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June 22, 2023 - The Charlie Kirk Show
39:59
Sinking Feeling with Blake Neff and Ann Atkinson
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Formidable Submarine Feat 00:09:31
Hey everybody, Tana Charlie Kirk Show and Atkinson, who is right in the middle of the Arizona State University controversy that we were involved in, joins our program.
And then Blake from our new Rumble show, smart guy, we riff on the submarine story that we just can't stop thinking about or talking about.
Time is running out.
It's a tragedy.
Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and get involved with TurningpointUSA, tpusa.com.
That is tpusa.com.
Sorry, high school or college chapter today.
And email us as always, 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.
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Blake, welcome back.
Hi, Charlie.
So we have this submarine story, and so I figured we'd have our resident submarine expert, Blake Neff, walk us through this.
This is like the number one news story on the planet right now.
Yeah, it feels very much like it's like 2013.
Remember, before Donald Trump changed everything, you'd have dry periods in the news where we'd just talk about a missing aircraft plane.
Remember the black hole theory on CNN?
Exactly.
Yeah, the plane disappeared into a black hole, or this person went missing in a Caribbean island, and we're going to explore everything about it.
This is what the news used to be.
We used to have stories that weren't about politics.
And, you know, it's kind of refreshing.
And, you know, you get invested in human drama that's not just about an election or whatever.
So let's go through the facts.
So this is, it actually has a lot of interesting layers to it, right?
So many.
There's like actually a political, there is a political angle to this.
A little bit.
Surprisingly.
Well, there's a piece of tape that is a little bit political, right?
As far as his selection of who is involved.
Well, so we'll start with the, you know, the big picture, which is this is a company that does dives down to the Titanic wreck.
That's a pretty formidable endeavor.
It's almost three miles underwater.
That's that's a lot deeper than like a U.S. Navy sub will have to go for example.
Is that right?
You really have to design a special submarine.
The pressure is enormous.
It has to be totally airtight or it'll just get crushed to the size of that coffee cup there.
And really, like a whole sub just going down to I'm guesstimated on those guys, but you can get crushed really, you know, it takes a lot of technology to do that.
So this company has a sub that does dives.
It's very expensive.
I believe the people who are participating in these dives, they pay up to $250,000 to ride on this submarine down to explore the wreck of the Titanic.
And so this company is selling these, and there's all these clips that have come forward since it went missing.
So, you know, people have noticed the submarine, they pilot it with this video game controller.
Which we actually have one right there to use our camera, right, Terrell?
We use a video game controller, don't we?
Yeah.
So then you guys could run a submarine, Terrell.
Terrell, he could do it.
It's literally like a Logitech controller.
Like it's got, you know, the Xbox, you know, green, yellow, red, blue buttons.
And, you know, maybe that works fine, but it's sort of, it adds a slight element of absurdity to it.
Yeah.
And then also, can we put a picture of this on?
It's an Xbox controller, is what it looks like.
Is that Xbox?
I think it's literally a third-party controller.
I think I saw Logitech, but don't trust me on that one.
But you could definitely use it for something like that.
And then there's also this video that we might have where, you know, they're talking about who they hire to pilot.
No, we do.
I want to play this.
So just so we're clear, they pay $250,000 a head for this.
It's been up to that high.
It might have been less on this one.
But this had a lot of fanfare and a lot of buildup.
I saw an article before this.
I was like, okay, whatever.
Rich guy doing something weird and stupid.
But now this is becoming a real thing because there was a fair amount of skepticism on the buildup of this of like, do you really know what you're doing?
You're going 13,000 feet deep, which is an extraordinary dive.
I mean, just to go 200 feet deep, the pressure is incredible.
13,000.
Okay, this is cut 50 on who they hire and why they hire them.
Play cut 50.
Yes, I mean, when I started the business, one of the things you'll find there are other sub-operators out there, but they typically have gentlemen who are ex-military sub-mariners, and you'll see a whole bunch of 50-year-old white guys.
I wanted our team to be younger, to be inspirational, and I'm not going to inspire a 16-year-old to go pursue marine technology.
Okay, so he said, usually you have a bunch of 50-year-old white guys military.
I want our team to be inspirational, but are they operational?
They're inspiring people a lot as we try to rescue them, I suppose.
Yeah, so what is the latest?
We're hearing, I'd imagine that if we're hearing noise, they're inside trying to.
So they are picking up some sort of like a banging sound.
We don't know for sure that it's them, but they seem to believe it's something unusual.
And it's hitting at some sort of regular interview.
I think they said every half hour, which makes sense because this thing has about four days of oxygen.
It can last 96 hours.
96 hours.
And you're going to lose oxygen faster if you're bang, bang, banging on this thing constantly.
So it makes more sense to just do something regularly every 30 minutes or so to show like we're here, but we're not, you know, going crazy.
So with an interval, spacing it out.
Spacing it out.
So it sounds, you know, it doesn't sound natural that you can pick up that it's some sort of artificial human done thing.
But I mean, again, I'm a bit a layman on this.
You still have to approximate the source of the noise, right?
I mean, you now maybe have a hundred mile radius.
Yes.
And so we have to be honest, it is still, I don't even know.
It's probably much larger than that.
Like they are picking this up, but they haven't found the sub yet.
And they don't even know the depth, though, either.
That's the other question.
And they don't know the depth.
Or, you know, is it one of the theories is it inside the Titanic or is it just somewhere near the Titanic?
We don't know.
We haven't found it.
And they have basically until tomorrow afternoon, I believe, before they think it runs out of oxygen.
And so the Titanic is off of Newfoundland, right?
It's off Newfoundland, but it's pretty far out.
We're several hundred miles out, but that is the closest.
So but the search area was the size of Connecticut, right?
Yeah, it's a huge search area.
And if especially if it lost power, you know, it could have floated who knows where.
And they've been covering a huge, they thought it might have popped up onto the surface and lost communication.
So they searched a huge area for it on the surface.
They haven't found it yet if it is there.
And so they do seem pretty confident that it is underwater somewhere near the Titanic, but it is a very, it is a very challenging search and mix.
So even if they found it, what would they do?
How do you in time get another sub to that depth safely to then careen or carry the other sub up?
Yeah, you definitely would need to.
It does.
And if you have to like pull it up, then yeah, you need a submarine that can go down three almost three miles, two and a half miles, attach some sort of cable and essentially winch it up.
And that's not every submarine that can dive that deep can actually do something like that.
And so they said there's only three operating submarines in the world that can go to the depth of the Titanic.
My guess is Russia has two of them.
Russia does have submarines like this.
One of them had a fire on it a few years ago.
Oh, really?
It was a big deal.
They're known for submarine culture, right?
That was like a big thing World War II, post-World War II.
Soviets loved investing in submarines.
Yeah, and they had a very good tech for it because you would dive really deep and then you can do things like bug an underseas cable or do other sorts of unconventional surveillance.
So they do have a history of that.
I don't know what the status is right now in terms of what subs they have operational and what everyone else has, but it is a huge technical feat.
If I would say, if you want to put it in perspective, if they successfully salvage this submarine, it will probably be like as impressive as getting Apollo 13 home, for example.
Really?
Yeah.
The Houston, we have a problem.
Yeah, like getting that deep into the ocean.
But this quickly, though.
But I mean, this quickly.
I think it's even crazier than Apollo 13.
Yeah.
I mean, you have to mobilize a sub of somebody who knows what they're doing, find the other sub, and then be able to bring it up.
Yeah, actually, it might be a comparison might be if to rescue Apollo 13, you had to shoot another Apollo into space to rescue it.
Whereas Apollo 13, we could get home.
We were still in community.
Yeah, but you have to find a crew that's also like willing to do it.
And just to get to that atmosphere, I think it's ATM is what they call it, right?
Atmosphere equivalents.
Atmosphere equivalents.
You can't go quick.
You have to descend, or else you're under massive hyperbaric pressure, right?
I mean, meaning you just can't be like, it's not like an airplane.
Go to 30,000 feet in six minutes.
From what I understand, there's a descent limit.
You have to pressurize as you go.
Is that that is approximately?
Risky Descent Limits 00:07:46
I don't understand.
I don't have in front of me.
I don't know how quickly they can do it in these cases, but yes, that's pretty standard.
So there might not be as bad.
When you really have to pressurize, it's often when they have to do like work underwater, like when they, you know, Navy deep sea divers.
Sure.
So I don't know if it's exactly the same with just a ship that's descending, like, you know, a submarine like this that's descending.
So we really don't know what the issue is.
And so my other question is: how did all their comms get cut off?
That's for sure.
All their sonar, does sonar works at that depth or no?
I'm not sure on the exact technical specs of that.
They do claim to have a lot of redundant safety features, but people have pointed out that like, well, the company claims they have these safety features and also their submarine just sank.
So, okay, I want to talk about another lesson from this, which is when you have a one of the guys is a billionaire.
How should we, as laymen, think of rich people spending their money in a really stupid way?
Because this was not exactly, this is not like I'm going to go climb Everest, okay?
This is something that is a lot fringier.
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Blake, am I being unfair and play the devil's advocate that we should just roll our eyes when rich people do really stupid things?
Well, I think there's something very beautiful about humanity that we want to go out and find and achieve things.
Like we want to climb the tallest mountain.
Like why would you climb Mount Everest?
Like we're not going to find anything.
I agree.
That's been a goal of mine.
We want to do it because it's there, as Mallory said.
You want to go beyond.
You want to find something new or go where very few people have gone.
And yeah, sometimes this manifests in ways that are a little silly or quixotic, as I think the vocab term would be.
And in this case, it resulted in what could very well be a tragedy where five people die.
But I think we would lose a lot if we didn't have people doing that sort of thing.
And so I guess, I mean, let's pretend they die, which unfortunately the smart money is on their death.
Is that correct right now?
I mean, I don't want to be morbid, but that's just the way it's looking.
It is a very tough rescue mission that they're looking at at this point.
Unless something changes and they're able to ascend.
And by the way, somebody emailed us.
They said, you can go down fast.
You must come up slow.
I've worked with offshore divers for years.
I learned that you can go down quickly, but they must come up slowly or decompress on the surface to allow gases, primarily nitrogen, I think, in the body to be reabsorbed.
Thank you.
We have some amazing listeners.
But I guess this is an interesting philosophical question or a moral one.
Should they be remembered as heroes that went into the abyss to go find a, to just to solve a mystery and to see the unknown, or as fools with more money than they know what to do with that didn't check and balance and did something dumb?
How should they be thought of?
Heroes is probably too strong.
Like it's not, it's not heroic to be a tourist, even where it's dangerous to be a tourist.
But I don't want to say fools.
I think these people were probably aware there was danger to this.
That's the appeal of Daredevil Things is there is real danger to it.
It is more dangerous than going on a walk in a nature park or something.
To go to Grand Teton National Park, it's a little more dangerous.
Maybe a little bit.
But, you know, so that's the appeal of doing wild things like this that are extremely expensive.
And I think that element of it is dangerous and they sort of knew it.
And maybe we could have been a little more careful.
It creates a tension.
And that's why it's such a fascinating news.
Well, yeah, no, I think that's right.
And by the way, this is interesting people of all backgrounds, political affiliations.
And everyone has their own take.
There is like a woke element where we played the clip.
I think there was another clip, though.
Oh, yeah.
The captain he chose was a young woman or something intentionally because he didn't want it.
I don't know.
Somebody told me that.
I don't know if that's true or not.
And, but the other reason I think this is fascinating people is it's the why question or the should you question.
If you have a ton of money, should you do this?
Yeah, I don't want to say like you should not.
It's just, it's, you know, in the end, people can spend their money the way they want for the most part if they're not hurting anyone.
And this didn't hurt anyone except themselves.
And it's not like something like drugs or whatever where, yeah, there's like a big socially damaging effect of it.
It's like they did a risky thing.
And in this case, it did result in a tragedy.
And if we successfully rescue them, you know, maybe we'll have to bill them for the rescue effort.
Yeah.
And they can probably pay for it.
They can afford it.
So apparently, if you launch it repeatedly, which they have, the sub gets beat up, according to Bellingham, who is an expert on this.
He described the Titans' cylinder shape as the second best option.
The spherical design is inherently safe because the water pressure can apply equally, but they decided not to use the spherical design, right?
This is a cylinder design for slightly less secure shape in exchange for more passenger room, which is the point.
They want to go down with people and have their nice viewing experience, but it is slightly less safe.
Yeah, so from a geometric standpoint, they chose a slightly riskier option for seating capacity.
They did, they did.
But that's, I mean, I think that's going to probably be what most subs like this do.
Like the original sub that they found the Titanic with, I believe it was called the Alvin.
Like, that's also a cylinder design so that I think was it Ray Ballard?
Ballard, I think, was his name.
Like, you could go down and find the Titanic.
And so, yeah, like they chose a less safe version because of their goal, which was we want to bring people down to the Titanic.
And I think they've done it successfully before.
Well, so, Blake, we will know how this ends up tomorrow at our Rumble show, 8 p.m. Eastern.
Is that fair to say?
They say I think it runs out at 2 p.m. Eastern tomorrow.
So we'll.
So, really quick, why isn't the Titanic crushed by the pressure, by the way?
It actually, I'm not sure about that.
It will eventually really go.
That's all rusted.
Apparently, in 100 years, why doesn't it just, well, because it was an open system?
Is that right?
I don't know.
That's a question we're going to solve on our Thought Crime Show tomorrow.
Blake, good job filling us in on this infinitely interesting story.
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I was invited by a friend and supporter of Turning Point USA, good man who we've had on the program, Tom Lewis, to join an event at Arizona State University with Dennis Prager, who I admire.
And I've studied well over 400 hours of Dennis Prager's lectures and content.
I'm still doing that.
His lectures on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, and Deuteronomy are life-changing, as is his publication, his publishing of the Rational Bible.
I was invited to do this event, Health, Wealth, and Happiness.
Yeah, sure.
And so then in the days coming up to the event at Arizona State University, the weeks, I should say, all of a sudden, all these professors start clamoring about the event.
Now, this was not just any campus event.
This was technically an officially hosted event by the T.W. Lewis Center on campus.
So it was the university hosting different ideas.
It just wasn't a student group.
It wasn't like most of my other campus events, which is one of the reasons why this is noteworthy.
So, all these professors, I think it was 37, Blake or Ryan can get the number, 37 or 38 different professors spoke out and said, We don't want Charlie Kirk on campus.
We don't want Dennis Prager on campus because they stand for all these different things.
And 39 out of 47 in a specific department.
What was the name of the department?
I think it was the Honors College at ASU, if I'm not mistaken.
Yep, yep, yep.
39 out of 47.
And this was an optionally attended event.
This was not a mandatory thing.
This is not something where I was going to give a multiple-day credit-required seminar.
And the response from the professors was super typical.
And so I show up on campus with Dennis, by the way.
Dennis came to our office early and we had a fun time.
I had a lot of questions about Exodus with him, and he answered them very well and says, Hey, let's drive over together.
So we did.
And there were, you know, some protests, not too much, but the police presence was just overwhelming.
And the woman that was hosting it, the executive director, really sweet woman, she did a great job.
And Atkinson, I'll never forget, as I pulled up to this event, I said, boy, I don't really feel welcome here.
She said, oh, no, that's not true.
You are welcome here.
We're glad you're here.
I said, well, great.
That's great to hear.
And thank you.
And she was great.
She ran the event, the first class did a really wonderful job.
And the event was packed, by the way.
2,000 people showed up.
Might have been a little bit less, like 1,450, even more.
I don't know.
It felt like 2,000 people.
And so I spoke, and then Dennis Prager did a panel with Robert Kiyosaki, who's amazing, who we should have on the program, by the way.
He lives here in Phoenix.
And my speech was pretty simple.
It was about honoring your parents and how most colleges are trying to turn you against your parents and honoring the Sabbath.
That was literally my speech.
Now, professors, the professors there didn't want to see me or come and talk to me or whatever.
And I think this one tweet really encompasses the vibe of all this madness.
This person says, sometimes there are not two sides to any issue.
Charlie Kirk does not belong anywhere near a college campus because of my views on Juneteenth.
You can't have different views.
So we're going to attack you.
Okay.
So I do go on college campuses.
I have some fun doing that.
And it's interesting.
The Arizona Central wrote an article about all this.
And Arizona Central, they did it in kind of a sarcastic, sardonic way, attacking me.
Arizona State University faculty think students are too fragile to hand these ideas.
And they say, Charlie, basically the article is Charlie Kirk is such a joke.
Why should college kids be afraid of him or professors be afraid of him?
Okay, yeah, you can call me a joke all you want.
Well, then just debate me.
Come on my show.
Have a conversation with me.
They don't want to do that because we actually have a track record and a pattern of being pretty good at the talking thing.
So they don't want to do that.
So therefore, we kind of have this back and forth with the university and the event went off fine, but the issue didn't go away.
The issue didn't disappear.
And so the woman who greeted me and who ran the center very well, the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at Barrett, the Honors College at ASU, this story has now come back up to the surface with a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Because of my visit to Arizona State University with Dennis Prager, she's getting let go.
She's getting fired and the center will cease to exist.
Her official title ends on June 30th.
It is her last day.
And Arizona State University is getting rid of it.
They want nothing to do with it anymore.
You have to wonder why.
Well, the answer is pretty clear.
First and foremost, they find my views and Dennis Prager's views objectionable.
Seth Liebson, who hosts a program on AM960, does a great job, sent me his monologue on this, and it was super smart.
His argument was, hey, health, wealth, and happiness are absolutely controversial to academic professors.
And I thought, of course.
Being a healthy person, what's the last time that's actually talked about?
Instead, it's take as many vaccines as possible, and it's okay to be overweight.
Wealth?
Wealth is at odds with a socialist Marxist agenda.
Happiness, if you're happy, you are not a good communist revolutionary.
If you're content, you do not want to, if you're content, why would you want to fundamentally transform that which you are happy with?
Brilliant point by Seth Liebson.
Brilliant.
And so the event, health, wealth, and happiness, my coming and speaking with Dennis Prager, unfortunately is now resulting in people losing their jobs.
Lynn Blake, the events operation manager at ASU Gammage Theater, who I met, and she was wonderful, by the way, very sweet to me.
She was probably too kind to me.
Before her firing, she said that, quote, she was berated by the Arizona State University Gammage leadership for coordinating an event that did not align with the values of ASU Gammage.
What are those values?
I guess it's health, wealth, and happiness.
You could be many things, but you are not allowed to be a happy person at Arizona State University.
You could be angry.
You could be ticked off.
You could be looking for good trouble.
But think about it.
A happy nation, a joyful nation, is one that is also grateful, less likely to want to change the beautiful republic.
You can't have that.
Happiness is a direct threat to totalitarianism.
This story has not really led me to much public commentary.
And I'll be very honest.
I mean, we're talking about it, obviously, but you could probably tell in my tone, none of this shocks me at all.
I'm not going to get like righteously indignant because I know ASU is a Marxist hellhole.
I've tried to tell people that.
I know very wealthy donors in Paradise Valley and in Scottsdale that give millions of dollars to Arizona State University that literally confront me at some of our parties or turning point parties.
They say, Charlie, lay off ASU.
It's a great school.
I said, you're wrong.
You're wrong.
You're wrong.
And now this evidence plays into it.
I don't just say that college is a scam because it gets clicks.
I say it, it's because it is true.
And so Arizona State University, funded, by the way, by the Republican legislature of Arizona.
I wonder why they're still doing that.
They go all out because Charlie Kirk spoke, and I kid you not, my speech was 17 minutes.
17 minutes.
And that's a reason to fire people, terminate them, end dissenter.
A 17-minute speech.
If you listen to Dennis Prager's speech, it is not controversial.
He was talking about how happiness is a choice, how it's a moral obligation, talking about his book, happiness is a serious problem.
Academia, and especially Arizona State University, is small-minded, brittle, parochial, and quite honestly, pathetic.
This entire exercise at Arizona State University is pathetic.
This is not a big, this is not like a life-changing thing for me.
is for Ann Atkinson, who's now losing her job because she had the courage to host me, who had the courage to host Dennis Prager.
This is a disgrace.
And then you wonder, well, why is it that our biggest corporations don't share our values?
Well, hello, you're sending them to college.
This is what they believe in.
And by the way, why is it that 39 out of 47, I want you to, 39 out of 47 of these professors signed an open letter saying that I should not be allowed on campus.
Every one of them have an open invite to come on my show.
Charlie Kirk is a threat to democracy.
Really?
Why?
Tell me why.
What is a democracy?
Are we a democracy?
How am I a threat to that?
Charlie Kirk's a white supremacist.
Really?
Tell me, tell me why I'm a white supremacist.
I don't like Juneteenth because I think black crime is a big problem in America.
Oh, really?
What kind of white supremacist would be working with Blexit to do black outreach liberation events in the urban corridor of New York City?
Can you explain that to me?
Professor whatever?
No, they don't want to come on the show because they're intellectual cowards.
And I called them that at the event.
As Dennis Prager beautifully said at the Arizona State University event, he said, come on my show to 3 million people.
It's a much bigger audience than the 30 you get in your classroom.
I'll give you an opportunity to state your views uninterrupted.
But then that would validate us, wouldn't it?
So it's easier just to sign a letter, back away, call us names.
White supremacists, these are people with PhDs.
If I'm such an intellectual midget, if I'm such a moron like the Arizona Central tries to infer, I didn't go to college, then come on my program.
Talk to me.
Oh, Charlie's such a moron that I can't speak to him.
Welcome back, everybody.
With us is Ann Atkinson.
And thank you so much for joining.
I want to make sure I get your title right, as it is the title as of today, the executive director of the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at Barrett, the Honors College ASU.
I'm told that is ending on June 30th.
And your op-ed was heard all around the world.
You were an excellent host to me.
What happened after the event?
It seems as if the controversy didn't end.
The controversy did not end.
After the event, after the deans, you know, remember how they told us what you were not allowed to say, what you were allowed to say.
They took our marketing posters down.
They made me read a warning.
They told me to read a warning at the opening of the program.
I thought that was it.
Over the past several months, I've taken these concerns all the way up, but the harassment and threats have continued.
The Barrett faculty have been, some of the Barrett faculty have been really egregious towards me.
I faced a culture of chilling and condemnation that's continued.
And I've taken all of these concerns to ASU leadership.
I got the attention of President Michael Crowe, the provost Nancy Gonzalez.
I like and respect both of them, but I was not pleased with their response when I was able to address all these concerns directly with them.
They basically, when it came to censorship, told me that the event was handled.
They knew it needed to be handled, and that might be perceived as if they were trying to suppress.
And then they also told me that we allowed the speaker, but you then have to pay the consequences.
So it's continued.
And look, I understand why people would attack you, why they would attack Robert Kiyosaki, why they would attack Dennis Prager.
You are public profiles.
You have a lot of things to say.
I'm just a mother.
I'm a business owner.
I'm doing a job in a company, putting programs together, and I have faced the wrath of this liberal faculty mob.
And it's really unfortunate that this can happen to anyone, not just me.
It can happen to students.
And I'm hoping to spread this message today that even within free speech policies, even though ASU allowed the event to happen, there are consequences to those who dare to represent thought that's different from the prevailing orthodoxy.
So, Anne, you're exactly right.
I mean, you can attack me all you want.
The fact that you're out of a job is disgusting.
And also, the operations manager at Gammage, who I met while I was there, this really sweet woman who I bet somebody got a picture of her being too nice to me, so they had to cut her head off.
So, Anne, what can you share with us that is not in the public domain that is helpful to know?
That you're getting the message out.
You're playing offense, which I think is terrific.
The Wall Street Journal piece was excellent.
But what is private that you want the rest of the world to know in regards to all of this?
And a lesson for other people watching from other states.
Two things.
Unfair Leadership Blame 00:07:28
Number one, ASU's response indicated that the elimination of my position was solely due to the loss of funding from TW Lewis.
And while that is true, TW Lewis terminated the donor funding agreement this spring following the Health Malton Happiness program.
I have since brought in new diversified funding to keep the intent of the Lewis Center going.
Now, the intent of the Lewis Center includes things like traditional American values, hard work, personal responsibility, faith, family, and community service.
When I proposed that to the dean at Barrett the Honors College, she expressed no interest.
So it's not that TW Lewis ended funding, therefore the center does no longer exist.
It's that I brought a solution and new funding.
And as I've illustrated in my Wall Street Journal op-ed, I've been a very successful fundraiser.
I've raised over half a million dollars in the last year to benefit ASU and its students.
So that's a really important detail in this.
The other part I would say, ASU at the top of the hour submitted an article and published an article in the journal in response to this.
And they're characterizing me as they say employee Ann Atkinson has lost the distinction between feelings and fact.
And again, this can happen to anyone.
They're telling the world that I'm an emotional, disgruntled ex-employee or something in that light.
And when in fact, I'm conveying the facts and conveying what happened.
And in my view, the story is less about the fact that I was fired and more about what happens to anybody that dares to bring in views that, again, are not incongruent, that are not congruent with the prevailing orthodoxy.
It's not right.
I mean, you can attack me all you want, try and cancel me, get in line, Dennis Prager, whatever, but it's the other people that start to lose their livelihoods, their jobs, and their careers.
So cruel, isn't it?
Why?
Because there was an optional event on campus to talk about health, wealth, and happiness.
Okay, so Anne, let me ask you if you could elaborate on something.
You said in the days or weeks leading up to the event, there were kind of either recommendations or requirements of what can should be said or not said.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
The leadership at Barrett the Honors College told me that it is important for the future of the Lewis Center that we only talk about health, wealth, and happiness, and that these speakers don't attempt to use this as a platform to make any political comments or to say anything that can be perceived that might isolate the audience.
And it was my job as the moderator of the panel with Robert Kiyosaki on wealth, Dr. Radha Gopalin on health, Dennis Prager on happiness, according to the deans, to keep things under control.
But my view is that I'm bringing in people because they have opinions and experiences.
So the suppression is a major part of the story.
This is a public university that should celebrate people's ability to say what they want about these topics.
So what can you share as far as just the cultural pressure?
I mean, you went through it, but afterwards, they didn't, even though the event was a success, even though my events, my speech, I think was something that really find hard to disagree with what I said in my speech.
It's kind of like honor your parents and the Sabbath is a good thing and try to find truth in your life.
But that actually, that didn't stop them.
So there were 39 professors that kind of combined here.
And yet ASU says that free speech is a value.
Well, free speech is a value.
Why are 39 of their professors demanding that an optional event and a heterodox speaker is not allowed on campus?
Exactly.
And there were so many minor examples.
You know, I was pulled into a number of meetings with a lot of people over minor things.
For one example, I learned that the Lewis Center was no longer allowed to use trash cans at our facilities.
We had to bring our own trash bags and tape over those trash cans.
And I had people taking pictures of trash in the trash cans after.
I mean, I had someone pull me aside in a big meeting with people in front of everybody, actually, and tell me that when I smiled and said goodnight to her, that it just felt so demeaning.
So there's a lot of that.
There are a lot of those examples.
There are the Barrett faculty colleagues who threatens to, they threatened to write a media hit piece focused on me.
And then I had their reporter followed up on that a couple of days later.
I mean, there's been a lot of that, but it's really a mood, a culture, a chilling, right?
We're a personal development center.
We're not political.
We focus on traditional American values, but our speakers are incredibly diverse of industry, background, but it was a massive chilling.
And then suddenly I went from being having incredible feedback from Barrett leadership to my reviews where my next review is very negative.
And I need to, I have been isolated from Barrett and it's my fault and I need to collaborate more with others in Barrett, although the Lewis Center had been highly collaborative and invited others from Barrett into our program.
So a lot of little things like that, none of which I think is a headline, but all of which collectively is really an environment of chilling that tells me that the intent of the Lewis Center is not welcome.
And again, my job is just to fulfill the intent, which I didn't even negotiate.
That was negotiated by ASU's foundation and the donor and the former Barrett dean.
In final question, you said that you were underwhelmed by the response from ASU leadership.
Do you feel as if that if President Crowe would have come out and said decisively, handle this differently, do you think this could have had a different outcome?
Or do you think he was afraid of all these professors?
For example, he sent me a letter saying, you know, please take down all these professors on your website.
I was like, no, I'm not.
They publicized.
I mean, I think that he's being controlled by some of these professors.
Is my speculation probably right?
I don't know.
I mean, I won't begin to speculate on President Crow.
All I'm doing is sharing my firsthand account here.
And I would have imagined somebody could have reached out and said, look, we don't tolerate a culture of harassment and threats and chilling and censorship without telling people what they could or couldn't say.
I don't know.
I can't put myself in his shoes.
I do respect him as a leader, but in this certain situation, to handle our event, meaning this taking down our marketing and censoring what our speakers can say, and then to blame all of the callout and the culture at Barrett on me, who's just doing my job, I thought was quite unfair.
Well, I have a feeling you're going to find a good place to work after this.
And I want to thank you for your courage and for writing the op-ed.
It's opened up millions of people's eyes.
And thank you so much.
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. com.
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