00:00:00.000Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Kurt Schlichter joins us to talk about his new book and to reflect on some of the biggest news events of 2023.
00:00:09.000And Julio Rojas, straight from the border, we talk about the crisis, the invasion happening on our southern border.
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00:03:05.000One month it would be Eagle Pass, another month it would be El Paso and so on and so forth.
00:03:09.000But recently, and as we've seen through people like Bill Melujin and Allie Bradley, it's multiple areas along the southern border.
00:03:16.000It's no longer just one sector that's completely overwhelmed.
00:03:18.000And I think part of the reason why we're seeing an even bigger surge compared to previous years is because these illegal immigrants know that we're heading into an election year.
00:03:28.000And we have someone like Donald Trump who's a frontrunner against Biden and his rhetoric and his actions when he was president.
00:03:35.000A lot of people are thinking that if they don't get in now, they might lose an opportunity to illegally come into the country and kind of skip the line should Trump win the White House again.
00:03:46.000And so I think this coming year, we're going to see just an absolute total meltdown of the border, even more, which is pretty staggering considering the state that it's been under Biden these past few years.
00:03:58.000How many people are crossing every day, would you say?
00:04:02.000So, right now, the daily average is over 10,000, which is unbelievable because when you look at what Obama's DHS Secretary said, Judd Johnson, saying that 1,000 crossings per day is a crisis, so we're 10 times that number.
00:04:20.000About half of them are single adult males.
00:04:23.000The others are family units or unaccompanied minors.
00:04:26.000And so, when you have that many people and when you have specifically that group with single adult males crossing and not being deported and being allowed into further within the country, that's why there's no incentive for these groups to stop because people use WhatsApp, they use Facebook, they use all these social media, and they see their friends and family who've already made the journey.
00:04:49.000And so they think to themselves, well, why not me?
00:04:51.000And that's why it's no longer just people from Central or South America.
00:04:54.000We're getting people from all over the world.
00:04:56.000The furthest country I've ever encountered in terms of someone coming over is from Uzbekistan and Russia.
00:05:02.000So it's really just a free-for-all for anybody who wants to come.
00:05:07.000It's not just people in Central America.
00:05:10.000So what is, if anything, Greg Abbott doing to solve this?
00:05:14.000Is the Texas government doing anything?
00:05:19.000The issue is that you have a state entity trying to solve a federal problem.
00:05:24.000And whenever, and we've seen this, right?
00:05:26.000We've seen whenever the Texas National Guard puts down razor wire or put in containers or Arizona did the same thing.
00:05:32.000They put shipping containers under the previous governor.
00:05:36.000The federal government can come in because they are above the state government.
00:05:40.000They can come in and say, no, you're not going to do that.
00:05:42.000We're going to let them in and we're going to process them.
00:05:46.000And unfortunately, the states have really no other choice but to kind of relent to that.
00:05:50.000So there has been times when the, as we've seen, especially in Texas, there have been times where Border Patrol will kind of say, okay, you know, the Texas State Troopers, you'll handle this, you know, because like we're too overwhelmed.
00:06:01.000But that makes the Biden administration look bad, right?
00:06:02.000And that gives kind of an edge to people like Greg Abbott to say, see, we're doing something and they're not.
00:06:07.000So unfortunately, we've seen the Biden administration kind of really flex their muscle and say, no, the feds are going to take over.
00:06:14.000We're going to do it our way, even though it makes no sense.
00:06:17.000So I understand the criticisms with Abbott, and I think that there's some other things that maybe he could try to do to confront it.
00:06:23.000But at the end of the day, it's you're having a state trying to solve a federal issue.
00:06:28.000And when the feds don't want to do anything to actually solve it, there's not much people can do.
00:06:33.000Yeah, so I guess we just have to take an invasion of our country, right?
00:06:36.000Yeah, I just think it's so unbelievably morally unacceptable for Greg Abbott to allow this to happen.
00:06:44.000So then explain to us the kind of concerted focus that the cartel has here on the southern border.
00:06:53.000This is an organized operation, right?
00:06:56.000This is not something that's happening organically.
00:06:59.000Walk us through the type of activity that the cartel would engage in.
00:07:04.000So what we've seen with like the caravans, for example, and it's the Mexican government too.
00:07:08.000So the reason why the caravans even form in the first place is because in Tapachula, which is a city in southern Mexico, that's kind of the first major city that these people are coming into first.
00:07:17.000And Mexico will hold them for a few months as they process them to give them their own immigration documents.
00:07:23.000And so, you know, time over time, that number swells up.
00:07:26.000And so when it's finally time for the Mexican government to allow them to go, that's why we see 15,000, 20,000, 10,000 people at once finally leaving and heading to our southern border.
00:07:37.000And so then once they start entering into heavy cartel territory, the cartels, I mean, even when we were back in Eagle Pass last week, it was routine at 7 a.m., 7 to 7.30 a.m.
00:07:48.000That's when we would see a group of like 800, 600 people crossing.
00:07:51.000And then the same thing around 5.30 to 6.30, that's when we would see another large group cross.
00:07:56.000And then throughout the day, we get 20s, 30s, tens of people.
00:08:01.000And that's very, very deliberate because there are people who pay the cartels and smuggling organizations to not encounter American law enforcement.
00:08:11.000And so when you have a consistent number of large groups who are willingly giving themselves up and it ties up all the resources on the American side, the border is wide open for anybody to walk across.
00:08:24.000Uh, pictures and videos of of people, sometimes armed, just strolling through all these branches in south Texas and there's nobody to intercept them, like they'll see them.
00:08:34.000The American law enforcement will see them, but there's no, there's nobody to go out and apprehend them, or or they're in an area that's that they're not gonna be able to catch up to them as quickly.
00:08:43.000So it is a very big national security concern and the cartel knows this.
00:08:47.000Uh, when we're talking about all the different uh terror suspects that have been apprehended on a consistent basis, the cartels, you know they typically would avoid uh smuggling in those people because they know that if something were to happen and it ties back to them, they know the American government and the Mexican government will come hard after them.
00:09:08.000They know American leadership is weak.
00:09:09.000They know that the United States government is not going to pressure Mexico to actually do their job to prevent people from illegally crossing.
00:09:15.000So from the cartel's perspective, it's just more money because they'll just charge them more as kind of a, you know, just a way like, well, you're more of a risk to us, so we're going to get more money out of you.
00:09:24.000This story is, without a doubt, the most depressing story that we cover, because every time I ask people, they just kind of shrug their shoulders like yeah, there's nothing that could be done.
00:09:31.000We just have to allow 10 000 people to come into the country and if you don't like it, then you know they'll throw you in federal prison.
00:09:38.000Is that basically where we're at Julio?
00:09:39.000We just have to wait to the next election, because no one seems to be doing anything.
00:09:44.000You know barbed wire can't even be put up without some federal judge coming in.
00:09:48.00010 000 people a day, a lot of them Chinese and Russians and foreign nationals were obviously being replaced on a daily basis.
00:09:55.000So there's, there's nothing that we can do.
00:09:57.000I mean basically yeah, and and that's why this, this next election is uh, is it's you know, I know it's a meme or you know it's kind of uh worn out at this point to say that this election is the most important election?
00:10:08.000But i'm telling you, this election is very, very important, and especially its outcome, because I I cannot fathom to see if you know, let's say, Biden or you know, a Democrat continues on for the next four years.
00:10:20.000I cannot imagine what this country is going to look like, because even the sanctuary cities are saying that they're overwhelmed.
00:10:25.000Even everyone is stretched their limit on just this single issue and doesn't even cover any of the other issues.
00:10:30.000When it comes to the economy, when it comes to foreign policy um, you know, the country that you and I have, you know, come to grow up in, I mean, it is completely, radically worse off than it was.
00:10:41.000Uh, you know, starting in 2019 2020 um, so I, I kind of hate to be the bear of bad news again um, but that's just kind of the way that I see it, and I, I really can't imagine how how much better things will be along the border should a Democrat remain in the White House.
00:10:57.000Yeah, I mean look, in order for Greg Abbott to do it, he'd have to basically say, state of emergency, ignore the federal government, risk federal prison, risk a constitutional secession crisis.
00:11:08.000I've think, I thought for a while, we're already there.
00:11:10.000When you're being invaded, you need to have high risk, high stakes.
00:11:12.000But he doesn't feel that way as a lawyer uh, and it's 10 000 people a day, and our women will be raped and people will be murdered and our kids will be killed by fentanyl.
00:11:23.000By the way, we're here in Arizona, crime is going up like crazy right now.
00:11:26.000So you have these overflow effects right, a lot of them.
00:11:28.000They get spread all across the country.
00:11:29.000You might think oh, I live in Michigan.
00:11:31.000Oh no, they're coming to Michigan too, because then they get flown all across the country.
00:11:34.000But all of the second and third and fourth tier effects, our hotels are full of illegals, our airports are full of illegals and they're here to rape our women and to murder us.
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00:13:38.000So Julio, do you think that there are sleeper cells and terrorist cells that are coming into the southern border that then could plant dirty bombs, could attack our water facilities?
00:13:49.000Who are these people and could they attack the American homeland?
00:13:52.000I mean, our enemies would definitely be kind of foolhardy to not take advantage of that, right?
00:13:57.000And it's like I was saying before, that the conventional wisdom is like, oh, you know, the terrorist sneaking into our southern border is overblown because the Mexican cartels aren't going to take that risk.
00:14:08.000But they used to make, so just put it in perspective, they used to make around half, you know, $500 million a year through human smuggling and trafficking.
00:14:15.000And that was under, let's say, the Trump administration.
00:14:18.000Under the Biden administration, they turned that into a multi-billion dollar industry for themselves.
00:14:23.000And that doesn't even include drugs, right?
00:14:24.000So just through trafficking people alone who are willing to pay a premium dollar to not get caught is more lucrative for them in some areas than drug smuggling.
00:14:34.000I mean, think about how crazy that is, of how just inverted things have become.
00:14:42.000And then when you throw in what's happening within the Middle East, with Yemen and Israel and Hamas, and our continued role over there, yeah, people are going to figure out ways to hurt us and figure out where our vulnerabilities are right now.
00:14:58.000And right now, that's our southern border.
00:14:59.000So I'm not saying it's a foregone conclusion, but when you even have the FBI director, who is not exactly someone that we should trust, but even he's saying that he's never seen such an elevated terror threat against our homeland in recent years.
00:15:13.000So even people within the Biden administration are saying, hey, with everything that's going on right now, we are at extreme risk.
00:15:20.000And it's, and then we combine that with the lack of policing in our cities and the over-policing of the federal government when it comes to certain groups that aren't actually threats.
00:15:32.000And I'm very concerned, especially now.
00:15:34.000Like I said, we're heading into an election season.
00:15:36.000And what 2020 taught me covering all those riots was that, you know, people who want to hurt us, they will do everything within their power to do that.
00:16:12.000And the numbers just keep getting worse.
00:16:14.000Those 12,600 encounters you mentioned, that is the highest single-day total ever recorded, beating the previous record just a couple of weeks ago.
00:16:22.000And Eagle Pass is just getting completely overrun.
00:16:47.000I've always said that the easiest aspect of the border crisis has been the women and kids who are willing to give themselves up.
00:16:53.000But the more sinister part and the more worrying aspect are the ones that we don't see.
00:16:57.000And especially right now in places like Eagle Pass, there is not enough law enforcement to try to handle all those people because they're so busy trying to keep everyone in one place by the international bridge.
00:17:07.000And so I'm going back to Eagle Pass here in the next week or two.
00:17:11.000If people want to support my work, they can go to mostlypeaceful.live and support my reporting there.
00:17:16.000But this is going to be a very big issue.
00:17:19.000And even let's say a Republican takes back the White House, this is going to be with all the people that have been let in under these four years, it's going to be an issue for a very, very long time.
00:17:26.000And it's not going to be an easy way out.
00:20:55.000So, Kurt, I would say that the horrific attack on October 7th is definitely one of the top events, not in a good way, of 2023 as we look back on this last year, without a doubt.
00:21:09.000And the reaction has in some ways been more noteworthy.
00:21:12.000I'm not saying the attack wasn't noteworthy.
00:21:14.000I'm talking about in a domestic political way.
00:21:16.000We've seen college resignation, college president resignations, tons of money being pulled from universities.
00:21:23.000They're shutting down roads right now.
00:21:26.000JFK in New York City, you saw protests yesterday, mass arrests.
00:21:50.000Is it going to kind of fade away by the summer?
00:21:52.000What is your gut instinct and what does history tell us?
00:21:56.000Because we have not really lived through an event quite like this where a foreign conflict, I thought Russia and Ukraine was, but it actually did not divide our politics or our domestic culture war nearly as much as the Israel-Gaza war.
00:22:12.000Well, look, the horrible attacks of October 7th have really shown that there is a giant gaping schism within the Democratic Party.
00:22:22.000You have half the Democrats who are kind of old school Democrats.
00:22:25.000They sort of support Israel and oppose mass murder.
00:22:30.000And then you have kind of the woke left Democrats who are perfectly happy to butcher settlers and colonists who look at this through the lens of cultural Marxism.
00:22:42.000And that, you know, that's a problem for the Democrats.
00:22:46.000Republicans, we're pretty much in, you know, we're pretty much opposing, you know, terrorism.
00:23:11.000Look, victory has a way of answering questions.
00:23:16.000The Israelis are not asking our permission.
00:23:19.000They're going to go in and they're going to wipe out Hamas, which I'm all for.
00:23:25.000In fact, I kind of find it remarkable that they are as judicious about the use of force as they are, because I know American forces would not do that.
00:23:37.000I think it'd be very hard to walk to a mom in Omaha, Nebraska, and say, yeah, your son got killed because we didn't blow down a building.
00:23:45.000Instead, we went and cleared it out just in case.
00:23:48.000I think that'd be a hard conversation to have, and Americans wouldn't fight that way.
00:24:47.000I think it's a hard argument to make, particularly when our border is wide open right now.
00:24:53.000I think the American people are demonstrating that they are tired of being the refuge of last resort for everybody from a problematic area around the world.
00:25:06.000And the idea that we're going to invite in a bunch of people from Gaza who are, if you look at their polls, 75% think October 7th was a dandy idea.
00:26:02.000I just, I see these op-eds that the Israeli intelligence ministers are writing that we have a moral obligation to take in the wonderful people of Gaza.
00:26:26.000There's one in the Times of Israel and there's one by Danny Dinan.
00:26:29.000Now, to be fair, I have received more than a phone call, probably 10, 15, 20 phone calls from people, American and Israeli, saying that's not the position.
00:27:10.000I didn't, you know, we didn't make this happen.
00:27:15.000This is the result of a culture that has decided to choose war.
00:27:21.000Imagine, if you will, if they had not decided to choose war.
00:27:25.000They've got prime real estate on the med.
00:27:28.000They have many intelligent, clever people.
00:27:34.000The Palestinians, at one time, were among the most educated of the folks in the Arab world, supplied many of their doctors and professors and everything else.
00:27:42.000They could have turned it into a paradise.
00:27:44.000They could have turned it into Singapore on the Mediterranean.
00:27:49.000They chose to turn it into an armed camp and launch attacks from it.
00:28:43.000And when you do horrible, horrible things, like turn your entire plot of land into an armed camp and then attack your much stronger neighbor brutally, employing rape, mutilation, and murder.
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00:30:39.000Your analysis of us now only a couple weeks out from the Iowa caucus.
00:30:43.000Well, you know, Charlie, tomorrow I actually have an article coming out about the DeSantis campaign, and I disagree with you.
00:30:50.000I think he's run effectively the only campaign he possibly could, because what he's doing is running against a guy that most Republicans like, even most DeSantis people like Donald Trump.
00:31:04.000And in fact, most Donald Trump people like Ron DeSantis.
00:31:07.000They just seem to prefer Donald Trump right now.
00:31:11.000Now, I think Ron DeSantis has to go to Iowa and maybe he wins Iowa and that maybe changes everything.
00:31:19.000I don't think it is, I don't think it's time for him to drop out.
00:31:22.000I don't think it's time for Nikki Haley to drop out.
00:31:28.000But The problem for a guy like Ron DeSantis in his position is he's got this very popular guy who is being persecuted completely unfairly, disgracefully, and people rally around him.
00:31:49.000I think he's done the only things he can do.
00:31:51.000I think he's demonstrated he's a great leader, demonstrated competence on the debate stage, gone and done the work building up a ground game.
00:32:03.000So I don't think there's one weird trick that Ron DeSantis didn't do or one bad move that he did do that suddenly puts him in this position.
00:32:14.000He was always going to be in this position because Donald Trump's just super popular.
00:32:20.000The question that a lot of people have: let's say Trump is the nominee.
00:32:25.000Who do you think that Trump should choose as his vice president?
00:32:29.000Well, not Nikki Haley, because I'm a lot older than you guys.
00:32:35.000I've already lived through a couple of bushes.
00:33:19.000Governor Reynolds would be an interesting choice for Donald Trump because she supported Ron DeSantis, and that's putting a hand across the aisle.