The Charlie Kirk Show - America's Economic Boom + Sydney Sweeney Sends Liberals Into a Rage Spiral

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.

00:00:04.000 Trump's economic boom.

00:00:05.000 Douglas Mackin nearly went to go to jail for making a meme.

00:00:08.000 And then what is this American Eagle ad all about Nazi propaganda?

00:00:12.000 We address that.

00:00:12.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.

00:00:16.000 That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

00:00:18.000 That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

00:00:20.000 Get involved with Turning PointUSA today at tpusa.com.

00:00:23.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:25.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:26.000 Here we go.

00:00:27.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:29.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:31.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:34.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:37.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:38.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:39.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:41.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA History.

00:00:48.000 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.

00:00:57.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:25.000 Joining us now is Stephen Moore.

00:01:28.000 Talk all about Trump's economy, author of Trump's Economic Miracle and Senior Economic Contributor for Freedom Works.

00:01:36.000 Let's go to Stephen Moore.

00:01:38.000 Stephen, great to see you.

00:01:38.000 Thank you so much for the time.

00:01:40.000 Oh my gosh, what a day.

00:01:41.000 I mean, I cannot believe these numbers that came out today, Charlie.

00:01:45.000 Trump is just hitting it out of the park.

00:01:48.000 And do you remember five months ago when all the leftists said, oh, Trump is going to cause a second Great Depression.

00:01:54.000 He's going to destroy the economy.

00:01:55.000 The stock market's going to crash.

00:01:57.000 We got the news today of 3% economic growth for the second quarter.

00:02:02.000 That's higher than any quarter, I believe, in the four years that Biden was president.

00:02:08.000 This economy is cooking right now.

00:02:10.000 Yeah, so let's take a step back.

00:02:11.000 So the GDP comes in stronger than expected.

00:02:15.000 Again, the media is not covering any of this.

00:02:17.000 So let's go to cut 382.

00:02:19.000 Better than expected.

00:02:21.000 Let's go to cut 382, please.

00:02:23.000 Up 3%.

00:02:25.000 Up 3%.

00:02:26.000 Better than expected.

00:02:28.000 That would be the highest level since the third quarter of 24 when it was up 3.1%.

00:02:34.000 On the consumption side, up 1.4, very close to estimates.

00:02:38.000 Up 1.4 would be the best since the last quarter of 24.

00:02:43.000 And Steve, this is without the enactment of some of the additional Trump tax cuts like full depreciation.

00:02:51.000 And so it conceivably could get even better.

00:02:54.000 But Steve, one of the things that I think is important here is how wrong the expert class was on this.

00:03:01.000 Remember back in spring, they said that we're barreling towards a recession.

00:03:07.000 JP Morgan says odds of recession are increasing.

00:03:11.000 The credential class.

00:03:12.000 Your thoughts, Steve Moore?

00:03:13.000 No, that's exactly right.

00:03:15.000 I mean, we have something in our hotline today.

00:03:18.000 And if people want to get that, just go to unleashprosperity.com and sign up.

00:03:22.000 It's free.

00:03:22.000 But we had this great piece that Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize, probably the leading economic voice on the left, who's saying Trump is going to crash the economy.

00:03:32.000 He's going to destroy the American economy.

00:03:34.000 And here we are.

00:03:35.000 I doubt he's going to initiate an apology for that.

00:03:38.000 But this, and by the way, I was wrong.

00:03:41.000 When I saw the economy in April, remember the stock market was bowing down by 2,500 points and it just looked kind of glum.

00:03:48.000 But Trump has pulled off all of these trade deals, one after another.

00:03:53.000 And you know me, Charlie, I'm not a big tariff guy, but he's been able to get all these countries to give America a freer and fairer level playing field, which is huge for America's farmers, our manufacturers, our car producers, our dairy farmers, our tech companies.

00:04:10.000 And I can't keep up with the guy, frankly.

00:04:12.000 So I want to actually zero in on that.

00:04:15.000 You're not a tariff guy, but do you now think differently about how Trump has used tariffs to get to a free trade aim?

00:04:21.000 How tariffs can actually be a tool?

00:04:24.000 Can you dive into that?

00:04:25.000 Spend some time, Steve, because you're not against tariffs in implementation, but are you now open to tariffs as a tool towards a freer market?

00:04:35.000 So that's a great question.

00:04:36.000 And so let me, I think we all know, if anyone who's an economist knows that trade is what economics is all about.

00:04:43.000 Charlie, if you and I trade voluntarily, by definition, we're better off.

00:04:47.000 I give you something you want.

00:04:48.000 You give me something I want.

00:04:50.000 That's the essence of what economics is all about.

00:04:54.000 And so, you know, Milton Friedman always taught us that free trade is critical, one of the most important things for an economy.

00:05:00.000 But what was happening is we were charging fairly low tariffs.

00:05:04.000 And all these other countries, as Trump was saying, were ripping us off because they were charging these very high tariffs.

00:05:09.000 And so what Trump was basically, remember, he said, oh, we're going to charge 50% tariffs on these countries.

00:05:15.000 That was prototypical Donald Trump.

00:05:19.000 He always opens with a big number.

00:05:21.000 And that scared the, excuse my language, the crap out of the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese. 1.00

00:05:26.000 I mean, they have to have access to America's markets because we're the alpha male economy. 1.00

00:05:32.000 We're the $20 trillion consumer market.

00:05:35.000 And he used these threats of tariffs in a very strategic way to force these countries.

00:05:41.000 I mean, do you remember Charlie three months ago when the Europeans said, oh, to hell with Trump, we're never going to make a deal with him.

00:05:46.000 Remember that?

00:05:47.000 Yeah, I do.

00:05:48.000 I do.

00:05:49.000 Yeah.

00:05:49.000 And then what happened two days ago?

00:05:53.000 They came to the negotiating table.

00:05:55.000 And so it's a perfect example of how Trump uses America's.

00:06:02.000 What he's doing, Charlie, is he is flexing America's economic muscle and putting the country first.

00:06:10.000 And that has a lot of these Europeans and the Chinese very indignant because, you know what? 1.00

00:06:15.000 It's like we took the kick-me sign off of us.

00:06:18.000 No, that's exactly right.

00:06:20.000 And so, Steve, the free trade dogma, though, they were so critical of Trump.

00:06:25.000 Do you see amongst the intellectuals, the intelligentsia, at least an admission That Trump was right and that his way of proceeding here was correct?

00:06:36.000 Are we going to see any contrition?

00:06:38.000 Good question.

00:06:39.000 It's a little early to say, but I have to say, I've seen a couple of, I think it was the New York Times of all places, don't quote me on that, because it was one of the more left-leaning publications saying, hey, you know, Trump's policies on trade seem to be working.

00:06:56.000 And I thought, wow, that's an admission.

00:06:58.000 But how could you conclude otherwise?

00:06:59.000 We have high growth.

00:07:00.000 We've got a record high stock market.

00:07:02.000 We've got 8 million surplus jobs.

00:07:04.000 We've got fairly low inflation.

00:07:06.000 It's a little higher than we'd like it to be, but fairly low.

00:07:09.000 You've got consumer confidence in an all-time high.

00:07:11.000 You got business confidence good.

00:07:13.000 I mean, Charlie, point to me one thing that's going wrong.

00:07:16.000 Yeah.

00:07:17.000 And so that's actually the good segue to the question I want to ask.

00:07:20.000 What, if any, is there an economic metric that has you concerned that could be a gateway to a recession, if not addressed?

00:07:27.000 What would have you concerned?

00:07:29.000 You know, I don't like trade wars.

00:07:31.000 So I still worry about that.

00:07:33.000 It keeps me up at night.

00:07:34.000 But Trump is winning on these things, country after country.

00:07:38.000 And incidentally, one of the things, again, this is so vintage Trump.

00:07:41.000 I've learned a lot from him, Cho, just watching him and being around him.

00:07:46.000 So what he's done is, you know, when he remember when Liberation Day came out, I mean, America crashed, everybody thought, oh my God, the world's coming to an end.

00:07:53.000 And then what happened is a few of these countries said, hey, we'll make a deal.

00:07:57.000 And then a few more countries said, we'll make a deal.

00:08:00.000 And as more and more countries came to the negotiating table, what did that do?

00:08:04.000 It put pressure on Japan.

00:08:05.000 It put pressure on Korea.

00:08:07.000 It put pressure on China and the Europeans, who, as I said, two months ago, they said, hell no, we're not going to make a deal with you.

00:08:15.000 And there they were yesterday signing on the dotted line.

00:08:18.000 So Trump is truly a master negotiator.

00:08:22.000 I do worry sometimes he might go too far on the tariffs, but so far it's been a home run.

00:08:27.000 You and I both worry about out-of-control government spending.

00:08:30.000 I think the thing that really worries me the most is we have, you know, we have a $7 trillion budget.

00:08:37.000 I give Trump some credit.

00:08:39.000 They cut $10 billion out of it.

00:08:41.000 Oh my God, the left went crazy.

00:08:42.000 Like everybody's going to die.

00:08:44.000 It is outrageous because I'm afraid that if there was any concern that I have, it's a debt crisis.

00:08:49.000 I think that the economy is actually, fundamentally, pretty good.

00:08:52.000 Employment's pretty good.

00:08:53.000 Growth is good.

00:08:54.000 Money velocity is good.

00:08:55.000 Consumer spending can get a little better.

00:08:57.000 But we could potentially see a debt crisis.

00:09:00.000 And I want to address that.

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00:09:59.000 Steve Moore is with us.

00:10:00.000 Steve, I'm not overly concerned about this, but can you at least go from a macroeconomic view that when we have a debt burden like we have, the only solution we have is growth plus some cuts.

00:10:12.000 We got some cuts in the one big beautiful bill.

00:10:14.000 I wish we would have gotten even more, but President Trump did not get what he wanted.

00:10:18.000 A lot of moderate Republicans blocked him.

00:10:20.000 So therefore, we have to go all in on growth.

00:10:23.000 Is that assessment one that you agree with?

00:10:26.000 I do.

00:10:27.000 And I've been saying this for the last five years or so to any Republicans or politicians who will listen that if we can get to 3% growth, in other words, if you look at those scary charts that show the debt going up and up and up and up and up into the stratosphere over the next 30 years, those are very, very frightening numbers.

00:10:50.000 They show our debt going to 200% of GDP, which would be ruinous for our country.

00:10:55.000 But they project 1.7% growth annual.

00:10:58.000 Well, wait, to that, I say, hell no.

00:11:00.000 The U.S. economy over the last 100 years has grown at 3% to 3.5% per year.

00:11:06.000 And Trump gets this.

00:11:08.000 You grow the economy, you get more revenues, you get less people collecting welfare, you get higher payroll taxes from people working.

00:11:17.000 And we saw that, by the way, you saw what happened in June, didn't you?

00:11:21.000 With the deficit actually fell in June because the economy is doing so well.

00:11:26.000 So you are absolutely 100% correct, my friend.

00:11:29.000 If we get to 3% growth and we stay on that path, which Trump has now put us on, we start bending that curve down.

00:11:36.000 And over the next 30 years, we actually alleviate the debt crisis.

00:11:40.000 Yeah.

00:11:41.000 And so let's also put 422 up on screen.

00:11:45.000 That is the debt will nearly double.

00:11:47.000 That's right.

00:11:47.000 The debt will nearly double in 30 years.

00:11:51.000 And so growth is the path forward.

00:11:54.000 Yes.

00:11:54.000 And yet getting Congress to be able to agree to cuts is basically impossible.

00:12:02.000 And I'm sure you can agree with that, Steve.

00:12:05.000 They seem so reluctant or recalcitrant to engage with any spending cuts whatsoever.

00:12:12.000 And so, Stephen, Steve, let's just kind of broaden this one final time here in the time we have remaining.

00:12:21.000 That the next 18 months to two years to have proper growth is essential.

00:12:27.000 And if we don't, we could have a European sovereign debt crisis.

00:12:32.000 So I'm going to send you a chart, Charlie.

00:12:34.000 I'm going to send it to you and a manager who manages this show.

00:12:39.000 And I want you to show it on the air tomorrow because I'm going to show you that chart.

00:12:43.000 You just put it.

00:12:43.000 Can you put that chart back up for a minute?

00:12:46.000 Yes.

00:12:46.000 Okay, because I want people to see that chart.

00:12:49.000 So here's the thing.

00:12:50.000 I'm going to send you a chart that's a variation of that that shows what happens if you have 3% growth.

00:12:56.000 And you know what?

00:12:57.000 That chart that's so alarming, it starts to bend down and it goes down.

00:13:02.000 By the way, if we got 3.5% growth in 30 years, we start paying down the debt.

00:13:06.000 So that's why growth is important.

00:13:08.000 One other quick thing because I know time is tight.

00:13:11.000 It was Ronald Reagan, and I'm very proud to have worked for Ronald Reagan.

00:13:14.000 I believe he belongs on Mount Rushmore for what he did for our country.

00:13:17.000 He used to say that the closest thing to immortality on this earth is a federal government program.

00:13:23.000 And I believed that for 30 years, but guess what?

00:13:25.000 Did you see what happened last week with Trump's rescission package?

00:13:29.000 He got rid of 20 programs.

00:13:33.000 What else is in that rescission package that we should know of?

00:13:36.000 Oh, we got rid of the corrupt foreign aid.

00:13:38.000 You know, we've spent a half a trillion dollars on foreign aid.

00:13:41.000 I don't think it's helped any person except the globalists.

00:13:44.000 We got rid of the, remember the electric vehicle mandate that Biden said everybody has to buy an electric car?

00:13:49.000 We got rid of that.

00:13:50.000 We got rid of PBS funding.

00:13:53.000 And by the way, I occasionally watch PBS.

00:13:55.000 I'll watch, but you know what?

00:13:57.000 Why can't people want to watch it?

00:13:59.000 Why can't they pay for it?

00:14:00.000 I mean, Elmo is one of the richest guys on the planet.

00:14:03.000 I think he's even richer than you are.

00:14:06.000 Why do we have to be subsidizing?

00:14:08.000 So we got rid of that.

00:14:10.000 We got rid of all these programs you never even heard of, all these global this, global that, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:15.000 Why are we sending all this money abroad when we can't pay our bills here at home?

00:14:20.000 Yeah, and by the way, NPR got a surge in private donations.

00:14:23.000 Good.

00:14:24.000 It shows that you guys could have been funding yourself without government money.

00:14:28.000 That's the whole point.

00:14:30.000 Go fund yourself through private donations like we have to do at Turning Point USA.

00:14:35.000 At Turning Point USA, we raise over $100 million a year, 500,000 donors.

00:14:40.000 We don't get any money from the U.S. Treasury.

00:14:43.000 And you have to prove that you deserve to exist.

00:14:46.000 And by the way, you get money because you provide a value-added to the American economy.

00:14:51.000 And that's why people fund you.

00:14:53.000 And that's fantastic.

00:14:54.000 Love what you're doing.

00:14:55.000 Well, thank you.

00:14:56.000 Thank you.

00:14:56.000 It means a lot, Steve.

00:14:57.000 And I agree.

00:14:58.000 We do have a value add, whereas NPR, it's not going to have to justify its existence.

00:15:01.000 Same with PBS.

00:15:03.000 Thank you so much, Steve.

00:15:04.000 Really appreciate it.

00:15:04.000 Thank you.

00:15:05.000 Me too.

00:15:08.000 I visit hundreds of campuses every year, and I see it everywhere.

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00:16:20.000 Joining us now is a great man who was persecuted by our own government.

00:16:25.000 This Douglas Mackey, remember, meme defensefund.com and also his lawyer, James Burnham, managing partner at King Street Legal.

00:16:34.000 Douglas, so glad to see you free and winning your case.

00:16:37.000 Douglas, take some time right now to tell this story to our audience in your own words.

00:16:43.000 What happened to you?

00:16:44.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:16:45.000 I posted a joking meme in the 2016 election cycle saying that you could text your vote for Hillary Clinton, stay home, avoid the line, blah, blah, blah.

00:16:56.000 And I found this meme on 4chan and just shared it, thought it was funny.

00:17:00.000 Four years later, two days after Joe Biden was inaugurated, they got a warrant for my arrest.

00:17:07.000 Seven days after Joe Biden was inaugurated, I got the knock on the door from the FBI.

00:17:11.000 I got arrested.

00:17:12.000 I was convicted in 2023 for a conspiracy against Rice for posting this meme.

00:17:18.000 The judge said I should report to prison on January 18th of 2024.

00:17:25.000 We had to go to the appeals court just to get a bond saying that I should at least be able to wait for the appeal to go to prison for posting a funny meme.

00:17:34.000 They claimed it was a conspiracy to steal people's votes against their rights.

00:17:39.000 And we had a very strong appeal and a great legal team, including Jones Day attorneys.

00:17:45.000 And we just got the news a few weeks back that we won the case.

00:17:51.000 And the reason is because the government brought a case with insufficient evidence and no rational jury should have convicted me on these charges.

00:17:58.000 Maybe that's why they brought it in Brooklyn, New York, which is one of the most diverse and liberal left-leaning districts in the country, even though there was no connection to Brooklyn.

00:18:08.000 So I'm extremely grateful to be vindicated and very grateful for all the support I've gotten from everybody, from my family, friends, and the media, of course.

00:18:18.000 So, I mean, this is important.

00:18:20.000 I mean, telling jokes is a crime.

00:18:22.000 It was in the Soviet Union.

00:18:23.000 Telling political jokes under Stalin could land you in a gulag for 10 years.

00:18:27.000 In Nazi Germany, laughter was basically treason.

00:18:30.000 Jokes about Hitler were considered acts of treason and defeatist humor.

00:18:34.000 North Korea, comedy doesn't exist.

00:18:36.000 Xi Jiping, they have a ban in China on the Winnie the Pooh meme.

00:18:42.000 You cannot use the Winnie the Pooh meme in China.

00:18:45.000 It's true.

00:18:46.000 All Winnie the Pooh imagery of Xi Ji Ping has been banned from the internet.

00:18:50.000 Memes, jokes, or cartoons using the likeness of Xi Jiping as Winnie the Pooh is banned.

00:18:56.000 In Iran, humor is blasphemy.

00:18:58.000 Jokes about religion, the Ayatollah, or modesty can lead to imprisonment.

00:19:02.000 Cuba, well, only one part of humor only.

00:19:04.000 You can only have shows critical of America, but not of the regime.

00:19:09.000 Venezuela, comedians who mocked Chavez or Maduro were threatened, censored, or sometimes even forced into exile.

00:19:14.000 In East Germany, Stasian whisper jokes. 1.00

00:19:16.000 Same thing in Saudi Arabia or Turkey.

00:19:20.000 This is a primary attribute of a totalitarian country.

00:19:24.000 James, I want you to come in here.

00:19:25.000 You're managing partner at King Street Legal.

00:19:27.000 You represented Douglas.

00:19:28.000 Douglas, James, what did you learn about the government, their case, and the overextension of government power during Douglas' story?

00:19:37.000 Yeah, so I mean, there's like three things I think are worth highlighting.

00:19:40.000 So the first is just I want to emphasize the timeline because the timeline in this case is really, really deeply offensive.

00:19:47.000 Doug sent the meme in the 2016 election.

00:19:50.000 That's the Hillary Clinton election.

00:19:52.000 Okay.

00:19:52.000 The Justice Department lawyers in Brooklyn did whatever they did for the entirety of the Trump administration.

00:19:57.000 They investigated it, whatever.

00:19:59.000 They waited until the second day of the Biden administration to send a team of armed federal agents, guns, the jackets, the works, maximum intimidation.

00:20:09.000 They don't normally arrest nonviolent offenders in real cases, let alone fake cases.

00:20:14.000 They send a team of armed people to arrest Doug on the second day of the Biden administration.

00:20:19.000 You know, you talk about totalitarian regimes and totalitarian tactics.

00:20:23.000 That is maximum intimidation.

00:20:25.000 Biden won.

00:20:26.000 Now you're screwed.

00:20:27.000 We're coming after you.

00:20:28.000 That meme is making fun of Hillary and that's not acceptable. 1.00

00:20:31.000 So I just think that timeline is so important.

00:20:33.000 On the substance, look, the theory of the case is ludicrous.

00:20:37.000 They charged Doug under a statute that said that was passed after the Civil War to deal with the Ku Klux Klan blockading polling places in Alabama or whatever.

00:20:48.000 And lots of people conspire to forcibly deny the right to vote.

00:20:53.000 Okay, they did not pass the statute about memes.

00:20:55.000 Americans have a constitutional right to send memes.

00:20:59.000 Our founding fathers in the revolutionary generation were powered by memes.

00:21:02.000 The Gadson flag is one of the most famous memes in American history.

00:21:07.000 And so process and substance, just a horrible tragedy.

00:21:11.000 And then the last thing I want to say, just because I think it's a fun fact, the lawyer who actually won Doug's appeal in the Second Circuit, my former partner at Jones Day, I used to work there, Yakov Roth, is now the number two official in the civil division at the Justice Department.

00:21:25.000 So the president has brought in the people who overturned this injustice, and now they're working for him to defend him against all the people who are trying to stop his administration from making America great again.

00:21:35.000 So Douglas, what did this do to you personally?

00:21:38.000 I mean, again, you had the feds come raid you and come after you right after Biden wins.

00:21:41.000 And James is exactly right.

00:21:43.000 This is Moscow show trial stuff.

00:21:45.000 It's all about intimidation, show of force, trying to make an example.

00:21:48.000 If you dare criticize the regime, we will raid your home and we will put you in jail.

00:21:52.000 Douglas, what did this do to you personally?

00:21:55.000 The demoralization campaign?

00:21:57.000 All you did was share a funny meme and you were facing federal prison time.

00:22:01.000 Douglas.

00:22:02.000 Yeah, this has been the most difficult thing I've had to endure in my life.

00:22:06.000 You can imagine the effect it had on myself, but also my friends and family seeing me get arrested and then it's on the news.

00:22:14.000 They leaked it to Rachel Maddow.

00:22:15.000 I wonder how that happened.

00:22:17.000 So she led with it on her broadcast.

00:22:19.000 So you can only imagine and all the people, fortunately, as they saw the facts of the case, they realized that I was innocent.

00:22:26.000 But you can imagine federal criminal case, millions of dollars of legal fees.

00:22:32.000 I didn't have any ability to pay.

00:22:33.000 I said, how in the world am I going to pay for this?

00:22:36.000 Very fortunate that the American people rallied around me and helped me fund the case.

00:22:40.000 But even then, I still owe a lot of money on this case.

00:22:43.000 Those bills have not been paid in full.

00:22:46.000 And it goes, the list goes on and on, the stress of myself, my wife, who we got married during the middle of the case because we said, look, we can't wait forever to get married.

00:22:56.000 Who knows?

00:22:57.000 This could take 10 years.

00:22:58.000 So we got married.

00:22:59.000 Then right after we got the marriage date, then we hear the trial is going to be like six weeks after the wedding.

00:23:06.000 How's that for a honeymoon? 0.95

00:23:08.000 I found out that my wife was pregnant at the very beginning of the trial.

00:23:13.000 And I was sentenced later that year in October.

00:23:16.000 And so my wife was hospitalized with a difficult pregnancy.

00:23:21.000 I had to leave her at the hospital, jump on an airplane to go to my trial.

00:23:25.000 Excuse me, my sentencing.

00:23:27.000 As soon as I touch down in Brooklyn, New York, because I live in Florida now, I get the news that she has to have an emergency C-section 8 p.m. that night.

00:23:35.000 Can't wait.

00:23:36.000 So I had no choice but to just go to the sentencing in the morning and then go after to see my wife and new baby son.

00:23:44.000 And it was extremely difficult.

00:23:45.000 We were in the hospital for months in the NICU, all while dealing with a federal criminal case.

00:23:51.000 We had no idea if I was going to have to report to prison.

00:23:54.000 We had to, like I said, get a bond.

00:23:56.000 And you can imagine how much money it costs just to appeal a bond.

00:24:00.000 And to have this looming over my head for so long is extremely stressful.

00:24:04.000 And the personal cost, imagine all the people who think that I'm the kind of guy who would go steal people's votes.

00:24:11.000 I mean, the defamation.

00:24:13.000 So it's been extremely costly.

00:24:16.000 Yeah.

00:24:16.000 And so, James, what now is the legal path forward?

00:24:20.000 Is Douglas suing the federal government?

00:24:22.000 Because this seems like malicious prosecution.

00:24:24.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:24:25.000 So justice for Doug has sort of two components.

00:24:28.000 The first one is to try the best we can to get the government to make Doug whole for what happened to him.

00:24:34.000 You know, no amount of money can ever give him those years of his life back, but hopefully we can at least get him some justice by suing the government.

00:24:40.000 Process-wise, the way that works, the district court is going to issue a definitive dismissal of the case soon.

00:24:47.000 He won the appeal.

00:24:48.000 It comes back.

00:24:48.000 The case goes away.

00:24:49.000 And then we go to the Justice Department and we file a claim on Doug's behalf with the department.

00:24:54.000 I have every confidence that the Attorney General Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Blanche, and the rest of the great Justice Department team are going to want to make this right and make things whole for Doug.

00:25:03.000 So that's one part.

00:25:04.000 But then the other part is making sure that there's accountability for the people that did this to him so that it never happens to anybody again.

00:25:11.000 And so that means making sure that there's a proper investigation into what happened.

00:25:15.000 We don't know what happened here.

00:25:17.000 The defendants in criminal cases have very few tools to get information from the government.

00:25:21.000 So we need to work with the Justice Department to do a real internal investigation into what happened here.

00:25:26.000 Was it all politics?

00:25:27.000 Was it just malevolent prosecutors?

00:25:29.000 What happened?

00:25:30.000 And then we need to find ways to hold them accountable.

00:25:32.000 And that could include suing them personally.

00:25:34.000 It could include misconduct complaints with the department.

00:25:36.000 And we're not going to stop at anything until we've both made this right for Doug and done everything we can to make sure that this never happens again in the United States.

00:25:45.000 Final thoughts, Douglas.

00:25:47.000 How can the audience support you and help you give some final marching orders here, Douglas Mackey, who nearly went to federal prison for a meme?

00:25:53.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:25:54.000 You can follow me at Doug MackeyCase.

00:25:56.000 And, you know, like I said, there's still legal bills left over.

00:25:59.000 We don't Know what's going to happen with the settlement.

00:26:01.000 So, if anybody wants to chip in a few dollars, meme defensefund.com.

00:26:06.000 Meme defensefund.com.

00:26:08.000 Thank you guys so much, meme defensefund.com.

00:26:10.000 God bless you both.

00:26:11.000 Thank you so much, Douglas and James.

00:26:12.000 Thank you.

00:26:13.000 Thank you.

00:26:16.000 America's small businesses rely on TikTok to succeed.

00:26:19.000 We go viral on TikTok, reaching billions of young people every year.

00:26:23.000 It's one of the reasons why we were able to win the youth vote.

00:26:25.000 Well, TikTok helps businesses attract more customers and drive growth.

00:26:29.000 From small batch sellers to fast-growing brands, 74% of businesses on TikTok say it's helped them scale by hiring more employees, boosting sales, and expanding to new locations.

00:26:40.000 Like Arizona Taco King, who grew from a mom-and-pop taco cart to two thriving restaurants in just a year.

00:26:45.000 Or Coco Asante, who upgraded to a larger facility and brought on more staff, letting their handcrafted chocolates reach more customers.

00:26:52.000 Or Dan O. Seasoning, who went from a one-man show to a team of 45, now supporting dozens of hardworking families.

00:26:58.000 With TikTok, small businesses are thriving, finding their customers, and expanding.

00:27:02.000 Learn more about TikTok's contribution to the U.S. economy at TikTokEconomic Impact.com.

00:27:07.000 TikTokEconomicImpact.com.

00:27:12.000 Okay, so this story just seemed kind of goofy, to be honest with you.

00:27:16.000 I kind of skimmed it, and the fact it's gone viral is just so stunning.

00:27:21.000 So apparently, an actress by the name of Sidney Sweeney did an advertisement for American Eagle jeans, and they did something kind of, you know, lighthearted.

00:27:31.000 Oh, she has great jeans. 0.95

00:27:32.000 And while she was wearing jeans, okay. 0.68

00:27:34.000 And everyone lost their mind now calling this Nazi propaganda, saying that this is fascism if you like Sidney Sweeney wearing jeans.

00:27:45.000 Now, first of all, the idea of like jeans mattering, isn't that the entire idea of 23andMe and Ancestry.com?

00:27:51.000 Haven't we had this entire like mass proliferation of you spit into a thing and you come back and you find out all about your genes?

00:27:58.000 But no, you can't talk about jeans because that's eugenics. 1.00

00:28:01.000 This is good morning America.

00:28:03.000 They've made this.

00:28:04.000 You want to know why young men are moving right? 0.97

00:28:07.000 Because young men, they're like, oh, wow, I like Sidney Sweeney or whatever. 0.99

00:28:10.000 You know, some of these Gen Z men, you're a fascist. 1.00

00:28:13.000 Oh, really?

00:28:13.000 You're going to call young men a fascist?

00:28:15.000 The best way I could put this, let's play cut 425 and I'll give you an example.

00:28:19.000 425.

00:28:20.000 We begin with the backlash of our new ad campaign featuring actress Sidney Sweeney.

00:28:24.000 Yeah, the ads are for American Eagle and the tagline is Sidney Sweeney has great genes.

00:28:29.000 Now in one ad, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actress talks about genes as in DNA being passed down from her parents. 0.93

00:28:35.000 The play on words is being compared to Nazi propaganda with racial undertones.

00:28:43.000 The pun good genes activates a troubling historical associations for this country.

00:28:51.000 The American eugenics movement in its prime between like 1900 and 1940 weaponized the idea of good genes just to justify white supremacism.

00:29:03.000 Despite that backlash, American Eagle stock has been soaring.

00:29:07.000 I mean, you want to know why young men are moving to the right?

00:29:09.000 Here they are in ABC with some old crow saying that this is pushing forward eugenicism.

00:29:17.000 I want to just, for those in the older audience, imagine if they would have done this with like Brooke Shields or Kathy Ireland 30 or 40 years ago.

00:29:25.000 And the entire left is losing their mind.

00:29:27.000 They're saying that Sidney Sweeney is Nazi propaganda.

00:29:31.000 And honestly, the ad was like, okay, it wasn't like that unique.

00:29:34.000 It's not nowhere close to offensive.

00:29:36.000 They did the same ad with Brooke Shields, but we now have a bunch of what I call the Subaru gang. 0.98

00:29:42.000 You know what I mean by the Subaru gang.

00:29:45.000 PlayCut 427, chief leader.

00:29:47.000 She is the grand marshal of the Subaru gang.

00:29:50.000 PlayCut 427.

00:29:52.000 Should we be surprised that a company whose name is literally American Eagle is making fascist propaganda like this?

00:29:59.000 Probably not, but it's still really shocking.

00:30:02.000 Like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman is talking about her good jeans. 0.99

00:30:10.000 Like that is Nazi propaganda.

00:30:14.000 I don't want to insult people's looks, but it's obviously you're jealous.

00:30:17.000 That's just, that's the undertone of all this.

00:30:20.000 And what this 428, why do these women disfigure themselves with like this Ply Cut 428? 1.00

00:30:26.000 You guys are complaining about that Sydney Sweeney jeans ad, so I went and saw it.

00:30:32.000 That's Nazi propaganda. 0.78

00:30:34.000 Wow.

00:30:36.000 I thought it was going to be like kind of bad.

00:30:40.000 That's going to be in history, but okay.

00:30:43.000 Now the owner of American Eagle is like super Jewish, gives a lot of money away. 1.00

00:30:47.000 That doesn't even matter to these people, of course not.

00:30:49.000 And cut 426.

00:30:51.000 Hey, you want to go to American Eagle?

00:30:54.000 Oh, I can't go in there because I'm black.

00:30:56.000 Thank you.

00:31:01.000 Yeah, that's funny, I guess.

00:31:05.000 Look, you want to know why young men are moving to the right?

00:31:07.000 A bunch of these women, part of the Subaru gang, are screaming and yelling at them for being fascist.

00:31:14.000 Brooke Shields literally did an ad about this in the 1980s.

00:31:19.000 Brooke Shields kind of had a similar type of, let's just say, archetype as Sidney Sweeney does for young men.

00:31:26.000 You want to know why young men are moving to the right.

00:31:30.000 They look at a jeans advertisement and they're called Nazis and fascists and they say, forget it.

00:31:34.000 I'm not associating with you guys calling me names all the time.

00:31:38.000 So let's actually play the ad in question.

00:31:40.000 This is the Sidney Sweeney ad.

00:31:42.000 Again, I didn't find anything that interesting.

00:31:46.000 Like I saw, like someone sent it to me early on like, okay, whatever.

00:31:49.000 I got better stuff to do.

00:31:50.000 But apparently, this is the most important story for the American left.

00:31:54.000 It's pure Nazi propaganda. 0.84

00:31:57.000 One of my Jewish friends from Chicago said, I watched it.

00:32:00.000 It reacted, no big deal.

00:32:01.000 Like, what are you even talking about?

00:32:03.000 This is not like the rise of the Third Reich.

00:32:08.000 And they say, oh, well, how dare you say that genes matter?

00:32:10.000 Like, G-E-N-E. 1.00

00:32:11.000 Like, look, some people have good genes.

00:32:13.000 By the way, President Donald Trump has talked about genes forever.

00:32:15.000 President Trump has great genes.

00:32:16.000 He's able to stay up all night.

00:32:18.000 You know who else has good genes?

00:32:19.000 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has good genes.

00:32:22.000 Kevin Garnett had good genes.

00:32:23.000 Michael Jordan had good genes.

00:32:25.000 Some people have high IQs.

00:32:27.000 Some people can run very fast.

00:32:29.000 Some people are very agile.

00:32:30.000 Some people don't require a lot of sleep.

00:32:33.000 It's a play on words.

00:32:34.000 This is a perfect example why I think the South Park thing is so funny.

00:32:37.000 Stop taking yourself so seriously.

00:32:40.000 But now they are going all in: ABC News, American Left.

00:32:45.000 It is a perfect, a premier example as to why the young men of the West have moved right so dramatically.

00:32:53.000 Okay, so let's play the Sidney Sweeney, then we'll play the Brooks Shields one.

00:32:57.000 Play Cut 430.

00:32:58.000 I'm not here to tell you to buy American Eagle jeans.

00:33:01.000 And I definitely won't say that they're the most comfortable jeans I've ever worn.

00:33:06.000 Or that they make your butt look amazing.

00:33:11.000 Why would I need to do that?

00:33:14.000 But if you said that you want to buy the jeans, I'm not going to stop you.

00:33:19.000 But just so we're clear, this is not me telling you to buy American Eagle jeans.

00:33:23.000 Sidney Sweeney has very keen.

00:33:26.000 You see what I did there, right?

00:33:28.000 Okay, yeah, I mean, obviously, it's supposed to be a little bit, I guess, like enticing.

00:33:34.000 Okay, why is the just for the record?

00:33:37.000 How look, the Carls Jr. ad had like a woman like wearing almost no clothes. 1.00

00:33:42.000 Remember that whole thing?

00:33:43.000 what was the woman? 0.95

00:33:45.000 It was very...

00:33:50.000 Again, like this is kind of the way that advertisements are done.

00:33:53.000 Shouldn't like overly offend anybody.

00:33:54.000 It's kind of a boring commercial.

00:33:56.000 That's what fires up the American left.

00:34:00.000 And there's actually a more quote-unquote controversial version of the ad campaign.

00:34:03.000 But first, let's play Brooke Shields 429.

00:34:06.000 The secret of life lies hidden in the genetic code.

00:34:09.000 Genes are fundamental in determining the characteristics of an individual and passing on these characteristics to succeeding generations.

00:34:19.000 Occasionally, certain conditions produce a structural change in the gene, which will bring about the process of evolution.

00:34:28.000 This may occur in one or more of the following ways.

00:34:31.000 Firstly, by selective mating, in which a single gene type proves superior in transmitting its genes to future generations.

00:34:40.000 And by the way, all these people that are so angry about, oh, this is eugenics, they're probably almost all Planned Parenthood supporters, and that's actually how Planned Parenthood started, which is eugenics.

00:34:50.000 So they're mad at American Eagle for making a joke about genes, but they're fine with Planned Parenthood being an actual eugenics enterprise. 0.58

00:34:58.000 This is where we are as a society and as a culture.

00:35:02.000 But there's a lot of angry liberal women right now. 1.00

00:35:06.000 Why do you think they're angry?

00:35:09.000 I think we all know why they're angry.

00:35:11.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:12.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:15.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - July 31, 2025

America's Economic Boom + Sydney Sweeney Sends Liberals Into a Rage Spiral

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