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Viva La France
00:10:50
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| Hey everybody, Tan the Charlie Kirk show. | |
| Viva la France. | |
| What is going on in France? | |
| And then why is BLM able to get away with everything they've done the last couple of years? | |
| We examine that question. | |
| Senator Josh Hawley on TikTok, an action-packed episode. | |
| Three big topics for you. | |
| Get involved with Turning PointUSA today at tpusa.com. | |
| That is tpusa.com. | |
| At turning point USA, we are on the front lines making things happen. | |
| We are really become, we've become the life force of the conservative movement in many ways. | |
| Go to tpusa.com, start a high school chapter, start a college chapter, see us on tour. | |
| That is tpusa.com. | |
| Buckle up, everybody. | |
| Here we go. | |
| Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. | |
| Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses. | |
| 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. | |
| Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com. | |
| We are going to start the program today talking about something happening in a foreign country that should be a warning to us in America. | |
| Shows what happens when you live above your means, when you hope your citizens will eventually be able to make the budget work. | |
| And then you bring in a bunch of foreigners into your country to try to make the budget balanced. | |
| What am I talking about? | |
| Not Russia, not China, not Ukraine. | |
| No, no, no, today we're going to talk about France. | |
| Something very interesting happening in France. | |
| Widespread violent protests are happening all across the country. | |
| We have some B-roll to show here of what's happening. | |
| Now, look, for the French, this is somewhat kind of built into their national culture. | |
| Look, France has revolts all the time. | |
| 230 years ago, they famously beheaded their king. | |
| 150 years ago, they had a communist takeover of Paris. | |
| In 1968, the country was paralyzed by far-left student protests. | |
| And a few years ago, there was even a populist yellow vest protest. | |
| So the joke goes, in France, there's a big protest going. | |
| You throw a couple Molotov cocktails, and then you go back and you go sip wine and enjoy cheese on the lawn outside of the Eiffel Tower. | |
| It's just kind of built into some of the daily weekend activity if they get angry about it. | |
| And in fact, there's a hilarious video showing that buildings on fire and a bunch of Parisians. | |
| I don't know if it was in Paris, actually, just French citizens, just kind of sitting at a diner eating and like just kind of rolling their eyes. | |
| Kind of built in to French culture, this kind of widespread protest, arson. | |
| You could call it domestic terrorism. | |
| The video is hilarious. | |
| You got to watch it. | |
| They're just kind of so you, they're just kind of like, okay, I just passed the pass the bottle of wine, whatever. | |
| They just kind of roll their eyes. | |
| I mean, there's so many lessons in French history, by the way. | |
| France used to be the center of the world. | |
| I mean, we could do an entire show on this. | |
| Used to be a great country. | |
| For a thousand years, France, not Britain, was the richest and most powerful country in Europe. | |
| For hundreds of years, the language every educated person was expected to know was French, not English. | |
| This is a country that built great Gothic cathedrals. | |
| They built the world's greatest palaces and made some of the greatest art. | |
| They were leaders in science and economics and political theory. | |
| And now France has basically just kind of become a joke for a lot of different reasons. | |
| And I mean, I love French culture. | |
| I think some of their authors, especially Jean-Jacques Rousseau onward, leave a lot to be, a lot to be desired. | |
| He was more Genevan and more Swiss, but he definitely had some French roots. | |
| But there's a lot of lessons in French history we can derive. | |
| Example, the very people that were the Jacobins that were calling for the guillotine and the beheading of the king, Maximilian Robespierre actually was killed by the very people he was doing the revolt with. | |
| A lot of lessons that we could derive from French history. | |
| A lot of the current wokies here in America feel and act and believe in the same manner that the Jacobins did during the French Revolution. | |
| But today we're going to talk about a very specific issue that applies to America and it's going to come here very soon, which is what happens when you expand your welfare state so significantly to an unsustainable way, make promises that you cannot fulfill, spend money you do not have, open your border to a bunch of foreigners to try to pay for it. | |
| And eventually you have to make decisions that if you do not make that decision, your entire country will implode. | |
| Well, right now, Macron, who I'm not a fan of, but he's actually doing the right thing, is trying to raise the French retirement age from 62 to 64. | |
| Yes, that's right. | |
| In France, people retire at 62. | |
| Now, you can get the French really fired up about trying to say you got to work a couple extra years. | |
| It's not a society that believes that work is fulfilling or that you can find meaning in your career or job. | |
| Some people probably do, but largely the French society or culture is everything's an escape from work. | |
| It is a means to an end. | |
| I think that's a flawed way to look at life, but that's a separate issue. | |
| Macron is not backing down. | |
| He's saying that the country's pension system is essential and he's going to ram it through. | |
| In some ways, it's actually pretty courageous. | |
| I'm not a fan of Macron again. | |
| I'll say that again. | |
| This is polling terribly. | |
| Any American politician would back down against protests like this. | |
| This stuff is kind of Fleu de Palooza. | |
| The amount of burning, the amount of arson, the amount of cars being flipped. | |
| Look, France is a very strange country. | |
| It's a society ruled by old people. | |
| It's not because they control the jobs, but because they control all the money. | |
| In France, 14% of their GDP goes towards retiree pensions. | |
| In America, it's less than 7%. | |
| And that's just pensions, not even including health care. | |
| It's much harder in France for young people to get ahead, which is ironically why so many of them are angry about this pension reform. | |
| A generous, leviathan-style welfare state for many is all they feel they have to look forward to. | |
| And how depressing is that? | |
| It's not, when you do not have a free economy, when you do not have a society built on liberty, all they have to look forward to is a government check once they retire. | |
| Life is more beautiful than an entitlement state. | |
| So today, what has France become? | |
| It's become a museum of its past greatness. | |
| If you go to France, what are you there to see? | |
| You see buildings put up hundreds of years ago and you visit some winery that existed hundreds of years ago. | |
| There's no vitality. | |
| There's no life force. | |
| There's nothing new and exciting that is being created. | |
| Nobody goes to France to launch a startup or try anything new. | |
| And that's what happens when you have a society where everything just revolves around retiring early and living the easiest life possible. | |
| France is decaying and the country's surrounded by memories of what used to be capable of. | |
| And look, I know a lot of people in this audience are saying, well, Charlie, what about Social Security and Medicare? | |
| I believe you've earned those and you've paid into it. | |
| The broader argument I'm making, though, is be careful designing a society with an overemphasis on entitlement-like policies. | |
| I believe that free money from the government, which I do not believe those of you in this audience that get Social Security or Medicare, is free money from the government because you've actually earned it. | |
| But in the cases where there's free money from the government, I believe that is more addictive than fentanyl and drugs. | |
| It gets people coming back for more. | |
| They do weird and insane things. | |
| And the French are showing us that if you even try to make modest or prudent reforms to try to make sure the system can continue, then your society might literally start to burn. | |
| And the lesson in America is very clear. | |
| If you actually look at the numbers in America, no one likes talking about this. | |
| No one likes actually saying, hey, maybe we should stop this spending spree. | |
| In 1940 in America, there were 42 workers per retiree in America. | |
| Today, the ratio is a little above 3 to 1. | |
| By 2050, it's predicted that it'll be 2 to 1. | |
| In France, it's already below 3 to 1. | |
| And that's with hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants that they brought into their country to try to stabilize it. | |
| From 1977 to 2020, in inflation-adjusted dollars, state and local government spending on public welfare in America went from $147 billion to $791 billion, a 437% increase, mostly due to the growth of Medicaid. | |
| In 1960, total welfare spending in the U.S. was about 7% of the GDP. | |
| In 1990, it was a bit below 15%. | |
| Today, it's about 20%. | |
| Overall, 57% of Americans paid on net zero income tax in 2021. | |
| This was mostly due to COVID, but even in 2020, which covered pre-COVID earnings, the figure was 44%. | |
| One of the main lessons we have to kind of derive here is that we went for the cheap, easy money, sugar high solution, I put in quotes, during COVID. | |
| And you're going to start to see this happen in Western country after Western country with the banking collapses, the crypto market imploding, the lack of crisis in the American currency or the American dollar, is the cheap money, easy money overspending policies are now coming to a head. | |
| What's happening in France right now with the unrest, with the welfare state that is not just complaining, but they are demanding that these reforms do not happen can occur here very, very quickly. | |
| In the end, it's not only government and it's not welfare that creates prosperity, of course. | |
| The only thing that creates prosperity is work and productivity and the creation of value. | |
| There is no such thing as a free lunch. | |
| And the $6 trillion that we created out of thin air and put into our economy, that all of a sudden real estate prices go up and the stock market goes up and crypto goes up. | |
| That debt must be paid. | |
| Reality eventually comes knocking. | |
| The laws of nature and nature is God will eventually hit your doorstep. | |
| And it's coming to America very soon. | |
| Look, it is time to consider a rollover of that 401k into an IRA. | |
| The investment world is completely different in 2023, and you cannot do the same thing as last year. | |
| Woke companies are aggressively implementing ESG. | |
| Interest rates are going up and inflation is still lingering. | |
| If you have over $150,000, now is the time to move your money to a biblical responsible investing strategy with my friends at PAX Financial Group. | |
| Here's how you can connect with PAX. | |
|
BLM Criminality Exposed
00:05:57
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| Text Charlie to the number 74868. | |
| That's it. | |
| Just take out your phone. | |
| Text Charlie, C-H-A-R-L-I-E to 74868. | |
| So take out your phone, text Charlie to the number 74868 for biblical responsible investing. | |
| Text Charlie to 74868. | |
| You know, the First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. | |
| Now, Congress didn't do this, but during Floyd Apaloozo, which reminds me of the French protests, they remind me of each other, kind of widespread arson and nonsense. | |
| We did have a state-run religion, a state-run American political party, BLM. | |
| In a yearn for meaning, meaning, it's like Victor Frankl's man search for meaning, we decided to attach ourselves and attach our money, attach our meaning to the religion of anti-racism. | |
| This happened in June, July, and August of 2020. | |
| So many pastors in a nauseating fashion marched with BLM and talked about white fragility and all this nonsense. | |
| And a new report shows exactly how much money did the cause of BLM receive and then also the actual organization itself receive. | |
| The Federalists did some incredible reporting here from the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life. | |
| Black Lives Matter activists executed a shocking $83 billion shakedown of American corporations. | |
| $83 billion. | |
| Says here, they created the database tracking contributions and pledges made to BLM movement and related causes. | |
| To date, the data spans more than 400 companies and $83 billion in pledges and contributions. | |
| Let me ask you, how many of these donations are going to charter schools to help blacks read or going to public safety efforts to make sure that black kids aren't shot by black thugs in downtown Chicago? | |
| How many of these are going to actually go rebuild the black family in Philadelphia or Atlanta? | |
| Where is this money going exactly? | |
| Is this money going to schools in black, you know, in Harlem, which is overwhelmingly black? | |
| Here's what we do know: the BLM organization itself, which received about $100 million that we know of, secretly bought a $6 million house in California, all in cash in the fall of 2020. | |
| Remember, these same riots resulted in 15 times more injured police officers, 19 times more arrests. | |
| And these are the people that then, in return, extort all of society and get $83 billion in return. | |
| And let me just probe something out there because for the Republican attorney generals out there and for the Republican district attorneys, as we are watching Alvin Bragg debate whether or not to indict Donald Trump, as we're watching the Fulton County do the same and the Department of Justice go after Trump, there is a question that many of you have. | |
| Well, Charlie, who on the Democrat side should we indict? | |
| Who should we investigate? | |
| Let me submit a very humble recommendation, a very simple recommendation, I should say. | |
| Why is it that Republican attorney generals are not currently criminally investigating and indicting BLM? | |
| I heard a little bit from Louisiana and all this. | |
| You might say, well, Charlie, what's their jurisdiction? | |
| No, they have jurisdiction because they receive donations from people in that state. | |
| That's charitable fraud. | |
| All these states have charitable solicitation fraud statutes on their books. | |
| The $6 million house in Malibu, they admitted hosting parties at it. | |
| Quote, BLM leadership has indicated the property was intended as a type of influencer house, but reportedly very little was ever filmed there. | |
| Maybe a few videos involving colors, including a video series called Patrice Tries, during which she attempts unfamiliar tasks, according to the New York magazine. | |
| So they also bought a house in Canada, if I remember correctly. | |
| Patrice Colors has this ever-growing real estate empire. | |
| And so they raise $100 million and people from red states donate to it. | |
| Why is it that Republican attorney generals are sitting and watching Donald Trump maybe be indicted, watching Steve Bannon get indicted, watching James O'Keefe have his apartment be raided? | |
| They shut down the National Rifle Association. | |
| They're using government to go after moms and dads at school boards. | |
| That's a fact. | |
| And we do not have Republican attorney generals or Republican district attorneys that have the backbone, the spine, or the fortitude to impanel a grand jury and say, hey, Patrice Colors, explain in front of this grand jury the charitable funds that you received from the donors of this state could be Louisiana, could be Arkansas, could be Texas, it could be Florida. | |
| And then did you actually do the intent of charitable funds? | |
| By the way, these sort of indictments are done all the time for other types of charities. | |
| Charity fraud. | |
| There's dozens of indictments that happen every single year around it. | |
| Unfortunately, if something happens, it's happening right now with a pro-Ukrainian charity of a guy that just raised millions of dollars and he disappeared. | |
| Why is it that Republicans are afraid to do it? | |
| The answer is so simple, and it's a really bad answer. | |
| It's because they do not want to indict the black organization of the left. | |
| They don't want to be called a racist. | |
| In fact, that's a reason, that's a really bad reason to do it, but it actually should make you lean in. | |
| This is an anti-black effort. | |
| This is money that was given from white liberals mainly to BLM to try to help black people, and it didn't. | |
| Did it go to charter schools? | |
| Did it go to food assistance and food support? | |
| Did it go to community centers? | |
| Did it go to anti-violence measures? | |
| No, none of it did. | |
| Why did you say none of it? | |
| Almost none of it. | |
| It said it went to weird, suspicious, inside-out payments, $6 million home in Malibu. | |
| You want a deterrent against the Blitzkriega conservatives? | |
| Let's start with holding the criminality of BLM accountable. | |
| Republican DAs and AGs, it's on you. | |
|
TikTok Ban Dangers
00:16:05
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| Look, you did the tough thing during the Chinese coronavirus. | |
| You paid your people and pulled your business through the pandemic. | |
| And now doing the tough thing could qualify you up to $26,000 per employee at covidtaxrelief.org. | |
| Government funds are available to reward companies with two or more employees who stayed open during COVID. | |
| This is not a loan and you don't have to pay it back. | |
| I know a lot of people that have benefited from this. | |
| I think Congress appropriated way too much money. | |
| This program is complicated, but nobody knows it better than the CPAs and tax experts at covidtaxrelief.org. | |
| That is covidtaxrelief.org. | |
| You pay nothing up front. | |
| They do all the work and share a percentage of the cash they get you. | |
| Businesses of all types, including nonprofits and churches, can qualify, including those who took PPP loans, even if you had an increase in sales. | |
| You did the difficult thing for your employees during the virus. | |
| Let covidtaxrelief.org help you get up to $26,000 per employee. | |
| Visit covidtaxrelief.org. | |
| That is covidtaxrelief.org, covidtaxrelief.org. | |
| Joining us now is the great senator from Missouri, Senator Josh Hawley. | |
| Senator, welcome back to the program. | |
| Tell us about the progress of the COVID declassification bill and what we can expect next. | |
| Thank you for having me, Charlie. | |
| It's great to be with you. | |
| So the president has finally signed the bill, kicking and screaming. | |
| I have to say, as an aside, it was really delightful to read his statement where he said, I am pleased to sign this bill after he delayed and delayed and delayed. | |
| But now we have to hold their feet to the fire because what they've already started to say, the administration is, well, you know, we've got to be worried about the national security implications. | |
| And as I've already said publicly, there's no national security exception in the bill. | |
| The bill says you don't have to reveal who the source is, you know, like name our agents in the field. | |
| But other than that, it says declassify the information. | |
| So they're on a shot clock now, and we'll see. | |
| But I look forward to the American people being able to read what members of Congress have been able to read for literally months and years now. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And so do you think there's going to be anything, you know, overly revealing? | |
| I mean, what can the public expect here? | |
| Or is it just going to kind of be a bunch of, you know, declassified, I mean, classified documents and things X'd out? | |
| I mean, kind of manage our expectations here. | |
| Well, some of that will depend on them. | |
| But listen, I think we got a preview of it with the FBI director when he went all of a sudden decided to go do these interviews. | |
| He sat down, I think it was Brett Baer a few weeks ago and said what the FBI has privately been saying for over a year, Charlie, which is that the FBI has assessed for a year plus now that this thing is from a lab. | |
| So this has been the frustration. | |
| But while we've got Fauci out there saying, no, no way, lab leak, that's a conspiracy theory. | |
| The FBI has been saying for over a year, oh no, actually, we think it's from a lab. | |
| This is what prompted me, to be honest with you. | |
| First, prompted me to say, let's declassify everything because I'm hearing Fauci say this. | |
| And then I'm reading the classified info from the FBI. | |
| And I thought the American people deserve to be able to read that. | |
| So I hope they'll see that. | |
| I hope they'll see the assessments from the Department of Energy. | |
| And here's the other value of it, Charlie, is that our other intelligence agencies like the CIA and others, and there's several of them who have different assessments of, you know, where did this thing come from? | |
| They don't want any of this to be made public because they don't actually want to be pushed to put their dime down. | |
| They don't want to actually have to say, here's what we think. | |
| They want to CYA the whole thing. | |
| You know, like, well, maybe on the one hand, on the other hand, we need to force them to tell the public what they know so that they will be pressed to fess up and then to keep to keep working. | |
| Like, for instance, we need to know was this part of a bioweapons program? | |
| Even if it was for Balapoli, I think it was, was it part of a bioweapons program? | |
| See, now that's a different question, and we need to know that. | |
| So I think there's going to be great value in this if the administration will follow the law. | |
| So let's see. | |
| Let's see what they do. | |
| So, Senator, this week was kind of TikTok week on Capitol Hill. | |
| And this is an issue that you've been leading on. | |
| And it seems as if Congress and the kind of board CIFUS CIFIS, right? | |
| I want to make sure I pronounce that correctly, has to make a decision whether or not to ban TikTok completely, restrict access in the app store, or demand that TikTok offloads its data through something called Project Texas to an American-based tech company. | |
| Senator, let's just talk broadly. | |
| How are you thinking about the TikTok issue? | |
| Were you moved in any way yesterday by the testimony? | |
| How important is this issue? | |
| And how are you thinking about it personally? | |
| I think we now know everything that we need to know, Charlie. | |
| I think that the TikTok CEO's testimony confirmed this yesterday, which is that this is a company that's tremendously influenced by the Chinese Communist Party. | |
| I mean, there's just no doubt about it. | |
| When he said that, yes, the CCP does have access. | |
| He couldn't guarantee Americans that Adam was safe. | |
| When he couldn't even say that his own remarks hadn't been written or influenced in part by CCP officials, I mean, there you go. | |
| I mean, we know what we need to know. | |
| I've had whistleblowers come to me from within the company who said that Americans' personal information is absolutely being accessed by people in China. | |
| We know that TikTok is tracking journalists and every American should be concerned about this. | |
| If you've got that on your phone, just know it's tracking your vocation. | |
| It's tracking your keystrokes, which means it can read what you're typing. | |
| It's tracking your contact list, your phone list. | |
| This just shouldn't be the case. | |
| So, Charlie, I think we have to ban it. | |
| I mean, I just think that that's the solution here. | |
| We ban this thing. | |
| We allow American companies to stand up alternatives, you know, let the marketplace have its way. | |
| But I think as it relates to TikTok itself, the time has come to ban it. | |
| And Congress will have to do that. | |
| The administration can't outright ban it. | |
| They don't have the authority to do it. | |
| Congress needs to do it. | |
| We should put this on the floor and vote on it. | |
| Do you think there's an appetite to do that? | |
| It's a strange thing, Senator, because we're seeing Democrats that actually seem to be supportive of it. | |
| Now, my cynical interpretation is that this seems to be pushed by Google and Facebook because they see TikTok now as an emerging competitor in kind of the video market. | |
| I know for a fact that a lot of the Google lobbyists are actually the ones pushing this against TikTok. | |
| And I guess it makes strange bedfellows because, you know, I'm no fan of the CCP, but I think profit is driving them, not patriotism. | |
| But Senator, do you think there's an appetite from Democrats to ban this? | |
| Well, it's interesting. | |
| TikTok went out and hired about a month ago, Charlie, a PR firm that is a Democrat PR firm founded by Biden administration people. | |
| So, you know, TikTok is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them. | |
| They're very savvy. | |
| They are spending a gob of money. | |
| And that's why you heard Democrats in the last few weeks change their tune. | |
| And by the way, the corporate media, if you turned on CNN this week, which I recommend people never ever do, but if you happen to accidentally be in an airport and have to watch it, for example, you would have heard a CNN host literally reading TikTok press release talking points, but as if they were fact. | |
| Why is that? | |
| Well, that's because of this Democrat PR firm. | |
| That's why they are pumping it out. | |
| You see the Washington Post has been rehearsing the same stuff. | |
| And then the latest Democrat line is, well, we can't just ban TikTok. | |
| It's racist. | |
| We have to pass a comprehensive privacy bill. | |
| And to your point, the people who want a quote-unquote comprehensive privacy bill are Google and Facebook because they'll write the rules, they'll benefit from it, and then everybody else, smaller competitors, will all be shut out. | |
| So my view on this is ban TikTok, send a message to big tech that we are not afraid to act. | |
| Send a message to China that they don't get this back door into our lives and this digital fentanyl into our kids' heads because that's what they're trying to do. | |
| So send that message. | |
| But that's no excuse not to deal with Google on Facebook. | |
| We need to deal with them. | |
| No, I agree. | |
| I just want people to know that this TikTok being kind of a front and center issue is not all of a sudden because Congress has found a zeal to hold the CCP accountable. | |
| It's a lot of American tech companies that are pushing this because TikTok is a competitor to them, which by the way, more power to them because I'm not a fan, obviously. | |
| Do you think this Project Texas is a good compromise at all, Senator? | |
| Because we're getting some emails about that. | |
| Can you tell our audience what it is and why you don't think that's a good idea? | |
| Yeah, I'm happy to. | |
| Yeah, what that is, is that it would be the idea that you would store Americans' data. | |
| So everybody in America uses TikTok. | |
| That's like 150 million people. | |
| It's a lot of people, which is why this is a big problem. | |
| But you would store, they would store Americans' data in Texas. | |
| Another company, Oracle, I believe it is, won the bid, and they would manage the data. | |
| Here's a problem with Charlie. | |
| It doesn't matter where physically you store the data. | |
| This is the internet, after all. | |
| It matters who can access it. | |
| And the problem is that wherever you store it, Texas, Missouri, Alaska, wherever, the real question is, can you put a firewall between Beijing and the data? | |
| And what I have been told over and over by whistleblowers within the company, by those who work on Project Texas, is the answer to that is no. | |
| It's not designed to silo that data off from employees of the company. | |
| It's just designed to protect it from, like, say, cyber attack from the outside. | |
| But, you know, there's not a way. | |
| It's not designed to prevent Chinese-based engineers from accessing American data, which they can currently do and are doing. | |
| So I think that this is actually a talking point that TikTok is trying to use. | |
| And I don't think it's real. | |
| I don't think it will work. | |
| And that's why I say, let's just ban TikTok. | |
| Let's send that message. | |
| Let's protect our kids. | |
| Let's tell China, by the way, that they don't get to just have a free pass to ruin our children's lives. | |
| I mean, you look at what is on that platform, the suicide stuff on the platform, the trans agenda craziness on that platform. | |
| China's not our friend, and TikTok is not designed to make our lives better. | |
| And we should do something about that. | |
| Let's play here Cut 100. | |
| TikTok CEO agrees the CCP has the ability to manipulate TikTok content. | |
| Play Cut 100, please. | |
| Do you disagree with FBI Director Ray and NSA Director Nicosone when they said that the CCP could have the capability to manipulate data and send it to the United States? | |
| Do you disagree with their statement? | |
| Their statement says could. | |
| So do you disagree with that? | |
| No, I don't disagree with that. | |
| So, Senator, what would you have to say to just the counter argument on this topic that there might be some hesitancy to have the government just ban a company outright? | |
| And I personally actually share a little bit of that hesitancy. | |
| What are your thoughts on how should we think about that? | |
| Yeah, it's a great point. | |
| I think the key here is that TikTok is unique in the sense that it is heavily influenced by and de facto controlled by a foreign adversary, China. | |
| That's different than we just don't like this company. | |
| We don't like it being owned by a foreign government. | |
| You might have First Amendment, you would certainly have First Amendment issues if the argument was, well, we don't like what's on the platform. | |
| We don't like the speech. | |
| That's not it at all. | |
| It is the national security concern that is the key thing for banning it here. | |
| And this is why, Charlie, we successfully banned it. | |
| I say we was my bill that banned it on all federal government devices and federal contractors too, just a few months ago because of the national security concerns. | |
| So, you know, with Google and Facebook, to take a different example, there, you know, the right solution there is competition, break them up, and stop them from illegally tracking Americans without their consent, right? | |
| The problem is, if you tried to do that with TikTok, they just wouldn't ignore it. | |
| They wouldn't obey our laws because ultimately they're going to answer to their Chinese parent company. | |
| They're going to answer to Beijing. | |
| And that's quite unique. | |
| I just can't think of another company in the world right now, certainly not at this scale, that is in that position. | |
| Senator Hawley, thank you for your courage and your clarity. | |
| And this is an unbelievably important topic that I'm pleased that it's finally getting the coverage it deserves. | |
| Senator, welcome back anytime. | |
| Thank you so much. | |
| Thanks for having me. | |
| You bet. | |
| It's interesting because I definitely sympathize with this idea of CCP, awful, evil, modern-day Nazis, digital fentanyl. | |
| But I'm a little bit hesitant in one regard because giving the government a lot of power post-9-11, because we were very concerned about radical Islamic fundamentalists, understandably concerned, ended up creating an infrastructure that then could be used against conservatives. | |
| And I think we've learned our lesson. | |
| I hope you've learned our lesson that sometimes a bipartisan, prudent action against a foreign actor can set a precedent to then be used against a conservative company. | |
| Again, I use the company Rumble. | |
| Rumble is a growing company, R-U-M-B-L-E.com. | |
| They're a multi-billion dollar competitor now against YouTube. | |
| Rumble started in Canada. | |
| Are they going to be able to use that as an excuse? | |
| I mean, that might be a little bit of a guess too far, but do they have an investor or do they have a group of investors that could be tied in a thicket of bureaucracy for quote-unquote foreign influence? | |
| Same with Twitter. | |
| Are we opening up a potential opportunity for Democrats and the regime to say we can now ban free speech companies? | |
| And TikTok is not a free speech company. | |
| Let me be very clear. | |
| That's not the point. | |
| I'm just, I'm so, let's just say, moved by the lessons of how the same people that post-9-11 told us, need all these FISA courts, Patriot Act, all these different types of measures. | |
| And then January 6th, they say that now the new terrorists are conservatives. | |
| What I'm getting at is it seems the playbook that the Democrats have used is expand the government, get the precedent, get emergency powers to be able to have a bipartisan move against a foreign instrument, keep all of that infrastructure and that precedent in place to then do it against a conservative organization. | |
| And that's a legitimate concern because if the Republican, if the Democrats had their way, if the regime had their way, they would ban Twitter tomorrow, banning a company. | |
| Now, you might say, well, you know, Twitter is an American company. | |
| Well, their owner is South African, boring. | |
| He's an American citizen. | |
| Rumble is from Canada. | |
| Elon Musk got Saudi money to finance the deal. | |
| So why wouldn't they use the TikTok precedent to then go ban Twitter? | |
| Now, some of you might say, well, Charlie, come on, this is, you know, you're thinking too far ahead. | |
| It's all, I don't think that's actually true. | |
| I think that we have learned that the Democrats do not mean well when they seem to try to have bipartisan compromise. | |
| There's always a deeper agenda. | |
| And I just wonder if there is a censorship agenda. | |
| That's always what they've wanted, isn't it? | |
| They dream and they have a lust for shutting up and silencing people they disagree with. | |
| So I have to just wonder: is there a better way than flat out banning it and setting a precedent for Democrat pro censorship forces and voices to be able to come after the companies that we believe are necessary to a free society, like Rumble, Twitter, Real America's Voice, that are totally American companies? | |
| Someone says, here, Charlie, I sympathize with you as they say the CCP indoctrinating our children, but your caution is smart. | |
|
The Censorship Agenda
00:01:41
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| We need to think this through. | |
| These same people from 9-11 took away our liberties. | |
| What is the solution? | |
| That's a really good question. | |
| I don't know the solution. | |
| I need to learn more about this Project Texas thing. | |
| I need to learn more about kind of the other solutions at hand. | |
| But my initial gut is ban it! | |
| Awful. | |
| Yeah, I'm that same way, just like my initial gut was spy on the Islamic terrorists and get the Patriot Act, and then it's used against us. | |
| I wish I didn't have to live in a point of time where I'm so suspicious, but boy, it seems like there's always a deeper agenda, isn't there? | |
| There probably should be. | |
| Is there another way or a better way? | |
| I don't know. | |
| But the very same government power that could be used in a proper way can then be abused and set a precedent in an improper way. | |
| And so are we willing to kind of go that far to say that a company should be banned for whatever excuse that they have or they give by an act of Congress? | |
| They could come for talk radio. | |
| They've tried many times. | |
| Again, I use the Rumble example. | |
| I use the Twitter example. | |
| So this is something we need to think deeply about. | |
| I'm not even sure how I feel about it, like what my final decision or if I was a senator, what my vote would be. | |
| But I certainly know something needs to get done. | |
| But I have a clear and present concern that if we ban a company, it could be used against our own companies very quickly. | |
| Thanks so much for listening, everybody. | |
| Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. | |
| Thanks so much for listening, and God bless. | |
| For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk dot com. | |