The Charlie Kirk Show - Elon vs. The BBB

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio.

00:00:04.000 Today on the Charlie Kirk show, Elon comes out against it.

00:00:08.000 Senator Ron Johnson is against it.

00:00:10.000 Why is that?

00:00:10.000 We analyze it, and I want to hear from you, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:13.000 Your threats as we explain what's in the bill, why people are for it, why people are against it.

00:00:18.000 It is the most comprehensive episode on the big, beautiful bill that you are going to find and how it impacts your life.

00:00:23.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.

00:00:27.000 That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page.

00:00:30.000 Email me, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and become a member today.

00:00:33.000 members.charliekirk.com Get involved with the most important organization in America.

00:00:38.000 That is Turning Point USA.

00:00:39.000 Go to tpusa.com.

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00:00:44.000 So start a high school or college chapter today at tpusa.com.

00:00:48.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:51.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:52.000 Here we go.

00:00:53.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:55.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:57.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:00.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:03.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:05.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:06.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:01:07.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:14.000 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.

00:01:23.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:51.000 I am back in the chair.

00:01:52.000 Honored to be with you as always.

00:01:54.000 More energy and spirit than ever.

00:01:56.000 I had quite a day yesterday.

00:01:57.000 I'll tell you kind of about who I saw at dinner in a second.

00:02:01.000 It was quite something.

00:02:02.000 That's not the breaking news, but I joke around to my friends.

00:02:06.000 I live a Forrest Gump life.

00:02:08.000 I really do.

00:02:09.000 I just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

00:02:11.000 So many different situations.

00:02:13.000 And it just so happens I was eating dinner in New York last night and I ran into Mr. Doug.

00:02:20.000 Kamala Harris's husband.

00:02:22.000 I'll tell you about that.

00:02:22.000 That's not breaking news.

00:02:23.000 But I also saw the grand priestess statue, the statue of the high priestess of the Democrat Party, which is Skinny Lizzo in Times Square.

00:02:36.000 All hail the black woman.

00:02:39.000 People were giving tribute and were saying prayers to the black woman statue in Times Square.

00:02:45.000 Do we have a picture of that, by the way?

00:02:47.000 Do we have a picture of the grand priestess?

00:02:50.000 You know, in prior civilizations, you go to Florence and you see the statue of David.

00:02:54.000 You go to Rome and you see the Paieta.

00:02:55.000 I think it's in Rome.

00:02:57.000 And when you come to New York, you go see a statue of some slob who is, by the way, like 15 feet tall. 1.00

00:03:05.000 It's a very big statue of just literally some random black woman, just to be reckoned. 0.53

00:03:09.000 In Times Square, the most prominent statue is just literally a statue of a black woman. 0.76

00:03:14.000 I don't know.

00:03:15.000 I prefer the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of...

00:03:18.000 of So we're going to dive more into that later.

00:03:23.000 And there it is.

00:03:24.000 Yeah, there's the statue of the slob. 1.00

00:03:26.000 I mean, what is, I want to know, can you steel man the argument for me?

00:03:30.000 What is the purpose of this?

00:03:32.000 Why is that there?

00:03:33.000 I had to go by and see it, by the way.

00:03:35.000 Interestingly, it was very easy to go up and take a picture.

00:03:38.000 No one really wanted to go take a picture next to it.

00:03:40.000 Either it'd be called racist, they felt intimidated, or they thought that she was going to start screaming at them. 1.00

00:03:46.000 It was right, literally right in the center of Times Square.

00:03:50.000 There's strong, there's steel man argument for this.

00:03:52.000 Oh, to challenge cultural norms and spark conversation about previously marginalized, unappreciated groups.

00:03:57.000 Is that what art is about?

00:03:59.000 I could do a whole show about art and how we have lost the plot when it comes to art.

00:04:04.000 Roger Scruton, may he rest in peace, had one of the best documentaries and books and analyses on how we in the West have decided to embrace the ugly.

00:04:14.000 They think art is to expose systemic injustice.

00:04:17.000 We believe art is to uplift the divine, make human beings be better versions of themselves, to appreciate the beautiful and the good and the traditional and to make society one that is worth defending, not one of deconstruction.

00:04:37.000 I could do a whole speech on this, but I thought it was quite something that we go from The statue of David in Florence is a beautiful symbol of Western civilization.

00:04:48.000 The statue of Shaniqua.

00:04:50.000 Okay, so let's dive into the breaking news.

00:04:55.000 So yesterday, Elon Musk, the world's richest man, someone who I have gotten to know and I still get along with, tweeted the tweet heard around the world.

00:05:04.000 Now, it was seen over 100 million times on X. Now, to be fair, we sent out a tweet the other day that was seen about 40 million times.

00:05:14.000 So, it's not bad, but we also don't own the platform.

00:05:18.000 Our tweet was, Islam is not compatible with Western civilization, but 45 million. 1.00

00:05:23.000 I think that's going to be a topic that I'm going to have to defend for the next couple of years.

00:05:27.000 So, Blake, get ready and you read the Hadith for me.

00:05:30.000 All right.

00:05:31.000 However, Elon Musk sends out this tweet, and I want to analyze this, and I want to make sure that we are understanding Elon's perspective correctly.

00:05:38.000 The media is completely unhelpful here, and I think I can offer some unique insight.

00:05:43.000 Having being a proponent of the Big Beautiful Bill, having be someone who is friendly with Elon and thinks that Elon has really delivered a civilizational blessing to us by liberating X and helping President Trump get elected, I think I'm in a unique spot to actually explain this.

00:05:59.000 Let me go through his tweet.

00:06:00.000 Quote, I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore.

00:06:04.000 Can we get the tape of Network, by the way?

00:06:07.000 I'm mad as hell and I'm not taking it anymore.

00:06:09.000 Do you guys know what clip I'm talking about?

00:06:11.000 Where the guy goes out the window and just starts screaming from the movie Network?

00:06:16.000 Anyway, get that.

00:06:17.000 That's Elon yesterday, if we get that tape.

00:06:19.000 This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.

00:06:27.000 Shame on those who voted for it.

00:06:30.000 You know you did wrong.

00:06:31.000 You know it.

00:06:32.000 Okay.

00:06:33.000 So I wouldn't use that language at all, but let me try to interpret what Elon is saying here in less provocative and hyperbolic language.

00:06:41.000 I wouldn't use words like shame or outrageous or pork-filled, because understand what this bill is first and foremost.

00:06:49.000 It is a reconciliation bill.

00:06:51.000 It is not a budget bill.

00:06:52.000 It is a reconciliation bill, which means you have to reconcile two different budgetary years together, combine them.

00:07:00.000 And you can add some spending and cut some spending, but it must pass what is called the Byrd Rule in the Senate, and it must be budgetary related.

00:07:09.000 Now, what is Elon getting at here is something that I think that is important, though.

00:07:13.000 And we have Senator Ron Johnson that will be joining us in the segment after this, who I think is articulating a lot of these views.

00:07:19.000 I don't necessarily share them to the same extent.

00:07:22.000 Because I am still a big proponent of this bill, largely because of the immigration wins and because of the no tax on tips and the tax cut stuff.

00:07:29.000 But we are fiscal hawks on this show.

00:07:31.000 We believe that if you do not balance our budget, we are careening towards a fiscal apocalypse.

00:07:38.000 Overnight, Elon also tweeted this.

00:07:40.000 He said, quote, Now, as a pause and as a side note, I literally got my start.

00:07:49.000 As an advocate and as an activist back in 2011 and 2012, when I was in high school in the suburbs of Chicago, talking about the ballooning national debt.

00:07:59.000 If we as conservatives are serious, we must be fiscal hawks.

00:08:03.000 It is generational theft.

00:08:05.000 It is the slavery of the free.

00:08:07.000 It is by far one of the greatest, if not the greatest, national security threats.

00:08:13.000 We should go back to baseline budgeting.

00:08:15.000 We should go back to zero-based budgeting.

00:08:17.000 We have been saying this for the last 13 years.

00:08:19.000 When I started Turning Point USA, the national debt was hovering around $8 to $9 trillion when I first started debt advocacy in sophomore or junior high school.

00:08:31.000 And then when I graduated high school, I think it was around $13 trillion.

00:08:34.000 I'm approximating these numbers.

00:08:36.000 And now it's upwards of $35 trillion.

00:08:39.000 A nearly triple increase of our national debt.

00:08:44.000 Now, our response to COVID didn't help, and it was completely unnecessary.

00:08:47.000 One of the reasons why is because we started to engage in a decades-long cheap money cycle.

00:08:53.000 No one wanted to cut spending.

00:08:54.000 The stock market keep coming up.

00:08:56.000 We keep on inflating our currency and deteriorating our purchasing power.

00:09:01.000 Nobody wanted to have the tough conversation about cutting spending.

00:09:08.000 So from Elon's perspective, again, his language is what his language is.

00:09:12.000 He'll have to defend this.

00:09:13.000 Is that Elon got into this political game for a couple reasons.

00:09:18.000 One of which is he is intensely focused on balancing the budget.

00:09:23.000 He is, you cannot get him off of this topic.

00:09:28.000 When I've talked to him privately, when I've had dinner with him, when I've had lunch with him, when we text, the number one concern that Elon Musk has is we are going to be a nation in bankruptcy if we do not have severe and dramatic cuts.

00:09:43.000 Now, one thing Elon Musk also simultaneously understand, and I would tell him if he was sitting right here, is unfortunately we have a bunch of moderate Republicans in the House of Representatives and a three-seat majority that have no stomach, no concern.

00:09:56.000 They have no interest whatsoever in cutting spending.

00:10:00.000 None.

00:10:01.000 They do not want to cut spending at all.

00:10:04.000 They'll do a little bit on the edges, but even getting them to do the appropriate Medicaid cuts or the SNAP stuff?

00:10:12.000 So, for example, the Big Beautiful Bill does cut about $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade.

00:10:18.000 So that's $150 billion a year.

00:10:20.000 It proposes $600 billion in Medicaid cuts, about $290 billion in SNAP, which is food stamps.

00:10:26.000 This is all over 10 years, though.

00:10:29.000 $330 billion in student loans.

00:10:31.000 But I'm going to explain this even more and talk about the fiscal apocalypse that we are careening towards.

00:10:37.000 And then I'm going to talk about Stephen Miller's retort.

00:10:41.000 I agree with the language that Elon put forward in his tweet, but I'm going to explain because still a lot of people in our audience feel this way.

00:10:47.000 a lot of people in the base are saying, why are we not cutting more spending?

00:10:51.000 Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:11:56.000 Live shot of Elon Musk last night on X, play cut 353.

00:12:00.000 I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!

00:12:12.000 Live shot of Elon Musk on X. Stephen Miller responds, and Stephen Miller, this is why I'm in support of the big, beautiful bill.

00:12:19.000 And while I understand Elon's critique and I even sympathize with his analysis, you must understand there's other things at play.

00:12:38.000 Full extension and expansion of the Trump tax cuts.

00:12:41.000 This is what CBO's scoring, not spending.

00:12:43.000 Tax cuts, the one we campaigned on and pledged.

00:12:46.000 The largest welfare reform in history, cutting almost $2 trillion in spending.

00:12:51.000 Item one alone, border security plus deportation, makes this the most important legislation for the conservative project in the history of the nation.

00:12:57.000 Let me pause here, too.

00:12:59.000 What I don't think the CBO or people are recognizing is we save billions, if not tens of billions of dollars in social services as we continue mass deportations.

00:13:08.000 Understand, mass deportations saves money in hospitals, saves money in schools, saves money on infrastructure.

00:13:14.000 So make no mistake, deportations are a net benefit financially and fiscally for the American homeland.

00:13:21.000 Stephen Miller continues, for saying those due separate bills...

00:13:28.000 Each will require 60 votes needing Schumer instead of 50. Reconciliation is a special process each fiscal year where you can make fiscal changes with 50 votes.

00:13:36.000 That's why BBB is the vehicle for tax cuts, deportations, and welfare reform. 0.63

00:13:40.000 Stephen Miller continues by saying the one wrinkle of reconciliation is you can't make discretionary cuts.

00:13:46.000 This is key.

00:13:47.000 Just mandatory.

00:13:49.000 Discretionary cuts happen through a separate process known as rescissions, which we are going to do.

00:13:53.000 This is the one part that I would push back on Elon a little bit.

00:13:57.000 Is that the reconciliation process can only go after food stamp reform or Medicaid.

00:14:03.000 The bureaucracy, like the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, that stuff comes up in a budgetary process or rescissions.

00:14:11.000 The Big Beautiful Bill was designed by President Trump and his allies in Congress to deliver on his core campaign pledges to voters, and that's exactly what it does.

00:14:20.000 This is the most MAGA bill ever passed by the House, and it's not even close.

00:14:24.000 Certain libertarians in Congress who are not MAGA have their own agenda, and it's not yours.

00:14:28.000 We're going to hear from Senator Ron Johnson in just a moment his concerns, and we're going to talk about the budgetary process and ask these questions out in the open.

00:14:36.000 And look, I see this from both perspectives.

00:14:39.000 The bottom line is we love what Elon is saying about fiscal sanity, but we're also pragmatists, and the bill should pass.

00:14:47.000 It's a major tax cut that will revitalize the American economy.

00:14:51.000 It still has a lot of welfare reform.

00:14:53.000 I think we should basically scrap a lot of these programs completely.

00:14:57.000 I think they're totally unnecessary in its current form.

00:15:00.000 But I'm not a member of Congress, and very few people agree with me.

00:15:03.000 And we need to win more seats.

00:15:05.000 And that is the final point, is that when you only have a two- or three-seat House majority, when you have the same Senate majority as you do a House majority, that should be very sobering for you.

00:15:16.000 That should hopefully take a step back and say, oh, okay.

00:15:20.000 That doesn't put you in a maximally driver's seat.

00:15:26.000 Rand Paul says, quote, Kentuckians sent me here to fight the reckless debt.

00:15:30.000 I will not support a $5 trillion increase to our deficit.

00:15:33.000 Stephen Miller responded by saying, quote, the score Rand Paul is citing is the size of the tax cut.

00:15:38.000 The bill slashing spending is almost $2 trillion.

00:15:41.000 Also, why doesn't Rand ever fight this hard to deport illegals? 1.00

00:15:46.000 There's a lot of back and forth here.

00:15:47.000 We're not getting involved in the name-calling here because I think there's some good-natured concern where people want to see a balanced budget.

00:15:56.000 I get that.

00:15:57.000 And the bond market gets a vote.

00:15:59.000 Remember, the bond market gets a vote.

00:16:01.000 All that to be said, this bill should still be passed.

00:16:03.000 This bill will be a tremendous net good for the country.

00:16:07.000 Deportations.

00:16:08.000 Border, massive tax cuts, tax on remittances, drill baby drill, huge middle class tax cut, no tax on tips.

00:16:17.000 And then we need to keep the fight on the budgetary process and on rescissions.

00:16:21.000 And we just hope it's a first step.

00:16:25.000 Gentlemen, let's get real for a second.

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00:17:42.000 And now we're going to hear from the man himself, Senator Ron Johnson.

00:17:45.000 Senator, thank you so much for taking the time.

00:17:47.000 Senator, please give us your latest update on the big, beautiful bill.

00:17:52.000 Are you still currently a no in its current form?

00:17:55.000 And if so, why?

00:17:56.000 Well, Charlie, well, first of all, like you, I'm a big supporter of President Trump.

00:18:01.000 He is a unique political figure.

00:18:03.000 He is doing things that have to be done that nobody else would do.

00:18:06.000 So I'm a big supporter.

00:18:07.000 I wanna see him succeed.

00:18:09.000 But the fact of the matter is the debate in the house, it was pretty absent of, Sounds like a big number, but over 10 years, it's really not even a rounding error when you're spending more than $7 trillion a year.

00:18:27.000 So again, I'm focusing on the facts and figures.

00:18:29.000 That's kind of what I'm doing is forcing the debate in the Senate.

00:18:32.000 I've always agreed with Senator Thune that we really needed to do this.

00:18:36.000 What we had to do had to be done in a couple different steps.

00:18:39.000 It wasn't all going to get done satisfactorily in one step.

00:18:43.000 I think that's proven true.

00:18:44.000 So again, it's not too late to acknowledge that fact.

00:18:47.000 Do the things that have to be done.

00:18:49.000 Border.

00:18:50.000 Yes, we have to add defense to that, but we need to sharpen our pencils on both of those.

00:18:54.000 Use the good work in the House to reduce spending to the extent we can.

00:18:57.000 Extend current tax law.

00:18:59.000 Take a massive automatic tax increase off the table.

00:19:02.000 Provide that certainty to the economy.

00:19:04.000 Increase the debt ceiling for about a year to keep the pressure on.

00:19:09.000 Leave all those other items for a second round using fiscal year 2026, budget reconciliation.

00:19:15.000 That'll give us time to go through the budget line by line.

00:19:20.000 2,600 programs in the federal government, forensically audit those.

00:19:24.000 Trump and Elon Musk showed us how to do it with DOGE.

00:19:27.000 We need to take that DOGE effort and expand it.

00:19:31.000 And again, just delve into the federal budget, into these programs.

00:19:36.000 Forensically audit them.

00:19:37.000 Expose them to the American public.

00:19:39.000 And Charlie, I have to believe when you've gone from $4.4 trillion in 2019 to $7 trillion, there's literally hundreds of billions of dollars lurking in all that spending that if you eliminate it, nobody would even notice it other than the grifters who are sucking down that waste fraud and abuse. 0.99

00:19:56.000 But you have to do the work, and that's going to take time.

00:19:59.000 It's going to take a lot of effort.

00:20:01.000 And this big, beautiful bill has gone through the standard process.

00:20:04.000 Exempt most programs.

00:20:05.000 Look at a couple, tweak them, get a CBO score, pick a number out of the air that doesn't meet the moment, and say you've done a great job.

00:20:13.000 I'm sorry.

00:20:15.000 Appreciate the challenge that Speaker Johnson has, but you need to expose this.

00:20:19.000 You need to sell to the American public to get them on your side.

00:20:23.000 And again, you've got to do it in multiple steps.

00:20:25.000 You can't do it all in one fell swoop.

00:20:27.000 So, Senator, I want to put the chart you sent our team up on screen.

00:20:31.000 But before I do that...

00:20:43.000 It's a mandatory versus discretionary spending.

00:20:45.000 Is there any truth to that?

00:20:47.000 So discretionary cuts happen through a separate process known as rescissions.

00:20:53.000 And how does that factor into your calculus for the support or opposition to this bill?

00:20:59.000 Yeah, we have all kinds of crazy rules, right?

00:21:01.000 You can't touch Social Security.

00:21:03.000 You can't touch discretionary spending through the reconciliation.

00:21:06.000 It's only about mandatory.

00:21:07.000 But again, remember, mandatory is way more than Social Security, Medicare, and even Medicaid.

00:21:11.000 There's a trillion dollars of other mandatory spending, which probably should be discretionary, but the meeting party has deviously transferred that into other mandatory, so it's never looked at.

00:21:22.000 So you need rescission packages.

00:21:25.000 I've been baffled that every week, based on what Doge has found, that we didn't just send up their weekly I don't understand why they haven't done that.

00:21:36.000 They should start doing that.

00:21:38.000 But again, you need the American public on your side.

00:21:40.000 But what I'm talking about, a budget review panel, forensic audits of every line of the budget, every program, that's going to take a lot of time, but that unlocks all of this.

00:21:49.000 So you have to do the work, but you have rescission as long as we've got majorities in this White House.

00:21:54.000 And by the way, you can't count on...

00:22:01.000 This is our moment.

00:22:02.000 We are mortgaging our children's future.

00:22:04.000 This is our chance.

00:22:06.000 We can't blow it.

00:22:07.000 Right now, I'm sorry, the big, beautiful bill blows it.

00:22:09.000 So, Senator, here up on screen, the graph, tell our audience the significance of this graph.

00:22:15.000 And the Trump team and the White House, of which I'm very much supportive of them and friends with them.

00:22:22.000 And I still want the beautiful bill to pass.

00:22:24.000 I'm supportive of that.

00:22:25.000 They will say that the CBO doesn't know what they're talking about with scoring and accuracy.

00:22:29.000 Please walk through our audience what exactly we're seeing on screen right now.

00:22:33.000 So the red bars are actual, okay?

00:22:36.000 And that just shows the average deficits in different terms of presidency.

00:22:43.000 So you can see in Bush 1, he averaged over 8 years about $250 billion of deficits.

00:22:49.000 Wish we were there.

00:22:51.000 President Obama came in and averaged almost $1.3 trillion in his first term.

00:22:55.000 That sparked the Tea Party.

00:22:57.000 I'm part of that.

00:22:58.000 And you see the Tea Party's impact in terms of fiscal deficit.

00:23:01.000 We literally held spending flat for about five years at about $3.5 trillion.

00:23:05.000 He'd taken it from $2.98 up to $3.5.

00:23:08.000 So Obama in his last term averaged deficits of $5.50.

00:23:12.000 Trump comes in, had to deal with Democrats, and so that average deficit went up to $810 billion for his first three years.

00:23:19.000 Then COVID hit.

00:23:20.000 $3.1 trillion of bipartisan spending blowout.

00:23:24.000 Responsible leadership should have reduced that deficit back at least below a trillion dollars.

00:23:29.000 But that's not what Biden and the Democrats did.

00:23:31.000 They continued the spending spree.

00:23:33.000 So we averaged deficits of $1.9 trillion.

00:23:36.000 And all of my analysis of this is based on CBO's 10-year projection.

00:23:41.000 I'm not a big fan of CBO.

00:23:43.000 I'm not a big fan of their static scoring, that kind of stuff.

00:23:46.000 But the general direction of spending and revenue is pretty accurate.

00:23:52.000 And so what the last three bars show is, on a four-year average rolling basis, we're not reducing the deficit curve down.

00:24:01.000 We're going from about $1.9 trillion.

00:24:03.000 I guess accepting $1.9 trillion deficits is the new normal and ramping that up to over $2.5 trillion.

00:24:11.000 Averaging $2.2 trillion over the next 10 years.

00:24:14.000 Completely unacceptable.

00:24:15.000 Now, you can argue about how CBO's going to score this thing.

00:24:19.000 Again, whether you tweak those bars a little bit higher, a little bit lower, the trajectory is undeniable.

00:24:26.000 And I would argue that this is probably a rosy scenario because there's interest rate risk.

00:24:31.000 You know, 1% increase in interest rates, and we're seeing that happen in the bond market.

00:24:35.000 That adds $4 trillion.

00:24:37.000 $400 billion to each one of those lines.

00:24:41.000 They're assuming, again, if you eliminate, if you extend current tax law, don't have that automatic tax increase.

00:24:48.000 Well, from those estimates, it takes about $4 trillion away.

00:24:50.000 Now, you can argue, and I would, that you're not going to get that $4 trillion because you're going to harm economic growth.

00:24:55.000 Are you going to be able to replace it?

00:24:57.000 I used Grok this morning, and I said, okay, what happens if we grow at 5% nominal growth?

00:25:03.000 That's 3% real economic growth.

00:25:07.000 Real GDP growth and 2% inflation.

00:25:09.000 By the way, for the last 20 years, we've only experienced 2% average growth.

00:25:13.000 So let's say we grow 3% and we maintain the 17.1% revenues, percent of GDP.

00:25:21.000 Over 10 years, that only gains us a half a trillion dollars.

00:25:25.000 So we're not making it up, okay?

00:25:27.000 So there's all kinds of risk.

00:25:29.000 I think, unfortunately, that's probably a rosy scenario.

00:25:32.000 And $1.5 trillion spread out over 10 years is $150 billion.

00:25:36.000 Add to that more than $300 billion of new spending on defense and border, that's not even a 1.3% cut over the 10-year period.

00:25:45.000 It's a rounding error.

00:25:47.000 It's just not meeting the moment.

00:25:49.000 They've done some good work, but it's not serious effort.

00:25:54.000 So, Senator, what concretely is your ask and who in the Senate is with you in this coalition?

00:26:01.000 As to what would be an acceptable outcome here.

00:26:05.000 As you know, we can't let perfect be the enemy of good.

00:26:08.000 And so I know you mentioned about going through certain programs and auditing and vetting them.

00:26:12.000 But what are three or four specific ideas or examples that you have?

00:26:18.000 Ideas to try to broker?

00:26:20.000 Because we do need to pass.

00:26:21.000 There's so much good in this bill.

00:26:22.000 And I know that you will agree with that, Senator.

00:26:24.000 From border security, deportations, to remittances, to no tax on tips.

00:26:29.000 What is your proposal of three or four specific cuts structurally so that you can be satisfied and those of us that are fiscal hawks can also be satisfied while also getting this bill passed?

00:26:41.000 Well, first of all, I know we're not going to meet the moment with one bill.

00:26:45.000 We won't.

00:26:46.000 The House didn't do it.

00:26:47.000 We won't if we quick rush this thing through.

00:26:49.000 So we've got to split this up.

00:26:50.000 Focus on the areas of agreement, border defense.

00:26:53.000 Take the spending reductions the House has given us that they've agreed to.

00:26:57.000 Extend current tax law.

00:26:59.000 Take the automatic tax increase off the table.

00:27:01.000 That was a blunder in the Tax Cutting Jobs Act.

00:27:04.000 We should have scored that in current policy.

00:27:06.000 We weren't smart enough to do that.

00:27:08.000 Increase the debt ceiling for about a year.

00:27:10.000 Keep the pressure on.

00:27:11.000 I've got to convince President Trump that is to his advantage.

00:27:15.000 He wants to balance the budget.

00:27:16.000 That's what he said.

00:27:17.000 Well, we're not even coming close to putting ourselves on a path to balance the budget.

00:27:21.000 He needs that leverage as well.

00:27:22.000 We'll never default on the debt.

00:27:24.000 Ever.

00:27:24.000 We've got more than enough revenue to service our debt.

00:27:27.000 We will increase the debt ceiling, but we ought to do it in increments to keep the pressure on.

00:27:31.000 So this has got to be at least a two-part process.

00:27:34.000 Fiscal year 2025 reconciliation process, do that now.

00:27:38.000 Again, we skinny this thing down, focus on the area's agreement.

00:27:40.000 That we can do by July 4th.

00:27:42.000 Then start doing the work.

00:27:44.000 And Charlie, the problem we're having is the same old way.

00:27:48.000 Give me three things, it'll solve the problem.

00:27:50.000 Three things won't.

00:27:52.000 You've got to literally go through thousands of lines of budgets.

00:27:55.000 You've got to go through thousands of programs, do the forensic audit like Doge did, and expose it.

00:28:01.000 Get the American people on your side.

00:28:02.000 Take the time to do the work, but also to win public support for what you're doing, rather than jam something through, not have a good response when the Democrats falsely attack it.

00:28:11.000 Again, we're blowing this.

00:28:13.000 We're blowing it.

00:28:14.000 We didn't take the time.

00:28:15.000 We're not making the arguments.

00:28:17.000 I'm sorry, it's a slogan.

00:28:19.000 It's a slogan.

00:28:20.000 We need substance.

00:28:21.000 We're only going to solve this with substance, with facts and with figures.

00:28:24.000 And so far, the discussion's been largely void of facts and figures.

00:28:28.000 I'm forcing facts and figures to the forefront here.

00:28:31.000 So, and I apologize, Senator, if you mention this.

00:28:34.000 I just, I might be confusing something else.

00:28:36.000 Stephen Miller would say a separate bill would then, each would require 60 votes.

00:28:39.000 Is that correct?

00:28:41.000 One minute remaining, Senator.

00:28:42.000 No, we've got budget reconciliation for fiscal year 2026.

00:28:45.000 We should already have a fiscal 2026 budget on the table.

00:28:49.000 We could already be in that reconciliation process.

00:28:51.000 We're still working off of fiscal year 2025.

00:28:55.000 Each budget reconciliation can literally have three bills, one for spending, one for revenue, one for the best ceiling.

00:29:02.000 I said, I know you've got to dash.

00:29:03.000 This is what drives me the most crazy about D.C. is two guys I love, Ron Johnson and Stephen Miller.

00:29:08.000 We're just talking past each other, right?

00:29:10.000 And it's just because now the audience is all confused.

00:29:13.000 So Stephen Miller is saying you need 60 votes.

00:29:15.000 You're saying not.

00:29:16.000 I love Stephen Miller.

00:29:19.000 He's simply wrong on this one.

00:29:20.000 He's simply wrong.

00:29:22.000 I don't know nearly enough.

00:29:25.000 And I don't know nearly enough.

00:29:26.000 It's just this is the type of thing that drives me and my audience mad because we can't even agree on the structural, you know.

00:29:34.000 The technicality of it, let alone all the cuts.

00:29:36.000 Senator, thank you so much for your time.

00:29:38.000 We'll be watching very closely.

00:29:39.000 Senator, thank you.

00:29:40.000 Take care.

00:29:40.000 Bye.

00:29:41.000 I want your thoughts, everybody in the audience.

00:29:43.000 Freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:29:44.000 Should we pass the big, beautiful bill in its current form?

00:29:46.000 Do you think that Senator Johnson's approach is correct?

00:29:49.000 We do have a risk of maybe not passing anything at all.

00:29:51.000 Please email me, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:29:53.000 I want to hear from you directly.

00:29:55.000 And right now, drop what you're doing.

00:29:56.000 Freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:29:57.000 I read every single email, and I'm in touch with the White House.

00:30:00.000 I'm in touch with a lot of folks there.

00:30:02.000 With JD and all that.

00:30:03.000 And I will be relaying what you guys email me here, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:30:07.000 I want to hear from you.

00:30:08.000 I want to know the why.

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00:31:18.000 Okay, a lot of things I want to hit here.

00:31:20.000 First of which, I just want to continue on one of my big frustrations.

00:31:23.000 And I'm putting them on a group text together.

00:31:25.000 I'm putting Ron Johnson and Stephen Miller in a group chat together.

00:31:28.000 Because of all the stuff that I deal with in politics, I don't mind disagreement.

00:31:34.000 Disagreement is fun.

00:31:35.000 My life, I live in disagreement.

00:31:37.000 I don't care if you disagree with me.

00:31:40.000 That's not that important.

00:31:41.000 In fact, I think it's healthy and it makes me stronger, and hopefully it makes you stronger.

00:31:46.000 What drives me nuts is when we are debating something that should be agreed upon presuppositions.

00:31:55.000 When the presupposition itself, the foundational truth, is like, well, no, we can't do this or we can't do that.

00:32:01.000 Well, then everything from that point is completely irrelevant.

00:32:06.000 The second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, then, iteration of facts are incomplete.

00:32:13.000 We must get back to first principles and define our terms.

00:32:16.000 So, is it clear?

00:32:18.000 If we go to two bills, do we, though, then need 60 votes?

00:32:22.000 Very simple question.

00:32:24.000 If we go to two bills, do we need 60 votes?

00:32:27.000 Stephen Miller says yes, who I think is the greatest, by the way.

00:32:30.000 Stephen Miller's a total rock star.

00:32:32.000 Ron John says no.

00:32:33.000 Getting an answer to that.

00:32:35.000 Would be very helpful and important to getting closer towards an inevitable conclusion of how to proceed.

00:32:43.000 And I'm still in support of passing this big, beautiful bill.

00:32:46.000 Why?

00:32:47.000 Well, one of the main reasons why I'm so in support of it is because of the slim majority.

00:32:52.000 We have to factor in the slim house majority.

00:32:56.000 And it's very much on President Trump's mind.

00:32:58.000 It's very much on his team's mind.

00:32:59.000 His team's been doing a great job trying to usher this through.

00:33:02.000 It's not an easy job.

00:33:03.000 Because you know why?

00:33:04.000 You have basically, you have 55 members of Congress in the House that if they get five friends together, they can kill a bill.

00:33:14.000 You got Don Bacon, you got Lawler.

00:33:16.000 I like Lawler.

00:33:17.000 He's a good guy.

00:33:18.000 You've got all these guys that get in a room together, and one of them has a disagreement, and the bill gets collapsed.

00:33:25.000 And I think we need to understand that.

00:33:26.000 I think we need to have the contextualization there.

00:33:30.000 And we need to try to win more seats, not less seats.

00:33:33.000 And I think there's a lot of promises in this bill that we need to deliver on.

00:33:36.000 If we want more deportations, we've got to pass this bill.

00:33:39.000 If we want permanent border security, we have to pass this bill.

00:33:41.000 If we want tax on remittances, we have to pass this bill.

00:33:44.000 We want those Trump baby bonus accounts.

00:33:47.000 One of my favorite things that's happening.

00:33:48.000 It's in the one big, beautiful bill.

00:33:51.000 And one of the other things that I wish would be happening, again, I'm happy to air Ron Johnson's complaints and his criticisms.

00:33:58.000 And I think...

00:34:02.000 He was one of the first people ever to support and speak at Turning Point USA, so Ron Johnson is someone that I will defend to my last breath.

00:34:09.000 I wish a lot more of this was happening in a closed room.

00:34:12.000 What needs to happen is a private gladiatorial match of Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, all of them in a room, White House staff, no devices, put it in a skiff, and let the...

00:34:29.000 I will cater lunch.

00:34:31.000 I will bring you In-N-Out Burger from Arizona.

00:34:33.000 People would show up if I brought In-N-Out Burger, for the record.

00:34:37.000 I will cater and broker this lunch.

00:34:39.000 We've got to get this thing sorted out.

00:34:42.000 Because there is so much good stuff in this bill.

00:34:45.000 And I don't think that the conservative movement is internalizing all the wins here in this bill enough.

00:34:50.000 I don't.

00:34:51.000 This is the greatest welfare reform in history.

00:34:53.000 We got no tax on tips.

00:34:54.000 No tax on tips is a major...

00:34:59.000 And you must also hold two things equally in the hand.

00:35:01.000 On the other side, if we do not balance the budget, we're going to have some problems.

00:35:06.000 Big problems.

00:35:07.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:09.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - June 04, 2025

Elon vs. The BBB

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