The Charlie Kirk Show - What is An American?

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

What makes someone an  American? Is it just a passport? Is it a language? Or is it something more? Charlie reacts to several viral clips and tries to explain things in reverse: At a minimum, we should know what is NOT an American. Plus, Charlie reacts to Trump's masterful handling of European leaders at the White House, then talks to Energy Secretary Chris Wright about using America's fossil fuels to secure long-term American dominance. 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.

Hey, everybody. Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio. What is an American? That's right. We asked the question of what is an American. And we have a great discussion here. I want your emails, freedom at charleycirk.com. What is an American? Subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast and get involved with Turning Point USA at tpUSA.com. That is tpUSA.com. Become a member today, members.chark.com. That is members.com. Charliekirk.com. We also have Chris Wright, and we talk about how President Trump set the table for peace between Russia, Ukraine, in a brilliant way. I think you're really going to enjoy it. And as always, you can email us, Freedom at Charliekirk.com.

That is Freedom at Charlie Kirk. Buckle up, everybody here. We go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie.

He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job. Building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. What is an American? That sounds like an easy question to answer.

Our argument begins that being an American is more than paperwork. Can we all agree with that? I think so. By way, I want you to email me a flood of email. freedom at charley kirk.com what is an american we really have not had any discussion we've not had a conversation on this topic what is an american is zoran mom dani an american is elan omar an american also bigger picture what is america is america just an idea as some people would say even i parroted that nonsense like 10 years ago i'm like oh goodness i used to say that no is america

only a people, is America people? Is it a creed? Is it a philosophy? Is it a worldview? Mind you, we have not had this sort of robust discussion. And I want your thoughts. Email me at Charlie Kirk.com. What is an American? I'm formulated the best way I can in a one or two sentence crisply delivered description. We're also going to have Victor Davis Hanson from the Great Hillsdale College, professor on it this week to discuss what is an American. But I think we can start by the process of elimination. We could start by saying what is not an American. Americanism is more than paperwork.

Right now, all American has been reduced to is just paperwork. If you have your documents, you're an American. I'm sorry, that makes no sense whatsoever. By the way, not even paperwork. if you count all the illegals. But at least the American rights argument is, well, if you have your paperwork, then you're an American. I want you to tell me whether or not

Tad Jajera, Musha Ramaksalaka, Duda, Mag, Misabla. That's literally the speaker's name. Is this person an American? Playcutt 358. Congress woman, adashain. Yeah. See that Rekos of a behind.

That's for Omar Fata, who's going to be the next mayor of Minneapolis, just so we're clear. Here's a little longer speech here. Are these people Americans? Have they assimilated, have they dedicated their soul, their spirit, their Fumos through the United States? The best way that I could describe it in my head is the first thing that we ask out of an American is you must be all in. You must learn the language, you must assimilate, unapologetically, you must burn the boats, cut the ties, no dual loyalty. Play cut 391. That is Omar Fathah, who is basically going to be the next mayor of Minneapolis.

People say, oh, it's just this small number. No, he's going to be a mayor of one of America's largest and one of most important cities. I want you to email me, freedom at charliekirk.com, what is an American? And if you have not thought about it, that's okay. But that shows how we've kind of been a prisoner in the American right of not asking the most important question. people say, well, an American is just someone who comes here legally. That's complete propaganda. That is absolute nonsense.

That is Bill Crystal neoconservatism. When you come to America, you should literally leave your country behind. So you need to become an American. Learn the language. You need to be all in. You need to demonstrate it. You need to learn the documents and commit yourself to our creed. And we need to outlaw this dual citizenship nonsense.

Enough. No more of this dual citizenship stuff. We all love legal immigration. immigration people have always said that i'm sorry no no no it really depends and we're still formulating it it's okay that i don't and you don't are not able to word it the as as crisply as we'd like because now this has been forced by the way some people say well american is just a race that's not true at all actually like thomas soul's a great american i would say he's a clarence thomas is an american so that's that that's not correct so you got to figure it out

Everyone says, well, we just need immigrants to come legally. We just need immigrants to come legally. That's not true. Omar Fata came here true. I came here legally. Elon Omar came here legally. Rashida Talib, her parents came here legally. Zoran Mamdani came here legally.

Here's another piece of tape. Now, you might think, I want you to guess, actually. I'm going to play this piece of tape. Where is this? Is it Mogadishu? Is it Brussels? Is it Berlin? Is it Minneapolis?

let's play guest the state guest the state here live on the Charlie Kirk show and I'm not allowed to say that this guy's not an American. I'm sorry, he's not an American. Playcut 3.93. that is in anybody oh hio how's that danny your state's doing great that is an ohio victory party for islamy mohammed now when we think of what it means to be an american is someone by the name of

islamy mohammed yeah i don't think so producer andrew's take is this and i think he gets it mostly right but i'm not quite there yet i think it needs i think the idea of the thumos like going all in the spirit investing into the nation meaning that you have committed your inner most being into the nation. I think there's something there that from classical work I talked about with this Dr. Orr. This is Andrew's paragraph. An American is first and foremost someone born in America who speaks English, who is raised here,

who is steeped in angle of traditions of common law, blind justice, equal rights, and believes in or at least as reverence for Christian traditions that have undergird our law and customs. An American is also someone who we allow to move here, who works without criminality, nor harbors animosity for this country. who after time of painstaking pursuit gains the incredible rights, freedoms, privileges of our citizenship. The former should be given extreme deference

and the latter should be given away with supreme caution and sparingly far less than is currently allowed. I think that's pretty good, Andrew. But there's still something about the allegiance that you need to have the signal markers, you need to have the proof that you are all in.

None of this like multiple passport stuff, none of this dual citizenship stuff. By the way, how many members of Congress are dual citizens. That's a good question. That's an important question. And step one is speaking English. If you don't understand the language, you cannot understand our values. Step one, make English the official language United States. President Trump deserves credit for this. The defining issue of the year of our Lord 2025, going into 2026, 2027 on the American right, is one that we are totally unprepared for, which is what is in American. And most people look

at me, they say, when Americans, there's just someone that has a U.S. passport. There's only Maandani has a U.S. passport. Omar Fata has a U.S. passport. Elon Omar is a member of Congress. Do you consider that to be a fellow American? If America is just a passport, then America is dead. We are nothing more than a colony, nothing more than just paperwork. It's reverence for the Constitution. It's all in for not just the ideas, but the story. You need to come with humility that you are part of this project. If America is just a passport, then we are just the colony for earth, a pile of wealth to loot. And that's how Somalis treat it. In the era of mass

transportation and cheap airfare, this was inevitable that mass migration would become the story of the 21st century, including defeating our future scam and all this stuff. And I don't say this with any hate for the individuals. I'm just asking the very simple question. If you're not an American, that's fine. Go back to your place of origin. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to harm you. I'm not going to imprison you. Just go back. to la vista, but we have a culture to protect. We have a country to love. No man can serve two masters. Christ our Lord said that. We have a heritage to preserve. And people say, oh, Charlie, you're just talking about white supremacy. Now, I literally have just carved out,

Clarence, not carved out, but I've mentioned, you know, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sol. I mean, I could go on and on our entire Blexit team. They're 100% amazing Americans. So you have to try to, you have to be willing to have this conversation while they call you all these nasty words. And my Cuban-American friends are amazing. Marco Rubio, Marco Rubio's an American. I could run the gambit. Are you kidding me? One after the other.

But the question is, it's more than that. It's kind of one of those things. Like, you know an American when you see one, and it's not skin color. It's something that is, again, in classical writing, in classical Greek, literature. They had this idea of the Thumos. And I'm really been thinking about this since my time with Dr. Orr. It's the spirit. It's the spirited element linked with pride, honor, righteous, anger, courage. For Plato, it's what made people defend justice or seek honor, sitting between rational thought and bodily desires. By the way, Lamar Jackson is an American. He loves Jesus.

So it's not a racial, racial thing. Aristotle simply used Thumos to mean passion. So the best way I could think about it in classical terms, again, this is going to be worthy of introspection, prayer, reflection, discussion, dialogue is once we can contemplate the Thumos, the Thumos must be completely and only American. There's something there worth exploration, worth dialogue. Even Francis Fukuyama used Thumos in the end of history, the last of man. Here's what I could tell you, though, what is not an American. dual loyalty, dual passport, speaking Somali.

Let's play this again. Do you really think this is an American? Again, I'm not trying to insult. I don't know if she's a good person or a bad person, but this is not America. Play cut 358. Congresswoman, Adashain. Yeah.

Seidhar. This is Omar and Khajumaha'amahia. Virginia, I'll go by all you. Like, he's a jobbed care of me. This is not a racial, thing. People are going to try to categorize this entire conversation to be an ethno-nationalist racial thing. Ain't wrong.

It's something else. And again, I will repeat, if being an American is only a passport, if being an American is only paperwork, then we're cooked. Teddy Roosevelt said, quote, in the first place, we should insist that if an immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American assimilates himself

to us, he shall be treated on exact equality of everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the person becoming in every fast an American and nothing but an American. Amen, T.R. There can be no divided allegiance, no dual loyalty. Any man who says he's an American but something else also isn't an American at all. We have room but for one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language. And that is the English language. They have room but for one sole loyalty in that loyalty's United States of

America. I think it's pretty solid. Teddy Roosevelt. No dual passports. No dual loyalty. No dual citizenship. I don't care what the country is. Your thumos must be all in. You must be dedicated to the United States of America. And if we're nothing more than paperwork, then we are just organizing desk, let's just say organizing deck chairs on the Titanic. I love this country and I hate to see what mass migration is doing to it. It's not a racial thing. I think it's a thumos thing. And as America goes, the entire civilization goes. Have you ever heard anyone say this is unconstitutional? Do you assume it's just hyperbole?

Have you taken the time to study and understand the Constitution so you know for yourself what is and what isn't constitutional? That's why I'm so excited that Hillsdale College is offering a brand new free online course called The Federalist. The Federalist papers were written primarily by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Together they explain how the U.S. Constitution established a government strong enough to to secure the rights of citizens and safe enough to wield that power. And today it's our responsibility to pay attention, to be vigilant, and you might say, in order to preserve and protect Republican self-government. Hillsdale's online course on the Federalist includes 10 lectures, each about 30 minutes long.

You could take the course at your own pace. There's no cost to sign up. Go right now to Charlie for Hillsdale.com to enroll. There's no cost, and it's easy to get started. C-H-A-R-L-I-E for Hillsdale.com to register Charlie for Hillsdale.com. Okay, yesterday, there was a lot that happened at the White House. President Trump deserves enormous and repeated and public credit. He does not have to be doing this.

He's spending so much of his time and his political capital to now end his seventh war. By the way, if he did nothing out, if you just did two things and just went golfing the last four years, if he just ends wars and deportes illegal criminal invaders, that's legendary stuff. That's it. But he's doing so much more. He's getting woke out of the military, DEI.

He is reinvigorating the American economy, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. And almost none of this gets into the mainstream dialogue. Almost none of it. Seven wars. Can you even name this? India, Pakistan, Congo, Rwanda.

I think he ended one in Southeast Asia the other day. And how is he able to end these wars? with the threat of tariffs. And this is why Liberation Day was so important. And the media misses it. Honestly, some people in the conservative movement missed it. Remember during Liberation Day, we told everyone, hey, everyone, buy the dip. It's going to be okay.

It's going to be a little shaky. Do you remember Liberation Day? President Trump comes out with this big chart. And people said, he's a mad man. What is he doing? What President Donald Trump was doing was he was setting the world stage up for an expectation that he was willing to use the threat and the power of a tariff. and it was not just bluster.

You see, that's why the tariffs had to be implemented. That is why that tumbling of the stock market, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 points was necessary. He needed to show that this was not just a bluff. See, President Donald Trump on Liberation Day, it was a shot heard literally around the world. There it is right there. Thank you guys. Great work.

And everyone was freaking out and panicking and running around in circles and they were losing their mind. and Speaker Mike Johnson, who I really like, you know, called them up and said, sir, people are a panicking. And President Trump says, I like that. Panicking. And the word panicking was born. And people were running all over the place. And understandably, again, it's not a criticism towards Speaker Johnson because he was getting calls and calls and calls from business leaders. People were losing it.

But why does it matter? Now, looking back in August, the market is up. We've rebuilt all those gains. if you would have just bought the dip or held your stocks or doing even better than before, all of our advice was correct. However, this is why it mattered. President Donald Trump set a groundwork for a new mental model, for a new working relationship with the planet. You see, the prior working relationship is America had only certain tools at our disposal to be able to effectuate change and to be able to broker peace. The tools at our disposal were diplomatic. They were angrily worded letters.

That's what Biden would love to do. Let me send you a worded letter because your gay pride flag is not high enough in downtown Seoul, South Korea. How dare you not do gender affirming care in Tokyo? I'm going to go send Rahm Emanuel, my U.S. ambassador to Japan, to go scold you Japanese. Over time, the strongly worded letters and the diplomatic stuff. Now, there's other stuff. You could remove passports and visas. But no, no, no, if you want to get down to the heart of it, the fact that the United States is still the World Reserve Currency status.

The fact that we are now reemerging as a superpower with hegemonic Western Hemisphere Dominance, President Donald Trump, then he said to the entire world, even though the market went down, I'm willing to basically ruin your entire economy if you don't play ball. Donald Trump changed the incentives of war. Donald Trump changed the incentives of not playing along. And it is creative, it's bold, it's ambitious. And people thought he was just being a madman. Instead, it was the master at work.

And that sets the table then for the Russia-Ukrainian discussion. It sets the table for why Europe comes in very respectfully. Oh, yes, we love Mr. Trump. He's wonderful. He's so good. Please don't tell of me, Mr. Trump. They're smiling. I mean, you have Macron.

He is a wonderful person. You got the Europeans. I mean, whatever President Trump does, he points they go. A completely different working relationship than Trump 1.0. not there's a lot of parts to it but largely because they've resigned to kind of his alpha dominance of the West but one of the most important components that is lost on people is that and look at this he's just classes in session boys you got Italy you got Germany you got Finland boom boom boom you got the UK classes in session the teacher is is teaching take notes that's NATO he's

he's just commanding presence over all of NATO and what is the profundity of that one of the reasons why they are allowing trump to lead is they are so afraid that president donald trump could just drop the sword of damocles oh nice auto industry you got there germany be a shame of something happened to it follow my lead oh french wine mr macron do you want to keep on importing it to america then do then do my bidding and they're all looking at the ukrainian war maps so the context of how president trump is able to get these european elitists the chaperones of Zelensky, even into the table and willing to negotiate, the context all started on liberation day. The mental model, the working relationship all started when

President Trump thanked the markets, even though they're back to higher levels. It's hard to believe it was even possible, but the Democrat-run states are now more pro-abortion than ever, and will only get worse, unless you join me standing for life. This is Charlie Kirk, and we're saving babies right now with pre-born. Ultrasounds save lives. That's why pre-born gives free ultrasounds to girls and women. It's the truth they truly deserve, and it doubles the chance that she'll choose life. $140 gives five mothers a free ultrasound and saves babies. $280 can save 10 babies, and just $28 a month can save a baby a month for less than a dollar a day.

And a $15,000 gift will provide an ultrasound machine that will save lives for years to come. Ultrasounds save lives. It's the truth they truly deserve, and it doubles the chance that she'll choose life. you want to save one baby or five or hundreds, that opportunity is just a phone call or click away. Call 833850229 or click on the preborn banner at Charlie Kirk.com. That's 833850229. We'll click on the preborn banner at Charlie Kirk.com. Okay, so that table is set. So President Donald Trump is leading the Europeans. And by the way, deep down, the Europeans want to be led. It's kind of in their psychology. It's in their temperament.

Europeans are not, at this current moment, post-World War II with the battered psychology and the post-World War II order, they need to be led either by the East or by the West. They're going to be led by the Chinese Communist Party, or they're going to be led by President Trump and the American nation. Europe used to be great. And really, honestly, World War II and the EU totally messed them up. If you look back post-World War II, yes, the Allies won, but all of Europe lost. That's the best way

that you could put it. The Allies won but 70, 80 years later, all of Europe lost. Now, of course, we defeated the Nazis and that's amazing. We should celebrate that. But the Europe needs a leader who will tell them, it's okay to have an economy. It's okay to have

cheap energy. It's okay to have a military and it's okay to have a border. And so the United States, all a sudden, hey, dad's home, unlike Joe Biden, which was just allowing all the maniacs for four years, run the entire operation. Europe has been searching for this leader for the last couple of years.

And they deep down want the United States to be the superpower because they have far more in alignment of values and worldview than the Chinese Communist Party. Now, we risk playing our hand too heavy. That's part of it. If you antagonize the European leaders too much, but I think President Donald Trump has done the harsh tariff lesson with a little bit of a charm offensive as well. You got Moroni there. You've got Mokron, great working relationship with President Trump.

So all of that is the table set. Meanwhile, President Trump just had a very important and warm meeting as well with Vladimir Putin. So the meeting goes yesterday and Mr. Zelensky came far more prepared for the meeting than he did previously. He said the right things. He was polite. He was cordial. He was respectful. He was very grateful.

He dressed nicer. This was happening during our show yesterday. We're going to go through some tape here. But now you know the table is set. Let's go to 350. Will Zelensky continue to send troops to their death or is he ready to end it? Play cut 350. President Zelensky, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple years?

Or are you going to agree to redraw the mass? Thank you for your question. So, first of all, you know, we live under each day attacks, you know, that today have been a lot of attacks and a lot of wounded people and the child was dead, a small one, one year and a half. So we need to stop this war to stop Russia and we need support, American and European partners. We will do our best. And look at the balancing at that President Trump's had to do here. So the Liberation Day set the table for why Europe has come to the table. Now, what set the table for why Vladimir Putin flew across Asia to Alaska?

Well, that can be best explained in the hills of Iran. The fact that President Donald Trump was able to show the American Air Force might fly all the way out and take out the Iranian nuclear facilities, that he was able to thread that needle, he was able to put up. on a master class. You see, Vladimir Putin said, oh, got it. See, all they understand is force. And then President Trump starts to feed more armaments to Ukraine, which again, we were not big fans of.

But I always put the asterisk, if President Trump is going to send more arms to Ukraine to get a peace deal, then I'm all for it. And we're going to have the confidence in President Trump to be able to do that because he has more than earned our confidence. And NATO bought the arms. And so it was a little bit different than Joe Biden, just A-C-H-H. the money right into the Ukrainian pension fund, but it's all about leverage. So President Trump, if you look back, wow, if he's able to get this done, it did not just

happen in an isolated moment. It happened from flying B2 bombers all the way across the planet to Iran, and also the tariff setup happened on Liberation Day. Let's go this here. This is President Trump. This is Usela von der Leyen. That's quite a European name. Ursula. Playcutt 377 of Ursula von Deleyen.

Together, as the two largest and biggest economies in the world, we had the largest trade deal ever, agreed. And now we are here to work together with you on a just and lasting peace for Ukraine stop the killing. This is really our common interest, stop the killing. And indeed, it's very good to hear that we're working on the security guarantees, Article 5 lies, security guarantees so important. But I want to thank you also that you mentioned the thousands of Ukrainian children that have been abducted. And as a mother and grandmother, every single child has to go back to its family. This should be one of our main priorities also in these negotiations to make sure that the children come back to Ukraine to their families. Honestly, the most impressive part

about Ursula, I was just looking at this up. She has seven kids. Good for you, Ursula. Not only are you the head of the European Commission, but you have seven children. That is quite rare in Europe to have anybody with seven kids that doesn't have the last name Khan or the first name, Muhammad. So good for you. The Ursulas of Europe need to have seven kids. Now, what was she saying there that is so important? She was basically saying we need to stop the killing. And that is the main priority here.

And then it sets the table for yet another meeting. You cannot get to the third meeting if you didn't meet with Putin and then you didn't meet with Zelensky. 7,000 people dying a week. And if you want to have some hope, it's that both sides are saying they want to stop the killing. So eventually they're going to break and hopefully come to some negotiated settlement. We hope. Let's play this one here. Let's play cut 374.

It's President Trump's closing remarks. Again, he is the CEO. He is the managing director of this entire thing. only the United States of America could end this only and he deserves enormous moral credit for inserting himself 7,000 people dying a week for what what is the objective he is acting as the chief executive officer of the Western world play cut 374 we're going to solve this or is this horrible fighting and to continue we'll do the best together get it ended, and I believe you have two willing parties, and usually that's good news, but

two willing parties, I want to make a deal. And we'll journey together, and we'll go over, and we'll see if it can be done. And it's possible it might not be able to be done. On the other hand, it's possible it will, and we'll save thousands and thousands of lives a week, and so it's something we really have to do, or at least we have to give it our best. It's all you can give it your best, but I think we may have a very good outcome. By the way, people always say all the time, oh, is President Trump isn't presidential? That right there, that 40 seconds, what could be more presidential than that?

What could be more presidential than weighing the human cost, establishing your perspective, and the balance? Because you can't overly antagonize Vladimir Putin, you see? You can't overly antagonize the Russian Federation because Russia gets a vote here as well. This is, now we have this here, hopefully that will allow us to get to a trilateral meeting. Here is Susan Rice, who was Obama's national security advisor, reacting to President Trump's masterclass of bringing both parties to the table, being able to satisfy the Europeans very positively, keeping Putin and his entire camp warm enough to bring him to a third meeting. here's Susan Rice, play cut 362, total fraud. I mean, really, Nicole, it's pathetic. It's been clearly and repeatedly established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election

by disinformation campaigns, by social media efforts, by all sorts of means short of manipulating the actual vote. And that's just a fact. Literally, this is all they have. We now know that the quote-unquote Russian interference was just to sow discord and disunity and not to favor a certain canon. In fact, we have overwhelming evidence that Russia resisted helping Donald Trump, despite very, very negative stories about Hillary Clinton, that they could have dropped. Honestly, I thought that clip was from 2018. I thought that was from the Helsinki Summit. Was that really recent?

I thought that was like a Helsinki summit. I actually thought that was a seven-year-old clip from Susan Rice. She could have said that exact same thing right after the Helsinki summit with President Trump back. I think it was in the summer of 2018, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, summer of 2018. No, I think it is recent because it showed Trump on the tarmac with the red carpet. Let's go to cut 363. Instead of doing the things that would strengthen the Ukrainian, Western NATO, U.S.

U.S. partnership on their side of the table against Putin. He is rolling out the red carpet, doing military flyovers, giving him a ride in the presidential limousine, and getting none of what he went to Alaska to get. No ceasefire, no imposition of tough consequences and sanctions. It was, as I said earlier, it was just melting. Susan Rice, please come on our show. You're welcome. You have an open invite anytime, Ms. Rice.

We will allow you to answer uninterrupted, but we will ask you questions. I don't think anyone's ever asked you because we're going to have to reprogram some of that muscle memory there. Rice participated in Russia Gate on December 9th, 2016. She was in the famous meeting. How much blame does Susan Rice deserve for all those dead Ukrainians? She has blood on her hands, and President Trump is trying to clean up and stop the bleeding. She helped mismanage the Russia relationships that led us to this. pile of unnecessary carnage.

Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. I want to play one other tape here and just complete the point here, which is president, because President Trump has a third party. He also has to keep happy, the American people. So he's got to keep Putin happy. He's got to keep the Europeans happy. And obviously the most important, the infinitely important thing is why he's here. And that is why cut 359 is so important.

The triangulation. Keep Putin, keep Zelensky, and the whole European cabal, and then us. Play cut 359. What kind of assurances do you feel like you have that going forward and, you know, past this Trump administration, it won't be American boots on the ground defending that border? Well, you have my assurance, you know, I'm president, and I'm just trying to stop people from being killed. I'm just trying to stop people from being killed. No U.S. troops, full assurance.

So that is the triangulation strategy. Boom, boom, boom. Europeans with a little bit of fear, a little bit of carrot, a little bit of stick, a little bit of sweet. Putin. That's a whole different operation on the American people. You keep all three happy. You can end this endless pile of carnage. If you guys have privacy, the loan debt, this is the best way out.

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Chris Wright. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the program. First time, great to see you. First, Mr. Secretary, you come from a very accomplished business career. And now you are in government. How has that transition been? And what have you learned now that you have to fight bureaucrats all day long and the environmental lobby? Thanks for having me, Charlie. Yeah, look, I'm one of those people. I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I've always said, I'm never going to be in government. They move slow. I don't even want to be in a big company. I want to be hard driving and make stuff happen. But in this government, with President Trump, it is fast-moving. It is business-like. If we want to lean in and take a risk, we should fix this policy. The president says,

absolutely, find some more things to fix. So it isn't the slow-moving bureaucratic thing I feared under President Trump's leadership. And the rest of the capital, So it is a wild change. My powers or ability to do things are quite different in the government than they are in business. But in this government, I am highly confident we will make massive changes in these four years. And I'm proud and honored to be here to do it. Because it matters. We have needlessly victimized Americans with expensive energy and pushed industries overseas. That's just wrong. And with this president, we're going to stop it. That's phenomenal to hear. And that's a great setup. So let's take a step.

back. Talk about what you inherited. What was the Department of Energy doing before your leadership under Joe Biden? What were their priorities? What were their investments? What was their worldview? And how does your now daily grind contrast with the last administration? You know, we talk a lot about, of course, the Ukraine-Russian war and ending that. We talk about the economy. But the energy is literally, in the most literal sense, not metaphorically, the life force of a civilization. It is the lifeblood. You cannot have. have growth. You cannot have AI. You cannot have people flying from New York to LA affordably if you do not have energy. So talk about what you inherited. Talk about what the

previous Department of Energy was doing. And then contrasts that with your work. Yeah. So the previous Department of Energy, as you heard for those four years, and you didn't hear a lot for them. They were kind of behind the scenes. But they were part of this all of government battle against climate change as they would describe it. So all of the money, all the focus, all the effort was on wind, solar, batteries, and electric vehicles. Collectively, wind, solar, and batteries are 3% of the United States energy. Hundreds of billions of dollars, it's 3% of our energy, and everywhere they've achieved meaningful penetration,

you get more expensive electricity prices. So just a train wreck that was not going to change the energy system of the United States. And in fact, they actively stood in front of natural gas, our fastest growing source of energy, and our fastest growing export. You heard about the LNG pause, and I don't know if I have time to go into that, but they actually did a whole report

before the pause that showed economically it was positive for the United States and it was going to slightly lower greenhouse gas emissions, more LNG exports. And they hated that answer so much. They buried the report,

never spoke about it, although when I got in, we found it. A much longer report than they ultimately released later. But just, so again, they were against energy, the energy that powers our world. They were willing to be dishonest and they thought all of the nonsense they were doing was somehow going to stop climate change and make the world safer. Just again, also completely contrary to the facts and the data.

So it's been quite a change. Yeah. And so that, and you've taken on the entire kind of climate science world. Energy Department attacks client assignments and contentious report. By the way, you're in safe company here. We think this is all politicized. This is driven towards a environmentalist agenda that is trying to weaken American energy dominance. The agency asked five client skeptics to write a report criticizing the consensus on global warming. First of all, science does not have consensus. This is a very important thing, right? Science says nothing.

Scientists say things, okay? Science never talks. Science is silent. This is a good thing that complied everything. Scientists say things. And scientists, like we learned during COVID, we learned during the lockdown. learn during the vaccines can say a lot of different things with the data now again global warming does not have consensus like the second law of thermodynamics global warming does not have consensus

like a object at rest will stay at rest your reaction uh mr secretary and how you think about this because they again let me read this new york times article the consensus on global warming what what an outrageous claim your your thoughts sir yeah i always give the contrast between The science, which is what the left likes, which is the opposite of science. Science is a process of challenge and engagement and debate and wrestling with data. And if the data doesn't agree with your model, your model is wrong. Where the science is this top-down, authority-driven thing. Used with COVID, to me, was the climate movement.

And fast forward, the science told you what to do. But as you said, Charlie, look at those critics. They critique the authors, five skeptics. Well, skeptical of what? They presented, these are five highly distinguished scientists. One of them was Undersecretary for Science in the Obama administration. Provost at Caltech, PhD from MIT, all of those scientists were accomplished scientists that are also tired of this censorship of the science, censoring real science and real process of engagement.

But even on my CNN interview a couple weeks ago, I went on to talk about the climate report. There are zero questions about climate change. Zero. They want to impugn the writers or impugn the way we reference people. They want to find little things. What we want to talk about is the data. Let's talk about climate science. Like, it's a real phenomenon. It's a slow-moving phenomenon, not even remotely close to the world's biggest problem, but it's used by the left to justify big government and top-down control of everything. Let's be honest. Let's engage in real science, as you said. That's what we're about. And I'm excited to have that debate over four years. We're going to, we're going to end a lot of

children's nightmares. We're going to end a lot of people trying to be pushed around and bullied by people that don't know what they're talking about. Like, I've spent 20 years studying climate science and physical data. And the people who are passionate about it never want to debate me because they don't know anything about it. But we're going to have that debate, whether they want it or not. Science is a process. It doesn't tell you anything. People tell you. Science is a method. It's a methodology and good science, which again is a verb, they act as if, well, science, you know, put something out. No, you do science. You go in exploration of truth. And then once you have a conclusion, you have to measure it, you have to analyze it, you have to inquire it,

you have to cross-reference it. And by way, we're bringing back that methodology to our government, RFK at HHS, and you at the Department of Energy. Last question, Secretary Chris right doing a great job department energy how are we going to be able to scale up our electricity output drastically in years to come we we see the united kingdom with the highest electricity rates in the world what is your plan to do that because americans inherited very high electricity rates and some are still paying too much in electricity we need to solve that exactly and you mentioned the united kingdom in germany two countries that went down the policy pathway the Biden administration wanted to go down. They tripled their electricity prices. They pushed all their

industry out of their countries. And yet the Biden administration wanted to do that. That's just crazy. So we're going to bring common sense back to energy. We're going to let utilities and data center developers build what makes sense economically for them. We're not going to have mandates or subsidies to build unreliable electricity generating systems. People want to build solar. are fine, go build it. But most all wind and solar and new transmission lines that have been built had been because they're heavily subsidized. We paid people to put unreliable electricity on the grid. We knew where that was leading, more expensive electricity and less stable grids. That's the direction we've gone. We're going to reverse that direction. Build new generation. Of course,

in the short term, it'll mostly be natural gas. Nuclear will also come online, but we're going to let market forces make those decisions. Every state in America that has, has expensive electricity prices. They have it because the politicians chose it. It isn't bad luck. It isn't anything. It was chosen by their politicians. California decided to have expensive electricity and push their industry out and impoverished their people, as did New England and New York and now New Jersey. These are all bad choices. This is one of the most important things happening in the country. Thank you so much. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thanks, Charlie. Great to be with you. Thanks so much for listening.

everybody email us as always freedom at charley kirk.com thanks so much for listening and god bless for more on many of these stories and news you can trust go to charley kirk.com