The Charlie Kirk Show - December 24, 2025


A Surprise Christmas Gift for the Economy?


Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

184.36893

Word count

6,963

Sentence count

542

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Stephen Moore, former Trump economic advisor and now co-host of the Unleash Prosperity podcast, joins me to discuss the latest economic numbers from the 3rd quarter and the outlook for growth in 2020 and beyond. We also talk about the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the impact it has on the economy.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.
00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.
00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.
00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.
00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.
00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.
00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.
00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.
00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA College chapter.
00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter.
00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.
00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.
00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.
00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.
00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.
00:00:45.000 Here I am.
00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.
00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:49.000 Here we go.
00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000 All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:11.000 Hour two is underway, and President Trump got an early Christmas present with some amazing economic news that came out this morning.
00:01:19.000 So here to unpack that with us is former Trump economic advisor, and now he's with Unleash Prosperity.
00:01:26.000 And that's, of course, Stephen Moore, a longtime guest on this show and good friend of Charlie's.
00:01:31.000 Stephen, welcome back to the show.
00:01:33.000 On a scale of one to 10, how good was this news that broke this morning?
00:01:38.000 4.3 growth Q3 for GDP.
00:01:43.000 It's a really good number.
00:01:44.000 It's a solid number.
00:01:45.000 I'd put it at 8 or a 9.
00:01:47.000 Trump wants 5% growth.
00:01:48.000 We're not quite there yet, although we could get there.
00:01:51.000 Incidentally, once you get above 3.5% economic growth, then the economy grows faster than the debt grows.
00:01:58.000 And so the burden, you know, because I know everyone listening to the show is concerned about our, you know, massive debt.
00:02:04.000 And one way of lowering that debt is to grow our way out of it.
00:02:08.000 So look, I'm super bullish on this U.S. economy.
00:02:10.000 It's been a really good 2025.
00:02:13.000 I don't care what the polls are showing, that all of the indicators show a very strong growth year.
00:02:18.000 And I think we're going to see a speed up in 2026 because a lot of people come up to me on the street and say, hey, Steve Moore, I know you helped write that big, beautiful bill.
00:02:27.000 Why aren't I seeing it?
00:02:28.000 And I tell people, well, because it hasn't taken effect yet for tens of millions of Americans on January 1st, when they get their first paycheck for the month of January, they're going to start to see less money withheld from their paycheck, which is exactly what Americans want to see.
00:02:44.000 Awesome.
00:02:44.000 Okay.
00:02:45.000 Well, let's play some of the reactions from the news media here.
00:02:48.000 189.
00:02:49.000 Third quarter numbers, we're looking for 3.3 Zoom, Zoom, Zoom.
00:02:55.000 4.3%.
00:02:57.000 4.3%.
00:02:59.000 That is a nice jump.
00:03:01.000 And I know many may question data gathering, but on the surface, this would be the strongest quarter going back to the third quarter of 2023 when it was 4.7.
00:03:12.000 This is strong.
00:03:13.000 3.5 on consumption blows away the 2.7 we were expecting.
00:03:18.000 That would be the best since the last quarter of 24 on the price index.
00:03:23.000 Here's some not good news.
00:03:25.000 3.8% on the price index.
00:03:28.000 That's much higher than 2.7 we were looking for.
00:03:31.000 All right, so we hit the first part, you know, where we beat the GDP forecast by over a point potentially.
00:03:38.000 But what is he talking about with this price index, Steve?
00:03:41.000 Well, I'm not exactly sure, quite honestly, because we got a really blockbuster number on inflation earlier the week, or late last week, I guess it was, where the inflation rate fell to 2.7%.
00:03:53.000 And if you look at the last couple of months, inflation is headed down to 2% or less.
00:03:59.000 And as you know, the Fed target rate, which is the rate we should shoot at, is about 2% inflation.
00:04:06.000 So we're headed in that direction.
00:04:08.000 I think the numbers just look overall really strong right now to me.
00:04:14.000 I don't quite understand why, if you look at the opinion polls, about half Americans think the economy is not doing well and even more so.
00:04:22.000 And I don't get that because it is, you know, it is well.
00:04:24.000 Now, a lot of people just say it's doing poorly because they hate Trump, right?
00:04:27.000 You know, you get 40% of Americans, no matter how good things are, they're going to say things are bad.
00:04:31.000 But it's going to be harder and harder, in my opinion, as we move into 2026 and these good numbers continue to roll in.
00:04:39.000 It's harder for the left to sustain that narrative that it's not a good economy.
00:04:43.000 Yeah, I think they're calling it, the line I've seen is calling it the vibe session.
00:04:47.000 It's the numbers seem good, but the sense among a lot of people is it's bad.
00:04:52.000 Could it be specifically that the situation is very tough for young people just entering the workforce?
00:04:58.000 I know the hiring for entry-level jobs this year was very rough for people just out of college.
00:05:06.000 Is that diverging more than usual from the fate of other workers in the economy?
00:05:11.000 Well, let me say a couple of things about that.
00:05:12.000 I'm smiling when you say that because I graduated from college in late 1982.
00:05:17.000 So I'm an old far, you know, I'm a baby boomer.
00:05:19.000 Just to put these things in perspective, when I graduated from college, the inflation rate was not 3%.
00:05:26.000 It was 9%.
00:05:30.000 The unemployment rate was not 4%.
00:05:33.000 It was 8%.
00:05:35.000 And the mortgage rate was not 5%.
00:05:37.000 It was like 14%.
00:05:39.000 So for young people to say, oh, gee, this isn't a very good economy.
00:05:42.000 They don't, they can't put this in any kind of perspective.
00:05:45.000 Now, I think the one thing that where I would like to see improvement on is on the housing front, because I have two sons that are in their early 30s, and they're doing fine with their careers, but they cannot afford to buy a house.
00:05:57.000 And that's a result of a lot of things we could get into it.
00:06:00.000 But it is true that housing is very expensive right now.
00:06:04.000 So what is driving that then, Stephen, the housing market?
00:06:08.000 If you talk to JD Vance, if you listen to what he's saying, he's saying it's a supply and demand issue.
00:06:12.000 We've just been letting in too many people.
00:06:14.000 The foreign population's too high, illegals, that sort of thing. 1.00
00:06:19.000 Is that really what's driving it?
00:06:21.000 Are there core drivers of the housing affordability issue?
00:06:24.000 No, I don't think it's kind of scapegoating to say it's due to immigrants because actually immigrants build housing.
00:06:30.000 They don't just take up housing.
00:06:31.000 I think the real issue here is a couple of things.
00:06:35.000 One is states and localities around the country have put in all sorts of restrictions on building new housing.
00:06:42.000 And so, you know, if you don't have an increase in supply, then the price of something is going to go up.
00:06:46.000 So we've got to get rid of these restrictions in so many.
00:06:50.000 In fact, in many of the blue cities and suburbs, you can't build new housing.
00:06:54.000 And that's a big problem.
00:06:56.000 The other thing that is going on here is that people are locked into their homes.
00:07:01.000 So we charge a capital gains tax if you sell your home and you make a, if you buy, if you sell the home for more than you bought it for.
00:07:08.000 Well, that's almost all Americans because the value of housing has been going up.
00:07:12.000 And so what people do to avoid paying that very, very significant tax is they don't sell their home.
00:07:18.000 And so people are locked into their houses.
00:07:20.000 So what I've proposed to Donald Trump is get rid of the capital gains tax on housing when it's sold.
00:07:25.000 And if you do that, you'll have an increase in supply and prices will come down.
00:07:31.000 Well, I got to take issue just a little bit.
00:07:33.000 It is a supply and demand issue.
00:07:35.000 And if we have more people in the country, then I get that a lot of the laborers that are building houses are immigrants, but I mean, they are going to have to live somewhere. 1.00
00:07:44.000 So there is a dynamic there that we've been taking, you know, for the last 30 years, we've taken tens of millions of immigrants and housing has actually been low cost.
00:07:55.000 But look, I take your point.
00:07:56.000 You know, Trump Biden let in, we don't know exactly how many, a lot of illegal immigrants.
00:08:02.000 I'm very pro-legal immigration, but I'm very much against the illegal immigration.
00:08:07.000 And so I think you have a point there.
00:08:09.000 Yeah, fair enough.
00:08:10.000 All right.
00:08:10.000 So let's go.
00:08:11.000 This is Kevin Hassett.
00:08:12.000 Charlie loved Kevin Hassett because it was like this breath of fresh air and optimism when he would come on the show.
00:08:18.000 Let's hear what he's having to say, 193.
00:08:20.000 President Trump's trade agenda is working.
00:08:24.000 And so we got about, you know, 1.5% of the growth on 4.3 because we reduced the trade deficit.
00:08:30.000 We went back and we looked at every Blueberg forecast for the main numbers since September and found that on average, we outperformed the forecast 94% of the time.
00:08:40.000 So if 94% of Wall Street economists are getting the macro trends wrong, they need to start to think about, hey, maybe Trump's policies are actually way better than we thought.
00:08:49.000 And maybe the fake news that says all these terrible things about Trump policies should reconsider and grab their pencil and redo their economics.
00:08:57.000 So Stephen, it begs the question.
00:09:00.000 I have two questions for you.
00:09:02.000 Why are these economists getting so much wrong?
00:09:04.000 Is it just TDS?
00:09:06.000 And then I want to talk about tariffs, because that seems to be the big hot button question.
00:09:12.000 You could take it in whatever order you want, Stephen.
00:09:14.000 So, yeah, it's absolutely true that Trump derangement syndrome is a pathological disorder in this country.
00:09:20.000 And it does judge, it does change people's perceptions of what's happening in the economy, especially academics and professional economists who keep lowballing the numbers and they keep getting them wrong.
00:09:35.000 As my friend Kevin Hassett just said, 94% of the time they're wrong.
00:09:39.000 Maybe they should start thinking that their assessments and their models are completely off base.
00:09:45.000 They got the inflation numbers wrong.
00:09:46.000 They got the job numbers wrong.
00:09:48.000 They got the trade deficit numbers wrong.
00:09:50.000 In fact, I'm writing a column on this right now as we speak about, you know, these professional economists probably should turn their PhDs back in and say, we don't know what we're talking about because they are consistently wrong.
00:10:03.000 I think economists are simply struggling to catch up with the new paradigm and they underestimate the amount of leverage America has as the market that everybody wants to play into and sell into.
00:10:14.000 But Trump's flipping the economic models on their heads.
00:10:20.000 President Trump walked into a catch-22 when taking office.
00:10:23.000 Do nothing, and America would be staring at a ticking debt bomb, the kind of crisis that could cripple our future.
00:10:28.000 Instead, he's taken action with strong policies to slow the train and buy us some time.
00:10:33.000 But the effects of past administration spending are still working through the system and experts predict dramatic price increases and market uncertainty.
00:10:41.000 Trump is doing all he can, but no matter who's in office, protecting your retirement savings is ultimately up to you.
00:10:47.000 And that's why many Americans are turning to real assets like gold and silver.
00:10:51.000 Preserved gold is our go-to choice here at the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:10:55.000 We use them because they make it easy to own physical gold and silver even inside your retirement accounts like an IRA or 401k.
00:11:02.000 Now, hear from Charlie in his own words.
00:11:04.000 Preserved gold is my go-to choice for all my precious metal needs.
00:11:08.000 They are the real deal, and I recommend them to my friends, family, and viewers.
00:11:11.000 Get their free wealth protection guide now by texting Charlie to 50-505.
00:11:17.000 President Trump is fighting for America's future.
00:11:19.000 Now it's your turn to help protect yours.
00:11:23.000 All right, Stephen Moore, I got to ask you a softball question.
00:11:26.000 Well, it's not soft.
00:11:26.000 It's a really hard question, actually.
00:11:28.000 What is your favorite Christmas movie and why?
00:11:31.000 Oh, Love actually is one of my favorite modern ones.
00:11:34.000 And then I'd have to go with Miracle on 34th Street. 0.54
00:11:37.000 Oh, wow.
00:11:38.000 You just got an email endorsing that one.
00:11:41.000 Miracle on 34th Street?
00:11:42.000 You guys are so young, you probably never even seen it.
00:11:45.000 No, I saw the remake.
00:11:47.000 They did a 90s.
00:11:48.000 Oh, you got to go out.
00:11:49.000 You got to look at the old, the old one.
00:11:51.000 Oh, I've seen it.
00:11:52.000 I've seen it.
00:11:53.000 See, I grew up in a house that was full of like John Wayne movies and World War II movies and the black and white.
00:11:58.000 We got one.
00:11:58.000 We got a Caleb said their favorite was Muppet's Christmas Carol.
00:12:02.000 I need to see that one.
00:12:03.000 I don't think I ever have.
00:12:05.000 See, I like the old school, like the English, like the more English and like, you know, gloomy, the better.
00:12:10.000 So, you know, let's deal with this tariff question one last time here.
00:12:15.000 Or Blake, you've got an email, right?
00:12:18.000 No, yeah, we've got it.
00:12:18.000 We got an email from someone, I think, on the vibe session topic, why are people downbeat?
00:12:22.000 And he says, it's food, Stephen.
00:12:25.000 Go to the grocery store and tell me the economy is great.
00:12:28.000 Okay, Biden.
00:12:30.000 Oh, get in the get in. 0.99
00:12:32.000 What's your response to that?
00:12:33.000 Yeah.
00:12:34.000 Yeah.
00:12:34.000 No, look, I get that all the time, even from my wife.
00:12:37.000 My wife says, what do you, you know, she goes to the grocery store. 1.00
00:12:39.000 She comes back really angry about, you know, the price of steak used to cost $12 and now it's $20, $25.
00:12:46.000 So I get it.
00:12:47.000 I feel your pain, folks.
00:12:48.000 But if you look overall at the economy, by the way, beef prices are way up.
00:12:53.000 Guess what?
00:12:53.000 Pork chops are way down in price.
00:12:55.000 There's a lot of things.
00:12:56.000 Cell phones are down in price.
00:12:58.000 Airlines are down in price.
00:13:00.000 Motels and hotels are down in price.
00:13:03.000 Televisions are down in price.
00:13:04.000 So overall, the inflation rate is heading in the right direction.
00:13:08.000 But I understand people are angry when they come back from the grocery store.
00:13:12.000 And I can tell you this, though, that we're going to start to see declining grocery prices as well.
00:13:18.000 Not declining prices, but this is the other thing.
00:13:21.000 Trump keeps saying I'm going to bring prices down.
00:13:23.000 What he meant to say is I'm going to bring the rate of inflation down.
00:13:26.000 We don't want to see deflation.
00:13:28.000 That's even worse for the economy than inflation.
00:13:30.000 We want to stabilize the prices, as my friend Steve Forbes would say, and create a sound, stable dollar.
00:13:37.000 And that's exactly what Trump is doing.
00:13:39.000 Well, we are seeing energy prices drop.
00:13:42.000 Oh, yeah.
00:13:42.000 Gasoline.
00:13:43.000 Amazing.
00:13:44.000 I mean, gas is under $25.
00:13:45.000 $260 a gallon.
00:13:46.000 Yeah.
00:13:47.000 Yeah.
00:13:48.000 There's a, I think in Cincinnati, it's at like $2.50 a gallon.
00:13:53.000 Might be one of the lower parts of the country, Kentucky.
00:13:54.000 By the way, you know what state has the highest gas price?
00:13:58.000 California.
00:13:58.000 Yeah, by like five bucks a gallon there.
00:14:01.000 Well, yeah, it's a little lower than that.
00:14:03.000 But, you know, like it's very structural.
00:14:06.000 California has, you basically can only refine fuel for cars over here, and they won't build new refineries.
00:14:14.000 And so, you know, it's a whole issue.
00:14:16.000 Yeah.
00:14:17.000 But there's a serious point.
00:14:18.000 But there's a serious point here.
00:14:19.000 If you look at the 10 states that have the highest cost of living, nine of them are blue states because liberal Democrats cause shortages of everything because of their stupid policies, high taxes, high regulations, and therefore the price rises.
00:14:34.000 So if you want lower prices, folks, move to a red state like Florida, like Texas, like Alabama, like Utah.
00:14:41.000 That's where prices are low.
00:14:43.000 Yeah.
00:14:43.000 Well, I mean, listen, I'm sympathetic to people that want to stay in their home in the blue states, right?
00:14:48.000 We don't want people having to leave the locusts that keep infiltrating.
00:14:51.000 Blake, you had one more question on that?
00:14:55.000 Or did I miss answers?
00:14:56.000 Oh, no, no, no.
00:14:57.000 It was just that one there.
00:14:58.000 Oh, I guess we could ask him what he thinks on housing, what he thinks of like 50-year mortgage topics or whatever.
00:15:04.000 There's various, I'm not a big fan of that.
00:15:08.000 I think, you know, stretching out the mortgage is a dumb thing to do.
00:15:14.000 Look, I know Trump's heard us in the right place on that, but the best way to bring the price of housing down is to bring the mortgage rate down.
00:15:22.000 And the way you bring the mortgage rate down is bring the inflation rate down, which Trump is doing.
00:15:26.000 Mortgage rates will continue to fall as prices stabilize.
00:15:30.000 Yeah.
00:15:31.000 Hey, real quick, we have two minutes left here, Steven.
00:15:35.000 You knew Charlie for a long time.
00:15:36.000 When did you first meet Charlie Kirk?
00:15:39.000 So, I mean, I was thinking about that the other day.
00:15:40.000 And, you know, he, I met him way before you guys did.
00:15:44.000 I think he was 18 or 19 years old, really just getting started.
00:15:47.000 And my friend Gary Raybine, who was very close to Charlie, had an event with Charlie.
00:15:52.000 And I think he was just starting.
00:15:54.000 I think, as I said, just about 18 or 19 years old.
00:15:58.000 And I remember this: who is this Naughty Nose kid?
00:16:02.000 He was very ambitious.
00:16:03.000 And I don't say that in a negative way, in a positive way.
00:16:05.000 He knew what he wanted to do.
00:16:06.000 He knew he wanted to be a leader.
00:16:08.000 And what he started doing is like reading Outlaugh or reading Larry Kudlow, reading Steve Moore, and educating himself.
00:16:13.000 And by the way, you can educate yourself way more by reading the stuff that we write than the crap that they teach in college on economics because most of it is wrong.
00:16:23.000 That's the reason 94% of the professional economists got it wrong.
00:16:27.000 But he, you know, I just saw his evolution over the next 11 or 12 years.
00:16:33.000 And every time I saw him, he just got better and better and better and better.
00:16:37.000 And boy, I mean, it's just such a sad thing because I really believe Charlie Kirk was on path to someday be president of the United States.
00:16:45.000 I really believe that.
00:16:47.000 Yeah.
00:16:47.000 And you guys, I'll never, one of my kind of lasting memories of this show with Charlie at the helm was every time you'd come on, Steven, we'd have this whole topic prepped, and it would be, you know, Charlie, we're going to talk about this, and this economic new number came in and what Trump's going to do or whatever.
00:17:04.000 And then you guys would just like talk about Chicago the whole time.
00:17:08.000 Well, he and I both love the Chicago.
00:17:10.000 By the way, how about those Bears?
00:17:12.000 They pulled off a miracle in Soldier's Field this weekend.
00:17:17.000 So we're proud of them.
00:17:17.000 Oh, I know the same night, Steven.
00:17:19.000 It was the Bears won in that overtime game against the Packers, and the Ducks were going to be a little bit more than a moment.
00:17:24.000 Don't remind me.
00:17:28.000 Well, you know what?
00:17:29.000 That really was a miracle.
00:17:30.000 The odds of the Bears winning that game with two minutes left was one in 200.
00:17:35.000 One in 200.
00:17:37.000 Miracles really can't happen.
00:17:39.000 It's a Christmas miracle.
00:17:40.000 Stephen Moore, thank you from Unleashed Prosperity.
00:17:43.000 Thank you, my friend.
00:17:44.000 Merry Christmas.
00:17:46.000 This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and founding partner of YReFi.
00:17:51.000 It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us.
00:17:57.000 His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come.
00:18:03.000 Now, here Charlie, in his own words, tell you about YReFi.
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00:18:34.000 Go to yrefi.com.
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00:18:43.000 Because of private student loan debt, so many people feel stuck.
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00:18:55.000 All right, next up here is Batia Ungar Sargon. 1.00
00:18:58.000 She is the host of Batia with an exclamation mark on NewsNation.
00:19:03.000 Bati, you have, we were talking on the phone.
00:19:07.000 You've been watching everything from that happened at Amfest from afar.
00:19:11.000 And you were so complimentary to me and to Turning Point about the event because I think maybe you were surprised by it a little bit.
00:19:21.000 You were a little nervous, a little trepidation going in when you saw the speaker list.
00:19:25.000 And then tell us what your 30,000 foot view, what was the vibe for you watching from afar?
00:19:32.000 First of all, thank you so much for having me, Andrew.
00:19:35.000 I have to say, I'm like unexpectedly getting a little bit emotional because it's my first time on since Charlie was teenager.
00:19:42.000 Yeah.
00:19:44.000 He meant so much to me.
00:19:46.000 Actually, there's a woman on my street whose car has, we live in Brooklyn, South Brooklyn.
00:19:52.000 It's, you know, not, you know, hipster Brooklyn, but her car is just festooned with stickers about Charlie.
00:19:59.000 And I was literally staking out the car because I didn't know who it belonged to.
00:20:03.000 And I just wanted to thank her.
00:20:04.000 And the first time I saw her getting out of the car, I just ran over to her.
00:20:08.000 And we just had the most amazing conversation about what he meant to this country.
00:20:14.000 And so thank you so much for having me.
00:20:16.000 I think about him every single day.
00:20:19.000 I thought that the America Fest you put on was incredible, incredible.
00:20:24.000 It was so important because you allowed the debate to be aired.
00:20:32.000 And I think we get really attached to our positions in this country.
00:20:37.000 And then we get really attached to the idea that, you know, we have to convince people that we're right.
00:20:44.000 And we forget that the most important thing is, I think, what Charlie really stood for, which was the view that more unites us than divides us as Americans.
00:20:52.000 And that you have to have the conversation.
00:20:54.000 You have to trust your fellow Americans.
00:20:57.000 And you have to bring that love that he had, even to people that don't agree with you.
00:21:03.000 I think like that is the thing that we really lost was that spectacle of him going to those college campuses and talking to people whose views I know he thought were bad and wrong and dangerous, but you could still see the love that he brought to them.
00:21:20.000 And that's my New Year's resolution is to be more like that, even especially when I'm talking about the things that matter to me the most.
00:21:29.000 And I just felt that you really, you and Erica made that happen.
00:21:34.000 You aired the debate and everybody could see it for themselves.
00:21:39.000 And because this is the greatest country on earth and the American people are the most incredible people on planet Earth, it reminded me to just trust that process of seeing the debate and hearing the debate and listening to both sides.
00:21:54.000 So I just, I watched every minute of it.
00:21:57.000 I was glued to it.
00:21:58.000 And I'm so proud of you.
00:22:00.000 And just, again, like to see Charlie's legacy being carried on in such a fulsome way was really moving to me and really powerful.
00:22:10.000 Wow.
00:22:10.000 Well, thank you.
00:22:11.000 Thank you for saying that, Batia.
00:22:12.000 It means a lot.
00:22:13.000 And I know Blake, Blake's in studio there in Phoenix.
00:22:16.000 And, you know, we both sort of watched everything play out.
00:22:19.000 We saw the online chatter.
00:22:21.000 And, you know, the elephant in the room is sort of this foreign policy debate, the Israel debate, but also this debate.
00:22:30.000 Ben kind of kicked things off on night one, calling out some of the people that he had grievances with.
00:22:35.000 And then they ended up taking the stage later, some of them at least, and kind of throwing it back.
00:22:40.000 So it, like you said, it was this debate, this airing of family business, as Erica called it.
00:22:46.000 But then we led up to, and Blake, feel free if you want to chime in on that, on that point before I move on, because I do have a question for Batia.
00:22:55.000 No, no, no.
00:22:56.000 Let's get into it.
00:22:57.000 Let's get into it.
00:22:57.000 All right.
00:22:58.000 So you on your show had some words for, I mean, directed at JD Vance.
00:23:04.000 And I want to give you a chance to kind of talk about that.
00:23:08.000 Let's go ahead and play 209. 0.73
00:23:09.000 For those already anointing the vice president as the GOP nominee for 2028, you might want to slow your role.
00:23:16.000 Leadership is about having principles and standing up for them, no matter the blowback, not being afraid of offending actual Nazis.
00:23:25.000 All right.
00:23:26.000 So that seems to be the cliff.
00:23:28.000 I see you smiling there.
00:23:30.000 So I am obviously Team JD.
00:23:32.000 I think he's an amazing leader.
00:23:33.000 I thought his speech at Amfest was morally clear.
00:23:37.000 He condemned anti-Semitism.
00:23:39.000 He condemned racism, DEI, anti-white racism, anti-Asian racism.
00:23:44.000 And it felt like to me, being there, it was kind of like dad's in the room.
00:23:49.000 Settle down, kids.
00:23:50.000 Here's the North Star.
00:23:51.000 Here's where we're going.
00:23:52.000 You, you, we, by the way, we certainly are not trying to anoint JD Vance anything.
00:23:57.000 It was sort of this, if you're in turning point circles, Charlie was talking about that we have JD's back a thousand percent and he hopes he runs.
00:24:05.000 And if he runs, we've got his back.
00:24:07.000 You know, so it was kind of this thing that's been said out loud 48 times.
00:24:10.000 I think Erica was just kind of like, let's just say it out loud.
00:24:13.000 You know, let's just do it here.
00:24:15.000 But from your perspective, why did you say what you said?
00:24:17.000 And, you know, what is it going to take to kind of get you to come around on the JD Vance conversation?
00:24:24.000 I want to believe, I'm so honored to be able to have this conversation with you.
00:24:29.000 Like, you have no idea what it means to me to be here with you in the room.
00:24:34.000 On so many issues, I think JD is spot on.
00:24:37.000 You know, my top issues, I would say, is I think what President Trump represented, which was, you know, being pro-worker, pro-labor, the dignity of working class Americans is like my number one issue, which entails, you know, getting to immigration zero right away for as long as it takes, you know, in order to make sure that Americans have access to the American dream before we start giving it to everybody else. 0.88
00:25:03.000 On foreign policy, I'm aware that I guess the 50% of the turning point straw poll was like, I see Israel as a great ally among great allies.
00:25:13.000 Our interests are frequently aligned, but not always.
00:25:16.000 Sometimes the Israelis, I think, overstep. 1.00
00:25:18.000 And I've been, you know, glad to see President Trump have a really strong idea of when our interests are aligned and when they diverge and choosing American interests when he needs to.
00:25:28.000 You know, so on all of that stuff, I feel like, you know, very much on the same page.
00:25:34.000 Certainly don't want to go back to the like rhino pre-Trump version of the GOP.
00:25:39.000 I think that would be a huge mistake and a huge betrayal of the American working class, which is like where my allegiances lie as a Jewish American.
00:25:48.000 But I will say that I think there have been podcasters out there who have been saying things that make me as an American and as a Jew feel like I'm questioning whether this movement wants me.
00:26:03.000 For example, platforming people who think that Hitler was not the villain of World War II. 0.51
00:26:11.000 That's just going to make every Jewish person, like somebody, a podcaster agreeing with that point of view, the way that Tucker Carlson seemed to is going to make every Jewish person feel like, wait a minute, is that actually a question?
00:26:24.000 And so when JD says, well, I'm, you know, close to Tucker Carlson, I disagree with him about a lot of things, but I'm not going to be clear about what those things are, that leaves people thinking, well, you know, is that one of the things or not?
00:26:37.000 Yeah.
00:26:37.000 And Blake, I want to get you in on this conversation because you obviously have a really long conversation relationship with Tucker.
00:26:44.000 But I want to show that you mentioned the straw poll.
00:26:46.000 Go ahead and throw 178 up on the screen.
00:26:49.000 It shows 53.4% consider Israel an ally, 33.3% our top ally.
00:26:57.000 Only 13.3% say that Israel is not an ally of the United States.
00:27:01.000 So despite all of the hand-wringing, all the loud voices online, we still are at 87% of Amfest attendees consider Israel either our top ally or an ally.
00:27:16.000 And maybe what you're seeing in the shift in the dialogue is more to one ally of many as opposed to our top ally.
00:27:23.000 Maybe that's the shift you've seen in the Trump era.
00:27:26.000 Blake, I want to give you a chance to respond just because of your relationship with Israel.
00:27:30.000 Yeah, so a few things.
00:27:32.000 I totally understand where you're coming through, specifically on some of that.
00:27:35.000 Yeah, the Hitler stuff that's popped up more.
00:27:39.000 I will say I've been hearing stuff like that honestly my entire adult life.
00:27:45.000 It bubbles up.
00:27:46.000 Think there is an element where some people find it interesting in a transgressive sense or something.
00:27:51.000 And I'd want to say, I hope it has no modern political manifestations, but it does pop up with a degree that if I were a Jewish American, I think I would find it disturbing as more disturbing as you do. 0.92
00:28:03.000 I don't get why some people think in this particular political moment, relitigating an 80-year-old wars morality is of great importance, but some people like that.
00:28:17.000 I will say, I'm some of the people.
00:28:19.000 Can I just jump in for a second?
00:28:20.000 Sure, sure, sure.
00:28:21.000 Like, when you, when you, first of all, I think it's not just Jewish Americans.
00:28:25.000 I think every American should feel worried about this question of whether Hitler was truly the same. 0.79
00:28:31.000 But I mean, beyond that, when you say you're like, I don't know why somebody would bring that up, but you know, like, I know why they would bring it up because they could, you know what I'm saying?
00:28:41.000 Like, that's fair.
00:28:42.000 That's fair.
00:28:43.000 There's, there is, it's unfortunate.
00:28:46.000 I do think that pattern is real for certainly at least some of the people doing it.
00:28:52.000 Big picture, I recognize Vice President Vance and everyone in this coalition.
00:28:56.000 We have a tough challenge.
00:28:57.000 We asked, we were doing one of our exclusives interviews.
00:29:00.000 I think it was when we had Megan, I think it was actually when we had Michael Knowles on, and we just asked the crowd, raise your hands.
00:29:07.000 Do you agree more with Ben Shapiro or more with Tucker?
00:29:10.000 And it was about 50-50.
00:29:12.000 Ultimately, what we've been saying is we have to be able to build a coalition that is forward.
00:29:19.000 And what I liked with Vice President Vance was he's saying we are going to define this movement by positive things, by positive affirmations.
00:29:26.000 And those are going to be good affirmations that make us a superior alternative to the left.
00:29:32.000 And I think if Vice President Vance is setting a positive example and if he's taking on a leadership role that shows that positive example, he can shape the movement in a good direction that is good on policy, good on unifying rhetoric.
00:29:49.000 And instead of having to go around playing police and disavowing people, what you are is what you are avowing is going to make people into something better.
00:29:58.000 And I think that's an example Charlie himself tried to set while he was with us.
00:30:03.000 I was truly humbled by how right Andrew and Charlie and you Blake were about how you set up the whole America Fest.
00:30:12.000 I just came away feeling like it could not have gone better.
00:30:15.000 And that was because of the disparity between me and the views that I heard there.
00:30:22.000 Hey, everybody, this is Andrew Colvet, executive producer of The Charlie Kirk Show.
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00:31:26.000 I have to ask, I think this is going to be the hardest question that Batia has to navigate.
00:31:30.000 As a Jewish woman, what is your favorite Christmas movie?
00:31:34.000 Or is there like, is there like a Hanukkah movie?
00:31:36.000 I don't even know.
00:31:38.000 Okay, I just every year I watch all of the Christmas rom-coms.
00:31:44.000 And the thing about them is that they're all exactly the same and they're all equally delightful and delicious.
00:31:49.000 So I couldn't even tell you which is the best one because I can just watch all of them again and again.
00:31:54.000 Is it traditions?
00:31:58.000 I know Jewish Americans often eat Chinese on Christmas.
00:32:01.000 Are there traditional movies they watch that are like emphatically not Christmas movies or something?
00:32:06.000 Well, the big Lebowski is often on the list for sure. 1.00
00:32:10.000 The doodabuds.
00:32:12.000 You know, I'm an Orthodox Jew, so the traditions of like secular liberal Jews, I'm not as familiar with them.
00:32:20.000 You know, to us, Christmas is, it's funny because one of the things is, you know, like there's certain texts that you're supposed to study and that you're not supposed to study on Christmas due to like, so, you know, there's that conversation as well.
00:32:33.000 But I'm not as much.
00:32:33.000 This is way more complicated than I realized.
00:32:35.000 This was a hard question.
00:32:36.000 The JD Vance question is easy.
00:32:39.000 All right.
00:32:40.000 I accidentally opened up a whole can of worms.
00:32:43.000 Asking a Jewish woman what her favorite Christmas movie is.
00:32:46.000 It's not a fair question.
00:32:47.000 It's not a fair question.
00:32:48.000 I apologize.
00:32:49.000 Bati did wonderful with it, though.
00:32:51.000 Christmas rom-coms, what are those even?
00:32:54.000 It's like love actually is one.
00:32:56.000 Love actually.
00:32:57.000 Love actually.
00:32:57.000 Hold on, what's the one with John Cusack and the British gal where they meet and then they try and find each other again?
00:33:07.000 I'm forgetting.
00:33:09.000 That's another Christmas movie, kind of.
00:33:10.000 There's a really good movie called The Family Stone.
00:33:14.000 You and I have wildly different movie tastes, Batia.
00:33:18.000 This is spinning out of control.
00:33:20.000 We need to bring it back.
00:33:20.000 Write it back in.
00:33:21.000 All right.
00:33:22.000 So here's my pointed question for actually why you came.
00:33:26.000 So you've got guys like Steve Bannon.
00:33:29.000 He calls himself a Zionist.
00:33:31.000 You've got Matt Gates, who just did the interview with Tucker Carlson.
00:33:34.000 He calls himself pro-Israel.
00:33:36.000 You've got a lot.
00:33:37.000 Megan Kelly has been traditionally extremely pro-Israel.
00:33:41.000 Their biggest beef is that they feel, and by the way, Charlie had this conversation with Megan, you know, just before he was assassinated, actually.
00:33:50.000 It was just this feeling from like the Gentile friends of the Jewish people and Israel that there is a moral blackmail campaign where the pressure just feels like, you know, if you're only with us 80% of the way, we're not going to be happy and we're going to call you names. 0.99
00:34:07.000 I do find it counterproductive.
00:34:09.000 I'm not saying everybody's guilty of it.
00:34:11.000 I'm literally about to send a video to Dennis Prager wishing him a Merry Christmas because he loves Christmas.
00:34:16.000 You know, I love youth completely, even when I disagree with you.
00:34:19.000 But that, that's, so what is that dynamic?
00:34:22.000 And what do you do about that?
00:34:23.000 Do you feel like the response after October 7th is driving away friends of Israel?
00:34:27.000 I'm going to give an analogy.
00:34:29.000 Okay.
00:34:30.000 I am a person who feels that we should not be funding the Ukraine war.
00:34:35.000 Okay.
00:34:36.000 I've thought that from the beginning.
00:34:38.000 Two weeks in, Putin was like, if you all just recognize the status quo and ratify it, that Crimea belongs to Russia, which he had already taken eight years earlier, you know, that the Donbass is independent, which there was a civil war there, and that Ukraine is not part of NATO, I'll withdraw immediately.
00:34:55.000 I thought we should have pushed for that.
00:34:57.000 You know, we had gas prices were insane at the time.
00:35:01.000 I just didn't understand why, you know, a few hundred kilometers in Eastern Europe was the responsibility of the American working class to bear.
00:35:10.000 Now, if you hold that view, which I do, you will get letters snail mail delivered to your home with death threats from people who are pro-Ukraine.
00:35:21.000 The entire Ukraine lobby will come after you.
00:35:24.000 They will impugn your character.
00:35:25.000 They will call you a Putin puppet.
00:35:27.000 Doesn't matter how many times you say Putin is a thug and a murderer, which is what I believe.
00:35:32.000 The people who feel very strongly about this issue will do everything they can to get you to shut up.
00:35:39.000 And you know what, Andrew?
00:35:40.000 That is their job.
00:35:42.000 I don't hold that against them.
00:35:44.000 And the idea that that would make me embrace Russia as the good guys because the Ukrainians are behaving insane at the extremes. 1.00
00:35:55.000 That's insane because I don't answer to the inverse of what the most extreme people in a lobby are doing.
00:36:01.000 I answer to my God.
00:36:03.000 I have to face myself in the mirror.
00:36:05.000 So, you know, and the fact that there are these loons at the extreme of the Ukraine lobby, that doesn't even influence how I think about Zelensky or the Ukrainian people or the vast majority of the people who think we should be funding the war in Ukraine. 0.93
00:36:21.000 I have a policy difference that makes me very unpopular with a very big group of people and the extremes of them are extreme in their opposition to me and think I should be dead for having my view.
00:36:33.000 The idea that I would allow that to influence my view would make me an unserious person.
00:36:38.000 So do I think there are people in the Israel lobby who embarrass me because they are extreme?
00:36:43.000 Sure.
00:36:44.000 Do I think Israel itself has in some ways behaved badly, especially vis-a-vis our president, the greatest friend the Jewish people have ever had?
00:36:53.000 Yes.
00:36:54.000 Does that, if somebody allows that to determine whether they interview Holocaust survivors, if anybody telling you that that is an excuse to become anti-Semitic, I think is not a morally serious person.
00:37:08.000 That is a person who is not answering to their God.
00:37:10.000 That is a person who is answering to the inverse of the algorithm.
00:37:13.000 And I look down on that.
00:37:15.000 Yeah.
00:37:15.000 Yeah.
00:37:16.000 And I know that you think some of the reaction has been counterproductive.
00:37:19.000 So I just wanted to give you an opportunity to say that.
00:37:22.000 And listen, I am going to convince you on JD Vance.
00:37:25.000 It's just going to happen.
00:37:27.000 I know.
00:37:27.000 And I'm going to take a bow and the internet's going to know because JD Vance is a good man.
00:37:31.000 And I know you want to believe.
00:37:33.000 And I know you're waiting for the signal to proceed.
00:37:38.000 We're going to get you there, Batya.
00:37:40.000 Thank you for joining on this 23rd of December, two days before our Christian Christmas.