The Charlie Kirk Show - November 16, 2024


Is "The Trump Effect" Already Securing the Border?


Episode Stats

Length

34 minutes

Words per Minute

162.30733

Word Count

5,651

Sentence Count

453

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

4


Summary

Todd Bensman goes to the latest on the border, and then Mark Halperin, the best political reporter in the country, breaks down exactly what is occurring with the Democrat Party, Matt Gaetz, nominations, confirmations, that and more. Subscribe to The CharlieKirk Show on Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review on your favorite streaming platform so we can keep bringing you high quality, high stakes content. Subscribe today using our podcast s promo code POWER10 for 10% off your first pack! CHECK OUT OUR FACEBOOK GROUP AND DISCORD CHAT SERVER! CHAT WITH ME AND OTHER VIPS AND SUPPORT OUR WORK AND SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST AND WEBSITE! If you like what you hear, please consider becoming a supporter of our show by clicking the link below. We appreciate your support and look forward to hearing from you! Thank you so much for all of the support we've gotten so far! Cheers, Charlie, Kristian, Jon, and the gang at Turning Point USA. -Jon and the crew at The Charlie Kirk Show. Jon and the rest of the Turning Point U.S.A. team. -Jon & the team at The Daily Wire. --Jon and his team at the Center for Immigration Studies. --Jon is a great guy! --Jon) -- Jon is a true friend of the culture and knows what it takes to make the country better than the people in this country. -- Jon's words are the truth, and he's got the words to make it so it's better than it deserves it. -- Thank you, Jon is going to give it so much more than that in this stuff in it in it's own words, and more than he deserves it, so he's going to help us all out there in that's not only that in it, too he's gonna give it out there, right there's not gonna get it there, so we're gonna say it's more of it, right here it's gonna do it right there on it's not there in it on it really means it's that really means that it's good there's it really does it's really that really is that right there, he's actually it's right there right here in it really really really is it's real it's so good there right there it's actually that he's really good, right in it right here, really really it really truly is that really really good there really really truly means it means it really actually does it, and so much of it is that he really does that right here and he really is so good, really truly does it right at it's truly is it really, right really really and really really, really and truly, and really truly, etc.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, from the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:01.000 Todd Bensman goes to the latest on the border, and then Mark Halperin, the best political reporter in the country, breaks down exactly what is occurring with the Democrat Party, Matt Gaetz, nominations, confirmations, that and more.
00:00:14.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:17.000 Become a member today, members.charliekirk.com, and get involved with Turning Point USA at Buckle up everybody.
00:00:27.000 Here we go.
00:00:28.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:30.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:32.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:35.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:39.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:40.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:41.000 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.
00:00:58.000 That's why we are here.
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00:01:18.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
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00:01:27.000 Joining us now is the premier expert on immigration, Todd Bensman, author of Overrun, fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies.
00:01:35.000 He has a brand new piece from The Daily Wire, the Trump Effect 2.0 illegal border crossing set to plummet on one condition.
00:01:43.000 Todd, welcome back to the program.
00:01:45.000 What is the Trump Effect in 2016 and is it happening again?
00:01:48.000 The Trump Effect had the effect of it was that just his campaign rhetoric during 2015-2016 caused illegal immigrants to stay home and shelter in place because he was saying crackdown, crack down, big, beautiful border wall, etc.
00:02:08.000 So they stayed home.
00:02:09.000 The numbers dropped by 80% almost overnight.
00:02:14.000 And then once he got into office, it really stayed down.
00:02:18.000 But I think that the rhetoric connection to illegal immigrant decision-making is still very strong in that we are probably in the middle of a second Trump effect right now.
00:02:33.000 We are not seeing the mad rushes that we thought we were going to see before, mainly because you got Tom Homan out there now with a football stadium-sized bullhorn screaming to the world, we're going to deport all of you, we're deporting everybody, get ready, don't get comfortable, that sort of thing.
00:02:54.000 And that has a very powerful effect on the receivers, on the receiving end.
00:03:01.000 And so I'm hoping that we are going to see this decline and that the end of the mass migration crisis of the last four years is almost here.
00:03:14.000 So that's a really important question, Todd, before we proceed.
00:03:17.000 Some people say, oh, that's just rhetoric.
00:03:19.000 Can you give us more detail on how that resonates with an illegal who is illegally domiciling and harboring themselves in America?
00:03:27.000 Those statements, they spread like shockwaves throughout those communities.
00:03:32.000 Is that a fair assessment, Todd Benzman?
00:03:35.000 Yeah, absolutely.
00:03:36.000 That is the truth.
00:03:38.000 That is what happens.
00:03:39.000 But what we saw, and I point out in the Daily Wire piece today in 2017, that the numbers started to creep back up because they're watching for follow through.
00:03:52.000 They need to see actions behind the rhetoric.
00:03:56.000 They need to see people actually blocked and actually deported.
00:04:00.000 And they're watching on their cell phones.
00:04:02.000 I've never met a migrant that didn't have a cell phone fully connected to the internet and social media and everything else.
00:04:08.000 In 2017, Immigrant advocate, open borders people gummed up all of Trump's policies immediately with litigation.
00:04:20.000 So he was unable to implement for many months.
00:04:25.000 It took a long time before he won those cases.
00:04:28.000 And so they started to creep back in because they saw that the action was not matching rhetoric.
00:04:35.000 The thing to watch for in Trump Effect 2.0 is that very thing.
00:04:42.000 We saw a piece in the New York Times just last week about how battalions of immigration lawyers in the United States are already mustered to mount a massive legal challenge to every single thing Trump does.
00:04:59.000 So the big question is whether Trump will be able to implement around that.
00:05:06.000 And I think there's a good chance that he will this time because many of the policies that he's going to put in place are already legally vetted, like remain in Mexico, safe third country, title 212F.
00:05:21.000 There are things that he can do right away that should act as follow through.
00:05:26.000 And deportations mean everything.
00:05:28.000 Everything.
00:05:29.000 So if they start getting people deported right away, they will be showing up on airport tarmacs in Honduras and whatnot and making news in Spanish language media.
00:05:43.000 And that's really what does the trick.
00:05:45.000 I think that we're very close to being able to call the great mass migration crisis of 2021 to 2025 over.
00:05:55.000 That's a remarkable statement.
00:05:57.000 And you've kind of said this, Todd, in so many words, but I want to emphasize it.
00:06:01.000 Is self-deportation a realistic thing that will happen of somebody that is, for example, they've been illegally in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
00:06:12.000 Deportations are threatened.
00:06:13.000 They might just go back to their country of origin.
00:06:16.000 Is that realistic?
00:06:17.000 I think that to a limited extent, that might work for some of them.
00:06:21.000 People who are promised, look, we'll let you get in line through the legal process if you go voluntarily, but if we have to come and get you, you'll be banned for 10 years or longer from any possibility of coming in legally.
00:06:38.000 So there is some merit to the argument.
00:06:42.000 I don't think it's going to be a large scale, but I think it'll help.
00:06:46.000 So it's just amazing to me how overnight it's like flipping a switch.
00:06:51.000 We went from America is a pile of money to loot and you could just come in.
00:06:56.000 So all of a sudden, oh no, actually we're a country.
00:06:59.000 Can you just build that out, Todd?
00:07:01.000 We're only 10 days into this.
00:07:03.000 We're seeing caravans getting broken up, and it shows that it was a lack of the will from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
00:07:12.000 It was a lack of the will.
00:07:13.000 It wasn't some sort of major crisis they couldn't figure out.
00:07:16.000 It was a lack of the will, or even more sinister, the will to do the opposite.
00:07:20.000 Todd, your thoughts?
00:07:22.000 Right.
00:07:22.000 This has always been a very simple calculus.
00:07:26.000 When immigrants think that they're going to get in and stay in and work, they're going to drop the 10 grand on smugglers to get in.
00:07:35.000 But if there's a pretty good chance that they're going to get pushed back and blocked, they're not going to do it.
00:07:41.000 So when the Biden campaign, and I mean the campaign, was talking about we're going to let everybody in, we're going to give them this, raise your hand for free healthcare and decriminalizing illegal entry and everything, they all heard that and came running.
00:07:58.000 All they needed to hear was, we're shutting it down.
00:08:02.000 You have Tom Holman out there talking up a storm about what he's going to do, and I'm telling you, that is incredibly impactful all by itself.
00:08:15.000 He's going to have to follow through, of course.
00:08:19.000 And I think that they will, to a large extent, be able to follow through enough.
00:08:24.000 But they listen to...
00:08:26.000 They're smart.
00:08:27.000 Immigrants, I spend a lot of time with them.
00:08:29.000 They are smart and savvy.
00:08:31.000 They're making a calculus just like you and I would if we had some job offer in another city or whatever.
00:08:37.000 We're going to make sure that it works financially for us.
00:08:41.000 That's all it ever took.
00:08:43.000 It just takes somebody to say, no mas.
00:08:48.000 No, Moss is right.
00:08:50.000 And so, Todd, let me ask you, we have two minutes remaining.
00:08:53.000 You are, this is not a hypothetical, because, you know, there's some great people.
00:08:58.000 What specific executive orders do you want to see signed on day one?
00:09:02.000 Policy changes, Todd Bensman.
00:09:04.000 Let's just go one, two, three, four for the audience.
00:09:06.000 Donald Trump says, so help me God on the King James Bible.
00:09:09.000 He is President of the United States.
00:09:10.000 He walks into the outer room of the Capitol, sits down and goes start signing pieces of paper.
00:09:15.000 What do you want to have him sign?
00:09:17.000 Number one, eliminate CBP-1 humanitarian parole immediately.
00:09:23.000 That has to be suspended right away.
00:09:26.000 We're going to let you apply on a cell phone app and walk you in over the Landport Bridge.
00:09:34.000 And allow you to fly into the United States.
00:09:38.000 That's a million and a half people right there that they just allowed right in.
00:09:42.000 Number two, to complement that, remain in Mexico right off the bat.
00:09:47.000 That is fully legally vetted all the way up to the Supreme Court.
00:09:50.000 Yep, done.
00:09:52.000 And number three, safe third country.
00:09:55.000 That was a policy that's also legally vetted where you're not allowed to apply for asylum here if you've passed through one other safe country to get here.
00:10:05.000 And there's a lot of them that do that.
00:10:07.000 Mexico's a safe country.
00:10:09.000 And we deny you the ability to fake your way through a bogus asylum claim, which is the big draw.
00:10:16.000 Those are three biggies right there.
00:10:18.000 And you can Google this 212F of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
00:10:24.000 That allows a president to push back 100% of everybody on a whim for no reason at all.
00:10:30.000 Put all those in place and it's done.
00:10:32.000 Oh, one other thing.
00:10:34.000 Tell Mexico it's tariffs up the wazoo if you don't use your military to shut that down also to reinforce.
00:10:42.000 As Donald Trump says, the most beautiful word in the dictionary, more so than love, is tariff.
00:10:48.000 Because he knows exactly that he can have ultimate leverage to get the American people what they want.
00:10:55.000 Todd Benzman, thank you so much.
00:10:57.000 Thank you.
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00:11:58.000 Okay, I want to play some of our voicemails here.
00:12:02.000 So we've been a little behind on our members group, members.charliekirk.com.
00:12:06.000 You guys can send us voicemails once we get back to regular established order here on The Charlie Kirk Show, which I don't know when that will be, Andrew, based on what's happening here.
00:12:17.000 I'm not leaving here anytime soon.
00:12:20.000 We'll be doing our Zoom calls.
00:12:21.000 However, in the meantime, let's play some voicemails.
00:12:23.000 I'd love to respond to them and hear from our amazing listeners.
00:12:26.000 If you guys want to communicate with me directly and get tons of benefits, it's members.charliekirk.com.
00:12:31.000 Members.charliekirk.com.
00:12:33.000 Playcut421.
00:12:34.000 Hey, Charlie.
00:12:35.000 Thank you so much for everything you've done.
00:12:38.000 I just want to know what the chances of Gates being confirmed are, and if you think they'll have to do it in recess.
00:12:49.000 Thank you again so much.
00:12:51.000 Appreciate you.
00:12:52.000 That's a wonderful question.
00:12:53.000 Number one, this might surprise you to hear, I don't think we should do an attorney general in recess.
00:12:57.000 I think that is one you have to get a Senate vote.
00:13:00.000 Why?
00:13:01.000 If you're going to be signing search warrants and arrest warrants that needs to go through every established order or else people will not have trust in the justice system.
00:13:15.000 I don't think you should go recess.
00:13:16.000 I give it a 50-50 shot because of President Trump's political capital.
00:13:21.000 We have Mark Halperin joining us next segment, and he says, my base case is that Gates gets through.
00:13:26.000 And look, I'm talking to some of these senators and they might not like Gates, but it's like, well, will you publicly come against Gates?
00:13:31.000 No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:13:33.000 Oh, okay.
00:13:34.000 Guess what?
00:13:35.000 Unlike the Senate leadership election, when you guys were able to go hide in your little corner in the shadows and we don't know who voted for Thune and who voted for Cornyn, we know exactly who will vote for Matt Gaetz.
00:13:46.000 So when a president has a mandate, which is very rare, you get a couple of gimmies.
00:13:52.000 You get a couple little mulligans, if you will, where you kind of get whatever you want.
00:13:56.000 And the question is, how bad does President Trump want this?
00:13:59.000 And by all indications, both public and private, President Trump has earned this and he really wants it.
00:14:05.000 So if he goes to the mat for Matt Gaetz, I would give probability towards Matt Gaetz's confirmation.
00:14:11.000 Play voicemail 422 from one of our members, members.charliekirk.com.
00:14:16.000 Hi, Charlie.
00:14:16.000 This is Nellie.
00:14:17.000 I live in California.
00:14:19.000 And I'm wondering how Trump feels about CBDC. Central bank and digital currency, especially with Elon Musk coming on board to be a part of his administration and if he supports it or if he is against it and what that looks like for our future financial industry.
00:14:45.000 Thank you.
00:14:47.000 So great question.
00:14:47.000 I believe he made a campaign promise to eliminate CBDC. But every campaign promise he's made so far, as far as personnel, has been executed upon.
00:14:57.000 So I believe CBDC will not happen under a Trump administration.
00:15:02.000 Not to establishment, essentially.
00:15:03.000 He said that will not happen.
00:15:05.000 Okay, let's play member voicemail, members.charliekirk.com, 423, and thank you for being a member.
00:15:10.000 Hello, Charlie.
00:15:12.000 I just want to send my sincerest thanks to you and your crew for what you have done for this country and for saving it.
00:15:22.000 What a huge part you played.
00:15:25.000 I have joy that I haven't had for a very long time under the Biden administration.
00:15:31.000 My question for you is, who would you like to see as White House Press Secretary?
00:15:35.000 I am hoping Charlie Kirk is a possibility.
00:15:40.000 Or how about Greg Kelly?
00:15:42.000 We need someone up there that can kick some...
00:15:46.000 Well, first of all, love the question.
00:15:48.000 I am not going to be White House Press Secretary.
00:15:50.000 Let me just tell you, I'm going to be here every day, guys, leading the charge from the outside, organizing Turning Point USA, organizing Turning Point Action.
00:15:59.000 I think what we built here is really special.
00:16:00.000 I think I could be more effective on the outside.
00:16:02.000 By the way, you need outside allies.
00:16:04.000 You need weaponry and machinery on the outside.
00:16:08.000 Greg Kelly is a phenomenal choice.
00:16:10.000 However, and I will say this, we We need Greg Kelly on Newsmax.
00:16:14.000 We need Greg Kelly on that program.
00:16:17.000 So let me tell you, I like Will Kane.
00:16:19.000 I think Will Kane would be great.
00:16:21.000 He's my sleeper pick.
00:16:22.000 I think Will has a great way about him.
00:16:25.000 Don't you agree, Andrew?
00:16:26.000 I think Will is a terrific guy, right?
00:16:28.000 He's so good on TV. He's smart.
00:16:30.000 He's sharp.
00:16:31.000 He's precise.
00:16:32.000 He presents beautifully.
00:16:34.000 So I think Will Kane would be great.
00:16:36.000 Caroline Levitt's a great choice, obviously.
00:16:38.000 I don't think Alina Hava wants it based on just her tweets.
00:16:43.000 So we'll see.
00:16:44.000 We'll see what happens.
00:16:48.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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00:17:47.000 Okay, Mark Halperin joins us right now.
00:17:50.000 He's been the best political reporter of this cycle.
00:17:52.000 I think he's the best political reporter in America.
00:17:55.000 From Mark Halperin's Wide World of News, and most importantly, two-way.tv.
00:17:59.000 That's the right URL, right?
00:18:01.000 I believe it's two-way.tv.
00:18:02.000 Mark, welcome back to the program.
00:18:04.000 Sterling, thank you.
00:18:05.000 Thank you for your kind words, and I'm amazing.
00:18:07.000 You're probably the first person who was at Mar-a-Lago last night who's awake, so congratulations.
00:18:11.000 Well, for the record, I am not a late night guy.
00:18:14.000 I left at like 9.30.
00:18:16.000 I got a nice dinner with my wife, and I was asleep at a reasonable hour.
00:18:21.000 So everyone else is recovering.
00:18:23.000 I also don't drink.
00:18:24.000 That makes it easier.
00:18:25.000 Mark, and I say those words because you've earned them, because you have been a straight shooter.
00:18:29.000 You're not one of these new era political journalists with an agenda.
00:18:33.000 You have a very interesting I agree with your contrarian, but it's true.
00:18:37.000 You say your base case right now is that Donald Trump is going to get his cabinet, specifically Matt Gaetz and Bobby Kennedy.
00:18:45.000 Please make the case to our audience.
00:18:48.000 Well, I don't think it's a sure thing, but I think people are being too caught up in the way most of the media covers confirmation controversies, which is what I call perils of Pauline, which is like everything's operating out of control and there's all these issues and the person's never going to be confirmed.
00:19:07.000 I think that President Trump won and the Republican Party recognizes the magnitude of the victory demographically, geographically, electorally.
00:19:17.000 And I think it's going to be difficult for four senators, which is what it would take for Republicans, to vote against these nominees.
00:19:25.000 There are five of them now that are controversial, that want to shake things up, that have biographical and positions from biographical facts and positions from their past that make them not every senator's favorite choice.
00:19:38.000 But the Trump campaign, the Trump transition rather, has not started to organize MAGA, pressure on these senators, has not started to make the case for them.
00:19:47.000 And I think the media narrative leaves out the fact that Bobby Kennedy was chosen for this job because he's inspiring tens of millions of people about...
00:19:57.000 Children's help.
00:19:58.000 That Pete Hegseth was chosen for the job because he's spoken passionately about getting wokeism out of the Pentagon.
00:20:07.000 That Tulsi Gabbard was chosen for the job because she's talked about the intelligence community working in a more efficient way.
00:20:15.000 And that Matt Gaetz was chosen for the job.
00:20:20.000 Because people want an end to the politicization of the Justice Department.
00:20:23.000 I'm not saying they're perfect people.
00:20:25.000 I'm not saying there are legitimate questions about their background.
00:20:28.000 But I think people are underestimating the extent to which MAGA will fight for these people and that Republican senators, not every one of them, will respond to that.
00:20:37.000 That's an interesting point.
00:20:39.000 And it's a unique thing because the senators that very well might hold this up are from very, very red states, of which they...
00:20:48.000 It's overwhelmingly pro-Trump, where there are real threats of primary challenges, of which some of these old bulls in their mid-80s have not experienced this sort of combination of a mandate election.
00:21:03.000 There happened to be in cycle.
00:21:05.000 You have very popular, albeit unusual, cabinet picks.
00:21:11.000 How will the old bulls be able to get through that?
00:21:16.000 Well, look, there's the dynamic you and I have just talked about, which is the threat of a primary challenge or pressure at home.
00:21:22.000 But there's another more kind of mundane thing, which is right now every Republican senator has staff members, donors, constituents, and maybe even some family members who'd like to work in the Trump administration.
00:21:37.000 And if they want to have their folks eligible for jobs, I don't think they're going to be in that line anymore if they're the ones who tank any of Donald Trump's nominees.
00:21:48.000 So there's a lot of pressure on them to support.
00:21:51.000 And also just deference, not just an elected president who just won the popular vote, first Republican to do that in 20 years, but For this particular president who dominates the party, unlike any other Republican president since Reagan, and maybe even more than Reagan did.
00:22:08.000 So they're going to be under a lot of pressure.
00:22:10.000 Now, there are two Republican senators of the 53, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who are impervious to most of what we just discussed.
00:22:21.000 And I wouldn't be surprised if they voted against all five of the controversial nominees.
00:22:24.000 Yeah, I agree.
00:22:25.000 I agree.
00:22:26.000 But that means they still need to be tuned to more.
00:22:28.000 Now, Mitch McConnell, we know Mitch McConnell not particularly beholden to MAGA. He could vote against them.
00:22:36.000 They'd still need one more, but you can imagine that happening.
00:22:39.000 So again, I'm not saying it's just a sure thing.
00:22:41.000 But what I'm saying is the tone of the coverage leaves out two important things.
00:22:45.000 why they were picked, the positives of why they were picked, and the prospect that they will in fact be confirmed.
00:22:51.000 But I have to caveat this, Charlie, by saying I have extraordinarily good pro-Trump sources on Capitol Hill, around Mar-a-Lago, who are very pessimistic about Gates and about Kennedy in particular.
00:23:05.000 And you can't discount that.
00:23:07.000 So I'm not saying it's a sure thing.
00:23:08.000 I'm just saying I still think it's more likely that not they're confirmed.
00:23:12.000 And I still think the press coverage would lead you to believe their chances were de minimis and they're not.
00:23:17.000 Yeah, and I think that's right.
00:23:18.000 And so just have we ever seen, Mark, in your reporting career, a president have to go to the mat for a cap Yeah.
00:23:34.000 So, great question.
00:23:36.000 He's now picked five fights that for any other White House transition would be like the monster fight.
00:23:42.000 Like, this is it.
00:23:43.000 He's picked five, and I think there'll be more.
00:23:46.000 Well, look, what it looks like is you pick someone who's called a confirmation sherpa, someone with experience on Capitol Hill who develops a strategy.
00:23:55.000 Which senators' votes are going to make a difference?
00:23:58.000 How do we court them?
00:24:00.000 When do we do a courtesy call?
00:24:04.000 To lobby them, to vote for the nominee.
00:24:08.000 This president is different than most presidents in a lot of ways, but in this respect, if there was a story that came out tomorrow that said nominee X had once been sued by a business partner or had a messy divorce from his wife, there's some presidents who'd be like, whoa, I'm not sure we can stand by this person anymore.
00:24:29.000 Donald Trump, as you know, he doesn't have that attitude.
00:24:33.000 He'd be like, you know, it's probably fake.
00:24:35.000 Maybe it's real.
00:24:35.000 Who cares?
00:24:36.000 Let's move forward.
00:24:36.000 So he'll fight for them.
00:24:39.000 More than most presidents.
00:24:41.000 The bar will be high for him to give up on them.
00:24:44.000 But they have to fight for it too.
00:24:47.000 Donald Trump expects, we saw this with Brett Kavanaugh, he expects his nominees who are under siege, whether it's within their own party or with the press or the other party, he expects them to fight pretty hard.
00:24:57.000 And I think the group he's picked are a bunch of fighters.
00:25:00.000 I think all five of them are not going to shrink away.
00:25:03.000 That is true.
00:25:03.000 However, it's a long process.
00:25:06.000 Long process.
00:25:06.000 Background check, confirmation, courtesy calls, confirmation hearing, vote in committee, vote on the floor.
00:25:12.000 And again, I hear from a lot of my sources, some of these people aren't going to make it to a committee hearing.
00:25:17.000 But they'll be out before then because their families are going to say, it's not worth it.
00:25:22.000 And I think that's true.
00:25:23.000 Every one of these folks is going to go through.
00:25:25.000 As much as all five of them have played at a high level in national life, whether it's media or politics or law or something else, All five of them are almost certainly going to go through, before the hearing, a tougher level of scrutiny than they've ever gotten.
00:25:39.000 And that's not for everybody.
00:25:41.000 It's not for every family.
00:25:42.000 But Donald Trump will be there for them if they want to go forward.
00:25:45.000 I suspect he'll be there for them.
00:25:47.000 Yeah, and I'll say this.
00:25:48.000 President Trump will go to the mat for them, especially if it's one that he made the decision for.
00:25:54.000 If he felt as if he was being strong-armed by somebody else around him, then that is a different calculus.
00:26:01.000 Would you agree with that, Mark?
00:26:02.000 Great insight.
00:26:03.000 It's absolutely the case.
00:26:04.000 And to be honest...
00:26:07.000 This personnel process has been, even by Trump standards, extremely chaotic.
00:26:13.000 Extremely chaotic.
00:26:14.000 It's been Three's Company meets Game of Thrones.
00:26:17.000 Just everything's sprawled all over the place and people are named and other people who are supposed to be in charge don't even know it's happening.
00:26:24.000 So I think you're right.
00:26:26.000 There's some in this group who...
00:26:29.000 He won it.
00:26:30.000 He chose.
00:26:31.000 He will fight for them.
00:26:32.000 If it was kind of not imposed on him, but it wasn't his original idea, and he was a little ambivalent about it, he may not fight as hard.
00:26:38.000 But I do think he doesn't want to lose.
00:26:41.000 But again, this is the Trump mentality.
00:26:44.000 It's one of his advantages.
00:26:46.000 If one of these people go down, he won't think about it for 20 more minutes.
00:26:49.000 He might personally feel bad for them, but he'll switch on a dime and say, all right, who are we nominating next?
00:26:54.000 How are we going to get that person confirmed?
00:26:56.000 Next man up.
00:26:57.000 And it's just, it'll, by the way, in the Trump news cycle, I mean, things last like 12 minutes right now.
00:27:04.000 The joke is, I texted my buddy Pete Hegseth, who I just adore.
00:27:08.000 He's just amazing.
00:27:09.000 He's like, man, you know, I was like, you know, hey, the media is tough right now, Pete.
00:27:13.000 Don't worry, wait 30 minutes.
00:27:15.000 Reinforcements are coming.
00:27:16.000 And all of a sudden, next thing you know, A lot of other announcements.
00:27:20.000 No one's talking about Pete Hegseth right now as much.
00:27:22.000 So Mark, I want to now shift gears to talk a little about the state of the Democrat Party.
00:27:29.000 We have about a minute and a half here to tease it out.
00:27:32.000 I've been anticipating this kind of major shockwave and backlash, but there's a fascinating piece on Politico, which is basically the disappearing resistance.
00:27:43.000 Sure feels that way.
00:27:44.000 Are we right?
00:27:45.000 Well, I think for now, and you hear that on my two-way platform, what Democrats are saying is they're so filled with unhappiness, anger, confusion, that rather than organizing marches or joining new organizations or watching MSNBC or CNN, they want to take a break.
00:28:04.000 I think you may see that through the holidays.
00:28:06.000 I think in January, when the reality of Donald Trump taking the oath of office and being back in the White House, then I think you're going to see more engagement, more organizing.
00:28:14.000 But right now, there is an interesting level of disengagement.
00:28:18.000 There hasn't been rioting.
00:28:19.000 There hasn't been the announcement of very many new organizations.
00:28:22.000 There have been a few, but not grassroots.
00:28:24.000 And I think that's testament to...
00:28:27.000 They are resigned to what America decided, and they're trying to figure out how they feel about accepting the result.
00:28:35.000 Yeah, it's just a fatigued movement, understandably, by the way.
00:28:38.000 They've been in full non-stop resistance mode through COVID, post-COVID, trying to stop Trump.
00:28:44.000 And they lost, and they know they lost.
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00:29:49.000 Let me play this piece of tape here, 419 from Two Way.
00:29:53.000 It's from Two Way Tonight, twoway.tv.
00:29:55.000 Play cut 419, please.
00:29:57.000 It contrasts with Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016, where right away after I talked about the scientists marching, but there's a huge women's march.
00:30:12.000 Yeah, the pink hats.
00:30:13.000 Much more, right, the pink hats, much more overt kind of let's get in the streets and protests.
00:30:21.000 It seems, you know, like people have been on the...
00:30:25.000 on the left and Democrats have been hit by a sledgehammer.
00:30:30.000 And I think what they're having a lot of trouble kind of dealing with is that the election showed that the country has moved to the right, which was not It's kind of going into election night where everyone was saying it was razor close was not the expectation.
00:30:53.000 And, you know, they're kind of in mourning over that.
00:30:57.000 Mark, that's from your wonderful dialogue.
00:30:59.000 Add more depth to that, please.
00:31:01.000 Well, that's Jill Abramson, former editor of the New York Times, who has a pretty good feel for that community.
00:31:08.000 And I think it's a weird combination of shock and acceptance.
00:31:17.000 And as you said, it's hard to be in the resistance for 10 years.
00:31:21.000 And even as Joe Biden had a four-year presidency, Donald Trump was dominating a lot of American discussion, dialogue, popular culture, popular consciousness.
00:31:31.000 And so I think there's so much second guessing on the level of kind of tactics of campaigns like Joe Biden staying in too long or was Kamala Harris the right person or did she run a good campaign?
00:31:44.000 But what some Democrats are realizing is the problem they have is more profound.
00:31:48.000 It's the alienation I think?
00:32:13.000 We had a guy on 2A this morning, earlier today, who is a young doctor who voted for Barack Obama.
00:32:19.000 He lives in Tennessee, who voted for Bobby Kennedy.
00:32:22.000 and he talked about his alienation from the Democratic Party as inauthentic, as rigging the system against people like Bernie Sanders and Bobby Kennedy.
00:32:33.000 His description of his alienation from the party is a big part of why I think the Democrats are confused.
00:32:40.000 They can't agree on what went wrong.
00:32:42.000 They can't agree on who to lead them.
00:32:44.000 And they can't agree on what the solution is to get out of where they are now.
00:32:48.000 Yeah.
00:32:48.000 And so they kind of need a truth and reconciliation Commission or something.
00:32:53.000 I mean, at some point, Let me ask you this.
00:32:58.000 The rank and file one thing.
00:32:59.000 What are the elders of the Democrat Party saying?
00:33:02.000 In two minutes, Mark, what are the top families?
00:33:06.000 What are they saying?
00:33:07.000 Most of what they believe is that the party needs to do what Bill Clinton did in 1989 to 92, which is to stand up to the far left of the party and say, we honor your participation in the party.
00:33:22.000 We don't want to be at war with you, but you've dragged us too far to the left to come up with some new policy ideas that speak to people, particularly in economics.
00:33:31.000 And then most of them would say a governor, not a Washington person, but a governor who understands how to communicate with authentic language.
00:33:41.000 And it's true that all it would take would be to have a compelling, dynamic, more moderate figure, be the presidential nominee and win the White House in 2028 to bring the party back pretty quickly.
00:33:56.000 Now, I don't see who that person is, and that's a big ingredient.
00:33:59.000 But they're hopeful that they can lay the groundwork to do that, and they're hopeful that Donald Trump will overreach.
00:34:05.000 And they read in these controversial nominations that we talked about indication that Donald Trump will overreach and that that will give them the opportunity to get an audience with the American people again to make the case that they've got something better on offer.
00:34:21.000 Yeah, that would make so much sense.
00:34:22.000 I don't see the You're right.
00:34:35.000 I share your skepticism.
00:34:37.000 I share your skepticism.
00:34:38.000 Mark, great job.
00:34:39.000 Thank you so much.
00:34:40.000 Come back anytime.
00:34:41.000 TwoWay.TV. Check it out.
00:34:42.000 Thank you.
00:34:43.000 Good to see you, man.
00:34:43.000 Thank you so much for your kind words.
00:34:45.000 You bet.
00:34:45.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:34:47.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.