Alex Marlowe and Mark Halperin join us to discuss the riots, the politics, Elon, Trump, and Big Beautiful Bill. Recorded in Los Angeles, CA! (Recorded in the Bitcoin Studio)
00:00:00.000Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.
00:00:04.000Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Alex Marlowe and Mark Halperin join us to discuss the riots, the politics, Elon, Trump, and Big Beautiful Bill.
00:00:11.000Two of my favorite guests on this program, thoughtful analytical analysis.
00:00:14.000Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and become a member today, members.charliekirk.com.
00:00:47.000His 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.
00:00:55.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:08.000Noble 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.
00:01:17.000Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
00:02:21.000This is one of these things where I'm watching all these libs on social media yell at us and these celebrities yell at us like we're monsters if we're intolerant of Trump enforcing the law.
00:02:50.000It's the effects of illegal immigration.
00:02:52.000And what dawned on me is when I was an intern for Larry Elder about 20 years ago, and he was going through how expensive it costs to educate people and how actually public schools in LA are more expensive than private schools per pupil.
00:03:03.000It's just the cost is deferred to taxpayers.
00:03:07.000Because there's so much administration that's necessary.
00:03:09.000There's so many people who don't speak the language.
00:03:10.000There's so many things that need to be put into place, not just the bureaucracies and the unions and all that stuff, but to educate people where English is a second language and to put that entirely on the state, and they're coming from homes where the parents And we don't just tolerate it, Charlie.
00:03:41.000But health care is another massive one.
00:03:44.000My wife worked at a community hospital serving a largely Hispanic population, and they don't ask you for your papers when you go in to get a service.
00:03:52.000And if you need something, like let's say a bone marrow transplant, it costs $700,000.
00:03:58.000And if you're an illegal alien and you showed up at her county hospital in L.A. that she worked at, they don't turn you away.
00:06:14.000Why is that something that's a given, that's a guarantee?
00:06:17.000I was just noticing a mural of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi, who died in a helicopter crash, defaced by these protesters, essentially protesting against ICE.
00:06:56.000I'll tell you that my wife, for example, worked as a trainee, so not making a lot of money, treating illegal aliens, and she would do it with a smile on her face, give them the best care she possibly could.
00:08:01.000While you are doing destruction, that is obviously a defiance that we have more loyalty to this nation than the one that we're currently domiciled in.
00:08:23.000No, and it's amazing how quickly they went for it because they're trying to do this narrative of the gaslighting for Maxine Waters and some people in the media that this is mostly peaceful.
00:08:37.000I mean, they didn't wait five minutes.
00:08:38.000And with the Mexican flags out there, I got to say, I listen to a lot of Spanish music and I listen to, it's the Mexican food is my favorite type of food.
00:08:48.000It's a, if I'm ever relaxing, which is very rare, it's probably going to be a tequila or a mezcal that's in my glass.
00:08:53.000It's like, I'm fine with Mexican culture.
00:09:45.000She's like, I feel like every couple summers they try to burn down our cities.
00:09:48.000This is now becoming a meta-narrative.
00:09:51.000It is being tattooed into the consciousness of the American people, which is that non-political people, because look, if it burns, it goes to the front lines and people look at it.
00:10:02.000And can we just show that one B-roll, guys, of the one after the other, the cars burning, just in flames?
00:10:08.000And by the way, just so we're clear, If you're burning an electric car, do you understand the pollution that you are putting into that community?
00:11:42.000Well, most supplements contain only two types of magnesium, and Magnesium Breakthrough delivers all seven forms your body needs in one capsule to balance your stress response and support your sleep quality.
00:11:52.000The results speak for themselves over 1,500 five-star reviews from people who've reclaimed their calm, their sleep.
00:12:39.000The main thing that's happening right now in the state is that there is a referendum on 30 years of governance or more.
00:12:44.000Where the entire fabric of the Democrat Party, even the Republican establishment, you saw Rick Caruso out there who was pretty heroic in his response to the LA fires out here.
00:12:53.000But he's someone who had his businesses at stake and they almost went up in flames because the LA fires, the incompetence of the governance.
00:13:00.000But now, all of a sudden, he's a big wimp when it comes to standing up for the people against the illegally alien criminals.
00:13:15.000It's a referendum on 30 years of governance.
00:13:17.000For Gavin Newsom to admit Trump's right, for Karen Bass to admit Trump's right, and we're actually going to help him, that is saying that everything I've stood for, which has been the fundamental issue in California, is we believe in open borders.
00:13:29.000That is the society that they've crafted.
00:15:28.000This weekend, they have this thing called the No Kings protest, which is funded by Walmart and the Walton, at least one of the Walton heirs, Christy Walton.
00:15:37.000And they say it's going to be all peaceful.
00:15:41.000And I've intentionally not talked about the No Kings thing because I don't want to make it bigger than that, but everyone's emailing us about it.
00:16:27.000Completely different, and it's just amazing.
00:16:28.000And any of you who are going to get confronted by friends saying that we're demonizing illegal aliens, I will tell you, the people who just want to sell mangoes on the side of the road, they want to stay in the shadows.
00:16:39.000Ask them how many families, American families, should have their lives ruined by illegally alien criminals, drunk drivers, fentanyl that comes over our border, murders that go on, rapes that go on.
00:16:49.000How many families, American families, should have their lives ruined by illegally alien criminals?
00:16:52.000If that answer is above zero, you and I have nothing to talk about.
00:18:51.000We have a phenomenal guest and a regular of the show, Mark Halperin, editor-in-chief of Two Way and host of Next Up on the Megyn Kelly Network.
00:19:22.000So, Mark, there's a question I've been meaning to ask you.
00:19:26.000Which is, how from the outside are Democrats, how were they viewing the Elon-Trump situation last week, and then how is it settling in their mind today?
00:19:37.000At least from my outsider perspective, it seemed as if there was some sort of joy and delight in the kind of schism, but it looks as if that is being healed.
00:19:47.000From the Democrats that you talked to, walk us through the inside.
00:19:56.000I think there are two groups of Democrats who I've talked to about this, so I'd break them down.
00:20:00.000And the larger group tends to respond to things always leading with Trump derangement syndrome.
00:20:07.000And so for them, anything that's chaos with Donald Trump's world or anything that suggests a negative storyline that the press is going to cover, they like.
00:20:16.000They just kind of have a visceral reaction to it.
00:20:23.000And they always want to then plug that into their sustaining now decade-long narrative of he's the chaos candidate, he's the chaos president.
00:20:32.000All this is going to come a cropper because he doesn't have any idea what he's doing and he's so mercurial.
00:20:39.000There's a smaller, more thoughtful group that recognizes that the party has a problem.
00:20:46.000From a practical point of view on fundraising and a relationship to the future with Silicon Valley, because the Silicon Valley wing of America used to be much more aligned with the Democrats, ideologically, practically, in terms of helping with campaigns, etc.
00:21:05.000Now, it's not 100 percent shift and Elon, but Elon is just one of many who many of whom you know well, who now think of themselves as being part of Team Trump and more Republican, more conservative.
00:21:16.000And that group of Democrats says, well, is this an opening either explicitly with Elon, which I doubt it will be, or more generally, can we use this as an opportunity to to say where that where the disagreements are?
00:21:29.000For instance, Elon seems very concerned all of a sudden, some Trump people would tell you about deficit reduction.
00:21:35.000Maybe this is an opportunity for the Democrats to to glom onto that and become the deficit reduction party.
00:21:58.000The day that all this happened, and I was mocked, I said, before Christmas, Elon Musk will be at Mar-a-Lago with two scoops of ice cream next to President Donald Trump on the patio, and all will be right in the world.
00:23:35.000Explain to me, because is that a little bit of a divide in the Democrat Party, like one that's living in reality and one that's living in fantasy land?
00:23:48.000I don't think anyone should be cavalier about putting National Guard or active duty military on the streets of the United States, whatever they're going to be doing, that should be done with thoughtfulness and care and fidelity to the law and the Constitution.
00:23:59.000And I think the debate about what to do with the tens of millions or maybe millions, well, it's hard to say, but certainly millions of people who came to this country illegally and since then, as far as we know, have committed no crimes and have contributed to society and are woven into the fabric of a lot of communities.
00:24:15.000Those are two really important debates to have.
00:24:17.000But Democrats can't move to those debates.
00:24:21.000One is their positions on those two issues are, for the most part, out of the mainstream, and confronting that is something they don't want to do.
00:24:28.000And second, again, back to Trump derangement syndrome, they just want to talk about Donald Trump having a secret plan to declare a military junta in the United States and have active duty military shooting civilians all over the country.
00:24:43.000Most Democrats now look at Gavin Newsom with new enthusiasm and excitement because they just want there to be a big fight between Trump.
00:24:57.000Some, like John Fetterman, and he's not the only one, David Ignatius, columnist in the Washington Post today, said quite plainly, this is a 10-year failure on the part of the Democrats.
00:25:06.000Like, we can't be in the debate about use of the military.
00:25:09.000We can't be in the debate about who should be deported if the Democratic Party doesn't have a clear point of view about some of these issues where they are on the wrong side of things.
00:25:19.000That position is smaller than the Trump derangement syndrome one, and it's not dominant.
00:25:24.000They can barely get the words out of their mouth to say there's no problem, or there is a problem.
00:25:30.000And you pointed out the strangeness of the mayor saying everything's fine, but we need a curfew.
00:25:35.000The reality is, there's a lot of issues here, but this is quite simple to me.
00:25:40.000Federal law enforcement was doing something that...
00:25:49.000And state and local officials could not protect either them or civic order and private property.
00:25:57.000The president of the United States is responsible for protecting ICE officers.
00:26:01.000The president of the United States has got to have to ensure domestic tranquility if state and local officials can't or won't.
00:26:08.000And there's no local police force in the country, with the possible exception of Gotham City, who has the capacity to put in the physical infrastructure to make sure there is order restored and civic unrest deterred and property destruction unmolested.
00:26:22.000The Democrats just can't talk about these issues because they don't want to come clean with their being on the wrong side of so many of the underlying factors.
00:26:30.000And until that happens, you know, my friend John Pedoritz tweeted this morning that he's watching the Democratic Party lock in their minority status for 20 years because of their failure to just speak the truth about what's going on.
00:26:42.000That might be a little bit of an overstatement, but it's certainly a minority of Democrats now I talk to who seem to get what's happening.
00:26:52.000I don't want to cavalierly throw the National Guard on the street.
00:26:55.000My opinion was always I would rather be on the side of not necessarily being wrong, but a little bit overreacting early than late after 2020, where I feel as if there was widespread destruction.
00:27:07.000So at least that's my temperament angling in that direction.
00:27:10.000And I'm willing to hear a counter to that.
00:27:14.000I will say, though, someone that is nonpolitical in my life, just a working class person, she's great.
00:27:21.000She voted for Trump, but she can go either way.
00:27:52.000And for her, that is just a tattooed impression, more so than Trump impeachments, more so than all the stuff that they're throwing at Donald Trump.
00:28:11.000And then connected also to the Democrats back in the 70s.
00:28:13.000Isn't there a connection to how the Democrats played a little bit of footsie with these guys back in the 60s or 70s and they were not rewarded very much?
00:29:01.000I'd be expressing moral indignation and focused determination to put a stop to it.
00:29:07.000And again, I've said this before, they should be thanking the president.
00:29:11.000They could say we have disagreements with the president and he shouldn't be deporting people who sell papaya in the park.
00:29:17.000And we don't think, you know, we should be cavalier about the use of military.
00:29:22.000But thank you, Mr. President, for making the National Guard available and for making Marines available so we can restore order to our city.
00:29:28.000Because our first obligation to our constituents as mayor and governor is to keep people safe and to not allow the wanton destruction of property.
00:29:37.000They're claiming the president is trying to impose a military hunt on the whole country.
00:29:41.000And your friend's point of view about the Democrats, and I think this dovetails with what John Podoretz thinks he's seeing, it's like, You want to be in a discussion about what our national immigration policy should be?
00:29:54.000You've got to denounce people who are destroying property or threatening federal law enforcement.
00:29:59.000How could we expect people to want to serve in federal law enforcement, in complicated and dangerous jobs, if we are cavalier about threats to them?
00:30:08.000I mean, the mayor and the governor should be as outraged as the president about it, and instead, they're reserving their outrage to the president.
00:30:17.000From just a purely political strategist standpoint, there was just kind of a lot of just annoying right-wing infighting last week all across the place, right?
00:30:27.000And it's just that the Democrats solved that issue for us.
00:31:01.000Maybe the economy will be terrible or whatever.
00:31:02.000But I could tell you this, that at least ideologically, if the left does not change its appearance quickly on trans stuff, immigration, and crime, I mean, that'll be a tough, that'll be a tough, tough mountain to climb.
00:31:18.000And Gavin might be, you know, resurrecting his appearance with Democrats, but I could tell you with moderates and people across middle America, he's now being associated with riots in addition to a failed state.
00:31:31.000TikTok has helped U.S. businesses contribute over $24 billion over the U.S. economy.
00:31:37.000And we go so viral on TikTok, we get billions and billions of views.
00:31:41.000You see, that's real money flowing into small businesses.
00:31:44.000Like AZTacoKing, who went viral on TikTok and hit $1.3 million in sales in their first year.
00:31:50.000Now they're hiring more staff to keep up.
00:31:52.000Or Bluff Cakes, who started as a home-baking side hustle and became a national cookie brand.
00:31:57.000Or the She Mechanic, whose business tripled in just one year with help from TikTok.
00:32:03.000Now she's in a bigger space with a bigger team.
00:32:05.000TikTok is helping small businesses thrive, and that's adding up to more jobs and more growth.
00:32:10.000And over $24 billion flowing into the U.S. economy.
00:32:13.000Our most viral platform is TikTok, and by far.
00:32:17.000Learn more about TikTok's contribution to the U.S. economy at TikTokEconomicImpact.com.
00:32:22.000We are winning the next generation at Turning Point USA and on The Charlie Kirk Show.
00:32:26.000Large in part thanks to us getting the message out at TikTok.
00:32:40.000Last week, some people were wondering if Elon's salvos against it would kill the bill based on everyone I'm talking to.
00:32:48.000It seems as if there is an agreement that they're going to figure this out.
00:32:52.000We had Rand Paul on the program who has a demand to remove the debt ceiling from the bill.
00:32:58.000I don't think that is going to happen.
00:33:00.000But he still sounded willing in some ways.
00:33:04.000What is your reporting showing specifically with the fiscal hawks, the Ron Johns, who are saying no, but you and I both know that they want to get to a yes, right?
00:33:13.000It's kind of like a workable no, which I love.
00:33:18.000What is your reporting bearing out behind the scenes of how they're working, what concessions we can expect and how that will work with the moderates of the House that might not like everything that's agreed to?
00:33:28.000So first on the Senate, there's there's very few there's very few reports.
00:33:34.000Republicans, even in play, to be no votes.
00:33:38.000The coverage gives the impression there's all these people up for grabs in the Senate.
00:33:43.000Maybe there's five, and they can lose some of them.
00:33:46.000So people like Ron Johnson, I'm not sure they'll get Rand Paul in the end, but people like Ron Johnson, if you're a student of Ron Johnson's rhetoric, as you are and I am, he's clearly warming towards it.
00:33:57.000They'll give him something that he can say, look, I've worked hard for my constituents in the country and made it better.
00:34:03.000I can't guarantee it'll pass the Senate, but it's certainly, the base case, it's certainly almost close to 90%, I'd say, that it passes the Senate.
00:34:11.000The House is going to be a little bit more complicated, but particularly now because immigration is so front and center and there's money in this bill for the border, it's going to be, it's going to be, we've seen this presence of both parties do this.
00:34:24.000On the front end of the votes, in the committee, and then an initial vote in the House, they say, well, this isn't final passage.
00:34:30.000Just give us the ability to go forward.
00:34:32.000There'll always be a chance to make the bill better.
00:34:34.000And then what I think is going to happen is they'll make the same argument they always make at the last phase, which is, well, we've gotten this far.
00:34:42.000It's not a perfect bill, but this is the last step.
00:34:46.000I could predict with some confidence that they'll use that argument if the bill, when the bill gets back to the House.
00:34:53.000There's one escape hatch plan that some people are whispering about, which is if that doesn't happen that way, which is they get a majority in the Senate, they pass it, the House comes back, they pressure the House, they get the vote.
00:35:05.000And in the House, there's not that many people who could possibly vote either under those circumstances.
00:35:10.000So this is not a whipping operation where they need to round up 30 members.
00:35:14.000It's a very small number, possible, I'm told, that the Senate can't get it together.
00:35:19.000And realizes that if they do make enough changes to pass a version of the bill, it can't pass the House.
00:35:25.000There's an escape hatch, which is the Senate passes the House bill, and it doesn't have to go back to the House.
00:35:30.000It's not likely, but it's possible, and it is an escape hatch.
00:35:33.000It allows the president to get a version of the bill signed into law without having to have to have the House revote.
00:35:39.000And so the fiscal hawks, I think they're going to come to the table, and I think we're going to have some sort of an agreement.
00:35:46.000Are there any primary elements of the bill that you think might be in jeopardy in order to get those votes in the Senate?
00:35:52.000Well, it's a great question because, as you know, cross-cutting pressures.
00:35:57.000There's some pressure to produce more savings, either by changing the tax cuts or finding more spending cuts.
00:36:04.000And there's some pressure to not eliminate or reduce certain programs because of political or constituency concerns.
00:36:13.000That's why the notion of just passing the House bill is gaining a little bit of traction, a little bit of currency.
00:36:20.000And this is where I think true fiscal hawks need to be realistic.
00:36:31.000The only path to serious deficit reduction under those circumstances is And as you know, the administration's big beef with some of these outside and congressional scorings of the House bill is that they factor in economic growth that's way too low compared to what's historically occurred and what the administration says their policies will usher in.
00:36:58.000What's threatened is maybe some of the tax cuts, whether they're permanent or not, maybe some of the things that are threatened are the degree and nature of Medicare and Medicaid attempts to find savings.
00:37:10.000But I think in the end, the cross-currents are going to be more powerful than any single argument.
00:37:14.000And I don't know that they'll change it very much.
00:37:16.000And as I said, it's possible they won't change it at all because, uh, the, Mark, excellent work.