Ari Fleischer joins the program as we discuss the State of the Media and the very eventful conversation between Brett Baer and Kamala Harris. And then Michael Seiffert from Public Square joins us, Great American. Thanks to our sponsor, Noble Gold Investments.
00:00:00.000Today on The Charlie Kirk Show, Ari Fleischer joins the program as we discuss the state of the media and the very eventful conversation between Brett Baer and Kamala Harris.
00:00:09.000And then Michael Seifert from Public Square joins us, great American.
00:00:12.000Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:00:47.000His 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.
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00:02:56.000Ari, give us your expert analysis of that interview.
00:03:00.000Well, frankly, I think it's a worse task.
00:03:02.000I think if you're a Republican, you saw an incompetent leader who talks in circles, who can't put together a substantive answer to anything.
00:03:10.000And on immigration, she refused to acknowledge that the Biden administration is the cause of all these millions of people coming in across the border.
00:03:17.000If you're a Democrat, you probably saw her Give it to Bret Baier, stand her ground, fight for the position she believed in, and go into the lion's den.
00:03:27.000I really think it was that type of interview.
00:03:30.000It wasn't like the Biden debate where everybody agreed Biden fell down and collapsed.
00:03:36.000I think both sides had something on this.
00:03:38.000But my biggest takeaway is she refuses to admit how bad the situation is at the border because of what she and Joe Biden did.
00:03:48.000Yeah, I want to play some of that tape here, and I agree.
00:03:52.000I will say that her failure to answer very basic questions is remarkable.
00:05:07.000So she will blame anybody and everybody other than herself and Joe Biden for the very things that are happening now in America and especially on the border.
00:05:16.000The very things happening in our cities due to crime.
00:05:18.000The very things that happened with inflation due to their spending policies.
00:05:22.000That was a classic case of denying everything that happened under her watch and blaming everybody else, including Obama and Trump.
00:05:31.000And I just think the American people don't want to hear that.
00:05:34.000The American people want to hear about we have problems.
00:06:22.000Because of the Biden-Harris administration open border policies catch and release, they were enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program.
00:06:31.000This meant that they were released into the United States.
00:06:34.000It was not even a full three weeks later that they would take my daughter Jocelyn Nungere's life.
00:06:39.000I believe the Biden-Harris administration open border policies are responsible for the death of my daughter.
00:07:43.000It's a refusal to take responsibility for the biggest issue.
00:07:45.000But you know, Charlie, when it comes to the border, what drives me crazy about the Democrats who talk about the bipartisan congressional bill, everybody should have been for it.
00:07:53.000Do you honestly think there's anybody sitting in Venezuela right now who has a subscription to Congressional Quarterly and is studying the text of the bill that the Congress may pass and whether or not the delta in funding between FY23 and 24 will go up by 2.4 percent?
00:08:08.000They're looking at it and saying, Biden's the president.
00:08:50.000What was hot was Donald Trump going for the National Association of Black Broadcasters and getting grilled and grilled right from the start.
00:08:57.000They didn't even say, hello, how are you?
00:09:02.000Look, Brett Barrett did journalism last night, and when you're Kamala Harris and you're the San Francisco DA, you are used to a cocoon of liberal softball questions thrown at you by an adoring media.
00:09:14.000The same thing when you're at the White House and you're a Democrat.
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00:14:10.000Well, my decision is I live right on the border in Yuma, Arizona.
00:14:15.000And I know in the last three and a half years, we have had just horrible, horrible problems in Yuma with a lot of illegal immigration coming through.
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00:17:36.000Yes, we are happy to announce that yesterday we joined in a lawsuit in federal court with the Dr.
00:17:43.000James Dobson Family Institute, an incredible organization run by a true hero of our faith and our conservative values against the HHS and the EEOC. And for those who are not familiar, that is the Health and Human Services and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the Biden administration.
00:18:01.000And the reason that we are filing this lawsuit to challenge those two departments that are really bureaucratic cesspools now that are vehemently anti-Christian in their practices is because under the Biden and Kamala administration, back in April, the EEOC issued a declaration that essentially said that employers are forced to utilize The
00:18:32.000HHS also joined in interpreting a rule out of the Biden administration that was essentially an alteration of part of the Affordable Care Act that pushed forth The idea that whether you are on a group plan or a self-funded plan, which are really your only two options as an employer, you are mandated with your health care provider to cover gender reassignment surgeries.
00:18:59.000They reinterpreted the definition of sex to include abortion.
00:19:02.000So you're also forced to cover abortion as a company that is seeking to provide health care coverage for your employees.
00:19:09.000And not only is this an egregious act against all employers in our country because it's a total distortion of what sex means, what life means.
00:19:19.000It is an egregious interpretation of law that was actually never supposed to mean this, but it also is directly in conflict with the Constitution and the desire that our religious liberties would be protected.
00:19:32.000It is our most fundamental rights as Americans that our religious rights would not be infringed.
00:19:37.000That includes, as an employer, as an owner of a company, I should not be forced to provide and pay for, or force my employees to pay for, health care coverage that will infringe upon my deeply held religious beliefs and the religious beliefs of my employees.
00:19:56.000And right now, out of the Biden administration, after these rulings in April that pushed for gender reassignment surgery, coverage of abortion, this is the position we find ourselves in.
00:20:05.000And we are wanting to put a stop to it.
00:20:09.000So the EEOC and the Department of Health and Human Services without an act of Congress can force you, a private company, to do what exactly?
00:20:46.000The EEOC bureaucracy has now essentially expanded this employer accommodation mandate to include female employees seeking abortion.
00:20:56.000So it used to be about ensuring that women could act on their desire to both have a career and to be a devoted mother.
00:21:05.000And that included paid time off that was set within certain standards.
00:21:09.000But now the EEOC has said, yeah, that Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act that was a law, we're going to interpret it with a different definition of what being fair means, and we're going to include abortion.
00:21:21.000And if you do not, we will penalize either the health insurance provider or the company.
00:21:26.000And then the HHS took it even further.
00:21:29.000They issued on April 25th of 2024 a new regulation interpreting Section 1550 This section forbids discrimination in health programs in regard to sex.
00:21:42.000So it says that a health insurance provider or a company that is utilizing a health care plan, whether self-funded or a group plan, It was intended to say that you can't discriminate based upon sex, which means male or female.
00:21:55.000But the HHS said, no, that's not enough.
00:21:57.000We are going to reinterpret the definition of sex in the Affordable Care Act to mean and include termination of pregnancy and imposing with that a surgical and chemical abortion health care plan coverage mandate, along with gender affirming care in their health care plans,
00:22:15.000which means that If we as an employer, or if our healthcare provider that we utilize for all of our employee plans, refuses to offer puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, top and bottom surgeries, gender-conforming cosmetic surgery, and a host of other affirming practices paid for by the employer, that we are in violation of the Affordable Care Act as interpreted by the HHS. So they're essentially going around the law to reinterpret to harm our companies.
00:22:42.000Wasn't there some legal breakthrough on this when the little sisters of the poor having to fund abortions?
00:22:52.000And Hobby Lobby was also a very historically precedent-setting case related to employers being forced to pay for abortion coverage for employees.
00:23:02.000Unfortunately, the bureaucrats keep on at it, and they refuse to acknowledge historical case precedent that has laid the groundwork for two things predominantly.
00:23:11.000Number one, an employer should not be forced to violate their conscience or their religious beliefs in the effort to provide sustainable and helpful health care coverage to its employees.
00:23:22.000But the other thing is, this summer, Chevron doctrine was actually overturned in the Supreme Court.
00:23:30.000The Chevron deference ruling that actually overturned 50 years now of what was truly unconstitutional actions out of bureaucrats should apply here as well.
00:23:42.000We should see that bureaucrats are no longer able to interpret the law to further their own agenda and then enforce That interpretation outside of the confines of what the legislation has already deemed the law.
00:23:56.000And so, Charlie, the reason we feel a great deal of confidence about this case is exactly what you just mentioned.
00:24:01.000We have history on our side and we have the Constitution on our side.
00:24:04.000The Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that employers like ours are not subject to the violation of our religious beliefs in order to provide health care coverage to our employees.
00:24:16.000The Biden administration has tried to double down.
00:24:18.000And what they're trying to do here, ultimately, is they're trying to test folks to see if anybody will push at them in their hopes that they can hopefully reverse case precedent and have a new ruling that says, no, you know what?
00:24:30.000The court's now ruled in our favor and we can mandate gender-affirming care What they call it, which is actually body mutilation.
00:24:38.000And they also want to establish that abortion, if Roe v.
00:24:42.000Wade is overturned, which thank God it has been, it's not enough for them to say, okay, well, it goes back to the States.
00:24:48.000What they're trying to do now is say, well, we're going to go around the law to ensure that at least in corporate America, we can have them by a stranglehold and ensure that abortions are still funded and that the industry is strong.
00:24:58.000So this is them utilizing action out of the executive branch and out of a fourth branch of government, which is the unelected bureaucracy, in order to punish anybody that stands against the regime that is deeply held to their religious beliefs.
00:25:12.000And we're caught in the crossfire here and we're taking a stand.
00:25:18.000Can you also just educate our audience on why you guys at Public Square feel so convicted to do this because you represent a community of other businesses?
00:25:27.000You are kind of the vanguard and the tip of the spear on behalf of...
00:25:32.000I mean, I hate to say you're like the Chamber of Commerce, but this is what the Chamber of Commerce should be doing if it wasn't what it is now.
00:25:57.000Entities like the Chamber of Commerce for a long time tried to tout themselves as the champion of small business, the champion of employers, and they were going to help businesses stand on sturdy footing and fight the battles of the time that were necessary to ensure their survival.
00:26:10.000But the Chamber of Commerce now has become a globalist-run cesspool that is more beholden to K Street, Wall Street, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue rather than An entity that is championing their original charter.
00:26:22.000They also are massively in favor of illegal immigration.
00:26:27.000And all of these practices harm the small businesses that we have really felt a calling to represent.
00:26:31.000So number one, Charlie, is you're right.
00:26:33.000We want to be a voice for small businesses that maybe don't have the manpower or they don't have the time to be able to fight these legislative battles or these judicial battles that can hopefully secure their freedoms in the long term.
00:26:44.000The other reason we do this is because Over 67% of our ownership in our company, even as a publicly traded company, is actually held by Christians.
00:26:56.000Over 67% of voting rights at our company is represented by deeply devoted people of faith that would declare that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior.
00:27:05.000And when they invest in our company, they hope that we will fight the battles.
00:27:10.000They hope that we will take a stand to ensure that we as a company are not funding healthcare plans That actually act completely antithetically to our values.
00:27:19.000And so we're doing this not just for our merchants and for our consumers that trust us to be their voice.
00:27:24.000We're also doing this for the investors.
00:27:25.000And the final thing I'll say, Charlie, we're doing this because I couldn't sleep at night if we didn't.
00:27:29.000From the beginning of our company, we named it Public Square.
00:27:32.000Because when Jesus is talking to Simon Peter in Matthew 15, and he's looking at this rock in Israel, and he's pointing to it, and there's a gate at the bottom of the rock, a big cavern, and they used to call that Hades.
00:27:46.000And Jesus said, Simon Peter, on this rock, I will build my ecclesia.
00:27:52.000And that word in Greek, ekklesia, we've sort of thought of as the church.
00:27:55.000But if you actually translate that to a modern translation, the closest mirroring of that word actually means the public square.
00:28:02.000When Jesus was looking at Peter, he says, on this rock, I will build my public square.
00:28:07.000It means not just four walls of a church.
00:28:09.000It means that your faith conviction should go out everywhere in society and should impact your business, the way you employ people, the way you serve your customers and your merchants.
00:28:17.000And so for us, Charlie, we have to do this because it is honoring the original convictions that built our business, that named it Public Square in the first place.
00:28:25.000And I need to know for the future of our economy, with blessed assurance, that employers like me, and there are millions of them, are not going to be forced to violate our convictions in order to produce a healthy business.
00:29:40.000So, Michael, I want you to comment on what Kamala Harris' specific proposal on taxing unrealized gains would mean for your company and for the vendors you work with.
00:29:51.000Explain it to someone who is not in the weeds of startups, businesses.
00:29:55.000What would that mean for the economy in general and for your incredibly important venture?
00:30:01.000Well, it's wild we're even having this conversation, Charlie, because never in a million years did I think I would live to see the day where a candidate would be so openly communist that they would even debate throwing out a proposal like this and saying it publicly.
00:30:17.000We've known that they say this behind closed doors, but we never thought that they would actually say this publicly.
00:30:21.000Taxing unrealized gains, meaning you're taking money from people who have not yet earned the gain to tax, is one of the wildest things that would ever happen to our economy, both on an institutional macro level as well as a small business or in a venture environment.
00:30:39.000So practically what this looks like is when you own stock or you own an asset, You're taxed on the gain of that asset when you realize the gain.
00:30:48.000Meaning, let's say I bought stock today in any company.
00:30:53.000Let's say I bought stock in my own company today in Public Square.
00:30:56.000And let's say that that stock was worth $100 when I bought it.
00:31:00.000Traditionally, the way this works in our economy is that when that stock goes up to $200, if I didn't sell anything, I don't have any money out.
00:31:15.000Nothing actually changed about my economic situation other than on paper, the value of my asset has theoretically appreciated.
00:31:23.000But the way our tax system works is that when I sell that asset, I'm taxed on essentially the delta between what I bought it for and where I sold it.
00:31:35.000So if I bought stock in any company my own at $100 and it appreciated to $200, then I pay taxes on those gains when I sell.
00:31:44.000The problem with taxing unrealized gains is that if my stock or my value of my assets, if my house, if my business appreciates in value and I get taxed on the appreciation of the value, even if I haven't sold any of the assets to be able to pay for the taxes, how exactly am I going to pay taxes?
00:32:04.000I haven't actually earned any additional income that I could utilize to pay my taxes.
00:32:10.000This is the most disincentivizing structure to propose for taxes because it is the most blatant form of harming growth.
00:32:20.000I'm a small business and I'm trying to appreciate my business in value.
00:32:23.000And let's say my business is currently worth $10 million and I hope it'll be worth $100 million.
00:32:27.000And a lot of my ownership in my entire life is tied up in the asset of my business.
00:32:32.000When I have a new valuation, a 409A, and I have a new funding round that suggests that I am now worth more theoretically on paper because the value of my business went up, even if my business is private, the Biden administration, Kamala's administration, is proposing taxing me on the increase of that value even though I don't actually have any additional capital to be able to pay off those taxes.
00:32:54.000Michael, what would that mean for the creators and the entrepreneurs that you deal with on a daily basis?
00:32:58.000You'd kill the entire world of entrepreneurship.
00:33:00.000There'd be no reason to do it anymore because I'd be punished as I grow, even if I haven't been able to take the fruits of my labor.
00:33:07.000Traditionally, and I'm four years into our startup environment, and thank God we've had a lot of success and I'm so grateful for it.
00:33:16.000I've never sold a penny of our own stock.
00:33:18.000And so if you take an entrepreneurial journey like me, you might look at me and say, well, you're the CEO of a publicly traded company in the New York Stock Exchange.
00:33:28.000I have not taken a single penny off the table out of our company in stock, but our stock has sure appreciated a lot in value in the last four years.
00:33:36.000So if I'm an entrepreneur trying to grow my business and I get penalized as the growth of my business projects forward, even though I haven't taken any winnings, what incentive is there for me to even keep building anymore?
00:33:47.000So for the millions of entrepreneurs in our country, of 30 million small businesses and sole proprietorships in the United States, Charlie, for those 30 million folks that are out there that are trying to do their best to grow their businesses and are not taking winnings along the way, they're waiting for a much more grander payday years down the road.
00:34:04.000All of a sudden, that entire system becomes essentially imploded overnight with a proposal of attacks on unrealized gains.