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Speaker 1One year ago today, our friend Charlie Kirk was brutally murdered live on camera while debating public policy at a public university. He was shot in the neck. He bled out in front of all of us. We all remember it. His murderer was a militant gay man in a relationship with a trans furry. The motives were perfectly clear, and the evidence was perfectly clear. What should have happened next was just as clear. What should have happened next was just as clear. Political reunification on the right around some core principles, united opposition to left-wing violence, maybe a religious revival. None of that really ended up happening. In a moment, we'll discuss what did happen, how everything broke, and how we can help put it back together. We'll also be joined by TPSA spokesman Andrew Colvett, as well as Victor Davis Hanson. This is The Ben Shapiro Show. So, as I said, one year ago today, Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood in front of the entire world. Obviously, I knew Charlie from the time he was 18 years old. Anybody who knew Charlie for any length of time was sort of astonished by his level of energy, by his stick-to-itiveness, by the fact that he was willing to run through pretty much any wall. First time I met Charlie, as I've talked about, he was 18. We were at an event together down at the Breakers in Palm Beach, and I remember turning to Jeremy Boring and saying, that guy is going to end up being head of the RNC. And then, of course, he founded TPUSA, which ended up being probably more important than the RNC in the end. I mean, Charlie, for a long time, we didn't agree on everything. A lot of those disagreements. We didn't agree on everything. We didn't agree on everything. We didn't agree on everything. Those disagreements were public. We varied on matters ranging from economics to foreign policy, but obviously, Charlie was a lifelong conservative. Charlie was also a bridge builder. When Charlie was shot, I was at a breakfast in Los Angeles. My security team, as I've talked about pretty extensively, told me what had happened. I went online. I started seeing the videos. Once you saw the videos, it was pretty clear that it was unlikely Charlie would survive. My security team was talking to Charlie's security team. It turns out, once they were already at the hospital, and they were keeping my security team informed, because obviously, this is what security teams for high-profile individuals do in this sort of space, found out basically the same time as everybody else that Charlie had died. And again, all of America basically went into mourning. People on the right, good-hearted people on the left, people in the middle, they'll recognize that whatever their political disagreements were with Charlie Kirk, Charlie had been a person who spent his entire life just doing political debate publicly. And then bridge-building privately. That's what Charlie was doing. And we're now a year out. And I have to say that I think whatever expectations we all had of what was going to happen next were largely thwarted. And what's truly incredible about that is that they were largely thwarted around Erica Kirk, his wife, because there were people who decided that it was deeply imperative to destroy Erica as a human being and destroy TPUSA as an organization for their own nefarious political purposes. Well, Erica this week had a piece over at the New York Times talking about what she's learned about her grief in the years since. She says, September 11th, 2025, the day after my husband, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed. The past 24 hours feel like a fever dream as I land in Phoenix from Utah and return home. I get out of the car. My kids run into my arms. They have no idea where I was or what I was doing. They care only that I'm home. As I walk to the front door, there's a tightening in my chest I don't recognize. Is this what grief feels like? I sit on the couch where Charlie sat two nights ago, watching the Cubs with our kids. I feel a wave building inside me. I know it's about to crash. She's talking with Usha Vance about all of this. And, you know, she discussed this publicly before. She and I talked about this as well briefly when I saw her a few days after the assassination in Phoenix that Usha had told her, just get through the next 15 minutes. She says, when you lose someone you love, it's easy to struggle to understand God's plan. One of the hardest tests of our faith occurs when bad things happen. True faith means accepting we won't get every. Answer and finding peace in that. I've seen extraordinary good born out of something unimaginably evil. I've watched people return to faith in droves, reconcile with their families, and forgive old wounds because of Charlie. I know my husband is in heaven, but I ache for him to be here. Still, I can stand and say without a shadow of a doubt that God is good. She says, one day, maybe when you least expect it, you'll start to see that those 15 minutes, the next 15 minutes, hold more than just grief. The grief is there always, but so is the beautiful gift of life. Again, the fact that Erica has had to go through all of this while simultaneously heading up TPUSA. Now, as I go through all of this, I don't just mean the grief. I mean the insane desire by some to destroy her or to destroy TPUSA. It's an astonishing thing and demonstrates the moral limits of many people in the so-called conservative movement who were never really part of the conservative movement, who are out for themselves and who wish to tear down rather than to build up. Again, who was behind it was perfectly obvious pretty much immediately. The minute that I had heard that Charlie had been shot. It was pretty obvious to me that the person who shot him was likely to be a part of the radical trans movement. Charlie was not wildly offensive to a huge variety of people, is the truth. He said some controversial things from time to time on matters ranging from criminal justice to the nature of Islam. But the people who always seem most agitated about Charlie Kirk were radical trans activists, because as I said at the time, there's a permission structure for violence that is implicit in the trans radical ideology. The basic idea is that if you say a man is a man and a woman is a woman, you are quote unquote erasing them, you're creating a trans genocide, you're a threat to them. And so it was not a tremendous shock that Tyler Robinson ended up being the murderer. There is perfectly obvious security footage of Tyler Robinson on campus that day. Here are some of that footage.
Speaker 4Do you believe you recognize who that person is? Yes. Who is that? I believe that's Tyler Robinson. Where does he go from there?
Speaker 5He goes above the parking garage on foot into the campus and actually goes to the quad area of the campus. At that time, he makes contact with some representatives from TPUSA. By quad area? Sorry, the amphitheater is what I previously referred it to.
Speaker 4All right. So he goes up on campus, visits the amphitheater area, the courtyard or quad? Correct. And then what do we see here now?
Speaker 5He returns on foot back to the same vehicle. And what time is he back? What time is he returning back to the vehicle? It's about 9:25 a.m. Okay.
Speaker 1Well, Robinson then ended up turning himself in at the behest of his parents. Here is the testimony on that point, plus the actual tape of him turning himself in. This was presented at the preliminary hearing. As you can see, he walks in. It's clearly him. Contra fools and corrupting influences. Lance Twiggs. Tyler Robinson's boyfriend. And he testified that Robinson had asked him for a Dremel to engrave bullets about a month before.
Speaker 6The Dremel that you talked about, you said he had asked for that, is that right? Mm-hmm. And had he told you it was to inscribe bullets?
Speaker 7Yeah.
Speaker 6And so did you have a Dremel then? Yeah.
Speaker 7Okay. It was in our, like, we had a, our apartment, we had a section where we kept all our, like, random tools for household stuff. Uh, in our, like, uh, lower basement level pantry. Um, so, yeah. Okay. And did you give that to him or tell him where it was? I just told him where it was, yeah.
Speaker 1Well, again, the evidence is very obvious in this case. The police displayed the photo of Tyler Robinson's rifle. They also displayed photos of Robinson's engraved bullets. The police also displayed photos of Robinson's texts directly on his phone. And of course the judge ruled that Tyler Robinson's trial could go for the death penalty is indeed on the table. And the motive is not particularly difficult to tell. As Utah County Prosecutor Ryan McBride said, the defendants' views were repugnant to the positions that Charlie Kirk famously took. So again, it was perfectly obvious who's behind this from the very beginning. So what really should have happened here? What should have happened? Well, I mean, obviously, there should have been a political coming together, at the very least, around basic principles of free speech. I mean, this is what Charlie was famous for. I know that there was an entire religious element to what happened after Charlie had been murdered, because Charlie spoke often about his open Christianity, which is great. But what Charlie was most famous for was his debates on college campus and the fact that he was a speech advocate. I mean, here was Charlie explaining to a liberal student why he believed in free speech.
Speaker 8What compels you to sit on a college campus and talk? Because I don't think I'm going to change your mind, and I don't think you're going to change mine.
Speaker 9Maybe you'll make a point I won't think of. Maybe I'll make a point you'll think of. But also, I'm a big believer that public and open. And sometimes provocative speech is fundamental to a free society, right? It pushes boundaries. It gets people out of their comfort zone. It makes you live in a less totalitarian moment, at least in that instant. Right. So I just think it's really healthy. I think it makes you more human, right? And maybe you're like, oh, like, that's really stupid. You just keep walking.
Speaker 1And again, people try to portray Charlie as some sort of radical, insane, nasty person that just never came from him. It just didn't. So what should have happened is, of course, banding together against the people who wish to destroy the body politic. Matt Walsh famously tweeted, the entire right has to band together. Enough of this infighting bullshit. We're up against demonic forces from the pit of hell. They're killing us in our churches. They tried to kill our president. They killed Charlie, one of our greatest advocates. Put the personal squabbles aside. Now is not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country. And Matt, of course, called for coming together against political violence.
Speaker 10I want to be very clear that we will not back down after this. We will not shrink away or go into hiding. We will not fall silent. We will not walk in fear. We will stand taller and prouder than we ever have and be louder and bolder than we've ever been and fight harder than we've ever fought. You know, they think they can kill the movement by killing us. But in the entire history of the world, that strategy has never worked. And it won't work now. I promise you that. You can kill a man. You can shoot him in the neck on stage. You can spill his blood for the whole world to see. But you cannot kill a cause. Especially when that cause is nothing else but love of God, love of country, love of family. That cause is truth.
Speaker 1And, of course, President Trump spoke similarly. He said it was time to end political violence in the United States.
Speaker 11It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live.
Speaker 1It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. It's a long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom we live. Of course, this is an incredibly moving moment, and then the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, got up and gave a speech talking about Charlie's legacy of faith and the importance of the New Testament.
Speaker 12One of the things he wants us to take away from this, from all of this, is the following. His deep belief that we were all created, every single one of us, before the beginning of time by the hands of the God of the universe, an all-powerful God, who loved us and created us for the purpose of our lives. Who loved us and created us for the purpose of living with him in eternity. But then sin entered the world and separated us from our creator. And so God took on the form of a man and came down and lived among us. And he suffered like men. And he died like a man. But on the third day he rose unlike any mortal man. And then... And to prove any doubters wrong, he ate with his disciples so they could see and they touched his wounds. He didn't rise as a ghost or as a spirit, but as flesh. And then he rose to the heaven, but he promised he would return. And he will. And when he returns, because he took on that death, because he carried that cross, we were freed from the sin that separated us from him. And when he returns, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. And we will all be together. And we are going to have a great reunion there again with Charlie and all the people we love.
Speaker 1Now, again, if what you were looking for is some level of political reunification against political violence, against permission structures for violence, or even on the right more broadly, if what you were looking for was a religious revival, people returning to church, a principled revival of the social fabric that Charlie actually cared about, what that did require was some borders. It did require borders because people who tear apart that social fabric or people who are not part of that movement or people who take advantage of that movement to tear it apart from the inside, that needs to be stopped. So, not long after this, unfortunately, things started to fall apart. And a couple of months later, I spoke at the TPUSA event, pretty famously, where I said this. Personal feeling is not a substitute for moral judgment. To take again the Candace Owens situation as an example, friendship with public figures who say or do evil things is not an excuse for silence on the matter. Politics is not the sisterhood of the traveling pants. Politics is about principle. And if you're willing to sacrifice basic truth and simple principle in favor of emotional solidarity, you have betrayed your fundamental duty to the American people. If you host a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of refuse like Nick Fuentes, there's a reason Charlie despised Nick Fuentes. He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll and building him up is an act of moral imbecility. I ripped into, among others, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson for a very good reason, which was they had decided that the unity of the right was not important. They had decided not only that, but that they were going to humor conspiracism with regard to Erica Kirk and TPUSA. The vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, he got up and he said sort of the opposite. He said they don't need to be any ideological borders, no border control for the conservative movement.
Speaker 13I didn't bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform. And I don't really care if some people out there, I'm sure we'll have the fake news media, denounce me after this speech. But let me just say, the best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie's death. that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie's death. that he himself refused to do in life. He invited all of us here. Charlie invited all of us here for a reason. Because he believed that each of us, all of us, had something worth saying and he trusted all of you to make your own judgment. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done.
Speaker 1And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. And we have far more important work to do than can be done. Here is Candace, September 16th of last year, right? Just days after Charlie's murder, after suggesting TPUSA was in on it, suggesting that Erica Kirk herself knew things, that there was a coverup going on. Here she was.
Speaker 8No one, and I mean absolutely no one, outside of my husband and Erica Kirk has the power to shut me up right now. That's it.
Speaker 1And then of course, Erica Kirk specifically said, please don't do this. And Aunt Candace just refused her. In fact, Candace went much further than that. She made an entire series, essentially comparing her to the bride of Chucky. And now she says Erica went to the enemy.
Speaker 8Same perspective that he held somehow immediately. That was something she reversed course on and felt comfortable having them in her home. Okay, fine. So right off the bat, we're just going, why is this in the New York Times? Why is it behind a paywall? And why can't you just do anything that feels normal? And as Charlie was, I guess you've been honest, it's just turning point 2.0. It has nothing to do with turning point 1.0. It's a totally different organization. It's unattainable. You work with the Department of War. You work with the deep state apparatus. You are their emotional asset. We get it. It just feels like you're laying it on thick. And like, maybe you could have just published a sub stack here that if I'm running your PRH to a sub stack about how you feel, don't put it behind a paywall. What you've learned about grief. Okay.
Speaker 1Just horrific. And of course she was defended and is still defended by Megyn Kelly. Here's Megyn Kelly, a principle free human being doing just that.
Speaker 14I think that Candace Owens is a very, very dodgy witness in this, considering she doesn't have a ton of credibility amongst.
Speaker 15But wait, let me just say, let me say this in Candace's defense. First of all, she's brilliant. Candace is brilliant. I realize she's controversial, but she is very smart.
Speaker 14I think what happens with people when they get into conspiracy theories is it's never just one. They take the whole parcel of them.
Speaker 15She's not here to defend herself. But I will say, like, I have checked more than once because I see this crazy quote. And I know her a little. And she's a fighter. She's feisty. I have never known her to be some nut job.
Speaker 1She's very, very smart. Tucker Carlson, of course, engaged in precisely the same sort of stuff here. He was laughing at conspiracy theories surrounding Charlie Kirk with Jimmy Dore.
Speaker 16Takes the gun apart, leaves the screwdriver there, puts it under a towel. Spider-Man's his way off the top of a building, runs across campus with the gun apparently under a towel. Nobody sees this. He runs into the woods, puts the gun back together again, and without the screwdriver, he's a regular MacGyver, this guy. And then he hides the gun in the backyard of a house owned by Palantir. And if you think anything else besides that, you're a crazy Jew-hating conspiracy nut.
Speaker 1And, of course, Jimmy Dore himself would then go on to mock Erica Kirk for her incorrect grieving.
Speaker 16This is obviously a setup, and you're not allowed to ask questions about it. And if you are, you are attacking a grieving widow. And that's, again, when did Jackie, you ever say, quit looking in? Stop. Quit looking into who killed my husband. Never. That's not what happens. And that's not how you grieve, by the way. I remember when my dad died, my mom immediately bought a gold sequined pants outfit, started carrying sparklers around and selling T-shirts. And my friends were like, Jimmy, what's with your mom? I'm like, she's grieving.
Speaker 1Why did things fall apart, you ask? Well, this, of course, was a permission structure for the left to do the same. So for a moment, for a brief moment in time, the left had to, for a second, denounce political violence, and pretend that they were upset about Charlie's death. And all that went away. It went away because members of the right decided to make it okay. And so now what do we get? We get Drewski mocking Erica Kirk, mocking Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 8Get on your feet, boy!
Speaker 1This clip had almost 200 million views on X Alone. Candace Owens then did a clip laughing about how wonderful this was.
Speaker 17Yes. Because they are the ones who matter most.
Speaker 8Okay. That black guy didn't say a single word. And so just takes away the entire scene. Just perfect faces that he's making behind him. This is how everybody's feeling. Everybody, for the first time, it's not left or right. It's like everyone's united. Everyone's united and feeling this. It feels fake. It feels wrong. They are trying to use this idea of Christianity as a shield. And I was hinting on that again, removing Erica Kirk from the scenario. I was noticing all of these women that make videos. They're just catty. They're just influencers. But they try to find a Bible verse. It's like, I'm not actually catty. This is a Bible verse. Stop doing that. Just stop doing that.
Speaker 1My God, the amount of projection for Candace Owens. This, of course, allowed the left to do what they really wanted, which is mock Charlie's murder. Here's Hassan Piker doing this just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2♪ Unafraid to die ♪ ♪ I am Charlie Kirk ♪ ♪ We came to claim ♪ ♪ The fight for the gospel ♪ ♪ We'll honor his name ♪ ♪ We honor Charlie Kirk ♪ ♪ His name ♪ ♪ We're in your arms ♪ ♪ Together, unbroken ♪ ♪ We'll make heaven known ♪
Speaker 1Of course, all of which has led to leftists openly celebrating what they're calling the Kirkiversary on TikTok. So I know the Kirkiversary is coming up,
Speaker 18which is so exciting. What's everyone drinking for the Kirkiversary? We doing like Bloody Marys or...
Speaker 6On this upcoming Kirkiversary, we're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. We're doing like Bloody Marys. If you wasn't a day one hater, get to the back of the room.
Speaker 19Who's going to be throwing the Kirkiversary functions? Like, I'm trying to get a lit bro.
Speaker 1Well, again, this is what happened in America. And when it came to political unity, when it came to political unity, that was never part of this either. Because it turns out all the exact same people who are promoting conspiracism, insane conspiracism, ugly hideousness, all those same exact people are people who have openly declared that they're not part of the movement. It wasn't a matter of people like me saying, you're not part of the movement, clearly pointing out the truth. It was they themselves saying they are not part of the movement. Since that day, Tucker Carlson has declared himself no longer part of the GOP.
Speaker 20I would not support the Republican Party. There's no chance I would support the Republican Party. I'm not going to support the Democratic Party. I don't know what I'm going to do. But at this point, you know, how could you support, how could I or any American voter support a political party that's not loyal to the United States that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens? Like that's, that's, you know, it's not possible to vote for people like that. And I'm not going to. And I think I voted Republican my entire life. I worked at Fox News, CNN, MSNBC. I've been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican Party. I mean, very consistent defender. But there's no defending this because it's immoral. And it's exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing, which is representing its own voters, its own citizens, its own nation. And they're not doing that. So, no, I'm out. And if I'm out, then I think a lot of other people are out. What happened to the unity?
Speaker 1I mean, that's it. Kenneth Owens, of course, suggested that satanic Zionists were occupying the White House and Congress needs to move to have the mad King Trump removed. Tucker called Trump, the Antichrist, this year. Megyn Kelly declared with Sean Ryan that the GOP had betrayed the American people and that all they had left were Epstein fans. So again, if you wanted the unity to last, if you wanted a spiritual revival, if you wanted all those things, it requires you to draw borders because it turns out those borders will be drawn for you in any case. But here is the thing, as we move forward, because again, it's been a year since Charlie's death. And I say Charlie had a couple of roles. One is that he spoke openly about conservatism in very convincing and excellent ways. And the other is that he was a bridge builder. As we move forward toward the 26th election, toward the 28th election, we are trying to bring people together. We are. You know who is here at the RNC? We are. The Daily Wire is here at the RNC for the midterms. You know who's going to be campaigning with candidates? Members of the Daily Wire for the midterms. Who's thinking about the GOP and its future in a meaningful and optimistic way? We're doing that here at the Daily Wire. We're doing that. You know who's not here? Tucker Carlson or Candace. Owens. Those are the people who are not here. Because it turns out in the end that if you wish to have a conservative future, you need to actually have a set of conservative principles. And one of those principles is basic truth and decency. And if you don't have those things, you can't build a movement around anything else. You just cannot. It is not possible. And joining me online to discuss how things have been for TPSA and how things will be going forward is Andrew Colvett. He's spokesperson for TPSA. Andrew, thanks so much for the time on what is, of course, a horrifying day when no one thought that we'd be sitting here on September 10th of 2026 without Charlie. Just your general feelings.
Speaker 18Yeah, I think that's right. You know, I was reflecting on September 9th that a year before September 9th, it was a day like any other. And we were just marching forward. And, you know, you had no idea that the next day everybody's lives, especially here at Turning Point and on the show, were going to be turned upside down and forever changed. And, yeah. It's a terrible anniversary. the most tragic of anniversaries. But it's also a day where it's incumbent on us to remember Charlie's life and the beautiful things that he left us as well. So it's like so much in this last year, it's been such a mix of emotions and ups and downs, but we have to keep going forward.
Speaker 1That's what Charlie would want. So why don't we start talking a little bit about Erica and how she's been dealing with all this short, beautiful op-ed for the New York Times about grief recently. And frankly, the amount of just abuse that she's had to take over the course of the last year is just unthinkable to me. It was always unthinkable to me. I can't understand it for the life of me. It makes literally zero sense. It's insane, but she's weathered all of it.
Speaker 18How is she holding up? Yeah, thank you for asking about her. She's holding up. I think a lot of people will tell you anniversaries are the toughest moment, especially for a spouse of somebody who's died. Let alone assassinated in such a public way. I think it's a hard day for her. I think she understood that she wanted to spend this day privately with her kids and some close friends and family and just be away from the noise and just have a day to remember Charlie. And so God bless her for that. It's the perfect way for her to do this day, right? I don't know if people expected her to be on stage at the RNC or to be at the UVU event, but no, I think it's the right way for her to do this. Just be private with her family and with her kids. And so, you know, we're here at HQ and we're, you know, we've got a bunch of people around and it's a good thing. They all wanted to be able to express their love and admiration for Charlie. And so, you know, both things can happen at once. And I'm really happy with the way the team has come together. And, you know, everybody mourns in their own way, Ben. It's a very personal experience. You know, I tend to not cry publicly. I can't do emotions. I can't do emotional emotions. I can't do emotional emotions. You know, when I'm working, I'm working. And when I'm in my private time, you know, it's a very solemn day, a very, very sober day, but she's doing okay. She's doing, she's very strong. People have to understand Erica's faith in God is tremendous. And she is, she is stronger than people realize, but you know, this is, this is hard for anybody. So Andrew, obviously we're one
Speaker 1year past Charlie's death. A lot of people were worried that TPSA would fall apart that, that basically without, you know, Charlie's unique leadership at the helm, things would go sideways. And yet TPSA has only grown in many ways. It's gotten stronger in the wake of Charlie's assassination. Where is TPSA right now? What do you see as the future of the organization?
Speaker 18Yeah, it's, it's a question that's actually connected to your last question about Erica. I've been saying this because to me, it was something I always understood, but I realized at some point that the broader audience had no idea. I believe that had Erica not stepped in when she did in that, critical moment, I mean, it was so heroic of her. I, I don't know. It could have been the unraveling of turning point because if you don't understand the inner workings of the organization and the personalities and the way the different verticals work and the different programs work, I truly believe she was the only person that could have stepped in, in that moment and sort of steadied the ship and brought everybody together and rallied the entire team behind what, you know, her leadership. So, you know, and then there's these other critiques about, oh, a woman shouldn't be CEO and say, you know, and I, I, I, frankly, I disagree on a, on a fundamental level. I, I believe that maybe that's somewhat true. Maybe more men are CEOs than women, whatever, but the calling of a woman that is a, you know, a wife and a mom is much different than the calling of a widow, especially of a public person that belonged to the world like Charlie Kirk. And so I'm just so proud of her leadership and what she's done. And I'm so proud of the team. I look around the team all the time and I say, you guys are my heroes. I'm so proud of the team. I look around the team all the time and I say, you guys are my heroes. I'm so proud of the team. I look around the team all the time and I say, you guys are my heroes for what you've endured this year, for what you've been able to accomplish under the most extreme unthinkable circumstances. And yeah, to your point, I mean, our high school chapters have grown almost 200%. They continue to grow and people don't understand how hard that is, by the way, Ben, you've got to get staff involved. You get to get, you know, a core group of students, but then you have to pay, do paperwork. You have, there's approval process. Charlie's own alma mater took us like three years to get approved. So it's a long process to get these chapters up and running, but these students have been amazing. They were more courageous than ever before. Charlie has made them, I turned them, I always joke with the team that Charlie turned these kids into total lions. Like they are fearless. They will not be cowed by attacks, smears, social media, all that stuff. So everything's moving forward on that side. The college chapters are now at over 1500. And Charlie used to say out loud, I don't think we, I don't think you can get past a thousand because there's just not enough schools where you can gather. That core community, because you got commuter schools and things like that. Our TPUSA faith has gone from 4,000 churches in our network to 12,000, which is just incredible. Lucas and the team are doing a great job there. So piece by piece, we have over a million students that are involved in Turning Point in one way, shape or form or another. We have over a million small dollar donors now to the organization. And all of it is just this giant testament to the man that Charlie was, the worthiness of the mission he chose to engage in. And so I just find it remarkable. God's hand of provision, God's faithfulness, even in a political cycle, as you well know, where there is a lot of headwinds, somehow God continues to bless the organization. And yeah, the future is the same. I'm sure you've seen this, but it's one of the annoying parts of my job is that I constantly inundated with, Charlie would have never done that. Or you guys have betrayed what Charlie was. And it's like, no, actually, we all, like, we're very intimately, aware of what Charlie believed and what he wanted and the future. It was all sort of scripted. And we had a roadmap through 2032, if you want to know the truth of it. And obviously, it gets vaguer as you get further out. And the details fell in as you get closer to those dates. But we kind of knew where we were going. And we've tried to remain true to that. And so nothing changes. The mission doesn't change. We want young people to believe in the American dream, to have skin in the game. And we want them to not give in to nihilism and cynicism and scapegoating. We want young people to believe in the American dream. And we want them to not give in to nihilism and scapegoating. And we want them to not give in to nihilism and scapegoating. And we want them to country. And I believe the opportunity for that has never been bigger. And we intend to do our
Speaker 1part. So, you know, Andrew, when Charlie was assassinated, I think everyone sort of expected that there would be a couple of things that happened. One would have been sort of reunification of the right, particularly because it was a political assassination. I mean, Charlie's assassin, Tyler Robinson, killed him for obviously political reasons. He was a gay man who is in a relationship with a trans furry man. And he was very obvious about his political motivations in killing Charlie. I mean, Charlie obviously was an advocate for the basic idea that there is a difference between men and women. So you would have expected that the right at the very least would come together around that. And you also would have expected that there would be a unity around religious revival, which is something that obviously TPUSA pushed very hard in the immediate aftermath of Charlie's assassination, up to and including that extraordinary memorial service that happened in Arizona, where I was privileged to attend with 100,000 people coming and people basically trying to rededicate themselves to things like going to church. And, you know, that was all kind of a moment of promise. And it feels in many ways as though that moment was in some ways sullied and in some ways you could say stronger, maybe wasted by some people who have attempted to actually fragment that moment and turn what happened with Charlie into anything else. Obviously, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact there have been extraordinary levels of conspiracism that have arisen around Charlie's murder. It's something I know that you and I have talked about this off the air, but I mean, something that you've been dealing with a lot. Obviously, Erica has been dealing with it a lot. The organization has been dealing with it a lot, the sort of fragmentation around basic fact, the inability to to just come to grips with with what happened and what should have happened in the aftermath. And this is easy stuff. And we just didn't get to the easy stuff. Where do you think we go from here and how serious do you think those fractures are?
Speaker 18You know, I tend to be a glass half full on this stuff now. I maybe six months ago, I wouldn't have been, but I feel better now than I did six months ago. And I think in six months I'm going to feel even better still. I think the conservative movement and political movements in general are sort of like a host. And then, you know, you get you get these pathogens that are introduced and then it takes a little while for the antibodies to kick in. Right. And I think some of this conspiracy stuff just caught everybody off guard. We weren't ready to deal with it. And I think you hit the nail on the head. I think a lot of people just assumed everybody was going to come together and unify. And so everybody was caught off guard by it. I think there was some stuff, you know, it was coming from voices that a lot of people assumed would have been on team, but it turned out they weren't. I think having that clarity now, though, that these people want something different, that they are actually forces that are arrayed against us is helpful. The clarity is actually helpful. And I think at the beginning, that was not clear. I think it was muddled and I think it caused a lot of problems. So I sort of have this contrarian belief about this. I can't prove any of this. It's just my own personal faith. And my faith does guide me in this. First, I would say what God has unleashed man cannot stop. God, and if, by the way, if God is omnipotent and all-knowing and omnipresent, then God knew that this was going to happen and that God has a plan for this too. And I actually, my belief is that the purging can actually, you know, you've got to take the weeds out of a garden, right? Sometimes the purging can be a gift. And I think that there's many voices that were never really with us to begin with. And sometimes that can be helpful. Now, I'm a big tent guy. I want... I want everybody to come together. I want a coalition that's healthy and that can move forward. But I actually sort of wonder if this isn't... We won't look back at this at some point and realize... that there was a plan and there was God's providential hand still upon this. And I believe that that's the case. So my glass is half full. And I do think that what will emerge from this is so many more... People ask me, what's the legacy of Charlie Kirk? And I say, I'm not going to know for another 40, 50 years. And probably then I won't understand it because there are... And I will tell you how I know this. Because when you go to college campuses or you speak to Turning Point students, and I called them lions earlier, you will see that the future leaders of this country that are forged out of different stuff than you or I, Ben, they come from a whole different set of base elements that forged and formed them. And it is powerful. And I think that the inspiration of Charlie's legacy, his death, is going to do something remarkable in so many of their lives. And I truly believe that we're going to have thousands of young people that will lead this country in a great way that were inspired by Charlie. And so there have been times, I'm sure, where we all wanted to pull our hair out because it's just the lack of facts, evidence, reason, logic, all that stuff. But I do think that the antibodies are kicking in and the movement is responding. And I think better days are ahead.
Speaker 1That's Andrew Cole, the spokesperson for TPUSA. Obviously, a rough day for everybody over at TPUSA, but they're doing extraordinary work and they continue to do extraordinary work. So not only our thoughts and prayers to the team at TPUSA, but also to Erica. And folks, obviously, TPUSA still needs your contributions. They still need your support. So you should head on over to TPUSA right now. And give generously because they're still doing tremendous work out there. Really appreciate the time, Andrew. And, you know, try to, we appreciate you holding up.
Speaker 18Yeah. Thanks, Ben. I appreciate the time.
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Speaker 17you make of that assessment? Yeah, I think that's fair at each step of this intense, I don't know, pathological drive to destroy him. I should say not just politically, but actually physically, mentally, financially, existentially. And that could be defined by the Mar-a-Lago raid, the Ford Lawfare criminal trials, the E. Jean Carroll suit, deballoting him. This came on top of the two impeachments. All of that. Every time that that happened, that resurrected his career, usually about two or three points in the polls so that after January 6th, where the book starts, you had people like Mitch McConnell said it couldn't happen to a nicer SOB and the Republican establishment was delighted. Putative polls or surveys said Ron DeSantis was ahead by 20 points. Even his friends distanced themselves from him. And yet, and then of course the investigations and the Ackerman, he was debanked. People deny that, but he was. And his social media accounts were canceled for the most part. He had no means of communicating. His inner circle was leaking to the press that they were through with him. And then he came back. And so I tried to explain that for the first third or for half of the book. And the reason he came back was there were both internal and external And internally, even though he was a septuagenarian, he had more energy than his enemies did. And he had an anger that he felt that his first term had been successful economically, military, and they had robbed him of that. Whether that's, you know, you can say robbed in many ways, but he felt they had done things that were unfair. He was very bothered by the 51 intelligence experts right before the debate who said that the laptop is a product of the Russians, etc., etc. So he was on, I don't know if the term was a vengeance, but he was angry and he sought redemption. And he was going to battle this no matter what. And more importantly, in this gestation period, before he formally declared his candidacy on November 15th of 2022, he had recalibrated in his mind what his first term was, what in it was positive and what was negative. And he felt that people that he had appointed, and he mentioned them, H.R. McMaster, a good friend of mine, I think he's a fine person, smart. Jim Mattis, Rex Tillerson, Steve Mnuchin, they weren't MAGA people. And they felt that he was inexperienced and dangerous. It was their duty to interpret his executive orders or directives. Almost to the degree that Anonymous, remember, the New York Times person, said that we're going to block these. And the next time, he was going to get loyal people. And the second thing he learned during these winter years were it didn't do any good to wage a political revolution. This was a counter-revolution that was going to entail economics, politics, military. So if you're going to get the recruitment up, you've got to go after details. If you're going to worry about people who are indoctrinated, go after the endowments, go after anti-Semitism, go after free speech rights on the campus. If you're worried about modernist architecture, then try to restore neoclassical architecture. Try to name, if they're going to rename things, then you rename things. And don't just close the border, but deport people. So it was an effort, you know, go after NPR. They're not disinterested public entities that deserve our support anymore. So it was an effort the next time. And he said this early on, that he was going to be a very different president. And that's where we are now, I think. And that's one of the reasons that the acrimony has even increased from the first term.
Speaker 1So, you know, the president takes office, obviously. I think he has an extraordinarily successful first few months. He's ramming through executive orders. He's putting forward legislation that ends up being passed. And now the president is riding in the 30s in the approval rating. And the midterm prospects don't look particularly good. So why is that happening and sort of where is the Republican Party go from here? Because obviously we're about to enter the post-Trump era. If we lose Congress, if the Republicans lose Congress, then the next couple of years will be eaten up, presumably by widespread investigations that will probably boost Trump politically somewhat in the same way that it has historically. But of course, he can't run for a third term. And so once we are done with the Trump term, it's sort of over. And I'm not sure that anyone I think there are certain people who are trying to capture the sort of heir apparent energy to Trump. I just don't believe it. I just don't believe in political heir apparent. I don't think that popularity is transferable from one politician to another or that anyone can inherit the coalition of the other guy, particularly when it's such a unique figure as President Trump. So it's sort of two questions that I'm asking. One is, where do you think that we are right now in sort of the Trump story? And the second is, what comes after the Trump story? Are the Republicans cruising for a bruising because the pendulum is swinging so wildly in American politics right now?
Speaker 17Yeah. Well, in the larger context, if you look at Clinton in 94, or you look. At Obama in 2010, or you look at George W. Bush in 2006, or you look at. Trump in 2018, or you look at Biden in 2020, it's not that much difference, a few points. So part of it is historical that people vote for some person and they have all these expectations and they can't fulfill them. And then they get disenchanted. That's part of it. The second thing is when they took over the Biden disaster, on certain areas, they were very good. They said, we're going to not just stop it. We're going to go back to year zero or where he was when Trump left office. So he built, he's building the wall. He stopped illegal, but he's also deporting three, 3 million people. He didn't just say, I'm going to stop the defund the police. He put troops in Washington and he didn't just say no more. So we're not going to have any new subsidies for green new deal. He overturned them. But with the economy, he said, that the 21 aggregate inflation that a Biden, he was going to lower that. And he did. If you look at the first year, it was 1.9. It's below 3%. It's not the 5.2 that Biden averaged over 20 years, but that message was not articulated. So everybody said, well, he lowered it. He didn't lower inflation. In fact, he did lower inflation, the rate, the annual rate, but he didn't unroll. And I think that would have been a Herculean effort to, to get prices back down 20 points, but that was not articulated. So people that fed into the leftist narrative that you can't afford things. If you look at things like labor participation or percentage of home ownership, they're pretty good. If you look at jobs report, they're pretty good. So what's dragging them down are three things. One, the price of gas and the, the Iran war, and it's up at a hundred dollars a barrel. And then the failure to lower prices rather than just lower the rate of inflation. And then the third is they are not articulating what they're doing. They're talking about the socialists, which is salutary, but they should also be saying, these are 10 things that we've done and they will be reversed. If we are subverted or sidetracked, we close the border to zero illegal immigration. We have the lowest crime rate. In 70 years, we stopped the green new deal insanity. We're the largest producer of gas and oil in history. We have really confronted China. NATO is in much better shape than it's ever been. Thanks to our job, owning them. Mexico is doing, is lowering their trade surplus with them. They're terrified. We're going to clamp down on the cartels. If they don't, they've stopped bringing in Chinese below the cost of production, aluminum, steel to assemble appliances, cars, and dump them here. And we are already taxing, just started taxing remittances back to Mexico. So all of those things he's done and the military, which when I, he could have said, when I came in here, it was 50,000 recruits short. And within one year it was 10,000 short. And now we have a surplus of recruits. Those are phenomenal. You know, changes, but I don't think you hear about them. And I don't hear about them.
Speaker 1At least I don't hear about, you know, one of the sort of big questions that I have about this is that, you know, president Trump, what, what, what makes him a unique political figure is the fact that he is not ideologically driven. He's sort of a pragmatist who picks fruit off the trees. He see fits. Sometimes there's a warm in the fruit and he throws it away. Sometimes it's great and he keeps it. And that, that's an interesting way to govern. It's very difficult to build a durable movement beyond just the figure that is not rooted in some sort of kind of overall overarching narrative. And president Trump's overarching narrative has historically been a sort of gut level gut check patriotism, which is, which is fine as far as it goes. But right now that that means that as he shuffles off the political scene in a couple of years, that can be interpreted in about eight different ways. And I think that you're seeing a lot of the fractures inside the Republican party, obviously rising to the surface, ranging from conspiratorial horseshoe kind of left-wing monetary and foreign policy combined with antisemitism. To, you know, more classical libertarianism to Reaganism. And they're all kind of fighting within the tent right now about what comes next. So that was sort of the other question. Where do you think this goes next in the post-Trump era? Because again, he is the, he is the umbrella that covers everything, but when the umbrella goes away, the rain falls on everyone.
Speaker 17Yes. But if you, there are sidelines on his football field that he doesn't go out. And so what are those? And they're very different than the traditional, the two Bushes or the John McCain campaign or the Mitt Romney campaign. And they are, there is no such thing as free trade in a globalized world. It has to be free and fair. And we've got a, China wants to destroy us and they're not going, they're not going to be asymmetrical with us on trade anymore. I don't think that's, that's contrary to most of the prior presidents. I don't think that's going to change. Number one. Number two, I don't think you're going to have people in the Republican party, like the Cato Institute, saying that we all benefit from illegal immigration. That's just a name illegal. It's immigration. There's no difference in that we need inexpensive, cheap labor. I don't think we're going to go back to that. I don't think we're going to go back to going into a country and putting sizable ground troops on the ground. I just don't think politically the Republican party believes in that unless it's an existential war attack. I don't think that any, when Mitt ran, he said, I'm open to switch grass. I'm open to sugar cane. We should be planting. I don't think anybody's going to do that. It's fossil. We need fossil fuels in abundance. And we're the world's largest producer and exporter. That's not going to go away. I don't think that people are going to say, um, we're going to have to, and there's problems, but I don't think they're going to say as George W. Bush, let's privatize social security. I know. I think that's off the table. So there, I could go on, but there's core principles that I don't think any Republican successor would want to tamper with. That said, there are very deep differences between Marco Rubio, let's say, and JD Vance, and they represent different portions of the, of the Republican party. It seems to me, and I'm not, I talked to people on both sides that maybe Rubio might be able to, to win over more advanced support orders than Vance supporters would win over Rubio's supporters. Rubio said he's not going to run if Vance runs, but that is a transactional statement. It depends on things. I think JD Vance, uh, he's in a unique position because he, the traditional role of the vice president, as you know, is a spiral Agnew role. I mean, it's to go out and attack the enemies of the president. and dirty if you have to. But you have people in the Republican Party who are saying Donald Trump should be impeached, that El-Said should beat Mike Rogers. So he hasn't really said that's taboo. And anybody who goes after my president, I'm not going, I consider them an oppositional figure. And I'm speaking in this particular context of Tucker. So he's flirting with endorsing El-Said. He said Trump should be removed. I don't know what he meant by that. We have mechanisms to remove a president before election. Does he mean impeached? What does he mean? It's a very dangerous thing to say that. He called him the Antichrist. Yeah. Yes. When your president has had the first president in history where the Secret Service has returned shots at a target, a targeted assassin four times, twice in Florida, once in Washington, D.C., and once in Pennsylvania. So he and he knows that. So he's going to have to deal with that. At some point. And he's going to have to say, these are good friends of mine, but they have gone over the edge. They've crossed a line and I cannot endorse them. I cannot talk to them. And that's just the way it's going to be. They don't represent the views of the Republican Party, nor the mega movement, nor Donald Trump. Donald Trump's already done that. In fact, he's done that in his tweets in a way that is unequivocal. I have never seen him do that. I have never seen him do that. I have never seen him do that. I have never seen a president say that a former close confidant who said he was a satanic figure has a low IQ and is a loser. But he said that repeatedly. So that's one problem in the succession. And I don't know. I think that will become clearer to Vance. And I said that in the book as things go on, that right now it sounds like let's not judge anybody. We're a big tent. Sounds kind of like the Democrats. Democrats have a much better future. They have a much better future. They have a much better future. They have a much bigger problem in some ways because these socialists are are absolutely a lunatic. And they are they are not disorganized. And they don't say that we should not that algebra was created by Jews or they don't say stuff like that. They have an agenda.
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Speaker 17trial. The other thing that he has to realize, if you don't say something, the people like Marjorie Taylor Greene or Thomas Massey get emboldened. And then they're going to try to be more and more and more provocative. They escalate it. So they force you. I hope he understands that they're forcing him to be in an untenable position. They're basically saying, we're going to say things that are so crazy that you're going to have to brand them as your own or we're out of here. And so they are pushing him and they're no friends of him because they are trying to embarrass him. I think when Tucker says certain things. I mean, when you, you get on your podcast, as I watched yesterday, and you have a potter who says that algebra was sort of implying it was a Jewish conspiracy against the Goy. And algebra is the fundamental element of all advanced mathematics and physics. You couldn't, we wouldn't exist with this, any of these appurtenances we're using without it. So he doesn't want to endorse that. So he's going to have to separate himself. And then on the, I mean, the message itself, I don't see any difference in foreign policy. They keep saying we're against forever wars or endless wars, but as tragic as losing 18 people are, and we've spent about 70 billion compared to the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, 20 years, 10 years, 7,500 killed, four to 5 trillion. And the benefits you will accrue if there is an overthrow of that government, and the whole Middle East is going to fall apart. Yeah. The Middle East will change. It really will. So it was a calculated gamble. No other president would have done it. They all said they would do it. None of them did. He did it. And when people had said your midterms are coming up, you shouldn't do it. He may have been a little naive that he thought it would be like the Maduro overthrow, or he may have thought it would have been like the bombing the year before in June of 25 hours. But, uh, I think finally that's happens in war. They've, they've adopted a strategy now that works this anaconda strategy. And this is the question. I would say there's a 30% chance that the regime could fall in the next 60 days, 30%. That's not good. But if it did, it would change your question. It would change everything. All of a sudden the people who are saying he's a warmonger or forever wars, or he's in that would say he's the great liberator of our time. If Iran is freed. So there's a lot of known unknowns.
Speaker 1And now final question for you, you know, you look at the democratic party and as you say, they're spiraling off into full scale socialism, America, hatred, and all the rest with that said, you know, if the president continues to be unpopular, that may not, you know, be wildly out of bounds with regard to the midterms. But as you lead into the next presidential election cycle, it is historically unprecedented for the vice president. Let's say it's JD Vance as the nominee for the vice president to pick up where a president with a very low approval rating left off and then win reelect on the basis of that. If the Democrats pick, I think probably anybody, but AOC, where do you put the odds of a democratic takeover of the white house in, in 28, if they pick, you know, Gavin Newsom or Wes Moore or some other figure who's perceived not to be as full blown psychotic as, as an AOC. Well, I don't see anybody who is
Speaker 17not psychotic to tell you the truth. I live in California. It's been entirely wrecked. I mean, campaign slogan, I'm going to do for the United States, what I did for California. It's a complete third world basket case. And AOC is not a tenable L site. These, they talk in these grand delusions. Their problem is that we have a mistaken belief that these crazy downwardly mobile 85% white urban creatures who are mad that they, nobody appreciates their genius and their degrees hijack the democratic party. But the other day I put down the DSA agenda. And then I went back and looked at what the Democrats did prior to the DSA. And you name it, open borders, mass amnesties, endorse BLM, say that Antifa is not really, it's just, it's just an idea. They're not dangerous. Pack the court for, uh, we're for two new state in the filibuster, abolish the electoral college, uh, all, mail-in balloting, no IDs, you name it. I can't think of what really happened was the democratic party in the last years of the Obama administration. And when they hijacked this wax and effigy Biden, they were the most radical manifestation we've seen of any government in a hundred years. So what happened was the DSA came in and said, wow, you guys, you guys are identical to us. We can run on your platform. We can run on your platform. We can run on your platform. We can run on your platform. You have all the money, you have all the organization, but you're a bunch of old fuddy duddies, Schumer, Pelosi. Uh, you just lost your step. So we're going to come over and take it, take over. And, but we're just going to take over your agenda. And that's what they're doing right now. They're running on a democratic radical agenda. And they kind of shut up about if you're Tallarico, you don't mention the multiple genders. If you're El Saeed, you don't know what they're doing, but it's all about the economy. And so I think if they're going to have a chance to hold the house, they're going to have to talk about the economy and explain why things are going to get better and why the oil prices are temporary and explain in detail. Venezuela's coming on. Russia will come back. We're increasing production. Uh, China has cut back on its use gas prices. As Besant said the other day, he's been very articulate, very competent. He's been very good. If people could take that message, all the cabinet and bring it to the American people and say, we inherited a 21% aggregate inflation and 30% on staples like insurance, cars, food, housing, et cetera. And we got the rate down, but we're not finished yet. We're only half done. You don't want to bring those people back because they're even worse than under Biden. But I don't hear that. I don't, I don't really hear that. And you can't say you can't say the Iran, you can't say about Iran. We just destroyed the, the military. Everything's fine. You have to say we destroyed almost all the military, but it's got 93 million people and it spent 30 or $40 billion for 50 years and they've hid things all over. So we're going to have some Rocky times as they implode. And it may take two or three months or four months or five months more and be realistic about it. Cause they're talking about the, they're talking about the, they're just, they're not talking about the denominator. They're saying that we got, we got 93% of the missiles, but they're not telling me how many missiles there were in to begin with. The Israelis say, well, we wound and we, we, we destroyed 12,000, but we think Hezbollah has 170,000, but we don't do that. We don't say this is how we destroyed all these ships, 90, but we don't tell how many ships they had to start with. So they've got to be more clear on that. It's precise because when, once the American people say, when I've had this, well, Victor, he said that the Navy was all destroyed. So why are they hitting tankers the other day? You should have said it's mostly destroyed, but they've got pockets of resistance. They're going to be mopped up. They won't pose a threat, but we've got to destroy them and it will take longer before they collapse. That's all.
Speaker 1Well, the book is the counter revolution, the fall and rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Victor Davis Hanson is the author. Go check out the book right now. It's a terrific read. Victor Davis Hanson, thanks so much for joining the program. Really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Ben. Alrighty, coming up, we are going to get into tech doomerism, people suggesting refugees from Anthropic that AI is going to kill all of us. And you know, who's jumping on that bad wagon? A guy who hates America, Abdul Al-Sayed. He says it's time to ban AI pretty much outright. We'll get to all of that, but you have to be a Daily Wire member for that. So make sure you join up, become a member, use code Shapiro, check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. We'll see you next time.
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