The Charlie Kirk Show - Ever More Democrat Fraud + Can LA Be Saved?

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

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00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

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00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

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00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

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00:01:17.000 Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:17.000 All right.

00:01:19.000 It's Thursday, May 7th.

00:01:21.000 I'm on location here at the Real America's Voice DC studio.

00:01:27.000 So thank you to Rob and Parker Sig and the whole team here for making me feel so welcome.

00:01:32.000 Appreciate it.

00:01:34.000 It's technically the remote, the mobile.

00:01:37.000 Y Refi Studios.

00:01:38.000 Blake's holding it down in Phoenix, Arizona at the Y Refi Permanent Studios.

00:01:42.000 Our friends over at Y Refi, check them out.

00:01:44.000 How are we doing, Blake?

00:01:45.000 If you're really on the road, like if you're only using your webcam in your laptop, is it the Y Refi laptop or the Y Refi webcam?

00:01:45.000 We're doing great.

00:01:54.000 It would have to be, yeah.

00:01:55.000 It would have to be.

00:01:56.000 The Y Refi mobile microphone?

00:02:00.000 Listen, we've got a packed show and lots to get to.

00:02:02.000 An amazing debate, actually, for LA mayor with Spencer Pratt, who is Really taking the nation and social media by storm.

00:02:12.000 We're going to get to that as well in hour two with Steve Hilton, who is going to be joining us to go over his gubernatorial debate from just a couple days ago.

00:02:21.000 Blake, I wouldn't say you're the most positive about the prospects in California, but nevertheless, I think it's a very important case study in just how insane left wing politics have gotten, how corrupt, how dysfunctional, how inept, how poorly run Democrat jurisdictions are, and people are voting with their feet.

00:02:43.000 There's a few.

00:02:44.000 People willing to stay and fight, and we want to support those people, certainly.

00:02:47.000 But because I, Blake, I think it highlights just how corrupt Democrat politics have become, especially when they get this grip on power.

00:02:54.000 Case in point is Virginia.

00:02:56.000 We wanted to lead the story, lead the show today with a story out of Virginia.

00:03:01.000 We mentioned it briefly on the show yesterday, and that is about, you know, an FBI raid over a state senator, Louisa Lucas, who is a state senator in Virginia, who led the.

00:03:16.000 Redistricting fight.

00:03:17.000 And then lo and behold, all of a sudden, her cannabis dispensary, yes, she has a cannabis dispensary, gets raided by the FBI along with some other properties that she owned, offices that she controlled.

00:03:30.000 Blake, you highlighted this wonderful article breaking it all down for us.

00:03:35.000 So please do that.

00:03:37.000 Start us off, Blake.

00:03:38.000 So, like you said, it's Luis Lucas.

00:03:38.000 Exactly.

00:03:40.000 She's been in the Virginia State Senate for about 30 years. 0.81

00:03:45.000 And so, one of those.

00:03:47.000 Well entrenched lawmakers that you'll see, often Democrats at the state level.

00:03:52.000 They've been there a very, very long time, have a lot of institutional power.

00:03:55.000 So she's not the majority leader, but she was perceived as playing a very central role in redrawing the state's maps, ramming that through. 1.00

00:04:04.000 And now, just a few days after their vote, she's raided by the FBI. 0.99

00:04:10.000 They came in, it was almost like it was a J 6 array. 1.00

00:04:13.000 They had SWAT teams busting in to her dispensary and several other buildings. 1.00

00:04:17.000 She has a whole network of different entities and companies that are linked to her or her family.

00:04:23.000 They almost all have Lucas in the name Lucas Lodge LLC.

00:04:27.000 Which runs group homes, the cannabis outlet, Lucas Professional Center, Lucas Hospitality, Lucas Medical Transportation.

00:04:33.000 We know that is a very fraught business.

00:04:37.000 We don't know, no charges have been dropped yet, but it's a lot of connections to companies where we know political corruption is a big opportunity.

00:04:45.000 For example, her cannabis business.

00:04:47.000 Virginia is one of those states where you can run a licensed cannabis dispensary, excuse me, and it's easier to get if you have some sort of.

00:04:58.000 It's one of those ways things you can get more easily if you have political connections.

00:05:02.000 It's one of those things where.

00:05:03.000 Can you pause?

00:05:04.000 Yeah?

00:05:05.000 Yeah.

00:05:06.000 So I know this from stories out of the state of Nevada.

00:05:06.000 Can you pause right there?

00:05:09.000 When they legalized, which was my home state, when they legalized it, there was a massive push at the political level, the local level, to basically get their hands on it because they only give out so many permits for cannabis dispensaries.

00:05:23.000 That's sort of the handshake deal here, right?

00:05:25.000 We're going to legalize it, but we're going to control it, contain it in certain ways.

00:05:30.000 One of which is they give only a certain number of permits for facilities that maybe are like indoor greenhouses that could grow it and storefronts.

00:05:38.000 So, if you want to sell cannabis to the public, weed, you have to get a permit.

00:05:44.000 Well, guess who tends to get those permits, Blake?

00:05:47.000 Not guys like you and me, because we probably will not.

00:05:49.000 Not that I would do it.

00:05:50.000 Although it is a lucrative business.

00:05:52.000 It tends to be the politically well healed and well connected, which is exactly Luis Lucas, who this person is.

00:05:59.000 By the way, shout out to the channel VA Change Agent.

00:06:03.000 Who published this very detailed document on X, VA change agent?

00:06:08.000 Check it out if you want to follow along.

00:06:10.000 But this is what's revealed in it, Blake, is that this is a sitting state senator out of Virginia that has consolidated power over the years.

00:06:19.000 This is not a collection of random businesses, it's a vertically integrated operation.

00:06:23.000 I'm reading direct from the article.

00:06:25.000 Real estate ownership via the trust, group homes, by the way, which are funded by Medicaid, another one of those little tie ins.

00:06:32.000 Real estate ownership, transportation. 1.00

00:06:36.000 Day support and direct care, all feeding off Medicaid dollars while her political entities launder influence and campaign cash back into the system. 1.00

00:06:44.000 So that's right. 1.00

00:06:45.000 Her owned businesses are funneling money back into her campaign pack. 0.61

00:06:51.000 And get this the same person, this is Louise Lucas, who's chairing the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, which funds Medicaid in the state of Virginia, she personally owns all these buildings.

00:07:02.000 So she's on the committee that disperses the funds.

00:07:06.000 She owns the business that benefits off the Medicaid funds. 0.73

00:07:10.000 Dollars that are flowing through, and she might just happen to have been involved in a corruption scandal giving her access to the cannabis dispensary. 0.54

00:07:18.000 She also received that approximately correct.

00:07:21.000 She received Lucas Lodge LLC, received in Portsmouth, received two different.

00:07:29.000 She had Lucas Lodge, and she received a total of about $600,000 in PPP loans in 2020, which may have been repaid, but they may also have just been forgiven.

00:07:38.000 It says paid in full or forgiven, so no easy way to tell there.

00:07:42.000 But we can take a guess. 0.98

00:07:44.000 One of the funny things about this is she's fighting back by claiming this is a political retaliation from the Trump administration.

00:07:51.000 The awkward thing is, as reported by Bill Malusion on Fox and some other outlets, is that this investigation apparently originates in the Biden administration.

00:08:00.000 I feel like maybe she would have had better odds if she just, we know a few Democrats have had success with that, where she says, I was about to expose the Democrat Biden machine.

00:08:10.000 And that's worked occasionally on President Trump with a few other Democrats.

00:08:15.000 She might have a better shot with that.

00:08:17.000 We're talking not just $600,000 in PPE loans.

00:08:20.000 We're talking $42.3 million in Medicaid taxpayer dollars funneled to Senator Luis Lucas's operation between 2006 and 2025.

00:08:31.000 So that's what we're talking about.

00:08:34.000 Over 20 years, full capacity could be as high as $48.5 million as well.

00:08:39.000 There's a massive expansion.

00:08:41.000 This is lucrative stuff.

00:08:43.000 And what's wild is that she gets her cannabis dispensary rated.

00:08:50.000 And that seems to be where maybe the corruption scandal, that is the smoking gun, if you will, but is exposing one little Virginia state senator that none of us had ever heard about.

00:08:59.000 It's exposing the depth to which corruption takes root when political power like this gets entrenched.

00:09:06.000 This is why I think this story is emblematic. 0.95

00:09:08.000 We started this week talking with Luke Rosiak at the Daily Wire about the fraud in Ohio and about how all these safeguards had been taken off the Medicaid programs, and a billion dollars goes out the doors to Somalis doing fraudulent daycare for their family members. 0.90

00:09:24.000 Doing companionship. 0.93

00:09:25.000 And now you see another example in Barely Blue, Virginia, where the same thing has happened to a woman that's been able to remain in power for a very long time in a very lucrative sense. 0.98

00:09:38.000 Andrew, I found something pretty amazing because she's been around a long time. 0.83

00:09:41.000 And if a lot of people who are lifers in Virginia are saying she's absolute garbage, has been involved in everything.

00:09:47.000 And a really amazing story this is from summer 2020, the summer of Floyd, when they were having a lot of. 0.70

00:09:55.000 Left wing riots, demonstrations, left wingers.

00:09:57.000 What were they doing at the very beginning of that?

00:09:59.000 They were going after statues.

00:10:01.000 They were spray painting statues, ripping them down.

00:10:04.000 And there was an incident where she gets caught on a police body camera telling police this is a direct quote from the body camera footage I'm Senator Luis Lucas.

00:10:15.000 I know I'm in disguise, but they are going to put some paint on this thing, this thing being one of the statues they were targeting.

00:10:22.000 You cannot arrest them.

00:10:24.000 You need to call Dr. Patton because they are going to do it.

00:10:26.000 You can't stop them.

00:10:29.000 So she's going around undercover, ordering police not to arrest vandals who are defacing or destroying public property in the summer of Floyd. 1.00

00:10:39.000 Yeah, this is a corrupt woman. 0.92

00:10:40.000 And again, we're highlighting this. 1.00

00:10:43.000 Yes, it's a breaking news story out of yesterday, but it is endemic to our system.

00:10:50.000 The corruption, especially in deep blue areas where the power gets entrenched, we're seeing it across the country.

00:10:55.000 And we're going to highlight it even more so.

00:10:57.000 We talk about Los Angeles, the mayor's race, Steve Hilton with the governor's race.

00:11:02.000 But I'm going to show you this clip.

00:11:04.000 And to me, it blew me away.

00:11:07.000 But it didn't surprise me, but it's a reflection of just how out of touch, or how about this, how tribal people are in these areas where people like Luis Lucas get their stranglehold on power.

00:11:22.000 Sot 17. 0.51

00:11:24.000 She did more good than bad, no matter what they say.

00:11:27.000 They tried to bother her because she's a strong, opinionated person.

00:11:31.000 You know, she looks out for her state, for her people.

00:11:36.000 And I don't understand what all this is about.

00:11:40.000 Is involved, and I feel it's all political.

00:11:43.000 It's character assassination.

00:11:45.000 They've been doing this for years for people who are in power who represent our community.

00:11:51.000 This is not the first time.

00:11:53.000 Character assassination, and we hope that it's not nothing, but at the same time, the community, myself, Earl Lewis, I'm gonna stick with her.

00:12:03.000 Those are her constituents that put her into office, and they say she's done more good than bad.

00:12:08.000 This is character assassination. 0.76

00:12:10.000 We're sticking with her.

00:12:12.000 Whatever the case may be.

00:12:13.000 I have even more compelling information about the summer of 2020.

00:12:17.000 So she's in disguise telling police, don't block these demonstrators from vandalizing this statue.

00:12:25.000 And then the demonstrators proceed to illegally rip the statue down, and it fell on one of their heads and turned him into a vegetable.

00:12:34.000 Like, actually, serious brain damage, and he's in a wheelchair, nonverbal, I believe, to this day. 0.66

00:12:39.000 Probably at one of her homes. 0.60

00:12:40.000 Possibly.

00:12:41.000 Probably one of her homes.

00:12:42.000 He might be paid by.

00:12:43.000 Taxpayers.

00:12:43.000 And then they blamed her for this, and she tried to sue the city, saying that they had basically aligned against her.

00:12:49.000 And then this body camera footage actually surfaced as a result of that, if I'm reading this correctly, which I'm finding is all wrong.

00:12:55.000 There's even more that I found, Blake.

00:12:56.000 There's even more that I found.

00:12:58.000 She was the co sponsor of the cannabis legislation, and then she opened the cannabis outlet the same year the legislation passed, which is now the subject of an active FBI corruption bribery investigation.

00:13:13.000 So she co sponsored that legislation and then immediately profited off of it.

00:13:18.000 Here's one other thing that we should talk about.

00:13:21.000 The Luis's Lucas's facilities have one of the worst safety and compliance records of any of such facilities in the state of Virginia.

00:13:33.000 They found 217 citations since 2021, among the highest violation counts of any, they call intellectual developmental disabilities provider in Virginia.

00:13:45.000 They've had nine individuals die while in care.

00:13:49.000 So that's across multiple years.

00:13:52.000 Serious incidents, they've had 143 serious incidents involving injuries since 2019.

00:13:58.000 They had 102 before 2022.

00:14:02.000 Yeah, I think I got the numbers right there.

00:14:06.000 Corrective action failures, 46 citations for failing to implement required corrective action plans over a five year period.

00:14:14.000 And virtually zero, Blake.

00:14:17.000 You talk about the way she, her attitude with the body cam footage, virtually zero. 0.99

00:14:23.000 Enforcement actions because she probably is making sure that there are zero enforcement actions.

00:14:30.000 So, this is I just think this story is remarkable and such a picture into corrupt blue, deep blue politics.

00:14:40.000 And you listen to her constituents, and what do they say?

00:14:43.000 We got her back no matter what. 1.00

00:14:45.000 Doesn't matter how corrupt she is, we like her because that's the way this works. 1.00

00:14:49.000 This is how politics works. 1.00

00:14:51.000 Let's be blunt. 1.00

00:14:51.000 This is how politics works in a lot of the third world. 1.00

00:14:54.000 It's how.

00:14:55.000 Politics works in countries that are divided into, let's just say it, ethnic and racial little clusters. 0.94

00:15:04.000 That's what this encourages.

00:15:07.000 You need a kind of unified body politic for politics to actually become a competition for providing the best services, providing the best moral conduct, providing good things for the whole society.

00:15:19.000 And America had that for a long time and we achieved a lot of great things.

00:15:23.000 But we have, through immigration, through DEI, through just the rhetoric of the left, we've been.

00:15:30.000 Racing towards an alternative way of doing politics.

00:15:32.000 And if you want to see how it works out, well, we'll be talking about the Pope himself in a few minutes.

00:15:37.000 The Pope himself has told us to look at Lebanon.

00:15:39.000 You can see how Lebanon works out. 0.61

00:15:41.000 You can see how politics in the UK is working now, where they've got their all.

00:15:44.000 How about Brazil?

00:15:45.000 South Africa.

00:15:46.000 One country after another.

00:15:48.000 And it's not good, but a lot of people will say, oh, I stand behind our person no matter how corrupt they are.

00:15:54.000 Blake, stand behind our person.

00:15:55.000 You're wrong.

00:15:56.000 Diversity is our strength, Blake.

00:15:58.000 Diversity is our strength.

00:16:00.000 Sing it loud, sing it proud.

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00:17:20.000 So much to get into with breaking news out of Iran.

00:17:23.000 Here to help us do it is Mike Breast, defense reporter from the Washington Examiner.

00:17:27.000 Welcome to the show, Mike.

00:17:28.000 Thanks for having me.

00:17:29.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:17:30.000 So there's so much to go through, but I want to start with there was an NBC report that says the story behind the story here with the abrupt U-turn on.

00:17:44.000 Project Freedom, right?

00:17:45.000 Where they were going to escort some of these groups that have been trapped in the strait for now weeks and weeks and weeks.

00:17:52.000 There's 22,000 crewmen or something like that that are just trapped behind there.

00:17:57.000 Then rockets start getting shot, missiles start getting shot, and then there was an abrupt pause.

00:18:02.000 What is your reporting showing that's actually going on and why that may have happened?

00:18:07.000 So it's hard to tell definitively why or what prompted the president's pretty dramatic reversal.

00:18:13.000 I mean, it was only earlier that day that both Secretary Hagseth and Secretary Rubio were out in front of the media pretty proudly talking about Project Freedom.

00:18:24.000 And so one thing that seems to have been a factor was the U.S. response to how Iran retaliated.

00:18:31.000 And so you mentioned that there were some skirmishes between Iranian naval vessels and the U.S. Navy vessels, and they also attacked commercial shipping.

00:18:41.000 But the other thing that Iran did was they carried out or Launched drones and missiles towards the UAE, which did impact an oil refinery there.

00:18:50.000 And so that seemed to be a big moment because it was the first time since President Trump announced the ceasefire that Iran attacked another Gulf country.

00:18:58.000 And then the U.S. went as far to say that that attack, as well as the attacks on the U.S. Navy vessels, did not amount to a breach of the ceasefire or that the ceasefire was still in effect.

00:19:09.000 And so it seems like there was consternation among Gulf countries that there was concern that the U.S. Essentially, brushed off the fact that Iran launched drones and missiles specifically targeting the UAE.

00:19:24.000 Yeah, so they basically, there's almost like a tale of two wars here, right? 0.64

00:19:29.000 The Americans and the Israelis were super aggressive, bombing the crap out of just about anything they could find for weeks. 0.62

00:19:36.000 And Trump wants this deal. 0.73

00:19:38.000 He wants this to be behind him.

00:19:39.000 I have a sense, I mean, this is just a personal feeling, that Trump is probably just ready to put this behind him, wants to chalk it up as a W and move on.

00:19:48.000 Meanwhile, when a skirmish breaks out with this Project Freedom, missiles start flying at Gulf partners who've been broadly supportive of the U.S. led efforts in Iran.

00:19:58.000 They're like, what the heck?

00:20:00.000 We're taking shots here on our infrastructure, our oil refineries, and we're not going to retaliate?

00:20:06.000 What's the story?

00:20:07.000 So it's almost like they felt let.

00:20:09.000 Down by this, according to the reporting.

00:20:10.000 Is that essentially what this is?

00:20:13.000 So Trump is kind of stuck between an Iranian rock and an allies in the region hard place.

00:20:20.000 I think you're on to something with the fact that it does seem like the signs are pointing towards the president wanting a deal as opposed to restarting aggressive offensive military operations like we saw in the first six weeks of this war.

00:20:33.000 And the fact that they didn't consider it a violation of the ceasefire is a demonstration of the fact that.

00:20:39.000 They don't want to necessarily restart offensive operations.

00:20:43.000 And to take it back to the April 7th announcement from President Trump about the ceasefire, he said in that initial message that it was all contingent upon Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

00:20:55.000 That message was sent, or the president's announcement was a month ago today.

00:21:00.000 And over the course of the month, Iran hasn't opened the Strait of Hormuz.

00:21:04.000 So, by the president's own terms, Iran hasn't lived up to the one main component of the ceasefire agreement.

00:21:12.000 Yet the U.S. hasn't carried out military operations or considered the ceasefire null and void, even though that very basic initial principle has not been met.

00:21:22.000 Yeah.

00:21:22.000 And why do you think that is?

00:21:24.000 Is that like what would have to happen for the U.S. to essentially acknowledge that the ceasefire has been violated and that we're going to resume kinetic activities, strikes on Iran?

00:21:38.000 Have you, as you're reporting, any of your sources kind of indicated what that red line might be as we're kind of hunting down this now one page?

00:21:45.000 Memorandum before we're going to send our negotiators back over to probably Pakistan to negotiate an actual permanent peace?

00:21:53.000 It's hard to tell exactly what the president is thinking as it relates to what would constitute breaking of a red line.

00:22:01.000 And part of that is because it does seem like the president has made a decision that he wants to see this wrapped up, especially as the situation with the global economy continues to fight some turmoil. 0.61

00:22:14.000 And so while the president seems to want to end the war, That all knowing that also gives Iran some leverage.

00:22:21.000 And they've, as they've done several times in the past, continue to drag out these negotiations. 0.54

00:22:27.000 And it's unclear exactly what would have to happen for the president to try and essentially throw away these negotiations for a resumption of military operations.

00:22:37.000 But it should also be noted that the U.S. and Iran were negotiating around this time last year prior to the Israel Iran 12 day war.

00:22:47.000 And they were negotiating or at least having talks.

00:22:50.000 In January, before the start of this conflict.

00:22:53.000 And so the most recent iterations of U.S.-Irani negotiations have not gone well and have led to significant military conflicts.

00:23:02.000 The question is now: is the president willing to restart those conflicts, especially as we get closer to the midterms and there is little reprieve for the economy?

00:23:12.000 Whether that could happen?

00:23:14.000 Yeah, I mean, there were some good earnings reports today from Wall Street, which has, I think, been well received.

00:23:22.000 So, you know, The economy is a mixed bag.

00:23:24.000 Certainly, energy prices spiking has been bad, but we're also now exporting.

00:23:28.000 I think we're the leading exporter of oil all of a sudden in the world.

00:23:31.000 Maybe I'm wrong, but we're right up there.

00:23:35.000 So, the question that I have here is again, you're spending your days reporting, working your sources, getting the end here, Mike.

00:23:44.000 How effective has the US blockade been?

00:23:50.000 Basically, you talk about leverage.

00:23:52.000 How much leverage has that actually given us?

00:23:54.000 So, I think the US blockade has been impactful.

00:23:58.000 The problem is when it comes to trying to impose economic ramifications.

00:24:04.000 On any economy or any country, it doesn't happen overnight.

00:24:08.000 And so, while the blockade has worked and there are signs of Iran's already troubled economy struggling even further, it's unclear exactly that they're feeling already the effects of this blockade as opposed to the effects they would feel if the U.S. were to continue this for several months.

00:24:32.000 So, basically, the calculation that has to be made is how long is Iran willing to stomach the economic.

00:24:39.000 Fallout from this, everybody seems to report, and maybe you would agree, that they have a high threshold for pain. 0.50

00:24:46.000 So it could just be the stalemate for the near or intermediate future.

00:24:53.000 That's exactly right. 1.00

00:24:54.000 And it feels like that's the point we've come to over the last couple of weeks where the Iranians are particularly set up to handle this type of pain. 1.00

00:25:05.000 And part of it is the fact that they are not a country that is. 0.96

00:25:10.000 Seeking to better the lives of the civilians in their country.

00:25:14.000 And so they have been able to withstand a tremendous amount of both military and economic pressure to this point.

00:25:22.000 And at this point, don't seem ready to crack to US demands either, leading many to believe that they are holding out and can for quite some time.

00:25:33.000 So, Mike, one thing that's making it very difficult here so, obviously, we've seen the claims that it was airspace issues that brought an end to this operation.

00:25:44.000 Freedom.

00:25:44.000 But bigger picture, what's the overall level of support of our regional allies for the operations against Iran?

00:25:53.000 Because I constantly am seeing claims where one day it's, oh, they want to deny their airspace.

00:25:58.000 They think it's too much escalation.

00:26:00.000 But then you also see reports where supposedly the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is egging President Trump on to be tough.

00:26:07.000 Are some of these reports just lies, or what is the overall posture of all these middle countries in the Middle East?

00:26:14.000 I think a lot of the countries in the Middle East.

00:26:17.000 Just like the president, sometimes their opinions fluctuate based on how operations are carried out or the results of them.

00:26:25.000 And so there could have been countries that were open to the idea of Project Freedom, but were then turned off to it because they saw the Iranians not only attack commercial and U.S. Navy vessels, but also attack the UAE.

00:26:38.000 And I don't think the Gulf countries want to see Iran resume their attacks against them and their infrastructure. 0.89

00:26:45.000 That being said, the Iranians. have demonstrated the capability and the willingness and the persistence to be able to carry out attacks on Gulf countries. 0.86

00:26:56.000 So while their position on specific aspects of the conflict may vacillate from week to week, they are now even more clearly than it was pre February 28th when the war began. 0.95

00:27:11.000 They have now seen and experienced the threat that Iran poses to not just them, but the entire region. 0.72

00:27:19.000 Well, this is, I mean, it seems like Trump has actually done a fairly good job of consolidating support regionally, and Iran has done a fairly poor job of winning any sympathies by, you know, firing missiles at everybody.

00:27:33.000 So, Mike, I want to talk about this peace deal.

00:27:38.000 What are the demands of the Trump administration?

00:27:41.000 Obviously, no uranium, I would assume, a way to extract it, a way to monitor it.

00:27:47.000 So, we'll start there.

00:27:49.000 What is the broad outline of what they're going for right now?

00:27:52.000 So the Trump administration, as it relates to the nuclear front, the Trump administration wants to see Iran agree to effectively end its nuclear program, wants to figure out a way to extract the highly enriched uranium, which is buried deep underground because of the U.S. strikes last year in Operation Midnight Hammer.

00:28:17.000 It's unclear exactly where the uranium is, what shape it's in.

00:28:23.000 And so, the idea of trying to extract it from deep within Iran is not something that could happen really or easily if the conflict were still ongoing.

00:28:32.000 So, that's something that is of a significant priority for the administration.

00:28:37.000 And so, they also want to get Iran to agree for some time period that they will refuse or explicitly say they will not pursue uranium enrichment.

00:28:51.000 And so, there are reports out there that the Trump administration is seeking.

00:28:56.000 A 20 year moratorium.

00:28:57.000 There is also reporting that Iran is not willing to agree to that and would be potentially open to a much smaller moratorium, say five years.

00:29:10.000 All that being said, the Trump administration, and this is why this deal is really hard to see how it gets across the finish line, the Trump administration hasn't changed their position on almost anything.

00:29:22.000 And at the same time, the Iranians have not really, at least publicly, demonstrated a willingness to do that either.

00:29:27.000 So at this exact moment, it seems like.

00:29:31.000 Neither side has really changed their tune, so to speak, specifically about the nuclear program.

00:29:37.000 The administration, over the course of the war, has talked about aspects unrelated to their nuclear program that they also want to see addressed, like Iran's support for proxies in the region, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

00:29:50.000 And the U.S. also wants to see limits put on Iran's missile capacity and the number of missiles they're allowed to keep at any given time.

00:30:01.000 The hard thing is, those are things that.

00:30:05.000 The Obama administration determined would make their attempt at a deal too broad and hard to agree upon.

00:30:12.000 And it seems like the administration is figuring out some of those challenges now as they're trying to parse through each individual aspect of the deal that they're hoping to achieve.

00:30:21.000 So, Mike, one question that does come to mind with this framework is even as you say, there's a lot of obstacles to it, but if it was agreed to, I'm seeing these long term agreements to stop enriching uranium with some form of monitoring for it.

00:30:36.000 What would What would set this deal apart?

00:30:38.000 What would be the key differences between this proposed deal and the nuclear deal that we got rid of when President Trump was in office the first time?

00:30:46.000 So, if the administration has their way, and it's not clear that they will, they do want to see aspects like the missile capacity, funding for proxies to be included in this deal.

00:30:57.000 And so that would be a big part of it.

00:30:59.000 The president at times has said he does not want to see Iran enrich uranium to any percent or in any way.

00:31:08.000 And so that's going to be a really hard. 0.59

00:31:12.000 Obstacle to tackle because obviously Iran wants to continue their nuclear program, which they say is a civil nuclear program.

00:31:19.000 And so, if the U.S. makes the stance that they don't want to see Iran enrich uranium to any level, it's hard to see exactly how they get a deal agreed upon.

00:31:29.000 But that would be one area in which a deal would be different than the Obama era Iran deal.

00:31:35.000 All right.

00:31:36.000 So, there was a brief mention by President Trump about because all of this really hinges on the fact that we have not seen the regime topple.

00:31:44.000 Right?

00:31:45.000 They've remained in power.

00:31:46.000 Their grip on power remains.

00:31:48.000 He made mention that they're going to get guns, referring to the Iranian people, that they're going to get armed soon.

00:31:56.000 Is there any indication that the Iranian people are ready to take up arms against the regime?

00:32:03.000 It's hard to tell exactly, especially because there is the ongoing internet blackout throughout Iran.

00:32:08.000 So it's hard to grasp exactly what's going on in the country as it relates to the protests that we saw in late December and early January, which really.

00:32:17.000 Was the opening chapter of this now conflict or now war.

00:32:22.000 And so it's not exactly clear even who would get the guns or how they would be provided to them.

00:32:28.000 And so it's unclear exactly how this will play out or if we will really see a dramatic domestic uprising.

00:32:35.000 Yeah, I mean, you've got to imagine with the threats of more murder by the regime against any protests, everything remains in flux.

00:32:44.000 But then you have the economic turmoil that's going to be roiling the country increasingly as the blockade continues.

00:32:51.000 It does feel like this is a bubbling cauldron that is eventually going to overflow one way or the other. 0.64

00:32:57.000 And I just, it doesn't seem like the Iranian regime has any sort of rational economic interests.

00:33:03.000 They don't, like you mentioned, they don't seem to put the concerns of their people at the forefront.

00:33:07.000 They just want to hold on to power and they want to play their leverage against the Trump administration to whatever ends that might come.

00:33:15.000 Final 30 seconds to you, Mike.

00:33:20.000 Big picture, what do you predict is going to happen?

00:33:22.000 Are they going to get a Peace meeting.

00:33:25.000 Do you think that's actually going to get that far where we see another Islamabad negotiation?

00:33:30.000 It's hard to tell exactly at this moment.

00:33:33.000 The things that I'm watching for are how the president approaches this because ending Project Freedom was essentially a concession to the Iranians without getting anything in return, or at least anything that we can see.

00:33:50.000 And so that was a concession from the Trump administration. 0.63

00:33:53.000 And so Will there be an alternative concession from the Iranians that we just haven't seen yet? 0.63

00:34:00.000 Or will we see the president agree to make potentially additional concessions if it means getting a deal? 0.80

00:34:09.000 How much are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness worth to you?

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00:34:25.000 Ordinary people had to make extraordinary choices and risk their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to fight for independence.

00:34:32.000 And against all odds, they won.

00:34:34.000 And in victory, they built one of the most stable and lasting republics in human history.

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00:35:53.000 Joined here on set in DC.

00:35:57.000 Oh my goodness.

00:35:57.000 Oh my gosh.

00:35:58.000 Oh my goodness.

00:35:59.000 Is Jack Posobic, host of Human Events Daily.

00:36:02.000 I'm not going to look at him.

00:36:03.000 I'm just going to look straight at the camera here because we don't have a wide shot.

00:36:08.000 We're actually sitting next to each other.

00:36:10.000 If I can get my fist, I can't beat it.

00:36:12.000 No, you can't.

00:36:13.000 You can't beat it.

00:36:15.000 So, Jack, you're Catholic.

00:36:17.000 I am.

00:36:18.000 Blake is Catholic.

00:36:19.000 He is.

00:36:21.000 I went to Catholic high school.

00:36:22.000 I'm a cradle Catholic and I love the Catholics.

00:36:25.000 But we've got an interesting story, and there's a lot of tentacles to it.

00:36:29.000 And that is that Marco Rubio is going to be holding a face to face meeting with Pope Leo at the Vatican.

00:36:36.000 So, add that to his jobs list.

00:36:38.000 I think technically, because of the time change, they already had it.

00:36:41.000 They already had it.

00:36:41.000 Yeah.

00:36:42.000 Okay.

00:36:42.000 Well, they already had it.

00:36:43.000 Okay.

00:36:45.000 So, I want to play this clip because.

00:36:47.000 Rubio's been going viral a lot lately just because he's an articulate defender of the president's policies.

00:36:53.000 Might be one of the top two communicators in the admin.

00:36:59.000 I would put JD Vance also as one of the top two.

00:37:01.000 No disrespect to the president, of course.

00:37:03.000 It's just when he's got surrogates out there, he's an impressive communicator.

00:37:06.000 So he gave this speech in advance of the meeting with the Pope, SOT 12.

00:37:12.000 The Catholic faith has always been part of the American story.

00:37:16.000 The first Christian service on our soil.

00:37:19.000 Was a Catholic mass.

00:37:20.000 The oldest permanent settlement in the United States is the town of St. Augustine, planted by Spanish Catholics on the coastal sands of my home state of Florida.

00:37:29.000 Catholic saints were martyred on American soil well over a century before the Revolution began.

00:37:36.000 In missions and settlements, wilderness forts, and trading posts stretching from the first colonies to the distant frontier, Catholic explorers, soldiers, priests, and pioneers consecrated this new world to their ancient faith and christened its land.

00:37:52.000 With Catholic names.

00:37:53.000 Maryland, St. Louis, San Francisco, Santa Fe, almost every region of what is now the United States was first explored and mapped by Catholics.

00:38:04.000 So, actually, that was a speech I guess he delivered about a month ago, but nevertheless, it's relevant.

00:38:10.000 I wonder if it plays a role in the fact that he's going to meet with the Pope instead of, because here's what's interesting.

00:38:16.000 So, Rubio is, I believe, evangelical.

00:38:20.000 I don't believe he's Catholic.

00:38:22.000 He goes back and forth, it seems.

00:38:25.000 Like he's attended evangelical services.

00:38:28.000 I think he says he's Catholic now, but he's got that American tendency to church hop a bit.

00:38:34.000 All right, fair enough.

00:38:35.000 I've spoken with the secretary before he was secretary of state during the campaign about his faith, and he sort of sounds like an evangelical when you're talking to him, but that's great.

00:38:44.000 The point is, it's interesting that Vice President Vance is not going.

00:38:48.000 Well, I think that, you know, JD not going as the VP, that's.

00:38:53.000 May come as an event that you were at, actually, where he was discussing this sort of dust up between the president and Pope Leo, where the VP made some comments when you actually asked him the question.

00:39:08.000 And there were, you know, he was saying, well, there's different lanes.

00:39:11.000 And he was basically saying that that's a theological lane, a religious lane.

00:39:15.000 This is a political lane.

00:39:16.000 We're operating in that.

00:39:18.000 I think that was blown out of proportion, big time, by the way.

00:39:21.000 I think that's all that he was saying.

00:39:22.000 He wasn't saying the Pope.

00:39:23.000 Shouldn't talk at all about those things.

00:39:25.000 He was talking more about the response to it.

00:39:28.000 But I do think that because of that perception, that may be one of the reasons that Rubio is coming in.

00:39:34.000 Look, he's the head of our foreign diplomacy, he is the Secretary of State.

00:39:40.000 It makes sense for him to be meeting a world leader.

00:39:43.000 So I got clarity on his faith description.

00:39:47.000 He describes himself as evangelical Catholic.

00:39:51.000 Oh, that's super clear.

00:39:52.000 He even attended a Mormon.

00:39:54.000 Services for a while as a child, it looks like.

00:39:56.000 As a child, yeah, as a child.

00:39:58.000 And then he attended a Southern Baptist church.

00:39:58.000 Interesting.

00:40:01.000 He returned to his Catholic roots, describing himself as evangelical Catholic.

00:40:05.000 All right, no wonder I was a bit confused there.

00:40:08.000 So I think that's right.

00:40:08.000 Okay, so what are the goals?

00:40:12.000 I mean, you think about foreign diplomacy being about the heads of states meeting or meeting with his counterpart in foreign powers, but the Vatican is essentially a very small plot of land in Italy.

00:40:26.000 And, you know, so what are the goals here?

00:40:29.000 They're trying to thaw this kind of tension.

00:40:33.000 Blake, what do you think are the goals here?

00:40:37.000 Well, I think there would be some desire to thaw it because, in general, in American politics, we haven't really had the Pope as a big player.

00:40:46.000 But when he has been, there was a little bit of friction with Pope Francis.

00:40:51.000 But generally, you know, the Catholics have, devout Catholics in America have been towards the right when the church has played a role.

00:40:58.000 It's been on stuff like the life issue. 0.70

00:41:00.000 Gay marriage, euthanasia.

00:41:02.000 And we've never really had this almost feels vaguely medieval bit where you have the Pope sort of frequently saying stuff that is directly at odds with a conservative president.

00:41:15.000 And it is the first American Pope.

00:41:18.000 There's so many different layers to it.

00:41:19.000 I think it's a conflict.

00:41:20.000 They have enough disputes here in the United States.

00:41:22.000 They don't need another one.

00:41:23.000 I think that's how the admin feels.

00:41:25.000 Who knows how the president feels because the president is a guy who likes his arguments, his fights, his WWE style mashups.

00:41:33.000 But I think they would desire to have a friendlier relationship or at least not a hostile one.

00:41:40.000 One angle I'd love to throw in though is let's not forget that this is politics too, that we are in a midterm election.

00:41:46.000 And I just pulled up a quick list in Grok here.

00:41:49.000 You look at states that have Senate races, that have governor's races that are competitive, that also have high Catholic percentages in terms of the population.

00:41:58.000 And we know from 2024 that the Catholic vote was a huge swing vote, many of which overlaps with the Hispanic voting bloc.

00:42:06.000 Which is now growing in the southern states.

00:42:08.000 You look at places like the Rust Belt, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, which has a Senate and governor's race, high 20%, 25% Catholic population, Ohio, which has a Senate governor's race, Maine has a very high Catholic percentage, which of course has a huge Senate race that's going on that's Planter and Collins, New Hampshire, 25%, Nevada, Texas, 20%.

00:42:28.000 So Minnesota, again, like there's just a ton of states.

00:42:31.000 And then North Carolina, which doesn't have as high of a Catholic state, but in a state where it's going to be so competitive.

00:42:37.000 Look, every vote counts.

00:42:38.000 And so, why make an enemy of the Pope when you're in this huge fight?

00:42:43.000 Well, so I want to get your guys' thoughts on the Rubio Vance thing, right?

00:42:47.000 There's been a lot of ink spilled, a lot of reporting commentary about who is going to be the heir apparent going into 2028.

00:42:55.000 For a while there, JD was running away with it clear as day.

00:42:59.000 But Rubio's performance and his skill, even at the White House press briefing room when we took on that new job for a day, I mean, he did a great job.

00:43:10.000 Rubio is incredibly effective, like I said, as a communicator.

00:43:16.000 Is it too early to play into this?

00:43:18.000 But I'm hearing other reports that say the president himself.

00:43:21.000 Is polling audiences in private about who they want.

00:43:25.000 So you know the president's thinking about this question.

00:43:30.000 I'll go to you, Jay.

00:43:31.000 Yeah, I think that, I think, look, we all know the president loves the, you know, the willy won'tie question.

00:43:37.000 He loves running The Apprentice, which of course I think is in his like 24th, 25th season or something.

00:43:42.000 It's going to be the last season.

00:43:44.000 So when you look at the polls, JD Vance is by and far still the lead, but there's no question that Rubio has had a slew of headlines in recent days talking about.

00:43:54.000 You know, some of his successes.

00:43:55.000 He's obviously on a high profile trip right now.

00:43:58.000 The real question is whether or not he wants to, because Rubio has said that if JD runs, he won't.

00:44:04.000 I wonder if things can change.

00:44:06.000 You know, President Trump is a very mercurial man, he'll adapt to change situations.

00:44:12.000 I wonder if Rubio shares the same penchant.

00:44:15.000 All right, so I have to do this because it's just too much fun.

00:44:20.000 There was a mayoral debate in Los Angeles, a world away from us here on the East Coast, Jack.

00:44:27.000 But Spencer Pratt is getting a lot of headlines here.

00:44:31.000 And I just have to play this because I think I want to hear your reaction.

00:44:35.000 This was not a debate.

00:44:35.000 Wait, wait.

00:44:36.000 All right.

00:44:37.000 This was a slobber knocker, as they call it, a slobber knocker, as our good friend Foz would say.

00:44:43.000 So Spencer Pratt is running against city councilwoman Nithya Rahman.

00:44:43.000 Yeah.

00:44:49.000 Nithya, I think I sang it right. 1.00

00:44:51.000 Yeah, it sounds right.

00:44:52.000 Nithya Rahman.

00:44:54.000 And anyways, this great moment happened and it's going viral.

00:44:57.000 So let's go ahead and play it.

00:44:58.000 Sat 8.

00:45:02.000 I'm not sure how to respond to that vision of Los Angeles.

00:45:04.000 This is a MAGA Republicans idea of what Los Angeles looks like.

00:45:09.000 This is really not.

00:45:12.000 That's not okay.

00:45:14.000 Don't say that.

00:45:15.000 The head bob where he's like.

00:45:17.000 Los Angeles, where drugs aren't all over the street.

00:45:21.000 Because they were just in MacArthur Park and they got the raid, and there were like dozens of people just selling drugs in a children's park.

00:45:31.000 Like out in the open.

00:45:32.000 Well, he gets into that.

00:45:33.000 Check it out.

00:45:33.000 Sop five.

00:45:34.000 Treatment first.

00:45:35.000 I will go below the Harbor Freeway tomorrow with her and we can find some of these people she's going to offer treatment for. 1.00

00:45:41.000 She's going to get stabbed in the neck. 0.94

00:45:43.000 These people do not want a bed, they want fentanyl or super meth. 0.94

00:45:47.000 These ideas cost us over $400 million to house 70,000 people for $3,000.

00:45:55.000 This is an absolute failure for both of them.

00:45:58.000 They're a team.

00:45:59.000 I mean, he, he, so you had a take, Jack, that.

00:46:02.000 You found it fascinating just to see this entrenched liberal Democrat stronghold actually have a voice that's challenging some of their orthodoxy.

00:46:11.000 It's really amazing.

00:46:12.000 And I remember when we were on, I guess it was last year, and we were on Thought Crime and we did that video of it was like the live stream and we were talking about the debate in New York.

00:46:24.000 And it was Mamdani and Curtis Leewa was the candidate.

00:46:29.000 But you just didn't see, and I said it at the time Curtis just didn't go all the way in like this with facts.

00:46:36.000 With just complete, full on disrespect for what they've done to their own cities and what they were continuing to try to push, where you listen to Spencer Pratt, he's just saying basic things.

00:46:49.000 He's saying, This is what's going to happen if you go for a walk in downtown Los Angeles.

00:46:56.000 You're going to get killed. 0.99

00:46:58.000 You're going to get literally stabbed in the neck. 1.00

00:47:00.000 That's a MAGA Republican. 1.00

00:47:02.000 Really?

00:47:03.000 Then why don't you go on down there?

00:47:04.000 Why go on down there and see if it's, MAGA Republicans that were worried about there.

00:47:09.000 In fact, I remember tweeting about this when we were talking about Charlotte, not to bring this up, but on one of the last conversations I had with Charlie was when we, do you remember the Van Jones, right?

00:47:22.000 Van Jones was saying like, oh, these, you know, it's people like Charlie Kirk are riling stuff up.

00:47:27.000 And I had actually tweeted that, you know, when I'm going on public transit or anyone's going on public transit, they're not looking for, looking out for Charlie Kirks over their shoulder.

00:47:37.000 Like, no.

00:47:37.000 All right.

00:47:38.000 That's not what they're looking for.

00:47:39.000 So it just reminds me, MAGA Republicans, like, we're the problem.

00:47:43.000 No, we're the ones telling you about the problem.

00:47:45.000 We're the ones trying to fix the problem.

00:47:47.000 Yes.

00:47:47.000 Well, it's a return to a style of.

00:47:52.000 We can remember we had that period where you could elect Republicans in big cities again.

00:47:56.000 That's how we got Giuliani in New York.

00:47:58.000 And it's unfortunate because we got a huge amount of urban rebirth.

00:48:02.000 The U.S. cities got way better in the late 90s, early 2000s than they were in the 70s and the 80s.

00:48:09.000 And they made the cities great.

00:48:10.000 People could move back into them.

00:48:11.000 You got gentrification.

00:48:12.000 And they got promptly nice enough to elect deranged Democrats again.

00:48:17.000 And there's something to be said.

00:48:19.000 The worm might be turning again where we're making cities like LA bad enough that they could elect Republicans again.

00:48:26.000 And we might save our cities yet again.

00:48:28.000 Blake, what you just outlined is something I thought so much about.

00:48:31.000 You had this urban blight through the 60s, 70s, 80s, early 90s.

00:48:35.000 It got so bad.

00:48:36.000 You look at the murder rates, they got so bad that you've got Mayor Richard Reardon in.

00:48:42.000 Los Angeles, who massively increased the police force, gets safe, gets gentrified, investment comes in, all these, like, young, upward, you know, these young college educated folks come pouring into the cities.

00:48:55.000 They get really nice, and then they forget what happened, and then they reverse the trend.

00:49:01.000 Our memories are so short, and the lessons that we had to learn, and we think we're not bound by the lessons of history.

00:49:07.000 The same thing, of course, famously happened with Mayor Giuliani in New York, right?

00:49:11.000 You get the broken windows theory, they actually start policing, you get stop and frisk.

00:49:15.000 And then they turn their back on the very policies that made those cities so successful for really a blip in time, unfortunately.

00:49:24.000 And one of the underlying themes here, though, Blake, and we talked about it earlier when we were talking about the Virginia State Senator, Louisa Locke, is this idea that these entrenched communities want to almost allow people that don't agree with us, that shouldn't be voting, to vote.

00:49:43.000 This came up.

00:49:43.000 Should illegals be voting or immigrants?

00:49:46.000 Let me see how the moderator asked the question, but SOT 6. 0.80

00:49:50.000 This is a yes or no question and answer.

00:49:53.000 So there's an LA council member.

00:49:54.000 He wants voters to decide.

00:49:56.000 He is saying that non-citizens, should they be allowed to vote in local elections?

00:50:01.000 Is this a yes or no?

00:50:02.000 Mr. Pratt?

00:50:03.000 No.

00:50:04.000 Mayor Bass?

00:50:05.000 It depends.

00:50:06.000 It's not a yes or no.

00:50:07.000 Depends on what?

00:50:08.000 Well, first of all, when you say non-citizens, it doesn't mean they're here illegal.

00:50:12.000 It doesn't mean they're undocumented.

00:50:13.000 They could have green cards.

00:50:15.000 They could be here perfectly legal.

00:50:17.000 And there's a lot of states and cities that do that on very, very local elections.

00:50:21.000 We have to see what the councilman is proposing.

00:50:23.000 Council Member Bremen.

00:50:24.000 Yeah, I would say, again, it does depend.

00:50:27.000 In other places, school boards have non citizens.

00:50:33.000 Blake, how dangerous is this?

00:50:36.000 I mean, well, it's.

00:50:37.000 You really can see the future in the deepest blue cities of what they want to bring to America.

00:50:43.000 They can't see the most basic facts about having a functional citizenry.

00:50:48.000 Should the political franchise be limited to people who are actually American?

00:50:53.000 Should it be limited to people who are not criminals?

00:50:56.000 You remember when they were saying felons, murderers in prison should be able to vote?

00:50:59.000 We should abolish the police.

00:51:00.000 It's just the suicide of a country, and Los Angeles has a choice, and we'll see what they pick in a month because.

00:51:06.000 And it's not good that it's going to be that close.

00:51:11.000 All right, everybody.

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00:52:24.000 Wonderful people.

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00:52:28.000 We are going to be joined by Steve Hilton.

00:52:31.000 Steve, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show, my friend, and congratulations on a great debate performance.

00:52:38.000 Great to see you guys.

00:52:39.000 I'm very happy to be with you.

00:52:40.000 Fantastic.

00:52:41.000 So, Steve, tell us about your debate performance.

00:52:44.000 I was posting about it like crazy the night it happened.

00:52:47.000 I just, I'm still like absolutely blown away that Javier Becerra claimed that there were no missing kids.

00:52:55.000 After the New York Times verified it, that there's hundreds of thousands of them.

00:52:59.000 And this guy is surging in the pulse.

00:53:01.000 What is happening, Steve?

00:53:03.000 So, the thing about him, you've got to understand, is that he's like a dream come true for the corrupt, failing, Democrat machine in California because he's exactly like Biden, like Kamala Harris, like all these people, just a total career politician.

00:53:22.000 He's been doing nothing but 36 years now.

00:53:26.000 He's just a classic.

00:53:27.000 He's like Biden.

00:53:28.000 And so he's the perfect puppet for the machine.

00:53:32.000 He has no thoughts of his own.

00:53:33.000 He'll just do what he's told by the unions, by the activists.

00:53:37.000 This is what they've been waiting for.

00:53:38.000 They thought they would have Kamala Harris.

00:53:40.000 Then she decided not to run.

00:53:42.000 Then they were onto this guy, Alex Padilla, who's the current.

00:53:46.000 Uh, U.S. Senator, one of the two senators for California, they were really hoping for him.

00:53:51.000 They thought he decided not to run, and then they were in this terrible scramble where they had all these incredibly weak and embarrassing candidates.

00:54:00.000 Swalwell was moving to the top, then he blew up, and then suddenly Becerra just you know started rising in the polls, and you could just feel this sigh of relief from the machine.

00:54:12.000 Finally, we got our useless puppet candidate that we wanted all along, and so they're shoving money behind him.

00:54:19.000 The unions are getting behind him, but he's exactly what we don't need because he's exactly what's driven California into the situation where we're the worst run state in America with the worst results on everything.

00:54:32.000 So, I got two polls here for you.

00:54:33.000 This one is from Survey America.

00:54:36.000 It's got you at the top.

00:54:38.000 If you could throw this up there, guys, at 20%, Tom Steyer at 18%, Chad Bianco at 12%, and Becerra at 10, right?

00:54:48.000 And then I've got another one here from Impact Research poll, and it got Becerra at 23%, at plus 16%.

00:54:57.000 It was released May 4th, and he's tied with you, Steve, and then Tom Steyer at 14%, Chad Bianco at 11%.

00:55:06.000 Do you have an approximation of which poll is more accurate based on your internals?

00:55:10.000 Yes.

00:55:12.000 That Becerra poll, by the way, was put out by a super PAC supporting Becerra, the one that had him leading.

00:55:19.000 But there's no doubt that he's moving up.

00:55:22.000 And it seems to me what we're seeing happening, we just had a poll actually, which is that you've basically got a very clear top three emerging, which is myself, usually at the top, Becerra, and Tom Steyer.

00:55:35.000 And everyone else is, there's a big gap in the.

00:55:37.000 Now, between those three of us and everybody else, now on the one hand, you could say that it's good news that I'm leading, I'm happy that I'm leading.

00:55:46.000 But if we're not careful because of this ridiculous top two primary system in California, you could eat because Tom Steyer, remember the billionaire climate fanatic, he's already spent 160 million dollars on his campaign, it's by far the most expensive in the country.

00:56:03.000 He's already spent that, he's got plenty more where that came from, so you could imagine him.

00:56:09.000 You know, pumping up his numbers a little bit, moving up.

00:56:12.000 You've got Becerra now really seriously getting the machine, the unions, and all of that.

00:56:18.000 And so there's a real possibility that you end up with two Democrats in the top two, Staya and Becerra, which of course is a total disaster for the state.

00:56:27.000 So it's very important people in California actually vote.

00:56:30.000 The ballots are out, voting has begun.

00:56:33.000 And it's, you know, a poll lead like I have doesn't turn into an election win on its own.

00:56:41.000 People actually have to vote.

00:56:43.000 And so Everyone watching and listening, California, you got to vote and you got to vote for me to guarantee that we get a Republican in the top two.

00:56:51.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:56:52.000 I mean, you mentioned it on another interview I saw you doing, Steve, that there's more and more that's coming out about just how incompetent Becerra was.

00:57:02.000 You guys challenged him on some of these criminal allegations about his chief of staff where they were padding his salary.

00:57:11.000 I thought it was a really important moment.

00:57:12.000 I'm going to play the clip here now and get your reaction.

00:57:15.000 Sot 27.

00:57:17.000 My view is that it's a bit rich for Javier to talk about following the law when he is mired personally in a corruption scandal.

00:57:25.000 Steve, I hope you speak as ferociously about Donald Trump's violation of the law every time you're sitting in the governor's office trying to protect the people of California.

00:57:34.000 Because the last thing we need is to have an executive who continues to violate the rights of Californians and have a governor who just sits back and agrees with that executive named Donald Trump.

00:57:44.000 All right.

00:57:45.000 I feel like that really gets it in a nutshell. 0.99

00:57:48.000 Just you guys are a disaster. 0.99

00:57:49.000 You're doing terrible. 1.00

00:57:50.000 Well, I hope.

00:57:51.000 Donald Trump. 0.95

00:57:52.000 Donald Trump is bad.

00:57:54.000 I know.

00:57:54.000 Is he running for government?

00:57:55.000 All they've got is Trump.

00:57:56.000 I mean, it's unbelievable.

00:57:57.000 It's very funny in these debates.

00:57:59.000 Literally, it's all they have because the record is indefensible.

00:58:03.000 Literally, highest poverty rate in the country, highest unemployment rate in the country, highest cost of living by far, worse than all these measures that matter.

00:58:11.000 They have nothing new to offer.

00:58:13.000 None of them is offering any kind of change.

00:58:15.000 And so, literally, all they have is Trump.

00:58:17.000 But I just, and that's what you hear from Trump, Trump, Trump, Mago, Mago.

00:58:21.000 It's hilarious.

00:58:22.000 But just to be really clear about what Becerra did here, I think this is very serious and it could get worse for him.

00:58:30.000 When he was hired by Biden as his health secretary, he wanted to take his chief of staff, a guy called Sean McCluskey, with him to Washington.

00:58:39.000 The salary paid by the federal government wasn't enough for him.

00:58:43.000 He wanted more money, but the federal salary is what it is.

00:58:49.000 So what they did was take money from Javier Becerra's California state campaign account.

00:58:56.000 They created a payment of $10,000 a month to this consulting firm, one of these lobbying firms in Sacramento, who then passed the money straight on, $10,000 straight out the bank account, to this guy's wife, Sean McCluskey's wife, the chief of staff's wife.

00:59:14.000 Clearly, payment to him.

00:59:17.000 That's a violation of state campaign finance law because that money was only supposed to be used for Javier Becerra's campaigns.

00:59:25.000 It's also a violation of federal employment law.

00:59:28.000 Because as a federal government employee, you can't have sources of income from anything other than the federal government.

00:59:35.000 It's a strict ethics rule.

00:59:36.000 So he's in real trouble here.

00:59:39.000 That whole case is already the subject of a federal criminal indictment for the people in the middle of it.

00:59:46.000 But Becerra is absolutely vulnerable on this because it's his chief of staff. 0.84

00:59:52.000 And the idea that he didn't know about this or didn't sign off on it, which is what he's claiming, I just think is ridiculous.

00:59:58.000 This has got much further to go.

01:00:00.000 And you could very well see.

01:00:02.000 Becerra himself prosecuted for his role in this.

01:00:05.000 Well, I'm just going to say it.

01:00:07.000 I think Becerra and Alejandro Mayorcas deserve to be prosecuted for what they did.

01:00:13.000 The crimes against humanity, the treasonous way that the border was dealt with, the migrant children were dealt with. 0.80

01:00:20.000 I find it all so despicable. 0.99

01:00:21.000 And the fact that we're not actively criminally prosecuting both of these at this point, and one is now apparently the leading Democrat candidate for governor, is just the irony is too rich to really put into words.

01:00:34.000 But that's the.

01:00:34.000 Can I just give you one other.

01:00:37.000 Yeah.

01:00:37.000 Could I just give you one other thing?

01:00:38.000 This is a story that we uncovered and published yesterday through Cal Doge, part of my campaign, California Department of Government Efficiency.

01:00:46.000 We've been publishing a number of fraud reports this year.

01:00:50.000 The one yesterday, directly involving Becerra, on April the 13th this year, this organization, which became notorious during the LA anti ICE riots last year, CHIRLA, C H I R L A, CHIRLA, they are an organization, an immigrant rights organization.

01:01:09.000 They do legal defense for some of the worst criminals that are being deported, amongst other things.

01:01:15.000 It's nearly entirely taxpayer funded.

01:01:19.000 About 80% of its budget comes from California taxpayers.

01:01:23.000 This is what's been happening.

01:01:24.000 On April the 13th, they endorsed Javier Becerra, said they'd be working hard to get him elected.

01:01:29.000 We found documents from within Churla that lay out their political operation and how they support candidates.

01:01:38.000 And on one of these documents, it explicitly says that they use paid canvassers.

01:01:44.000 To do political campaigning, including undocumented, in their words, undocumented people.

01:01:50.000 In other words, you have California taxpayers funding illegal immigrants to campaign for Javier Becerra. 0.77

01:02:00.000 Again, total violation of the law.

01:02:02.000 And so this just shows you the corruption of this machine in California.

01:02:07.000 Well, I mean, it's really despicable.

01:02:09.000 And we're grateful that you're fighting the fight.

01:02:11.000 You know, we have, you know, obviously a nationwide audience here, Steve, but our largest audience.

01:02:16.000 Especially on our podcast, is California.

01:02:19.000 So, I hope that everybody heeds your words and gets out to vote in this jungle primary.

01:02:24.000 Get Steve Hilton across the top two finish line so that he can run in the general here.

01:02:29.000 But I want to take us away here with a great moment for you, I felt in the debate.

01:02:35.000 SOC 28.

01:02:36.000 Mr. Hilton, right now, President Trump is enacting a policy of mass deportation.

01:02:41.000 As you know, roughly half of California farm workers, which are an essential part of this state's economy, are undocumented.

01:02:49.000 As governor, would you push to deport them?

01:02:52.000 So, I'm the only. immigrant on stage.

01:02:54.000 I'm a legal immigrant and Americans support immigration when it is properly controlled.

01:03:01.000 And what we saw under the Biden administration, open borders, undermined everybody's support for immigration.

01:03:08.000 And as governor, I've made it very clear, although it is the federal government's responsibility to determine and implement immigration policy, I think it's important that all the laws are peacefully enforced.

01:03:21.000 And as governor, I would make sure that we work with the federal government to enforce our law. 0.96

01:03:28.000 I mean, I'd go full immigration moratorium, but that's just me. 0.99

01:03:31.000 Steve, you got to do you in California. 0.99

01:03:33.000 I get it.

01:03:33.000 All right, Steve, we have breaking news on the Palisades fire.

01:03:38.000 The guy who did it, Jonathan Kinderdneck, turns out he's a Luigi Mangione obsessed fan, and he's a far leftist that just basically ruined hundreds of thousands of people's lives.

01:03:50.000 And Spencer Pratt is one of them who's running for mayor.

01:03:53.000 He had his debate last night.

01:03:55.000 What is your assessment, your reaction to finding out this news about Jonathan Kinderdneck?

01:04:02.000 Well, it's just so infuriating because, as with so many other things in California, it shows you that these disasters and the massive costs, and this is the most expensive disaster in California history, are totally avoidable, totally avoidable.

01:04:18.000 And the specific on this fire, everyone needs to remember, which is that it was started on purpose and it was not, it was then, it was called the Lockman Fire and it was a week before the Palisades Fire and then it was put out, but not fully.

01:04:36.000 And the reason, and we now know this from internal documents from the fire department, was that they were specifically asking and wanting to bulldoze the area where the fire had been extinguished in order to make sure it was properly extinguished.

01:04:52.000 But then they didn't do that because there was an endangered plant that they were supposed to protect and they didn't want to bulldoze the area.

01:05:02.000 That left the fire smoldering, which reignited and created the Palisades fire.

01:05:07.000 So it's just outrageous.

01:05:09.000 And it's another point, which is.

01:05:11.000 Most of the fires in Southern California, there's a very big difference between the kind of wildfires you get in Southern California and the ones that you get in the Sierra Nevada and the big forests in the northern parts of the state.

01:05:23.000 In Southern California, most of the fires are started by humans, either by arsonists or by homeless encampments.

01:05:32.000 So they're totally avoidable.

01:05:34.000 And one of the things I think we need to, it's a classic example, arson is a really big cause of fires.

01:05:40.000 Is there any deterrent?

01:05:42.000 Is there any real deterrent?

01:05:43.000 Effort by law enforcement, by the politicians to really clamp down.

01:05:48.000 Think about the damage that it does.

01:05:50.000 And yet, it's never really discussed by the politicians as something we need to really fight against.

01:05:55.000 Classic California.

01:05:57.000 We've got to be much tougher on all this stuff.

01:05:59.000 Steve, isn't there a story right now at the 110 freeway?

01:06:04.000 There's a fire that's been smoldering from a homeless encampment there that's going to shut down a major thoroughfare in the city?

01:06:11.000 Yes, exactly.

01:06:12.000 That's exactly right.

01:06:13.000 I'm in LA right now.

01:06:15.000 It's just, but it happens all the time.

01:06:17.000 And you go to some parts of the city, and it's just, I mean, it's hard to describe.

01:06:25.000 I did put out a video a couple of weeks ago about one of the things we saw.

01:06:28.000 We just went there.

01:06:29.000 Actually, it was to do a Cal Doge press conference on fraud because one of the organizations was there.

01:06:34.000 Just like randomly.

01:06:35.000 This is not Skid Row.

01:06:36.000 This is not a famous part of the dystopian scene in Los Angeles.

01:06:42.000 It's just as if it was a set for a movie.

01:06:45.000 Capturing some dystopian future, some horrific scene.

01:06:49.000 And there's just block after block of total chaos.

01:06:53.000 And, you know, that one time I was there walking through, there was a porter potty that was clearly being used as the main sort of toilet there, just suddenly burst into flames while I was there.

01:07:07.000 Just the chaos and lawlessness in America's second city.

01:07:12.000 We're about to host the Olympics.

01:07:14.000 It is just so totally unacceptable.

01:07:17.000 That's why Spencer.

01:07:18.000 Is doing really well and getting a lot of buzz and energy and attention in LA.

01:07:23.000 He was completely dismissed, but he's getting all the energy because people are sick of it in LA in particular, especially Democrats.

01:07:31.000 So, not just Republicans, you have Democrats who're saying, yeah, whatever, but we can't go on like this.

01:07:36.000 I'm not a Republican, but we need a change.

01:07:38.000 Well, and there's another story that I've been recently reading about that I think really also captures the profound decay, along with arson, along with the homelessness.

01:07:50.000 Metal theft.

01:07:50.000 So, you need copper wiring.

01:07:52.000 Scrap metal is used in every city they're doing this.

01:07:56.000 And LA, recently they disbanded their metal theft task force at the LAPD.

01:08:02.000 They got rid of it.

01:08:03.000 And what's going on is you have criminals are stripping copper wiring from streetlights, they're stripping it from major bridges.

01:08:11.000 And this is a really destructive crime because they'll get $10, you know, if they get $100 of scrap metal, it costs $10,000 or $50,000 to replace it.

01:08:21.000 And then they can still go steal it again.

01:08:23.000 And it's known how we could stop these things.

01:08:26.000 You just have to make really severe penalties.

01:08:28.000 You can use cameras.

01:08:30.000 You can do stuff to keep this from happening.

01:08:33.000 And instead, they're getting rid of the units.

01:08:35.000 They're just refusing to maintain civilization.

01:08:38.000 And so, yeah, when the Olympics show up, when the World Cup shows up, the lights will not be on.

01:08:42.000 They literally can't keep them on because they're stealing the wires. 1.00

01:08:45.000 It's something out of South Africa. 1.00

01:08:47.000 100%. 1.00

01:08:49.000 And it's a total collapse of civilization.

01:08:51.000 It's exactly the right term.

01:08:54.000 And they won't do it, they won't clamp down on it.

01:08:56.000 Another one catalytic converters, massive spree of thefts from cars.

01:09:01.000 And funny enough, Nitya Raman, the third person running for mayor, was even more to the left of Karen Bass, as she's a member of the LA City Council.

01:09:11.000 When the catalytic converter thefts really started accelerating a couple of years ago, she starts blaming the car companies for not making them more secure.

01:09:21.000 And then you look at the streetlights, there's another reason they're not fixing the streetlights because they passed this law.

01:09:27.000 About what they call street diets, where if you try and fix, if you try and upgrade or improve or do anything to a street, you're now required to convert it into make the streets narrower, to slow down traffic, put speed bumps in there, all this stuff to get, because they hate cars, they hate people driving, put in bike lanes.

01:09:49.000 So their own law that they put in to make street diets mandatory is now stopping them from fixing the street lights.

01:09:57.000 It's just so crazy.

01:09:59.000 Steve Hilton, we have your back 100%.

01:10:03.000 SteveHilton for governor.com.

01:10:05.000 Get out and vote.

01:10:06.000 You got to vote.

01:10:06.000 The early voting has started.

01:10:07.000 We got to actually get the ballots in the box.

01:10:10.000 Get him as a top two so he can actually run in the general.

01:10:14.000 Steve Hilton, you're doing a great job.

01:10:15.000 You and Spencer Pratt are shifting the narrative in California.

01:10:19.000 I pray for success.

01:10:21.000 It is.

01:10:21.000 God bless you, sir.

01:10:22.000 We'll see you soon.

01:10:24.000 See you soon.

01:10:24.000 Thanks, guys.

01:10:29.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - May 07, 2026

Ever More Democrat Fraud + Can LA Be Saved?

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