All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
May 24, 2023 - The Charlie Kirk Show
32:12
Ron DeSantis is Finally (Officially) Running for President with Andrew Kolvet

Just hours ahead of Ron DeSantis’s official campaign announcement takes place with Elon Musk on Twitter, Charlie and Andrew break down the governor’s strategy: Can he beat Trump, should he have waited for 2024, and most importantly, who the heck is narrating his campaign announcement video?Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|

Time Text
The Conservative Base's Vibe 00:09:11
Hey everybody, down to Charlie Kirk Show.
Governor DeSantis is on the precipice of announcing for president.
Producer Andrew and I walk through that.
And what is the vibe that the conservative base wants right now?
Is it the ethos, the pathos, or the logos?
Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com at your thoughts.
Get involved with turning pointusa at tpusa.com.
That is tpusa.com.
Start a high school or a college chapter today at tpusa.com.
Support our program directly, charliekirk.com/slash support.
And as always, you can email me freedom at charliekirk.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.
Hello, everybody, live from Nashville, Tennessee, with producer Andrew here at the TPUSA Faith Pastor Summit, the second one that we have done and the largest that we know of in the country.
If there's a larger pastor summit, then let us know.
We think it's the largest.
You guys can email us your thoughts, freedom at charliekirk.com on an incredibly important news day as Governor Ron DeSantis, America's greatest governor, in our opinion, is announcing for the presidency tonight.
But I just want to first frame all this because you have Tim Scott who announced earlier this week.
You have Ron DeSantis that announcing tonight.
Donald Trump's already announced.
Nikki Haley's been running for a while, which people really don't really talk much about her.
And you got Asa Hutchinson.
But let's just take a step back.
I think it's really important.
Is anytime you're trying to sell a product or convince a group of people, you have to know who you're communicating to.
What do they want?
It's sales 101.
See, if you go into a corporate boardroom, if you go into a sales meeting, you have to know what the audience is demanding.
You don't tell them what you think they want, right?
That's what Nikki Haley is doing.
Nikki Haley's going around the country.
She says, people want a choice, not an echo.
Okay, have you listened to the voters?
What do they really want, Nikki Haley?
What do they want?
And again, I think Nikki Haley's a sweet person.
I hope she comes on the program.
I'm not trying to pick on her.
Certainly, I'm not ideologically aligned with her on a lot of stuff.
But you take a step back as we look into tonight, which will be a very important news night.
Governor Ron DeSantis will be with Elon Musk on Twitter announcing what does the Republican Party want right now?
Does the Republican Party want a fresh face and a new name and a new generation?
Part of the Republican Party might want that.
Republican donors certainly want that, some Republican donors.
But Andrew, I think you would agree, the vibe, the energy, the spirit of the Republican base is they want an insurgent.
They want a rebel.
They want someone to say, I'm going to go against the Washington, D.C. crime syndicate, the cartel, the Uniparty in both parties.
Now, ironically, the person who used to be president is actually positioning himself as the most anti-establishment candidate, largely because of the indictments and the Durham report and just the kind of the multi-institutional avalanche of opposition that's against Trump.
You have to know what the audience wants, right?
So does the audience want someone with perfect sound bites and really beautifully curtailed messaging and the right words, you know, nice TV ads?
Or does the audience want the Republican base that you have to win over?
Do they want a street fighter?
Do they want a brawler?
Someone who's going to go after the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice, close the border, end the wars.
That's the spirit.
That's the vibe.
It can't always be articulated in an op-ed, but that is the energy that we receive.
Andrew, what are your thoughts on that?
I think you said something there that I think we could honestly, we could talk about for the whole hour.
They want an outsider.
It doesn't have to be a guy that's never been there before, right?
I think when we talk about fresh blood, you think, okay, DeSantis is obviously the heir apparent.
And he very well might be still the heir apparent, maybe 2028, that sort of thing.
But what we've seen from DeSantis, basically since the Trump indictment, right?
When he came out kind of slow on the punch, went to sort of come after Red Black.
That was a turn.
That was the beginning of kind of a lot of doubt in people's minds.
Well, 100%.
Because what he ended up doing, even though DeSantis could have assumed the outsider dissident street fighter posture, certainly his record in Florida would warrant that that would be the lane you would think he would go down.
But what he ended up doing is sort of signaling to the base, like, actually, you know what, these donors that I have.
A little bit smuggly almost.
Yeah, I mean, but yeah, and he's ironically, right?
I mean, we were critical of Trump on the show when he called the sanctimonious.
I don't like the attacks, let me be very clear.
I've said that before.
I don't think it's a path to victory.
But at the end of the day, to Trump's credit, DeSantis has sort of played into that caricature.
And Trump, once again, has this ability, this sixth sense, to sort of sniff out a weak spot in a competitor, right?
Yeah, and I just, you know, you, the Republican base.
By the way, all throughout the hour, I want to hear from you.
We do this every couple months, right, Andrew?
Where are you standing on the primary?
Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
Are you still pro-Trump?
Are you guys pro-DeSantis?
Because Ron DeSantis is announcing tonight.
But I travel a lot, Andrew.
You come with, we talk to these audiences.
People do not just want someone with the right policy ideas.
They don't even want someone that checks all the boxes.
More than anything else, yes, they want someone who can win.
So maybe they, but there's only one person running for the presidency that's been president before.
So it's kind of this idea that Trump can't win.
It's like he's already won the presidency.
So I think that's a silly argument.
And 2020 was a drive-by shooting of the U.S. Constitution.
So don't give me that nonsense.
That was not a fair or free election.
It just wasn't.
And Molly Hemingway's book, The Rigged, is great on it.
But the audience of the Republican base, they want someone who is willing to understand the globalist pressure against America, willing to understand that there is an insidious and nefarious campaign, and not just someone who has good policy ideas.
And this can't always be articulated in a way that, let's just say, people in the middle can understand.
Because somebody stopped me as we were traveling yesterday.
Somebody stopped me and said, Charlie, I don't understand.
Why do people still like Trump?
What is the appeal?
What is the draw?
And I say, if you feel as if every institution is rigged against you, you're going to want to have someone that also has the same enemies as you.
And that is a person that is willing to push back against it.
And yes, the indictments, I think, help Trump.
100%.
I think these investigations help Trump.
Now, will it help him in a general?
Probably not.
They're going to use that against him.
That's a strategy.
Yeah, so that is the question, right?
Does the Uniparty has the does this is a very interesting thought experiment for this hour?
Does the Unit Party understand the Republican base better than most Republican candidates?
Meaning from a consultant standpoint, meaning they know that Trump actually will get more popular with the indictments, and maybe that will hurt him in the general.
I don't know.
That's a little 3D chest, but yeah, it could be.
Or it could just be as simple as we hate Trump so much, just keep the pressure on.
I mean, I think given the timeline of some of these legal attacks against President Trump, I mean, they simply had to start them.
And I think they are trying to time them in such a way to maximize the pain on him.
But I think you said two things.
Again, you would think an outsider would be somebody besides Trump, somebody who's been president before.
But you also said a second thing, Charlie, in that intro.
You said knowing your audience.
Trump has proven time and time again that he knows his audience better than anybody else.
He proved this at The Apprentice.
He's proven this since the 80s.
He's proven this in the middle of the year.
He reads the room better.
And by the way, I mean, I've probably been to 150 Trump events.
Okay.
Rallies, dinners, all this.
And so I study the man, and I wrote a whole book about him, which I think we should bring back, by the way.
The MAGA Doctrine.
I was on tour with you for that book launch just before COVID.
Try got his book out literally about a week before the country showed.
The Lord wanted me to become a New York Times bestseller.
I don't know why, but the Lord wanted that.
And again, I think it's a good book if you want to understand Trump and his ideas.
We should bring that back, by the way.
I think it's actually super helpful.
We should do a two-for-one package.
We should do an updated edition of it.
Actually, I don't know if Harper Collins will be there.
Maybe Trump will do the intro.
Yeah, but so in the book, I write that there's nobody better at reading a room.
Okay, so you know a great public speaker, Tony Robbins, for example, one of America's best public speakers, right?
Obviously, Donald Trump.
People like to talk for hours and hours and hours and hours.
But what President Trump does is he kind of workshops his agenda in front of the audience.
He'll throw a little thing there, like, ooh, the audience likes that.
And you saw that with Carrie Lake when he endorsed Kerry Lake.
Remember, he does that names like, oh, wow, people like that.
We were both in the room.
And so it's this constant back and forth, this kind of feedback loop that he has with the audience.
And Trump knows where the audience is right now.
And the audience, whether you guys like it or not, because we're getting some emails right now on DeSantis, mostly Trump.
You can email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
Reading the Room Like Trump 00:09:31
The vibe is we don't just want an outsider.
I think that is an accurate but not complete way to summarize it.
They want someone with ferocity.
They want someone that's willing to go tear some stuff apart, not be neat, not be polite, not just have good policy ideas, but someone that's willing to shred the Leviathan.
Well, you know, they want someone with a vengeance.
100%.
Well, and here's what occurs to me in this moment.
You know, the great songwriters, the great poets, the great filmmakers of any era, they know how to say the thing that you're thinking, but you don't have words for it, right?
It's almost like Trump is the great politician-songwriter of our generation.
He knows what.
No, I'm sorry to interrupt.
So the Greeks had it right.
There's a logos, there's a pathos, and there's an ethos, right?
So logos is rationality, the spoken word.
Pathos is very much on emotion.
And then the ethos is the theme, right?
What is the character?
What is the general vibe?
Trump is one of the few candidates that is able to channel the pathos, the emotion.
Usually, Republicans are very bad at this.
And the wonkier you get, the less people feel connected to you.
Even though they say, oh, yeah, he's doing a good job.
But there is a deep emotion that goes beyond anything that you can articulate that people, an attachment they have with Trump, as if he is a symbol.
Look, I can't believe the dire headlines we're facing in the world today.
Everywhere you look, things are falling apart.
And that's why the smartest investment you can make right now is in your family's food security.
The reality is you might not be able to find food when the next disaster strikes.
The reality is you might not be able to find food when the next disaster strikes.
Grocery stores will be empty because roads will be closed and trucks won't be able to make deliveries.
When that happens, you need emergency food in full supply.
That's why I urge you to grab a three-month emergency food kit from MyPatriot Supply, the nation's largest preparedness company.
When you order today, you'll save $200 on each kit you need.
Having these kits means your family will stay fed while others stand in food lines.
Do not delay.
Order your three-month emergency food kit and save $200 per kit.
It's easy to order.
Go to preparewithkirk.com.
You'll get fast and free shipping too.
Do this today or you'll regret it tomorrow.
That is preparewithkirk.com.
Preparewithkirk.com.
Order your three-month emergency food kit and save $200 per kit.
That is preparewithkirk.com.
Do this today or you'll regret it tomorrow.
Preparewithkirk.com.
Okay, so let's get to the what because I think we framed it nicely.
What does the audience want?
But let's just talk about it.
I have some mixed views on this.
I think part of this is brilliant.
Part of this is actually not so smart.
So tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern, Ron DeSantis will be joining a Twitter space of the world's richest man, Elon Musk, moderated by... the day with the stock prices.
But yes, I do.
Okay, it's either the Louis Vuitton foreigner from France who are caught or whatever, or Elon Musk.
It's Elon Musk.
By the way, SpaceX is completely undervalued.
We don't actually know how valuable the company is.
So Elon Musk is the world's richest man.
Let's just use that as the moniker for the season of the year, okay?
The stock prices.
So, you know, Elon Musk is going to be interviewing Ron DeSantis, moderated by David Sachs, who's going to join the Rumble Board.
So that's an interesting wrinkle, right?
And so, Andrew, how should we think about this?
It's unusual.
I mean, when you announce the presidency, typically it's done at your home state in front of a friendly audience with lots of warm applause, kind of Tim Scott style, right?
With everybody holding, you know, your kind of signs.
Ron DeSantis is going a new way.
You've got to give him credit for ingenuity and for just kind of, let's just say, creativity.
To go on Twitter, he'll definitely get eyeballs.
So this is going to be watched.
This is going to be watched by tens of millions of people.
But are these the people he needs to win over in a Republican primary?
Yeah, I mean, I keep hearing people break this down one of two ways.
Trump's attack vector on this is, of course, he's doing it on Twitter because he doesn't have to interact with people, right?
And Trump is very the man of the people.
He's good at interacting.
So he's trying to draw a distinction there.
Now, people have critiqued DeSantis that he is a little bit rigid with people.
He's not as free-flowing.
He's a piece of feedback.
Yeah, and whether or not that's true or fair, I mean, you know, again, Trump just showing his sort of his instincts here.
But I will say, what I like about it is Trump has not gotten back on Twitter.
So it is open green space, right?
Whereas the thing I don't like about it is that it is sort of, it feels a bit almost like Cruz or Jeb Bush Playbook 2016, right?
In the sense that it feels like he's trying to do Trump light.
He's trying to win over the moderates and the centrists and the independents without, which is not a winning strategy for a primary, you know?
So he's trying to make a distinction.
And I do think it's a big splash.
I disagree with people who say it's kind of dumb or whatever.
This is Elon Musk.
Elon Musk has a higher favorability rating right now than any other politician in the country.
Well, and I think it's smart because if you know you're dealing from a 30-point deficit, get as many headlines as you can.
This is going to be well-watched, right?
This will be written up.
Signal amplification.
Now, the risk is what if Elon gets the headlines in that Ron DeSantis?
What if all of a sudden it becomes the Elon show and Elon starts saying some stuff?
Because Elon is very unique and has takes on stuff.
And I mean, what if Elon Stark is talking about simulation theory?
So, Governor, what is your theory on the fact we're living in the simulation?
This is literally a video game we're all living in.
That's something that Elon has talked about, by the way.
At the same time, if Governor DeSantis can navigate the Joe Rogan-esque type line of questioning, right, aliens and kind of just more abstract stuff, his points could go up huge.
However, let's get back down to what is necessary.
Again, there'll be time for Governor DeSantis to try to compete in this arena, but first impressions matter.
People remember.
For example, let me prove it to you.
You will never forget Donald Trump's announcement.
Going down that golden escalator, it is imprinted.
Yes.
Can I make a point really quick?
This is probably the most cutting critique that I've heard.
Is that Donald Trump is always the alpha.
He is always the main character in his drama.
In the drama unfolding around the life of Donald Trump, he is always alpha.
He would never do an announcement of something of this magnitude, sitting and sharing that spotlight with anybody else.
So the critique of DeSantis is that you're not even holding the central spotlight for your own announcement.
I don't know.
Simultaneously, though, it's kind of brilliant because it's like, hey, I'm going to use the platform of a non-political Tony Stark figure for my political candidacy.
Look at me, elect me.
I'm able to make bridges and divide.
Absolutely.
That's the perfect counter.
I'm palatable enough to go win the states we need to win because the guy who's considered to be a hero amongst our target demo that we need to win, 25 to 40-year-old voters, is willing to interview me on my announcement.
That's pretty awesome if you think about it.
So I have a mixed opinion of it.
What is your thoughts?
Where do you guys stand on the Republican primary?
Trump, DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson, email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.
People ask me all the time when I travel about Strong Cell.
Charlie, is Strong Cell legit?
Charlie, do you really believe in the anti-aging properties of NADH?
Well, it's not a matter of whether or not I believe it.
It's the science.
You guys could check it out.
Fact check me.
Look at NAD and see what it could do for you.
Well, look, I take NAD every single day.
Strong Cell is a scientific breakthrough in cellular health replenishment that combines NADH, CoQ10, and marine collagen to boost your body's cellular function.
I personally take Strong Cell every day, and so do a ton of Kirk listeners.
Go see the reviews for yourself.
If you are someone who relies on caffeine or sugar to get yourself going, then you have to give Strong Cell a try.
I only have one important request as I recommend this life-changing product.
You've got to give it at least four weeks to realize the best results.
It takes a little time to re-engineer your body's NADH.
Think about it.
It's been on decline in your middle-aged body for a year or so.
So check it out.
Go to strongcell.com forward slash Charlie and read the personal testimonies for yourself.
Then use promo code Charlie to get a special 20% discount on your order.
Again, that's strongcell.com forward slash Charlie.
20% discount, strongcell.com, promo code Charlie.
Okay, I want to get to some tape here.
Ron DeSantis is announcing tonight.
This is important, though.
Again, Donald Trump makes people feel certain ways.
He channels the emotion.
Ron DeSantis.
Yes, that's right.
In a way that is hard to always explain, where words will not always suffice because language is not the only way human beings are able to connect.
Language is actually, according to a Harvard study, only 7% of people value language over physiology or over emotion.
We're actually a highly emotional people.
And Donald Trump knows this in a certain way, from his language choice to his body posture to just the alpha male energy that he's able to communicate.
And Ron DeSantis, I think, is going to get advice from his consultants, which is going to be win the policy debate.
Okay, there are some voters that will vote on policy, but the Republican base is much more about the ethos.
Emotion Over Logic in Politics 00:13:30
What is the story you're telling me?
What is the character of your campaign?
So let's play some ads here.
This is Casey DeSantis, who's a lovely person.
She's great.
Is Ron DeSantis' wife.
She tweeted this out kind of as a preview of Ron DeSantis' advertisement.
I'm not totally sure who's the one narrating this advertisement.
It doesn't sound like someone that has a traditional American accent.
Maybe this person isn't American, right?
Because you can be American and still have, it's almost like Australian, right?
It's almost South African Australian.
I was talking about Churchill and the wonder if that's a little bit, this sort of like, you know, it doesn't sound like Churchill, though.
So I was not Churchill, but if anyone knows who's actually, again, this is what I love about our audience, the combined wisdom of our audience solves the mysteries in like 90 seconds.
Who on earth is the one narrating this advertisement?
It doesn't sound like an American.
Maybe it is, okay?
PlayCut 78.
If you know who it is, email me freedom at charliekirk.com.
PlayCut 78.
They call it faith because in the face of darkness, you can see that brighter future.
A faith that our best days lay ahead of us.
But is it worth the fight?
Do I have the courage?
Is it worth the sacrifice?
America has been worth it every single time.
That is 100% British.
Andrew, you've spent a lot of time in London.
So have I.
I mean, again, people, Americans that haven't traveled, they conflate South African Afrikaans with Australian accent and British.
That's almost 100%.
That's 100% British.
Yeah, there was one line specifically that I think we both looked at each other like that.
That's the way he said a certain vowel is a huge difference.
But that's what's interesting.
Like when I talk about how the voters say they want an outsider, so you would naturally assume that would be DeSantis because he's never been president before and Trump has.
They don't want a foreigner.
Yeah, but here's my point.
Why do you use it to quote?
I mean, I'm just going to be strange.
It sounds like there's so many little signals because you and I live and breathe this stuff and we work with these people.
There's so many little signals that say, oh, donor inspired that move.
He was checking a box there, or he's taking a consultant tip there.
Or like, yeah, get the sort of transatlantic, like global, like ambiguous accented guy that they hire for VOs and the expats in London that are donated to his campaign.
I don't understand.
I mean, but again, that's what a consultant, like that would, that's what like an agent would do.
Like an agency, rather, like a marketing creative agency, they would go like they would hire a voice actor.
But they wouldn't see the political ramifications.
He's trying to win voters over in South Carolina with an Americanized British accent voicing over him entering a state.
Exactly, because here's what you do: Ron DeSantis is the tip of the spear for his campaign, right?
So he says, hey, team A, team B, we want to announce this thing.
So team B goes, hey, we've got this shop over in, you know, in Virginia that does these videos.
So that guy is probably a liberal working on the video.
And he goes, oh, this is super.
This makes it look super, you know, bold and epic, but that guy has no political acumen.
He doesn't understand that that's signaling.
But guess what?
They're lined up with that agency because donor Y is a billionaire that likes them.
We might be overanalyzing it, but I don't think we are.
This is the first official campaign video they release.
Okay.
That's supposed to be the hype.
And every time I watch it, I say, first, who is this person that doesn't?
Again, it's a missing.
At least they said America's always worth it.
No, of course, the message is terrific.
It's just a little strange to me as you're trying to voters and agencies.
You're trying to run for the American presidency, not the chairman of the World Economic Forum.
Okay, so let's play another piece of tape here.
Play Cut 65.
Just matter of fact, let's get the facts out there.
DeSantis launching with Elon Musk.
Definitely newsworthy.
PlayCut 65.
And Fox News has confirmed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will announce his candidacy for president in a Twitter space conversation that Ron DeSantis will have with Elon Musk.
So just so we're clear, the audience so far says it's Gordon Ramsey, Prince Harry, Klaus Schwab, or Sebastian Gorka.
No, that is not Sebastian Gorka.
It's not Hungarian.
Okay, so we're going to keep trying.
All right, let's go to Golka.
That's not Gorka.
PlayCut 66.
We are swinging and missing right now in the Charlie Kirk show audience of the identification of the foreigner narrating big Ron DeSantis's ads.
PlayCut 66, Elon Musk confirms the rumors.
And someone just said, Charlie, it sounds like, why do you like Elon so much?
I have great respect for Elon.
I'm not going to back down.
I think Elon's a great man, a great entrepreneur.
Of course, we disagree on stuff.
I wish more elites were like Elon Musk.
Play Cut 66.
We'll be interviewing Ron DeSantis, and he has quite an announcement to make.
And will be the first time that something like this is happening on social media and with real-time questions and answers, not scripted.
I will say this.
I think it's positive, though, just for the general conservative movement that somebody that is, again, Ron DeSantis is a true conservative.
People say he's a globalist and all that.
I don't think that's correct at all.
But I think it's positive for what we want for the country, Andrew, right?
To have someone like Elon platforming these ideas.
I think from the broader Overton window, that's an exciting thing that will happen tonight.
I think there will be millions of young people that are tuning in that have a negative view of Republicans that might have a better descriptive understanding of our worldview and what we're trying to accomplish.
For that, I think it's terrific.
I think that's excellent that there is a platform for our ideas to get out into the zeitgeist, into the place where otherwise, because there will be tens of millions of people that see whatever ends up happening.
Oh, there's going to be all kinds of look-y-lose and people just curious about what this could mean.
Oh, and the memes are.
And I think that is, I mean, I give A-plus as far as this rollout strategy, just to that alone, that aspect of it.
I think, you know, it's still an opening that Trump's going to seize on as far as Trump saying that he doesn't interact well with people.
He's not a gregarious guy.
There's all these memes going around the internet with his head bobbing back and forth and these interactions, whatever.
All right.
You and I both agree that's not our favorite aspect of the attack vectors against DeSantis.
I think DeSantis is a genuinely good man.
I think he's a great conservative, great governor.
The question is, is his particular brand, is this strategy going to resonate with the primary voters?
I'm very skeptical about that.
Here's my final, again, if you were to say, Charlie, what's your piece of advice?
Again, privately, I'll say this to DeSantis and publicly, right?
And I say this as someone who's endorsed Trump.
This is not a policy debate.
This is not a policy debate.
This is not about wonkery.
This is not about amendments to bills.
This is not even about legislation.
This is a brawl.
This is who is going to be able to take back our country from a uniparty that is relentlessly suffocating our republic.
Andrew, final thought?
Yeah, what you just said, I think it's important.
I think, again, I go into the strategy side of this, and it's almost like his policies have almost, he's come out with these very conservative policies in Florida, just made all kinds of headlines.
Excellent.
Yes, but it's almost like the consultants, the advisors are going like, hey, listen, we're going to own this conservative base grassroots space over here, but on our messaging, on a tonal, on this rollout, we're going to try and appeal to this non-Trump side of the party, if you will, the non-mAGA base.
And I think it's coming off convoluted.
Andrew, you think this is a pattern with Ron DeSantis?
What do you mean by that?
Again, you brought it up at the beginning of the show.
I thought it was really smart that we want an outsider.
Trump seems to have the sixth sense for knowing what we want, even more than we do.
And I've been public about this.
I had my skepticisms about Trump.
Could the base get behind him again like we did in 2016, 2020?
I have been completely, completely confirmed since basically the indictment that Trump is going to run away with this thing.
I personally really like DeSantis.
I know you're personal friends with DeSantis.
I like I've known Ron for years.
And he's a legit conservative.
Let me be very clear.
He's not a liberal.
It's not fair to say.
And he's been very good to Turning Point USA throughout the years.
He would speak at your events when nobody even knew who you were.
And also with our student body president stuff.
I mean, he's fabulous.
Yeah, and he's a real guy.
And I love that about Ron.
But when I say this is becoming a trend, again, the problem is that Ron has a lot of money that's gotten excited about him and come around him and all these consultants.
And I think you're starting to see that in some of these signals.
And one of the signals I want to bring up is when he signed the legislation in Israel about further combating anti-Semitism.
But he did it in Israel.
And I saw a bunch of chatter on the underwebs and we're pro-Israel.
We also think anti-Semitism is disgusting.
I think it's from the pit of hell.
I really do.
But the thing was, doing it in Israel, I thought was an interesting signal when you've got like Boca Raton in your backyard.
So again, when we start, that's why I think you see us kind of really chiming it, going like, wait, hold on.
Why is there this Americanized, softened British thing in the voice over your announcement video?
I just think, again, I just think it shows that it's hard to build a team that is cohesive, especially out of the gate, right?
I mean, Trump, by the way, if we're going to be critical, I mean, Trump, the one area of critique against Trump, especially in term one, was the fact that some of the personnel choices were ho-hum, right?
Were puzzling.
Puzzling.
To use the Russian.
So, I mean, listen, it's hard to build a team that's ready and prepped from the jump to run for president and not skid your knees a couple times.
So the question is going to be: are the voters willing to sort of like look past some of these mistakes?
I think no mistake was bigger than the Trump indictment under Alvin Bragg, and he should have come out real strong and said, listen, politics aside, you don't come for a former president.
You don't come for a sitting president with this novel legal nonsense.
This is bigger than the presidential race.
This is about America, the Republic.
I will fight this with everything I have.
It doesn't matter the name attached to it.
I'm going to fight this.
If you would have said something like that, the base would have been like, oh, he's still our guy.
Nothing to see here.
Yeah.
There's another element here, though, which is the Republican base is the equivalent of kind of a scorned lover.
We have been lied to so much.
That's a good point.
Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, the turtle, Lady Graham.
I mean, Boehner, you know, yeah, who's a total drunk.
And how many times have we heard a nice platitude and seen a good rollout and a beautifully produced video to see them sell out our country and not fight for us?
And then all of a sudden we have a contrast of Trump that didn't just say the right things, but blew up the system and did what he said he was going to do.
And this is something I try to tell candidates all the time, which is that our base is incredibly skeptical of you.
You have to earn.
It's my favorite language in my favorite word in the English language is earn.
Have you earned their trust?
Can you say it in an English accent?
America is.
No, no, no, hold on.
But this is the thing.
I mean, when we talk about patterns, look at what also some of the sort of neocon neoliberal sort of just he was, he touched on a few of those trigger words, those trigger ideas for us in the base with everything that's going on in Ukraine.
And so I'm just saying, like, if you're going, you know, listen, if you're going to pick a path and say, I'm going to try and get the, I believe that it's 51% of the base voters that are going to vote in this primary are not Trump people.
He might get 49, but I'm going to get 51.
If that's your lane, that's what you're going to go for.
I guess that's a strategy.
But what I think the read is, is that the same people that loved and love Ron DeSantis were basically very, they were Trump skeptics, but they loved Trump, right?
So I just think it's a weird strategy, and we'll see how it plays out.
The conservative base is scorned for good reason.
We've been lied to.
We've been deceived.
We've been gaslit.
We have been manipulated.
We've been turned against one another.
We have been underwhelmed.
And Trump is the standard because for a decade of, I've been in this for 11 years, and I have more people that have betrayed us and let us down than people that have fulfilled the mandate.
And they go soft, and they go soft, and they go vanilla, and they go to DC, and they change their language.
You're like, wow, Paul Ryan, you were supposed to be the guy, and now you're just basically controlled opposition.
And DeSantis has to know that.
He has to know the audience he's trying to win over.
And we'll see if that happens tonight on the Twitter space.
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.
Export Selection