The Revival He Always Wanted — Charlie Kirk's Memorial
Charlie dreamed of filling an entire stadium for a revival-style event. And on Sunday, it happened. The great and powerful joined the masses to celebrate Charlie and celebrate Christ. Benny Johnson, Nick Sortor, Cliff Maloney, and Turning Point event icon "Brick Suit" join to reflect on what will go down as one of the most iconic moments in American history.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Everybody, welcome to the Charlie Kirk show on the Monday following what truly was one of the most historic events in the history of our country, remembering Charlie Kirk, building a legacy at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
I am joined by an amazing cast of friends who were all there, who all witnessed it in person.
They need no introduct introduction, but we're gonna do it anyways.
Our dear friend Benny Johnson, dear friend of Charlie Kirk.
Thank you, Benny.
Nick Sorter, independent reporter.
He was uh all over.
I saw you so many times for such a big venue.
I it was amazing.
Yeah, I got my acceptance.
I re I ran into you.
And of course, Blake Neff, uh, who played a huge role, by the way, behind the scenes in yesterday's event and what you saw unfold.
So, but Benny, I asked you here because I knew you were gonna have a lot to say, and I think it's very fitting, you know, what we did last week.
We had this amazing all-star group of people that came in and honored Charlie by guest hosting the show alongside his team.
But I think it's very fitting that you have the Monday after that powerful, powerful memorial to his to his life and legacy.
So, Benny, the floor is yours.
Tell us what's on your heart.
What are you feeling the morning after?
Andrew, I'm probably gonna spend the rest of my life processing what I experienced yesterday.
I I couldn't sleep, it's like you were buzzing last night.
There was so much kinetic energy in that room.
It was a revival energy, and helping assist and build Turning Point USA in these events over the last decade or so.
The magnificence of the team here.
Blake is here, obviously, but Blake is just a representation, you yourself as well, of the architecture that Charlie put forward.
There is no group on earth, political or otherwise, that could have pulled off a 100,000-person in-person memorial, including the vast majority of cabinet secretaries, executive offices, governorships, members of Congress, senators, world leaders, richest man on earth, Elon Musk, arguably the most powerful private civilian on earth, Elon Musk, all in attendance yesterday.
It is an impossibility for nation states to be able to pull that off.
Like small countries in Europe wouldn't be able to do that.
With the full force of the with the full force of the Swiss government, they couldn't pull that off.
What an I just want to like take a giant step back.
And perhaps we have some some imagery that the producers could play of the size of the audience, the scale of the audience.
Not only were the rafters filled, not only were was the floor filled, where you don't wouldn't get that normally in an NFL game or an NBA game, right?
Or a professional hockey game, the field is for the players, right?
And there's just a handful of them.
But also, the behind the stage was filled.
Let me explain that.
These are people who are sitting, maybe you could see it right here.
These are people who are sitting that can't see the program.
But they're still there to just stare at a wall.
This there's an overflow room, also.
That was at near capacity.
Another minor league sports arena.
Yeah, that was at the Desert Diamond.
It's the former NHL arena, and it's neighboring State Farm Stadium, and it was filled.
The energy was unlike the Super Bowl, unlike a sporting event, it was spiritual In nature.
It was so kinetic because the room was so packed and so filled.
And as far as I could tell, and I know I know this actually, as a matter of fact, not a single window broken, not a single Moltoff cocktail thrown, not a single fist ever thrown in anger.
No fights, no burning buildings, no attacks on cops, no attacks on our nation, nothing but a peaceful memorial, the largest perhaps on earth, perhaps in in American history, full filled with prayer, mourning, forgiveness, and a call for righteous justice.
That is the difference between two ideologies, two directions for Western civilization, and a profound magisterial remembrance of Charlie's legacy.
It is precisely as he would have wanted it.
And I want to d jump just one more story in because I was backstage.
I got to see a lot of interactions.
I got backstage, front stage.
I was seated amongst all the cabinet secretaries.
Got to see a lot.
Elon Musk came by a couple times.
And I just want to use Elon Musk as a as an example of the power of Charlie's legacy.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump had a bit of a falling out.
Maybe you've heard of it.
And that sucked, especially for guys like Charlie, who were coalition builders.
Charlie Kirk was thanked on stage by Donald Trump himself for bringing together RFK Jr. and Maha movement.
Donald Trump says, Charlie created Maha.
I don't think Charlie ever will get the credit that he deserved for doing that.
But also Charlie Kirk brought together massive coalitions of, well, at any turning point event, you can find Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson sharing the same stage, right?
Maybe not together, but they're all there, right?
To give an opportunity to project their worldview, right?
Charlie was constantly doing that, constantly bridging gaps, constantly fusing together because he realized that if we don't hang together, we will surely hang separately.
Which is exactly what Elon Musk told me.
So backstage, Elon Musk embraces Erica Kirk, and they're the she's crying in his arms and they're hugging, and it's really profound.
This was after the speeches.
This was after the program.
And this is the words that Elon Musk said to us in this small little group with Erica Kirk.
And he said, he said, this is why I was proud to sit with my president.
This is what he called Trump, my president today.
He accepted Trump's invitation to go up there.
And he's the majority of the met Elon Musk sent sitting there with Donald Trump, chewing it up.
Everyone has can see the here's the photos of Elon embracing Erica, and then there are photos of Elon with Trump, and they seem to be having a great time.
Dana White also there.
What a profound, not only was the size and scope of this and the peacefulness of it a profound eulogy for Charlie and his memory, but the cornerstone of it all to unite the world's most powerful, richest uh private civilian with the world's most powerful public figure, Donald Trump.
Charlie said, in this chair right here, he hoped that it happened.
There's a clip that went viral yesterday.
Charlie saying, I pray, I pray that Elon Musk and Donald Trump reconcile.
And they did so at Charlie's funeral in Charlie's memory.
A profound and beautiful example of what Charlie constantly was doing for our movement.
And he fused together the greatest schism that we've seen in the in the nascent Trump administration.
He just fixed Trump and Elon together.
We saw it live.
And it's like the power of Charlie crying out.
I mean, after death, crying out, and like still the power of Charlie, like bringing together these tectonic forces that that should not reconcile.
These are two stubborn men.
These are two men that don't need don't need each other, you know, honestly.
But it's but Elon Musk told me this.
He hugs Erica Kirk, he looks to all of us and he goes, if we don't hang it together, we will surely hang separately.
So let us unite.
I was proud to sit with my president tonight.
That's what Elon told us.
That's what Elon told us backstage.
And so uh again, just as a little behind-the-scenes vignette here, a a what you watched yesterday, what tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people saw yesterday, definitely hundreds of millions saw yesterday, was a beautiful encapsulation, eulogizing, and memorial to Charlie with his energy pulsing through every bit of it.
I mean, that's beautifully said.
I'm I I hadn't heard that that part about Elon, so I I love that.
And you know, I know, and Blake knows how badly Charlie wanted to see them reconcile.
So many times we discussed it, and Charlie, you know, he Elon kind of flew off the handle a little bit when it first happened, and Charlie was very reserved.
He didn't hop on it because he was like, I believe they're gonna come back together.
And yesterday, Charlie was proved correct, as he often is.
And y I mean, and and it was funny.
I I tweeted about it, and I said, I hope that these two men are saying to each other for Charlie.
And then about two hours later, Elon Musk tweeted an image of him and Trump talking, and he said, for Charlie.
And a Bible verse.
Yeah.
Benny, you get the honor today of being seated right next to Charlie's chair.
Oh, so do you, Nick, by the way.
Um, it's it's sort of I mean, we this we added this this seat location for these streams because you know, we're just gonna all pile around Charlie, which is very Charlie.
Uh, but but yeah, Benny, I mean, please, you were you were continuing and uh I cut you off.
So you reflect.
I mean, you saw it was powerful.
You ever seen Elon Musk convert to Christianity?
We're gonna see that.
I think that Elon Musk, what do you what do you think, Blake?
Probably agnostic at best, perhaps.
Probably he was openly agnostic, actually.
You know, he he would say that because he was uh more of a uh science-based guy, as he would say, and you know, he wants to see evidence and and and and proof of things before it happens.
But you know, the amount of people in that room yesterday, I mean, like I I could feel it.
I I was genuinely convinced that the Holy Spirit was in the room yesterday, and I saw Elon tweet uh uh uh what did you tweet forgive us?
As we forgive those, yeah.
Right, and then I I ran up to you and showed you immediately.
You were in the middle of talking to somebody, but I was so excited.
I'm like, here, like look at this, Andrew.
I was so blew my mind.
And I I think we all felt, you know, to Tucker had that great line, and he said the the Holy Spirit was was what did he say?
It was uh humming like a tuning fork in there.
And you could just I mean, you could not help but step into that room and feel that and I think probably I mean there was a the our our production team uh that was running all the streams, they they logged well over a hundred million streams, and that was just the ones they knew about.
That's not broadcast, that's not obviously clips of the of the memorial, that's none of that stuff.
That was they they could just log over a hundred million.
That number will grow.
It will end up being probably close to about a quarter or a quarter of a billion uh when it's all said and done.
But what do you think?
I mean, you you were kind of observing, I I saw you a couple times.
Blake was just kind of taking it all in, and sometimes Blake can be very kind of in your your thing you're doing, and you were unusually sort of observant of the wider moment.
I I I saw you a couple of times.
What was it like for you, Blake?
You know, I think uh the moment I think a lot of people who are there are going to remember is actually right at the start before any of the speakers come out.
Uh it's just right at the beginning where they had all the different signs that were color-coded.
And I remember they they chose the signs very well.
It was like one of them was the, you know, here I am, Lord, send me.
Another was the uh, I think well done, my good and faithful servant.
Like they had they they had a good selection of what was on the signs, and everyone just holding them.
The music is just the strings, there's no one singing or anything.
And it goes for man, it felt like it was five plus minutes.
Everyone just sort of sitting there, like marinating in the moment, and that felt very powerful.
I saw a lot of people crying.
I think I teared up during that.
Um you had several moments of that throughout the night.
Uh it was uh entire event, very rich with uh with meaning, very rich with common feeling.
Uh, and I think everyone there is going to remember it the rest of their lives.
Yeah, and you were going around interviewing people, Nick.
What were people telling you?
Well, I I I mean uh the first off, it was really uh interesting to me were the amount of people like turning point action yesterday was super busy going around registering voters, like people want to get involved.
These are people that uh that didn't really pay too much attention to politics before.
Maybe they did casually, but now all of a sudden, you know, this happened, it woke a lot of people up, it scared them, it shook them to the core.
You know, I I've been speaking to my mother as well, Uh who she's been a lifelong Democrat, loved Obama when I was growing up.
And she called me and was like almost in tears because she didn't know Charlie before.
She didn't know anything about Charlie.
And then she started seeing all the clips.
She started seeing the highlights from him doing these college tours and stuff.
And now she wants to get back into the church.
And she wants me to start going with her.
And such.
She's like, Yeah, I want to send you this.
I want to send you a Bible.
I'm going to.
And it it's just this unbelievable power that Charlie has unleashed posthumously on the world, uh, bringing people closer to God.
I would say it's in the millions upon millions of people that have now just gone to church for the first time over the past couple of weeks, or have gone to church for the first time since I think Erica said since as a child.
You know, and I think there was this feeling, you know, I in the the immediate aftermath of Charlie's assassination, there was this surge, right?
I could feel there was a surge.
You know, people were showing up, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people were showing up in front of the HQ, and there was vigils going on.
And I kind of prayed silently.
I said, Lord, you know, let this not be the end of it.
Let this not, I hope that this is not just a flash in the pan.
And I'll tell you, there's tons of people in front of the building this morning, just paying their respects.
And I think this memorial and the the this red discovery, re-exploration of Charlie's actually what he said, not what the media said about him, is going to mean that this carries on uh much, much longer than just you know these last 11, 12 days.
I had the honor of speaking yesterday at Charlie's memorial at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
It was an honor of a lifetime.
Uh and I got to bring our team up on stage, which was also an honor.
And I got a lot of great feedback from people just saying, you know, bringing the team up was a was uh a master stroke.
It was so good.
And I and it's it just it's exactly what Charlie would have done because Charlie loves this team, probably spent more time on a daily basis with the team that runs the show than any other team because there were so many teams, but this was his daily routine.
And feel free to chime in, I got a I got a message from a friend who was asking, who's this guy?
And it was not a photo of me, it was a photo of uh Dallin on our tech team because the the profile he had a very powerful looking chin.
So congratulations, Dallas.
Good for you, buddy.
Good for you.
Have you ever heard um have you ever heard the most powerful leaders in the Western world all be apostles for Christ on the same stage?
Thank you for that's never.
That's the big E on the eye chart really.
This is the biggest apostolic event since the times of Christ, I believe.
I I I don't think there is a some of the greatest reformation given, you know, given technology and given the number of people that can watch concurrently, right?
Christ can speak to thousands on a hillside, but there's no way to amplify, you know, there's no way to digitally amplify it worldwide.
Given the number of people watching in South Korea, I mean, we probably will never get those numbers, but it's I think it's probably fair to say that this service was seen by billions by the time it's all said and done and gone worldwide, at least pieces of it, right?
Parts, snippets, videos, and clips on social media.
Billions saw it, and there wasn't a single speech that did not have Christ at the center of the speech.
I believe that this, and you should contact the Guinness Book of World Records.
This is most likely Charlie's memorial service, the single largest apostolic event in modern history.
Well, I I don't know if you guys saw this.
Somebody tweeted out a photo of you know the monitors for all the different news networks, every single major news network in the Western uh world was tuned in live, not cutting to any commercials while these big speakers were going.
Absolutely crazy.
And I will tell you, I handle press for turning point events historically, and so I sort of had to, on top of a number of other things that I was doing, I uh and my team did an amazing job.
Shout out to Aubrey.
You did a phenomenal job, Aubrey Late.
Thank you so much for stepping up.
Aubrey's just one of those people that said, I want this.
I want I know you can't focus on this like you normally do.
I want to, I want you to trust me.
And I said, Okay, Aubrey, it's yours, don't mess it up.
And she I got so many compliments on the job she did, just kind of playing orchestra, you know, uh she was orchestrating The choir.
She was uh it was a really amazing job because there was so much press going on, and but this is what we heard from the venue.
Now remember, the venue does Super Bowls.
They do special events all the time.
And I will tell you, they said this was more press interest from around the world, not just America, than than the Super Bowl or any other special event they've ever been a part of.
And this, and I believe it is a very true fact to say that the gospel was just proclaimed to more people in one singular event than in any other time in human history.
And it makes me remember, Benny, the the verse where he says, Jesus says, You will do even greater things than these.
It's not that we are greater than Christ, Christ is King.
But you will do even greater things than these.
And everybody who had a hand in yesterday's event was was a participant in those greater things because as you said, we have social media.
We have this ability to spread the message so far and so wide and so quickly.
Right.
So truly amazing to be a part of that.
If you go to a lot of MAGA rallies and we've been to, you know, hundreds, thousands.
I don't know.
Safe to say we've been to some.
You know how big the rallies are based on the size of the press rafter.
And let me explain.
The press rafter yesterday was we were on a football field.
It was 30 yards deep and the entire football field wide.
That's how much space was needed to simply handle the number of cameras and on the ground reporters.
Is this correct, Colvet?
I mean, you would have probably approved these dimensions.
Yeah.
The size of the press rafter took up a considerable portion of the football field in order to get the amount of press in that wanted to come.
It was the biggest uh press riser anybody had ever seen.
And I talked to, you know, President Trump's team backstage.
I talked to our our physical production partners.
They've never seen anything like it.
Well, I I talked to Aubrey actually, uh, because that's where I got my press pass from, and I saw the stack in front of her.
It was like this of of just press passes.
And I'm like, my God, how many?
And she's like, it's in the hundreds.
Oh, and we had to cut, just so everybody's aware, we had to cut a lot because we originally were going to be able to put some overflow press into the over uh desert diamond arena or whatever.
And that ended up not being a possibility.
Uh it's so we could have we could have fit even more uh in into the back, and we just we fire marshal stuff, uh footprint stuff on the floor.
We had to we had to ultimately cut back.
So there was some some press that didn't even get in.
But listen, we we got in the lion share of the press, and to God be the glory for Charlie.
We pulled it off.
The team didn't sleep, and again, just what a testament to Charlie's legacy, his leadership that the team rallied the way they did.
So I you know, you were talking about streaming 500,000 concurrents on Charlie's channel last last last night.
Yeah, there was millions that's the most I've ever seen on a YouTube channel.
There, yeah, on Charlie's YouTube channel 500,000 concurrence.
There was a lot.
I mean, it and it I I don't know what it was at his peak, but I just got an interesting tidbit of information that we had some partners do a geotag of how many devices were in the general vicinity, and it was nearly 300,000.
It was 277,000 devices were geotagged in that vicinity.
So for comparison and context there, when they geotagged what what was the most famous MAGA rally of the 2024 election, the Madison Square Garden rally.
This is every MAGA star.
This is at Hulk Hogan and Elon and every and and Kill Tony and all of them, right?
Remember, the left the left loves comedians, loves comedians.
They left his Puerto Rico joke.
They love that.
Yeah, that's right.
They're totally free speech.
Uh that was 97,000.
Wow.
So that was nine that the the pain the the full geotag for that, which is seen as the the penultimum MAGA rally was 97,000.
So yeah, I I mean I you walk I walked outside, I was there most of the night covering like the the growing size of the crowd.
You had people there the night before it was in in the hundreds, which is still pretty good, especially when they very specifically said nobody's allowed to stay overnight.
They said you're not allowed to camp overnight.
They're like, okay, so we're gonna stand on the sidewalk instead.
You can't make us leave.
And these these people, uh like two hours later, three o'clock in the morning rolls around, and all of a sudden there's tens of thousands of people standing outside.
They wanted to make sure they got that spot.
They wanted to make sure they were in there.
And I read a post earlier today from a guy that was from Maine that came all the way over here.
He got there early and ended up sitting behind the stage, and he's like, I wouldn't have it any other way.
I wanted to be there.
He stood in line for like, you know, hours and hours and hours, but he was overjoyed just to be able to experience it.
I I I talked to somebody from Canada, Finland in that line.
Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, I saw a bunch of people that I mean, look at these crowd shots.
Like of that's outside, by the way.
That was people lining up to get in.
And it was just a mass of humanity, a mass of humanity.
And by the way, a huge line of people who were camped out overnight when I came in.
Huge hotel in the end.
Yeah, it was just absolutely massive.
And it actually flowed pretty well.
We filled up the arena in pretty good time.
The Secret Service provided a ton of mags, uh, which is the security scanners to get into the venue.
And so that helped because you know it we had been a part of many Trump events during the campaign where the Biden administration was not giving us a lot of mags.
They were giving us the bare minimum number of mags.
So you can only move so many people through those per hour.
The ingress is limited by mags.
And I I mean, you know, you can't prove it, at least I can't, but there was this feeling like they were like, heh, we're gonna screw your event, and people are stuck out in the heat, passing out, we're out there handing.
I'll never forget by.
I'll never forget that that uh Palm Beach event where Charlie went out into the uh parking garage because people, the line we put the line out into the parking garage, there's massive 100% humidity, crazy heat.
We put out big fans, we rushed in fans, chart we ate uh pallets of water, and Charlie went and shook everybody's hand hand and said, I'm so sorry.
And it was because they screwed us on the mags.
So this time we got all the mags we needed.
Man, it s it was rough.
I I mean I don't I don't know what you guys' experience was entering the arena.
But when you walked into the arena, there was this major energy change, and we were coming over from Fox, you had done Maria Barcaromo right before me.
And you went we you know, it took a while to get into the arena, big time security, obviously.
You get in and you walk in, and the first thing that greets you that greeted me was like three ladies that were like sobbing in tears that all come over to like cry on my chest, and then it was like that every two feet.
Like every two feet took us an hour and a half to get to our chairs, and people were just mourning Charlie.
There was like this, there was like this kinetic, there was like this kinetic energy of it was like Charlie it was like Charlie was there.
I don't know how to do it.
You could see people who were just walking onto the floor into the arena area and they were just like sobbing as they walked taking it all in.
Yep, crying uncontrollably.
However, you know, I now another massive shout out to Turning Point and the events team here to give P what people are looking for in that time.
If you don't give them a physical ability to mourn and to get it out, then that energy can out can actually go dark and can can turn into something bad.
So doing this was actually therapeutic for the nation.
It was actually it was so important to do it this way.
It was so important for people to have the opportunity to grieve and mourn together and to get it out, right?
And to channel into something good.
I I I love where you're going because I want to talk about that because Erica Kirk did something truly truly remarkable.
And so, guys, ready that clip where she forgives the shooter, and there's all this chatter online.
Well, I don't I don't think I could forgive, and oh, maybe it's too soon, or this or that.
I want to explain why what Erica Kirk did was the epitome of courage and humility and Christ's love.
And show the um I think it's 61.
Go ahead and throw up the uh New York Post cover.
I forgive him, and that's Erica being embraced, putting her head on the chest of the president as he consoles her.
This powerful moment where she said what for many Benny is the unthinkable.
I forgive this man who just robbed the world of a great hero and a titan of a man, our friend, but I I'm very aware well, I'm very well aware that yes, he was my you know, dear personal friend.
We spent so much time together, but yet he belongs to the world, he belongs to history, and here Erica is was doing this not out of a personal relationship, you know, with her husband, but really like because she understands that she is an instrument for God right now.
Yes, and so she dug so deep and did this beautiful thing, and it's created a a lot of chatter online, and I want to get into it now.
What's the clip, guys?
It's 19.
Go ahead and play it.
On the cross, our savior said Father, forgive them for they not know what they do.
That man.
That young man.
I forgive him.
I forgive him.
Wow.
I got chills just watching that back.
Um I I agree, Benny, that that was she's given two of the most powerful speeches that I've ever heard, if not the top two.
I don't know what even comes close, actually, in this moment.
And that moment in particular, I tweeted at the same at the time.
I said, this is one of the most truly uh important and profound moments in American history, perhaps world history, and she had such courage to do it.
Blake, take us behind the scenes, because you were you were kind of that you were bouncing ideas off her with the language of this speech.
Yeah, you know, we were uh you know, I helped her in.
I helped her ahead of time with the speech.
Uh and I mean she's incredible.
She was very clear what she wanted to say throughout uh very clear thinker, uh, very impressed with her throughout all of this.
I think all of us have been.
Amazing.
Um we you know, we were at that key point, and you know, it was going into it was actually a bit of an open question for me.
Like, is she ready to do this?
Is she prepared to do this?
And I won't say everything that went into it.
A lot of that was very private, but two things I think I can say is first of all, it was you know, one of us almost threw out idly, you know, so what would Charlie do?
And that actually, you know, impacted her a great deal.
She she did as she said up there, it is what Charlie would do.
And the other thing she said uh ahead of it that it impacted me so much at the time.
She said, I have to do it because I I can't let there be anything that would stand between me and seeing Charlie again if I were to die.
Wow.
And she knew, you know, the gospel, the gospel says we must love our enemies.
That is powerful.
And that was so incredible in that moment.
I I think that it is it inspired a lot of people, especially the ones that I was sitting around, because you know, you watched that video and how gruesome and how angry it made me watching that video, and you know, this is Charlie's wife.
And she was able to actually go up on stage and say in front of millions of people that she forgives him.
I mean, that the the power that's behind that, it's uh something that we'll remember for a long time.
So backstage, she was she was le Erica was leaving.
It's wild to tell you the the importance of this moment for Erica.
And first off, I I mean I said this during the break, but I think that that speech ranks among the top three most powerful speeches ever given in modern history.
Um without question.
Not only that, but she sh she in that moment ceased to be Erica Kirk.
She became something spiritual.
She also did it standing right here before this chair.
She was it was right where you're sitting.
And I'm not sure I'd even call that a speech.
I think I'd call that like a wife's private eulogy that she was able to share with all of us because of how important Charlie was to the world.
That was like less of a speech and more of like God speaking through her.
I don't I again I've known Erica and Charlie for a long time.
I was at the wedding, we were all at their wedding.
Like, I I I MC'd their wedding.
Like I that wasn't Eric, like Erica's incredible, that was like something spiritual.
That was God physically moving through her and speaking through her.
Humanly you can't forgive a monster.
And like that.
Humanly you can't do that.
And after it happened, it was uh really beautiful.
People brought this up right away.
Um let's put up pick number seven.
Uh, this is a tweet Charlie did all the way back in 2014.
Uh he was you know, to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
And she shared Christ, she shared Christ.
That was probably the that was the most Christ-like thing that happened.
A lot of people talked about Christ.
The Sector War talked about Christ, right?
Very interesting.
Don Jr. talked about her something.
And and and dank memes, uh, which is a first, but that was the most Christ-like thing that happened on stage.
I think everyone will agree with that.
The forgive the of course the forgiveness of the unforgivable, right?
And Erica shared Christ to one of the largest audiences maybe ever gathered in human and did the most Christ-like thing, and that again, the most apostolic event in human history was that.
And I think that I'll I I if if you will allow me, a lot of people are saying, well, how dare Trump wall w you know, saunter on stage afterwards and say, No, I hate my enemies, I'm gonna kill my enemies like I hate them, I want them to burn.
Right, because Trump went on and did that, right?
In his own way, Trump bravado and said, Oh, I hate my enemies.
I don't know how Erica can do that.
I want to take an opportunity to just say from a Christian perspective, and look at this from a biblical perspective.
Because what was demonstrated in both those speeches, represented by obviously Erica, but then represented by Stephen Miller did a great job at this.
Donald Trump did a great job of this.
Secretary Ward did a great job of this, is the personification of Romans 13.
Romans 13, the Apostle Paul, who's very familiar with martyrdom, was there at the martyrdom of Stephen, that actually brought him to Christ, writes about a properly instituted government set up by God, and that the government is there to institute safety and security for the good and moral people of the nations, that God has set up the leaders of our land in order to do that.
And so God set up Trump and his administration to allow for security and family flourishing and for the prospering of good and moral people, and that God gives the sword to the leaders of our principalities in order to enact these are the exact words, terror within evil men, to bring terror upon evil men.
And he and and that was what the Trump administration represented.
That is pure Christian doctrine.
That is fundamental Christian doctrine about the establishment of the government so that the good may flourish.
Now, on a personal level, what Erica showed was what we must do in our hearts in order to absolve ourselves and to follow in the Christ-like method of forgiveness in order to ensure that we are unburdened, actually, by evil.
Evil happens to us, we must unburden ourselves by following through with the power of Christ.
Erica shows that perfectly balanced, absolutely, in perfect harmony by President Trump and his administration, saying that it is now incumbent upon us, the rulers of this land, to institute justice.
We do not have to forgive.
We must enact justice, swift and severe justice upon evil men, so that they are in terror, and that is perfectly fundamentally harmonious in the Christian worldview.
Yeah, uh Allie Stuckey actually said something that uh and she's actually gonna be hosting the show with me tomorrow, so that's exciting.
But she said there's a big contrast between Erica's forgiveness speech and Stephen Miller's destroy our enemies speech, and that was in quote.
I don't think he's you know I don't I can't remember exactly.
He said we are the storm.
Yeah, we are the storm.
Did you have him write that place?
Yeah, we are the star.
You know, but she did it in quotes.
I mean, I don't think she meant any disrespect to Stephen.
It was just the tone was was you know distinct.
Tone was Stephen Miller.
She says exactly as it should be.
It is our job to forgive, not the governments.
Christians give grace, the government wields the sword, Romans 13.
We turn the other cheek, the government punishes evil.
Yes.
And I mean, you saw that in very very vivid detail on that stage yesterday, because to your point, personally, that was an inexcusable evil that has been perpetrated against the world, certainly, but against Erica specifically.
Yes.
And she unburdened herself.
She said, I will not live with this hate.
I will not live with this thing in my spirit.
I am I am going to forgive as Christ forgave me, because I will not let it get in the way of me being with Charlie in heaven, and I will not let it get in the way of me running turning point USA and being the new leader of this movement.
And I I just commend her for that because yes, I even when I heard that, my flesh, I felt my flesh like crawling because I didn't want her to forgive.
I wanted her to like get that fierce look in her eyes, you know, that she has, which is just amazing, by the way.
And I wanted her to look right in the camera and be like, we are going, you know, give me one of the bullets in the because Utah still has, you know, what is it?
Firing squad.
Firing squad.
Give her one of the bullets and let her shoot him right in the, you know, whatever.
Anyways, the point is, I wanted that.
My flesh wanted that.
And but my spirit knew that the power you talked about, if you don't give people a way to grieve in this pop uh positive way in a way that uplifts Jesus, then it can turn dark.
And what she did is she took all of that energy and she flipped it on Satan's head and said, You are not going to win this one.
We are going to choose Christ, and God's love will be unleashed on this country.
Can we talk for just a moment about how this is how you begin this is how civil wars and secretarian violence actually spirals into that failed state.
You have these moments of political violence.
You don't give anyone the capacity to grieve.
There is no justice.
There is no shooter found.
No one is brought to justice.
No greater terrorist network is brought down.
I talked a lot with Cash Patel and Dan Bongino yesterday.
I'd love to share that on the show.
I know we're up against a break.
But but just another massive shout out to the team at Turning Point of the team at the Carly Charlie Kirk show and Charlie's uh core here at giving the country an ability to grieve in a peaceful and in a productive way.
Because what happened there yesterday was people saw that this isn't just pain and loss that can carve a hole in your heart and make you into a dark person.
This is something that can be uplifting, actually, and can bring the movement forward and can consolidate a movement, and that's healing for a nation.
100%.
And Charlie, I mean, Blake knows this.
Charlie preached more than anything to young people.
Be a part of something bigger than yourself.
Do not get sucked down these dark holes on the internet.
Do not become an incel in your mom's basement or wherever.
Get out.
Get in real life.
Be a part of something bigger than yourself.
And what you saw was that Charlie is a man that invited people into something bigger than even himself, even in death.
And you know, it's Benny, I'm thinking about something you you were saying, and you you kind of alluded to it earlier.
That my brother actually flew down to and my dad, which was an amazing honor.
I've never seen my dad quite like this, which will be something that I keep with me from this experience.
But they met it made a comment that, you know, I've never been to a big event like this with see a a sea of people coming in and not have to not have to deal with the riffraff, didn't have some weird exchange with some random person.
There was no negative energy.
Everybody was so loving to one another.
It was truly a positive experience, even just being around strangers.
That you like a lot of people hate that, right?
A lot of people hate going.
I might be one of them, where you're kind of like, you go into a a sporting event and you're like, uh okay, let's avoid that part.
Nothing like that.
Well, I mean, that was one of the things that really ticked off the left yesterday.
I was monitoring this stuff online to see that the the this reaction to you know, everybody worshiping and the tens of thousands of people singing and yeah, and and that that really pissed off the left in this country.
And and they even tried to pull this stunt.
I texted you about it, where they were trying they they were making it go viral, saying, Oh, nope, sorry, doors are closed now, stadium's full.
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
And I text you, I was inside, so I texted an image to you.
I'm like, this is a live look at the stadium.
People are still coming in.
The the whole upper bowl was was completely empty because they were kind of filling the stadium from bottom to top.
Yeah.
And I was like, please get this out.
I don't know if you ended up tweeting.
Oh, yeah, it did.
I mean it got seen millions and millions of times, and because people were sharing it because they knew what was going on.
You know, the left saw these images that we were putting out, uh, like the drone footage and you know, the video that you just showed here of these endless lines of people, and they're like, Oh, this is bad.
This is really bad.
Because, you know, they're in total, they're in a spiral at this point.
Uh, because you know, a lot of people, as I said, been woken up.
Uh, they have seen what the left has been doing over the past week, uh, celebrating the the the death of somebody as wholesome and and good and well-intentioned as Charlie Kirk, uh, that they don't know what to do at this point.
So they're gonna continue trying to demonize us.
They they wanted this to be, they wanted to be able to show pictures of a crap ton of empty seats and say, you know, ah, this was a failure.
I guess people really didn't care that much.
That was their goal.
And they failed, because if you looked at the arena next door too, that was packed as well.
There's no way for them to spin it.
Can I uh since we're sitting here with so much of the Charlie brain truss and not enough, I mean, frankly, not enough credit goes to ever the people who really make it all possible, made like this Charlie Kirk moment possible.
Cannot emphasize enough.
Blake, Andrew, and the entire team here, also Tyler.
You know, on occasion, there's screen time there, but like just not enough credit is given to the infrastructure and architecture that makes a Charlie even possible, right?
Because there's such a huge machine behind it.
Many of many were on stage, which is a beautiful thing that you did yesterday.
Could I ask you guys a question, just live here, not to put you on the spot.
Why don't we do one every year in Charlie's honor?
Like a memorial like why don't we do like a revival style event?
Like that.
Make this like the new America Fest, or make this something that is um countervailing in like a spirit that is more like a turning point faith event that is more like faith-driven.
Yeah, I've gotten a lot of people saying, you know, you guys should do tent revivals now.
People are like TPSA Faith should go around and we should just start preaching.
But but I love this idea.
Like having a single nexus point.
This is much more TP US.
A single nexus point in a stadium and like to show people the magnanimity and then also just the majestic power of a hundred thousand people here to sing and praise and worship and to do so in a way that is positive for the nation.
Something that I think a lot of church, there are mega churches, but they never talk politics, right?
And they never talk about like the direction a moral nation should go.
I will tell you, I spoke and uh overheard some conversations, I should be more exact, because uh with some of the worship leaders, and you know, we're talking Grammy award-winning artists, these are the best of the best, and they were blown away.
They'd never seen anything like it.
They had never seen the spirit move like that.
Honor to be with you guys on a tr uh truly historic occasion.
The Monday after bidding farewell to our friend, but really saying hello and welcoming this new move of the spirit that has been unleashed on the country.
Yeah, and we were just talking about that.
So there are so many people that want to feel something that want to like say, This is why I meant the MAGA rally works, because there's power in saying we agree on these like core principles, and we can gather together and show our power.
And the right has been, of course, historically terrible at this, but Donald Trump changed that.
Charlie Kirk changed that, and be very and and and to do to do a Charlie Kirk style memorial event that maybe goes from a Charlie Kirk memorial into more of a spiritual reawakening and revival style event.
I love it in his honor to bring people together for a moral projection of like where the country and nation should go, inviting our leaders to almost give sermons, right?
To almost like share their faith to make it more about that, because that's what they all did naturally.
I doubt that you could told anyone what to say.
I mean, I know you didn't.
We we didn't tell a single person what to say on stage.
We've never told what people what to say on stage.
We've never censored people.
I'm sure Charlie had conversations with certain people, and you know, they go, Can we really talk about this?
And he would say, The floor is yours.
Yes.
The floor is yours.
We we we we believe in bringing good people to events and letting them do what made them good people in the first place.
So you guys didn't tell a single cabinet secretary or soul what to say yesterday.
Nope.
And every one of them naturally shared their faith.
And by the way, JD told me behind stage, so I was I I had a perch behind stage where I could see the teleprompter and the script.
And JD made this amazing comment where he said, I've talked about Jesus more in the last two weeks than I've talked about the entire my entire public career.
Yes.
And that was ad-libbed.
He I I was looking on the screen, and I was like, wow, you you didn't have that in your script.
It just came out and he was like, Yeah.
Because it's true.
And it felt it felt like I needed to say it.
Wouldn't it be neat in Charlie's honor to create like a Nexus event where you could have a place where it is appropriate?
Sometimes it's not, you know, sometimes it's not appropriate, or it's just there's other things to talk about, right?
We're talking about fentanyl overdoses today.
We're talking about the national debt today.
We're talking about autism today.
Maybe that's not the appropriate time to share your faith, right?
It kind of depends on who you are.
But maybe you create the Nexus event where it is appropriate, actually, for the leaders of our land, or would be want to be leaders of our land to share their to share Their faith to a large arena like this.
A lot of this stuff, if someone tries to do it, it's very stadium.
Stadium.
With a stadium, a lot of the stuff is like poorly attended in like sunken, damp, mildew basements of DC, right?
They're like very poorly.
And it'd be nice to do one where people can come, they can feel the spirit, they can get like that that energy, that revival energy that everyone wants to feel that everyone felt yesterday.
And then give a platform for leaders to come into the city.
We could do it on the anniversary of the memorial.
Yeah.
Screw the assassination.
You know, like 921, or at least the the Sunday closest to 921.
Yeah, what and um and I think it's a beautiful idea.
And we I I think I will pursue it.
And it it's a you know, like we need another event to produce around here, like we need a hole in the head.
But the uh the it was it was I mean, I agree with the idea that it you we gave people a platform to preach Jesus, and they did.
And there was a a tweet I saw from Mark Driscoll, who's a local pastor around here, and he was like, These elected leaders are preaching the gospel better than the professionals.
Yes, yeah, yes.
So one, that's very encouraging for a moral nation, right?
For a nation where Trump wins seven out of seven swing states, ninety percent of the counties in America voted for Trump.
Trump wins the popular vote.
We have a center right nation, we have a moral it's still a morally good people in this country.
And we never get a chance to see that in our leadership reflected ever.
And even Trump himself, right?
Like talking through his faith.
I've never seen him like that, like talking through his faith like l yesterday.
Like wrestling with some of the larger questions about Christianity and governance.
He was doing that live on stage.
What a remarkable thing to see.
And what a neat what a what a great platform to have.
The question I have for you guys is after seeing what happened yesterday, how many Americans do you think would get a ticket next time?
Millions.
I think I think if you opened it up, I think millions of people would sign up in the first 24 hours to try and come back.
I will tell you, I will tell you that Ampfest, I I'm I'm not at liberty to share the current ticket sold number, but it's a lot.
It's a lot of lot.
Yeah.
And we're probably gonna have to get a new venue because I don't think the Phoenix Phoenix Convention Center will hold the number that we've we've got.
So that's 10,000.
No, it's bigger.
It's bigger than that.
Well, I don't want to be again, I don't I haven't discussed whether I could say it to anybody, but yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, it's amazing.
And anyways, I I just want to thank both of you guys.
I I I I i it's just it's so good to have friends here at this time.
I I say that on behalf of the Charlie Kirk show.
Um, have brothers in the fight with us, here with us means a lot.
Our good friends at Angel Studios.
I love Angel Studios.
Amazing new film uh this holy week.
Phenomenal fact.
As I think about Charlie's life and how much of the support he was of Angel.
It's hard not to feel so grateful for what he did.
He supported us in our darkest days and in our brightest hours as a company.
Jeff and I and Charlie were doing lunch together.
We asked him, we said, Are you are you at all worried about one of these college campuses?
And he just said with so much peace in his his eyes and so much peace in his heart.
If that's how God takes me, then that's how I'm supposed to go.
But I feel like that was a clear message that Charlie's life is a testimony to Jesus Christ, his Lord and Savior, and his relationship with him was the most important thing that he would want the world to remember about his legacy.
Man, are we grateful to have gotten to be a little connection in the multitude of connections that he made throughout his life because it was so impactful to us.
Thank you, Charlie.
Love you.
We miss you.
We're going to continue to drive forward the good news.
We're going to continue to drive forward the good news.
There is our dear friend's empty chair, and uh that's the Shaquille O'Neal chair for everybody wondering.
It was probably the cheapest of the 14 chairs that Charlie tried on.
But Charlie was a Nephilim.
I've said this before on the show.
He was huge in person.
Like people would always be like, You're taller than I expected.
He's like, I've heard this before.
And he we got all these fancy chairs.
We tried them on, he'd be like, Nope, nope, nope.
So finally somebody thought, let's get the shack chair for huge people.
And it was probably the ch it was like 150 bucks at Target or something.
We put it together.
He was like, this is the one.
This is the chair.
So I can't help but laugh at it because it's just it's just so Charlie.
But anyways, we are beginning hour two on the Monday after the memorial, the historical memorial, where the Holy Spirit was humming like a tuning fork at the State Farms Stadium here in Glendale, Arizona.
And we are joined by Brick Suit.
Great to be here.
Honored to have you, my friend, and Cliff Maloney, who Cliff uh has the has the amazing honor of having his voice overlaid on one of the most viral Charlie Kirk clips of all time.
And so I I don't know if we want to start there or somewhere else, but I'm gonna play that clip at some point.
Oh, you want to do it now?
Yeah, let's do it.
Alright, so this actually President Trump talked about this, which is amazing.
So and I love the clip, so let's just play it.
Let's let's play cut five.
Fox News decides Donald Trump is president of the United States.
We've got our Republic back, folks.
Let's go.
There it is.
Everybody should remember this moment.
Look, I'm gonna I'm gonna echo Charlie from earlier.
Remember where you were when this happened.
Remember where you were when you realized that the uniparty and all these, you know, just the establishment.
You said it's time to actually participate.
And look what you guys have done.
And if anyone deserves to get tears in his eyes, it's Charlie.
I think we all agree.
No one has worked harder than Charlie.
We gotta hear some words here from you, Charlie.
You put all this together, my man.
Let's hear it.
I I am just humbled by God.
It's all God.
It's all God.
God alone.
God alone.
Decision desk has it.
Pennsylvania.
It's done.
His beginning.
Man, that takes me back.
Wildest experience in my life.
Uh many of you guys know I am not the influencer type online.
I'm more the organizer.
Uh Charlie was one of the few people in the world that could do both, right?
To figure out, you know, how do I get the message out?
Then how do I organize?
Uh this changed a lot of that for me.
Uh, that moment, you know, one, it went viral as it happened.
And then two, you know, Megan Kelly did her whole show interviewing Charlie about that moment, right?
So then there was another round.
Uh, and then the weirdest thing, you know, to be in the tribute from the White House, that clip, um, and just obviously under horrific after this horrific event, you know, seeing it make another round out there.
Um, when I have people that have not talked to me in 15 years, you know, high school friends or things that are they're not political, they don't follow anything, and they're randomly sending me uh a reel on Instagram.
They're like, is that you?
Is that your voice talking?
You know, at your Al Michaels moment.
Right.
And Charlie, that that one thing I I I loved is is I don't know who said that at first.
It might have been you, it might have been Jack, it might have been Charlie.
It was Jack.
Yeah, but for for them to announce me at the turning point investor, you know, as the uh summit as the Al Michaels uh of politics.
I'm like, you know, I I don't really have a good voice for radio or T and I don't have a Facebook TV.
You do actually.
I mean think I think I think you proved it.
The proof is in the pudding.
So going back to that night, and you guys all get this doing media.
The reason I feel like I had to step in is because Erica came in the room, and you know, obviously Charlie was upset.
You were all here, right?
So me being the remote guy in our headquarters in Harrisburg, PA, you know, just analyzing all the numbers.
We can't have dead air, right?
We all know that's the golden, that's the golden goose.
You cannot have you know no one talking, and I feel like everybody's attention was on Charlie.
And so I was like, well, you know, I'm just gonna speak here.
I didn't want to ruin the moment, and that's what I just said, you know, remember this moment.
And I felt like everybody in the room was just you know, trying to tend to them because they were having that moment.
So it was beautiful.
You know, it was perfect that you stepped in.
Go ahead, Benny.
So President Trump talked about this last night.
And it was very interesting his take on that clip specifically.
Because Trump's like, never seen Charlie like that.
What was that?
Crying, crying like a baby crying too much.
What was that about?
But then I understood he was crying because of MAGA and how beautiful our victory was something like that.
I'm paraphrasing.
Perhaps we can get the exact clip.
But that's the name the the sense of what Trump was saying is that he's never seen his friend Charlie cry.
He's never seen his friend Charlie emotional and and and breaking down because of emotion.
And constantly, I am asked, I'm sure you certainly, uh Andrew, having to fill in in this chair uh are asked this.
How do you do it?
Like, how are you still going?
Because we've been basket cases.
I you know, we get that all the time.
Those closest to Charlie must understand something.
That all of our actions, those who worked with Charlie and those who built with Charlie, all of our actions are inspired by knowing that Charlie is in heaven, looking down and would judge us ever so harshly if we were blubbering weaklings right now.
Charlie would never allow it.
Now, this is a moment that of course Charlie's crying because he's happy.
There was a moment that I lived through with Charlie where he was he should have been crying because he was sad, and that was the 2020 election.
And everybody knows what a nightmare that was.
There's no reason to relitigate it now, but it was a nightmare, and it meant very bad things, obviously, for turning point.
Clearly, Turning Point was then under investigation.
We all go under investigation.
Charlie Kirk's social media was then about up for censorship and banning that all's happened.
We have all the documents for that.
The entire weight of the federal government came after Turning Point.
We were uh it has come out now that we were investigated by the FBI.
The FBI was surveilling Turning Point.
Yep.
And so that so clearly, if there was a time to cry or be depressed, it was that moment.
That dark moment, everyone felt it was all off in 2020, where that election, you know, collapsed, right, into darkness.
And what did Charlie say?
I know what Charlie said to me.
I know what Charlie said to me, and it rings in my ears every single day when you know, when you're like, man, this is tough, like getting getting through this.
We go 50 times harder.
This is what this is what he said, and I'm telling you, I have said that in the mirror every single morning for the last week and a half.
You go 50 times harder for Charlie.
He would not want us blubbering, he would not want us crying, he would not want us fearful in this moment.
He would want us to go 50 times harder to continue that mission.
And I think that's why that moment of him crying and breaking down is so profound.
Because we never saw Charlie like that.
Not even somebody who was a father figure to Charlie, which was President Trump, you know, and and and and Trump sitting there one like in wonder about it on stage was really something because I, you know, everyone's processed that, and those closest to Charlie understood what the mission is now, and Andrew, there's a massive compliment to you.
You have really like forcefully carried forward what Charlie would have wanted to have had happen right now, which is no, we hold the side up, we we s we stand upright as men, and we go 50 times harder.
You know, there's something uh Yeah, please.
And Charlie's last interview that he gave.
It was in Utah, just Salt Lake City, an hour before he went to the campus.
I think it was the last question he was asked is about a one of his favorite quotes.
And and what I remember him saying was this too shall pass.
And that kind of applies to the moment we're in now, but also to that moment where you were narrating over the victory, because Charlie was was saying that not only in that times of sorrow are going to pass, but to also keep you humble at the times of your greatest success.
And you need to go forward from that.
And because that symposium there was really about entrepreneurship, primarily in the restaurant industry.
There may not have been a lot of people who are familiar with Charlie or politically involved who have seen it, but it is absolutely worth a watch if you want to see something about how Charlie viewed his role in this organization.
And you just inspired something.
I mean, whether it was good times or bad times.
Charlie would tell me stay humble, stay close to Jesus.
We gotta stay like if we'd had this huge success, he I I probably have dozens of this exact text in our in our chat.
Stay humble, stay close to Jesus, stay humble, stay close to Jesus.
Like, you know, we thought we were, you know, after Trump won, it was all this, you know.
He's like, we just need to stay humble.
We need to stay close to Jesus.
And that is Charlie in good or bad.
And I will never ever forget it.
Amen.
I'm just saying, uh please, I'm just in bewilderment.
Uh, we're they have CNN, You know, they have every major news network up.
CNN is one of them on an entire wall of screens here in the studio.
And it says, Erica Kirk forgives assassin, says her husband wanted to save young men, just like the one who took his life.
That is the Chiron on CNN.
We boys, we are living through a moment.
Well, this is this is what Erica and I have joked because we both you know.
I think it started with Erica and Charlie.
They would say this to each other, and then somehow it it filtered out, and Charlie and I would start saying it to each other and just be like, this is not normal.
You know, when Charlie got on South Park, I was just like, This is not normal, man.
Like, what's happening?
You're just like a campus activist dude, you know, that it's now larger than light.
I don't know how that happened.
This is not normal.
And you know, Eric and I have had more than one chuckle, like through the tears, you know, you where we just look you know, like that's you know, I there was texted it to Charlie.
I I go, I go, This is amazing.
And he he's like, Is it a good thing?
They nailed it.
They nailed his hair too.
His hair was perfect.
His hair was perfectly.
I mean, people, this is cultural power.
You know, there's a cultural power that you've always fought for that's always been at the core back before Turning Point even owned a building on this campus when they were renting, like Charlie, when it was like seven people here.
Well, like Charlie was c talking about cult but talk about how important culture is.
That's because he loved Andrew Breitbart.
Andrew Breitbart would constantly tell Charlie in particular, but all of us, that politics is downstream of culture.
Well, so you know what's crazy about this, and I've said this before.
Andrew Breitbart died in 2012.
Charlie was so Charlie had never met Andrew, and but he was so in he followed him and he was so inspired when he died that he started Turning Point USA.
Is that really the next point?
That's the Nexus point.
Wow.
He that's and he told Larry O'Connor this because there was a C Pack panel with Matt Boyle and Larry O'Connor, and I think Alex Marlowe, all of all of which worked for Andrew Breitbart.
And so Larry was kind of like, Why are you here, Charlie?
And Charlie's like, I can't wait to tell you about it.
Like, call me and I'll tell you.
And Charlie said to Larry, I followed him so closely, and when he died, I was devastated.
And I knew that I had to start something.
And so that is those those little seeds that get planted in these moments.
And so you can draw a direct line between Andrew Breitbart's death, the beginning of turning point, and now with Charlie's death, you have to ask yourself yourself how many are going to be inspired to rise up and to push back against the darkness and the against the lies and save this country and spread the gospel.
I think it's going to be I think the harvest from Charlie's death is going to be multitudes, magnitudes larger than what we saw with Andrew Breitbart.
And I I just don't see how there's any, I mean, there's there's just not an option where that's not true.
But I, you know, for what it's worth, Charlie loved Andrew Breitbart.
He always talked about culture, and you, Benny Johnson, you played a central role in this Kimmel thing.
And we can we can wait for radio, but but you I was so proud of you, and I know there was some consternation about you know, Brendan Carr and should the government be directly involved.
I think there's you know, I had a tweet on it.
You I think retweeted it, Benny.
Thank you so much.
But the point is that this was this is cultural power because we're finally saying it's this is not anti-free speech, by the way.
Jimmy Kimmel is not a victim, he's a liar, and he tried to pin this assassination on MAGA, which is a vile thing to do.
And by the way, when you are on an on a network, you get extraordinary benefits, taxpayer funded benefits and privileges to uphold the public good.
Lying to the public about who committed this atrocity is not in the public good.
And so ultimately, this is the consumers and the affiliates and the network using their free speech to say no.
And you played a central role in in building that energy, and so hat tip to you, Benny Johnson.
Well, this is exactly what Charlie would have wanted.
I mean, I tell people this, and the the easiest way to explain it is Charlie took Cartman and made him his Twitter profile photo.
Charlie loved being able to reach into culture and affect it because he understood that core Breitbart tenant.
Now doing now with Jimmy Kimmel, it's the exact same thing.
What we are doing is holding accountable, flexing cultural power in a place where we had none.
I mean, it's un again inconceivable for us to think that Cartman would become Charlie Kirk for those of us who've known him for a while.
Not on my bingo card.
That is incredible.
That's power.
That's It's power.
Something we should embrace.
Only good.
And that's what Charlie did.
Many people are like, oh, Charlie owned now.
They got him.
No, Charlie loved it and embraced it.
I called conservatives.
I called on Paramount to put the episode back up and they're a bunch of people wrote it up.
Conservatives should love this fight with Kimmel.
We can talk about it uh next.
Like they should love this fight with Kimmel.
You should embrace it.
You should enjoy the melee.
Yeah, instead of being I totally agree.
Totally incomplete weaklings and babies and doing what they always do, which is like treat me nice, pet me like a dog, I'll be your little doggy.
Rule me harder.
Yeah, that's right.
We're having a great time here, uh, remembering our friend, our brother.
An American legend.
I pinch myself often knowing that this person I spent so much time with now belongs to history.
He's not he's not ours, he's not anybody's.
I mean, save Erica's, but and and the children, but he is he will live in it for eternity in the hearts and minds and the memories of humanity on earth.
I'm not talking about his spirit.
I'm talking about his message, his memory will it will not be snuffed out.
I mean, I saw this, the White House posted, I think.
It was like it was Lincoln and MLK and you know, JFK and Charlie, and I just I remember just thinking, how on earth is this real?
How on earth?
Yeah, and let me let me echo real quick what the vice president said.
You guys talked about it in the previous hour, but you know, him going off the cuff and saying he's talked more about Jesus in the last two weeks than he has in his entire time in public life.
That's me, right?
I never talk about my faith.
You know, this is something I mean, Charlie would text me certain things, you know, some of the Bible verses, different things from time to time.
I am a Christian, but and appreciated what you said.
A degenerate loser.
I loved you leading with that line.
Because you know, I've had my moments, you know, I've had cancel culture come after me, I've had different things happen.
Charlie always stood by me.
Uh, loyalty, very rare in politics.
Oh, yeah.
But I agree with what JD Vance said.
I mean, I've talked more about my faith.
I've thought about my relationship with Christ more in the past 12 days than I probably have in the last decade.
God bless you.
Um I, you know, I don't I'm not gonna.
Yes, baby.
Just say yes.
Just say yes.
And to be in that room yesterday, I think for all of us, you know, especially me as somebody who, you know, traveling all the time, struggled to get to church, uh, as an excuse.
I'll put it out there.
But to to be in that room for the worship and the fellowship, um, it was such highs and lows of emotion.
You know, seeing Charlie with all the, you know, the the different banners that they had up, uh, the different videos, but then to join so many people and worshiping from all over the country.
I mean, that was probably the wildest part to me, is you had people coming in.
I mean, and here's here's this is something that's weird for us to say.
There were so many people we didn't know.
Right?
That is what hit me.
Because when you go to any of our events, even if there's 20,000 people at America Fest, right?
You know so many people.
We've we've worked, we've interacted with so many activists.
I didn't know so many of the people that were there yesterday.
You would run into these random folks, and they were they were they didn't have a hotel room.
They would drove six six hours and just stay overnight and no plans.
It was amazing, everybody felt like a family though.
And Brick, you you are a keen observer of kind of that confluence between the online and the IRL, right?
You you are I I see you you are monitoring everything online, but yet you are a person that puts yourself in these real moments and you're always at these events.
Tell us about that.
What what what did you see?
Did did real life match online?
Did it I mean, what what were people saying?
What were people thinking from your perspective?
Well, I can say that this this event, you know, sometimes I call myself a meme in real life.
You know, when I've got the brick suit on and I'm wearing that, that's good.
I'm a meme in real life.
And that was really kind of the origin of how I started that.
That's what I was trying to do.
Um but yeah, I I went there the night before just to check it out.
Uh Nick in the per first hour talked about how many people were there, and they just they just they wanted to be there for Charlie.
And this event was unlike Any other event that I've been to, unlike Trump rallies, unlike the Madison Square Garden rally, unlike Coachella, unlike even Tulsa, where I camped out on the sidewalk with a bunch of other people for four days before.
It was completely unlike that.
One thing that one thing that was not there was any protesters.
Yeah.
And inside, even.
I couldn't believe that.
Inside, not one.
It wasn't outside.
People wanted to get in, and they were and as I was inside, you know, it wasn't just the building that was filling up.
People's hearts were filling up, too.
Well, that's what I was gonna say.
So you here you have Cliff.
And I thank you for your just that the candor, Cliff, and the vulnerability.
And I think so many people were feeling that.
Did you see that?
Did you see that online?
People saying, like, I am so moved by this moment that I'm going to I'm I'm looking at my faith all over.
Did you hear people talking about that?
Did you see it online?
I saw it online and I saw it beside me, and I saw it behind me, and I saw it in front of me.
It was everywhere you looked in that stadium.
Praise God.
Everywhere.
It's amazing.
You know, there is not, I mean, I've heard people say this a lot, but we didn't, we did we didn't riot.
We didn't burn down.
We worshiped.
We we we held prayer visuals, and there is no greater testament to the character of Charlie Kirk than that.
That one fact, and I'm so proud of it.
You know, I I want our country to be united.
I think we need to confront the truth first, and we need to be honest about something, Benny.
We are not the same.
These two sides are not the same, and there's a huge gulf between them.
And I I want to get into it.
I've agree.
Yeah, go ahead.
I have a great uh follow-up for that to continue our conversation.
So Charlie Kirk is a generational leader and voice for our side.
Let's just call it the right.
He was stolen from us in an on-air execution done by a political enemy of our side, the left.
A transgender, Antifa, radicalized, sociopath, porn addicted furry.
This is who took Charlie from us.
Let's just state the facts.
Okay.
So who's the aggrieved party here?
Who's the party that had something horrible happened?
Well, the right.
We lost a generational leader, generational voice, and a future president, obviously.
So we are the aggrieved party.
The left killed Charlie.
Someone of the left killed Charlie.
Yeah.
Now let's look at the behavior of the right and the left in the 11 days since Charlie's assassination.
The right has prayed and mourned and gone to church.
And and executed one of the single most uplifting events in American history.
Possibly the single largest apostolic event in human history yesterday.
Now, that's our ledger.
Let's look at the left.
In the seconds after Charlie Kirk's assassination, a a Democrat voter, his name's uh George Zinn, uh, shouted that he was the shooter in order to let the actual shooter escape.
Now he's been charged with a felony for this.
Uh, he also had a ton of uh child pornography on his phone.
So sick degeneration.
Is he also charged with that?
Okay, so yeah whatever the hell that was, that's like the first act of the left, all right, was to try and assist in Charlie's assassin, okay, in getting away.
Then the in the next 12 hours, a Fox News truck has a bomb placed on it by two Democrat voters and donors, and the bomb is lit.
Thank God it didn't blow up.
But that that's a story that got buried because there was so much news happening.
I didn't even hear that.
Yes, this happened in Utah.
Wow.
So Fox News affiliate.
Uh since then, we've had four or five different charges of assault for people destroying, desecrating, or attacking people at Charlie Kirk Memorials.
Right out here in the one right outside.
That's right.
You've had thousands of leftists, maybe tens of thousands, get fired from their jobs for celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Jimmy Kimmel is one of them.
Uh other time other MSNBC contributors are among those numbers.
You've had Brett Kavanaugh's uh would-be assassin come out as trans, RFK Jr. bomb bomb threat at RFK Jr.'s house uh in Washington, DC, and you've Had just grotesque commentary from the left effectively either lying about Charlie Kirk's assassination or uh or refusing to vote against it in Congress with 58 members of the Democrat Party refusing to disavow political violence.
So that has been their response to an assassination from their side.
And so I am calling a the the from space the largest BS on this despicable narrative that it is a both sides problem.
Polling doesn't show that.
No data shows that.
And the reaction to this avoid event shows definitively and demonstrably for all time that it is not a both sides problem, and it hasn't been for a very long time, if ever.
We are the side of morality, strength, and compunction and composure in a moment like civility, and they are the side of anarchy.
And so let this be an opportunity to display the differences and to own to own them.
Godliness versus godlessness.
I totally agree.
Civilization versus chaos and anarchy.
And and I would also say this.
I've seen some people, because I've seen, you know, people say the left killed Charlie or whatever.
And they'll go, the left?
Question mark?
Excuse me, it was some deranged kid out of Utah.
No, I think you're making a point.
Now I am very clear that speech, you know, for example, Bernie Sanders supporter shoots Steve Scalise.
I did not blame Bernie for that.
That's not what I'm saying, but I am saying that, yes, I put the onus of the culpability, obviously, on the shooter, but to your point, this is not a both sides issue.
There's some f uh, you just talk about no stats support it.
They keep pointing to some ADL study, but like that is that that is the most grotesque presentation of data that that is known to man.
I mean, it's completely garbage, but they created this environment.
Right?
I will blame the left for creating an environment.
When you tell people that Trump is Hitler continuously, and then you tell people that Charlie Kirk helped get Hitler elected to the presidency of the United States.
Yeah, then what can't you justify?
Yeah, and then Charlie's the next Hitler, right?
That's what they said.
Exactly.
So they do get some blame.
Hitler youth.
I can't I can't tell you how many times Turning Point's been called Hitler youth.
I just want to amend a like append it with just one thought, though, that is fast.
It strikes me that Charlie Kirk's legacy and the the harvest spiritually and both in our country that we are seeing from this around the world has been so extraordinarily huge, it strikes me how little I've thought of the shooter.
Yes.
How small a character he is in this saga.
Yeah, Larry Arne's commentary yesterday was really something on that.
I didn't hear it.
I was I was working.
What did he say?
Yeah, so Larry Arne said is the president of Hillsdale College for those who don't know.
This audience should know, but for those who are unaffiliated, uninitiated to this show.
He said that what threatens evil are good and moral people that have being.
And Charlie had being.
And an assassin has no being.
They must take the being of someone else...
The energy of someone else, uh, and and that the assassin, the assassin, the the the those with being, when they are assassinated, uh grow stronger and the assassin dies.
And I'm uh my team, I know that we can get the actual exact quote here.
I think it's worth actually saying it, or perhaps there's the clip of Larry Arne saying it.
His comments were only like two minutes long.
Yeah, Danny.
But it was a profound point.
It was a beautiful point.
Alex Danny.
Like it was a beautiful point.
Um, and said, you know, spoken in a very subtle and soft and somber way.
You know, Larry Arnes is very um philosophical individual, but it was it was a wonderful way to say that to your point.
Yeah, it's uh He has no being.
This does not negate this whole conversation that we were having before about how important it is that we get to the root of this problem.
Right.
And when when you you we must reject the premise that this is both sides.
Correct.
Both sides do have some fringy characters.
I'm not gonna say that's not true.
I think we'll all admit it.
But in uh just proportion to the to each side's size, it is far larger on the left.
I think everybody knows that intuitively.
I think what we're seeing based on the reaction, all you have to do is look at the difference between what happened after George Floyd and what happened after Charlie Kirk.
Yes, that's right.
That's all you have to.
I mean, there is no you cannot show me a statistic that will convince me, I don't care how doctored up it is, I don't care what the ADL puts it out 20 times.
You this is the proof.
Your eyes have seen the truth that we are not reacting that way because we know Jesus.
We know that we will have we will be held accountable upon our death for the evil things that we do unless we confess and we repent.
And secondly, we are on the side of civilization building, creating.
And, you know, the the anarchists, they're nihilists, they don't care about those things.
We're trying to build a country for our children to inherit that will be safe and beautiful and good.
And so if we would have taken this energy and turned it into an anarchy moment into a revenge moment, that would have spelled doom for our nation.
And our nation, our our side loves this nation.
And that, full circle, is why what Erica Kirk did on that stage last night was so profoundly important, and why I tweeted in the moment that that is one of the pro most profound and important moments in American history because it means America has a chance.
It means that the gospel will continue to go forth.
It means that we have given license to the Holy Spirit to fill more hearts and minds.
We have chosen and said yes to Jesus.
And you could hear a pin drop.
When she said those words and announced that she was going to forgive this radical unhinged man, it the ten seconds before it, in my head, I I didn't know the speech, you know, I didn't know of the speech beforehand or what was going to happen.
But in my head, I was thinking, there's no way.
Like when you when you started to see her kind of drift in that direction in the speech that she was going to forgive this person.
But it was like the whole room kind of came to a realization as she was building up to it.
And we all, I mean, at least you know the people around me, we were there's no way she's gonna say this.
This is this is eleven days ago.
This is just had her world taken from her in Charlie.
And when she said the words, you guys remember the applause?
Like the applause.
It wasn't just it wasn't just it was like almost in shock, people were applauding.
It was very so much applause that made it on the graphic.
The translation up there.
She's got her her words that says applause.
I actually have that image.
It's it was amazing.
The team has it.
I sent it in the chat actually, because I noticed the same thing.
It is uh yeah, the I think it's pick seven or sixty-five.
It's 65.
Show the show the actual image.
And underneath it says applause.
That that man, that young man, I forgive him.
And what she said before that, by the way, Benny, and I know because you've been in the foxhole with us along so many of these years, that is exactly the type of young man that we have pulled like out of this nihilism over the years.
And these men would come into, instead of getting buried in some internet rabbit hole where they just want to burn it all down and you know, never contribute to anything positive, they would come in to turning point and realize they had a place in the movement, that the movement gets stronger when you join it.
And they would find friends and they would find meaning and purpose, be a part of something bigger than yourself.
And when she led in with that, I just I was so struck because I was like, yes, this is these are these young men that have been so villainized.
She spoke directly to them, and she said, You do not have to be, you know, you do not have to cower at the prospect of life.
You do not have to cower that our elites have robbed this generation of so much wealth and opportunity and and it for the incumbent older generation.
You have agency, be a part of something bigger than yourself.
I just keep thinking of that refrain in my heart because that was the through line, because we are going to miss some, and there will be some men that are left on the sidelines, but God, I pray we can get so many of them, especially after this moment.
Yeah, and you know, Andrew, that you were a father, and this was something that Charlie, upon my wedding, was constantly texting when you're gonna become a dad, when you're gonna become a dad, when you're gonna become a father?
And the reason why he was constantly texting me that is because nothing will drive purpose more in your life as a young man than holding your newborn child.
If you want to witness an actual miracle in life, and it can only be witnessed by you.
The amazing thing about fatherhood and about parenthood is that only you see the miracle.
There's some miracles that are seen by all.
Wow, look at all this bread on this hillside.
There was no bread here.
Jesus prayed, and now there's a bunch of bread.
That's cool.
Look at all these fish.
Like that's a miracle everyone saw.
Parent, you like hold your newborn child, and it's a special miracle that God gives just you and your wife.
Just you, right?
Not even the people in the hospital share with it, really, like because they've seen it a million times.
No, it's this like moment the whole world closes in, and every father knows what I'm talking about here.
And Charlie was constantly driving toward that and constantly delivering for more fathers, more men to fall in love, get married, have children, seize their American dream, and Christ center their life.
Well, you talk about like the the destructive nihilism of eternal online, uh, eternal online rabbit holes and and and and and gaming and just the night the nihilist feedback loop, right?
Of terminally online.
You know what breaks you of that?
Like a little kid, like a baby that wants to play with you, like your son or daughter that wants to see you and says dad dad and grabs your phone and pulls it down and says, like, pay attention to me.
Like my eight-month old did this morning.
That's like it is.
I noticed you were a few minutes late this time.
And you can't that's exactly that's exactly right.
I'll I'll send your producers actually.
Maybe you can pop it up.
I'll send your producers, Andrew will send it to you and you pour it along.
Exactly what I was doing this morning.
I'll I'll I'll show you.
And it's what Charlie wants for all men.
What Charlie wants for all young men is this.
Oh, you're gonna love this.
There you go.
Here you go.
This is this is what I was doing this.
This is what I was doing this morning before the show.
Sitting there with my son in the grass with my coffee, no uh, and just like and just like living life.
And what the point is is that that that's the that's the key to unlocking your purpose in life.
There you go, Benny.
There it is.
Is that your coffee mug in the front?
Yeah, it's in the hotel room, you know, just at our hotel.
And so I just like uh, you know, let my wife sleep in, and I took my son out and I just let him crawl around.
He's just crawling now.
And you just and that is like such an it's God gave it, right?
God's God's design, but Charlie understood this so preternaturally that that was the way to unlock unlock in men purpose and meaning and fulfillment in life.
You know, that's weird.
Okay.
So I'm sure he had the same effect on you.
You have three beautiful children.
I have three beautiful children, beautiful wife.
I'm so blessed.
I I will say, this is I I felt this way, Khan, to be honest, when they were showing the footage of the last event, like those last moments as he was driving up to the last event.
It's like it's hard personally to for me to think about that.
Yeah, it was tough.
But I Blake and I were exchanging texts with Charlie about say like 25, 30 minutes before it happened.
And we were talking about you know, because he was in he was in Utah.
Uh, we were predicting that there was gonna be some questions about maybe monogamy versus polygamy.
And I I looked at that again, that that text exchange, and Blake likes to call it, you know, really advanced societal technology, monogamy.
And and we were putting all these talking points, and Charlie was like, Yes, good, good, good.
And it's interesting because what you're talking about is it there is this thing where you love one woman and she loves you and you're faithful to each other, and you you build this family and this legacy, and how that unleashes this energy that is so positive in a man because now you have to, it's like in, you know, men are like trucks, they'll sort of squirrely until you put a load on the in the back, right?
And then they drive straight as an arrow.
And it's like when you give them a family and kids, we become like trucks with a load in the back, and we have to drive straight as an arrow because we got we got precious cargo and we're gonna take care of our kids, we're gonna take care of our families, we're gonna work harder at our jobs, we're gonna try and earn more money, we're gonna try and have more of an impact.
We're gonna try and make sure that the world our kids inherit is beautiful and good And safe, and that is a powerful, powerful force to unleash.
You're the perfect person to answer this question because you're gonna I know you're gonna ring it like a bell.
We knew Charlie way back when, right?
There was a time when Charlie was just like a meme, right?
And it was like, you know, he was building and everyone was just making fun of him, and everyone dogging on Charlie, right?
Yeah, there was a you know, everyone like those of us who have been around long enough knew Charlie in the in the early build before Erica.
And my wife and I talked about this, and I want you to answer this because you were so close to him.
There was a flip that switched in that man.
Let Charlie's life be an example.
There when he met Erica, and I knew Charlie before Erica, right?
A lot of people, you know, some people did around here.
And and there was a f he when Charlie was a single man, okay.
Not that he was some kind of like uh vi you know, degenerate or anything, but like when Charlie was a single man, he was a different person wholly and completely than when he was a husband and had children to come home to.
There was a f there was a nuclear fusionorphosis, yes, that happened, and we all saw this hockey stick that happened to his career, his life, and there's this lie that it's like having kids and getting married will oh it'll sap your energy, bro, and you'll have no more alpha energy, and you know, you just gotta let it rip Nah, dude.
Look at Charlie as an example.
But every father actually knows I know you know this, Colvet.
I certainly have experienced this.
When you have wives and children, actually accelerates your life.
100%.
Yeah.
I will answer your question, but I think you did a pretty good job.
We're talking about what Erica's impact was on Charlie.
Yes.
And it couldn't have been more dramatic.
I mean, he went from like baggy suit, dude, with everything, nothing fit right, and he was you know bad haircut, bad haircut, finally got a haircut that worked, yeah.
And I like looking out.
Who said he who said he was wearing Walmart jeans from like Goodwill?
Oh, yeah.
Who said that?
That line came out last night.
No, who was that?
Was that Tyler that said that?
That might have been.
He started working out.
Yes, he started working out.
He got really into you know, he got really into like biohacking, getting the most out of his body because the time management skills that it took to run Charlie's life was dramatic.
And I wish I could bring up all of his the assistance.
We called him force multipliers, to advance every next stop to make sure there was a car, there was a hotel, there was uh travel arrangements, that there was people to greet the security, everything was had to be so exacting just to get him from point A to point B to point C to point D in a given day sometimes.
It was amazing.
And you know, people would ask for interviews with Charlie, and I'd be like, I don't know how we fit anything else into this time, and I'm sorry I'm not trying to be rude.
Anyways, that that whole metamorphosis where he became we where he grew shoulders broad enough to show to to you know handle the burden of his just his time and his energy on him.
He realized it was a a great burden, and it all went back to Erica because Erica was the vault, the safe place, the refuge, and he knew and he just loved going home to her.
She talked about that in her speech.
She was never the nagging wife, she never gave him a hard time about being gone or on the road, and he couldn't wait to get home.
And I always told it Erica while Charlie was alive, and I told her again since since his passing, you were the real MVP.
And I know this because you know, and you saw it with the athleisure wear when he would go out, you know, to the campus all of a sudden he and I remember there was this episode on PBD, I think it was Adam on PBD, uh, one of the hosts.
And he was like, Charlie Kirk's got that Riz.
He's got that Riz.
And we had this exchange where Charlie was like, what is Riz?
And and so Charlie believed in changing culture, but Charlie did not often participate in it, but he really wanted it, you know.
This is why with the South Park thing where he was like, Yeah, you were like, you know, you're on South Park.
He's like, is this good?
Yeah, this is good.
Great.
So, but like I'm gonna say lean in any ounce of Riz goes straight to Erica Kirk.
She she gave him a few.
And to become a father, and becoming a father, and how and Charlie would just be proud that that is a part of his legacy.
Well, and I encouraging fatherhood.
I love that she said in her speech, you know, that she wanted him to want to come home and that she supported the fact.
I mean, the guy, I don't think people understand.
I know we talk about his schedule, and you know, you're managing a lot of it, obviously, with the show, but it's like think about what you have to do to run an organization like Turning Point.
You're talking hundreds of days on the road to raise money, right?
Nobody ever wants to talk about that because it's like, oh, raising money.
It's good.
You gotta raise the money.
How do you guys hire thousands of people?
How do you have thousands of college, high school faith, all of these chapters?
It's tons of money.
And so I just tell everybody, you know, it's not just the time on the road raising the money.
Then the guy decides he's gonna do a show five days a week.
And I'm like, are you kidding me?
Then you have the idea that he's going and speaking.
He's doing, you know, other media.
He's doing college events.
Endorsing candidates and doing the candidate events and all this.
This is by the way, where he goes, What is Riz?
Yeah.
He goes, What is Riz?
What is Riz?
And I say like swagger, and Blake has to go, ca rizma.
One of my favorite uh I don't know if it was a lefty or somebody on the right.
Somebody somebody posted a video that was like pretty much they were saying that Charlie was hot, like in some of these albums.
Right?
And I'm I'm watching these, and a couple people sent it to me, and it's just like wait, is he like they were saying, and they're showing like these videos, you know, him playing basketball or whatever.
And you could definitely see the Riz post Erica.
So we we do have to give her credit for all that.
It was uh guys, I want to uh end with really the major theme of yesterday, and that was the Holy Spirit and Jesus.
So I'm gonna go around the table, rapid fire.
If you had to sum up just the proclamation of the gospel, the presentation of it from Tucker to Don Jr. to VP Vance to Erica.
Just give me like sum it up.
Sum it up for you, Britt, go first.
Man, all the speeches were so powerful, and I was trying from my vantage point to film them from the crowd as best I could.
And then when Jack was up there and he's holding up the rosary.
I had to put down the camera.
Yeah.
Because I had to start, I had I couldn't just film anymore.
I love that.
I wanted to be part of that.
I wanted to stand up, I wanted to applaud.
And uh that for me personally, I think that was the one that was stands out the most.
There were a lot.
And Erica's forgiveness actually is, of course, the top moment.
But other than that, Jack.
Yeah.
Good.
I mean, okay, because can we just say everyone say, like I've already said Erica is one of the all top time three most powerful speeches ever given.
So if you're asking me something beyond that, then I've got to say Don Jr.
Yeah.
Don Jr. did something that no one else did.
He used humor.
Now I really like humor.
Big time meeting.
Relax, Don.
You gotta take it easy and relax.
And he joked about Hillary Clinton.
He's joked about Kamala Harris.
That pan to Trump up in the press box and Dana, Dana White's up there.
Dana White's up there going like this.
It was amazing.
And Don, Don used uh humor, I think, in a moment that only Don could pull off.
Yeah.
And I'm a big fan of using humor and memes, and I wasn't sure.
I I didn't find it, you know.
I thought yesterday was a day to move just memorialize my friend in my own way and use it for Christ and not for laughs.
And so that, you know, you only get three minutes, so you just gotta do that.
Don did it.
Don went there and joked about Kamala and Hillary.
They'll never know what it's like to be president.
How what was the setup of the joke?
It was hysterical.
You know, it's just like Kamala and Hillary.
Hillary will never know what it's like to be president.
It's like amazing it was amazing.
The room uh needed a laugh, actually, needed sort of like an uproarious laugh.
Yes.
And so, and so like I'm so glad that Don went there.
And then also Don Jr. of all people to share his faith in Christ.
Talk about something you have never heard before and may never hear again.
I will tell you, backstage, it was like, Don, did you just talk about Jesus?
He's like, I know, man.
What?
Like, I had jokes.
I had jokes written yesterday that I wanted to use that I thought were inappropriate.
Like, for instance, um, you know, Jimmy Kimmel's show deserved to be canceled because it gets less viewers than Chris Christie's only fans.
That's a joke that I wanted to use yesterday, but I didn't because it would have been totally and wholly inappropriate.
Uh, I wanted to say that the whole of the federal government is represented here.
Um, and what I mean by that is Marco Rubio's here uh today.
And that that Marco Rubio actually has a brand new position to fill, and that's Jimmy Kimmel's show.
Well, I've been that's really funny.
And I but we did what we we didn't do that, right?
We decided not to do that.
Don was the perfect palette cleanser.
I want to play a little bit of the worship because actually one of the things about I I don't get into worship all the time.
Ever since this happened, I just every time a worship song comes on, I'm just caught up in it.
Let's play cut 50.
Let's play cut 50.
One more time.
Can I share two things?
There were two very vivid moments for me.
One was walking in and the worship was starting.
You know, I got there at that time.
And I have been pretty good about holding things back, you know, over the last two weeks.
Everybody grieves differently.
You know, I'm Irish, so we like to bury things and not not deal with them.
Um that was the first moment where I, you know, I really started to hit me, you know, make it real.
And then obviously, um, I just lost it when Erica came out.
I mean, when she came out, it was I don't want to say it was closure.
Um, but it was just it was full circle that that not only is this real, but all of the fear and everything that I worried about with Charlie being gone with all of you with turning point with the movement, she just reassured me that we're gonna be okay.
And to have her be that strong, both standing here and at the event, uh, it just filled me with emotion, but it also just reassured me we're we're headed in the right direction.
To extend an analogy I started last week.
If Charlie's death was like the death of Jesus and we were the disciples, and we were scattered and we were afraid, Erica's speech on that Friday was like Pentecost, and it filled us all with courage.
And the memorial yesterday was almost like the start of the book of Acts, and now it's all the disciples' job to take it and run with it.
Benny Johnson, brick suit, Cliff Maloney, thank you guys.
