Charlie Kirk: How do we remove existing DEI hires?

Audio By Carbonatix

Charlie Kirk speaks with a caller about the best way to get rid of DEI hires — especially in air traffic control. Watch above.

Read the transcript below.

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Charlie Kirk: What is on your mind?

Caller: Well, my question is with all the DEI hires that are already in place, people who are already working, they were hired under the DEI idea, is there any plan or any way to get those people out of those positions, or are they there to stay? My husband is an airline pilot, and it's just disheartening to know that maybe some of the people that are there doing air traffic control or mechanics were hired and they're not qualified.

Charlie Kirk: First of all, Lisa, you just brought up a great point that I have never thought of, mechanics that are DEI. That's very smart, and I got to give you credit for that. You know, because air traffic control, by the way, we know air traffic control is full of DEI hires.

That's not a Charlie Kirk speculation. That's not hatred in my heart. That is an Obama policy where he just took over ATC to hire a bunch of people with physical and mental disabilities.

Not an exaggeration, okay? Not an exaggeration. It's in the prior FAA guidelines.

The federal government is not the same as private companies. However, there is a lot of overlap. ATC, air traffic control, is FAA jurisdiction.

Delta is continuing DEI. But that is a really profound point that I'm going to have to think of, because we think of the pilots. But imagine if there's some DEI mechanic.

Imagine if there's some person hired because of the color of their skin who doesn't have merit, doesn't know what they're doing, and just signs off on some engine renewal. Turns out there was an issue. And so Lisa, I'm not trying to increase your anxiety at all with your husband, but a couple of things. We're going to see a dramatic push towards merit. And here's where the president's executive order could impact the private airlines. These airlines all do business with the federal government. They all do freight runs. They'll all do commercial airliners. They all do business with federal government. In fact, these airlines are basically private-public partnerships because do you remember during COVID, we bailed out the airlines and we never should have done that. We wrote these massive tens of billions of dollars of checks to United, Delta and American.

So they're basically proxies of the federal government. So what the president has done is that if you do business with the federal government, you can't have DEI. It's very simple. We want meritocracy. I want the best pilots, the best mechanics, the best air traffic control. Air traffic control is going to take some time to fix, unfortunately.

But that one's a problem. Mechanics, great point. We got to get on that.

Pilots, look, there should be zero room for error, whether it be surgery or a pilot or a pediatrician. We want the best of the best. America succeeded when we were focused on merit, not on race. I don't care about your race. I care about your competency.