The Charlie Kirk Show - How to Take On Big Tech and WIN—Lessons from Ron DeSantis
Aired: 2021-02-04
Duration: 35:28

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, takes on big tech in a way that is a blueprint for conservatives all across the country.
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[00:00:48]  Ron DeSantis takes on big tech.
[00:00:50]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:52]  Here we go.
[00:00:53]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:55]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:57]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:01:00]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:01:04]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:01:05]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:01:06]  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.
[00:01:14]  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.
[00:01:23]  That's why we are here.
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[00:02:54]  Hey, everybody, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show today.
[00:02:57]  Honor to be with you today.
[00:02:59]  Of course, make sure you subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
[00:03:02]  We have some really exciting new episodes there, including an exclusive conversation with none other than Eric Metaxas.
[00:03:11]  I'm here at my very good friend's place, the Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona.
[00:03:17]  Hello to everybody in Phoenix, Arizona.
[00:03:19]  So I want to get to a story here that has really caught my attention.
[00:03:24]  There are a lot of people that have been complaining about big tech over the last couple weeks and last couple months.
[00:03:32]  Those complaints are well received.
[00:03:38]  Those complaints are around the accusations that big tech is censoring conservative voices.
[00:03:48]  And this is not even up for debate.
[00:03:50]  There's a couple studies that we'll get into that are funded by the tech companies that say that conservatives being banned on social media is a myth.
[00:03:57]  Well, the president literally has no access to social media, former President Trump.
[00:04:04]  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of social media tech censorship.
[00:04:10]  Not to mention the monopolistic practices, the predominant nature of the political affiliation of their employees, how willing they are to kowtow to the most radical left-wing activist voices.
[00:04:23]  We know the threat that big tech poses to our country, big tech and big data.
[00:04:31]  So a lot of people have been wondering: well, how do we fight back against big tech?
[00:04:36]  Do we try to repeal Section 230?
[00:04:38]  Yeah, that's a good idea.
[00:04:40]  It's probably not going to happen with the Democrats controlling the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.
[00:04:44]  Why the Republicans didn't do it when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the presidency is beyond me.
[00:04:49]  Should we try and push back against them for antitrust?
[00:04:54]  It's probably a good idea, but it's unrealistic given the fact that Joe Biden has just staffed the Department of Justice with former tech staffers that have worked for these companies.
[00:05:07]  But all those things should be tried and tested.
[00:05:12]  One area that conservatives control that we have never utilized is the states.
[00:05:22]  You see, when the Democrats find a source of power that they don't like, when the Democrats find an organization or they see a group of conservatives that they don't like, they instantaneously and immediately use their constitutional power on a state level to go after that conservative group or even just a industry they don't like.
[00:05:45]  A great example is the California Attorney General going after ExxonMobil, largely unfairly.
[00:05:52]  Another example would be the New York Attorney General going after the National Rifle Association.
[00:06:01]  The National Rifle Association rarely ever endorses Democrats.
[00:06:05]  It is a pro-Second Amendment organization, and the left has despised the NRA for decades.
[00:06:13]  Google is a more powerful, more sophisticated, more solvent NRA for the left.
[00:06:21]  Google is a political advocacy company for Democrats.
[00:06:26]  There are very few people on the conservative side that are actually fighting right now, that are actually taking stances against the most pressing and urgent needs for our country.
[00:06:47]  One governor is showing the rest of the country how to lead.
[00:06:55]  He delivered a state that is the third most populous state in the country, a battleground state, to Donald Trump by 400,000 votes, despite Michael Bloomberg spending $2 million a day the last 60 days of the campaign.
[00:07:10]  It was a blowout.
[00:07:12]  He had safe and secure elections with all of the election results in by 9.30 Eastern on election night with zero allegations of fraud.
[00:07:23]  We're, of course, talking about Governor Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida.
[00:07:27]  And now Ron DeSantis, being a leader, is exhausted with seeing conservative bluster in Washington, D.C., and is now actually pushing back against the tech tyranny that we have seen.
[00:07:45]  Not just talking about it, not just doing a press conference, not just giving lip service like most Republicans are trained to do, but doing something about it.
[00:07:54]  Ron DeSantis has come out and said, quote, as these companies have grown and their influence has expanded, big tech has come to look more like Big Brother with each passing day.
[00:08:08]  He's right.
[00:08:09]  But this is 2021, not 1984.
[00:08:12]  And this is real life, not George Orwell's fiction.
[00:08:15]  These companies exert monopoly power over a centrally important forum and the public discourse and the access of information that Floridians rely on.
[00:08:26]  He continued by saying that if these companies violate the new rules that are put forward by Florida, then these companies, these tech companies, could be fined up to $100,000 a day.
[00:08:47]  Now, that might not be a lot of money for these tech companies, but $100,000 a day, if I do my math correctly, is about either $36.5 million or $365 million.
[00:09:04]  No, that's right, $36.5 million a year.
[00:09:08]  That's about the cost of Facebook and Google's lobbying budget every single year.
[00:09:13]  However, if this piece of legislation passes in the Florida State House and State Senate and gets signed into law by Ron DeSantis, which it looks like it will, what if other states followed?
[00:09:27]  South Dakota, North Dakota, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia.
[00:09:36]  What if South Dakota came out and said, we'll find you $250,000 a day if you continue to crack down on conservative voices?
[00:09:43]  Now, you might say, oh, it's no big deal.
[00:09:45]  These tech companies can never be challenged.
[00:09:48]  Just the threat of state-based legislation against these tech companies is enough to challenge and push back against the behavior that they have been displaying and exhibiting.
[00:10:04]  Ron DeSantis says, quote, the message is loud and clear.
[00:10:06]  When it comes to elections in Florida, big tech should stay out of it, which, of course, he's talking about big tech that did not allow the story of Hunter Biden or Joe Biden to be spread on any of their tech platforms going into November.
[00:10:20]  The Washington Post, which is funded by a tech company itself, Amazon, came out and said, quote, the claim of anti-conservative animus in itself is a form of disinformation, a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it.
[00:10:33]  No trustworthy large-scale studies have determined that conservative content is being removed for ideological reasons or that searches are being manipulated to favor liberal interests.
[00:10:43]  Just the way they word that is so deceiving.
[00:10:46]  Let's word this again.
[00:10:47]  Let's go through this again.
[00:10:48]  This is a study from some tech company that was funded by some tech company.
[00:10:54]  Conservative content is being removed for ideological reasons.
[00:10:57]  No, they don't remove conservative content ever for ideological reasons.
[00:11:02]  They remove it because they say it's a violation of their terms of service, which of course is actually they don't like the ideology, but they hide behind some stupid paperwork.
[00:11:10]  That's what they end up doing.
[00:11:12]  So it's incredibly deceiving the way that they worded this.
[00:11:18]  When we have clear and present threats against our country, the question should be, why are more governors not standing up against this like Ron DeSantis?
[00:11:26]  Ron DeSantis is a governor of a battleground state, yet he's governing as if he's the governor of Texas.
[00:11:34]  Governor Abbott should step up.
[00:11:37]  I'm sure Governor Christy Noam will step up and pass similar pieces of legislation.
[00:11:43]  Ron DeSantis has already taught us how to do elections in our country, how to do them safely and securely, and now he's leading the charge on how to hold big tech accountable.
[00:11:52]  Republicans control 28 state legislatures, state senates, and governor's mansions.
[00:11:59]  28.
[00:12:02]  My friend, Governor Gianforte in Montana, I will send him a note encouraging him to support this kind of legislation.
[00:12:09]  If we are going to have the robber barons of our time, if we are going to have these companies with unchecked influence, it's about time that the conservative states stand up and rise up and say, You are suppressing our citizens, you're interfering with our elections.
[00:12:24]  And we're not going to take it any longer.
[00:12:26]  We will fine you, we will put you in court, we'll pass legislation that makes it impossible to do business in our state if your pattern of behavior continues.
[00:12:38]  Ron DeSantis is showing us how we use the power the people gave us to protect freedom and liberty.
[00:12:48]  Look, a lot of people are getting canceled unnecessarily.
[00:12:51]  And the fact is, the internet never forgets.
[00:12:54]  There's never been a more important time to protect your internet activity.
[00:12:57]  That's why I urge you to get ExpressVPN.
[00:12:59]  Everything you search for, watch, or click online can be tracked by big tech companies.
[00:13:03]  They can match your activity to your true identity using your device's unique IP address, which is why I switch on ExpressVPN with my computer or phone.
[00:13:12]  My IP address is masked by a secure VPN server, which makes it harder for websites to identify me.
[00:13:18]  The ExpressVPN app also encrypts my network data to protect my sense of information from being compromised.
[00:13:22]  Plus, you can use ExpressVPN on up to five devices simultaneously.
[00:13:26]  So multiple users on your network can stay safe with a single subscription.
[00:13:31]  What I like most is how easy it is to use.
[00:13:33]  It just takes one click to protect all your devices.
[00:13:35]  That's why they are rated the number one VPN by CNET and Wired.
[00:13:39]  So stop handing over all your data to big tech companies.
[00:13:42]  Go with the VPN I trust with my online protection.
[00:13:44]  It's on my phone right now.
[00:13:46]  Visit expressvpn.com/slash Charlie.
[00:13:48]  That's expressvpn.com/slash Charlie to get three months free on a one-year package.
[00:13:52]  That's expresvpn.com/slash Charlie to get three extra months free.
[00:13:58]  Go to expressvpn.com/slash Charlie right now to learn more.
[00:14:04]  And so I want to get to some more sound here of Governor Ron DeSantis, who is leading the constitutional reset in our country.
[00:14:14]  Not the great reset, but the constitutional reset to bring us back to our constitutional roots.
[00:14:19]  Remember, the states created the federal government.
[00:14:21]  The federal government did not create the states.
[00:14:25]  We are a bottom-up country, not a top-down country.
[00:14:28]  And so, if these big tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley are going to want to make America in their image or remake America in their image, they're going to have to go through a series of states, not just through executive federal fiat.
[00:14:43]  And Governor Ron DeSantis is showing us heroically and courageously how to fight.
[00:14:47]  This is a fight that he does not have to pick, by the way.
[00:14:50]  He's going up against the trillionaire class of Menlo Park.
[00:14:54]  He's going up against people that can change search results to manipulate what people think of him.
[00:15:00]  He's in the re-election cycle.
[00:15:02]  But Governor Ron DeSantis seems to be putting the well-being of the state of Florida, a state of which I am a resident in, a proud resident in, to have a governor like this who takes a stand.
[00:15:13]  Let's go to Cut 38, where Ron DeSantis says: if the Hunter Biden story was true, we rely on social media so we can get around corporate legacy media.
[00:15:21]  He's speaking my language.
[00:15:22]  Cut 38.
[00:15:24]  Well, I think it's been done in a way that's completely unprincipled.
[00:15:28]  They mentioned the Hunter Biden.
[00:15:30]  Hunter Biden's story was true.
[00:15:33]  Okay, we now know it was true.
[00:15:35]  And the typical corporate media outlets, they just chose to ignore it.
[00:15:39]  Obviously, they wanted to beat Trump.
[00:15:42]  They had a view on the election.
[00:15:44]  They didn't want to give it any air.
[00:15:46]  So we rely on social media to go around that, not let corporate legacy media outlets control the discourse and let us speak.
[00:15:55]  So you had the New York Post to run it, and you couldn't get any traction.
[00:15:58]  You couldn't get any reach on it because big tech put their thumb on the scale.
[00:16:02]  So that was true.
[00:16:03]  What they said at the time, oh, it's a conspiracy or it's based on hacked information.
[00:16:10]  Are you kidding me?
[00:16:12]  Where are members of Congress saying that?
[00:16:14]  Where are members of Congress standing up and demanding action?
[00:16:19]  But here's the brilliance of the system that our founding fathers gave us.
[00:16:24]  Our founding fathers never wanted a purely federal system.
[00:16:28]  We do have a federal government for certain reasons.
[00:16:33]  But I think we have lost the critical nature and the importance of states' rights.
[00:16:39]  Now, mind you, every time a Democrat becomes president, it seems as if we reimmerse ourselves in the Federalist Papers and we talk about states' rights.
[00:16:47]  Democrats are unafraid to use states' rights to try and push forth unconstitutional policies such as sanctuary cities, their own immigration laws, in defiance to federal law.
[00:16:58]  But this is not even in defiance to federal law.
[00:17:01]  This is the governor of Florida saying, if you are going to have Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube used and monetized and profit off of the citizens of Florida, then you are not going to be able to interfere with elections.
[00:17:19]  You're not going to be able to manipulate data.
[00:17:22]  And you are not going to be able to act in the way you have been.
[00:17:25]  Let's go to Cut 39, where Governor Ron DeSantis has, let's just say, a pretty good response to one of these reporters.
[00:17:30]  Cut 39.
[00:17:32]  You're trying to tell me if there was hacked information that could damage me, you guys wouldn't print it.
[00:17:37]  Give me a break.
[00:17:38]  You can whiz on my leg, but don't tell me it's raining.
[00:17:41]  You guys would print it every single day if you could.
[00:17:43]  And big tech would allow it to proliferate every single day 24-7.
[00:17:48]  So it's not being done in a principled basis.
[00:17:51]  And it's not, there's threats on me.
[00:17:54]  And it only gets taken down if law enforcement goes and tells them to do it.
[00:17:58]  Otherwise, it just stays up.
[00:18:00]  They're not moderating any of that.
[00:18:02]  So they haven't done a good job in it.
[00:18:04]  The thumb's always on the scale in one direction.
[00:18:07]  And we just need to bring we need to bring some protection for folks.
[00:18:10]  I really, really worry when you have a business owner that may rely on some of these tools to do small business.
[00:18:18]  If they engage in wrongthink or they go to the wrong political event, then all of a sudden they can act in concert and just take you off.
[00:18:25]  You need to have protection against that.
[00:18:27]  If Governor Ron DeSantis ever wants to run for the presidency, he's sure starting off pretty strong.
[00:18:34]  And again, it's too early to talk about what's going to happen in the years to come.
[00:18:37]  But when a lot of people are floating out names of people that have good name ID or good slogans, you have Governor Ron DeSantis, the governor of the third largest state in the country, who delivered the state for 400,000 plus votes for Donald Trump, the safest and securest elections with no allegations of fraud.
[00:18:55]  And now he's going after big tech and he's protecting your freedom and liberty.
[00:18:59]  But Ron DeSantis is leaning into the constitutional firewall that our founding fathers gave us.
[00:19:05]  And Florida is full of people like me that left Illinois and we're trying to seek a state that at least some form of sanity.
[00:19:13]  In fact, I was just reading this article in the break to our friends at AM560, The Answer in Chicago.
[00:19:20]  Illinois has lost more residents since 2010 than all but one state.
[00:19:26]  Illinois has the 46th worst lowest growth rate in the country, which is unbelievable considering its population.
[00:19:34]  The outward migration of Illinois is extraordinary.
[00:19:37]  Speaking to WBEZ, Aaron Aylman, who is the head of CMAP, which I'm not really sure what that is, says, quote, we need to shore up our policies that we need to attract and retain business and identify those places where businesses might want to locate.
[00:19:52]  Do you know what the property tax is for a commercial building in Cook County every single year?
[00:19:57]  6%.
[00:19:58]  You can't do business with a 6% property tax rate in Illinois.
[00:20:04]  6%.
[00:20:05]  That's commercial.
[00:20:07]  So for my friends listening on AM560D Answer, here's my piece of advice.
[00:20:12]  Sarasota is beautiful this time of year.
[00:20:14]  So back to the state of freedom and liberty of Florida.
[00:20:16]  Let's get to Cut 48, Governor Ron DeSantis.
[00:20:19]  Yeah, and it's more than that.
[00:20:20]  I mean, I think we're going to do three different things.
[00:20:22]  One is protect Floridians' data privacy from big tech, which is a huge issue.
[00:20:27]  As you said, protect big tech from interfering in an election.
[00:20:31]  And that may mean you de-platform a candidate you don't like.
[00:20:35]  Two guesses as to which type of candidate big tech wouldn't like.
[00:20:38]  But it also means doing the algorithms in a way that will suppress stories or accelerate them to benefit a candidate.
[00:20:46]  That's effectively an in-kind contribution.
[00:20:48]  And then the general protections for deplatforming users.
[00:20:53]  And what we're allowing people to do is bring civil suits under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Statute, an anti-fraud statute.
[00:21:02]  There is so much there.
[00:21:03]  Now, Governor Ron DeSantis went to Yale, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:21:09]  He was a congressman, and then became governor.
[00:21:13]  In that short clip, there was more wisdom about the threat of big tech than I have heard from most of the Republican Party in the last couple of years.
[00:21:19]  Let's go step by step of what he said.
[00:21:22]  In-kind contribution.
[00:21:25]  I've been making this point for years, and I'm thrilled to see someone in a position of leadership of the third largest state focus on this.
[00:21:36]  So, for example, if Mark Zuckerberg writes a check to the Democrat Party, that is considered a contribution, a $10 million contribution in cash.
[00:21:48]  If Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google, writes a check to Raphael Warnock's Senate campaign for $5 million, that's a contribution.
[00:21:58]  If someone running for office gets on Jeff Bezos' plane for a political reason, that's an in-kind contribution.
[00:22:08]  So it's not a cash contribution, but it's a contribution of assets that they had used for a political purpose.
[00:22:13]  The argument that Ron DeSantis is making is that when Facebook comes in and does not allow Donald Trump's content to be shared, when Facebook comes in and says you cannot spread bad stories about Hunter Biden, when Twitter does the same, it is no different than if Mark Zuckerberg were to write a $10 million check to the Joe Biden campaign.
[00:22:33]  It's no different.
[00:22:35]  It's a really smart legal argument that Ron DeSantis is making here.
[00:22:40]  And what he said is that we are going to allow people to sue these tech companies in Florida court under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
[00:22:47]  Whoa.
[00:22:48]  The Silicon Valley companies are meeting right now.
[00:22:52]  There's a conference call that happened today about Ron DeSantis in Menlo Park.
[00:22:58]  The general counsel for Facebook is trying to brainstorm ideas and loopholes where they can work around Ron DeSantis.
[00:23:06]  But here's the brilliance.
[00:23:08]  Ron DeSantis is using the left's own precedent against them.
[00:23:13]  The left has used the power of the states to go after nonprofits, corporations, and entities that they did not like that were on the conservative or free market side, from ExxonMobil to the NRA to many others.
[00:23:26]  So Ron DeSantis has the sovereignty of the state of Florida.
[00:23:29]  He is allowed to regulate commerce in his state as he sees fit.
[00:23:34]  Now, Ron DeSantis can't regulate what happens between Georgia and Florida.
[00:23:38]  That's a federal issue.
[00:23:40]  But Ron DeSantis has full authority over what businesses can and cannot do in his state, especially through the state legislature.
[00:23:49]  And California has already set this precedent.
[00:23:53]  If you're a nonprofit in California, you must disclose your donors to the California Attorney General.
[00:23:59]  Federal law, who cares?
[00:24:02]  And so the left and the Democrats have used their states to make America in their image.
[00:24:09]  So Ron DeSantis is basically saying, so why are we waiting for Congress to do this?
[00:24:14]  We hold the cards.
[00:24:15]  The Constitution says clearly that anything that is not delegated specifically in the Constitution goes to the states and the people.
[00:24:22]  That's the 10th Amendment.
[00:24:24]  Says it.
[00:24:25]  There is not a clause in the United States Constitution around big tech.
[00:24:30]  There is about free speech.
[00:24:31]  There is about personal privacy.
[00:24:32]  Therefore, Ron DeSantis is saying everything that happens in the state of Florida is under Florida jurisdiction.
[00:24:38]  What happens in California is their own problem.
[00:24:42]  And that's exactly the precedent, by the way, of how these states, through liberal left-leaning advocacy efforts, have been able to legalize marijuana.
[00:24:53]  They've been able to raise taxes.
[00:24:57]  So there's no constitutional measure that these tech companies are going to be able to use to prevent the third largest state from pushing back.
[00:25:10]  It was Gibbons versus Ogden, which Congress may regulate interstate commerce.
[00:25:16]  Got to remember my Supreme Court case is a little bit sharper on that.
[00:25:22]  Which is, can states pass laws that challenge the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce?
[00:25:28]  And the answer is yes, but the states still control everything that happens within their own states, which is exactly why in Nevada, they have casino gaming, whereas it's very rare in most states to have that.
[00:25:46]  If you're not on a Native American reservation or near a body of water, it's very hard to get gaming licenses in most states.
[00:25:52]  States created the federal government.
[00:25:54]  The federal government didn't create the states.
[00:25:56]  These tech companies, as we predicted, overplayed their hand.
[00:26:02]  They got too cocky.
[00:26:03]  They got too confident.
[00:26:05]  And they expose themselves now to a coalition of states saying, if Congress is not going to do anything, we will.
[00:26:14]  How much money do you think Facebook has made off to the citizens of Florida the last decade?
[00:26:18]  It's the third largest state in the country.
[00:26:21]  How many YouTube content creators now live in Miami?
[00:26:24]  That one guy who thinks he's a boxer, Jake Paul, is that his name?
[00:26:28]  He lives in Miami now.
[00:26:29]  He's made YouTube billions of dollars with all of the video revenue they've done.
[00:26:38]  So there's no claim that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter can say, oh, we don't need Florida.
[00:26:43]  No, no, they need Florida.
[00:26:45]  You see, if South Dakota led the charge on this, maybe Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube would say, ah, maybe we're just going to turn ourselves off in South Dakota.
[00:26:52]  Now, now you're talking about a state that is the third largest state.
[00:26:58]  I don't know the population of Florida.
[00:27:00]  I'm guessing it's probably about 28 million.
[00:27:03]  I'm going to get a fact check on that.
[00:27:05]  28 million, probably.
[00:27:07]  California is about, what, 36 million?
[00:27:09]  36 million?
[00:27:12]  Yeah, usually the rule is about you get an electoral vote for about every 800,000 people.
[00:27:16]  So if you multiply that out, it's probably 25, 26 million.
[00:27:19]  That's a massive market with a lot of purchasing power.
[00:27:23]  21.9 million people in Florida.
[00:27:25]  I wasn't that far off.
[00:27:27]  800,000 per electoral vote.
[00:27:29]  That's about right.
[00:27:32]  So, Ron DeSantis is the person that holds the cards now.
[00:27:34]  And guess what?
[00:27:36]  Now, we as grassroots conservatives, and you're listening to this on our national radio program and you're listening to this on our podcast, go contact your state legislatures and have every single conservative state pass this right now, carbon copy of the Florida bill, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Iowa.
[00:27:54]  And all of a sudden, you're going to, these tech companies are going to realize California's 39 million.
[00:28:00]  Anyway, these tech companies are going to realize that the infrastructure they have for lobbying was all for Washington, D.C. Facebook is scrambling to now go hire a lobbyist to get on a plane to Tallahassee.
[00:28:18]  The Facebook Government Affairs Office has never heard of Tallahassee before.
[00:28:22]  They only care about D.C. Because everything they've been worrying about is federal government monopolistic breakups.
[00:28:29]  Everything they've been worrying about is influencing members of Congress.
[00:28:34]  Ron DeSantis just did a chess move that they are not prepared for because now they're going to have to get on their Gulfstream private jet to go to Topeka.
[00:28:42]  They're going to have to go to Pier, South Dakota.
[00:28:47]  They're going to have to go to Austin, Texas.
[00:28:50]  They're going to have to go to Helena, Montana.
[00:28:53]  And now they're going to have to go into Montana and tell Montana that the Menlo Park masters and the Silicon Valley people shouldn't be regulated by the state of Montana.
[00:29:02]  And my friend Governor Greg Gianforte, and I know him very well, he's going to say, yeah, not so fast.
[00:29:09]  Because this is an immensely popular issue now amongst the conservative base.
[00:29:14]  If we keep this drumbeat going based on what Ron DeSantis has led on, if I was the masters of Menlo Park and I was the tech companies, I'd be nervous about this.
[00:29:27]  You're talking about half of the U.S. market that could be restricted, half of the purchasing power of the wealthiest country on the planet.
[00:29:36]  But Ron DeSantis is doing this for a different reason.
[00:29:39]  He actually knows he's not going to be able to crush the tech companies, but he will be able to tap them back into behavior.
[00:29:47]  This is a big deal.
[00:29:48]  We're going to keep on building this out because this is the constitutional firewall that our movement has been missing.
[00:29:55]  And if you're listening to this from West Virginia to Utah, you now have a roadmap to take back your liberty.
[00:30:03]  Let's go to Cut 49 of the great governor Ron DeSantis standing up to the tech companies and really serving the people of Florida.
[00:30:10]  Cut 49.
[00:30:12]  I think most folks do want protections for their privacy and their data.
[00:30:17]  I think most folks want protections from being deplatformed.
[00:30:20]  And it's not just being banned from Twitter or something.
[00:30:22]  As we've seen, these companies can act, they can collude, they can deny you, if you're a small business, of payment processing, the ability to use email and text.
[00:30:31]  So what?
[00:30:32]  You go to a rally that they don't like or you engage in wrongthink and all of a sudden your flower business is decapitated for a month because they take action.
[00:30:42]  What makes the American model different than the European model is that we have states that are able to be checks and balances, laboratories of democracy, the liberal Louis Brandeis said.
[00:30:55]  Where the states are the checks and balances against an ever complacent or even corrupt, some would say tyrannical federal government.
[00:31:08]  You see, the European model is the federal government dictates everything.
[00:31:12]  In America, the states have a lot of say, a tremendous amount of say.
[00:31:17]  In fact, the Founding Fathers always wanted this.
[00:31:20]  And one of the Negatives of the People's Party, which was a populist movement that started in 1896 by William Jennings Bryan, was they got rid of the state legislature appointing of senators.
[00:31:34]  Instead, they went to the direct election of senators.
[00:31:36]  I can't remember what amendment that was.
[00:31:37]  Was that the 16th Amendment or the 17th Amendment?
[00:31:40]  We'll look it up where they got rid of the direct elect, where they got the direct election of senators.
[00:31:46]  The states were always supposed to have 17th Amendment, my memory was right.
[00:31:50]  The states were always supposed to have a not just a say, but more of a check on federal power than the federal government has a check on the states.
[00:32:10]  And that balance has been discussed in courts.
[00:32:14]  It has been argued.
[00:32:15]  It's been sued over.
[00:32:19]  And so the other Republicans that control governors' mansions and state legislatures, it's now time to stand up.
[00:32:32]  If you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to this on radio, contact your state legislatures.
[00:32:37]  And if the Republicans control your state, demand that they follow Governor Ron DeSantis.
[00:32:43]  From South Dakota to Kansas to West Virginia to South Carolina to Alabama to Mississippi to Louisiana to Arkansas to Kansas to Oklahoma to Utah.
[00:32:56]  These are deep red states.
[00:32:57]  Wyoming, if every single one of these states built a coalition and they passed their own laws with their own fines, these tech companies would knock it off immediately.
[00:33:09]  And Arizona needs to do the same.
[00:33:12]  Georgia needs to do the same.
[00:33:14]  But isn't it interesting?
[00:33:16]  Governor Ron DeSantis and Governor Brian Kemp both became governors in the same year, 2018.
[00:33:22]  And look at the difference that leadership, whatever the opposite of leadership is in Georgia, cowardice, what it makes.
[00:33:34]  You have safe and secure elections in Florida, no allegations of fraud, a booming economy, schools that are wide open, tech companies that are now being challenged.
[00:33:44]  And in Georgia, well, Governor Brian Kemp, if you want to make some conservatives actually go vote for you, which you have a terrible problem with conservatives in Georgia right now, we are broadcasting this show on the Salem Radio Network station in Atlanta, Georgia.
[00:33:58]  So some patriots are listening to this right now in Georgia, then stand up to the tech companies, Governor Brian Kemp.
[00:34:06]  Introduce this bill right now.
[00:34:08]  Say it's your top priority.
[00:34:10]  Or are you a little bit worried you might upset some of the Hollywood elites that get film tax credits in Buckhead?
[00:34:15]  I don't know.
[00:34:15]  I'm just asking a couple questions here.
[00:34:17]  What I do know, though, is that we as Republicans need to elevate and support solutions to our problems, not just complain about them.
[00:34:24]  Big tech is a problem, no doubt.
[00:34:27]  A lot of people complain about it, I being one of them.
[00:34:30]  I've always tried to look for solutions.
[00:34:32]  I think we need to build new servers.
[00:34:33]  We need to build new companies, new hardware.
[00:34:36]  But now an entirely new check and balance has presented itself where a massive state represents the people.
[00:34:43]  And by the way, it's not even about politics.
[00:34:44]  It's about privacy.
[00:34:45]  It's about expression.
[00:34:47]  It's about pushing back against monopolistic practices.
[00:34:50]  That's what leaders do.
[00:34:52]  It's what conservatives do.
[00:34:53]  They look for solutions.
[00:34:54]  They don't just give a press conference and walk away.
[00:34:58]  And for that, Governor Ron DeSantis deserves phenomenal credit.
[00:35:01]  But let's make this the start, not the finish, and every state follows in step.
[00:35:09]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:35:11]  If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, go to tpusa.com.
[00:35:14]  Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:35:17]  I love reading your emails.
[00:35:19]  And if you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, I highly encourage you to start a high school chapter, a college chapter, go to tpusa.com.
[00:35:26]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:35:28]  God bless.