The Charlie Kirk Show - Did Gavin Newsom Start A Dem Civil War? + The ActBlue Implosion

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Mark Halperin and Brooke Rollins joins the show as we talk about the Democrat Party in disarray, why are the prices of eggs so high, and what is going on...

00:00:09.000 With ActBlue.

00:00:11.000 ActBlue, the fundraising powerhouse of the Democrat Party, is in near collapse.

00:00:15.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.

00:00:19.000 That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

00:00:21.000 And get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com.

00:00:24.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:26.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:26.000 Here we go.

00:00:27.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:29.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:31.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:35.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:38.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:39.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:40.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:42.000 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.

00:00:57.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:17.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

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00:01:26.000 Breaking news, everybody.

00:01:28.000 Trump has canceled $400 million to Columbia University over rising anti-Semitism on campus.

00:01:36.000 That is just the start.

00:01:38.000 For all these campuses that don't treat us well at Turning Point USA, you guys restrict freedom of speech, your funding might be cut soon.

00:01:45.000 I learned so much about University of Pennsylvania.

00:01:49.000 Can you guys go back?

00:01:50.000 I said the number on air because I remembered it because I had the dinner the day before.

00:01:53.000 The amount of money these universities receive in Overhead with grants is hundreds of millions.

00:02:00.000 I think it's like $130 million a year that University of Pennsylvania receives.

00:02:05.000 For years, the Democrats have had a suspicious fundraising advantage.

00:02:10.000 The Democrats have enjoyed a nonstop flow of money from an organization called ActBlue.

00:02:17.000 Now, ActBlue operates as a fundraising powerhouse that is a pseudo-payment processor.

00:02:24.000 So if you are a Democrat donor, And you want to give money to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or to Gavin Newsom or to whomever, you have an ActBlue account.

00:02:32.000 It remembers your payment information.

00:02:34.000 Very similar to Amazon.com. 1.00

00:02:37.000 So when you want to donate to one of these candidates, they make it stupid easy. 0.98

00:02:41.000 You could donate to Kamala Harris. 0.98

00:02:43.000 Or to any Democrat in two clicks or less.

00:02:46.000 One, two, boom. 0.95

00:02:47.000 100 bucks.

00:02:48.000 You don't have to input your credit card every time.

00:02:50.000 And they even make it with monthly contributions.

00:02:53.000 They put it on autopilot.

00:02:54.000 Now, Republicans have an equivalent win-red, but it just pales in comparison.

00:02:58.000 However, there's something very weird happening at ActBlue.

00:03:02.000 James O'Keefe has done a lot of reporting to ActBlue and found that some of the addresses didn't always correlate with donors.

00:03:07.000 There's a congressional investigation into ActBlue, and more and more people are calling into a criminal investigation.

00:03:13.000 Now, we have said many times here on this program that the cash advantage that Democrats have enjoyed via ActBlue is highly suspicious.

00:03:20.000 Some people hypothesize, is this money coming from overseas?

00:03:23.000 Is this money coming from Iran or China?

00:03:25.000 We don't know, but we do know that ActBlue does not require the CCV numbers, the number on the back of a credit card, which is supposed to diminish fraud.

00:03:36.000 Without requiring a CCV number, it is a lot easier to be able to steal credit card information, put up fake credit cards, and pump a lot of money into the American political system.

00:03:45.000 Well, right now, ActBlue is falling apart.

00:03:48.000 You've got to wonder why.

00:03:51.000 ActBlue, the Democrat fundraising powerhouse, faces internal chaos, New York Times writes.

00:03:55.000 At least seven senior officials have left the group, setting off deep concerns about its future as it confronts scrutiny from congressional Republicans.

00:04:03.000 And it won't just be congressional Republicans.

00:04:06.000 If members of Congress end up sending criminal referrals to Kash Patel, I bet the FBI is going to go after them as well.

00:04:12.000 More than $16 billion has passed through ActBlue in 20 years.

00:04:18.000 Let me say that again.

00:04:19.000 $16 billion has pumped through Democrat ActBlue in the last 20 years.

00:04:26.000 We don't know where all this money is coming from.

00:04:28.000 But now ActBlue is starting to close its doors, not officially, but they are collapsing from within.

00:04:34.000 There are so many nuggets of this article, I could do an entire hour-long show on this.

00:04:38.000 Quote, if ActBlue were to become severely diminished, Democrats running for offices at levels of all government could face setbacks significant in their efforts to raise cash.

00:04:49.000 Candidates for offices ranging from school boards and city council to presidency rely on the platform for online fundraising.

00:04:55.000 While Republicans have spent years trying to catch up, we have not caught up on this game.

00:05:00.000 The highest-ranking legal official at ActBlue, as well as the assistant research director, the chief revenue officer and engineer who spent 16 years building and maintaining ActBlue's infrastructure, have all left.

00:05:12.000 They said, quote, Zion Ahmed, who is the last remaining lawyer in the ActBlue General Counsel's office, wrote an internal Slack message on February 26th that his access to his email and other internal platforms has been cut off.

00:05:23.000 The other messages he posted in Slack have been deleted, according to screenshots obtained by the New York Times.

00:05:28.000 Mr. Ahmed is now on leave from Act Blue, according to a person briefed on the group's staffing.

00:05:33.000 Quote, Please be advised that we have an anti-retaliation whistleblower policies for a reason, Mr. Ahmed wrote.

00:05:39.000 Whoa.

00:05:40.000 The congressional investigations are only going to heat up.

00:05:43.000 There might be criminal investigations to follow.

00:05:46.000 Is the Democrat ATM closing?

00:05:49.000 Is the easy money gravy train coming to an end?

00:05:51.000 If so...

00:05:52.000 We could dominate the House and the Senate for a decade.

00:05:55.000 Not an exaggeration.

00:05:58.000 Hey, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:07:00.000 We're going to dive right into it with guests today.

00:07:02.000 today.

00:07:02.000 We have a rapid moving show today here on the Charlie Kirk Show as we led a lot of the news cycle yesterday.

00:07:09.000 Joining us now is a great guest, Mark Halperin.

00:07:12.000 I love getting the emails from Mark Halperin every single morning.

00:07:16.000 I think it's the wild world of politics.

00:07:18.000 I I think I got that right.

00:07:19.000 But I love it because the subject lines always catch my attention.

00:07:23.000 They always catch my eyeballs.

00:07:25.000 Mark, great to see you.

00:07:27.000 Good to see you, sir.

00:07:28.000 It's Wide World of News.

00:07:29.000 You were very close.

00:07:30.000 I was close.

00:07:30.000 Okay.

00:07:31.000 Mark Halperin's Wide World of News, a two-way TV. Mark, welcome.

00:07:35.000 And your reaction to the Gavin Newsom comment on my appearance on his podcast?

00:07:41.000 I have so many thoughts about it.

00:07:42.000 I'll tell you my two top ones.

00:07:44.000 First of all, you would think if someone found themselves for the first time in their adult life in a room with someone more handsome than them, it might lead to humility.

00:07:53.000 But instead, it's like your producer's creating like a little shrine to you about your appearance.

00:07:58.000 So I'm a little surprised.

00:08:00.000 Had you been in the room with Gavin Newsom before?

00:08:02.000 Or was that the first time?

00:08:03.000 No, no.

00:08:04.000 That was the first time I ever met him.

00:08:05.000 Yeah.

00:08:06.000 So again, you're two of the three most handsome men I know.

00:08:09.000 And so for me, it's just eye candy.

00:08:11.000 To the extent I listened, I thought it was super interesting.

00:08:16.000 I'm really glad you two did that.

00:08:18.000 You're both fans of Two Way, although neither of you have come on yet.

00:08:21.000 That's my other big thought.

00:08:22.000 But I have great respect for both of you.

00:08:25.000 I think that you're not underrated, at least not anymore.

00:08:29.000 He's still underrated.

00:08:30.000 I'm not sure he'll run for president.

00:08:32.000 I'm not sure if he ran, he'll win.

00:08:33.000 But I think he's a very thoughtful guy.

00:08:35.000 He's not as liberal as people think, and you saw that in the big news he made with you on trends and sports.

00:08:42.000 And he's better with people than he's giving credit for.

00:08:45.000 He's had some troubles governing his state, in part because the legislature is so liberal.

00:08:49.000 But I think, for me, You two sitting down and doing that is great.

00:08:54.000 And I think in general, I haven't finished it.

00:08:56.000 I've listened to about two-thirds of it.

00:08:58.000 I think it's a great conversation.

00:08:59.000 And I think you two talked about things in a way that was good.

00:09:07.000 In other words, it was very much in the spirit of what I tried to do.

00:09:11.000 You just communicated with each other.

00:09:12.000 You didn't come trying to score points.

00:09:14.000 And obviously he ceded a lot of ground to you on the 2024 election and particularly on this issue of trans athletes and women's sports.

00:09:25.000 Let's just posit that he probably is running for president.

00:09:28.000 I think he is.

00:09:29.000 I think he's incredibly ambitious.

00:09:31.000 about the shift on the trans issue and the pushback and the blowback that he's receiving for kind of pivoting on the trans issue.

00:09:42.000 I actually don't think it's genuine because he has actions he could take.

00:09:46.000 But even the statement of that is a divergence from the current Democrat Party orthodoxy.

00:09:51.000 I like the way you framed it.

00:09:53.000 Look, let's see if he takes any action.

00:09:55.000 It is the case that sometimes political figures, elected officials, have positions and they don't act them.

00:10:02.000 Right?

00:10:03.000 You've had pro-life presidents who didn't do very much to try to overturn Roe or to try to change the law in a way that would protect more life.

00:10:11.000 So that's one example.

00:10:12.000 I could give you many.

00:10:14.000 Look, this is a guy who was for same-sex marriage publicly before Nancy Pelosi was, before the Clintons were, before Barack Obama was, which you could say means he's more left-wing than them, or you could say he is willing sometimes to take positions that are a little bit risky.

00:10:29.000 That position's popular now, but it wasn't back then.

00:10:32.000 I think that every Democrat asks themselves two questions if they disagree with Governor Newsom, and many people criticize him.

00:10:39.000 One is, do you want your party to be on the wrong side of an issue, 70-30, 80-20?

00:10:44.000 And if you truly believe that you want to take the position that's the minority, go out and defend it. 0.98

00:10:51.000 Don't try to, as most Democrats are doing today, try to obscure the issue and say, Well, it should be up to local officials.

00:10:57.000 There's a clear demarcation here.

00:10:59.000 And I think whether you think he switched for cynical purposes or not, I think he explained himself pretty well.

00:11:05.000 And I don't think it's obvious that he's taking...

00:11:08.000 I would take him at his word that this is what he thinks.

00:11:13.000 But as you said, if that's really what he thinks, there's some actions that have to come with it following through.

00:11:18.000 But if he does want to run for president, and again, I'm not as sure as you that he does, if he does want to run for president...

00:11:23.000 That kind of thing is going to put him in a category that very few Democrats today are willing to be in, which is stand up to the base of the party with principle and emotion.

00:11:33.000 And some would say it might be the beginning of a sister soldier moment, which you might remember was Bill Clinton running for the presidency in 1992. I was actually before I was born.

00:11:43.000 Yeah, it was before you were born that I was in the room for it.

00:11:46.000 Well, educate the audience on this, though.

00:11:48.000 What was the context?

00:11:49.000 Why is that an important reference point?

00:11:51.000 Yeah, I use it all the time, that phrase, because I covered the Clean Campaign and I was there for that.

00:11:57.000 Sister Soldier was a rap artist who had lyrics that were very violent about, I think, killing police.

00:12:02.000 It was at least about violence against police.

00:12:05.000 And he went and spoke to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition event.

00:12:10.000 Sister Soldier had spoken earlier at the same event.

00:12:13.000 And he said, you had a rap singer here named Sister Soldier. 0.80

00:12:16.000 I disagree with her.

00:12:19.000 Today, that seems maybe a little quaint.

00:12:22.000 But back then, when Bill Clinton's Democratic Party was not as far left as it is today, but it was too far left to win presidential elections, standing up to the base of the party was seen as very difficult.

00:12:34.000 And few were willing to risk doing it.

00:12:37.000 Bill Clinton's whole campaign was about sister soldier moments.

00:12:40.000 He came out for NAFTA, which back then was out of step with the Democratic Party.

00:12:45.000 He came out for the death penalty.

00:12:47.000 He came out for right-to-work laws, against right-to-work laws, for right-to-work laws.

00:12:53.000 He came out for welfare reform.

00:12:54.000 All of these things were seen as part of a very self-conscious and purposeful effort to say things that would put him at odds with the liberal wing of the party, to say to more moderate voters, including independents and Republicans, but also to Democrats who wanted to win.

00:13:09.000 I will stand up to the base of the party.

00:13:11.000 Now, when you say Gavin Newsom might have said what he said with you purely for cynical political purposes, I think Bill Clinton believed all those positions.

00:13:20.000 So it had the added advantage of being what he believed.

00:13:22.000 And it's easier to sell that to the public if it's a legit position.

00:13:26.000 But I think Gavin Newsom is someone who has in the past not gotten enough credit for criticizing some of the more liberal policies of the party.

00:13:33.000 And this is of a piece with that.

00:13:35.000 And again, when the left squeals, which they have, And I think it's been more muted than it might have been.

00:13:42.000 You've got to follow through with it.

00:13:44.000 If you want to make the political points stick and sustain, you've got to stick to your guns.

00:13:49.000 You've got to look for opportunities to do it.

00:13:51.000 But you also have to do, if you want to win the Democratic nomination, you also have to do what Bill Clinton did.

00:13:56.000 Bill Clinton said, I would say, I'm a Democrat by birth, heritage, and inclination.

00:14:01.000 And that's the only way to get the Democratic nomination, because it's still dominated by the liberal wing of the party.

00:14:07.000 Drag them to the center on some issues, but convince them that you're one of them.

00:14:11.000 And I think Gavin Newsom is one of the few Democrats with the skill to do that.

00:14:15.000 So does it say something more broader about our politics, that the attitude is going to the center-right, that Democrats are going to have to concede on some of the more unpopular issues?

00:14:27.000 Is it Gavin Newsom that is seeing the trend and he wants to be a little ahead of it?

00:14:32.000 What does that say more broadly about where the direction, the momentum of how people view political matters goes right now?

00:14:39.000 Well, I think the party is split.

00:14:41.000 And again, the Democratic Party is farther left than it's been in my lifetime or yours.

00:14:45.000 And so the power of the left and the distance someone who wants to push the party or pull the party back to the center is farther than it's ever been.

00:14:56.000 I know plenty of Democrats, including people who are in the Bernie Sanders wing of the party, like Congressman Ro Khanna of California, who say, of course, we have to talk to the whole country and not be in our narrow and confined blue bubble.

00:15:10.000 But again, it's hard to predict how this will go because standing up to the base is a problem.

00:15:16.000 And you saw that on Tuesday, where Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer refused to stand up to the base of their party, and they had a massive calamity.

00:15:25.000 If they weren't protected by the media, what they did would still be a dominant story.

00:15:31.000 It's not today.

00:15:32.000 There's a lot of other news.

00:15:32.000 But I think it's up in the air now, whether there'll be Democrats like Newsom who helped to pull the party back towards the center, or they'll be too afraid like the congressional leaders seem to be right now.

00:15:42.000 Just to make sure we're clear, you're talking about the outbursts at the State of the Union, correct?

00:15:47.000 Yeah, I'm sorry.

00:15:48.000 I should have been more clear.

00:15:49.000 I assume you've been talking about it all week.

00:15:50.000 Yeah, I mean, the outbursts of the State of the Union, but also the whole series of events around it where the party simply cannot talk about issues in a sustained way that are popular.

00:16:03.000 They're discombobulated by Donald Trump and the whole Trump team, including you, extraordinarily skillful at keeping them discombobulated.

00:16:09.000 They went into that with one goal.

00:16:12.000 We want to talk about the real lives of real people that are being impacted by Trump policies.

00:16:17.000 And instead, they engaged in conduct.

00:16:20.000 I'm particularly hung up on the failure to cheer for that little boy, DJ. It's just unbelievable.

00:16:26.000 It's not human.

00:16:27.000 It's not human.

00:16:28.000 But they went in and they exhibited conduct that...

00:16:32.000 It's so disqualifying for so many people.

00:16:35.000 Now, can they come back from it?

00:16:36.000 Have they done things that are also in peace with that?

00:16:38.000 Of course.

00:16:39.000 Of course.

00:16:40.000 But the symbolism of the inability of the leadership to get them to do a simple plan does not speak well of the party.

00:16:48.000 Of course they can come back.

00:16:49.000 I mean, after January 6th, everyone thought we were done and we dug ourselves out.

00:16:53.000 I mean, so of course they can come back.

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00:17:54.000 So Mark, I want to...

00:17:56.000 Get your reaction to Hakeem Jeffries kind of being a little frozen when he was asked yesterday about the Gavin Newsom situation.

00:18:04.000 Now, what's interesting to me is that Gavin's team seemed to not give a little memo or a heads up to Democrat leadership that this was coming.

00:18:13.000 And I think that's important.

00:18:14.000 There wasn't someone working the phones.

00:18:16.000 Hey, Hakeem, just want to let you know.

00:18:18.000 It's going to make national headlines.

00:18:20.000 It was as if Gavin said it.

00:18:22.000 Because understand, this was not a live interview.

00:18:24.000 They had a 36-hour lead time.

00:18:27.000 And with a 36-hour lead time, they very well could have been a good party man, like a good company man, picked up the phones, worked it, and they would have had a little workshop thing and all the tensions would have gone.

00:18:37.000 Instead, he kind of played into the ambush.

00:18:40.000 Let's play this piece of tape here.

00:18:42.000 Play 224. I want to ask about California Governor Gavin Newsom's comments saying that Democrats were in the wrong for allowing transgender athletes to compete in female and girls sports.

00:18:56.000 What is your response to that after Democrats had opposed the women and girls in sports?

00:19:00.000 I haven't seen his comments.

00:19:05.000 What Democrats opposed was unleashing sexual predators.

00:19:15.000 Okay.

00:19:17.000 It's a completely unrelated...

00:19:20.000 I have no idea what that means.

00:19:22.000 I mean, sorry, Mark, react.

00:19:24.000 Yeah.

00:19:25.000 I mean, first of all, every time I see the guy on TV now, he looks exhausted.

00:19:29.000 For those of you who are just listening to the audio, Hakeem Jeffries just needs a nap or a vacation.

00:19:35.000 And that means, I believe, it's a manifestation of how much pressure he's under.

00:19:39.000 I hear from Democrats in Congress regularly, and I spent a lot of time on the Hill this week around the president's speech, he is not able to grapple with the liberal wing of the party.

00:19:49.000 And so what you have is a guy who knows his party's on the wrong side of a lot of issues, including the one that Governor Newsom made news on.

00:19:56.000 He is unable to stand up to that wing of the party because when he tries, they threaten to revolt.

00:20:03.000 It's where the energy is in the party.

00:20:05.000 And they've not found a way to stand up to him.

00:20:09.000 Governor Newsom could have given them a heads up.

00:20:11.000 He's not particularly close to a lot of Democrats.

00:20:15.000 A lot of Democrats don't like him, and he doesn't make time for that.

00:20:19.000 And that happens sometimes with big state governors, particularly in California, because it's 3,000 miles from Washington.

00:20:25.000 But I believe that if Gavin Newsom runs for president, he's not going to run as part of the Washington club, right?

00:20:31.000 He's going to run as an outsider.

00:20:32.000 That's in vogue right now, of course.

00:20:34.000 And so he didn't want to give him a heads up.

00:20:37.000 He wants to operate here on his own plane.

00:20:40.000 And I'll say again, that reaction, that Brooklyn brand of word salad from Hakeem Jeffries is a manifestation of the fact that the party is a mess right now, not just on the issue of trans athletes and women's sports and girls' sports, but on the general question of how do they grapple with Donald Trump?

00:21:01.000 Who, contrary to what the press says, is largely talking about issues that are 70 or 80 percent popular, as opposed to 20 or 30 percent not popular.

00:21:09.000 And they haven't grappled with that, because the rational thing would be to build some sister soldiers and say, you know what, we're with America.

00:21:19.000 But they just want to, as he did there, change the subject, or in some cases, defend the unpopular position, which, you know, hats off to them for being principled.

00:21:26.000 But a party can only last so long if they're on the wrong side of it.

00:21:29.000 70, 30, and 80, 20 issues.

00:21:32.000 Yeah, or just say a completely unrelated statement.

00:21:34.000 I mean, I don't think anyone is pushing sexual predators on girls.

00:21:37.000 It's a completely unrelated statement.

00:21:40.000 Mark, I'm going to go back to an op-ed written by James Carville, and I know this came up in my Gavin Newsom discussion, where he basically argued that Democrats should do a strategic retreat or rollover and play dead.

00:21:53.000 He argued that the Democrats' best move right now is allow Trump's numbers to get soft, and this whole thing's going to fall apart, and then we will strike.

00:22:02.000 What do you make of that?

00:22:04.000 This is the New York Times piece right here.

00:22:06.000 James Carville, it's time for a daring political maneuver.

00:22:09.000 Nothing that we can do.

00:22:10.000 Play possum and allow it to kind of pass over.

00:22:13.000 What is your take on this?

00:22:14.000 Has this ever worked in recent American modern politics?

00:22:18.000 Is this a playbook that has been proven to work?

00:22:20.000 It works in possum politics, but this is about human beings.

00:22:24.000 Look, I think James is trying to make a virtue out of three things, which right now are big problems for the party.

00:22:31.000 One is...

00:22:32.000 President Trump continues to be an 800-pound gorilla moving 800 miles per hour.

00:22:36.000 Number two, Democrats don't have any leaders who have the communication skills to stand up to him.

00:22:42.000 And number three, they don't have anything like what your party has, which is issue positions that you can sell through a machinery that's cranking fast involving communications and interest groups and real human beings, as we saw at the State of the Union-like speech.

00:23:01.000 So I think what James is basically saying is we need to do nothing now because anything we do will make it worse.

00:23:07.000 See Tuesday night.

00:23:09.000 But eventually, when he thinks the time to stop playing possum comes, you'll still need those same three things.

00:23:16.000 You'll still need leaders and ideas and messaging capacity.

00:23:20.000 And Donald Trump hopefully has made some errors.

00:23:23.000 That's the thing that could change that they don't have to control.

00:23:27.000 It's not definitely going to change.

00:23:29.000 So I've heard lots of smart Democrats say James is just saying that because he wants to have something to say.

00:23:34.000 And the alternative is to say, yeah, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin should be going head to head with Donald Trump right now when the party is divided and without any popular issue positions that they know how to sell.

00:23:46.000 So the state of the Republican Party seems as if we have plenty of momentum moving forward.

00:23:53.000 Any of the fault lines seem to be smoothed over.

00:23:56.000 And there is large unity behind the president and the administration.

00:24:00.000 Just looking at Doge, some of the reports yesterday saying that there might be a tighter leash on some of the activities there.

00:24:08.000 What is your analysis of the state of how this administration is operating six weeks in?

00:24:14.000 Super successful getting a lot done.

00:24:16.000 And it's unprecedented.

00:24:17.000 You and I have talked about it.

00:24:18.000 We've never had a second-term president like this.

00:24:20.000 All the energy and creativity and more planning than we've had in a normal.

00:24:26.000 First-term president, or second-term president, but much more experienced than a first-term president.

00:24:32.000 So it's a combination that is working very well.

00:24:35.000 They're getting a lot done.

00:24:36.000 I think there's three big areas of danger.

00:24:39.000 One is dealing with the Congress on the big stuff that has to get done.

00:24:44.000 Republican-only votes required for the reconciliation packages on taxes and spending and immigration and military stuff.

00:24:53.000 That has to get done, and they basically can't lose any Republican votes.

00:24:56.000 At the same time, with Congress, they have to get Democratic votes on some issues.

00:25:00.000 So figuring out how to pass, avoid a government shutdown, raise the debt ceiling, and pass the president's domestic agenda, that's one.

00:25:07.000 Two is DOGE, which is great and popular if you describe it as cutting waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:25:14.000 But as we saw this week...

00:25:16.000 Members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, members of the cabinet, they say, we don't work for Elon Musk, and we don't want to cut veterans.

00:25:24.000 We don't want to cut hospitals in our district.

00:25:26.000 We don't want to cut research in our district.

00:25:28.000 And so figuring out Elon's role and figuring out how to cut without...

00:25:33.000 Really pissing off not just voters, but a lot of Republicans and veterans.

00:25:37.000 That's the second issue.

00:25:40.000 And then third is the president's unprecedented at this stage of an administration playing big casino overseas, big casino in the Middle East, big casino with Ukraine, Russia.

00:25:49.000 And maybe he'll succeed.

00:25:51.000 And certainly I don't think you can argue that this is worse than what Biden was doing, which was basically nothing, just maintaining the status quo.

00:25:59.000 But he's taken a lot of big risks.

00:26:01.000 He strikes a deal with Russia and then there's Russian tanks on the Champs-Élysées, or he does the deal with Gaza and something worse takes over.

00:26:09.000 So those are big risks.

00:26:11.000 I'm not saying he shouldn't be pursuing these three tracks by any means.

00:26:14.000 Those are things he ran on.

00:26:16.000 But I think those are the big areas littered with landmines and complications.

00:26:22.000 And there are some Trump allies, including at least one friend of yours that I know, who say...

00:26:27.000 Maybe this is too much.

00:26:28.000 From a communications point of view, a bandwidth point of view, a presidential focus point of view, maybe there's just too many big projects and some of them should go on the back burner for now.

00:26:38.000 Mark, please plug two-way and also your newsletter, which I read every morning.

00:26:43.000 Really quick 20 seconds.

00:26:44.000 Okay, so twoway.tv, you can go on and watch our programs, and there's some in the morning, some at night.

00:26:49.000 It's different, long, sophisticated conversations, two-way participation from the community.

00:26:53.000 The newsletter is very expensive.

00:26:55.000 Not everyone who listens to the show will want it.

00:26:57.000 Go to walkingduck.com slash Mark, and you can read about my premium product called Concierge Coverage.

00:27:06.000 Mark, thank you so much.

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00:27:52.000 That is 1-800-4-RELIEF. 1-800-4-RELIEF. Joining us now is a...

00:27:59.000 Old friend, a great friend, an amazing patriot, and a congratulations is in order to the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins.

00:28:08.000 So good to see you, Brooke, and it's amazing to see you in the cabinet for President Trump.

00:28:14.000 Congratulations.

00:28:15.000 Oh, Charlie Kirk.

00:28:16.000 I mean, really, what a joy on so many levels.

00:28:19.000 I know we have gotten to talk quite a bit off of the camera and off of your show, but this is the first time I've been back on the show, and I'm just so grateful to do it.

00:28:28.000 But thank you so much.

00:28:29.000 It's the honor of a lifetime.

00:28:30.000 So there's a lot of attention right now on the Department of Agriculture and kind of the mess that Joe Biden left you.

00:28:37.000 The thing that is a talking point of the Democrats and to be...

00:28:41.000 You know, fair.

00:28:42.000 A reality a lot of Americans are experiencing is the price of eggs.

00:28:46.000 Separate fact from fiction.

00:28:48.000 Why is it that egg prices have gone up so dramatically?

00:28:50.000 And what is the plan to bring those prices down?

00:28:53.000 Well, it's funny, you know, all of the talk in Washington and certainly the amazing State of the Union, which was unbelievable.

00:29:00.000 I'm sure you've spent a lot of time on your show talking about it.

00:29:02.000 Oh, yeah.

00:29:03.000 And it's what's happening with Ukraine, what's happening with America across the world, what's happening at the border.

00:29:08.000 I mean, what's really happening across all of government with Elon and Doge has just been astounding.

00:29:14.000 It's another revolution.

00:29:15.000 But at the end of the day, if the single mom who lives in Detroit, Michigan... 1.00

00:29:21.000 Can't go to the grocery store and afford a carton of eggs, then the world's not right, right?

00:29:28.000 I mean, it's that sort of...

00:29:30.000 Pocketbook issue, and that as we, Charlie, you and I have long battled together to take the American dream to every corner of our country, these are really, real significant issues.

00:29:41.000 I don't have my chart here with me, but if I did, and by the way, President Trump loves this chart, but it shows that for 40 years, the price of eggs was pretty static.

00:29:49.000 It was right around $1.50, $2 a dozen.

00:29:52.000 Then under Obama, it went up, not surprisingly because of over-regulation and higher taxes, etc.

00:29:58.000 the cost of input went up, but not significantly, you know, maybe from $1.52 to $2.53.

00:30:03.000 Then under Trump, without anything intentional, but just because less government, lower regulations, everyone did better, the prices went back down.

00:30:11.000 But then under Biden, they skyrocketed 230% higher than what they were under Trump 1.

00:30:19.000 And there's reasons for that, over-regulation, et cetera.

00:30:22.000 But the avian bird flu, which is a virus that these chickens have gotten, is a huge reason.

00:30:28.000 The Biden team basically depopulated about 150 million egg-laying hens last year, which is the protocol.

00:30:36.000 We're looking at the protocol now to see how to tweak it so that hopefully we don't have to do that moving forward.

00:30:41.000 But we did.

00:30:42.000 We did.

00:30:43.000 We rolled out a five point plan about a week ago, includes deregulation, includes repopulation much more quickly, includes importing eggs from other countries for the short term.

00:30:52.000 And then for the long term, figuring out how to solve for these viruses that are basically annihilating a significant, significant populations in our poultry industry.

00:31:02.000 And so I don't oversimplify it, but a bunch of chickens were killed like 100 million, and therefore it restricts the supply and the demand stays the same.

00:31:11.000 And so the price goes up.

00:31:13.000 Is that somewhat of a fair summation?

00:31:17.000 That's exactly right.

00:31:18.000 Now, alongside the Biden, crazy inflation, crazy overregulation, crazy spending, right?

00:31:25.000 I mean, the bird flu has certainly been a massive driver in that, but it isn't just that.

00:31:29.000 And, you know, as much as we would love to get the price of eggs down to $2 by tomorrow, although I think we're making some good strides, I've seen some recent numbers, this is going to take a little while.

00:31:39.000 It's going to take a little while to figure out how to solve for the flu.

00:31:41.000 It's going to take a little while to get the deregulation, such as Prop 12 in California and line speeds and other things back to normal before they were in Trump 1.

00:31:50.000 And frankly, just bring the cost of goods down across the country.

00:31:55.000 But we're making incredible strides.

00:31:57.000 I'm so proud of this president here.

00:31:59.000 He has just been such a, I mean, we all know this, right?

00:32:02.000 Such a warrior for everything that we care about.

00:32:05.000 And my role now becomes, you know, the farmers, the ranchers, the ag community bringing prosperity back to rural America and getting the price of those eggs down.

00:32:14.000 That's at least what he's told me.

00:32:17.000 So speaking more broadly, educate our audience about the duties and the responsibilities, all about what the Department of Agriculture does.

00:32:24.000 People just think of it as, you know, kind of corn or soybeans.

00:32:28.000 It's a lot more than that.

00:32:29.000 Kind of give us a little insight into your portfolio.

00:32:32.000 Well, it is.

00:32:33.000 And when I got the call on November 23rd from President Trump, it was a Saturday before Thanksgiving.

00:32:38.000 My husband and my four kids and I were driving to Auburn, Alabama for the Texas A&M-Auburn football game and very unexpectedly had the conversation that...

00:32:48.000 I mean, really kind of changed everything.

00:32:51.000 Although I will eventually go back and join you, Charlie, out in the trenches doing the great work outside.

00:32:58.000 I mean, yeah, that's where my heart is.

00:33:00.000 But it really is.

00:33:02.000 It's a privilege.

00:33:03.000 It's a blessing.

00:33:04.000 But it's a big job.

00:33:05.000 I mean, people assume, to your point, it's corn and soybeans and some beef.

00:33:09.000 But it's also the food stamp program.

00:33:11.000 Yeah, it's massive.

00:33:12.000 Which is a massive, bureaucratic nightmare of a beast where we're not even really...

00:33:17.000 We're getting the food to the people who really need it most.

00:33:21.000 And when we are, it includes Cokes and candy and all kinds of bad stuff.

00:33:25.000 So there's a massive amount of work that we need to do there.

00:33:27.000 It also includes the Forest Service.

00:33:29.000 So we've got the largest firefighting unit.

00:33:33.000 Anywhere in the country of any size of government is the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

00:33:39.000 We've got almost 30,000 firefighters in our community.

00:33:43.000 So yesterday I was in North Carolina.

00:33:45.000 They've got some fires that have popped up that are a little bit scary, looking at the damage of Hurricane Helene, but also understanding what we need to do and the resources that are necessary to ensure we don't have another fire like what happened in California, that all the different components are working well together.

00:34:01.000 You name it.

00:34:03.000 USDA, you know, it was the first...

00:34:05.000 The first cabinet position created after the founding of the country.

00:34:10.000 So, right, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson created defense and state and attorney general, etc.

00:34:16.000 They waited, what, almost 100 years.

00:34:18.000 And then Abraham Lincoln created the Department of Agriculture.

00:34:21.000 And then it was a little while longer before the other ones came along.

00:34:25.000 And so I think it became a little bit of the dumping ground for all the things that didn't have a place in a federal agency.

00:34:32.000 But that's part of the great role.

00:34:34.000 I welcome it and I thrive with it.

00:34:36.000 How do we realign the United States Department of Agriculture?

00:34:40.000 How do we set a model for not just the federal government, but around the country on how you realign, how you reduce in force, how you become more effective and more efficient with much less money?

00:34:50.000 And that's what we and our very small team right now, we're still trying to get people in the door, but that's what we're doing every day.

00:34:56.000 So let's also talk about tariffs.

00:34:59.000 And I know there's a lot of back and forth on this.

00:35:01.000 And by the way, the American people voted for tariffs.

00:35:03.000 And they want tariffs.

00:35:04.000 Yes, they did.

00:35:05.000 My phone was lighting up like a Christmas tree, I'm sure yours was, from farmers and ranchers and people that are great folks.

00:35:12.000 Hey, what's going on?

00:35:13.000 Are we able to sell our product?

00:35:14.000 Are we able to import our product?

00:35:15.000 How are you guys thinking about this at the Department of Agriculture?

00:35:18.000 Well, there's no doubt, you know, I've been now to six or seven different states.

00:35:22.000 I've only been in for about two and a half weeks, I guess three weeks, and been to, gosh, a bunch of states, talked to a bunch of farmers, almost 200, I think, from around the country.

00:35:31.000 Had a lot of them come to Washington.

00:35:32.000 It's really important to me that I get outside the noise of Washington and outside the kind of the, you know, the associations, et cetera.

00:35:40.000 Not that they don't play a very good role, but I want to talk to the farmers directly.

00:35:45.000 And in so doing, the number one issue...

00:35:48.000 For them is the uncertainty that tariffs and the trade, potential trade renegotiations, what that means for our ag community.

00:35:56.000 And listen, Charlie, in a hundred years...

00:35:58.000 I'm not sure that the ag community, that our farmers and ranchers have been operating at more of a razor-thin margin than they are today.

00:36:05.000 I mean, it is not a good place to be.

00:36:07.000 Our exports, we have a trade deficit of $49 billion in ag, thanks to Joe Biden.

00:36:12.000 It was zero when we left President Trump's first term.

00:36:16.000 That is real money taken out of the pockets of our farmers.

00:36:19.000 But the number one thing they're concerned about is trade.

00:36:21.000 And so yesterday, the president, whom I have been talking to, and he, these are his people, right?

00:36:27.000 We are his people.

00:36:28.000 And he knows that the rural communities and the ag communities have been with him since the moment he came down that escalator.

00:36:33.000 It took other people a lot longer to get on board.

00:36:36.000 In early 21, when others were running for the hills and not supporting President Trump, this community was.

00:36:42.000 And he knows that.

00:36:43.000 So he mentioned the State of the Union a few times on Tuesday night.

00:36:46.000 Farmers, I'm with you.

00:36:47.000 I love you.

00:36:48.000 Yesterday, I talked to him multiples of times as they were finalizing at least the...

00:36:52.000 30-day deal to exempt ag products under USMCA going to Canada or Mexico, which is a huge relief, even if short-term.

00:37:00.000 They exempted fertilizer, also called potash, from Canada under a different kind of line.

00:37:06.000 But at the end of the day, the president is hyper-focused on delivering for the American people.

00:37:11.000 He was elected on tariffs being part of that toolkit in order to bring prosperity back to America.

00:37:17.000 But I am so confident that he is also an...

00:37:21.000 Every day, thinking about the real-world effects on the backbone of this country and in rural America, which are our farmers.

00:37:28.000 So critically important.

00:37:30.000 Secretary Rollins, it's nice to say that.

00:37:33.000 Anything else on your front vision, things you're dealing with, you want our audience to be aware of?

00:37:39.000 And what are your asks out of Congress with this big budget bill?

00:37:43.000 What are some needs that you see, waste to cut, elimination, doge up the food stamps, where you're going to be going to Congress and say, Hey, here are my big asks.

00:37:52.000 So, at the end of the day, I think what's really important, and I'm assuming most of the people watching you today, Charlie, and are fans of yours probably also watch the president on Tuesday night.

00:38:04.000 This isn't easy, right?

00:38:06.000 Revolution is never easy.

00:38:09.000 And there are really hard decisions to be made.

00:38:12.000 And there are days that...

00:38:14.000 My goodness, you know, the concept of how you get this massive beast of the federal government that has gotten too big under both Democrats and Republicans, right?

00:38:24.000 Democrats and Republicans.

00:38:25.000 How do you take it back to where it is meant to be?

00:38:27.000 How do you return the power to the people?

00:38:29.000 How do you implement our founders' vision of self-governance when things have just gotten so out of control in Washington?

00:38:36.000 And while, Charlie, you and I are both very much pathological optimists, I don't even know that you or I could have imagined the world.

00:38:46.000 We've got Elon Musk, who is just doing such a phenomenal job.

00:38:50.000 We have a cabinet.

00:38:52.000 We're like family, and we're all working together.

00:38:54.000 We've all now known each other and worked together for years at this point.

00:38:58.000 So it isn't like we're in our silos anymore.

00:39:00.000 This is a team effort to save America.

00:39:03.000 So as I'm going to the Hill, and part of my message has been, Charlie, when you're in a revolution and you are significantly reducing the size of government, nothing Will be perfect.

00:39:13.000 It will be imperfect.

00:39:14.000 There will be mistakes made, but this sort of shaking up the whole system and almost restarting it in a way.

00:39:23.000 There's not going to be another opportunity, I believe, perhaps in our lifetimes to do exactly what we're doing now.

00:39:28.000 So even as I'm talking to our friends on the Hill, but even this morning I talked to a Democrat senator, and I won't say who it was, but we had a very collegial conversation about what our goals are, what we're trying to do at USDA, the importance of returning, you know, and realigning the agency.

00:39:44.000 And for the most part, even those on the other side of the aisle understand that President Trump won with a mandate.

00:39:52.000 And winning the popular vote and winning all the swing states.

00:39:55.000 And that's now what we're working to effectuate.

00:39:58.000 So I have gotten nothing but mostly general positive feedback, even from those on the other side, who understand what it is we're trying to do.

00:40:06.000 And for the most part, doing it with the best, well, for our sake, we are doing it with the best of intentions.

00:40:12.000 But even those on the other side, I think, for the most part, recognize that while they are not in power, they may not make these decisions, but they realize this is what the American people have asked for.

00:40:24.000 No, Brooke.

00:40:26.000 Brooke, forever.

00:40:27.000 You're the greatest.

00:40:29.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:40:29.000 Thank you.

00:40:29.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:40:31.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - March 07, 2025

Did Gavin Newsom Start A Dem Civil War? + The ActBlue Implosion

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