Transcript of Who Charlie Kirk Really Was | His Best Friend & Producer Andrew Kolvet

What if I told you we're diving into every single conspiracy theory surrounding the life and death of Charlie Kirk? From $150 million to Catholic conversion rumors, to why the tent camera footage disappeared. We're pulling back the curtain today. I'm joined by someone who knew Charlie better than almost anyone, Andrew Colvette, executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show and one of Charlie's best friends. We talk about what Charlie and Erica's family vacations were really like, the biggest disagreements they ever had, and what's next with Erica stepping in as CEO of Turning Point USA. No question is off limits. This is the episode where we go there. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clarke YouTube, or you can watch it on the Culture Apothecary Spotify channel. Leaving a five-star review right now is crucial. As we rebuild without Charlie, I'd love to know how you found the show. If you're new, if you've been here forever, but you haven't left a review, tell us what you think about it. You can find the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary or find me at Real Alex Clark. Support the organization in the show with merch at tpusamertch.

Com. Code Alex Clark, by the way, we'll get you 10% off. Please welcome executive producer of The Charlie Kirk and one of Charlie's best friends, Andrew Colvette to Culture Apothecary. I always describe you as Charlie's right-hand man, one of his very best friends, producer. I mean, you're like a founding father of Turning Point USA. I will never forget the first time that I met you. We were at a house party. Dan Crenshaw was there, and he took his eyeball out.

Do you remember that? I don't. I think I blacked it out, but I think I remember the event that you're talking Yeah.

That was the first time I ever met you. You've been around since before I was. You know Charlie better than probably anyone else in this company. You and Mikey McCoy, I would say, were the very closest to him. What was his very last week like? What was he talking about? What was he doing?

He was traveling abroad. He was in Seoul, South Korea, and he was in Tokyo. Then he came back to Phoenix, and he We did the show on Monday, Tuesday. Then I guest-hosted the show on Wednesday for him, and then it happened. It's interesting. I posted on X a video that was taken that portal where you enter the stage from behind the stage. Charlie was doing a big event in Korea. It was about two weeks ago. He got done with his speech, and the event organizers came onto the speech, and they asked them to come forward and to sing and pray over Charlie. It's a beautiful video because they just start singing, How great is our God? How great is our God? Sing with me, How great is our God? You can see Charlie's head, he bowes it and he puts his hand on his heart, and he just sits there and he absorbs it. I wasn't with the team when they travel. I've got three little kids. Charlie was always very good about trying to insulate me from having to travel too much, because we could have just been traveling nonstop. He's just sitting there like this, and you can hear them shouting and praying for him.

Koreans are really amazing prayer warriors, actually. When he got off stage, Mikey told me that he was misty-eyed. He was really emotional. It really hit him. I just think that's so beautiful because he spent this time in these foreign countries. I remember going, Why are you going away? But it was after the election year, he was trying to carve out some of these international trips that have been the request have been piling up. We went to London earlier in the year.

We have a turning point UK.

Yeah, they're pretty independently operating, but yeah, they're connected to Charlie. I remember the team that started that, and it's transitioned, but they've been morning and honoring Charlie as well in some amazing ways. But one of the things that I love about that last trip to Asia is he was still extraordinarily famous in Asia, but he woke up really early in the morning one day, and he just got to go for a walk. He's a walker.

Oh, my gosh. He's a Pacer.

He paces. Well, his pace that he keeps up when he walks because he had these big, tall, long legs. It was hard to keep up with him when you're walking, but he just loved walking. He loved it. He used to run a ton. When I first started working with Charlie, he was running 10 miles a day. I'm not even kidding. He eventually couldn't do that because he hurt his back from all the plane flights. His back was a constant problem for him. He just was like, Okay, I'm going to walk. He walked all around Seoul just by himself and adventured and explored. If you get into the day-to-day real life of Charlie, he just didn't have that an experience being alone much.

Yeah, I going to say that's really interesting.

Because he had to be surrounded by security or he had his team or the staff. And so he just loved it. And he got to do that. And he kept sending us like selfie videos from the route he was taking, how he was exploring the city. And he did a couple of other walks with his team. But then he went to Tokyo. And I think this is really telling of Charlie. He was talking to a non-Christian audience. The Koreans are really Christian. The Japanese or not. It was very important to him as he was preparing his remarks that he shared the gospel. There was a whole lot of thought that went into how to do it appropriately, how to do it respectfully, but to do it. He did that. Then he got home from that trip, and all I heard about was how excited he was to start the tour. He was so pumped. It was interesting because anything that was in the news that was contentious or that was infighting He was excited because he knew he was going to get those questions, and he was going to... A lot of those clips go viral, and it was going to be an opportunity for him to help steady the ship and bring the movement together and articulate what he thought was the best way forward.

And what was that?

It just depended on the question. It could be the Israel question. It could be the Epstein thing. It could be anything that was hard, foreign policy.

One of our last conversations, he brought that up. He said, I'm really worried. This is really serious, isn't it? The infighting and the splitting of the movement. This is really a problem. I said, yeah. But then, I don't know, one of us got pulled away or whatever. We literally only said that. I didn't get to hear more of his thoughts on that. But what was he telling you behind the scenes?

It's interesting because there's been a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about, saying a lot of things about this issue. On the one hand, I love it because you've got the pro-Israel side claiming him, and you've got the The anti-Israel side claiming him now, which is a posthumous thing. But I think that's interesting. You got the Catholics claiming him, and the evangelicals claiming him.

Was he becoming Catholic?

No. But he really loved Catholic Mass. He loved the ritual of it. He loved the beauty of old Catholic churches and the stained glass.

Him and Erica would go sometimes.

Well, Erica is a cradle Catholic, but she ended Like me, I grew up Catholic, I'm in first communion and went to Catholic high school. But then I ended up becoming a Christian in college through a Protestant church, through a non-denominational more experience. It was actually Presbyterian, and then it was non-denominational. I think Erica follows that same path. She and I share that.

Also, by the way, I just want to draw attention to, she's posted a photo of her and Charlie and the kids in Mass before, and somebody in the comment section said, Oh, are you guys converting? She said, No, we just attending sometimes. She herself had said no.

I think Charlie, one of the things Charlie really hated worshiping in a gym or some blank space that you just turn into church. There's no problem. He didn't have a problem with the act of that. He just didn't prefer it. He loved, again, the ritual, the ancient feel of a Catholic Mass, and the fact that everybody around the world that was worshiping as a Catholic. He loved that. He had some really big theological hangups with that. You can go check the videos out, him debating with Michael Knowles in good fun. They were dear friends, but they loved debating the whole Protestant versus Catholic thing.

So tensions were rising in the movement. This is not news to anybody. If you are participating in the movement, you see it with your own eyes, you see it on X if you live online like we do. Charlie was aware of it. I will say as far as the rumors go, for donor pressures and all of that. You can tell me if I'm wrong. Internally, what I noticed was, yes, he was getting pressure about having Tucker speak. There were people angry that we were allowing Tucker to speak. He wanted to double down and said, I don't care that people are mad. I have tons of different ideologies on this stage, religions, viewpoints within the conservative movement. Everybody's welcome. I want everybody to have a chance to share their ideas. That's the only pressure I know of as far as donor pressure that he ever received recently.

A of things that it's worth clarifying. You asked me this earlier, so let me make sure I'd say it. Charlie's position on Israel was very clear. I like them more than I like Hamas. I just wish I was free to criticize Israel and not be labeled an anti-Semite because I can criticize my own government and not be called anti-American. But why do I have more freedom to do that and not criticize a foreign government. He was really upset that there was this clamp down on the freedom of expression, the freedom of ideas, free speech, when it came to a foreign government. I will say this, he felt like he had earned the right as a friend of the Jewish people over the years and all of the things that he had done. He felt like his bona fides in that respect were unassailable and that he should have the freedom to say, Hey, it's time to end the war. Hey, it's time to stop the killing. But with Tucker, for example, yeah, we took some pushback, we lost some donors. What's interesting is it wasn't necessarily Jewish donors, although that's a misconception about Turning Point's funding base, by the way, is it's not a whole lot of Jewish donors.

It's just not. I saw the comments online like, Oh, the Jewish shekels, or something like, I mean, it's all this gross stuff. It just wasn't true, and it isn't true. But But we did lose one in particular towards the end that was frustrating. There's this great clip when we were in Myrtle Beach, and he got asked from somebody in the audience if he was going to debate Candice or disavowed Tucker. Charlie's answer, I thought, was amazing. I remember he came off the stage. He was like, Do you like that one? He would always ask that for reassurance. Yeah, he always loved like, Did you see that? Did you hear where he listened? Yeah.

Do I look good? Was that a good clip? Do you think that'll go viral?

I remember saying, I thought it was amazing. It was morally so crystal clear. And he basically said, I don't appreciate being morally blackmailed. And every time people would say that to him, he would dig his heels in. It's like, Well, Maybe Tucker's going to give two speeches now at MFEST, or maybe I'll invite so and so.

That was one thing Charlie and I, I relate to him so much, is that him and I both do that where we don't like being told what to do.

I've noticed that before, by the way.

Yeah, I know. Andrew, I'm like, Oh, there's so many things that we could talk about how many times Andrew and Charlie had to put out fires for me that I've started. But when I'm told I can't do something, it's like, Well, I'm going to do it even harder then. That's just my personality. Charlie is very much the same way.

I think that's the key. Charlie was a friend of the Jewish people and a friend of Israel. Did he have opinions about the prosecution of the war? He thought their PR was abysmal, thought they were doing more harm than good in many ways for their own cause. All of those things were true. He was upset that he couldn't express those things freely without all of this pressure coming down on the organization. He has a lot of great Jewish friends and some people that maybe some not so good ones. But I think it's just a nuanced thing.

Was Charlie offered $150 million from Israel?

As far as I know, no.

I had never heard anything like that. Everyone I've asked has said the same thing.

By the way, just for what it's worth, it doesn't matter the amount that would have been coming We would have said no. There's evidence that that is true. Because Charlie would not accept foreign money. Exactly. We only took American money. There was money sent to us, practically in multiple instances. They're trying to cram it down our bank account. We said no. We canceled money wires and things.

No foreign money and also no handouts from the government. During the pandemic, he refused to do mass layoffs that everybody else in the country was doing. Said no to the whatever that check was. What was that that they were handing out? Stimulus check. Yeah.

The PPE loans, right? I always get PPP and PPE mixed up.

Yeah, but it was a good amount of money that at the time we could have used. He put out a company statement saying, This was tempting for sure, but we're going to say no. I mean, He was very principled in that way.

He was extremely principled, especially on foreign money. I remember moments we'd be at an event, and some foreign people would come up and demand a meeting or try and meeting with Charlie, and Charlie would look at me and go, deal with them, get rid of them. I don't want to talk to him. I often had the job of-Being the bad guy. Being the bad guy and say, I'm so sorry, Charlie's schedule is busy. It's unfortunate. We just can't fit you in. Oh, well, here's my card, please. Let's... And I mean, on one occasion, when that happened, a couple of years later, we saw him in the news and they got arrested, and he texted me. He's like, See? I knew it. I knew it. My spidey sense could feel it. Charlie did have a spidey sense for who he could trust and who he couldn't trust. And in this business, there's a lot of shady people that will try and insinuate themselves into your circle, into your orbit. And you have to be as wide as a serpent and as gentle as a dove, and you have to be able to really assess people's motives and cross-check things.

Charlie was the best at that.

Have you guys had a conversation on the board and just sea-level executives of the company? Have you guys talked to Eric about that, just looking for opportunists that are going to be circling around her at this point?

I don't think I need to tell Eric that. Erica is very shrewd. She's very smart. She's very sharp. There's a great story. I can't really tell you who this was, but it was a very important person. It happened within hours of the news. The call goes in. She takes it because it was a very important person. The question was to her, Okay, this is a starting point. What do you know? I think it was in reference to Charlie's world, his work, his mission. How much do you know about what he was doing? What was he doing? But it was inferred. It was like, so what do you know? And she was like, I know everything. I was like, That's amazing. Because she did because Charlie would go home. And if you knew Charlie, I mean, a lot of influencers, a lot of people in the space, they go out and they party. They do that. Charlie did not. He went straight home to Erica. If she was traveling with him, he went straight home to her very early and hung out with her. They talked, and they talked and they talked. And he would bounce ideas off of her.

And she really was this support to him. The world is about to discover that Erica is one of the most exceptional and amazing women you're ever going to meet. Or as Blake says from the Charlie Kirk show side, Blake goes, What a woman. I love Blake. The world's going to find out that Erika is, in fact, what a woman. What's amazing about Erika is that she was so happy to defer to headship to the leadership of Charlie Kirk in the household at Turning Point USA. To empower him and be this support structure for him and to provide a steadiness. She thrived in that role. But that is not to say that she is not capable of leadership. In fact, I heard you mention that call that she had with the staff, and she is It's very feminine. It's a change in that sense because she's a woman. It's very feminine. It's a different approach. It's a different tone. But it's almost like just as efficient and just as on point and just as focused and just as strong. It's the feminine version of it. It's like so many of us who have been around Charlie for as long as we have, it's almost like you can't help but absorb his energy and absorb his rhythms.

I noticed this, too, because I spent so many years doing Charlie's media hits and setting them up for him and prepping him and doing talking points and going through how we're going to present the arguments. And then here I am, it was the Monday JD hosted the show from the White House, and I had five or six media hits with all the networks lined up. They all wanted to find out more. It was the biggest story in the world. I ended up going and doing all these hits from Pebble Beach right in the White House, where they have all the media tents set up. All of a sudden, I find myself in this surreal place where I'm the one now doing the media hits about the man that I used to do that job to set him up for those media hits. I'm having this almost outer body experience because I start, not barking orders, but in the sense that when you're in that seat and you're like, Hey, can I get this? Yeah. Hey, did you check on this? And I find myself, I was doing what Charlie would do. I caught myself. I was like, Whoa.

These lessons went in deep, and I didn't even realize it. And when your back's against the wall and you're drinking through a fire hose and you can barely keep up, all of a sudden, the lessons, it's like a soldier. You train for the war, and then when the war happens, your training will kick in. It was like my training kicked in, and the training was Charlie Kirk. If that's true for me, imagine being Erica Kirk. They put their heads down on the pillow next to each other. They talked before going to bed every night and in the morning, and they were constantly in contact. She knows everything. She knows who to trust, who not to. She knows who to embrace. She knows who's going to be the allies in the fights ahead. You can rest assured that Erica Kirk is up to the task.

One thing that I was so excited about, and I just am so upset that I didn't get a chance to say thank you or I'm so excited myself to him, was right before he died, it was announced that we were going to be giving our female employees at Turning Point six months paid maternity leave. Now, this is unbelievable. I mean, progressive organizations are not doing that. That's huge. That was something that they tried to use against him on the left. You're probably so misogynistic, and you hate women, and all of this. We have more, I believe still, more female directors at Turning Point than male.

We just love women more than they do. We want to treat them better, and we want to make sure that we love families more than they do. There's no question.

Did Erica have influence on that decision before he died? Yeah, a thousand %. Do you think that we're going to see even some more really exciting announcements as far as work, family, balance that Erica will want to institute here?

I'm not going to get ahead of Erica, so I don't know. But I'm sure she would love to hear your opinions on that, Alex. You can put your- Well, my opinion.

I had said we should be doing longer maternity leave, and I'd said that for a few years. I think at the time, that was really controversial. Everybody was like, Do not say that. That's insane. That would cost us a fortune. I'm like, Okay, but it goes with our values. When When he finally said that, I was like, No way, because I had been thinking that.

But-yeah, no, Charlie was very much about putting his money where his mouth is and putting his values on full display so that we knew that we weren't hiding behind something. We wanted to be proud about that. As Eric has said, Charlie, if he was ever elected President, if he was ever in charge of the world, his job, he was going to focus on rebuilding the American family. I mean, that was absolutely center and core for Charlie as far as a passion. We talked about, and by the way, you know this, how many times did he get these nasty headlines when he would just defend the nuclear family and the traditional values of a family? I realize this so much now that Charlie was essentially just a modern day prophet, not in the fortune telling sense, but in the biblical sense of, here's God's instrument. He goes into a wayward place and he speaks truth to them and calls them to repent. To repent. Then what happens when you call a people to repent? Some accept it and they love you for it, and some reject it and they hate you for it. That was Charlie Kirk.

That was Charlie Kirk. That's the central dynamic of his entire, and I will call it a ministry. Yes, it was a mission. Yes, he was an activist, but it was a ministry, was that he would go into a place, whether it was a college campus or a country like London. That's what he was doing in London. I realized this now. He was calling London to repent. He was calling England to remember itself and to come back to your greatness. Repent and be saved. In that sense, literally, save your civilization because you need to find who you are again, identity. Charlie did that when he went to Asia. It was the same thing. He would do it on these college campuses. He would speak about issues like family, formation, and getting married. He would speak into the cultural lie so directly like an icebreaker, breaking through the water. Somebody had to be that icebreaker. Somebody had to go forward so the ships behind could do it. That was Charlie's mission. He would speak so boldly and clearly to confront the cultural lie so that other people could come behind him. One of the main issues he would do that on is getting married, the MRS degree or whatever it was.

People would get so offended. And yet, when you get past that level of offense, usually by the mainstream media, there was millions of kids listening online going like, You know what? That actually makes sense. It makes sense. And by the way, I secretly want that. I can't say it out loud, but Charlie did.

Does Erica have full confidence that we got the shooter, the right shooter?

I think so. I also think we're waiting to see if there's more details that will follow. Who knew in advance? Who radicalized them? Was there a funding network? All of that stuff, I think, is fair and open-ended questions that we can keep asking, and we should. But I have every confidence that Cash and Dan at the FBI and the whole DOJ are behind this, and the cooperation with local law enforcement has been tremendous. And so, yeah, I'm very aware that there are other theories of the case. I would just say, listen, we have to open every door, pursue every lead, and be open to being surprised. That being said, there's a pretty high level of confidence that this is the truth and that they got the guy, and now we need to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

How do you think this would have potentially played out differently if we would have had a Harris administration instead of a Trump?

Oh, gosh. It would have been an utter disaster. Somebody said to me this morning, actually, how fortunate we are that if this was going to happen- Yeah, I said the same. That we have this administration in place, the administration that Charlie helped get elected, and then obviously, flew to Mar-a-Lago within 72 hours of the election to help with the transition. Charlie basically helped help hand-select some of the people that are now overseeing the investigation and ensuring that justice is done.

As we wrap, there's just a couple of things I want to hit.

Oh, by the way, very good doing this without questions.

Thank you, Andrew. You're doing well. I love to be super prepared and write out all my questions for my guests. With Andrew, I know him so well. I'm just asking questions that have been in my mind for the last week that we've been just grieving and dealing with this. I was like, I'm just going to let it roll.

You're doing great. I always wanted Alex to be a lot less rigid.

You think I'm rigid and everyone else that knows me knows I'm a spaz.

When we first started working with Alex and we'd book her on Fox or something, she'd be like, But wait, what are the questions? They have the exact... I was like, No, they're not going to give me the exact questions, Alex. You have to be a human and hear what they say and then think about it and then maybe respond. I was scared. I was just trying to dumb it down for her, but she ended up... I mean, obviously, you've had such amazing success and Charlie was so proud of you. You've taken any advice I could have given What were some of the things about me that aggravated Charlie the most or gave him the most trouble? You just sometimes don't think the consequences through of your wild statements sometimes. What did you ask so and so? Oh, okay. How did you... Oh, you worded it that way. Okay, that was good. What did you tweet? Did you run that by anybody? No. No. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Free speech. No, totally. Yeah. Well, and we don't censor you. It's so funny. It's like most of our job is more reactive when you don't see all the angles.

It's cleaning up my messes.

It's asking for forgiveness.

Yeah. It's like we don't believe in that control. We think we hire good people and good people are going to do good things.

No, there was only, and I said this in my solo episode that came out yesterday. There's only one time in my six years of working here, and I don't think it was, Charlie. I think it was other management. Probably me. I don't even think it was you. It was Other Management, and I had a guest coming on who talked negatively about some people that to be donors. It was like, Hey, we really are thinking that maybe you shouldn't put this episode out. I wrote the one and only time I threatened to quit ever working here. It was my most strongly worded letter just saying, If I am expected to go on campuses and defend free speech to these students, then my free speech and my guest free speech should not be squandered within our walls of Turning Point USA. I just said, We don't have to agree with everything that my guests say. I have guests with different opinions. If those donors want to come out and disagree, that's fine. That wouldn't have been me. I don't think it was you, and I don't think it was Charlie. But when I said that, I think Charlie was notified, and then it was like, Just let her post it, never to be...

No one ever said anything to me again. Then any other times that I said controversial things, I would always get little messages from Charlie saying, Keep up the good work. I support whatever you want to say, just very kind like that. Let's talk a little bit about the behind-the-scenes relationship of Charlie and Erika. I mean, this is an audience of women that want all the gitty little weird details. Did they go out to eat? Did they cook at home? Who who was messy? Who was clean? What were their little funny tips that they would have? Things like that.

Traveling them with them was always very telling because they had this way of... Charlie never raised his voice to her, but they might have a disagreement about what was the right next few steps in the travel plan. And like, should we pick you up here and do this? And then Erica always would go, she has that no baby thing where I feel even weird saying because I don't use the B-word. And then he would say back like, Yes, yes, sweetie, or something. And they were always so nice in their disagreements. But you could tell they definitely had different plans about how we were going to get the kids to the hotel. And then with the dinner and then when She should meet him. And so watching them problem-solving and work things out in this really sweet way with all these little window dressings of I love yous in there was something I- You look beautiful, but you are so wrong right now. Like stuff like that. Yeah, in their own way. That was the equivalent of whatever that would be for them. But I'm always reminded of that. I'm always reminded that Charlie would always drop everything.

We'd be talking about something extraordinarily important. He would just be like, Okay, hold on. Erica is calling. And just take it. She was always the number one priority, and everything else would stop if she needed something. There wasn't anything in the world that he wouldn't do for her. I mean, he would move heaven and earth to make sure Erica was taken care of, and her for him. I mean, she would put her life on pause to support his life and his mission and his work. One of the things that struck me, just thinking about it, they were just on vacation in the northeast at least this summer.

He loves Maine.

Yeah, he loved Maine, he loved Montana. There was certain places where he loved to vacation. I remember thinking, it was basically a week and a half they had on the schedule, and they had a really cool spot to go on vacation, and they had planned it out pretty far in advance. Then he got invited to guest host Fox & Friends. In the middle of their vacation, on the weekend, which would have been the chillest time of the vacation, she was like, Well, let's go to New York. Let's do it. She was totally game for it to interrupt her family vacation so Charlie could guest host Fox & Friends.

That ended up being such an incredible weekend for him. I mean, those moments of him hosting, it was so fun. You got to see his really endearing fatherly side.

On a horse out in Manhattan.

It was so funny for Charlie to do that. I'm so glad that they did because... I mean, and Megan Kelly brought this up, so I have to ask you. I mean, Megan says she knows for a fact that there were internal issues with Fox wanting to have Charlie on for several years.

Let me just put that to rest. I actually talked to Megan about this when she came in to guest host Charlie's show. It is true that he was on a lot, and then wasn't. That was around some comments that he had made in and around the Tucker parting of Waze. Here's the thing. They have been so supportive, and people... I don't know what I'm at liberty to say and what I'm not, but Fox really wanted to fully embrace Charlie. They wanted him to come host the weekend Fox & Friends again. They wanted maybe put him on the five a couple of times. They wanted to maybe talk about documentaries and things that were close to Charlie's heart. Charlie was excited to do that. Very much in life, Charlie was fully appreciated and embraced by Fox, and they understood his talent. There's actually a really funny story. Charlie found himself at a very nondescript, out in the middle of the boonies place with a couple of very prominent Fox hosts.

Recently or a long time ago?

Very recently.

Okay.

It was over the summer sometime. I think it was June or something. I kept trying to tell people. I was like, Charlie has become super famous. It's super famous. You can't take him anywhere.

Yeah, it totally changed in the last year and a half.

Two years, yeah. A lot of that was TikTok and some other things. But he He became super famous. He finds himself at this bar restaurant, and they're out. They tried to get it into the back of this place, and people noticed them. Again, this is the middle of nowhere, middle of the boonies. We're talking top talent. You should know who these people are. I thought you would know who they are.

Of course, yeah.

They're sitting there, and then people start coming up for selfies. Apparently, this happened about 100 times over the course of about an hour and a half, two hours. I don't know if they ever got asked for questions as well, but it was basically all for Charlie. You get these two top talent, Fox and Charlie Kirk. On more than a couple of occasions, probably about half, the other people were asked, these two anchors were asked to take the picture of Charlie with the people coming up. So you imagine these very well-known-I'm sure that was humbling. Media person. Yes, if so, right? I think Fox, probably. By the way, Fox had already fully embraced him at this point, but I think those little stories must have got back. Charlie was extraordinarily popular with We the People and the Grassroots. It's an amazing thing. But Yeah, I mean, the vibes were good at Fox.

How much did Charlie believe in Maha? Loved it.

Charlie was like, Mr. Maha. I don't know what percentage of your audience is Christian, but I would just say I look at so much now of Charlie's decision making is like these weird little Holy spirit nuggets and these little clues. Charlie obviously didn't know he was going to die so young, but he had so much discipline that he got the most out of his body that was physically possible in the years that he had. It was almost like God put this little wiring in his brain because he knew that he had this huge, larger purpose for him. And so he disciplined himself. He was obsessed with biohacking. Like, how can I get more energy? How can I sleep deeper? And it's really amazing, actually. I I think this is okay. But there was these reports after it happened that they found a pulse. Yeah.

And Erica told me that. There was a select group of us when Erica gave her first statement to the media that were there in the same room, and she came out and she hugged all of us and talked to each one of us. She said that. She said, his heart kept beating even when his spine and brain were severed or whatever. I said, it was beating for you. He was holding on for you and your kids, and you know it.

Well, and that's a beautiful thought. I think there's that, which is very true. Then there's the medical angle. I When we talked to the doctors, it was that his heart was strong. It was so strong. That even after this traumatic thing that had just happened to his body, that his heart still beat. People need to know that it was instant. He didn't feel a thing. He didn't even know. He blinked and he was in heaven. That's, I think, the truth. It was a devastating wound.

Why did our team start taking cameras immediately? Was it just in shock and just thinking like, this is what we do and just not thinking it's a crime scene?

I think massive shock. I think there's been some stories about the SD cards or whatever. That was because even in the shock, there was an understanding that the proximity of those cameras were, A, going to be evidence, and they wanted to make sure that it didn't get stolen out of the cameras, but B, they didn't want anybody to run in. I mean, there was those videos of the kid running and grabbing the hats. There was an understanding. I talked to the team on that, and they said, Because we know people can be evil, and they grabbed the SD card so that nobody could get that.

So that law enforcement could get it.

Did I answer your Maha question sufficiently? Yeah, okay. He loved Maha. He loved Maha Moms, too. He thought that Maha was the most underappreciated and the most critical of the coalition, of Trump's 2024 coalition, and he wanted to it, and he had a real vision for that. I think that's why he was always like, Run, Alex. Run. Do your thing. Because obviously, he couldn't speak to the women like you could speak to the women. But he just loved... He loves Bobby Kennedy, loved Bobby Kennedy, and really respected him. By the way, there's this fun interview that RFK did with Charlie in, I think it was December of 2023. Rfk was here in Phoenix. Okay. They did that interview, and Charlie challenged him, and RFK got a little mad at him for one of the questions. I remember Charlie looked at me and goes, Bobby, you know I respect you, but I got to ask these questions. I remember going like, Good for you, Charlie. Yeah, ask him the hard questions. But even in a moment of tension, Charlie was like, You know I respect the heck out of you. Let me ask the questions I have to ask.

Yeah, that's a good interviewer.

It was a good interaction. Then obviously, we got to host when he endorsed him, and that was your favorite event of all time here in Phoenix as well. Massive, massive event. One of my favorite in the history of Turning Point, actually.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah. But he was so excited because he saw the power of it and loved that we were taking on this thing that he had so much passion for personally.

So he wouldn't want us to stop talking about this because I think right now-Not at all. I mean, I struggle with that. I'm like, Man, everybody right now-No, more. Is just wanting to talk politics because this is important. I do. I love talking politics.

Charlie was bored with politics. If you want to know the truth, Charlie was bored by it. He knew he had to because politics is so important. I can't tell you how many times I tried to book Congress people on the show, and he'd be like, I don't want to talk to them.

He was excited by Maha.

He was excited by ideas and Maha and things that he was actually interested in. Yeah. He was not a policy wonk. Charlie was not a policy wonk. He didn't care about the... He cared about big ideas and truth, and he believed that Maha is the truth.

What happens now with Charlie's tours?

They're going to continue. Obviously, we did Noel's yesterday, and that's amazing. And we're going to keep... We have some... Noel's was previously booked. He was always supposed to be at that event. I think the prove me wrongs are going to go away for now. There's just too many questions about security But the evening events, which you can secure the venue much, much more easily inside. And those are going to keep going. And we have special guests out the yin-yang for that. We have Megan Kelly, We have Governor Juin Forte, Vivek Ramiswami. We are working on another really big person that I can't confirm yet, but another really big person. I think it's safe to say that We got Glenn Beck. I'm trying to think. I don't want to leave anybody off, but we've got some big names, and we're not going to pull back. We're not pulling back. We're actually moving forward in earnest. I think it's safe to say that you will see Erica Kirk at least one or two stops. Wow.

That shows a lot of strength. It says a lot about her character and her mindset with all this, I think. What happens to the Charlie Kirk show?

Well, we're going to keep doing guests in studio and bringing the family together. I think that's been really cathartic for everybody. Week one was JD, the Daily Wire guys. We had Glenn Beck, Megan Kelly, and Tucker Carlson. We've got Benny Johnson. By the way, we have a great team that are here in our thought crime crew, Blake and Tyler and Cliff Maloney, who was on a lot during the run up to the 2024 election. I think he's going to be hanging in there with us. It's a little TBD, but we're working it out. Maybe we do Tuesdays with Erica or something, and she can be a part of that. But the vision is coming together. It's taking shape. Obviously, With Charlie being such a world-class talent, there's no way to fully ever even come close to replacing that. Yeah, it's a daunting task, but I have this weird piece in my heart because you mentioned the DNA of Charlie, the fingerprints of Charlie, how we've all absorbed it. In some ways, the people closest to that show need to be the people closest to that show moving forward because we saw the way he did and we saw the way he wanted things done, and we saw what he was passionate about.

I remember I tried to get guests hosts before when we first started, when he couldn't make a show, and they just didn't have the DNA. They didn't know how to keep the spirit of the show alive. And so whatever form it takes, I think it has to be... It has to have his DNA in it. It has to have his spirit and his magic in it. And I think that has to be driven by the people that did the show when he was doing it every day.

I ask every guest this question at the end of my episodes. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, what would that remedy be?

You know the way I'll answer this? So yes, the answer is give your life to Jesus. Repent and be saved. I know that sounds like fire and brimstone-y age, but it's literally that simple. But what does repent mean? It means it's not just saying sorry, it's like turning around. So the thing that when I say, you should repent. Repent, you know what it is. Whatever that thing is, instantly there will be something that comes into your head and you'll be like, I know the thing that I'm really like, I know I have to stop. That Is the thing that you need to spend all your time in heart energy, like quiet time, figure out how you're going to stop that. Is it an addiction? Is it a lie you're telling? Is it something you're holding on to? Is it wealth that you refuse to let go? Is it a comfort? Is it an expectation for the future of your life? I will just tell you, because when this happened, I remember I got the news, my wife came in and I looked at her and I said, everything just changed. I remember thinking, I didn't want it to change.

Not only was I tragically devastated that one of my best friends in the whole wide world, my brother, my business partner, the leader of Turning Point, and this icon of our culture had just been assassinated in cold blood. All those things are going through your head. But I had also to confront the fact that all of my little comforts had just evaporated. All of the things that I thought about the future of my life had just gone out the window. I would say that I wrestled with that quietly alone. I I didn't have a tough time to think about it, but I would get up to my hotel room and just be hit by the weight of, I don't know what's coming next. Then actually, was Ali Stuckey sent me this song by Matthew West. It was just weird. It was like, the Saturday after in my hotel room, my wife's back with our kids, and I'm just alone. It was probably the first second I stopped for a second. I listened to this song, and it just started weeping. It was bawling, ugly cry. Talking to you ladies, you know what I'm talking about.

This would be the right podcast to say this. To reveal this. I just had this ugly be crying. But I needed to get it out. I don't know. And I just like, I repented. I repented because I think up until that moment, I didn't feel feel like I could do what was going to be called of me in the days and weeks ahead. And in that moment, I repented because what was holding me back from feeling like I could rise to this moment and rise to this occasion was that I was not willing to let go of my flesh, and I wasn't willing to let go of my selfishness. In that moment, I realized, Lord, it is all whatever you want. I throw my hands up, and I throw them out to you. I'm open to you, and I understand that this is not what my flesh wanted, but I don't want my flesh. I want what you want from me. So just come Holy spirit, change me. Don't let me hold on to these things that I think I need because I know that I don't. If you bring them back to me, so be it.

If you don't, so be it. Like your will be done, not mine.

You said that probably one of the best of any guest that's ever been on. I just want you to know that. I love you so much. I love you, too. You're one of my favorite people that I've gotten to know working at Turning Point. As sad and horrific and traumatic as this has been, I was the most excited to talk to you just because you were the closest to him, you knew him the best. I'm just so sick of some of the misconceptions and things that people are saying online. I just was like, you're the person to just let's get the truth out there and his right motives and mindset before he passed away. So thank you for coming Culture Apothecary.

Been an honor. Thank you, Alex.

You still have questions? Leave them in the comments if they weren't answered. But I feel like we hit everything. Please leave a five-star review. Tell others why they've got to listen to Culture Apothecary. We've got one more special episode this week with somebody who knew Charlie very well, actually since childhood. We're on a mission to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Twice a week, I have new guests who bring their own unique remedy to do just that on Mondays and Thursdays, 6: 00 PM Pacific, 9: 00 PM Eastern, although this is a special week. Don't forget to subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube or find me on Instagram at realalexclarke. Tpusamerch. Com. Use code Alex Clark for 10% off merch. I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.