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Hey, everybody. Are you sick and tired of our freedoms disappearing? Are you wondering where the heroes are? Well, you can be a hero. And we talked to one today. Name is Ian Smith. He owns a gym in New Jersey. He will not close, Jim, despite the authoritarians and the tyrants coming after him, he's being fined 10000 dollars a day by the state of New Jersey and faces possible prison time for keeping his doors open.

Despite zero virus cases going back to his gym, he's standing against tyranny. You should draw inspiration from the story to fight back and to stand for truth and with courage. I want to thank those of you that support our program at Charlie Kirkham Report. You allow us to tell the truth every single day at Charlie Kirkham report. And if you're a monthly supporter, you then get access to our private room. Call at Charlie Kirkconnell slash report. Charlie Cook Dotcom slash support.

Ian Smith is here. He's a hero. We need more of them, support him and draw inspiration from him. Buckle up. Here we go, Charlie.

What you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Company. Charlie Kirk's running the White House. I want to thank Charlie is an incredible guy, his spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

That's why we are here.

Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. I am joined today with Ian Smith. Ian, you are you've made national news, my friend. You are demanding that your gym gets to reopen and you have and a lot of different ways pushed back. There are zero virus cases tracing back to your gym as of today. And you guys have done everything responsibly. And you guys were in a viral video kicking down the barricades, I guess you could say, of your gym.

Tell us about what you're going through and tell us a little about yourself.

Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me on the show. I appreciate it, because one of our one of our biggest weapons as a as a small individual person in this or small entity in this kind of David versus Goliath, you know, little guy versus big guy battle has been the fact that so many people care about the story. So I'm really happy to join today. So I appreciate that. But yeah, we have fifteen thousand five hundred and forty six visits as of last night to the facility since June 16th without a single case of covid reported so far.

And we have extensive records that we can look back at any time. So and that's something that we sort of came up with ourselves.

But yeah, it's it's been a pretty crazy journey. We started this thing out because we thought that every small business should be open and that the world doesn't need to come to a grinding halt for a virus, especially one with a mortality rate of much less than than originally forecasted, I should say. So we didn't plan for it to turn this big. We thought we didn't know where it was going to go, but I don't think we thought it was going to get to this level.

We put together fifteen point safety protocol about six weeks after the two week shutdown because there was no there was no government plan present. Nobody was talking about reopening. It was this trickle of here you can have you can you can have your parks back. Oh, you can you know, you can go to the beach, but you can't sit in chairs on the beach. It was this like trickle of liberty, like coming back the breadcrumbs. And it was like, you know, enough is enough because I've seen this played out before in history where, you know, they're quick to grab power and the real slow to give it back.

Yeah. If at all. Yeah. If at all.

Exactly. So we put together a plan, my partner and I, we worked every day since the shutdown started and we put out that plan very publicly because it wasn't about being openly defiant. It wasn't about, you know, the middle finger in the face of the man. It was it was about saying, hey, there's no plan, president, we're as responsible adults, as responsible citizens. We're going to put one forth to the public. Let's talk about it.

Let's let's get moving. And yet, to date, Governor Murphy has not reached out at all to learn the details of that plan, which is which is surprising.

So what is Governor Murphy said about you and what is he threatened the governor of New Jersey. So originally when we reopened, the story's been going on for a while. We were given citations all that first week. We had a health department violation, which a health department official never even stepped inside the building. They just slap a sticker on the door in the middle of the night. Then our locks were changed via a court order. They locked us out of our business.

A couple of weeks later, we got back in. We were held in contempt of court again, and then that's when we were arrested for the first time. So now we're up to twenty four citations and one arrest, all carrying a thousand dollar fine and up to six months in jail. And they barricaded our doors and that was that was kind of where this the powder keg started to explode. So we kicked them down and we resumed operations. And now Governor Murphy again has not reached out in any way other than punitive measures.

He hasn't reached out to say, hey, I'm going to send somebody down there and we're going to take a look at what you guys have in place. We're going to talk about it. So from there, you know, we were held in contempt of court.

Again, we're still we're still operating, still going strong. And he's requesting that Judge Robert. Luigi, who has been his kind of right hand man through every will he's wanted, carried out in New Jersey, Robert Luigi is the guy who shut down the town of Asbury Park that was set to reopen its all of its indoor dining, which is a shore town that thrives on restaurant business. They were all going to open as a town. They passed look ordinance.

He blocked that. This guy just does whatever he wants. So he's requesting that we're fined ten thousand dollars per day every day that we're open. And that and it's what's crazy about that one especially, is right in the wording of the motion. They admit what they're trying to do. That ten thousand dollar figure is not based off of our daily income or anything like that. You know, like a good day for our business would be fifteen hundred two thousand dollars worth of revenue coming in.

And they're just slapping that number and they follow that up in the motion, saying justifying it by saying they have enough money in their in their legal defense. Go fund me to pay these. Fine. So you're openly admitting that you're trying to cripple our legal fight against you? It's clear as day he's also asking for long term imprisonment, which is six months or more. And then this, too. And those hearings are not scheduled yet. We imagine those will come up in the next week.

But he's also scheduled a hearing in the the township of Belmar, which is where Attila's is located, to have our business license revoked. So that's next Tuesday. At five o'clock, we go in front of six council members and the mayor in a in a very, very Democratic town to potentially strip us of our business license, just kind of based off of Murphy's weaponization of things.

I wouldn't be surprised if they do strip that license of you. And so I have a couple of questions. You guys have gone above and beyond and you guys have zero virus cases traced back to your particular. Jim, why are you doing this? I mean, obviously, I mean, we talk about the need to fight a lot on our program, and you guys are heroes for doing this. But I mean, this is coming to you at a huge cost.

I mean, there are so many cowards out there. You're not one of them. Why are you doing this?

You know, it's pretty simple. Frank and I, Frank and I are we're just regular guys. There's nothing special about us. But the one thing that's that's true in my heart and in Frank's heart is that if you're going to destroy my life, you are going to have to destroy me first. And if you take this from us, you will you will especially you will ruin Frank. Frank is 50 years old. He's it's there's not time for him to rebuild.

You would ruin my life, too. But I could obviously mean I'm thirty three. I could rebound. But if you're going to if you're going to take everything from me, you're going to have to take it. I'm not going to give it up, especially when you have not presented anything that that shows that I'm doing anything wrong other than I'm not listening to what you're saying because you haven't presented any information at all. He just he just said they say these things.

Oh, it's guided by science and data. They've they've not put forth one piece of science of solid scientific evidence that proves a agim is more dangerous than walking into a Wal-Mart. They blanket these industries as if we're all the same. You can't you can't just lump everybody into one. So it comes down to standing up for what's right because, yeah, we're the ones being targeted right now. But if we fall, it's going to be somebody else next.

It's going to be somebody else next. And then there's nobody left to fight. And it's for us, it's much bigger than a gym.

It's about it's about the protecting the American dream and the American way of life, because it's it is so clear at this point that this is an all out assault on the middle class and this is an all out assault on the the American way of life and whether or not that was something that was planned or something that was an opportunity that was jumped on. It's it's a power grab and it couldn't be more clear. And if if we don't stand up to that, we're going to find ourselves in a position, all of us in a position that we don't want to be in.

So it's for us, it's it's cut and dry. You know what I mean? Well. Yeah, I mean, look, I could think higher of what more highly of what you guys are doing. I mean, the amount of cowards that are out there right now, that especially I mean, we talk about some of the great pastors out there like Jack Hibbs and Rob McCoy. But if you guys are fighting harder than the Christian pastors, that's just not right.

I mean, it's just you guys own a gym and you just say this is this is government tyranny. You know, this is you haven't had it. If you've got a virus outbreak at your gym. I mean, I kind of get it sort of I mean, it's still private property. You guys can still act responsibly, but you haven't. You had fifteen thousand visits. So here's my other question. What's the response been from normal people in your town?

Not ruling class, not the health department, people that never visit you. I'm talking about middle class people in your town.

The response from people in the town, in the state and in the country has been overwhelmingly positive. And I think it's it's actually growing, too. You know, we started out you always have your your. But we get it. We've got a couple of interesting phone calls every day, you know.

You know, I pick up the phone and say it's Jim and somebody just like that or, you know, like, you know, or just like just nonsense. But yeah.

And then you just tell them, come visit and they'll see you and they'll be like, oh, just kidding.

So yeah, I know our favorite one is to ask them where they live and they say, why, why would, why would I tell you that? And I say or Frank says, so we don't accidentally pull you out of the house and drag you to the gym, you know, I mean. Well, we'll put you on the do not call list as if we're forcing people to be here. But the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We've gotten more support than than we ever imagined.

We knew our members were going to support us. We knew that we had the support of our friends and our family. It's it's insane. The the the the support we've gotten. It leaves me speechless sometimes. And it's it it always reinforces that what we're doing is right. You know, you have I have military reaching out all the time, veterans, people who served their community, cops, firefighters, nurses, people, people that make up America, people of all walks of life saying thank you for doing the right thing.

When when people walk in here, a guy walks in here every day, you know, they're all family walks and he's a veteran. This is this is his therapy. You know, when he leaves here every day, he can go home and he can be a father to his children and he can be a husband to his wife, you know, without without this escape. He doesn't have that. And he thanked me every day on the way out.

And this is somebody that served served their country in the highest way. And he's thanking me for for fighting for him. And it's just it's reinforcement and it's just been incredible. I mean, it gets us through the the lows because it's been up and down all the way through this.

Yeah. So, you know, that that doesn't surprise me that middle class, normal people are so thrilled that they actually see somebody fighting. And so how far are you willing to push us? Are you willing to serve prison time? Because that's what the leaders actually might make you do. And I know that sounds outrageous to our listeners right now, but you're a gym owner who's acting responsibly and they might put you in prison. Meanwhile, there are 20000 people in the streets of Philadelphia every other day burning, looting and rioting.

And they wonder why virus cases are going up there. You're twenty five thirty minutes from Philadelphia, more or less. Right. And and you're able and you do things correctly, yet somehow you're the enemy. How far are you guys willing to go?

See, this is this is one of those fights where and again, circling back to the idea of the big guy versus the little guy, they don't want you to make it to round 12 because in round 12, you'll knock them out and you'll lose every battle along the way. And that's that's by design. That's how they crush you, whether it's financially, whether it's whatever. Throw me in prison or take my business license. Go ahead, throw it.

Throw everything you got at me. I'm making it to round 12. I'll see this all the way through into the end. And I know that Frank is, too, and that that means serving prison time. You'll pay for it in the long run. And I'll and I say this and I don't sound this is tough, tough guy or or like some some bad ass. But if you want to make me make me martyr, do it. Do it, I dare you, because that's what this comes down to, these people run off of fear and I'm not afraid.

I hope that the people listening recognize maybe they can look in their own life and say, oh, maybe I'm not fighting hard enough, I mean, because what you're going through is a very serious thing and this is how tyranny grows. If you do not confront tyranny, it will it'll spread very, very quickly. Tell us about your CNN interview with the bodybuilder over there, Cuomo.

You know what? I what I will say is that I was expecting something far different than what we got.

Know, we we first got the national attention when when Tucker picked up the story after local radio and stuff like that. And then we've been interviewed by local stations and we've been interviewed by all local stations. But then it's mostly been on the national level and especially with podcasts and stuff on the Internet. It's been mostly center right stuff, you know what I mean? So when CNN called, we were like, oh, cool. And we welcome to the opportunity because we thought, hey, this is an opportunity to come to a side that probably disagrees with us in a lot of ways, especially because most of our supporters tend to be center and to the right.

But we went and we went in with our guard up. But I do have to say that Chris asked some pretty pretty fair questions, and he definitely did allow us to talk. I think that he was taken back by Frank Frank's knowledge of the numbers and probably Frank's energy to Frank. Frank's got a lot in this at this point. So he's very passionate. And when he speaks, he speaks with a lot of emotion. But he didn't have much of a rebuttal against us.

And we kind of expected that he would. And maybe that's because, you know, what we said makes made sense. Maybe I don't. We caught him off guard. But, you know, in the end, he he said we had a good case. And I was like I was surprised by it because I was I was I was expecting to go in there and be fed just like bull questions, like loaded questions that are just for entertainment purposes.

White House press briefing kind of questions that you said. But it wasn't it was it was a conversation of substance. And I was I was I was thankful for the outcome because I think as this goes on and as these punitive measures get get more and more intense, people who may not have agreed with what we did in the first place are starting to look at this situation and go, really like, Jim, we've got to go this far over Jim.

Ten thousand dollars a day, jail time stripping business license, really. Meanwhile, the strip club down the street is is open and stuff like that. Is it really. Wow. Yeah. Full capacity. Full parking lot. So the strip club is open. Do they have weed stores yet? New Jersey? Oh, they've been open the whole time. They're essential. Wow, churches still not open now, and I think I think they might be open at 10 percent or 15 percent capacity, but you're not allowed to sing or something like that.

But the strip clubs are open at 100 percent capacity.

Yeah, yeah. Go in and get a lap dance. You can get to if you want. There's no limit on them or anything.

Wow. And and so, I mean, it's just extraordinary. How how. How. Well, of course it is, of course, but it's they're trying to impose their left wing worldview and I mean, I could see why they don't like I can see like why they don't like gyms. The idea of masculinity they hate anyway. So I could see why that actually bothers them from a, you know, business crushing world view. They would love to have all gyms go out of business.

They don't want that. They would rather have like vegan food stores open or something. I don't know. So how much of this do you really believe? I mean, I know it's hard to look at people's intentions, but you're in this. Do you really believe that the people that are putting these orders, are their intentions good or is there something else really deeply at play when they want to shut you down? You know, I.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, honestly, and that's a that's a good question because. You want to think the best of people and you want to think that, you know, whether you agree with somebody or disagree with somebody, that their intentions are good and that even though you may disagree with them, it's not out of malice or because they want to cause you harm, but.

When you take a step back of this stuff and you start looking at the I mean, Frank and I have gone over the details, we we've read every word of the executive order. We've listened to every minute of these press conferences. We watch these people. It's all we have to do. It's all we do. And the more the more you look at it, the more that becomes very doubtful that they have good intentions. I think in a best case scenario, they have selfish intentions.

And I think in a worst case scenario, they have very bad intentions. And I don't I don't know where that falls because I don't I don't claim to know everything. And, you know, the picture is still still kind of coming into focus here. But I wouldn't say that they're good politicians alone. Just just the fact alone that we put out a plan publicly. I went on national television to say, hey, we're doing this and we got a plan.

Why would you not contact why would you not reach out and say, hold off, don't open, let's look at your plan. Come on, let's talk about it. Right. Because government is supposed to work with the people, you know, and we've got it flip flopped now where these politicians think that they are above the people. And that's that's not the way this country was founded. They don't they don't dictate. They're not kings. They're not rulers.

They're leaders. And if you if you've ever read a good self-help book, they tell you that that that leaders lead from within the pack and rulers sit above it. And it's two very different structures, you know, and that's what these politicians are supposed to be. They're supposed to be leaders. They're not supposed to be rulers. And they act like rulers and. There's something seriously wrong with that. Have you been contacted by other gym owners that are trying to reopen all around the country?

What are they? Are they doing it?

Everybody? So what's crazy is everybody is forced to fight their own fight.

You know, the the measures that Newsham is taken out in California and the the weaponization of public organizations that he does is different than Murphy, and that's different than Cuomo. And that's different than Gretchen, what's her name. And it's different than the the Miami mayor. I mean, all these all these people who just just so happen to be hard leftists. I'm sure that's no coincidence. But so it's tough.

So we communicate and we try to help each other as much as possible. But we're all in it. We're all in it together, but we're all alone, you know what I mean? Especially here in New Jersey. We're the only gym that's open in California. You have a lot of them who have banded together and said no, but it's it's tough. It's tough. And it's it it sucks hearing all the different stories about all these different people and what they're going through, because as much as my story sucks, there's other people.

I just met a guy from Ocean County yesterday. He's got the same story as me. He was arrested. He's facing jail time. It's now and it's. But what's what's worse is the politicians don't care, they don't care if they put on a quick song and dance in a press conference and say a few words. But at the end of the day, the 60 million dollar man here, our governor of New Jersey, is worth 60 million.

He just gets in his helicopter and flies home to his house at the end of the day. And he's not worried about whether he's going to feed his family. He's not worried about if he's if his job is secure. He's not. His head hits the pillow at night and he's good. You can't say that for millions and millions and millions of hardworking, honest, good hearted, just genuine American people today. We're we're we're all anxiety ridden. And it's because of these policies we were fined before this.

You know, and it's. That's I think what what gives us the strength to fight the most is because this is this is wrong on so many levels and it doesn't matter it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what your background is, it's affecting all of us. And if it hasn't affected you yet, it will. So you mentioned something, you said that it's good for some of the people that come to your gyms, mental health.

So this is can you talk about that? How many people come to you as a therapy and how they're robbing people of that? And it might increase suicides or alcoholism or depression because they've closed the gyms?

I would say one hundred percent of people who come to the gym come to the gym for therapy, whether they realize it or not. You know, the the mind in the body is far more connected than I think any of us understand. And. What you do in in the real world, that that that affects the entire world, you know what I mean, or what you're doing outside affects your inside. And we've got like I said, guy comes here and we got guys with severe PTSD.

We have law enforcement officers who work in Camden, in Philadelphia, in tough areas. And they see a lot do a lot. We have emergency room nurses were pinned between the couple of the biggest hospitals in the country, people with just high stress, regular jobs, you know, not not necessarily putting their life on the line. We have people who are recovering drug addicts and alcoholics who have been sober for years and couldn't go to AA or any meetings and couldn't get to the gym.

Like that's that's literally the playbook to to beat addiction is like go to meetings and go to the gym, you know, because I've been there. I've been a kid who abused drugs. So I know what that feels like when when you're trying to fix yourself and you need you need something to to anchor to. And that's that's what the gym is for a lot of people. And it's an anchor for people in a lot of different ways. And we're actually today we're shooting a quick little like 60 second or 90 second video.

We're going to interview people and ask them why it's important and we're going to blast that out as much as we can, because I thought that was that was the one criticism that really pissed me off is when when we did this, like, you get the keyboard warriors who were like, oh, you know, you just want to work out look good, like idiots like. And it's like now you've clearly never been to the gym before because you don't understand why we're here.

And it's it's it is it's it's you're robbing people of their of their right to to be healthy, you know, and it's it's it's you can't you can't tell me it's about public health. You know, you just can't convince me. You let your policies out on the table and let's have a conversation about it. You know, do do change my mind. I'll set up a change my mind table and have to have one of these governors sit down and tell me that that their actions have been in the interest of public health.

You won't convince me because I'll read every every word you wrote and every policy you make, and it's all backwards. You you're spot on and the politicians don't care about their people. That's a very important lesson that people have to realize, and it's both parties. But I'd say it's mostly Democrats. But I mean, there any Republican, New Jersey and New Jersey members that have been standing by in solidarity, or are they cowards? Like typical?

You know, we've I've met quite a few. I met Rick Mayta, who is actually running against Cory Booker. He just won the primary here and he offered some assistance and he's there to support us in any way. I've kind of shaken hands with a couple of people, but I haven't really been contacted by anybody. And we're we're just two guys kind of doing this on our own. So we're not reaching out. You know, we don't have time to reach out and do whatever.

So you know what? They should be reaching out to you. That's what I mean. They should be, but they're not because the traditional Republican Party doesn't care about these sorts of things because there's there's no donor interest in that. So that's why we love Trump. I mean, the president stands by you. I could tell you that. But go ahead.

Especially in places like New Jersey. You got this this Democrat kind of stronghold. You know, the Republicans that are in power are just they're just concerned with getting re-elected. So they don't want to make too many waves, you know what I mean? And it's like, dude, like, do your fucking job, you know, it's like, what did you sign up for? And it's it's frustrating. You know, it's if you didn't want to be a politician, if you didn't want the pressure of being a politician, if you don't want to make the right choices, then then go go do something else.

Go be a roofer where you don't have to make hard choices and you don't have to put your yourself on the line. You know, that's what being a politician is about as well. Being involved in politics is about it. It's it's an ugly game and it's a rough game. And if you're not willing to play it like get out, get out of the way, let somebody else who's going to know who's going to make a change in closing and how can people help you?

How can they donate to you guys? How can they rally behind you? We have a very active audience that is sick of the authoritarianism and tyranny in our country.

So there's there's really a couple of ways that you can help out. And I think the most important one is, is a non-financial way is just to follow the story. You know, I'm very active on my social media. I interact with Instagram a lot.

But any time you see the story, whether it's, you know, somebody posts it on your Facebook or your Instagram, you share it because like I said in the beginning, the one of the biggest weapons that we've had is that the whole now now the whole country and where we get in contact from around the world like the world is watching. And I want them to continue to watch because I want I want them to see where these politicians will go to in order to enforce their will.

Right. So it's as simple as sharing it. It's it's incredibly powerful. But if you if you want to donate, we do have a go fund me that Governor Murphy thinks that he's going to take with ten thousand dollars a day. But we'll never pay that. I promise you that. I'll go on a payment plan and give you ten dollars a month for the rest of my life before I do that.

But we do have a go fund me. If you just type in Attila's Jim court relief, that'll come up. The link is right on my Instagram and that's Ian Smith, fitness on Instagram. You can follow us on Facebook. That's a question dolma and we update as much as possible. Like I said, the biggest weapon we've had is that people care. So we're going to keep on updating and we're going to see this all the way through to around 12.

God bless you, Ian.

We got your back. Thank you for fighting. Don't give an inch. There's more people that support you than you could ever imagine. So, seriously, thank you. Thank you, man.

I'm just so inspired by people that are standing up for what's right. He could go to jail. He could face serious penalty, and yet he is doing the right thing. That's what we are doing every day. A turning point USA. So I encourage you to go to T.P, USA, Dotcom, Team USA, Dotcom and help us continue to fight for freedom and liberty on college campuses across the country. USA, Dotcom, Team USA, Dotcom.

Please consider supporting our program at Charlie Cook Dotcom Slash Support and email us any thoughts that you have. It goes to me directly. Freedom at Charlie Cook, Dotcom Freedom at Charlie Cook Dotcom. Thank you guys so much for listening. God bless you. Please consider supporting our program monthly at Charlie Kirkham Report. It helps keep the fire going. Thanks so much. God bless.