The Charlie Kirk Show - The Coalition of Alternative Gods + The Jerry Sandusky Case Returns

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

A huge crowd showed up at Make Heaven Crowded in El Paso to see Jesse Waters and Lucas Miles talk about the faith impact of Charlie's martyrdom. It was a stirring moment of Christian revival — except for the usual suspects online, who decided to complain about the same thing they always complain about. Megan Basham talks about the Islamization of the Girls Scouts and the left's effort to claim Dolly Parton as a symbol against her will. With a major witness now planning to recant his testimony, journalist John Ziegler talks about the disconcerting evidence that infamous child abuser Jerry Sandusky may have been innocent all along. Frank Turek discusses his new book. 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, everybody, Monday, August 31st in rainy Phoenix, Arizona. That's right. It's raining outside, which is unusual. But if you listen to Blake, it rains too much in Phoenix, and that's his big beef. How are we doing Blake? Oh, we're doing, uh, we're doing all right. We're doing all right. Yeah, no, we're annoyed with certain people right now. Well, we'll get,

to it. Over the weekend, we had a great event, make having crowded tour stop in El Paso, Texas with Jesse Waters, Lucas Miles. You've seen on this show who runs Turning Point Faith, TPSA Faith, was there and interviewed him on stage. Great event. I'm going to start with the really, really positive stuff, which was actually tremendous. And if you listen to Jesse Waters and what Charlie's death, how it impacted his life, it's hard not to get inspired yourself. So let's play a couple of those clips first. Stop 14. When Charlie was shot,

there was something inside of me that just yearned to learn more about Jesus Christ. And that's how the whole country felt. The whole country was awakened. And we wanted to experience a reawakening. And so we have a little

Bible study now at Fox. Really? That's kind of fascinating. I remember him telling me about that. I was texted with Jesse, you know, probably the months after it happened. And he was saying, yeah, we're all doing a Bible study. I think he even does it with the book. I don't, I think they go around, but it's literally just the five. They do a, the co-hosts of the five do it. So he continues on. Stop 15. Character is destiny. And if everybody focuses on their own character and their own choices, then this country is going to become great again. Which is, um,

100% true, by the way. And he continues on. Last clip from Jesse, but this is my favorite one, so we say the best for last. SOT 60. I can tell you that ever since I've found God that my life has gotten better, materially, professionally, my family. Like, I can tolerate my family now, my sister, my crazy mother. I have so much more patience than I used to. But I just, I'm so grateful. that I've found God.

So that was, what was that, Saturday night? I don't know, it was a great event. It was great. It was fantastic. The clips were everywhere, fled in social media. It was a beautiful thing. And it attests to, I think we agree, one of the most beautiful things that has come from the tragedy of Charlie's death is people who you wouldn't necessarily have expected before really becoming, you know, making proclamations of the gospel. You don't normally expect, I mean, politicians.

We talked about Marker Rubio and vice president. advance. Both of them publicly Christians, but making much more ad hoc proclamations of the gospel at Charlie's Moral, ones they weren't planning on making, but that have endured since. Yeah. And we've seen that. It's a real force of inspiration for people. So let's go ahead and throw up with all this renewed attention. We have a graphic of the upcoming tour stops of make heaven crowded. So you throw up 145. So this was El Paso in 829. Next up is 9.20. Next up is 9.20. So a little less than a month away, Honolulu, Hawaii, Charlotte, North Carolina, Tucson, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado, San Jose, California, Des Moines, Iowa, Woodland Park, Colorado, Eugene, Oregon, and Phoenix, Arizona at Amfest. Okay, so massive upcoming tours, we've already gone through dozens of these.

And the way that the tour works is that we are there at the generosity of a host church. Okay. So that means we go into their sanctuary. We have, you know, experience all of the uniqueness of that particular church home. They decorated the way they want to. We show up and we do an event, but we don't get to dictate the decor. We don't get to dictate anything. So this is what the controversy was this weekend that I found particularly annoying. And it's important to go through. But there was a American flag and an Israeli flag. Okay. that they put up apparently in the last week, unbeknownst to our team that runs the TPSA Faith tour, all right? So I think we have an image of this. And it was a, I mean, and I put out on social media, I said, we didn't put it up. We didn't dictate, we didn't say, hey, church in El Paso, you must have an Israeli flag up, or we're not doing this event. Like, none of that happened.

They did it on their own. I don't know if they were sprucing up the joint before having this major event with Jesse Waters and TPSA Faith. I don't know if they were trying to send a message. The church apparently has a long history of being pro-Israel. If you read their statement of faith, they have it in there. Yeah. It's one that a lot of evangelical churches are. Maybe they wanted to use this moment to make that statement.

Now, my personal preference is you don't have flags in church. You are obviously lifting up your spirit. to God Almighty, to Jesus Christ, you are praying to God. If you want to have an American flag, I think that's fine. My personal preference is you don't do that, okay? I don't even like the dual lapel pin flags, where it's like Ukraine and America or Israel and America. We're American.

But I'm also not going to sit here and condemn a church that wants to put up a flag. I'm not going to condemn a church that is really pro-Israel. I'm not going to condemn any of that. And by the way, we don't micromanage local churches. So the whole thing turns into just this juice berging moment. By the way, we got an email last time I said that word. It's kind of an internet slang term for like Asperger's and Jew. So juiceberging.

There's a whole corner of the internet. This is the only thing they look for. They don't care about anything except this one issue. And so they spent Sunday flipping out about this falsely claiming that turning point ordered that this was part of the event, that turning point ordered the church to put it up. And even once this was corrected, which was trivial easy to do, they just insisted upon it anyway. And Andrew and I were discussing before the show what drives this? And the truth is, is there's a lot of people who the only thing they ever want to talk about is Israel, the Jews,

and specifically how much they hate both of them. There are podcasts where every episode is just about that. They find a way to make every single topic. If you talk about taxes, they say, we would be richer. if not for the Jews taking all of our money. If you want to talk about the border, they would say it doesn't matter as long as we're enslaved by Israel. And then they do this, they attack Turning Point endlessly.

They've lied about the org. They said, they say Turning Point is a huge champion for the Iran War. When, if you've ever watched this show, if you've ever watched Turning Point, you know that's not true. We've gotten a bunch of emails from you out there that are mad that we're not supportive as much as you like. It's that people so aggressively lie about this. I just saw someone who fell for, someone posted a make-heaven,

crowded advertisement and it's like Erica Kirk with the Israeli flag in the background and an atomic bomb going off obviously fake, obviously a Photoshop someone points us out and they go oh I fell for it but make heaven crowded is still really suspicious. It's not

suspicious for any reason except that these people are obsessed with one topic and they make everything about it. It's super annoying because there's a lot of more important things to do and you have a whole corner of the internet that all they do is bitch and complain, pardon my French, about us and what we're doing.

And they're not doing anything. They're not doing the organizing, they get out the vote, they're not chasing ballots. And they're not bringing people to Christ. And they're not making heaven crowded. So anyways, that was a fun little excursion over the weekend.

But listen, do not fall for the up, okay? Do not fall that all of your problems could be heaped on one people. It doesn't mean we don't have legitimate critiques with Benjamin Netanyahu or Lakud Party or our relationship with Israel, those are legitimate conversations to have.

And we should have them. But don't turn it into some sort of like diabolical fixation and scapegoating. That's an ancient evil and we reject it. So this is what we were talking about might seem unique to us. It might feel like a very unique turning point story. But it's not. Okay? This is a headline this morning.

148. Throwed up, Jesus was a radical. Progressives invoked Christ to sell left-wing agenda on the can't. campaign trail. And associated with this graphic and this story is a picture of, what's her name, Angela Nixon, Angie Nixon in Florida, radical DSA candidate, James Talrico, the beta male from Texas, who thinks he's going to take Ken Paxton down. Beta mail, question mark. Beta mail. And also, Abdul El-Sayed. So this is not limited to terms of the number. point make heaven crowded in el paso okay what's happening is a collision of ideas and a battle over who

gets to own what piece of territory when it comes to messaging and communication and honestly the moral high ground because a lot of this democrats are classic at virtue signaling and invoking the name of jesus el-sayyed by the way when he does it he's saying that he's a Muslim and they don't believe that Jesus is who he said he was namely the son of god and the Messiah or who got crucified who got crucified, they think of him as a prophet. And they say they revere him, even though they don't revere the people that worship him as God. They actually hate those people and they will enslave those people and or kill those people. But never mind the details. Don't sweat the small stuff. And then you got Talrico doing it and all this stuff. And then meanwhile, in New York, we've got, we can do a whole segment on crazy liberal women right now. But you've got Kathy Hockel, donning a hijab. for Muslim men at an event, right? This is Kathy Hockel, you know, hands off our bodies, medical autonomy. We're going to abort until the sun don't shine,

all of this stuff until the Muslim men demand that she wears a hijab. And she dutifully helps them out with that, Sot 7. It's amazing because you remember a decade ago where all those anti-Trump women would don those handmade's tail costumes because the Amazon show came out. And this is what Trump was going to impose on them. He was going to make them all dress up like, you know, this kind of vaguely kinky outfit version of colonial America, which of course never happened, was never going to happen. But as you say, they'll race. All the people who say, my body, my choice will race to say my body their choice as, soon as it's going to a mosque to talk to Muslim men about how we're going to bring more of them

into America, let them have more power over American life. Because the big strand uniting all these disparate groups, whether it's Islamic immigrants or Kathy Hokel or James Tala Rico or anyone else, or Hassan Piker, is hostility towards America and the historic American identity and the historic American people. As long as you are against those people and it, against that concept, you have room in the Democrat coalition. And it's not limited to New York, unfortunately. Look at in California, 150 right here, California Governor Gavin Newsom is set to sign legislation recognizing two Muslim holidays. I, Yed Al-Fa, Fitter. Do you know how to say this? You know, I'm not going to correct it, because it's good that you don't know how to say it.

As state holidays and allowing public schools to celebrate their significance. Meanwhile, there are over 12 million Catholics in California, yet schools have no similar. authorization to celebrate the religious significance of Christmas, Easter, or a good Friday. Do you see what's happening here? So while we're touring around the country in dozens and dozens of states, lifting up the name of Jesus, celebrating the church getting off the sidelines and into the public sphere because we firmly believe and Charlie firmly believe that if we don't do it, people who don't share your values will, we have ceded the public square as Christians to the atheists, the agnostics, the secular

humanists, the communists, the DSA types, and the Muslims. So meanwhile, California and New York are bending over backwards to give special honor to Islamic holidays.

And we don't even have Good Friday, Christmas, or Easter authorized in California. You know, we always advertise when we do the Hills we talk about the Illian and we talk about the Odyssey and I was slipping through it because I got my copy of the Odyssey. Yes, you did. And there's a line in Homer's Odyssey, I believe Nestor says it, one of the guys, and he says, all men have need of gods.

And I think about that often, because it's very true. Everyone needs some sort of God to worship. And Charlie loved that point that you can submit to the one God that we believe in and his son and the civilization that emanates forth from that and the teachings that emanate forth from that. But if you throw it out, you don't replace it with nothing. It will be replaced with something else. and we see what that replacement is. It's an ideology of self-love through things like abortion and materialism.

And materialism and drug use. It's an ideal or some of them race to an alternative God, Allah, or any other religion. And they import those values, which are not what made the West, are not what made Western civilization. But they will find a replacement. And that's kind of what you might say the Democrat Coalition is. It's the grand coalition of replacement gods. Yeah, that's a great way to put it, actually. It's replacing everything that made Western civilization the place they all want to flock to.

So they come here because it's better, and yet they hate the underlying foundational elements that made it better. This is Abdul al-Sayyad. He's insisting after a radical Islamic terrorist attack on a mission in synagogue, he was only offering contexts. This is a cold crazy story, but it's all tied in, 11. We condemned that terrorist attack. We condemned it outright. What I was trying to do is offer context for why it happened, but it wasn't the time for context, and you don't ever want to trample somebody's pain.

Oh, mask off moment for the Muslim from Egypt. Oh, when there's a radical Islamic terrorist attack, you said, hurt people, hurt people. Oh, thanks for that context, El-Sayed. I think the context is that you truly dislike some people. Microplastics are becoming too much of a problem to ignore. They're in 94% of U.S. drinking water, 94% 90% of our meat and seafood, and the average American inhales, get this, 68,000 microplastic particles each and every single day. The EPA recently decided not to include microplastics in the next nationwide drinking water

monitoring program, meaning we likely won't have updated data for years. Even as microplastic exposure continues to rise, scientists have already found microplastic in our blood, our arteries, and even our brains. The good news is that new research suggests there are ways to help your body fight back. Certain probiotic strains found in kimchi, that's right, kimchi, have demonstrated the ability to not only remove toxins like BPA, new research is also exploring how these same beneficial bacteria help bind and excrete microplastics before they can do further damage to your body. Kimchi is one of the world's most powerful superfoods, but it's strong taste and smell can make daily use, daily intake a challenge. I know it is for me.

Kimchi 1 gives you all the benefits of fermented kimchi in an easy-to-take capsule without the mess or hassle. Each capsule delivers over 900 probiotic strains, live enzymes and antioxidants that help restore and balance your gut. People are seeing improvements in digestion, bloating, regularity, energy, and metabolism. Studies show that kimchi can even reduce the risk of obesity by 30, 1.8%. Today, you can get an exclusive offer by clicking the link below for 25% off your entire order. Or an even better deal, call our friends over at Brightcore for up to 50% off your order and free shipping. Give them a call now at 888-317-9258. That's 888-317-9258 and lock in that even better deal by calling our friends at Brightcore. All right. Without further ado, we have the great Megham.

Basham. She's the author of Shepherds for Sale, which was a bestseller, talking about the church. And Megan, I have to start there. And you do so much, by the way. We have a great article that you've written about Dolly Parton we're going to get to in the second segment about why we need to make sure the left doesn't claim her. And I totally agree. But I flagged for you this, this controversy about the Israeli flag. We didn't set it up. I'm literally getting community noted on it, even though I'm like, we did not set it. up. I don't know how to say this any differently, but it doesn't matter. There is a certain corner of the internet that either doesn't understand how the evangelical church works or they just hate evangelical churches. Tell us, for our audience, how normal this is within evangelical churches in America for them to have a statement of faith that also includes maybe a line about their support of the state of Israel. Is it sinister? Is it normal? The floor is yours. No. And you know, it's not something that everyone agrees with, but there is still a very strong dispensational theology that a lot of Baptists in particular non-denominational Protestants embrace.

And so if you go into those churches, you know, it's a valid theological position that a lot of Christians debate, but those particular churches are going to telegraph and signal their support for Israel because they do believe that God still has promises and prophecies to fulfill for the state of Israel. And so, you know, for those reasons, they look at those Old Testament verses about, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And they believe them. And so, you know, you can disagree with that, but it is a legitimate theological position that many, many, many, mainstream Protestant evangelical churches take. So, you know, if you visit a lot of them, and I'm sure I, too, have been in churches that, you know, we're strongly supportive of Israel. I didn't look around for the flags, but, you know, if I found out I happened to be in a church with one, I wouldn't be surprised because certainly, you know, I have dispensational friends.

And, yeah, so, you know, that wouldn't surprise me at all. I think this is a really interesting question because Blake's cat. Catholic and the Catholic Church has been, I think, pretty steady on this. They kind of, they pray for the salvation of Israel, which I believe all Christians should. It's been a controversy because historically on Good Friday, there's a prayer for the Jews, but it's very much in the tone of they, we pray for them to convert. And that's, that's created controversy over time. Especially in the precise wording of it. It is not. No. So, but Megan, I think we do ourselves a disservice in this dialogue. If we, if we sort of say, hey, your replacement theology that you believe the church is. replaced Israel versus dispensationalists, which you believe the opposite of that. But there's lots of in-betweens, right? There's lots of, there's remnant theology. Like, my point is, and we do this from a foreign policy standpoint.

What's that? I said, if you're a John MacArthur fan, you know, there's leaky dispensationalists, which is what he called himself. So here's what I would say. We do this with foreign policy. You're either pro-Israel or you're against Israel. There's no iterations in between. But from a theological standpoint, give the audience,

educate the audience right now on some of, yeah, leaky dispensationalists versus replacement versus remnant. There's lots of theologies in between that we never talk about. Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't delve deeply into this issue myself. I'm kind of one of those who goes, look, I don't think I'm going to know this for sure until Christ returns and we will sort it out then. So I don't get especially worked up about this issue, but some people do. And so you do have some Christians. I don't know exactly which part of dispensationalism that leaked out for John

I would have to go back and review what his doctrine was on that. But yes, I mean, so you have those who believe that the church, the Christian church today, has fulfilled all of the promises that were made to Israel in the Old Testament. So they believe that the church now represents Israel in those Old Testament promises. And then you have a lot of Christians who don't believe that, who believe that, no, these promises are yet to be fulfilled in Israel in the future. And, you know, none of them, I don't think, think the entire. state of Israel politically is going to be saved, but they are saying there is going to be a great coming to Christ by the Jews in the end times, that that's something we're going to see. And, you know,

so regardless of where you stand on whether we have replaced the Jews in the Old Testament as the church or whether those promises, you know, are still to be fulfilled, I think we can all go, that's a good thing. We all want to believe that, yes, there will be a great coming to Christ in in the end times by the Jews. And so, you know, like I said, I am not an expert on this by any stretch of the imagination. So please don't send me your letters. But, you know, the, the upshot is, you know, these are very legitimate, grounded, mainstream views. And anyone pretending online like this is somehow, you know, some new nefarious development in evangelicalism simply doesn't know evangelicalism. Well, and, you know, on that backdrop, right? So we're so

distracted, you know, arguing about different theological positions about Israel. But meanwhile, you've got stories that whether or not, you know, the Girl Scouts has been doing this for years, that you've got Kathy Hokel wearing a hijab. You've got the Girl Scouts giving out Muslim badges. You've got El-Sayed basically saying hurt people, hurt people when terrorists do terrorism. So the whole like moral inversion that we're watching happening right before our very eyes on social media is nonetheless troublesome. Now this was interesting. Before this segment, we went and looked up. Care actually weighed in on the Girl Scout controversy,

which if you throw up 152, I accidentally helped spark. Natalie Winners did the original reporting. I just sort of put it out there. And, you know, next thing I know there's 3 million engagements on that tweet. But it was Girl Scouts of America offers Muslim badges to be earned by learning pillars of Islam, visiting mosque. Okay. So Care comes out and says,

care welcomes Girl Scouts response to, quote unquote, manufactured outrage over Muslim. Muslim badges. So that would be Image 151 if you want to throw it up. The Girl Scouts response was there's a misinformation circulating online about Girl Scouts and religion. Here are the facts. Girl Scouts is not a religious organization. It does not teach religion. For more than a century, we've welcomed girls of every faith in background, et cetera, et cetera. But this is, it does feel like this insidious hollowing out of some basic assumptions that Americans could make about their culture. You can't make those anymore. You've got Mom Donnie.

El-Sayed, you've got Chevalier. Like, there is a certainly a rise of the sound and the volume of the Muslim presence in America. And when it starts, you know, coming into a collision course with our institutions, we're going to take note. Maybe more than we should, but maybe more than we did 10 years ago. Yeah, I think, you know, what we can do is look at what's happening in Europe and the UK in particular. I just got back from the UK.

And you do see, you know, parts of London where the street's on. are now written in Arabic, where old historic, you know, London buildings have been taken over by Islamic centers and mosques. So you're not going to be able to ignore the fact that we now have fair warning about where this goes. And I think that's why you're suddenly seeing alarm bells where maybe people wouldn't have noticed so much before because we're getting a little glimpse of our future in what's happening over in Europe.

And, you know, one of the things you noted there about the Girl Scouts is that they said, well, we have always served all faiths. Well, here's the little contextual piece they don't offer, which is that the Girl Scouts were established in an assumed Christian environment. So Juliet Gordon Lowe, who established the Girl Scouts, was a very, very strong Christian. And part of the reason that she insisted that one of the key oaths and commitments that a Girl Scout makes is service to God and country, not a God, but God. So there was assumed there is a particular God that we are serving here. If she just, you know, in her intention in establishing it, she could have said, serve gods or serve your religion or your faith.

But it was actually just assumed God because that was our culture. So, you know, we have to acknowledge that when you suddenly have the Girl Scouts allowing things like putting up booths to try on hijabs, that this is the opposite of empowering young women, because that's the other piece of this is it's not like we're just talking about, you know, a, a, a strict. random belief, yes, that has no impact on what women are, what we believe, what we are going to become. We're actually talking about a very oppressive ideology against women. We're talking about an ideology that makes women second-class citizens that allows them to be raped and abused, particularly

if they're infidel women, that allows men to have multiple wives, but would never allow a woman to have multiple husbands. So this should be in fundamental conflict with the values of the Girl Scouts. And that was what was so interesting about their statement is that even though they say, you know, we're interfaith. We have never prioritized a particular faith. Well, no, but you were supposed to prioritize what is beneficial and empowering to girls. And bringing in Islam is the absolute opposite of that. It sets women backwards and it oppresses women. So, you know, you can see Kathy Hochel right there bending the need to it.

And if I could just really quick make one more point. Part of the problem about this, Andrew, is that we have put. participated on the Christian conservative right. I watched just a few years ago the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greer, say that Christians and Muslims serve the same God. I watched the head of the lobbying arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. And again, this is the biggest Protestant denomination. So it matters.

I watched him say that Southern Baptists need to support the building of more mosques in the United States. What? Governor Greg Abbott has a, yes, that happened. And we can look at Republicans too who are suddenly acting like, oh my gosh who knew this was happening well you did you knew it was happening because your biggest donor is a Pakistani born Muslim oil executive who you put on the board of an important public education um organization in Texas so you know these are the things that we have to start talking about on our side because you know this didn't come out of nowhere here's the thing so i you know i'm so

tempted to talk about Lindsay Clancy but we've talked about her too much candidly but i did hear a rumor. We haven't confirmed it yet that there were two jurors that showed up in pink this morning, but you are wearing some sort of, I'm not good with colors, pastel color-ish-scolper. Copper. Okay. It's Arizona. Arizona copper colors, man. Well, she's not in Arizona. I know, but you should just see it like a laser everywhere. I'm a little colorblind, actually, believe it or not. So, Megan, there's a lot of crazy things with women right now. I could have done a whole segment on crazy liberal quotes. We have like 14, clips of just crazy liberal women quotes here, but I chose not to. I chose not. I resisted.

I resisted. I'm not going to make it a gender war. Here's what I will say, though. Dolly Parton is famously apolitical. And you wrote this great piece about why we can't let the left make Dolly Parton their socialist mascot. So I think it's really important because I've seen dozens and dozens of old clips from Dolly. And I think your take on this is exactly right. what did you see happening from the left and the right in the immediate aftermath of Dolly Parton? And why does it matter to you if both sides are claiming her or if one side's claiming? Yeah, it mattered to me a lot. I think this was the longest article I've ever written.

That's how much it mattered to me. And part of it was in defense of Dolly. So what I saw happening in the immediate wake of her death is, you know, President Trump, who has at times made events that were maybe intended to be nonpartisan, a little bit partisan. He's done that. he actually honored Dolly's strident and very clear wishes all throughout her life to be a nonpartisan entertainer. She didn't want to be claimed by any political side. She was always very clear.

I hate politics. I don't want to speak politically. I'm not doing anything to speak politically. And so she would repeat this again and again. President Trump honored this. He said, we're going to fly the flags at half staff. And she was a great lady. But he didn't say, you know, she was MAGA.

She was one of us. He didn't do that. But that is what the left. immediately mobilized to try to do. So essentially what they were arguing and have been arguing and are still arguing is that even though Dolly said she was not political, she really was. And we are going to tell you, you know, for example, that she supported Black Lives Matter. So that's one of the things you'll see out there, that Dolly supported Black Lives Matter.

Well, no, she didn't. Here's how the game works. Billboard, the Hollywood reporter, these legacy entertainment outlets, they go to the star, they pressure them, this is happening. What do you want to say about Black Lives Matter? The star doesn't want to get canceled, particularly, you know, someone like Dolly also doesn't want to make a political statement because she has that commitment. So she says something very general. Like, of course, Black Lives Matter.

Do we think white people are the only one who matter? And then she said, everybody matters. And of course, that's supposed to be the offensive line, right? That's all Lives Matter. They cut that part of the quote. And they used just a piece of the quote to pretend that Dolly supported Black Lives Matter wasn't true. They did the same thing with socialism. So they have now suggested that Dolly was sympathetic, and I'm not kidding, the menswear guy who has a huge following on Twitter, claimed that Dolly's song and film, 9 to 5, which she stridently and directly said was not meant to be political, was not meant to send a message about capitalism versus unions.

She said it was just a funny story about some secretaries taking down a misogynist boss. Well, the menswear guy says, no, it's reflective of Marx's surplus. labor theory. And so he is insisting that no, no, no, even though she didn't realize it, this was a Marxist, communist anthem. Well, Dolly would absolutely reject that. And what's so disgusting about it, Andrew, is they did this the minute she died. So they disrespected her own chosen legacy the minute she died by mischaracterizing and misquoting her out of context. It's crazy that they had to be so eager to do this to me because it's not like they have a shortage of actually pretty famous celebrities that they could just point to as a left winger.

But naturally, they need Dolly who shuns this precisely because, as we discussed, she might be the last universally beloved American. Yeah. And the heart wants what the heart can't have, Megan. You know, that's interesting. Well, and it's a totalizing ideology. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

We had this one clip from Larry King. And he's asking, how did you become an LGBTQ sort of icon or like, you know, cause celeb. They really loved her because she was loud and she wore the wigs and she had the big features. And she, you know, she said one time, jokingly, if I was born a man,

I would have been a drag queen. I think she said that a couple times. It was a joke she used a couple times. She said it in 1987. Way before. Yeah. Do you really think Dolly had in her mind that she was empowering the transgender community when she made that joke in 1987?

Listen what she does here in this Larry King interview. She basically, she's so gracious, but she says, well, they've put this on me. You know, I didn't mean to do this, but it's just because I accept everybody. Very, she was very shrewd and, like, very poised in these interviews. SOT 17. Didn't you recently, though, throw support to the LGBT community? Oh, I'm always encouraged. I'm not encouraged. They've made me the poster child, I think, only because I'm so outspoken as far as just being accepted.

of people in general. I do not believe that we should criticize and judge other people. I think we should be accepting and loving. We are all God's children. We are who we are and we should be allowed to be who we are. I keep saying, well, if you're the fine Christian that you're, you think you are, why are you judging people? Why are you, that's God's job. We're not God. We're not judges. You know, we're supposed to love one another. We're supposed to not judge and we're not supposed to take vengeance on other people. That's God's job. So I got too much to do my own, try to do God's work, too. I mean, not to, you know, to get into trying to do all that. You know, you could quibble with her theology. And by the way, the Bible does say you can judge

those within the church, but those outside the church, it's a different story. She's, like I said, you could quibble with her theology or her approach, but she's, she literally says, they did that to me. They made me the poster child. I'm just accepting everybody. That's a very important distinction. It's very different. And, look, I don't agree with what Dolly said there, Theologically, I think she's wrong. And I love Dolly.

But what they did, for example, is they took statements like that. They pressured, for example, Hollywood reporter Dolly, when the North Carolina bathroom bill came up twice. They asked, you know, what do you have to say about the North Carolina bathroom bill? And she said something very general, like, well, I just think everybody wants to be themselves. And I hope everybody can be who they want to be. And then ends with a joke, as she always does, which is, but I'm going to pee wherever I want to pee if I have to pee.

You know, that's Dolly. And they took that, and they ran headlines after her death saying, Dolly supported the boycott of North Carolina over the bathroom bill. That's not true. She never said a word about that legislation. She did not join Bruce Springsteen or Bet Midler and saying she was going to boycott North Carolina. And even more importantly, Andrew, when Tennessee instituted its ban on drag performances in public in front of children,

Dolly, a Tennessee resident, said not one word. And when asked about it, once again, she deflected. She refused to say anything about the legislation. So every time the media tried to make her political,

she refused. Megan Basham, I think your point is well made. And that's the beauty of Dolly. Everybody can enjoy her, I guess. You know, that's, she wanted it that way. She said it was a business. She wasn't a communist.

Midterm, elections are coming up and control of Congress is on the line. If there's one thing financial markets hate, it's uncertainty. And uncertainty is exactly what the next few months are going to bring. In 2024, if it taught us anything, it's that uncertainty breeds volatility. Between now and November could be one of the most volatile stretches for the stock market and the economy. So you owe it to yourself to have a plan. Here's the good part. There's a simple way to protect what you've built, and that's gold. Physical gold and silver let you hedge against that volatility. And there's no better partner for it than noble gold investments. For over a decade, noble gold has helped everyday

Americans protect their wealth with precious metals. They make it simple. They make it easy and they make it safe. You can trust them. Give them a call 877-646-3-447. That's 877646-3-4-7 or visit them online at noble goldinvestments.com slash kirk and find out how to protect yourself, your wealth and your family. Noble goldinvestments.com slash kirk. Election day's coming. Don't let it arrive without a plan. And here's the best part. To celebrate America's 250th, just mention the Charlie Kirk show when you call Noble Gold and they'll send you a free 10 ounce silver bar when you open a new qualified account. Mention the Charlie Kirk Show, that's all you got to do, and they'll do the rest. Every so often a story comes along and it reminds both of us about Charlie because Charlie would talk about these things kind of in passing and it never really made the air but maybe it did it in passing again.

But we never got to a point where we got to cover it. This is something we talked about. He was said we should have someone on but we have to wait till we're less busy. There's less stuff blowing up. And of course stuff was always going on with Charlie. The news cycle was always crazy. So, but this is one of them. So throw up 157, accuser of former Penn State football coach, Jerry Sandusky, expected to recant testimony.

So this just blasted out of nowhere at the end of last week, caught a lot of people by surprise, went viral. But it's interesting because this was a little bit of a background story even before this occurred, which we all remember. I suspect almost all of us remember the Jerry Sandusky story. He was the assistant coach at Penn. state. He was accused by a large number of people of using his charity, the second mile, to procure boys who

he allegedly sexually abused. I should say he was convicted of this. Sentenced to infinity in prison. He has never admitted guilt. And some people say that even though there were a very large number of accusers that it was

that this was actually a large moral panic hysteria and he is in fact innocent. So here to help us unpack this is John Ziegler. He is the host of the Death of Journalism podcast. John, good to see you. But you actually did a whole podcast series about this. And I want to make sure people can get it.

It's called With the Benefit of Hindsight. So with the benefit of hindsight, John, welcome to the show. Please set this all up and make it make sense. Blake and I are sort of skeptics, but we're really intrigued because there's a lot of smoke. Maybe there's some fire here. John. First of all, thanks for having me on. Second of all, I want to give a shout out to Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk was by far the most prominent commentator to express skepticism about this only a couple of weeks before he was assassinated, showing what remarkable instincts Charlie had because he didn't know, as far as I'm aware, all of the facts that I do, having covered this and investigated this for 15 years, he just understood that the story didn't make any sense.

And kudos for Charlie for having the courage to express that. And boy, I wish he was around to be part of this interview because I really wanted to tell him how right he was. Because I have investigated this case for 15 years and I began it back when this moral panic started in November of 2011, presuming, like everybody else did, that Jerry Zendoski was obviously guilty. I had questions about the so-called Penn State cover-up theory. but I presume for the sake of argument, well, everybody couldn't possibly be wrong. There's all these accusers. Why is Penn State pleading guilty, firing Joe Paterno? Jerry Zinowski has to be guilty of at least some of this, right?

But then as I got deeper and deeper into it, and to be clear, I am an ardent anti-conspiracy person. I despise conspiracies. I despise the Candace Owenization of American commentary. I am an ardent anti-conspiracy person. There's no major conspiracy theory here. In fact, the conspiracy theorists are those that believe that Jerry Sundaski got away with this for 40 years and Penn State covered it up. When there is absolutely positively no evidence of it, when there should be mountains of it. And I believe that I, through this podcast with the Benevin Pinesite, have told an alternative story, which provides a far more logical scenario that is based in facts and evidence.

and basic human common sense that tells you that this was a moral panic, the likes of which we saw with the COVID panic, the likes we saw with Derek Chauvin, that this is an innocent man. And the most remarkable part of this guys is it's not close. It's not even close. I've not lost a minute of sleep since I went out on the Today Show in 2014. And Matt Lauer declared my career to be over

because I, along with Dottie Sandusky, said that we believe strong, that Jerry Sondesky is innocent. I'm not lost a minute of sleep of that because of that position because I know I'm right and it's not even close. So, John, let's dive into the detail. So to remind people, it does look like there's a lot. I believe eight witnesses testified at Sandusky's trial. 32 were paid by Penn State at some point. I think, I've, I haven't read, you know, Mark Pendergrass's whole book. I haven't listened to your whole podcast, but I've dabbled and looking at this. And it does. seem obvious. At least some of the accusations must be false because if you look at the

timeline, basically any time Jerry Sandusky's not on camera, he's alleged to be abusing a boy. But that is a lot of people. Eight witnesses at trial. Are you saying that all of them were lying? For people who haven't followed this since 2011, what is the nature of the moral panic you're alleging. Two separate questions. Let me do with both of them. Is everyone lying? The only people that are lying are those that got paid millions of dollars for their testimony. So everybody. Because everybody that testified against Jerry Sundisky, including the main only witness, so-called former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQuarrie, all got paid many millions of dollars. And the eight men, not boys, these were adult men from.

terrible backgrounds who testified against him all got paid many millions of dollars. And let's be clear why everyone believed them. Everyone believed them for two basic reasons. Number one was the moral panic that caused Penn State to fire Joe Paterno and therefore be perceived as pleading guilty when they didn't know what the heck they were even talking about. Jerry Zendoski had not coached at Penn State for well over a decade at that point. Penn State's Board of Trustees had no clue other than the fact that the media was bearing down on them and they needed to do something. So they got rid of a very old coach, Joe Paterno, just before a home game that was going to turn into a PR disaster for them. Once Penn State is perceived as pleading guilty and they pay out $130 million without any vetting whatsoever, it's all over.

There's no chance for Jerry Sundisky to get a fair trial because everyone presumes that eight men. can't be lying. Well, to be clear, when Jerry Zanowski was arrested, there were six men who were accusing him of various degrees of child sexual abuse out of hundreds and hundreds of interviews with former at-risk boys who were from terrible backgrounds, many of whom had been sexually abused for real, but not by Jerry Sondoski, by other members of their family. And out of those hundreds and hundreds of interviews, they were able to cobble together, see, six guys who were adults who had major financial problems and criminal histories and had influenced by plaintiff's attorneys who figured out, you know what, let me find out where

this is going. This could be very good for me. And guess what happened? After they testified anonymously, because the media protected their identities, they got paid millions of dollars for stories that on their own never would have held. doubt. If you take any one of these allegations, they are not credible. John, how do we know they were, I'm just, I'm not doubting you, but how did we confirm that they were paid millions of dollars? I'm just curious. We have the documentation from Penn State. Who paid them? Penn State paid them

directly. Penn State. Penn State University, let's be clear, Penn State, a liberal state-run academic institution using other people's money, not their own money. This is state tax money and insurance money to make themselves look good. This is really fascinating. So I'm looking here. There's basically, as you say, there was, it looks like there was one accuser before this started to gather momentum. And like before there was an investigation, there was an er accuser. And his name was Aaron Fisher. I know that this case involves recovered memory therapy plays a role in this. Did that play a role in Mr. Fisher? testimony or what do you believe caused Fisher to make the first accusation in the first place? I believe that Aaron Fisher, although it's possible, since his therapist helped write

his book, he wrote a book. This is bizarre. The therapist lost his state contract because he wrote a book with Aaron Fisher and his mother. And the book, frankly, guys, is what convinced me that Jerry Sondisky is innocent. That's not an exaggeration. That was the final nail in the coffin for me when I read Aaron Fisher's book, because it is absolutely possible. What I believe happened with Aaron Fisher was that Aaron Fisher's mother realized that this could be very, very good for them. And we have a witness to the very, very first time that Aaron ever complained about Jerry Zandeski to his mother and how she told that neighbor that immediately, her first response was, I'm going to own that M. Fers house. That's what the first thing she said to the neighbor was when Aaron Fisher, as a 15, 16 year old boy, who was already dating lots of girls

and didn't want to hang out with Jerry Sundusky anymore, figured out that the best way to do that was to tell his mother that Jerry makes me feel uncomfortable. Not that he sexually abused me, he makes me feel uncomfortable. And they didn't go to the police. They went to the school district, not to the police. And the school district, rightfully, didn't believe them.

It was only after a multi-year investigation where they couldn't find anybody to back up Aaron Fisher. They're about to give up on this investigation. The Attorney General's office is, They have Mike McQuarrie, the so-called witness in this case, fall into their lap under highly suspicious circumstances. The day after Tom Corbett is elected governor of the state of Pennsylvania, which is really bizarre, and that's when everything changes. Because now all of a sudden, they have a witness and an accuser, and they can go on this fishing expedition with all these former at-risk kids,

interview hundreds of people, and as I've already told you, a couple of them, a few, are cobbled together, because they realized, and they're gamblers, these are literally gamblers, you realize, you know what, this is worth a bet, and it turned out paying off to the tune of millions of dollars for that. So you mentioned Mike McQueen. I think that's the other very iconic image from that scandal, is that if I remember right, it's that he was in a locker room at Penn State after this period, like when it was empty otherwise.

and he heard, I think the claim was he heard a slapping sound in the shower, like flesh on flesh. And then he looked in, I think this is what I remember hearing, is that he looked in and he saw Jerry Sandusky in a compromising position with a boy seven or eight years old. I think a lot of people remember that. Is that testimony not true? Is that testimony changed over time? What's the story there with Mike McQuarrie? Well, Mike McQuarrie's testimony changed quite a bit. especially after Joe Paterno died, and there was no one that could check him anymore.

And Mike ended up making many, many millions of dollars in this case. Almost everything you just said there is not accurate. The first episode of our podcast with the benefit of hindsight is called The Date. And all you need to understand about the McQuarrie episode is how the date dramatically changed in a way that is 100% inconsistent with having witnessed a sexual assault of any kind. And the reality is that the first date, that Mike McCleary testified to was admitted to be totally wrong by the prosecution because they later found emails proving that it was off by 13 months. He got the date, the month, and the year totally

wrong. He thought it happened after 9-11, when it actually happened before 9-11. And that would have been bad enough when that's the only witness in your case and you're putting everything on this one account and the date is that wrong. But after an enormous amount of investigation, I believe I have proven that the second date is actually wrong as well. And then Mike McQuarrie waited six weeks before, not going to police, but going to Joe Paterno to tell him about this episode. And he didn't go to see Joe Paterno

because he was worried about Jerry Siddowsky having sexually abused a young boy. He went to go see Joe Paterno because the day before he learned that there was an open job on the Penn State coaching staff, the wide receiver's coaching position. And as a graduate assistant, Mike needed a job, and a job that he would not get, which blows apart the cover-up theory, but which he would get three years later, which proves that's the job he wanted.

Because Joe Paterno was not told about a sexual assault. He was told that Jerry Sondoski had been in a shower with a boy. Mike was uncomfortable about it. And Joe told his superiors, the athletic director, to tell Jerry to knock it off. And that's what happened. It was dumb. It was stupid. But it was with a 13-year-old boy that Jerry Sondon.

considered to be his son, a boy who would later, as a sergeant in the Marine Corps, invite Jerry Stusky to his wedding and take a picture, arm and arm with him. A boy, when Michael Cleary's story became public, he went to Joe Amandola, Jerry Sundisky's defense attorney, and gave it a lengthy statement saying, I'm the boy in the shower. Mike McQuirie is not telling the truth. I was never abused by Jerry Sundisky. He's the greatest thing that ever happened. And by the way, never testified at Jerry Sundisky's trial. The prosecution lied, telling the jury that the identity of that boy, victim number two, was known, quote, only to God. That was a lie. They knew who the real boy was. They just didn't like his story, which is why they didn't call him to testify.

That was super compelling what you just said, John. All that whole story, that's crazy. Explain, because I'm foggy on the details here, why the, what the motivation of this to be, I mean, we talk about this moral panic, but why? Why did this happen? Did it just start with this first witness and then everybody got freaked out and they were like CYA? Is that the whole story here? Close. You have a boy, a teenage boy and his mom. And by the way, there's a lot of history with that family. The stepfather was a sexual abuser.

I believe that Aaron Fisher victim one was abused by his stepdad, a guy by the name of Eric Daniels, who ended up pleading guilty for 100 counts of child sexual abuse. But I believe the mom realized that they could get much. from Jerry. I didn't think they think Penn State, by the way. I think they thought about the high school first or maybe the second mile charity. And then that investigation, that starts this investigation and goes nowhere, nowhere for two years until Mike McQuarrie comes into it. And Mike McQuarrie brings Penn State into the story. And that's where the story becomes political. And look, I'm a conservative Republican, but Republican politics plays a huge part in this because Tom Forbitt

was the attorney general who started this investigation. I already told you he won the governorship. He had a he had a vendetta against the president of Penn State, Graham Spaniard, who was a very liberal administrator. They had a fight over education funding. And once McQuarrie brings Penn State into this, I believe Corbett realizes this is a way to get Spaner. And he does get Spaniard. Chopaterno is collateral damage and everybody forgets about the allegations against Jerry Sundaski. Nobody bothered to do the math in the middle of a moral panic. I'm the only one that did the math. The math isn't even close here.

It doesn't add up. Jerry Sundowski, as hard as it is to believe, is clearly, totally innocent. And religion plays a huge part in this, because Jerry Sundisky and his wife, Dottie, are very, very religious. And I think that they were rather naive about what they were up against. And they thought that their belief in Jesus would save them. They didn't believe they were in trouble. until literally the reading of the verdicts in this trial.

They still believe that the state of Pennsylvania is going to provide them justice. There is no chance of that. The state of Pennsylvania is deeply invested against them. The only way this can be fixed is in federal court, but unfortunately it hasn't gotten that far yet. So basically, if I'm going to understand this right, so you get this first witness that was probably sexually abused, the family alleges, I don't know,

that this kid had said that Jerry Sandusky made him feel uncomfortable. Maybe the mom had financial motives. Maybe she was just trying to protect her son and got overzealous. Who knows? Then you've got the second witness, the assistant coach, that saw him in a shower with a boy he considered as a son, felt uncomfortable about it. Then these allegations pick up steam at some point and they piece this all together. They go on a fishing expedition, find these other guys that get paid millions of dollars that all have sketchy backgrounds to frame this guy. That's the, that's the theory. I don't like using the word framing, although I would say it's called framing paterno, which was a mistake on my part because that was a decision made many, many years ago, because that implies conspiracy. This was a conspiracy of self-interest. Everyone in this case acted in their own self-interest, including the prosecution, including the accusers, including the media, including the Penn State Board of Trustees. Everybody had a perverse self-interest, including, by the way, the paternal, family to this day has a perverse self-interest to throw Jerry Sundusky under the bus, all which we explain in our epic podcast with the benefit of hindsight. I understand that to people

who have not followed this, this seems bizarre. But if you really break it down, it makes perfect sense every step of the way, especially once we've seen what happened with the COVID panic and other stories like it. Yeah, real quick, John. So this most recent witness that's going to recant the testimony, he's saying he was coached, he was told what to say. This follows with your theory of the case, correct? Yeah, but I'm actually so far ahead of the curve on this case, I'm going to give you breaking news. I don't believe this hearing is going to happen.

I don't believe, I think that the Sandusky team will be smart enough to cancel this hearing because I have interviewed this accuser, Ryan Rittmeyer, a so-called victim number 10, and I don't believe he's fully recanted. I think he's a very, very bad person, who is deeply invested in the idea that he was somehow abused by Jerry Zendowski. It's clear to me having interviewed him for over two hours, he was not abused by Jerry Sondoski. But I think this hearing, if it happens, would be a disaster for the Sondosky defense team.

Please unpack what you just said. I think it's really fascinating. Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so, because my objective here has always been the truth. And so everyone thinks I'm the Jerry Sondiske defender. So I must be really excited about this hearing. I'm actually trying to get this hearing stopped. And I believe I've been successful in doing that. It's not officially yet, but I don't think this hearing is going to happen.

Because this guy, Ryan Rittmeyer, this is the classic catch-22 of this entire situation or the checkmate circumstances that Jerry Sondesky faces. Because all these at-risk kids, the ones that took the bait, they're terrible people. They have horrible backgrounds. This Ryan Rittmeier was in prison for robbery. He's a drug addict, a gambler. He's wasted all this money that he describes as being a lottery winner. He is not going to give up the idea that he was a Jerry Sundaski victim.

Now, he does say all sorts of very good things for the defense, that he was manipulated by the prosecution, the Penn State didn't bet his claims, that he lied in his testimony, that he committed perjury, that Jerry Sondky didn't get a fair trial. But he can't let go of one allegation that he, that you. It keeps changing its location. It's very vague. It's, in my view, total BS because there is a full you in him being a Jerry Zendoski victim. Because it basically is a get out of jail free card for all the bad things that he's ever done in his life.

Everything he ever did after the age of 13 is erased. And if he gives that up, that is a major problem for him, not to mention, that he's not trustworthy. These are all liars to begin with. with. So relying on them to tell the truth now, it's bullhardy. And I don't think that's going to happen at this hearing, if this hearing occurs, which I hope it will not. Really, really fascinating stuff. With the benefit of hindsight, everybody should check it out. John has done a lot of work on this reporting about the Jerry Sandusky trial. And I didn't, I didn't remember the, when you went on NBC in 2014. It's so fascinating and it's so, it's dreadful to contemplate. If you're correct,

and he's totally innocent because there's also a book on this called The Most Hated Man in America, and that's a well-chosen title because he kind of is considered, he's probably the most hated person in America. It was in that moment. If you imagine that he was totally innocent. Yeah. Yeah. And it just feels like this giant CYA, once they were pot committed, everybody was so invested in the outcome.

It makes sense. John, we got to go. We got to bring in our next guest here for the next. segment, but that was really fascinating stuff, John, really well done. Really compelling. A lot of that stuff is really compelling. John Ziegler, check out his Sandusky. They can get it on podcast still, the benefit of hindsight. Everywhere. Everywhere you get your podcast with the benefit of hindsight. Once again, kudos to Charlie Kirk for seeing through this story. My daughter, Grace, 14 years old is a huge fan of Charlie Kirk to this day. So this is an honor for me to be on this show.

God bless you, John. Good to see it. Thank you. Hi folks, Andrew Colvette here. I'd like to tell you about my friends over at Y-ReFi. You've probably been hearing me talk about Y-ReFi for some time now. We are all in with these guys. If you or someone you know is struggling with private student loan debt, take my advice and give them a call. Maybe you're behind on your payments.

Maybe you're even in default. You don't have to live in this nightmare anymore. Why Refi will provide you a custom payment based on your ability to pay. They tailor each loan individually. They can save you thousands of dollars and you can get your life back. We go to campuses all over America and we see student after student who's drowning in private student loan debt. Many of them don't even know how much they owe. YREFI can help.

Just go to YREFI.com. That's the letter Y, then refi.com. And remember, YREFI doesn't care what your credit score is. Just go to whyrefi.com and tell them your friend Andrews sent you. Very excited about our next guest. That's Frank Turek, who is a dear friend of Charlie's, remains a dear friend. And he's one of the best apologists of the Christian faith out there. He's absolutely amazing mind and a great guy to boot.

Frank Turek, Dr. Frank Turek. And he's got a new book called The War on Reality. Frank, welcome back to the show, my friend. It's good to see you. Yeah, it's good to see you and Blake as well. I can't believe we're coming up on a year now. It's been a long year, man. and you guys know it better than I do.

You guys work with Charlie every day. I didn't work with him every day, but the void without Charlie has been dramatic. Well, I'm looking at the forward your book was written by Erica, and I love the way this opens because it reminds us that Charlie was a guy who was excited to meet people he admired, and you are a person he admired. This is Erica. I'll never forget the moment several years ago when Charlie told me that he had reached

out to Frank Turrick via email. He was so excited, but realistic in his expectations. I'm not sure if he'll respond, but it's worth a try. I hugged him and said, I'm glad you did. If it's God's will, he'll respond. If not, at least you tried. Well, to say the least, you did respond. Charlie, and you had a fruitful partnership,

and he was very proud to have you as someone he could work with and learn from. And the same for you, Blake, because the night before he was murdered, I think I told you this. I may have told you it on the air too. Charlie said, hey, if you're free, why don't you and Danny go to dinner with Blake? Blake's my secret weapon.

I said, I'm free. Let's go. And so you remember that? We had dinner. And then we had another session with Charlie. You're always part of those sessions, Blake, you know, trying to figure out how we could answer questions better on a college campus.

He valued you. and of course Andrews so much. And then the next day, we all know what happened. So, yeah, the book we wrote, The War on Reality was actually in progress before the murder. And of course, when Charlie was murdered, we dedicated the book to him because Charlie was fighting for reality when so many people were fighting against it. And so the first chapter is all about, it's all about what happened leading up to that day, what happened. that day and then what happened since and it's dedicated to him and as you mentioned blake erika wrote the forward and i can i read one section of the forward a little bit later because i

i knew erika was smart but i didn't know she was this profound here's what she says in the forward and by the way friends even if you don't get the book you can read the forward and the war on reality dot com here's what she says since september 10th 2025 I've been faced with my own new, she has it in quotes, new reality, one that I still wrestle with as I attempted to grasp its earthy permanence. Quite honestly, I'll probably be like that for the rest of my life. Yet what I've realized is that redefining my reality isn't what gives me peace, surrendering to it does. That's profound right there in my mind. So many people are fighting against reality.

and Erica says the way forward is to surrender to it. And the ultimate source of reality is Jesus. He is the ground of all reality. That's why he said, you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free, which implies if you don't have the truth, you're in bondage. So Erica is, she amazes me more and more every day. I don't know how she's doing what she's doing, but she's incredible. You know, I tell people all the time, you know, Erica Kirk is one of the most amazing

people I've ever met. And she has handled this entire saga with such dignity and poised. It's really difficult to imagine anybody handling it as well as she has and all the scrutiny and did she smile? Did she cry too much? It's completely unfair. And that's like the understatement of the century that what she's gone through. And I tell people as well, if you understood the inner workings of Turning Point, you would understand, you know, that she might have been the only person on this planet that could have brought the organization together in that moment and really like saved it and made it keep going, you know, and really grow, by the way. People, you know, if you look on X, you know, it's like people want to create their own reality that there is turning point's demise or something like that.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The organization's growing and we have over a million students now that are part of the turning point in one way, shape, or form of the other. And that's thanks to Erica Kirk and obviously the legacy of Charlie Kirk. But had she not stepped in in that time with great bravery and tremendous courage in the midst of unthinkable suffering, you know, I don't know that all this is still here. I really don't. And so thank you for saying that because it's not said enough and it deserves to be repeated all the time. But your book, go ahead, Frank. I was going to say I couldn't agree with that more.

And I'm not just saying this, but you guys too, both yet. to continue this radio program in the middle of a storm of what I think is just demonic. You know, Jesus said Satan's a murderer, a liar, accuser, and slanderer who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. We had a murder last 9, 10, and after a memorial service where more people heard the gospel than any other time in human history at one time. Since then, we've had lies, accusations, and slander seeking to steal, kill, and destroy. and people don't believe in the demonic.

I don't know how it could be more obvious, gentlemen. I mean, that's what's going on. Satan's trying to tear down something that's good. It's easy to tear down. It's hard to build up. It can take you a year or two to build a house. You can tear it down in five minutes, and a lot of people are trying to tear something good down.

Yeah. Well, and the book title, The War on Reality, I mean, I didn't realize, actually, that you had already started it before 9-10. It's almost like you had a providential guiding behind you because what we've seen in the aftermath is completely a war on reality up is down left is right good is evil woe to those by the way who call good evil and evil good but we see this with you know the lindsay clancy trial i mean i'm predicting that's going to be a hung jury a woman

who strangled three of her kids that's going to be a hung jury but we've seen it with so much that has happened since and i think there's so much confusion online and there's so much you know people putting out messages that, you know, Putin's good and China's good and Iran's good and America's bad. And it's very hard to parse through. So what is your call in this book? What are you telling people to get back to? What we're telling people, Andrew Blake, is the fact that reality exists independent of what you think about it. And reality is undefeated. You can fight against reality. You can deny it. But ultimately, it's going to win because we don't defy it. find reality. We just discover reality. And in this book, you know, we cover issues like

battlefronts because people will say there's no truth. Like that's a war on reality. When they say that, we normally ask them, is that true? Is it true that there's no truth? You know, because it's a self-defeating claim. There's a war on God, a war on justice, obviously a war on the whole Charlie Kirk murder, you know, what's really true there. There's a war with regard to conspiracy theories. There's a war on Christians in politics saying we ought not be involved as if only atheists are qualified to run the country. There's a war in identity, a war on women's sports, quite obviously. There's a war on the family. There's a war on Hamas and Israel, you know, who's right in that. There's a war everywhere. And what we're trying to do is shed light on that,

and hopefully we're shedding the proper light on it. Because when you keep, continue to deny reality. Not only do you get hurt, all the people around you do as well. So we're trying to bring people back to reality. Chapter 5, you'd say, why is there a war on reality? What's the answer? Well, the answer is the human heart, because we want what we want. You know, in fact, this goes back to the Garden of Eden. Did God really say, you know, that Satan's lie to everybody? Did God really say, you know, because I'm going to take you in another direction. But Paul talks about it in Romans chapter one. that we suppress the truth and unrighteousness to go our own way. You know, we know God exists as invisible qualities are clearly seen,

but quite often we don't like it. In fact, this is a question I ask on every college campus. Charlie and I talked about this a lot. Whenever we get somebody that's not a believer in Jesus, not a Christian, I normally ask them, if Christianity were true, would you become a Christian? And 99 times out of 10, as we say in Mississippi, the answer is no. No. No, if it was true, I wouldn't be a Christian.

And I say to them, wait, you claim to be reasonable? How is it reasonable that you wouldn't believe something that turned out to be true? Because it's not a matter of reason. It's not a matter of reality. It's not a head problem. It's a hard problem. People are not on a truth quest or on a happiness quest. And they're just going to believe whatever they think is going to make them happy.

So they're not concerned about truth. Yeah, Frank, we had this whole, you might have seen it online where we had one of the churches we went to in El Paso over the weekend, had an Israel flag and an American flag. We didn't put it up. The church decided that. I've been community noted, I guess, because they think I'm lying that we didn't put it up. But it was interesting. I was talking to a friend over the weekend, and I told them I was just frustrated by it

because it was annoying. And people are acting like we're controlled by Israel or something like this. And he said something profound to me. He said, well, you're never going to convince those people because they don't want to be convinced. You will never convince this virulent strain on social media that just wants to hate Israel and hate Jewish people to hate them and they want to scapegoat them. You'll never convince them.

And I think you're pinpointing the reason why, because it's not a head problem. It's a heart problem. Frank Turrick, author of the new book, War on Reality, a book he started before 9-10, but Frank was there on 9-10 along with Blake and many other of our friends and colleagues around here. And he's going to be going back to UVU on September 10th.

And he's going to be speaking. It's Glenn Beck, right? Frank Turek. And I think Andrew Seifor is going to be speaking, who is our chief field operations guy. And it's going to be a powerful moment, Frank, that you're going back there. It's sort of a deliberate act of reclaiming a. location where something very terrible happened, but we want everybody to come out and be a part of that. I believe it's charliekirklegacy.com. I'm going to double check the URL. But if you want to get

tickets to that, please, please, please come and join us at UVU. And Frank's going to be there. And I'm so happy you're going, Frank. We're actually going to be tomorrow, just a little programming note. I'm going to be off. I'm going to be in Utah for the bindover hearing. tomorrow so pray for me pray for frank pray for the whole team as we kind of navigate this i don't know this stuff we've got to do you know um i didn't want to go there for the preliminary hearing candidly because i just don't need to go back but i i but we'll be doing our full just like we did with the july hearing we'll be having uh we'll show the full hearing here we'll have guests during the breaks we'll analyze it afterwards as long as it takes we're determined to

show yeah all of the in-person court proceedings of the Robinson case because we know a lot of you care a lot about following that. Frank, there's so much in this. I haven't read the book. It comes out September 8th. So I haven't read the book. So I'm looking at a kind of a outline of it. And you've got, you know, chapter 7, who decides what's right and wrong?

That's a pretty contentious question, actually. Yeah. Well, we go through a series of theories there. as to what's right and what's wrong and what's the standard. And, of course, one of the standards is that people say everyone gets to decide what they want to do. You know, you do you, I'll do me kind of thing. And I can brag on this because my co-author wrote this, Phoenix Hayes, she's very witty. Here's what she writes about that particular question, Andrew.

You know, what about you do you? Isn't that the right standard? Here's what she writes. Sure. You do you works when you're picking ice cream. flavors, but once you decide to scam your grandma, torture city, or double park at Costco, suddenly we're all wishing that you didn't do you quite so hard. So the book has a lot of levity in it because, you know, as the world's going to dystopia,

you've got to at least laugh. And we're also trying to provide a lot of practical things to do if you're trying to get people back to reality. Like we have a whole section in there. What if your kid comes to you and says, Mom, Dad, I'm trans. What you don't want to say is, what are you crazy? No, no, no, no, no.

You want to ask some questions. So we have some questions in there that they can ask. And going back to your original question, what is the standard of morality? The ultimate standard, of course, is God's nature. If God doesn't exist, there's nothing ultimately right or wrong. Everything's just a matter of opinion.

And, of course, our founders knew this. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men were created equal and endowed by their government. No, it doesn't say government, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and a pursuit of happiness, and governments are instituted to protect these rights. Government doesn't give you rights.

If government gives you rights, they're not rights. They're just preferences, because some other government can come in next and change those. No, rights are given to you by God. And as Mike Johnson pointed out on that tour, you and I did, Andrew, not long ago, that the unique thing about America is, We got rid of the king, and we just said that rights came directly from God to people, and that the people really governed themselves based on the rights given to them by God. So that's one of the aspects that the book covers.

You say here that, and by the way, amen, amen to that. You say here that the Internet is the greatest tool that Satan's ever got. I'm paraphrasing. What do you mean by that? And are we totally cooked? No. There's no hope. No.

The internet, just like any other technology, is amoral. You know, the morality comes from its use by the people that use it. And so in there, we talk about AI. Like, what's good about AI? What isn't good about AI? It depends on how you use it. But one of the things we point out in there is that AI will lie to you. In fact, let me give you an example of this.

AI is a consumer product. So there was a Muslim down in Australia that typed into chat GPT. Did Jesus claim to be God according to the Bible? And it responded with a confident no. A Christian in a Christian apologist in Canada, same chat bot, chat GBT, typed the same question in. Did Jesus claim to be God according to the Bible? Came back a confident, yes. Why? Because these are consumer products and they want to please you. They want to keep you using it. So it gets to know what you're looking for and will often, will often just lie to you. I will tell you, you know, it's interesting. We, in this whole battle for reality post 910, you know, GROC, which, you know, we support GROC, we support Elon what he's doing at X, but GROC has been gameed

multiple times to lie to people. So the last question is about, you know, was the Aspen video AI, you know, with Charlie talking about Erica being the successor at Turning Point. And it lied to them. It told them. There's so many people, they, one, people will basically try to game AI so that it will believe false things. And then they will use the repeating of false things by the AI as proof that it's true. So many people are just eager to outsource their thinking to a machine. And the truth is, once you decide to do that, what? Why are you even alive? You've chosen to outsource everything about your existence to a robot made by a company in Silicon Valley.

Why do you even live? That's almost how I want to respond to this. Right. It's an alternate reality is what it is. And that's why we're trying to bring people back to reality. There is a war on reality on so many different fronts. And, you know, 10 years ago, if you said some of the things that are said now, like men can have babies or abortion is health care or, you know, math is racist, that just doesn't. add up with me, gentlemen. But if you said those things, you know, 10 years ago, people would go,

are you crazy? And now there are people going, am I crazy or is the world crazy? No, you're, you're okay. It's the world that's going crazy. And reality hasn't changed, but people are saying different things about reality. And you know, you need to know how to, how to bring people back to reality, including yourself sometimes. And that's what the book, The War on Reality is all about. Frank, you're basically, I found it surprising that you, dedicated an entire chapter of this book to chapter 10 is everyone oppressed now, Marxism and the invention of perpetual victimhood. I found that interesting that you did that. Why? Because I think it's the key to the entire culture war. In fact, there's a chart that begins on

page 192, Andrew, that I think once you see that chart, you're going to immediately see why there's a culture war. And you're also going to see one reason while Charlie was murdered. and let me just break it down this way. Cultural Marxism, the view that's kind of taken over much of the left in our country, believes that there are two categories of people. There are oppressed people and there are oppressor people. And ironically, you're in one of those two categories, not based on your personal behavior. You could be as virtuous as, say, Mother Teresa.

However, if you have certain qualities, you're automatically considered an oppressor. as the chart points out, if you're a white, rich, like owning class, if you're a man, if you're a heterosexual, if you're a Christian, if you're able-bodied, if you're a citizen, if you're a white settler, you're automatically considered an oppressor. On the other hand, if you're a person of color, you're poor, middle class, you're LGBTQ, you're a non-Christian, you're disabled, you're an immigrant, or you get bonus points if you're an illegal immigrant, you're automatically considered oppressed. And it doesn't matter what your personal behavior is. And if I go back to those oppressor qualities, white owning class, men, heterosexual, Christian, able-bodied citizen, white settler,

Charlie Kirk met just about every one of those characteristics. It wasn't because his behavior had nothing to do with his behavior, but it had to do with those qualities or those identity groups he was a part of. And that's why the left looked at him as an oppressor. This is why the alleged killer Tyler Robinson said he's a fascist, he must die, right? I don't know about you, but I never heard of a fascist handing his opponent the microphone and saying, hey, why don't you make your case? I'll listen quietly and then we'll have a discussion. No, the guy that killed him, Tyler Robinson, it appears, is the fascist. He couldn't tolerate Charlie having a different opinion on certain things. And what did he use his justification? That he was an oppressor, that he had all

these qualities right here. So I think once you understand this chart on 192, you'll see, oh, now I get why I'm called a racist or while I'm called, I have white privilege, whatever that means, or I shouldn't be heard because I'm a heatherosexual white Christian male. It's just critical theory. It's just cultural Marxism, gone amok. I love that. Yeah, and he couldn't tolerate the fact that Charlie had amassed so much influence being an oppressor class. Some hate just can't be negotiated out. That's what he said. That's right. Let me mention one other thing that this book comes out on the eighth, but if people pre-order it and they go to the war on reality.com and put their little receipt in the box there, we're going to send you chapter 10 right away. And when you see this chapter, and particularly that

chart on 192, 193, you'll go, oh, light bulb. By the way, this is where you get gazed for Gaza. Why, gay's for Gaza? If they go over, to, think over to Gaza, they're going to be murdered. Why would LGBTQ people before Gaza? Because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Do you see that Muslims and LGBTQ people are all considered oppressed? What apparently the LGBTQ people don't get, or at least some of them anyway, they're saying they're gay as for Gaza. They don't understand that if Islam takes over, they're going to be the first one to lose their rights, their so-called rights. They're going to be the first one persecuted. But this is the kind of futile thinking you get when you think in in categories of press-depressor

rather than judging people based on the content of their character, as Martin Luther King said, not the color of their skin. Or as the Bible says, that we're to treat people fairly, impartially. Don't favor the rich or favor the poor. Just treat people as they are, as their behavior warrants. When you get into this kind of oppressed oppressor nonsense, everything goes bad. Frank, you're a great communicator and you're a great defender of the Christian faith. Why do you believe Christianity is real?

Why is it true? Yeah, only have to establish two facts. Number one, God exists. Number two, Jesus rose from the dead. And can you show that God exists? Yeah, I'll give you three short arguments. One, the universe exists and the universe had a beginning. Space Time and Matter had a beginning.

If Space Time and Matter had a beginning, whatever created Space Time and Matter must transcend space time and matter. So you've got to have at least a cause that's spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, personal, and intelligent. And that sounds a lot like the God of the Bible. But we don't know it's the God of the Bible yet because we don't know anything about Jesus at this point. But it seems like we have a creator cause. And this creator cause, by the way, is also super intelligent because the universe is fine-tuned. And this creator God also is moral because we have a moral law written on our hearts. And wherever there's a moral law, there has to be a moral law giver. So we can show, without even referencing the Bible, that there exists a spaceless, timeless,

immaterial, powerful, moral, personal, intelligent creator who created and sustains all things. Well, how do we know it's the God of the Bible? You got then have to look at the historical evidence for Jesus. And if you look at the historical evidence for Jesus, I think you can show beyond any reasonable doubt that not only did he exist and die on a cross, he actually rose from the dead. And one of the reasons we know this, Andrew, is because the folks that wrote all this down and then paid the biggest price for it were actually people who didn't believe a guy could claim to be God and rise from the dead and rise from the dead. These people were Jews. The folks that wrote the New Testament are all Jews. Why are they inventing a resurrected Jesus that got them

kicked out of the synagogue and then beaten, tortured, and killed? They wouldn't. So the evidence shows that not only did the universe, not only was the universe created, but, but, but, the evidence shows, But Jesus actually came to this earth, added humanity to his deity, and died and rose again. So when we trust in him, we're not only forgiven, but given his righteousness. Now, we have a whole book on this called I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist. In fact, Charlie was reading it when he was murdered. Erica sent me a picture of it like a couple of weeks after. And that book lays it out in great detail.

I've just given you a quick overview here. Oh, I love it. Frank Turek, I'm so glad that you responded to Charlie when he reached out. It means I get to be your friend too now. Well, same, Andrew. No, I was going to say, I know you did too. I saw an interview with you recently, and you had coffee with Charlie at one point in L.A., right? And you're like, who is this guy?

Like, what? Yeah. You know. I reached out to him over email because the guy was working with said, hey, you should reach out to him. He ghosted me for a little bit, and then he, got back to me kind of out of the blue and said, I'm coming through LA. Let's get together. And I think it was dinner technically, but whatever it was, uh, changed my life. And my wife, uh, was the one that said, I think this is from the Lord. So here I am too. But Charlie has a lot of

a lot of such stories of people in his wake and Blake has his as well with Charlie. So Frank Turek and Phoenix Hayes, the war on reality recovering truth in a world that celebrates lies. Amen. Frank. A book truly meant for this time. And again, everybody, Frank is going to be at UVU campus on 9-10, a deliberate act of reclaiming a place that is marked by tragedy. But we're going to celebrate Charlie's life there in Frank and Glenn Beck and others are going to be helping us do that. God bless you, Frank Turrick.

Everybody get yourself a copy of the war on reality. We need it more than ever. So thank you, Frank. God bless you. Thanks, gentlemen. See you next week. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust. Charliekirk.com.