Erika Kirk Outshines All

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
After the weekend and seeing everyone reacting to the Charlie
Kirk memorial. I pull up Twitter today in an effort
to find stuff to prep for the show, and I
come across this story that there's going to be a

(00:21):
red carpet event, as the Hollywood reporter breathlessly reporting on
this that Sarah McLaughlin and I think Jewel are not
going to show up. They're not going to do it.
They're not showing up for the red carpet premiere for

(00:45):
this new Disney documentary about Lilith Fair that's being released
on Hulu. Sarah McLaughlin and Jewel they're not coming why
because they are mad about Jimmy Kimmel being pulled off

(01:07):
the air. And it's reading a story like this that
makes me really come to grips with there's a segment
of America of the media that genuinely thinks Jimmy Kimmel
losing his show is of greater moment and portent for

(01:32):
the country than the Kirk assassination, the Kirk memorial, et cetera,
and more and more. I've sort of started to wonder
about this and think about this just sort of it's
such an insane state of affairs that we've all just
kind of accepted. How I mean, it's the root of

(01:59):
all of Fox News News is success. Fox News just
very simply and bluntly realized there was a hole in
the market. How about a news channel that kind of
caters to conservatives, that presents more right wing opinion, given
that nowhere else in the media do they have that.

(02:21):
Nowhere else in the media are they presenting a right
wing favorable presentation of news, opinion, talk, et cetera. But
I realized, just for so much of culture, there's just nothing.
It's as if, I mean, just basically this two of

(02:46):
the three networks sort of concluded with their late night
comedy talk show. You know, one of the properties that
they always put forward as you know, one of the
leading signature things for the network, maybe less so nowadays,
is because those shows lose money. Two of the three
big networks that have a late night talk show like
that are Colbert on CBS and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC.

(03:15):
Two of the three are just openly hostile to half
the country. And it just astonishes me how corporations like
Paramount that own CBS, Disney that owns ABC, we're just
so utterly willing to set themselves up to basically say

(03:38):
our product that we are selling, which is basically billboard space.
I mean fundamentally, at the end of the day, you
have to remember that that's what a television network is.
It's a billboard, it's billboard space, it's space to sell commercials.
That's the business model for ABC, CBS, et cetera. We

(04:01):
put on television shows, and we make money off of
those television shows by selling commercials. And the commercial real
estate is more valuable the more eyeballs watch the show.
So the thing that determines that they get more money

(04:23):
is the number of eyeballs. And they basically just said,
we don't want our product to gain in value by
the eyeballs of conservatives. We just don't want conservatives to watch.
We want to actively repulse them. We want to actively

(04:47):
drive them away by hiring hosts who openly despise them,
by hiring hosts who seem to have no sense of
the shared mission of now we're telling television, which is
to make money, or maybe they do, or maybe they say, oh, look,
I guess the niche we're trying to get is not
that half of the country and it just feels as

(05:12):
though every network, all of them, made this decision. I mean,
you can find example after example of ridiculous things like
that on NBC. That the thing that always uh, I
find completely hilarious little examples of this where our taste makers,

(05:35):
the people who make television shows, who make movies, just
fundamentally don't understand and dully hate half the country. One
of my favorite tiny examples of this is Law and
Order SVU, where Mariska Hargeta wait whatever, what the extra name.

(05:56):
I love that actress. Mariska, Yeah, Mariska Hargatye, the gal
who plays Benson, the main character, the main lady character
on Law and Order SVU. And I love Law and Order.
I love the whole structure of Law and Order. I
like SVU. I like Mariska Hargete very much. She's a
police like lieutenant or sergeant or something, and on her

(06:20):
desk as if it's like an inspirational thing for anyone
who works in quote law enforcement generally, she has a
picture of Ruth bader Ginsburg after Ruth bader Ginsburg died,
which is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. There's not
a police officer in the United States of America. Who
has a picture of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on their thing.

(06:42):
There's nobody who, just because you work in quote law enforcement,
is therefore so inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and so
mourning of her passing that after twenty twenty that they
put a framed picture of her on their desk. It's
the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Maybe there's a judge

(07:03):
who has a picture of her on their desk, maybe
there's a lawyer who has it. There's no police sergeant,
police lieutenant in the country with a framed picture of
all people someone, as you know, relatively far more concerned
with civil liberties of defendants rather than the freedom of
cops than Ruth Bader Ginsberg. But it's these little moments

(07:31):
that we haven't I think we've just so thoroughly accepted
in America that the media is liberal. They push out
liberal products, they push out television shows that cater to liberals,
they push out programming that cater's to liberals. Their news
coverage is slanted in favor of the left. Hollywood is liberal.

(07:55):
We've just accepted that so much that the majority of
the movies, if they present some sort of political message,
it's always gonna be left leaning. And then as a result,
like any time there's any movie that sort of seems
to cater to the right, it's like a miracle from

(08:16):
on High has dawned. Sound of Freedom comes out, which
is I don't know that it was necessarily a great movie,
but because it was deemed to have some kind of
vaguely conservative sounding theme to it, whoa, it's this nationwide phenomenon.
Sound of Freedom late night comedy completely dominated by the left.

(08:44):
Let's push out Greg Gutfeld. Oh, Greg Gutfeld is actually
far and away more ratings than Jimmy Fallon or Steven
Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel. And then it's like, yeah, but
by know, it's just old people watch it. Well, actually
know people in the you know, the fifteen to forty

(09:04):
what is it the demo, the fifteen to forty four
demo that he's actually doing better with them too, because
it's like, well, oh, hey, you mean programming that is
able to reach this half of the country, Programming that's
not openly offensive to completely repudiating half the country. What

(09:25):
a concept. The Charlie Kirk thing is sort of I
feel it's it seems bizarre how in a way it
seems like it has woken up corporate America to this
realization that, hey, like half the country is conservative or
votes Republican anyway, Why do you want to just maintain

(09:52):
people working for you that just openly despise half of
the country. Why how do you think that's good for business?
And I don't understand why. I mean, I don't think
it should have needed Donald Trump in office to affect
that understanding. Maybe they sort of thought during the Biden

(10:15):
era that they had the wind at their back more,
and so the efforts to censor conservative opinion that they
don't like or whatnot, or when Obama was president, you know,
pull Roseanne Barr off the air because she said something stupid.
Maybe they just had more of a sense that the

(10:36):
country was so united against Donald Trump, and then after
twenty twenty four they have to sort of recalibrate things
after Trump beats Kamala Harris actually gets more votes than
Kamala Harris. I don't know what it is, but I
think it's We've been just living with this bizarre state

(10:57):
of affairs where most of our entertainment, most of the
mass produced art that we consume is made by the
left and for the left, and the only way conservatives
can enjoy it is by, you know, either finding something

(11:19):
that's a little apolitical or holding your nose and listening
to it anyway. I mean, I'm sure if I love
Bruce Springsteen, I think he's a great I like a
lot of his songs. I'm sure he's great to listen to.
I'm sure if I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert,
I'd have to sit through him yammering about politics in

(11:41):
between songs a lot, and I'd have to sort of
enjoy it despite, you know, holding my notes. And I
feel like at this moment, particularly Hollywood's just sort of
demonstrating how out of touch they've been. It's almost like

(12:03):
we've woken up to realize that we don't know each
other as a country. We've woken I don't know, maybe
a couple in a loveless marriage has, you know, they
wake up one morning and realize they're strangers to each other.
It sounds like something from an over dramatic movie. I
wouldn't want to watch. My experience with my wife has

(12:24):
not been that way. But it's like we wake up
and we don't even know each other. Like, here's the
Hollywood Reporter, like, you know, breathlessly pro Jewel and Sarah
McLaughlin are not gonna They're not gonna walk the red
carpet for this documentary about Lilith Fair. Wow, I'm sure
all seven unwashed hippies are really excited about that, are

(12:51):
really jazzed up. I mean genuinely, genuinely, genuinely. You look
at the New York Times that I pulled up the
New York Times website this morning for just looking for
stories and stuff, all of the top stories. My mom
got me a subscription to the New York Times just

(13:14):
to help for like radio stuff and writing stuff. So
now I'm getting to sort of see how the other
side thinks. All of the top stories are about whether Gaza,
you know, whether European countries should recognize Palestinian statehood. Let's

(13:34):
see Europe talks big on Gaza, but struggles to act
for Arab nations with tied Israel attacks raised anxiety a
you in General Assembly. As the UN General Assembly opens,
here's what to watch for. Then you have to scroll
down and then it gets a couple of headlines about
Charlie Kirk that all, it's impossible for the New York

(13:55):
Times to have just a flat headline. There always has
to be some angle attacking conservatives behind Kirk's spiritual journey
that fused Christianity in politics. The implication, of course, being
that that is bad. Trump remembers Kirk as a martyr
while attacking political opponents. You could have ended the headline

(14:16):
at just Trump remembers Kirk as a martyr. Four takeaways
from the Kirk memorial. I'm sure a bunch of them
are bad. Let's see the many speakers invoked Christianity and
described Charlie Kirk as of course they invoked Christianity. It

(14:40):
was like a memorial for a dead Christian top Trump
officials and conservative celebrities attended Erica Kirk forgave the killer.
President Trump mixed tributes with a political rally. Of course. Yeah.
They are just incapable of writing anything that's just a

(15:01):
flat headline or without just inserting the little dig but
more and more, I guess I was just sort of
struck by that was the biggest thing that was going
on yesterday. The Kirk memorial was far and away the
biggest news event, the biggest item that was going on yesterday,

(15:23):
and you get the sense that the media is straining
to talk about anything else, that the media can't really
cover it because even though for at least half the country,
it's far and away the most significant thing that was

(15:44):
going on yesterday, the media is so strained, we're so
separate from each other that they just can't allow themselves
to even consider it, to even talk about it. That
they've they've lost the ability to program in a way

(16:06):
that's meaningful to half the country. And I don't know,
it'll be interesting to see what would it take for
these corporations that are fundamentally again, what is CBS paramounts job,
What is Disney ABC's job? Fundamentally, what is the job

(16:27):
of those networks? What is NBC, you know, Universal Comiccast, whatever,
what is their job fundamentally for having these television networks?
They are billboards. The job is to get as many
eyeballs looking at their billboards as possible so that they
can charge a lot of money for people to put

(16:49):
their ads on the billboard. That's the whole point of
the television networks. And if they come to realize Republican viewpoints,
conservative viewpoints are approaching majoritarian status in this country, or
at the very least, that it doesn't make good business

(17:12):
sense to openly actively alienate half the country, even if
you do it, you know, with this sheen of well, no,
we're just we're just being unbiased, which their news divisions
all still try to completely implausibly maintain to this day

(17:34):
that how can you continue to operate in this way?
How can you continue to operate hating half the country,
not wanting half of the country's eyeballs to look at you.
I mean, it's the secret to why Fox Why has
Fox News been successful? Why is it far and away
the biggest cable news channel. It's not rocket science. It's

(17:58):
because it's the only place that doesn't actively despise conservatives
and actually is like okay with their eyeballs on their
network when we return. A couple of thoughts from the
Kirk memorial itself, A couple of thoughts on President Trump's

(18:20):
remarks and Erica Kirk's remarks. That's next on the John
Girardi Show. A couple of thoughts from the Kirk memorial yesterday.
I think the consensus is that the highlight of the
whole event was Erica Kirk's speech and capped off by
her declaring that she forgave the young man who killed

(18:43):
her husband, which I think is an incredibly powerful Christian moment.
I mean, I don't think there's much more I'm going
to be able to add to it. To see someone
in that kind of a nationwide spotlight demonstrate Christian charity
in that sense was really remarkable and a beautifully profound

(19:08):
lesson to an extent that it sort of outshines, even
outshown even the President, I thought. I think a little
bit of the reaction to President Trump's address was a
little silly, Like Trump gets up and says, oh, Eric
is a better person than I am. You know, she

(19:29):
and Charlie would have wanted us to forgive our enemies.
I don't want to forgive my enemies. I want what's
bad for them. And I feel like he's kind of
it's one of these funny Trump things where he's kind
of joking. He's sort of not joking also though, but
also like he's sort of acknowledging he knows that this
isn't the best thing. I feel like people took that

(19:55):
a little more seriously than they needed to. And maybe
he's talking about doesn't wish the worst for people in
a way that I I don't know Trump's saying, I
don't want what's best for them. Well, I think Trump
doesn't want worldly success for them. But it is kind
of interesting how Trump. I'm not saying Trump's like the
greatest Christian in the world. And I feel like there

(20:16):
are a lot of people on the right who want
to put this ascribe some sort of broad, grander Christianity
to Trump than I think he necessarily deserves. But I
do think Trump actually is more forgiving of people than
some would say. It seems like people tick him off

(20:38):
and then the relationship never totally ends. Like even at
the Kirk thing, he's hanging out with Elon Musk, and
you know, after Elon Musk said horrible things about him
that were completely unjustified. So oh, because Trump's in the
Epstein files, that's why he didn't release them, which was sheer,
which was unjustifiable, ridiculous nonsense on Kirk's part, excuse me

(21:03):
on Musk's part. And there's Trump trying to you know, hey,
trying to be buddy buddies with him. I feel like
Trump has been you know, Trump was nice to Joe
Biden at different times after the election was over. I
don't know anyway I think this, I don't know. I
think Trump's refusal to forgive his enemy's idea is I

(21:29):
think maybe a bit overstated. Anyway, the Erica Kirk thing though,
outshone everything else, and it was such a tremendous moment
of grace that it's a I think it's a model.
I think it's a model for everybody who saw it
that that that is kind of what the price of

(21:49):
Christian discipleship really is. So, you know, it was a
beautiful thing. It was a beautiful thing to see that.
I'm gonna shift gears now, going to talk a little
bit about leaked truth socials from Trump to Pam Bondy
and liberals fretting about the quote independence of the Justice Department.

(22:10):
This is next on the John Girardi Show. I want
to talk about this story. The media is clutching at
pearls over what seems to have been Trump wanting to
send a message, a private message to someone, and then
it accidentally got posted as a public thing on his
truth Social account. It looks like a message on truth

(22:33):
Social that Trump was trying to send to Pam Bondy,
the attorney general, and it looks like it's Trump urging
her to prosecute a couple of people, he writes Pam,

(22:58):
And this was again, and this was apparently it seems
like this was a private message and Trump accidentally posted
it publicly, Pam. I have reviewed over thirty statements in
posts saying that essentially same old story as last time.
All talk, no action, nothing is being done. One about
Comy Adam shifty shift, Letitia as in Leticia James, the
Attorney General of New York. They're all guilty as hell,

(23:21):
but nothing is going to be done. Then we almost
put in a Democrat supported US attorney in Virginia with
a really bad Republican past, awoke rhino who was never
going to do his job. That's why two of the
worst Democrat senators pushed him so hard, even lied to
the media and said he quit and that we had
no case. No I fired him, and there is a
great case, and many lawyers in legal pundits say so.

(23:43):
Lindsay is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot.
We can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation in credibility.
They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing.
Justice must be served now, President DJT. So it seems
like it's Donald Trump was trying to private or directly
message Bondie, telling her to advance cases against various Trump

(24:06):
foes like Adam Schiff, Letitia James, James Camy. All Right,
so let's talk about this and the criticisms of it.
Now the media is reacting to this with stern, solemn
handrigging about this. Is this threatening the independence of the
Department of Justice? All right? A couple of things to
think first, It is probably unwise for the president to

(24:35):
so directly request although frankly, if he didn't do this,
if he didn't accidentally leak it, then probably wouldn't have
redounded in this way. For the President to so publicly

(24:56):
request that his Department of Justice go after certain specific individuals,
it's probably not helpful for the purposes of a lawsuit.
If BONDI does bring criminal prosecutions against Adam Schiff, Letitia James, etc.

(25:17):
These statements by Trump being public make the case harder
to win. Why, if you're actually going to bring a
criminal case, you have to convince a jury of the
defendant's peers and the defense attorneys can say to the jury,
this is a witch hunt initiated by a vindictive, vengeful politician,

(25:38):
Donald Trump against his political opponents. And that's hard to
overcome when you've got Trump in direct communications to the
Attorney General saying you need to do this now. Again,
this was a communication that wasn't supposed to be public,
but here it is. What Trump should have done. Has
been more discreet about it, the way I'm sure Joe

(25:59):
Biden was. Okay, Joe Biden gets into office, he tries
to get an independent counsel set of that. He knows
exactly what it's gonna be. It's gonna be this absolute
attack dog who's going to go after Donald Trump, left,
right and center every which way possible. Biden is good

(26:21):
at several things. One of them is setting up layers
of plausible deniability between himself and whatever activity is going
on now. It may be strategically unwise of Trump to
do this. I think it harms the ultimate goal he wants,

(26:42):
which he would like some of these people who did
ridiculously bad things over the course of the last eight years.
He would like them to see some form of justice,
including Letitia James who's nakedly political in her going after him.
Adam Schiff, who I think was a horrible demogogue over
the course of the first Trump administration lied to the
American people repeatedly. I think about Russia Gate Trump, and

(27:11):
this is a constant Trump problem. Trump harms the chances
of legal efforts succeeding by talking about them like this
was the case. Even with the Bradley Manning case, where
Trump was tweeting about it and talking publicly about that

(27:31):
they ought to throw the book at this Bradley Manning,
that the soldier who leaked all those classified documents and
then decided that he was a transgender woman. Trump talking
about it actively led to the judge freaking out, not
wanting it to look like President Trump was directing the
course of justice there and giving the guy a lighter

(27:54):
sentence than he would have. Trump talking about cases often
actively harms the case at hand. It's this constant pattern
you see with Trump because he has to talk about
things now. In this case, in fairness to Trump, he
meant to talk about this privately. He accidentally posted it publicly.

(28:17):
The thing though, that is driving me nuts about this
is the constant media refrain which happened. It's so silly
how this narrative developed from Trump one to Biden to
Trump too. The so called independence of the Department of Justice,
all right, this is the most obnoxious thing in the world.

(28:40):
Biden kept insisting, I'm going to respect the independence of
the Department of Justice. The media kept saying, it's very
troubling how Trump is threatening the independence of the Department
of Justice. And I feel like a crazy person wanting
to shout from the housetops. The Department of Justice is
not independent. It's criminal prosecution work is not nor should

(29:02):
it be independent of the president. There should be an
appropriate sense in the president's conduct leading the Department of
Justice overseeing the Department of Justice, that justice is being
dispensed fairly and equitably without crass political considerations, that if

(29:31):
a Republican politician were found to be taking bribes or
a Democrat politician were found to be taking bribes, that
the DOJ would prosecute both of them fairly. However, the
Department of Justice is not independent from the president. It
is and needs to be tied to the president and

(29:56):
accountable there too, Dependence leads to accountability. This is just
part of the structure of our constitution, the executive branch,
the executive authority in our government is vested in the president.

(30:22):
End of sentence. That's the very start of Article two
of the Constitution. The president has all of the law
enforcement power in the country. Everyone else is using his
delegated power. Individual US attorneys, the Attorney General herself, they

(30:44):
are all exercising his delegated power. They are all subject
to appointment by him and can be fired by him.
This is what gives the Department of Justice accountability. If
the Department of Justice was just this free floating entity
with no ability for the president to check it, well,

(31:06):
what's to stop the DOJ from just ruining people's lives left,
right and center abusing its power If it's not accountable
to the president. I mean, a Department of Justice that
isn't politically accountable could be one of the most power

(31:32):
abusive entities structures humanly possible, like if it isn't tied
to the presidency. If the Presidency cannot exert its influence
on the Department of Justice by firing the FBI director,
by firing a US attorney who's gone completely wrote, by
firing prosecutors, by by firing whatever. Then we live in

(31:59):
a tyrannical seys. The DOJ has the power to ruin
your life. They can find pretexts to search your house,
to bring charges, to investigate you, to hound you, to
audit you know, through other branches of the federal government,
to audit you. They can ruin your life. And the

(32:21):
only reason they don't, I mean, one of the key
reasons they don't is because they are politically accountable. They
are politically accountable because the president will take crap. If
they do bad things, the president will suffer politically, his
party will suffer politically. Congress will haul the FBI director

(32:44):
or the Attorney General or whoever whomever into Congress and
yell at them and force them under oath to answer
difficult questions. That's the critically important accountability to which the
Department of Justice is subject. So I don't mind the

(33:08):
President directing the DOJ, pointing the DOJ towards prosecuting people
if there is in fact a good case. And that
is what Trump is trying to argue. Trump's trying to
argue to Pam BONDI, Hey, Republican presidents, Republican departments of
justice have been kid gloves in approaching the prosecution of

(33:31):
Democrats who do bad things, and yet when Democrats are
in office they go whole hawk. I'm tired of that mindset.
I think we have good cases here, and I want
you to aggressively pursue them. Now. Trump might be right,
he might be wrong, but I don't think in theory
that's a crazy thing to communicate to your attorney general.

(33:57):
The problem is that once you do it, once you
do communicate that to the Attorney General, it gives sort
of this appearance of, well, the purpose of this is
not genuine law enforcement because of a genuine crime. The
purpose of this is political. And that is again the

(34:17):
only reason why anyone cares about that is because the
DOJ is dependent on the president, tied to the president,
accountable to the president. It's the president saying, in effect, well,
I'm okay with people perceiving this as politicized, because here

(34:39):
I am willing to communicate with the Attorney General about it.
I think it's still worth it. Now. Maybe that's wise,
maybe that's not wise, But I think people try to
present Trump wanting the Department of Justice to prosecute people
for stuff as if it's like a grave threat to

(35:00):
the entire constitutional order, and it just isn't. I think
it's actually, at on one level, it's refreshingly honest. But
that is how the constitutional order is supposed to work.
The President does oversee the Department of Justice, and it
doesn't threaten the DOJ's independence. It is the DOJ's independence.

(35:24):
If the country doesn't like it, they will let the voters,
they will let the politicians know at the next presidential
election or at the next congressional election. When we return
Kamala Harris's political flame out, implosion, whatever word you want
to describe it, I think she is done in big

(35:48):
time Democrat politics, maybe for a decade. That's next on
the John Girardi Show. I've been just tickled to death
by the release of the excerpts from Kamala harris new book,
One hundred and seven Days, the fundamental premise of which
was that if only America had had more exposure to
Kamala Harris, then maybe they would have liked her more.

(36:12):
I would conclude that actually, the less time America had
in Kamala Harris's presence, the better for Kamala. Yeah, I mean,
the fundamental premise was, there's no way she could have
won the election given that she only had one hundred
seven days to run, and she has critiques of the
Bidens for deciding to stay in the race. She has

(36:34):
very unflattering anecdotes that she decided to release about President
Biden and calling her and being a jerk, like anecdotes
that I kind of kind of ring true, frankly. But
she's also just burning so many political bridges. Oh my gosh,
bad anecdotes about Gavin Newsom, bad anecdotes saying flatly, she

(36:58):
didn't pick Pete Bootage because he was gay. And basically,
it's this amazing thing the liberals are able to do
for themselves where they can engage in the kinds of
stereotyping and discrimination that they deplore from the right if
they're doing it in the name of, well, the country
is too racist, sexist, homophobic to handle this. So she

(37:19):
doesn't pick Buddhajid on the grounds that, oh, a country
couldn't have handled it, even though she says he was
the best candidate. So there you go, the exact kind
of discrimination that liberals would say they abhor, not picking
someone because of you know, their sexual orientation or something.
But they're allowed to do it. She throws him under
the bus. She throws Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania,

(37:41):
under the bus. She throws Tim Walls under the bus.
She's burning every bridge possible. I had thought that when
she decided not to run for governor of California, it
was because she was going to run for president. I
don't know, man, seems like she's burning way too many
bridges to try to actually run for president. So we

(38:03):
shall see. That'll do it. Johns already show see you
next time on Power Talk