Charlie Kirk

My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're gonna end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You gotta stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter. Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life. And I encourage you to do the same. Here I am, Lord.

Michael Knowles

Use me.

Charlie Kirk

Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble gold investments@noblegold investments.com that is noblegoldinvestments.com.

Blake

all right, welcome everybody, to the Charlie Kirk show. It is July 20, 2026. We are Blake's holding it down in Phoenix, Arizona at the Y Refi studios. We got lots of news to cover this morning. A lot of breaking news, unfortunately, out of New York City, where a suspect is in custody now after an incendiary device was set off outside a federal building, which just so happens to house the ICE facilities. Let's go ahead and play a quick recap video here just to get everybody up to speed and explain why and how this is so important to our current moment.

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Sat 6 here in New York in lower Manhattan.

Sat 6 Reporter

New video of the scene at 26 Federal Plaza. Now, this was apparently, according to the FBI, someone deployed an incendiary device, as you can see from that smoke. And it's no small matter here, that building. So there's what appears to be. Yeah, the individual taken away. A person has been apprehended. That was the information we had. That building houses the FBI New York field office. It also houses the New York Immigration Court, among other things, the FBI saying an individual has been taken away and the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force will now investigate.

Blake

All right, so you've got the federal building that houses the FBI field office and immigration court. This obviously, Blake. And you see all that smoke billowing up in the air. This obviously, the first thought we have is this is politically motivated by the usual suspects.

Andrew Colvett

Exactly. It's. I mean, We've seen these attacks, we've seen shooting attacks on ICE facilities, we've seen blockades of ICE facilities. And what especially stood out about this, and this is pointed out by one of our producers, is this came basically about one day after Tom Holman said, hey, we're going to be doing immigration enforcement in New York City. That was all because Mayor Mamdani was gloating in an interview that we're a sanctuary city. We're not going to be cooperating with any immigration enforcement efforts in the city. And so the federal government needs to lay down the law. They need to show that federal law still exists in New York City. So Tom Holman, he doesn't announce any particular operations, just says, we're going to be doing stuff in New York. And lo and behold, 24 hours later, some lunatic goes and tries to, you know, tries to start a fire, set off bombs, you know, cause mayhem, possibly kill people. And already my thought is immediately going to, obviously they'll charge this guy with a federal crime, but how much of a lift is it going to be to imprison someone for a very clear cut terrorism related crime in New York City? If his claim justification is I'm fighting the Trump administration, I'm fighting deportations, that's immediately. What my mind goes to isn't that

Blake

it's a terrible indictment of the political moment we live in, Blake, where we can't rely on juries to do basic things. Right now in these deep blue districts. It's really, really a terrifying moment. Let's go ahead and you mentioned this Tom Homan clip. So let's go ahead and play this. This is again just a day or two ago where Tom Homan was asked about Mayor Mamdani. He replies and says, yes, you know, we're going to be continuing our operations in New York City.

Tom Homan

Stop 15 ICE is operating in New York City today. We're operating across the state today. But there's going to be a surge and there needs to be a surge. But I am not going to show our hand because, you know, there are groups, well funded groups will try to impede, interfere. We're not going to give them any upside on this.

Van Jones

Fair enough.

Andrew Colvett

And I guess that strategy actually works

Blake

out that that's gonna be a surge

Andrew Colvett

because he says, I'm not going to tell you where we're going. I'm not gonna tell you our operation. We're not going to tip our hand. And so instead, left wing lunatic tipped his hand. He didn't have any operation to target, so he Just tried to set fire to a big federal building. And I think all things considered, that's preferable because he's just attacking a building in downtown Manhattan when he could be hindering an actual ICE operation, putting agents more directly in danger, stopping people who should not be in this country from getting arrested. So I guess Tom Homan's strategy worked out there, but hopefully we can get this guy in prison.

Blake

Yeah, you know, exactly. So the point is there's gotta be accountability one way or another on whoever did this. The suspect is in custody as we speak, which is great. But this is probably. I would put dollars to donuts here, Blake, that we're gonna find out this was a DSA guy or some radical leftist anarchist, antifa. Some. Somebody that's inspired by radical left wing ideology. Right? And this is bringing up a massive, massive debate that's ongoing currently, right now. You had a. There was a post from Jordan Peterson that went viral over the weekend talking about, ultimately this ideology is rooted in resentment and bitterness. You had this great speech by Rubio, actually a 10 out of 10 speech. Phenomenal, phenomenal speech from Rubio talking about how ultimately leftism and socialism, communism rise, that we're seeing this DSA rise across the country is rooted in resentment of wanting to tear down productive people in our society. And what you're starting to see is what I call stage five of this process where people double and triple down on bad ideas, bad theories. They refuse to be cowed by logic or evidence. You start seeing defections. Okay, Stage five is the defection phase. When you look through a series like this where people posit terrible ideas and they get challenged on them and then they double down on it and then guess what? Defections. You've got John Fetterman, who is now threatening to leave the Democrat Party. You've got Bill Maher, who is now on record with, I believe, Jonathan Karl, and we have these clips saying he's willing to consider voting for J.D. vance. You remember, might remember that Bill Maher just interviewed J.D. vance, was, I think, charmed by him, thought he sounded like a reasonable guy and he's threatening to do this. There, there's multiple pieces of evidence here that show they might be jumping the shark, they might be going too far. You even have Van Jones attacking the dsa, right? So this, this is a, a new, a new wrinkle in everything, I believe. We've got this clip from Jan Jones, 23.

Van Jones

I am tired, tired, tired of a set of people on the very far left in the Democratic Party. My party Telling us that in order for us to be progressives, we now have to believe ideas and support ideas that are completely nuts. I am a progressive Democrat, but what does that have to do with supporting Hamas? What does that have to do with putting up candidates who say we should have no police, no prisons, we can't deport anybody, even if they commit rape or murder? If we want people to join this party, when people come to the party, you want to give them a wonderful punch bowl of wonderful ideas like this. Who is putting the poop in the punch bowl? The people who are promoting these nutty, crazy backwards ideas are party poopers. Literally, they're coming to the party and pooping in our punch bowl and they need to stop.

Andrew Colvett

He's really into that, that imagery.

Blake

Yes. There's some emotions you should be using if that was a text message. Yeah. Regardless of the imagery, you're starting to see a little bit of a formation. I almost. And by the way, we're going to get into this later in the hour. Got Michael Knowles joining us at 12:30 Eastern. And we're going to talk about some of the messaging around, specifically J.D. vance. But you see already the counter argument forming where you've got people that JD Vance is going to uniquely appeal to that he could expand the coalition in sort of a new direction. I'm just floating it out there. All right, so, Blake, we're talking about how there is actually a potential to expand the tent a little bit when we see dsa. Listen, nobody here on this show is going to celebrate the rise of dsa. I think it's a, it's a, it's a symptom of a deeper problem and a deeper rot in the country. Do not get me wrong. But we are now forced to live in this new reality where they are on the rise. And there is an opportunity, if that's going to be the case, to use that against them. Because you see their influence within the Democrat establishment and they're honestly the party apparatus, the grassroots apparatus on the left. It's expanding. Okay. And this is starting to raise alarm bells with people that are more centrist in nature. Right. SOT 10. This is Bill Maher telling Jonathan Karl that he's considering voting for J.D. vance. Yes, this is a real clip. This is not AI Sat.10.

Michael Knowles

You told J.D. vance you're open.

Charlie Kirk

Your.

Tom Homan

Your vote is up for grabs. Yes, my vote is in play because it can't be Trump running. So I'm not living in communist America. I mean, I know the talking point is that it's not communism, it's socialism. Okay. I've read the quotes from the DSA platform from their own mouths. Don't tell me I'm not seeing what I am seeing. And dsa, again, they say things like, you know, takeover of key industries, government. That's communism. You know, there is a definition, by

Dr. Benedict Whalen

the way, Trump's doing that, too.

Blake

I love that Jonathan. Carl is trying to, like, divert the whole conversation back to Trump. Bad. But, Blake, what do you make of this? And do you think it's a real phenomenon, a real trend that could emerge?

Andrew Colvett

It's going to be some. There's definitely going to be people who are bugged out by this. What I worry is it could be a little too easy to overstate it. I think people who are really, I think the sliver of people who are left of center but strongly ideologically opposed to real socialism, that, you know, the aggressive DSA stuff is probably not that big and it's probably pretty centered in a few very blue states. What I worry about with DSA is I worry that their brand of, let's just say it, economic illiteracy, aggressive leveling aggressive, burn it down. I worry a lot of that could have a lot of popularity in middle America. In a lot of the states that swung towards Trump in both of his election, in all three of his elections, I worry that that could appeal to a lot of those people because there still is a lot of energy in favor of blow the system up, burn stuff down. And a lot of that anger, it's still there. It's still rising in a lot of places. And so I think of the opportunity, but the opportunity, it's coupled with the need to be offering a path where people have a stake in the country. Otherwise, they are going to be won over by these hucksters who are, who are frankly happy to destroy their country. And all I can think of is in the U.K. the U.K. has been sharply going downhill, and their DSA equivalent, the Green Party, is rising. That party could 100% win the next British election and in favor of open borders, mass socialism. Let's all be poor. It's rising in Canada. It's rising in a lot of countries. So it's good that we might be able to win over the figures like Bill Maher. But I wouldn't use that as an opportunity to be smug or feel super confident. This is a very scary thing that's coming to America.

Blake

No, no, no. And just, just to be clear, I agree with that. That's why we stated very clearly that this is not a good thing that you're seeing DSA rise. It is a symptom of a deeper rot in our country. And this is why it's always important to say to our political leaders, this is a direct appeal to conservatives, real conservatives in D.C. and elsewhere, that we are in a race against the clock. We have to improve the economic conditions of Americans, of working class Americans right here at home. We have to focus domestically or else all of these other foreign abstractions, these foreign entanglements, will distract us from the core job that we must get accomplished in the next two years. And that is improving the lives of real Americans, working class Americans, fundamentally at its core. President Trump was reelected because people had a memory of Trump 1.0 of having more money in their pockets than when they did under Joe Biden. That was fundamentally what got white working class on board. That's what got minority working class on board, Hispanics, blacks in greater numbers. It's what got young people on board because they believed that it was going to be a restoration of the American dream, the American promise. And so we have to stay focused on that. But this, I think, peeling away at some of the edges of the Democrat coalition because they refused to police their own ranks of some of these insane ideas like abolishing prisons, abolishing deportations, all of these things are. Are nuts. And if you think Bill Maher is overstating things, he's not. They are very clear that they want to seize the means of production in Mamdani's New York. That's communism. That is communism. Yeah. They might get in through elected office. That's apparently the big difference, right? They don't believe in bloody revolution. If you're a dsa, you believe in getting it through elected processes. But once you're in elected office, well, then, yeah, it might get bloody. If you start stealing people's wealth, as Mike Lee is saying beautifully online, you know, there's this whole rage against the billionaire class. Yeah, billionaires have a lot of money, but that doesn't make it yours. That doesn't mean you have a right to it. You're not entitled to it. You didn't earn it, you didn't build it. I would still love it. Elon Musk is their person they most hate.

Andrew Colvett

The problem is, unfortunately, we've changed America a lot. And America has a lot of people who do just. They do feel entitled to a billionaire's wealth. They do not see a downside to seizing it. So the point that needs to be emphasized politically is when these people talk about equity. They're not just talking about the equity in SpaceX, they're talking about your home equity. They're talking, they. Their plan in New York right now is basically to seize and like, basically take state control of every rented building in the city of New York. That's their plan for rent control. You've got to really emphasize those personal bits like abolish the police means criminals will roam free in your town. Socialism is going to mean they take your stuff. That's, I think, the only way we're going to be able to hold off this tide.

Blake

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Michael Knowles

Good to see you, gentlemen. Thanks for having me.

Blake

Well, so Michael, I wanted to have you on because this show and yours have become the focus for a certain variety of critic online and namely, it's because of the way we reacted to JD Vance's interview on Joe Rogan. He obviously made some comments about what he perceived to be a communication strategy meant to undermine his MoU negotiations that the President had dispatched him on. There was a Time magazine article that suggested that maybe it was an organized effort to undermine those efforts to undermine peace negotiations in the Middle east. And you and us took some fire because, you know, I don't know what they're alleging, but, you know, a lot of people don't like the way we approached it. Help us unpack this. What is really going on here?

Michael Knowles

Michael Knowles Well, I think from the outset, for people who've never worked on a political campaign, it's a little bit confusing, especially if you haven't worked in the political media. However, if you haven't worked in those things, you know exactly what's going on, which is that people are always running these kinds of messaging campaigns, whether they're geared at supporting or harming a certain candidate or an idea or a policy. That's what's going on. And in fact, that was the Vice President's great transgression, was he just cited this Time magazine article which said there was a campaign against the MOU or advocating for one position in the Iran war or the other. And for that, the way that I got kind of plugged into this was there was some account on X that tagged all three of us expressing dismay, specifically about the Charlie Kirk Show. And so I looked into it. I see all these things on social media all the time. So I looked into it. And the account, if the account is a real person, ostensibly it would be an Iranian person living in Germany. So not an American. Not living in America has nothing to do with America whatsoever. And so I responded, I said, yeah, I'm sorry you don't like the American vice President, but I don't. I don't really care. And why are you weighing in on this? And then, you know, all these sorts of. Whether they're artificial accounts, whether they're real people who are organized in some way, whether they're individuals just expressing their opinion, they all kind of jump in and you get info op over info op over info op. And it's all very tedious, but that is just how politics works. And the only part of it, to me, I don't take offense on behalf of me or my show. I think it goes with the territory and politics and political media. One thing that has driven me a little bit crazy, though, as it pertains to the Charlie Kirk show, is that everybody, since Charlie was killed wants to speak for Charlie. Here's what Charlie would have said in this instance. Here's what Charlie would have said. Coincidentally, Charlie would have agreed with me on whatever. My hobby horse of the day is. People do this a lot when people die, and they've done it a lot with Charlie. And it just really gets under my skin when people do that generally, and especially when people who didn't know Charlie that well were not particularly close with him in some cases, like actively didn't like him and undermined the things that he was doing when they have the temerity to say that they're speaking for Charlie now. And I guess it really got under my skin when it comes to the vice president, because we all know that Charlie was very good friends with the vice president and was very supportive of him. Again, no one wishes to speak for him now. One cannot do that. But the artificiality of it all, the contrivance of it all, is just so deeply frustrating, especially as we head into the midterm elections and then into heating up for the 2028 campaigns. At a personal level, I find it all very distasteful.

Andrew Colvett

Well, thank you, Michael. And, well, I really appreciate, I just, I appreciate that about everyone wants to speak for Charlie. I, I hope Andrew and I have done a good job, for example, on the Iran war, where we usually will say we don't know exactly what Charlie would say about how things have unfold the past six months. Here is how he responded to Midnight Hammer. Here is what he said and did we while he was alive, and here is our best guess about what he might do. And we try to honor that and we show people what he said. And it's true. It's not just that a lot of people speak for Charlie. A lot of people want to have Charlie's guidance. We get emails about that. People will ask us how Charlie approached different things, and we try to do that. But a lot of people, they do clearly want to hijack his tremendous legacy for their. Their personal hobby horse. And as you said with Vance, here's what we know. What Charlie said about J.D.

Sean Davis

vance.

Andrew Colvett

He loved him. He endorsed him extremely early. So early that they got ahead of things and had to go clear it up with donors afterwards because they weren't. We weren't fully prepared for it yet. And he said when people would say, are you going to run for president? Or whatever, he would say, I don't need to because I have J.D. vance there and I feel he's completely aligned with my politics, that that's what he said about the Vice president.

Charlie Kirk

Bingo.

Blake

Yes. Michael, I know nothing of this experience that you're speaking of. People that used to attack Charlie and now act like they can speak for. I've never, never personally experienced that at all.

Michael Knowles

It's news. You're hearing it for the first time.

Blake

But, yeah, breaking right here on the Charlie Kirk show, let me show you some of his tweets. We just had a few of them up. This is when it was announced. Breaking J.D. vance is president Trump's vice president. Pick a great choice by Trump. Let's win this thing. That was that was on July 15, 2024. This is from January 24, 2025. I want everyone to stop and appreciate how fortunate we are all are to have Vice President J.D. vance, the second highest ranking official in the country, proudly speaking at the March for Life. He was so great for this. It's time for an American family renaissance. This is again something JD and Charlie shared. This is from August 29, 2024. JD Vance's messing messaging discipline is extraordinary. Since being picked as Trump's vp, his pace has been ferocious, both on the trail and in the media without a single gaffer slip up. Incredible feat in the modern era. He goes on. This is February 29, 2024. When we talk about vice presidential candidates. This is, I believe is before he got picked. Here's a key reason why J.D. vance should be seriously considered. Democrats are increasingly concerned that AZ and GA are getting out of reach. So they're putting a ton of money into the blue wall. They're big spending, spending big In Wisconsin, Penns, Michigan. J.D. vance speaks the language of the Rust Belt. Okay, here's one that feels very relevant to our current moment. Okay, this is from October 1, 2024. Trump took a ton of heat for trusting his gut and selecting JD Vance as his vp. A massive lobbying effort, Michael. We wouldn't know anything about what a lobbying effort could look like happened behind the scenes to block JD Trump persisted. Once again, Trump is vindicated. Trump was right yet again.

Michael Knowles

How about that? You know, this is where when people, people will sometimes ask me, because I think you're so right. People do really miss Charlie's guidance. He was, he was a singular figure when it came to maintaining and curating a conservative coalition. But he was also a thought leader and he was also an operative and he was doing, you know, he was doing all of, all of those things. And so they'll ask me, why, what do you think Charlie would have thought about this, that or the other thing? And I have opinions and I'm pretty sure I'm right, by the way, on any number of these questions. And I usually say, look, it's really not.

Blake

Michael.

Michael Knowles

Yes, I did know him very well, but I say, look, it's really not my position to state that. Here are some things he said, whatever. You guys have an actual institutional responsibility to answer those questions in a way that I do not. And I think you've done a very good job at it, as you just did now. But from the standpoint of the Charlie Kirk show and tpusa, you really do have an institutional responsibility. To do that. And it is gonna be dialed up a lot because we are now in this kind of shadow war for the 2028 presidential nomination. I think it's all kind of silly because assuming Trump remains the head of the Republican Party and remains the powerful figure in the party, he's just gonna pick the nominee. And, and the idea that there's some kind of shadow war between Vance and Rubio, I think that's also in the imaginations of a lot of people. Let's not forget Rubio endorsed Vance as the nominee. Trump himself has said he wants both of them to run together on a ticket. So I think a lot of this is really contrived and it's wish casting from factions on the right, but there are always gonna be these factions. I mean, now I think a lot of the anti Vance rhetoric that you're seeing is really just a copy and paste of the Never Trump movement. There are some differences with it, but it's a lot of the same people making a lot of the same arguments. So, okay, you're gonna have that look. That's a legitimate part of the conservative movement and the Republican coalition. So you got that lane. Then there'll be the Libertarian lane. There might be the more hawkish lane. There are these views on the right. We have a lot of intellectual diversity, and that's often one of the strengths of the American right compared to the left, which is uniformly progressive. So they can hash it out. I'm all for duking it out in primaries and what have you. I guess just my. The only thing that gets my blood pressure up a little bit about it is when people would have the temerity, especially people who didn't know Charlie that well, didn't like him all that much, were kind of undermining him during his life, when they would have the temerity to invoke him and pretend that they were the standard bearers for him, especially as a way to shiv the political candidates that he liked the most. I mean, to me it's just a bridge too far and I think it bears weighing in on what's actually going on.

Andrew Colvett

Thank you, Michael. And I think it's a little more than wish casting on the Vance Rubio thing, maybe wishcasting for Rubio himself. But there does. I was through the first Trump term. There wasn't anything quite like this in terms of the avid power struggle over who would take over.

Blake

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Charlie Kirk

How lucky are we to have J.D. vance as vice president? We went all in for J.D. vance for U.S. senate when it was on Thursday, popular when people would call us names. We went all in for J.D. vance for the U.S. senate on, like, day one. 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. JD Vance 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. 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.

Blake

That's Charlie on J.D. vance, I believe, in January 2025. So. All right, Blake, you wanted to unpack something with Mr. Knowles here, so the floor is yours.

Andrew Colvett

Oh, excellent, excellent. I'll also say, Michael, I got a message from a Dominican friend, Friar I knew in college, who says he's a big fan and loves the segment, so thought I'd throw that out.

Michael Knowles

But I'm glad you didn't get a message from a Jesuit. You know the Dominicans. They're reliable. And Jesuit can be a little more hit or miss.

Andrew Colvett

Well, exactly, Exactly. I'm sure him you knowing the difference is why he loves you. So let's. I want to unpack this Rubio thing. As you said, it feels like wishcasting. Secretary of State Rubio has not really indulged at all These efforts to turn him against the vice President, I believe, I think that's admirable. But it does seem, it seems very sustained. And I've certainly heard rumors that this isn't just people on X. There's, there's donors lining up saying we'll get, we're going to keep upping the amount of money we can offer you until it'll just be too irresistible for you to run. Even on social media, it's clear there's a lot of sustained attacks on Vice President President Vance. There's a lot of sustained efforts to promote Rubio and even we're going to have this panel discuss. We had these panel discussions with some of the young kids when we were at the chapter leadership summit and we haven't released that yet. But one of the things we were talking to them about is who do you prefer? And they were very aware there was this Rubio versus Vance dynamic going on and they had mixed feelings about it. So I guess the question is, is what is motivating this? Is it what? It seems to a lot of people that this is primarily just about the Iran war and the fact that Vance has become, so to speak, the face of, I don't want a full regime change in Iran. Are there other factors going into this? Help us understand what's driving this intense wishcasting, if that's what it is.

Michael Knowles

Yeah, I think you're right. That there's the Iran war is the inciting incident for a lot of this campaign against fans or for Ruby or what have you, not coming from either of the men. But it also really draws on caricatures. So there's this caricature that J.D. vance is an isolationist. He's not. There's this caricature that J.D. vance supports socialist economics. He does not. There is a caricature that J.D. vance is anti Israel. He's not anti Israel. That is a caricature that is invented in the imaginations of political operatives, I guess, or people with an axe to grind. Likewise, there's this caricature that Marco Rubio is, I don't know, some kind of Bush era neocon. He's not. Or that Marco Rubio just wants to, I don't know, resurrect three YouTube videos of Milton Friedman's economics from the 80s. He also does not want to do that. Or this idea that Marco Rubio, I don't know, on the Israel Iran issue that he wants to give everything to Israel that they can do no wrong. I don't think that's true.

Charlie Kirk

Either.

Michael Knowles

I think that in reality, Vance and Rubio are much closer, even just in the way they think about politics, on economics, on migration, on foreign policy, than the Wishcasters would have it be. And so the dynamic that I see playing out is eerily similar to what you saw in 2024. And what you saw in 2024 was a real tragedy of the Ron DeSantis campaign, because the Ron DeSantis campaign, in many ways, was doomed from the beginning. The reason being that the thing everyone loved about Ron DeSantis was that he was a really great governor in the vein of Donald Trump. If you recall, the initial pitch for a President DeSantis was he's just like Trump, but even better. You know, he has that kind of populist appeal, that common good appeal, that common sense appeal, but he's even better. He's more disciplined. He's this, this, that or the other thing. So he was gonna run as Trump 2.0, you know, bigger, badder than ever before. But because Trump was running in the race, the lane that DeSantis occupied was necessarily the anti Trump lane. And so a lot of the DeSantis supporters, a lot of people who were gung ho in that campaign didn't want him. They wanted him to be the anti Trump. But the thing that made him so interesting was he was a really good version of Trump in Florida. And so there was this constant conflict within the campaign, and obviously it was not successful. I think that's similar to what you're seeing here. The Vice President's enemies are imagining someone that he is not. And the same thing goes for Rubio. And so I think it's why, not only is Rubio loyal and he doesn't want division in the administration, but I think he's smart and he sees some of these dynamics too. A lot of the attacks that you're seeing on Vance, that he is not a doctrinaire, laissez faire, late 80s style capitalist on economics. The same thing's true of Rubio. The fact that J.D. vance will talk about the common good. Guess what? So does Rubio. The fact that J.D. vance doesn't wanna bomb every country in the world. I don't think Rubio wants to bomb every country in the world. And so I think the Secretary of State understands those underlying dynamics as well. And at least as of now, he hasn't fallen for it in the way that, you know, unfortunately, I think you saw play out in the DeSantis campaign.

Blake

I wanna throw up this graphic here. This is something President Trump himself Posted during the MOU when JD was getting this first onslaught of attacks. This is Trump posted this himself on Truth Social 161. I believe it is Trump Bump voters overwhelmingly support the Iran peace deal. And this, Michael, I think this is ultimately what's happening. The MOU is popular cuz people love peace. President or Vice President Vance is supporting policies that are widely and broadly popular across the American electorate. There is just huge entrenched and I don't even know if they're that huge, but groups on social media that will attack you once you say something that is massively popular. And so I think we're seeing this whole same playbook play out again. Michael Knowles, host of the Michael Knowles Show. Thank you so much, my friend. It's great to see you as always.

Michael Knowles

Good to see you guys.

Blake

Good conversation is about respect. It's how we create a space where people are able to share their ideas and be heard. Charlie knew that. Turning Point still knows that. And TikTok has always strived to build the kind of place that thrives on respectful connection, where curiosity fuels connection and we can share what's on our minds and learn from each other. When ideas meet respect, good things happen. On TikTok, you can find a mechanic explaining the why behind a problem most of us wouldn't even know how to name, or a father sharing a lifetime of knowledge with his viewers. Viewers who listen, discuss, and then they respond. TikTok turns connection into community through small acts of understanding. You can feel it in the comments, in the thank you from a stranger halfway across the world. TikTok is a place where respect opens the door for discussion, and discussion helps us build something real. And we have Sean Davis, who is the CEO and co founder of the Federalist, here. Sean, welcome back to the show. It's good to see you, my friend.

Sean Davis

Good to be back. Thank you for having me.

Blake

So, of course. We're always grateful to have you. I have to get into this. Right, okay. Because I saw you sparring with a certain author from the Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Strassel. She and the editorial board, in their great wisdom, decided to attack J.D. vance. Right, right. So you, you clap back. They said, president Vance goes awol, the leader of the Senate could bring Congress together. He's hawking a book that, I mean, this is a pretty, pretty aggressive attack from the Wall Street Journal. You replied back, I'm sorry, but pulling this obvious little stunt against J.D. vance, whose wife just gave birth, when Mitch McConnell hasn't been seen in weeks, is absolutely absurd. What are we even doing here, Sean, what are they doing here?

Sean Davis

Yeah, so I, I love Kim Strossel. I actually think she's a great journalist. She's done some amazing work over the years exposing waste, fraud and abuse in Congress. So my complaint isn't with her, it's with this new little op we're seeing against JD we saw it in the wake of the Rogan interview where you had a bunch of neocons who just want war everywhere attacking him for things he never said. Then you have this hit come out from the Wall Street Journal which is very, very neocon, very pro illegal and ridiculous legal immigration. And they don't like JD Because JD Is America first, he's not a neocon and he thinks we should close the border. So let's just all be honest about what's happening here. And it's a full on interventionist neocon. America exists to do things for other countries. Ideological hit against JD and what I found so absurd about it is the particular a frame that they used calling him awol, calling him the leader of the Senate. Last time I checked, John Thune was the actual majority Leader. Now, I understand that he's a potted plant. He's not particularly good at his job, he's not very good at counting votes. He can't exactly figure out how to get them to work more than two to three days a week. So I understand the frustration with a majority leader in name only in John Thune. But J.D. vance is the Vice President. And yes, he has the authority to break a tie and yes, he can go in and sit behind the chair and wield the gavel in the Senate. He is not the Senate Majority leader. So this attempt to retcon him and then to place on him all the failures of the Senate, which is actually run by John thune and Mitch McConnell is completely dishonest. It's completely absurd. And if we're going to talk about senators being AWOL, we should probably have a conversation about Mitch McConnell, who nobody has seen or talked to publicly in I think close to a month. And there actually are standing Senate rules that govern absences that require you, if you are a Senator, which Mitch McConnell is, and J.D. vance is, not, to inform the Senate of the reason for your absence and to seek leave to seek permission of the Senate to remain absent. Mitch McConnell hasn't done that. He's just had various surrogates tell us, oh, he's in great health. And oh, by the way, he wants to make sure we're still shoveling bazillions of dollars to Ukraine. That's not what the job of a senator is. We don't need senators in Abstentia. We need actual senators. So if you're worried about senators being AWOL, let's have a conversation about Mitch McConnell and whether he should resign since he clearly cannot execute the duties of his office.

Blake

You know what strikes me, and I hadn't thought about this yet, Sean, is you've got me thinking back to some of the conversations we're told Mitch McConnell had from the hospital room. He was sharp as attack. He's on it. He was talking about a lot of foreign issues and policies. He's talking about Iran. He was talking about Ukraine. He was talking about all these things. And it strikes me, and I don't mean to speak ill of the dead Lindsey Graham. You know, I wish no ill towards him. I'm sad that he passed on. But, you know, he had that one quote, interestingly enough, when he was starting to feel ill, saying, I've got this Ukraine stuff to get done. I've got Israel. I've got, you know, so many foreign abstractions from the people that are supposed to be leading the United States of America. And it strikes me that JD Vance stands in extreme contrast to that. Talking about the middle class, the American dream, affordability, the common good. These things do seem to be widely popular, broadly popular with the American electorate, but they do stand in contrast to the messaging that we're seeing from this neocon wing of the party that seems more obsessed and perplexed by foreign abstractions. Am I missing something?

Sean Davis

No, I think you've nailed it. And the reality is the GOP establishment, which is run by big spenders who want to open the border and just use the military as the police everywhere. That establishment hates Donald Trump. It has always hated Donald Trump. It was John Thune who was calling for Donald Trump to drop out in 2016 after the stupid Access Hollywood tape. So let's. So let's not be mistaken about what? The permanent Washington establishment, where, by the way, the Senate is its base of operations. They hate Donald Trump. They want to get past Donald Trump. They are desperate to just obstruct him as much as they can get to 2028. They would love for JD to become the nominee and lose. Trust me when I say they want JD to be bloodied up in a primary and to lose so that they can come in and say, look, we have eliminated all traces of Trump and Trumpism and vantism from the party, and you guys didn't listen to us, and you lost in 2028. So we're taking the party back over. We're in charge now, and you're going to do what we say. That is what's happening right now. And that's what all of these attacks on JD Are about. The permanent Washington swamp. The people who want forever wars everywhere and spending all the time in open borders, they hate Trump and they want to get rid of him. And they know that if Vance is the nominee and Vance win wins in 2028 because he is widely popular, I think he's probably the only Republican who can win in the Rust Belt in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan. They know that if Vance gets in in 2028, their chance of taking back the party is probably over forever. And that's why you're seeing this amount of violence and ridiculous rhetoric against JD in the middle of 2026.

Blake

I'm going to call out the elephant in the room here, Sean, because I don't believe this for a second. But the dig on Vance is that he's somehow anti Israel. I've never heard anything that he said that was anti Israel. I've heard him say pro America things. I've heard him say pragmatic and realist foreign policy things. But what do you make of that specific attack?

Sean Davis

Yeah, I think it is, again, being used by the same group of people who want the US to be militarily involved all over the earth. And the reality is, when it comes to Israel, there is 10% of people on the left who think that Jews in Israel are the worst thing in history. The strain of antisemitism on the left is insane. And it's been incubated in universities. It's finding its way into the left wing factions like the dsa. And then on the right side of the party, you probably have 10% of people who are like, I don't want to do anything with Israel, or I'm done with Israel. I'm tired of them controlling our foreign policy. Whatever. You have the middle 80% of the country who's like, yeah, I don't really have a problem with them.

Blake

But.

Sean Davis

But maybe America just focuses on America and where our interests align. Great. And where they don't, we're just going to do what's best for America. That's actually where JD Is. But you have this segment of the right which is wildly overrepresented in conservative media, and that's the neocon wing, the interventionists. You know, the people who were all for the Iraq war and said we were going to be greeted as Liberators, Kind of the Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney wing. That is not representative of the party, but they're very much in control of the levers of power, and they're in control of powerful mediums in D.C. and that's why they're doing this. They think that if they can somehow call him an anti Semite or a Nazi, that that's somehow going to divorce him from the rest of the party when what 80% of the country actually wants, left or right, is just a foreign policy that puts America first.

Blake

Yeah, and they're very loud on social media, too. This is the month we celebrate our independence as a country. And real Americans know that there is no liberty or pursuit of happiness without life. Preborn celebrates life every single day by providing ultrasound so that girls and women will have the truth of what's happening in their bodies, and then they can make the best choice. When you provide ultrasounds, you double the chance that she'll choose life. $140 helps give five mothers a free ultrasound and save babies. $280 helps save 10 babies. And for just $28 a month, you can save babies all year long for less than a dollar a day. A $15,000 gift, and I know there's some of you out there that can do this, will provide an ultrasound machine that will save lives for years to come. Whether you want to save one baby or five or hundreds, that opportunity is just a phone call or click away. So call 833-850-2229. That's 833-850-2229. Or click on the Preborn banner at charliekirk.com today.

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Preborn was so special to Charlie, and

Blake

it's so important to me as well right now.

Andrew Colvett

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Dr. Benedict Whalen

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Andrew Colvett

I just was thinking as. As you, Sean, were talking about all of the attacks on Vance and what inspires them. And it just occurred to me that Charlie faced a lot of very similar attacks. It's. And I was thinking about this. We had Michael Knowles on earlier, and he was saying similar things that JD Vance is trying to chart a. A difficult path of foreign policy realism. When we have people who are maximally interventionist and people who are sort of, I don't even want to say maximally isolationist, they've decided to become turbo anti Israel. And it's a path that we have a moral obligation to lead our party through. And when Charlie tried to chart that path himself. He got attacked from both sides. He had people who would call him an Israeli puppet and people who would call him an anti Semite, and both were untrue. And it strikes me that it feels like Vice President Vance has become the heir to these attacks where he does get attacked from both sides. And both of those attacks are, in my opinion, pretty clearly unfair.

Sean Davis

Oh, I completely agree. He's become kind of the newest proxy to go to go hit at. And each side wants to define him. And obviously in politics you define yourself or the other side defines you. There was an interesting moment in his interview with Rogan that I think highlighted this, where Rogan brings up Israeli spying. And what JD Said made the people on the very far outside fringes angry. But what he said was totally common sense. He's like, well, yeah, Israel spies, all the countries spy. Like, welcome to international geopolitics. They all spy. You know, they all have their own interests. But what I'm interested in is in representing America's interests. So I'm not going to get all hot and bothered that Israel does this because it's everyone else does this. And the Israel haters on the left are like, see, he's a total Israel shill. And then the Israel shills on the right were like, he should. What is he doing saying, we have our own interests? How dare. He's to the point where no matter what he says, the freaks on either side are going to attack him. But what he's saying actually makes sense to the 80% of people who don't have like this deep emotional vested interest in a foreign country. He's like, look, no animosity here. We'll help them when it helps us. They're our ally. It's good to have a democratic ally in the Middle east like them. But America needs to do what's best for America. And sometimes that's going to intersect with what's best for Israel, and sometimes it's not. That is like the most benign, banal, vanilla thing you can say about politics. And yet for the people for whom Israel is the only thing they care about, both in the completely Israel hating and Israel pro obsessed mark that that drove them bonkers. And it's just the weirdest thing to watch online because I think you guys are probably like me. You can see an op forming, you know, when it's not organic, you can tell when it's completely manufactured. And what we've seen over the last week is completely manufactured. And I'm just kind of tired of the Pretense of it. I'm tired of pretending that, you know, oh, it's totally normal. And these are normal people just having thoughts. No, it's not. It's an opinion. Can we all just admit it's an op and move on? And are you like adults?

Andrew Colvett

Well, I gotta kick Sean.

Blake

Frustrating about this, Sean. What's frustrating. Sorry, Blake. Is that we have a real existential problem facing this country. We've spent time talking about DSA on the show today. This is the kind of crap they're actually saying out loud, Sean. And this distraction, these ops, they take our eye off the ball because this is really the game that's being played here. If we have the courage to confront the truth. And I just. This, this clip is so shocking to me because of just how true we know it is. Sat 7.

Unknown Speaker (possibly a DSA representative or commentator)

I think it's particularly important not just for our community in Tigray, but communities of the Global south, period. Right. There's a certain reckoning that we are going to have to have with the global world order as it exists today and the way that it fundamentally will have to shift going forward.

Blake

Right.

Unknown Speaker (possibly a DSA representative or commentator)

The responsibility that we have as Americans, the recognition that is going to be required of us of the exploitative and extractive nature that we play on the global scale and the global stage is only going to be challenged if we are getting represented by people who understand that on a fundamental level. Right. And that means getting more immigrants into office. That means getting more people who have heritage in the Global south into. Into office, because that's where those decisions are made specifically.

Blake

So they just gave up the whole game there. That's actually what's happening. And yet we're distracted because J.D. vance has the gall to say something that's sort of pragmatic and realist about foreign policy. They want to just get Global south people elected to our office. They want more. Mayor Momdani's Sean Davis.

Sean Davis

Yeah, it's fascinating that all the DSAers doing this, they might have a piece of paper that says they're a citizen. They're not Americans. They're all foreign born. They're all a bunch of invaders and subversives. And you know, look, if everyone who is coming across the border was like a dyed in the wool right wing Christian Republican, that border would get closed so fast by the left, it would make your head spin. It's not that they have some sort of special love for the global immigrant, for the global south immigrant. No, it's pure power politics. And they understand that. If they want to take over the US government and turn it into their plaything. They have to import people who they can get to support them. That's entirely what it's about. I'm glad we're at the point where they're finally admitting it out loud. We're like, yeah, yeah, we just need to keep importing people until we get the votes we need to take over and then we'll make the whole country communist because America is imperialist and colonial and we need to take back all the wealth that they created. They're admitting the game out in the wide open. And I'm glad you talked about this because Obama called it the stray voltage theory where if we can just get you distracted with shiny objects and shiny trinkets, then they can go behind the scenes and do what they want to do. We are constantly being distracted on social media, in the news with shiny objects to distract us from the goal of the left, which is to take over the country with third world left wing communist immigration.

Blake

It's perfectly said, perfectly said. That is the whole game. I'm reminded of that SPLC executive who had the share of the white population slowly dropping as if that was the ultimate goal of these people. Because it is. Sean Davis, co founder and CEO of the Federalist. Thank you, my friend. Great stuff as always.

Sean Davis

Thank you both.

Blake

Hi folks. Andrew Colvett here. I'd like to tell you about my friends over at Y Refi. You've probably been hearing me talk about why Refi? For some time now. We are all in with these guys. If you or someone you know is struggling with private student loan debt, take my advice and give them a call. Maybe you're behind on your payments, maybe you're even in default. You don't have to live in this nightmare anymore. Why? YREFI will provide you a custom payment based on your ability to pay. They tailor each loan individually. They can save you thousands of dollars and you can get your life back. We go to campuses all over America and we see student after student who's drowning in private student loan debt. Many of them don't even know how much they owe. Yrefi can help. Just go to yrefi.com that's the letter Y. Then Refi then. And remember why Refi doesn't care what your credit score is. Just go to yrefi.com and tell them your friend Andrew sent you. All right, welcome back everybody. Just a little bit of breaking news here. The suspect in the lower Manhattan, the Federal building incendiary device incident has been identified as Andrew Arabaka. So apparently he's a 43 year old Andrew Arabaca per NBC 4 local NBC there in New York City. He the sign had in a pool wagon that he broke brought with him. Sign read ice off our streets. The man has a history of anti ice rhetoric. So we know now a fuller picture of what happened there. And it looks like, yes, indeed, this was most likely politically motivated. So we're going to keep monitoring that story, give you details as it comes. So without further ado, want to bring in our next guest who has apparently reportedly seen the new movie just like Blake, Odyssey, Dr. Benedict Whalen. He's the chairman and associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. Blake has seen the movie, I have not. Dr. Whelan has seen the movie, I have not. So I'm going to be doing a lot of listening here. But Dr. Whalen, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. Honored to have you. You are also the instructor, the professor on the new Odyssey course that Hillsdale College is offering. So you're the perfect person to have on here. You saw the film. What did you think?

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Well, thank you very much for having me on here. It's a real delight and an honor for me. I did see the film. I saw it yesterday. I was excited to see it. I've done a lot of work on the Odyssey and as you would expect, as the earlier publicity was reporting, the film is a real, it's a spectacle. There are all of these gorgeous shots, all these different locales that the Odyssey takes you to. Nolan was going in place. So it has big scene, great beautiful shooting. It tells a great story. It's a very interesting sort of block summer blockbuster, as you would expect, of course, as you would also expect. It's Hollywood and it diverges, you know, in some important ways from, from Homer's text, as, as you would expect. And you can nitpick or not, but it's a fun film. And if it does anything, my hope is that it inspires more people to actually go and then have questions and read Homer's odyssey itself.

Andrew Colvett

So, Dr. Whelan, actually, that might be where I disagree with you the most when you say it's fun because I think that's what stood out to me. Is it? It almost is an aggressively downbeat film. It sort of portrays Odysseus, the wily Greek hero, the man of twists and turns, as it's often translated. He's got PTSD from the Trojan War. He's depressed all of the time. One of the climactic scenes is him, basically having a, a PTSD style breakdown about that. He did the Trojan horse and sacked Troy. So I suppose what I ask it does diverge from the text. Do you still feel this is a movie? It's probably the only big budget adaptation of the Odyssey we're going to get for a long time. Do you think it faithfully represents Homer, this foundational work of Western literature for modern audiences? Does, does Christopher Nolan get it close enough to what the poem is spiritually about, as it were?

Dr. Benedict Whalen

That's a good question. The, you know, the, I think that the character Odysseus himself, this central character is Nolan's Odysseus, is just in some of the most essential ways to different from Homer's Odysseus. So if the poem is really about the character of this man, and that's actually the first word of the poem is the man. Muse, tell me about the man. If, if it's about the man, then it's, then it's. Yeah, Nolan's film is different. I, I actually, I very much agree with you that this, you know, Matt Damon's Odysseus, he is much, much more tormented by his past. So yeah, we could talk about ptsd. He's closer to a sort of conflicted modern reluctant hero in certain ways who's done things that torment him and he's got this guilt that he's carrying around, rather than the sort of ancient Homeric hero who has done things in his past that he regrets and wrestles with, but is also perfectly happy to gloat over his enemies as he butchers them and takes great joy in, in telling lies that confuse his enemies and manipulate others to accomplish his end. So yeah, there is more sort of joy, cleverness, maybe even energy to Homer's Odyssey Odysseus than, than Nolan's. I still think in other respects though, the film, I think, does give us some, some sort of vision of the Odyssey. I mean, if you think of all of those earlier episodes that are so connected with Odysseus, even just in our cultural imagination, like the Fall of Troy, the Trojan horse, the Cyclops, Circe, Calypso, those elements are there in the film. And so it's at least unmistakably the world of the Odyssey, even if it's not really giving us Homer's Odysseus or obviously cutting things from Homer's Odyssey as well.

Andrew Colvett

So I was just thinking the Odyssey, incredibly old, it's basically the oldest work of literature that we have in call it the Western canon. I was just checking it basically was probably composed around the date of the book of Isaiah. It's older than a lot of books in the Bible. And so when I ask did this film get the heart of Homer's text, I think it's also worth asking why is it that this text has been. Is probably the oldest text that you will read in a, in an English class, in a work of literature in high school? Why has it endured so long? What are those important elements of it that you need to communicate if you're going to be making a film about it?

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Yeah, well, some of the, some of the most central elements of the poem have to do with Odysseus, his particular suffering, his trials, his endurance. That's one of his epithets, the things he goes through on his journey, his very long journey to get home and then what he has to do when he gets home to clean house, to restore his political order, to re establish his marriage. So he's a really interesting, complex hero. But the story itself also shows you all sorts of interesting things. Homer was a very rich thinker. So for instance, if you take the Iliad and the Odyssey together, which tells about the destruction of Troy in the Iliad and then in the Odyssey, Odysseus returned to Ithaca and the restoration of his kingship and marriage, what you see is one of the things Homer emphasizes is that a political order that commits itself to the violation or disrespect of marriage ends up being destroyed. That's what happens with Troy, which committed itself to this war defending the prince Paris's abduction of Helen. The counterpoint to that is the story told in the Odyssey, where you see in fact the king, through great suffering and difficulty, returning home and restoring his political order through the restoration of his marriage. Homer understood that the sort of family and the household and the larger political order are inextricably related. And health and virtue in one helps shape and establish health and virtue in the other. That's something that, for instance, I'm not sure comes across as clearly in Nolan's movie.

Blake

I want to make sure that our audience is for those in the audience that don't know the story of Odysseus and don't know the story of the Odyssey. That's kind of. You touched on it. But what is it like from a 30,000 foot view? I mean, I understand why to your point, you just made why it's stood the test of time, why it's remained one of the foundational works of literature in the western canon, but you know, I kind of wanted just a primer to make sure that our audience was ready, but you sort of answered it. But if there's anything else that you would like to fill in, I think it would be helpful to make sure we're all on the same page.

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Yeah, well, one, one thing that's, that's interesting that happens in the Odyssey is Odysseus has been held captive by this immortal nymph goddess, Calypso, on her island of Ogidja. And they live essentially alone there for those seven years. And in Homer's text, Odysseus spends those seven years on the shore weeping, yearning to go home. And, and Calypso eventually is ordered by the gods to release him, to allow him to return home. And this is in part through Athena's intervention on his behalf. But, but one of the things that's interesting there is Calypso is this immortal, beautiful goddess. He's sleeping with her and she offers him immortality as well. And he's leading a life of ease, of luxury, of just relaxation and peace on this island. And wouldn't that sound tempting? Why, why does Odysseus want to return home to Ithaca where Penelope is going to be 20 years older than when he left her, where there's this whole messed up political order, all these suitors coming after her. It's a difficult, rocky island. He's going to have to fight. You know, why would Odysseus choose that as opposed to a life of ease, luxury, sensuality and immortality? Essentially, in leaving Calypso, Odysseus is choosing death itself. And part of the answer to that question, why would Odysseus choose Penelope and Ithaca? It is loyalty to Penelope and to his place. But on a deeper level, Homer makes clear that in fact, it's through struggle and suffering that human wisdom is found. And it's. It's wisdom sort of in the struggle, in the hard work of forming a marriage, of forming a political order, that humans find wisdom and then actual satisfaction rather than simply animal satisfaction. So as a whole, the work has this really robust, larger vision of what it means to be a human being and, and what, what a satisfactory or noble life would look like.

Blake

I love that, you know, to choose death, as you put it, because there is deeper meaning in mortality and deeper meaning and struggle and wisdom. Those are profoundly important themes. I mean, I think every human being has wrestled with the mortality that we all face. We will all face death someday. And to wrestle with what is worth living, what makes life worth living, what makes the struggle worth enduring is something that all of us are faced with asking ourselves if we're honest every single day that we breathe. And so that's a profound insight. Thank you for that. All right, Blake, I was struck by your review on X that you posted. It was lengthy and in good detail. It wasn't that long. Something I encouraged you to do, so I was glad you did it. What's that?

Andrew Colvett

Well, yeah, I can dive into this that we mentioned. It's a somewhat gloomy movie, Dr. Whalen, and a big part of that is it almost. It struck me people were debating whether this was a woke movie because it has a transgender casting, because of the racial casting and all of that. Yet the core of it felt. I don't want to say it was a right wing movie, but it had a somewhat conservative theme, which is he really harps on this idea of civilization collapsing, the end of ages, that civilization is this fragile thing that Odysseus more or less accidentally brings an end to. It has the A line people have made fun of where he says, our Age of Bronze is collapsing. And that's funny because this is set during a period that historians literally call the Bronze Age collapse, where civilization does go away for a while. We lose literacy, we lose historical records for quite some time. And do you think that that's a. Is that. Is that a good way to present the Odyssey, that. To present it as a story of the end of an age that is actually somewhat bleak, that is downbeat. Does the Odyssey carry that tone in Homer's original.

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Great question. First of all, I want to agree with your point that one of the things I really enjoyed about the movie was its treatment both with Troy and then also on Ithaca, with the notion that civilization is fragile and you have to work hard and delicate, and it's a delicate thing that requires reinforcement. So, for instance, Penelope has a line. I can't quote it exactly, but no matter how great the structure is, it needs to have people believe in its meaning for this political order to continue. And I think that's a great point. So I really like your point there. The problem is the problem that I had with it, and I'm going to try to express this without entirely spoiling the end of the movie, is that as I've just said in Homer's poem, the epic ends with Homer's great. The Greek word is his nostos, his the triumphant homecoming and return of the epic hero. And. And Odysseus does this. He kills the suitors. He passes his wife's tests to prove that he's really who he says he is. And he restores political order with the blessing of the gods on Ithaca. At the end, we have this moment, in other words, of triumphant return and restoration. And in contrast to that, without going into all of the details or spirit spoiling it, the movie ends. I thought, sort of apocalyptically that that was the tone, that we're. We're going into a dark age and we're sailing away from Ithaca and the order has not really been re. Established and we don't really have a hope for the future. So it has a sort of bleakness there even at the end, that is not really in keeping with. With Homer's tone. And I know that you can nitpick all sorts of changes, but that is a fundamental shift, in my view, from the overall arc of the Odyssey.

Andrew Colvett

And so I think the big takeaway from that is people have to. People have to go read the Odyssey. This might be. You can answer this quickly. What's the best version of the Odyssey for people to read, in your opinion?

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Well, the one I've taught for years and years, the one we did our Hillsdale Online course with, is Robert Fagel's A Translation of the Odyssey. It's a classic. It comes out in a nice edition. It's really wonderful. It begins with the great line, sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns. That's his translation of this word, polytropon. And that's a. It's a great translation. Twists and turns because Odysseus not only does lots of twists and turns on his journey physically, but. But he is intellectually. And in his stories and in his lies and its cleverness, he's a man of twists and turns. He's hard to pin down. So. So that's a great expression of the. Of the man. It's a great. It's a great translation. I recommend it. And I also. People hear, like, ancient literature, epic poem, and they think that it might be some sort of difficult thing to tackle. You'll find if you go and pick up Fagel's translation, it's highly accessible. You can. You can just read it in the evening to your family and you would really enjoy it. It's really a page turner.

Andrew Colvett

So this is a selfish quote, question of mine. We got our big budget Odyssey. We got an adaptation of Troy 20 years ago that was mixed merits. What would you like to see if we were going to get other great works of ancient medieval literature? I don't know how wide your specialty goes. What should we be getting from Hollywood that we're not getting because we don't get enough of these adaptations of big epics, foundational works of literature.

Dr. Benedict Whalen

I love the question and I actually, I had a sort of random thought as I was watching how Nolan did change the end of the Odyssey with Odysseus sailing off towards, towards the west. Actually the next work in in Imperial Rome, Virgil's great epic, the Aeneid picks up with the destruction of Troy because as Virgil tells it and as the Romans, the Roman Empire developed this myth itself that it actually was founded by Aeneas who fought, who was a Trojan and who lived through the destruction of Troy and went on a journey through the Mediterranean and eventually founded Rome, which founded this empire. So in Virgil's retelling, it's the destruction of Troy that gives birth to the seed that becomes the great Roman Empire. That's a wonderful work that is sort of picking up the mantle of Homer in ancient epic literature. And I would love to see a big budget production of Virgil's Aeneid.

Blake

Oh, I love that. Dr. Whalen, I gotta tell everybody. So if you want to check out your Odyssey course that you taught, it's 100% free for people to check out, just have to go to learnlikecharlie.com we have a special URL just for that where your course pops up right at the front so people don't even need to look for it. Learnlikecharlie.com and the Odyssey course will be right up there on the front page. I. I think you've done an amazing job here, Dr. Whalen. You obviously understand this content inside and out. You have such a Native appreciation, Native understanding of the classics. So check it out everybody. Learnlike Charlie.com understand the fundamental foundational works of Western civilization and why they've stood the test of time. I enjoyed this as an outsider because it was basically you and Blake going back and forth, forth, which I. Which I appreciate and love. So thank you so much. Professor.

Dr. Benedict Whalen

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Sean Davis

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