The Charlie Kirk Show - Be True To Your Beliefs, and Succeed: A Chat with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:02.000 So, we have a special project at Turning Point USA where we train and encourage student leaders to run for student body president.

00:00:10.000 And we just recently had them at a conversation with Speaker Kevin McCarthy in DC, and this was our conversation.

00:00:16.000 Speaker McCarthy showed them around the United States House of Representatives.

00:00:20.000 He was a great host.

00:00:21.000 And instead of the typical political chat, he talked about leadership and the advice that he had for our young student leaders.

00:00:28.000 If you guys want to support Turning Point USA, you can go to tpusa.com.

00:00:31.000 That's tpusa.com.

00:00:34.000 Get engaged and get involved.

00:00:36.000 I think you guys will really enjoy this conversation.

00:00:38.000 It might be a little different than what you are expecting.

00:00:40.000 This is much more about student empowerment and leadership.

00:00:43.000 And honestly, you look at what Turning Point USA has been able to do over the last 11 years.

00:00:48.000 It is remarkable.

00:00:49.000 And thank you for supporting it and enjoy this conversation.

00:00:51.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:54.000 Buckle up everybody here.

00:00:55.000 We go.

00:00:56.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:57.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:59.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:03.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:06.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:07.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:08.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.

00:01:15.000 Turning Point USA.

00:01:17.000 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.

00:01:25.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:38.000 Good morning, everybody.

00:01:39.000 Great to be here.

00:01:40.000 Mr. Speaker, thank you for hosting us.

00:01:42.000 Thank you.

00:01:43.000 You know, under the last House of Representatives, I couldn't get the speaker to host all of our students.

00:01:48.000 That's why.

00:01:49.000 It's a lot different.

00:01:50.000 Well, I haven't seen you since you were chosen as speaker.

00:01:53.000 Congratulations.

00:01:54.000 Thank you.

00:01:55.000 And instead of kind of doing a typical boring policy talk, I want to talk about stuff that every single one of our student leaders can resonate with, Mr. Speaker, as we were talking about.

00:02:05.000 These are student body presidents, vice presidents, and prospective ones running kind of mini campaigns all across the country.

00:02:11.000 And so, Mr. Speaker, I think it would be helpful if you tell your story from the chip on your shoulder you probably had from getting denied that congressional internship to now being Speaker of the House of the United States Representatives.

00:02:23.000 All right, first of all, thank you for very much for being here.

00:02:26.000 Thank you for what you're doing on campus and don't give up.

00:02:29.000 So I'm going to tell you a story that's a little different.

00:02:31.000 So everybody from California?

00:02:34.000 So I'm from a town called Bakersfield.

00:02:34.000 All right.

00:02:36.000 Not a very big town.

00:02:37.000 It's in the Central Valley.

00:02:40.000 It's agriculture.

00:02:42.000 It's oil.

00:02:43.000 It's the shantytown in the Grape Seraph, if you ever read the book.

00:02:47.000 I was born into a family of Democrats, but I've never been a Democrat.

00:02:52.000 So anyone ever challenges me on my conservative beliefs, I'm more conservative than you because I rejected what I heard at home to seek something else out.

00:03:02.000 So my family has never had wealth.

00:03:05.000 My father had two jobs.

00:03:06.000 He was a fireman and he moved furniture on his days off.

00:03:09.000 I'm the youngest in the family.

00:03:11.000 I didn't excel at school, so I couldn't get a college scholarship.

00:03:15.000 I thought I deserved an athletic scholarship, but nobody else did.

00:03:18.000 Okay.

00:03:19.000 So I went to junior college, but my family instilled in me a work ethic.

00:03:26.000 So I'm going to junior college.

00:03:28.000 I go to this liquor store.

00:03:30.000 You'll figure out why I go to this liquor store.

00:03:31.000 They'll sell me beer underage.

00:03:33.000 Okay.

00:03:34.000 I'm not saying I bought it.

00:03:35.000 I'm just saying.

00:03:37.000 But the guy who owns the liquor store has a car dealer's license.

00:03:40.000 So I tell him one day, I'll give you $100 if you will take me to LA, which is two hours away, to get me into the car dealership where it's with the fairgrounds where all the car dealers would bring their trade-ins.

00:03:51.000 But you have to be a dealer to come in.

00:03:53.000 So I would go there and I would buy and sell cars and I would flip them to pay my way through college.

00:03:58.000 Now, it was illegal, but I didn't know it why I was doing it, okay?

00:04:01.000 I was just being an entrepreneur.

00:04:03.000 So, what do you do when you go to junior college?

00:04:06.000 You go away and visit your buddies who are away at college.

00:04:08.000 So, my best friend was a running back at Stanford.

00:04:10.000 My other buddy was SC.

00:04:10.000 My other buddy was San Diego State.

00:04:12.000 So, this weekend, I'm going to go to San Diego State to visit my buddies.

00:04:15.000 Anyone from San Diego State?

00:04:16.000 Yeah, they lived over on Campanella.

00:04:18.000 All right.

00:04:20.000 So, as I go to the grocery store, because I want to cash a check so I have some money.

00:04:25.000 This is long before you were even thought of.

00:04:26.000 This is 1985.

00:04:29.000 The lottery just started in California.

00:04:32.000 It was only the scratch off.

00:04:34.000 It just started the day before.

00:04:35.000 So, as I cash the check, I buy a lottery ticket and I won the lottery.

00:04:39.000 Now, it's before you can raise a billion dollars.

00:04:41.000 The most you can win in 85 was $5,000.

00:04:44.000 But think about what $5,000 was in 1985.

00:04:47.000 This was before Biden inflation.

00:04:49.000 This was $5,000.

00:04:51.000 Okay, so put yourself in my budget.

00:04:52.000 You're 20 years old.

00:04:53.000 It's Friday night.

00:04:53.000 You just won $5,000 and you're spending the weekend 10 minutes from Tijuana with your buddies, okay?

00:04:58.000 So I come back, I take my folks to dinner.

00:05:02.000 I give my brother and sister each $100.

00:05:04.000 And I take the majority of the rest of the money, I put it all in one stock because I love to take risk.

00:05:08.000 I make 30% of my money in six weeks.

00:05:10.000 The semester comes, I decide to take a break from school.

00:05:13.000 I go out and I try to buy a subway, but no one's going to sell me one because I'm only 20 years old.

00:05:18.000 The other thing you learn about me is I never give up.

00:05:21.000 I don't care what it is.

00:05:23.000 If you watch the speakers race, you ever go back to the 1800s, the season when it goes 15 rounds.

00:05:27.000 I will never give up.

00:05:30.000 So I go and I open my own business.

00:05:32.000 I open my own deli.

00:05:33.000 I learned three lessons in all my business.

00:05:35.000 I was the first to work, last to leave, last to be paid.

00:05:39.000 So my deli takes off.

00:05:40.000 I'm doing really well.

00:05:41.000 I want to open six more.

00:05:43.000 They try to screw me around.

00:05:44.000 Somebody else offers to buy it.

00:05:45.000 So I sell my deli because I want to finish my college.

00:05:48.000 No one in my family had finished a four-year degree.

00:05:51.000 So now I sell my deli.

00:05:52.000 I have enough money to pay my way through college.

00:05:54.000 I don't have to work.

00:05:55.000 So I'm going to college out of Cal State.

00:05:57.000 I open up the local paper, says be a summer intern in Washington, D.C. with my local congressman.

00:06:02.000 I don't know this man, but I think he's really lucky to have me, right?

00:06:04.000 So I apply.

00:06:06.000 You want to know what he did?

00:06:07.000 He turned me down.

00:06:09.000 You want to know the end of this story?

00:06:11.000 I now sit as the Speaker of the House in the congressional seat elected to that I could not get an internship for.

00:06:17.000 Only in America could that happen.

00:06:20.000 But it only happens if you don't give up.

00:06:22.000 This is summertime.

00:06:24.000 Recommended reading.

00:06:25.000 Now, I don't know if this woman's a liberal or conservative or not, but she wrote this book called Grit.

00:06:30.000 She's a professor at Penn.

00:06:32.000 Her name's Angela Duckworth.

00:06:34.000 She does studies.

00:06:35.000 You know, the number one attribute to look at somebody if they'll be successful?

00:06:39.000 It's not your intellect.

00:06:40.000 It's not your wealth.

00:06:42.000 It's not your education.

00:06:44.000 It's whether you have perseverance.

00:06:47.000 You may be smart.

00:06:48.000 You may come from a great area. 1.00

00:06:49.000 But the first time you hit a wall, you quit, then you decide you're a loser.

00:06:54.000 If you hit a wall and you're not successful, that's just an experience.

00:06:59.000 You only lose when you give up.

00:07:03.000 And I just have continued that model as I've gone through.

00:07:07.000 Now, Mr. Speaker, I've seen that throughout the years.

00:07:10.000 I got to tell you, he earned that speakership.

00:07:13.000 I mean, every event to every part of the country, Congressman McCarthy has been working, serving his constituents, and outworking the competition.

00:07:22.000 And so let's define these terms: grit, stamina, hustle.

00:07:26.000 For a lot of these students here, when they're involved in student government politics, it's not dissimilar, it's just on a smaller scale.

00:07:34.000 The smear, the slander. 0.99

00:07:35.000 You know, I'm sure many of you have stories of complaints being filed against you when you're running for student president, all sorts of stupid, silly stuff. 0.99

00:07:42.000 I got to tell you, Mr. Speaker, if you think those battleground districts like with Mayo Flores are tough, try becoming student body president of Texas AM. 0.98

00:07:50.000 Where's our Texas AM delegate?

00:07:52.000 There you go.

00:07:54.000 I know we have Colorado State University, one of our best.

00:07:56.000 You know, these are tough races.

00:07:57.000 And so there's some similarity to what you're dealing with here.

00:08:00.000 Speak to some of the daily disciplines, the mentality, how you train your mind, your entire being to be able to have that kind of attitude of grit and hustle.

00:08:08.000 First, you're proven you can do it right now because you run for office on campus, you're at a disadvantage to start out with, right?

00:08:14.000 Because you're conservative.

00:08:16.000 They try to make the rules tougher for you to even defile, right?

00:08:20.000 And then they try to discredit you on your beliefs and what you're doing.

00:08:25.000 So it's a good testing ground at the very beginning of where you go.

00:08:28.000 You want to know my average week?

00:08:30.000 We all studied, you know, the five stages of grief, right?

00:08:35.000 You're in denial, you lash out, you're angry, then the acceptance comes and all that.

00:08:39.000 Well, I have like the five Ds for the press in D.C., right?

00:08:44.000 Every Monday starts out with, you can't pass the bill.

00:08:49.000 Then Tuesday becomes doubt, right?

00:08:52.000 We just heard from one of your members, you can't pass the rule.

00:08:57.000 Wednesday comes, the headline is, the biggest challenge to McCarthy's speakership this week.

00:09:03.000 Thursday, I passed the bill.

00:09:05.000 They say, well, that wasn't a big deal.

00:09:08.000 And then Friday, they're disappointed.

00:09:10.000 It happens each and every week.

00:09:12.000 And you know what I do?

00:09:14.000 So in my office, I have a couple different portraits, okay?

00:09:17.000 I have a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

00:09:19.000 He's in black and white, first Republican president.

00:09:23.000 You know, when the Democrats bring a bill to the floor and they want to remove a statue, I'm the first one to sign up for it.

00:09:29.000 Because I'll promise you, it's not a Republican.

00:09:32.000 It's a Democrat you have to remove.

00:09:33.000 And so I go to the floor and I say, I'm all for this bill, but this bill doesn't go far enough.

00:09:37.000 You need to change the name of your party.

00:09:40.000 Because if you don't like the statue, if you don't like the person what they stood for, that was your party.

00:09:46.000 You should change your name at the same time.

00:09:48.000 We had to remove four portraits of speakers, all four Democrats.

00:09:52.000 We had to remove statues here based upon their beliefs that were sent to us by a Democrat-majority state legislature, accepted by a majority of Democrats in Congress.

00:10:02.000 Abraham Lincoln and the basis of our party of why it was created that were conceived in liberty and that we're all equal. 0.76

00:10:10.000 If Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated, we never would have had Jim Crow laws. 0.90

00:10:14.000 Those were Democrats that created that. 0.90

00:10:17.000 Think of Abraham Lincoln when you want to think of grit.

00:10:20.000 At 23, he loses a race for the legislature.

00:10:24.000 He fails in business.

00:10:27.000 His girlfriend dies at 26.

00:10:29.000 He has a nervous breakdown at 27.

00:10:31.000 He gets elected to Congress for one term but can't be re-nominated.

00:10:35.000 He loses a race for Speaker.

00:10:37.000 It's what I admire most about him.

00:10:39.000 He loses a race for Senate.

00:10:41.000 He fails in business again.

00:10:42.000 He loses a race for VP.

00:10:44.000 He loses a race for Senate again.

00:10:45.000 Then he gets elected for president at age 52.

00:10:50.000 And never once did he blame Buchanan when he's elected November 1860, sworn in March 1861.

00:10:56.000 Seven states leave the Union.

00:10:59.000 And the height of our greatest challenge to our Constitution was the Civil War.

00:11:04.000 He builds the Intercontinental Railway.

00:11:06.000 That's like inventing the Internet.

00:11:08.000 He looks at the future at the same time, bringing us together.

00:11:11.000 Reagan's portrait's in color, and he's smiling.

00:11:14.000 And if Reagan was here today, you know what Reagan would tell us?

00:11:18.000 And you've got to remember this, not just in running for office in your campuses, but writing what you believe in your classrooms.

00:11:28.000 If you believe your principles bring people more freedom, don't be angry about it.

00:11:33.000 Be happy.

00:11:34.000 Have you watched the 15 rounds of speaker?

00:11:37.000 Did I ever get angry?

00:11:39.000 Because I knew the outcome.

00:11:41.000 If you're getting upset with something they're writing about you, don't be angry.

00:11:46.000 You write the history.

00:11:48.000 You follow forward on your principles, and the outcome will be different if you stick to your principles.

00:11:56.000 If you're happy, people want to associate with you.

00:12:00.000 If you think being angry means you're more conservative, it just means people don't want to hang out with you or come to Thanksgiving dinner.

00:12:06.000 Be true to your beliefs and you will succeed.

00:12:10.000 If Lincoln was here, Lincoln would tell us this one thing, believe in the exceptionalism of America.

00:12:17.000 And I watch too often the liberals, even in Congress, they are quick to criticize America and praise some other country.

00:12:28.000 We're not perfect, but we strive to be a more perfect unit.

00:12:30.000 But this is what Lincoln would tell you.

00:12:32.000 Believe in the exceptionalism of America.

00:12:34.000 You know why I think he would say that?

00:12:35.000 The Gettysburg Address.

00:12:37.000 Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated the proposition that we're all equal.

00:12:47.000 He goes on to say, but if we fail, government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from earth.

00:12:54.000 Think about the moment he gave that.

00:12:57.000 Thousands of brothers just died.

00:13:00.000 Hundreds of thousands of brothers have been dying.

00:13:03.000 And he's sitting on a battlefield.

00:13:06.000 We're not the strongest nation in the world.

00:13:08.000 We're divided together, but he knows we will be the most powerful and sustain ourselves because government is of the people, by the people, for the people.

00:13:17.000 But name me one other nation that's conceived in liberty and dedicated the proposition that we're all equal.

00:13:24.000 There is not another nation in the world.

00:13:29.000 The closest would come Israel.

00:13:31.000 We had the president of Israel here yesterday.

00:13:34.000 One party gave you anti-Semitic comments.

00:13:38.000 One party had members who wouldn't show up.

00:13:41.000 One party had nine members who vote against a resolution and supported Relation of Israel.

00:13:47.000 Israel has been only alive as a country for 75 years.

00:13:51.000 And 11 minutes after they became a country, the first country to recognize it was America.

00:13:57.000 We should never back away from where the Republican Party has been based or why we were created.

00:14:06.000 Too often, the Democrats want to flip it on us because they're embarrassed of their history.

00:14:10.000 We should politely point it out to them every single day.

00:14:16.000 We have nothing to apologize for.

00:14:21.000 We know the country will be stronger and better with our principles.

00:14:24.000 Why?

00:14:25.000 Because you'll be freer, we'll be economically stronger, and the world will be safer.

00:14:32.000 Because we're not going to pick and choose.

00:14:35.000 We're going to allow you to unharness these government regulations and let you capture something greater.

00:14:42.000 There's a reason why people crave to come to America.

00:14:45.000 And I can't quite understand from the Democrat point of view where they want to control everything about our lives, why that thing that brings people more freedom.

00:14:57.000 Strong Cell is amazing.

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00:15:04.000 You know, people ask me, they say, Charlie, how do you keep your energy up?

00:15:07.000 How do you just keep on pushing?

00:15:09.000 Look, part of it is diet nutrition, but I'll be honest, I take supplements really seriously.

00:15:14.000 Fact check me on this.

00:15:15.000 You can say, oh, Charlie, I'm going to fact-check you.

00:15:17.000 Type this into your search engine.

00:15:19.000 NADH.

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00:15:23.000 What does it tell you?

00:15:24.000 It might tell you that it is the secret to living long, anti-aging properties, more energy.

00:15:29.000 Well, all of that is being proven in more and more clinical trials.

00:15:32.000 NADH is a precursor so that your mitochondria can remain healthy and vibrant.

00:15:38.000 The elites, a lot of billionaires, people, a lot of money, they spend a ton of money on NAD.

00:15:42.000 It's a fact.

00:15:42.000 NAD just might be your secret weapon for more energy.

00:15:46.000 I take NAD every single day.

00:15:48.000 I could tell you that NADH, compared with CoQ10, the trials show very, very good things on it.

00:15:54.000 Don't take my word for it.

00:15:55.000 I mean, honestly, my word should be good for something, but fact check me.

00:15:58.000 Look at it.

00:15:59.000 And if you do it over 30 days, you'll see an increase in energy.

00:16:02.000 I wake up better than ever before.

00:16:04.000 NAD can help you potentially, again, fact check me on this with depression, anxiety, other issues that you might be dealing with.

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00:16:26.000 I love it. 0.98

00:16:27.000 I take it every single day.

00:16:29.000 Try to try it for at least 30 days to see the maximum benefit.

00:16:32.000 And let me know.

00:16:33.000 Has NAD helped your life?

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00:16:42.000 Now, I personally love Lincoln for a couple of reasons.

00:16:45.000 You know, he did not live an easy life, as you all know, Mr. Speaker.

00:16:48.000 He had clinical depression.

00:16:50.000 He actually had, his head was kicked in by a horse and he was passed out overnight.

00:16:55.000 And he had what today would be called bipolar clinical depression, lost a son at war, had a very interesting wife.

00:17:02.000 Let's just leave it at that, right?

00:17:04.000 However, he was a man of great grit, and that's kind of the theme here, right?

00:17:07.000 He saw the vision, knew what was right, persevered.

00:17:11.000 He died a very unceremonious death, right?

00:17:13.000 I mean, not far from here in Ford's Theater.

00:17:17.000 And yet we remember him as a man who was willing to cast the vision and as a leader that everybody thought lowly of.

00:17:26.000 Personally, I love he didn't go to college.

00:17:28.000 He was a railroad lawyer, educated on the Bible and Shakespeare.

00:17:31.000 So I have that in common with him, I guess.

00:17:33.000 But, Mr. Speaker, I love that you're highlighting Lincoln because if there would have been the mainstream media and the equivalent of the time, they were nothing but negative.

00:17:42.000 Nothing but this guy is never going to succeed.

00:17:45.000 You know, you read the Lincoln-Douglas debates, which really is a question of justice, right?

00:17:49.000 What is right?

00:17:50.000 How should we act?

00:17:51.000 I encourage all of you guys to study the Lincoln-Douglas debates, one of the most beautiful dialogues.

00:17:55.000 It really is the Socrates debates repurpose in this question of who are we?

00:17:59.000 And he was the founder of the Republican Party, you know, Rip in Wisconsin that started as the anti-slavery party.

00:18:05.000 And so it really is this beautiful picture of what would America be without a leader like Lincoln.

00:18:10.000 But what would have happened if Lincoln would have given up?

00:18:13.000 There's so many reasons to give up.

00:18:15.000 So as Speaker, I try all these new things, right?

00:18:17.000 First thing I did was make members come to work, not vote proxy.

00:18:20.000 I opened the House backlog.

00:18:22.000 I love that, by the way.

00:18:22.000 This proxy thing is crazy.

00:18:24.000 It's stupid. 1.00

00:18:25.000 Do you get paid to stay home and give all your votes to me? 1.00

00:18:29.000 If you're elected, someone's lending their voice to you for a certain time.

00:18:34.000 You have to use that voice for them.

00:18:37.000 So I created Movie Night.

00:18:38.000 How did I create Movie Night?

00:18:40.000 I'm the speaker.

00:18:40.000 I just created it.

00:18:42.000 We just had it this week.

00:18:43.000 You know what the first movie I showed?

00:18:44.000 Lincoln. 0.86

00:18:46.000 I brought Doris Kearns-Goodwin in.

00:18:48.000 She wrote the book on Lincoln, right?

00:18:50.000 We had a discussion beforehand.

00:18:53.000 And we watched Lincoln down here in the auditorium.

00:18:56.000 If you watch the movie Lincoln, it's great, right?

00:18:58.000 It's kind of a political one, too, because it's all about getting the 13th Amendment.

00:19:04.000 You know where that 13th Amendment was debated?

00:19:06.000 On the floor we serve every day today.

00:19:10.000 As a policymaker, as a member of Congress, to be able to see what transpired on the floor that day, to be able to walk on that every day, to know the challenge of what they went through and the push that Lincoln gave.

00:19:24.000 I mean, it inspires you at the same time.

00:19:27.000 We don't have that same challenge today, but we do have big challenges.

00:19:31.000 And Lincoln would tell you this.

00:19:34.000 It's easier as an elected official to say no than to say yes.

00:19:39.000 Something can always be better.

00:19:41.000 But if you're moving it forward, what you're going to have challenges in your elected position, you move it forward, but then you take the grit to come back the next day for the next piece you didn't get.

00:19:52.000 That's the one thing I will tell you.

00:19:54.000 If I admire something about the opposition, if you think of a Bernie Sanders, he never gives up, does he?

00:20:02.000 He may not pass a bill, but he tries to move a lot of other people to socialism.

00:20:07.000 We put a bill on the resolution on the floor this year opposing socialism.

00:20:12.000 100 Democrats couldn't vote for that.

00:20:15.000 Well, I would say Bernie has been successful.

00:20:17.000 They've taken over that party.

00:20:20.000 That's a concern inside America today.

00:20:23.000 So you stay with and you keep moving it forward.

00:20:27.000 That's really what Grit tells you.

00:20:29.000 That's a great segue to something I want to highlight.

00:20:31.000 So many of these leaders are going to have power, influence, but they're going to be surrounded sometimes by other student senators administration that don't see the world the way they do.

00:20:44.000 So when do you strike a deal?

00:20:46.000 When do you say no?

00:20:48.000 What can you share from being an effective leader of negotiation, but also I'm not going, there's certain lines or certain principles I will not violate.

00:20:59.000 You always keep your principles, but your principles never say that you vote no every single time.

00:21:05.000 Because then what did you achieve?

00:21:07.000 You may not get 100%, but what you have to look at is where you are.

00:21:12.000 Always build a strategy.

00:21:14.000 Think of the debt ceiling.

00:21:18.000 Something that we have to do, but we take the majority.

00:21:22.000 We have a five-seat Schumer goes on all the Sunday shows you watch.

00:21:26.000 We're going to break him.

00:21:27.000 He's just going to have to raise the debt ceiling clean.

00:21:30.000 So I sit down.

00:21:32.000 I said, Mr. President, why don't we negotiate?

00:21:34.000 Why don't we talk?

00:21:36.000 For 97 days, he said, I'm not going to talk to him.

00:21:40.000 For 97 days, I was the cheerful conservative.

00:21:44.000 I would come to the press every day and I would set the motion where I would talk to the press what I thought we should do.

00:21:51.000 I even said I'd bring soft food to the White House if he wanted to beat.

00:21:54.000 I think he was good.

00:21:55.000 He only met with me once we passed our own bill.

00:21:58.000 Now, is it enough for everybody?

00:22:00.000 No, but it's the biggest cut in American history, 2.1 trillion.

00:22:03.000 We got work requirements, a thing that the Democrats said was a red line they'd never go for.

00:22:08.000 So what you have to deal with as you go through this is how far can you get?

00:22:13.000 And in your mind ahead of time, you have to lay out what victory would be.

00:22:19.000 And there's times you're going to have to walk away to get victory.

00:22:22.000 You know, Reagan had this problem in his second term.

00:22:27.000 He went to Iceland to negotiate with Gorbachev for the reduction of nuclear weapons.

00:22:33.000 And Reagan would tell you this: peace without freedom is meaningless.

00:22:36.000 Think about that for one moment.

00:22:37.000 Peace without freedom is meaningless.

00:22:40.000 It's human nature that we all crave peace, but you cannot attain it without having freedom.

00:22:46.000 So he's getting almost everything he wants, but Gorbachev asked Reagan for something else.

00:22:50.000 He asked Reagan to end the SDI program, which was not proven at the time.

00:22:54.000 People made fun of it.

00:22:55.000 They called it Star Wars.

00:22:56.000 Reagan said, no, but I'll share it with you so the world will be safe.

00:23:00.000 Gorbachev declines.

00:23:01.000 And he looks at everything that he's getting, but there's no freedom in that.

00:23:06.000 So he got up and walked away.

00:23:08.000 The elite media criticized him.

00:23:11.000 But had Reagan not walked away at that moment, the Soviet Union would have never collapsed.

00:23:17.000 You've never lived in a world where there are two Germanies with a Berlin Wall.

00:23:20.000 That's what I grew up.

00:23:22.000 Those are moments at time with what was Reagan, why was Reagan looking for the reduction in nuclear weapon?

00:23:29.000 Because he wanted to break the Soviet Union.

00:23:32.000 So in his mind, that was the goal. 0.88

00:23:37.000 And he knew that he drove them to a certain point.

00:23:39.000 So you'll know in a negotiation where you're driving people to a certain point, but it's just like if you're negotiating, negotiating buying a car, what's the right price?

00:23:48.000 When do you walk away?

00:23:50.000 You might have to walk away a couple times to get the price that you want.

00:23:54.000 But don't put yourself in a cul-de-sac that you can't get out of.

00:23:58.000 Don't put you're now elected president, but everybody around you has a different philosophy.

00:24:04.000 So, what you want to start doing is you want to start talking about it.

00:24:06.000 You want to start listening.

00:24:08.000 They may have a different philosophy, but they may agree with you on a couple issues that are a problem on how to fix it.

00:24:14.000 And you want to explain things to don't accept that they already know it.

00:24:20.000 I had a chance to be speaker at one time, and I screwed up in a press.

00:24:24.000 And we were in the majority.

00:24:25.000 I could have walked right in to get it.

00:24:27.000 I had to win the majority again to be able to get it.

00:24:30.000 I was leader for four years.

00:24:32.000 Why Pelosi was speaker for four years?

00:24:33.000 We came from the same state.

00:24:35.000 I won five new seats in California. 0.73

00:24:37.000 She didn't win one.

00:24:38.000 We won five more in New York, in Arizona, in Oregon.

00:24:43.000 We won in places people didn't think.

00:24:45.000 We expanded the party to more women, more Hispanics at any time elected.

00:24:50.000 The quality of the candidates.

00:24:51.000 So it was a little more precious that it was harder to attain, right?

00:24:55.000 But what happened is there's a lot of people elected to Congress that didn't win on the first time.

00:24:59.000 And I'd call them up right after the election.

00:25:01.000 I'd tell them, Did you lose?

00:25:03.000 No, you didn't lose.

00:25:04.000 You only lost if you don't run again.

00:25:07.000 The clock just ran out.

00:25:08.000 So when you talk about negotiating with somebody, don't think it's over at that moment.

00:25:14.000 Also, whenever you're negotiating, I wanted to get all of the IRS agents out, okay?

00:25:21.000 I said, I'm going to get rid of the 87 IRS agents.

00:25:24.000 Well, the challenge is that's already in law.

00:25:26.000 They already funded it.

00:25:28.000 So it's really hard for me to get with just Congress, right?

00:25:31.000 But in the debt ceiling, they're going to spend this money over time, but they have it allocated already.

00:25:37.000 So they're going to spend $1.2 billion this year.

00:25:40.000 So I was able to get all that, okay?

00:25:42.000 So I got this year, no new IRS agent.

00:25:45.000 But then I put them into another negotiation where I was able to get $20 billion into the future that they're going to spend on IRS because I cut so low.

00:25:52.000 They want to repurpose that money.

00:25:54.000 Okay.

00:25:56.000 So now I set myself up for the next debate in appropriations.

00:26:00.000 What do you think is better to use that money?

00:26:03.000 IRS agents or border security?

00:26:06.000 So at the same time I'm negotiating for the first one, I'm setting up for the negotiating next time.

00:26:12.000 Now I had to make a decision.

00:26:14.000 There's some conservatives.

00:26:15.000 Well, you didn't get all of it.

00:26:17.000 Well, it's pretty hard when they have the Senate and the presidency and they already have all the money, just give it back to me.

00:26:23.000 Well, I just got everything they're going to do this year, expand the majority, win the Senate, then the presidency, and take it all back next year, and take $20 billion of the future already.

00:26:31.000 So I made a decision.

00:26:33.000 I got a pretty good chunk of it right now, and they can't start.

00:26:36.000 And I set myself up to fight them in the next fight.

00:26:39.000 And I think I put ourselves in a pretty good place to have that fight on our philosophy and where the American public is with them and make them lose another argument.

00:26:48.000 So it's the timing of the debate and set yourself up for the next debate.

00:26:53.000 And the grit is whatever you don't get, if you feel you've got enough, you start the next day for the next fight.

00:27:00.000 And you set yourself up coming out of that to win again.

00:27:05.000 Listen, as students begin heading back to school, do you think they'll be learning about the founding principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in history?

00:27:13.000 Will they learn that our unalienable rights are God-given and not granted by government?

00:27:17.000 Will they be given a full and honest account of our nation's history?

00:27:20.000 The answer to all these questions is yes for students at Hillsdale College.

00:27:24.000 And these days, in addition to teaching college students, Hillsdale has extended its teaching to K-12 students and lifelong learners like you and me.

00:27:31.000 If you're not doing so already, one of the best ways to start learning from my friends at Hillsdale is through Enprimus, Hillsdale's Free Digest of Liberty.

00:27:40.000 My listeners can sign up for free at this special website, which is available for a limited time.

00:27:45.000 It's at charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:27:48.000 I look forward to in Primus each month, and you can too.

00:27:50.000 It's interesting, useful, and free.

00:27:53.000 The best and smartest in conservative constitutionalist thought.

00:27:57.000 Find out more about Hillsdale and in Primus at charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:28:01.000 They're an excellent college, America's greatest college, charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:28:10.000 So in closing here, Mr. Speaker, because you have a day today.

00:28:14.000 A government to run.

00:28:16.000 And I just want to make sure all of you know.

00:28:18.000 First phone call to the Speaker of the House.

00:28:20.000 He said, yes, I want to meet with all you guys.

00:28:22.000 That's very hard to find.

00:28:23.000 And he deserves, and his team deserves a lot of thanks for hosting it.

00:28:26.000 And you guys are going to have a beautiful tour.

00:28:28.000 And you guys shouldn't say that.

00:28:29.000 It's just a super great.

00:28:31.000 And it really means a lot.

00:28:33.000 It does.

00:28:34.000 But I was wondering if you could end with a story of some variety of a time where you might have been at a low point or you felt like the world was caving.

00:28:44.000 And I only say this because half of what we've dealt with with this project, Mr. Speaker, over seven years is dealing with students when in their own version of crisis, my world is falling apart.

00:28:55.000 I'm on the front page of the student newspaper.

00:28:57.000 I'm never going to get a job.

00:28:58.000 I'm getting kicked out of my fraternity.

00:29:00.000 I'm getting kicked out of my sorority.

00:29:02.000 Is there a time that sticks out in your career that kind of harmonizes with that theme of lessons you could share as we close up?

00:29:09.000 You could pick any week in my life.

00:29:12.000 I woke up today and Playbook writes something that's not true.

00:29:16.000 I've stopped reading Playbook a long time ago.

00:29:17.000 It says all gossip, right?

00:29:20.000 But the modern time that you would know would be the speaker's race.

00:29:24.000 Every morning I woke up with somebody saying something that was negative.

00:29:28.000 Every morning I had to go to the floor and start out with Hakeem getting more votes than I did.

00:29:34.000 I had members who they wouldn't be members of Congress if I didn't fund their races vote against me and say stuff against me.

00:29:41.000 And I had to sit there and smile and know in the end it would be different.

00:29:45.000 So I come out of it, but then I read the headlines after I went, oh, he's not going to survive the month, right?

00:29:52.000 Every challenge.

00:29:53.000 I get invited to go to Israel to speak at the Knesset, the only second speaker ever to do it for their 75th anniversary.

00:29:59.000 I go to Jordan.

00:30:00.000 I go to Israel.

00:30:02.000 I go to Egypt.

00:30:03.000 I go to Italy, and I come back.

00:30:06.000 I go in to see the president of Egypt.

00:30:08.000 You know what President Cece says to me the first walk-in walk with those members?

00:30:12.000 I watched every single round.

00:30:15.000 That was amazing.

00:30:16.000 We take a tour of the pyramids, go down to see the Sphinx.

00:30:20.000 The public's out there.

00:30:21.000 I don't think we know.

00:30:22.000 They're cheering me.

00:30:24.000 I walk into, in America, I'll give you another, I walk into a grocery store.

00:30:29.000 This lady, she happens to be a Hispanic, comes up and says, I like you.

00:30:34.000 I said, well, thank you.

00:30:35.000 Thank you.

00:30:35.000 You know, like I did something for her.

00:30:36.000 But I'm not a Republican.

00:30:38.000 You know why I like you?

00:30:39.000 You didn't give up.

00:30:41.000 You fought for me.

00:30:43.000 When you're in the biggest of fights, do not ring Twitter.

00:30:47.000 Do not listen to your friends.

00:30:50.000 When you want to fight for something, what will happen is, at the end of the day, when it comes to politics, there's no other occupation in the world on a given day, you know how many people are for you and how many people are against you.

00:31:04.000 The only thing that equates this and on the same scale is a professional sport.

00:31:09.000 Every given Sunday, we know, right?

00:31:12.000 There's Sundays they're on.

00:31:13.000 There's some days they're not.

00:31:15.000 Don't take that moment in time.

00:31:17.000 But if you stick with it and you win, those people who are all criticizing you, remember this, when you win, the first people who call you are the people who are guilty who are against you.

00:31:27.000 Your friends don't have to call you right away because they were always with you.

00:31:31.000 But walk all the way through.

00:31:33.000 If you give up, that's a weakness.

00:31:35.000 The other thing is, when you're in a battle and you're in a fight, there's people that are going to be really emotional.

00:31:41.000 Like, oh my God, did you see what someone put out on Twitter?

00:31:44.000 You don't even know if it's a real account.

00:31:47.000 They're trying to get in your head.

00:31:49.000 If you get in any problem whatsoever and you want to know who to follow, you follow the person who keeps their head.

00:31:55.000 It's Kipling.

00:31:56.000 When everybody else around you is losing ears, you keep yours.

00:32:00.000 You know your compass.

00:32:01.000 And if you know your principles, you won't get rattled.

00:32:06.000 Winston Churchill always said, I don't care what they write about me because it's my intention to write the history.

00:32:12.000 And whatever in life, you will eventually go through the barrel.

00:32:16.000 I respect anyone who's getting attacked with that.

00:32:19.000 Even if I don't like that person, I'll call them because I respect what they're going through.

00:32:24.000 I know what they're writing is probably not true.

00:32:26.000 Maybe that's some of it's true, but most of it's not.

00:32:30.000 Keep your head.

00:32:31.000 You phase out the rest and you follow through and you remember this one thing.

00:32:37.000 Why did you get in the fight to start out with?

00:32:40.000 If you quit in the middle of the fight, you never really wanted to get in the fight to start with.

00:32:46.000 So also remember that before you start the fight.

00:32:50.000 If you're starting the fight for press, you're probably going to get crushed and not stay in it because there's no real principle behind it.

00:32:58.000 But when you make that decision to start to go, though in your gut, another good book is it starts with why by Simon Sinek.

00:33:08.000 People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

00:33:12.000 Your opposition, if you stay with it, will respect you in the end.

00:33:16.000 Think for one moment to people who have a different belief than you, but really fight for their own principles.

00:33:21.000 You respect them, do you not?

00:33:24.000 Those are normally the people if you have to make an agreement with, you can, because they're not going to change their principles, but they know their principles so they can make an agreement and you can trust them.

00:33:37.000 I've always, if somebody's hardcore on the other side, you make an agreement, and in today's world, we think one side has to win and the other side not just lose, but get crumbled.

00:33:48.000 Both sides can win in an agreement, and you can both keep your principles and you can both go forward.

00:33:53.000 Don't get it in your mindset that they have to have nothing.

00:33:57.000 No, that's part of an agreement.

00:34:00.000 So don't get into a fight until you know in your gut this is a fight you want.

00:34:04.000 And when you're in it, you don't give up.

00:34:07.000 And you follow it all the way through.

00:34:09.000 Every day I had to read a story on the speaker's race that no one had gone this long.

00:34:15.000 You have to go back to past the Civil War.

00:34:18.000 I said there's never been as strong a speaker as I have, right?

00:34:21.000 There's only been 55 speakers in the history of America.

00:34:24.000 They say, oh my God, you had to give up so much.

00:34:27.000 My rules package was the exact same thing prior to the speaker race than when I got out of it.

00:34:32.000 The only thing I changed, it'd take five people to throw me out instead of one.

00:34:37.000 Because I went through 50, it's harder for someone to throw me out now.

00:34:40.000 And I looked, one of the speakers only lasted one day, so I'm okay with that.

00:34:44.000 I'm not going to be the shortest listener speaker.

00:34:47.000 And you know the best thing about all that?

00:34:50.000 I don't worry what somebody else says.

00:34:52.000 I run the speakership the way I want to now.

00:34:54.000 I'm very comfortable in this world.

00:34:56.000 So going through the battle, when you get through it, it'll make you a better person.

00:35:00.000 It'll make you a stronger person in your beliefs.

00:35:03.000 And even if you don't win 100%, you know what you can do.

00:35:08.000 And otherwise, the opposition will be less likely to fight you again.

00:35:12.000 Mr. Speaker, I can guarantee you this: in the next couple of years, you'll be swearing in somebody in this room as a member of Congress because this is a room of game changers.

00:35:19.000 Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for being here.

00:35:20.000 Thank you all.

00:35:23.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:24.000 Emails, your thoughts is always freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:27.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

00:35:33.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - August 11, 2023

Be True To Your Beliefs, and Succeed: A Chat with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy

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