September 23, 2025 • 51 mins
Charlie Kirk's life was cut tragically short at just 31 years old, but his impact on American politics and conservative thought will endure for generations. We're still processing the shock of his assassination, which has rippled through communities worldwide and revealed deep fractures in our political landscape.
Few figures have accomplished what Kirk did in such a short time. Founding Turning Point USA as a teenager without a college degree, he built a movement that gave voice to young conservatives on campuses across America. His approach was unique – engaging in difficult conversations with political opponents while maintaining a kind, open demeanor that invited dialogue rather than division. This combination of principled conviction and conversational tone made him remarkably effective and beloved by millions.
What's been most striking in the aftermath is the range of reactions. While many mourned deeply – including people who never met him but felt connected through his content – others responded with indifference or even celebration. This troubling dichotomy points to a deeper crisis in our political discourse. The digital age has compounded these issues, with graphic footage spreading rapidly online and context-stripped quotes fueling misrepresentations of Kirk's actual statements.
As we reflect on this tragedy, we're left with important questions: How do we protect ourselves from the psychological impacts of witnessing violence through our screens? Can we disagree with someone's politics while still acknowledging their humanity? And how do we begin healing a political culture that has become so venomous?
Perhaps the most powerful moment came at Kirk's memorial service when his wife Erica forgave his assassin – a testament to the faith-centered values he espoused. As we move forward, the most fitting tribute to Charlie Kirk might be restoring the kind of respectful dialogue he advocated for, where disagreement doesn't devolve into dehumanization, and political violence is universally condemned.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life
Investing Podcast with Jasonand Rachel Wagner Heavy.
Two weeks recently.
We wanted to spend this episodekind of talking about some of
the tragic events that happened,how it impacted ourselves, how
we think that it impacted otherpeople, and let's just get into
(00:20):
it.
Let's talk about Charlie Kirk,all right.
So, rachel, how would youdescribe who Charlie Kirk is?
Let's just go with that Foranybody that literally does not
know who this person is.
Okay, what's the first thingthat comes to mind of who
Charlie Kirk is for you?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I almost feel ill-equipped to do that and I
even told you I almost feelill-equipped to do this podcast
on him, To do that, and I eventold you I almost feel like
ill-equipped to do this podcaston him.
But I guess for us, CharlieKirk was young, relatable guy in
the sense of you know, he'sclose to our age, a little bit
younger actually, and he's fromIllinois, actually from the town
that we're living in now.
(00:58):
He was born here, went to highschool not too far from here,
but as a very young kid about 18, he started an organization
called Turning Point USA.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Did he do that at 18 years old?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I think he started at 18.
He went off to college and thenquit.
Wow, that's insane, yeah, andthis is why I feel a little
ill-equipped to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
It's okay At the end of the day, he started Turning
Point USA, which has turned intothis huge, massive movement of
conservative young people.
And it's amazing because hedidn't go to college right away,
right?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
He never got a college degree.
Yeah, yeah, no-transcript aRepublican, because I think,
(02:14):
historically, republicans thatparty, the Republican parties
changed a lot.
The Democratic parties changeda lot too.
We could talk about that too,but both parties have changed.
But I think conservative remainsrooted in, really, I think,
christianity, arguably.
So he would go around and starthaving conversations for people
.
He stood for having open andhonest conversation and it's
(02:34):
been quoted saying you know whenthe conversation stops, that's
when bad things happen.
And so you know, if you thinkabout the type of political
atmosphere we've been in overthe last I would say mostly six
years, but really even datingback to some of the Obama
administration, we've becomevery polarized and that
(02:56):
polarization and divide has justdeepened and deepened and
deepened and grown with so muchhate and anger, grown with so
much hate and anger.
And so he would go and havethese very heated, emotionally
charged conversations with young, young adults on college
campuses and he was kind andopen and listened and educated.
(03:17):
And so I think, because of thatvery that combination of how he
approached these really heatedtopics, he became very popular.
He became very well known andthis last election he had a huge
impact on Donald Trump gettingelected, jd Vance being chosen
(03:37):
for the VP, trump and Kennedyteaming up, and Kennedy no
longer running independently butteaming up with Trump and now
is obviously the head of HHS.
He had an instrumental role inall of those placements and he
was only 31.
Very young guy but, as we'veseen over the last week and a
(03:59):
half, his impact was worldwide.
It was huge.
It's remarkable.
And it's so remarkable toobecause, as I said, like he, I'm
pretty sure it was 18.
You can fact check me on that,but I'm pretty sure at 18 is
when he had this vision, and notjust the vision and the goal,
but actually did the work tomake it happen and do it, and
(04:19):
that that that's just notsomething you see often.
It's just remarkable and, again, like his demeanor and how he
went about doing it, I think hasis what made him so notable and
what made this loss so, so hugeand so impactful.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, and I think we really saw how impactful he was,
particularly yesterday, becausethat's when they had the
memorial for him.
Um, you know, we saw in thispack stadium we saw the most
powerful people in the UnitedStates at that gathering.
You know, we saw footage fromall over the world of people
(05:00):
chanting Charlie.
I think it was Britain, right,there was footage of people
gathering.
I mean, I think they weregathering for other reasons, but
they also were chanting Charlie.
I think it was Britain, right,there was footage of people
gathering.
I mean, I think they weregathering for other reasons, but
they also were chanting Charlie.
And you're, you're totally right, he had a global impact.
And for a guy that's 31 yearsold, from the Chicago suburbs,
dude, you are never too young toto have an impact, right,
(05:23):
you're never too young to havean impact.
And I, you, you're never tooyoung to have an impact.
And you know, you keep kind ofhearing some stories about him
too.
It's like, you know, he wasn'ta guy that was like going after
the money, he was going after hewas.
He was like pure, he was thisdude that was just full of
Christ.
And you know, faith was alwaysfirst for him, faith and country
(05:45):
and family, like that was hiswhole demeanor, in which, during
a time you think about it, when, when the faith stuff has has,
in my opinion, collapsed upuntil recently, you know where
we saw a downward trajectory.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Especially for that age group.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah Right.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah For being that strongly rooted in his faith,
that young to be out therehaving conversations and
influencing people to findChrist like it's just remarkable
.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It's just remarkable and I'm going to piggyback off
of what you said about how youknow he wasn't, you know, just
out there on camera or on youknow podcasts speaking to this.
But yesterday at the memorialthere were so many people who I
didn't even know who they werecoming up and sharing personal
stories of him doing things andI'll just share a couple of them
(06:39):
.
But there was a woman who heworked with who lost her husband
and she had a young daughter athome and she was sharing how he
supported her during that timeand she shared a story of how
she kind of broke down, wasfeeling like she wasn't
fulfilling her end of herprofessional role working for
him, and his response to her wasfamily first, family first.
(07:07):
And you heard that echoed froma number of people that that was
not just something he said butthat was something he did and
something he supported otherpeople doing too.
He believed that was the mostimportant thing and that that
really struck me for having sucha huge organization and having
that woman have such a criticalrole in just his response to her
.
No, family first, it's, it'sokay, right.
And then another thing that hedid was he would share biblical
(07:28):
verses through his contact list.
He would like go through hiscontact list and send messages
to people of a verse of a day,just because he wanted their day
to be rooted in faith andwanted to share that reminder
and knew that you know your dayis better if you know you read
the scripture and I don't know.
There were so many amazingstories and reflections shared
(07:48):
at his memorial yesterday andthere's a really really cool,
cool guy and I think it's ashame to see such a different
spin on some of the things thathe said floating around out
there right now and I hope thatpeople can find the full text of
things that he said and videosof him having these
(08:11):
conversations and arguments,because really he was very open,
he was very kind and helistened and I think came from a
place of education.
So I guess, like when you'regoing back to your original
question of like who he was,it's like he kind of became this
person that you would see onvideos scrolling through
Instagram of like having thesetough conversations, of like
(08:32):
controversial topics, andthere'd be like a kid on the
other end with the microphone,kind of arguing or yelling or
giving him a tough position, andhe's sitting there smiling like
OK, yeah, yeah, it's good, yeah, cool, like what's your name
and what do you do, and liketrying to make a connection with
them and then giving a verystrong, solid argument back to
them.
That was kind of who he became,I guess he was.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
He was totally effective.
You know he was able to takeany.
You know his best.
One of his favorite lines waslike give me your best liberals,
right and give me your bestarguments.
And char and give me your bestarguments.
And Charlie was always able tocome up with a response that was
, in my opinion, better thananything that they could throw
at him.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
He just truly believed what he spoke.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It was amazing.
It was incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, nothing shook him, like he had an answer well
thought out, well rooted in hisbeliefs and a kind delivery.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Every time I mean I can't say every time right.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Like it's not like I sat there and all that stuff,
but they're not listening to thewhole context of what you said.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
They're not listening to the full context of those
videos.
There are plenty of people.
There's some really greatconservative viewpoint people.
They're black too, which isfantastic.
They give the whole Charlie'snot a racist.
Did you watch the entire video,right?
And they break it down, dude,you can find all kinds of stuff
(10:08):
of that online and of literallysomebody giving you the full
context of it, versus just thesnippet.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, and the full video is out there.
Right and go watch it yourselfand then decide Right.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And so that's the problem, because I actually did
that.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I was seeing this same quote pop up on people's
Facebook.
There were so many comments,man, you could have got totally
lost in the comments the lasttwo weeks on everything that was
going around social media, butthis quote kept coming up in the
comments about something aboutblack women not being educated
or something.
I'm like totally badgering itnow and I'm like gosh, that
doesn't seem like something hewould say, like I want to like
(10:45):
check this out, right, becausethat's wild.
If he did say that and I, ofcourse, looked it up, came
across the full text, but then Ialso wanted to watch it and so
you can listen to the entirething and if you take out that
small little sentence, yes, youcould make that argument, but if
(11:05):
you put it in full context,he's actually saying something
completely different and youhave to watch the full video to
hear it and understand.
He was talking aboutaffirmative action and he didn't
say black women or black people, as I quoted several times.
He was talking about threespecific people.
I don't remember who at all.
I think it was like Joy Reid andMichelle Obama and somebody
(11:26):
else, but he's like you know, acouple of weeks ago, if I would
have said that they were intheir roles because of
affirmative action.
I would have been called aracist.
But he said well, now they'reactually saying that themselves,
because there was a quote ofone of them saying I wouldn't be
where I am right now if itwasn't for affirmative action.
And his argument was well,exactly, you're now saying that
(11:47):
you're not there because of yourcredentials, because of who you
are as a person, because ofwhat you know, because of your
experience, because of all thesethings.
You're saying you're therebecause of the color of your
skin.
And that was his argument,right, is?
I'm not saying that they aresaying that and that should
bother them, right?
Like you shouldn't want to besomewhere because of what you
look, like you should want to besomewhere because of what you
(12:09):
know, what you think, who youare as a person.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That was the context is so good at just picking out.
Here's the little clip andwe're gonna wow.
We can easily take that out andput a narrative behind it.
Yeah, and that's what happenswhen they're good, they're good
(12:32):
at that, like that's, that'swhere the division kind of comes
from.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
They're very good at taking the little snippets, yeah
, putting the narrative behindit and having every single
person rally behind thatnarrative, and that's what's
happened with Donald Trump A lotof the time I won't say all of
the time, but a lot of the timehe is so bad at making easy
(12:57):
snips out of his full contextspeech for them to take and use.
He does it all the time.
And I'm just like dude he does.
Yeah, stop it To the pointwhere I actually.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
He does it all the time and I'm just like dude.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
stop it To the point where I actually think he does
it on purpose.
You know that happens to himall the time.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It can happen to anybody right, but honestly
that's what they do is that theytake these wildly.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
You know, these comments kind of put it together
into a different narrative thatis not even like close to what
you were talking about well, andthen like what happened with
this one too, with charlie, islike people, people bend it like
it starts getting bent becausethey can't remember the exact
quote.
We do that too, right like you.
You paraphrase and then theparaphrase all of a sudden
becomes the quote, and I saw somany times in comments of people
(13:41):
being like him.
He said black women weren'tsmart or something like that,
but he didn't.
He named by name three specificpeople, so that changes.
The narrative, too is he wasn'tgiving this generalization
across the board of all blackwomen.
He was talking specificallyabout something these people
said and their specificpositions.
(14:02):
Like it's just, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I digress yeah, yeah, all right.
So that's that's kind of whatthey do and so that's why you
have so much backlash about.
Well, charlie kirk actually was.
We shouldn't make this guy amartyr.
We shouldn't, you know, makehim a hero for america, because
you literally have, like aoccame out and she was on the on
the floor and she put a wholespeech together about why he
(14:27):
isn't good for it wasn't goodfor America.
I mean, it was.
It was crazy to actually seethat right and post death.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And what happened.
So you know, unfortunately,that's just that's what's coming
from the other side, and sokind of like.
I wanted to go into a little bitlike the moral stuff here, like
what, what is this done for you?
You know, we just saw a guy who, just in our opinion, was a
(14:59):
very big role model for a lot ofpeople.
A lot of young people loved him.
He touched people globally.
And then you've got people thatare like you know, aoc, saying
no, he's not really a role model, like he's not who you thought
he was, and people on the sidelike doing that, like how does
that?
What's your reaction and howdoes it like?
(15:23):
What is your moral statement,kind of say, when you hear
people that are doing that?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I mean, I think I think aoc is entitled to the
opinion to say that he's not amartyr.
I think where I start having anissue with it is like the
vandalizing of the memorialsthat exist out there.
People celebrating his death,people going as far as to say
(15:50):
you know, he deserved it, andI'm happy and grateful to say
that I haven't seen anybody Ipersonally know celebrate it,
which is amazing, because it'svery concerning to see that
those comments do exist outthere.
But there have been people thatwe know who have shared and
said things like I'm not goingto have any empathy for that,
(16:16):
and that is, I think, a hardthing to digest.
What you do with thosefriendships or acquaintances or
family who publicly wants to saythat they don't have any
empathy or any emotional impactfrom this happening.
I think that that's wild to say.
(16:39):
More bothersome for mepersonally just as a mom is is
the arguments that I was seeingas oh, if you know, you care if
it's Charlie Kirk, but you don'tcare if it's a school shooting,
or you don't care about thisMinnesota woman who got shot and
it was.
It was like all this like titfor tat, kind of like arguments
of like oh, everybody's all loudabout Charlie Kirk, but you
(17:02):
weren't loud about this and youweren't loud about this and you
weren't loud about this.
Oh, everybody's all loud aboutCharlie Kirk, but you weren't
loud about this and you weren'tloud about this and you weren't
loud about this and it's likeyou're trying to make your
political point and I think itcomes off ill willed.
I don't know that that wasnecessarily the intent behind
some of those shares, but I willsay, reading those kind of
pissed me off, because I think Ican't imagine there's a single
(17:22):
parent out there who doesn'tfeel every single school
shooting.
And just because you're notpublicly sharing your empathy
for that situation, your feararound that situation, your
thoughts around that, publiclyposting about it all the time
doesn't mean you don't feel it,doesn't mean you aren't aware
about it, doesn't mean you'renot mourning that for those kids
(17:43):
, right.
And it's like I could take it astep further and be like oh
well, you're posting about allthe school shootings but you're
not posting about all the kidswho get shot in Chicago every
year or in other inner cities,right.
It's like we can keep doingthis spinning round and round
and round.
All we want and all that doesis deepen the divide.
But I will say, those posts andthose shares I was seeing from
(18:04):
people, those were hard, thosewere hard to like, not want to
be like oh, unfriend, unfriend,unfriend.
It's like I don't know, thewhole thing is so hard.
But I think, reflecting on likewhat Charlie's mission was, was
to continue to haveconversations, even the
difficult ones that you don'tlike and the people you don't
agree with.
If you kind of lean into that,you know, just let it be.
(18:26):
And I think you can learn a lotfrom like what Erica Kirk said
at the memorial.
Yesterday too, she went upthere and less than two weeks
later told the world that sheforgave the assassin and the
shooter.
Dude, that was the most powerfulstatement I've ever heard in my
life.
Pretty wild thing to say.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
That was the most powerful statement I've ever
heard in my life statement I'veever heard in my life.
Pretty wild thing to say.
That was the most powerfulstatement I've ever heard in my
life.
When I heard it we were liveand we were messing around the
kitchen and, dude, I heard, Iheard exactly what she said on
the TV and I like immediatelygot emotional about that.
I was like holy cow, yeah, howis that even possible?
(19:03):
And I asked.
And then I asked you.
A little bit later I said if Iwas murdered, would you have the
ability to say something likethat?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, and I said no Right.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I said no, I'm not a good enough.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Christian.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Well, right, yeah, no way.
Anyone would probably have thatexact same answer.
Majority of people would havethat exact same answer.
Majority of people would havethat exact same answer.
And I think that just putsErica Kirk on a whole nother
level of who they are, withtheir faith, with understanding
that this was part of the risk,of what their whole mission was,
(19:41):
of what their whole mission was, and it seems that the mission
was accomplished for Charlieright, and what he has done and
what he's been able to influence, and I don't, I don't, I don't
know, but it just it was a verypowerful thing.
(20:02):
It makes you really look at,like you know how you're just
mentioning, like all these well,you know, they said some things
and you know maybe I shouldunfollow, or like there's that
temptation to unfollow,temptation to unfollow on social
(20:24):
media, and it's okay.
If you unfollow me, you don'thave to follow me, that's
totally fine.
You post some things.
I probably will still followyou and that's the like.
But that's my choice because Ikind of want to hear what you
have to say.
If it's inflammatory to a pointwhere, like you know, I probably
had enough of that, well, maybeI might do one of those things.
But at the same time I alsolike to remember that you know,
my friends are the people thatI've known for a while, like to
(20:45):
kind of see how they think andjust hear the differences.
I'm very much in.
I'm very much in in a sense of,like you know, I think we've
identified, you know, some ofthe things that are really
important to us and you know thethe pieces that we want to harp
on a little bit more and maybewe want other people to also be
(21:06):
able to see.
So I'm very much convicted, inkind, of the ways that I think.
So it doesn't bother me ifother people are also the same
way and in the way that theythink.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I think I have a mixed bag.
I think there's definitelypeople that I've gone through
and I've chosen to do theunfollow button, and it's
because I either didn't reallyknow them very well, so didn't
necessarily care what they hadto think or care what they had
to say If you don't really havea much of a history behind them.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Okay, Whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And then there's people where you know I do care
what they think, but I felt likeit wasn't a good choice to
remain Like it wasn't a goodchoice to remain like.
It wasn't a good choice to keepfollowing and seeing content
that made me upset andpotentially change the way I
view them, and I wanted tomaintain that friendship and
connection.
So I chose to either unfollowor mute or whatever.
(21:55):
Right, I think there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can do it.
I have like strategicallychanged my Instagram logarithm
to be like Babies, puppies,homeschool, like no news.
I kind of get my news from youat this point and the last week.
That's probably going to changemy logarithm a little bit.
But I have like purposelyChosen to be like homeschool
Kids, babies, puppies, all happythings because I didn't want to
(22:17):
see all the Crap on Instagramanymore.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I also think that how did you feel when you first
heard about Charlie Kirk gettingshot?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know, it was one of those moments like I will
never forget where I was when Ifirst heard about 9-11 when I
was a kid.
I'll never forget where I waswhen Donald Trump got shot.
I'll never forget where I waswhen we found out Charlie Kirk
got shot.
You and I have these likemoments in the day where we'll
kind of like meet in the kitchenand we both kind of like dump
(22:51):
on each other all the thoughtsthat we've had built up over the
last like four hours.
You know, like we had like 20questions for each other and
like, oh, did you hear this?
Did you hear this?
Did you hear this?
And so we both like have ourphones out and we're talking
about I don't know something,and leading report came up on x
and said charlie kirk had beenshot and we just both looked at
(23:13):
each other like what?
Like it was like a a moment ofwhat that?
That can't be like.
I remember your face.
I remember us both standing inthe middle of the kitchen
looking at our phones, havingthese like back and forth brain
dumps of what we needed to talkabout and then just stopping and
being like what you know?
(23:34):
Then you immediately turn onthe news, try to figure out
what's going on.
And there was all these, youknow, these mixed reports of
he's been stabilized.
He's in critical condition.
I know I talked to somebody atthe girls' school.
So I remember going to pick upLayla and I was talking to one
of the teachers there Herhusband's a police officer and
(23:57):
she said that the policedepartment was saying that he
had passed, and so I remembercoming home and sharing that
with you and the news was stilleverybody was trying to
speculate what, what happened,and of course we later learned
that that he did pass and it wasjust crazy.
It's just crazy, I mean,because, like we said, like so
(24:19):
young, not holding any politicaloffice, so young, not holding
any political office not thatthat makes it okay or anything,
but like literally just a personwho's out there having
conversations with young adultsand people he might have been.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I mean, he was the most powerful up-and-coming
young person that didn't hold anoffice like Like, didn't have
any real power.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
He was arguably more powerful than people in office
because of, like I said, hisinfluence.
Yeah, His influence, like yousaid, for it was, it was another
.
I mean we think he was probablygoing to be JD Vance's VP pick.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Who knows, Nobody said that, but yeah, he would
have been old enough.
I thought he instantly couldhave been president.
I mean, he could have beenpresident for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Trump even came out and said that Could have been
president someday, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I mean he that would you know this?
This shooter took out what wehad to look forward to Like this
big.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
This big name, I mean they, the person that shot him
took out somebody that couldhave had a huge influence for
the next 30, 40, 50 years yeah,50 years, yeah, for sure, that
(25:50):
is.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's the type of person that they took out.
Yeah, it was.
It was instantly felt too,because it it's a young guy, you
know, like you said, kind ofour age, young kids, young
family.
Just those kids are, you know,gonna grow up without their dad
and they're young enough thatthey won't have those memories.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I just can't imagine, you know, putting yourself.
And that's where, like, thehumanity part of it came from.
Right it's, there were peoplecelebrating this guy's death and
you know, and they didn'tremember, or maybe they did, but
they just didn't put enoughfocus on it.
This guy was a racist.
He probably deserved it.
He shouldn't have been sayingthe things that he did.
(26:28):
He probably deserved it, andthat's just.
It's literally insane to saythat about anybody dying,
especially if they have a familyand they're a young family and
they're all young.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, family, and they're all young, yeah, and
kind of what I was talking aboutearlier, with the people
talking about, like the other,like woman in Minnesota who held
office and she was a Senatorit's.
It's not that his life was moreimportant than hers or more
important than these childrenwho are victims of gun violence,
right, like that is not true.
All of these life lives areequally important.
(27:03):
The difference is the impact.
They're not all as impactful ashe was worldwide and I think
you can easily think of that oflike, when somebody you know
passes away, there's a funeralof their family and friends and
people that knew them, and it'stypically in a funeral home and
(27:26):
a gathering of people.
Charlie Kirk was a name knownworldwide, so his impact was
different.
That doesn't mean the value ofhis life was different.
So when I was seeing thosethings posted, it was upsetting
because I like, I'm not no, Idon't think anybody was sitting
here not mourning the otherthings that had happened, right,
(27:51):
but people are dying every day.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It was the naiveness of people not knowing how
important he was, impactful, howimportant and impactful like
important to the conservativemovement, and impactful in every
, in everybody's life.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
That followed and listened to him and respected
him because he was.
He was very good at socialmedia.
He had a lot of footage outthere.
He had a talk show.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
You know a very successful podcast.
Millions of people would listento his podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I had several people message me that day as that was
happening, and from multiplepeople.
People were saying I have nevercried over somebody I didn't
like.
I have never cried this muchover somebody I didn't know
dying.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I've heard people say that too.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, it was, so was so many people, and that was
certainly true for me too isthere are multiple days of being
emotional and new news comingout making emotional the
memorial yesterday, oh my gosh,you know, just so emotional I
also want to talk about, like,how graphic this was too,
because, dude, this image isburned in my head, it's totally
burned in my head.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Dude, this image is burned in my head, it's totally
burned in my head, and I'll findmyself just in a random part of
the day.
For some reason, somethingtriggers it and you know, you
just see it replaying over andover and over again in the back
of your mind and, dude, that isa very big deal.
For a lot of people, that's avery big deal, and the reality
(29:25):
is is that we have cameraseverywhere now and somebody, at
any point, can capture this typeof horror, and it's and it's on
the and it's on the web, andyou'll see it in an instant, and
you may not even be ready tosee it, and it's going to flash
in front of your eyes and itcould permanently hurt you
mentally.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, so right before this happened, there was that
video of that Ukrainian womanwho had been stabbed on the bus,
and I hadn't even heard thisnews yet because, like I said,
my feed has been very filteredout to be happy things.
And I came across the video asI was, you know, scrolling and I
(30:06):
didn't even know what I waswatching until it was too late,
and that image in that video issomething that will never get
out of my head.
And shortly after CharlieKirk's news and video came out,
I had, I saw something onInstagram that was talking about
what we're talking aboutmorning and it was like our
(30:29):
brains are literally notdesigned to process that kind of
trauma and fear and emotion inthe 10 to 15 seconds that you're
seeing it, as you're scrolling,and like you become numb to a
lot of violence and fear whenyou're seeing so much of it and
(30:53):
you're you're scrolling.
It's actually like programmingyour brain differently because
your brain's not designed toprocess that level of emotion
and that level of trauma.
And that really hit me.
And so I actually I took Ithink it was a 36 hour hiatus
from social media, cause I'mlike you're right, like I'm I'm
not supposed to be seeing thesevideos, you know, as I'm looking
(31:15):
at puppies and babies inhomeschool, somebody gets
stabbed on the bus.
So what the hell?
Okay, keep scrolling.
Like that is not how we aresupposed to be functioning as
humans.
That is impacting us in a verynegative way and I signed off
and had to disconnect and feel.
Take the time to feel theemotion.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think you know if you'restill feeling the impact from
this, in which there's so manypeople that are, I don't think
it's okay to assume that allyour friends are okay at this
point, because I think theymight need somebody to talk to.
They might need, you know, justsomeone to connect with.
The reality is is that politicsis very divisive and so it
(31:57):
causes people to talk about itamongst their inner circles or
they don't talk about it at all.
And if you don't have an innercircle, or if you don't let's
just say you don't have a spousethat thinks the same way as you
, you probably don't talkpolitics in your house.
That person that may have aspouse that doesn't talk with
them about what just happenedand how the one person maybe
(32:19):
feels, boy, I hope that personhas a friend that they can call
and talk about this stuff.
Because, I'll tell you this,people want somebody to talk
politics to and they're notcomfortable just sharing with
anybody.
You kind of need to be on theirside Because, especially in a
time of trauma like this, theyneed to be around other people
(32:40):
that are grieving and feelingthe same way and what they
certainly don't want to bearound other people that are
grieving and feeling the sameway, and what they certainly
don't want to be around ispeople that are saying, oh, I
feel bad about this situation,but he probably deserved it.
That's absolutely what we don'twant to be around, and so all I
would say is I would encourageis just check in on your friends
, check in on your family,because you know, I'm I'm
(33:06):
thankful for you, right Cause weget to talk about this stuff
all the time.
We can do it unfiltered andit's, it's fantastic.
But you know, I'd be, I'd belying to you if I said that I
wasn't impacted by watching hisdeath over and over and over
again, because you know what.
Somebody on the left did thesame thing watched his death
(33:29):
over and over and over again,and that, I think, is like
traumatizing Can be.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, as it should be .
It should be traumatizing towatch a death over and over
again, right, and I think whatwas really disturbing is seeing
opposite reactions.
There's a video of someone whocheered in the crowd right after
it happened, which is wild.
There was a video that we sawof a mom videoing her two kids
(34:02):
being like.
What was the question?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It didn't have to.
That video didn't have to dealwith Charlie Kirk.
That video had to deal with you.
Want to know what the greatestnews in the world is?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And so, and the kid said Donald Trump got shot, yeah
, and or Elon Musk got shot,yeah.
And the mom is sitting therelaughing no, no, taylor Swift
and Travis Kelsey got engaged.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Right, I know that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, is that the one you were talking about?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about.
I know that wasn't aboutCharlie Kirk, but that video I
think was circulating duringthis time because of what those
kids were saying was circulatingduring this time because of
what those kids were saying, andthat I think is an upsetting
thing to see, is that there arepeople who are celebrating and
teaching the level of hate tocelebrate the death of somebody.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Right, right, why, why would we ever do that?
Why would you ever want toteach your children Children?
Why would you ever want tothink children?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
children why?
Speaker 1 (35:03):
would you ever want to think, dude, I will be so
happy.
One of the greatest things inthe world will be if donald
trump dies from an assassin,yeah, or just dies like, why
insanely disturbing why is thatever a thing that should cross
your mind?
it shouldn't, and this this isjust the moral aspect of this is
(35:24):
, in my opinion, these moralsare like.
They're not hard to comprehend,they're not hard to the common
sense.
Is not that hard here?
It's.
Oh my God, this young man whohas a family just got murdered
in cold blood on a collegecampus in front of 3,000 people.
That is an awful tragedy, andthere's nothing else from what
(35:50):
it is.
That is an awful, awful tragedy, and so that is how you should
be feeling.
There should be no other.
Yeah, but no, there shouldn'tbe any of that.
If this were to happen tosomebody on the left, I would
literally feel the exact sameway.
(36:11):
Replace that person withsomebody on the left that you
think makes a huge impact inyour life, that you idolize,
that you could be president oneday and replace Charlie Kirk
with that person.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, I'm going to use the example of Joe Biden,
because I despised most of hispresidency and most of be in
that role, because it was veryclear and very evident that he
(36:56):
was not well.
And so there was this humanaspect of it, of feeling like
this is elder abuse.
What they were doing to thatguy.
He was so drugged up just toget through speeches and he
didn't know where he was going.
He fell so many times Off thebike oh my God, I mean just so.
So many times, you know hecouldn't, he didn't know where
he was going.
He fell so many times Off thebike.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Oh my God, I mean just so so many times.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You know he couldn't, he didn't know where he was,
what he was doing, he didn'tknow what year it was.
Like he's just like clearly notmentally fit to have held that
office.
I will maintain that argumentall day long.
And so, despite the fact beingsuper upset with the decisions
and everything that washappening with him politically,
there was still this piece of methat was just like dude, that
(37:35):
poor guy, that poor guy is Idon't know.
I felt like he was a puppet,that he was a puppet for the
left and there's a human aspectof that.
Like that guy needs to be in anursing home.
Sorry, but he did yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
So if joe biden was the one sitting in that chair,
dude, you would feel awful, youwould feel awful because, again,
it's just the act.
It's the act of.
I cannot believe that.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
We just witnessed this and we are traumatized yeah
, and I think seeing thisfootage the next layer of that
was the fear of like.
There's this awful trauma thatjust happened, that we just saw
and that we just witnessed, andthen I think there's a huge,
great sense of fear.
It was like it was just a few,you know, weeks ago that the
(38:26):
school shootings came back intoplay, and then there was one
that exact same day of charliekirk, and so I think, just like
this level of fear of like well,I agreed with what he said.
So does that make me a target?
I'm a Christian.
Does that make me a target?
I've got a husband who's veryvocal and opinionated on social
media.
Does that make him a target?
Right, we send our kids to anoutspoken, you know private
(38:48):
school.
Does that make them a target?
It's like, all of a sudden,this trauma now creates this,
this, you know, fear.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, actually, trump said it last night.
The bullet was pointed at him,but it was actually pointed at
all of us, right, that's.
That's the type of reaction.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, I think everybody felt that, not
everybody.
I think a lot of people feltthat.
I know many people felt thatbecause I had conversations with
people about that Peoplequestioning school choice,
people questioning going tochurch and feeling safe doing
that, people questioning, youknow, walking down the street, I
mean.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
There's a guy.
There's a guy that he's apopular streamer I just came
across.
I think his name is Destiny,and he said well the right, if
they're not fearful of beingkilled at events, that they're
speaking at like we have aproblem.
Like he said, that they need tobe fearful of being killed at
(39:47):
events.
I'm glad I didn't see thatthese are the deranged folks
that are in the world, thatactually have people following
them and they say these things.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Well, yeah, some of the not some, a lot of the news
networks were talking about thelevel of acceptance that seems
to exist.
They did polls, which you knowyou can take those with a grain
of salt, but they were sharingpolls on their news network
about age ranges of people whothink it's okay to be killed for
something that you say or standfor, and that was it was like
34%, it was-.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
It was 34% that people Hugely high.
It was Harvard, it wasHarvard's campus that said.
34% said it was okay to haveviolence.
Silence political rhetoric thatyou don't like.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yeah, that's very scary Holy smokes.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Very scary Holy smokes and it just leads into a
whole other conversation of whatis going on in our schools and
actually, in my opinion, this isa very what we've recognized
and, after doing evenself-reflection, the education
system is totally captured bythe left.
College is where liberals areborn.
They teach you.
All they need is first semesterto teach you the things that
(41:07):
they want to teach you.
To make you feel the UnitedStates has always been
inherently you.
To make you feel the UnitedStates has always been
inherently racist, to give youthe guilt and all of these
things which has ultimately ledto violence here.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yeah, I definitely think it's being taught and I
don't know.
I'm grateful our kids are notheading to college right now
because I don't know that wewould be sending them at this
particular time.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
No, but you know what I think, what's okay I do want
to talk about why did CharlieKirk choose college campuses?
Right, this is a big thing.
Charlie Kirk chose to talk oncollege campuses, anywhere that
he could set up a little tent.
He did that specificallybecause the guy knew that the
education system was captured.
The guy knew that this is whereliberals learn all of their
(42:02):
liberal ideas.
It's taught by professors thatlean that way.
I mean, you could just youcould see it in statistics of
you know, the first time I foundout about it was before the
election last year.
It was probably about a yearago, when Elon Musk had shared a
stat that basically broke downall the majors and how they
leaned and it was overall.
(42:25):
All of the college campuses aretaught by left-leaning
professors.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Which was our experience, which was our
experience.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Which was our experience by far.
I mean, we had convocations.
They required us to go learnabout white privilege year one
First, taking a step ontocollege campus.
We didn't tell you about whiteprivilege and all of this stuff,
yeah, and then we want you towrite about it and give your
opinion and a lot of those, andthen I'll get the arguments of
(42:57):
like well, jason, you think thatyou shouldn't learn about that
stuff?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I don't and I believe in economic privilege.
I do think that is a thing.
I think there is a very clearargument to say that somebody
who grows up poor versussomebody who grows up
financially privileged has avery different starting base and
starting point.
I think that is clear and Itruly believe that's the root of
(43:21):
what they're trying to saywhite privilege is.
But I think they're doing it inactually an arguably racist way
by trying to say that the colorof your skin makes you more or
less privileged, and you knowyou can bring up examples that
counter argue that and theydon't want to hear it.
But the root of where theprivilege I think comes from is
(43:45):
finance and family.
Do you have two parents presentand do you have the financial
capability to eat and haveshelter and have opportunity?
I think that is where privilegecomes from.
I don't.
I personally don't believe itcomes from race, so do I think
it should be wanting to knowpeople as people, wanting to
(44:11):
know their souls, wanting toknow their capabilities, wanting
to know their experience, and Ithink I talked about that when
we talked about our collegeexperiences.
I got in an argument with theprofessor who, you know,
disagreed, but I feel verystrongly about that.
I you know, I don't know Idon't need to go into the
(44:32):
example again, I guess but Well,it just goes to show that this
stuff has been going on for along time.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
We graduated in 2000, 2012, 2011.
And at the school that we wentto, this was being talked about
back then.
It's been going on for a longtime.
Charlie Kirk was the only one.
I mean, he was four or fiveyears younger than us.
Okay, he brought the defense tothese other students.
(45:07):
He was he probablysingle-handedly, and, which is
totally true.
Trump said it again last night.
They got the most voters out ofyoung people that they've ever
had, the Republican Party hasever had, and it had to have
been because of Charlie.
A lot of the professors wouldlike to plant in your head and
(45:38):
give you the counter argument tothat without making you feel
like you're a racist, right,nobody ever wants to fall into
that category of being called aracist, but if you noticed it,
being called a racist all of asudden just started happening.
That wasn't happening when wewere in college.
You remember that happening in2012, 2011?
People would just people beingcalled racist?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
yeah, no no, that wasn't a thing and it wasn't a
thing to be called left-leaningor right-leaning it wasn't a
thing until george floyd yeah,yeah, I mean that's when it
really started being thrown outthere like people.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah, that's when it became mainstream, being thrown
out there Like people.
Yeah, that's when it becamemainstream, right?
Yeah, very mainstream.
You could just label somebody aracist for anything that you
wanted.
Yeah, there was some underlyingtones that existed before that,
like it was starting to exist,but yeah, yeah, but at the end
of the day, all of this stuffwas being taught and eventually
(46:30):
we had a boiling over point,okay.
And so now we've had Charlie,who has been able to infiltrate
these campuses with TurningPoint USA.
Give them the counter arguments, make these young people feel
that no, there's a better wayand in my opinion, I think we're
(46:55):
probably going to see collegesreally shift over the next
decade Is that we're going tosee colleges really shift over
the next decade?
I think they're going to leanmore towards the center.
I think there's going to be alot of liberal ideas that get
tabled and I think by the timethat we send our children over
to college, it's going to be aplace where we want to do that.
(47:19):
That's my hope, that's myCharlie Kirk legacy thing that I
think that he's going to.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
That's very optimistic.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Oh, I, I, I think.
I think that's a thing, I thinkthat's so.
The man will leave a legacy.
The man has already he's doneso many things in his 31 years.
I mean I can't.
I can't believe how young hewas.
I can't believe he grew up herein the suburbs.
We went to his memorial that wasin Arlington Heights.
(47:45):
I stopped there myself justonce and I remember I walked up
to a guy.
He was just kind of greetingpeople that were walking up and
I asked him if he was one of theorganizers and he's like no,
I'm actually just one of thedefenders.
He said the city or the Parksand Rec here they actually
wanted to take down the memorial.
You know, not far after when wehad kind of the memorial
(48:08):
gathering, the vigil gathering,day or two later, and he was
like you're not taking this down.
I'll help you move it to adifferent part of this park, but
you're not taking this downunless you arrest me.
This was.
And so I asked him where youknow if he was a local, and now
he said he's in the South Loop,but he had stayed there until
(48:31):
like three in the morning,morning, making sure that like
nothing was going to happen toit.
And this was an older guy,probably put him in his 60s, but
he was a nice guy.
And then I saw the same.
The same moment, I also saw awoman that was probably your age
that had kids just like ours,two girls, well-dressed.
She brought them herself.
(48:52):
There was no dad with them, itwas just the mother and the two
girls, and the gentleman I waswith said, hey, if you girls
want to place a flower, youcertainly can.
And he gave them a flower.
And then the mother and the twogirls, they said a prayer.
And this guy, he just startedbawling his eyes out as he
(49:15):
started watching this and Iasked him if he ever knew
Charlie.
And he didn't.
But that's the type of impactthat people felt.
Is that what you said?
I've never heard of so manypeople that have never met a man
cry like this.
(49:35):
And this was a grown man and hedidn't look like you know,
didn't look like a soft guy.
But that's what that's.
That's what Charlie kind ofstood for man, he was strong and
this was a big blow to thehearts of many people.
So I don't want to downplay anyof his life at all.
(49:57):
He was, he was amazing, and soI'm really glad that they
honored him the way that theydid.
They treated it, as you know, agathering of the Republican
party, and they had a lot ofgreat speeches talking about
Charlie and also, at the sametime, the great things that
Charlie was able to help themaccomplish as a Republican Party
(50:21):
, and how there is so muchmomentum.
Is that, even though he is gone, there is so much momentum and
so much good that is coming fromhis doing, and wouldn't we all
like to leave a legacy like that?
Oh my gosh.
So, anyways, good stuff,anything else you want to add no
(50:47):
, I don't think so.
Yeah, okay, all right.
Well, if you found any value inthe show, please share it.
Otherwise we will catch you onthe next episode.
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life
Investing Podcast with Jasonand Rachel Wagner Heavy.
Two weeks recently.
We wanted to spend this episodekind of talking about some of
the tragic events that happened,how it impacted ourselves, how
we think that it impacted otherpeople, and let's just get into
(00:20):
it.
Let's talk about Charlie Kirk,all right.
So, rachel, how would youdescribe who Charlie Kirk is?
Let's just go with that Foranybody that literally does not
know who this person is.
Okay, what's the first thingthat comes to mind of who
Charlie Kirk is for you?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I almost feel ill-equipped to do that and I
even told you I almost feelill-equipped to do this podcast
on him, To do that, and I eventold you I almost feel like
ill-equipped to do this podcaston him.
But I guess for us, CharlieKirk was young, relatable guy in
the sense of you know, he'sclose to our age, a little bit
younger actually, and he's fromIllinois, actually from the town
that we're living in now.
(00:58):
He was born here, went to highschool not too far from here,
but as a very young kid about 18, he started an organization
called Turning Point USA.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Did he do that at 18 years old?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I think he started at 18.
He went off to college and thenquit.
Wow, that's insane, yeah, andthis is why I feel a little
ill-equipped to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
It's okay At the end of the day, he started Turning
Point USA, which has turned intothis huge, massive movement of
conservative young people.
And it's amazing because hedidn't go to college right away,
right?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
He never got a college degree.
Yeah, yeah, no-transcript aRepublican, because I think,
(02:14):
historically, republicans thatparty, the Republican parties
changed a lot.
The Democratic parties changeda lot too.
We could talk about that too,but both parties have changed.
But I think conservative remainsrooted in, really, I think,
christianity, arguably.
So he would go around and starthaving conversations for people
.
He stood for having open andhonest conversation and it's
(02:34):
been quoted saying you know whenthe conversation stops, that's
when bad things happen.
And so you know, if you thinkabout the type of political
atmosphere we've been in overthe last I would say mostly six
years, but really even datingback to some of the Obama
administration, we've becomevery polarized and that
(02:56):
polarization and divide has justdeepened and deepened and
deepened and grown with so muchhate and anger, grown with so
much hate and anger.
And so he would go and havethese very heated, emotionally
charged conversations with young, young adults on college
campuses and he was kind andopen and listened and educated.
(03:17):
And so I think, because of thatvery that combination of how he
approached these really heatedtopics, he became very popular.
He became very well known andthis last election he had a huge
impact on Donald Trump gettingelected, jd Vance being chosen
(03:37):
for the VP, trump and Kennedyteaming up, and Kennedy no
longer running independently butteaming up with Trump and now
is obviously the head of HHS.
He had an instrumental role inall of those placements and he
was only 31.
Very young guy but, as we'veseen over the last week and a
(03:59):
half, his impact was worldwide.
It was huge.
It's remarkable.
And it's so remarkable toobecause, as I said, like he, I'm
pretty sure it was 18.
You can fact check me on that,but I'm pretty sure at 18 is
when he had this vision, and notjust the vision and the goal,
but actually did the work tomake it happen and do it, and
(04:19):
that that that's just notsomething you see often.
It's just remarkable and, again, like his demeanor and how he
went about doing it, I think hasis what made him so notable and
what made this loss so, so hugeand so impactful.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Yeah, and I think we really saw how impactful he was,
particularly yesterday, becausethat's when they had the
memorial for him.
Um, you know, we saw in thispack stadium we saw the most
powerful people in the UnitedStates at that gathering.
You know, we saw footage fromall over the world of people
(05:00):
chanting Charlie.
I think it was Britain, right,there was footage of people
gathering.
I mean, I think they weregathering for other reasons, but
they also were chanting Charlie.
I think it was Britain, right,there was footage of people
gathering.
I mean, I think they weregathering for other reasons, but
they also were chanting Charlie.
And you're, you're totally right, he had a global impact.
And for a guy that's 31 yearsold, from the Chicago suburbs,
dude, you are never too young toto have an impact, right,
(05:23):
you're never too young to havean impact.
And I, you, you're never tooyoung to have an impact.
And you know, you keep kind ofhearing some stories about him
too.
It's like, you know, he wasn'ta guy that was like going after
the money, he was going after hewas.
He was like pure, he was thisdude that was just full of
Christ.
And you know, faith was alwaysfirst for him, faith and country
(05:45):
and family, like that was hiswhole demeanor, in which, during
a time you think about it, when, when the faith stuff has has,
in my opinion, collapsed upuntil recently, you know where
we saw a downward trajectory.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Especially for that age group.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, right, yeah Right.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Yeah For being that strongly rooted in his faith,
that young to be out therehaving conversations and
influencing people to findChrist like it's just remarkable
.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
It's just remarkable and I'm going to piggyback off
of what you said about how youknow he wasn't, you know, just
out there on camera or on youknow podcasts speaking to this.
But yesterday at the memorialthere were so many people who I
didn't even know who they werecoming up and sharing personal
stories of him doing things andI'll just share a couple of them
(06:39):
.
But there was a woman who heworked with who lost her husband
and she had a young daughter athome and she was sharing how he
supported her during that timeand she shared a story of how
she kind of broke down, wasfeeling like she wasn't
fulfilling her end of herprofessional role working for
him, and his response to her wasfamily first, family first.
(07:07):
And you heard that echoed froma number of people that that was
not just something he said butthat was something he did and
something he supported otherpeople doing too.
He believed that was the mostimportant thing and that that
really struck me for having sucha huge organization and having
that woman have such a criticalrole in just his response to her
.
No, family first, it's, it'sokay, right.
And then another thing that hedid was he would share biblical
(07:28):
verses through his contact list.
He would like go through hiscontact list and send messages
to people of a verse of a day,just because he wanted their day
to be rooted in faith andwanted to share that reminder
and knew that you know your dayis better if you know you read
the scripture and I don't know.
There were so many amazingstories and reflections shared
(07:48):
at his memorial yesterday andthere's a really really cool,
cool guy and I think it's ashame to see such a different
spin on some of the things thathe said floating around out
there right now and I hope thatpeople can find the full text of
things that he said and videosof him having these
(08:11):
conversations and arguments,because really he was very open,
he was very kind and helistened and I think came from a
place of education.
So I guess, like when you'regoing back to your original
question of like who he was,it's like he kind of became this
person that you would see onvideos scrolling through
Instagram of like having thesetough conversations, of like
(08:32):
controversial topics, andthere'd be like a kid on the
other end with the microphone,kind of arguing or yelling or
giving him a tough position, andhe's sitting there smiling like
OK, yeah, yeah, it's good, yeah, cool, like what's your name
and what do you do, and liketrying to make a connection with
them and then giving a verystrong, solid argument back to
them.
That was kind of who he became,I guess he was.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
He was totally effective.
You know he was able to takeany.
You know his best.
One of his favorite lines waslike give me your best liberals,
right and give me your bestarguments.
And char and give me your bestarguments.
And Charlie was always able tocome up with a response that was
, in my opinion, better thananything that they could throw
at him.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
He just truly believed what he spoke.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
It was amazing.
It was incredible.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, nothing shook him, like he had an answer well
thought out, well rooted in hisbeliefs and a kind delivery.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Every time I mean I can't say every time right.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Like it's not like I sat there and all that stuff,
but they're not listening to thewhole context of what you said.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
They're not listening to the full context of those
videos.
There are plenty of people.
There's some really greatconservative viewpoint people.
They're black too, which isfantastic.
They give the whole Charlie'snot a racist.
Did you watch the entire video,right?
And they break it down, dude,you can find all kinds of stuff
(10:08):
of that online and of literallysomebody giving you the full
context of it, versus just thesnippet.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Well, and the full video is out there.
Right and go watch it yourselfand then decide Right.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
And so that's the problem, because I actually did
that.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I was seeing this same quote pop up on people's
Facebook.
There were so many comments,man, you could have got totally
lost in the comments the lasttwo weeks on everything that was
going around social media, butthis quote kept coming up in the
comments about something aboutblack women not being educated
or something.
I'm like totally badgering itnow and I'm like gosh, that
doesn't seem like something hewould say, like I want to like
(10:45):
check this out, right, becausethat's wild.
If he did say that and I, ofcourse, looked it up, came
across the full text, but then Ialso wanted to watch it and so
you can listen to the entirething and if you take out that
small little sentence, yes, youcould make that argument, but if
(11:05):
you put it in full context,he's actually saying something
completely different and youhave to watch the full video to
hear it and understand.
He was talking aboutaffirmative action and he didn't
say black women or black people, as I quoted several times.
He was talking about threespecific people.
I don't remember who at all.
I think it was like Joy Reid andMichelle Obama and somebody
(11:26):
else, but he's like you know, acouple of weeks ago, if I would
have said that they were intheir roles because of
affirmative action.
I would have been called aracist.
But he said well, now they'reactually saying that themselves,
because there was a quote ofone of them saying I wouldn't be
where I am right now if itwasn't for affirmative action.
And his argument was well,exactly, you're now saying that
(11:47):
you're not there because of yourcredentials, because of who you
are as a person, because ofwhat you know, because of your
experience, because of all thesethings.
You're saying you're therebecause of the color of your
skin.
And that was his argument,right, is?
I'm not saying that they aresaying that and that should
bother them, right?
Like you shouldn't want to besomewhere because of what you
look, like you should want to besomewhere because of what you
(12:09):
know, what you think, who youare as a person.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That was the context is so good at just picking out.
Here's the little clip andwe're gonna wow.
We can easily take that out andput a narrative behind it.
Yeah, and that's what happenswhen they're good, they're good
(12:32):
at that, like that's, that'swhere the division kind of comes
from.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
They're very good at taking the little snippets, yeah
, putting the narrative behindit and having every single
person rally behind thatnarrative, and that's what's
happened with Donald Trump A lotof the time I won't say all of
the time, but a lot of the timehe is so bad at making easy
(12:57):
snips out of his full contextspeech for them to take and use.
He does it all the time.
And I'm just like dude he does.
Yeah, stop it To the pointwhere I actually.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
He does it all the time and I'm just like dude.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
stop it To the point where I actually think he does
it on purpose.
You know that happens to himall the time.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
It can happen to anybody right, but honestly
that's what they do is that theytake these wildly.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
You know, these comments kind of put it together
into a different narrative thatis not even like close to what
you were talking about well, andthen like what happened with
this one too, with charlie, islike people, people bend it like
it starts getting bent becausethey can't remember the exact
quote.
We do that too, right like you.
You paraphrase and then theparaphrase all of a sudden
becomes the quote, and I saw somany times in comments of people
(13:41):
being like him.
He said black women weren'tsmart or something like that,
but he didn't.
He named by name three specificpeople, so that changes.
The narrative, too is he wasn'tgiving this generalization
across the board of all blackwomen.
He was talking specificallyabout something these people
said and their specificpositions.
(14:02):
Like it's just, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I digress yeah, yeah, all right.
So that's that's kind of whatthey do and so that's why you
have so much backlash about.
Well, charlie kirk actually was.
We shouldn't make this guy amartyr.
We shouldn't, you know, makehim a hero for america, because
you literally have, like aoccame out and she was on the on
the floor and she put a wholespeech together about why he
(14:27):
isn't good for it wasn't goodfor America.
I mean, it was.
It was crazy to actually seethat right and post death.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And what happened.
So you know, unfortunately,that's just that's what's coming
from the other side, and sokind of like.
I wanted to go into a little bitlike the moral stuff here, like
what, what is this done for you?
You know, we just saw a guy who, just in our opinion, was a
(14:59):
very big role model for a lot ofpeople.
A lot of young people loved him.
He touched people globally.
And then you've got people thatare like you know, aoc, saying
no, he's not really a role model, like he's not who you thought
he was, and people on the sidelike doing that, like how does
that?
What's your reaction and howdoes it like?
(15:23):
What is your moral statement,kind of say, when you hear
people that are doing that?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I mean, I think I think aoc is entitled to the
opinion to say that he's not amartyr.
I think where I start having anissue with it is like the
vandalizing of the memorialsthat exist out there.
People celebrating his death,people going as far as to say
(15:50):
you know, he deserved it, andI'm happy and grateful to say
that I haven't seen anybody Ipersonally know celebrate it,
which is amazing, because it'svery concerning to see that
those comments do exist outthere.
But there have been people thatwe know who have shared and
said things like I'm not goingto have any empathy for that,
(16:16):
and that is, I think, a hardthing to digest.
What you do with thosefriendships or acquaintances or
family who publicly wants to saythat they don't have any
empathy or any emotional impactfrom this happening.
I think that that's wild to say.
(16:39):
More bothersome for mepersonally just as a mom is is
the arguments that I was seeingas oh, if you know, you care if
it's Charlie Kirk, but you don'tcare if it's a school shooting,
or you don't care about thisMinnesota woman who got shot and
it was.
It was like all this like titfor tat, kind of like arguments
of like oh, everybody's all loudabout Charlie Kirk, but you
(17:02):
weren't loud about this and youweren't loud about this and you
weren't loud about this.
Oh, everybody's all loud aboutCharlie Kirk, but you weren't
loud about this and you weren'tloud about this and you weren't
loud about this and it's likeyou're trying to make your
political point and I think itcomes off ill willed.
I don't know that that wasnecessarily the intent behind
some of those shares, but I willsay, reading those kind of
pissed me off, because I think Ican't imagine there's a single
(17:22):
parent out there who doesn'tfeel every single school
shooting.
And just because you're notpublicly sharing your empathy
for that situation, your feararound that situation, your
thoughts around that, publiclyposting about it all the time
doesn't mean you don't feel it,doesn't mean you aren't aware
about it, doesn't mean you'renot mourning that for those kids
(17:43):
, right.
And it's like I could take it astep further and be like oh
well, you're posting about allthe school shootings but you're
not posting about all the kidswho get shot in Chicago every
year or in other inner cities,right.
It's like we can keep doingthis spinning round and round
and round.
All we want and all that doesis deepen the divide.
But I will say, those posts andthose shares I was seeing from
(18:04):
people, those were hard, thosewere hard to like, not want to
be like oh, unfriend, unfriend,unfriend.
It's like I don't know, thewhole thing is so hard.
But I think, reflecting on likewhat Charlie's mission was, was
to continue to haveconversations, even the
difficult ones that you don'tlike and the people you don't
agree with.
If you kind of lean into that,you know, just let it be.
(18:26):
And I think you can learn a lotfrom like what Erica Kirk said
at the memorial.
Yesterday too, she went upthere and less than two weeks
later told the world that sheforgave the assassin and the
shooter.
Dude, that was the most powerfulstatement I've ever heard in my
life.
Pretty wild thing to say.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
That was the most powerful statement I've ever
heard in my life statement I'veever heard in my life.
Pretty wild thing to say.
That was the most powerfulstatement I've ever heard in my
life.
When I heard it we were liveand we were messing around the
kitchen and, dude, I heard, Iheard exactly what she said on
the TV and I like immediatelygot emotional about that.
I was like holy cow, yeah, howis that even possible?
(19:03):
And I asked.
And then I asked you.
A little bit later I said if Iwas murdered, would you have the
ability to say something likethat?
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, and I said no Right.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I said no, I'm not a good enough.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Christian.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Well, right, yeah, no way.
Anyone would probably have thatexact same answer.
Majority of people would havethat exact same answer.
Majority of people would havethat exact same answer.
And I think that just putsErica Kirk on a whole nother
level of who they are, withtheir faith, with understanding
that this was part of the risk,of what their whole mission was,
(19:41):
of what their whole mission was, and it seems that the mission
was accomplished for Charlieright, and what he has done and
what he's been able to influence, and I don't, I don't, I don't
know, but it just it was a verypowerful thing.
(20:02):
It makes you really look at,like you know how you're just
mentioning, like all these well,you know, they said some things
and you know maybe I shouldunfollow, or like there's that
temptation to unfollow,temptation to unfollow on social
(20:24):
media, and it's okay.
If you unfollow me, you don'thave to follow me, that's
totally fine.
You post some things.
I probably will still followyou and that's the like.
But that's my choice because Ikind of want to hear what you
have to say.
If it's inflammatory to a pointwhere, like you know, I probably
had enough of that, well, maybeI might do one of those things.
But at the same time I alsolike to remember that you know,
my friends are the people thatI've known for a while, like to
(20:45):
kind of see how they think andjust hear the differences.
I'm very much in.
I'm very much in in a sense of,like you know, I think we've
identified, you know, some ofthe things that are really
important to us and you know thethe pieces that we want to harp
on a little bit more and maybewe want other people to also be
(21:06):
able to see.
So I'm very much convicted, inkind, of the ways that I think.
So it doesn't bother me ifother people are also the same
way and in the way that theythink.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yeah, I think I have a mixed bag.
I think there's definitelypeople that I've gone through
and I've chosen to do theunfollow button, and it's
because I either didn't reallyknow them very well, so didn't
necessarily care what they hadto think or care what they had
to say If you don't really havea much of a history behind them.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Okay, Whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And then there's people where you know I do care
what they think, but I felt likeit wasn't a good choice to
remain Like it wasn't a goodchoice to remain like.
It wasn't a good choice to keepfollowing and seeing content
that made me upset andpotentially change the way I
view them, and I wanted tomaintain that friendship and
connection.
So I chose to either unfollowor mute or whatever.
(21:55):
Right, I think there's a lot ofdifferent ways you can do it.
I have like strategicallychanged my Instagram logarithm
to be like Babies, puppies,homeschool, like no news.
I kind of get my news from youat this point and the last week.
That's probably going to changemy logarithm a little bit.
But I have like purposelyChosen to be like homeschool
Kids, babies, puppies, all happythings because I didn't want to
(22:17):
see all the Crap on Instagramanymore.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I also think that how did you feel when you first
heard about Charlie Kirk gettingshot?
Speaker 2 (22:28):
You know, it was one of those moments like I will
never forget where I was when Ifirst heard about 9-11 when I
was a kid.
I'll never forget where I waswhen Donald Trump got shot.
I'll never forget where I waswhen we found out Charlie Kirk
got shot.
You and I have these likemoments in the day where we'll
kind of like meet in the kitchenand we both kind of like dump
(22:51):
on each other all the thoughtsthat we've had built up over the
last like four hours.
You know, like we had like 20questions for each other and
like, oh, did you hear this?
Did you hear this?
Did you hear this?
And so we both like have ourphones out and we're talking
about I don't know something,and leading report came up on x
and said charlie kirk had beenshot and we just both looked at
(23:13):
each other like what?
Like it was like a a moment ofwhat that?
That can't be like.
I remember your face.
I remember us both standing inthe middle of the kitchen
looking at our phones, havingthese like back and forth brain
dumps of what we needed to talkabout and then just stopping and
being like what you know?
(23:34):
Then you immediately turn onthe news, try to figure out
what's going on.
And there was all these, youknow, these mixed reports of
he's been stabilized.
He's in critical condition.
I know I talked to somebody atthe girls' school.
So I remember going to pick upLayla and I was talking to one
of the teachers there Herhusband's a police officer and
(23:57):
she said that the policedepartment was saying that he
had passed, and so I remembercoming home and sharing that
with you and the news was stilleverybody was trying to
speculate what, what happened,and of course we later learned
that that he did pass and it wasjust crazy.
It's just crazy, I mean,because, like we said, like so
(24:19):
young, not holding any politicaloffice, so young, not holding
any political office not thatthat makes it okay or anything,
but like literally just a personwho's out there having
conversations with young adultsand people he might have been.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I mean, he was the most powerful up-and-coming
young person that didn't hold anoffice like Like, didn't have
any real power.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
He was arguably more powerful than people in office
because of, like I said, hisinfluence.
Yeah, His influence, like yousaid, for it was, it was another
.
I mean we think he was probablygoing to be JD Vance's VP pick.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Who knows, Nobody said that, but yeah, he would
have been old enough.
I thought he instantly couldhave been president.
I mean, he could have beenpresident for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Trump even came out and said that Could have been
president someday, yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I mean he that would you know this?
This shooter took out what wehad to look forward to Like this
big.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
This big name, I mean they, the person that shot him
took out somebody that couldhave had a huge influence for
the next 30, 40, 50 years yeah,50 years, yeah, for sure, that
(25:50):
is.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
That's the type of person that they took out.
Yeah, it was.
It was instantly felt too,because it it's a young guy, you
know, like you said, kind ofour age, young kids, young
family.
Just those kids are, you know,gonna grow up without their dad
and they're young enough thatthey won't have those memories.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
I just can't imagine, you know, putting yourself.
And that's where, like, thehumanity part of it came from.
Right it's, there were peoplecelebrating this guy's death and
you know, and they didn'tremember, or maybe they did, but
they just didn't put enoughfocus on it.
This guy was a racist.
He probably deserved it.
He shouldn't have been sayingthe things that he did.
(26:28):
He probably deserved it, andthat's just.
It's literally insane to saythat about anybody dying,
especially if they have a familyand they're a young family and
they're all young.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, family, and they're all young, yeah, and
kind of what I was talking aboutearlier, with the people
talking about, like the other,like woman in Minnesota who held
office and she was a Senatorit's.
It's not that his life was moreimportant than hers or more
important than these childrenwho are victims of gun violence,
right, like that is not true.
All of these life lives areequally important.
(27:03):
The difference is the impact.
They're not all as impactful ashe was worldwide and I think
you can easily think of that oflike, when somebody you know
passes away, there's a funeralof their family and friends and
people that knew them, and it'stypically in a funeral home and
(27:26):
a gathering of people.
Charlie Kirk was a name knownworldwide, so his impact was
different.
That doesn't mean the value ofhis life was different.
So when I was seeing thosethings posted, it was upsetting
because I like, I'm not no, Idon't think anybody was sitting
here not mourning the otherthings that had happened, right,
(27:51):
but people are dying every day.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
It was the naiveness of people not knowing how
important he was, impactful, howimportant and impactful like
important to the conservativemovement, and impactful in every
, in everybody's life.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
That followed and listened to him and respected
him because he was.
He was very good at socialmedia.
He had a lot of footage outthere.
He had a talk show.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
You know a very successful podcast.
Millions of people would listento his podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I had several people message me that day as that was
happening, and from multiplepeople.
People were saying I have nevercried over somebody I didn't
like.
I have never cried this muchover somebody I didn't know
dying.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I've heard people say that too.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, it was, so was so many people, and that was
certainly true for me too isthere are multiple days of being
emotional and new news comingout making emotional the
memorial yesterday, oh my gosh,you know, just so emotional I
also want to talk about, like,how graphic this was too,
because, dude, this image isburned in my head, it's totally
burned in my head.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Dude, this image is burned in my head, it's totally
burned in my head, and I'll findmyself just in a random part of
the day.
For some reason, somethingtriggers it and you know, you
just see it replaying over andover and over again in the back
of your mind and, dude, that isa very big deal.
For a lot of people, that's avery big deal, and the reality
(29:25):
is is that we have cameraseverywhere now and somebody, at
any point, can capture this typeof horror, and it's and it's on
the and it's on the web, andyou'll see it in an instant, and
you may not even be ready tosee it, and it's going to flash
in front of your eyes and itcould permanently hurt you
mentally.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, so right before this happened, there was that
video of that Ukrainian womanwho had been stabbed on the bus,
and I hadn't even heard thisnews yet because, like I said,
my feed has been very filteredout to be happy things.
And I came across the video asI was, you know, scrolling and I
(30:06):
didn't even know what I waswatching until it was too late,
and that image in that video issomething that will never get
out of my head.
And shortly after CharlieKirk's news and video came out,
I had, I saw something onInstagram that was talking about
what we're talking aboutmorning and it was like our
(30:29):
brains are literally notdesigned to process that kind of
trauma and fear and emotion inthe 10 to 15 seconds that you're
seeing it, as you're scrolling,and like you become numb to a
lot of violence and fear whenyou're seeing so much of it and
(30:53):
you're you're scrolling.
It's actually like programmingyour brain differently because
your brain's not designed toprocess that level of emotion
and that level of trauma.
And that really hit me.
And so I actually I took Ithink it was a 36 hour hiatus
from social media, cause I'mlike you're right, like I'm I'm
not supposed to be seeing thesevideos, you know, as I'm looking
(31:15):
at puppies and babies inhomeschool, somebody gets
stabbed on the bus.
So what the hell?
Okay, keep scrolling.
Like that is not how we aresupposed to be functioning as
humans.
That is impacting us in a verynegative way and I signed off
and had to disconnect and feel.
Take the time to feel theemotion.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think you know if you'restill feeling the impact from
this, in which there's so manypeople that are, I don't think
it's okay to assume that allyour friends are okay at this
point, because I think theymight need somebody to talk to.
They might need, you know, justsomeone to connect with.
The reality is is that politicsis very divisive and so it
(31:57):
causes people to talk about itamongst their inner circles or
they don't talk about it at all.
And if you don't have an innercircle, or if you don't let's
just say you don't have a spousethat thinks the same way as you
, you probably don't talkpolitics in your house.
That person that may have aspouse that doesn't talk with
them about what just happenedand how the one person maybe
(32:19):
feels, boy, I hope that personhas a friend that they can call
and talk about this stuff.
Because, I'll tell you this,people want somebody to talk
politics to and they're notcomfortable just sharing with
anybody.
You kind of need to be on theirside Because, especially in a
time of trauma like this, theyneed to be around other people
(32:40):
that are grieving and feelingthe same way and what they
certainly don't want to bearound other people that are
grieving and feeling the sameway, and what they certainly
don't want to be around ispeople that are saying, oh, I
feel bad about this situation,but he probably deserved it.
That's absolutely what we don'twant to be around, and so all I
would say is I would encourageis just check in on your friends
, check in on your family,because you know, I'm I'm
(33:06):
thankful for you, right Cause weget to talk about this stuff
all the time.
We can do it unfiltered andit's, it's fantastic.
But you know, I'd be, I'd belying to you if I said that I
wasn't impacted by watching hisdeath over and over and over
again, because you know what.
Somebody on the left did thesame thing watched his death
(33:29):
over and over and over again,and that, I think, is like
traumatizing Can be.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah, as it should be .
It should be traumatizing towatch a death over and over
again, right, and I think whatwas really disturbing is seeing
opposite reactions.
There's a video of someone whocheered in the crowd right after
it happened, which is wild.
There was a video that we sawof a mom videoing her two kids
(34:02):
being like.
What was the question?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
It didn't have to.
That video didn't have to dealwith Charlie Kirk.
That video had to deal with you.
Want to know what the greatestnews in the world is?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And so, and the kid said Donald Trump got shot, yeah
, and or Elon Musk got shot,yeah.
And the mom is sitting therelaughing no, no, taylor Swift
and Travis Kelsey got engaged.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Right, I know that.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, is that the one you were talking about?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about.
I know that wasn't aboutCharlie Kirk, but that video I
think was circulating duringthis time because of what those
kids were saying was circulatingduring this time because of
what those kids were saying, andthat I think is an upsetting
thing to see, is that there arepeople who are celebrating and
teaching the level of hate tocelebrate the death of somebody.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Right, right, why, why would we ever do that?
Why would you ever want toteach your children Children?
Why would you ever want tothink children?
Speaker 2 (35:02):
children why?
Speaker 1 (35:03):
would you ever want to think, dude, I will be so
happy.
One of the greatest things inthe world will be if donald
trump dies from an assassin,yeah, or just dies like, why
insanely disturbing why is thatever a thing that should cross
your mind?
it shouldn't, and this this isjust the moral aspect of this is
(35:24):
, in my opinion, these moralsare like.
They're not hard to comprehend,they're not hard to the common
sense.
Is not that hard here?
It's.
Oh my God, this young man whohas a family just got murdered
in cold blood on a collegecampus in front of 3,000 people.
That is an awful tragedy, andthere's nothing else from what
(35:50):
it is.
That is an awful, awful tragedy, and so that is how you should
be feeling.
There should be no other.
Yeah, but no, there shouldn'tbe any of that.
If this were to happen tosomebody on the left, I would
literally feel the exact sameway.
(36:11):
Replace that person withsomebody on the left that you
think makes a huge impact inyour life, that you idolize,
that you could be president oneday and replace Charlie Kirk
with that person.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Yeah, I'm going to use the example of Joe Biden,
because I despised most of hispresidency and most of be in
that role, because it was veryclear and very evident that he
(36:56):
was not well.
And so there was this humanaspect of it, of feeling like
this is elder abuse.
What they were doing to thatguy.
He was so drugged up just toget through speeches and he
didn't know where he was going.
He fell so many times Off thebike oh my God, I mean just so.
So many times, you know hecouldn't, he didn't know where
he was going.
He fell so many times Off thebike.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Oh my God, I mean just so so many times.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
You know he couldn't, he didn't know where he was,
what he was doing, he didn'tknow what year it was.
Like he's just like clearly notmentally fit to have held that
office.
I will maintain that argumentall day long.
And so, despite the fact beingsuper upset with the decisions
and everything that washappening with him politically,
there was still this piece of methat was just like dude, that
(37:35):
poor guy, that poor guy is Idon't know.
I felt like he was a puppet,that he was a puppet for the
left and there's a human aspectof that.
Like that guy needs to be in anursing home.
Sorry, but he did yeah, right.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
So if joe biden was the one sitting in that chair,
dude, you would feel awful, youwould feel awful because, again,
it's just the act.
It's the act of.
I cannot believe that.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
We just witnessed this and we are traumatized yeah
, and I think seeing thisfootage the next layer of that
was the fear of like.
There's this awful trauma thatjust happened, that we just saw
and that we just witnessed, andthen I think there's a huge,
great sense of fear.
It was like it was just a few,you know, weeks ago that the
(38:26):
school shootings came back intoplay, and then there was one
that exact same day of charliekirk, and so I think, just like
this level of fear of like well,I agreed with what he said.
So does that make me a target?
I'm a Christian.
Does that make me a target?
I've got a husband who's veryvocal and opinionated on social
media.
Does that make him a target?
Right, we send our kids to anoutspoken, you know private
(38:48):
school.
Does that make them a target?
It's like, all of a sudden,this trauma now creates this,
this, you know, fear.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, actually, trump said it last night.
The bullet was pointed at him,but it was actually pointed at
all of us, right, that's.
That's the type of reaction.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Yeah, I think everybody felt that, not
everybody.
I think a lot of people feltthat.
I know many people felt thatbecause I had conversations with
people about that Peoplequestioning school choice,
people questioning going tochurch and feeling safe doing
that, people questioning, youknow, walking down the street, I
mean.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
There's a guy.
There's a guy that he's apopular streamer I just came
across.
I think his name is Destiny,and he said well the right, if
they're not fearful of beingkilled at events, that they're
speaking at like we have aproblem.
Like he said, that they need tobe fearful of being killed at
(39:47):
events.
I'm glad I didn't see thatthese are the deranged folks
that are in the world, thatactually have people following
them and they say these things.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Well, yeah, some of the not some, a lot of the news
networks were talking about thelevel of acceptance that seems
to exist.
They did polls, which you knowyou can take those with a grain
of salt, but they were sharingpolls on their news network
about age ranges of people whothink it's okay to be killed for
something that you say or standfor, and that was it was like
34%, it was-.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
It was 34% that people Hugely high.
It was Harvard, it wasHarvard's campus that said.
34% said it was okay to haveviolence.
Silence political rhetoric thatyou don't like.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Yeah, that's very scary Holy smokes.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Very scary Holy smokes and it just leads into a
whole other conversation of whatis going on in our schools and
actually, in my opinion, this isa very what we've recognized
and, after doing evenself-reflection, the education
system is totally captured bythe left.
College is where liberals areborn.
They teach you.
All they need is first semesterto teach you the things that
(41:07):
they want to teach you.
To make you feel the UnitedStates has always been
inherently you.
To make you feel the UnitedStates has always been
inherently racist, to give youthe guilt and all of these
things which has ultimately ledto violence here.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yeah, I definitely think it's being taught and I
don't know.
I'm grateful our kids are notheading to college right now
because I don't know that wewould be sending them at this
particular time.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
No, but you know what I think, what's okay I do want
to talk about why did CharlieKirk choose college campuses?
Right, this is a big thing.
Charlie Kirk chose to talk oncollege campuses, anywhere that
he could set up a little tent.
He did that specificallybecause the guy knew that the
education system was captured.
The guy knew that this is whereliberals learn all of their
(42:02):
liberal ideas.
It's taught by professors thatlean that way.
I mean, you could just youcould see it in statistics of
you know, the first time I foundout about it was before the
election last year.
It was probably about a yearago, when Elon Musk had shared a
stat that basically broke downall the majors and how they
leaned and it was overall.
(42:25):
All of the college campuses aretaught by left-leaning
professors.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Which was our experience, which was our
experience.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Which was our experience by far.
I mean, we had convocations.
They required us to go learnabout white privilege year one
First, taking a step ontocollege campus.
We didn't tell you about whiteprivilege and all of this stuff,
yeah, and then we want you towrite about it and give your
opinion and a lot of those, andthen I'll get the arguments of
(42:57):
like well, jason, you think thatyou shouldn't learn about that
stuff?
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I don't and I believe in economic privilege.
I do think that is a thing.
I think there is a very clearargument to say that somebody
who grows up poor versussomebody who grows up
financially privileged has avery different starting base and
starting point.
I think that is clear and Itruly believe that's the root of
(43:21):
what they're trying to saywhite privilege is.
But I think they're doing it inactually an arguably racist way
by trying to say that the colorof your skin makes you more or
less privileged, and you knowyou can bring up examples that
counter argue that and theydon't want to hear it.
But the root of where theprivilege I think comes from is
(43:45):
finance and family.
Do you have two parents presentand do you have the financial
capability to eat and haveshelter and have opportunity?
I think that is where privilegecomes from.
I don't.
I personally don't believe itcomes from race, so do I think
it should be wanting to knowpeople as people, wanting to
(44:11):
know their souls, wanting toknow their capabilities, wanting
to know their experience, and Ithink I talked about that when
we talked about our collegeexperiences.
I got in an argument with theprofessor who, you know,
disagreed, but I feel verystrongly about that.
I you know, I don't know Idon't need to go into the
(44:32):
example again, I guess but Well,it just goes to show that this
stuff has been going on for along time.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
We graduated in 2000, 2012, 2011.
And at the school that we wentto, this was being talked about
back then.
It's been going on for a longtime.
Charlie Kirk was the only one.
I mean, he was four or fiveyears younger than us.
Okay, he brought the defense tothese other students.
(45:07):
He was he probablysingle-handedly, and, which is
totally true.
Trump said it again last night.
They got the most voters out ofyoung people that they've ever
had, the Republican Party hasever had, and it had to have
been because of Charlie.
A lot of the professors wouldlike to plant in your head and
(45:38):
give you the counter argument tothat without making you feel
like you're a racist, right,nobody ever wants to fall into
that category of being called aracist, but if you noticed it,
being called a racist all of asudden just started happening.
That wasn't happening when wewere in college.
You remember that happening in2012, 2011?
People would just people beingcalled racist?
Speaker 2 (45:57):
yeah, no no, that wasn't a thing and it wasn't a
thing to be called left-leaningor right-leaning it wasn't a
thing until george floyd yeah,yeah, I mean that's when it
really started being thrown outthere like people.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah, that's when it became mainstream, being thrown
out there Like people.
Yeah, that's when it becamemainstream, right?
Yeah, very mainstream.
You could just label somebody aracist for anything that you
wanted.
Yeah, there was some underlyingtones that existed before that,
like it was starting to exist,but yeah, yeah, but at the end
of the day, all of this stuffwas being taught and eventually
(46:30):
we had a boiling over point,okay.
And so now we've had Charlie,who has been able to infiltrate
these campuses with TurningPoint USA.
Give them the counter arguments, make these young people feel
that no, there's a better wayand in my opinion, I think we're
(46:55):
probably going to see collegesreally shift over the next
decade Is that we're going tosee colleges really shift over
the next decade?
I think they're going to leanmore towards the center.
I think there's going to be alot of liberal ideas that get
tabled and I think by the timethat we send our children over
to college, it's going to be aplace where we want to do that.
(47:19):
That's my hope, that's myCharlie Kirk legacy thing that I
think that he's going to.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
That's very optimistic.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Oh, I, I, I think.
I think that's a thing, I thinkthat's so.
The man will leave a legacy.
The man has already he's doneso many things in his 31 years.
I mean I can't.
I can't believe how young hewas.
I can't believe he grew up herein the suburbs.
We went to his memorial that wasin Arlington Heights.
(47:45):
I stopped there myself justonce and I remember I walked up
to a guy.
He was just kind of greetingpeople that were walking up and
I asked him if he was one of theorganizers and he's like no,
I'm actually just one of thedefenders.
He said the city or the Parksand Rec here they actually
wanted to take down the memorial.
You know, not far after when wehad kind of the memorial
(48:08):
gathering, the vigil gathering,day or two later, and he was
like you're not taking this down.
I'll help you move it to adifferent part of this park, but
you're not taking this downunless you arrest me.
This was.
And so I asked him where youknow if he was a local, and now
he said he's in the South Loop,but he had stayed there until
(48:31):
like three in the morning,morning, making sure that like
nothing was going to happen toit.
And this was an older guy,probably put him in his 60s, but
he was a nice guy.
And then I saw the same.
The same moment, I also saw awoman that was probably your age
that had kids just like ours,two girls, well-dressed.
She brought them herself.
(48:52):
There was no dad with them, itwas just the mother and the two
girls, and the gentleman I waswith said, hey, if you girls
want to place a flower, youcertainly can.
And he gave them a flower.
And then the mother and the twogirls, they said a prayer.
And this guy, he just startedbawling his eyes out as he
(49:15):
started watching this and Iasked him if he ever knew
Charlie.
And he didn't.
But that's the type of impactthat people felt.
Is that what you said?
I've never heard of so manypeople that have never met a man
cry like this.
(49:35):
And this was a grown man and hedidn't look like you know,
didn't look like a soft guy.
But that's what that's.
That's what Charlie kind ofstood for man, he was strong and
this was a big blow to thehearts of many people.
So I don't want to downplay anyof his life at all.
(49:57):
He was, he was amazing, and soI'm really glad that they
honored him the way that theydid.
They treated it, as you know, agathering of the Republican
party, and they had a lot ofgreat speeches talking about
Charlie and also, at the sametime, the great things that
Charlie was able to help themaccomplish as a Republican Party
(50:21):
, and how there is so muchmomentum.
Is that, even though he is gone, there is so much momentum and
so much good that is coming fromhis doing, and wouldn't we all
like to leave a legacy like that?
Oh my gosh.
So, anyways, good stuff,anything else you want to add no
(50:47):
, I don't think so.
Yeah, okay, all right.
Well, if you found any value inthe show, please share it.
Otherwise we will catch you onthe next episode.
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