a hearing. Granted a hearing. We have another hearing. And then in addition, apparently the judge has ruled just now that media and the public will have access to the preliminary hearing, which was also being contested.

And I don't know if there's final rulings on the specific piece of evidence yet. Everything is public. I'm not mad at that. Again, there's some of those videos. Like, you know, I actually would think it would be a. appropriate to sort of probably take the camera off those videos or not show those videos. It is what it is. It's very clear to me that Judge Graff is being very deliberate, very careful. And again, we've laid this out on this show before. We've talked with experts about this.

This whole trial, there is such a mountain of evidence against Tyler Robinson that you're already kind of, you know, and we've had this explained to us. both the prosecution and the defense are playing for appeals. They're playing for future appeals. The defense wants to screw up the judge, wants to screw up the prosecution, make them do silly things, unwise things, be rushing. Anything that they could get this case to be overturned on appeal, the defense is going to be pursuing, right? So the judge grap being very deliberate.

It seems to be he's very cognizant of what the strategy from the defense is. so it is what it is so we've got yeah accordingly this is a quote from judge graph the court grants defendants motion for order to show cause the issuance of this order reflects a determination that defendant has made a sufficient preliminary showing under utah law to warrant further proceedings and does not constitute a finding of contempt does not so that's judge graph on cameras the court however acknowledges defendant's pending motion in Le Mine to preclude 1102 evidence

and reserving ruling on that issue until the matter has been fully briefed and heard. To Blake's earlier point, it's all going to be public, though. That's where this is the order of the court. Which is, overall, the way we want it.

As you said, it's unpleasant if they literally are showing the video. But one, I suspect a lot of news outlets just won't do that. because they usually avoid that sort of thing. Yeah. And second, they're all public anyway. So, yeah, these videos are public.

I just can't help but think about Erica and, you know, in moments like this. And, you know, I'm not, again, I think it's good to be more public than not. Let's put it that way. I'm glad that there is a bent towards, you know, everything being public and known. I get it. So it's just that particular, the incident I don't think anybody ever needs to see again. You know, that's my personal feeling on the matter. We ended the last segment, however, talking about Graham Platner.

And they have, it was revealed that they have three, not just one, not two, but three counselors. They have their marriage counselor. I mean, it looked like a hostage video practically. The way she was described it, she seemed very detached. it was not, you certainly didn't get this sense of overflowing love and joy coming out of it, which I can't really blame her. It's an embarrassing story. She had to go and find, she had to go and find the text messages, and then she'd reported them to, basically she reported them to the campaign that she'd found these things, so they're aware of this. And then this is now

trickled out about a year later. So it's very, it's very humiliating and embarrassing. And there's a lot of these things with Graham Platner, because we basically have photos of him on the dating app, so it's very clear. He seems to be angling to cover up his tattoo that he says he did not know was a Nazi tattoo when he got it. Which means he probably did. And on top of that, there's just, it's just, there's so many things with him. And yeah, we can show the video. Yeah, let's show that. Well, there's this video of AI reading his Reddit comments. Oh, which. Yeah, let's go for it. Let's do that. Yeah, 22. And now for a dramatic reading of Graham Platner's Reddit comments.

How about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to? Rape is a real thing. If you're so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear, you think you might not get blacked out f***ed up around people you aren't comfortable with. Why don't black people tip? I work as a bartender and always amazes me how solid this stereotype is. Living in white rural America, I'm afraid to tell you they actually are.

I got older and became a communist. Still got the guns, though. I don't trust the fascist to act politely. Oh, great. So we have an adulterist. We have an adulterous Nazi tattoo Redditor. Not very pleasant, but I think there's something important to note here,

which is this stuff has been trickling out for him for months, about a year or now. People don't care. His campaign has only gained momentum. The sitting governor of Maine, Janet Mills, dropped out of the race because she was basically going to get masquered by him and didn't want to get humiliated going all the way to the primary. He's only gained momentum.

There are polls that show him actually leading the incumbent Republican senator, Susan Collins. Now, that doesn't mean we're going to lose. Susan Collins trailed every poll the last time that she ran and actually won easily. She does seem to have special poll-defying powers. But there's real reasons for concern in this race. And I think it signals something worrisome or important, which is Democrat. they've internalized some of the logic of Donald Trump himself, which is just steamroll through everything,

apologize for nothing, and at least among Democrats, you can get away with a lot now, because everything is secondary to just get the win, take down the Republicans, and they'll pick whoever they want. I want to talk to you about an issue so many Americans face, and that's health insurance.

There's an organization I really, really appreciate, called Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a faith-based alternative to health insurance. And this is real stuff, folks. Like, you've got to listen in. With CHM, you're not paying into a company's profit margin. You're investing in a community with less overhead than the competition. You get reliable support through the giving and prayer of fellow members.

Members contribute every month to help pay for each other's medical bills, allowing believers to afford the care they need. Because they're not insurance, you get access to your personal. prefer doctor or hospital without network restrictions. You heard that right. If you want to see massive savings in your health care budget, CHM has four low-cost programs for every stage of life, starting at just $150 a month.

Plus, you can enroll or switch your program at any time. See why so many believers are taking a leap of faith. Start today by visiting ch ministries.org slash Charlie and use promo code Charlie for a 50% credit towards your first month. That's C-H ministries.org slash Charlie and use promo code Charlie. Welcomeing now to the show is Rachel Campos Duffy, one of our friends and favorites, author of All-American Patriotism, New Book Out, and she's also the co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend. Rachel, good to see you.

It's so good to be on with you guys. Thank you. Well, it's an honor to have you. We wanted to celebrate this book because obviously it's an amazing book, and it's part of our 250. There it is. There's the beautiful cover. But Erica Kirk also wrote the forward to this, which was a great honor. And I know that that was something you worked hard on getting. And we were honored to have her be a part of this project.

So tell us about the project. Well, first of all, let me give you a little announcement, which is that it just hit the New York Times bestseller list. It's number three right now. So we're really excited about it. I know people are really responding to it. I think that there's a desire to return to the way, frankly, the way we Gen Xers were raised, you know, we were just raised to love this country. And when we talked about wanting to fix America or change something, a policy, or make it better

or restore it, it was through this prism of love, it's that we loved America so much that we wanted to make her even better. It wasn't that we were trying to tear America down, tear down its statues, tear down its founders, fundamentally transform it. It was through this prism of love. And I think over the last couple generations, because of Howard Zinn and this sort of Marxist perspective that has been foisted on America's youth, K through college, they're getting it. It's really the primary source of history that's being taught right now. we're just seeing kids being very ambivalent about America, very, you know, almost embarrassed or a shame of our history and our founding. And so this book is really about turning the page on that, especially with this incredible 250th anniversary that we're about to celebrate in saying it's time to embrace America, to love her again, to be proud of her, to go out and see her on a road trip.

with your friends, go out or your family, and really start to reconnect with each other. And so each chapter, Andrew, is an essay. So I asked my favorite friends at Fox, different hosts from different places and regions in America, just write an essay, why do you love America? What does it mean to you? Why are you so patriotic?

And each of them did. I wrote an introduction to each of those chapters. I wrote my own chapter and I wrote an introduction to the book. And that's sort of how the book is put together. And yes, I asked Erica to do the forward because I was wanting to ask Charlie to do it. Because, you know, next to President Trump, who else represents, you know, being the ultimate cheerleader for America? No one, you know, publicly pronounced their love for America more than Charlie Kirk and President. Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk had such a connection to young people, and I wanted young people to read this book.

And the feedback I'm getting about it from young people is they're sort of, I'm not going to say jealous, but they pined for the way I was raised, which was, you know, as I said, to just, we were just raised to love America and not to be ashamed of it. In fact, to proclaim how exceptional it was all the time. And I think they want that. I might be putting you on the spot a little bit, but I'm looking here. You got yours different stories. And it mentions, of course, your husband, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He looks back on your family road trip right here to Arizona to the Grand Canyon. And I was wondering if you could tell Charlie loved the Grand Canyon.

He did love the Grand Canyon. So our family took a road trip this year. But that chapter is about his trip to the Grand Canyon with his mom and his brother and his sister. And that's, that's, that's, that's, that chapter is about. And it was interesting, a lot of people's chapters, um, or, or essays, uh, you know, this is a collection of essays were about road trips. And even Erica talked about the road trips that, um, her and Charlie took in the forward. Um, I just sort of read you really quick, just the first couple lines of the forward written by Erica. She said, Charlie never got to see America turned 250. And some days that thought still settles heavy in my heart. he would have loved it because he loved the visible reminders of who we are in America and as a country. He believed America was meant to be seen and celebrated out loud, not quietly tucked away or spoken of with hesitation. And then she goes on. It's beautiful. Yeah. And I got a chance to read that, you know, before, you know, I guess once they submitted it to you guys.

And I just thought she did a great job. Celebrating Charle and celebrating the country. It's a really beautiful. thing. And she took it so seriously, by the way. I remember because it was a little delay and she's like, no, it has to be just right. So you talk about road trips. So I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the controversy over the Great American Road Trip, which, you know, your husband is, is, you know, celebrating, really. And I remember thinking, like, you and I talked about this briefly when I was, I was like, wait, there's a controversy over that? Why is there a controversy over a road? Like, what is more American than the all-American, like a great American road trip.

Like, and by the way, it's kind of part of Sean's story. Like, there's just so many great tie-ins here. What is it? And like, what, like, why are people like being weird about it? I don't even understand it, to be perfectly honest. So Sean talked about his road trip to the Grand Canyon when he was a kid in his book. And I talked in my chapter in 1976, so the 200th anniversary, I believe. Believe it or not, I was alive.

I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I was alive. But then I see that you're like a grandma now. I'm a grandma. I guess. There's a lot going on here. Yeah, exactly.

How many kids do you guys have again? I always forget the exact number. We have nine kids and we, this is our second grandkid. And we're going to have a third grand kid on the way around Christmas time. So, God bless. So, yeah, it's amazing. So when I was a little girl in 1976, my parents, and I will get to the controversy, but I want to set this up first.

My father is a first generation Mexican-American born here in Arizona, and my mother met him when he was stationed abroad in Spain, and she's from Spain, and she became a citizen when I was in kindergarten, and it was around that time that America turned 200, and my parents loaded up the four of us kids into a station wagon, a brown station wagon, and we drove. to Philadelphia across the country to see the Liberty Bell and to go to Independence Hall. And I remember just thinking this place must be really important. Our parents brought us all the way here to see this. And it was very formative for us. And I think a lot of road trips are. They're bonding and they're wonderful. And so when President Trump said, listen to the cabinet, you're going to, you're going to

celebrate 250 years while I am in office. And so I want every department to come up with a way to celebrate America's 250th birthday. And Sean, of course, is the Secretary of Transportation. He's charged not just with transportation and safety, but also with promoting infrastructure and travel. And so he said, let's bring back the Great American Road Trip. I don't think people are taking road trips the way they used to. When Sean and I were kids, it was very unusual to jump on an airplane, for example. You know, everybody, the only time I got on an airplane, you guys, was when my dad was moving to a different base, usually overseas, and the government paid for the airplane ride for all of us to go. But if we were going anywhere, we were jumping in a car because that was

just what people did back then. And so he's like, let's bring it back. And so bonding as a family, you do these awesome stops at diners. You go see the parks. We have the most amazing, you know, landscape and geography here in America. And so he said, let's bring back the great American road trip. And America 250, as you know, has all these corporate sponsors. So there was a nonprofit that was set up. And these different corporations are, you know, wrapping, they're spending money through this nonprofit to wrap up airplanes and buses and America 250 logos. And this idea of bringing back the road trip was brought up.

And we said, let's, let's hit a couple, you know, sides, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Philadelphia, Florida, South Carolina. and so we did that. And so when it came out, and we decided how are we going to do it? We were first going to do it in little TikTok videos. And then I said, you know what? Our roots are in reality TV. We've been asked for, you know,

some people don't know. I was on the real world in season three and Sean was on season five. And we met through reality TV. We've been asked for the last 20 years to actually participate in a reality, by probably, you know, 12 different production companies, including the one that did the Kardashians and real world.

And so then we said, you know what, if we're going to do it, let's just do like a little limited five episode, you know, we're going across the country. And that's what we did and people freaked out. And because we filmed it over the course of seven months, which means Sean took like two days a month to do this. So we did these really quick stints. obviously I'm busy with my job and Sean's busy with his and um but then the left said that we took

seven months off because I think they're really sensitive because people took four months off so like they want to make it sound like the duffy's seven months off I mean it's so crazy I think it's beautiful I I think it's great and I love celebrating the the great American road trip there is nothing more American and it's iconic and we should celebrate it and who better than you guys and the secretary of transportation anyway so you know i saw this clip and i should have pulled it but it it may i'm thinking about it right now you know because we see these these images of uh Columbus uh the Columbus square monument or whatever and and so many of the beautification there's a lincoln memorial the reflecting pool and i saw this clip this morning of rachel welch welch welsh i didn't even

hear about her until like trump got reelected anyway she's a former uh housewife of something or other one of those so she and she just spouts off all the time and she's basically like we're gonna we're I I want to pave over the Lincoln memorial and I want to I want to return it back to this and she I'm the Trump's name up the Kennedy Center and the 250 bill if you know burn all those 250 bill I mean she's basically saying she wants to go back to the way DC was before it doesn't matter if he's made it better if Trump's like it feels like we are back to this moment where the left is unified over one thing. We were talking about this grand platinum character in Maine,

how the sexting and the like crazy Reddit comments, and he calls himself a communist. It doesn't seem to matter as long as you are aligned against Trump. It doesn't matter that things are more beautiful and safer in D.C. It just matters that you hate Trump. How did we get here? When you reflect on 1976 and then we fast forward to 2026, what explains it?

Trump. I mean, it's just TDS. It truly is. It's so bad. I mean, I even thought about the concert. Remember President Trump in celebration of America 250 was going to do the Great American Fair, which was a great concept, right on the mall in Washington, D.C., and then, of course, have a concert like every fair does. And, you know, again, we were back to where the artist, the Hollywood artist, you know, music, artists were not either didn't want to or were too scared of being canceled if they

participated in this and so there were just a lot of i mean let's be franks d listers de listers that were there and um with the i mean flow right i i love him so um i don't and he by the way he's one of the few who said no matter what he's going to do it yep but um there were a lot of them that said yes that then backed out and i thought you know what it would be so amazing if Hollywood and the music industry, they could have led the way on uniting us and saying, hey, enough of this. We can all unite because, you know, at pluribus unum, you know, out of many, we are one. We can unite around the flag. We can unite around 250. And yet they couldn't even for America's 250th birthday. The people, the group of people who have probably benefited the most

financially and otherwise from the American dream couldn't put down their petty politics to do a concert for America. It was so sad. And so yeah, I mean, and with the beautification, you're right. I mean, my husband broke ground or cut a ribbon, I should say, cut a ribbon just last week with Secretary Bergen at the in front of Union Station. I mean, that place was nasty. It was the inside of the terminal of Union Station was filled with homeless people and the the plaza outside had tents. It was it was just disgusting. I remember arriving there last year around the time my husband first took office as Secretary of Transportation and there was a shooting there and everyone had to be cleared out. I mean, look at that before and after Rachel. I mean, that's 2022 versus 2026.

Look what Trump is done in a Columbus circle. I never recall. I never recall that fountain being a normal fountain. No, it's beautiful. It looks like a Trevi fountain now. They hate it. They hate it, though. It's like a... I know you should do this Instagram thing. Yeah, they can't stand that like it's beautiful now because Trump did it.

They hate it. And that, that I think is really sad. And we had a whole segment on our thought crime show, which is our Thursday night streaming show at Jack Posobic and Blake and I and Tyler and a whole cast of characters. And we were just reflecting on the fact. that the bicentennial versus the 250 the the just the unity of the country has been so chipped away at that we can't even have a car a concert with a bunch of has beens even they're giving us given us the attitude and my my whole reaction to it is like you know what screw them we're like

i don't even care actually like you're all losers i i'm not a huge boycott guy but i will use them when when when we need it i will never they they mean nothing to me now because you're point. It's like you can't even come around celebrating all 50 states and the territories. And it was supposed to be a bipartisan commission. The bipartisan commission didn't do anything. And I will say a lot of people have been asking like turning point to get involved because we do these events and we do the production and we do it really well. I would just say, listen, as somebody who's seen the insider workings of this, it's hard. It's very hard to pull off these events. We make it look really easy, but it's really hard, especially when you're on the conservative side of the ledger.

And there's so much pressure on these Hollywood folks and the entertainment folks not to get involved. And it's a real tragedy, though, for our country because this is supposed to be bipartisan. This was not a Trump event. Now, Trump's going to come in and speak and do the thing. And listen, God bless the president for doing, be willing to do that and to salvage an event. I think it'll be great. And you said there's still going to be some acts performing. But it shouldn't have to be this way.

We have so much great music. We have so many great artists. We have so, like, bluegrass, jazz, all these like Americana elements. Where's Nashville? Yeah. Where's Nashville? I don't think you're right. Well, Martina McBride said, well, I didn't know what was going to be like this.

And anyways, she's an old husband as well. But there's got to be tons of that artist. But she was willing to do it, Andrew. Like, she was willing to do it supposedly, according to her statement, until she realized that what? Like, for 10 years, the planning of this was basically going to be like a woke, apologize for America thing. Then Trump gets elected. and they're like, no, let's go big. Let's, you know, really celebrate America.

And then they're like, no, now it's political. And by the way, everybody should be giving the president credit for trying to make our capital worthy of our country. Every born visitor comes, you know, to the capital dignitaries. It was embarrassing what we were presenting. What he is doing is such a service to our country. I cannot. And we should be blessed that we have a builder as a president. resident right now. I don't know why they're doing this. You grew up, you grew up speaking Spanish,

so you're supposed to hate America. I don't, I'm so confused right now. You know, it's, you know what? You know what I talk about in this book? My mom and dad made sure that I learned English first. In the 1970s, when they were, when they, and I talked about this in the book, when they were experimenting, let it be said, my mom pulled me out of bilingual education because she wanted me to be in American first. Rachel Campo, Steffey. Everybody check out the book. God bless you.

You are the best. We love having you. Thank you. Here's what your financial advisor will not tell you. By the time the news tells you to buy gold, it's already too late. You're waiting. I get it. Everybody's waiting.

Waiting to see if the ceasefire holds. Waiting to see if the Strait of Hormuz re-opens. Waiting to see what happens next. But gold isn't waiting for you. It moves on fear, on instability, on the unknown, and it moves fast. stir than you can react. So while you're waiting for certainty, the rest of the world is planning for what comes next. You can wait or you can prepare, but you can't do both. Remember, the best time to put on a seatbelt is before the accident, not after. If you're ready to act, reach out to my friends at

Noble Gold Investments. They help Americans protect their savings with physical gold and silver, ship to your door, or held in a tax advantage to IRA. No taxes, no penalties to roll over, a 401k or existing IRA. Give them a call today. They prefer a phone call, because if you tell them you're from the Charlie Kirk show, they're going to help you out. They're going to hook you up. 877-6-446-5-347. That's 877-6-447. The guys at Noble Gold are amazing.

Calm Plum's built an amazing business, and he's a great guy. You can trust him with your advice and your money and your finances and your family's future. Visit Noblegoldinvestments.com slash Kirk for your free investor kit. Or call 877-646-5347. 877-6-4-6-5-3-4-7 and tell them that the Charlie Kirk Show sent you. We're going to get into the Delaney Hall fiasco, which is another mess that the left is trying to stir up around ice and their anti-ice protest. They think they're going to get the big R.O.I that they got out of Minnesota.

I'm not so sure on this one. Here to help us unpack this ordeal, our two frontlines, TPSA Frontlines journalist, that's Gabriel VIII. Victor and Bo Alford. Welcome back to the show, gentlemen. You guys were on the ground covering the protests and the mayhem from Wednesday through Saturday. My goodness, you guys are brave. First of all, thank you for doing it. Bo, let's just start with you.

Why did this happen? Why did this even pop off in the first place? And what did you see on the ground? Yeah, absolutely. Their reasoning was due to inhumane conditions. but as DHS is reporting today, there are no inhumane conditions. They were even saying that these prisoners are getting better health care than they've received in years probably. This truly is just an excuse to riot.

I wouldn't even call these people protesters or agitators or leftists. These are people that truly just want to burn down the country and start over. Yeah. Gabe, what did you see on the ground there? I saw mayhem. That was probably at least on Friday night and also a lot of videos that I've been coming out since. That was like the closest thing that I have ever seen that's as close to war. You know, like it was a war zone out there. It was lawlessness.

These protesters, they were just rioting. They were. They were trying to find any reason to be mad at anyone. You know, they attacked reporters as a lot of people have seen. and, you know, these people have just had madness be the forefront of their movement. Yeah, so apparently this whole thing started with a hunger strike that was embarked upon by the detainees at Delaney Hall. Reminder, these are criminals. They broke into our country.

They don't belong here. A lot of them are violent. A lot of them are actual sort of what the left would define as criminals. I define all of them as criminals because they broke into our country and we don't want them here. but and by the way you should pull up those details on the the the white pill on how uh the average time and country that most of these detainees have been here but anyways the dhs published uh a menu of food that they're getting served oatmeal pancakes scrambled eggs grilled potatoes chicken breakfast meat cream of rice dry cereal milk coffee for lunch they eat better than i do chicken leg quarter turkey stir fry beef and bean burrito vegetarian beans they even have a vegetarian option for a bunch of mostly Hispanics. This is interesting. Chicken fajita meat with a tortilla, Spanish rice, Fideo with meat sauce, chicken fried steak,

fortified sugar-free tea, dinner, jambalaya, meat and vegetable stew, tuna salad, Salisbury patty with gravy, enchilada casserole, chili mac, potato wedges, mixed vegetables, fortified sugar-free beverage. All right. And they're getting medical care. and they're getting a bed, showers, all this stuff. Yet they have the gall to go on a hunger strike. So then all the activists from all over the country come over.

By the way, this is not like that widespread. They want you to think that this is like the entire Democrat base is like protesting and going on shifts here. No, these are like Antifa guys. And the thing that concerned me looking at some of the videos, and I want to know if you guys saw this as well, was they had gas masks. They had really well-equipped, almost tactical gear that had to have cost tens and tens of thousands of dollars. What did you guys see just as far as an organizational and sophistication level on the ground? Bo or Gabe, I don't know who wants to take this. Go ahead, Bo. I'll start. It's a very good point that you bring up because Nick Schorter even reported this that when people were donating, they weren't asking for water or for.

food. They were asking for rioting material. They were getting these masks shipped over to them. And everyone on the ground had these masks, had goggles on, because they were prepared for war. These weren't people that were needing food for extra time. These were simply people that were prepared for war with our country. Yeah, Gabe, did you see the same? I mean, these are sophisticated ops that are being run. And then the media covers them like, it's just a bunch of concerns. citizen really upset about the illegals held at Delaney Hall. Yeah, no, I think that these people are definitely prepared to go out there and be fighting, be violent.

I mean, you know, you could attribute it a bit to probably our education system at some point. You know, these people think that they are like the founding fathers. You know, they think that they are fighting for something greater than them, which, you know, they're completely misguided. You can see in the videos, all these people are basically fighting to protect criminals firstly, Secondly, they are, you know, attacking agents, you know, people who work for this country, who are just trying to keep the community safer, and they believe that they are all, you know, evil Nazi types, according to them, you know.

So, Blake, you had an insight over the weekend. I actually retweeted Blake. I do that often, actually. It's not like a rarity. But on the average duration of how long these illegals have been. And I think this is one of the reasons they're so upset right now. Yeah, no, that's a big part of it. So this is, I believe, the Washington Post was just analyzing the average, the median number of days that a person getting removed from the United States had been in the United States.

And for a very long time, including even in President Trump's first term, the average was a person had been on average in the U.S. a few days, a few weeks. So that mostly captures people who cross the border, get caught, get sent back out. That's the average deported person. Now we've crashed border crossings down so much, and we're still sending people out. So the average has gone up from a few dozen days to over a thousand days. Is the median number of days someone has been in the United States before they leave? That's like three years. Which means it's about three years.

And so the typical person getting sent out is someone who's been in the United States a long time when previously it was widely known. If you could get into the United States, get past the first wave of defense, sanctuary city, ICE priorities and all these other things would conspire to basically mean you'd never get sent home. And that's finally getting broken up by this administration. This is why I think they're so upset. But I can't get over the fact that if there are signal chats being exposed right now, I am being told from sources at DHS and Treasury, these are being sussed out. So just be patient.

And there are arrests being made. There's been threats on the lives of ICE officers. Mikey Cheryl is defending this. The politicians are getting behind this lawlessness. It's an absolute failure of leadership from New Jersey government officials, and it's shameless because these people are absolute agents of chaos, agents of violence, and they're going to war with federal law enforcement. Am I mischaracterizing this from what you guys saw? No, not at all. And what's the posture of the state that you can tell on the ground? I mean, the state of just the area in general.

In New Jersey. Yeah. I mean, you know, around where the protests were happening or the riots were happening, a lot of the people seemed to be in support of these protests. You know, you would talk to other people outside of it, and they want this stuff to happen. So it seems like it's all complete chaos. I mean, you know, blue state.

So I don't know if you can expect anything else. It's so depressing. I mean, how anybody could support such lawlessness and such chaos? Bill Alfred, Gabriel, Victor, thank you so much for covering it on the ground and doing it on behalf of TPSA Frontlines. We have your back. Thank you for your courage. God bless you both. Thank you.

Thank you, guys. So we have to do it. I was hoping it wasn't going to get to this bad. I was hoping we weren't going to have to do this, Blake. But it's June. and unfortunately June has been co-opted by people that I disagree with. Okay. It's the month of the seven deadly sense.

It's a month that's turned into like celebration of degeneracy. Okay. If you want to go do your thing in private and not involve me or my kids or my country and just leave me alone, I'm not going to cause you a problem. I'm not going to say anything. I don't care. Okay. Genuinely, what you do is what you do. What I do is what I do.

I just don't want to have it stuffed down my in my face and down my throat. Okay, so here's Good Morning America opening their segment today. This comes by way of the media research council. They flagged it, so it's got their logo on it, a hat tip to them. They started off with gay salsa dancing on Disney's owned ABC Good Morning America, SOT 38. I don't know if they could hear that way. We were begging for a stop for about 10 seconds. Yeah, I was like, okay, we get the idea.

Meanwhile, the MLB is just going. on full pride. You can just throw a smattering of these images up. It really breaks my art because I'm a huge

baseball fan. And they don't need to. Look at it. You got the flag, the rainbow flag incorporated into the MLB logo, the Dodgers are doing it,

minor league baseball's doing it, the Minnesota Twins, which nobody's surprised by. And then you've got like a bunch of the football teams going on on social media. the Eagles, the Buffalo Bills, the Dolphins, the Washington Commanders, Washington Redskins. What is this? The Baltimore Ravens. I have checked. I have a good news. I have checked.

The Texas Rangers have still never done a Pride Night. Every year people flip out and they say they're the only MLB team without one. And I just checked and I don't see one on the schedule for this year. So stay mad. This is how you lose a country. When you start. celebrating the wrong things when you start lifting up as the ideal something that's outside of god's design okay but again i'm a bit libertarian on this in general if you keep it to yourselves i'm not going to this is a free country i don't think it's right i don't i actually don't okay if you keep it to yourselves i'm not going to say anything when you start promoting it everywhere and you try and propagandize me and my children i'm going to have an issue i'm

sick of June being co-opted. Why is it a whole month? My goodness, it doesn't need to be a whole month. That's where you know it was a total op from the beginning. A whole month dedicated to just like weakness and feminized men. I'm not into it. Blake, save me from myself here. I mean, it's just, it's become, I just like, I go back to the fact pride is one of the seven deadly sins. I think you can tell the fact that it started as, it started as gay pride, but it's not just become generalized pride and it's the way they eagerly add every new thing to it and so it's not even specifically about being gay it's it's almost just if you LGBTQ and you know two spirit and missing and murder you know what was the m m iwp uh i whatever thing from canada it's really you can add

any identity to it almost as long as it's against the setup that we know has worked for thousands of years to keep civilization going. And people respond to this. We have people desperately trying to create new fake sexual orientations for themselves. Those are people who said they were sapiosexuals or whatever. People will make things up.

And if you make it desirable to be a weirdo, if you make it desirable to be not normal, people are going to pursue that. And you'll have a fertility rate at 1.1 and your society is going to disintegrate. Yeah. And here's the thing. I'm just so sick of it. I'm just so I'm exhausted by it. Just stop. You do not need a month for this garbage. And it's a reminder, sadly, that we've made a lot of strides against pride. But I mean, they're not going away. And so we've got to keep the pressure up. And that's why I decided we should devote a segment to this because look at this is MLB. It's as American as African as apple pie and hot dogs and hamburger.

And they're going all in. And that makes me truly, truly remorseful for the state of our country because it's bad for everybody. You don't want to celebrate this. You want to celebrate a nuclear family. You want to celebrate couples getting married, buying homes, having kids. You don't want to celebrate all the exceptions to the rule. When did we become a country that only celebrates the exceptions to the rule?

And I get like this when it comes to. immigration. How many times have you had the proud, noble immigrant rising from the bottom story? Why don't we ever tell the story about an American kid who was born in, you know, in a single family home that did all the right things, went to school, got a good job, married his wife, had some kids. Why don't we celebrate that story? Because that's actually what we're trying to create. You know, and I'm reminded of the fact that Charlie said if he was ever in political office, what he would do is devote himself to the restoration of the American family. And here we have a whole month that basically is working against it.

And you can call me a bigot. You can call me closed-minded. I don't care. It works against God's design, the beautiful design, the foundational elements, the building blocks of a successful society. And I reject it wholeheartedly. You should too. Hey, everyone. I'm genuinely excited to share something that has made a significant difference.

in my own life. And if you experience brain fog, low energy, frequent illnesses, or wake up feeling stiff and achy, you've got to try strong cell. This was Charlie's favorite supplement and he took it every single day. He would talk about it on the show and even travel the country with it, which is what I do. So for me, strong cell helps keep my mind sharp and focused. It provides clean, natural energy without jitters, weird spikes or afternoon crashes. I genuinely feel like a younger version of myself, like high school, version energy. I'm not even kidding. People would ask Charlie, what is strong cell exactly? Strong cell is a nutritional supplement that leverages a remarkable enzyme called NADH. Think of it as the power source for every living cell in your body. With over 30 trillion cells working for you,

imagine how great you could feel when they're all functioning at their best. Unfortunately, as we age, our body's NADH levels naturally decline, leading to various ailments and health issues linked to poor cellular health. Unlike many supplements, that simply mix ingredients and hope for the best. Strong Cell employs a proprietary delivery system designed to ensure those ingredients effectively get into your bloodstream where they can make a difference. This is crucial.

As many supplements on the market are just pretty packaging without real benefits. Here's the exciting part, though. You can try Strong Cell completely risk-free. That's right, thanks to Strong Cell's 90-day money-back guarantee. You can experience this revolutionary product without any hassles. If it's not for you, no problem. They'll refund your money.

with approximately 2 million units sold. It's no wonder that NADH has become a highly sought-after remedy. Remember, what you put in your body matters, and you truly get what you pay for. Strong Cell doesn't cut corners. They only use the finest ingredients and adhere to the highest manufacturing standards. So if you're tired of feeling tired, battling brain fog, or simply not feeling like yourself, check out Strong Cell today.

Visit strongsell.com and use code Charlie for 20% off your order. That's strongsell.com promo code Charlie. Charlie always recommended giving strong cell six to eight weeks to experience its full benefits. So do yourself a favor. Get strong cell today and give it the time it needs to work its magic. All right. We are just getting Rob Henderson set up and ready to go. But let me set the premise of this and why we've invited Rob back on.

By the way, Rob was one of Charlie's last long form. He was really, really smart guy. Interviewed him. a week before, I think it hadn't even come out. Yeah. When everything happened. I think that's right. Rob, welcome back to the show.

It's good to see you, my friend. And thanks for making the time. You are one of the most prolific followed substack writers, Rob Henderson's newsletter. So everybody checked that out. Author of Troubled. Rob, I wanted to have you on because there's been a series of, I would call them great debates on X, on social media,

about a couple of things revolving around, conservative versus liberal parenting, fertility rates. There's been the gender gap in the higher education, how many getting degrees. And it's just, it's now, I think the number is now that 62% of degrees are awarded to women. And we've had authors like Helen Anderson on the show who has talked about this and talked about the great feminization of culture. And so there's really limitless places we could start to have this discussion. but the macro data is emerging and it feels like we're still talking and raging against the patriarchy,

but it's like that that era is gone, it seems like. You know, here I'll just start with one graph, Rob, and then I'll give it to you. More parents among conservatives. This is a wild one. 71% of conservatives are having a child versus 47% of liberals. There's the graph right there. So that's quite interesting. Tell us your thoughts on all of these big debates that we're having now, and they're merging on X. Yeah. Well, it's fascinating that because if you go back to the beginning of when those, yeah, yeah, when those charts were, yeah, in the 1980s, right? So for women, you know, they're almost identical, 65% for conservatives versus 60% for liberal women. And then this is just grown over time. You know, people talk about polarization and how we're growing. further apart along political lines. I think this is just more evidence of that. It's not just in terms of opinion now where we're becoming polarized, but in terms of action, family formation,

marriage, child rearing. And you know, you're completely right. I think that increasingly you have to set out to make a plan to have a family. I think in the past, because we had these cultural guardrails in place, you had this kind of life script. That was why the way that was why the known and taught throughout the culture, parenting, schools, families, and so on, that this is kind of the sequence of your life. You go to school, you go to college, you get a job, and then you kind of find a partner, settle down, and have some kids. And it's becoming harder. Our culture doesn't really cultivate that anymore. It doesn't really directly or indirectly tell young people, this is kind of what, you know, what the milestones of life are. And you have to

try really hard now. I've spoken with very smart guys. most of my friends are guys. And they're educated, they're smart, they're successful in their careers, and they tell me that they literally have to treat it as a second job to find a suitable partner where they put in, you know, they basically put their careers temporarily on pause to prioritize. How do I find a suitable spouse? How, you know, do I screen for someone who shares the same values as me and settle down and have a relationship and then get married and then have kids?

You didn't used to have to do that. you know, the mechanisms were already in place where young people would come together and find a spouse organically. And, you know, not many people are in a position to put in that much effort to finding someone. And it shouldn't be this hard. This is one of the problems in our culture. It shouldn't be this hard to find someone. This used to be kind of a natural course of life events. And your point earlier about, you know, do we live in a patriarchy?

Well, you know, 62% of the bachelor's degrees are awarded to women. you see kind of identical divides for master's degrees and PhDs, professional degrees, and so on. And what sometimes, you know, in response to this, people will say, well, okay, yes, it's the case that early on in education you're seeing these gaps. But what about at the top? You know, most of the senior academics, the senior executive, senior politicians, it's still male skewed. But that's only because this is a legacy of when the culture was, you know, arguably a bit more patriot. or patriarchal. But as we move forward in time, you know, as fewer young men go through the sequence of higher

education, you're going to see fewer of those senior positions occupied by men. And so, you know, this is going to be a difficult, I think, for women. I'm not the first to point this out that generally women like men who are at least as well educated as themselves, at least as, you know, in terms of income, equal to themselves in terms of occupational prestige and success. But if women are outperforming men on all of these metrics, they are not going to be satisfied with the pool of possible male partners that are available to them.

And so on the one hand, fine, you know, we should have, you know, and you mentioned Helen Andrews earlier. You know, one thing she points out is that, you know, one way to, you know, kind of repair this increasing lopsidedness of women succeeding more than men is to just stop putting the thumb on the scale for women, where on the one hand, a lot of progressives say, you know, they like this slogan, the future is female. We need to have all these programs in place to ensure that women succeed. But then when they come out on the other end of that,

you know, what's the next thing they often want is a partner that they're attracted to and that they want to have a family with. But if we have, you know, these slogans and these programs in place that increasingly hobble men from attaining success, then these women aren't going to be happy either. No one really wins as a result. of this would be helpful to go back to a more meritocratic system where people are judged on the merits of their abilities rather than their gender. And this too, I think, is fueling a lot of the political anger that we're seeing. There was that recent New Statesman poll that came out a few weeks ago, which showed, I mean, it was very interesting that, you know, something like

only, it was in the single digits, I believe it was 7% of young men said they held a negative view of young women. So despite all the talk about, you know, toxic masculinity and, you know, all of these, you know, toxic figures online that young men are supposedly listening to, generally speaking, young men still like young women. But when they ask young women, how do you feel about young men?

You know, it was something like 20 plus percent of young women said they held a negative view of young men, much more likely to say they held a negative view of the opposite sex than young men. men did. And so, you know, where are these women absorbing this information? A lot of that is from social media as well. So, Rob, do you think this is a, we'll call it a societal crisis. You've mentioned we could take our thumb off the scale. But is this something we can change our laws to get out of? Or do you think it's such a product of modernity? It's really only going to be able to solve itself in the sense that women and men who hate each other are just not going to reproduce.

and the only people who will be around in 80 years are going to be the children of people who got through, let's call it, an evolutionary event. The future belongs to those who show up for it, right? Yeah, yeah, the evolutionary bottleneck. Yeah, you know, I mentioned that slogan, the future is female. You know, maybe the future is conservative female

in the sense that conservative women are having more children than liberal women. And, you know, they're passing on, you know, there is a kind of a her. component to political orientation. And so, you know, conservatives tend to have conservative kids in part because they teach them conservative values, but also there is this kind of heritable genetic component to it as well.

And so if conservative parents are having conservative kids, and they have kids and so on, then, you know, this may be a self-correcting issue. Sometimes I'll say that I'm short-term pessimistic and kind of medium to long-term optimistic in the sense that, you know, short-term pessimistic because, you know, a lot of the trends that we're seeing are alarming with cratering marriage rates, greater infertility and so on. But in the long run, you know, people are still having kids, but the ones who are doing it are doing it in a kind of deliberate way, people who are, you know, more temperamentally conservative who still value family and marriage and, you know, those

traditional virtues as well. But the, you know, the duration between now and that point where things start to become more self-correcting, you know, things might look kind of ugly in the interim. Well, and let me just throw up this graph right here. This is young women have become much more liberal. Young men, not so much. And this shows from, you know, roughly late 90s up to 2023. And you see that growing gap that has grown between women and men. All right. Let's start with a clip of Charlie. As we continue our segment with Rob Henderson talking about root causes of the, you know, gender war that is forming in this country. Stop 42.

What is going on with women and not wanting to prioritize family? This is a pattern that I've seen time and time in these college campuses where young men are ordering their life correctly. They want to first and foremost have children, get married, and then have a nice job or to be able to travel. If you look deeper into this data, it's completely consistent with other data we've seen the last couple of years. Young women, they don't value having children.

And this is one of the reasons why we are seeing a fertility collapse in the West. If you play out the liberal worldview, the Kamala Harris worldview, to its furthest possible logical point, you have a country with literally no future. When you play out the logical endpoint of President Trump's agenda of where young men voted for him, you have one of lots of children, increasing communities. And you also don't have a need then for mass immigration. Yep. Well said, Charlie. And we completely agree. So, Rob, I want to talk about root causes. though, right? You mentioned that, you know, what women are getting is apparently what they want, that said they wanted. They want degrees. They want careers. They want all these things. But then that creates this problem when it comes to finding a spouse because they want men to be higher earners,

more prestigious career, that sort of thing, or at least on par. But we're, I mean, this is not going to end in a good place, but let's talk about where it started. Why are we experiencing all of this, this disconnect, this asymmetry? Well, yeah, it's a good question. I think one important reason here. Well, you know, people ask, well, why aren't women having as many children as they used to have or why is the fertility rate declining? Sometimes it's helpful to reverse a question, which is, you know, why would women want children in the first place? Why have the historically had children? And I think part of it was they had a culture in place that valorized motherhood that, you know, in many cultures, you were not considered a full-fledged contributing member of that community as a woman until you had children.

And this was celebrated motherhood, whereas now we live in a society where, you know, one way to look at it, we're egalitarian, where, you know, whether you want to have children, if you don't want to have children, those are equally valid options. You know, another way to look at it is that, you know, we're actively punishing motherhood that not having children. children is valorized that prioritizing your career or being a girl boss or something like that is the more celebrated option. And when, you know, young people, young women hear a message like that, you know, they absorb it and, you know, decide to delay and maybe even decide not to have children at all. And then it's, you know, having children is difficult, right? Like it requires a lot of work, a lot of effort. They're sort of economically costly, but also sort of personally, socially, emotionally costly as well.

But then a way to sort of compensate for those short-term burdens was historically to say, okay, your life is a little bit more difficult now, but we're going to treat you with a certain amount of respect and esteem and admiration for doing this for yourself, for the community, you're making these sacrifices. But if you are not receiving those rewards to compensate for those short-term burdens, then, you know, perhaps it's unsurprising that people would forego, you know, doing something like this in all of the kind of associated costs that go along with it. it. And then, you know, there's a long-term benefit to having children, too, where as you age,

what do you have in your life? Your career is not going to sustain and satisfy you forever. You're going to want to have a spouse. You're going to want to have kids and grandkids. You're going to want to have people around who care about you. But, you know, if you're kind of young and hedonistic and you've been trained by culture to only value sort of short-term fleeting, enjoyable pursuits, you know, you're not thinking decades down the line in that way. We don't really, you know, we're not really taught to think about, you know, what, what life is like in the future, what it's like to grow old alone. We're not really hearing stories like that. I had a conversation recently with an oncologist, a cancer doctor who tells me, you know, he'll have these elderly,

you know, elderly male patients and they'll come in with a woman who seems to be, you know, the guy's wife, and the woman will pull the doctor aside and say, just so you know, like, we got divorced years ago, but I'm the only person he has. I'm the only person in his life, so he asked me to come to the hospital with him. And he's telling me, these stories are heartbreaking. You know, these old guys who have no one except their ex-wife, who only kind of begrudgingly tag along to these hospital visits. But in the future, you can imagine, you know, these are divorced couples. Now people aren't getting married at all. They're not even going to have a divorce spouse who will support them as they grow old and ill and so on. Yeah, I mean, that's really

depressing, actually. I, you know, but I think of feminism. general is has it really feels like it's run amok i mean i think of it as one of the the three big scourges affecting america nowadays and and again we referenced helen andrews before and she charts it with the rise of feminism and the rise of female uh representation in the workplace and different institutions with essentially the rise of wokeness uh which she says wokeness basically is just feminine ways of doing things which is, you know, you prioritize consensus, you prioritize feelings, you like to avoid conflict, yet it's often like low-level conflict within all institutions.

Yeah. And again, so I'm thinking root causes. And it seems like, you know, you see, for example, we saw this video out of the UK from the 1970s and it was talking about, should women work, you know, women work. And it was like, the women were like, well, I don't think they should have a full-time job. They've got to be home with the kids. And you go from 1970s in Great Britain to 2026 across the West. And that attitude is completely shifted.

And, you know, you have women freezing their eggs, trying to, you know, work their way up through middle management to become a vice president of some shoe company or whatever. And I just, it breaks my heart because I'm just, I'm looking at the future for them that they will, they refuse to apparently look at. And study after study shows that married women with children. on the aggregate are happier. They're more satisfied, more fulfilled. I just, I don't know how you turn it around, but I don't know if the men have to, you know, link arms in this giant uprising and take back some ground here

or what's going to ultimately give way because it's unsustainable on some level. You know, I was in the lobby of this apartment complex recently, Andrew, and I saw this nanny, and she had two children with her, this nanny. So she had a, there was an infant in a stroller, and then in her lap was a toddler probably two. or three years old. And this three-year-old toddler kept saying, mommy, mommy, I want mommy. This was 11 a.m. on a Monday. And the nanny kept saying, you know, mommy's not here. You'll see

mommy later. You'll see mommy later. But all this kid would say is mommy. That's it. And the nanny was doing everything. You know, here's an iPad. Here's a toy. Here's a snack. And all the kid said was mommy. That's the only word she would say. And I'm looking at this and thinking like this is a heartbreaking scene because no one here is happy. Obviously, the kids aren't happy because they want their mom. The nanny isn't happy because she's put in this awkward position of trying to entertain these kids who, you know, they, you know, she's seen like a nice lady, but that's not their mom. And then the mom's probably unhappy too, because she's at work and, you know, I know nothing about her, but I would assume she'd rather be with her kids than in whatever

job she has. And so, you know, nobody wins. You know, I, you know, I don't want to sound like a Marxist here. Maybe capitalism is winning from this arrangement, but, you know, and I'm generally a fan of capitalism, but in this case, you know, someone has to take care of kids, and if it's not going to be the mother, it's going to be, you know, nannies and other women. What you just said is like so heartbreaking. And, you know, and there's this question that women are often presented. We're about to have our women's leadership summit, actually in Texas this weekend. Without fail, the most controversial element that will come out of this women's conference is some student will get up to the mic and ask one of these success.

women, you know, that they've followed on social media or whatever, and they'll say, can you have it all? Can you have it all? And without fail, one of the women will say, yes, you can. I'm proof of it or something like that. And then it'll get clipped up, and it'll be like, oh, this is turning points perspective on it. And that's not at all, actually, I think, what our perspective is. Charlie was very critical of that. Charlie would say that a woman can maybe have it all, but not all at the same time, was how he would like to phrase it. And candidly, I mean, we were all about, you know, encouraging marriage, encouraging family formation, encouraging having children because the culture had become so lopsided in the opposite direction.

It's not that that's the only route for people. It's not that's the only option. This is a free country. You can do what you want. You can not pursue children and family or you can. But here's a big warning sign, flashing red lights. If you do what the culture is telling you to do, you will probably be miserable and look back with regret at some point. wake up and be 37 having to like, you know, pursue fertility treatments for this guy that you

probably settled on because you couldn't find anybody else that was actually like 10 out of 10 for you. So you settled. You're trying to rush family formation at late stages when you have covered up fertility problems with the pill for years and you didn't even know about. So there's all these, these horror stories that you hear about. And so we're trying to push this, you know, as you mentioned, celebrating the more traditional method because it had become so villainized in our culture. And I'm becoming, I think, like I said, there's a four horsemen of the apocalypse in America. I usually name three, but there's probably like five, actually.

But it's like the Islamification, you don't have to agree, Rob, by the way, on any of this. But this is my perspective. The Islamification of the West, wokeness, feminism, which really is probably just one. And then the, you know, Marxist sort of takeover of our institutions. That's the way I'm looking at it is a red-green alliance. you could look at it that way. But feminism is kind of connected to all of them, actually, because I think it is so unhealthy for a culture to kind of lose sight of its traditional norms and customs and the way that the sexes interact. And I just see it causing such a huge path of devastation in its wake

that I'm really worried. I'm genuinely worried about the future of the West. By the way, it's not just America. This is happening throughout Europe. This is why we can't deal with the biggest problems that we face, because anytime somebody with a little bit of like testosterone comes and tries to do something, you know, aggressive or courageous, they get absolutely clobbered by like, you know, the mainstream news media. Look at Spencer Pratt. They're calling it a dark campaign in, in Los Angeles. And the guy's just calling out homelessness. He's just calling out like graft from the NGOs. His house got burned down and it's dark and divisive. Anyways, that's my rant. Reflect as you will. Well, well, you know, the feminism piece, as you were outlining those, you know, those four challenges, you know, what occurred to me is, you know, feminism can be, to some extent, folded in to kind of wokeness and Marxism. But what's interesting here is that even the Marxists and communists themselves kind of speak out of both sides of their mouth with regard to equal rights for women. So there was, so Mao Zedong famously said, women hold up half the sky. And he said, you know, things like this in order to get the support. of women who, you know, okay, they were oppressed and so on before the communists took over China.

Women hold up half the sky. And then later famously, he had this meeting with Henry Kissinger, where he offered Henry Kissinger to offload 10 million Chinese women to the United States. And he said that these women are causing chaos in our country. Like, can we give you 10 million of our women? And Kissinger, it quietly responded with something like, that's an interesting proposal. We'll have to consider it later. And then I think they never returned to that topic. But, you know, Mao saying, oh, women are so wonderful. And then privately, he's like, can we kind of give you some of these people who are causing problems? But anyway, but people don't know that part of this story. They only know the hold of half the sky quote, you know, the Marxists who quote him.

But, you know, it is a serious problem. And people say, oh, well, immigration is going to fix the fertility crisis. Oh, we'll just bring in more immigrants and they'll do, you know, they'll sort of compensate for the fertility shortfalls. But then when you look, this is a band-aid, because when you look at the fertility patterns for immigrants and their children and then their grandchildren and so on, like they basically start to converge with the native population over time. And they also have fewer children. There's something about Western culture. You know, I'm sure technology and so on has something to do with it, but I think there's something inherent to the culture now that is suppressing fertility, not just for native-born people, but for immigrants and their children and

grandchildren too. And so this is not going to be a long-term fix. We're going to need something like, you know, getting people to start having babies. And the economic incentives are... Yeah, I totally agree. I think the economic incentives, I mean, basically there was a tweet this weekend, and I totally agree to it. It was like, in this clown economy, you know, like anybody having kids are essentially heroes now, you know, because they're doing the work of civilization. Well, it's sort of, it's interesting, though, because you can say we're doing the work of heroes, but that actually gets at a bit of the problem, I think.

I totally get. What I've seen pointed out is, society feels a lot more passively anti-children to some extent because it used to be basically everyone got married and the assumption was you get married and then you would inevitably have kids really unless there was a biological

impediment to doing so. It just organically happened. Now everything about it is a choice which means fewer people do it but also there's almost this call it innate libertarianism even pops up on the right that well you chose to have kids.

So any issues with your kids are your problem. It's your job to take care of them. It's not society's job to make it easier for you. And I think that certainly drives probably the fewer people having kids, having them later, the sense that they're not prepared to do it. Nobody was prepared to have kids in the past. It just happened. By the way, that tweet I was referencing was in response to the increasing number of restaurant goers

are demanding child-free areas of the restaurant. Exactly. And it's, you know, You know, and like everything in culture basically will get better if you, if everybody's having kids. You'll start, because when you have kids, you think about the safety of your park. You think about the safety of your school. You think about the kind of content they're consuming.

But if you're not, you're completely disconnected from that. You're selfishly sort of assuming your own viewpoint in every, every different context of society. And the parents are left holding the bag trying to like carve out a safe and productive and edifying existence for their children in an increasingly more hostile environment. So it just, the odds just continue stacking against it. So again, I don't know exactly if there's a finale or conclusion we can reach here, Rob, but the data let alone, it's concerning, I guess.

Yeah. No, no, no. You're saying it reminds me I had this conversation. This was a married couple. They were a middle-aged couple. They chose not to have kids. And he's mentioned Spencer Pratt earlier. They live in California.

And they were telling me how their neighborhood has changed. where now, you know, when they put their garbage bins out at curbside, you know, they'll have, like, drug addicts and weirdos sort of rifling through their trash now. And they said this wasn't happening six or seven years ago. And I asked, you know, do you call the cops? Like, what do you do when you see people rifling through your trash? And they say, oh, it's no big deal. They're not hurting anyone. You know, maybe they could find something if they need it. That's fine. And then I asked them, what if you guys had kids at home? Would you guys still be okay with it? And then the tune changed. They said, well, that's different. You know, I would be concerned for the kid and so on. But then I asked, there are probably kids in that neighborhood. You know, You know, like you two don't have kids, but there may be, and you know, and like you're saying, it gets you to start thinking in terms of a community, in terms of society, in terms of your neighbors and so on instead of just selfishly, well, we're two adults and, you know, if something bad happens, it's fine. And yeah, it's, I think that that's sort of turning your attention outward instead of this selfish looking inward of, well, how is this affecting me directly or should, how much do I personally need to care versus, you know, the next generation or, you know, at least your neighbors and those around you. Rob, I would be remiss if we didn't shout out, of course, your substack. Rob Henderson's newsletter. It's one of the most successful substacks. I was just opening and it says it is number one rising in science.

So you've been crushing it very well. I encourage people to check it out. And this is a little off topic, but I see it. If you could just give a minute here because the question fascinates me, your most recent post is, why some smart people never get anywhere? Why do some smart people never get anywhere, Rob? Yeah, well, you know, it's the main point of that post was I was elaborating on the personality trait of conscientiousness, which is, you know, simplified someone, but basically the willingness to work hard and to be diligent and orderly and organized in your life. And look, you can have 10 people who have high IQs, very smart, very academically inclined, and you will have incredibly wide variations.

Some of those 10 people will be successful and some of them will be unsuccessful. They're all smart. what explains this and a good portion of this is, are you conscientious? Do you work hard? Do you prioritize? Do you sacrifice? And so this willingness to exert effort, even if you aren't especially smart, I know people who aren't, you know, they don't like classroom kind of learning. They're not bookish people, but they work really hard and they earn a lot of money and they're very successful. And so the whole point of that was like, yeah, I think we, especially smart people, overvalue smarts and undervalue the importance of work ethic. That is an answer. Charlie would certainly love.

Yeah, because you know, you can't choose how smart you are necessarily. Your raw horsepower IQ is something you're born with. Maybe you cultivate somewhat. But you can choose two things. You can choose to work harder than everybody else and you can choose to be courageous. Those are choices that are up to every individual. And that's ultimately a really freeing concept to internalize. Rob Henderson, thank you so much.

Thank you for staying a little bit longer for a podcast exclusive here. Yeah, a fascinating conversation. I don't think we've cracked the nut completely, but all of culture would be better if more people got married and had kids. Just the bottom line. It's America, you have the freedom to do it or not to it, but man, I hope we can start celebrating it more

and get back to some, an era where we didn't have a war of the sexes, at least. So anyways, check out his newsletter and substack. Congratulations on all the success, Robin. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Blake. For more on many of these stories and news, Trust. Go to charliekirk.com.