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Hey everybody, my conversation with Donald Trump Jr. from the People's Convention. A wonderful conversation. You can email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. And consider becoming a member. It is members.charliekirk.com. Members.charliekirk.com. When you become a member, you get behind the great work we are doing. Members.charliekirk.com.
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Don, welcome to Michigan. So, Don, I got to tell you, we have some great folks here. We were just talking to a UAW worker here, a linesman, who says that Trump is going to, you said 50 to 1? Is that what you said? I mean, you said he's going to win the UAW vote, yeah? Okay, so do you ever get leadership...
At the UAW to stop spending your very hard-earned dues money to fund BS because that's the problem. I mean, I think the workers have been with us for a long time, but you're literally funding your own demise, allowing them to continue. Really quick, yeah. It's a separate fund. But you have to contribute to it, so it's still your money. Oh, it's voluntarily is what you're saying. Got it. Okay, good for you. Oh, that's good.
They also use the brand, which is more they make it seem as if the rank and file are behind. Well, I saw a couple of months ago and I know my father was in here and they met with the leaders and then Biden meets and they're saying, you know, they're going to support. Meanwhile, they're supporting like an electric vehicle mandate that is like 100 percent dependent on China because there's no batteries without China's rare earth minerals and everything like that. I'm I'm watching us do that. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I guess it's a temporary fix.
that will destroy the automotive sector in america for probably ever so so don we're here in detroit obviously we're doing our big event thank you for making time by the way congratulations it's the first time i'm seeing you face to face since the baby that's right two under two two under two when you had your five i'm sure you were two out of two at some point i i had i have three under three i have five under seven at one point in time so yeah i know how that happens now so uh
I got a new hobby that's much less vicious than more kids. I got into politics. You had five under seven. That's unbelievable. It's nice compared to toddlers. And that's no twins. No twins. We have Irish twins, but no twins. Wow. How close together were the Irish twins? Both born in October, a year apart, so... Wow. Yeah. Holy... Two Octobers a year apart, so that was a lot. That is a lot. So... I actually have two of them in the room, so... Yeah. Yeah.
Hello, everyone. They're hiding, I think. They're probably on their phones, not listening to me because Dad doesn't know anything. But they did want to be here, so that's a start. That's awesome. That's great.
A turning point event is a good place to start. It's a good place to start. Definitely a great place to start. So, Don, being in Detroit, show of force, we have nearly 10,000 people here. It's just an incredible thing. This campaign feels much closer to 2016 in the way where the world is against us, people don't believe that we can win, and we're kind of going all out, going to the places we aren't welcome. Can you also just remind the audience, you and I, you especially, but I was kind of shadowing you,
Michigan played a very important role in the 2016 story as well. Yeah, we were at Michigan State. We were at Michigan State. And Michigan State was hilarious. And, you know, you're not supposed to be there. You can't do this. We were doing, I mean, we did some great sort of, you know, literally Muslim-based events in downtown Detroit. We spoke at Michigan State, you know, obviously. It was a blue state at a college campus. And, I mean, you were a baby at the time, I think. That's right. I was 22.
I was 22, 23. Yeah, right. 21, yeah. They had introduced me to Charlie a couple months before, and I'm, you know, you got to meet this guy. He knows everything about politics, yada, yada, yada. I was like, how old is he? He's like, at the time, like 21. That's right. I was like, guys –
We already know nothing. We don't need more people to know nothing. I need people who know something. Just give me something. They convinced me to sit down with Charlie, a couple of good friends of ours who were on this trip consequently. And I was like, oh, this guy's great. And all of a sudden, I mean, we started traveling together and we spent the next eight, nine months of the campaign basically attached at the hip. But we went to Michigan State.
And, you know, of course, the university, we sold it out plus. And of course, they made it much more easily available for people who didn't like us than the people who actually like us. And we get in there and the guy that was awesome actually was like one of the head of like the Michigan State Police was there. And he basically goes like, there's so many people like here again, like we can't keep you safe.
He literally said it. He's like, so you do what you need to do, but we're going to try, but we cannot guarantee your safety at this venue right now. It was getting that out of hand. And I basically went with...
I don't know, I guess it's probably a Trump-esque quality, which is like, I'd rather get my ass kicked, you know, than give them the win, right? I was like, I'll take the beating before I give them the win. And we went up there, and like what usually happens and like what Charlie does so well, literally the dumbest of their dumb were the ones that were engaging with us. So for me, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm just mocking them. And then all the frat boys got involved and just drowned them out and pushed them out of the room, and we took over, and we had this incredible event.
But no, I mean, you know, when I compare and contrast 16 to this, honestly, the reality is, you know, we're five and change months out. And the enthusiasm I see on the ground now is so much more palpable than even then. There, there were groups that were like, okay, that forgotten man and woman. You know, the union guys that were just left behind by leadership for a long time. You felt it there. I mean, I was walking, you know, what was it, 10 days ago in New York going to my father's trial trial.
And like, you know, every demographic imagine. I mean, I had guys driving garbage trucks that would pull over to give me a high five to be like, you guys better win. I mean, this was, you know, as New York as it gets. So, you know, this wasn't just like, you know, rural towns that had been forgotten. This is the middle of New York City being like, hey, man, you guys got to fix this. You know, Kim and I were walking through an airport.
you know a couple weeks ago and you know some flight attendants literally screaming across the airport that you guys gotta you know twin 2024 you know and again coming from demographics uh that that historically even if they were supportive would not have voiced it out loud they maybe come up to me maybe slip me a note on a plane uh they're literally screaming it at security at a big airport and i was like you know and i always go pretty subtle trying to go casual throwing a hat and there was no getting away from it but
But that's the difference. It's a much broader base now because the reality is you're not going to lie to people in perpetuity. Tell them that everything they see each and every day, whether it's in the grocery store or in world events—
That they're better off in any way, shape, or form because they see it with their own eyes. So, and Don, we're ultimately successful in Michigan. And I remember we were on the plane. The last event that we did before the New Hampshire and then before the midnight rally in Michigan was back in 2016, I think, in Macomb County, not far from here. Are we in Wayne right now or Macomb? We're in Wayne. So Macomb is right nearby, right? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So there's a lot of UAW autoworkers, I think, that live in Macau. And I remember we were, it was at some like Polish cultural center or something. And we were anticipating like 200 people and like 2,000 people showed up. Yeah.
I think it was a Ukrainian cultural center. I'm sorry. Yeah. Hey, guess what? We could have stopped that from happening too. And we would have. And that's a real sad thing. And we will again. But we will stop the killing. Unfortunately, a couple hundred thousand people had to die because of the incompetence that's out there first. That's so true. And we ended up winning. And it was this crazy thing. And we shocked the world. So Michigan has always played a really important role. Don, can you just give us a little bit of a window into how you and the family are processing all of this?
It seems as if the more that is thrown at your family, the more you guys double down and triple down. And your father in particular is unlike any figure in American history, probably since Lincoln, who has been able to withstand the weight of a nation and keep on persevering for something that is greater than him. Despite the ridicule, the smear, and the slander, how are you guys doing? Fine. Honestly, I'd love to... Fine. Fine.
No, I get it. I hear it a lot. That was a pretty dramatic line. Yeah, but the reality is, for us, it's become like it's Tuesday. You know what I mean? Ah, 34 counts. It's like, that's worse than Al Capone. But it's gotten so ridiculous that you actually get numb to it, right? So for me, a lot of that...
Really started in 17 with me, with Russia, Russia, Russia. You get attacked. You have all the people, the head of the Intelligence Committee. They want to try me for treason, a crime punishable by death. Once that becomes normal, once you're like, eh, then it doesn't matter. You just fight. So we're blessed now.
I guess we don't have that I have an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation. Maybe that's the best way to put it. We just fight. We don't have a choice. We don't have a choice not just for ourselves. We could have
we could have easily stopped any of this by, A, not getting into the ring in the first place or stopped after 2020. But the reality there is just far too much at stake to stop now. It doesn't matter. It's not about what they fine us for or what they do to us. It's such a bigger picture. I'm not thinking about myself. I'm thinking about my kids and their kids after them because we've got to leave them a country they recognize. And right now, on the track we're going, that will not exist. And I think we see that because –
It's not like, oh, they're just doing this to Trump. Look at the disparate treatment, you know, J6ers versus the people that burned down, you know,
various cities around the world during what I was told was the 2020 Summer of Love riots. You know, it's always interesting when they say Summer of Love riots, and I'm just like, I don't know how those two really work together, but I guess the left doesn't have much of a sense of irony or hypocrisy. And so, you know, yeah, I mean, I guess it's probably not the greatest thing in terms of mentality, but I think if you didn't have that sort of mentality right now, you wouldn't, it'd be a lot harder to function.
This election feels bigger than just Trump. It feels like the entire country is on the ballot and the civilization is on the ballot. And we've been talking about how we need to turn everyone into force multipliers and everyone needs to go do their part, register voters, get the word out, not just vote and get back to your job. And we're seeing that really play out. You've now been doing this, like the professional political thing since 2017. You didn't ask for it, but you do kind of like it. Yeah.
I like the fight. Yeah, you like the fight. And you're in the right business for that. I wish we had more Republicans that actually like to fight. That's perhaps our biggest weakness. You got Trump, you got you, you got me, two or three other people, and then you got a bunch of feckless weaklings. So that's the problem. I mean, if we played the same game the Democrats did, we'd be winning every day. But, you know, until we get there, we'll keep not winning. That's totally true. And remember what they put Don through from the Mueller investigation to all that nonsense.
They did everything they could to try to destroy the family and to try to create separation. So, Don, you've been doing this professional thing for like seven years. Looking back, what have you learned about the country? What have you learned about yourself? How have you grown through all this? I've never heard you – I could talk about this in pieces, but it's been this incredible experience. Have you been to – you've traveled like every day for seven years? You've seen every part of the country? I think I've been home two days of the last 30. But now for me, hey, I –
I guess it became a selfless thing. I mean, I promise you it was a lot easier to be a real estate developer from New York City than this. But, you know, again, I think, you know, what I've learned about the country is, you know, it's unfortunately bad. I've learned how great the people are. I've learned also how much more broken...
Our system, I mean, it's so much worse than you can even imagine. And that's the problem. You know, I brought I was brought up sort of as a patriot. I love my country. And I mean, even when they started going after me, I would sit there and be like, well, no, no, no. I mean, the FBI, I mean, they said something. There has to be something to it. You know, the CIA was like, these are patriotic. It's all nonsense.
Okay, it's all nonsense. It doesn't mean there's not patriotic guys that are door kickers, but guess what? Like, after seven, eight years of these abuses, whether it's Faisal, whether it's knocking down the doors of an Amish farmer for selling unpasteurized milk, you know, eventually you stop giving them a pass for their silence. I get it. They're working for other guys that are corrupted and broken and all this stuff, but like...
Eventually, you've got to do what we did and step up and have some – I'll say guts. A spine. My kids are in the room, and if I say the better word for it, I'll get – Yes. Yes. So I guess that was the disappointing part is because all of the things that I brought up thinking were accurate were actually a big lie. So I'm actually not out there fighting to preserve –
Any of that, you know, frankly, most of it needs to get burned down. I'm fighting to create what I thought actually existed and perhaps what we all actually wanted to believe was going on our country that that clearly isn't right now and hasn't been for too long. I totally agree that people are far more impressive than they get credit for. Oh, but I saw that. I mean, and I was like, you know, I was like.
brought up on Fifth Avenue in New York. My father's a billionaire, but all my friends were sort of, you know, I'm into the outdoor stuff and competitive shooting and hunting and fishing. So, you know, my weekends were always with like real Americans. And so, you know, it always drove me crazy watching the elite. They just don't understand. I'm like, no, you morons, like you don't understand anything. And it's really great watching, you know, so many of those blue collar liberal haters now be replaced by AI. But you know who they're not replacing? Like farmers. Farmers.
linemen, you know, guys that have to do like actual work, not just sit there type the same thing that everyone else is typing. I mean, those guys were so quickly replaced. Some of those, you know, white collar, like elitist, but you know,
They're not all that elite in the end. They've been replaced so quickly their heads are spinning. So the guys that started the whole learn to code trend, sort of making fun of guys that were working on pipelines that got laid off because of these stupid policies, looks like they're the ones that may have to actually learn to do something productive. There's a real profound truth here, everybody, where our side believes that the wisdom of the people is impressive and the experts are rather lackluster.
Their side believes that the people are stupid and the experts are really impressive. I think that actually is one of the stories of the 24 election in D.C. I mean, it's I think it's the story of Trump. You realize just how bad all these people were. I mean, remember, like, you know, Trump's doing it all wrong in North Korea. Well, why? Well, because I've been leading the delegation on North Carolina for North Korea for 40 years. And I think it's wrong. It's like, well, in that 40 years, like, what did you accomplish?
Well, nothing but we're doing it. It's like, no, like you, if you fail at something for 40 years, you sort of should lose your expert status. But that's not how it works in D.C., right? It was the same thing. I can't believe Trump would move the embassy to Jerusalem. Well, every every candidate promised it for years. It was going to be the start of World War Three and mass genocide. You know, three people threw rocks and it was over. And we like like they're not experts. They don't know anything.
They don't know anything. You know, the same people that said he was doing it all wrong were the same people trying to get peace deals done in the Middle East for 50 years. They've got exactly zero done. That was the holy grail of geopolitical politics. Trump gets five done in a matter of a few months. And, you know, but hey, those guys are still the experts. They're still accomplishing nothing. They're still getting paid a lot of money. They still control, you know, the media. And, you know, and they think just because they hear someone say something on CNN that that must actually be accurate as opposed to just nonsense. And that's perhaps incorrect.
Perhaps our greatest accomplishment is exposing that, you know, exposing that where people listen to the news and even those who aren't that into the process or aren't that passionate about it. They're just, you know, they're busy trying to feed their family, which has gotten a lot harder over the last four years. You know, and even they like it doesn't have that influence over them. And again, if if I had.
Let's call it, you know, the trillion dollar institution that is big tech, another trillion dollar institution that is the mainstream media. If I had them as my marketing department, which the left does, like I'd be winning elections like ninety nine point nine nine nine to point one. You know, the fact that these things are even close, given the start that they have.
You know, if if the Republicans had that kind of artificial boosting from from anyone, the Democrats would sue them. They'd say it's an in-kind contribution. It'd be campaign finance violations. Instead, they they want to throw my father in jail for hundreds of years for, you know, for these things. It's it's lunacy. But, you know, that's the game. And again, once we learn how to fight the same way that they do or even just start doing it.
They'll stop really quickly, but as long as we're playing t-ball while they're playing hardball, there's no chance of anything changing. Why do you think that is? And you spend a lot of time around some of these people. Oh, it's easy, yeah. It's an easy existence if you're a weak Republican in D.C. You can be Republican and talk to a nice small group of seven or eight people in your at-home constituency, and you tell them what you want, and guess what? You can even vote with the Republicans like 80, 85% of the time in D.C. As long as you flip...
and you're a reliable flip when it actually matters for something that we actually care about for something your constituents probably actually sent you there to defend uh you know and not bastardize or fold on like they'll leave you alone
They won't picket your house and they won't do the, you know, obligatory, you know, Washington Post hippies, although the Washington Post cut half their employees because their circulation has gone down by 50% in the last four years. But again, because we're actually making inroads because people are becoming unafraid. I mean, there's, you know, there's words that we hear even in common sort of language, common vernacular on a daily basis that three years ago would have gotten you canceled, but
Anyone who's as old as me probably used them about every other word, you know, coming out in their high school. But then it became cancelable. The fear of cancellation just isn't that much anymore. You know, they jumped the shark. They overplayed their hands so badly. It got so insane. The stuff that they were pushing and they truly believe is like, you know, a big thing. Of course, trans women should play sports against my kids.
It's just not real. But the lunatics in charge in their own little world actually think it. But but it's it's not so even people on the left. I'll put it out on Twitter and I've been vocal about that one for seven years. And even when it was like Twitter, one point it was like ninety five to five. People are like, oh, I hate Don Jr. so much. But he's right. You know, they're like they're suicidal because they agreed with me on something.
But, you know, so we're so used to sort of getting manipulated that the narrative is real as opposed to the narrative is just the narrative. And if you're strong enough to actually stand up and, like, voice your opinion, you can show people that it's not so. And the more people that do that and a lot more have started, the quicker you end a lot of that nonsense because they'll realize that it isn't popular. There's a lot more people that share, you know, probably our beliefs, certainly the things we're thinking, even if they won't articulate them out loud. We just got to make it clear.
feel friendly for them to do so once those people become unafraid we win astoundingly so let me ask you a couple questions and some from the audience what may take one or two from the audience we okay we have five minutes then we got so we'll do actually quicker here uh do you think joe biden's going to be the candidate you know it's almost hard it's a hard one because it's like you know i i don't think there's anything the democrats won't do to win let's just be clear but you know i think he understands there's enough legal stuff sort of out there he's not just going to walk away
Right. He's got to be there to write the pardons and all these kinds of things that they're going to need. So it's not that simple. Then you have the problem of, well, if you do get rid of Joe Biden, how do the Democrats like skip over Kamala Harris? No, that's their biggest problem. I mean, they created this person who literally did not. I don't think she got one percent of the Democrat primary, and yet she was the natural pick.
You know, for VP, obviously, I guess. They should have chose Whitmer for VP. Yeah, well, that's who they'd probably want to put in there. But, like, how do they do their, like, Democrat mental gymnastics and bypass Kamala Harris, who, like, every time you hear her speak, it's a word salad. Like, we have to preserve democracy for democracy is the democracy of democracy. I'm like, I swear, I think Kamala Harris is, I think her speechwriter is, like, Closet Maga. No, because, like, you hear what she says, I'm like, man, like,
If I was writing her speech, that's what I would write to make her look like a moron. I want to send them a fruit basket or something like that because I'm like, please, keep doing what you're doing because it's spectacular. But she just has no political instinct. She doesn't know how to read the room. She's got one of the worst communicators you've ever seen. So it's interesting. I'd rather run against her than Joe Biden even, and he can't find his way off this stage.
And it's a tough question because it's hard for us to even grasp how this is competitive when it is Trump, who is one of a president versus Biden who can't speak and he's deeply unpopular. But then we're reminded that the apparatus that Democrats have is formidable and we are not running against Biden running up against a Democrat apparatus, a machine. I don't like two or three people that don't even have to be coordinating, can do a lot of stuff in Philadelphia.
and change thousands of votes. And that's what it comes down. They can do the same. Like, I don't think anyone with an IQ above about three actually thinks that Joe Biden lost, what, 18 of 19 bellwethers, but magically, magically destroyed even Barack Obama in Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Milwaukee. I mean, like, and nowhere else, but nowhere else. Like,
And that's not how statistics works, folks. It's just, it's like, if you put a mathematician who wasn't biased and was talking about it honestly, they'd be like, it's literally an impossibility. So you're still up against that. So you still, you have to overwhelm a system. I used to, there would have been a time where I would have said, you know, the Democrats, you know,
They have some shame. They can only roll his gurney over the finish line with so much extra help. I don't honestly, if on election day, Joe Biden got 475 million votes, let's call it, you know, 125 million more than exists in America. They'd be like, it's the most fair and free election in the history of the world. They'll tell you that they won't back it up, but it won't matter that.
Tech will do its part. They'll cancel anyone who says, no, how can there be more votes than people in the country? It doesn't matter. So the thing I'm concerned about is that there is no level of shame here.
for these people right now. And they don't care. Joe Biden's been a useful idiot for them. I mean, he's signing stuff that Barack Obama would have loved to have signed but wouldn't have dared because he actually was concerned about preserving his legacy. He understood what that would do to his popularity with the American people. So they're more than happy to let this sort of empty suit sign everything. And he doesn't know. He won't remember. You know, which is, you know, sad.
So in closing here, Don, how are you going to be spending your time now to November? What areas are you focusing on? And then what's the call to action for everyone listening? Listen, the call to action is everyone just has to get involved, right? You know, find, but find the right people to get involved in the right things, right? You have some great volunteers who have been out there for decades, but you know, your 95-year-old grandmother may be super MAGA, but she may not be the person to be a poll watcher in Philadelphia, right? It's like,
I know Eric showed up with like, legally as a poll watcher and with like a secret service detail at the time. And they were like, yeah, you're not coming in. Four guys with machine guns. Yeah, you're not coming in. It didn't matter. So, you know, you need people who can fight tough and smart. And everyone just has to get involved. They have to understand what's at stake. You know, they have to actually start running for office. You can't start saying, you know, we're above these things. Run for your school board. Run for, you know, city council.
You know, the left has infiltrated every institution because they're just, hey, well, we'll stick, you know, some purple-haired freak, you know, on a school board who doesn't intend to have any kids, but, man, they're intent on indoctrinating yours.
we can't cede any of those grounds. So I think we just all have to get involved and we all have to fight in the most effective way we possibly can. Don, talk about your books. Talk about your Rumble show, how people can support you. Check me out. I'm on Rumble a couple times a week. My Triggered podcast, it's on there. The usual, all the places on social media and
No, and that's the other thing. I mean, we just have to get out there organically. I think now we're actually at an interesting spot, you know, whether it's, you know, economically the stuff going on with Public Square or, you know, with Rumble and with True Social. I mean, there are people actively doing what the left said, which is like, hey, if you don't like what you're getting here, build your own.
Now, they'll throw up every roadblock. They'll try to cancel you along the way. They'll cut off payment like they did for my MXM News app and stuff like that. They'll make it impossible for you, but there are people that are out there actually actively fighting with you. I mean, your guys' support, whether it's Charlie, whether it's myself, whether it's – there's a slew of us actively supporting that rather than just going, oh, well, we'll go on Amazon and click the easy button. It's like, well, that money that you've worked hard for, a big portion of that's going to be weaponized against everything you believe.
powerfully, whether it's with direct donations to radical leftist causes, whether it's supplying the $250,000 a month that their lobbyists are getting in Washington, D.C., to fight for their monopolizing business while destroying small business.
You know, we just have to think about these things, and we just can't always take the easy way. Listen, I get it. We're living in an instant gratification society and world right now, but I think everyone has to take part in this fight. They have to start figuring those things out. You start pulling away some of that money. You start pulling away some of those views. We can actually do a lot of damage, but we have to all be doing it. It can't be one or two people talking about it. You saw they canceled the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, when it was my father.
If they can do that to him, they can do it to anyone. If they can't do it, if we're all banded together and we're fighting one battle. Don Jr., everybody. Thank you, guys. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening, and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.
