The Charlie Kirk Show - How Trump Can Win the ICE Showdown And the Midterms

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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00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.

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00:01:09.000 All right, welcome back.

00:01:10.000 Hour two of the Charlie Kirk Show is underway.

00:01:12.000 Excited about this next guest.

00:01:14.000 He's a contrarian.

00:01:15.000 He's a filmmaker.

00:01:16.000 He's an author.

00:01:17.000 He's a historian.

00:01:18.000 We had him on when I think in the campaign season quite a bit with Charlie ahead of 2024.

00:01:26.000 And he had a way of looking at things that will make you think.

00:01:29.000 And if you are prepared or willing to blackpill right now, don't.

00:01:34.000 Because there's actually things you need to be looking at that will give you hope, optimism, whether that's the midterms heading into 2028 about deportation.

00:01:42.000 That's Larry Schweikert, the real Larry Schweikert.

00:01:46.000 Again, he's an author, historian, PhD, New York Times, number one best-selling author, filmmaker, rock drummer, America's history teacher.

00:01:53.000 Larry, welcome back to the show.

00:01:54.000 Yeah, don't forget the rock drummer part.

00:01:56.000 That's really important.

00:01:57.000 A study came out today showing that bison are returning to the Illinois prairie to drumming.

00:02:05.000 I thought, okay, about time.

00:02:07.000 Bison?

00:02:08.000 Yep, bison for the first time in 2005.

00:02:11.000 Wild bison?

00:02:11.000 Where are they coming?

00:02:13.000 Yeah, I don't know.

00:02:15.000 Probably leaving Minnesota because it's so crazy.

00:02:18.000 Yeah, they're avoiding these.

00:02:20.000 I'm just thinking of driving.

00:02:21.000 I don't want to, man, hitting a bison would probably really.

00:02:24.000 Yeah, I think about that sometimes as well.

00:02:26.000 You know, like I sort of bemoan the loss of the real West, the frontier, but then I think, you know, I'm, you know, contending with grizzly bears and actual wolves and bison would not be.

00:02:37.000 I'm a German by heritage, so I feel that like deep deepness in my soul.

00:02:41.000 If you fly over like Europe and you see everything subdivided into little plots of like developed land, so you like we conquered the West.

00:02:48.000 I like going to South Dakota and just seeing agriculture as far as the eye can be.

00:02:52.000 I'm a conservationist.

00:02:53.000 Especially because it keeps libs from moving there. 1.00

00:02:55.000 Well, that's true.

00:02:56.000 Well, open carry keeps libs from moving there too. 1.00

00:02:59.000 Larry, I love the way your mind works.

00:03:02.000 You and I spoke briefly on the phone last week.

00:03:06.000 So, I mean, there's a lot of doomerism happening.

00:03:09.000 There's a lot of black pilling, especially with, you know, you look at Minneapolis.

00:03:12.000 It's basically a war zone.

00:03:15.000 You have a different way of seeing what's happening right now in the country.

00:03:20.000 Give us your 30,000-foot view.

00:03:23.000 Are you optimistic?

00:03:24.000 Are you pessimistic?

00:03:25.000 What are you seeing?

00:03:25.000 What are you thinking?

00:03:26.000 Well, I think a lot of concern is over the 2026 midterms.

00:03:31.000 And I'm not concerned.

00:03:33.000 Today, Eleanor Holmes Norton of DC announced her retirement.

00:03:37.000 She is Democrat number 25 to do so.

00:03:41.000 Now, last year, a whole bunch of Republicans announced their retirements, and I'm not sure why.

00:03:46.000 A lot of them were older.

00:03:47.000 A lot of them were anti-Trumpers.

00:03:49.000 And I said, just wait.

00:03:50.000 The Democrats will catch up.

00:03:52.000 And so far, the number is 30 Rs and now 25 Ds.

00:03:56.000 And I think some of those R's have already been replaced or are being replaced, like Marjorie Taylor Greene. 1.00

00:04:02.000 So I think when all the redistricting is done, the Republicans are going to have a four or five seat lock on the House because there are just not enough toss-up states to make a difference.

00:04:17.000 The Republicans are already sitting at around 210 to 212 solid, safe seats.

00:04:23.000 And so when you look at all the redistricting and so forth, you're probably already over 218.

00:04:29.000 In terms of voter registration, this has been moving toward Republicans for almost 18 straight months, and Democrats have no answer for this.

00:04:41.000 So they kept saying, well, wait till 2026 and the numbers start to come out.

00:04:45.000 Well, we had Arizona's number.

00:04:47.000 Arizona's first out of the gate for 2026.

00:04:50.000 And guess what?

00:04:52.000 Every single county in Arizona moved to the right, including Pima, which has lost almost one full percent of its Democrat lead in the last year and a half.

00:05:05.000 So these are staggering numbers.

00:05:07.000 You can't find one state where Democrats are consistently putting up any winning numbers.

00:05:14.000 They're all moving to Republicans to the point that in North Carolina, that state became a red state last month, which it's astounding.

00:05:24.000 It was Democrat plus 175,000 in 2025, 2024.

00:05:32.000 Florida, obviously, is now off the charts.

00:05:34.000 It's 1.4 million Republicans advantage.

00:05:38.000 But every state where we can measure it is moving right.

00:05:41.000 And I think that's a terrifying omen for Democrats.

00:05:47.000 So you go up to Minnesota, and I've harped on this.

00:05:52.000 I think Minnesota is ground zero for breaking the entire Democrat Party, the voter fraud, and obviously the illegal immigration fraud up there.

00:06:05.000 I think that its tentacles stretch to every other state, but particularly to California, which is the big enchilada.

00:06:14.000 That'll be the one to be targeted after Minnesota falls.

00:06:18.000 And nobody's giving up.

00:06:20.000 Nobody's backing down.

00:06:21.000 I love to see it despite all the hand-wringing rhinos and all the Democrats calling for a government shutdown.

00:06:27.000 Nobody is backing up.

00:06:31.000 See, this is why you need to always take a step back.

00:06:36.000 When everybody else is losing their minds, you got to stay competent.

00:06:39.000 You got to stay confident.

00:06:41.000 You got to stay calm.

00:06:42.000 You got to focus on these things because this is what Turning Point Action is doing.

00:06:46.000 So, you know, yeah, there's all this hand-wringing.

00:06:48.000 There's people that are freaking out about Minneapolis.

00:06:51.000 You've got Governor Stitt.

00:06:52.000 You've got Lady Graham.

00:06:53.000 These people are blinking.

00:06:55.000 They're bending the knee.

00:06:56.000 Meanwhile, Turning Point Action is building a standing army of ballot chasers in what we're calling the Red Wall, New Hampshire, where we have an advantage, more conservatives than liberals.

00:07:06.000 It's the independent vote that'll swing that state.

00:07:08.000 But still, it's a really good sign that you have more registered Republicans.

00:07:11.000 And we're going to keep doing that work, by the way, New Hampshire.

00:07:15.000 Nevada, we're making gains in Nevada.

00:07:17.000 Arizona, we're all over this state.

00:07:19.000 We're making gains every single day.

00:07:21.000 So while everybody else is losing their minds and they're getting weak in the knees, we're putting up wins.

00:07:26.000 We're registering voters in all of these states.

00:07:29.000 And then you talk about the redistricting.

00:07:32.000 We've spent a lot of time on this.

00:07:34.000 We're actually going to be primaring a lot of these state senators in Indiana that refused to play hardball.

00:07:42.000 Now, and apparently they made some handshake deal, Larry, with Maryland.

00:07:46.000 Now Maryland's going to redistrict anyways. 1.00

00:07:48.000 They lie.

00:07:49.000 Of course they lie.

00:07:50.000 Yes.

00:07:51.000 I'm glad you brought up Nevada and New Hampshire.

00:07:55.000 These are two of the states that Seth Keschel and I follow a lot.

00:07:59.000 New Hampshire has moved almost more than a half point redder than it was in 2024, November.

00:08:07.000 Nevada has now flipped to a red state, not by a lot, by about 3,000, but it was 18,000 Democrat lead in 2024, and it was 88,000 in 2020.

00:08:22.000 So everywhere you look, these numbers are marching steadily toward the Republicans.

00:08:27.000 Now, you mentioned Indies, and the independents, of course, are important everywhere.

00:08:32.000 But one thing that I think these numbers are telling us is that people do not want to be associated in any way, shape, or form with the Democrat Party.

00:08:41.000 It is as toxic as any party in American history has ever been.

00:08:46.000 And it's a two-step process.

00:08:48.000 They leave the Democrats in step one and step two, they become Republicans.

00:08:53.000 So I think we're in phenomenal shape as far as that goes.

00:08:58.000 What's your vibe on the independents when it comes specifically to this topic of immigration?

00:09:04.000 If anybody's going to get weak on it, if they're going to give in to the Saab stories, I think the conservative base has developed antibodies and immunities from the same old tactics of the left-wing ink that gets spilled.

00:09:16.000 Oh, you know, this is terrible.

00:09:18.000 Obama comes out with this statement talking about massed agents and they're rightly upset and we need to, our values are under assault more than ever before.

00:09:28.000 Republicans don't hear that stuff.

00:09:29.000 They look at that and they rightly are skeptical.

00:09:33.000 They rightly push back.

00:09:34.000 Independents, where are they at on immigration?

00:09:37.000 They are probably far more susceptible to these kinds of heartstring messages.

00:09:43.000 But the good news is that independents are all over the map in terms of what is the most important issue to them, because usually it almost always comes down to the economy.

00:09:54.000 And so if the economy, as it has already done, continues to pick up, you start to see more and more jobs.

00:10:01.000 Prices continue to fall.

00:10:03.000 And by, say, midsummer, everything is looking really good in terms of the economy.

00:10:08.000 Believe me, the number one issue for independence is not going to be immigration or what's happening in Minnesota.

00:10:13.000 It's going to be, oh, the economy is pretty good.

00:10:15.000 I'm not going to mess that up.

00:10:17.000 Yeah.

00:10:17.000 So the good news about Indies is they are not wedded to a single issue the way either the left or the right is.

00:10:25.000 Yeah, I think that's a smart analysis there, Larry.

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00:11:44.000 Larry, I got two questions for you.

00:11:46.000 You mentioned the economy and that that is a huge piece of the pie here, especially for indies.

00:11:53.000 Problem is, if you just look at historical precedent, you're a historian.

00:11:57.000 You know, you look at H.W. Bush.

00:12:01.000 The recession ended in the spring of 91.

00:12:04.000 He lost the election in 92.

00:12:06.000 You've got inflation from Joe Biden that is, I mean, you still go to the store.

00:12:10.000 It's obscene when you try and feed a family.

00:12:13.000 Those prices are not going to drop all the way back to their pre, you know, 2020 levels.

00:12:20.000 Emotionally, is the electorate.

00:12:22.000 Do we have enough time to sort of see those gains and that growth in the GDP and real wages catch up with inflation to the point where we get electorally rewarded?

00:12:32.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:12:34.000 Not all prices are falling, but I can look at my gas price on the corner.

00:12:38.000 It's already dropped by 50 or 60 cents since the last year.

00:12:43.000 And we have gas from California, which is always 20 or 30 cents higher.

00:12:48.000 The stickiest part of all prices is not the grocery store, although that's still a little bit high, but it's in housing.

00:12:55.000 And we have this disconnect in the housing market that is in partially due to having illegals involved in the entire housing market, all that kind of stuff.

00:13:07.000 The tariffs are going to kick in.

00:13:09.000 All those investments that the foreigners made last year and promised to Trump are starting to break ground. 0.59

00:13:15.000 So, yeah, I think enough is going to change that it will affect the independent voters.

00:13:22.000 And we don't need a lot.

00:13:23.000 We don't need to win them by five or six points.

00:13:25.000 We need to win them by one point because, as I say, the Republicans are winning the voter registration game almost everywhere.

00:13:34.000 So, yeah, and I'm looking at some numbers here, 275, if you want to throw it up.

00:13:39.000 But it looks like, you know, we're getting good numbers on transportation, utilities, but education, housing, health care, having a family, those are all tricky, right?

00:13:50.000 And those are not numbers that you can move quickly.

00:13:54.000 But I hope you're right.

00:13:55.000 Listen, if we put up a few more numbers of 4.5% GDP growth, 5%, I mean, that would be amazing.

00:14:01.000 I can't remember the last time we saw numbers that high.

00:14:03.000 I do believe that's going to have a psychological impact.

00:14:06.000 Second question for you, Larry, though, is this redistricting.

00:14:10.000 If you would, we got four minutes left in this segment.

00:14:12.000 Go through a couple of the states that you're watching.

00:14:15.000 Obviously, we gained some in Florida, Texas.

00:14:18.000 We lost some in California.

00:14:19.000 That's getting challenged in the courts.

00:14:21.000 You think we're going to be at 210, 212 safe Republican districts.

00:14:26.000 And are those really safe?

00:14:27.000 Because I hope those models aren't looking at like, you know, Hispanic votes from 2024 because we've lost a little bit of ground off those numbers.

00:14:35.000 Well, the constantly shifting redistricting numbers show that North Carolina has added two red.

00:14:45.000 Ohio's added two red.

00:14:47.000 Texas has added five red.

00:14:49.000 Missouri's added one red.

00:14:51.000 Kansas supposedly is going to redistrict.

00:14:53.000 We'll add one red.

00:14:55.000 Florida will redistrict.

00:14:57.000 They will add between two to three red.

00:15:01.000 You've then seen one lost seat in Utah due to the court decision there.

00:15:06.000 So that's one blue.

00:15:08.000 You have arguably five in California, but as you mentioned, that's being challenged.

00:15:13.000 And California is a little tricky because in order to get those districts, they've had to cannibalize some very, very close Democrat districts.

00:15:23.000 So I don't think it's a given that all five of those end up in Republican in Democrat hands, or I don't think it's they may get all five of those and lose one or two others.

00:15:34.000 So I don't think it's necessarily a net gain of five in California for Democrats.

00:15:39.000 Indiana was a disappointment. 1.00

00:15:41.000 These people are just idiots. 1.00

00:15:42.000 I don't know what else you can say about them. 1.00

00:15:45.000 When I go through all the numbers, and again, they keep shifting.

00:15:48.000 I look at the GOP gaining between two and four more seats in redistricting, which would put us up in the neighborhood of 216, 217.

00:15:59.000 But then you have the elephant in the room, which is the racial redistricting decision coming from the Supreme Court.

00:16:06.000 And what no one can answer me, and I've asked this to my court guru, Zen Master.

00:16:11.000 I've asked it to other people who deal with the court.

00:16:14.000 How many of the racial redistricting seats are going to be covered in the seats that have already been redistricted in many of these states?

00:16:24.000 And nobody can give me an answer on that.

00:16:26.000 Louisiana does plan to redistrict.

00:16:28.000 That'll be another red seat.

00:16:30.000 So let's assume we pick up two or three from the racial redistricting.

00:16:34.000 You're over 218 right there.

00:16:37.000 Now, how many are safe, safe, safe?

00:16:38.000 I'm just going by Cook.

00:16:40.000 And I think Cook is probably a little pessimistic for Republicans.

00:16:44.000 So if Cook is saying 210 to 212 safe, I think that's a pretty good starting point.

00:16:49.000 Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I'll just continue raging against is this botched census in 2020.

00:16:56.000 You know, we should not be counting illegals on a census. 1.00

00:17:00.000 There is no reality in which that makes any sense to the founders' vision.

00:17:05.000 Blake, sorry, that we struggle with the fact that there's like court rulings to that effect and everything.

00:17:13.000 What's outrageous to me is just the way they will sometimes like estimate things.

00:17:17.000 And also just that the census happened in 2020 during COVID.

00:17:20.000 And so it happened.

00:17:21.000 Absolute bizarre moment for the country in so many ways.

00:17:24.000 I think Larry or Lutnick should just call a new census and let it get challenged in court.

00:17:30.000 Fight it.

00:17:31.000 If we lose, we lose.

00:17:32.000 But at least we the challenge is you'd have to fund it.

00:17:35.000 We'll find the funding.

00:17:36.000 We'll pull it from somewhere.

00:17:38.000 Trump could do a TikTok fundraiser and raise that money in 30 seconds.

00:17:43.000 I would donate to it.

00:17:45.000 We would do promotions on the show to raise for it.

00:17:48.000 Larry.

00:17:49.000 Last important thing about Minnesota.

00:17:50.000 I want to make this point.

00:17:52.000 Seth Keschell has said twice that Minnesota would have voted for Trump had it not been for all the fraudulent votes there.

00:18:00.000 That's something else to keep in mind, a reason to win in Minnesota.

00:18:03.000 Yeah, well, and certainly the demographic replacement immigration with all the Somalis is certainly playing a role there too.

00:18:09.000 Larry Schweikert, thank you for the white pill.

00:18:12.000 Now we're going to have Mark Halperin on for the black pill.

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00:19:26.000 Mark Halperin joins us now.

00:19:29.000 Mark, welcome back to the show, editor-in-chief of 2-ATV and host of Next Up on the Megan Kelly Network.

00:19:35.000 Mark, you have a very, you are one of the most, I would say, plugged in commentators, thinkers about this space.

00:19:45.000 I'm fully expecting you to give me bad news about the politics of deportation, that we're losing the information battle, especially with what's going on with this recent shooting.

00:19:54.000 Am I right?

00:19:55.000 Is that where your head is at?

00:19:57.000 Well, it was true four hours ago.

00:19:59.000 It's clear that the White House, after getting a lot of input, including directly to the president this weekend, are shifting, and it's happening in real time with Caroline's briefing.

00:20:09.000 It's a three-pronged process.

00:20:11.000 One is to make Homans the face of this, as opposed to Secretary Noam.

00:20:17.000 And he's headed to Minnesota, and I'll be curious to see how much TV he's doing as compared to Secretary Noam and Stephen Miller.

00:20:24.000 Two is to acknowledge that there need to be changes in how this goes to minimize the chances that there are images that are damaging to the president's agenda and to this mission.

00:20:37.000 And there's no doubt they've been damaging.

00:20:39.000 You can cite all sorts of mitigating factors and concerns about signal chats or whether someone should show up to protest with a concealed weapon.

00:20:46.000 There's all sorts of things people can raise.

00:20:48.000 But the reality is there's no ambiguity.

00:20:51.000 The president suffered political damage over this.

00:20:54.000 And then lastly, as Caroline's doing right now, is to emphasize the portions of the president's immigration agenda that are not just somewhat popular, but that are exceedingly popular, and to try to get more of the conversation to back on that terrain, as opposed to what has been the view of many Republicans who are super supportive of the president, a failed mission, not entirely, but in many respects in Minneapolis.

00:21:16.000 Yeah, Mark.

00:21:17.000 So we can see that there's some of that effort to pivot.

00:21:21.000 You've been an observer of politics for a long time.

00:21:24.000 What's your sense on how successful that's likely to be?

00:21:28.000 Because I think about there's sort of two competing impulses, which is people will remember the most resonant emotional visual moment, which could be this, but also the Trump administration news cycles move so fast, we could be on a completely new thing two weeks from now.

00:21:45.000 I think about the Greenland drama, which already feels a century ago.

00:21:48.000 Two weeks from now, two segments from now, we could already be on something new.

00:21:52.000 Look, the president sending Homans, taking a call from Governor Waltz and having a readout from the president on Truth Social saying it's a positive call.

00:22:04.000 The president's one of the best politicians any of us have ever seen.

00:22:07.000 And if he wants to turn the page and send this in a different direction or take it off the front pages, he's got a pretty good chance to do that.

00:22:15.000 And that's what we're in the midst of doing.

00:22:16.000 So if you're asking me what the chances are, I'd say better than 50%.

00:22:21.000 As usual, he's up against the liberal dominant media.

00:22:24.000 As usual, he's got to do many other things.

00:22:28.000 This isn't his only focus.

00:22:30.000 But the president has a lot of power to change the narrative.

00:22:33.000 And I think we're seeing that happen right now in real time.

00:22:37.000 And I think the chances are better than 50% to put this back on more favorable terrain without disappointing those who say can't give the liberals a win or those who say the immigration mission must continue.

00:22:50.000 I think he can do both those things.

00:22:52.000 He was responsible.

00:22:54.000 Take the last thing I'll say.

00:22:55.000 Take the politics out of it.

00:22:56.000 Some people think that's naive.

00:22:58.000 Well, he's not the campaigner in chief.

00:23:00.000 He's not the president of the Republican Party or the MAGA movement.

00:23:03.000 He's the president of the United States.

00:23:05.000 And doing something with ICE and Border Patrol in an American city is better done, more effectively done with the cooperation of the mayor and the governor.

00:23:15.000 And I think they're going to try to secure that now.

00:23:18.000 So the flip side of this is the president can make the moves he wants, but there's also the Democrats.

00:23:23.000 We've heard Senator Schiff and others talk about let's make a giant defund the government showdown over whether ICE gets any more funding, whether the Border Patrol gets any more funding.

00:23:34.000 Do you think Democrats will want this battle where they'll escalate to massive war over the Border Patrol and ICE, or do you think they're likely to back down if the president is giving them a bit of an off-ramp?

00:23:45.000 Well, last night they wanted to fight.

00:23:47.000 Let's see with the changes the president's making if they still want it.

00:23:50.000 And remember, as you know, ICE is funded.

00:23:53.000 ICE was funded by the Big Beautiful bill.

00:23:55.000 So this budget showdown that the Democrats say they're willing to precipitate, even if it leads to shutting down the government, is not going to actually get them what they want.

00:24:05.000 But the president should want some cooperation for the symbolism and the optics and the politics, but also the substance.

00:24:12.000 So if Republicans have to give something to make the mission work more effectively, they may want to do that.

00:24:22.000 And if that gets the Democrats to the table, keep there from being a shutdown, that seems like a win-win.

00:24:27.000 So I don't think it's impossible to avoid a shutdown in part because, as I said, the Democrats don't have the leverage they might because ICE is already funded.

00:24:37.000 So, Mark, I know you're reacting to this readout from the Tim Waltz call that President Trump put out.

00:24:44.000 I still, you know, I'm incredulous that this would actually happen the way that you're suggesting, that there would be actual cooperation like we experienced in the Obama years, right?

00:24:56.000 Obama, I think, is, you know, listen, it's a good talking point for us, deporter-in-chief.

00:25:02.000 What was really happening there was that blue districts were, blue municipalities were coordinating with immigration enforcement.

00:25:10.000 They were handing over criminals in jails, in prisons, when there was a detainer request.

00:25:14.000 Is that what you're suggesting is going to happen in Minneapolis, that this could be the compromise that's reached?

00:25:21.000 Well, cooperation between Governor Waltz and Donald Trump is as far-fetched and outlandish as a friendly OVA office meeting between Mayor Mom Domney and the president.

00:25:32.000 You know, that happened, dudes, right?

00:25:34.000 Now, the level of cooperation between them remains to be seen, but apparently they took that meeting and made themselves texting buddies.

00:25:41.000 One of the things that Caroline said at the briefing and that the president's talked about over the weekend is they want to have Congress outlaw sanctuary cities.

00:25:49.000 That's not going to happen.

00:25:50.000 But there is a middle ground between Walt's capitulation completely and Waltz cooperating.

00:25:58.000 And I think one of the big measures, two big measures that I've heard both sides talk about as possibilities.

00:26:05.000 One is the local police should be helping here.

00:26:08.000 They shouldn't be just turning their heads the other way and not showing up when there's activity on the streets that they could help diffuse.

00:26:17.000 And then number two, it's a sanctuary city, but they can find a way to make the process of deporting people who leave local law enforcement control and then can be deported.

00:26:29.000 They can make that easier.

00:26:30.000 They don't have to completely turn their heads away from that.

00:26:33.000 And I think if those two things are done, that would allow ICE and Border Patrol to make their footprint in the city smaller.

00:26:42.000 And this is the George Floyd City.

00:26:45.000 This is a very blue city.

00:26:46.000 The people who are protesting have not quite become professionals yet, but they're semi-pro.

00:26:51.000 But I think if those two things happened and the footprint decreased, people could go back to being Minnesotans rather than warriors for protesting a lawful and approved federal law enforcement activity.

00:27:04.000 And Mark, I love where your head's at.

00:27:06.000 I mean, all this makes sense, but nothing makes sense when you're dealing with these radical leftists.

00:27:10.000 I mean, they feel very amped up to me.

00:27:12.000 I just, I can't help but wonder if Democrats might want to back off, but I see the people on, you can see the people on TikTok, on Blue Sky.

00:27:23.000 They're saying, like, we need to shoot ICE officers.

00:27:25.000 So let's game this out here, Mark.

00:27:27.000 So they're winning currently, as of four hours ago, the information war, right?

00:27:33.000 I saw it on Twitter X all weekend.

00:27:35.000 I mean, the shooting unleashes them.

00:27:38.000 They win when bad things happen because ICE are getting confronted in the streets.

00:27:43.000 Somebody gets shot.

00:27:44.000 Somebody gets killed.

00:27:46.000 That's actually a win for them.

00:27:48.000 So why would they want to back down when this tactic is seemingly working?

00:27:52.000 Why would Governor Waltz hand any cooperation or any sort of political win to President Trump?

00:27:58.000 There are some who wouldn't want to, but I believe, having spent a lot of time in the Twin Cities, I believe that the majority of those people would like normalcy.

00:28:08.000 The majority of the city, regardless of an individual's politics and the suburbs, would like the chaos to end.

00:28:16.000 And like I said, this is a harder city to calm down.

00:28:21.000 That's why this has happened.

00:28:22.000 They've got a post-George Floyd mentality.

00:28:25.000 The liberals there don't like the president.

00:28:28.000 But if the footprint gets reduced, you just have to realize what it's like for them now to have a federal force on the ground larger than their police force by a lot.

00:28:40.000 So will all the people on that signal chat want to stand down?

00:28:43.000 No.

00:28:44.000 But I believe that most of the electeds will, including the governor and the mayor.

00:28:47.000 And I believe they'll have a story to tell, which is the president can say, we won because we got local cooperation and we've already arrested a lot of people.

00:28:56.000 And the Democrats can say, we won because they've really reduced the federal footprint here.

00:29:02.000 And I think that's the recipe to calm this down and to get all but the most professional protesters to stand down.

00:29:07.000 Yeah, well, and again, we talk about where this started.

00:29:10.000 Yeah, it started with Joe Biden letting in millions of illegals.

00:29:13.000 That's obviously the starting point originally.

00:29:17.000 But also, there's this fraud story.

00:29:19.000 And you've got the Somali fraud rings that are bilking taxpayers and sending the money who knows where. 0.99

00:29:27.000 You know, millions and millions of dollars going through MSP, right?

00:29:31.000 So, you know, I don't know.

00:29:33.000 I'm sitting here going like, yeah, I would like to win the information war.

00:29:37.000 I think the base is completely committed to this.

00:29:39.000 I think we're building up immunities to the Saab stories in this information war. 0.84

00:29:44.000 But I don't know that about indies.

00:29:46.000 And I don't know about that about sympathetic, you know, middle-of-the-line moderate Dems, if there are any.

00:29:51.000 So I do want to win the information war, but I also want to get rid of these fraud rings.

00:29:54.000 I also want to get people in our country that shouldn't be here out. 1.00

00:29:57.000 So I'm sitting here.

00:29:59.000 I'm hearing you, but I'm also feeling conflicted.

00:30:01.000 I got to be honest.

00:30:02.000 So where can people follow you?

00:30:04.000 2A.tv and at Mark Halperin or at MarkNextopHalpern, all those places to see and listen to my shows.

00:30:15.000 Hi, folks.

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00:31:21.000 Okay, so Mark, there's going to be, and we're going to talk about this every time you probably come on for the rest of the year here, but everything is sort of angling towards midterms, right?

00:31:32.000 You can feel that.

00:31:33.000 This is why we always encourage, have courage during the off-cycle years.

00:31:38.000 That's when you need to be aggressive because you're going to get a lot of these weak-kneed Republicans.

00:31:42.000 You're going to get these moderates.

00:31:43.000 You're seeing Lisa Murkowski.

00:31:45.000 You're seeing Governor Stitt already sort of blink on this.

00:31:48.000 Minneapolis, maybe we're going to see a messaging pivot from the White House.

00:31:54.000 But there are larger themes happening, right?

00:31:58.000 You've got economic news.

00:31:59.000 You've got President Trump at Davos.

00:32:01.000 You've got foreign policy disputes.

00:32:04.000 You've got Greenland.

00:32:05.000 You've got Venezuela.

00:32:06.000 What does the president need to do, in your opinion?

00:32:10.000 You said, take this off the front page and kind of pivot to the next thing.

00:32:16.000 If you were in the room, what would you recommend the president do next?

00:32:19.000 Well, a couple things.

00:32:21.000 First of all, I think Governor Stitt would laugh if he said he was a moderate.

00:32:26.000 Governor of Oklahoma.

00:32:27.000 I've met Governor Stitt, by the way.

00:32:29.000 You think he's a moderate?

00:32:30.000 When he goes on CNN and says, what are we really doing here?

00:32:33.000 Yeah, he's, by the way, I never will trust, Mark, call me a cynic.

00:32:37.000 I will never trust a governor or a senator that's already said, you know, I'm not running again.

00:32:44.000 Listen, you never know what kind of, and I'm not accusing Governor Stitt of this, but I've seen it too many times.

00:32:49.000 You know, what gig are they angling for next?

00:32:53.000 What rubber chicken dinner do they want to get invited to next?

00:32:55.000 That's all I'll say.

00:32:56.000 For all we know, he wants to be Abby Phillips' main substitute host.

00:33:00.000 Let's see.

00:33:01.000 Okay, so again, I say this with respect.

00:33:04.000 I'm not a political analyst or a political reporter.

00:33:06.000 I'm an American analyst or American reporter.

00:33:09.000 And I think to just relentlessly focus on the midterms, again, I say with respect, is not the right thing for the country, even in an election year.

00:33:16.000 The president's job is to do well in the midterms by doing good things for the American people.

00:33:22.000 Same with Congress, same with Governor Waltz.

00:33:26.000 So the focus should not be, I think, on sort of the tactics and the fundraising, at least not yet.

00:33:32.000 This is hurting the president's poll numbers, and it's hurting the brand of the Republican Party, and it's hurting MAGA because people don't like what they're seeing.

00:33:40.000 And they don't like what they're seeing because it rubs up against their sense of what American government should be, what America should be.

00:33:48.000 People don't want to see government officials telling bald-faced lies that are contradicted by what they can see with their own eyes.

00:33:55.000 They don't want to see American citizens shot on the street by government officials.

00:33:59.000 And they don't want to see an enforcement operation that creates chaos when the whole point of this is to create more order and less chaos.

00:34:08.000 Okay.

00:34:09.000 So those are all things that I think the president can be behind and before and help him and the party politically by working on them.

00:34:17.000 If he does that, if he gets the focus on the extraordinary achievement of shutting down the border and the achievement of going into these cities with federal officials and taking out the bad ombres, taking out the people who are dangerous to the community and then deporting others as bandwidth allows, then I think one of the great promises made, promises kept, will be the focus of a lot of voters in the midterms.

00:34:40.000 This is not just MAG Democrats and this is not just moderate Democrats.

00:34:45.000 I talked to Republicans for the last 72 hours, including some major supporters of the president, who don't want to see this continue the way it's been going.

00:34:52.000 Again, they support the president's immigration agenda.

00:34:55.000 They just don't want to see this.

00:34:57.000 And I think if the president can work that out to emphasize the parts of this that have worked and can continue to work and mitigate the prospect of American citizens being shot by federal officers, I think that people will give him the party credit for making a mid-course correction.

00:35:14.000 So, Mark, there's obviously, despite your advice, there is a lot of fixation on the midterms.

00:35:19.000 And there's definitely on the right, I've seen this sort of all or nothing attitude that if the midterms are bad, it's all over for the administration or something.

00:35:29.000 It strikes me, as you noted, they already funded ICE, for example, for a long time with the big beautiful bill.

00:35:35.000 The president has obviously a lot of power to do things, even if he doesn't control Congress.

00:35:41.000 How much do you think it actually matters for President Trump's agenda that he control Congress?

00:35:46.000 And what do you think is likely to happen if he loses it?

00:35:48.000 Are we actually likely to see, for example, the impeachment every week that some people have talked about?

00:35:53.000 And if they do impeach Trump every week, does that actually matter?

00:35:57.000 Well, it's not just impeach him, right?

00:35:59.000 It's investigate him.

00:36:00.000 There's a hundred things they'd like to have subpoena power to investigate and to call members of the administration up to Capitol Hill to testify. 0.90

00:36:08.000 All those things are not just a distraction and a bandwidth suck, but they can create a lot of news because the media would love to see a 14-day investigation into the Trump family's crypto holdings or an investigation into policymaking around ICE.

00:36:26.000 So it matters for that.

00:36:27.000 It also matters if the president wants to pass anything.

00:36:30.000 The president can do a lot by executive action, but there's some things like the budget that Congress has to do.

00:36:36.000 And I'm a big believer that if the president does lose the House, he can turn that into a virtue by starting to pass some things in a bipartisan way that the current balance of power would let him do.

00:36:48.000 Now, that won't be popular with everyone in MAGA because it'll mean the president making deal with Hakeem Jeffries.

00:36:53.000 But the alternative is perhaps getting nothing done because they don't have 60 votes in the Senate.

00:36:59.000 I think that right now, the president's chances of keeping the House are underrated.

00:37:04.000 It's not the most likely outcome, but it's underrated.

00:37:07.000 And the Senate is still better than even to stay Republican.

00:37:11.000 So he needs to, again, the best thing he can do to make sure that he's got the best possible chance to keep the majority is to do things the American people like, to do things that are popular and to let Republicans talk about those things.

00:37:25.000 And if he does that, it won't take care of itself, but it will be the biggest down payment he could make on success in the midterms.

00:37:31.000 Yeah, and I think you're right, Mark.

00:37:34.000 I'm willing to concede the fact.

00:37:35.000 Something we've talked about on this show is that the whole masking of ICE agents, it strikes, I guess, the majority of Americans as un-American.

00:37:44.000 But they are getting doxxed.

00:37:45.000 And we do have the Sanctuary City issues where they're not willing to cooperate like they did with Obama, like they did with Clinton.

00:37:52.000 And it's TDS on the local level.

00:37:55.000 I mean, if there is some sort of detente that's possible where they actually, you know, LA, Portland, Minneapolis, New York are willing to say, hey, smaller footprint, but we'll cooperate at the local level.

00:38:07.000 We'll hand over detention requests of illegals. 0.98

00:38:10.000 I think that would be a huge win for the country.

00:38:11.000 And by the way, it would be safer for agents and cities and illegals.

00:38:15.000 If you care about the immigrants, it would be safer.

00:38:17.000 I agree.

00:38:18.000 I agree.

00:38:19.000 I totally agree.

00:38:20.000 You need rational policies.

00:38:21.000 And, you know, we haven't talked about this.

00:38:23.000 You guys may have talked about it earlier in the show.

00:38:24.000 I was doing other stuff, so I wasn't able to listen.

00:38:27.000 You know, to be so twisted to have every administration official out on Sunday saying, if you show up with a gun, you're a threat.

00:38:36.000 That is a twisting of the Second Amendment.

00:38:38.000 It's a twisting of the MAGA attitude towards the Second Amendment.

00:38:41.000 And so you've got to get policies that you can defend.

00:38:45.000 And they can defend the mission here.

00:38:48.000 They can defend what they want to do with deportations.

00:38:51.000 They can't defend saying a guy who shows up with a gun is a threat automatically.

00:38:56.000 They can't defend claiming the guy's a domestic terrorist without any evidence.

00:39:00.000 I agree.

00:39:00.000 And that's why you're seeing Tom Homans, who says, let's have an investigation go in.

00:39:04.000 Tom Homans isn't going to say, I'm quite sure anyone who shows up with a gun is a threat.

00:39:09.000 No, I think we bungled the messaging right at the jump.

00:39:13.000 I think that's fair.

00:39:14.000 And we can do better.

00:39:15.000 And we will.

00:39:15.000 Mark Halperin, thank you so much.

00:39:17.000 Thank you, guys.

00:39:18.000 Good to see you.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 27, 2026

How Trump Can Win the ICE Showdown And the Midterms

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