The Charlie Kirk Show - Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and Ben Shapiro Remember Charlie Kirk

Sept. 16, 2025 - The Charlie Kirk Show

01:25:27

Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and Ben Shapiro Remember Charlie Kirk

Over the years, the hosts of the Daily Wire came to know Charlie Kirk as a fellow host, as a fellow conservative, and above all, as a friend. Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, and Ben Shapiro all join Andrew on the set in Phoenix to remember Charlie and express how to further his immortal legacy.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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	Hey everybody, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
	I am Andrew Colvet, executive producer of this show.
	I am joined by some very dear friends of Charlie.
	Um, and of course, they need no introduction.
	That would be in no particular order from my right to left, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, and Ben Shapiro.
	Um, and I want to explain how this even happened.
	Uh obviously we had the vice president of the United States uh honor Charlie by guest hosting the show from the White House yesterday.
	I was just in DC yesterday for that, and it was an amazing experience.
	I've gotten so much great feedback, and of course, we are so honored that JD wanted to take time, you know, from running the country and leading the world to help honor his friend, Charlie Kirk.
	And in the moments that uh passed right after we got the news, I was in a state of shock.
	And one of the things that gave me some solace and gave me some comfort in those first uh few hours afterwards was I actually happened to see a tweet from Matt Walsh, and I could feel the visceral anger that was pouring out of his body onto the post on X. And I it's hard to explain why that gave me so much comfort,
	but I knew that there was an army rising up with righteous anger at what had just happened uh to my friend and to the host of this show.
	And within minutes of that, I got a call from the CEO of Daily Wire just asking if there was anything he could do, and I said, Yes, send send the team.
	I'm gonna want them to guest host this show.
	And so I asked, and they graciously granted the uh the request, and here they are on Tuesday.
	It was originally gonna be Monday, but you guys got slightly outclassed.
	We got bumped.
	We got bumped.
	Just terrible.
	First of all, th thanks for having us.
	And uh uh no no place we'd rather be, obviously.
	But if the idea is that Charlie's friends are gonna take turns stopping by and doing the show, then the show is gonna go on until about 2052, I think.
	Charlie had a lot of friends.
	You're gonna be aged out by that, so you'll be off the list, but uh, but we'll figure something out.
	We'll we'll take care of you, Michael.
	But Matt, first to you.
	Um tell me what happened in your heart in that in those first moments, or or however you want to do this, what Charlie meant to you, however, you want to take this, but those first moments meant a lot to me, so I would love to just let me into that that head space.
	Yeah, well, first of all, thanks for allowing us to do this.
	Uh it's obviously a great, a great uh honor.
	Um as well as of course in the midst of this of this great tragedy.
	Uh I think you know Charlie was a great man, he was a patriot.
	Uh he was, you know, he loved God, he loved his family.
	All that came through.
	But the word that keeps coming to my mind when I think about Charlie is it's like it's the word that I used after I met Charlie the first time, and I called my wife, and it's just impressive.
	He was an impressive guy.
	And that was that's the thought that I had when I when I met him.
	And I knew he was impressive based on his work, but just meeting him in person, he's just this really impressive guy.
	And he he did something that I don't think anyone else can do, certainly in this business, and that he was this compelling uh incredible charismatic speaker, but also this force uh behind the scenes and organizing built this incredible institution.
	Now in this business, there are some people who can be personalities and can talk in front of the camera, uh, although I think no one did it as well as Charlie.
	And then there are people who are kind of the organizers behind the scenes.
	I don't know anyone who was in A plus talent in both areas, and yet Charlie was, which is why you kind of hear this conversation now, which is inevitable about well, who's going to replace Charlie?
	Who's gonna be the new Charlie Kirk?
	And I and I am truly sorry to say that the answer is nobody.
	Yeah.
	There is no new Charlie Kirk.
	It's it's just like w r when Rush Limbaugh died, and there was a conversation about who's the new rush.
	There is no new rush.
	You only get one rush in your lifetime.
	You only get one Charlie Kirk.
	We're blessed to have Charlie once, and we're not gonna have him again.
	Now, all the rest of us can try to pick up the legacy and and uh and live out his legacy and carry it forward, which we will, but we can't be Charlie Charlie Kirk.
	And and I think that's why you mentioned the anger.
	That was just like millions of other people.
	When I I'll never forget where I was when I when I first saw and heard about this, I was sitting in my car, I was about to walk into a coffee shop and just get a cup of coffee, and I uh got a text from someone saying what's going on with Charlie Kirk.
	And then I went on Twitter and I'm looking around, and there's all this, you know, the at the time it was kind of felt like rumors or something, and I didn't, I wasn't sure I started text texting Michael and Ben.
	And then I heard about a shooting, and and in the back of my mind, I I kind of was I was concerned, but I wasn't that concerned because I thought, well, there's no way it what did they kill Charlie Kirk.
	It's just like it can't happen.
	That cannot happen.
	And then uh, and I'll never forget uh just kind of frantically scrolling around, texting what the hell's going on.
	And and uh and and the the video of uh the video just popped up on the screen, and I saw it, and uh I'll never unsee it.
	And uh I I just put my phone down and I was filled with uh grief, shock, but but oh rage, just overwhelming anger.
	And I've felt that ever since that moment.
	It hasn't gone away.
	In fact, I my anger is only intensified, and there's a lot of reasons for it.
	It was a horrible atrocity what was done to him.
	Uh anger for his family, most of all, anger for a lot of people, but also anger for the country, because you you took someone from us, from all of us.
	That that's why I think there's this outpour, this just incredible outpouring of mourning and grief is because we all feel it, whether you knew him or not, whether you were friends or not, we all feel that you took some something from us.
	You took someone from us that we that we needed, and you had no right to do that, which is why we could talk about the grief in the mourning and all of that, and we should.
	But we also need to talk about justice.
	We need justice for Charlie.
	We need justice for all of us.
	Um justice for his family.
	You know, we can uh which is why I'm not interested in conversations about unity and togetherness and kumbaya handholding and all that.
	I know some people it might comfort them to talk that way.
	But we don't have time for that right now.
	What we need is justice for this for this man who was robbed from us.
	And and and we need it now.
	Much was made about JD's closing yesterday when he talked about unity, and but he said first we need truth.
	Did you have a chance to hear that?
	And what's your take?
	What did Yeah, I thought, well, I thought JD, I thought his in I thought it was incredible what what I I think, and in fact, J J D Vance's uh, you know, monologue trick triggered towards the end of his of the show yesterday.
	I thought was tremendous.
	Uh and and before that, I also want to say that that um Erica's speech was I honestly believe one of the greatest speeches I've ever seen anyone give.
	I think I think it's one of the great speeches ever delivered when you consider the circumstances, but then also just the message.
	And and look, Erica was under no obligation to give the country what it needs.
	You know, Erica could just go out there and say how she feels.
	And it's our obligation to comfort her and to be there for her.
	And yet she did, in fact, give the country what it needs.
	Yeah.
	Because she didn't, she she didn't give us um she didn't withhold the anger.
	Like we we saw that she is she is angry and she wants justice for her husband, righteous, loving anger, anger that's that's rooted in the love that she has for her children and her husband.
	And I think it was so beautiful and important for us to see that.
	And uh Yeah, guess what?
	She did it right where you're sitting.
	That's where that the Erica Kirk speech happened.
	We put the podium right where your chair is.
	Um guys, I'm gonna look over here.
	Uh what do you remember about Charlie?
	Um, you know, the first thing you say on the show is uh I I wanna I want to make sure each of you has uh your own moment for this, so uh we'll start with you, Mike.
	Well, look, it's hitting everyone.
	Obviously, it's hitting millions of people who never met the guy, but who felt very, very close to him because they were with him all day in their pockets and reels.
	And uh for those of us who are friends with him for many years, uh, you know, it hits in a personal way, in the same way that it hits when any family member or friend dies, I realized, which is that part of what you're mourning is not just the person, but you're mourning this future that you had imagined for the person and with the person.
	And I think that's especially true with Charlie, because this is not in any way hyperbolic.
	Everybody who knew Charlie knew this guy was going to be the president.
	I think I don't think I'm being hyperbolic at all.
	I knew you just meet the guy, and or you just see him from afar, and you say, This guy's gonna be president for all the reasons that you were mentioning, Matt, earlier.
	Not only did he kill it in front of the camera and on the stage, and we but he was this unbelievable operative organizer, extremely effective political figure behind the scenes.
	And he just had it.
	I just don't know.
	He just had greater skill and talent than any other political figure of our generation.
	And so you say, well, he's gonna be president.
	And when when it happened, uh you know, I was texting my wife, and she texted me, she said, Do you see do you see what happened?
	I said, Yeah, yeah.
	She said, It can't that can't have happened.
	She goes, I know, I saw it, we all saw it.
	I actually didn't see the video, thank God.
	But she said we all saw it, and so we know it happened and yet it couldn't have happened.
	And I think that that's the feeling that a lot of us have.
	And obviously, Charlie would have known more than anybody.
	Nobody has promised tomorrow.
	He understood the risks of a public life, he understood better than most people that the condition that the country is in right now.
	But I think this is what really drives it home, because as you know, we don't need to even dignify them with much discussion, but there have been some very hideous responses to Charlie's assassination, not only from fringe lunatics, which you get all the time, but from mainstream voices from normie voices from the person you went to third grade with on Facebook and from uh elite media outlets.
	And and I think that was uh that really shakes a lot of people because Charlie, being the premier political talent of our generation, being so generous, so gracious, so constantly charitable, be so totally mainstream.
	I think a lot of people see not more not only this good man, this innocent man who was who was murdered, but they say, Man, would half the country cheer it if something happened to me too, or to my brother or to what my co-workers do, you know, there's this recognition that uh people are are feeling two things.
	One, they everyone who's never even met Charlie is feeling this personal loss, but also this political loss.
	We feel that something about our political order has gone down with this guy who who was the best example of it.
	And it it's why people are not going to get over it for a long time, nor should they get over it, because it really has to impel action.
	We cannot continue in this way.
	And the people who are who are undermining the very uh basic foundations of our country and of our society, they need to be punished for it in a just and prudent and lawful Way, but they they need to be discouraged and suppressed because we we cannot tolerate this.
	Yeah, I'm uh I love what you said there, and I I'm just struck, and we don't have to get into this now.
	Um, but you know, I there was news this morning that the charges against Luigi Maggione had been downgraded.
	Uh and he's now there's no option for life without parole.
	So there's a chance that this assassin I hadn't heard.
	Yes, this assassin degree could be released at some point.
	And he's a young guy, so yes, in theory, this might man might walk the streets free again.
	This is so utterly outrageous and infuriating to me.
	And that's you know, I fired off a tweet this morning about it because I was I was like, you know, do you not understand the moment that we are in?
	How dare you not if you're the judge and you think this is the way you're gonna go, at least kick the can a week or two.
	Yeah, but to spit in our face.
	Yes.
	So I I get enraged by that.
	And uh anyway, so candidly, when I first started working with Charlie, I mean, Ben, you were you were the campus guy.
	And uh it's interesting how everything evolved, but you know, we looked up to you and what you were doing so much, and I remember actually meeting with you with Charlie in you know, Ventura Boulevard uh in Los Angeles, and you know, it's many moons ago, but uh you know, we're fondly remembering them now because uh it's how it's how this whole community community was knit together.
	Ben, the floor is finally yours.
	I feel bad as at 9 33 here.
	Not at all.
	I mean, it's um but yeah, please.
	I I think the thing for all of us about Charlie is that everyone felt Charlie's used the word innocent earlier, Michael.
	It wasn't just that he was innocent in the sense, obviously, that he was an innocent person.
	He was truly innocent at heart.
	Right.
	Charlie didn't change from the time that I knew him at 18 years old.
	I mean, the first time I met Charlie, and I've talked about this before was the breakers in Palm Beach, and he was walking around, he had just started turning point, and he was like very scrawny at the time, but very tall, his beanpole, and he was just a bundle of energy, which never stopped.
	I mean, legitimately endless levels of energy.
	Uh if if you're talking about meeting Charlie, Charlie was just energetic all the time, all the time.
	I don't know where it came from.
	And he was walking around the the breakers as a kid trying to gather donors, and he came up to me as Mr. Shapiro, you know, great to meet you.
	Uh, and it is like I I wasn't used to being calling Mr. I was like 28.
	Right.
	And Charlie was 18.
	And uh and and Charlie we I met him, I turned to Jeremy Boring, you know, the other co-founder of the The Daily Wire, and I I said to him, That that guy's gonna be the head of the RNC.
	Like there's just no doubt.
	And as I've said, uh the first meeting.
	The first meeting right off the bat.
	You could tell because this is the thing about Charlie.
	The way that people know Charlie as this unbelievably talented debater and a terrific broadcaster and an unbelievably clear advocate for his values and for biblical values and for truth.
	And the reason that legitimately tens of millions of people are mourning him.
	And I mean, I I should just say, from a Jewish perspective, every synagogue that that I know of did a tribute to Charlie Kirk over the weekend, like on Shabbat, they stopped the services to do tributes to Charlie, which is an amazing testimony to to who Charlie was.
	But you could tell that early that Charlie the the thing is Charlie got good at those things.
	The thing Charlie was always amazing at, the thing he had an inherent talent for was coalition building.
	He was always an unbelievably great coalition builder.
	I mean, it's something actually the Tucker talked about yesterday on JD's show.
	And that's and that's an amazing thing.
	I mean, this is a fractious coalition, and America's a fractious country.
	And to have somebody with the ability and to dedicate his time and effort to actually building those coalitions is is really tough to the point where you know he's able to bring together people who can you know disagree on an enormous number of things and still point their ships in the same direction.
	I mean, Tucker Carlson and I talked on Friday.
	Okay, now everybody knows that that Tucker and I have you know had our disagreements and have our disagreements about an enormous number of policy issues, and I'm sure at some point we'll we'll publicly discuss those issues and and talk about our differences and all that.
	But that doesn't matter because we're gonna point our ships in the direction that Charlie wanted those ships to be pointed, which is in the the direction of making the country stronger and better.
	And that's that was Charlie's gift.
	That was a thing that Charlie was was amazing at.
	He had innate talent for that.
	All the other stuff, I watched him cultivate over the course of 13 years.
	Right?
	I I watched him get good at debate.
	I watched him become a charismatic speaker.
	Charlie was not a naturally charismatic speaker.
	He became that is that is an unbelievable skill to be able to actually better yourself in all of these ways and get better every day at doing them.
	So that by the time that this horrifying act of evil happened, he was just the best there was at it.
	That that is just an incredible testament to not only the amount of determination and energy and grit that Charlie put into things and that rolled off him every time you met him.
	He was just, again, bouncing around the room every time you met him because he had another thing to do, another thing to do.
	The fact that I remember when I started getting the text – I yeah, obviously it's there.
	I kept saying on on the show, and I've said it for days since like there are no words, and I'm I'm rarely at a loss for words.
	Um there they're legitimately no no words.
	But the the thing that I remember stunning me is when they reported hit when the headlines came up with his age.
	Because I was like, I've known Charlie for a long time, and so you think of Charlie as you know, somebody who you know grew up with you, which is which is true.
	The fact that Charlie was 31 years old and had accomplished all of these things.
	I mean, just when when Matt you say irreplaceable, utterly irreplaceable, I mean they're just completely irreplaceable, which is why everybody, I mean, this is why his movement is gonna have to be the replacement, right?
	Everybody is gonna have to do their part because when a giant drops the load, it's gotta be a bunch of normies who pick it up.
	But I think that's the other thing about Charlie, aside from the fact that he was a giant.
	I said this on the show a couple of days ago, is that you know, people describe people as larger than life.
	Charlie wasn't larger than life, he just was life.
	He was just so alive and so normal, so normal.
	That's why people connected to Charlie, right?
	He he wasn't a persona.
	Right.
	There are so many people in this space and in the political space who are just kind of like caricatures of themselves and personas and performative and all this kind of crap.
	And Charlie wasn't any of those things, right?
	Charlie was a guy who had to be taught not to wear a baggy suit as we were talking about off the air.
	Yeah, Charlie was a guy who, as you mentioned, someone told me he had Riz, and he said, What the hell's Riz?
	Right?
	That that's who Charlie was.
	And the fact that a normie can change the world that way.
	I mean, and that's what Charlie was.
	He was saying normal, good, innocent things, the kinds of things that you want your children to grow up with.
	The kind of uh I'm gonna show my kids videos of Charlie.
	Right.
	My kids are like 11.
	Right.
	I I have four, and they range from 11 to 1.
	I can show them Charlie Kirk videos.
	You know, Charlie, Charlie used to always check us and say, no.
	Like if we were had some content idea and you go, there's 10-year-olds watching.
	There's 14-year-olds watching.
	Always remember.
	He brought in he brought an innocence to the world, but an innocence with a level of sophistication in how to approach the world, and that is that is so difficult to do because people who are innocent tend not to know how to do the other thing, the activism thing and the coalition building thing.
	He's a five-to-believable, like truly amazing.
	And developed tools that weren't even in his arsenal at the beginning.
	This is why, you know, people talk about Charlie being talented, and and they think that talent is is a sort of compliment.
	A lot of people are born talented at a lot of different things.
	Charlie was born talented at a great many things.
	And then there are the things that he legitimately made himself the best in the world at.
	And that was an inspiration to people too, because if you go back and you just watch the sort of arc of his career and his trajectory, which as Michael says was going to lead to the White House.
	I mean, like no one, no one believes any different.
	If you if you watch that arc, the ability to continue to improve his own trajectory by becoming that that's part of the tragedy.
	Is he was getting better at everything, and he was already the best.
	He was getting better at all those things.
	And and and that that's that's an amazing, that's that's an unbelievable thing.
	And that's what was taken from us.
	And the the other thing is that you just to kind of close out my monologue here.
	No, you know, that it wasn't just that I received you know messages from everybody.
	We all received messages from everybody, because if you knew Charlie, even tangentially, everybody knew how affected you were by Charlie's death.
	It wasn't just that I received messages from all over the world, from obviously, you know, friends in Argentina and in Britain and in Canada and tons from Israel, obviously, because Charlie, of course, was publicly extremely pro-Israel.
	Not not just not just that.
	I got messages from people who are very prominent Figures who are liberal, who were deeply disturbed and upset, and who and who are not I I don't want to say that everybody who disagrees with us politically is a person who celebrated Charlie's death, because that's not true.
	This is the opportunity that Charlie provides.
	What Charlie was about was opening doors so all those kids he was talking to on campus, so many of those kids became conservative, became God fearers, went to church on Sunday because of trying and they weren't people who already were on Charlie's side.
	Right?
	That was that was Charlie's deal.
	He took a bunch of people who weren't going to go to church last Sunday, and they all went to church last Sunday.
	Right?
	The church piece, from everything I'm hearing, were overflowing.
	Yeah.
	Overflowing Charlie.
	He said make heaven make heaven crowded, Charlie.
	I knew I saw the Charlie effect at church because I'm sitting there, we're kind of a buttoned up, more traditional parish.
	Shocking, I know.
	Not a lot of tank taps.
	But I look around, I look around, and there were sweatpants and t-shirts.
	And I was so happy to see the sweatpants and t-shirts.
	I knew every single one of them was there for Charlie.
	And so I think that we we shouldn't just use this as a as an opportunity to mobilize on behalf of the things that Charlie believed to carry forward his legacy.
	His legacy was going to people we disagree with and getting those people to realize that Charlie's principles were right.
	That's that's the unbelievable legacy that he leaves because again, being murdered in the way that he was, doing the thing that Charlie was all about, doing outrage.
	He was doing outreach, right?
	Religious outreach.
	He was talking about Christ in the question before he was killed, right?
	He's doing religious outreach, he's doing political outreach, values outreach, biblically based outreach.
	And being killed in that way means that there is an opportunity to reach out to people who weren't going to be devotees of of Charlie or devotees of the ideas that he espoused.
	And to ignore that, I think would be to ignore a huge part of what his legacy can mean.
	So, yes, I totally agree with the vice president.
	You can't have unity with people who celebrate the murder of Charlie Kirk.
	You absolutely cannot.
	Those people are I'm not going to curse, those people are the worst that humanity has to offer.
	The people who celebrate the death of a wonderful person like Charlie and a husband and a father, and I cannot watch the tapes.
	I mean, you're playing, you know, before the show started, the videos of Charlie with the I can't watch them.
	I have such a hard time with that.
	I mean, because we all have young kids.
	It's so painful.
	It's so painful to watch and knowing that those kids are going to grow up without their dad.
	It's it's unspeakable, unspeakable.
	And people who celebrate that, there are no there are no deaths in hell that are rich enough for for those people.
	But I think that there are people that we can reach out to, and that was always Charlie's idea.
	There are always people that we can react reach out to.
	He convinced literally millions of young people to move to the other side of the political aisle.
	And so I think there's an opportunity to make people make that choice.
	Make that choice.
	Choose between the demons who are celebrating Charlie's death and the rest of us who would like to have a functional country where we can talk to one another.
	I love I love what you said.
	I mean, I do think this is an opportunity.
	This is a this is that fork in the road moment as a country where we and I and this is you know, we could get into the whole cancel is it cancel culture debate or whatever, which I personally find to be ridiculous because if somebody revived reveals themselves to be a ghoulish, nasty, vile person, then that employer should have every right to fire a ghoulish.
	If you threaten to murder someone or encourage the murder of someone for speaking their mind, then it actually helps the marketplace of ideas to get that person out of it.
	That person is undermining the marketplace.
	To quote Chesterton, it's the thought that stops thought.
	You can't it it's it's you need certain foundations in order just like any marketplace, you need certain rules and basic guidelines, or else you you can't even speak.
	I can't have a conversation with you if you're gonna threaten to march.
	It's a deliberate misread of what cancel culture is, of course.
	And this idea that you as an employer owe it to an employee to continue to employ them after they post in celebration of Charlie's murder.
	Yeah.
	Of course you don't have an obligation to continue signing a track who is celebrating to somebody who celebrates Charlie's murder.
	Like duh.
	That's that's it.
	That's a basic aspect of freedom, also.
	Trevor Burrus, Jr.: There's no equivalence, also, because and this is this is the the really frustrating thing about this conversation.
	Oh, the right's engaging in cancel culture.
	Well, even even if I accepted that framing, there's a there's a difference here in the kinds of things the kinds of speech that are being quote unquote cancelled.
	Um, the left will cancel you if you say that you know men can't have babies.
	That that That's what cancel culture is on the left.
	They'll cancel you for saying things that are true and normal and obvious.
	And on the right, to the extent that anyone's being canceled, and it's not being done through force of law, certainly not through violence, it's just being done through you know free speech and people, freedom of association.
	But to the extent anyone's getting canceled, they're getting it canceled for saying things that are objectively vile and disgusting.
	And in some cases illegal.
	Right.
	And there's so there's just there's a there's a fundamental difference.
	Like society should treat those things differently.
	I love the point you're making because it's it's truth versus a lie.
	It's and I think I hadn't seen it put that way yet, Matt, and I think it's really smart.
	So Yeah, well, I just think I I think that uh when when we talk about the difference in in you know canceling on the right or the left, there are a lot of other differences too.
	I mean, one of the big differences is that the right, uh, especially historically, you know, over the la over the last several decades, doesn't have the institutional power that the left does.
	And so when the left cancels you, they're using institutional power to do it.
	I mean, they're using big big tech platforms, they're using they're you know, they're using these big corporations, they're um so they they have they have that institutional power that the right doesn't have.
	So there are a lot of differences, but I think I think the most important difference again, it goes down to the actual speech we're talking about.
	I mean, not not all speech is exactly the same.
	There's there's a there is just a difference.
	And so it is good.
	We we should in society react with revulsion to things that are revolting.
	When someone says something revolting and disgusting, we should react with revulsion and disgust.
	But when someone says something that is good and normal, we should not react with with revulsion and disgust.
	But I think I've got you.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean it it this it's it's this common sense stuff that we all know it, and yet somehow it er erupts into a debate on X. I think that what happens is that everybody flattens out these positions into the dumbest version of the argument.
	There's a sort of pixelation that happens where it's like, well, that means that I should be able to say anything, and no one should ever be angry at me.
	No one should ever criticize me, no matter what I say.
	And if you do, that's a form of cancel culture.
	And it's like, no, you've now reduced the argument to the stupidest version of the argument.
	The the argument that I think all of us on the right were trying to make, maybe sometimes ineffectually, but I think correctly, was if you say a man is not a woman, that is not a cancelable offense or should not be.
	And yet that was a cancelable offense for half of our industry.
	I mean, legitimately.
	Yeah.
	I mean, it th this is the thing that that's and there there was uh an incident that happened, yes, personal memory from 2014, where I was on CNN Headline News, and there was a transgender identifying person, a very large male transgender identifying person with extraordinary large female hands.
	And I only remember the size of the hands because I was grabbed by the back of the neck during that television interview because I had the temerity to call him sir and ask about his genetics.
	And the entire panel immediately responded by rushing to the defense of the person who is doing the physical assault on camera.
	And that is the predicate to all of this.
	There are permission structures that have been created on the left for violence.
	And these permission structures are deeply evil, and they are not the same thing as saying a man is not a woman.
	Like if you if you are if you are some of the people who we've been watching, we haven't played any of their tapes because they don't frankly deserve the airtime, who are out there and and making statements about how Charlie deserved what he was gonna get or other people shall the New York Times featured a Twitch streamer who has spent his days for the last several years defending terrorism, violently threatening people and calling for violence.
	And the New York Times featured that person in the pages of the New York Times.
	Are we not supposed to react to that with revulsion?
	As Matt says, Of course we should react to that with revulsion.
	It's not the same thing.
	We we have to recognize the left and the right when people have, as you point out, what's often a degraded debate about speech.
	You have you you have to begin with something.
	You can't think from nothing, you can't speak from nothing.
	You have to begin with basic truths and like uh men and women are different, for instance, or basic moral goods.
	C. S. Lewis called this the DAO.
	Uh others have called it the natural law or the first principles of practical reason.
	It's like in math, you have to start with an axiom A equals A, A plus B equals B plus A. You can't it it's not that you can prove those things, but you can't prove anything else without those things.
	If we now deny That murder is wrong.
	We're past reason.
	I just want to say again, guys, thank you for making the trip here.
	Um, you know, you guys were so gracious about I mean, it was you were just like anything we could do, you know.
	Can we do more?
	Can we do more?
	And uh we felt that love and we feel that love.
	And um, you know, so just thank you again, because I know getting the three of you in the same spot.
	We don't even like each other.
	That's it.
	You're getting us to voluntarily be around each other, but what we all would uh, you know, uh we we've been talking to a lot of our friends in the conservative movement, just in the broader American culture.
	And and right now it feels that not just the beating heart of the conservative movement or the Republican Party, but the it does feel like the beating heart of America is in Phoenix right now.
	That's a TP USA, and so this this is the place to be, and uh however anyone can help.
	Some people can help by spreading the word, starting a chapter, sending a donation, doing whatever they can do though.
	This is this is where it's at right now.
	Thank you.
	Thank you for saying that.
	And I I also want you guys to know that you know Erica feels that too.
	Um I talked to Erica uh multiple times a day as as we're just you know, because on top of the show, duty, it was sort of you know, I don't think people realize this.
	I was originally like comms PR, you know, Char dealing with incoming on Charlie, and then we started the show, and so I still have I still wear two hats.
	You know, Charlie would do this, and then he would go around turning point.
	Yeah, and it was sort of we just kind of did it together when we when we built this part out, it was kind of like our our side hobby, which became this moment every day to sharpen ideas.
	And by the way, when you talk about how Charlie leveled up, it was this microphone, you know, that that did that for him because the m the number of reps he was putting in every day, he was sharpening and sharpening and sharpening, and and we had the sounding board and these these chats that we have, uh, you know, I'll never delete, I'm gonna, you know, where where we're working through, you know, this new news cycle came up, and we've got to figure out how to navigate it.
	And every day doing that, you're just sharpening your mind, sharpening your mind so that when he would go on campus, um it would it would come out the way it did.
	And it it was amazing how his life was like that, where every piece of it fed into the next, where turning you know, this show would feed into the campus events, which I'm now gonna call basically campus tent revivals.
	It just it you know, it occurred to me this morning.
	I was like, that's what they were.
	And and you you start realizing it he buried this stuff in the in this political conversation, but he was telling people to follow Jesus, repent and be saved.
	You know, listen to the gospel.
	God wants some so much more from you.
	He wants you to be a part of something bigger.
	It was a tent revival, and thousands came.
	Thousands came.
	And yeah, they cast a ballot when it came time in November, God bless them.
	But that was good.
	That was a good that was all.
	Because it was innocent and it was fun, and it was just basically true.
	And you know, that some some of the pushback that people kept giving Charlie, which was, you know, why is he going to college campuses and talking to people?
	And Charlie would answer that, right?
	I mean, say, because that's where the people are.
	You gotta talk to the people, right?
	I mean, it's pretty pretty simple.
	But they would say, well, you know, in his debates, he's what is he even doing?
	All Charlie did was ask extremely simple questions that people on the other side could not answer.
	They couldn't.
	I mean, that's why the 10 set the revival 10 set on it proved me wrong because people had a very difficult time, as it turns out, proving truth wrong because it was true, and Charlie was uniquely capable of speaking to that truth.
	I know we haven't played any clips of the city.
	Well, we will we have another hour.
	So we're gonna keep it.
	I would I would love to play 38, where Charlie is talking to young men.
	All right because they they really are in need of of this advice.
	This is gonna live for it.
	Play cut 38.
	I I don't give advice to young women on how to find a man.
	Uh I will say to young men, uh, get your act together and really make self-control and self-discipline uh a priority in your life.
	One of the reasons why so many young women are upset with the dating pool.
	I hear this all the time, is that they see men that can't control themselves.
	And they and as you can tell, the young ladies are very enthusiastic about hearing this.
	And by the way, here's a thought crime for you.
	Women want to be led.
	Women want to be led by strong men.
	And you will.
	Men are different than women, and women are different than men, and both need each other, by the way.
	I mean, that's true.
	And and you know, it sounds controversial when he says it, and then you think for more than twenty seconds, and it turns out that it's just true.
	And Charlie had a unique gift in clarifying and crystallizing that truth and then weaponizing the truth and delivering it out there in viral fashion, which is why again, tens of millions of people are more his way giant marches chanting his name in South Korea and London.
	And you have a and and squares being dedicated to him in Israel and New Zealand marches and like all over the world, people are mourning Charlie in a way that I think would have astonished frankly, I think it would have astonished Charlie.
	If he if he had like I I you you knew him much better than than I knew him.
	It would have blown his mind.
	We knew that Charlie was getting uncomfortably, freakishly famous.
	His name ID...
	Some some polster did it for us without us knowing and told us afterwards.
	It was like, you know, we knew Charlie was getting very famous to the extent.
	You don't get buried on South Park without without a exact funny because I remember the first plane ride I took with Charlie years ago.
	There was one kid that came up and like kind of on the sly, like fiss bumped him, and I was like, Oh, that's cool.
	And it got to the point where it didn't matter if he was in London, it didn't matter if he was in Manhattan, it didn't matter if he was at some like random bar.
	This is a really funny story, actually.
	Is it some random bar with like in kind of the boonies?
	It's a whole backstory, with a couple fox hosts.
	And at this random bar, over the course of an hour and a half conversation, about a hundred and fifty people came up.
	Literally heard the story from one of those box hosts two days ago.
	Yeah.
	Yes, this is a true story.
	And kept getting selfies, and they would hand the phone to the Fox host and be like, Could you give me a picture of Trump?
	And this, you know, like there was two rather famous people that he was have in engaged in this very long conversation with, and they would be like, sure.
	You know, you know and so we knew he was getting weirdly, weirdly uh famous and uh uncomfortably so, but I he embraced it.
	He had said, you know, he used to really kind of I think struggle with it a little bit, but as the years went on, he was like, I've just embraced it, this is my life.
	And he would always he'd say yes to every selfie.
	Every selfie, sure, come have a have a selfie.
	And he go, you know, like this this uh very Charlie Kirk smile.
	Uh but it anyways, we it we it was um he said he would to your answer your question, I think he would still be blown away because I I think I I it's hard to know when you're living it just what's happening.
	And you know, I mentioned to a reporter it was fifteen billion views his content got uh in the fall lead up to the election across uh and uh TikTok did a a survey and after the election and they discovered that Charlie was the most trusted vo voice for Trump voters under 30.
	And he was, you know, way more popular than President Trump.
	And so when you look at what happened with the youth vote, especially knowing that the boomer vote fell off two percent.
	So boomers went to the left two percent this last election.
	Wow, and young people went like 13 per uh points to the right.
	And so you you look at uh I think it's a completely fair thing to say that I don't think we have President Trump if we don't have Trump.
	So the president said it the other day, didn't he?
	As did Susie Wall.
	Well, vice pr vice president has said it, certainly.
	I remember when I when I was on with Charlie at uh at the last Amfest in in December uh right after the election.
	Uh I remember saying that to Charlie.
	I said, With without you, the president is not the president again.
	And I think everybody who watches politics with even any remote level of in of intuition and understanding knows that that that is the case.
	And again, that's an area where I remember when they announced the TP USA was going to be doing the vast majority of Trump's voter outreach.
	I was like, do they have any prep in that?
	Like normally you hire you know a group that has uh outside expertise in that sort of thing, and again, that's just an area he was constantly leveling up.
	That's a crazy thing to level up.
	And he never he never asked for any credit for that.
	I mean, he is the reason that Trump got elected, but I never heard him ever say that.
	And this is in our in our business, you know, you've got everybody always wants credit for everything.
	Yeah, I think I was actually the first person to tell you that.
	Yeah, well, I drive uh so but so for for Charlie to have that level of influence, but but to never play in fact he did the opposite.
	He was he would deflect credit, he would give it to other people.
	I I you're the perfect example for that because you had that incredible documentary, What is a woman?
	And the question, Charlie took it and ran with it in such an amazing way, and he would always be like, I gotta give credit to Matt Walsh.
	Like he would go out of his way, and I know he messaged you privately a lot saying, like, oh, you're doing amazing.
	This was so good or whatever.
	But uh you know, he gave you a lot of credit for that.
	And I think I I saw you at the inauguration at some event, I remember, and I made it a point being like, I want you to know he he really like respects the heck out of you.
	Yeah, well, he he gave me far too much credit as well.
	One of the few times I disagreed with him is when he would when he would do that.
	But I I do remember I I I mentioned it on air a couple days ago that um after after the the election that that Charlie made a point uh I mean he had just had this huge victory that that he was the pivotal player in it, and he made this point of of putting out a tweet to give me some small token of credit uh because of on the trans issue.
	And um I just remember thinking again that that's too much credit, but but also nobody does that in this business.
	No, no one ever, especially when you just had a huge victory and you're thinking, who can I who can I give this credit to so it's not going to me?
	No one does that.
	He's the he's like one of the very few guys I know who I I'll give you an insight on that because you know, there was a lot of people that would chirp at Charlie or attack, and he you had to be, I mean, you know, a certain level of doing something wrong for him to name you to put you to put to name check you.
	And that was usually like, oh, you're you know, trying to you know come at Pete Hegseth, and he's our boy.
	So if you're coming in the way of Pete, then there might be a com there might be a point.
	But but uh but other than very very specific instances, and I I had a really long conversation with Charlie about this, and he was talking about sort of how the Greeks sort of had a uh hierarchy of virtues, but not not just that, it was like roles.
	Um he put being an entertainer, no offense to you guys, because I I think you guys are all much more than that, but he put being an entertainer, and I think the Greeks did too, like the actors and all that very low.
	Criminals and prostitutes usually it was it was really low on their their list.
	What they put high was being a philosopher, was being a theologian was being a statesman.
	And I remember Charlie very clearly saying our job is to keep the coalition together.
	Yeah, our job is to be these three.
	He's like, a lot of people can do that.
	He's like, we have to do this.
	Because you know, it was so easy and so tempting to get infuriated when these pot shots would come over, and nobody knew the work that we were doing and he was doing behind the scenes to sort of like assuage this person or bring this person back, or you know, make sure that they felt I mean there was a lot of that going on.
	But to me, that is the skill, and and actually that is different from certainly than entertainment.
	It's even different from philosophy.
	There are a million dime store philosophers, a lot of people who have a brilliant idea.
	Just ask them, you know, and they'll give you their white paper on it.
	There are very, very few people who can build a coalition, and fewer people still who can maintain a coalition.
	Uh, the the only other example I can think of in modern politics is Trump, who holds these disreports together.
	And Charlie was the glue.
	It is unbelievable.
	The friendships he could maintain, the pieces that he could broker for the common good for a common purpose, that uh there there is simply no comparison.
	And uh when you're looking at elections, when you're looking at moving the ball forward in the country, uh it was the most important thing.
	I totally agree.
	And I want to I promised you guys a by the way, there was like the very Charlie thing, because Charlie would always be like this.
	And every so often I'd catch him where he wasn't like fully like tuned in and be like, Yeah, that was great.
	Anyways, we'll be right back.
	And by the way, you know that was that's real.
	He was he he answered all of his uh audience questions.
	Did he actually answer?
	No, he's did he actually read all the questions?
	Yeah, he did.
	That's unfortunate.
	I'm not even kidding.
	He read them because I saw them going.
	Unbelievable.
	The the read uh unread anyway.
	Matt, I wanted to pay tribute To you because it just became such a uh big part of the tour.
	I wanted at least play one of those those videos that uh you helped uh inspire with Charlie.
	Play Cut 68.
	What is a woman?
	It's a woman who it's a person who believes they're in the w they're a woman.
	No, but that that's not a definition.
	What objectively is a woman?
	It's a woman.
	No, what is that?
	A woman.
	Give me a definition.
	Just anyone who believes they're a woman.
	No, but what is that?
	It's certain that's circular reasoning.
	What is a woman without using the word woman in the answer?
	Can you can you answer that question or no?
	It's just a person who believes they're a woman.
	I mean, what's wrong with that?
	You can't answer the qu you can't use the word woman in your answer.
	The inability to answer the most fundamental obvious biological question, what is a woman?
	This is not troubling.
	Like it's so simple, it's so obvious.
	And I guess the question is when is womanhood then achieved?
	Just like for the whenever they decide.
	I mean, like last chance.
	Can you tell me what a woman is?
	Are you a woman?
	Why are you so hateful?
	What's the word?
	I asked you what a woman was.
	That's not hateful.
	I gave you the definition.
	Thank you for your time.
	Yeah, I haven't seen that one in a long time.
	Matt never gets old.
	It never gets old.
	Yeah, what did what did we just witness there?
	And why was it?
	Well, it's the I mean it's the question.
	Still a question of uh of a generation.
	That's still that they still they've had they've had now uh me several years to figure out a good answer to that, and they still haven't haven't quite gotten there.
	Um and I you know, I always loved seeing that that and um and I I would I would certainly do, I know we all did the same thing with Charlie that he that he would he would stumble on like a certain point or a way of phrasing it, and you go, well, that's great, I gotta go use that.
	Of course you got you always gotta give credit, but um that was the um not always because sometimes Charlie would be like I'm gonna steal that.
	Don't worry, like he'll go, I'll give attribution 30% of the deck.
	As long as as long as you're at 30 or 40% attribution, you're fine.
	Um but um that kind of goes back to you know, I I hate to drag it drag it back down to the the depressing stuff, but uh that that goes back to what we've lost is like this this kind of give and take, this we're we're we're building off of each other.
	And um and we've lost that.
	Now I I also wanted to say just real quick that and I and I made this point a couple of times on my show and on X and stuff, but um we've been talking about all the tributes to Charlie and all the people that love him and and what a testament that is to to him and his character and and his his effectiveness.
	And all that is true, and that that is the the greatest testament to the man is that um is that millions of people are are mourning his loss.
	But I also do think, and I and I and I I don't we shouldn't lose sight of this, that the people all the people on the other side who are celebrating his death and dancing on his grave uh it's infuriating to see, it's disgusting, it enrages me.
	But also that is a testament and a tribute to Charlie as well.
	And um and and when I die, you know I I would like to think the same thing's gonna happen because that means that that I was effective.
	You know, that you're your your enemies if you are a warrior, yeah, and Charlie Kirk was a warrior, he was a he's a peaceful warrior, he was a happy warrior, he was nonviolent, but he was a warrior.
	If you're a warrior, then your enemies should celebrate when you're no longer there.
	When you're out of the arena, they should be happy because that means that that you were winning.
	You know, that that means that you were punching hard.
	And so we should we should all want that for ourselves.
	If if if if if if when we're no longer here, if our enemies couldn't care less, just another day at the office for them, then that means we didn't punch hard enough.
	That means we didn't fight hard enough.
	And so um I I I do also see that as a testament to that.
	So can I ask you all three of you a question?
	What are you going to do next?
	I mean, nobody can replace Charlie.
	We know it's going to take, I guess the question is sort of how has this changed you?
	What practical things?
	I mean, you're going to be going to campus.
	I have a real answer to this, which is I owed Charlie a text.
	Because unlike Charlie, I was not diligent or fastidious about these things.
	He was just unbelievably good at constantly being in touch with people.
	So I owed him a text a few days prior.
	But I thought, well, whatever, I'm going to see him.
	I'm going to see him in a couple weeks.
	He and I were scheduled to speak together at University of Minneapolis, or as he called it, Mogadishu, in 12 days, 12 days after it happened.
	And so it happens.
	And then, you know, you're in a fog.
	and then you're you're getting the news and then you and then later this popped into my head.
	I said, oh my goodness I was supposed to do an event with Charlie uh a week and a half from now.
	So and so your first instinct is well there's no way that that event can go on.
	That's your just whenever something like this happens.
	But then two seconds later you say there's no way it can't go on.
	Especially given this man especially given this movement that he built and everything that he stood for.
	He said there's no way that that we can cancel that.
	And so I said, well look this is a a decision for TPUSA to make and you can speak to it more but it seems to me that the tenor around here is we've just lost the leader, this irreplaceable man we we don't even necessarily want to keep go going on but we have to do it.
	Well yeah and that that's why we did our Friday show and um if I could you know I was not in a good place um I'm still not in a good place but I knew we had to do it because Charlie would want us to do it.
	And I and it it I kinda likened it to what happened at you know Pentecost a little bit because what happened was Charlie died and his followers, his team his staff I mean it was we were trying to make sense of the chaos part of part of the team was in Provo part of the team was in Phoenix and we were trying to just I just put one foot in front of the other and then Erica got up and spoke to the world and it was like that was like our Pentecost where and all of a sudden we were filled with courage.
	And I don't think that was just us uh on the team I think the whole country watched it and I think that's why you know I think Hannity played it twice he played it a second time from from top to bottom and I was I was incredibly grateful for that editorial decision and I think people wanted that and needed it and Erica was so brave and I can just tell you we have been inundated from the grassroots these young kids we're probably at 40,000
	new maybe more uh new chapter requests to start new chapters and and i've said this on doing media hits to put that in perspective we had 900 college chapters and 1200 high school chapters and charlie just a few weeks ago was like we're going to be on every high school in america we're going to do 35 and a thousand and i was like i googled it i go charlie there's only um 23 000 high schools we're going to be on 23 000 we're going to find new high schools but and every you know the whole team's like
	charlie we are you know and eventually he goes okay fine you know we'll we'll then he tells the the guy who's building the slide because this is a presentation because you can put 10 but you make him think he's doing 15.
	And he was so committed to putting a Club America which is our high school brand on every single American high school and I just marvel because that is such a fresh memory it's two weeks two two weeks ago that we had this and I just marvel that now in death he is going to absolutely accelerate that that mission that goal so much faster than he could have ever possibly imagined.
	And it that was the Charlieism more let's do more we have to go harder we have to go faster more and and the whole team knows that um and he was just and he covered it all in this amazing grace and and I I just want to give some kudos here.
	I want to make sure I have enough time to the Daily Wire.
	I just found out that the Daily Wire is donating a million dollars to TPUSA.
	And I, from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys so much.
	I'm blown away by that generosity.
	And I know Erica is too.
	Our pleasure.
	Easiest board decision.
	God bless you guys.
	That's breaking news and an amazing, amazing gesture of confidence in what Charlie...
	built and what we are going to keep moving forward and growing and multiplying.
	Uh Ben you noticed something you picked something up about that clip that we showed of Charlie where he's asking what is a woman what is a woman what is a woman pause why are you so hateful?
	Right and we we all laugh because it's inherently ridiculous, because Charlie obviously is not being hateful.
	But that I think when when, you know, I think we're all feeling Matt's visceral rage, or at least if we're not, we should be.
	And the question is where to direct it.
	And I I I think that that visceral rage has to be directed at the ideological frameworks that create the impetus for violence.
	In that statement, when she says, why are you so hateful?
	That's kind of the whole thing.
	The reason I say that is because that there is a basic framework for idea.
	There's been this flattening where we pretend that all ideologies are equally likely to create violence.
	This is a favor to the media, right?
	It's just or or politicians.
	Political violence is bad, however it's formed.
	Both sides of it.
	Everyone's doing here's the thing.
	We all know which ideologies, everyone knows which ideologies are most likely.
	We we are not burning down the country.
	We're not burning down, we're not burning down businesses.
	We're not throwing rocks at police.
	We're praying.
	Correct.
	And and let's be real about this.
	The minute, literally the minute I heard that Charlie was shot.
	I don't know about you guys, but I had some pretty good suspicions as to what ideology was behind the murder of our friend.
	It's always the ones you most expect.
	Well, and and so the question is why, right?
	The question is why.
	And the answer is because there's a framework of mind that has been created in which people claim that there is the problems in their own life.
	And this is what Charlie stood against, right?
	Because Charlie was constantly talking about personal responsibility and making your life better and take your life in your own hands, and you can be a success, right?
	That's the clip we played earlier for men.
	Like be better, be better.
	If you are a person who takes the failures in your own life, and you externalize those onto a shadowy group of people who are responsible for all of your failures, and then you say those people are victimizing me to the point where they are genocide, erasing me, trans erasure, right, transgenocide.
	And then you say, Well, if those people are trying to kill me, it's self-defense.
	Right?
	Speech is violence, it's self-defense for me to shoot somebody like Charlie Kirk for saying that.
	When she says, Why are you so hateful?
	The reason she is perceiving fact as hate is because it is a denial of her sense of identity and a and a sense of threat that is now justifying violence.
	That is the reality.
	There's an undergirding to some of these ideologies, particularly this ideology, that that has violent extremism as an after-effect.
	That's just a reality.
	And there are multiple ideologies that are that are like that.
	So I think that I think that the BLM ideology had aspects of this.
	For sure.
	I think radical Islam, as Charlie routinely talked about, particularly in the last couple of weeks before his murder.
	Radical Islam, obviously, is is deeply ensconced in the sort of conspiracy theory about our failure is the fault of all these other people.
	These people are trying to harm us, therefore, we are justified in doing violence to them.
	And when I see the New York Times trotting out Hassan Hiker repeatedly now, this is like the second time repeatedly to talk about Charlie's murder, as though he is the representative of good faith debate.
	When his he is backed every terror group that I can I can imagine, and it's legitimately openly called for said American Reserve 911, yeah, has openly talked about how his political opposition should be physically harmed.
	You're you're a lawyer, right?
	I mean, when does it cross the line into incitement?
	Does it have to be when is a specific name has to be used?
	Because this this is relevant to what happened with Pam Bondy and all the clip that's I mean you know, she was saying she basically said hate speech is illegal.
	And Charlie, I mean, I think she ended up clarifying later to her credit that the clip is uh I'm told is incomplete.
	She ended up quoting incitement, right?
	Um Michael looks uh It's another unfortunate phrase to use.
	If you're just saying that threats and incitement are illegal, of course they are.
	You don't need to say hate speech.
	No, exactly.
	So that's what I'm saying.
	Yeah, I mean, but it ties into it ties into what happens next here, and that's why I'm asking it because a lot of people, you know, there was a push to sort of smoke out all these people that were criticizing uh or that were dancing on the grave, rather, and that's perfectly fair.
	It it's social media.
	Social consequence, but not a legal one.
	When does it become a legal consequence?
	So I think that what they've been attempting to do, and Cash Patel is apparently talking about this is labeling Antifa a terrorist group, which absolutely they should be.
	I mean, clearly they should be, At this point, and that if there are people who are funding groups that are violent, then we should obviously be looking into them, probably under racketeering laws and conspiracy laws.
	If you are donating money to a ex-Mormon trans furry group that is openly planning violence, then you should be held legally accountable for that in the way that you would be, as we all know, if it were a white supremacist group and you're funding a white supremacist group.
	We all know that that would be investigated by the FBI.
	And I don't mean to step step on your point here, but I just want to underscore why what you're saying is so critical, and I want the audience to understand that is because one of Charlie's best friends in the administration was Stephen Miller.
	And Stephen Miller came on our show yesterday.
	I think he said the same thing on Hannity.
	The last text message, and there's so many prophetic little nuggets, guys.
	I I wish I could share them all.
	The last text message he shared with Stephen Miller was we have to root out the people that are funding the violence.
	What we're talking about here is organized crime.
	All right, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, Ben, but I I think it's important that people understand that Stephen Miller, one of his dearest friends, you know, this is the last thing he got from Charlie.
	Do you not think that Stephen Miller is going to make this his I mean the immigration will always be his number one issue, but this is not going to go away, and the admin is going to take that would be the best thing because I think that what you're gonna see from the left now is an attempt, and you're already seeing it, to claim that the right is cracking down on free speech as a response to what happened to Charlie.
	This is why they're retelling this this idiotic line that it's cancel culture to fire somebody who's cheering somebody's murder.
	Uh it's it's why they're they're now trying to spin that quote from the attorney general into they're cracking down on free speech, being meticulous about your policy pursuits, which is something that Charlie very much was.
	Yes.
	Uh, you know, being meticulous in how you actually do the thing is the thing that the administration needs to do next.
	And Stephen Miller is definitely going to do this.
	I was talking with my my friend Chris Rufo about this because Chris is very much into this.
	Uh just you you have to be incredibly meticulous in your use of power to achieve your goal, and that's the thing that needs to happen next.
	I mean, we can we need to have the conversations that we've all been been talking about with people who disagree with us, and we need to you know obviously point our boats in the same direction to try and generate more power and and more and more victories and more successes behind Charlie's legacy and the things that he that he stood for.
	But the thing that that the government can do needs to be really meticulous, and we need to be meticulous in in how we pursue that in the world.
	And the government can be very we should be very, very clear that this was left-wing LGBT extremism.
	I mean, all all all of the all the evidence we have right now points to that very, very clearly.
	And that needs to be said, it can't be said enough.
	And in particular, you know, the the the trans connection here is also very clear, and I think more's gonna come out about that.
	Trans ideology is in inherently dangerous.
	It is in inherently violent.
	Trans ideology is inherently violent because it is a violent rejection, first of all, of the self.
	You are rejecting yourself.
	If you're if you're on in the throes of this ideology, you're you're doing violence to yourself.
	Um we know the suicide, as as trans activists themselves are are always very quick to point out the suicide attempt rate is extreme astronomically high.
	So this is an inherently violent um ideology.
	And kind of going back to your point earlier, Ben, that how are these things incited?
	Well, these people are being told that your very existence hinges on the the acceptance and affirmation of other people.
	And so your not not just like your identity, but your life itself, your very life, your very existence, it depends on other people affirming it.
	And if they don't affirm it, then they have caused you to not exist.
	And and to those of us who are sane, that sound it sounds crazy.
	We can't wrap our minds around that.
	That's what these people believe.
	That's what the ideology teaches, it's what the media's been saying, it's what the schools have been saying, it's what it's what Democrat politicians what the president you used to say in the under the old regime.
	This is the message that used to come from the White House all the way on down that if you do not affirm these people, and that is to say, accept their their delusional perceptive perception of their own s of themselves, then you are killing them.
	And so when you go to people who are already in the throes of this violent, inherently violent Violent ideology, they're already delusional, they're very they're deeply confused.
	And then you tell them that, hey, those people over there, if they don't accept everything you say about yourself, they are killing you.
	They are a threat to you, they're committing genocide.
	They use that word, transgenocide, and they use that label against Charlie, they've used it against me, they've used it against you two.
	That is not now we kind of laugh it off because it's silly, it's ridiculous.
	Genocide.
	What the hell are you talking about?
	They should be.
	But the people that they're telling that to believe it.
	They believe that we are literally committing a genocide against them.
	And so when you do that, when you go and tell people these people, if they don't affirm you, they're killing you, they're committing a genocide, and then one of those people goes and kills one of the people that you made that claim about, it it is a hundred percent also your fault.
	You you intentionally caused that.
	You you might as well have just told them, hey, go kill that guy.
	Because that is in in effect, that is what you said to them, and that has been the message, it can't be stressed enough.
	That has been the message not just from the left-wing fever swamps on the internet, but all from the very top of the Democrat leftist pyramid on down, that has been the message.
	And so they they own this.
	They own all this.
	And by the way, this individual.
	I'm gonna say his name.
	I I uh you know, I chant you are my rage uh outlet, so just keep rage tweeting, please.
	Because uh, but you know, he was bragging about it.
	And and uh and there before it happened, he was saying this, but there was people with foreknowledge and they didn't come out, so shame on them.
	I hope they burn in hell.
	We'll be right back.
	Said this before, and um, but it bears repeating.
	The last message that Charlie sent me was um I think it was just the day before we lost him, which is that we need to have an organized strategy to go after the left-wing organizations that are promoting violence in this country.
	And I will write those words onto my heart and I will carry them out.
	If people ask me, you know, what emotions I'm feeling right now, this is something people say, I mean, you kind of know the answer, there's incredible sadness, but there's incredible anger.
	And the thing about anger is that unfocused anger or blind rage is not a productive emotion.
	Right.
	But focused anger, righteous anger directed for a just cause is one of the most important agents of change in human history.
	I've already showed that.
	Amen.
	And we are gonna channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.
	So let me explain a little bit what that means.
	So 30 seconds.
	This would be quick, Stephen.
	The the organized doctrine campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people's addresses, combining that with messaging that's designed to trigger incite violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence, it is a vast domestic terror movement.
	With the God is my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.
	It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie's name.
	So, Ben, I want to go to you because again, you're the lawyer here.
	He he mentioned terror network, domestic terror network, and with Luigi Maggione, the news this morning was that the judge dropped the the domestic terror sort of angle to uh the prosecution.
	Is this legally defensible?
	Is this just a New York bad judge?
	No, I haven't actually read the the decision from the judge or the rationale for it.
	I do not understand how it's not just clearly first degree murder.
	I mean, it's obviously premeditated murder.
	So uh dropping it to second degree murder as though it's a crime of passion, yeah, is totally crazy in every possible way.
	Uh and again, when we talk about people who own it, Bill Burr shouted on multiple shows on national TV, free Luigi.
	When we talk about inherently violent ideologies, it's not just the trans ideology that is inherently violent.
	If you are a person who says the existence of wealthy people is a threat to me, that they are killing us, that there's a group of people and they are manipulating your life such that you're poor and they're rich and they are harming you.
	They're actively harming you by their very existence.
	The billionaires are actively harming you just by existing.
	They are evil by their existence, then why should we be surprised when healthcare CEOs get shot on the streets, and then there's a post facto after the murder, justification in the same way that you saw with Charlie, there is something so hideous that has been bred on my the point I've been making on my show is typically nobody gets shot over marginal tax rate conversations, right?
	It's not as though every political debate in America ends with somebody shooting somebody else, but there are particular types of political debates in America in which one side sees fit to murder the other side.
	And it is baked into those ideologies.
	And so I don't want to hear this nonsense from democratic politicians who just generically denounce political violence.
	If you are unwilling to say, as a democratic politician, for example, Donald Trump is not a fascist.
	If you keep calling Donald Trump Hitler, everyone said this, it's true.
	If you keep calling Donald Trump Hitler over and over and over, someone might think, you know, he's Hitler.
	And what do we do with Hitler?
	We try to shoot Hitler in the head.
	You know, there's on your both sides point, Ben, there's this meme that's come out.
	Seth Moulton, this Democrat congressman goes on TV, he's been spewing this, that the vast majority of political violence in America is from the right.
	And when I heard that, I said, well, look, I I don't know.
	I haven't looked at the statistics.
	Maybe maybe that's true.
	It doesn't ring true to me, but maybe it's true.
	So I I go and I look into the statistics.
	And I say, Oh, there's this study, that study.
	So I said, okay, well, let me just look into particular cases.
	There was an event a couple years ago at University of Pittsburgh.
	Two Antifa operatives show up.
	These are members of an Antifa cell, go to Antifa meetings, uh, were caught going through TSA with explosive material on them multiple times, still led to board the airplane.
	They sit off an explosive at the event.
	Uh and it was over the transgender issue.
	Injured, very seriously injured a female cop at the event.
	I looked into that.
	I said, Well, this would be an example of left-wing violence, right?
	No.
	It was not classified as left-wing violence.
	It was pled down, it was classified as obstruction of justice, not included in any of the stats.
	I I looked through some other uh cases.
	Covenant.
	They treated covenant as a non-left covenant.
	Covenant attack.
	They said that the shooter was seeking uh fame.
	It was not a left-wing attack.
	This is a transgender uh ideologue shooting through uh a window of a church and murdering kids.
	Uh so I I realized the way that they get away with this is very simple.
	They don't count the left-wing violence.
	It's a completely bogus statistic.
	And so to your point, Ben, yes, you have to call this out.
	To Stephen Miller's point, this is largely organized.
	There are groups that fund this, that promote this, that publicize this, groups with four knowledge of attacks.
	This is organized.
	And our government has taken on organized crime before, taken on the mob, taken on terror groups, taken on all of these things.
	We have the ability to do that.
	It is not only our right through our representatives, it is our responsibility to do that to restore order.
	And if we are not treating this as an organized criminal political threat from the left, then we are just twiddling our thumbs.
	And the the left will always be uh more violent.
	I mean, it's it's not even it's not even close.
	They have a near, a a near monopoly on political violence on the left, especially over the last ten years, fit in particular over the last five years.
	Um they have a near monopoly on it.
	And there's also a reason for that, which is that and there's a reason why conservatives generally don't there's uh to your point, everyone's mourning, no one boarded up their windows.
	No, no, not only were there was there no rioting, nobody was even worried that there would be.
	Everyone just knew that there would not be.
	Right.
	Um, meanwhile, if you were to flip it around and and somebody of Charlie's importance and status on the left were to be assassinated, God forbid, uh we we we know that immediately all the all the windows are being bored up in every major city.
	And the reason is that the left they are enemies of civilization.
	They they hate civilization, they hate Western civilization, they they want to they want, and this is the these kind of words that they use, dismantle.
	They're always talking about dismantling.
	They want to dismantle, they want to they want to tear everything down, and they'll and they'll tell you that tear down, dismantle, tear down, bring the tear down the patriarchy, dismantle the white heteronormative, whatever the family.
	Um whereas conservatives, what are what are we most like at its essence, what are we trying to conserve?
	We're trying to conserve civilization, Western civilization in particular.
	And we have we have disagreements about how to do that and and all of that.
	There are certainly disagreements about that, but all of us are fans of civilization.
	And so we just in inherently recognize that when you see a guy walk up to a healthcare CEO and shoot him and kill him in the street, you cannot have a civilization if that is allowed to happen.
	If we get to a point where that just happens and we're okay with it, then we don't have civilization where we have a third World country.
	And so conservatives just uh fundamentally recognize that is a bad thing.
	Um where on the left they don't they don't recognize that.
	They don't they and it's cra again, it's it's hard for us to wrap our mind around this as normal people, but they do not see civilization itself as necessarily a good thing.
	And uh and so f to them, violence is uh and if you're looking to tear down civilization, then violence is always going to be a tool in that RCP.
	I think there's actually a deep nihilism implicit in that that doesn't exist on particularly the religious right.
	Uh and and the reason I say that is because if you do, as Charlie believed it is all of us believe, that there is a God-centered universe, a God-ordered universe, that for the most part we can discern.
	Right.
	Not all of it, obviously.
	We don't know why horrible tragedies, horrifying things happen.
	I mean, everyone is suffering with the aftermath of of that.
	But there is in fact a God-order universe, which is certainly something that Charlie believes.
	If you believe that, then you also believe that you have a duty in the world to act within that universe in rational ways, and you have duties to God to do the things that God told you to do, including things like don't kill people, don't murder people.
	And if you don't believe any of that, if you believe that the world is just a system of power, that every argument is just a guise for power, right?
	The sort of Michel Foucault argument, that all arguments at their essence are just a way of me getting power over you, then the response to an attempt for me to get power over you is to use power in response.
	And that leads to revolutionary violence.
	And we've seen periods like this in American history.
	It happened in the early 20th century, it happened again in the 1960s.
	And I fear that we're headed into another period like that with a left that is so nihilistic in its desire to see every argument.
	This is the thing they were trying to silence with Charlie, really more than anything else.
	The thing they were trying to silence with Charlie was the argument.
	It's the thing that he died doing.
	They didn't want him making the argument.
	Yes, he was an amazing coalition builder, and we've talked about this.
	Yes, he was an amazing political activist.
	The thing he was killed for doing was making the argument.
	That's what he was killed for doing.
	There are lots of political activists, and some of them are quite effective.
	He was killed for making the argument.
	Why?
	Because there are too many nihilists on the left predominantly who believe that the argument is just a form of power that is to be met with a bullet.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and Charlie, and I, you know, again, there's so many things that are gonna haunt me, I think.
	But he in the last month, I would say multiple times, one of the most common arguments that he was warning everybody about was we America has two roads ahead.
	We have a the fork in the road is MAGA or Magioniism.
	And he would use that more than Mamdaniism, right?
	Which was the more common, I think, refrain from most.
	And that's haunting.
	And I hope that I hope that you know, we have a joke around here.
	It's like how many times Charlie's proven right?
	How many times he told us something, and we're just like, ah, gosh darn it, he's right again.
	And uh I'm you know, obviously this is something he would have never wanted to be right about, but um he was.
	And I think in his memory, we have to do everything we can in our power to make sure that the country does not fray.
	And I and I've said this before, but I'll say it again, Charlie what was he wanted revival, he didn't want revolution.
	He wanted the blood of Jesus, he did not want blood in the streets.
	And he wanted a country his kids could inherit and be and be prosperous and thrive and go to church and love their their spouses.
	And um that is not the tone that we are getting from the American left.
	And I found that you know, you brought up Hassan Piker.
	I do have a clip that would I don't I don't know if you guys want to play it.
	I'm I'm of two minds of it.
	But you know, he's basically saying you've got to gutting your opponents, liberals, left wingers, you need to be showing your opponent's guts.
	You need to be gutting them, you need to be shanking these somethings and letting the letting their intestines just ride on the stage.
	Blood in the st soak the streets in blood, I think was one of his freaks.
	Slice and dice him, he said.
	And that guy is in the New York Times, so he's not a fringe player.
	The New York Times featured him twice in the space of a week, twice.
	This is the great exponent of rational debate that they've got on left.
	Ours was Charlie.
	And Charlie was murdered.
	Their great exponent of rational debate is the guy who says slice and dice your opponents and leave their intestines writhing on the stage.
	Aaron Powell And who won't be doing any of that himself, by the way.
	Correct.
	He he he will stay in his comfortable studio.
	In his million dollar mansion is a socialist.
	Yeah.
	But these and he'll and he'll let he'll he'll offer up whatever leftist lunatic will take that and run with it.
	He's fine to just offer that person that person also is a human sacrifice for him.
	The person that that person kills, most especially, but the person who carries it out, because now they're they're like, you know, they go to prison and Hassan Piker gets to keep living his comfortable.
	But people, you know, we we respond in a cultural way, which is very important, we respond in prayer in a spiritual way that's very important.
	But we we can't neglect the political either.
	And when people violate the law, when people incite violence, when people engage in direct threats, when people do things that are illegal, it is incumbent upon us to prosecute them, including those people to the fullest extent of the law.
	Amen.
	And I was just telling you guys, Charlie's main goal was that people would know Jesus.
	But as political main goal was to keep the coalition together to keep Trump's coalition together.
	And it was such an amazing guiding light for Charlie, and it was a North Star because it it would help dictate where do you where do you know dive in in and and correct people, maybe name check them if you have to, and when you wouldn't, when you would stay silent, what debates you would enter into, which ones you wouldn't.
	And I guess my question is does this have to get worse before it gets better?
	Is this gonna be or how do we keep the coalition together?
	Yeah, I well look, I think that well, the question of where where we go next or what happens next is impossible to totally answer because everything is different now.
	Yeah.
	Everything has changed.
	Everything changed.
	And I think that we don't know exactly how yet.
	Um and so that that's the first thing.
	We we are we are really living in a new country now, I I believe.
	And that you you have those moments, you know, these rare moments, and in our generation we've had a few of them where you wake up the next morning and okay, this is a different country now.
	And uh, and this is this is this is one of those moments.
	But what I can say is that there are a few things that have to happen going forward, and maybe on the sort of they have to get uglier first side of it, is that we have to re we have to establish order.
	We were talking about civilization, protecting civilization.
	Well, you you you need order for civilization, you need law and order.
	And so that needs to be reasserted in a big way.
	Um and that can be ugly.
	Now, it's done through the law, you know.
	No one is calling for uh again, we're we are the defenders of civilization.
	We don't want to see random violence.
	We don't want to see people uh killed in the street.
	We don't want to see that.
	But we want to see our legal authorities exercise that authority, and that that can be an ugly thing.
	Like uh putting people in prison is not a happy thing.
	No one we wish we didn't have to do that.
	Executing murderers, people who commit crimes need to be executed, and it needs to be done legally and swiftly, not 35 years after they've been convicted.
	Um I believe personally that that public execution should come back.
	There's a reason why uh Western civilization had public execu execution in many places for you know hundreds and thousands of years.
	Um I think that's it an example people people need to see.
	And a lot of that stuff is ugly.
	But here's the thing.
	You're gonna have ugliness no matter what.
	And either we can have ugliness in the street, we can have the kind of ugliness where a CEO walking down the street at 5 a.m. gets shot in the back of the head.
	We can have the kind of ugliness where a man on a college campus is just trying to make the argument gets shot and killed.
	We can have that kind of ugliness.
	Um the ugliness that can affect anybody that anyone can fall victim to.
	Or we can have the ugliness that's contained, where we have people in positions of authority who who uh use force to go and take the violent people and the dangerous people and punish them.
	We can have that kind of ugliness, and uh and that's and that's what we need.
	And then after that, we're at the same time, we've already talked about this a little bit, is uh unity, not not just uh not just random.
	You know, you can't go, you can't just say, hey, everyone, let's let's unite.
	Let's be united.
	You can't go if you go up to a group of a thousand people and say, Hey, let's unite, guys, they're gonna look at you and say, and they're gonna ask, well, what do you mean?
	To do what?
	You unite around for what?
	What are we uniting?
	I don't want to I'm not gonna unite with you unless I know what we're doing.
	Um and so that's why a lot of the calls for just sort of general generic unity in America don't really work, because uh there's always the question of uh around what um but uh as conservatives, as people on the right, you know, we can unite and we should.
	And uh and I think what we need to do is put it put to the side a lot of our um inner inner, you know, our our squabbles, our family feuds, put all that to the side for now.
	We can get back to a lot of that stuff.
	We probably will.
	I'm sure we will conservatives always do.
	We will always get back to it.
	But for right, but for right now, um there there we have more important things to do because one thing I know for sure.
	And there are plenty of conservatives who I've had my own I've been known to get into feuds here and there with people.
	Uh but here but here's what I know.
	And we saw this with Charlie.
	That if I walk out of this building and I get killed, that every conservative, even the ones that I've feuded with, that they will not be happy about that.
	They will they will mourn that.
	They will mourn that in it.
	The same if it happened to any of us.
	They'll mourn it.
	Even even the people the conservatives didn't like us.
	But I also know that on the left, they they won't share in that mourning for the most part.
	And so kind of the friend-enemy distinction is easy for me to see.
	The people who will mourn your death are your friends.
	The people who will dance on your grave and laugh in the face of your grieving wife are Are your enemies in this in this battle?
	And uh and so that's where the unity needs to come.
	The wretched demons, honestly.
	Please, yeah.
	Where do we go next?
	You you cannot have a marketplace of any kind of ideas or of goods if people are shooting up the marketplace.
	And w it's it's not even just the murderer in this case, uh, because there are freaks everywhere and horrible events happen, but the the loud and widespread celebration of that sort of thing shows us that there are three steps.
	Step one is we we want to have a robust conversation in a in a good country, right?
	But we're we are where we are in a degraded and dangerous place.
	Step two, question mark.
	Step three, flourishing and speech and and national unity.
	But there is that step two.
	There is that question, how do we get there?
	And there is no liberty without order, and there is no civilization in which half the country is is going to dance when when the other half is murdered.
	And so that requires a cultural response.
	I think you're starting to see that from a lot of companies.
	That's very good.
	That requires conservatives to let down their grudges that they're always holding all the time for just a little bit and and rally at least around a person and a person whose clear vision has led us for for a long time very successfully.
	And it requires the government to get in and do its job as well.
	And and then and only then can you get back to the kind of country that at least I want.
	And if the people who celebrate murder don't want it, too bad.
	I mean, I know we at Daily Wire, we trust you at TP USA to do it.
	I mean, that's really the answer.
	We're we're willing to provide and we are providing any level of material support, any level of support on the program, boots on the ground, helping you to do what Charlie would have wanted to be done here.
	And I think that the reason that everybody trusted Charlie, the reason we're all mourning Charlie is because nobody did it better.
	You spelled out two of Charlie's goals.
	You said, you know, he wanted to bring people back to Christ and bring people back to church and back to biblical values, and he wanted to keep the MAGA coalition together.
	And expand it.
	And expand it.
	And the question is how you do that.
	And the answer is you focus on the first, and the second is a byproduct.
	Okay, the answer is that as Matt says, you have to unite around something.
	And yeah, we can unite in the short term around the fact that there are a bunch of people who hate our guts and want to murder us, uh, which of course is true.
	But long-term unity, big movement change, which is what Charlie was really trying to drive, and why he went to talk to people who disagree, is about building around those core values.
	And so the long-term vision, yeah, we'll have our petty squabbles, and yeah, some of those squabbles will be more than petty.
	But the long-term vision has to be built around those original biblical conservative values that Charlie stood for, things like the Bible, things like free markets, things like family, you know, all those things are the things Charlie stood for.
	You gotta build the coalition around values because we can't build it around the man, but we can build it around the values that he left behind that he spent his entire life fighting for.
	And you know, we couldn't be frankly more honored to join you guys as much as we can in the fight.
	Thank you for that, and thank you for donating uh the Daily Wire a million dollars uh breaking news on this show.
	Thank you guys for honoring Charlie so well today.

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