Couch-Surfing Elon, Poisonous Skittles, and More From the University of South Florida
Is Elon just in it for the money? Can a rare medical disorder prove that mentally ill men are actually women? The students at the University of South Florida has countless traps to arguments to spring on Charlie, but he’s always ready to give as good as he gets. Watch ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hey everybody, more from my conversations at University of South Florida.
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Buckle up everybody, here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
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.
That's why we are here.
It's where I buy all of my gold.
Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
Alright, so when I first came here, you were talking to a man in blue, and I don't recall what you said verbatim, but you were talking about pro-life, and then you said there was a, like, to make a label of, like, killing people, and I, do you see how that could be a contradiction?
I'm not sure what your question is.
I don't want to go too back in time, because I don't remember it, but what is your question?
In pro-life, so you agree, like, With prisons, right?
Are you for or against the...
I'm in favor of the death penalty.
In favor?
And so isn't that a contradiction of being pro-life?
Okay, no.
I mean, again, a baby in the womb.
Oh, so it's different that way.
Yeah, what crime has the baby committed?
Okay, and what about preserving life?
I'm very much in favor.
And so killing somebody is...
Again, that is justice because they did something.
Do you not believe in rehabilitation?
I do to a certain extent, but if you take a life, I think your life should be taken.
And you said you agree with the statement, an eye for an eye.
Generally. I think there's far more profundity to that statement than people realize, but I appeal more to the Christ standard, beyond an eye to an eye, turn your cheek to the other.
But I do believe, I think there's a lot more To the Old Testament teaching of an eye for an eye, then people realize, can I tell you what it is?
So you think of an eye for eye just as revenge.
What it did is it showed that even if you're rich, even if you're poor, that no person's eye is worth another person's eye.
It's a statement of human equality, meaning that even if you're rich, you don't get to take two eyes from somebody, meaning that you don't get to go beyond the limits of what is taken to you.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it does.
And I agree.
How I see it is like an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
Yes, however, there's a teaching in the book of Leviticus, in Leviticus 19, that says that in the administration of justice, you shall never favor the rich or the poor, but you should basically have blind justice, if that makes sense, where justice in itself is what to every person is due based on what you did, not based on who you are, where you came from, where your father is, how much wealth you have.
Alright, thank you for your time.
Thank you, appreciate it.
Disagreements, guys, work your way to the front.
Yes, sir?
Or otherwise interesting questions.
Okay, so my...
Quick question, but do you support multiple different types of questions?
If you go fast.
Yes, okay.
Sorry. Do you think that Trump giving buyouts to air traffic control and FAA employees is a good idea?
Especially if all the plane crashes going on right now.
I agree that the government is too bloated, but I feel like air traffic control is very important for safety and should not be cut, and instead look at alternatives.
I will note, one of the things I know is that during COVID, the training center all employees have to go through in Oklahoma is closed.
So it's going to take a while for new employees to get the four-year training to fill back up.
So I want to know, what is your solution to this?
Because I don't think what's happening right now is exactly great because of all the plane issues.
Well, first of all, there's no evidence that the amount of plane crashes is actually any more than previous years.
It's just that we're paying attention to it more because of the singular really bad one that happened in Washington, D.C. There was also the one in Toronto that happened.
Which is not in our airspace.
Yeah, but it came from Minneapolis, so it's a weird case.
It's a weird case.
Now, there was a mid-air collision in Arizona yesterday.
There was also one of a guy in Scottsdale.
Private jet hit another private jet.
The question is, yes, I think all federal agencies should be subject to cutting the bloat.
The bigger issue, where President Trump deserves credit, which maybe you can agree on, maybe not, is that the people who are doing air traffic control, they should be there based on merit, not based on skin color.
We want the best people to be air traffic controllers.
Even though I don't think that's the cause of the crash.
I'm not saying it is, but you can understand how we can get to a lackluster air traffic control grid if we don't have the best and brightest being air traffic controllers.
Also, do you agree with Trump's recent take, I think it was yesterday or the day before, on Ukraine starting the war?
We all saw the headlines the day that Russia invaded Ukraine first.
So I want to know, why do you think he said that Zelensky started the war?
No, it's important.
So I would have worded it differently.
But let me ask you a question.
If Russia had missiles, weapons, and troops in Mexico, Would we be warranted to try to defer them?
I think it really depends on the situation.
If the intention was, hey, let's go all the way to the North Mexico to then eventually invade Texas or California, probably.
But currently, even though that's not the case in Europe, though, there is NATO.
Yeah, and NATO kept on expanding despite the promises we made.
Ukraine had every option to settle for peace throughout this entire conflict.
And they chose war.
There was a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey between Tony Blinken and Boris Johnson and the Russian foreign minister and the Ukrainian government came and blew up the entire thing and a million people unnecessarily died because of it.
A million people.
Okay. I'm just saying I'm a big NATO supporter, but I can see where you're coming from.
Thank you.
Last question, then we'll go.
Okay. Do you think that Doge will succeed in cutting the debt?
Recently, a bill by Republicans for this year's budget is being considered and will increase the debt ceiling and might increase the debt with the tax cuts they are proposing.
I'm someone who agrees with someone like Javier Millet is doing in Argentina, where he is cutting out government institutions to reduce the debt inflation.
But it seems like this bill I mentioned will increase the debt and is going the opposite of what Doge...
Yes, I think they will be successful in some capacity.
The deeper question is, will Congress come alongside of it and actually accompany the cuts?
I do think that some Republicans, with the increase in the debt ceiling, are going the opposite of the goals of Doge, which is to decrease the debt and try to get a fiscal surplus.
And if we're just going to keep increasing the debt ceiling, then we're just going to get into more debt.
I agree, but increasing the debt ceiling is sometimes necessary to create more space.
How would you say we should...
When will you eventually know, this is too far, we should start decreasing the debt?
I think we need to cut federal spending dramatically right now.
$36 trillion is too much.
We need to cut spending, and we need to shrink the size of the federal government dramatically right now.
Thank you for your question.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Disagreements, guys?
Yes. We're going to get behind J.D. in 2028.
Right? We like J.D. Everyone likes J.D. All right.
Yes, sir.
Can everyone hear me okay?
All right.
My name's Carter.
It's a pleasure to speak with you, Charlie.
Just a baseline question before I get into the real thing.
You take a very libertarian take on the political economy, correct?
So no government intervention in the economy at all?
No. Okay.
That's not my view.
What are your critiques of nationalization?
Several. I mean, it makes things bloated, inefficient.
Also, the incentive structure is largely wrong with nationalization.
Now, some industries, by necessity, need to be nationalized, like our military.
But generally, I lean towards private sector, decentralized, private ownership of goods.
But it's a case-by-case basis.
So for necessities, would you be in favor of nationalization?
Not necessarily.
It depends on what you mean by a necessity.
Look, the government needs to have a monopoly on nuclear weapons.
The government does not need to have a monopoly on hospitals.
Okay, so to clarify, necessities for life-sustaining, so food, water, shelter, medical care.
I think that private sector forces in those spaces have been better and will be better because you have better quality goods, more accessibility to them, more innovation, and over a period of time, more people get access to them.
So, for example, the Soviet Union nationalized the distribution of food and you had widespread famine and starving.
30 million people died of famine and starving.
If you read Stalin's journals, he could not figure out why the collectivization, nationalization of agriculture didn't work.
Yeah, I'm not here to discuss central planning.
I think it's just as flawed a system as anyone.
Then tell me what you are.
I want to take more of a mixed market approach here.
Specifically for necessities, I think when you're dealing with necessities in the private market, it creates perverse incentives to make worse quality commodities than under a nationalized system.
It can.
So give me an example of the best example you have for that.
So food, I think RFK has recently said we're having a health crisis.
I think that's largely due to the profit motive, motivating companies to...
Put poor quality ingredients into our food, which is leading to the crisis we're having right now.
That's a good argument.
It's one of the best ones.
An even better one, which I struggle with, not that I'm saying we have to nationalize, is what happens when you have pharmaceutical companies that don't want you to get better but want you to keep on buying the same drug over and over again, and you have a sick care system.
So you make a very astute point.
I would argue that when it comes to food, we have two choices.
Let's just make it binary.
We have more than two choices.
We can nationalize and have a federal department of food.
Or we could say we want a thousand different entrepreneurs to make really healthy food based on new guidelines and standards.
I would prefer, of course, more entrepreneurs to try to get into this space than trust the federal government to try to fix this problem and nationalize the industry.
However, you are correct that left to their own devices, major corporations are no better than government, especially when it comes to addictive toxins in our bodies.
They don't care about making healthy stuff.
They'll poison us with the Skittles that they feed us, or the Snicker bars, or the cereal, or the Coca-Cola, or the Red Dye 40, the Glyphosate, whatever the stuff is, right?
And that does, on the surface, make it a harder argument to defend a purely profit-based market system.
So I'm partially agreeing with you.
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Yeah, so even under a purely capitalist system where we have multiple competitors, how do you prevent, without government intervention, the cartelization of corporations?
That's a good question.
The first and foremost way is you have to make sure regulation is not benefiting the incumbent actor in power.
So we see this in banking, it's the best example, where it's so hard for upstart banks to be able to compete with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citibank, because the amount of paperwork it takes, hundreds of millions of dollars in legal compliance fees.
So regulation can be used as a tool to actually protect the incumbent economic force.
Number two is that if and when there are monopolies, we should break them up.
We should be unafraid to do that.
That monopolies are not part of market forces.
That if there are mergers, if there are things that are coming together and So I'll give you a great example.
In the current status, so let's just look at drug companies, which is one that I think is even better than food.
You've got Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Johnson& Johnson, Eli Liu.
Those are the big five, right?
Those companies largely have doubled and tripled in size.
Because we told them, you must go make a vaccine that does not work, which is really a therapeutic and not a vaccine, by the way, and we're going to pay you hundreds of billions of dollars to go do this, and you guys have to go take it or else you can't go to college.
It doesn't matter if you get myocarditis, pericarditis, or your friends start dropping dead.
You've got to keep on taking the vaccine.
So what does that mean from the government side?
A lot of these companies only get as big as they get because of favorable government contracts and oligoplic practices.
Yeah, but I wouldn't necessarily say that it's strictly...
I think the fact that we are subsidizing private companies is the issue in itself.
And because we are subsidizing private companies, it allows us to extract more value out of the government than if we just nationalize the system.
If you look at Scandinavian countries, they have a largely nationalized medical system, and they pay less for...
The government pays less for drugs as well as citizens living in that country, and they have higher quality of life.
Yeah, so...
Wait times are also comparable to America.
There's some truth to that.
I won't dismiss all of that.
But there's a lot of danger in that, too.
Anytime we talk about nationalization, you are giving more and more power to a faceless, unelected bureaucrat to be able to intervene with your life.
I definitionally have a problem with that.
I instinctively have a problem with that.
But you are correct.
The current hospital model and our current healthcare system is so broken, it's so treacherous, it's so beyond.
And here's where I think you and I can agree, before we get into nationalization or socialization, we'll get to the next question, is that we have a root cause issue.
I think that the biggest issue in American healthcare, this is a little wonky, is insulin resistance.
We have way too many people eating carbohydrates that they do not need.
I think that causes type 2 diabetes, end obesity, depression, anxiety.
Now that comes from a lot of different places.
To your point, because it's a good point, you have companies that would rather make the cheap, addictive, carbohydrate heavy product for a six year old than one that is using avocado oil or one that is better ingredients.
I don't know the solution to that.
If we don't come up with one, then your side is going to win and everything's going to get nationalized, unfortunately.
But there has to be a market-based solution because the current system right now, where we have like three big food companies and six major drug companies, and they're all working in tandem together to make you guys sicker, fatter, and quite honestly, more suicidal, more depressed, more anxious, least likely to thrive.
I believe a vast majority of America's problem is The food that we're eating.
And then you would say, but Charlie, they're incentivized to be that way, and you would be right.
Do I think the answer is government?
No. But we both can agree on the diagnosis of the problem.
Let me prescribe my argument for nationalization here.
I hate that word, but yeah.
What? Prescribe?
No, no, nationalization.
What would you prefer?
Socialization? Yeah, it feels so Soviet, but yeah.
I'm just saying from my perspective.
We know from studies on babies that greed is largely a learned trait.
When you give two children the same toy, one will eventually...
Or if you give two children...
Basically, there's a study on babies.
I'm blanking on the exact procedure.
But basically, it kind of showed that greed is a learned trait within children.
And I think that stems under capitalism that...
Greed necessarily creates the negative self-interested idea that we have of humanity, where if we nationalize a system that removes the profit motive, we do not have those perverse incentives.
You are way more Marxist than I thought.
So this is where we really disagree.
That's okay.
We're going to have totally different worldviews on this.
And you actually articulated it really well.
But on the left-wing Marxist socialist side, they believe human nature is generally good and that it's capitalism in our system.
That has infected our decision-making.
Fair? Yeah, like a Rousseau-esque take.
Yes, okay, so I have a much more, let's just say, Hobbesian view of human nature, which I believe, because it's Christian in nature, I believe human beings, as it says in the book of Genesis and repeated, is that the heart of man is flawed from beginning, that it's not taught by capitalism, it's not any sort of system.
And let me try to prove it to you, I don't know how convincing I'll be.
In even the most communist totalitarian government, Like China or in Russia where they got rid of all private property, people still did bad stuff.
They still stole, they still lied, they still cheated, they still committed adultery.
So we can get rid of all the private property, people will still do bad stuff.
Secondly, I encourage you to look less at studies and maybe one day you'll be a father and you'll see it yourself.
I have a two and a half year old daughter.
She does stuff that was never taught.
It's like instinctive.
She like turns my wife and I against each other.
She's like, she's a saint.
You know what I mean?
And you realize, like, these are, you know, treacherous little creatures that need to be taught goodness and told no because they're not the center of the world.
Let me say it differently.
We, as Christians, generally believe that people are generally not so good.
Marxists will believe that people are generally good.
And from there come our two different worldviews.
Because, therefore, if you think people are naturally good, then you must find something to blame for all the problems, which is capitalism, racism, misogyny, Western civilization.
We say, hey, all the problems, Start with the mirror.
We think the man in the mirror is the start of your problem.
So, therefore, again, that's not a criticism.
We would say the problem is you need to do less marching in the streets to try to end climate change and more about getting yourself in shape, waking up earlier, stop doing drugs, stop doing alcohol, and becoming a better person.
Again, that's not a criticism of your worldview.
I just want to make sure people understand the difference.
Do you think humanity lacks an innate sense of care for others?
Of course, but I think it is built into us.
So this is where communism comes from.
Marx believed we were inherently social creatures and that we inherently were far more willing to be in a commune than not.
We have to just get rid of all of these problems.
Get rid of the purchasing.
Get rid of the capitalism.
Get rid of the Amazon.
And then we'll all live in this kind of romantic Rousseau-ian ideal.
We think that's rubbish as Westerners, as Christians.
And the best example is, and I want your thoughts on this, is prison.
If it was true, once you get rid of all private property, you get rid of all work, why is it that violence still happens in jails?
In fact, they become more violent.
They become more treacherous.
In jail, all they do is they have time.
They don't own anything.
They don't trade anything.
They do it on the black market.
And you might say it's because they were flawed from the beginning in a capitalist system.
But I think it's an important distinction, and it really is the tension point between...
I will say there's certain socialization issues that come with people that are in prison that come from the social system at which they inhabit.
But also, I think it comes from a deprivement of material conditions that leads prisoners to act the way they do.
But hold on.
They need and want for nothing.
They have three meals a day.
They get books.
They get Wi-Fi.
They get phones.
So it sounds like socialism, right?
They're in a prison.
They have everything that they need to survive.
But you're containing movement.
You're containing movement.
You're containing actions.
You're not allowing true independence.
I guess.
I mean, you get time outside.
Actually, you know what's actually interesting?
Do you know that prisoners spend more time outside than an average teenager in America?
Did you guys know that?
It's a true story.
Just more kids stare at their screens.
I believe that people are naturally not so good.
You believe people that are good.
And then I thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
You want a hat?
Sure, I'll take one.
All right, thank you.
Yes, next question.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Charlie, let me get a hat.
Let's get back a little bit.
Woo! Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Way back.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Okay, yes, sir.
How are we on time?
Yeah, we're running out of time.
Hi there.
The pole's a little jacked.
Sorry. Try your best.
Anyway, nice to meet you, Mr. Kirk.
My name's Josh.
Actually, it's fitting that you ended on that with the last guy because I had a question about gender myself.
Wait, let him cook!
I was curious.
You know, I'm not that politically engaged.
You know, I hear a lot from both sides about what is a woman this, what is a woman that.
And, you know, I've heard you before say, you know, when someone asks you what a woman is, you said adult human female.
With XX chromosomes.
Right. So my question is, so...
You think a woman is someone with XX chromosomes, correct?
I said an adult human female with XX chromosomes.
And you would define a female as somebody with XX chromosomes?
Not necessarily, because a girl can have XX chromosomes.
That doesn't make her yet a woman.
So that's why I said an adult human female with XX chromosomes.
Yeah, I'm talking about females in general.
That's my apology.
Female, not woman.
Okay, so my question is, are you aware of...
No, not intersex.
Not specifically.
Swire syndrome.
Have you heard of Swire syndrome?
So these are people who are born functionally identical to females.
They have feminine figure.
They have feminine bone structure.
They have ovaries.
They have vaginas.
They have breasts.
They don't even know that they have Swireson.
until they hit puberty because then things get weird.
Most of them happen to be infertile.
Most of them.
But the catch is, despite all of these phenotypical similarities to females, they have the XY chromosome.
So are they...
Male or female, if they have XY chromosomes?
I have to look into the situation, but if they're XY chromosome, every one of their chromosomes are coded as male.
Correct, but functionally, bodily, they look exactly like and function exactly like females.
Well, I guess the question is, can they impregnate themselves?
Yes, they can.
They can impregnate themselves?
Yeah, there are cases of fertility.
I can show you.
Hold on.
Did you hear what I said?
Fertility. I don't think you heard my question.
Yes, what's your question?
I said, can they impregnate themselves?
No. Okay.
They can be impregnated, though, despite having XY chromosomes.
Okay, got it.
So, no, I'm not familiar with that syndrome, so I'll have to look into it.
Yeah, so I was wondering...
Swagger syndrome?
Swyer syndrome.
S-W-Y-E-R.
So, I was curious...
And how common is this?
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure how common it is.
Like one in a thousand, one in a million, one in ten million?
Could be one in a million, probably around those numbers, yeah.
So there's 330 people with this in the country?
Quite possibly, and even less that are fertile.
That is quite the exception case.
So it's an exception, but my question is...
But you have a rule, and that's what we talk about.
Then you have exceptions.
That makes the statement that there are only male or female false.
No, it's not.
Again, I have to look into this.
I'm going to take your word for it.
I have to study it, look at it.
If I told you there's only black and white swans, have you heard this argument before?
If there's only black and white swans...
No, I have not heard of swans.
Billions and billions of swans in the world, I tell you there's only black and white swans.
If there's one gray swan, that makes that statement false, that they're only white or black.
Okay. So the Swire Syndrome...
I will look at it, and it will have to fall under one of the categories of the binary, period.
Right, so it's XY, but functionally they look like females.
I will look more into it, into the literature, and if we ever cross paths again, I'll give you a more crisp answer.
For sure, I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Yep. Thank you.
Thank you for bringing something up I didn't know.
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How's that sound, guys?
Okay? Yeah.
Hey, Charlie.
I appreciate you being here, and I just want to ask you a question.
So, what are your thoughts on Elon Musk running Doge?
Because there's obviously a glaring conflict of interest.
He's running multiple companies.
He's gotten billions of dollars richer since the election.
So, isn't there a glaring conflict of interest?
He even met with world leaders the other day.
So, there's a conflict of interest here.
What do you think about him running an unofficial government department?
What is the government department doing?
It's cutting spending.
I don't know how that would be a conflict of interest to running an electric car vehicle company.
He's getting millions of dollars in contracts.
Those pre-existed Trump, though, right?
Those government contracts expanded during Biden.
You would have an argument if Elon Musk gets a new contract under Trump.
I think that's a great argument.
We're seeing none of that.
In fact, we're seeing Elon go after government agencies that he's getting contracts from.
He's cutting stuff that he gets money from.
But they're also investigating him.
A lot of the departments he's going after, they're also investigating him.
You might disagree, but I would say there's been a lot of lawfare in the last couple years and erroneous investigations into people.
So I don't think that there's a lot to that.
But it's interesting.
There's a lot of precedent for this.
FDR had titans of his time come into the White House, help during for war production.
We saw this under Woodrow Wilson.
What Elon Musk is doing is incredibly admirable.
This is a guy that could literally just be vacationing all day long, just enjoying his money worth $400 billion.
He's out there saving you guys money to make sure that you have a future and fighting for taxpayers.
And he's doing a great job.
He's doing a phenomenal job.
And by the way, it's not about money for him.
If this was about money for him...
He doesn't own any homes.
All he owns is jets.
Money is just like a numerical abstraction for him.
He literally sleeps on the couch, you're right, in the Eisenhower Executive Office building.
He's obsessed with a particular task.
He swore an oath that he was going to try to revive this country under any means possible, and he's doing a better job at it than almost any politician in the modern era, thanks to President Trump as well.
But he's unappointed and elected.
Who is he really being held accountable to?
He's unappointed and unelected, so he's not really accountable to anyone, is he?
It sounds like a good point, but again, there's a lot of people that are unelected within our government.
I mean, Joe Biden had 5,000 unelected people in his government.
But you know what?
This is a very important distinction, though, is that Elon Musk is not some shadow character that we were not aware of when we went and voted for Donald Trump.
Elon Musk was campaigning with Donald Trump for 30 days straight.
Elon Musk was a top surrogate for Donald Trump.
The American people and voters knew that if they voted for Trump, they were going to get Doge.
Doge was a thing that...
Right? And so the American people voted understanding that with Donald Trump comes an element of Elon Musk.
You would have a good argument, in my opinion, if Elon was like totally secret and then just popped up in like January like, ooh, actually I'm in charge.
But no, this was the most transparent agenda team ever presented.
And so I, yes, technically you're right, he is unelected, but the essence of him being involved was...
100% notified and decided by the American people.
That's true, but at the end of the day, isn't it still like we're going towards oligarchy because we have a very rich man who's influencing our government directly?
That's an interesting question.
What would you have someone like Elon Musk do?
He's worth $400 billion.
Electric car magnate, Starlink, SpaceX, boring company, Neuralink.
He could do one of three things.
do nothing and enjoy his money and be a fat cat.
He can go become a George Soros type and spend all the money against the country, or he can be a patriot and get involved and try to save the country.
We're never going to get rid of rich people, regardless of what all the Marxists say.
We're always going to have elites.
We should use Elon Musk as an example of how elites should act, that sacrifice and fight for other people.
Does that make sense?
Because the other way, okay, if he was just sitting on his yacht in Venice, we'd hate him too.
Oh, he's doing nothing.
No, he's actually got skin in the game.
He's fighting every day.
D.C. is so broken.
It's so inefficient.
It's so bloated.
It's so outrageous.
God bless him for going out there and trying to bring value back to the U.S. taxpayer.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
We'll do one or two more, right?
One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one.
Four what?
Yeah, here.
Can I ask?
Hey, Charlie.
I voted for Trump in November, and I agree with most of his stuff, like cutting government spending and stuff like that, but I don't agree with cutting back on stuff for climate, because I feel like energy security is important, and I feel like green energy is the future.
Like nuclear energy.
Do you agree that...
Nuclear 100%, yeah.
What about like solar, hydroelectric?
We heavily subsidize solar.
Which, by the way, goes against the previous point, just to be clear.
Elon Musk has made a ton of money on the electric vehicle mandate, of which he's helping get rid of the electric vehicle mandate that made him super rich.
So I just want you all to understand.
No, I mean, if solar is going to be the future, it has to stand on its own.
No government subsidies.
Okay. Thank you.
That's my question.
And can I get a signed hat?
Yes, you can.
Thank you.
Alright, here we go.
Couple more.
How's it going, Charlie?
My name is also Charlie, and I'm a huge fan.
I opened my own Turning Point chapter in Trinity a couple weeks ago, or a month ago.
I'm only a junior in high school, and I actually skipped school to come talk to you today.
So, I just recently did a huge project on cryptocurrency, and I know that Trump No, so what he wants to do, we have to figure something out with crypto.
So we have to figure out what it actually is.
So is it an asset or is it a currency?
Yes, but there needs to be a third category, right, that is created.
And that third category, you can call it whatever it wants, because the problem is this.
If it's a currency, then it's regulated completely differently by the federal government.
In order for something, it's not the word asset, it's something of value with an issuer.
Here's the problem with Bitcoin.
There is no issuer.
There is no legal tender that it comes from.
It's not a security.
Thank you.
Yes, exactly right.
Thank you.
Security and currency.
So a security would be that I buy $10 of stock in Amazon, given to you by Amazon.
Bitcoin, there's no issuer.
It's anonymously chartered.
Therefore, it's really kind of mysteriously valuable.
But if it goes in the currency side, then it's directly competing with the US dollar, and it goes under all sorts of different types of regulations.
So you need to probably create a third category.
And it's good for everybody.
Now, I'm excited about the kind of meme Crypto economy.
I'm not like an over economically regulating person.
But if we don't get a handle on like the meme coin crypto world, it's either rug pull stuff.
A lot of people are going to lose a lot of money and they already have.
And I'm telling you, it's going to give all crypto a really bad name.
So is that the point of David Czar?
Like the cryptos?
David Sachs.
To figure this out.
Where we want to be pro crypto, but we also want to respect that not all cryptography is made equal.
That making a meme coin has no necessary value versus Ethereum or versus Solana or Bitcoin.
Those things have real value, right?
Because they're in real scarcity, takes real energy, and it's real technology and real math behind it.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, thank you so much.
Can I get a sign-up?
Absolutely, yes.
Thank you.
All right, any disagreements?
And then we've got to go soon, guys.
Come on, come on, come on!
Two more, come on, come on!
Two more, come on, please!
All right, so...
Go quick.
Quick. Okay, so...
We want to take down the Department of Education.
So how do we plan to compete internationally with other countries?
I'm an immigrant from China.
In China, we value education as our number one priority.
Because through education, we can improve our social status and become a more valuable member in society.
How do we plan to do that if we take down the Department of Education?
We believe we have a different view of education than the Chinese.
The Chinese, which actually is our current model, they look at educators as carpenters to make kids carved in a certain way to be widgets in a broader system.
In its true essence, educators should be more like gardeners, allowing kids to grow into what they possibly can become, into a full and complete citizen, and having their soul deepened in the beauty and the richness of life.
It's a different view, right?
So it's more of a classical view of education.
The Chinese model is great from a totalitarian standpoint.
You will do this, you will learn that, you will serve the state, and you will be very good at it.
There's maybe a role for that.
I actually would rather have us have millions of thoughtful, deep, philosophically-minded good citizens that know what it is to think critically, and they can solve any problem that comes after them.
The Department of Education is an administrative state.
It is this massive beast that is way overfunded, way overbloated, More administrators than not.
And if we want to compete with China, we're not going to out-totalitarian them.
Instead, we should do what is necessary for a free society to continue to exist.
The only way a free society exists is if citizens know what liberty is.
It's the only way a free society can continue.
My thing is, what can we do then?
Got it.
So we're going to push a lot of the money back to the states, and we have to empower parents to be more actively involved in their kids' education.
This is another thing that China does not have.
I've lived in China for eight years.
Taiwan or China?
Mainland China.
In China, our parents are our number one drivers for us to get an education.
They support all of us.
They push you, for sure.
Are they teaching you?
They do help teach us.
What do they teach you?
What our teachers are teaching us...
They help support that by at home, they keep educating us.
Fair enough.
I'm not here to knock on China.
I want to respect, you know, your country.
But let me just ask you a question.
Do they teach you about Tiananmen Square?
They inform us.
Do they teach you about Tiananmen Square?
They give us the truth.
They talk about how it wasn't a good event.
Okay, good.
I didn't know that.
You know what I'm getting at, though.
I know, you're trying to say we're hiding it, but we aren't hiding it.
Do they say that is Taiwan Taiwan, or is it...
Land of the Chinese Communist Party.
We call it Taiwan.
We recognize the situation in our government.
Okay, so it's not China's, it's its own sovereign, autonomous country?
We call them Taiwan.
We recognize how they're separate, but they still belong to us legally.
Okay. You see what I'm getting at, right?
Is that eventually you get towards truth claims, and the state has to make a decision.
What we believe, though, is the state should not be involved in those things.
And that free citizens should pursue truth in a decentralized manner.
Does that make sense?
I'm not trying to pick on China.
You should be proud of your country and all that.
Not exactly a fan of your government, but that's a separate issue.
So we have a different model of education.
The difference is this.
In totalitarian countries, human beings are little parts of a broader machine to be put in.
In a free society, you're all independent souls that are made in the image of God.
That you have to understand what freedom and liberty is and to grow into something greater.
Thank you very much for your question.
Thanks so much for listening.
Everybody email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
