The Charlie Kirk Show - April 11, 2025


A Big Beautiful Bill + A Bright Future Ahead


Episode Stats

Length

32 minutes

Words per Minute

180.0

Word Count

5,859

Sentence Count

481

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

10


Summary

Sen. Schmidt joins us for an instant analysis on what is happening with the Budget Resolution, spending cuts, and more. I explain how President Trump could be messing up the tariff issue if he was doing something opposite, and then Alex Marlow closes us out with an amazing analysis about President Trump's cabinet meeting.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, it's the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:00:01.000 We are here live from the Bitcoin.com studio.
00:00:05.000 Senator Schmidt joins us for an instant analysis on what is happening with the budget resolution, spending cuts, and more.
00:00:11.000 I explain how President Trump could be messing up the tariff issue if he was doing something opposite, which of course he is not.
00:00:17.000 And then Alex Marlow closes us out with an amazing analysis about President Trump's cabinet meeting.
00:00:22.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
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00:00:37.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:38.000 Here we go.
00:00:39.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:41.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:43.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:46.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:48.000 Thank you.
00:00:49.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:51.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:52.000 His spirit, his love of this country.
00:00:53.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:00.000 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.
00:01:09.000 That's why we are here.
00:01:12.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
00:01:22.000 Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com That is noblegoldinvestments.com It's where I buy all of my gold.
00:01:33.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com Right off the bat here, we have a great man for some instant analysis.
00:01:42.000 Senator Schmidt from the great state of Missouri joins us.
00:01:45.000 Senator Schmidt, great to see you.
00:01:46.000 Yesterday, there was some breaking news.
00:01:48.000 The House passed the budget resolution.
00:01:51.000 What is that?
00:01:52.000 And within the budget resolution, were there details of no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, or was that just the precursor to be able to now get into those negotiations?
00:02:01.000 Senator, please explain.
00:02:02.000 Yeah, great to be with you, Charlie.
00:02:04.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:02:04.000 The latter.
00:02:05.000 So basically, the budget resolution.
00:02:07.000 So that's the framework by which now we move into the reconciliation process, right?
00:02:12.000 So it unlocks the process for the committees to go do the work, right?
00:02:16.000 Like ways and means of the Senate Finance Committee to start to put meat on the bones of these ideas that have been talked about.
00:02:22.000 Principally, you know, making the tax cuts from 2017 permanent, extending those.
00:02:29.000 And then you've got all the other things, the no tax on tips.
00:02:31.000 You've got money for border security and deportations.
00:02:35.000 Because we're going to need help to make sure this mass deportation movement is actually funded for defense.
00:02:41.000 And then also, you know, for permitting reform, hopefully on energy.
00:02:45.000 And then lastly, and I think almost most importantly, some spending reforms.
00:02:50.000 We've got to get this thing under control.
00:02:52.000 I tell people that, here's what's interesting, in 2019, not 1919, in 2019, we were spending about $4 trillion.
00:03:01.000 We spend $7 trillion after the last four years of the Biden budget and the COVID orgy spending, right?
00:03:07.000 We take in $5 trillion.
00:03:09.000 So if we can actually have some reform, bend that curve, have revenues with all the good things that are happening with President Trump catch up, it's realistic to think we can have a balanced budget in a few years.
00:03:21.000 But we've got to do that hard work, and we can do that in the reconciliation process, too, which only takes a simple majority in the Senate.
00:03:27.000 And I think for the audience, that's the most important thing.
00:03:29.000 If the House can hang together, And Senate Republicans can hang together on this.
00:03:33.000 We don't need a single Democrat vote.
00:03:35.000 I wouldn't expect to get one because they're not rational at this point.
00:03:39.000 So we got to make sure we take care of our own business here.
00:03:43.000 So, Senator, one question I have.
00:03:46.000 I agree.
00:03:47.000 The amount of money we are borrowing is extraordinary.
00:03:49.000 I mean, it is as if it's when COVID happened, we decided to just put back all of our monetary or fiscal, I should say, impulses of fiscal discipline.
00:04:01.000 We've decided to basically embrace the cheap money guzzle.
00:04:05.000 However, Senator, there are rumors that we might increase the Department of Defense budget to a trillion dollars.
00:04:11.000 Where do you anticipate these spending cuts coming from?
00:04:15.000 I'm all for a big and mighty military.
00:04:18.000 However, first and foremost, I think the greatest threat to our national security is our national debt, not even any existential foe.
00:04:25.000 So build out Where you think some of these cuts will come?
00:04:28.000 More broadly, I know that you have to keep your cards close to your chest, but if we're talking about an increase in the defense budget, where else can these cuts come from?
00:04:37.000 Sir, and you're right.
00:04:39.000 I think that it's coming into focus now.
00:04:42.000 We spend more.
00:04:43.000 We spend a trillion dollars a year on the interest on that $36 trillion debt.
00:04:47.000 That's only going to grow as some of these things become more mature and they need to be refinanced with higher interest rates over the last few years.
00:04:55.000 Because of Biden inflation, right?
00:04:56.000 So that problem is only going to get more significant unless we can find real savings.
00:05:01.000 I think there's two ways to look at this.
00:05:03.000 One is there's a lot of discretionary spending that we're finding the savings.
00:05:08.000 This is the work that Doge is doing, right?
00:05:10.000 And so we've just take USAID as an example.
00:05:13.000 All of that money, Guam on sex changes, DEI and Burma, LGBTQIA, you know, programming in Sesame Street in Iraq.
00:05:22.000 That all stuff, that adds up, right?
00:05:24.000 And that's the kind of thing, like, take Marco Rubio, what he said was.
00:05:27.000 He said, 83% of the stuff we're doing, we're not going to do that anymore.
00:05:31.000 The 17% that remains, we're going to go move in further American interests overseas, right?
00:05:37.000 That's the kind of reform you have internally that Doge finds that gets embedded in savings moving forward.
00:05:42.000 What are some other things you can do?
00:05:44.000 I think what's broadly popular is work requirements.
00:05:48.000 If you're an able-bodied adult, you should be required to work.
00:05:51.000 That explosion under Obamacare is really affecting people who need it most, Medicaid.
00:05:57.000 So when President Trump talks about making sure we're not touching Social Security, not making sure we're touching benefits on Medicare and Medicaid, I think we're all with him in lockstep.
00:06:06.000 But we've got to make sure that the able-bodied population that's not working, they're draining the system.
00:06:13.000 They're crowding hospitals.
00:06:14.000 They're crowding out doctor visits for pregnant mothers, individuals with disabilities, what that program was really meant for.
00:06:21.000 So there's a lot of work to do, as I said, to put meat on the bones there.
00:06:24.000 But I think we can get there.
00:06:25.000 And here's the way to look at it.
00:06:27.000 If we just went back to pre-pandemic spending, Charlie, 2019 spending levels, plus inflation and population growth, that's like a trillion dollar difference than what we're spending right now.
00:06:39.000 So I think we can make some real progress here.
00:06:42.000 So I now want to get into the tariff aftermath.
00:06:45.000 I mean, you come from a state that has a lot of ag and a lot of...
00:06:49.000 Once mighty industry and also a fair amount of exporting and international business.
00:06:55.000 How are your major industries in Missouri thinking about these tariffs?
00:07:00.000 And what is your message to some of the audience that might be a little worried that tariffs might mean higher prices and that we might have a little bit of economic uncertainty coming down the next couple of months?
00:07:17.000 Yeah, I spent a lot of this week, I think, defending President Trump's leadership in Washington.
00:07:22.000 And permanent Washington's totally disconnected from what's really happening.
00:07:26.000 Sort of the global elites have had their run here.
00:07:28.000 After World War II, we had all these favorable deals for countries who were trying to get back on their feet.
00:07:34.000 Germany, Japan, all these countries.
00:07:36.000 And with the goal of defeating Soviet communism.
00:07:39.000 Okay, we won.
00:07:40.000 After the Cold War ended, though, we didn't adjust at all.
00:07:43.000 So you can't buy or you don't see an American car in Europe.
00:07:47.000 You don't see an American car in Japan.
00:07:49.000 You don't see an American car in Korea.
00:07:51.000 Yet all of their cars are in our markets because they have erected these barriers over time through tariffs, trade barriers, in China specifically, stealing our IP.
00:08:01.000 It's been very unfair to us.
00:08:04.000 And I do come from a state, and I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood where all those good-paying jobs, those factory jobs, they went overseas.
00:08:11.000 Sentinel, you know, we got Sentinel in exchange.
00:08:13.000 And so my message is, America isn't an economic zone.
00:08:17.000 America isn't some strip mall with an airport attached to it.
00:08:20.000 It's a people.
00:08:21.000 It's a place.
00:08:22.000 It's our home.
00:08:23.000 And we finally have a president that's willing to stand up and say, you know what, we've been treated very unfairly.
00:08:28.000 We're going to treat you like you treat us.
00:08:30.000 And now look what's happening.
00:08:32.000 70 countries plus.
00:08:33.000 Have come to the table and said, we heard what you had to say.
00:08:36.000 We understand the United States of America is 39% of all the consumption in the world.
00:08:41.000 It's 25% of the world's GDP.
00:08:43.000 It's a very important market for us.
00:08:45.000 So we're going to lower our trade barriers so that we can actually have fair trade.
00:08:49.000 So President Trump has made tremendous progress on this.
00:08:51.000 And by the way, it opens up markets for our farmers and our other industries around the world.
00:08:56.000 I think the way to look at this, Charlie, is you've got two different buckets.
00:08:59.000 You've got communist China and you've got everybody else.
00:09:02.000 China is the worst offender.
00:09:04.000 They made a terrible decision in trying to escalate this.
00:09:06.000 They rip off our IP.
00:09:08.000 They steal our jobs.
00:09:09.000 They create trade barriers.
00:09:11.000 They say, oh, yeah, no, you can't sell your chickens here because you didn't wash them properly.
00:09:15.000 Or you can't sell your electronics here because there's this bolt that's out of place.
00:09:18.000 So it's not just the tariffs.
00:09:20.000 It's all the other hidden trade barriers that prevent our goods getting to market.
00:09:23.000 They export five times more than we export to them.
00:09:27.000 And they have a hell of a lot more to lose in this if they continue down this path.
00:09:31.000 So we'll see if they have a come to Jesus moment or not.
00:09:33.000 I think the rest of the world is.
00:09:35.000 And I think at the end of the day, it's going to lead to greater prosperity for us because we're going to have more markets open.
00:09:39.000 We'll have more revenue coming into this country and we'll bring back industry, those good paying jobs that we had for a very long time that didn't need to go somewhere else.
00:09:47.000 Senator Schmidt, we are out of time.
00:09:49.000 Thank you for your leadership, and we will be talking to you soon.
00:09:52.000 Please keep the pressure on your Senate colleagues for massive and real spending cuts, and we need money for border security.
00:09:59.000 So you got to reconcile those two things, no pun intended, during this reconciliation package.
00:10:04.000 Thank you so much, Senator.
00:10:05.000 Really appreciate it.
00:10:06.000 Will do, brother.
00:10:07.000 Take care.
00:10:07.000 See you.
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00:11:05.000 That is PatriotMobile.com slash Charlie or call 972-PATRIOT today.
00:11:12.000 Understand that, yes, the market has been going through a fair amount of turbulence, but there are other very positive indicators as well.
00:11:20.000 Inflation report yesterday was terrific.
00:11:23.000 We are seeing interest rates plummeting.
00:11:25.000 We're also seeing oil prices plummeting.
00:11:28.000 Deregulation is happening.
00:11:29.000 We need to get rid of so much of the nonsensical Biden era deregulation.
00:11:34.000 You know, sometimes people say, Charlie, what do you disagree with President Trump on?
00:11:38.000 I don't even know if this is a disagreement.
00:11:40.000 President Trump will famously said, well, for every one new regulation, we have to get rid of two regulations.
00:11:44.000 I think you shouldn't add any new regulations and get rid of five, six, seven.
00:11:49.000 Thousand lines of regulation.
00:11:51.000 Who says you have to add new ones?
00:11:52.000 Just slash these ridiculous, nonsensical rules that are on the regulatory book that make it harder for businesses to be able to operate, to hire, and deploy capital.
00:12:02.000 Maria Bartiromo says this perfectly, that we are seeing a decrease in oil prices, which you are going to feel at the pump in the next two weeks.
00:12:11.000 We are seeing interest rates go down, which by the end of the year, we might see a significant cut in rates, which will help first-time homebuyers.
00:12:19.000 Play cut 130.
00:12:22.000 That's what we've been pointing out this morning.
00:12:24.000 And the president has been pointing it out.
00:12:26.000 Rates are plummeting.
00:12:27.000 Oil prices are plummeting.
00:12:29.000 Deregulation is happening.
00:12:31.000 You know, we've got all of these things happening.
00:12:34.000 President Trump is not going to bend.
00:12:38.000 He told me, you know, a number of times that he's trying to build the economy and make it independent as opposed to relying on China for things like prescription drugs.
00:12:50.000 Now, I have to further explain the contrast what President Trump is doing with tariffs versus what someone like Bernie Sanders would do with tariffs.
00:12:59.000 And it's an incredibly important distinction.
00:13:02.000 Let's say it was Bernie Sanders who once supported tariffs and In a tepid way, it says, yeah, you know, we'll do tariffs.
00:13:09.000 The difference is that if President Bernie Sanders, God save us from such a thing, would do tariffs, he would create a domestic control socialist economy.
00:13:22.000 What President Trump is doing is incredibly unique, is that he is doing tariffs while liberating the American market economy.
00:13:33.000 It's exactly the right ingredient.
00:13:35.000 So tariffs are trade barriers.
00:13:38.000 However, you can avoid a tariff by making products here.
00:13:42.000 One of the reasons why we've been falling behind on manufacturing is because it's so hard to build new factories.
00:13:48.000 And one of the greatest regulations of all is DEI.
00:13:52.000 I believe DEI is the silent regulation that is an albatross around the neck of corporate America.
00:14:00.000 DEI makes us less competitive.
00:14:01.000 It makes us less entrepreneurial.
00:14:03.000 It makes us take less risks.
00:14:05.000 It prioritizes equity and racial parity or racial preferences over excellence.
00:14:13.000 And you must choose.
00:14:14.000 DEI is like the silent regulation that was written into every single corporate handbook by soft corporate and soft cultural decree post-Floidapalooza.
00:14:26.000 It was more about outcomes over opportunity and not even about outcomes.
00:14:30.000 It was honestly about a very perverted tribal racial preference doctrine that was force fed into corporate America.
00:14:39.000 So what President Trump is attempting to do is liberate the American economy through massive tax cuts, deregulation, energy boom, while having trade barriers.
00:14:52.000 And that mixture Should work.
00:14:55.000 Again, we don't know, but you must remember people voted for this.
00:14:58.000 I would have grave concerns about tariffs.
00:15:02.000 If President Trump was talking about massive tax increases, more regulation, more government programs, more government redistribution and tariffs.
00:15:12.000 Because then why would anyone want to do business here?
00:15:15.000 What President Trump is doing is he's making it more appealing to invest while also having a penalty to not invest.
00:15:23.000 So he's doing both those things.
00:15:24.000 He's making the penalty to not invest be higher because we are the world's consumer.
00:15:29.000 We are the premier consumer economy on the planet.
00:15:33.000 Every country desires to be a consumer economy.
00:15:36.000 Every country wants to be a consumer economy.
00:15:39.000 We have achieved that.
00:15:40.000 We also now want to go back to be an industrial economy.
00:15:43.000 And here's the little secret.
00:15:45.000 It's so much easier To rebuild an industrial sector than suddenly become a consumer economy.
00:15:52.000 Because in order to become a consumer economy, you must be insanely rich.
00:15:57.000 Very few countries are insanely rich.
00:15:59.000 And China can't be a consumer economy.
00:16:03.000 Internationally, they can domestically because they don't want other countries' stuff to be sold in their country.
00:16:07.000 Well, more for us.
00:16:09.000 Being a consumer economy is not necessarily bad.
00:16:12.000 What is bad is also not being a production economy.
00:16:15.000 If you are both, You are a superpower the likes of which the world has never seen.
00:16:19.000 And we can get that back.
00:16:21.000 So President Trump doing tariffs plus domestic supply-side market boom economics?
00:16:30.000 perfect combination.
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00:17:28.000 That is charlieforhillsdale.com C-H-A-R-L-I-E forhillsdale.com Joining us now is Alex Marlowe who does a great job from the Salem Radio Network and also From Breitbart News.
00:17:43.000 Alex, great to see you.
00:17:44.000 I love your analysis.
00:17:45.000 I want to have Alex on more often.
00:17:46.000 He's super sharp and a great friend.
00:17:49.000 Alex, one of the things that we did not cover, because I've been too busy going on these campuses across the country, is the cabinet meeting.
00:17:56.000 I do want to play some piece of tape here from the cabinet meeting, and then get your take of this group of all-stars and rock stars.
00:18:04.000 I'm just going to pick one of the cabinet meeting, let's just say, highlights.
00:18:11.000 Let's pick this one.
00:18:12.000 Bobby Kennedy saying by hopefully September, we will know what is causing the autism epidemic.
00:18:18.000 Huge claim.
00:18:19.000 Hope it's right.
00:18:20.000 Play cut 249.
00:18:21.000 We are going at your direction.
00:18:23.000 We are going to know by September.
00:18:25.000 We've launched a massive testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world.
00:18:35.000 By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures.
00:18:42.000 Think of that.
00:18:43.000 So it was one in 10,000 children had autism and now it's one in 31. Not 31,000, 31. That is a horrible statistic, isn't it?
00:18:59.000 That is just one of many promises made.
00:19:02.000 Alex, you're the editor-in-chief of Breitbart.com.
00:19:04.000 What is your take on this all-star cabinet meeting?
00:19:07.000 The floor is yours.
00:19:08.000 Yeah, thank you, Charlie, and I always appreciate the kind words, and I really do appreciate all the things you're doing on campus.
00:19:13.000 It is so essential, and I hope a lot of people follow in your footsteps, because clearly these young minds are very gettable, and anything we can do to decouple the federal government from our colleges is big, and I think you're a big part of that.
00:19:26.000 I'm glad you started with RFK, because he'd won the most interesting presentations.
00:19:29.000 I'm a massive fan of his, and it's not necessarily because of the exact reasons that you might see on your favorite ex-account.
00:19:36.000 I don't necessarily think I think of him as the most hardcore.
00:19:39.000 I think of him as someone as the most evidence-based.
00:19:42.000 And one of the reasons why I've always been drawn to him is because I actually feel like what he wants to do is just assess some of these things that we've just assumed to be true and to be okay.
00:19:52.000 And maybe some of them will turn out to be fine, and we can stay the course.
00:19:55.000 But other times, he's going to identify things that we've...
00:19:59.000 He's going to answer questions that either we haven't asked or we've assumed that the answer is a certain thing.
00:20:03.000 And he went through a big list of things yesterday that I thought were really important.
00:20:07.000 Let's just start with baby formula, where he's trying to get chemicals out of baby formula.
00:20:11.000 The fact that we have a chemical-laden baby formula that babies consume and that's just assumed to be a good thing and acceptable, he's going to reassess that.
00:20:19.000 Obviously, we talked about the autism rates, and that's going to be a really complicated answer, but he's trying to give it to us almost right away.
00:20:26.000 He also talked about something, Charlie, that I think is one of the top issues of our time, which is cell phones in schools.
00:20:32.000 So younger people are completely addicted to these phones.
00:20:35.000 They're not learning basic social behaviors.
00:20:38.000 They're getting more depressed.
00:20:39.000 They're less athletic.
00:20:41.000 They're less social.
00:20:42.000 They are gonna become...
00:20:44.000 just total automatons to the Silicon Valley AI algorithms.
00:20:49.000 That's not the America we want.
00:20:50.000 It's not the America you and I got to grow up in, Charlie, and we don't want this for young people.
00:20:54.000 And he's making this a top tier issue.
00:20:55.000 His list was so long.
00:20:57.000 It was one of the longest lists around, talking about the EPA getting fluoride out of the water.
00:21:00.000 There's so many things that he's trying to do.
00:21:02.000 School lunches.
00:21:03.000 Remember how horrible Michelle Obama's school lunch program is?
00:21:06.000 We actually have a guy who understands nutrition now in charge of it, not some sort of a ceremonial person.
00:21:10.000 And another one of my favorites.
00:21:13.000 The government money should not be used for junk food.
00:21:15.000 We talk about Maha.
00:21:16.000 The most fundamental thing with Maha, Charlie, is we all eat too much.
00:21:20.000 We all eat bad stuff with too many ingredients in it, and we don't exercise enough.
00:21:24.000 He's going to get us on that path, and I just dig it so much.
00:21:27.000 So every so often I'll get, let's just say, a little bit of a pompous brat on campus that says, you know, Charlie, it's been 75 days and Trump isn't fulfilling his promises, which is just a ridiculous, ludicrous thing to say.
00:21:42.000 Yeah. Yes, absolutely.
00:22:00.000 Absolutely. But I mean, but we have a secure border.
00:22:04.000 We have we've seen massive tariffs.
00:22:07.000 Obviously, we've we're seeing the deportation effort.
00:22:10.000 I want to see even more of what we've already seen.
00:22:13.000 What is your take?
00:22:14.000 I think that criticism is so ludicrous and ridiculous, and it is a minority without a doubt.
00:22:20.000 I don't think that's there.
00:22:21.000 But I do want to make sure that we keep the encouragement on.
00:22:24.000 I don't want to say the pressure on.
00:22:25.000 We should keep the encouragement on on the administration to stay the course and to keep on reminding themselves why they are there and what they promised the American people to do.
00:22:35.000 Look, Charlie, you and I are creatures of the internet.
00:22:37.000 We're both very online people.
00:22:39.000 But this is something that I hear from the extremely online crowd, that there's not enough that's getting done.
00:22:43.000 And I am with you.
00:22:44.000 I think we need to go harder.
00:22:46.000 Of course, I always want to go harder.
00:22:47.000 But when I'm seeing some of these numbers that are coming in with the amount of cuts that we're getting from Doge, with the amount of arrests that we're getting from ICE, I think they're pretty good numbers.
00:22:56.000 But I don't like when sometimes there's a...
00:22:59.000 There's a delta between what we're hearing from different groups.
00:23:03.000 I talked to Senator Ernst about Dogecut.
00:23:05.000 She said we were at a quarter trillion.
00:23:07.000 Musk said yesterday we're at 150 billion.
00:23:10.000 I always wonder a little bit when there's a little bit of a data gap because then maybe I don't know what's going on.
00:23:15.000 But overall, I'm with you.
00:23:16.000 I think some of the deregulation is getting underreported.
00:23:19.000 I think the cuts to the campuses is getting underreported.
00:23:22.000 I think the efforts we're making in Panama is so huge to counter China.
00:23:27.000 I think Greenland is so important to counter China.
00:23:29.000 I think these tariffs, this hill we're dying on now, hopefully with these tariffs, is so monumental.
00:23:35.000 This is a earth-shaking event, and Trump is the only person on earth with the guts to do it.
00:23:40.000 I think we're off to rip-roar and start, so I'm pretty dang satisfied personally, and hopefully that means something to your audience.
00:23:46.000 So Alex, I want to now get to this, which is the geopolitical implications of the Panama Canal.
00:23:51.000 Let's play cut 179.
00:23:54.000 I want to be very clear.
00:23:56.000 China did not build this canal.
00:23:59.000 China does not operate this canal.
00:24:02.000 And China will not weaponize this canal.
00:24:06.000 Together with Panama in the lead, we will keep the canal secure and available for all nations through the deterrent power of the strongest, most effective, and most lethal fighting force in the world.
00:24:21.000 We will do this in partnership with Panama.
00:24:26.000 Together, we will take back the Panama Canal from China's influence.
00:24:31.000 And we will do this along with other capable, like-minded allies everywhere.
00:24:37.000 And a lesser reported element yesterday, Alex, was that Panama has now allowed the U.S. to deploy troops to the canal.
00:24:49.000 The document signed by top security officials from both countries allows U.S. military personnel to deploy to Panama-controlled facilities for training, exercise, and a range of other activities.
00:25:01.000 Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio have done a phenomenal job where Panama is inviting the United States because deep down, I think Panama does not want the Chinese Communist Party controlling this thoroughfare and this choke point.
00:25:14.000 Your thoughts, Alex?
00:25:16.000 Yeah, exactly right.
00:25:17.000 The Panamanian government has been cooperative, and it's really the Chinese government that's infuriated, and they're probably putting a lot of pressure on them that we might not be able to see.
00:25:26.000 But the government itself, they filed criminal charges against the Hong Kong company that controls a lot of those key ports, which obviously is going to infuriate China.
00:25:34.000 But China is making it that Hegsath and America, that we're going rogue there.
00:25:39.000 But it's not true, because the Panamanian government would like to see this handed off to America or a partnership.
00:25:45.000 between Panama and America and not have China control this choke point, as you say.
00:25:49.000 That's exactly right, and I feel like that China's incursions via Belt and Road, via BRICS, into our hemisphere is not acceptable, and the fact that we built them a thoroughfare to do that is completely insane, and this is exactly the stuff that the Donald Trumps of the world and the Pete Hegses of the world,
00:26:06.000 outsiders coming in, see very clearly, and this is one where we're absolutely butting up against China, and that's a good thing.
00:26:13.000 And we must understand, America built the Panama Canal.
00:26:17.000 America built the Panama Canal.
00:26:18.000 And we lost many lives.
00:26:19.000 It was Jimmy Carter, right, Blake, that gave it back to Panama?
00:26:23.000 And yes, we lost 5,600 workers.
00:26:26.000 You might say, how did we lose so many people?
00:26:30.000 Primarily due to mosquito-borne diseases, actually.
00:26:33.000 That was the number one reason why we lost so many people.
00:26:36.000 It was mosquito-borne diseases that the American workers got while building The Panama Canal.
00:26:43.000 We liberated Panama itself to build it.
00:26:46.000 Panama was a part of Colombia.
00:26:49.000 And so we actually liberated Panama from Colombia, lost over 5,600 people.
00:26:56.000 And just to be perfectly clear, I believe that is more than died on 9-11.
00:27:02.000 And 5,600 is just about as much as I believe died in Iraq.
00:27:06.000 Again, I'm just approximating from some memory.
00:27:10.000 Some people say as much as 30,000 workers died by the time they came back home because of diseases.
00:27:16.000 And think about that.
00:27:17.000 And we just handed it to our greatest enemy, the Chinese Communist Party.
00:27:21.000 Again, I'm probably lowballing some of these numbers, but that's a conservative estimate.
00:27:27.000 I want to make sure you guys know that YRefi is there for any private student loan reconciliation needs that you have.
00:27:34.000 If you know anybody in your life with private student loan debt, which by the way, there's over $300 billion of private student loan debt in this country.
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00:27:47.000 Why refi refinances distressed or defaulted private student loans that others will not touch.
00:27:53.000 This may not be available in all 50 states, but why refi accepts bad credit.
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00:28:15.000 That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.
00:28:17.000 They make the entire campus tour possible.
00:28:19.000 Whyrefi.com.
00:28:23.000 Alex, I know something you're very passionate about and something that you've been covering a lot at Breitbart is decoupling the federal government from higher education.
00:28:32.000 Explain what you would like to see happen in that regard with our audience.
00:28:36.000 Yeah, so I'm really thrilled to see the Department of Education winding down, Charlie.
00:28:40.000 But I think that one thing, I was thinking about this a lot when you were talking about Hillsdale earlier, about how if something is worthwhile, then people are going to step up and they're going to fund it when it comes to education, when it comes to our future.
00:28:50.000 And I don't understand why the federal government is invested in any of these.
00:28:55.000 So many of them are self-sustained by their endowments, which are essentially just hedge funds, and they can operate enough so that they don't even need to collect.
00:29:04.000 Tuition at this point, much less federal funds, and yet they're still able to get it.
00:29:08.000 But I think there's a toxic university culture that permeates out into our society.
00:29:14.000 Think about this, Charlie.
00:29:15.000 We all know that our inner cities are not doing well.
00:29:18.000 But one of the things that is an unsung part of this, an unheralded part of this, is the fact that these universities come in.
00:29:26.000 They set up shop in our big cities.
00:29:28.000 They bring in all these left-wing people who vote terribly.
00:29:31.000 They get all these federal funds to sustain this huge economic system that drives the university campus, etc.
00:29:38.000 They get all these parents who save money and then they take out loans and they send all these kids to schools.
00:29:43.000 And then what happens?
00:29:44.000 The kids get these terrible values and then they vote horribly.
00:29:47.000 They vote for the George Gascon's of the world.
00:29:49.000 They vote for the Soros-funded DA's.
00:29:51.000 And it's actually ruining not just people's minds, but it's ruining our cities.
00:29:55.000 And so this is why I feel like it's sort of an existential issue for us to take away their opportunity to get the federal funds as fast as possible.
00:30:04.000 It's also ruining our cities.
00:30:06.000 The cities is the incubators for where left-wing thought is gestating and then permeating out into the rest of the culture.
00:30:14.000 The suburbs are doing fine.
00:30:15.000 Rural America is doing amazing.
00:30:16.000 We need to get people out of the cities.
00:30:18.000 And one of the ways to do this is to get the universities out of the cities.
00:30:21.000 That's well said.
00:30:22.000 One of the other things that we need to do, and I want the Trump administration to push for, is radically cut down the number of jobs you need a college degree to fill.
00:30:31.000 Encourage companies to replace them with standardized tests, practical exams, or thorough in-person interviews, or internships to jobs.
00:30:39.000 A lot of that went away because of DEI issues.
00:30:43.000 Practical exams are racist or whatever.
00:30:45.000 Basically, the government said it was Too racist to require a test to work somewhere, but not to require a degree.
00:30:53.000 I believe DEI is the hidden regulation that has been strangling American business.
00:30:58.000 And I think that DEI could be responsible for 1-2% of GDP growth over a couple years if we keep it.
00:31:04.000 I know that might sound extreme.
00:31:06.000 I know people might laugh at that.
00:31:07.000 But DEI is definitionally an anti-growth initiative.
00:31:11.000 Alex, final thoughts here about a minute remaining.
00:31:13.000 Yeah, it can't be talked about enough.
00:31:15.000 DEI is an absolute cancer in our society, and it's far away.
00:31:18.000 And Charlie, I know how you hire it.
00:31:19.000 I know you've always rejected it, and so that's a compliment to you.
00:31:22.000 But that is so right on, and we need to absolutely not have that.
00:31:25.000 But I'll tell you, I blew Dennis Prager's mind, because Dennis Prager, our friend, he asked me, when I'm hiring at Breitbart, if I see a Harvard on the resume, does it help?
00:31:34.000 And I had to think about it, and I said, I don't really think so anymore.
00:31:38.000 And someone who is an academic guy, you know, 50 years ago, the thought that in half a century, Harvard would not add to your resume.
00:31:45.000 It just shows you stop wasting your money on these places.
00:31:48.000 get those internships going for your kids.
00:31:50.000 Alex, excellent, sharp commentary as always.
00:31:52.000 30 seconds.
00:31:53.000 Tell people about your show, Breitbart.com, what you're doing with Salem.
00:31:57.000 Oh, thank you, Charlie.
00:31:58.000 We're colleagues now at Salem.
00:31:59.000 I'm on the Salem Podcast Network, so you can get it on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Rumble, wherever you're doing it.
00:32:05.000 We're off to a fast start because I've got such great friends like you, and it is having a blast.
00:32:10.000 Breitbart.com is absolutely thriving right now.
00:32:12.000 We are the paper of record for the Trump administration.
00:32:14.000 We call the balls and strikes, and I think you'll always find something entertaining and informative on our pages every single day.
00:32:21.000 I love Breitbart.com.
00:32:22.000 Phenomenal! I got my start at Breitbart.com and that I will never forget.
00:32:26.000 Alex, thanks so much.
00:32:27.000 Thank you, Charlie.
00:32:28.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:32:29.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:32:32.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.