[SPEAKER_04]: Coming up on the pre-choice podcast.
[SPEAKER_06]: At Memorial Service, really, for me, was a direct Christian nationalism and memorial service.
[SPEAKER_06]: They were certainly people with a utilizing, entirely Kirk, but then as the day were on, and more and more trauma administration officials spoke, you can see that they wanted to use his name.
[SPEAKER_06]: to further their agenda.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the question that can come up often is, okay, they want to Christianize the nation, they want to make kids more patriotic, they want to teach biblical values, big what, that sounds great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Why should people be more concerned about the spread of Christian nationalism?
[SPEAKER_09]: Ain't nobody safe In the Bible, oh, in the Bible, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, you're really welcome back to The Prejoy's podcast today on the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sitting down with Dr. Matthew Bodhi, the author of The Seven Mountains, Mandate, exposing the dangerous plan to Christianize America and destroy democracy.
[SPEAKER_04]: And Dr. Bodhi's book was scheduled for release on September 30th, 2025, but of course 20 days before that release date, that the assassination of Charlie Kirk took place.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've mentioned Charlie Kirk a couple times on the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I knew I wanted to talk to Dr. Bodhi about his extensive research on this topic.
[SPEAKER_04]: This represents years of diving into this organization.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's donors, it's power, political connections, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_04]: And obviously, in the wake of the what happened with Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the curiosity I had about how he was processing that as someone who'd been researching for him for so long.
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's now examining the aftermath of this moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, I know some of you have expressed, I mean, it's been a handful of people, the majority have been very supportive, but I know there's been some who go, I don't like that you're leaning into politics or that you're, you know, talking about politics at all.
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, there's a very real thing, I mean, I've been talking to a couple of friends over the last couple of months, I was like, maybe, you know, I enjoy talking about politics and, you know, maybe I could start a political podcast and just filter everything out there.
[SPEAKER_04]: But the truth is, like, there's people way more qualified, way better at articulating it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, way more research and study than I am.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not something I want to become my main focus.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not somebody's interested in just, yapping about politics every single day at the moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's also something where politics is going to come up.
[SPEAKER_04]: As I'm talking about Christian fundamentalism, especially in, you know, 25 in this current moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, every time that I listen to a sermon, every time that I start digging into different organizations, like more often than not.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I won't say every time, but more often than not, there are strong ties to certain political groups and political ideology is leveraged either to advance people into their religion or their religion is used to advance political causes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And those things are just going to come up.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we need to talk about them.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I, I totally have my cards out on the table on this show.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's times that I am being journalistic and reporting on hearsys story.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's what happened.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when some things, my opinion, you know, and I have my own, just like everybody watching, I have my own political ideas about certain things.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I try to make that know.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, hey, this is my opinion, this is what I've noticed.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is what I've seen.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then my guests have the same thing, you know, they're coming from a place where, you know, as a professor who studied this from this perspective, this is what he's seen.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if I talk to someone who's in politics, you know, who has a certain perspective, like,
[SPEAKER_04]: former congressman am kinsinger or linsey boilin who's just recently on the show you know they're gonna have their perspectives as well but i think it's naive to say that politics doesn't belong anywhere near the top because i'm covering regularly on the show i think there is so much cross over there
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's necessary to talk about, and so I'm going to do so.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm five years into the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: I've talked about many different issues, and there's times where there are a, there's a need to cover certain things and more depth.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right now, there's a lot politically happening.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think needs to be discussed.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's an periods where it needs to be the trouble to industry.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's times it needs to be, you know, the public school system.
[SPEAKER_04]: It needs to be law enforcement.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm following these threads where they take me and try to talk about them.
[SPEAKER_04]: in a intelligent way, and where my intelligence or my knowledge fall short, I bring an incredible guest like Dr. Bodhi to talk about these topics.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'll stop talking now and get into that conversation, but I just want you guys to know the mindset going to these, like I'm not trying to pivot into being a David Pacman or a Sam Seater or the young Turks or Ben Shapiro or whatever side or angle or commentator you want to throw in there.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm certainly not trying to be a Ben Shapiro though.
[SPEAKER_04]: very clear there.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I'm trying to talk about these organizations, I've tried to talk about it fairly, try to talk about them in a way that understands where they're coming from, and engages with what I think are really bad ideas.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, endorse the things that I think are really good ideas.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that's context going to the show, but, you know, for those of you that want me to be radio-style on these topics, it's not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is stuff that's
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to come up and, you know, I'm so thankful for experts like Dr. Bodhi who are pointing up the dangers of things like we're seeing in the Christian nationalist movement, people that are pointing out the really fascist tendencies of the current administration, the attacks on free speech and democracy, and, you know, in all of the ways that the evangelical support of those things, you know, has has taken place.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so,
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, that's the context going to the show.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd love to read you guys' comments.
[SPEAKER_04]: Be sure to leave something in the comments of this video if you're watching on YouTube or on social media if you're watching a clip.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let me know what you think.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love to read your guys' opinions, how these things are landing for you, and your biggest concerns or things that you might think are not a big deal.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love getting to know all of you as an audience.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I love how diverse this audience is.
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's never a shortage of different opinions to filter through.
[SPEAKER_04]: So
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you guys so much for watching, enjoy this conversation with Dr. Matthew, Modi.
[SPEAKER_04]: Dr. Bodhi, thank you so much for joining me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm happy to be here.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mentioned before, he record this has probably been a very interesting and busy couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, first and foremost, for context, for my audience.
[SPEAKER_04]: your book was scheduled to release September 30th, 2025.
[SPEAKER_04]: And a primary focus of the book was Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then two weeks before release or just about two weeks before release, this assassination happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, how did that land for you as someone who's been researching this for years has a book about to come out?
[SPEAKER_04]: And then this totally unprecedented thing happens.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like what was going
[SPEAKER_06]: I certainly thought it was a tragedy.
[SPEAKER_06]: I got choked up there on the right home.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was in the car on the right home when I we got an notification of his death.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had heard about the shooting before.
[SPEAKER_06]: I knew that that could be bad.
[SPEAKER_06]: Especially being on a college campus.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that my next thought after that was obviously his wife is in widow now with two kids.
[SPEAKER_06]: I have two kids.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it was a difficult there a few days.
[SPEAKER_06]: I did some early interviews.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I went back and listened to them.
[SPEAKER_06]: You could just hear in my voice, you know, I'm exhausted, I'm tired, but also I don't want to, I don't want to come across as someone who's just interested in selling a book.
[SPEAKER_06]: Many people do ask about the book at that point, and yeah, as you've kind of alluded to, I've been around the world on, on Zoom, last few weeks.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I don't say that to put myself in the center of the story as I'm sort of expert, though, obviously I'm a book about it, but
[SPEAKER_06]: there was a global interest in not just his death, but in turning point in Charlie Kirk beyond the United States.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I will say, one of the reasons we decided me and the publisher decided to not put him in the title or the subtitle or put his picture on the cover is because
[SPEAKER_06]: we decided most of America did not know who he was, and even if they did, they kind of knew him as a Fox News person, or maybe a college campus person, and then certainly had no idea about the seven mountains.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we went with the unknown thing much more prominently, the most unknown thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yes, the certain that the book was to come out of 30, then it is out, you can buy any bookstore or Amazon, and it was finished, a February-ish.
[SPEAKER_06]: and, you know, have not, have not changed the word in its sense of come out.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it is, it is out there now.
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the things that is, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: Interesting to me right now is like there's a lot of dialogue about what's appropriate to talk about and and you know, I certainly felt the same What and probably not at the same level because you've been so Mesh in this world so you have this kind of almost parasocial relationship.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure with that figure and that organization at this point.
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, like many people, you see something no human being should see that you're considering all these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the first note that I wrote down, because I knew at some point I'd have to talk about it, was, you know, Charlie curse kids are not registered Republicans, you know, and like that was kind of the first thing that came to mind is like, okay, there's this cultural war thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's someone who acted in this extreme way for reasons still not fully known.
[SPEAKER_04]: even though beyond Charlie, which even then was not an acceptable thing, my take away was, I don't know if you agree with this was, I think it's important to talk about the ideals, you know, almost immediately because they're being talked about anyway, and I know how much
[SPEAKER_04]: evangelicals and Christian nationalists love having a martyr.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they're going to try to line ice his ideas.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I think it is appropriate to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But there's also some that go, you know, there hasn't even been a funeral yet, you know, there's there was all those steps along the way people are going, hold on, don't talk about this yet, don't get into the beliefs.
[SPEAKER_04]: What was your approach on that?
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you second guess talking about it immediately like where did you go into that?
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, to be honest with you, within hours of the death being announced, I've got calls from a reporter, so it will you to me was not a choice whether or not I would participate in the conversation, I did it and I did several long form podcasts there the next day.
[SPEAKER_06]: talking about, I think, who he was, again, I would suggest, many Americans did not know who he was.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so at the moment of his death, you're introduced to him and then at the memorial service, you're introduced to turning point, I think, for many people for the first time.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that moral service really, for me, was a direct Christian nationalism and moral service.
[SPEAKER_06]: There were certainly people with a utilizing, entirely Kirk, but then as the day were on and more and more.
[SPEAKER_06]: Trump administration officials spoke, you can see that they wanted to use his name to further their agenda.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you had this stark contrast at the end.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll see with Erica Kirk saying, I forgive my husband's killer, a Donald Trump saying,
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't forgive.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't I hate my enemies and all that he said there.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that and and reading about the moral service from from that just media people but from turning point allies that they forget that that second part of it they they don't talk about Trump speech they don't talk about
[SPEAKER_06]: I certainly pointed out he was a Christian nationalism, you know, and he was an heir to the Seventh Mount on demandate, but as the weeks have gone on, I really tried in media interviews to give them the bigger picture, and to talk about some of the comments he made about different groups of people and where he go with those, you know, and then we had
[SPEAKER_06]: This list of, I don't know, how many people are on it now, but that there's a group out there that is finding social media comments by people, professors and people in government and getting them fired for saying some ridiculous stupid things, but also some innocuous, you know, it was negative things, so many people have asked me like, are you, do you feel targeted at the moment?
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that's for two reasons.
[SPEAKER_06]: One,
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't really say inflammatory things a lot of time and then I'm at a while my name is out there I'm at a school some people or many people don't know and I guess I didn't feel the targeting of other people, but certainly I wanted to tell the truth in a you know you may win.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to get back to today's episode in just a minute, but first, I want to mention that this show is sponsored by Better Help.
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[SPEAKER_04]: All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's get back into this conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to get back to the memorial, but I do want to mention you just talked about people looking for commenters, creating a database, and it's interesting to mention that because that's kind of how you got introduced to Charlie Kirk as a figure, which again, it blows on mind thinking whenever I hear someone say, oh, most people weren't aware of Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_04]: which I know is true, but I feel like anybody in the weeds of like covering the topics that I'm covering on this show.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like Charlie Kirk was the name in that world.
[SPEAKER_04]: The Kingmaker is some of called him at the mention your brother.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that was my word actually.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, to be Atlantic last last fall.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so I mean if you if you didn't know Charlie you got an introduction to him as his husband father a family man great advocate for Christianity faith family and freedom But turning point itself has a long history of targeting people I was targeted by turning point in 2016 when and again very few people knew who they were.
[SPEAKER_06]: They wouldn't viral with this professor watchlist thing after the election in 2016 that came up with this list of professors that I didn't like and I was one of the first people mentioned it and I didn't know anything about it until it came out.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had written an opinion piece for our local paper advocating against allowing concealed weapons concealed firearms on college campuses here in Georgia, which is now a law that we have.
[SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, they come much later found that and put that in their list and they've added to my profile over the years of things I've said and that's really the moment I started paying attention to them because I was not aware of them before that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, that list is your picture and your contact information and all the things you said it is already made database for people that want to find you.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that while that thing is not known.
[SPEAKER_06]: I guess by a lot of people it's been it certainly has grown over the years in turn of point you can see the number of people they've added to but they've they've done so many other things and then the professor watched this has gotten buried in all the other things that they do and some of them they have other lists that school board watch lists and things like that so
[SPEAKER_06]: There are so many things that turning point does, and there are in so many areas.
[SPEAKER_06]: So certainly if you're in, as you say, the weeds of the culture war, or into the weeds of the conservative magma movement, you're well aware of them, but I don't think that many people understood how vast an organization it is, and it will continue to be.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the irony kind of hit me reading your book, and I had to, I had to, I had
[SPEAKER_04]: read the elsewhere heard you say interview but reading the book it kind of landed for me where you were put on professor watch list for talking about you know concealed carry on campuses and then you're watching years later the founder of this organization being held by a firearm on a college campus.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean
[SPEAKER_04]: How did that strike you as someone examining it?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, obviously, you know, to immediately get ahead of this, it wasn't killed by someone with a concealed carry.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't something that was exact exactly the same, but it's a firearm on a college campus.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, gunned culture in America.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, how did that land for you?
[SPEAKER_04]: As someone already worried about these issues and studying people who are actively, you know, pushing back against them?
[SPEAKER_06]: you know, I, I, I wanted to point out that, you know, he traveled to the security team and he has mentioned many times that he owns guns and obviously being a pro gun rights person, he's talked about expanding gun rights and where guns can go and the line that he and other people uses, that the good guys always stop the bad guys and you need more guns to do that
[SPEAKER_06]: He goes in these college campuses with his security team and I think his turning points pointed out in recent days right they can only protect his physical presence Just around him they can't do anything out legally and so and and I don't think there was You know known threats that they're looking for I guess what I'm getting at is that we have a gun problem in the United States both the amount of the have that we have and the way in which is regulated
[SPEAKER_06]: And this particular person was able to carry that in a book bag to a roof and then throw it away on his way out from the scene That tells me a lot about our gun culture and I didn't want to honestly say all that in the days following his death I feel safer now saying now a couple weeks later, but
[SPEAKER_06]: it was it was beyond ironic it was kind of surreal absurd for that to happen way in which he was assassinated um you know if he died a car wreck or a plane wreck or something along his lines he still would be would be honored and you'll judge but in the way it it it it it it rose the martyrdom rhetoric very difficult and it has continued since then yeah I wrote about
[SPEAKER_04]: this whole situation a few days after and after the memorial itself, um, and I said, Robert, Pastor Rod McCoy, open the service saying politics is an on ramp to the gospel.
[SPEAKER_04]: Charlie knew of all of you started growing in the students of Liberty, you'd come to its source, Jesus Christ the Lord.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then I said, however, based on the speeches that followed, it's clear that political figures are using the gospel, quote unquote gospel,
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you surprised with how quickly they moved to push the murder narrative within just hours of this happening?
[SPEAKER_04]: And then are you surprised with how little he was known by the general culture at this point?
[SPEAKER_04]: The amount of leverage that they were able to get culturally out of this moment.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I was looking at the Jubilee debate with Charlie Kirk this morning.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's skyrocketed by 10 million views.
[SPEAKER_04]: His podcast is, you know, shooting up in the charts, you know, continuously.
[SPEAKER_04]: How shocked were you that they leveraged him this way and how shocked were you by the amount of leveraged they were able to exert through this moment?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think turning point has always been good at what it does and it is a brand.
[SPEAKER_06]: With Charlie as its face it has lots of cashier already, but they're very good and the people that work they're very good at marketing in a good sense.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I think they knew right away.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, with the the the shock of losing their boss, but they knew right away what could happen here in terms of a narrative and then that's what they're good at is these narratives Very simple bumper sticker ideas hashtag to go viral.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're very good at that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I do think in the early days we heard a little bit about him being a martyr for free speech, but that didn't seem to take off if you will, but martyrdom for Christianity
[SPEAKER_06]: took off amazing and that became the thing we heard at the Memorial Service, which you know was a week or so, you can later, and I think that that gave them much more opportunity to connect him with Martin Luther King and other people that have been killed.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then you had early on, you had people talking about him as a prophet because he would talk about things that happened and he would talk about his death that was predicted and things like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was not surprising to me that they did that.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're very good at what they do.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I don't think, I mean, Erica has been at these events before, but she's not as well now.
[SPEAKER_06]: But that statement she gave a couple days before the moral service in his radio show station.
[SPEAKER_06]: and then at the memorial service solidified the idea that she was doubling down on all these messages.
[SPEAKER_06]: She personally okay to read all these messages.
[SPEAKER_06]: And she, you know, was married to Charlie Kirk so she was not just his confinant but the person who would okay a bunch of the things he does.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think what I'm saying is that he's she is the replacement for him.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, I think I heard Andrew Covert, the spokesperson, so yesterday they like the turning point is doubled in size since his assassination, I mean, Chairman of chapters and organizations and perhaps money.
[SPEAKER_05]: Since 910, we've had about 130,000 inquiries to start either a college chapter or a high school chapter.
[SPEAKER_05]: And chapters that we have already officially started.
[SPEAKER_05]: And remember,
[SPEAKER_05]: We had about 900 college chapters and a 1200 high school chapters before all of this.
[SPEAKER_05]: We have added just about 800, 790 new college chapters and we have added 1,819 new high school chapters.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we've essentially doubled.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: We doubled in size in less than a month.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that when what we saw at the the Butler Pennsylvania shooting, you know, when they tried or one person tried to assassinate President Trump, immediately they went to they mean the president and his allies went to a very tried to kill Trump.
[SPEAKER_06]: We saw that immediately after trying to cook a satinism when they were searching for a killer, but it was still, they did it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And even when we heard a little bit about the motive of a person, perhaps, it was still that he was killed by an ideology, he was killed by this thing that brainwashings just one person, but it was still of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: that they learned from the Butler Prince of anything to do the same thing with turning points.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that was not surprised at all in terms of the cultural power that turning point has now.
[SPEAKER_06]: They were the indispensable organization for MAGA and for Conservative causes before.
[SPEAKER_06]: And now they're that on steroids, or at 10 times more than that.
[SPEAKER_06]: They are the...
[SPEAKER_06]: the face of the culture war that they're face of sacrifice, they're the face of everything now that Trump wants to do and now he's doing it in Charlie's now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Charlie grew turning point into the largest conservative youth organization in the entire country.
[SPEAKER_00]: He forged a personal bond with countless young conservatives.
[SPEAKER_00]: He fought for free speech.
[SPEAKER_00]: religious liberty strong borders and a very strong and proud America in everything he did he put America first he really put America first and ultimately Charlie became more than a leader of an important organization he became the leader of historic movements all over the country the movements individual movements one movement
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was historic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything you did was historic.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to get back to where turning point is currently and where it could go at the end of this conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: But to wrap up the conversation for now around the assassination itself, which I mean, I posted just before we did this conversation saying, we could have a full in-depth lengthy conversation about your book,
[SPEAKER_04]: Prior to all of this happening, there's enough there to talk about, yeah, I mean, you filled a book with information about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a whole other conversation we have about just the memorial service.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a conversation like there's so much here.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do want to just ask this one last question relating to this.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, obviously, Trane points good at what they do.
[SPEAKER_04]: They've got a lot of money.
[SPEAKER_04]: We saw this stadium filled out.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's a pretty penny is spent there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think the fact that we could visually see this happen?
[SPEAKER_04]: Is what gave it more weight?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, I mean, there was people that mentioned, you know, afterward, rightly or wrongly and how it was said that, you know, if we saw the
[SPEAKER_04]: the devastation of gun violence in schools, you know, and someone shared an example of a school shooting where they had to use DNA testing to identify the children because they were so unrecognizable in the wake of a shooting, you know, versus seeing
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, 4K footage on X seconds after it happened.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, do you think just seeing the level of violence in a visceral, like, unfiltered way is what kind of sparked the nationwide, like, okay, this is, you know, this is a attention grabbing, this is something we can latch onto, like, what, what role do you think that played in it?
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, I think that the social media sites had become very good at getting those videos
[SPEAKER_06]: That's how I found out.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: And there's still some places that will show parts of it, but it's been, I think, after several different school shooters had video taped themselves doing what they do in the social media sites have learned pretty lesson.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, yes, seeing it and seeing, you know, the usual aftermath of people running from the scene, we've seen that before at schools.
[SPEAKER_06]: And to be honest with you, I thought that,
[SPEAKER_06]: turning point in Erica would do more with to balance for the Charlie's body.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, we think about the Ebony magazine famous cover of the open casket, then it till did they want to do something like that and we're talked out of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: It seems that and perhaps that is gross to think about.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the quotes that Erica gave to the New York Times was like, she wanted to see the body.
[SPEAKER_06]: She wanted to see what they had done to my husband.
[SPEAKER_06]: And perhaps if the martyrdom rhetoric hadn't taken off, they wouldn't have used those visuals in a different way.
[SPEAKER_06]: Eric's talked about all the journals and the pads.
[SPEAKER_06]: things he has ever had.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to see more of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to see more of Charlie.
[SPEAKER_06]: These AI Charlie.
[SPEAKER_06]: We're going to see more of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're going to keep his face.
[SPEAKER_06]: His name, his voice in the in the cultural war ether for for some time to come.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I do think that maybe the visual didn't
[SPEAKER_06]: didn't, you know, come across because they take it out so quickly, but also we've become so numb to those visuals.
[SPEAKER_06]: Then we've become so into school shootings and video releasing of a shooter or something along those lines that I mean, I don't know if seeing this one change to people.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I will say that there's a reason why we should not watch these.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're terrible.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it was, it was something that stood out to me just because, you know, I've been concerned about gun violence for a very long time, you know, like yourself, and, you know, but it is, I mean, there's all the quotes about, you know, when you hear statistic, it becomes a number or, you know, when you see one, it, you know, it lands very, you know, a lot differently, and like that night, like, I struggled sleeping that night because,
[SPEAKER_04]: it just it was not only that moment, but then it's remembering like, okay, this is happening at wide scale.
[SPEAKER_04]: This thing is happening and this is happening.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I talked to someone just yesterday that's two blocks away from where the initiation school shooting was and knew some of the victims there that were six, seven years old, you know, it's horrifying to think about.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned with Eric Kirk, you know, and as she mentioned when to show people to see what happened, evoking a lot of like Jackie Kennedy, you know, type of things, rhetoric, posting pictures of the hands and the coffin and things, and I do want to be clear here too.
[SPEAKER_04]: One of the things I've wrestled with is like,
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I think on the one hand, I think there's been a lot of like using Kirk and using his death as a prop to gain political power.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I also kind of go like, I don't think that accusation comes out of left field because I think that's in a way what Kirk himself would have wanted out of this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's my read on it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's clearly what a lot of his organization was about.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, do you.
[SPEAKER_04]: do you sense that as well?
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you feel like what they're doing as an organization is disrespectful to Charlie or do you think it truly honors what his mission was?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I feel like both sides of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think they know because they're very good at what they do that the bag gets that goes along with using someone as a prop.
[SPEAKER_06]: and so they've changed that they've spun it if you will into honoring Charlie by doing things in his name and therefore any Trump official doing anything in Charlie's name.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now they have not once criticized any of the things that have been happening.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean they are selling t-shirts on the turning point website.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am Charlie Kirk, we are Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_06]: they want his name out there because as you said, he promoted these type of culture war fights, but also the culture war victories.
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, if you think about they use his death as a prop to gain power.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're in power.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're not using it to gain power.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're using it for retribution with the power that they have.
[SPEAKER_06]: And
[SPEAKER_06]: He certainly made comments about different groups of people and the seven mountains made it frames people who are against them as demonic as anti-Christian.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, I don't think that turning point in Erica are going to criticize anyone else for doing something in Charlie's now.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, let's talk about this because people are hearing the words in a seven mandates, maybe for the first time.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have to imagine my audience, you know, either is very tuned into this and knows this world, and probably I already knew Charlie Kirk before all of this, new turning point had concerns with it, and then is probably a swath of people who are going, I see the name Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm just watching everything about I'm trying to get to know who this person is.
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's go into the beliefs here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's let's go into the seven mountains mandate.
[SPEAKER_04]: What that is?
[SPEAKER_04]: And for some reasons seeing like give me the explained to me like I'm five version of what that that movement is.
[SPEAKER_06]: I describe it as a very specific strategy of Christian nationalism, which is the goal of Christian nationalism is to Christianize America.
[SPEAKER_06]: to a particular former Christianity.
[SPEAKER_06]: To not just win the government for Christianity, but to win the culture for Christianity.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is Charlie Kirk and Turning Point wanted to win the culture war by creating a Christian culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the seven mountains are seven areas of our culture, seven political, social, cultural institutions.
[SPEAKER_06]: That they believe if they take them back for Jesus, if they take them over, if they remove the anti-Christian forces that are dominating or empower over those forces institutions.
[SPEAKER_06]: They will create a Christian culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, the reason they're doing this, it has part to do with the end times.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I'll get to that in a minute, but the seven areas, I always leave one off the list.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you can probably guess what they are.
[SPEAKER_06]: Government media, education, religion, entertainment.
[SPEAKER_06]: business.
[SPEAKER_06]: Business high was the one off the list.
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, some just bring it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, to be fair, I copy pasted your definition to my notes.
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's right out at the top of the dome, you know.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: So if you think about these seven areas, these are not new to turning point.
[SPEAKER_06]: They got it from other people.
[SPEAKER_06]: We can go for that history and those people got it from textbooks.
[SPEAKER_06]: These these institutions are well studied as part of a generic culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, but if you think about how they take these cultural institutions, yes, electing people to office, meeker Mike Johnson is at seven mountains mandate person.
[SPEAKER_06]: So you're putting those people in government power, but the other cultural institutions are not done by elections.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it is about silencing, removing, you know, kneecapping, other voices, other definitions of the family, other
[SPEAKER_06]: media entertainment vehicles so that what is left is the Christian one.
[SPEAKER_06]: So just for example in the mountain of education it is about installing curriculum that that echoes the 1776 commission which Donald Trump started in his first term and that Charlie Kirk was on.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is about defunding public schools through the voucher movement and taking that money and put it in private schools.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the Christians and even jellicle independent funders, among those Baptist Christians, have done that for decades.
[SPEAKER_06]: So what is different about the seven mountains?
[SPEAKER_06]: Mandate is they want to go back into the public schools.
[SPEAKER_06]: and make them into Christian institution, the 10 commandments on the wall, a curriculum that promotes a patriotic kind of civic religion, and they have done that in several states in different ways.
[SPEAKER_06]: So retaking the mountain of education means to Christianize the public schools and also allow private schools to do it as they want to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: They want to make public schools into private schools if you think about it that way.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that these different mountains have always, or some of them have always been done by a conservative Christian organization.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some of them have done education for decades.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some of them have done government decades.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think turning point was the first to do all seven at the same time.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is why I suggest in the book that turning point in Charlie Kirk has brought the seven mountains mandate.
[SPEAKER_06]: as close to success that it's ever been.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you think about the impact of turning point, you have to think about these larger seven areas.
[SPEAKER_06]: So if you think of turning point as a concert of college student organization, you're missing the bigger picture of what they have done in the last few years.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: I do want to address this early on because I have listeners that are Christian, I have listeners that are non-Christian.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd say the majority are probably, at least be non-analy Christian, and some curious fundamentalists, I'm sure, in the audience as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the question that can come up often is, okay, they want to Christianize the nation, they want to make kids more patriotic, they want to teach biblical values, sounds great.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think, and I would say even some that are non-Christian, my dad was actually the administrative of a Christian school growing up, and there was a lot of parents who were non-Christian, who just wanted their kids to have strong moral values, get a good patriotic view, they're like the pledges in the morning, you know, all that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I guess first and foremost, when we talk about Christian nationalism, sometimes it's said in like scare quotes in a scary way, and then people hear the definition and go,
[SPEAKER_04]: Big what, that sounds great.
[SPEAKER_04]: What would you say to those people and why should people be more concerned about the spread of Christian nationalism?
[SPEAKER_06]: If you're downplayed, Christian nationalism as merely the idea that Christians should be salt and light in America, and that is not Christian nationalism.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's my version of Christianity.
[SPEAKER_06]: Christian nationalism is about taking American culture and making it Christian by different means.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I want to specifically point out that the seven mountains made it
[SPEAKER_06]: on purpose.
[SPEAKER_06]: They do talk about spreading the gospel.
[SPEAKER_06]: They do talk about evangelism, but they're more interested in reclaiming institutions than individual salvation decisions.
[SPEAKER_06]: They don't believe in some others that they would ever be the majority of people.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when I say it's an anti-democratic or it's going to destroy democracy, this is what I mean.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a minority group of people who will rule over the majority and
[SPEAKER_06]: perhaps get into power through democratic means, but then enforce a cultural code on these other people who do not want it, and then anti-democratic fashion.
[SPEAKER_06]: Specifically, religious proletism.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you believe that America was founded with a religious pluralism, you are not a Christian nationalist.
[SPEAKER_06]: Christian nationalist, believe we were founded as a Christian nation, that the Constitution, the Bible, go together and that the roots of the Declaration of Independence go back further than that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, that is their idea of a Christian nation was as Charlie wrongly says 55 out of 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence are Bible believing Christians.
[SPEAKER_06]: They want to promote this Christianity that is vague enough to fit everyone's definition of Christianity, but what they really want of course is to put their version in it of it into power.
[SPEAKER_06]: and that has direct impact on religious pluralism, not just for the other Christians out there, but for the non-Christian religions.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when you said they want a Christian culture, they may, and it's kind of clear, unclear at times, they may allow other religions to be there, but the government would be Christian.
[SPEAKER_06]: They think what the beat, anti-first amendment, Charlie Kirk and other people have argued that the founding fathers say,
[SPEAKER_06]: or argue that the first amendment was there, but they saw the government as Christians, so they would not draw lines or pick victors in between Protestant sects.
[SPEAKER_06]: There would be a generalized Protestant nation under the first amendment, and the other religions probably would not be there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, if you think about just those two things, we're just pluralism in the way in which a minority movement over rules the majority of people to me and they're doing it in the name of Christianity, that to me is Christian nationalism.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if you think about Christianity as changing individuals and the things you just laid out, I want my kids to be have morality.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want them to say the pledge of allegiance.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want them to go to a private school where they can do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want my individual group of people and perhaps as expanded to a church and to a community
[SPEAKER_06]: That's one way of thinking of Christianity.
[SPEAKER_06]: The Seven Mountains mandate way of thinking of Christianity and Christian nationalism is institutional.
[SPEAKER_06]: If they see reformation, happening, reformation of the government, bringing revival, not revival, bringing reformation of the government.
[SPEAKER_06]: They want to take over the institutions and make it a Christian culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then maybe after that, there might be Christians deciding to be more Christians, but they don't necessarily think the majority of the people and America are going to be Christians and that defines a Christian nation.
[SPEAKER_06]: They define it as Christian nationalism and taking over these institutions.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that's why it's dangerous.
[SPEAKER_06]: to everyone.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it's also dangerous to spreading the gospel.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you think about their pictures of the gospel, maybe you agree with their tenants, their four spiritual laws kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: But when they go and say that and then take over the institutions of government, many people have problems with the second part.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_04]: And one of the questions, one of my close friends from school growing up, you know, we go back and forth about some of these topics occasionally.
[SPEAKER_04]: And one of the things that he mentioned in light of this conversation was, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: exactly what I just asked, which is why are Christian morals and how the Bible describes good and evil, such a threat to democracy?
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, if morals don't come from God, couldn't each individual's morals be subjective?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think what you're kind of alluding to and correct me if I'm wrong is this idea that, you know, when you have a general you know, Christian theology over the nation,
[SPEAKER_04]: you're still still dealing with a subjective understanding of what that means and whoever's in power gets to determine where that line is in terms of like how much other people have to share their perspective with all those moral things in the Bible that's great but you live in a country where it is a democratic process you have to compromise and seven amounts people do not compromise.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then, too, you live in a country where there is perhaps government-backed religious pluralism, but also a lot of people who are not Christian, who don't necessarily share your morality.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is fascinating because of Charlie Kirk.
[SPEAKER_06]: Turning point USA is a Christian nationalism organization, but it was not always that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Before the pandemic, 2020-19-ish, Charlie Kirk and Turning Point were a pro-capitalism-free market anti-higher education group, and he said specifically in 2018, I don't mix my religion politics.
[SPEAKER_06]: I make secular arguments because America is a secular nation.
[SPEAKER_06]: So ask yourself, you know, why he made the switch, but also if that first thing is true, we live in a country where we have to make arguments to voters and to other people that are not religious based, how do you get your Christian morals into practice?
[SPEAKER_06]: if you have cannot force everyone else to go along with them.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think to me, that's the idea of Christian dominionism, taking back, taking dominion, forcing other people by either democratic means or anti-democratic means to go along with them.
[SPEAKER_06]: It isn't so much whether or not those morals are true, I think Christians would agree that they are.
[SPEAKER_06]: But how do you live in a country?
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is why, and the last thing I want to say is this is why Charlie Kirk and other people suggest we don't live in a democracy We live in a republic and out there really no difference between the two but the republic to them has a moral base a moral ground We live in a country that is Christian and if you can allow that to be taken away by the majority of voters You don't live in a Christian country
[SPEAKER_10]: In a democracy, the majority always wins with almost no breaks and no slowdowns of a check-in balance system to protect freedoms and liberties.
[SPEAKER_10]: In a Constitutional Republic, the government starts with certain truth claims that are transcendent in irrefutable, life-librity pursuit of happiness.
[SPEAKER_10]: The government is here to promote the general welfare, things of this nature.
[SPEAKER_10]: A democracy does not usually have the same kind of separation of powers.
[SPEAKER_10]: a true actual democracy, yeah, we're not a period of democracy, right, but the word itself is not in any of our founding documents and it was actually talked about negatively, but the idea that we're not a democracy is we're not so vote, but that's not the, like I said, that's representative government, it's a constitution republic, you're thinking way too simple about this, you got to go deeper, and I'm not trying to pick on you, I'm going to say you've got a broad in your horizon, not every, not every place that has elections is a democracy.
[SPEAKER_04]: It leads me to a question which, you know, I'm sure you probably argued with yourself writing, you know, where you land on this, but it is interesting in your book.
[SPEAKER_04]: You share things like okay Charlie Kirk refuse to let people call someone a slur for, you know, being seems like
[SPEAKER_04]: almost leaned into that in a really strong way, you know, his comments about like we're being in a, we're in a secular environment, we're in a democracy to leaning to where we're a public and, you know, we need to shift the culture in this direction.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, do you, do you think that this is,
[SPEAKER_04]: a situation where he became more deeply rooted in strongly held convictions or do you think this was he saw the direction culture was going and it was as many people have said a grift.
[SPEAKER_04]: I won't say where I land on this yet because when I hear your answer is not a question of grift.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is obvious, I'm not sure the answer is obvious, but the question is yes, he has made lots of money or made lots of money through this and his allies have made lots of money
[SPEAKER_06]: through specifically taking turning point from a very limited audience to an expansive audience.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when Robboco is past her and they met late 2019 convinced him to go in this direction.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it was easy to convince Charlie Kirk that this is a version of Christianity.
[SPEAKER_06]: You can go along with because he's always identified himself as an evangelical.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was involved in churches, you know, in as a young adult.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that Robboco didn't have much to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think what he convinced him, what Rob McCoy convinced Charlie Kirk of, which took, you know, sometime was that that you could make non-secular sacred arguments for the government and for the culture and here's some Bible verses to back that up now.
[SPEAKER_06]: There are many Bible verses they twist and move like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I think he convinced him that it wasn't a far leap from a evangelical-making secular arguments to the Christian Nationalism argument.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I will say also, it was a tremendous business opportunity for turning point.
[SPEAKER_06]: You got to expand your audience in many different ways and expand your donor base and therefore take in more money.
[SPEAKER_06]: And around the time that they met 2019, the beginning of 2020, we had the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_06]: College campuses were closed for basically an entire year.
[SPEAKER_06]: Charlie Cook could not do his campus event.
[SPEAKER_06]: So what did he do?
[SPEAKER_06]: He went to churches.
[SPEAKER_06]: and started saying things that Rahm Koy is saying or other people have said in the seven mountains mandate.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I think that Charlie saw it as, yes, I believe these things.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then he got, he got the education that he wanted to help him do that through Larry Arne and Hillsdale and Larry mentioned that he's taking all these courses online.
[SPEAKER_06]: So he got the education that he wanted that he needed to do this.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then yes, it was a tremendous business opportunity.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, whether it's a grift is how you define grifting.
[SPEAKER_06]: And these things that they're doing to gain money, I do think Charlie believes in these.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think he changed his mind, but I think he believes in the Christian nationalism agenda.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I wouldn't call it a grip, but it has made lots of money for him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I agree 100% I when I see people say it's a purely griffed.
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of roll my eyes because and maybe this is because I You know grew up in fundamentalist Christianity, and I know how strongly held these beliefs are you know even if not explicitly Labeled as Seven mountains mandate like I mean this idea of taking back the culture fighting back against liberalism like that all
[SPEAKER_04]: brings true.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think a large amounts of money, you know, you mentioned since 2016, they've raised roughly a quarter billion dollars.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that could probably be annotated in next edition of this book just over the last couple of months.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, but you mentioned each year with these different things with the Trump presidency, the Biden presidency, COVID, millions and millions and millions of dollars, $21, 55 million in revenue, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the part where if not a grift, you know, if not a grift on his part, I think the amount of people that are donating to these causes, the amount of people you mentioned Donald Trump Jr. pairing up with him, Trump himself, you know, having such a close connection.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Russell and Boss saying that, you know, Kirk was running the country.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wasn't doesn't seem too far off.
[SPEAKER_04]: That doesn't seem too too large.
[SPEAKER_09]: Charlie Kirk's running the White House folks.
[SPEAKER_09]: It just doesn't have the ego to tell you that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Would you say, as you've charted this, that you're seeing, let's go back to the beginning, let's go to Trump's first presidency, the politicians surrounding Kirk.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think they were true believers in Kirk's cause?
[SPEAKER_04]: Or do you think that they found themselves an amazing, exciting opportunity to amass power?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I asked that, I asked former Congressman Adam
[SPEAKER_04]: targeted evangelicals in the beginning or stumbled upon them and then doubled down and it's it's seem kind of like it's seem kind of like the latter But I'm curious for you like just the Republican orbit, you know, how much of it is I do think if you think about why President Trump ran for the first time Various issues that prompted him, but one of the things he wanted to do
[SPEAKER_06]: was raised the percentage of white evangelicals that voted for him.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was in the 80s.
[SPEAKER_06]: He wanted to raise it a couple of points and if you did that and you got a couple of points somewhere else you could win.
[SPEAKER_06]: So to do that, yes, you have to go to Liberty University and make that speech that he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two Corinthians, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Two Corinthians 317.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the whole ballgame.
[SPEAKER_01]: where the spirit of the Lord right where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and here there is liberty college but liberty university but it is so true you have to get Paul White Cain and her network of people on board she up there in the White House praying you better believe on praying
[SPEAKER_06]: You also then have to tap into this vast network of churches and apostles and prophets in the NAR, the new Apostolic Reformation, because they are not just this spiritual power, they are the people
[SPEAKER_06]: that are like the unions on the other side.
[SPEAKER_06]: They have email lists and they have data bases of people and they can influence a large amount of people in the right states that you need them.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yes, I think that he saw that and said, I need to go in that direction.
[SPEAKER_06]: He doesn't believe in any of it, but he wanted to do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So Charlie, even in 2016, was part of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that's
[SPEAKER_06]: and he spent the summer of 16 hanging out with Donald Trump Jr on the campaign trail and had lots of time to convince him that you could do a lot of good if you pay attention to the conservative students on campus and that changed you know into all demographics later on but I think that specifically with college students you know it was never about getting a certain percentage of them to vote to college students or
[SPEAKER_06]: You know they do vote democratically overwhelming, but they're doing very small numbers and sometimes they're very flaky in terms of what you think they're gonna turn out So you weren't gonna change the the precincts on campus, but what but what Charlie convincing was I go to college campuses, so you don't have to
[SPEAKER_06]: I go to college campuses and make these videos and mock the liberals and the professors and the people down the road are donating to your campaign because they want to stop what's I'm showing them on college campuses.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's always been Charlie Sell.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think to Donald Trump Jr and other people and he was able to expand that after the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_04]: So going now into this second what we're in now, you know, this the second term it seems to me as though and I picture Indiana Jones where he's got the idol and he swaps it out for the bag of sand and I feel like that's kind of happened with I think he's running through this rock and then he runs for the big rock which is a half metaphor we could keep this going but I do see that like
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, we're seeing the insertion of people who are, I think, true believers, Mike Johnson, Pete Heggseth, you know, Pete Heggseth could, again, be another episode.
[SPEAKER_04]: We could talk about, we're just going through tattoos, but I, you know, it seems like there's been this like swapping of like people who are in the grift on the political side to people who are the true believers who are like, finally, this is our moment, um, does this?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, does that concern you far more?
[SPEAKER_04]: Does it, does it make you feel better than at least you can engage with like the actual idea instead of the facade?
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, what do you think of the second term and does it make you feel more horrified, less horrified, same, but for different reasons, like, I mean, as I waited for you here, we were in a terrible,
[SPEAKER_06]: Spot right now in our country or lost as a nation in terms of being able to work together and compromise and do the things at the Constitution You know, says we should do but we also face a president who is that's just on a Cratica authoritarian, but he's using the federal government Leverse of power to seek retribution on all of his enemies and also the enemies that he creates after the assassination of Charlie Kirk we see
[SPEAKER_06]: no one there's no one in the room now if you want to say that that's stopping it all the people you just mentioned we're not available in the first term because they were on the friends or they were crazy or they are there are adults in the room that could that wanted to be a part of the first term there's not that now and we still have three years left I think that
[SPEAKER_06]: especially in regard to turning point and what it they offer now to the president is just this immense amount of emotional energy that martyrdom rhetoric that gives him more and more free reign.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no one that wants to
[SPEAKER_06]: try to put a fence between martyrdom rhetoric and what the president wants to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no one that's going to say you shouldn't do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whatever he wants to do, unless the courts or some other people try to stop him, he's going to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've seen that time again here.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I think that we face really difficult times here.
[SPEAKER_06]: We face, certainly if I's calling the seven mountains
[SPEAKER_06]: person in the White House and the of the offices and advocate for it then yes I do think we're our democracy is under threat but I also think that because they own the levers of power they're now using that to win the other mountains and they're using different ways to do it but but I don't know where
[SPEAKER_06]: or I don't see a stopping to that.
[SPEAKER_06]: That obstacles.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it's easy to point at the quote-unquote Bible thumpers and go like, OK, well, they are unreasonable and they're not willing to have a conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've certainly said that on the show that there are demographics that will not hear any criticism and will have a conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I do think, you know, those who politically lean left, or I would say even those who are just pro-democracy, I mean, are our our shutting down a lot of conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think our our rejecting conversation with the people who are questioning what's wrong with this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't see the danger of science here.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, how do you think we move forward in that?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, like I just mentioned, I read a question for one of my close friends.
[SPEAKER_04]: We do not see eye to eye on this issue.
[SPEAKER_04]: One of my, one of my best friends.
[SPEAKER_04]: We do not see eye to eye on 90% of things.
[SPEAKER_04]: And a lot of times I think I'm seeing clear red flag.
[SPEAKER_04]: They're seeing something good.
[SPEAKER_04]: where do you meet in the middle of that discussion?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not, again, I'm not talking about the extremes that go like deep down the Q conspiracy rabbit hole and Trump is X, Y, Z, and basically a God to them.
[SPEAKER_04]: For the legitimately moderate people who just go like, I'm terrified of a non-Christianation what that looks like.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you think people should be engaging in those discussions to go like, yeah, but this isn't what it is.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, if you think of the seven mountains mandated Christian Nationalism and minority movements on purpose to me the only answer to that is a majority move now that doesn't mean that that majority movement is is one one message one movement or one party.
[SPEAKER_06]: But it has to be the majority of people saying we don't want this particular thing, and what we do want is the ability for people to come together and compromise and make decisions based upon things that we're not calling the other side evil.
[SPEAKER_06]: There has to be a majority movement in the country, a democratic movement, but says this what they're doing over here is not democratic.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think that you're going to convince them and minority people to stop what it is they're doing.
[SPEAKER_06]: There certainly could be some people that peel off and the big question of course is what happens to maga after Trump leaves the same whenever whatever that is.
[SPEAKER_06]: Turning point is built to last, it's setting itself up to be the indispensable organization to replace maga or to be the organization that fills that vacuum when Trump leaves the same.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I do think that they are dangerous because not just in the amount of money they have and now the martyrdom rhetoric is
[SPEAKER_06]: energizing them.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I think that they understand how to create divides in narratives and framing things like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then take that divide and just turn it up to 10 or 11.
[SPEAKER_06]: Turning point is not the first people to have professor watch lists or professors on lists.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're not the first people to say some of the things they've been saying.
[SPEAKER_06]: But then what they able to do is just make it more and more clear to people on their side.
[SPEAKER_06]: You should not compromise with evil.
[SPEAKER_06]: But evil should not be.
[SPEAKER_06]: And, of course, there's many different groups of people that are evil to them.
[SPEAKER_06]: So you're not going to change those, those might.
[SPEAKER_06]: So the only answer is you have to find a group of people that can, we'll say, outboat them, but also come together with their own differences.
[SPEAKER_06]: To say, look, we are coming together, our differences.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is how America should be.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that
[SPEAKER_06]: for the Christian nationalism, they are, of course, sacrificing the democracy for the culture, or for the culture war, for the winning the culture war.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they're not going to stop, as you put out, they have deeply, deeply held beliefs, deeply identity-based beliefs.
[SPEAKER_06]: And of course, they have the word of God behind them.
[SPEAKER_06]: So they're not going to change their ways.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we have to find other more different people to say, we need to come to God.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know how you do that, but that's the only way to do it.
[SPEAKER_04]: We mentioned your book, I mean, Kirk specifically.
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, push back against violence, you know, in terms, and again, there's some it's interesting juxtaposing the fact that he probably can condemn that, but was very soft on people at the insurrection, which was very visceral.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, assault on the democratic process,
[SPEAKER_04]: Christian, you know, he was willing to uphold the, you know, democratic process, you know, and didn't, didn't use his faith as an excuse to excuse that and move in a certain direction.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I was to say, Kirk himself denounced violence toward government.
[SPEAKER_04]: There was sometimes there was vague whispers of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Some point that might be necessary, but you also mentioned the book that
[SPEAKER_04]: 2024 survey showed a majority of Christian nationalists would support a leader who's willing to break some rules.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think those are the people cheering on today when Trump said that, you know, we got rid of free speech in relation to flag burning and things like that about a third of those same people support violence in order to save our country or to ensure the right full leader takes office, which is concerning.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, if we're going to look at something that's most concerning, it's probably rhetoric like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_04]: What's your fear going into the next couple years?
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, we have three more years of this current administration.
[SPEAKER_04]: But you have a base that's extremely riled up right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have people that believe that we're in a battle of good versus evil.
[SPEAKER_04]: You hear a lot of tall backs to liberation and fighting civil wars and all that sort of talk.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think we're going to see a major uptick in political violence, especially when it comes to grabbing for more power in the next couple of years?
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, we've seen a trend already of political violence of the individuals taking matters into their own hands, not just the Charlie Kirkacicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicicic
[SPEAKER_06]: because Trump isn't power because he can use the levers of government to quail violence.
[SPEAKER_06]: You might not see organized violence against the government.
[SPEAKER_06]: But you certainly could see that if they Trump tries to go for a third turn.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't think Netflix is going to do that yet, but I think that we will continue to see
[SPEAKER_06]: political violence in our country, because we see political opponents as someone who does not need to be there, needs to be taken out, needs to not have their voices heard, not not because not they're just evil, but they seem to be anti-Christian forces.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's obviously political violence on both sides, but I guess what I'm getting at is,
[SPEAKER_06]: For the next three years, you have the government in power, enforcing their own political violence.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they're going to see how far they can take that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know where it's going to go.
[SPEAKER_06]: Obviously, it was from National Garden, several cities.
[SPEAKER_06]: We've seen different ways in which the president has upended the federal government.
[SPEAKER_06]: How far are they willing to take that?
[SPEAKER_06]: And will the majority of people say we don't want that?
[SPEAKER_04]: I was reading this morning the book man up the new misogyny and the rise of on extremism by Cynthia Miller Idris, which is a phenomenal book and one of the sections that she devotes a good chunk of the book to is discussing meme culture in relation to misogyny but she she mentions misogyny as at the heart of a lot of mass shootings talks a lot.
[SPEAKER_04]: about the planned kidnapping attempt of a politician.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, obviously, we're, again, framed with a lot of misogynistic rhetoric.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I, we're just going to grab the bitch.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to take her and, and this blend of this political ideology blended with, you know, this, this level of misogyny.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I think of this in relation with what you just said about Trump running for a third term.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we just saw that picture of Chuck Schumer in his office with the Trump 208 hats on his desk.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think for the majority of people that I see who support Trump, they go, you know, he's just trolling.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is him just getting under their skin.
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a businessman.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is just negotiations.
[SPEAKER_04]: Does that make it?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: What role do you think that memes specifically and pop culture online content?
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, gamer chat rooms, you know, what role do you think those play in this current movement?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I, I almost want to see it in a book.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, it seems so silly to go like, let's talk about Pepe the Frog for a few minutes, you know, but it, there is a real push here where the propaganda is coming from Gen Z.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, yeah, followers of groups like this, I mean, what do you, what do you see that will be?
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I read about it and I was here in the mountain of entertainment in Vinnie Johnson and his work with memes and what that does because memes act as a very concise way in which to say something it allows ideas to see pen without you noticing it in memes
[SPEAKER_06]: and Bennett Johnson has been spreading this kind of masculinity, hyper stuff throughout the different means that he's done.
[SPEAKER_06]: But now he's doing in person with, you know, I have this family and you have more kids and we should get married young and all those things.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the memes are the kind of
[SPEAKER_06]: thing you don't see coming or because it is so, a tie to jokes or it's so tied to things that only the people that make the memes know.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think this is what we have seen so far from the suspect in Charlie Kirk's assassination.
[SPEAKER_06]: The writings on the bullets don't matter where inside jokes.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that that is
[SPEAKER_06]: what memes have done to our country, not just memes, but a lot of different things, is they have created these different cultures where only the people and the cultures get what they're talking about, we can talk about bubbles, but the inside jokes and the memes create this linkage where you don't have a conversation with other people, and we can see that in media as well, obviously, but we have this
[SPEAKER_06]: divide in culture.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that would be an interesting and turning point in trying to do, we want to get those people to be politicized, be agitated.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we have to do that through the way in which they're talking.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, you're furthering the divide by using that same method, even though you're trying to get them to be no vote or knock on doors or whatever.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I think that the means specifically, because they're so easy to create.
[SPEAKER_06]: So they're viral.
[SPEAKER_06]: So they can go around traditional media
[SPEAKER_06]: they're so easy to filter bad information, our bad ideas, and that's why people use it.
[SPEAKER_04]: It seems like comedy and memes and you know, have become such like a central piece of this, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, really, this last election was a comedian's election.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it was Trump made his way through the Flegger and Podcasts with Andrew Schultz.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Joe Rogan's podcast, obviously.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, talk about a kingmaker.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, anybody who would have done Rogan, I think would have done well.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I
[SPEAKER_04]: I do think there's also that that built-in deflection where you can say it's just a joke until it's not I mean do you think that's been a piece of this as well and then also I think to I mean I think about in this course as conversation like Kirk loved his portrayal on South Park.
[SPEAKER_10]: It is hilarious.
[SPEAKER_10]: I mean, part of it is kind of like whatever typical humor, but it was hilarious just watch this little snippet of our Prove Me wrongs.
[SPEAKER_10]: Our viral cultural domination on prime time on comedy central, so important, so impactful that South Park is highlighting watching.
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm sick, a people stealing my stick.
[SPEAKER_11]: If anyone around here is going to be a master, debater, it's me.
[SPEAKER_11]: So let's go, who wants to debate the master, debater?
[SPEAKER_11]: Let's go, you write that.
[SPEAKER_11]: That's the stupidest care cut I've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think it was just no, any name recognition is good, and we can rest on that and any way this topic can get out there is good, and we can have it like,
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, we still think that any press is good for us, but I think what has happened is that they can spin anything.
[SPEAKER_06]: They can reframe it as is anything good.
[SPEAKER_06]: They were making fun of Charlie Kirk on his outboard and he embraces it because he has, you know, makes fun of himself or something like that, but to embrace it, means to change the impact of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: to do thing it.
[SPEAKER_06]: But didn't work on me, I'm not offended about it, then you're just a stupid stupid show.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think that's exactly what the media are the mountain of entertainment and media does for the Christian Nationalism movement.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are creating not just a parallel Christian media structure where we can win in the marketplace with our better TV shows.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are taking the fight to these organizations to strip them of their cultural power so that we can have our own.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, we saw this in the White House with the briefing room and replacing traditional media with a turning point corresponding in getting them to ask questions.
[SPEAKER_06]: you are letting them do the job of journalists by mocking journalists.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're turning point has a daily show, where they'd mock the daily show, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: So they're doing this in a way in which to expand their audience, but also to show that they can win the culture, and you win the culture through media and entertainment.
[SPEAKER_04]: It certainly, I mean, the appeal makes sense when you look at something I was watching just yesterday or today, you know, Representative Kitty Porter, who's running for governor in California, being lightly pressed on a question and melting down in the conversation.
[SPEAKER_12]: what do you say to the 40% of voters who voted for Trump?
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh, I'm happy to say that.
[SPEAKER_12]: It's to do you need them to win part that I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm happy to answer the question as you have it written and all answer it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've also asked the other candidates.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think you need any of those 40% of California voters to win?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're saying, no, you don't.
[SPEAKER_12]: No, I'm saying, I'm going to try to win every vote I can.
[SPEAKER_12]: And what I'm saying to you is that... Well, to those voters, okay, so you...
[SPEAKER_12]: I don't want to keep doing it, so I'm going to call it.
[SPEAKER_12]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_12]: you're not going to do the interview with that.
[SPEAKER_12]: Nope, not like this, I'm not, not with seven follow-ups to every single question you ask.
[SPEAKER_04]: I kept pushing, I want this to be a pleasant exchange, you know, I want this to be just a calm discussion, and people were just lambasting her for that, you know, that approach.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that is some of the appeal of someone like Charlie Kirk, is that
[SPEAKER_04]: they don't have those moments, you know, like there's always an answer, I just told them that a day like apologetics one on one always be ready to give an answer, that was really as approach to politics, which is like you can throw anything at me and I can spin it, throw it back into you.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right, that's the appeal of Trump and Kirk, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess on that, on that level, and this kind of ties back to like people like Kirk, not so much their followers, but people like Kirk himself.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think there's benefit to getting into their territory and having debates, getting into their territory and having, you know, whether it's a moderate to debate with any
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that worthwhile?
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it more worth presenting a separate case to their following or to the people who are out there?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because like, I don't believe Matt Walsh when he says change on my or a Stephen Crowder message.
[SPEAKER_04]: Change on my, Charlie Kirkton want to have a, you know, an ostabate like, no.
[SPEAKER_06]: what benefit is there to engage in the public sphere and I think they wanted to use the idea of debate to further their cause of you think about you know what I think and the week before he died right he has Charlie had this back and forth with Van Jones.
[SPEAKER_06]: Van Jones apologized and after this assassination he's like Van Jones said Charlie you know texted me and wanted me to be on his show
[SPEAKER_06]: And they do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: They pick a fight or they get fought by family and then go back and forth online and then say hey why don't you be on my show and we can do this for the audience because it's for the audience.
[SPEAKER_06]: I would never recommend someone going up to a mic at a turning point of end and asking a question.
[SPEAKER_06]: Even if you're prepared, even if you are the smartest person in the room, they will use that in negative ways going forward.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it is not about to be, you know, proved me wrong.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're never proven raw on purpose.
[SPEAKER_06]: And even if they go to these formal debates, societies, Charlie went to Oxford and Cambridge Union.
[SPEAKER_06]: And
[SPEAKER_06]: he brought out all the the good parts of his videos and played it up and played down the negative ones and he had the achievements in the Jubilee thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean he brought out all the positives out of that and not the negative ones.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it is a framing war, it's a rhetorical war, you're not going to win.
[SPEAKER_06]: Or gain any followers by doing it on their turf on their terms now that then would say oh You're against free speech.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're against debate.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, I'm People using me for that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So this is why I've gotten it in Weeks after his death parents and invitations to be on several Podcasts and they send me these and like hey, do you want to be on these and I go look at them and look at the guests I've been on them and listen to a couple episodes and I'd like they would just use me as a Pinata and I'm gonna say no
[SPEAKER_06]: So I would not recommend doing that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It'd be the Harald over there for Fox News.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we get to be the punchy background a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I know we're getting near the end here and I think one of the one of the things that's clear in your book and just in this conversation general is what a figure Kirk was.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, for all the things that could be said about his beliefs and we can fight those in a marketplace of ideas, you know,
[SPEAKER_04]: He was a figure that garnered a lot of attention.
[SPEAKER_04]: He knew how to tap into young audiences.
[SPEAKER_04]: He was someone who knew how to lead a movement.
[SPEAKER_04]: You could say the same for Trump in his respective, you know, role.
[SPEAKER_04]: for those figures, you know, that are such culta personalities within their groups.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, far more people still, I think, no Charlie Kirk than turning point, you know, like he was the figure, what do you think the legs for a movement like turning point is?
[SPEAKER_04]: In terms of like maintaining the momentum it currently has, which is incredibly huge.
[SPEAKER_04]: And specifically, not to add too many layers to this question, but I mean, specifically with a female CEO of a movement that has been built on hating female CEOs over the age of 30, you know, like what are the likes of that and do you think it's going to lose a massive amount of momentum?
[SPEAKER_06]: Do you think it carries it for several years?
[SPEAKER_06]: attendees or new members into it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So there are many ways in which they can funnel their training and their organization into keeping people involved.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this has always been one of their questions throughout the years.
[SPEAKER_06]: I wrote a thing on their tenure anniversary in 2022.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I noticed even at that point, they were trying to create these alumni groups.
[SPEAKER_06]: These turning point of alumni groups.
[SPEAKER_06]: People that were involved in college, what do we do with them, or how do we
[SPEAKER_06]: Get at them after they leave our campuses and they create all these other arms in the seven mountains mandate to do that And they have a vast network now of people whether or not they were ever involved in turning point college They're now turning point people turning point.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's become the Republican party in many ways and what political parties do They have strong allies both in the current administration and perhaps any other candidate that runs for office So they're built to last now.
[SPEAKER_06]: I do think
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, Erica, I don't know how long she lasts to see it, and not because she's not talented or something like that, but she's a widow with two small children.
[SPEAKER_06]: She has lots of help, obviously, but I think that she's certainly will be the face of the martyrdom rhetoric and the memorials that are happening.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's time to have a campus event.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's basically a new memorial.
[SPEAKER_06]: And she will be the closer, and when it comes to donors, you want to write it check.
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll bring in Erica to talk about Charlie for a minute.
[SPEAKER_06]: But after the next year, what are they going to do?
[SPEAKER_06]: Obviously, they're going to help out during the midterm elections.
[SPEAKER_06]: But are these campus events, they're bread and butter are going to continue.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no one who can do what Charlie does.
[SPEAKER_06]: And even if they learn how to do it, even if there's some are younger than him, they can do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: They're not going to do it in the same manner, or they're always going to be accused of being like him, or trying to be a adult.
[SPEAKER_06]: what's his name that new can't remember his name.
[SPEAKER_04]: Brillin, Brillin here some thinner.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's up, America?
[SPEAKER_03]: Ryan Holley, interior about 30,000 feet up.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are on the way to Arkansas.
[SPEAKER_03]: So everybody in line, if you wish your Arkansas to kick off my 10-stop campus tour.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's not a protege at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's a person who's trying to do what he's doing.
[SPEAKER_06]: So the question is, what is it that they're going to do?
[SPEAKER_06]: I think they're obviously going to ramp up turning point action, which is their political, directly political organization and get more candidates to office and get that list of people that they're into.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then I think they certainly could push their turning point education agenda much more quicker now.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some of the groups that they had helped out with, or were partnering with, or slowing down, Dennis Prager was one of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's obviously still alive, but, you know, not doing well.
[SPEAKER_06]: So they're going to replace those groups and fill that vacuum even more.
[SPEAKER_06]: So there's many areas in which they can go into.
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't know if they're going to do campus events, but they have a lot of attention and a lot of money right now.
[SPEAKER_06]: The last thing I want to say though, I have seen some people note and these are based upon studies of organizations that have lost their face or lost their leader.
[SPEAKER_06]: Then over time, yes, these organizations fade.
[SPEAKER_06]: because you cannot replace that person.
[SPEAKER_06]: Some of them survive and thrive.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you think about the Billy Graham, you know, evangelical association, Billy Graham lived to be 90s up in years old and his son took it over and took it over well before he died.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not the same organization.
[SPEAKER_06]: It certainly does a lot of good work with Samaritan's personal that, but it fades over time and I don't know their budget, but it does.
[SPEAKER_06]: Bigs people lose that iconic figure.
[SPEAKER_06]: And Charlie was just 30, 31 years old.
[SPEAKER_06]: So he didn't have to hide to build a much more bigger or folio of iconicness in real estate.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you think about organizations that make themselves into a brand and turning one of his done that, they do that by using their founder in a way, but move beyond him.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I think that they're good at that, they're good at narrative and framing, and I think they'll be successful.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I think they'll build to last.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I do think that it won't be, it won't be Erica who is the new face of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think she certainly will stay around for a while, but I do think at some point they're going to have to find, that's just one person that you mentioned that other person, but a group of people that can do what Charlie does, but perhaps a group of people.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was mentioning that to some of the other day.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was like, that's, though, it's interesting to me about Trump is like, I really can't picture Mako without him.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, run the Santa's try this best and really just flailed to try to get any interest outside of Florida.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, JD bands certainly does not have any charisma, you know, whatsoever and his really alienated a lot of people over the last couple of years, you know, I mean, it's hard to know where that goes.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to ask just two more questions here as we get near the end.
[SPEAKER_04]: first and foremost, just totally selfishly.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's your read on the Candace Owen situation right now?
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think the tech she shared of Charlie thinking Israel is legit?
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think that there's some truth to that?
[SPEAKER_04]: And also, I mean,
[SPEAKER_04]: without deeply, he was informed by evangelicalists.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, turning on Israel would be a massive, big deal, but conservatives are largely drifting from it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, like, what's your view on any of that?
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, Danus has been off the deep end for many years.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a unreliable narrator, so it makes it a little tricky.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yes, the text that she showed a real Andrew Covert admitted to that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But whether or not that's the full context of the full conversation or, you know, that certainly is offered debate.
[SPEAKER_06]: She is not a good source even if the text are real.
[SPEAKER_06]: But that letter that Charlie Kirk wrote to, and then, yeah, it was real, and he talked about, I am pro is real, and he's been pro is real for years.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was never backing off of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But he also knew that there are many people in his audience that were, as you say,
[SPEAKER_06]: questioning, moving away from, and he could not fight that battle alone.
[SPEAKER_06]: We talk about using Tucker at his events and answering those questions.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's why he wanted Netanyahu to do things differently.
[SPEAKER_06]: But I do think that there's a reason Candace has not been invited to a turning point event in years.
[SPEAKER_06]: And as you can see, she is burning every bridge, boats, whatever she has now.
[SPEAKER_06]: because she's a conspiracy theorist.
[SPEAKER_06]: She's coming up with a conspiracy that sometimes there's texts that are true that go along with that and sometimes they are not.
[SPEAKER_06]: And turning points had to answer for them, but I don't think anyone cares outside of the four or five people that are, I'm sorry, the four or five new people that Candice hasn't her audience.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say that's a that's a big downplay of her audience size and unfortunately yes I do want to say it's a large audience and yeah massive audience of people who are concerned with this and you know I think that's the other piece of this too is you know there's a massive amount of people in that space who are rushing I mean Benny Johnson is grasping for as much audience captures a can and
[SPEAKER_04]: again, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, and this is obviously doing the same Ben Shapiro is obviously doing the same, you know, trying to harness some of the audience that's very interested in these topics right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, it'll be curious to see where that goes, whether turning point hires a lot more personalities over the next year.
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, there's a lot a lot that could happen.
[SPEAKER_04]: The last piece here, I just want to ask, guys, saw a question come in.
[SPEAKER_04]: on social.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just checked my posts just to see if anybody had dropped one.
[SPEAKER_04]: And someone had asked, does the book get into the donors behind TPSA and how Republican policy benefits them?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll let you take that question, but you know how much do you think it's important to not just look at the organization, but the people funding it?
[SPEAKER_04]: and how it benefits them specifically.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's hard to track those, because the turning point, tax records do not list those.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's some indication thing, and there are big donors, and the big donors you can think of, have donated to them, and they donate to other causes as well.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a bit of making them such, such as, I mean, that you put in that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, the comfort of this obviously fun through different eater meeting areas.
[SPEAKER_06]: They've eventually got to turning point, but I saw like, you know, some of the,
[SPEAKER_06]: big GOP donors that you donate to campaigns also donate to turning points, I mean they have some of the donors have been there for years, but it's hard to track them because of the ways in which tax records work.
[SPEAKER_06]: We know very little about the amount of money where that money comes from, especially from organizations that have, you know, kind of generic names,
[SPEAKER_06]: So it's very hard to track that, but I will say what we do know attorney points, finances is they are they're not just big donor people, these are not just people in the shadows directing Charlie's agenda, there is a grass roots, people donating five or ten dollars to go to these events and buying hats, it is beyond just the big donors.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I know we're at the very end here, and obviously I haven't changed a single sentence of your book since this happened.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you were to add a preface to this, you know, for a new edition, or if there's something that now in hindsight, you know, you wish you would have included, or would include, now in light of everything, I mean, is there a single, in-go-thought, you know, emphasis you would add to people who are maybe reading the book, you know, in light of everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ah, man, that's a tough one.
[SPEAKER_06]: I think I might have added, there's different people that has been the face of the Seven Mountains movement to create a throughout his history and some of them have lived long lives, but some of them have not, and not just because they were killed because they just died early.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I would have talked about what they did to those names of people, knowing what happened to Charlie.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll be really interesting.
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm sure you'll be putting out more over the next couple months and years as you continue researching this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like you mentioned at the very end of your book, this will not be the last book written about turning point, just not just from you, just in general, there's plenty of analyze here.
[SPEAKER_04]: And certainly won't be the last book written.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure on Charlie Kirk, I'm sure there's a flood of those that are being prepared as we speak.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I really appreciate this book.
[SPEAKER_04]: I highly recommend it to people who are listening and for all of your research over the years,
[SPEAKER_04]: It's unfortunate that the attention on it is brought from an event like this, but I'm hopeful that it does raise some awareness about these topics that have been going on for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Dr. Matthew Bodhi, thank you so much for joining me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_04]: No problem.
[SPEAKER_04]: Talk to you later!
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