The constitutional question that looms in front of us, the importance of Doge, and the 100-year fight that we are involved in. Mark Halperin joins the program to talk about it and why it's the greatest constitutional crisis since Woodrow Wilson.
00:00:00.000Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, the constitutional question that looms in front of us, the importance of Doge and the 100-year fight that we are involved in.
00:00:41.000He'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.
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00:02:31.000We're living on the energy of the 1985. Still, if you look at Super Bowl commercials, they still have Ditka, you know, like dressed up.
00:02:40.000I mean, it's just living on the fumes of 1985, I could say.
00:02:44.000So we're not going to talk too much about the Super Bowl.
00:02:47.000Instead, I want to zero in on what's happening with Doge and whether or not it's popular.
00:02:52.000Doge is forcing a major constitutional issue.
00:02:55.000Now, I wouldn't call it a crisis, but it certainly is forcing front and center whether or not the executive branch has the power to allocate resources of their choosing, to faithfully exercise the laws, the vesting clause.
00:03:12.000Now, the Article II supremacists, which we have been mentioning many times on this program, are not happy with this.
00:03:18.000People like Chris Murphy, people like Ilhan Omar, They live to protect the federal bureaucracy.
00:03:24.000They exist to protect the standing army.
00:03:28.000The federal bureaucracy has so many separate and different components.
00:03:34.000It is far more entrenched than people realize.
00:04:53.000Let's play cut 12. Yeah, I mean, what we are witnessing is a constitutional crisis.
00:04:58.000We are seeing an executive branch that has decided that they are no longer going to abide by the Constitution in honoring Congress's role in the creation of the agencies, in their role in deciding where money is allocated.
00:06:20.000Let's play cut 13. Listen, I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate.
00:06:27.000The president is attempting to seize control of power and for corrupt purposes.
00:06:33.000The president wants to be able to decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends, he can punish his political enemies.
00:06:42.000That is the evisceration of democracy.
00:07:54.000Stephen Miller perfectly addressed this in his interview with Maria Bartiromo, Play Cut 40. What we continue to see here is the idea that rogue bureaucrats who are elected by no one, who answer to no one, who have lifetime tenure jobs, who we would be told can never be fired, which of course is not true.
00:08:14.000The power has been cemented and accumulated for years, whether it be with the Treasury bureaucrats or the FBI bureaucrats or the CIA bureaucrats or the USAID bureaucrats, with this unelected shadow force that is running our government and running our country.
00:08:29.000Donald Trump is engaging in the most important restoration of democracy in over a century.
00:08:37.000By saying that we are going to restore power to the people through their elected president and his appointed officers.
00:08:45.000That is the only way we can have true democracy in this country.
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00:12:14.000Is it the people, or is it the technocrats?
00:12:17.000Is it the people, or is it the scientific elite?
00:12:21.000Is the same people that said six feet to slow the spread?
00:12:24.000The same people that tried to require you to take a vaccine that you didn't need?
00:12:28.000Play Cut 39. Yet in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
00:12:48.000is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system, ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
00:14:11.000It is the malaise of the bureaucratic class.
00:14:16.000For decades, we have ignored this problem.
00:14:18.000For decades, we've acted as if we've had a president and we didn't.
00:14:23.000And that is why when Joe Biden was basically brain dead the last two years of his presidency, things continued to move on because he didn't actually have duties or responsibilities.
00:16:06.000It is sluggishly annoying against all of your aims and your ambitions.
00:16:11.000And it works against what Alexander Hamilton would talk about in the Federalist Papers.
00:16:14.000I think Federalist 70, if I'm not mistaken, the energetic executive.
00:16:18.000If you want an executive with energy and spunk and vigor and spirit and vitality, how are you supposed to do that if you have this permanent bureaucracy?
00:16:27.000And the permanent bureaucracy, which we used to call the deep state, but it is better described as the administrative state, is against almost every single objective of the current administration.
00:16:39.000And the example this weekend was from the Treasury Department.
00:16:41.000An activist judge granted more power to bureaucracy than actually Scott Besson.
00:16:47.000Who is in charge is the fundamental question.
00:18:44.000And so, Mark, I have several questions.
00:18:46.000I want to start with this CBS report that shows that President Trump's approval rating seems to be rather significant for him and for other presidents.
00:18:56.000How does this compare with his first term?
00:18:58.000And can you give us some presidential history and perspective?
00:19:01.000How do approval ratings tend to trend the first six months, 100 days of a presidency?
00:19:08.000Give us some perspective because from my recollection, they start high and then they tend to taper.
00:19:52.000So when I talk to Democrats, strategists, about why Donald Trump is doing well, why the voters like him, where I look at the data, it's pretty clear he's being active.
00:20:03.000He's being authentic, and he's getting very much of the attention, the three A's.
00:20:10.000So I'm not surprised his numbers are where they are.
00:20:12.000I wonder if they can go higher or if he's at his ceiling.
00:20:15.000But I think the key to why he's doing well, compared to a lot of second-term presidents, is probably the thing the press has gotten the most wrong about Donald Trump for a decade now.
00:20:38.000And again, it's apples to tangerines compared to a normal second term that it's hard to put these numbers in context.
00:20:47.000What we can say is they're higher than most second-term presidents at this phase, and they're certainly higher than Donald Trump was in term one.
00:20:57.000What typically starts to crater approval ratings?
00:21:00.000Biden started pretty high, and then it just went down and never recovered.
00:21:05.000The economy is obviously a major one, or one could say a scandal.
00:21:09.000President Trump is operating at such a rapid pace, even for him, it's hard to even be able to have the media apparatus or his opposition emphasize and focus.
00:22:03.000There's a rough consensus, I think, that people think the best issue for them is cuts in programs that benefit the middle class and working class people at the expense of tax cuts for the wealthiest.
00:22:23.000You'd think, well, the DNC, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, maybe some of the prominent Democratic governors.
00:22:29.000But what I heard this weekend in my reporting, and I wrote about this a little bit in the newsletter today, is the grassroots says, you know what?
00:22:51.000Where's our guy or gal who's on email and texting every minute, who has a huge platform and a huge megaphone, but also is out there engaging like voter registration and organizing and activism?
00:23:05.000And you hear that from some of the donors, too.
00:23:06.000They're saying, why should I write a check to the DNC or to Cory Booker when I don't think those folks have an idea of how to stop Trump?
00:23:14.000Where's my Charlie Kirk of the left that I can write a check to, to start something that's got energy and newness and digital vitality?
00:23:21.000I will accept that praise, and thank you.
00:23:26.000And I don't want to dive too deep into that, but it does seem as if, from an ecosystem standpoint, there has been a lack of, let's just say, political entrepreneurs on the left.
00:23:37.000I don't know if that's the right way to word it.
00:25:19.000Even though those places are diminished and even though those places are in some ways being a little bit fairer to the right than they've been historically, it's very difficult to find the...
00:25:29.000The incentives that you found and others found to rise up and say, we need all new forms of things.
00:25:35.000And of course, Rush Limbaugh and Talk Radio did this before you did.
00:25:39.000It's easier to get that energy, that vitality, that determination, and to find a market when you see out there, well, half the country's got their market.
00:25:50.000It's a supposedly fair media, and they're there.
00:25:55.000So if you're trying to launch Charlie Kirk of the left...
00:25:58.000You're competing with the Washington Post, and that's the hard thing to compete with because they've got a big head start.
00:26:04.000That's a really smart point, and it's something that Rush would talk about, may he rest in peace, a lot, which is where is left-wing talk radio?
00:26:11.000And one of his theories was that I got nothing but content because I just criticized the media all day long.
00:26:16.000He says, I'm responding to their stuff all day long.
00:26:20.000And so I guess there could be a left-wing equivalent that responds to shows like ours, and there are people that try to do that.
00:26:27.000But it just doesn't have the same sort of fly because, again, you're responding to kind of upstart grassroots types, whereas we, you know, we're responding to palatial regime, multi-billion dollar media.
00:26:57.000And again, the same organizations that denied for many years Joe Biden's loss of mental acuity, who denied the plain as a nose on your face reality of Biden, Inc.
00:27:12.000Those same organizations are covering the Trump White House.
00:27:15.000Those same organizations are covering the fights on Capitol Hill.
00:27:19.000Not just the same organizations, many of the same people.
00:27:22.000And so you cannot be, it is not a symmetrical thing.
00:27:27.000They have some asymmetrical advantages because they've got the establishment media, what I call the dominant media.
00:27:32.000But the right has some asymmetrical advantages because, as you said, you all, as Rush did, can play off of it.
00:27:38.000And that's an extremely valuable thing.
00:27:41.000So, Mark, I want to get into another element of the story here and first compliment you.
00:27:45.000You were one of the few people that said that Trump was likely to have his entire cabinet confirmed.
00:27:51.000And you've said that for the entire time, that it was advantaged Trump and people said, no way is Bobby Kennedy to get through.
00:27:57.000So I don't want to pop the champagne yet from our side, but it looks as if this is almost a certainty.
00:28:13.000Fidelity to President Trump and a belief that he must get off to a fast start and he's entitled to his picks.
00:28:19.000Two is the tactical strength of the teams around the controversial nominees.
00:28:24.000Whether it's Hegseth or Gabbard or Kennedy, very good teams of so-called Sherpas, communications, inside politics, knowing that you and others could pressure these wavering senators in a way, once you were activated, that would really impact them.
00:28:38.000And then lastly is the performance of the nominees themselves.
00:28:44.000I think Hegseth in particular saved himself.
00:28:47.000By going out there and making the case.
00:28:48.000And I think Kennedy and Gabby did as well.
00:29:00.000It's called Wild World of News Concierge Coverage.
00:29:02.000I've got two sub-stacks, but you want the concierge coverage one as a daily newsletter.
00:29:09.000With President Donald Trump now back in the White House, we're all excited about big changes ahead, which will make America great again.
00:29:16.000But even with the defeat of their supporters last November, Big Pharma is still threatening to derail the Trump agenda, oppose Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s upcoming reforms, and they want to block competition and keep drug prices too high.
00:29:27.000Big Pharma sets the price of drugs, and already this year, they raised the price on more than 575 of them.
00:29:33.000Their anti-competitive practices block competition so they can keep prices high.
00:29:38.000And they spend billions of dollars on ads pushing their high-priced brand-name drugs on working Americans.
00:29:44.000Now they're urging Congress to undermine incentives in the private healthcare market that help American employers and families secure savings on prescription drugs.
00:29:53.000conservatives for lower health care costs warns that big pharma is no friend to the trump agenda or the pocketbooks of the american people they opposed solutions to lower drug prices in the president trump's first term and they are after a huge money grab at the expense of everyone else now by seeking more government intervention in the private market go to pharma windfall.com
00:30:15.000to learn more about how conservatives can stop big pharma prevent higher health care costs and protect pay for performance in our private health care market congress can stop big pharma and you can help Go to pharmawindfall.com today.
00:30:30.000So, I love having Mark on the program because he has incredible historical context of a couple decades of covering this.
00:30:39.000So, Mark, have we ever seen anything in the modern era similar to Doge?
00:30:43.000And how do you think this is going to play out?
00:30:46.000I know that is a very difficult question.
00:30:49.000But why don't you instead say, what are you seeing that might lead you to believe a certain conclusion is inevitable?
00:30:56.000because we've never quite seen the world's richest man come in as an SGE, a special government employee, and deploy some of his super geniuses to fix the government.
00:31:08.000We could do three hours on the ways that it is unprecedented, not just Musk's involvement, but the way it's being done, the scope and scale of the ambition, the speed with which it's being done.
00:32:03.000If it goes for fancy subscriptions to something called Politico Pro or some sort of play, regardless of whether it's a topic they disagree with.
00:32:12.000So I think they're on the right track there.
00:32:14.000But the reality is you cannot cut spending that doesn't affect people.
00:32:18.000And I think they continue to talk about it as cuts as opposed to restraining the rate of growth.
00:32:23.000I think eventually they'll get around to doing that.
00:32:25.000But where the money is is in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
00:32:29.000You could cut every bit of discretionary spending, even cut some defense spending, which most Republicans don't want to do.
00:32:35.000You will not get to the point where you'll see significant deficit reduction.
00:32:40.000So I hope that Republicans and Democrats join together to say, these programs are invaluable, and the way to save them, not destroy the programs, the way to save them is to find ways to make them more efficient.
00:32:52.000To find cost savings, to do things like, say, really rich people maybe shouldn't get the same Social Security benefits as other people.
00:32:59.000Those are the steps they haven't taken.
00:33:01.000So while it's great that they're looking to cut a little bit here and a little bit there, and I think that's right, although there needs to be scrutiny about whether they're doing it legally and whether they're doing it in ways that might cut programs that are worthwhile, I think the big question is can they actually make a dent in the deficit by going where the money is, which, again, is in these programs.
00:33:21.000The President Trump has vowed not to touch.
00:33:24.000Let's talk about the political dynamic here as we close.
00:33:28.000Does it present an opportunity for more of the Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren wing of the party to say, look, this is the oligarchy we've been warning you about, to kind of have this left-wing populism have a resurgence within the Democrat Party that has been quite muted since Joe Biden became president?
00:33:47.000Again, as I said before, I think you're right that that theme could get more traction with certain parts of the country, but they don't want to be a party that only is as broadly as appealing as Elizabeth Warren, because that's not a majority party.
00:33:59.000That's a party with tens of thousands of really passionate people, but it's not a majority party.
00:34:04.000And so I think what you're seeing is the Democrats trying to figure out how do you take those themes that might be subscribed to by the squad and might even be subscribed to by, you know, Mark Kelly and more moderate Democrats and have a spokesperson who can kind of knit it all together in a critique.
00:34:22.000And they don't have the grassroots organization yet.
00:34:25.000They have the embers, the green shoots of that.
00:34:27.000So I think there's no doubt that those themes are where the Democrats currently are putting their energy.
00:34:33.000But I think it's got it's going to have to be broader than Elizabeth Warren wing of the party or it will not win will not win the midterms.
00:34:39.000My message to conservatives is we have to operate as if they're going to figure this out.