The Charlie Kirk Show - Democrats in "100% Denial"

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on The Charlie Kirk Show, a great man, great American, Steve Hilton.

00:00:05.000 Steve Hilton is just a wonderful man.

00:00:07.000 This is a phenomenal conversation around his new book, Cala Failure.

00:00:11.000 You're really going to enjoy it.

00:00:13.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:23.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:26.000 We also have Mark Halperin this hour.

00:00:28.000 Everybody, you have to come to AmericaFest.

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00:00:38.000 We got Tucker Carlson.

00:00:40.000 Glenn Beck, Steve Bannon, Patrick Bette David, Ben Shapiro, Speaker Mike Johnson, Donald Trump Jr., Matt Walsh, Tim Poole, Ben Carson, the next ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Michael Moles, Ted Cruz, Rob Schneider,

00:00:56.000 Byron Donalds, Anna Paulina, Matt Gaetz, Danica Patrick, Brett Cooper, Jack Posobiec, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Benny Johnson, my wife, Erica Kirk, Riley Gaines, Brandon Tatum, Tom Homan, the deporter-in-chief, George Janko, Allie B. Stuckey, Sage Steele, And more.

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00:01:15.000 You're going to be so fired up.

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00:01:53.000 We have, again, let me just repeat this, Tucker, Beck, Bannon, Bet David, Shapiro, Walsh, and more.

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00:02:04.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:02:04.000 Here we go.

00:02:06.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:02:07.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:02:09.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:02:13.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:02:16.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:02:17.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:02:18.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:02:35.000 That's why we are here.

00:02:39.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

00:02:49.000 Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:02:55.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

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00:03:04.000 Joining us now is a great friend who I saw this weekend and just an overall terrific person.

00:03:09.000 10 out of 10. Just love spending time with him.

00:03:11.000 He's just fun and he loves life and he's here to do good.

00:03:15.000 It is Steve Hilton, author of Caliphailure, founder of Golden Together and host of The Steve Hilton Show.

00:03:21.000 Steve, my friend, great to see you again.

00:03:24.000 Welcome to my show!

00:03:39.000 The event at Mar-a-Lago and the whole thing.

00:03:41.000 Just the scale of your achievement, this organization that you've built.

00:03:44.000 I'm an entrepreneur.

00:03:45.000 I've started businesses.

00:03:47.000 And just from the pure entrepreneurial sense of what you've achieved, it is absolutely incredible.

00:03:52.000 It was just a joy to see you there with all these friends and supporters.

00:03:56.000 It was an amazing, amazing weekend.

00:03:58.000 It just made my heart just full of joy.

00:04:01.000 Well, thank you, Steve.

00:04:02.000 And what a festive time.

00:04:03.000 I mean, it was real joy, right?

00:04:05.000 We were at the Mar-a-Lago Ballroom and playing YMCA. It was real joy.

00:04:11.000 Steve, congratulations.

00:04:12.000 Can I say sorry?

00:04:13.000 Yeah.

00:04:14.000 One more thing, Charlie.

00:04:15.000 Sorry to cut you off.

00:04:16.000 I said this to you on the night, and I think everyone also needs to understand this.

00:04:19.000 The joy was real because it felt like a family coming together.

00:04:23.000 It wasn't even like a political event.

00:04:25.000 It was this real sense of, you know, so many people were just old friends, and we're hugging each other, and you had Cash and Bobby Kennedy, and it's just an amazing event, and this sense of a family that loves the country, but we also love each other, and that was what was so wonderful.

00:04:41.000 Steve, thank you for that.

00:04:43.000 Congratulations on your new book.

00:04:45.000 It's coming out in a few months, but it was announced today.

00:04:48.000 It's something I care deeply about California.

00:04:50.000 I spend a lot of time in California.

00:04:53.000 It still has so much goodness left in it.

00:04:56.000 I hope people understand there are so many good people, patriots, and it still is objectively the most beautiful state that God has for us in this state.

00:05:07.000 Steve, tell us about your book.

00:05:08.000 So the thing about California that I love so much is that in the best version of California, it should be the absolute best of America.

00:05:15.000 It should capture the spirit and essence of America, freedom and opportunity and dynamism and adventure and the rebel spirit.

00:05:24.000 That's the best version of California.

00:05:26.000 But instead, what we've had for the last, and it's nearly 20 years now, of one-party rule by an increasingly extremist Far-left democratic establishment in California is the opposite.

00:05:38.000 We're now the worst of America, and that's not an exaggeration.

00:05:41.000 That's why I called the book Caliphailia, because they are failing on every single front.

00:05:46.000 You'd pick any issue, and California now is the worst In America, we have the highest rate of poverty from these people that lecture us the whole time about social justice and whatever, and compassion.

00:05:57.000 Highest rate of poverty, highest homelessness, highest taxes, highest housing costs, the worst business climate.

00:06:05.000 That's been voted by CEOs across America.

00:06:07.000 California, the worst business climate in America 10 years in a row.

00:06:11.000 We're supposed to be the home of entrepreneurship.

00:06:13.000 I mean, on and on.

00:06:14.000 Your highest gas prices, highest electricity costs.

00:06:16.000 Everything is a disaster.

00:06:18.000 And what I've tried to do in the book is not just list all those things and explain it.

00:06:22.000 And there's a lot more than what I've said.

00:06:23.000 I mean, the details are just horrendous.

00:06:25.000 But try and explain why.

00:06:27.000 Because this is what everyone in America needs to understand, whether you live in California or not.

00:06:31.000 or not, because so much of this bad stuff that's gone so wrong across the country, and you see in the Biden administration, it starts in California.

00:06:39.000 As I use this phrase, California has become like the Wuhan lab of far left extremism.

00:06:44.000 They're exporting all this stuff.

00:06:46.000 And so we have to defeat it here.

00:06:48.000 And I go through all the ways in which this ideology has taken shape that I call it the pathologies of this ideology.

00:06:56.000 So we look at, you know, what's really driving it, right?

00:06:59.000 It's not just politics.

00:07:01.000 It's the elitism, the narcissism, the cronyism.

00:07:05.000 I mean, there's all these different things that have added up to create this catastrophic failure.

00:07:10.000 Can we just talk about...

00:07:12.000 How special the state is first.

00:07:15.000 I want to start there.

00:07:16.000 It takes an intentional set of decisions over long periods of time and overruling repeated objections to mess up a place as spectacular as California.

00:07:29.000 Steve.

00:07:30.000 That's exactly right, because, you know, we have all these advantages, right?

00:07:34.000 We once had the best education system probably in the world, right?

00:07:38.000 The University of California system was renowned.

00:07:41.000 The schools were great.

00:07:42.000 We had the infrastructure, you know, back in the day.

00:07:44.000 And by the way, you know, this was a Democrat governor.

00:07:47.000 Jerry Brown's father, Pat Brown, built the State Water Project, the most incredible feat of engineering the world had seen, bringing water to the area from where it's plentiful to where it's needed.

00:07:58.000 Just incredible things that California did.

00:08:01.000 And it grew.

00:08:02.000 And there's a time not that long ago, just a few decades ago, where people were flocking to California.

00:08:07.000 Housing was plentiful and affordable.

00:08:10.000 And there was this wonderful life, the California dream.

00:08:14.000 And that's where people came to start businesses.

00:08:16.000 And bit by bit, as they grew the government and they just got more and more into the nanny state mentality, regulating absolutely everything.

00:08:25.000 The bloat of the government, the corruption and the cronyism has expanded the size of the government.

00:08:31.000 So that's why taxes are so high.

00:08:33.000 Half of it going out the door in luxury pensions and health care to the unions, the government unions who've completely wrecked the public schools.

00:08:40.000 So no longer Can you hope that your kids can have a better life than you through a great education?

00:08:45.000 So all these things are deliberate choices.

00:08:47.000 That's exactly what I say in the book.

00:08:48.000 This is not some, you know, natural phenomenon.

00:08:51.000 This is the result of policy choices.

00:08:53.000 And the really good news is that actually I think we can get back to that great version of California pretty easily if we just make the right decisions politically.

00:09:01.000 And so the second half of the book actually is called Califuture.

00:09:06.000 And we lay out a plan for the specific policy changes that will bring us back to where we should be, which is, I mean, sometimes I use this phrase, if we think of America as the greatest country on earth, which it obviously is, and we love it so much, California should be the best of it.

00:09:23.000 And to use that famous phrase, if America is a shining city on a hill, California should be a beautiful gleaming tower on the top.

00:09:30.000 And we can rebuild that.

00:09:31.000 And I think we can do it quicker than anyone thinks.

00:09:34.000 So, Steve, just briefly as we wrap up this segment, about two minutes remaining, before we get into the future, I am curious, what would you say were the pivot points where California really turned in the wrong direction?

00:09:44.000 Because, I mean, the 80s and early 90s, it was heaven on earth.

00:09:47.000 I mean, you could come and get an affordable house.

00:09:50.000 You could start a business, some of the greatest entrepreneurs and companies that was just at the beginning of dot-com and Silicon Valley, semiconductor land.

00:09:59.000 I mean, we had every major entrepreneur on the planet saw California as the state of the future.

00:10:05.000 That is where Elon Musk initially planted his roots.

00:10:09.000 It's where Peter Thiel.

00:10:11.000 So what happened? 0.96

00:10:12.000 What were the policy pivot points that created this steaming pile of garbage?

00:10:17.000 It's a great question, and it's answered in the book.

00:10:20.000 And just to give you just at the beginning, right, just a couple of points along the way.

00:10:24.000 Really significant moments were the granting of collective bargaining rights to the public sector unions, the government unions, because that entrenched the Democrats' power.

00:10:33.000 And enable them to build this political machine that was so dominant.

00:10:36.000 But the really important moment was actually a ballot initiative that was passed in 2008, which had the sort of nice sounding idea of independent redistricting.

00:10:46.000 And what happened once that started to be implemented in 2010 was that the Democrats, again, these people who lecture us all the time about democracy, They gerrymandered the districts to give themselves a supermajority in the legislature.

00:10:59.000 So when that happened, and there was another ballot initiative that meant that you could pass a budget with 50% votes in the legislature, not two-thirds as it was previously.

00:11:09.000 Putting all that together, they had free reign to do whatever they wanted.

00:11:13.000 And that's when the extremism really came in.

00:11:16.000 There was no opposition.

00:11:17.000 The Republicans in the state legislature were frozen out.

00:11:20.000 I'll just give you one number to capture that.

00:11:22.000 If you look, even in a bad year in California, Republicans get statewide around 40% of the vote.

00:11:28.000 You look at the legislature, it's not 40% Republican representation.

00:11:32.000 Until just recently, it's 20%, half what it should be.

00:11:35.000 That's a result of gerrymandering.

00:11:37.000 That means they've had this one-party rule, and they've got more and more extreme, and passed all this nonsense.

00:11:43.000 And so that's why the most achievable way Amen.

00:11:56.000 As there are more registered Republicans in California than any other state.

00:12:02.000 Any other state.

00:12:02.000 I spend so much time in California.

00:12:04.000 I vacation in California.

00:12:06.000 My best friends are in California.

00:12:07.000 Producer Andrew's there.

00:12:08.000 My pastor's in California.

00:12:10.000 Boy, if it can be done, it is the most worthy of all the political tasks.

00:12:14.000 Because the prize of California, the untapped potential. 0.95

00:12:18.000 Every time I land in Orange County, I turn to Mikey and say, how did these maggots screw this place up? 0.96

00:12:25.000 I say that. 0.97

00:12:26.000 I know.

00:12:27.000 And I mean it.

00:12:27.000 It is a slice of the divine that we have.

00:12:33.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

00:12:34.000 We're all feeling pretty good about where our country's headed right now, but I'm concerned.

00:12:38.000 Because it's when we let our guard down that bad things happen.

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00:13:35.000 San Diego.

00:13:36.000 There's some breaking news in San Diego.

00:13:37.000 Steve Hilton is with us.

00:13:38.000 San Diego Supervisor Jim Dresmond speaks out against the Board of Supervisors who voted to turn the county into a super sanctuary county.

00:13:47.000 Let's play cut 78. I think this policy goes beyond California's existing sanctuary laws by adding an additional layer of bureaucracy that hinders local law enforcement from directly notifying ICE About illegal immigrants who are currently in our jails and they have committed heinous crimes including child abuse or endangerment,

00:14:13.000 driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, but only if this conviction is for a felony, torture, rape, and kidnapping.

00:14:22.000 Steve, what is going on in San Diego?

00:14:26.000 It's insane.

00:14:27.000 I mean, this is, again, going back to what we were saying earlier, this is a place that used to be thought of as a Republican place. 0.89

00:14:33.000 And they've gone completely nuts to the far left.

00:14:35.000 This extremism is off the charts.

00:14:37.000 And they're doubling down on this policy.

00:14:40.000 They're going further, even than our terrible sanctuary state laws, to basically stop any kind of cooperation between Local law enforcement and ICE. Tom Homan's not going to stand for this.

00:14:52.000 We know that.

00:14:53.000 But, you know, they're just throwing up these barriers.

00:14:55.000 What's it all about?

00:14:56.000 It's this performative...

00:14:58.000 I mean, I don't even want to use the term virtue signal.

00:15:01.000 There's no virtue in it.

00:15:02.000 But that's what it's about.

00:15:03.000 It's like saying, we're the good people.

00:15:06.000 We're standing up against Trump.

00:15:08.000 We're going to preemptively stop them from deporting people.

00:15:12.000 Who are they defending here?

00:15:13.000 They're defending violent criminals.

00:15:16.000 That's what's going on.

00:15:17.000 And the outrageous nature of this, they have no self-awareness of what this means or what it tells people about their values.

00:15:27.000 I mean, it reminds me of LA City Council.

00:15:29.000 That was just a couple of weeks ago.

00:15:30.000 They voted to become a sanctuary city, actually less teeth than the San Diego one.

00:15:36.000 They did that in the middle of the Lake and Riley murder trial.

00:15:40.000 Like just the kind of crass offensiveness of that is just unbelievable.

00:15:45.000 But they have no concept of how this comes across to regular people.

00:15:50.000 They're totally captured by their far left activists.

00:15:53.000 And this is all just pandering to them.

00:15:56.000 Steve, can a last question, Caliphailor is the book, can a Republican win statewide again in California?

00:16:03.000 Yes.

00:16:03.000 And here's why.

00:16:05.000 I always felt that that was possible because, you know, you could just push people so far.

00:16:10.000 And I go around the state all the time and people are just sick of what's going on.

00:16:13.000 They've had enough.

00:16:14.000 The crime, the homelessness, the cost of living, can't get a house, can't follow your dream, can't run a business.

00:16:20.000 It's all a nightmare, right?

00:16:22.000 So there's those substantive reasons that I always felt if we had a really great campaign.

00:16:26.000 We could really bring people across.

00:16:28.000 But actually what happened in this election in California just now is the real data that we need.

00:16:33.000 And so I'll just give you a couple of numbers.

00:16:35.000 If you look at the next statewide election is 2026. It's a midterm election.

00:16:41.000 You're going to have a lower turnout.

00:16:43.000 And if you just take an assumption of what that turnout is going to be based on previous midterm elections, the number of votes you need to win as a Republican in California is actually slightly lower than the number of votes that President Trump just got in California.

00:16:59.000 So the votes are there.

00:17:01.000 President Trump got the votes in California this election.

00:17:05.000 The key will be to make sure that everyone who voted for Trump in California this time turns out and votes for change next time, then we can definitely do it.

00:17:15.000 The votes are there.

00:17:16.000 The Republican support is there.

00:17:18.000 We just have to go and find it and get it and make sure people vote, which you, Charlie, know all about because that's what you've been doing across the country this election with Turning Point.

00:17:27.000 Do you get a sense that the Democrats are afraid of a backlash in California to break their supermajority, eventually win statewide?

00:17:35.000 But a minute remaining, speak about the current political climate as Newsom's regime comes to an end.

00:17:42.000 No, they don't.

00:17:43.000 They're still complacent. 0.99

00:17:44.000 They're still totally arrogant. 0.97

00:17:45.000 They're delusional about this.

00:17:46.000 They think that they're going to be in power forever.

00:17:49.000 They got the arrogance of this ruling elite.

00:17:51.000 And so they don't really fear that kind of political change.

00:17:56.000 They actually fear primaries from the far left and that kind of thing.

00:18:01.000 And that's why they're completely beholden to their activists and the unions and so on.

00:18:05.000 But I think that they need to, you know, I'm very happy if they're complacent, by the way, because it means that they won't be ready for what's coming.

00:18:13.000 A real revolution is coming in California.

00:18:16.000 My show on Fox used to be called The Next Revolution.

00:18:18.000 I'd say it at every meeting.

00:18:20.000 The next revolution is going to be the California Revolution.

00:18:23.000 I love it.

00:18:24.000 Steve, you're a great man.

00:18:25.000 I'm going to be behind you any way I possibly can be.

00:18:28.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:18:29.000 And someone's got to run for governor out there in the Golden State.

00:18:31.000 So why don't you go find someone, Steve?

00:18:34.000 I think so.

00:18:35.000 I think we need to find someone really good who's really fired up about the possibility of change.

00:18:39.000 Yeah, when you find a candidate, call me.

00:18:41.000 Thanks, Steve.

00:18:42.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:18:42.000 See you soon.

00:18:45.000 Joining us now is Mark Halperin, political reporter and Mark Halperin's Wide World of News.

00:18:52.000 Also, two-way TV. Check it out right now, two-way TV. Mark, welcome to the program.

00:18:56.000 Mark, about a week ago it looked as if Pete Hegseth was on very, very shaky ground.

00:19:00.000 How would you grade his probability of confirmation and what changed in the last week?

00:19:06.000 Well, Charlie, thanks for having me back.

00:19:08.000 If there's no new information and if he performs well at the hearings, I think his chances are between nine and ten, eight or nine out of ten.

00:19:16.000 I think he's in a very strong position.

00:19:18.000 I think not all the senators who are inclined to oppose him currently have been publicly named.

00:19:24.000 So I think his problem on paper is a little bit broader than people realize.

00:19:29.000 But what's changed is he and his team, including the vice president-elect, have been super smart at changing the terms of the discussion.

00:19:38.000 First of all, no senator thinks it's fair for someone's career to be short-circuited by anonymous allegations.

00:19:46.000 It runs against a lot of what Americans believe in, and senators themselves are subject to a lot of anonymous allegations.

00:19:52.000 So highlighting the fact that every serious allegation against him is based on anonymous allegations, I think has been successful.

00:20:00.000 I think also making this about the president's agenda, about whether woke is going to be removed from the Pentagon, making it about the future, not the past, I think has been effective.

00:20:12.000 And I think efforts to convince these senators that if they vote against Donald Trump's nominees, if they don't give them the kind of deference most presidents get, they could be primaried.

00:20:23.000 To paraphrase a great Arizonan, paraphrase now, nice Senate seat you got there.

00:20:28.000 It wouldn't be a shame if you lost it.

00:20:31.000 You know, I've said that once or twice in the last week.

00:20:33.000 Yeah.

00:20:34.000 So let me ask you from your reporting, Mark, because I'm kind of in my own bubble.

00:20:39.000 Have those threats of primarying resonated with Senate staff and those that are within the decision-making?

00:20:44.000 Has the increased temperature and ferocity from people like myself and even Elon, has that helped move the dial or make a difference?

00:20:51.000 I think what you guys have done, along with others, including Pete himself, is bought him into January.

00:20:58.000 I think it's easy to overcalibrate one direction or the other.

00:21:03.000 It's not an overstatement to say that this nomination was close to being done last week.

00:21:08.000 Yes.

00:21:08.000 Which is to say Donald Trump was not publicly reported, talked to Governor DeSantis about it, had other names under consideration.

00:21:16.000 But I think what you all have done is move this to a January discussion.

00:21:20.000 Another point, if you're a nominee who's embattled, is to get a hearing, right?

00:21:26.000 Nominees usually survive a hearing and then a floor vote.

00:21:30.000 What causes them to go, and you saw this with Matt Gaetz, is forced out before a hearing.

00:21:35.000 And I think what you all have done is gotten the senators who are wavering, the Republican senators, if I go to an NCAA men's basketball idiom, on the bubble.

00:21:46.000 You've gotten them to say he deserves a hearing, right?

00:21:49.000 It's not fair to take this opportunity away from him to deny President Trump the person he wants without a hearing where he can face his accusers if they come forward.

00:22:01.000 And getting a hearing freezes the field, right?

00:22:03.000 Now I'm switching from a basketball to a football metaphor.

00:22:06.000 The field is frozen.

00:22:07.000 People aren't going to come out against him, I don't believe, in December.

00:22:10.000 I don't believe anyone will.

00:22:11.000 There's one senator who's been thinking about it, but I believe he's been brushed back.

00:22:15.000 And you all gave him the opportunity to get to this January.

00:22:18.000 Now, in January, I think you could see between now and then more investigative reports, maybe some not based on anonymous sources.

00:22:25.000 I think you could also see Some of the people who've been anonymous do television interviews.

00:22:31.000 And depending on the strength of their testimony, that may be powerful.

00:22:35.000 The other thing is, and this I think, Charlie, is important.

00:22:39.000 The people in the Republican Senate who have doubts about, Pete Hegg said, there's nothing in it for them, except they think he's in the public interest to consider whether he's the right person.

00:22:50.000 Despite some of the accusations made against them, they're not taking suitcases full of money, they're not anti-MAGA, they don't want the job themselves.

00:22:59.000 They think the right thing to do is consider whether he should get the job.

00:23:02.000 And I think what would be great for the country is if there was less focus on the personal allegations, not no focus, but less focus, and more focus on some fundamental questions.

00:23:12.000 Running a building with three million employees?

00:23:15.000 That's hard.

00:23:16.000 There's nothing on Pete Hanks' resume to suggest he's able to do that.

00:23:19.000 He needs to have that conversation with the senators.

00:23:23.000 Can he sit in a situation room during a crisis and give the president the very best judgment about how to respond?

00:23:30.000 Again, not much on his resume, although of course he's served, that suggests he's prepared for that.

00:23:36.000 So I hope the country and the Senate has that discussion and not the media and tabloid obsession with some accusations which are serious and will be investigated.

00:23:47.000 But don't warrant blotting out the other things.

00:23:53.000 Election Day 2024 is in our rearview mirror and conservatives are fired up that President Trump heading back to the White House in January.

00:23:59.000 But our fight isn't over and I'm asking you for your help.

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00:24:49.000 Portions of Charlie Kirkshaw are brought to you in part by Conservatives for Lower Healthcare Costs.

00:24:55.000 Let's go into some of the other names here.

00:24:57.000 There's increased chatter around RFK and some difficulty he might see in the Senate.

00:25:02.000 Tulsi, they've obviously benefited from the Gates-Hegseth headlines because a lot of this is media and information warfare.

00:25:09.000 Update on those two, Bobby Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard.

00:25:12.000 And the kind of more surprising one we can get to is how Kash Patel looks like he's likely to kind of glide to confirmation, which really no one saw coming as of right now.

00:25:22.000 So let's go one, two, three.

00:25:24.000 Right.

00:25:24.000 So I think that all three will be confirmed if there's no new revelations and they perform well at their hearing.

00:25:32.000 Congressional hearings are normally just show trials.

00:25:34.000 They're not on the up and up.

00:25:37.000 There's nothing good for the public.

00:25:39.000 There's just time for members to get in front of the camera.

00:25:42.000 But I think these hearings will be important.

00:25:45.000 When they give their opening statement, when they answer policy questions, Bobby Kennedy is kind of an interesting case.

00:25:50.000 If you talk to anyone with an opinion about Bobby Kennedy and you press them, there's probably one thing that he's for that they really like, and then there's something he's for that they do not like.

00:26:00.000 And I think he's going to have to figure out how to navigate that, particularly with the senators on the committee, to say, well, you may not like the fact that I've spoken out in favor of abortion rights, or you may not like the fact that I've been a vaccine skeptic.

00:26:12.000 But how about this position, Senator, that you think is a good one?

00:26:16.000 Again, there are accusations against him of all sorts.

00:26:19.000 I think he'll make it, assuming there's nothing new and he performs well.

00:26:23.000 The key to me for Tulsi Gabbard is people like Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio.

00:26:29.000 Both of those guys are extremely well respected on intelligence matters.

00:26:34.000 And, of course, Marco Rubio is in line to be Tulsi Gabbard's colleague in the Trump administration if they're both confirmed.

00:26:43.000 If those two guys say that doubts about her on intelligence issues can be set aside, I think she'll be confirmed.

00:26:50.000 And I suspect that they both will.

00:26:52.000 And then finally, on Kash Patel, you know, it's just so not surprising.

00:27:00.000 The tone of the coverage in the dominant media, which doesn't like him and never has, is very hyperbolic, very hysterical.

00:27:07.000 This isn't about winning Democratic Senate votes.

00:27:09.000 He will not.

00:27:10.000 It's about holding a 50 of the 53 Republicans.

00:27:12.000 And I think if you look at the things that people put in these long articles, you know, that are raising alarms about him, There's a few things he said that I think are intemperate, unwise, not in keeping with the best of American traditions.

00:27:29.000 And I think if he explains what he meant and maybe take some of them back, I don't think there's any problem.

00:27:35.000 People who say he doesn't have the experience are just flat out wrong.

00:27:39.000 People who say he shouldn't be in the job because of some of his views.

00:27:43.000 He's reflecting the views of the man who ran and won.

00:27:47.000 And Donald Trump wasn't shy about expressing views on these issues.

00:27:50.000 He was quite clear about what he wanted.

00:27:52.000 So I don't think it's fair to a president-elect to say, I don't like this guy's views, which happened to match the president-elect, so I'm going to vote him down.

00:28:00.000 So again, barring some new revelation, assuming a good performance during the hearing, which I'm more confident he'll have than the other two, again, I'd expect that he'd be confirmed.

00:28:11.000 John Bolton came today with his typical over-the-top statements.

00:28:15.000 He says, Senators won't escape history's judgment if they vote to confirm Kash Patel.

00:28:22.000 I'm glad John Bolton is not reaching for the hyperbolic in such statements.

00:28:28.000 So, kind of looking at that across the board, there's going to be confirmation fights, then confirmation schedules.

00:28:35.000 You've been covering this for quite some time.

00:28:37.000 Mark, usually these aren't that sexy.

00:28:40.000 Usually it's kind of just very procedural.

00:28:43.000 It's kind of just run of the mill.

00:28:45.000 You know, they even do voice votes on some, not all.

00:28:50.000 I think this is going to be different.

00:28:51.000 This might be one of the more intriguing confirmations in history.

00:28:56.000 Is there any parallel to this, of this kind of drama that we've seen in recent memory?

00:29:01.000 Not like this, because the sheer number of folks who are inspiring controversy and who are known quantities, right?

00:29:07.000 Often you'll have controversies over cabinet officials who could walk down any street in USA and not be recognized.

00:29:14.000 Bobby Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard, even Kash Patel, they've got currency in the popular culture and the wider culture.

00:29:23.000 What's unusual also here is none of these confirmations will rise or fall on the opposition party.

00:29:30.000 The Democrats are in the minority.

00:29:32.000 They may vote for some Trump nominees, but any Democrat who's getting votes from Democrats doesn't need those Democratic votes to be confirmed.

00:29:39.000 So this is a universe, depending on who the nominee in question is, of up to 15 Republicans, I think, of the...

00:29:47.000 53. I think there are 15 who might, might potentially vote no on some, some, one or more of these nominees.

00:29:57.000 And so the question is just going to be a simple game of math.

00:30:00.000 On any one of these nominees, will four or more of those 15 vote no?

00:30:05.000 And I think you saw Tom Cotton, who's a very shrewd guy the other day, Who's the number three Republican in the incoming Senate, say he expects them all to be confirmed, which means he expects none of them to lose more than three of those 15 on any given confirmation vote on the floor.

00:30:23.000 You have to get out of committee before you get a floor vote.

00:30:26.000 Most of these committees shape up decently for these nominees, where they're probably still going to get out of committee, even if the committee is deadlocked.

00:30:34.000 So I'd expect for all of us to not be hyperbolic, focus on the issues, and then for the sake of just the pure question of confirmation, that binary question, are there four or more votes against from the Republican side or not?

00:30:49.000 And I don't think you're going to see that.

00:30:51.000 I think the Matt Gaetz experience...

00:30:54.000 Did not embolden these folks so much as chasten them, and they will do their due diligence.

00:31:00.000 And if these nominees can explain their past controversial positions and some of the accusations against them, I do expect that Senator Cotton is probably right.

00:31:09.000 And that will be the norm.

00:31:11.000 The norm Donald Trump withdrew to, never got to a committee hearing, never got to a vote.

00:31:16.000 The rest being confirmed, that's the norm.

00:31:18.000 The relative absence of votes from Democrats, and I think most of these guys and gals will not get Democratic votes, that's unusual.

00:31:25.000 But that's a sign of our times and increased polarization that we see.

00:31:29.000 And of Donald Trump's choosing pretty, what you could call them, bold or controversial picks.

00:31:35.000 Mark, from your reporting, it seems that these things sometimes heat up about a month and a half later.

00:31:41.000 What I'm talking about is the autopsy reports.

00:31:44.000 It takes a little bit of time because, you know, sometimes Democrats or Republicans, when there's a loss, it's a little bit of shell shock.

00:31:51.000 But then there's a little bit of like, oh, here's what went wrong.

00:31:53.000 Is that the case?

00:31:54.000 And I'm not as interested in that question.

00:31:56.000 But at least what are you gathering from the Democrats that are starting to put together the diagnosis of the autopsy of what they think went wrong this election cycle?

00:32:04.000 Yeah, you're right.

00:32:05.000 It's usually not right in the immediate aftermath.

00:32:08.000 Historically, the big event is this thing they do at Harvard called the campaign managers that's been going on for decades.

00:32:15.000 And that one just took place.

00:32:18.000 I say this with no disrespect, just as a factual matter.

00:32:21.000 I think, as best I can tell, the Democrats are in near 100% denial about what went wrong.

00:32:27.000 They're almost entirely avoiding holding Joe Biden accountable for his contributions to the laws, Kamala Harris for her contributions, the Biden-Harris record for the contributions.

00:32:39.000 And then I think most significantly In collusion with the media, that they've been in collusion with about all of this stuff, in terms of trying to stop Donald Trump, has been a failure to look at the shortcomings the Democratic Party had during this election with voters, right?

00:33:00.000 Donald Reagan talked about the three-legged stool, national security, economics, and social issues.

00:33:06.000 It's true that Republican Senate candidates lost in a lot of the key Senate contests, But at the presidential level, the Democratic Party is defined in a way that they continue to be in denial about.

00:33:19.000 The Democratic Party is much further to the left than it's been in decades.

00:33:24.000 And their autopsies, their ruminations do not include in the main discussions of those four issues.

00:33:31.000 And I think that's a big mistake.

00:33:33.000 There are lots of reasons why Donald Trump won and Kamala Harris lost.

00:33:36.000 But those four are, I think, the main reasons.

00:33:38.000 And I haven't seen any discussions of that so far.

00:33:42.000 It's good that they're loyal to their bosses.

00:33:44.000 That's a good trait.

00:33:46.000 But if the party wants to have a real reckoning about what went wrong, and they just want to fall back on, we're not as good as messaging, or the Republicans are tougher than we are, think they're making a big mistake because they're not getting to the heart.

00:33:58.000 Yeah, it's such a smart point.

00:33:59.000 And I just find this to be a cope.

00:34:01.000 And Republicans do it too, to be fair.

00:34:03.000 Republicans do it too.

00:34:04.000 But Democrats, when they say, we're just not good at marketing our ideas.

00:34:07.000 Well, maybe our ideas are bad, okay?

00:34:10.000 Maybe it's not just a marketing or a presentation issue.

00:34:13.000 Maybe it's the core thing you're trying to sell.

00:34:15.000 It is the greatest D.C. cope ever that people would say.

00:34:19.000 So what you're saying is that there is not...

00:34:22.000 A reckoning.

00:34:24.000 Yet.

00:34:25.000 I haven't seen it.

00:34:27.000 I'm not sure we'll get to it.

00:34:29.000 You know, every campaign that loses has got a thousand stories about why.

00:34:37.000 And it's not an exact science to differentiate between the little things and the big things.

00:34:43.000 The big causes, the little causes.

00:34:44.000 I think when you listen to the Harris senior folks talk, it's gibberish.

00:34:51.000 And they're very good people.

00:34:52.000 I've said about the Harris High Command, most of whom also worked for the Biden campaign, these are not political all-stars.

00:34:59.000 They're Hall of Famers.

00:35:00.000 They're some of the most accomplished operatives in either party in the last 50 years.

00:35:05.000 And for whatever reason, they don't want to be honest about why they lost this election.

00:35:11.000 You talk about the patterns.

00:35:13.000 I've never seen a campaign as reluctant to admit to a single error on the part of either the candidate or the campaign in my career.

00:35:22.000 I've never seen it.

00:35:24.000 They will not admit to a single error.

00:35:26.000 And I'm not trying to browbeat them or make them feel bad.

00:35:29.000 But as a journalist, I want to know what happened.

00:35:32.000 And as a party, the Democrats should want to know what happened.

00:35:35.000 And instead, they just say, we didn't have enough time.

00:35:38.000 The conditions were against us.

00:35:40.000 You know, people didn't think the Biden-Harris record was good.

00:35:43.000 Well, as a MAGA operative, I support their indulgence in their getting high on their own supply.

00:35:51.000 Mark, yes, thank you so much.

00:35:53.000 Excellent, as always.

00:35:54.000 TwoWay.TV. Check it out.

00:35:55.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:56.000 Email us, as always, FreedomAtCharlieKirk.com.

00:35:58.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 12, 2024

Democrats in "100% Denial"

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