Antifa Attacks TPUSA In Berkeley

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Speaker 3 Yesterday, of course, was the two-month anniversary of Charlie Kirk's assassination,

Speaker 3 and we had a campus tour event, the final one of the This Is the Turning Point tour.

Speaker 3 We rebranded it after Charlie's assassination, and it was at UC Berkeley, which is supposed to be the birthplace of the modern free speech movement.

Speaker 3 It's because of the free speech movement and like persistent

Speaker 3 like

Speaker 3 layer of the worst, most like wretched elements of wisdom. The ones that haven't moved to Portland or Seattle.
Yeah, Charlie visited the campus a few times.

Speaker 3 I was with him on one occasion, and we were struck by just this prevailing sense of

Speaker 3 nihilism and of depression. It's a very, it's a very, I think, a dark place, but there are great people there.
And Antifa swarmed our event last night.

Speaker 3 It became a massive news story, as most of you probably have heard by now. And I want to get right into it because we have Lila Youssef.

Speaker 3 She is part of our Cal Berkeley TPSA chapter there. She's a second-year law student.

Speaker 3 And she was stuck in the mob, had

Speaker 3 a glass bottle and paint thrown on her. And I want to welcome her to the show to give us her first-hand account of what she saw and witnessed.
Layla, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much. Good morning.

Speaker 4 Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 Yeah, thank you for coming on and making the time. I know it was probably a late evening for you all there and an eventful one.
So why don't you just start by telling us what happened, what you saw,

Speaker 3 and we're going to unpack this piece by piece here.

Speaker 4 Sure, it was absolutely a horrible experience with the Antifa book protesters.

Speaker 4 Pretty much I finished class around 5.30. I walked over from the law school

Speaker 4 and kind of it was clear that there were two different groups. It was the Antifa and the violent protesters carrying their signs.
At that point, they had already started mocking Charlie Kirk's death,

Speaker 4 shouting slurs like Nazi fascists to anyone walking by, wearing a MAGA hat or anything with the American flag on it.

Speaker 4 I saw people stepping on U.S. flags.
And so then I ended up joining this line of people to enter when all of a sudden I started hearing three loud booms. And it sounded as if it was

Speaker 4 it as if it was almost a bomb or gunshots going off. I later found out it was, I believe, some car revving or fireworks.

Speaker 4 And then all of a sudden, I see a glass bottle being thrown above the crowd at the police officers.

Speaker 4 And all of a sudden, the police officers, they kind of get into a formation. They put their visors on.
And that's when the glass bottles get started getting thrown on us.

Speaker 4 And so I, at the time, was standing with a police officer. I was the first person in line line in the barricade that at the time was open.

Speaker 4 So I ran through the barricade and I ran through the two lines of police officers and I kind of hid beneath the police officers to be protected from a glass shard and bottle that was almost a few inches from my head.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And so just so everybody's clear about what actually happened, and you know, you were so close to it that you probably didn't understand the tactical formations that were happening.

Speaker 3 So these Antifa people, and I've got the whole rundown from our team, these Antifa thugs tried tried to basically block off the one entrance to the venue. It's 141.
Throw it up.

Speaker 3 Berkeley, end fascist Turning Point's youth-oriented campaign of incitement to violence.

Speaker 3 Yeah, so what they're doing now is they're claiming that Turning Point is inciting violence by holding a free speech event in Charlie's honor, something he died for, something he was murdered for.

Speaker 3 As always,

Speaker 3 our speech is violence. Their violence is speech.
Yeah, exactly. The whole upside-down, bizarro world that is the radical left.
So, what they did is they cordoned everybody.

Speaker 3 They tried to block the one entrance. And what happened was we were begging the police, our staff was begging the police to get involved to open this up.

Speaker 3 And it wasn't until actual violence started happening that the police finally

Speaker 3 did something to block these people off and create safe passage. And they did sort of a thing that we experienced at UCLA a few years back where they played with the QR codes.

Speaker 3 So a lot, maybe you could speak into this, Layla, where a lot of people had QR codes and we have to use, sometimes we have to work with the universities, especially in California, for ticketing systems.

Speaker 3 And a lot of people were having issues with that. Can you explain what was going on there? What do you know about that?

Speaker 4 Yeah, so pretty much I, like many others in the line, we had already ticketed, we had tickets. We had QR codes that we believed would work.

Speaker 4 And when we would reach the front of the line, we were told that this didn't work because we had only filled out a student interest form or not the correct form.

Speaker 4 We were pretty much all being told different things. And I believe it was part of an orchestrated effort to ensure that the hall wasn't completely full, that the students were allowed to enter.

Speaker 4 And as you mentioned, this was the one entry point. So we were kind of left with, we're stuck in this line, but I can't even leave because I'm going to be attacked by these Antifa thugs.

Speaker 4 So it was, it was, we were pretty much cornered. You were sitting dust.

Speaker 4 Yes. Yeah, pretty much.
And the QR codes, nobody knows why they weren't working. I'm a Berkeley law student.

Speaker 4 I mean, you'd think that I'd use my Berkeley law email to register for this event through Turning Point, through the, through the school, and somehow it's not working.

Speaker 4 It's, it's, for the number of people that I saw it not working for, it's, it's, it's very odd.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you almost, yeah, you almost assume that there was some sort of sabotage going on. I mean, I, I, I mean, I'm not trying to.

Speaker 3 speculate wildly, but it does feel, I mean, we've we've run into this before in Memphis, we had a situation where the actual administration and the school were sabotaging our events.

Speaker 3 So it doesn't surprise me that you would go into a deep blue university and there would be shenanigans at play.

Speaker 3 Blake? I just, I really, it's really incredible to read this flyer they had because it includes the line. Yeah, put it back in.
A few examples, it's in tiny text.

Speaker 3 A few examples of Kirk and Turning Point's typical rhetoric should make clear that Turning Point's actual method for our university community is not about free speech or freedom of debate.

Speaker 3 It is about the intimidation of free speech, especially in an academic setting. It is about bringing an end to free debate.

Speaker 3 These people,

Speaker 3 they just accuse you of exactly what they do. They're really despicable, despicable vermin.
Well, and there was fights that broke out, and I think we have the

Speaker 3 B-roll that's.

Speaker 3 They attacked our people. They attacked.

Speaker 3 So what happened in this instance is there was a guy out there with a red freedom shirt, and it had a cross on the back, and he was saying, Jesus is Lord, you know whatever and that he's getting antagonized by these people and then one of these Antifa goons comes up and rips the cross in his chain off of him the guy runs to go get it and then the guy proceeds to physically assault him punch him bloody him the cops in their defense probably didn't know who started it they tackle both of them and they they arrest him yeah this is the bird's eye view of this altercation and you can see he rips the rips the chain run and then he's running after to to go get it.

Speaker 3 And this guy just proceeds to just pound him, grab him by the collar, and punch him in the face a couple times. The guy kept going after him, and before the cops ended up

Speaker 3 tackling both of them and putting them both in handcuffs,

Speaker 3 I don't know the status. There was a video of them

Speaker 3 afterwards. Yeah, and they said,

Speaker 3 You're bleeding, white boy. You're bleeding.
So then he racial, so the other goons come up and they racially taunt him for being a white guy.

Speaker 3 And the guy that

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 grabbed the chain certainly doesn't, he looked dead in the eyes. Let's put it that way.
Look dead in the eyes.

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Speaker 3 We've got Lila Yusuf from UC Berkeley. So tell us what happened inside

Speaker 3 once you guys did get inside. Actually, what happened with the ticketing system? How'd you ultimately get inside?

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I got inside because one of the

Speaker 4 turning point point staff members was very kind and helped me,

Speaker 4 honestly, walked me through every single gate because they were being, for some reason, even when I had a QR code, they didn't want to let me in. So

Speaker 4 and even, and when I got in, I was like. kind of surprised because the room wasn't even full yet.

Speaker 4 Like I thought I wasn't being allowed in because it was that capacity or something, but they were simply just not letting people in for some arbitrary rules. But

Speaker 4 then I did end up getting in.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Good. And so what happened when you got inside? I mean, this was,

Speaker 3 the clips, I literally, I jumped out of my seat and I started clapping. I was so proud of you guys because it was like I knew the hell outside.

Speaker 3 I was getting calls from reporters that were stuck outside being like, can you get me in? Can you get me? The reporters were freaked out.

Speaker 3 And so I had to connect them with Turning Point staffers to get them inside the building.

Speaker 3 I know some of the audience members maybe questioned my judgment, but listen, anybody who's stuck out in that melee,

Speaker 3 like, you know, you can make reporter jokes all you want, but nobody deserved to be stuck out there with the chaos and the violence that was happening out there. And so we got them inside.

Speaker 3 We made sure they had a safe place to get to. What happened inside? Because it was beautiful.

Speaker 4 It was phenomenal, honestly. I mean, I've never been able to wear my MAGA hat for the past year and a half that I've been at Berkeley.

Speaker 4 All Berkeley conservative students, and I say I speak for pretty much all of us, we are ostracized, we are canceled.

Speaker 4 So to be able to hear wonderful speakers like Rob and Frank kind of go into this notion of, yes, we have conservative values and beliefs, but we can't succumb to the pressures that they want us to.

Speaker 4 We can't join their cancel culture. We have to love and not hate.
We have to remain true to our principles and values and kind of doing it through a comedic fashion.

Speaker 4 Just the full two hours, even the Q ⁇ A was wonderful. I mean, there was this one individual who asked a question in a very rude, derogatory manner.

Speaker 4 And Rob Schneider at the end told him, come shake my hand, come up and shake my hand. And I think that that is symbolic of what us conservatives believe.

Speaker 4 We are able to talk with people that we disagree with. And that was this whole message of this entire event.

Speaker 3 That's fantastic. I mean, the clips were absolutely amazing.
And, you know, there's a, here's, we'll just give a people a,

Speaker 3 you know, let's just give a taste of inside because it was, it was an amazing, amazing moment. Let's play 149.
This is UC Berkeley turning point chapter President. He gave a great speech.

Speaker 3 I was very proud of him. John Paul Leon.
Let's show you. John Paul Leon.
There you go. 149.
It is clear to us which side is winning when your side becomes the violent agitators.

Speaker 3 When you try to win with force and not through reason, you have lost. And the reality is they would never come in and ask a question.
They're not trying to win honestly.

Speaker 3 They have already lost the intellectual battle. Their goal is to disturb the crowd, silence those who disagree, and destroy any ounce of conservatism that they can get their filthy paws on.

Speaker 3 Well said.

Speaker 3 Lila, why don't you just sum it up? We got two minutes left here. What has happened in the wake of Charlie's assassination on UC Berkeley's campus? What are you noticing? Are you seeing more courage?

Speaker 3 Are you seeing more attacks? The floor is yours.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so at the law school in particular, I think the pressure has been heightened because the undergraduate campus is huge. I mean, it's almost 40,000 individuals, but the law school is small.

Speaker 4 So each class is about 350 people.

Speaker 4 And after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I had people taking pictures of me because I was, I'm somebody who is vocally conservative,

Speaker 4 being canceled, people saying we shouldn't have just killed Charlie Kirk. We should kill other people that think like him and kind of pushing this narrative forward.

Speaker 4 And so people like John Paul, for example, and myself have faced a lot of backlash for even

Speaker 4 the day I posted that Charlie Kirk got assassinated, the amount of messages I got saying I should die just like him and kind of this general rhetoric within the

Speaker 4 student body, but also around the community as well. This is, it's not safe anymore to walk around Berkeley as a conservative.
It's a very dangerous place.

Speaker 4 Antifa is prevalent and it's a domestic terror group that needs to be handled with.

Speaker 4 And quite frankly, with all their defund the police chance, I don't think the police are intervening enough and protecting the students enough. The administration certainly isn't.

Speaker 4 So I certainly, of course, since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, people who before were afraid have been more empowered to speak, but that has come with consequences, unfortunately, at Berkeley.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we really need to emphasize on that point.

Speaker 3 Like, the Antifa is basically, like, if we had a group that just in the South, if we had a group in the South that had a uniform and went around and terrorized people who were trying to hold speeches, you know, like the Klan did back in the day, like, we'd be able to say this is a domestic terror group and should be targeted accordingly.

Speaker 3 And like when you have these Antifa urchins who will harass any conservative event in Berkeley, that is a domestic intimidation terror group. Yeah, I mean to Blake's point, it's a really good point.

Speaker 3 And, you know, and you brought it up, Lila, that you do not feel protected. You do not feel like the cops are taking this seriously enough.

Speaker 3 And we did have the president just, you know, declare that Antifa is a domestic terror group. And I know Treasury is working on kind of putting together this loose network.

Speaker 3 They pop up cell by by cell, but they do wear uniforms. They are, listen, if you're going to wear the black block and

Speaker 3 you still want to do this thing where you identify yourself visually, then I think the authorities need to be empowered.

Speaker 3 And there was a lot of that going around on X last night where people were like, listen, they're laughing in your face, to the administration's face, because they're out there loud and proud and nobody's doing anything about this.

Speaker 3 And students like you are getting

Speaker 3 caught in this violent culture, this subculture, this ideology that's trying to intimidate, bully, and assault conservatives on campuses, like UC Berkeley.

Speaker 3 What would you like to see happen as a result of what we saw unfold last night?

Speaker 4 I would like an extreme condemnation from the administration, first and foremost. I would like for heightened security for our events, any conservative events in general across campus.

Speaker 4 And I want this university that once used to supposedly champion itself as being, you know, free speech and all to recognize that it's now not free speech. It's free speech as long as they like it.

Speaker 4 And if they don't, then you're going to get a glass bottle thrown at you or fireworks thrown at you. And that's what we saw yesterday.
And no successful institution can succeed like this.

Speaker 4 No law school can succeed like this. How are these people going to become lawyers when they can't even engage in dialogue with people with whom they disagree with?

Speaker 4 Their resort is to throw a glass bottle at them. So this is something that's very dangerous.
I want to see action from the administration, and not just through words, but also through action.

Speaker 4 I want these students to be reprimanded. There needs to be student conduct violations.

Speaker 4 There needs to be charges against these people that are inciting violence against and trying to intimidate conservatives on campus. There needs to be a stronger message sent to these people.

Speaker 3 I absolutely agree. As long as there is not a full-throated condemnation and

Speaker 3 very serious

Speaker 3 accountability,

Speaker 3 If a university receiving public funds, like we have very broad federal laws on this, if UC Berkeley is systematically not allowing conservative groups to have their constitutional rights expressed, the ones that are protected on any public university campus, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, these have to be protected at public university campuses, then the Trump administration should say, you're not going to get any more money, University of California.

Speaker 3 Yeah, whatever. Put the fear of God into them.
But

Speaker 3 candidly, these cells need to to be rooted out. That too.
Yeah, I mean, like, there needs to be. The university will help you if they have an incentive to do it.
A thousand percent.

Speaker 3 Well, Lila, we're proud of you. Thank you for showing up last night.
Thank you for remaining firm and bold and loud and proud and not being cowed by these bullies, these thugs, these goons.

Speaker 3 Please stay safe.

Speaker 3 And we will, we're just grateful. We're grateful for the frontline student work that you guys are doing.
So, God bless you, and we'll see you soon, hopefully, at AmFest.

Speaker 4 Thank you. Have a good rest of your day.

Speaker 3 All right, you too.

Speaker 3 Hey everybody, this is Andrew Colvett, executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show.

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Speaker 3 So we have a great guest up next.

Speaker 3 His name is Christopher Rufo. He needs no introduction for most of you.
Christopher, welcome to the show. Honored to have you and congratulations on your new show, Rufo and Lomez.

Speaker 2 I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 This is, I mean,

Speaker 3 we have a topic, a very clear topic that we're going to get to about bringing together the disparate coalitions on the right. However, I just want to encourage,

Speaker 3 the show that you're doing with Lomez is going to be a must-listen to for if you want to hear sort of, I would say, just really

Speaker 3 smart dialogue, challenging the ideas, everything that's going on in X, all the chaos. Maybe just tell us one more.
Give us a few lines about the show and why you guys are doing it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're doing a show called Rufo and Lomez. It's me, Rufo, and my friend Jonathan Lomez-Kieperman.

Speaker 2 Look, we're both creatives. I was a documentary filmmaker.
Lomez was an English professor.

Speaker 2 And so we're trying to tackle culture and politics through a different lens than people are used to in the kind of traditional right-wing talk radio format.

Speaker 2 We're trying to take all of the chaos out of the digital sphere.

Speaker 2 We're trying to break it down, dissect it, analyze it for people, and really serve as a trusted, responsible guide through the times that we're in.

Speaker 2 And I think that's what the responsibility for all of us is to do right now. We have a very chaotic politics.
We have a lot of infighting on the right.

Speaker 2 And it's time for those of us who have the ability

Speaker 2 to step up and try to be a really kind of responsible guide, much like Charlie Kirk was for so many people.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's well said and a good segue. And Blake's going to kind of bring us to your tweet.
114,

Speaker 3 you brought this,

Speaker 3 you tweeted this yesterday. I instantly flagged it, and I thought it was so important.
We got to hear, yeah.

Speaker 3 So you just said, it's become very clear in retrospect that Charlie Kirk was holding the right together and that we need J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance to step into that role, which will require settling disputes and laying out the boundaries of the coalition. Nixon figured out how to do this after being vice president.

Speaker 3 So, and then someone said, you know, Vance should have his own podcast, which we've had him on a few times, and we should hopefully do that again in the future.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I think that's, for those who aren't aware, who are watching, there's been a lot of discussion of this online because there's been

Speaker 3 a lot of arguments within the right over, you know, for example, when Tucker interviewed Nick Fuentes, what are the barriers on the Israel question, on foreign policy questions, on a lot of stuff, what's up for debate, what's not up for debate, what's beyond the pale.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Charlie was such a coalition builder. He was so interested in keeping the focus on get wins against the left.

Speaker 3 Don't, you know, Charlie would not have been having a big fight over what the right should believe a week before the elections in Virginia and New Jersey.

Speaker 3 And I think it's very important to emphasize that. And I'm glad you are emphasizing it, Chris.
Yeah. And so, Chris, yeah, build on why JD, why do you see him as uniquely positioned to be that person?

Speaker 2 Well, look, I mean, I think, again, in retrospect, I saw it.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I remember during the transition period, I talked with Charlie, and he called me and he said, hey, I need great names for people to staff the Department of Education.

Speaker 2 I'm down at Mar-a-Lago. We're trying to pick a great team.
And that's the moment that I realized that he was someone that in public had this huge role, but also in private.

Speaker 2 He was essential in figuring out how to get good people together that were focused on the mission, that were going to deliver results.

Speaker 2 And I think I didn't quite understand that and appreciate that until after he was gone. And then there's this sense of a void.

Speaker 2 There's no one that can stitch together the various coalitions into the MAGA movement,

Speaker 2 into the general right. He was really just an incredible leader in that regard.

Speaker 2 And as I'm looking around for other people who could fill his shoes and serve in that same capacity, the first person that obviously comes to mind is the sitting vice president of the United States.

Speaker 2 You know, JD has great relationships with all the various factions on the right. He, of course, has the bully pulpit of being the vice president.

Speaker 2 That's actually quite helpful to be in a powerful position. And he can really gatekeep in a unique way, kind of offering the access to the White House, offering access to

Speaker 2 the office of the vice president, and then getting people in line. And look, the right is facing this question now.
Obviously, it's very chaotic.

Speaker 2 Many of us wish that we weren't doing it, for example, right before election. But the cat is now out of the bag.
And I think we need to resolve these questions sooner rather than later.

Speaker 2 And I think the vice president has the authority, the credibility, and more importantly, the relationships to get the job done.

Speaker 2 I could see why he would want to kind of let things maybe resolve naturally.

Speaker 2 But I hope that he steps up and I hope that he can be a galvanizing figure.

Speaker 2 I hope he can be a figure that really sets the boundaries and also sets the direction so that all of us can be more effective in our work.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I want to let's let's Charlie was of course a big fan of the vice president. It's very hard for him to become vice president and senator before that.
And so let's go to the man himself.

Speaker 3 This is Charlie on JD. Let's play 158.

Speaker 1 We recognized his gifts early on. I saw the talent and I said, this is the guy.
This is the one. J.D.
Vance has become such a warrior for our cause in the past six months.

Speaker 3 J.D. Vance

Speaker 1 is acting and looking like the vice president that Donald Trump needs, the vice president that Donald Trump deserves, and maybe beyond that, even the 48th president. We're a long way from that.

Speaker 1 We shouldn't even think or talk too much openly about that, but he's a rock star. He's smart.
He's capable. He's humble.
He's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 And what an upgrade from what we had during that last administration.

Speaker 3 Unclear if he's talking about Joe Biden's or Trump 1.0 there, but

Speaker 3 it probably would have remained. probably true from Charlie's perspective on either.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I mean, listen, Chris, JD has the built-in advantage of not only being the vice president, but you know, Charlie in death somehow has taken on even

Speaker 3 more important

Speaker 3 of a position within the movement symbolically, spiritually.

Speaker 3 And of course, the words that he spoke out and all these clips we have of him, he was in JD's corner a billion percent.

Speaker 3 I can tell you this from the first time we had him on the show years ago when it was just talking about no Billy Elliott.

Speaker 3 He'd always say, people would say, like, Charlie, you should run for president. He's like, I don't need to.
J.D. J.D.
runs for president. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So that, I mean, that holds a significance within the conservative movement

Speaker 3 that Charlie was such a huge proponent of his.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think that's right. And I think, again, he really set the example.

Speaker 2 If you see how Charlie dealt with kind of right-wing racialism, right-wing conspiracism, the Grouper movement more broadly, he was trying to... kind of create good boundaries that would benefit.

Speaker 2 And he understood that sometimes there is addition through subtraction in a political coalition.

Speaker 2 There are certain groups that you want to manage, and there are certain groups that you want to manage out, because ultimately they detract. And the end of my tweet was a reference to Richard Nixon.

Speaker 2 And if you look at the history of Nixon, Nixon was derailed in his 1962 campaign for California governor by the John Birch Society, which in that time represented a more extreme form of right-wing conspiracism.

Speaker 2 They, of course, were famous for attacking President Eisenhower as a communist agent.

Speaker 2 And by the 1968 presidential campaign, which Nixon won, and then in 72, which he won by an overwhelming margin, winning 49 states, he learned how to successfully

Speaker 2 cut through

Speaker 2 these thorny questions, how to create a successful coalition that galvanized huge majorities, and also how to edge out some of the kind of negative influences, some of the net negatives, like the John Birch Society.

Speaker 2 He had this sophisticated strategy of strategic distance without getting sucked into a debate with the Birch Society. And I think that for someone like JD, a similar approach could be quite effective.

Speaker 2 Look, again, Nixon won 49 states. I think he has, he demonstrated.
one potential model for this that could be very important. And of course, Nixon was, you know, formerly served as vice president.

Speaker 2 And so that's why I think the historical example might be useful and might offer a plausible way forward.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think

Speaker 3 this is the debate. I mean, what you've just isolated is the, you know, and Buckley played a big role with, you know, who was in, who was out.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's a, it's, I can't tell you how many people have sent me the Buckley example going back to those days. And, you know, it's, it's a, it's a really tricky question.

Speaker 3 And it is a tricky one because, like, for example, you could say some of Buckley's influence meant that we had like that anti-intervention, anti-immigration faction of the right was too low for too long, and that caused a lot of damage to the movement and the country, arguably.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, I think you have to get it right. And I will say, you know, I mean, let's just name names.
Let's just do it. And Chris, you can either choose to engage or not.

Speaker 3 I mean, that's kind of what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 Well, let's not get sucked down to it, but

Speaker 3 sucked down into this sort of like, I would say, counterproductive infighting. And I agree with you that there are opportunities where we need to sort of say, hey,

Speaker 3 this is a line too far. It's a bridge too far.

Speaker 3 But a lot of people, we've said it on Thought Crime. I think we've said it on this show as well.
A lot of people are asking us to distance ourselves from Tucker, given everything that's happened.

Speaker 3 And I would say, listen.

Speaker 3 One of the last things that we were asked to do or that Charlie made very clear to us was that, you know, I will not be, you know, morally blackmailed when it comes to Tucker Carlson. He's my friend.

Speaker 3 I believe in him. And, you know, listen, we have a, I understand a lot of the pressure that comes with the fallout from that interview.
I understand a lot of it. You know, but,

Speaker 3 you know, it's, there is a relationship there. There is a history there with Charlie and Tucker.
And so

Speaker 3 just to say it really clearly,

Speaker 3 that's not going to happen. Now, debates, the collision of ideas at Amfest, trust trust me, we are pursuing every single means.

Speaker 3 And I think it's a worthwhile debate to be having about what is our foreign policy? What should it be with regards to how much we spend on foreign nations?

Speaker 3 Is there a line between moral and financial support? Is there a line between boots on the ground? Certainly, I think the movement is consolidated and

Speaker 3 I would say very united when it comes to boots on the ground. But there are really important conversations that deserve to be challenged in a public forum from different perspectives.

Speaker 5 This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and Founding Partner of YReFi. It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us.

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Speaker 3 All right, this is more from when Charlie was singing J.D. Vance's praises in January.
It's January 27th of 2025. So earlier this year, 159.

Speaker 1 Getting behind JD Vance

Speaker 1 in 2000

Speaker 1 and, what was it, 21? Yeah, that's right. 2021, we endorsed J.D.
Vance Vance very early. It's kind of like buying Bitcoin in 2013.
It's a lot of upside.

Speaker 3 It's a lot of upside.

Speaker 1 People hear him and go, wait, this guy is great. He got vilified so much earlier, and it's got even better.
And everyone around me knows how much I believe in J.D. Vance.

Speaker 1 I mean, I went all out twice for him, first on the Senate thing, and then on the vice presidential selection.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I can personally attest of just how much Charlie, how much equity he put it, political capital he put in to getting J.D.

Speaker 3 to be selected as the vice president, to getting him to win the primary for the Ohio Senate race. Charlie believed in J.D.
Vance, and my goodness, J.D. Vance

Speaker 3 has been an absolute hero in the aftermath of Charlie's assassination. He's anything we need, he's right there to help, and he means it, and it's sincere.
Blake, take us in.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Chris, we just want to hear what you have to think about

Speaker 3 the elephants in the room, room, which is we're having this big factional debate because

Speaker 3 not, it didn't start with him. Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes.
Some people said that's fine. Some people said we don't like it, but

Speaker 3 whatever, it's his show. And some people are saying this is beyond the pale and we should condemn it.
We're having faction fights at Heritage. So we just wanted you to offer your perspective on that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, how do we approach it, Chris?

Speaker 2 Well, you know,

Speaker 2 it's a very complex question, and I have a few parts to the answer. You know, first off, I think, like many of us, Tucker gave so many people on the right a great start, a great boost, great support.

Speaker 2 I count myself as someone who really is grateful for what Tucker has done. And so I think you give someone like that more latitude.

Speaker 2 If you're talking about the Fuentes interview, my own personal preference would have been for Tucker to really

Speaker 2 interrogate Fuentes a little bit more, challenge his opinions,

Speaker 2 really make it it a kind of journalistic and adversarial enterprise.

Speaker 2 However, I think that therefore the call to banish Tucker, to banish Kevin Roberts from Heritage, to banish anyone in that orbit is foolish. I think it's premature.
I think it is counterproductive.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 in my own attempt,

Speaker 2 I've texted with Tucker subsequently. I've tried to give him my sense of how to think about the Fuentes or Grouper phenomenon, how to approach it in a way that I think would be more productive.

Speaker 2 We exchanged

Speaker 2 pretty cordial messages. And I think that is probably the best strategy moving forward to recognize that Tucker does have an important place in the conservative movement.

Speaker 2 And even in places of criticism, I think that we can try to debate those ideas. We can try to push people in a more productive direction.

Speaker 2 I think this is what Charlie did with not just with Tucker, but with many other people.

Speaker 2 And I am, well, I think that, look, again, there's always addition through subtraction with people who are net negatives, very counterproductive.

Speaker 2 I think kind of racialist, conspiracist factions certainly fall under that.

Speaker 2 But, you know,

Speaker 2 this instinct to denounce, to disavow, to draw red lines, to purge leadership,

Speaker 2 to do that kind of action, whether at Heritage or now at ISI or in other institutions, I think that is not the right way to approach the right approach.

Speaker 2 And I think we get into an almost inverse of the BLM moment where you have DEI-style struggle sessions at conservative institutions. I think that is a very bad idea.

Speaker 3 Post the Black Square. Post the Black Square, Chris.
It's like it feels like our version of Post the Black Square, which, by the way, Charlie raged against.

Speaker 3 You don't like this aggressive moral coercion that just uses, you know, know, how dare you have this conversation? How dare you have that thought?

Speaker 3 He was very against that.

Speaker 3 Well, and Chris, that was well, that was really well said. And

Speaker 3 I'm glad to hear that from you because

Speaker 3 you're a smart guy and you've thought deeply about these issues. And I would just say, you know, listen,

Speaker 3 let's put the Groiper phenomenon aside. Let's put all of that aside.
I will tell you

Speaker 3 with a thousand percent certainty because I had dozens of conversations about this.

Speaker 3 The larger critiques, the chew the meat, the spit-out the bones kind of critiques about what this country has done when it comes to betraying young men, young white men, what it's done to break the social compact and to label a lot of these groups as toxic, as beyond the pale, is not worth fighting for, has done such extraordinary damage to our country that some of this backlash, it needs to be harnessed and focused.

Speaker 3 And that's what was Charlie

Speaker 3 devoted his life to. You heard that with Erica Kirk in her memorial speech, that this was the guy that killed Charlie

Speaker 3 the same kind of guy that he was out on these college campuses trying to save. And that work must continue.

Speaker 3 We must remember that some of these, yes, it comes out in gross and vile ways, but at the core, there is a truth that we must acknowledge and be very, very serious about addressing.

Speaker 3 Final word to you about 50 seconds, Chris.

Speaker 2 Yeah, think about it. I mean, if you're a young man growing up today, you came of age during the COVID lockdowns.

Speaker 2 You came of age during the BLM era where you were told that you were inherently and intrinsically evil because of your sex, because of your race.

Speaker 2 And so there is a justifiable resentment that has been bubbling up for many years.

Speaker 2 But I think that the best way to address that is through eliminating DEI, delegitimizing BLM ideologies, and then kind of tapping into those essential pillars of building our civilization, economic opportunity, great institutions, strong families, and offering young men a way that is not nihilistic, but a way that's actually going to make their lives better in the real world.

Speaker 2 If conservatives can't do that, we need to keep thinking.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I agree. We got to offer them a better vision.
Christopher Rufo, host of the new show, Rufo and Lomez, two really great, great guys, thought leaders in the movement. Thank you, Chris.

Speaker 3 We'll have you on again soon. Thanks, gentlemen.

Speaker 3 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.