The Charlie Kirk Show - January 23, 2026


DEI On Steroids + Future of the Census


Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

179.7381

Word count

6,863

Sentence count

482

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ben Weingarten returns to the show to talk about the 8A program and what it means for the economy, and to honor the memory of Charlie Kirk, who was tragically killed in a helicopter crash on January 20th, 2019.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.
00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.
00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.
00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.
00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.
00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.
00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.
00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.
00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.
00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA High School chapter.
00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.
00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.
00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.
00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.
00:00:43.000 And I encourage you to do the same.
00:00:45.000 Here I am, Lord Museman.
00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:49.000 Here we go.
00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000 All right.
00:01:10.000 Hour two of the Charlie Kirk shows underway, January 22nd.
00:01:16.000 Lots of good news today.
00:01:17.000 Lots and lots of good news coming through.
00:01:19.000 And something we want to make sure that is not being overlooked is some of the behind-the-scenes work that's being done to clear out a gut of terrible precedents that have been living just sort of behind the surface for the federal government for decades.
00:01:36.000 And you brought it up when we had Kelly Loeffler.
00:01:39.000 And we're actually going to bring her back on because a lot of news has happened at the Small Business Administration on something called 8A, which if you had to summarize quickly, Blake, before we bring Ben on, what is 8A?
00:01:51.000 8A is this giant morass federal program to basically orders, it's a program created by Congress, orders the government to give a certain percentage of its contracts to businesses that are certified as owned by disadvantaged people.
00:02:06.000 Small businesses owned by disadvantaged people.
00:02:08.000 And this being America, who counts as disadvantaged has grown to the point where you are disadvantaged if you're anything other than a white man.
00:02:15.000 So if you're a woman, if you are basically, anyways, if you are from a national group that makes more money on average than white Americans, like I believe Indian Americans are disadvantaged.
00:02:15.000 Yeah.
00:02:26.000 They outearn white Americans. 0.76
00:02:28.000 So here to help us explain this is Ben Weingarten, who is a Newsmax contributor.
00:02:35.000 He's also a real clear politics contributor and writer.
00:02:37.000 Ben, good to see you again.
00:02:39.000 Welcome back to the show.
00:02:40.000 I think this correct me if I'm wrong.
00:02:43.000 Is this the first time we've had you back since we lost Charlie?
00:02:47.000 I always want to give the guests an opportunity to reflect on that as a first step.
00:02:52.000 Well, thanks so much for having me.
00:02:54.000 And it is the first time since being back.
00:03:00.000 What a loss it has been for the country.
00:03:04.000 You guys have done an exceptional job picking up the mantle to the extent anyone can.
00:03:10.000 And I think the way to honor his legacy is to fight with just as much vigor, just as much intellectual honesty and heft, and with as impassioned a sort of drive as we can possibly have to overcome these forces of evil and darkness that conspire to take him down.
00:03:35.000 So, you know, as a Jew, we say may his memory be a blessing.
00:03:39.000 And I would also say may his memory and his works inspire us to go forth and conquer in this war of ideas and for civilization on his behalf.
00:03:50.000 Yeah, well said, Ben.
00:03:51.000 And you've been a longtime guest intermittently.
00:03:54.000 You have these great pieces that come through ever real clear.
00:03:59.000 And I know you're also with Newsmax now.
00:04:01.000 And so, congratulations on all your success and all the things you're doing.
00:04:05.000 This is a huge story.
00:04:06.000 Charlie was all over Disparate Impact.
00:04:08.000 He was all over CRT, he was all over DEI.
00:04:11.000 Something we never talked about until just recently.
00:04:14.000 And Christopher Rufo has been talking about it as well.
00:04:17.000 And we're going to have Kelly Loffler, actually Loeffler on the show tomorrow.
00:04:21.000 She wants to come back on and give updates on what's going on over at SBA.
00:04:24.000 But how big of a problem is this insidious little thing called 8A and what's being done to solve it?
00:04:32.000 Yeah, well, thanks so much for those kind words.
00:04:34.000 And 8A really looks like the small business administration manifestation of DEI on steroids.
00:04:45.000 And even if you think that that's a political characterization, we need to look no further than the fact and the fact that intense focus by the Biden administration under its effort to infuse every single aspect of the federal government with quote-unquote equity.
00:05:04.000 And what they wanted to do was raise the percentage of SBA contracts to 8A firms, 8A eligible firms, qualified firms, from 5% of contracts to small businesses to 15%.
00:05:21.000 That's really all you need to know about how significant of a thrust this was.
00:05:24.000 And what does that mean?
00:05:25.000 We're talking percentages, but these are tens of billions of dollars in contracts every year that are steered towards purported socially and economically disadvantaged, individually owned small businesses or majority, minority-owned small businesses.
00:05:45.000 And so that's massive, obviously, when we're talking about no-bid contracts or limited competition.
00:05:53.000 They have focus from federal authorities, and this is really dating back years, if not decades, is on the fact that the program is open to massive amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:06:07.000 There's been a recent prosecution over, in this case, of course, a USAID administrator who was doling out contracts to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and receiving kickbacks with these 8A firms.
00:06:23.000 But beyond that, the main allegations are that you have these pass-through entities where a firm puts itself out there as being owned by a minority business owner and then subcontracts out the work to massive defense contractors, for example.
00:06:40.000 So essentially, the idea is that you have a front company that looks like a minority company and they don't really do any of the work, but they collect the fees and then they shift a percentage of those fees onto a major company that actually does most of the work.
00:06:56.000 And then, of course, there's the idea that there are companies who claim to be socially and economically disadvantaged and in reality should not be based upon the criteria set up by SBA.
00:07:09.000 And there have been studies done by inspectors general to show that.
00:07:13.000 So one thing is waste fraud abuse and that this looks like a racial preference program that is potentially rife with fraud and that's led to all sorts of scrutiny by the SBA, by the Treasury Department, now by the Department of War, according to a recent announcement by Secretary Hegseth and beyond.
00:07:35.000 The other aspect is: is this thing legal in the first place?
00:07:40.000 And there are regulations underpinning how this program is actually executed that suggest that there is a rebuttable presumption that you are a socially and then economically disadvantaged business if you are a member of a minority group.
00:07:59.000 That presumption was challenged.
00:08:02.000 So basically, if you are not a minority, you have to prove that you're socially and economically disadvantaged.
00:08:07.000 But if you are, you're assumed to qualify for the program unless there's evidence showing to the contrary.
00:08:13.000 And that evidence is basically never shown historically.
00:08:16.000 That regulation was challenged, and at least one federal court found that it didn't pass legal muster.
00:08:24.000 So to get around that ruling, the Biden administration said, okay, we're not going to use a rebuttable presumption, but under this program, you're going to have to draft a socially disadvantaged narrative essay to show ways in which you've been disadvantaged.
00:08:39.000 And so this is basically like a proxy for what the Supreme Court assumed that a lot of universities might try to do to get around affirmative action being prohibited, which is just write an essay as a proxy for it.
00:08:52.000 So we've seen that similar regulations have gone from the SBA and been applied by a slew of other agencies now in other programs.
00:09:04.000 So while you had a court say this rebuttable presumption for the SBA doesn't pass legal muster and the Biden administration tried to find a workaround, the underlying regulation has been adopted by a ton of other agencies in doling out awards under programs to advance quote-unquote socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.
00:09:25.000 So this looks like racial preferences that continue to exist.
00:09:30.000 And so I wrote in this recent story about Real Career Investigations about a lawsuit that seeks to wash away this regulation and invalidate it, not just at the SBA, but everywhere it's been adopted across the federal government.
00:09:44.000 Yeah, just to put this in perspective here, because you didn't brush over it, but I just want to draw our attention to it again.
00:09:50.000 In 2024, the SBA awarded some $78 billion or 12% of all contract dollars.
00:09:59.000 So they didn't even hit their 15% mark to so-called small disadvantaged businesses, often under no bid or limited competition arrangement.
00:10:08.000 So that's $78 billion in one agency.
00:10:12.000 And to assume that there is some fraud, waste, and abuse in there, I think would be a safe assumption.
00:10:17.000 The waste is baked in because you're just allowed to pay more for something you could get cheaper.
00:10:22.000 That's already wasteful on top of the literal fraud that they do on top of that.
00:10:26.000 And it's just interesting as the demographics of the country shift, Ben, it's like, how long are we going to keep up this ruse anyways?
00:10:35.000 President Trump walked into a catch-22 when taking office.
00:10:38.000 Do nothing, and America would be staring at a ticking debt bomb, the kind of crisis that could cripple our future.
00:10:43.000 Instead, he's taken action with strong policies to slow the train and buy us some time.
00:10:48.000 But the effects of past administration spending are still working through the system and experts predict dramatic price increases and market uncertainty.
00:10:56.000 Trump is doing all he can, but no matter who's in office, protecting your retirement savings is ultimately up to you.
00:11:02.000 And that's why many Americans are turning to real assets like gold and silver.
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00:11:09.000 We use them because they make it easy to own physical gold and silver even inside your retirement accounts like an IRA or 401k.
00:11:17.000 Now, here from Charlie in his own words.
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00:11:31.000 President Trump is fighting for America's future.
00:11:33.000 Now it's your turn to help protect yours.
00:11:38.000 All right, Ben, there is news also on the 8A front that you mentioned this briefly, but it's kind of a program that's morphed and it's evolved and it's kind of spread to other parts of the government.
00:11:51.000 And so Pete Hegset came out and said that he's getting rid of 8A. 0.97
00:11:56.000 How big of a chunk of money are we talking over at DOW?
00:12:00.000 We're definitely talking about billions of dollars annually.
00:12:04.000 And the Department of Defense is among the biggest dollars out of contracts to 8A eligible firms.
00:12:13.000 So it's like DOD, HHS are some of the main agencies that contract through the SBA with these 8A firms. 0.99
00:12:23.000 And so there's been allegations of defense contractors oftentimes effectively winning business using 8A firms as fronts essentially to get business they couldn't otherwise get.
00:12:36.000 And something that was mentioned that's really kind of perverse in this is shouldn't all companies be competing according to their merits on their own qualifications.
00:12:47.000 And it's the same thing with affirmative action in schools.
00:12:51.000 Courts have said that these affirmative action type programs, it was always assumed that they would lapse.
00:12:58.000 They would go away when we reached a place where discrimination wasn't rooted in all of these different institutions.
00:13:05.000 And if it's been found in the schools, certainly wouldn't we have found it in the private sector as well at this time?
00:13:13.000 And it's also worth noting, by the way, we're talking about 8A in the federal government, and there's questions about whether or not that can even comport with the Trump administration's own executive orders against DEI in federal contracting and in a federal government.
00:13:28.000 But you also have these disadvantaged business enterprises, so-called, that get carved out contracts at the state and local levels.
00:13:37.000 So it's billions upon the federal billions of dollars that are involved here.
00:13:42.000 And there's a whole racket arguably associated with it in the law firms that represent these companies, in the advisors, consultants, the people who write the studies justifying the continued use of racial preferences.
00:13:57.000 So it is a massive, massive deal.
00:13:59.000 And in terms of dollar value, you could argue that it goes way beyond what it would mean to abolish affirmative action in colleges.
00:14:06.000 This is tens of billions of dollars, at least just on the federal side, every single year, taxpayer dollars.
00:14:13.000 Yeah, well, and I think that's really smart.
00:14:15.000 And this is, you know, some of this is wonky.
00:14:17.000 I'm sure the audience is kind of, you know, it's a little bit in the weeds, but it's so critically important because when we have senators like Ron Johnson here saying we got to get back to pre-COVID level spending, okay, which is what, four, four and a half trillion dollars now we're at like seven, okay, six and a half, seven.
00:14:32.000 This is why it's so important because when you increase the federal budget like this and you got these 8A and this DEI and this disparate impact embedded within the federal code and all these statutes, you got to just assume all your tax dollars just going away and getting flushed down the toilet for stuff that really is illegal.
00:14:52.000 I mean, I remember Stephen Miller was on a crusade before he got back into the administration suing a bunch of this anti-white discrimination.
00:15:00.000 And especially as the demographics of the country change, when you got 50% white country and you got 50% minority country, a lot of this doesn't make any difference.
00:15:10.000 It's sort of like in Los Angeles, their school district has a special category.
00:15:15.000 James Gordesky is on next about it.
00:15:17.000 You'll create special categories where it's supposed to be, they'll have schools where they're marked as special because they're majority non-white and they get special privileges because the idea is smaller class sizes, more money, all these things. 0.94
00:15:31.000 And it's 80% of the schools qualify for this.
00:15:33.000 Well, because it's only 10% of the students in LA are now white.
00:15:37.000 You're literally at the point where, okay, this is not a leg up for this disadvantaged small group.
00:15:41.000 It's we just want to punish white people. 0.98
00:15:45.000 It's spending a lot of money.
00:15:46.000 Here's Pete Hegseth on reviewing and rooting out 8A within the DOW, 398.
00:15:52.000 So, effective immediately, I'm ordering a line-by-line review of every small business sole-source 8A contract that is over $20 million.
00:16:03.000 And we'll look at everything smaller than that, too.
00:16:05.000 It's a two-stage mission.
00:16:07.000 First, if a contract doesn't make us more lethal, it's gone.
00:16:10.000 We have no room in our budget for wasteful DEI contracts that don't help us win wars.
00:16:15.000 Period, full stop.
00:16:17.000 Second, we're doing away with these pass-through schemes.
00:16:20.000 We'll make sure that every small business getting a contract is the one actually doing the work and not just some shell company funneling your money to a giant consulting firm.
00:16:30.000 Ben, final word to you.
00:16:32.000 This is similar to in Minneapolis.
00:16:34.000 You have basically government programs with limited safeguards, and of course they're going to get abused.
00:16:38.000 And I think the really important thing is this: the Trump administration is trying to do everything it can using executive power to get out of the DEI business.
00:16:46.000 It can all turn right back on in a future administration.
00:16:49.000 Yeah, I mean, it's so true.
00:16:51.000 This is why we got to win the midterms.
00:16:53.000 We've got to win in 28.
00:16:54.000 Ben Weingarten, Newsmax contributor, real clear investigations.
00:16:58.000 Thank you, my friend.
00:17:01.000 This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and Founding Partner of WhyReFi.
00:17:06.000 It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us.
00:17:11.000 His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come.
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00:17:47.000 It may not be available in all 50 states.
00:17:49.000 Go to whyrefi.com.
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00:17:57.000 Because of private student loan debt, so many people feel stuck.
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00:18:10.000 All right, got some breaking news, and then we're going to bring in Ryan James Gerdowski, who has some interesting analysis.
00:18:18.000 Always does, actually, always brings really interesting stuff.
00:18:20.000 So there's been a third arrest, William Kelly, who was this crazed lunatic, this guy who's always wearing a beanie, barking at all these people, poor people in this church.
00:18:30.000 He's been indicted, or he's been charged, and actually is in FBI custody.
00:18:35.000 So yesterday he was, yep, there's a picture of him, real lunatic.
00:18:39.000 And we have a video of him yesterday basically challenging Pam Bondi to come arrest him.
00:18:46.000 402.
00:18:47.000 So you know, Pam Bondi, you want to come and arrest me?
00:18:49.000 You want to come and give me charges?
00:18:51.000 So be it.
00:18:52.000 And for all the people getting, you know, giving me death threats, threatening my life, kill me.
00:18:56.000 Go ahead.
00:18:57.000 Kill me.
00:18:58.000 Because you know what?
00:18:58.000 As Fred Hampton said, you can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution.
00:19:05.000 Yeah, it's too bad this guy didn't go protest a church in Chicago because then we could have had William Kelly on to discuss Willie.
00:19:11.000 William Kelly.
00:19:12.000 That's a good point.
00:19:13.000 So this guy's been spotted all over D.C. He's a complete lunatic.
00:19:16.000 This is what he does full-time.
00:19:18.000 So he said, come arrest me.
00:19:20.000 Pam Bondi said, okay, deal.
00:19:22.000 I'll take that deal.
00:19:23.000 Now, an update.
00:19:24.000 Apparently, a magistrate judge blocked the Don Lamon charges.
00:19:28.000 So they, I'm not exactly, we're getting the details there.
00:19:31.000 So Don Lemon has not been charged.
00:19:33.000 Yeah, there you go.
00:19:34.000 Magistrate judge rejects charges against Don Lemon over anti-ICE protests in Minnesota church.
00:19:39.000 Okay.
00:19:40.000 This is pro my guess here is that this is some sort of activist judge who didn't want to, you know, he just is treating Don Lemon as a, as an independent journalist.
00:19:50.000 Don Lemon was not an independent journalist.
00:19:52.000 He was act.
00:19:52.000 He was there as an activist.
00:19:53.000 You don't kiss the main lead organizers also been charged and arrested.
00:19:53.000 Okay.
00:19:57.000 You don't tell them, thank you for your service and defend their actions if you're just an independent journalist.
00:20:03.000 He's an activist, okay?
00:20:04.000 That's what he is now.
00:20:06.000 Welcome back.
00:20:07.000 Ryan James Gerdowski.
00:20:08.000 There we got that housekeeping out of the way there, sir.
00:20:11.000 Welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:20:12.000 It's good to see you.
00:20:13.000 Thank you.
00:20:14.000 And you said a crazy guy with a beanie was arrested.
00:20:16.000 I thought Tim Poole was going to show up.
00:20:18.000 But I mean, this is much better news.
00:20:20.000 Yeah, no, as far as I know, Tim hasn't been raiding churches, storming churches.
00:20:24.000 Although I wouldn't put it past him.
00:20:27.000 He's unpredictable.
00:20:30.000 All right.
00:20:30.000 So you had this interesting take here.
00:20:32.000 And I think we've got the graphic and we throw it up.
00:20:35.000 But you basically break down the states that are losing population.
00:20:41.000 And this is something that we've been on really for a long time, Ryan, where you say green states that saw net positive migration from other Americans, purple states are states that saw net negative migration.
00:20:55.000 And you say this, immigration is the only thing keeping certain blue states like New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and California from losing 10 plus congressional districts.
00:21:04.000 Take us back in time because this was a fight in Trump 1.0 where they tried to make it so that in the census, we would not have illegals counted in the census.
00:21:17.000 What happened?
00:21:18.000 Well, I mean, listen, when I say immigration, it is both legal and illegal.
00:21:22.000 I think that has to be set there and stated.
00:21:24.000 From my recollection from the census thing, they brought up to the Supreme Court.
00:21:28.000 The Supreme Court said no, that they have to be counted.
00:21:31.000 Now, before that, there was also a court case that said that only people of voting age and legality should be counted.
00:21:38.000 In other words, children shouldn't be counted and people who can't be voted either. 0.97
00:21:42.000 They're residents or they're visitors or they're legal visitors or they are illegal aliens should not be counted because that would at least make every congressional district of equal voting population.
00:21:51.000 There are some congressional districts that have 100 or 150,000 more voters than other districts.
00:21:55.000 Makes them much more expensive, harder to win.
00:21:58.000 So that was interesting, but all the court has been very pretty consistent sitting there and saying, no, it's every person in the building gets counted.
00:22:05.000 So with that happening, especially because of COVID, there was a mass change in movement as far as people goes.
00:22:11.000 California essentially has the same amount of people today as it did in 2020, right?
00:22:18.000 American citizens are leaving that state. 0.89
00:22:20.000 They're leaving New York.
00:22:21.000 They're leaving Illinois.
00:22:22.000 They're not willing to deal with the nonsense of failed government Democratic governance.
00:22:28.000 What is happening is that the 300,000 plus people who have moved to California from other countries have made up from the loss of population of Americans.
00:22:40.000 So in the 2030 census, when California should be like, okay, let's say, how are the states doing?
00:22:45.000 Where do people want to live?
00:22:46.000 Where are people moving?
00:22:47.000 California should lose five seats. 0.96
00:22:49.000 They really probably should lose five seats.
00:22:51.000 They wouldn't have gained so many had it not been for illegal aliens over time, but they should lose five seats. 0.87
00:22:55.000 It is only for legal and illegal immigration that they don't lose more.
00:22:59.000 So it is very important in these four years where President Trump's really cracking on illegal immigration.
00:23:05.000 He is putting up barriers for illegal immigration that we sit there and we really reduce these numbers because in the 2030 decade, right, as it stands now, Texas, Florida, Utah, Arizona are all set to gain Idaho set to gain correctial seats.
00:23:20.000 California, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Illinois will all lose or Washington or Oregon is supposed to lose one as well.
00:23:29.000 They will all lose.
00:23:30.000 What does that actually mean as far as presidential politics go?
00:23:33.000 It means that that decade will be the first decade where the entire blue wall does not matter.
00:23:38.000 In other words, if a Republican wins North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, they win the presidency and Ohio.
00:23:44.000 I should say Ohio too.
00:23:45.000 As long as they win Ohio plus those other states, they win the presidency.
00:23:49.000 There's no more conversation of how Wisconsin's going.
00:23:52.000 I mean, it will be important to win those states and to sit there and campaign there, but it's not necessary anymore.
00:23:58.000 The entire climate changes, and it becomes very difficult for Democrats to really climb out of that as Florida is not a swing state anymore, as Texas has not become a swing state like they hoped it would be.
00:24:09.000 Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia is really, you know, they have work to do there to sit there and try to win, yet and still they cannot count on these big blue states to deliver them because Americans don't want to live there.
00:24:22.000 It's such a big topic, Ryan, because you know, you have native-born Americans that are abandoning American states. 0.99
00:24:31.000 They're completely, they're opting out.
00:24:33.000 They're walking.
00:24:34.000 And it just, it seems like such a travesty that we have whole tracts of this country that Americans find so detestable that they refuse to live there.
00:24:43.000 It doesn't matter that they have family linkage to America.
00:24:45.000 California was, let's be frank, it was paradise for decades.
00:24:49.000 And paradise is depopulating.
00:24:51.000 It is a place of the very rich and the very poor.
00:24:54.000 You have to be a special kind of stupid to drive people away from California.
00:24:58.000 You just, you, you have to.
00:25:00.000 Yeah, go ahead, Brian.
00:25:02.000 Yeah, no, it's true.
00:25:02.000 And think of it, I mean, but think of like public schools, right?
00:25:05.000 Public schools are literally free for people to attend, and yet they still won't.
00:25:08.000 Democrats will make something unlikable, even if you give it away for free.
00:25:14.000 That is how bad some policies have been.
00:25:16.000 And think of all the millions who are literally trapped there who vote against its policies year in and year out.
00:25:21.000 And they sit there and they try to work their way to make sure supermajorities maintain and the insanity continues.
00:25:26.000 So I think it's very, very important, though, that the whole country doesn't go down that route and we are no longer held hostage to these big blue states anymore because Americans don't want to live there.
00:25:35.000 And if we can cut off illegal immigration, start deporting people, I mean, we are, but ramp it up. 1.00
00:25:40.000 And if we can sit there and reduce legal immigration on top of that, we saw we will see massive change to the tune of 10, 12 seats out of blue states into red, 10, 12 electoral colleges.
00:25:53.000 And it's a whole different ballgame.
00:25:54.000 It's just a completely different, the 2030s change radically.
00:25:57.000 Well, the 2030s change.
00:25:59.000 I think there's an argument.
00:26:00.000 Listen, if we look at what the Democrats are doing in Virginia, they're going full Marxist in a D plus six state, and we can't get Indiana to redistrict.
00:26:11.000 We are taking a knife to a gunfight, if you will.
00:26:13.000 And it's, I mean, we're just, we're still playing under an old playbook.
00:26:17.000 And I thought we were past that.
00:26:19.000 I thought in the era of Trump, we'd finally learn our lesson after 2024.
00:26:23.000 We have not.
00:26:24.000 We have not.
00:26:25.000 And, you know, so Ryan, you are the host of It's a Numbers Game.
00:26:29.000 You're also, you do natpop.substack.com.
00:26:32.000 You're also the founder of the 1776 Project Pack.
00:26:35.000 You're like one of those people we bring on the show, and I got to have all these different titles ready to go.
00:26:39.000 It's okay.
00:26:40.000 No, I appreciate it.
00:26:41.000 No, you're doing great work.
00:26:43.000 And so you are a numbers game guy.
00:26:46.000 Talk about this deep mass deportations.
00:26:49.000 You just said we got to ramp it up.
00:26:50.000 I agree.
00:26:52.000 Then you got Axio saying that this is so unpopular.
00:26:55.000 The Trump administration is looking at it.
00:26:57.000 You got this story this morning of this five-year-old illegal that the Democrats are spreading all this propaganda.
00:27:02.000 Turns out the dad abandoned him.
00:27:04.000 How popular or unpopular is it?
00:27:06.000 And specifically with independents and minorities.
00:27:10.000 So the New York Times poll that just came out this morning was terrible for Trump.
00:27:14.000 It was horrible poll numbers, except on two issues: border security and deporting illegal immigrants.
00:27:19.000 Now, they're going to sit there and say, oh, look, the poll said that ICE is unpopular.
00:27:23.000 Yeah, people don't like massed agents.
00:27:25.000 They don't like watching families cry.
00:27:27.000 They don't.
00:27:27.000 People are people.
00:27:28.000 Like they have a heart.
00:27:29.000 However, that doesn't mean that they don't endorse the deportation effort.
00:27:35.000 It is the most popular issue still when they ask, what is Trump doing right?
00:27:39.000 Deporting illegal immigrants. 0.80
00:27:41.000 It was popular among not only Republicans, but I think it was plus 12 among independents.
00:27:45.000 It was positive among all age demographics over the age of 30.
00:27:49.000 So only the very young were opposed to it.
00:27:51.000 It was very popular among men.
00:27:53.000 I think it was 50-50 among women.
00:27:55.000 It is the issue that people voted for Donald Trump.
00:27:58.000 Listen, there was no like, oh, I wonder what he'll sit there and do.
00:28:01.000 The signs were at the convention, mass deportation now.
00:28:05.000 So overall, yes, when they see the images on social media, they really don't like them.
00:28:09.000 It's really giving something.
00:28:10.000 They don't like what happened in Minneapolis.
00:28:12.000 However, they still support doing mass deportations.
00:28:16.000 If blue states would get on board with actually allowing prisons to oblige by ICE detainers and we could deport them straight from prisons, which blue states are stopping right now, it would be a much easier and pragmatic approach.
00:28:30.000 We can't have that.
00:28:30.000 We should also be looking at fining, increasing fines against employers at higher illegals.
00:28:34.000 That's an easier way to do it.
00:28:36.000 But the good thing is that the Brookings Institute and AEI looked at this.
00:28:40.000 We're having a net loss about 100,000 illegal foreign-born citizens this year, and not citizens, but foreign-born residents this year, and about half a million next year.
00:28:49.000 It is working.
00:28:50.000 It might be a little painful for the people who are queasy, but it is working and it's a good thing. 0.80
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00:30:09.000 I want to play this clip from JD Vance, and he's talking about we're not going to stop.
00:30:15.000 We're not going to stop deporting illegals. 1.00
00:30:17.000 So get over it.
00:30:18.000 404.
00:30:19.000 The far left has decided that the United States of America shouldn't have a border anymore, and they are willing to fight and penalize and dox and even insult our law enforcement officers in order to fight for the basic principle that anybody ought to be able to come into the United States of America.
00:30:35.000 Well, I'll tell you right now, the Trump administration, we reject that.
00:30:39.000 We are going to get illegal criminals out of our country, and we're not going to let a few left-wing radicals stop us.
00:30:45.000 So it seems like the administration is getting a memo here, Ryan James Gerdesky, 1776 PAC.
00:30:51.000 Blake, read some of these numbers, though, on this New York Times poll.
00:30:55.000 For sure, for sure.
00:30:56.000 I mean, it's interesting to me.
00:30:58.000 So, as you mentioned, he's strongest on the border, but unsurprisingly, people are annoyed about the Epstein files thing.
00:31:07.000 But, like, for example, he's only 41 approved, 53 disapprove on Venezuela, which we talked to Rich Tiberis about that.
00:31:15.000 It's interesting because Latin America does overwhelmingly seem to like it.
00:31:19.000 And it seems it basically did work, whatever he was, what his plan was.
00:31:24.000 And, you know, we didn't invade.
00:31:25.000 We didn't have a war.
00:31:26.000 So what are they unhappy about there?
00:31:29.000 3754 on the Israel-Palestine conflict, where it's imperfect, but they actually did get a ceasefire in that one, which is one of the things he promised he would get.
00:31:39.000 He's seen as too close to BB, probably.
00:31:40.000 Yeah, negative 24, 34 to 58 on Russia-Ukraine.
00:31:45.000 I guess it hasn't ended the war yet, but nothing catastrophic has happened either.
00:31:50.000 But if you look at the, because, because if you look at the numbers, right, it's, it comes down to this essential thing of inflation and cost of living, right?
00:31:57.000 The only thing that he does worse than the cost of living on is the Epstein files.
00:32:01.000 And it's kind of like something, one thing is polluted and therefore everything is polluted.
00:32:05.000 It makes no rhyme or reason.
00:32:07.000 Like on Israel, he did a great job.
00:32:09.000 On Venezuela, everything worked out.
00:32:12.000 Like, so there's the negativity towards the issue of cost of living and the feeling that he is not organized on the issue of cost of living and that's not a priority pollutes everything.
00:32:23.000 The one caveat I will say about the times, and I'm not a poll truther, but the one caveat I will provide for the Times issue is when they ask independents, do you lean Republican or Democrats overwhelmingly Democrats?
00:32:34.000 So there could be some, maybe a little, maybe a margin of error in one way or the other.
00:32:39.000 But I think that the idea that the priorities are not there, we want to really focus a lot on American American stuff and making sure American jobs are coming back.
00:32:47.000 And I think that that is just creates negativity across the board on everything.
00:32:51.000 What is driving the so people say cost of living affordability?
00:32:57.000 Is that a vibes-based thing?
00:32:58.000 Is there something specific they see?
00:33:00.000 Because I just thought I was looking up and I know rental prices in a lot of big cities are stagnating or falling.
00:33:07.000 So housing, especially for people.
00:33:10.000 Healthcare is a big part of it, but also it is one of the worst times when to be young and looking for a job in our country.
00:33:17.000 Like that is just the truth.
00:33:18.000 I don't know whether it's AI or jobs being moved overseas or whatever the case is.
00:33:23.000 You hear a lot of things from a lot of different people and you kind of try to parse through to find the truth.
00:33:27.000 That though is a really big part of it.
00:33:29.000 And the number one group that has sat there and turned on Trump are young people.
00:33:33.000 It's people under the age of 30. 0.67
00:33:35.000 His numbers are very stable for people over the age of 30.
00:33:38.000 I mean, they're really not horrendous.
00:33:39.000 There are some numbers that could be off, that could be better.
00:33:43.000 However, the numbers under 30 are where you're seeing the biggest U-turn against him.
00:33:47.000 I kind of think in part of it's vibes and it's social media and people getting outraged over every kind of nonsense there is.
00:33:54.000 And part of it, I think it is one of the worst times to be a young person to try to find a job.
00:33:58.000 I will tell you, we had a bunch of turning point students on the show not too long ago, and I was struck by how much they kept going.
00:34:07.000 And again, these are conservative kids.
00:34:09.000 All right.
00:34:10.000 Okay.
00:34:10.000 So it's a selected bias there.
00:34:13.000 But I was struck by how much they talked about H-1B.
00:34:18.000 And listen, H-1B is actually a small fraction of a much larger legal immigration.
00:34:25.000 To some extent.
00:34:25.000 But it's what they talk about.
00:34:26.000 Right.
00:34:27.000 Because it's symbolic for them because they feel like, you know, yeah, they do have the AI onslaught coming.
00:34:33.000 That's an entry-level job killer.
00:34:36.000 AI is going to take a lot of analyst jobs.
00:34:38.000 It's going to take a lot of, you know, data jobs.
00:34:42.000 So they look at H-1B as a truly symbolic problem for their generation going into the workforce.
00:34:48.000 I think they need to do more on that.
00:34:50.000 I think they need to do it more on legal immigration because legal immigration is actually structurally, I think, one of the biggest problems facing the country.
00:34:56.000 Yeah.
00:34:56.000 And listen, President Trump is going all in on AI.
00:34:59.000 He's making a really big bet.
00:35:00.000 He says it's going to create more jobs than it takes away.
00:35:03.000 Maybe it does.
00:35:04.000 And maybe we're just in the pain period.
00:35:06.000 I don't know.
00:35:06.000 I don't have a crystal ball.
00:35:08.000 However, if he is wrong, it is a generational consequence.
00:35:12.000 Like there's, I don't know if anyone sat there and said, Mr. President, what if you are wrong on this major, major thing?
00:35:18.000 And you're looking at a generation where 20% can't find a job.
00:35:22.000 I think that that's a real conversation that Democrats on the left are having.
00:35:27.000 Rokana is having that conversation.
00:35:29.000 Democrats are saying, What are we going to do about AI in a real way where we redistribute wealth?
00:35:34.000 They're speaking about it as a solution towards socialism as AI is the gateway to actually get real socialism in America in a way that we have never felt it.
00:35:43.000 They think that that's the answer.
00:35:45.000 And I know the internal polling that they have flagged for the president says the numbers on AI are not great.
00:35:50.000 Like they do, most Americans are worried about it.
00:35:53.000 They're not concerned.
00:35:54.000 You are the AI president.
00:35:55.000 I think that that's something that they should be sitting there and trying to calculate and say, okay, what are you know, what are we doing?
00:36:01.000 You know, I saw David Sachs was flagging this over at Davos and he was talking about how China has, you know, the Chinese population has like an 80% positive rate, you know, when polled about AI.
00:36:14.000 And in the United States, it's like 40, 41, 43.
00:36:17.000 I think the president is right to go for AI because it's not even whether AI will create jobs or not.
00:36:22.000 It's that AI will exist.
00:36:23.000 And do you want it to be in America?
00:36:25.000 Like, or do you want it to be in China and we lose whatever jobs it takes?
00:36:28.000 Do you want to regulate it at all?
00:36:30.000 That's the question.
00:36:31.000 It's like Sachs will say, oh, we need a federal regulation.
00:36:35.000 And then just ask Sachs, okay, what's the federal regulation you support?
00:36:38.000 And see if he says anything.
00:36:40.000 Because I have yet to see when you ask Silicon Valley to police themselves, they fail.
00:36:46.000 I mean, we can just go back to 2020 where they were literally on board with every single far-left extreme thing that there was.
00:36:53.000 And then Trump was popular and won.
00:36:54.000 And now they're all on board.
00:36:55.000 But they'll leave us again in 35 seconds.
00:36:57.000 They don't care.
00:36:58.000 They have no loyalty.
00:36:59.000 If you ask, what is the thing you're willing to sit there and actually get hard federal legislation on?
00:37:04.000 What is it?
00:37:05.000 And don't just tell me, you know, children, child pornography.
00:37:08.000 Tell me a real concrete thing.
00:37:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I listen, and I know there was a bunch of back and forth on the One Big Beautiful bill, and there was that one clause, which was going to, you know, put off any regulation at the state level for 10 years or whatever.
00:37:21.000 It made sense because California was and New York are so large, their economies are so large, that they could basically dictate a patchwork of woke regulation at the state level on AI, and it would screw everybody else.
00:37:33.000 So I understood it got demonized and villainized.
00:37:37.000 Yeah, 20 seconds.
00:37:37.000 But Andrew, but remember, Tennessee was what killed that part of the bill.
00:37:42.000 I know.
00:37:42.000 Tennessee did it.
00:37:43.000 It wasn't New York or California.
00:37:44.000 Texas has AI regulation.
00:37:46.000 Florida has AI regulation.
00:37:47.000 It is not just the thing is, yeah, we're going to end up with patchwork because there's no federal response.
00:37:53.000 Either make a federal response and give up something instead of asking Silicon Valley for advice, give up something that the taxpayer, the voters want, or you're going to see just states continue to do it.
00:38:05.000 You can't have it both ways.
00:38:06.000 Ryan James Judowski.
00:38:08.000 Really good conversation.
00:38:09.000 We'll have you on and back again soon.