Nov. 2, 2018 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
01:06:14
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Joining me today is a student, an activist, and the director of high school outreach for Turning Point USA, Kyle Kashuv. | ||
| Welcome to The Rubin Report. | ||
| Thanks for having me on. | ||
| I am excited to have you here. | ||
| We've met a couple times. | ||
| We've done some events together. | ||
| You are seemingly wise beyond your years. | ||
| Thanks. | ||
| I don't know if that's true. | ||
| All right, let's get to it. | ||
| Well, actually, in a weird way, I guess you've been sort of thrust into being wise beyond your years. | ||
| You were obviously a survivor of the Parkland shooting. | ||
| As you know, I had your classmate, Cameron Caskey, on a couple weeks ago, and he kind of laid out what happened to him that day, and subsequently everything that's happened. | ||
| So let's just start there, because that's kind of what put you on the map. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So to preface it, I don't like to refer to myself as a survivor. | ||
| Because I wasn't in the building that was shot into, and I think that, you know, cheapens the pain and tragedy of the people who were in the building. | ||
| So what happened with me that day... | ||
| It was fourth period. | ||
| I was in my fourth period class, and all of a sudden the alarms ring. | ||
| So we go into the hallway, and we're walking out, and we hear two little pops. | ||
| I don't know if two textbooks fell, fireworks. | ||
| I really had no idea. | ||
| So we run back and I go and reach for the door to my classroom and the teacher locked it. | ||
| So we go into a nearby room, we get in there and we just hide. | ||
| For two hours straight we just hear pops and ambulances in the distance. | ||
| So that was the freshman building. | ||
| And the entire time we had no idea what was going on. | ||
| And then all throughout the entire time people immediately are just villainizing guns. | ||
| You know, the second I got out of the closet that I was in, kids were like, we have to ban AR-15s. | ||
| Yeah, let's not jump into the political part. | ||
| Yeah, so. - 'Cause it's like, 'cause it's interesting just listening | ||
| to you hear about that. | ||
| It's almost like. | ||
| The way you were describing it, it almost sounds like you weren't even there. | ||
| It's just like a story that you were telling in a bizarre way. | ||
| So once, okay, so all of this happens. | ||
| You find out now there are dead students. | ||
| I mean, did you have friends that were killed and all that? | ||
| Yeah, so we get out of the closet. | ||
| SWAT takes us out. | ||
| They put their AR-15s in our faces, take us out. | ||
| We have to put our hands on the person in front of us walking outside. | ||
| And all throughout this, the most disgusting thing was every single corner of the entire | ||
| block surrounding us was just filled with media cars. | ||
| It was just jam-packed. | ||
| And what I saw there was that whenever there was someone crying or a moment of pain, the | ||
| media would just surround them and encapsulate them. | ||
| And I got home, and I was really hoping that this wouldn't be a politicized spectacle with | ||
| mass media jumping the gun to everything. | ||
| And sadly that was the case. | ||
| So when I was like sitting there in shock, seeing the numbers rise on the screens for the death count, it was like so insane to internalize like what had just occurred. | ||
| Because like everyone's always, you know, this will never happen to my school. | ||
| How could this happen to my school? | ||
| And the sad reality is it can happen to any school. | ||
| Like, I mean, Stoneman Douglas was in the most affluent, low-crime, you know, city, I think, in like southern Florida. | ||
| And this happened at our school. | ||
| Did you know some of the kids that were killed? | ||
| Yeah, I knew one girl, Helena. | ||
| She was in a class of mine a year back. | ||
| Yeah, so what kind of time did you guys have to grieve? | ||
| Because that, you're already alluding to this, but it was like, it was as if the event happened, the shooting happened, and then it seemingly, there was no grieving, and then you guys were all over the television, you were all over Twitter, you had all political people using you guys in all sorts of different ways. | ||
| Just tell me a little bit about just kind of the grieving and trying to be able to be, how old are you now? | ||
| 17. | ||
| You're 17, trying to be 15, 16, 17 year old kids trying to just survive something unimaginably horrible. | ||
| Yeah, I don't know how freshmen and sophomores have managed to go through this. | ||
| I was a junior at the time, so I knew the school a little bit better and somewhat of my self-esteem was built up more and a little bit more mature. | ||
| But there was absolutely no time to grieve whatsoever. | ||
| A few days after the shooting, they already bussed us up to Tallahassee to tug on the emotional heartstrings of Republicans to pass legislation that they otherwise wouldn't have passed. | ||
| Who's they in that equation? | ||
| So there were some members in the Florida Senate that personally coordinated buses from Parkland to Tallahassee. | ||
| Yeah, and what were your parents saying, or the friends' parents? | ||
| It just seemed like the parents were almost gone. | ||
| Now there are some of the parents that are a little more high profile that I see, but it was as if you guys were just taken. | ||
| That's what it felt like. | ||
| Suddenly we're seeing you on CNN and town halls, and I wanna talk a little bit about that, but just like, That you were just used all over the place with not even having a moment to just digest what happened. | ||
| So here's what I think happened. | ||
| I think that the kids saw what happened, they were shocked as they should be, and they decided to act. | ||
| We said this can't happen to anyone else ever again. | ||
| Let's do something. | ||
| What really occurred is that the mainstream media jumped on this immediately and just put it to a national scale and really used it to push a gun control agenda. | ||
| And that's why I started speaking out, because I wanted to represent the other side of Stoneman Douglas who doesn't believe in gun control. | ||
| Yeah, so just tell me a little bit about you in high school before this. | ||
| Yeah, like we've jumped a lot. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| What was Kyle Cashew like before this? | ||
| Because I know you sort of as a political beast now and like a wickedly incisive Twitterer and like, you know, you've put on events that I've been part of and you're incredibly organized and connecting with great people and all that stuff. | ||
| But just tell me about the kid before that day. | ||
| So I'll give you all the recap. | ||
| I'll give you the story of my life. | ||
| Life story. | ||
|
unidentified
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Let's go. | |
| So my parents came from Israel. | ||
| They immigrated here. | ||
| My mom served in the IDF. | ||
| They came here, and if nothing, worked their way up. | ||
| And then when I was at home, they taught me Hebrew and English. | ||
| So we only spoke Hebrew at home, so I'm fluent in Hebrew. | ||
| And they put me through school, and I was always the shortest kid in the grade. | ||
| So I was always, like, even shorter than the shortest girl in my grade. | ||
| I was, like, super short. | ||
| In like what was it? | ||
| In like 8th grade I was 4 foot 8. | ||
| I was like legally a midget in 8th grade. | ||
| So I got bullied a lot. | ||
| Like I try not to have a victimhood mentality because I don't think it's successful and I think you agree with me on that. | ||
| So I was always bullied and I was always smart so that kind of went back on me a little bit. | ||
| But I was always bullied a lot and it built up my self-esteem. | ||
| In addition, I was always taking the hardest classes. | ||
| My parents would always push me to take the hardest classes possible. | ||
| So at Douglas, before all this, I had a good social life. | ||
| So I would basically go to school, do my AP classes, go home, play video games till like 10 p.m., start homework, and then finish it at 2 a.m., and then have five hours of sleep. | ||
| So that was my cycle. | ||
| It was terrible. | ||
| But I was super addicted to video games. | ||
| And then the shooting happens, and it just turned my entire life upside down. | ||
| So, it completely changed me. | ||
| So at that moment, you know, I had to become much more mature. | ||
| I was living in the adult world. | ||
| You know, I had responsibilities. | ||
| There were things I had to do. | ||
| You know, I had to act a proper, certain way. | ||
| Did you have any particular political beliefs before all this? | ||
| Because you're definitely, in terms of at least the kids or the young people that are public about all of this now that have come out of Stoneman Douglas, I mean, you definitely are the one that seems, at least that I know of, is the furthest right that has sort of embraced conservatism and all that. | ||
| Is that where you were politically? | ||
| Did you even think about any of that? | ||
| Here's the thing about me. | ||
| My parents aren't political at all, whatsoever, so all my political beliefs I've developed myself. | ||
| And how I develop every single political belief is just I look at it straight from a rational, logical point of view with no emotions whatsoever. | ||
| I think you can guess. | ||
| I'm not an emotional person. | ||
| So, like, I think with legislative decisions you have to put emotion as far out of it as possible. | ||
| You have to do policies that actually solve the problem, not just make you feel good. | ||
| So I'm really not for, like, feel-good policies. | ||
| But did you care about politics at all before any of this, or is this new since? | ||
| Yeah, I did care. | ||
| The 2016 election, I was somewhat into it. | ||
| After the election, I kind of didn't care as much. | ||
| But I was always somewhat of a Second Amendment supporter. | ||
| Yeah, but when I started speaking out, so what's really interesting, when I started speaking out, It was like a tidal wave of opposition. | ||
| You know, I had my schools against me. | ||
| Some would seem like that. | ||
| You know, all my peers were against me. | ||
| And I try not to do a victim of the Taliban, I just want to paint the picture of how it actually was. | ||
| And it seemed like the community, the mainstream media, my friends, you know, it seemed like I was going against every single opposition. | ||
| You know, I was scared, like this could ruin my life. | ||
| But, you know, I believed in what I was doing, and I just powered through it. | ||
| I just stuck to my beliefs and didn't let anyone tell me otherwise. | ||
| When I was in Tallahassee, when they were pushing Republican legislators to enact gun control legislation, I said, look, gun control isn't going to solve the problem. | ||
| I want to solve the problem. | ||
| I want to make sure that school shootings never happen. | ||
| What can I do to actually make that happen? | ||
| And what can I do while protecting the Second Amendment? | ||
| Because I actually believe it's one of the most fundamental rights of Americans. | ||
| So while I was there, I started speaking out, and nobody cared. | ||
| I would go to reporters, and nobody cared. | ||
| So I had to forcefully talk to reporters, say, hey, look, I'm a conservative. | ||
| Can I reach out? | ||
| And then I managed to get Leland Vittert's, a contact with Leland Vittert at Fox. | ||
| And I went on Fox, and I did an interview. | ||
|
unidentified
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And then Ben Shapiro saw it and it blew up, but all the while... That's the first time I remember seeing it. | |
| Yeah, and all the while there was this extreme opposition. | ||
| And the entire thing that I've always had... Sorry, where are you? | ||
| Well, I just want to know, what do you... Because I know you kind of mock the media the way I do now on Twitter and just sort of what mainstream media has become and that they're really activists and not journalists and that whole thing. | ||
| But were you shocked when you were going up to them and going... | ||
| You know, I'm a conservative, or I want to defend the Second Amendment, but I'm a student from this school. | ||
| And they're just blatantly ignoring you. | ||
| Or even, I know this is minor, but like, I remember when a bunch of you guys were all verified on Twitter at once. | ||
|
unidentified
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I wasn't. | |
| But you weren't. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And it was like, you were the outlier. | ||
| That happened with Instagram as well. | ||
| It took me like three months after everyone else. | ||
| Yeah, and I'm not saying that that, it doesn't really mean anything in and of itself, but it is a symptom of sort of the broader situation going on here with tech companies and media and all that. | ||
| Like, were they flat out ignoring you? | ||
|
unidentified
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Like, you saw them interviewing people and then... So, here's what occurred. | |
| The main organizers of that, that you see like with a solid group of like the March for Alive kids, at this point they had solidified a clique and they wouldn't let anyone new or with a different opposing view into it. | ||
| So I said, I have to take matters into my own hand. | ||
| In addition, when we were in Tallahassee, I realized that the mainstream media is just doing this for cliques. | ||
| Because, can we think about it? | ||
| When mass shooting occurs, The mainstream media loves it. | ||
| They get great coverage. | ||
| They get a great amount of views. | ||
| They do. | ||
| I'll switch. | ||
| I'll talk to notoriety in addition after this, but I saw that when someone, there was a girl crying in Tallahassee. | ||
| And the second she cried, she got sworn by reporters. | ||
| And I saw that they were just looking for clicks and for headlines. | ||
| And I realized that they're not in it for the right reasons. | ||
| They're not going to listen to a rational, young kid like me, okay? | ||
| So, in addition, I also realized that there was an extreme amount of just, people were just benefiting off of this so much. | ||
| So, after the shooting, we realized that a lot of this occurred because the shooter, I try not to say his name, ever, because I think that gives into notoriety. | ||
| They would post... So here's what Time did. | ||
| So the video of the shooter where he basically says, you know, I'm gonna be the next cool shooter of 2018. | ||
| I want 20 people. | ||
| And he basically says, you're all going to see me on the news. | ||
| And then Time Magazine puts this video up on YouTube and it gets 3.6 million views. | ||
| The same thing with all the other videos. | ||
| CNN talked about this exact clip and basically just still showed it on air. | ||
| So the entire thing with the mainstream media is doing is that they're basically just benefiting off the situation. | ||
| And what they don't realize is they're perpetuating the issue and making it worse. | ||
| That's why I think Daily Wire, Ben is doing a great decision with not showing their names and faces, because it's an ethical decision. | ||
| Now, I don't think government should impose on the mainstream media to not allow them to show their faces, but I think it's an ethical and moral decision that people should be taking on. | ||
| Yeah, so just to be totally clear, so after this shooting, that was when Ben announced, he's the editor of Daily Wire, they are no longer gonna show their names or pictures. | ||
| Yeah, a few days after. | ||
| Okay, so you started to see this issue with the media, that they're ignoring people like you and they're sort of making other people stars and they're going for the clicks and all of that. | ||
| What about, you know, I don't wanna make this about people per se, but so that little clique of kids that then was all over the media and was getting retweeted by every celebrity and all of that, were you trying to reach out to them at all and just have that discussion, or was it just very clear that that was not gonna happen? | ||
| Oh no, yeah, absolutely, and I still try to have that discussion. | ||
| You know, when they first started speaking out, I said, oh my God, that's great, someone's speaking out. | ||
| And originally, when the movement started, you remember Cameron Kasky was on the car shouting, the movement, Wasn't an anti-gun movement. | ||
| It was an anti-school shooting movement. | ||
| And I said, hey guys, this is quickly, I just, I was like, I gave him a warning, guys, it looks like you're moving to the direction of an anti-gun movement, and I don't think that's beneficial. | ||
| At all. | ||
| So here's my point of view. | ||
| I tried communicating, and I tried speaking, and they really didn't care in allowing me. | ||
| So I said, OK, I have to go solo. | ||
| And that's what I've been doing. | ||
| But I've always been open to discussion and open debate. | ||
| I think that's one of the great things of our country, where you can have open discussion and just free expression of ideas. | ||
| That's why I think the Kanye thing is somewhat great, because regardless of what you think of the person or celebrity, I'm not in favor of propping up celebrities and their political opinions simply because they're famous, but you don't need a lot of political expertise to say that I believe in free expression, free thought. | ||
| Right, that shouldn't be a really controversial position to be staking out. | ||
| All right, so you mentioned Cameron, and you know I had him on the show a couple weeks ago. | ||
| He's going through a very interesting evolution right now. | ||
| I suspect I can figure out where this is gonna end up, which actually would be much closer to your position. | ||
| than the position that he's sort of at right now, because I just continually see that | ||
| as the evolution of things, the more that he understands rights | ||
| and all of those things, but I was happy to hear his thoughts and all that. | ||
| And look, he sat down with me, he sat down with Shapiro, and I think he'll continue to do that. | ||
| Have you guys been able to make any peace with some of this stuff? - Yeah. | ||
| Or you must at least be enjoying the fact that somebody's kind of coming around to you. | ||
| No, I think Cam's a good guy. | ||
| I think that what we're seeing right now is that he's matured. | ||
| So me and Cam have gone through the same political slash media experience, so we can understand each other. | ||
| What happened with Cam is, look, we've all made mistakes. | ||
| We've all said stuff we don't want to, but he's matured, and I've also matured. | ||
| And what I think is happening with Cam is it's a natural progression of just having logical thought instead of emotions. | ||
| And I think logic and facts moves you towards the political beliefs of being a conservative. | ||
| Okay, so all of this happens. | ||
| I think the sort of rock bottom of this was that CNN town hall. | ||
| That was terrible. | ||
| Yeah, just share your thoughts on that. | ||
| So here's what happened with the CNN town hall. | ||
| So a lot of the kids that you saw there were actually flown in on a private jet from Tallahassee. | ||
| So already at the time of the Town Hall, there was a solidified group click of the kids that you see now, and they won't let anything in. | ||
| So they actually flew these kids on a private jet from Tallahassee to the Town Hall. | ||
| And right there, it was just simply They were just, it was an anti-gun debate, and they were just villainizing Rubio and Dana Lash for things that had nothing into their control whatsoever. | ||
| It wasn't their fault. | ||
| Marco Rubio was villainized to such an extreme extent, and he's one of the best senators. | ||
| So you've now connected with Rubio? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, I hate it because when people say that politicians just don't care, It's just so wrong. | ||
| I mean, politicians, they do care. | ||
| And you know, he was one of the greatest supporters of the Stop School Violence Act that we got passed. | ||
| And he just helped push it. | ||
| And look, these senators don't want this to occur to anyone. | ||
| And just saying that politicians want this to happen is just wrong. | ||
| Do you have any thoughts on what actually happened that day in terms of security or what should have happened | ||
| or shouldn't have happened? | ||
| Because even now when you go back and listen, depending on where you're getting your news from this, | ||
| it sounds, you know, they either stepped down or they didn't go in or this or that or the other thing. | ||
| And it's like, well, what should have happened in the ideal world that you wanna create | ||
| and the system that you wanna create to protect this, these schools from not having this happen again? | ||
| What would you say to people who are looking for a job? | ||
| What should have happened that day? | ||
| What we saw in my school was simply an utterly just massive incompetence and failure of law enforcement. | ||
| You know, so the shooter was flagged multiple times by the school, by the school administration. | ||
| They knew he had mental issues. | ||
| He was put into the Promise Program. | ||
| And they knew that this kid was a threat. | ||
| There were 76 times the police, there were 76 times the police came to his house. | ||
| There were two FBI reports. | ||
| They knew that this kid was a threat. | ||
| And the law enforcement was completely incompetent at that level. | ||
| And they didn't do absolutely anything. | ||
| Everyone knew this kid was an issue. | ||
| What happened at the school, was just utter incompetence in addition. | ||
| So when he gets on campus, okay, he just makes a straight beeline for the freshman building. | ||
| And at the exact same time, we had a school resource officer who heard the gunfire and came, and he just hid in a corner while kids were dying. | ||
| and then three unarmed individuals rushed to save uh... three armed went to the building | ||
| and died trying to save kids what we should have had | ||
| and this is why i push for it the only way | ||
| to stop a shooter who is active on campus | ||
| is to have other people | ||
| who are armed the only way to stop it's not a cliche the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun | ||
| is a good guy with a gun and in addition to that there's the entire idea | ||
| of a gun free gun free zone | ||
| It is utterly stupid. | ||
| It is just completely stupid. | ||
| All it's doing is enticing a target, saying, look, you go here, so here's what's the school. | ||
| The average response time from a police station to a school, nationally, is 15 minutes. | ||
| The average time a school shooting happens is 5 minutes. | ||
| That means the shooter has 15 minutes to do whatever he wants if the school is a gun-free zone. | ||
| So here's what I'm saying. | ||
| At least allow teachers Who have gone through the proper training, you know, ex-military, ex-law enforcement, to be armed. | ||
| Because what that does is it sends not only a message as a deterrent to a shooter that says, look, this school is armed. | ||
| If you get in here, your brains are going to be blown out. | ||
| It also says that That the school is no longer a gun-free zone. | ||
| So I'm with you partly on that. | ||
| Maybe you can explain this a little bit further. | ||
| So I don't know that I want guns in those classrooms, even if it's a licensed... So here's the interesting thing. | ||
| There are 25 states where teachers can be armed and are armed in schools. | ||
| And all the hypotheticals that are pronounced, it's like, you know, what if a teacher shoots a student when there's another, | ||
| like what if there's a school shooter and a teacher gets shot and there's a gun on the floor, | ||
| what does a student do? | ||
| These hypotheticals don't happen. | ||
| 25 states where teachers are already armed and it works. | ||
| So why not just have them have security guards at specific locations outside? | ||
| So here's the thing, I'm all for having security guards. | ||
| This entire issue is how do we best manage our funds and secure our schools? | ||
| The thing with law enforcement officers is that they cost a lot of money. | ||
| And impoverished schools already need that funding for materials. | ||
| And in addition, it does not take-- | ||
| A lot of training and a lot of money to have a teacher to be armed, and this has already been proven to work. | ||
| And in addition, when you have teachers who are armed, the shooter doesn't know who it is. | ||
| If it's a law enforcement officer, you can clearly see who it is. | ||
| So if you've one school resource officer who's armed, the shooter comes and takes out the school resource officer, and then they're free to do whatever. | ||
| So here's the thing. | ||
| Simply giving teachers to have the opportunity has a massive effect, because it's up to their own will. | ||
| To do so, they have to go through training, and they have to, it's a concealed carry. | ||
| So nobody knows they have them. | ||
| So as you said before, you like facts and logic, okay? | ||
| Yeah, strictly facts. | ||
| Facts don't care about your feelings. | ||
| All right, I gotcha. | ||
| That works. | ||
| When you've engaged some of your friends and other students about these ideas, I mean, everyone watching this at this point knows that so much of what's coming out of the modern left is about feelings and all these things. | ||
| Do you have a sense that they understand that young people, at least the ones you're talking to, understand what rights are, why we should care about these things, why free speech matters, why the Second Amendment matters, and things of that nature? | ||
| Or does it all just sound good to them, and there's an intoxicating-? | ||
| Yeah, it's pretty much it. | ||
| It makes them feel good. | ||
| What they push, it makes them feel good by their emotions, and it makes sense. | ||
| So here's the thing. | ||
| I am very scared of lowering the age for people to vote to be 15. | ||
| Like, that scares me because the kids that I know who are 15 know absolutely nothing about politics. | ||
| I think I know, like, the kids from the March for Our Lives better than, I think I know their own arguments better than they know their own arguments. | ||
| Like, I can argue for them better than they can do. | ||
| So, I strictly use facts only. | ||
| So, when I make an argument with them, I can never really know what they're going to do next. | ||
| So, here's how, I'll give you like a 10 minute or a 5 minute recap of basically how I premised the Second Amendment argument. | ||
| In America, we have the right to bear arms. | ||
| In DC v. Heller, that right ruled that an individual's right to bear arms doesn't mean the militia. | ||
| The militia clause is different from the individual right to bear arms. | ||
| That means that you personally have the right to arm yourself. | ||
| there are about 270 million guns in the United States. | ||
| 15 million of those are AR-15s. | ||
| So we look at the gun stats, there are 33,000 annual gun deaths, 66%, so 2/3, are suicides. | ||
| So it leaves us with 11,000 gun deaths. | ||
| So in addition, I'll put in parentheses, there's a difference between a homicide and a murder. | ||
| So a homicide is just a killing. | ||
| A murder is an unlawful killing. | ||
| And gun stats, a lot of them like to perverse this and to skew statistics. | ||
| So, 3% of all gun deaths are with rifles. | ||
| Okay, and in that 3%, 68% of those are suicides. | ||
| So 1% of all gun deaths are actual murders. | ||
| Or actually, sorry, yeah, are actually murders with rifles. | ||
| 80% of all gun crime related activity is with illegal firearms. | ||
| Most shootings are with pistols. | ||
| So, March for Life has five bullet points. | ||
| One of them is I like to talk about the CDC and we should allow the CDC to do research. | ||
| The issue with that is the CDC has already proven to skew statistics and to not actually provide good research. | ||
| What research is it that they want the CDC to do? | ||
| So, the CDC used to be able to do research. | ||
| On gun violence prevention and just figure out what's going on. | ||
| But it's been proven time and time again that they skew their statistics. | ||
| So the federal government was like, no, we're not allowing you to perpetuate a false myth. | ||
| So basically they stopped funding. | ||
| The next thing is that they want high-capacity magazines. | ||
| there is no distinction there there is no difference that shows | ||
| high-capacity magazines whatever that means can do more damage is simply having more like clips | ||
| is having smaller having larger clips the less of them there's no distinction | ||
| that actually does more damage the next thing that they want to do | ||
| is ban semi-auto rifles as i said before only three percent | ||
| of all gun deaths are with rifles so it banning them does absolutely nothing | ||
| addressing the issue in lowering uh... gun violence | ||
| is making sure that we have uh... making sure that we have more people who are armed | ||
| because there's a direct uh... correlation not causation but correlation | ||
| that when we increase firearm ownership and concealed carry permits in addition | ||
| violent crime goes down so the next thing they like to propose is what about great | ||
| britain and australia So in Great Britain, there was a ban on guns, and immediately after, violent crime spiked. | ||
| And in addition, you have armed robberies increase, so violent crime increased immediately after. | ||
| burglaries in great britain uh... sixty percent of them occur | ||
| when that the individuals at home versus thirteen percent the u_s_ so burglars have admitted | ||
| that they do this because they know that the person | ||
| will have like the person or whatever and they won't they'll be on our so violent crime spike | ||
| next thing is a hick how what about the australian gunfight | ||
| so already in australia went when the program was initiated there is a ready statistical zero | ||
| uh... for uh... you know gun deaths and and and some public mass | ||
| public school shootings uh... | ||
| so in addition to buy back its implement and they're ready were like | ||
| there were millions millions less guns in australia So the gun buyback goes in, only one-third of guns get taken. | ||
| And what we saw immediately after the buyback was that violent crime spiked. | ||
| So here's just the basic argument. | ||
| There has not been one single occurrence where gun control gets passed and gun homicides actually decreases at a faster rate. | ||
| In Australia, the gun homicide rate was already decreasing at a really good rate. | ||
| It gets past gun control and the rate stalls. | ||
| So it actually hurt. | ||
| In addition, immediately after it was passed, the violent crime rates go up and the national trend was going down. | ||
| So the gun buyback program was completely ineffective, did absolutely nothing, and then it failed | ||
| on such a huge level in Australia that implementing it in the US | ||
| with 270 million guns simply won't work. | ||
| All right, so let's shift the discussion a little bit to the NRA, | ||
| because that was the other part of this that during the town hall and the subsequent discussions, | ||
| that it got very confused as to what the NRA actually does, what do they wanna do, | ||
| what do people who don't like them think they do, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| So first off, just give me your position on the NRA generally. | ||
| I think the NRA is a fantastic organization that defends the rights, the right to bear arms of individuals. | ||
| The thing with the NRA is that they really don't have the money influence that people say they do. | ||
| All they have is the social influence. | ||
| Republican senators know that the base believes in the values that the NRA promotes and defends, and they understand that. | ||
| And if they go against the NRA, they're going against their own constituents. | ||
| The NRA does not have a big budget. | ||
| They really don't. | ||
| They're not like this super powerful, like, that they directly control senators and congressmen with their money. | ||
| They control it with their ideals. | ||
| What the NRA does, which is fantastic, is it provides a check from the public, not from the government, for defending our right to bear arms. | ||
| And it's fantastic. | ||
| You know, it helped, I think, with the case with McDonald's versus Chicago that helped bolster Second Amendment rights for individuals. | ||
| I mean, and the NRA does a great job. | ||
| Their NRA ILA program, which is actually the legislative branch on defending the Second Amendment, does a fantastic job. | ||
| I think right now they're taking a case against raising the age from 18 to 21. | ||
| There was, right after the shooting, Rick Scott signed into law in Florida raising the age to buy i think a firearm or rifle now so before before | ||
| uh... you couldn't buy a handgun | ||
| if you're under twenty one which could buy a rifle because handguns were used | ||
| in violent crimes whether i think that's right or not the separate discussion | ||
| but he raised the age from eighteen twenty one to buy a rifle | ||
| indirectly the at the n_r_a_ was like this is unconstitutional boom we put in a lawsuit just address that eighteen ten to | ||
| twenty one age uh... there is absolutely no evidence that raising the | ||
| age does absolutely does does anything | ||
| to uh... to lower arm gun homicide whatsoever so what do you think that the | ||
| certain set of people that think that if we could just have all of the right laws | ||
| or if we could just manage everything properly that everything would be fine | ||
| Because it doesn't take into account human behavior. | ||
| The thing is, we have all the laws that we need already on the books. | ||
| The thing is, the enforcement doesn't work. | ||
| So I'll just make a tangent and I'll get back to here. | ||
| I think it is utterly hypocritical that the left hates Trump and that he's in power, but then they're saying we have to trust the government more. | ||
| So if you think the government, if you think Trump is literally Hitler, why are you giving away your right to wear brown arms to this tyrannical government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What was the question again? | |
| Well, just that there's a certain set of people that think if we just have the right laws... Oh yeah, I got you. | ||
| So we already have the laws on the books. | ||
| You know, just the enforcement, the enforcement of what needs to occur. | ||
| Like the Lautenberg Amendment means, it says that domestic abusers cannot have a firearm. | ||
| That's already on the books, it just needs to be enforced. | ||
| There's the issue with, you know, the NICS background check program, where they say we need more time to To evaluate and give you back your background check in order to buy a weapon. | ||
| The issue is the government doesn't need more time, it just needs more of the records. | ||
| So the reason why the Texas solo shooting occurred was because I think it was some military branch where there was someone who were, he committed a violation and by law they should have transferred that over to the database and therefore he wouldn't have been able to buy a weapon. | ||
| But the records weren't transferred, he was able to buy a weapon and he shot up the church. | ||
| So the government just needs to get all the records and do their job. | ||
| Same thing with red flag laws. | ||
| And people like to talk about this. | ||
| This is a little bit more the trickier areas of this, but red flag laws basically say that someone can flag you, and then you get reviewed, and then you can get your gun taken away. | ||
| And a lot of people also like, so the issue with red flag gun laws is that it's all about government enforcement, and that's the issue. | ||
| And there's also the big issue where people like to talk about mental health. | ||
| and they say you mentally ill people shouldn't be able to acquire a weapon so I have talked to countless individuals about this and I should ask Peterson but I forgot to the question is how do you determine when someone is mentally ill enough and hits the threshold so they cannot have a weapon and nobody knows and in addition the thing with the shooter at my school looking Retroactively, we can say this kid was mentally insane, but I don't know if a court would adjudicate that he would actually be mentally insane by law, therefore kicking his gun away. | ||
| Yeah, so is the inherent problem here, do you think, that you cannot manage all of these things? | ||
| You can do the best you can to have some sensible laws around them. | ||
| And defend our right to bear arms and all of that, and make sure schools are taken care of, but that generally speaking, yes, there's a sort of sliding scale psychologically, but also that the people that want to do bad will find ways to do bad. | ||
| They're not the ones that are walking out and looking at a building and it says, oh, no guns here. | ||
| I'm not going to walk in with a gun. | ||
| Criminals will act like criminals, no matter what. | ||
| But the good thing is that our laws are working. | ||
| I mean, I think it's violent crime, or some rate, from the 1990s to 2010. | ||
| Has decreased by 50%. | ||
| And schools are safer now than they were 20 years ago. | ||
| Like school shooting rates are declining. | ||
| And gun homicide rates are declining. | ||
| And homicide rates are declining. | ||
| So we are becoming a more peaceful nation. | ||
| And a lot of that has to do with having more gun owners and to having more concealed carry permit owners because those people When there's a shooting, those people are the first responders. | ||
| I think it's wrong to say that, oh, we'll just let the police arrive after the crime has been committed. | ||
| No, you need people there immediately to stop the shooter. | ||
| That's why I'm all for having teachers and armed school officers at schools to immediately take down the shooter. | ||
| All right, so let's shift. | ||
| I mean, I don't think we're going to fully get away from guns here, but let's shift a little bit. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| What is it like to be a seventeen-year-old Right now, that's in the mix of this, that's now a public person. | ||
| Dude, it's crazy. | ||
| Yeah, to just be part of this oddly unique time where it feels like the adults have lost the plot and it's got to be very hard for you to find people that kind of make sense. | ||
| I think you've been able to find a couple of them. | ||
| But just to be 17 in this very odd political, cultural time. | ||
| Yeah, it's insane. | ||
| That's it, it's insane. | ||
| But does it feel unique to you? | ||
| I know you haven't lived through this before, but like... I don't know how to judge it. | ||
| All I know is that... | ||
| I'm an adult now, and I have to act like an adult. | ||
| Whether I'm 17 or 18, I have commitments that I make, I have to go through with them, and I'm forced to become mature. | ||
| I can no longer play video games and waste time. | ||
| There are things that I have to do. | ||
| But I've just been so blessed to find a solid group of people who actually care about me and want the best for me, like Ben. | ||
| and Charlie and Guy Benson, people who have just reached out to me and have just selflessly | ||
| helped me navigate this political minefield. | ||
| But it's crazy because all the people that I looked up to two years ago and would watch | ||
| their videos, I'm not trying to boast your ego here, but I would watch your show. | ||
| Please, continue. | ||
| But yeah, it's awesome that now I can reach out for their expertise. | ||
| The thing with me is that I always like to start with, look, I don't know anything, and I'm always looking to get more information to know more. | ||
| Like today, I had a call with a gun expert on the way here, and it's like, what more can I learn in order to be fully fluent and knowledgeable about the subject that I'm talking about? | ||
| And there are a bunch of stuff that I don't know about and I'm constantly trying to learn. | ||
| So when you see a guy, and again I don't like making this about people rather than ideas, but when you see a guy like David Hogg out there, and he clearly is taking just the progressive line on this, and he seems more to me to be sort of a progressive activist than sort of a... | ||
| a fair arbiter of what's going on here. | ||
| That's gotta be frustrating for you, that he's so public about this, I suppose. | ||
| Well, that you obviously probably disagree with him on 100% of the policy parts of this. | ||
| This is true. | ||
| Yeah, I don't wanna make it about the personal parts, but that he's thought of as sort of a media hero, and you're kind of the black sheep of this group. | ||
| I mean, maybe not to the Shapiros and me and whoever else. | ||
| I get what you're saying. | ||
| So here's what I say. | ||
| There is no issue that kids are on television. | ||
| The issue is that when someone is spouting policy, they are no longer a child. | ||
| They are pushing policy and they should be treated as every adult as such. | ||
| When you say something outrageous, you should be called out on that. | ||
| I remember there was a segment on CNN where he said something completely outlandish and there was no blowback. | ||
| So look, here's what I say. | ||
| Well, I think, was that the line about Marco Rubio wants to kill kids? | ||
| Something like that. | ||
| It was something so crazy. | ||
| So what I say is, when I'm pushing policy and I say something stupid, please tell me that I'm saying something stupid and push me back on that. | ||
| The thing is with me that, look, when I'm on TV, I'm not talking as a child, I'm pushing policy. | ||
| Right? | ||
| And I expect there to be pushback. | ||
| I don't think you can say whatever you want. | ||
| And in addition, I think that having debate is great. | ||
| I love going on Piers Morgan and having a debate with him. | ||
| That was great. | ||
| I hate this thing where one second you're spouting policy, but then you rush back to the shield of, oh, I'm a child, but we have to take my opinion seriously because the second I say it, I'm an adult. | ||
| This isn't fair. | ||
| I think one of the reasons why I grew to such publicity was because I was saying the things that adults weren't able to say. | ||
| Like, I was able to say things that Ben Shapiro or you or Charlie Kirk or the right wasn't able to say because I'm a kid. | ||
| And I don't think that's fair because I think that when you're sprouting policy, you are no longer a child, you are an adult. | ||
| What do you make of what's going on with the right, generally? | ||
| Because you ran the Turning Point, was that the high school event that I did? | ||
| Yes, High School Leadership Summit. | ||
| Okay, so you did the High School Leadership Summit in D.C., and I spoke there, this was a couple months ago, and you had a great lineup of speakers, and Peter Thiel was there, and you had big-time politicians, and first off, I mean, that was the first time we met, and I was like, holy... | ||
| Yeah, we did a debate about abortion. | ||
| We talked about abortion. | ||
| That was great. | ||
| So that's my point. | ||
| So first off, you ran this whole thing. | ||
| I mean, you're still in high school, right? | ||
| We're going to talk a little bit about where you want to go to college and all that, but you ran an incredible event with major primetime people, and it was jam-packed, and it was diverse in terms of ideas. | ||
| So we get into a private debate about abortion, but you brought me there. | ||
| Yeah, you were great. | ||
| And I went up there, thanks, but I went up there and I talked about my differences with this group. | ||
| I talked about- And the kids were respectful. | ||
| Yeah, and I talked about gay marriage and abortion and death penalty and a couple other things that generally these young conservatives are not for. | ||
| I think gay marriage, they're pretty much for. | ||
| I sense that the ship has sailed on that one. | ||
| Actually, I'm pretty sure I got a huge ovation on that one. | ||
| Yeah, I think you did. | ||
| But it is just clear to me that there has been a realignment on the right Where there is exactly what you're talking about. | ||
| Can we just say that Lindsey Graham 2.0 is fantastic? | ||
| No, it's unbelievable. | ||
| I mean just that one, the thing with the tie the other day. | ||
| Benny's great. | ||
| Yeah, Benny's doing great work. | ||
| He's that daily caller, right? | ||
| So I think the right is finally realizing that youth, like energizing the youth, And instilling the next, like, future of conservative leaders is extremely important. | ||
| And we saw that with the High School Leadership Summit. | ||
| We had some of the biggest names. | ||
| We had, like, Nikki Haley. | ||
| We had Betsy DeVos. | ||
| We had, like, Attorney Jeff Sessions. | ||
| We had so many people. | ||
| And we had Mark Meadows. | ||
| We had Steve Scalise. | ||
| We had Prager. | ||
| We had you. | ||
| And it was just, it was fantastic to see the right just understand that these are the leaders of tomorrow. | ||
| Let's inform them. | ||
| But in addition, Turning Point is such a great organization. | ||
| It's free speech, free markets, and capitalism. | ||
| Those are the three LECs. | ||
| And what we saw with Turning Point, it's such a great organization because we brought people who I have disagreements with to speak there. | ||
| Mark Cuban spoke, got us a couple standing ovations, had a debate with Charlie, and people loved it. | ||
| So we're all open. | ||
| Having free discussion and debate. | ||
| Like, we're working on Sasser Student Action Summit, December 19th, 22nd, shameless plug. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I think I'll be there. | ||
| And we're looking, like, how can we get the most diverse group of people to speak? | ||
| Like, I'm thinking about some people from the intellectual dark web to speak there. | ||
| I think it's great if we can get Alan Dershowitz. | ||
| Just how can we get diversity of thought? | ||
| So why is it that this new right, or whatever you wanna call it, | ||
| young conservative group, whatever it is, why is it that you guys are able to do this? | ||
| And I see virtually none of this on your counterparts on the left. | ||
| I mean, the left has organized and mobilized the youth. | ||
| Just right now, we are... Well, I mean, no, no, no, but I'm talking about diversity of thought. | ||
| Like, where are they bringing in people that they even mildly disagree with? | ||
| I'm not talking about scary conservatives. | ||
| I'm talking about old-school liberals. | ||
| Where are they inviting them to just have an interesting conversation? | ||
| The left is so dead-set on political correctness and saying everything to not offend anyone with the slightest micro-micro-micro-aggression that it's just... You can't live in that world and call it... | ||
| Logical liberals, like yourself, are moving to the right because of that. | ||
| I like these subtle little injections of pleasantry. | ||
| Yeah, it's nice. | ||
| Are moving people to the right, and conservatives are like, come here, my refugees, my political refugees, we're embracing you. | ||
| Yeah, so okay, so when I hear people say, Ruben, the conservatives are just using you, you go to turning point, they're just using you. | ||
| You're not just using me, Kyle. | ||
| No. | ||
| I mean, yeah, but no. | ||
| No, but really, I mean, what I've seen is intellectual flexibility there, and it's even when I've had Ben in here, and we've done this conversation repeatedly now about gay marriage, I just firmly believe that as time goes on, I can shift him. | ||
| There's something that's sort of insulting about it to me when people say that to me, because I'm confident, I'm confident enough in my thoughts. | ||
| I think he's gonna take you on abortion. | ||
| I really think that, like, in a few years, you'll be with us on abortion. | ||
| Maybe, but you know what, that would be a trade-off, right? | ||
| If ultimately, I always describe myself as begrudgingly pro-choice. | ||
| No, I think Ben's interpretation of homosexuality, while I don't have a strong opinion on it, because I haven't thought about it enough, by his religious standpoint, it makes sense, but from the government's standpoint, it also makes total sense. | ||
| Well, that's why I'm completely fine with him. | ||
| It's like, you want to have your religious view, I have to respect that, but if you were trying to legislate my life, now I'm a problem. | ||
| No, absolutely, yeah. | ||
| The great thing with the right is that We're open to just diversity of thought. | ||
| Just say whatever you want. | ||
| Let's talk about it and let's get to the right rational viewpoint. | ||
| I've always been about debate because it brings people together. | ||
| It's all about logic, and it brings people to the right end result. | ||
| So when I'm on tour with Peterson, the question that I think both of us get asked more than anything else is, what are the best techniques to wake people up out of this sort of postmodern identity politics, progressive groupthink? | ||
| As a young person in the midst of this, what would you say are some techniques you've been able to use? | ||
| Because it can't just be about drubbing them with facts, right? | ||
| I mean, the left is doing a fantastic job with their just craziness, pushing people to the right. | ||
| So it's just sort of standstill? | ||
| They're doing it on themselves. | ||
| What we saw right now with Kanye in addition, it's just, he was simply saying, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, I support the president, our president has to be the freshest, the flyest, the hottest. | ||
| That was the greatest line. | ||
| Just pushing people to diversity of thought and freedom of expression to think whatever you want. | ||
| You shouldn't be held down by your skin color. | ||
| Or your race, or your sexuality. | ||
| None of this matters. | ||
| You should be able to think what you want and be able to say it without being tied down by your identity. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How do you make sure that you don't get burned out? | ||
| Because I think I remember the first communication we ever had, I think when either you followed me or I followed you on Twitter, I just sent you a quick one-line note and I was just like, just don't get burned out. | ||
| Because I saw you just You were in the fight every day. | ||
| You were owning the libs and all that, which, by the way, you mentioned that Nikki Haley was at your summit. | ||
| She went to, in effect, what is a lot of Trump people at this event you put on. | ||
| She goes there and she says, don't make this about just owning the libs. | ||
| And she got applause for it. | ||
| And I hit that same point, I think, the next day. | ||
| Because I think if you guys do exactly what you just laid out, just kinda stand there | ||
| and be cool and be decent, you will welcome a lot of people. | ||
| Yeah, decency wins. | ||
| I think, I honestly believe that decency wins. | ||
| Can we just take a second to say that Nikki Haley is fantastic and I kinda cried for like a week | ||
| ever since she said that. | ||
| Well, do you think that this is perhaps paving the road for her running at some point? | ||
| I don't know, there's so many 40 chess theories. | ||
| I just know that she's just been doing a fantastic job. | ||
| And she's just one of the best. | ||
| I know Nikki Haley, Ben Shapiro 2024. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, I'd probably have to be press secretary at that point. | ||
| Yeah, that would work. | ||
| For like one horrific week and then I'd be-- | ||
| No, that'd be fine, you should do it. | ||
| All right, so give me some of the techniques when you see that it can't just be about standing still and facts. | ||
| If you're in a conversation with a young person that's really just bought into all of this, what are some of the techniques you use? | ||
| Have you been successful? | ||
| I suspect that you have. | ||
| Sometimes, yeah, I think I have. | ||
| The first thing you have to realize is that is this person looking to have an open discussion and actually wants... Sorry about that. | ||
| You're talking a lot these days, it's all right. | ||
| I know, it's too much. | ||
| Or actually wants... | ||
| to develop their point of view. | ||
| If they do, you have to treat it with decency and respect and not call them an idiot or something. | ||
| You have to treat them like a good human being should. | ||
| And then just have a rational conversation with them and see where they're coming from. | ||
| And a lot of times, I can immediately know what they're going to respond to me. | ||
| Like, just straight up the bat, I know what they're going to respond to me and I hit them with an initial, here's what you're going to say, here's the reason, and they're just shocked. | ||
| But then do you get them around? | ||
| I mean, do you find, because it really, it's like sort of deprogramming somebody out of this. | ||
| And I've had some success at it, right? | ||
| Yeah, it has happened. | ||
| I mean, a lot of them watch my show now, so. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, when I first started speaking out, kids would come up to me in school and two things they would say, be like, Kyle, I'm a conservative. | ||
| So the thing about school was really interesting. | ||
| I would get stare downs and like people would like, like try to beat me up. | ||
| So people would like send me like, hey, Kyle, watch out so-and-so is trying to beat you up. | ||
| I was like, all right, man, go for it. | ||
| And people would give me stare downs and it was such, A villainization of being conservative, being a Second Amendment supporter. | ||
| When I spoke up, I kind of opened the crack for people to say, oh, I agree with him. | ||
| People would walk up to me and hush up, like, Kyle, thank you so much for doing. | ||
| I'm just scared to speak out. | ||
| And in addition, people would say, Kyle, I thought I was pro-gun control, and you spoke, and I listened to you, and then I did some more research, and I agree with you. | ||
| So that was great to see, and that's all I'm here for. | ||
| To have people It's gotta be pretty weird that you guys are still in high school, right? | ||
| Like, now you're celebrities, in the most strange sense of celebrity you are, and you're all still in high school together. | ||
| What is that like? | ||
| I mean, at the end of the day, we have to remember that we're kids. | ||
| And I will explain it so you guys don't think I'm hypocritical. | ||
| When you're on TV and you're spouting politics, you're an adult. | ||
| But in your private life, you're a kid, and we cannot forget that. | ||
| So let's say, you know, when someone, some kid on the left does something stupid, it's, at the end of the day, they're a kid, and we have to address it as such. | ||
| but but it's it's been a crazy whirlwind and i think thank god i found a solid group of people who want the best for me that i can reach out you know just not for policy but also like personal advice like i i uh... | ||
| I asked Ben, hey, how do you think I should approach college absence? | ||
| I'm a conservative, you know, and he helped me out. | ||
| And it's just, it's so great to be able to reach out to people and have them, you know, give you advice from like, look, 20 years older than me, and give me that advice that they had to go through. | ||
| Yeah, what was that great tweet? | ||
| So you're like number one in your class, right? | ||
| Not like number one, you are number one in your class, is that correct? | ||
| There was some tweet that you had about that. | ||
| That was awesome. | ||
| Yeah, what was that? | ||
| You were ruining somebody, right? | ||
| So I was ranked number one. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And people got so angry, because so angry. | ||
| And they're like, we're going to boycott graduation. | ||
| So I was like, yay, more cake. | ||
| It was great. | ||
| It was great. | ||
| And then, you know, The next semester. | ||
| But wait, what was the reason they wanted to boycott graduation? | ||
| Because I was number one. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right, right, right. | |
| And so then the semester updated, and then I was still number one. | ||
| So I posted another tweet about that, and that also blew up. | ||
| And I was like, we're going to get Ben Shapiro to come, Dana Lash is going to come, it's going to be fantastic. | ||
| Chris Cox was like, yeah, I'm going to be there. | ||
| But why would they? | ||
| I mean, is that really how sort of polarizingly crazy this has gotten at a high school level? | ||
| That just because they don't like you... I mean, you're number one not by it being ordained onto you. | ||
| You're number one out of clearly a lot of hard work and smarts and all that. | ||
| You'd think that there would be certain respect for that. | ||
| It's sad that We are no longer able to be friends with people. | ||
| Like, it's sad that people on the left think that you're a Republican, therefore you're evil. | ||
| And that's sad that you're not allowed to be friends with people who have different political viewpoints than you. | ||
| Like, my best friend is a liberal. | ||
| And I actually brought him to the Turning Point event. | ||
| And after he was like, you know, Kyle, some people made some good points. | ||
| And I was like, yeah, I told you. | ||
| But he's still a liberal. | ||
| He's an old school liberal. | ||
| That's cool. | ||
| He's probably a We're getting there, you and him both. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| All right, so wait, let's talk a little bit about college then. | ||
| So you're doing a great job in high school. | ||
| Clearly now you've got a public profile. | ||
| Grades are great. | ||
| Seemingly you could get in to wherever you want to go. | ||
| It's not true, I'm conservative. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| So do you really think that that'll play a role in the schools that you're able to get into? | ||
| Yeah, absolutely. | ||
| It's sad to say, but there is a bias against conservatives, especially like the top tier schools. | ||
| Like right now I'm looking to apply to Ivy's It'd be great to get into Harvard or Columbia. | ||
| Man, you'd be the reckoning of those places. | ||
| Yeah, it'd be awesome. | ||
| I think it's really important to be accredited. | ||
| I've been thinking about Georgetown or GW to work on The Hill. | ||
| I think that's great. | ||
| But I really don't know what's next for me. | ||
| I really don't know. | ||
| Go to college. | ||
| I'm definitely gonna stay with Turning Point. | ||
| It's a great organization. | ||
| I'm still gonna be conservative, don't worry. | ||
| I'm not gonna change. | ||
| I'm not gonna change. | ||
| Generally, people don't go the other way, right? | ||
| You're not gonna suddenly grow up and be like, no, no, facts, no. | ||
| I'll go to the feelings thing. | ||
| That usually doesn't happen. | ||
| That won't happen. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But all right, so you wanna go to school. | ||
| So you really do think that your politics could affect, I guess, you know, they don't, well, what happened with David Hogg, right? | ||
| He didn't get into, I don't know what his grades are, but he didn't get into a whole bunch of schools, right? | ||
| I mean, there have been rumors that he got into Harvard and Northeastern. | ||
| It wouldn't surprise me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And what do you want to study? | ||
| Do you have any idea? | ||
| It's either business or law. | ||
| I really don't know yet. | ||
| I just, you know, I've always liked business. | ||
| I think law is just absolutely phenomenal. | ||
| I really don't know yet. | ||
| But, you know, it's going to be great to be on a college campus where, you know, everyone is just really liberal. | ||
| That'll be fun. | ||
| It's sort of weird, and I guess this shows a little bit about the way the college experience is going, but in a bizarre way, just knowing you from the little bit that I know you, it's like, in a way, it's almost like you don't have to go to college. | ||
| I'm definitely going to college. | ||
| Well, I'm not saying you shouldn't, and I think there's all sorts of social reasons that somebody should go, and you learn in all sorts of other ways that aren't necessarily academic. | ||
| But it's like, clearly you've got the academic thing down and can keep learning that way. | ||
| So it's bizarre that people spend twenty grand a year to go to college. | ||
| The sad thing is... You're surrounded by a lot of great minds, is what I'm saying. | ||
| I'm with you, but the issue with college is that you're basically paying to get yourself brainwashed with stupidity. | ||
| And that's the sad part, because there are actually great things to learn in college, just not like lesbian dance theory. | ||
| That says that a lot. | ||
| Some of these classes are just useless. | ||
| It's just straight up complete stupidity, a lot of the stuff that they're teaching there. | ||
| So what do you make of how this seems to be a through line through education, and I mean high school education, college education clearly, the media, like all of... | ||
| This sort of brainwashing stuff that you're talking about. | ||
| It's always going against people like you. | ||
| And I see you on Twitter. | ||
| You take down CNN all the time. | ||
| You take down mainstream media all the time. | ||
| It's so fun. | ||
| People know my thoughts on this. | ||
| It's like, I just wish... Can we just address that Twitter, just Twitter's for fun. | ||
| We have to stop taking Twitter so seriously. | ||
| Your bio is perfect. | ||
| Twitter is not real life. | ||
| It's not real life, but the weird thing about that is it's starting to leak into real life. | ||
| I did a direct message like a year and a half ago or so about how online culture is becoming mainstream culture, and I think that that really is what's happening here. | ||
| Twitter's not real life, but it's starting to like leak out into everyone's conversations. | ||
| Fox News and CNN and MSNBC are basically Trump's Twitter. | ||
| Have you seen shows where they basically read random replies to messages? | ||
| It's like John Smith 3.74 riffs and plons to this like that. | ||
| And it's just so stupid. | ||
| But the biggest thing that we're seeing right now is a cultural shift with the youth. | ||
| Like, memes have so much power. | ||
| Memes matter. | ||
| Memes helped so much for Trump's 2016 campaign. | ||
| It really did. | ||
| And social media has a huge influence. | ||
| On our beliefs and our actions and that's why it is so scary to see censorship of conservatives online because that is basically like Twitter is basically the new version of you just like yelling into a crowd. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that's basically like the main form of everyone's communication and shutting that down is like heavily restricting you know I haven't developed my full opinion on this but it seems as such restricting this restricts your like really restricts your First Amendment right. | ||
| Yeah, so this is the whole issue about whether they're publishers or platforms. | ||
| Yeah, the big issue is, I don't know if I'm saying this right, but I think one of the things is if they're a certain, or if they're a publisher, then they have a lot of legal liability. | ||
| If they're a platform, then everyone should say whatever they want, but that's not the case, so it's like, pick one. | ||
| And they're just completely censoring conservatives. | ||
| Like, I know PragerU gets, like, their videos demonetized so much. | ||
| And have your videos gotten demonetized? | ||
| They probably have. | ||
| Yeah, well, now it's gotten a little bit better, but our videos just don't go out to feeds anymore. | ||
| I went on that crazy... Yeah, they don't have algorithms. | ||
| Yeah, that crazy rampage I went on where I just started retweeting real people. | ||
| I only did it with real people with real names saying they've been unsubscribed and they're getting hundreds and sometimes thousands of retweets and I'm tagging YouTube and they just ignore me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And it's like... | ||
| Come on, guys. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, YouTube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter all have proven biases. | ||
| Proven. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How worried are, well, it's so interesting to me because you never, you didn't grow up in a time when there was some sort of trustworthy, seemingly trustworthy level of the media. | ||
| Like CNN was not always this. | ||
| The reason, I don't even know if you know this, but the reason I think that so many people like me that are older than you attack CNN the most is because CNN used to be decent. | ||
| Like MSNBC is saying we lean left. | ||
| Yeah, CNN says they're unbiased. | ||
| And CNN's saying that, and it's like, no you're not. | ||
| We know exactly what you're doing. | ||
| And that's why I always attack CNN, because it's like, you guys have actually become the worst in the name of non-partisans. | ||
| Have you seen the ratings? | ||
| You saw the ratings? | ||
| All of them are like the lowest. | ||
| It's like a block of red CNN. | ||
| So here's what I think. | ||
| I think that a lot of young people and average Americans do not trust the media anymore and they have sought out individuals instead. | ||
| So they trust individuals. | ||
| So they look to you, they look to Ben, they look to Guy Benson, you know, Charlie Kirk for their news because they trust the individual. | ||
| Do you see a great risk in that too? | ||
| Because I'm worried about that at some level. | ||
| No, I also, but the thing is with that is that you have absolute liability for what you say. | ||
| CNN can come whip something up, but when an individual tweets something, they're responsible for their actions. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So one of the things I've been saying lately is that I'm actually in a bizarre way less interested in politics now than I've ever been, but I'm interested in what you referenced a little while ago, this culture. | ||
| I mean, culture, what is it? | ||
| Politics is downstream from culture. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that's so true. | ||
| Yeah, so do you see that really as sort of the future of all this? | ||
| That it's not going to be about all of the little machinations of politics? | ||
| It's just going to be about... I mean, I guess this is the strength of Trump. | ||
| Well, you'd argue it's either the strength or the worst part of Trump, I suppose. | ||
| That he's a cultural thing, not necessarily a political thing. | ||
| No, I mean, there are pros and cons to that, but we have to play by the rules that are set by society, and these are the rules. | ||
| These are the rules that culture has a massive impact on society, and whether I like it or not, that Kanye is speaking out. | ||
| First of all, I think it's great that he's speaking out. | ||
| It's his First Amendment right. | ||
| I don't think we should be propping up Opinions by celebrities simply because they're famous. | ||
| You have to show that you are informed on the subject. | ||
| And that's that. | ||
| But it doesn't take a political genius to say that I believe in our Second Amendment and our First Amendment. | ||
| That doesn't take, but Taylor Swift doing like a 7,000 page essay, you know, that makes absolutely no sense and contradicts itself, written by like a liberal I was disappointed in that just because I have no particular feelings about her one way or another. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| I'm not a fan of her music. | ||
| I don't think I can name one song or whatever, but it's just like the fact that she stayed out of politics, I liked. | ||
| I was like, oh, whatever she's doing or whatever her handlers are saying to her, I kind of like it. | ||
| And then she got in on this and it's like, I don't care which way she was going to break. | ||
| I was just like, ah. | ||
| We just, this is not what we need. | ||
| Yeah, I mean the Taylor Swift effect, president is like down, Marsha Blackburn is up, so thanks Taylor Swift. | ||
| No, but what we saw right now by the left is that they are losing their stranglehold on culture. | ||
| And that is very frightening for them. | ||
| And we saw that with Kanye, when Kanye started speaking out, I gave my speech about this, and they started off with mob tactics. | ||
| That didn't work. | ||
| Emotional appeal, the TMZ guy was basically begging him, like, Kanye, please, man, take off your hat, man. | ||
| It hurts me emotionally. | ||
| He was like, no, it's my first time on the ride. | ||
| I'm not taking it off. | ||
| And then we saw just blatant racism and vile character assassinations. | ||
| You saw that CNN segment. | ||
| It was disgusting. | ||
| How does that fly? | ||
| He wouldn't bow down to the mob. | ||
| Absolutely wouldn't. | ||
| Well, they're losing their stranglehold on culture. | ||
| And whether I like that we are putting so much emphasis on a cultural icon, those are the rules. | ||
| Them the rules. | ||
| They say that on Twitter a lot. | ||
| Them the rules. | ||
| But this is the reality that we're living in. | ||
| And we have to understand that. | ||
| And what's happening with Kanye is a real shift, especially for African Americans and people who are, like, Latinos. | ||
| They're basically saying... | ||
| I don't know why this is controversial. | ||
| Blacks don't have to be Democrats. | ||
| You don't own me. | ||
| That's all they're saying. | ||
| Yeah, basically that's all he's saying, and he has created such a pivotal moment that says, your stranglehold doesn't affect me. | ||
| Because I know in Hollywood, the second you say something, like I remember someone said, Ben Shapiro's a nice guy, his career was destroyed. | ||
| Yeah, Mark Duplass, who's a friend of mine who's been on this show, and he had to issue an apology, and it's like... | ||
| You know, oddly, all the IDW people came to his defense at first, basically saying, you know, you should be allowed to say that. | ||
| And then, unfortunately, he issued that comment. | ||
| And blacks, especially young blacks, are saying, look... | ||
| They look up to Kanye West. | ||
| Millions look up to him. | ||
| And they say, this individual, why does this individual think this way? | ||
| And even more so, he didn't bow down to the mob, which is fantastic. | ||
| And we're seeing like a real shift. | ||
| I don't know, the 38% number, or 38% African American approval of Trump, I don't know if that's necessarily true. | ||
| All I know is that there was a 3% jump. | ||
| In August, the black approval rating of Trump was 3%. | ||
| One of the latest polls that I know, A month or so ago, it was 10%. | ||
| So there's a big jump. | ||
| We're seeing that so many young African-Americans are so energized. | ||
| I know Turning Point is doing a Black Leadership Summit, like a week, in the White House. | ||
| We're going to get just 400 African-American young individuals to be able to speak there, to be able to listen and to see that the left is losing their stranglehold on culture. | ||
| And it is scary for them, because that is the one thing that they have left. | ||
| Alright, I've got two more for you. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| Are you in the prediction game at all? | ||
| What do you think is going to happen in these midterms we've got coming up? | ||
| So what I've been hearing is that Republicans are gonna lose in the House | ||
| and gain in the Senate. | ||
| I love how Ocasio-Cortez is like, "We're gonna win back the executive, these midterms." | ||
| And I was like, "I do my years, but." | ||
| She's very confused about a lot of things. | ||
| You're close. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But look, the Kavanaugh effect is real. | ||
| Like this was like, all the left had to do was sit down, be quiet, be civil, play nice. | ||
| They're like, "No, no, we're not gonna allow this, okay?" | ||
| And they hit themselves in the foot with the club and then they started crying. | ||
| And they did the same thing with Kanye, and that was great. | ||
| So the Kavanaugh really amped up and energized the conservative base. | ||
| And even more so, it finally gave the conservatives a backbone, like Lindsey Graham 2.0. | ||
| Where has this guy been? | ||
| I love it. | ||
| And like Bill Cassidy, but here's the interesting thing. | ||
| Women were the most angered by all of this. | ||
| Before Kavanaugh in August, it was like 35.7% approval of Trump. | ||
| After it was a 40.7%. | ||
| And in August, Democrats had a 12-point lead over Republicans in voter enthusiasm. | ||
| Now it's 64% Republican, 65% Democrats. | ||
| So we are neck and neck in this, and it's all thanks to the Democrats. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, my gut, as long as you're doing predictions here, I actually think the Republicans are gonna do well in both the House and the Senate. | ||
| I really hope so, I really hope so. | ||
| But I do think so, because I agree. | ||
| I think this mob mentality and watching these videos of Antifa in Portland and Hillary saying we can't be civil and Eric Holder saying if we go low, we kick them. | ||
| When they go low, we kick them. | ||
| And it's like, man, if you stand for due process and civil society and all of those things, That thing needs to burn. | ||
| It kind of sucks, but it's like that set of ideas. | ||
| The left thinks, the left just completely disregards the constitution. | ||
| The constitution was written and like the amendment, the Bill of Rights was forced by anti-federalists to make sure that the government could not become tyrannical and abuse its power. | ||
| This is so important. | ||
| It's protecting the rights of the individuals and these rights Why do we not all agree on them? | ||
| Why is it wrong to believe nude process? | ||
| Why is it wrong to say, I believe that individuals should have the right to defend themselves and also defend against the tyranny of a possible government? | ||
| The second amendment was basically written because the founders had just fought against Great Britain and they had seen how a tyrannical government quickly becomes. | ||
| So one more thing I didn't note. | ||
| The first thing tyrannical governments do is they take away the weapons. | ||
| of the civilians. | ||
| We saw this in Nazi Germany. | ||
| We saw this in China. | ||
| We saw this in Cambodia. | ||
| That's the first thing they do. | ||
| And the individual right to bear arms is every individual. | ||
| It's not related to the militia clause. | ||
| So it's basically saying every individual has the right to protect themselves, and even more so, it's necessary for the protection of a free state. | ||
| All right, one more for you. | ||
| You say you don't play video games as much anymore because you don't have time. | ||
| What do you do for fun, man? | ||
| What's fun? | ||
| Besides Twitter, you can't just tell me Twitter. | ||
| I know you're having fun on Twitter, but it can't just be Twitter. | ||
| What are you doing for fun? | ||
| So with me, I used to play a lot of video games. | ||
| Yeah, what kind of games did you play? | ||
| So here's my progression. | ||
| I haven't said this, but this is like a scoop. | ||
| I used to play World of Tanks, and then moved to Rocket League. | ||
| Okay, it's terrible game. | ||
| It's boring. | ||
| Then I played Overwatch, I played Paladins, I played PUBG, and then I played Fortnite. | ||
| And Fortnite, this was when all the shooting occurred, and I just stopped dead in my tracks. | ||
| Because it was just, it's a waste of time, and I see my younger brothers who are addicted to the game, and it's just sad to see that this is the state of our youth, that they're just completely addicted to technology. | ||
| Like, I'm certain, if I have kids, okay, they're not seeing a phone until they're 12. | ||
| You know what they do? | ||
| It's just a call me or 911. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| No video games. | ||
| You're reading a book. | ||
| I don't care. | ||
| So what do you do for fun? | ||
| You just, you told me what you used to do for fun. | ||
| Come on, you must be having fun somewhere. | ||
| You're having fun sometimes. | ||
| Wow, I gotcha. | ||
| Yeah, man. | ||
| You did. | ||
| No, but you are having fun with this. | ||
| So, yeah, I have some of the remaining friends that I have, which are really solid friends. | ||
| You know, on weekends we hang out. | ||
| We go watch movies and stuff like that. | ||
| In addition, I just think it's great. | ||
| One of the greatest things for me for having fun is just simply talking to like-minded kids, like young individuals, at these Turning Point events that we run, and it's great. | ||
| And, like, meeting with And pushing policy and stuff like that is just fantastic. | ||
| Like, one of the greatest feelings ever was like passing the Stop School Violence Act and Fix NICS. | ||
| Like, the Stop School Violence Act appropriated funds, two billion dollars in funds, for the protection of schools, like hardening schools, metal detectors, making better communication between law enforcement, training law enforcement, teachers and students. | ||
| And in addition, there was a clause that said, none of this money will be used for firearm or firearm trainings. | ||
| So this was, like, the greatest win for the left? | ||
| And they still hated the bill? | ||
| And, like, the March for Our Lives kids hated it? | ||
| But no, I mean, I'm really dead set on making sure that school shootings just are a thing of the past. | ||
| They never happen again. | ||
| You love what you do, man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, man. | |
| It's obvious. | ||
| And just learning about the Second Amendment and just being more knowledgeable and having these debates and discussions are just like, they really make my day. | ||
| Yeah, well, I think it goes without saying. | ||
| I mean, I think you have an absurdly bright future. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| You're gonna run for president or something? | ||
| Probably not. | ||
| But you left a little window. | ||
| No, I mean, maybe there's a thing for politics, like the hill in the future. | ||
| Right now, I'm just dead set, going to college, getting my degree, learning, staying in the political sphere. | ||
| But, you know, who knows? | ||
| I'm definitely supporting Nikki Haley Shapiro 2024, though. | ||
| All right. | ||
| You see, people, there is hope for the future. |
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