The Charlie Kirk Show - December 07, 2022


Burning Down the House? with Andy Biggs and Kurt Schlichter


Episode Stats

Length

36 minutes

Words per Minute

166.07434

Word Count

6,106

Sentence Count

513


Summary

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

Transcript

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00:00:00.000 Today in the Charlie Kirk show, Kurt Schlichter joins us, and so does Andy Biggs.
00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.
00:00:04.000 And we ask the question, are you ready to lose the House?
00:00:09.000 What is your risk tolerance for losing the U.S. House of Representatives?
00:00:12.000 Currently, my appetite for a big gamble is zero.
00:00:17.000 By the end of the episode, you know exactly what I mean.
00:00:20.000 Get involved with Turning Point USA by coming to America Fest, Candace Owens, Kaylee McEnaney, Tucker Carlson, and more.
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00:00:42.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:43.000 Here we go.
00:00:44.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
00:00:46.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
00:00:48.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
00:00:51.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
00:00:55.000 I want to thank Charlie.
00:00:56.000 He's an incredible guy.
00:00:57.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
00:01:04.000 Turning point USA.
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00:01:14.000 That's why we are here.
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00:01:29.000 Joining us now, someone I have a great deal of respect for.
00:01:32.000 I think I agree on every single major policy topic with.
00:01:36.000 However, I do have some current concerns that I hope we can work out here about the strategy for the selection of Speaker of the House.
00:01:45.000 Andy Biggs joins us right now from Arizona.
00:01:47.000 Andy, welcome to the program.
00:01:48.000 The floor is yours.
00:01:49.000 Tell us what is your perspective and the strategy and the plan going into 1-3, which is where we're going, you will be participating in selecting a Speaker of the House.
00:01:59.000 Yeah, Charlie, what's going to happen is Kevin McCarthy doesn't have the votes now.
00:02:03.000 He's not going to get them by January 3rd.
00:02:06.000 He's going to offer up anything he can think of to try to get those votes.
00:02:11.000 And then on January 3rd, he won't get the votes.
00:02:14.000 And then we'll move into conference and we will find a more consensus, a convivial candidate that we can support.
00:02:25.000 And we'll go out and elect them to be Speaker of the House.
00:02:28.000 That's the short end of it.
00:02:29.000 That's the short way of explaining it.
00:02:31.000 Okay, so, but who would that person potentially be?
00:02:35.000 I know you and I talked about this privately, but a major concern I have is that sounds like it's going to be a circus.
00:02:42.000 Well, Charlie, I'm not afraid of a circus, and I don't think you are either.
00:02:47.000 And I'm also not afraid of a little bit of chaos to get this all cleared out and get somebody who's not an establishment type candidate.
00:02:55.000 I'll give you some names that I think that actually might work.
00:02:59.000 So my name's in the mix, okay?
00:03:02.000 But you also have people like Jim Jordan.
00:03:04.000 You have a person like Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
00:03:08.000 You have several other people.
00:03:10.000 You might even have somebody come forward.
00:03:12.000 Maybe Steve Scalise says, well, it should be me.
00:03:15.000 You actually have people in a conference, Charlie, who are very, very accomplished.
00:03:21.000 Now, you have maybe not everybody's as accomplished as others, but there are some who are tremendous leaders, tremendously accomplished, who have reflect the conservative conscience or the conservative center of the Republican conference, and they would be available.
00:03:36.000 They would come through.
00:03:37.000 They probably, some of them aren't going to actually even put their name out there, would never even think of putting their name out there unless it's demonstrated to them that Kevin doesn't really have the votes.
00:03:48.000 So I think the fear that some people have, I certainly do, is that we barely won the House, four seats.
00:03:54.000 Why are we playing with metaphorical nuclear weaponry right now, right?
00:03:58.000 Doesn't it make sense just to get concessions?
00:04:01.000 Because there's a lot of power, right, in the Freedom Caucus right now, the four to five majority.
00:04:06.000 To put this into conference for an unnamed person, what if Bacon, I don't know if Bacon is telling the truth or not, right?
00:04:13.000 Some people say he's bluffing.
00:04:14.000 He said he might cock the Democrats, but it opens up a possibility of us potentially, albeit I don't know if it's 1%, 10%, 20%, where moderate Republicans and Democrats create a uniparty Congress and we effectively lose the majority.
00:04:30.000 No, I see, Charlie, here's the thing that here's where you and I fundamentally disagree.
00:04:33.000 I do not believe that's a realistic scenario at all.
00:04:36.000 So let's just, so some people have said, well, we're going to get a Democrat or Kevin's going to make a deal with the Democrats.
00:04:43.000 So let's take that scenario first.
00:04:44.000 That's not going to happen.
00:04:46.000 Who is their leader?
00:04:47.000 They just elected, the Democrats just elected Hakeem Jeffries, a leftist to be their leader.
00:04:53.000 Now, Hakeem and I have actually worked together on legislation.
00:04:57.000 And so we have points of agreement.
00:05:00.000 But the one point that we don't have is the overall path to go forward.
00:05:05.000 He got elected because the Congressional Black Caucus supports him.
00:05:08.000 They are going to burn the place down if any Democrat were to walk over and say, I'm going to support Kevin McCarthy.
00:05:17.000 That just will not happen.
00:05:19.000 So that scenario is out the window.
00:05:22.000 So the next question you have to say is, well, would Republicans then walk over and say, well, let me elect Hakeem Jeffries?
00:05:30.000 And not even Don Bacon is going to do that.
00:05:32.000 There is no Republican who's going to walk over and do that.
00:05:36.000 So the real question is, who will emerge to be a viable consensus candidate where people like Don Bacon and Andy Biggs can come together and say, you know what?
00:05:48.000 We have 15 or 20 things that we agree on.
00:05:51.000 We may not agree on another 20 things, but we can get a candidate who's going to bring us together on those 20 things.
00:05:56.000 And they're not going to be an establishment candidate.
00:05:58.000 Now, here's the deal.
00:06:01.000 That's a much more realistic scenario, quite frankly, than either of the scare scenarios that are out there that the McCarthy team is putting out there because they're trying to scare people into voting for us.
00:06:12.000 Well, I think there is some reasonable fear, at least that I have, that we didn't really win very much this cycle as much as we should have.
00:06:19.000 And there is a risk to kind of just saying, hey, might be a little chaos, might be a circus.
00:06:24.000 We're going to go into conference.
00:06:26.000 The McCarthy team would say, but there's 100 people that won't budge for anybody other, whatever my number might be, 40, 50, 60, 70, 100.
00:06:34.000 And so in that kind of private conference, walk our audience through what you think that ideal looks like.
00:06:41.000 Let's pretend, for example, there's 50 McCarthy loyalists that will not budge for anybody but Kevin.
00:06:46.000 I mean, a stalemate with no speaker?
00:06:49.000 Walk us through that.
00:06:51.000 Yeah, well, first of all, do you really think that those people are locked into Kevin McCarthy because they think that Kevin McCarthy is the only guy who could be Speaker of the House?
00:07:00.000 And I don't think they are.
00:07:02.000 I think they might feel beholden to Kevin McCarthy because Kevin McCarthy has funded their campaigns, but you have an equal number of people who say, well, you know, Kevin McCarthy and his group that he raised money for was against me.
00:07:14.000 So when we get to a conference and you've had one, two, three ballots that have proven that Kevin McCarthy doesn't have the votes to be speaker, you're going to get somebody like, and I don't, you know, I hate to put a target on anybody's back, which is why I haven't done it because that's why some people who have approached me, they don't want to do it because they aren't sure that everybody holds.
00:07:35.000 No, I'm not trying to put a Kevin McCarthy.
00:07:37.000 You know me.
00:07:37.000 I'm not trying to put a target.
00:07:37.000 You know what I'm saying?
00:07:38.000 I'm not trying to put a target.
00:07:39.000 I just, I want a plan, right?
00:07:41.000 I mean, you know.
00:07:41.000 Yeah, well, the plan, what happens is if you go into a conference and people are going to be mad and they're going to be bringing pressure to bear.
00:07:52.000 And when Kevin says, hey, okay, I don't have the votes, or people see he doesn't have the votes, then those people that some of those people who have come to me privately and said they're interested, they're going to stand up and say, Kevin doesn't have the votes.
00:08:05.000 Maybe I can be that candidate that's consensus.
00:08:09.000 That's the way it works, Charlie.
00:08:10.000 It doesn't work where somebody goes in and says, oh, hey, I'll stand up, except for a knucklehead like me who'll go out and say, I'll stand up and I'll run against Kevin.
00:08:19.000 Why?
00:08:20.000 Because I'm a conservative.
00:08:22.000 I'm a true blue conservative, true red conservative in this case.
00:08:25.000 And I have a track record that's proven both when I was in the state senate in Arizona and led that for four years and know what it's like to deal with people all across the spectrum and get a lot of things done.
00:08:39.000 That's what'll happen.
00:08:41.000 You're going to see people who are kind of, they don't want to step on Kevin's toes because there's going to be retribution.
00:08:48.000 And if you don't think there's retribution, you should see what's happening to me from the McCarthy machine.
00:08:55.000 And so it comes after me, Charlie.
00:08:57.000 So they're smart enough to say, well, we'll go ahead and let Biggs do it.
00:09:01.000 He's Mikey on the old life commercials.
00:09:03.000 We'll let Biggs do it.
00:09:04.000 And if Biggs can't get there and McCarthy doesn't get there, which McCarthy won't get there, then we'll get there.
00:09:09.000 Then we'll have a consensus candidate.
00:09:11.000 Let me ask you this question, though, Charlie.
00:09:13.000 Why doesn't Kevin say, I don't have the votes now?
00:09:17.000 Let's see if we can find someone who has consensus.
00:09:21.000 Because believe me, it's more than just the five of us that have publicly said no.
00:09:25.000 I happen to know that there are people who have told him in private interviews with him that they are not going to vote for him.
00:09:30.000 Yeah, and I guess the counter argument would be Pelosi looked like she was 20 votes down and deals are cut and things are done, right?
00:09:37.000 It's still early.
00:09:38.000 But I suppose my conflict is...
00:09:42.000 The best deal to cut, Charlie, is not on December 6th.
00:09:45.000 The best deal, if you're going to ever cut a deal on this, which I'm not interested in, but if you're ever going to cut a deal, it's on January 2nd.
00:09:53.000 And by the way, you probably get an even better deal on the evening of January 3rd after he doesn't make it through in that first ballot.
00:10:02.000 The concern I have, I know we're short on time, you got to go, is this is the highest stakes game we have right now.
00:10:07.000 It's the only chamber of federal power that we're going to be able to enjoy.
00:10:11.000 And I still think from a calculation standpoint, it makes more sense to try to get concessions and to try to get on committees than to try to just say someone could emerge.
00:10:22.000 And I know we're out of time, Andy.
00:10:23.000 We're just the risk of award, even if there's a 1% chance of failure, we could lose a whole branch of government because I have to be able to respond to that, Charlie.
00:10:36.000 And the way I would respond to you is this.
00:10:39.000 If you cannot trust the guy you're making a deal with, because he has said specifically, we're not going to give you the motion to vacate.
00:10:48.000 In other words, you can't hold him accountable.
00:10:51.000 If you can't hold that guy accountable.
00:10:53.000 Explain what that is really quick.
00:10:54.000 I haven't detailed that.
00:10:55.000 What is the motion?
00:10:56.000 Yeah, you have to be able to remove him as speaker if he doesn't deliver on his promises.
00:11:02.000 And so if he says, that's off the table, you can never replace me.
00:11:09.000 So he's going to promise you the world.
00:11:11.000 He doesn't have to deliver on anything.
00:11:13.000 Then what have you gained?
00:11:14.000 No matter what he says, Charlie.
00:11:16.000 And the reality is he's a creature of the establishment.
00:11:19.000 He's been there for eight years.
00:11:21.000 I'd encourage everybody to look at the Daniel Horowitz article from yesterday.
00:11:25.000 It details all the things where he went and made deals with the Democrats instead of Republicans.
00:11:30.000 And I would suggest to you that when you can't trust someone, he can't really be your leader.
00:11:37.000 And that's what people are asking me to do.
00:11:39.000 Trust this guy.
00:11:40.000 Oh, he's going to blow, but he's going to promise you everything, but he doesn't want to be held accountable if he blows that off.
00:11:45.000 My risk tolerance is almost nothing right now after what happened the midterms.
00:11:50.000 But Andy, you're a good friend, and we'll have you on again soon.
00:11:53.000 Thank you.
00:11:53.000 Appreciate it.
00:11:54.000 Yeah, thanks, Charlie.
00:11:55.000 Take care, man.
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00:13:03.000 I think this is a fair email.
00:13:04.000 Charlie, I love you, but to be honest, your risk tolerance is exactly how we got to uniparty leadership positions.
00:13:11.000 We need to stand now and take charge.
00:13:12.000 These establishment people cannot be trusted and will never end until we stop it.
00:13:16.000 I think that's fair.
00:13:16.000 Somebody says, Charlie, admit it.
00:13:19.000 They said, admit it, I think Andy Biggs is right.
00:13:21.000 And I said, and I responded to the email.
00:13:24.000 I said, I'm very risk-averse right now.
00:13:27.000 I'm going to build out the argument.
00:13:28.000 And obviously, you guys can disagree.
00:13:29.000 We're getting tons of emails.
00:13:30.000 Freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
00:13:32.000 So here's another one, right?
00:13:33.000 Someone said, Charlie, I typically agree with you and err on the side of caution, but I think Biggs is right.
00:13:39.000 If McCarthy is setting himself up and able to lead it out of check on power, we'll have him out to the 16 House.
00:13:44.000 And I responded, I'm in a very risk-aversion position right now.
00:13:47.000 I think you can see why.
00:13:48.000 And the person responded, totally understandable.
00:13:52.000 Losing the House would be horrible.
00:13:54.000 At the same time, will a McCarthy-led house bring about positive change?
00:13:57.000 I'm suspicious it will speed up at the best deterioration of our country.
00:14:00.000 We need to turn around now to slow down.
00:14:02.000 Okay.
00:14:02.000 So let me build out my current position, which admittedly, I will fully acknowledge is a reaction to not winning enough or basically winning nothing in November.
00:14:17.000 My current position is one of a defensive, take what you have while you have it and then try to get the most you possibly can out of it.
00:14:30.000 I fully acknowledge that.
00:14:32.000 I also think it's fair and important to say that Kevin McCarthy is not Paul Ryan.
00:14:38.000 Kevin McCarthy is not Jim Jordan, but he is not Paul Ryan.
00:14:42.000 That is a fact.
00:14:43.000 So what do I mean by risk aversion?
00:14:46.000 Okay.
00:14:47.000 So my fear is if Andy Biggs is correct and it goes to the House of Representatives, so the whole House votes, okay?
00:14:58.000 So it goes to the floor of the House of Representatives on the 3rd of January.
00:15:03.000 And on the floor of the House of Representatives, they can nominate people for Speaker.
00:15:08.000 Hakeem Jeffries, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan.
00:15:13.000 And if a candidate does not get 218 votes, it could be a member or a non-member, then they will go into recess.
00:15:27.000 And they're going to go back into committee.
00:15:29.000 So all the Republicans are going to meet together and all the Democrats are going to meet together.
00:15:32.000 Of which, Andy Biggs has said we're going to find a consensus candidate at that period of time.
00:15:39.000 And my response is, I hope, and maybe.
00:15:46.000 You see, there are moderate members of the Republican Party that are saying that they very well might go caucus with Democrats to find a unified speaker with unified time.
00:15:58.000 And by the way, that has happened multiple times in state houses in recent history, multiple times.
00:16:04.000 In fact, I had our team research it.
00:16:06.000 For example, in Pennsylvania, 2007, minority party.
00:16:10.000 They couldn't find a consensus speaker.
00:16:12.000 Democrats became Speaker of the House.
00:16:14.000 New Jersey, minority party speaker just recently.
00:16:17.000 North Carolina, co-speakers.
00:16:19.000 So they had a Democrat speaker and a Republican speaker.
00:16:22.000 Alaska, Democrat majority coalition present.
00:16:26.000 In 2021, Luis Stutes was elected Speaker of the House by a bipartisan, primarily Democrat coalition, even though Republicans won a majority in the House.
00:16:35.000 And by the way, the same people that were the architects of the minority party becoming Speaker are now the ones pushing for this in D.C.
00:16:44.000 So what am I saying?
00:16:46.000 I'm not making a full-throated defense of Kevin McCarthy, so don't misunderstand me.
00:16:52.000 What I am saying is what is your current risk tolerance to lose the House by procedural means?
00:17:01.000 My risk tolerance, given the ambush in Arizona, the Senate, probably not going to be in our hands, and best case scenario, Herschel wins tonight's 50-50, is making me take a step back and say, I'm not exactly big into taking risks right now.
00:17:20.000 Maybe you are.
00:17:21.000 We're getting a lot of emails, and you say, Charlie, we need a warrior speaker, whatever it takes.
00:17:25.000 Okay, then you must entertain the risk that some moderate Republicans might co-caucus with Democrats.
00:17:32.000 I fully acknowledge that this is a very complicated issue.
00:17:39.000 Someone says here, Charlie, you are a coward.
00:17:42.000 How dare you support Kevin McCarthy for speaker?
00:17:45.000 I want to be very clear.
00:17:46.000 That is not the argument I'm making.
00:17:49.000 I'm saying under the circumstances of which we won so little, my desire to gamble has diminished.
00:18:01.000 Okay.
00:18:02.000 So there's a fair amount of emails saying I'm incorrect on this.
00:18:06.000 And that's perfectly fine.
00:18:08.000 I do think it's important if you are willing to go lay a major wager and to take a risk, then to explain how confident you are in that process that we will get A, a better speaker, or B, not just a better speaker, but a conservative speaker.
00:18:35.000 Now you might say, well, Charlie, of course it'll be better.
00:18:36.000 Okay.
00:18:37.000 Hold on.
00:18:37.000 Hold on a second.
00:18:39.000 In 2017, the equivalent of the Freedom Caucus decided to X out Kevin McCarthy.
00:18:47.000 And do you know some of the very same people that are pushing for this right now said, we need Paul Ryan, we need Paul Ryan, we need Paul Ryan, we need Paul Ryan.
00:18:56.000 How did that work out?
00:18:57.000 So sometimes some of these rebellion campaigns can sometimes bear fruit that we are not always comfortable with.
00:19:05.000 Someone says, sir, you can't be more wrong.
00:19:07.000 Sorry to say, this is how they get to scare you.
00:19:10.000 McCarthy is Paul Ryan Light.
00:19:12.000 By your logic, then nothing will change.
00:19:13.000 Talk is very cheap.
00:19:14.000 Just look at his actions.
00:19:15.000 McCarthy is punishing Mr. Biggs.
00:19:17.000 I'm a lot older than you, and so is Mr. Gibbs.
00:19:19.000 Not a crack on you, but that's where experience takes place.
00:19:21.000 No, McCarthy, don't fall for establishment, Rhino tricks.
00:19:24.000 Okay, George, that's perfectly respectable.
00:19:28.000 And I do appreciate the dialogue and the emails.
00:19:32.000 I will just close with this and we'll talk, and then I'm going to, we're going to invite Kurt Schlichter: is my stomach for high-stakes gambling risk, of which the House of Representatives is at stake, is zero.
00:19:51.000 If you are okay with going into caucus without a speaker, you have to acknowledge that there will be a persuasive, well-funded, and aggressive campaign from the Uniparty that very well could lose us the House of Representatives.
00:20:08.000 That is not fear-mongering.
00:20:10.000 That is a fact.
00:20:12.000 I'm not willing to play that high-stakes wager right now.
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00:21:40.000 Joining us now is Kurt Schlichter, one of my favorite guests on the program.
00:21:43.000 Kurt, welcome to the program.
00:21:45.000 Kurt, I first want to get your thoughts on the RNC race.
00:21:48.000 Do you think it's time for a new chair of the RNC?
00:21:52.000 It's absolutely time for a new chair, Charlie.
00:21:55.000 Rona McDaniel has a legacy of failure.
00:21:57.000 She failed in 2018.
00:21:59.000 She failed in 2020.
00:22:00.000 She failed in a 2020 runoff.
00:22:02.000 She failed in 2022.
00:22:04.000 And she could very well fail today in Georgia.
00:22:08.000 Though if you are in Georgia, go out there and do your best to make it one in four for Rona McDaniel.
00:22:15.000 I ran a Twitter poll yesterday, unscientific, but of course, science is what brought you masks and vaccines that don't work.
00:22:24.000 5,992 people voted.
00:22:27.000 I asked, who would you like to see as the RNC chair?
00:22:31.000 Would you like to see Rona do it again?
00:22:34.000 Would you like to see Harmen Dylan, Mike Lindell, Lee Zeldon, who's been talked about?
00:22:40.000 Rona got 0.6%.
00:22:43.000 0.6.
00:22:45.000 That is a statistical anomaly that's actually mind-blowing.
00:22:50.000 It's almost impossible to get 99.4% of Americans to agree on anything, even like how bad Nickelback is or Rage Against the Machine, how terrible they are.
00:23:03.000 You can't even get 99.64 on that.
00:23:06.000 But 99.4% of Republican-based voters, my core Twitter audience, said hell no to more years of Rona McDaniel's failure.
00:23:19.000 So, Charlie, that's kind of an indicator there.
00:23:24.000 And yet the Republican Party seems like the 168 high poobahs may actually decide to choose a person the base holds in more contempt than monkeypox.
00:23:37.000 Monkey Pox is literally more popular than Rona McDaniel among the Republican base.
00:23:42.000 So probably time for a change.
00:23:47.000 I think that's a fair statement.
00:23:48.000 I think when you have failure after failure after failure, maybe you ought to, I don't know, try success.
00:23:57.000 So let me just, I try to be very fair before I do these segments.
00:24:04.000 Kurt, you're a lawyer.
00:24:06.000 You've always had to argue both sides.
00:24:08.000 What would be the argument for Rana, who's a very sweet person, but what could she say has been her like success?
00:24:16.000 I just mean that really sweetly.
00:24:18.000 And like, honestly, if you had to make the best case argument.
00:24:23.000 Great point.
00:24:24.000 It's always important to make the best argument you can for the other side.
00:24:28.000 Rona McDowell can say, well, we really did kind of win in 2022.
00:24:35.000 We just didn't beat our expectations or the expectations one might objectively draw from the coalition correlation of facts and history and trends that should have said red tsunami in 2022.
00:24:48.000 We got the house back.
00:24:50.000 That's a whole other issue.
00:24:51.000 I'm sure we'll touch on that.
00:24:53.000 Yes.
00:24:54.000 Let's see.
00:24:55.000 Rona is an inoffensive person.
00:24:56.000 She's good with donors.
00:25:01.000 There's no evidence that she's stealing the money to go to strip bars like people were doing under Michael Steele.
00:25:11.000 So she's not as bad as Michael Steele, the MSNBC Republican who was RNC chairman and trashes us all the time.
00:25:21.000 So that, as far as I can tell, is probably the best argument that we have.
00:25:28.000 I see no evidence that she's reformed the ballot collecting system that the Republicans need to master.
00:25:37.000 I don't see that she has energized the base.
00:25:40.000 I don't see that she has managed to get us great candidates who do nothing but win.
00:25:49.000 I think the case for is much weaker than the case for let's try something new.
00:25:56.000 Somebody like Harmee Dylan, who has a great track record, who understands the mechanics of elections and law, and who's great in the media and who is someone who understands how to massage clients, like her, like me.
00:26:16.000 I am also a Los Angeles lawyer.
00:26:18.000 She's a San Francisco lawyer.
00:26:20.000 We go out and we get clients and we work with them and we get them to write us checks.
00:26:24.000 That's a very important part of the job.
00:26:27.000 And I think she's able to do that.
00:26:29.000 So I say let's give her a shot.
00:26:33.000 Yeah, I mean, you look at the 2018 midterms.
00:26:36.000 Okay, didn't go great.
00:26:38.000 2020 didn't go great.
00:26:41.000 No.
00:26:42.000 And then we lost the Georgia runoff.
00:26:44.000 And we have a Georgia runoff tonight.
00:26:45.000 We'll see, but it's not looking great.
00:26:46.000 We'll see.
00:26:47.000 And we barely won the House.
00:26:50.000 We lost the Senate.
00:26:50.000 We should have won the Senate.
00:26:52.000 Yes.
00:26:52.000 Governor candidates that should have won did not.
00:26:57.000 And so it is the Republican Party.
00:27:00.000 It's not like she's just running some super PAC, right?
00:27:02.000 That raises hundreds of millions of dollars.
00:27:06.000 Yes.
00:27:06.000 And so you could be really sweet about it and fair because I do think she's a nice person.
00:27:10.000 She spoke at turning point events.
00:27:12.000 Her kids were always like big fans at Turning Point.
00:27:14.000 So this is not like some sort of personality.
00:27:16.000 I've heard nothing personal.
00:27:18.000 I've never met the lady.
00:27:19.000 And I think it's trashy to attack her because of who her relatives are.
00:27:23.000 She should be judged on her own merits, which is what I'm doing.
00:27:27.000 And it's not working out well.
00:27:30.000 And so in any other business, if you start from a place where you controlled basically your mission is in control.
00:27:41.000 So when she took over, the House, the Senate, the presidency was in control.
00:27:46.000 And now all, well, two of them are Democrat-occupied.
00:27:50.000 One barely.
00:27:53.000 You got to say, okay, this is not exactly working.
00:27:56.000 And so the House is barely one.
00:27:58.000 You kind of might have heard some of my thoughts there, Kurt.
00:28:00.000 Feel free to totally disagree.
00:28:02.000 I'm just saying my personal position is my appetite for high-risk, high-stake gambling has evaporated.
00:28:11.000 What is your thought?
00:28:12.000 No, I heard your monologue and I agree with you.
00:28:15.000 Look, I'm a military guy and a lawyer.
00:28:17.000 I don't have the luxury of emotion.
00:28:19.000 I have to look at the objective facts and I have to execute in a manner that is most likely bringing about success.
00:28:27.000 I think the most likely course to success is replacing Rona McDaniel because I don't think we're risking anything by getting rid of her.
00:28:35.000 Kevin McCarthy, I would prefer a different guy be in charge than Kevin McCarthy.
00:28:41.000 But who is that guy?
00:28:44.000 What is the name of the person who can do a better job?
00:28:46.000 This is the same argument with McConnell, who also drives me up the wall more than McCarthy does.
00:28:54.000 Who's the guy who can put in the Senate?
00:28:56.000 Who's the guy who could put together a coalition that runs all the way from Susan Collins to JD Vance?
00:29:03.000 McConnell does it consistently.
00:29:06.000 McCarthy is the only guy out there who seems to have a chance of doing the job.
00:29:11.000 And it is a high wire act.
00:29:13.000 You're absolutely correct.
00:29:14.000 At some points, you have to dig in and you have to defend before you go on the offensive again.
00:29:19.000 We need to defend.
00:29:22.000 We need to gather our strength in the House, get a Republican speaker and not allow some scam where the Democrats aligning with a few soft Republicans.
00:29:33.000 And they're already working the ropes on that.
00:29:34.000 I hope everyone knows.
00:29:36.000 And people say, oh, that's not going to happen.
00:29:38.000 They're already working the ropes.
00:29:40.000 I listed example.
00:29:41.000 Alaska, New Jersey.
00:29:43.000 There are states across the country where North Carolina, where the minority became the speaker because the majority could not select the speaker, and they peel away a couple people and they have a moderate speaker.
00:29:54.000 Now, you might say, oh, Charlie, that's not going to happen.
00:29:57.000 There is a risk of that, period.
00:29:58.000 Okay.
00:29:59.000 And I think it would be a tragedy for us to lose the one chamber that we won in this midterms on process.
00:30:10.000 And it would be disastrous for the conservative side because the conservative side would cause it.
00:30:16.000 Here's what needs to happen.
00:30:17.000 McCarthy needs to sit down with the Freedom Caucus guys, compromise on some of the powers and rules, and they need to make the deal.
00:30:25.000 Make a deal.
00:30:26.000 Get it done.
00:30:28.000 Andy Biggs, I like you.
00:30:30.000 Get it done.
00:30:31.000 McCarthy, you wouldn't listen to me, but you need to get it done too.
00:30:35.000 You all need to sit down and get it done.
00:30:38.000 I'm tired of the nonsense.
00:30:41.000 Compromise among ourselves to bring in the win.
00:30:46.000 I don't care if you don't like each other.
00:30:48.000 Your personal feelings mean nothing to me.
00:30:51.000 Get it done.
00:30:53.000 You know, this is the bottom line, Charlie.
00:30:56.000 Out in the real world, there's something called accountability.
00:30:59.000 Now, you can trace almost every problem in our society back to the lack of accountability.
00:31:05.000 Okay?
00:31:06.000 Rona McDaniel, she didn't cut it.
00:31:08.000 She needs to be held accountable.
00:31:10.000 Okay?
00:31:10.000 McCarthy and the rest of you, if you don't get it done, you'll need to be held accountable.
00:31:15.000 So, Kurt, people are not feeling great about what's going to happen in Georgia tonight.
00:31:21.000 I think that should be more of a mandate to make changes with the RNC.
00:31:27.000 Is that correct?
00:31:28.000 If that ends up, absolutely.
00:31:30.000 Look, accountability is important.
00:31:32.000 I don't care about you leaders of the Republican Party as people.
00:31:37.000 I'm utterly indifferent to that.
00:31:38.000 I'm totally unsentimental.
00:31:40.000 You might be nice people and I like parties and stuff, but I expect you to get the job done.
00:31:46.000 Rona hasn't got the job done.
00:31:48.000 And now I'm sure she has a lot of reasons why she didn't, but I'm a military guy, Charlie.
00:31:54.000 A commander is responsible for everything his unit does or doesn't do.
00:31:59.000 For 5,000 years, mankind has fought wars with that basic principle in mind.
00:32:06.000 And it's done okay.
00:32:08.000 Holding people to account without listening to excuses is the key, is one of the keys to success.
00:32:15.000 I don't want to hear about the problems.
00:32:18.000 I hired you to solve them.
00:32:20.000 And that's another important thing, Charlie.
00:32:23.000 You, me, everybody listening to this, we're the one hiring the next RNC chairman.
00:32:28.000 We're the ones who knock on doors, who walk the precincts, who write the checks, or at least the small checks.
00:32:36.000 And we are the ones they should be answering to, not vice versa.
00:32:42.000 And the idea that 99.4% of the base can be against Rona McDaniel and 168 people voting for the chairperson can say, well, we don't really care about that.
00:32:58.000 We're going to vote for our pal.
00:33:00.000 That's everything wrong with the Republican Party.
00:33:03.000 Why don't we start doing things right?
00:33:06.000 We also did our own poll here with 17,000 votes, Kurt.
00:33:10.000 Ronna McDaniel has 2% in our poll.
00:33:13.000 Wow.
00:33:14.000 So you got a soft electorate there.
00:33:19.000 That's twice as many as in mind.
00:33:22.000 Now, look, look, I don't want to dump on Ronna McDaniel.
00:33:25.000 I'm sure she has other ways she can contribute.
00:33:27.000 But I think we've established that chairperson of the RNC is not her highest and best use in support of conservative ideals.
00:33:36.000 It's nothing personal.
00:33:38.000 You know, in World War II, a general had about a month to succeed.
00:33:43.000 He had about 30 days to show that he could fight the Germans or the Japanese and win.
00:33:48.000 And if he wasn't cutting it, nothing personal.
00:33:51.000 You're out.
00:33:52.000 You're going back to Mississippi.
00:33:53.000 You're going to run a recruit depot where you can contribute.
00:33:56.000 We're going to put somebody else in who can make it happen.
00:34:00.000 It's not personal.
00:34:02.000 And, you know, the idea that they would make it personal is a dodge to escape accountability.
00:34:09.000 There's one question.
00:34:11.000 Have you won?
00:34:13.000 And that's the only question that matters.
00:34:16.000 That's right.
00:34:17.000 I don't understand why that's so difficult for people to understand.
00:34:20.000 We are opening up the RNC process on the show, though.
00:34:23.000 We're going to talk about who the members are, where their tilts are.
00:34:27.000 You know, Kurt, I think that's important that we bring this from the shadows into light.
00:34:33.000 We've never seen an RNC race like this where someone goes on cable television to announce they're running for RNC chair.
00:34:39.000 That's a very interesting new development, isn't it?
00:34:42.000 I think it's a great development.
00:34:44.000 I think transparency is important.
00:34:46.000 Yes.
00:34:46.000 It's about time that we take things away from a small elite with a proven track record of failure and utilize all the skills and abilities and insights of this giant, wonderful party that encompasses half of the United States of America.
00:35:04.000 There's so much out there for people to for the base to contribute.
00:35:11.000 And the leadership needs to understand that and accept that.
00:35:16.000 Now, look, it doesn't mean everything, everything's up to a Twitter poll.
00:35:22.000 That's not the point.
00:35:24.000 The point is that our base has an understanding of things in a way that the leadership just hasn't.
00:35:33.000 And the leadership needs to get in tune with the base.
00:35:36.000 And the leadership needs to demonstrate its skill and acumen in performing its functions.
00:35:42.000 And then it'll get the trust that it seems to think it's entitled to simply by having gotten those sine cures.
00:35:51.000 It's well said, Kurt, how do people follow you?
00:35:53.000 Buy your books.
00:35:54.000 30 seconds.
00:35:55.000 Well, plug yourself.
00:35:57.000 Follow me on Twitter at Kurt Schlichter.
00:35:59.000 Go get my books.
00:36:01.000 You got We'll Be Back.
00:36:02.000 That's nonfiction.
00:36:03.000 And Inferno is my latest novel.
00:36:05.000 You can get that on Amazon.
00:36:07.000 And always read my town hall columns every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
00:36:12.000 And Thursday is going to be a barn burner.
00:36:15.000 It's called Just How Stupid Can the Republicans Be?
00:36:18.000 So you're going to like it.
00:36:20.000 Kurt, you're terrific.
00:36:21.000 Thank you as always.
00:36:22.000 Come back soon.
00:36:23.000 Thanks, Charlie.
00:36:24.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:36:27.000 Get your tickets to America Fest today, amf.com, amfest.com.
00:36:33.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
00:36:35.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
00:36:38.000 Thank you so much for listening.
00:36:39.000 God bless.
00:36:42.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.