The Charlie Kirk Show - A Veteran's Take on Afghanistan—In Depth with Sean Parnell
Aired: 2021-08-19
Duration: 43:25


=== Afghanistan Withdrawal Debacle (10:13) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey, everybody.
[00:00:00]  Today in the Charlie Kirk Show, a friend of mine running for Senate in Pennsylvania, who is a platoon infantry leader in Afghanistan, has a lot to say about the debacle that is Afghanistan.
[00:00:11]  I ask him about critical race theory in the military.
[00:00:14]  I ask him whether or not we think we could turn this thing around in just a couple election cycles and so much more.
[00:00:19]  If you have questions about Afghanistan and the strategic implications around it, this is the podcast for you with Sean Parnell.
[00:00:25]  Email us your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com.
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[00:00:32]  If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, you could do so at tpusa.com.
[00:00:37]  And as always, email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:40]  Sean Parnell is here.
[00:00:41]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:42]  Here we go.
[00:00:43]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:45]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.
[00:00:47]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:50]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:54]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:55]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:56]  His spirit is love of this country.
[00:00:58]  He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
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[00:01:44]  Hey, everybody.
[00:01:44]  Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:01:47]  With us today is a good friend and a true American running for Senate in Pennsylvania and someone who knows a lot about what's happening in Afghanistan.
[00:01:56]  Sean Parnell.
[00:01:57]  Sean, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:02:00]  Thanks, Charlie.
[00:02:01]  I appreciate you having me.
[00:02:03]  As always, it's fantastic to be here.
[00:02:05]  Well, things are falling apart, unfortunately.
[00:02:09]  And so we wanted to get your thoughts on that.
[00:02:12]  So what's happening in Afghanistan is a humiliation and it's a disgrace.
[00:02:17]  You've been talking a lot about that.
[00:02:20]  Instead of kind of, you know, rephrasing what you've already said, why don't you just tell us first and foremost your background, how you've been able to understand this issue, and introduce yourself to our audience.
[00:02:32]  Yeah, so I served in Afghanistan as a platoon leader in charge of an infantry platoon, 40 men, all along the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2006.
[00:02:44]  And so back then, our mission was to find Osama bin Laden, was in combat for 16 months, 485 days.
[00:02:54]  And during that time, hundreds of direct fire engagements, thousands of indirect fire attacks, rocket attacks, mortar attacks on our base.
[00:03:02]  And while we didn't find Osama bin Laden, Charlie, we found and fought against what was really a global jihadist all-star team in eastern Afghanistan.
[00:03:13]  And so I know a lot about that country.
[00:03:17]  I learned a lot about that country during my time there.
[00:03:20]  And in that 16 months, 85% of my platoon was wounded in the fight, some twice.
[00:03:25]  Some of my guys were wounded three times.
[00:03:28]  And I was wounded as well.
[00:03:30]  Ended up getting medically retired as a captain on my way to major and came back to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I went to grad school and started writing books for a living.
[00:03:39]  My first book was Outlaw Platoon.
[00:03:41]  That book came to the New York Times bestseller.
[00:03:43]  And now it's in 10 countries and it gave me an opportunity to give back to my country in much greater ways.
[00:03:48]  I've got a national charity that gives service dogs to veterans.
[00:03:51]  I've been advising members of Congress and the Senate for almost a decade on foreign policy and veterans issues.
[00:03:57]  I helped write the VA Accountability Act, which Trump signed at the Law of the Mission Act, which gave veterans a historic choice in where they received their health care at the VA.
[00:04:05]  And this was in the wake of the Phoenix VA waitlist scandal.
[00:04:07]  I'm sure you remember that, Charlie, where veterans were dying on secret lists.
[00:04:12]  And then in 2019, President Trump called me out randomly to run for Congress.
[00:04:16]  I didn't, at the time, I'd never met him.
[00:04:18]  I'd never talked to him, but he had given a speech in Western Pennsylvania and called me out randomly to run.
[00:04:25]  And so I turned my life upside down and jumped into politics in a sort of more direct way.
[00:04:31]  And I've been in the fight ever since, and I'm in the fight right now.
[00:04:34]  Yeah, and you're running in Pennsylvania, which is an open seat because Pat Toomey, who's been a big disappointment, is deciding to retire.
[00:04:41]  So good riddance.
[00:04:42]  And we hope we can fill that seat with someone like you.
[00:04:45]  So let's talk about Afghanistan.
[00:04:47]  Afghanistan, you've had probably one of the most nuanced and wise takes because unlike some of the neocon warmongers that pollute our party, you've said, look, it was time for us to go the way President Trump was trying to do it with wisdom and prudence, not all at once.
[00:05:05]  Walk us through the complexities of the country and walk us through what really a correct withdrawal would have looked like.
[00:05:12]  Yeah, so I want to take us back to 2006 and 2007.
[00:05:17]  In the wake of 9-11, we went into Afghanistan and in a month's time, we decimated Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
[00:05:25]  Many remnants of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fled to Pakistan where they consolidated, reorganized, and came back at us in 2006.
[00:05:35]  I would argue that the war from a tactical standpoint on the ground was won probably in the 2007 timeframe.
[00:05:43]  Now, we hadn't found bin Laden yet, but we were getting intelligence from the front lines, Charlie, that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were unwilling to send their sons back into the fight because we were just killing so many of them and they didn't want to waste their effort against us.
[00:06:00]  And so in 2006, 2007, we were implementing what's called a counterterror strategy.
[00:06:07]  In other words, we targeted the enemy.
[00:06:09]  And in targeting and killing the enemy, we allowed the Afghan people the time and the space to govern and secure their own people effectively.
[00:06:16]  And we were doing that really well.
[00:06:18]  And then Barack Obama was elected and we shifted very abruptly from a counterterror strategy to a counterinsurgency strategy.
[00:06:27]  And I lived this strategy shift, Charlie.
[00:06:30]  We built one of the very first combat outposts in Afghanistan.
[00:06:35]  And combat outposts were the focal point of the war in Afghanistan during counterinsurgency.
[00:06:41]  The idea that in order to pacify the country, American troops have to be living in every village.
[00:06:46]  And in order to live in every village, we have to have a combat outpost everywhere, which essentially spread our forces out extraordinarily thin all along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
[00:06:54]  When we did that, we didn't have the combat power to kill the enemy.
[00:06:58]  We were simply occupying land and we ceded the initiative back to the enemy, to the Taliban, to Al-Qaeda, to our enemies.
[00:07:05]  And in the 10 years since then, we've watched the war in Afghanistan slowly slip away as the enemy came from Pakistan, slipped by our combat outposts, and penetrated into the heart of Afghanistan to the point where we really couldn't tell the difference between friend or foe.
[00:07:24]  And so now we see ourselves after in Afghanistan, 20 years of blood and treasure, trillions spent, thousands of American dead, tens of thousands of American wounded.
[00:07:36]  And it was all thrown away because of a horrible withdrawal strategy from Joe Biden, who has been wholly disengaged from the very beginning.
[00:07:50]  And it's so for your listeners, the Trump strategy or the Trump doctrine in Afghanistan was very, very different.
[00:07:58]  And a lot of people have been saying, well, hey, President Trump wanted to draw down too.
[00:08:02]  And so he wanted this.
[00:08:04]  He owns this.
[00:08:05]  No, President Trump's strategy, he wanted to withdraw.
[00:08:09]  I also want to withdraw.
[00:08:11]  Again, we've been there 20 years.
[00:08:12]  It's absolutely time to come home.
[00:08:14]  I'm tired of American blood and treasure being spilled in that country.
[00:08:19]  But President Trump's withdrawal strategy was responsible.
[00:08:23]  It was conditions-based.
[00:08:24]  In other words, American leaders would engage with the Afghan National Army leaders for district leaders to make sure that certain conditions on the ground were met before he moved on to the next phase of the withdrawal operation.
[00:08:37]  President Trump was very engaged with regional leaders of different countries and very engaged in the geopolitics of the Middle East.
[00:08:44]  Juxtapose that with what Joe Biden's doing, Charlie.
[00:08:47]  Joe Biden hadn't talked to the prime minister of Pakistan and he's been president for seven months.
[00:08:52]  And we just found out today from Jake Sullivan in his press briefing that Joe Biden has not talked to a single world leader at all during the collapse in Afghanistan.
[00:09:02]  That is absolute dereliction of duty from the commander in chief.
[00:09:06]  And I think one of the most important points, and this can't be overstated, is that Joe Biden moved President Trump's withdrawal date from May back to September 11th for strictly political reasons.
[00:09:18]  That's important for a couple of different reasons.
[00:09:20]  Joe Biden moved our withdrawal date right into the middle of fighting season when the fighting in Afghanistan was the most intense.
[00:09:29]  And by making that announcement so public, he gave the Taliban time to go to Beijing and meet with our greatest geopolitical foe in China.
[00:09:40]  And he gave them time to consolidate and organize a counteroffensive that swept across the country in a month.
[00:09:45]  Absolute disaster.
[00:09:46]  20 years thrown away with poor policy decisions from Joe Biden.
[00:09:51]  And by the way, our senior leadership in the military, you know, totally unfocused on what a pragmatic and responsible withdrawal from Afghanistan should look like.
[00:10:01]  And we're seeing the devastating consequences of that lack of focus on the battlefield every day.
[00:10:07]  It's just an unbelievable tragedy that was totally preventable.

=== Complex Military Reality (12:16) ===

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[00:11:17]  Yeah, it's humiliating.
[00:11:18]  So, Sean, there's still tens of thousands of Americans that some estimates show that are still in Afghanistan.
[00:11:24]  What is the strategy to get these people out?
[00:11:26]  I mean, this was reckless.
[00:11:28]  And I mean, I've made the argument, again, I don't think that Joe Biden means well, that this was intentionally chaotic to try to create another refugee crisis.
[00:11:37]  There's 5 million refugees now in Afghanistan.
[00:11:40]  And the sinister, brute politics of it is the left, the collectivists in both Europe and America, refugee crises benefit them.
[00:11:48]  It helps change the demographics of a nation.
[00:11:50]  And you remember the Syrian Civil War refugee crisis.
[00:11:53]  But what is the solution then to get these people out?
[00:11:56]  I mean, are we going to have to now go reinvade?
[00:11:58]  I mean, what is listen?
[00:11:59]  This is this, I'm telling you, I am wondering why almost our entire media apparatus is almost singularly focused on the refugee crisis.
[00:12:12]  Every time I see that Chiron of what are we going to do about our refugees or how do we honor our allies?
[00:12:18]  Now, listen, we should take care, figure out a way to take care of our interpreters or people who fought for us.
[00:12:26]  But that conversation has to happen much later.
[00:12:29]  And it also doesn't mean that the United States of America should shoulder that burden alone, right?
[00:12:35]  We should be engaging with our regional allies to help us alleviate the refugee burden.
[00:12:40]  But Charlie, 10,000 Americans, and this is the situation in Afghanistan.
[00:12:45]  And I'll just put it as simply as I can.
[00:12:47]  Afghanistan has totally collapsed.
[00:12:49]  It's fallen.
[00:12:50]  There are tens of, there are 10,000 Americans, right?
[00:12:54]  Up to 10,000 Americans still trapped in Kabul and surrounded by the enemy.
[00:12:59]  And Joe Biden is missing in action, issued one statement where, by the way, he didn't blame the Taliban or condemn the Taliban at all, but blamed the Afghan people, the Afghan army almost 10 times.
[00:13:14]  The reality is, is that we're in a very complex situation right now.
[00:13:18]  I'm very, very afraid that this crisis is just beginning, that there is going to be a hostage crisis on our hands.
[00:13:25]  And I'll tell you why.
[00:13:27]  There are only a few places in Afghanistan, Charlie, where you can land an airplane and evac people.
[00:13:34]  One of those places is Bagram.
[00:13:35]  The Taliban control it now because we abandon it.
[00:13:38]  And one of the greatest strategic blunders, American foreign policy disasters of the last century.
[00:13:44]  I'm telling you, giving up Bagram airfield will be studied by U.S. military academies for the next 50 years on how not to withdraw from a country.
[00:13:52]  You have Kandahar airfield, the Taliban control it.
[00:13:55]  And so it's not as easy, you know, because Joe Biden has said, hey, we sent 2,000 troops in, 5,000.
[00:14:00]  Now we have 7,000 there.
[00:14:02]  It's not as easy as sending troops back into the country, Charlie, because we don't really have a foothold there anymore, right?
[00:14:09]  Well, it's just, it's like, wait a second.
[00:14:11]  So we have to re-invade?
[00:14:12]  I thought that was the whole point of ending the conflict.
[00:14:14]  I mean, but Sean, I got to ask this question, though, and with all possible respect for you and people that have served in the military, who are these clowns that are running the military?
[00:14:23]  Seriously, just from like a simple tactical decision, I mean, how are we supposed to take our military seriously anymore?
[00:14:30]  The military leadership.
[00:14:31]  I have lost full faith and confidence, Sean, in the leadership of the U.S. military.
[00:14:36]  I've lost a lot of confidence too, Charlie.
[00:14:39]  I watched for the last seven months, you know, Secretary of Defense Austin focused on diversity and inclusion.
[00:14:47]  Now, here's the thing.
[00:14:48]  I led one of the most diverse infantry platoons that you can imagine.
[00:14:52]  And that diversity did make us stronger, but it wasn't the diversity alone that did it.
[00:14:57]  What leftists always lose, right, in this conversation is they stop the conversation at diversity alone.
[00:15:04]  It's not diversity that makes our military exceptional.
[00:15:07]  It's the unity beyond all of that diversity.
[00:15:10]  Yeah, we're diverse.
[00:15:10]  We're from all over.
[00:15:11]  Rich next to poor, young next to old, atheists next to Christians, Democrats next to Republicans, rich next to poor.
[00:15:18]  But what makes our military exceptional is we take those differences and we put them aside and we have a collective identity and we fight together.
[00:15:25]  So when our generals are focused on critical race theory or diversity and inclusion, they're not focused on a force that is united and singularly focused on the mission.
[00:15:36]  And so we've seen generals focus on critical race theory.
[00:15:40]  We've seen generals like engaging in Twitter feuds with American citizens.
[00:15:47]  That's right.
[00:15:48]  And look at what's happening in Afghanistan.
[00:15:50]  In June, I went on Fox on Tucker Carlson's show, and I said, you could see this coming from 100 miles away that our military was focused on things that were completely disastrous with regards to a withdrawal strategy for Afghanistan with regards to how we're going to evolve our force to confront the growing threat that is China.
[00:16:12]  What are we going to do about Russia on the border with Ukraine?
[00:16:14]  I mean, there are all sorts of geopolitical threats that we face, but we're focused on pronouns and bios and critical race theory.
[00:16:22]  It honestly confounds me.
[00:16:25]  And by the way, there are lots of generals in the military right now that probably disagree with that, right?
[00:16:30]  But the few at the top, man, it's a disaster.
[00:16:35]  It's a disaster.
[00:16:36]  Yeah.
[00:16:36]  And it's just from a tactical standpoint.
[00:16:38]  I know almost nothing about military strategy, but I mean, you're dealing in a rather like fifth-century country.
[00:16:44]  Giving up airports would probably be a pretty stupid idea, right?
[00:16:47]  I mean, it's not like it's New York City, right?
[00:16:51]  Yeah.
[00:16:51]  So here's a couple of things.
[00:16:52]  So the premise of counterinsurgency, right?
[00:16:56]  The idea that a host nation, which means a nation can bring another nation in to host the nation to help that nation, the host nation grow and govern its own people, right?
[00:17:05]  That's the basic premise of counterinsurgency.
[00:17:08]  But Afghanistan can barely be considered a nation, right?
[00:17:12]  Let alone one that can effectively host another.
[00:17:15]  Afghanistan is tribal.
[00:17:17]  Their loyalties, I mean, it's a highly fractured society.
[00:17:21]  There are tribes in eastern Afghanistan that don't know another tribe even exists 10 miles down the road.
[00:17:28]  They're so insulated.
[00:17:30]  And so, how can you, or how can we as Americans expect for a counterinsurgency strategy to work in Afghanistan when the basic premise of that strategy is inherently flawed, right?
[00:17:41]  And you're right.
[00:17:42]  If you want to go back to a time where Jesus Christ walked the earth, add the AK-47, the pickup truck, and you've got Afghanistan.
[00:17:52]  They don't have a real economy.
[00:17:54]  They don't have running water.
[00:17:56]  They don't have paved roads.
[00:17:57]  They don't have electricity.
[00:17:58]  They have absolutely nothing.
[00:18:00]  And so the idea that we could go into Afghanistan and set up some sort of Jeffersonian democracy there was a pipe dream from the very beginning.
[00:18:09]  And disaster started in Afghanistan.
[00:18:13]  It was a slow-motion train wreck the moment we switched our mission from killing terrorists to nation building.
[00:18:20]  Yeah, and to kind of like bring in just not just a trillion dollars, but so much life lost.
[00:18:28]  So you're running for Senate to hopefully try to bring a voice to try to counterbalance this.
[00:18:33]  Just talk more broadly about U.S. foreign policy because now this sends a message to China that they could take Taiwan whenever they want.
[00:18:42]  Talk about what you'll be, if elected, you know, your Senate in Pennsylvania, what will be your position on U.S. foreign policy?
[00:18:52]  Well, I'll just put it as simply as I can: American weakness emboldens our enemies.
[00:18:57]  Now, that does not mean we need to be cavalier.
[00:18:59]  That does not mean we need to send our troops into harm's way.
[00:19:02]  In fact, I reject the 20-year-old foreign policy doctrine, and nothing has bothered me more over the last week than seeing politicians, Republican politicians as well, and talking heads trot out the old.
[00:19:16]  I mean, Afghanistan is literally collapsed after 20 years, an absolute disaster.
[00:19:20]  What do we have to show for it?
[00:19:21]  And they're already trotting out the same old tired.
[00:19:26]  Well, if we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them there, have to fight them here.
[00:19:30]  Or what happens in Afghanistan?
[00:19:32]  Oh, it doesn't stay in Afghanistan.
[00:19:36]  You can make that argument about any country, and it's a justification for war with no timetable for withdrawal.
[00:19:43]  What happens in Africa doesn't stay in Africa.
[00:19:46]  What happens in Iraq doesn't stay in Iraq?
[00:19:48]  Have we learned nothing after our occupations of Iraq and occupations of Afghanistan?
[00:19:54]  So for me, again, my focus is keeping America strong, making sure that we can kill the enemy, right?
[00:20:04]  And being laser focused on the mission and not getting bogged down in forever wars, right?
[00:20:11]  And from a foreign policy standpoint, right now, the leaders of this country, Charlie, need to be focused on China.
[00:20:17]  Like they are the greatest geopolitical threat that we've ever faced in a decade.
[00:20:21]  Like their economy will likely eclipse ours.
[00:20:24]  Certain aspects of their military already do.
[00:20:28]  They are singularly focused on deposing the United States of America as the lone world superpower.
[00:20:34]  And we have not evolved our military from the point to where by and large we are wholly structured, right, from a bureaucratic standpoint, structured to face an asymmetric threat.
[00:20:43]  We need to be evolving our military to face a more conventional threat of China.
[00:20:47]  Right now, we're behind the power curve on that.
[00:20:50]  So, you know, when we win in Pennsylvania, we're going to be wholly focused on being strong, being powerful, projecting strength, but also recognizing that America's sons and daughters, the people that raise their right hand to volunteer to serve this country, are the most precious natural resource that we have.
[00:21:11]  And we need to make sure that when we send them into the fight, because sometimes war is unavoidable, freedom has to be defended.
[00:21:19]  I recognize that.
[00:21:20]  But when we do, come hell or high water, the mission better be clear and victory better be clear as well.
[00:21:27]  Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
[00:21:30]  So I want to talk more about just broadly about this idea of critical race theory and the military.
[00:21:36]  How deep is it?
[00:21:37]  And are the kind of lower ranks, are they being exposed to it?
[00:21:41]  Or is this just kind of an officer thing?
[00:21:43]  Talk about that because Mark Milley seems to be kind of, you know, the new kind of philosopher king in charge of the U.S. military.
[00:21:51]  How serious of a threat is this?
[00:21:53]  It's a serious threat.
[00:21:54]  And look, you know, you won't hear anybody in the media talking about this in any substantive way.
[00:22:00]  But, you know, just in my time campaigning across the state, I've probably talked to 30 different both active duty National Guard veterans and say, hey, Sean, I haven't done my rifle qualification yet because we're focused on, you know, all of these sort of diversity PowerPoint briefings.
[00:22:19]  And I'm thinking, and I've heard, I've heard variations of that story from about 30 different people over the last maybe month and a half since I've been in this Senate race.

=== Hillsdale Education Process (04:15) ===

[00:22:29]  And I'm telling you, that is a real problem.
[00:22:32]  The training time that you get as a service member, right, is precious.
[00:22:38]  And during that time, you should be focused exclusively, again, on the mission and learning to function, shoot, move, and communicate together as a team.
[00:22:46]  Because when you get into the fight, the only thing that matters is the team and you're going to fight, bleed, and die together as a team.
[00:22:53]  And so if we are distracted at all, which it seems like our force is, when we talk about like, is it an officer thing?
[00:23:00]  Is it a general thing?
[00:23:01]  Well, guess what?
[00:23:02]  Leadership starts from the top and culture is set from the top and trickles down into the lower ranks.
[00:23:08]  So yes, it's a problem.
[00:23:10]  Yes, it's a national security threat.
[00:23:12]  And the longer we focus on critical race theory, the less ready we'll be as a country to face the ever-evolving threats every single day.
[00:23:21]  A lot of people ask me, Charlie, how do you know so much about American history?
[00:23:25]  The answer is not from school.
[00:23:28]  As many of you know, I did not go to formal college, which I didn't go to college at all.
[00:23:32]  So my education has been a process.
[00:23:36]  I've always been committed to learning and diving deep into ideas.
[00:23:40]  And one source of truth and knowledge has been the greatest partner in that pursuit of learning, and that is Hillsdale College.
[00:23:51]  American history and civics education, they're quite honestly at a turning point.
[00:23:56]  And the Hillsdale 1776 curriculum, they are teaching the truth.
[00:24:02]  And they have downloadable curriculum for you and your children for free at k12.hillsdale.edu.
[00:24:10]  That's k12.hillsdale.edu.
[00:24:13]  And you could take online courses.
[00:24:15]  So I, every single day, I do my best to try to schedule at least 30 minutes to an hour to take some online courses.
[00:24:23]  So I have my certificate.
[00:24:25]  I have passed the course in Constitution 101, the intro to the Constitution.
[00:24:31]  I'm about to finish the introduction to Western Philosophy.
[00:24:35]  I finished the introduction to Aristotle, how to live a good life.
[00:24:38]  And they have a new one called The Great American Story that I'm taking, and it's phenomenal.
[00:24:43]  If you say, Charlie, how do I get my kids to know history?
[00:24:45]  Literally pay them to take these courses.
[00:24:47]  It's that good.
[00:24:48]  The Great American Story.
[00:24:49]  It's charlieforhillsdale.com.
[00:24:51]  That's charlieforhillsdale.com.
[00:24:53]  Maybe you're more of a World War II fan.
[00:24:57]  They have a whole course on that called the Second World Wars.
[00:24:59]  Maybe you're a fan of Shakespeare.
[00:25:01]  They have a course on that, Hamlet and the Temptest.
[00:25:04]  Maybe you're a fan of theology.
[00:25:06]  They have a whole course on theology 101.
[00:25:09]  How about on the Greek wars, Athens and Sparta, Winston, Churchill, and statesmanship?
[00:25:13]  These are free of charge, amazingly rigorous courses that will get you to appreciate the country, what it means to be a human being, where our rights come from at k12.hillsdale.edu.
[00:25:27]  That's k12.hillsdale.edu.
[00:25:30]  Hillsdale, we are so honored to partner with them on the Charlie Kirk show.
[00:25:34]  Our children deserve to be taught the truth through a sound curriculum created by teachers, not bureaucrats, and uphold the dignity of each individual.
[00:25:43]  So download the 1776 curriculum right now, and you yourself should at least carve out 20 minutes a day to try and learn something new.
[00:25:51]  These courses can be downloaded.
[00:25:53]  They could be podcasts, and there's little tests after them to make sure that you are comprehending what you are learning.
[00:26:00]  And about after 10 courses, you get your certificate.
[00:26:02]  It's one of the coolest feelings in the world.
[00:26:04]  You feel like you are retaining that knowledge and you have a better understanding of what's happening in America.
[00:26:09]  Download Hillsdale 1776 curriculum for free at k12.hillsdale.edu.
[00:26:15]  That's k12.hillsdale.edu.
[00:26:17]  Phenomenal partners.
[00:26:19]  Please check it out right now.
[00:26:23]  And I guess a lot of people are asking, what can we possibly do about this?
[00:26:26]  If it's infected the military, you know, at some point, you know, we have an issue.
[00:26:30]  And probably part of the problem is that the officer corps and the generals, they're all college educated, right?
[00:26:36]  So they go and get these awful ideas.
[00:26:38]  And they've even like taken over the war colleges as well, which is even more scary and an issue.

=== Unconstitutional Act 77 (05:46) ===

[00:26:44]  So what can be done?
[00:26:46]  I mean, oversight hearings.
[00:26:48]  We had one with Millie and he seemed defiant.
[00:26:50]  He was like, you know what?
[00:26:50]  I am going to do critical race there.
[00:26:53]  Our system is our officer evaluation system is too much based on meritocracy.
[00:26:59]  In other words, let me put this into context.
[00:27:01]  Like as a battlefield commander in Afghanistan, you get almost called a battlefield update brief.
[00:27:05]  If I went on the battlefield update brief every day and I said, wait a second, our strategy is totally jacked up.
[00:27:11]  Things are totally out of control.
[00:27:13]  We're not winning here.
[00:27:14]  Well, guess what?
[00:27:15]  Guess what happens?
[00:27:16]  That my commander hears that I don't get promoted.
[00:27:19]  They bring somebody in that will tell that commander what they want to hear.
[00:27:22]  And our meritocracy, which is inherent to our promotion system in the military, lends itself to painting an overly rosy picture on the battlefield.
[00:27:31]  So everything's great to the next chain of command.
[00:27:33]  Everything's great.
[00:27:34]  All the way up to where our generals are regurgitating the same nonsense.
[00:27:38]  Everything's great.
[00:27:39]  And that's why after every year you read the report on Afghanistan that comes out in January, every year for the last 20 years, they read almost exactly the same.
[00:27:49]  Everything's great, mission's on track.
[00:27:51]  So what happens is people that get shot at every day and wounded every day that are willing to give honest assessments of the battlefield, they get out.
[00:28:00]  They're not willing to play the game.
[00:28:01]  The officers who are left are the ones that are willing to play the political games.
[00:28:05]  And that's why you end up with generals in the military who are inherently political.
[00:28:09]  And they shift as the political winds shift, right?
[00:28:13]  So General Milley now is now that Joe Biden is president and the focus is on critical race theory in the ranks.
[00:28:19]  He's reading Lenin.
[00:28:20]  He's reading Marx and he's studying white rage.
[00:28:22]  And so there are, but, you know, how many officers like him that were in his year group got out that weren't willing to play those critic, those sort of fake political games.
[00:28:33]  We need leaders like that now that aren't willing to play those games, that are willing to stand up and show courage and say, look, critical race theory is a national security threat.
[00:28:42]  You know, Mr. President, like, I get that this is where you want to focus, but our focus needs to be on the mission and this isn't part of it.
[00:28:50]  So the first time you joined our program, Sean, it was about all the issues with the 2020 election.
[00:28:56]  And on your website, parnellforsenate.com, if anyone wants to support Sean's Senate campaign, parnellforsenate.com, two L's.
[00:29:03]  You have a whole election integrity component to this.
[00:29:07]  I believe the Pennsylvania election was conducted unconstitutionally and illegally.
[00:29:12]  Can you walk through that, Sean?
[00:29:14]  Then I want you to then tell about your story with your election with Connor Lamb, and then we'll get into what we can do about it.
[00:29:19]  But I really want to focus on that.
[00:29:21]  Yeah, there's no question.
[00:29:23]  And we're talking about our Governor Wolf, Secretary of State Book Bar, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.
[00:29:31]  Governor Wolf, who is a Democrat, obviously, unilaterally changed election law 60 days out, right?
[00:29:38]  So he removed any signature verification.
[00:29:42]  He removed the postmark requirement.
[00:29:44]  He removed any semblance of a deadline.
[00:29:46]  All of those things and rules were changed at the exact same money, at the exact same moment, Mark Zuckerberg dumped millions of dollars into the state of Pennsylvania Zuckerbucks that funded drop boxes, right?
[00:29:58]  That caught us off guard.
[00:30:00]  Obviously, all of those changes were highly unconstitutional.
[00:30:03]  But prior to that, in October of 2019, I believe, in October of 2019, the Pennsylvania legislature and our Democrat governor rolled out what's called Act 77.
[00:30:17]  Now, Act 77 is Pennsylvania's no excuse absentee ballot law.
[00:30:21]  That law is unconstitutional on its face because in order to change the time, place, and manner of an election in the state of Pennsylvania, you've got to, you know, you've got to advertise in three separate newspapers for three months.
[00:30:35]  You've got to vote on a constitutional amendment in back-to-back legislative sessions.
[00:30:40]  And the most important part of changing the Constitution in Pennsylvania is it needs to be voted on in a referendum, which means it needs to go on the ballot.
[00:30:47]  None of that stuff happened, which makes Act 77 unconstitutional on its face.
[00:30:52]  Now, the reason you need a constitutional amendment for Act 77 is because the PA state constitution sets forth very clear parameters in which somebody can vote absentee, right?
[00:31:03]  Like you're either sick, military service, you're working.
[00:31:07]  Bottom line is there is no provision in the Pennsylvania Constitution that allows for no excuse mail-in ballots, and which makes Act 77 unconstitutional.
[00:31:17]  We challenged Act 77.
[00:31:20]  I think our lawsuit was substantive.
[00:31:23]  It cited 180 years of constitutional case law and 180 years of Pennsylvania Supreme Court case law to support our position.
[00:31:35]  Went all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, and we had three justices agree with our perspective in certain ways when citing Pennsylvania cases.
[00:31:45]  But Amy Coney, Barrett, and Justice Kavanaugh didn't come through for us.
[00:31:49]  Unbelievable.
[00:31:50]  But we're still in the fight for election integrity, you know, every single day.
[00:31:55]  When was that decision made by it was like March or April of 2020?
[00:32:01]  I don't understand how they can possibly say that.
[00:32:04]  It says so clearly in the Constitution that the states will select the matter of time and the way the electors are appropriated.
[00:32:12]  This was an unconstitutional election.
[00:32:14]  I mean, it's certainly certainly, there were certainly, yeah, it was.
[00:32:19]  It was absolutely the election in Pennsylvania wasn't free, wasn't fair, which is why we've been in the trenches ever since trying to work with the legislature and help reform the way our elections are conducted.

=== Rising Republican Candidates (10:54) ===

[00:32:31]  And I think we're moving in the right direction.
[00:32:34]  I'm so, I'm look, we're going to win in Pennsylvania in 2022, Charlie.
[00:32:38]  I feel real good about it.
[00:32:39]  There's a lot of reasons why I think that.
[00:32:41]  But if you look at even 2020 and yeah, all of the stuff that we just talked about was sort of disastrous.
[00:32:48]  But congressional Republicans got 85,000 more votes than congressional Democrats in Pennsylvania in 2020.
[00:32:54]  There's a path.
[00:32:56]  And then we had our judicial elections in 2021 and we had two ballot questions on there, referendums that would curb Governor Wolf's unilateral authority to declare emergencies in Pennsylvania.
[00:33:07]  Republicans won those ballot questions by 139,000 votes.
[00:33:12]  So this state is trending more and more Republican every year.
[00:33:17]  And in 2022, you know, first of all, we're going to work harder than anybody else in the race.
[00:33:22]  There's no question about that, Charlie.
[00:33:24]  But I do think that there are going to be hundreds of thousands of independents that maybe voted for Joe Biden thinking he would be a moderate unifier that maybe didn't pay attention until late, or maybe they voted early.
[00:33:36]  I think they're going to come back our way.
[00:33:38]  And I just am so optimistic about it.
[00:33:41]  And I'm psyched.
[00:33:44]  Did you know that if you shop at Nike, they turn around and give your hard-earned dollars to pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood and the Population Council?
[00:33:52]  Sinister folks, by the way.
[00:33:54]  Did you know that Airbnb gave $500,000 to the Marxist BLM incorporated organization?
[00:34:01]  Your first vote is at the ballot box, but that isn't enough to defend our traditional Judeo-Christian values.
[00:34:09]  Left-wing corporations are subverting our nation and our republic by taking money from conservative customers and giving it to radical organizations that support abortion, gun control, and critical race theory.
[00:34:22]  You have another vote, a second vote at the checkout line, which is why there's a massively important organization called Second Vote that comes in.
[00:34:31]  I know them very well.
[00:34:32]  I've known them for years and I'm so honored to partner with them.
[00:34:36]  And the courageous people at Second Vote are exposing corporations for how they spend your money.
[00:34:41]  So check out secondvote.com today.
[00:34:43]  Second Vote is developing incredible tools and engaging the smartest minds in the country to help inform Americans' purchasing decisions.
[00:34:52]  Their work is arduous, complex, and exhaustive, and it doesn't happen for free.
[00:34:58]  So please support their work so we can defend our future from the woke Marxist mob.
[00:35:05]  So here's what I want you to do.
[00:35:06]  Do what I did.
[00:35:07]  Just go right now to secondvote.com and subscribe.
[00:35:13]  It's $50 a year.
[00:35:14]  I know it costs something, but they have to be able to pay for their research.
[00:35:19]  And the black family, who are amazing people, by the way, have underwritten this effort for quite some time.
[00:35:26]  But if you use the promo code Charlie, you get 50% off.
[00:35:28]  That's $25 a year, everybody.
[00:35:30]  Okay.
[00:35:31]  That's literally $2 a month.
[00:35:34]  And that's 50% off to $25 a year.
[00:35:39]  That's $2.5 a month at that, so you can have the information you need on your next purchase.
[00:35:45]  So join me.
[00:35:46]  Go to secondvote.com and subscribe with promo code Charlie.
[00:35:51]  Maybe it's like, hey, I don't know if the car I'm buying, are they donating to Planned Parenthood?
[00:35:57]  What about all these companies?
[00:35:58]  Secondvote.com has every company ranked.
[00:36:02]  It's a beautiful thing.
[00:36:04]  Go to secondvote.com and subscribe with promo code Charlie today.
[00:36:10]  Yeah, and it's a winnable race.
[00:36:12]  Pat Toomey showed us that.
[00:36:13]  And I think this is going to be a wave election year.
[00:36:15]  I really do.
[00:36:16]  And we got to get behind good young candidates like you, like JD Vance, and many others that are rising up and are thinking about, hey, you know, I want to talk about, you know, real solutions for our country.
[00:36:27]  Sean, talk a little bit about that, the generational divide.
[00:36:30]  I don't know how old you are, but you know, obviously younger than some of the Septuagarians in Congress.
[00:36:38]  Talk about kind of how the generational perspective you'll bring, which would be a fresh young voice to the Senate where it's so desperately needed.
[00:36:45]  Yeah.
[00:36:46]  Well, I just turned 40.
[00:36:47]  I just turned 40 in July.
[00:36:49]  And so, and that gives when you're, when you talk about being in Afghanistan for 20 years, we've been in Afghanistan for half of my life.
[00:36:56]  Just, you know, so this, when I say it's time to go, it comes from that place where I've only all of my adult life, we've been in Afghanistan and it was.
[00:37:05]  So, you know, I think, I think that this country desperately needs more leaders, fewer career politicians.
[00:37:13]  And I say to people all the time, my intent is not to go to Washington for a career for 50 plus years.
[00:37:20]  I think that's a real problem on the Republican and Democrat side.
[00:37:23]  Our founders never intended for people to be career politicians.
[00:37:27]  Maybe one, maybe two terms, do everything I can to shrink the size and scope of the federal government because I believe that there's a direct correlation between a small federal government and more freedom in your life.
[00:37:38]  And what I mean by freedom is your ability.
[00:37:40]  I don't care what your political ideology is or where you come from, how much money you make.
[00:37:46]  I want you to be able to chart your own path, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
[00:37:50]  And the more freedom that you have in your life to do that, the better.
[00:37:53]  And then once I accomplish that mission, I'm probably going to buy a nice big farm in Western Pennsylvania and never talk to anybody again.
[00:37:58]  So I like that.
[00:38:01]  There's a, you know, George Washington was the head of something called the Society of Cincinnatus, which is where we name Cincinnati after.
[00:38:09]  And Cincinnatus was a Roman general who went and fought the war against the invaders and then went back to his farm afterwards.
[00:38:16]  So people who want to do that are right.
[00:38:18]  And George Washington did the same thing.
[00:38:20]  He was basically the American Cincinnati.
[00:38:23]  So I'm going through your website here, parnellforsenate.com, supporting law enforcement, the American dream, strengthening our military.
[00:38:31]  What strikes me, Sean, is I read your website word for word.
[00:38:35]  And if this, if I would have read your website, I want everyone to do this.
[00:38:38]  You go to parnellsenatefor.com.com.
[00:38:41]  10 years ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell if you're a Republican or Democrat.
[00:38:45]  But now it's clear you're a Republican.
[00:38:47]  Talk about how those parties have changed.
[00:38:49]  You read this website.
[00:38:50]  It's pretty simple stuff.
[00:38:51]  It's like, you know, pre-existing conditions need to be protected, you know, fighting for the unborn in the Supreme Court.
[00:38:57]  You wouldn't be able to tell 10 years ago.
[00:38:58]  Like, you know, this is a Republican or Democrat.
[00:39:00]  You might be able to tell a little bit, but now it's so clear that you're a Republican.
[00:39:05]  Talk about that and how you've seen these parties changed, one into a radical, you know, angry and ugly party and one that really stands for the country.
[00:39:14]  Yeah.
[00:39:16]  Yeah, this is really remarkable to me, by the way, because I come from a sort of union, old school Democrat, Western Allegheny Democrat, Allegheny County, Western Pennsylvania Democrat family and pro-life, pro-gun, hardworking, blue-collar.
[00:39:35]  They don't recognize their party anymore, Charlie.
[00:39:39]  If you would have told them that four years ago, if you'd have told them four years ago that, hey, you know, the Democrat Party is going to be the party of defunding the police and introducing critical race theory into our military, they would have laughed at you because it was so absurd.
[00:39:57]  And that just the Democrat Party, I don't even, that's why I don't attack Democrats in Pennsylvania.
[00:40:03]  There are so many Reagan Democrats, pro-life, pro-gun that voted for Trump, too.
[00:40:09]  Exactly, exactly.
[00:40:11]  And that's the funny thing about it because I got Republicans in my family too.
[00:40:15]  But the Democrats in my family, again, old school Western Pennsylvania Democrats were more pro-Trump than the Republicans in my family, you know?
[00:40:24]  And so that's why when I campaign and I talk on the trail, it's never about Democrats.
[00:40:32]  It's always about the radical left or the new Democrat Party that is the party of critical race theory, defunding the police, open borders, high crime.
[00:40:42]  I mean, you name it.
[00:40:44]  The new Democrat Party is just a disaster for this country.
[00:40:49]  I mean, just utterly disaster.
[00:40:51]  Like, look at their anti-cop rhetoric, for example, in the state of Pennsylvania has caused a skyrocket, skyrocketing in crime in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
[00:41:02]  And it can be directly tied to the defund the police, anti-police rhetoric.
[00:41:09]  And it's, they're just, they're just devastating.
[00:41:13]  They're just devastating to this country.
[00:41:15]  Well, I agree.
[00:41:16]  And it's the other side has just become so unrecognizable.
[00:41:19]  And I think it's wise to say the radical left and the Democrat Party has gone the other direction.
[00:41:25]  Sean, we have one or two minutes remaining.
[00:41:27]  Just kind of give your closing argument of the sense of urgency going into 2022.
[00:41:31]  I'm afraid we don't have many elections left to save this country.
[00:41:34]  Kind of just give from your perspective, you know, the sense of urgency that we have to operate with.
[00:41:39]  Look, everything depends on 2022.
[00:41:43]  You're absolutely right.
[00:41:44]  That's why the motto of our campaign is win Pennsylvania, save America.
[00:41:49]  It's really simple.
[00:41:51]  The radical left, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, they're laser focused on the state of Pennsylvania because they know that there's no pathway to the majority in the United States Senate unless they flip this seat.
[00:42:04]  Well, this is an open seat.
[00:42:06]  It's been in Republicans' hands for 62 years.
[00:42:09]  And my promise to the people of Pennsylvania is to be a warrior for the state, to always do what's best on behalf of the people.
[00:42:17]  Of course, that means engaging with the radical left and not being afraid to lock horns with them, but it also means standing up to our own party when they're wrong.
[00:42:25]  This country desperately, desperately needs more leaders and fewer politicians, and leadership is what I do.
[00:42:33]  So if you are looking for a campaign to help, please go to parnellforsenate.com and contribute to the cause because I liken campaign dollars to bullets and a gun in combat.
[00:42:47]  If you run out, if you run out of bullets in combat, you're surrounded by the enemy, you're dead.
[00:42:51]  You run out of campaign dollars on the campaign trail, not good either.
[00:42:55]  So we need your help.
[00:42:56]  Please get in the fight with us.
[00:42:58]  And thank you for having me, Charlie.
[00:43:01]  I appreciate it.
[00:43:01]  You bet.
[00:43:02]  Keep up the great work, Sean.
[00:43:03]  ParnellForsenate.com.
[00:43:04]  Thanks so much, man.
[00:43:05]  Thanks, man.
[00:43:09]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:43:10]  Email us your questions freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:43:12]  And if you want to support our program, you can do so at charliekirk.com/slash support.
[00:43:17]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:43:18]  God bless.
[00:43:21]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.