The Charlie Kirk Show - February 25, 2026


President Trump's Triumphant State of the Union Aftermath


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

181.80028

Word Count

6,463

Sentence Count

511


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Trump's State of the Union was a barn burner of a speech. It was the longest SOTU address in U.S. history, beating the previous record of one hour and 48 minutes set by Bill Clinton in 1995.

Transcript

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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.
00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.
00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.
00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.
00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.
00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.
00:00:28.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.
00:00:31.000 Go start a turning point USA college chapter, go start a turning point USA high school chapter.
00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.
00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.
00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.
00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same.
00:00:45.000 Here I am.
00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.
00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:49.000 Here we go.
00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts, and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000 All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:11.000 I'm still in D.C. after an amazing State of the Union speech last night.
00:01:16.000 Blake is in Phoenix.
00:01:18.000 Blake, last night was a barn burner of a speech.
00:01:22.000 I was honored to be inside the gallery to watch it and really felt the energy up close.
00:01:29.000 But you guys, you did a stream last night.
00:01:32.000 Poso was there, Cliff Maloney, Danny from the team.
00:01:35.000 I called in.
00:01:36.000 I'm going to start with you.
00:01:38.000 It was the longest State of the Union address in U.S. history, clocking in at nearly one hour and 48 minutes.
00:01:44.000 Our president's almost 80 years old, and he beat the previous record by Bill Clinton.
00:01:50.000 What did you make of it watching from, I guess, the studio, more of a TV environment, as opposed to being inside?
00:01:56.000 Well, I think they're pretty similar.
00:01:59.000 The president, we all know President Trump has a flair for imagery.
00:02:04.000 He has a flair for the theatrical.
00:02:07.000 He thinks a lot about how will this look on television.
00:02:11.000 And he took full advantage of that.
00:02:13.000 He, throughout the speech, we've always had, you know, past presidents would also bring guests and they'd shout them out.
00:02:19.000 Obama did that.
00:02:19.000 Biden did that.
00:02:20.000 Bush did that.
00:02:21.000 But President Trump really thinks about how to take it to the next level.
00:02:25.000 So the way he has the U.S. Olympic. Hockey team walk in in the early part of his speech as part of the tired of winning line.
00:02:33.000 And then, of course, the shout out to Charlie with Erica there, which I'm sure we'll play that clip again in a moment.
00:02:39.000 And then, not one, but two Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during the ceremony.
00:02:44.000 It really was a strong mix of what we expect from the State of the Union, which is he's shouting out his accomplishments over the past year and laying out what he thinks should be done in the next.
00:02:58.000 The more pure Americana that a lot of Americans appreciate of celebrating the country, celebrating the country's heroes.
00:03:04.000 And it was a consistently good visual throughout.
00:03:09.000 And I guess has to be said, we'll get the good midterm visual where he says, let's stand for American citizens.
00:03:15.000 And you have a bunch of people not standing.
00:03:18.000 I think it really was showcasing his talent.
00:03:22.000 The guy who's been on TV as much as he has, it showed that side of his talent set very well.
00:03:27.000 Well, it's interesting.
00:03:29.000 We have this clip.
00:03:30.000 I mean, It was electric inside the gallery last night.
00:03:35.000 And people don't realize how small that space is.
00:03:37.000 And it was built, you know, before a time where he had sound amplification, right?
00:03:41.000 So you can hear everything that's going on.
00:03:43.000 You can hear when Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tolibar are shouting at him, you can hear what they're saying.
00:03:48.000 I had a visual right over the top of them.
00:03:51.000 So I got to see them right up close.
00:03:54.000 But here's what's crazy I'm getting the impression from inside the gallery I was like, this is a triumph.
00:03:59.000 This is a 10 out of 10.
00:04:01.000 An absolute home run, or as Jack Posovic said last night, it wasn't a home run.
00:04:06.000 It was a home run derby.
00:04:07.000 It's just hit after hit after hit.
00:04:09.000 And it seems like, even according to CNN, this was a successful speech.
00:04:13.000 Play Cup 460.
00:04:14.000 Among speech watchers tonight, 64% say his policies will move the U.S. in the right direction.
00:04:19.000 And look at the growth President Trump made over the speech.
00:04:23.000 So, pre-speech, it was 54% of speech watchers said his policies will move the U.S. in the right direction.
00:04:30.000 After the speech, that number goes up 10 percentage points.
00:04:33.000 So, Donald Trump made some progress.
00:04:35.000 With people watching the speech from their pre-speech expectations to what they saw in the speech itself.
00:04:41.000 That, I think, is one of the best, you know, sort of data points that we can take from this, Blake.
00:04:47.000 But, I mean, listen, he focused on a turnaround for the ages, quote unquote, and declared the golden age of America after one year in office.
00:04:55.000 He emphasized economic revival, border security, crime reduction, and global strength, which he used to repeatedly criticize Democrats for past failures.
00:05:05.000 And obstruction, their current obstruction.
00:05:07.000 You know, we talked about the.
00:05:09.000 He paid special tribute to Charlie, calling him a great friend.
00:05:14.000 It was a beautiful moment.
00:05:16.000 Here we go.
00:05:16.000 Let's play it.
00:05:17.000 Let's go ahead and play it.
00:05:18.000 We should.
00:05:19.000 472.
00:05:20.000 This last year, there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity, and belief in God.
00:05:27.000 This is especially true among young people.
00:05:30.000 And a big part of that had to do with my great friend, Charlie.
00:05:35.000 Kirk, great guy, great man.
00:05:41.000 So last year Charlie was violently murdered by an assassin and martyred, really martyred for his beliefs.
00:05:51.000 His wonderful wife Erica is with us tonight.
00:05:54.000 Erica, please stand.
00:06:03.000 In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
00:06:15.000 So, Andrew, I was wondering we couldn't always see what the crowd was doing.
00:06:20.000 It looked like they did pan out to it, and it looked like almost everyone was standing.
00:06:24.000 And the ones who weren't, I was looking, it looked like it might be old veterans who can't stand easily.
00:06:28.000 Since you were in the chamber, were you able to see did the whole chamber consistently stand, or if not, who was staying seated?
00:06:36.000 You mean for the Charlie people?
00:06:37.000 For Charlie, yeah.
00:06:38.000 Particularly?
00:06:39.000 Yeah.
00:06:39.000 It was, it was, most of them were standing.
00:06:42.000 There were a few people that were still seated.
00:06:42.000 Yeah.
00:06:45.000 There were some Democrats that just simply would not stand.
00:06:48.000 You know, there was a really old guy that just like punched over.
00:06:51.000 I didn't even recognize him because he didn't lift his head up and he was just looking at his phone the whole time.
00:06:56.000 But, you know, I think the ones that were engaged in the speech basically stood up for that moment, I will say.
00:07:02.000 And, you know, that's good.
00:07:04.000 And, and I, at one point though, he, he's towards the end of that clip, he said, we need to stand against political violence.
00:07:10.000 And I would say 80% of the Democrat side of the House did not stand.
00:07:15.000 And I just got frustrated.
00:07:17.000 I shouted down at them because I'm right over the top and I realized they could hear me.
00:07:21.000 I said, stand up, you coward, stand up.
00:07:23.000 Because it just infuriated me in that moment that they wouldn't stand up for a call against political violence.
00:07:32.000 And that really was the through line, Blake, about I think some of the biggest moments from this speech.
00:07:40.000 Yes, President Trump lifted up.
00:07:41.000 A patriotic vision.
00:07:42.000 Yes, the ending was just amazing.
00:07:44.000 It's, you know, where God needs a nation for a miracle, He knows who to call.
00:07:48.000 I mean, these kind of moments were hugely inspiring and they presented this positive vision of the future.
00:07:54.000 But the moments that I will never forget was when Trump asked, Hey, stand up if you think America should fight for American citizens first.
00:08:04.000 And the Democrats didn't stand.
00:08:05.000 Totally shameful.
00:08:06.000 President Trump was right to call them out.
00:08:08.000 The political violence moment that I just mentioned.
00:08:11.000 And then, you know, with Irina Zarutka, it was her parents sitting up there crying, and they wouldn't stand.
00:08:19.000 And these are people who are wearing the Ukrainian flag.
00:08:22.000 And here's a Ukrainian refugee who flees to America only to get murdered by a monster that we let out after being arrested 12 times.
00:08:28.000 Those images, I will never get out of my mind being in the actual gallery.
00:08:34.000 They're etched into my memory forever, truly.
00:08:38.000 It was something I'll never forget.
00:08:40.000 Blake, this was an amazing moment that I think the polling shows President Trump was triumphant.
00:08:46.000 And here's my bottom line take.
00:08:48.000 And I felt this in the room, but it's good to see that everybody across social media is kind of reacting in the same way.
00:08:55.000 I mean, besides Democrats.
00:08:57.000 This was the Trump that led us to victory in 2024.
00:09:01.000 This is the Trump that won the popular vote.
00:09:03.000 This is the Trump that won all seven swing states.
00:09:05.000 This is the president that can lead us to victory in the midterms.
00:09:08.000 There's been a lot of doomers, a lot of black pillars.
00:09:11.000 I felt like this was the tone.
00:09:13.000 This was the pace that was set.
00:09:15.000 We need to follow this through.
00:09:16.000 And Blake, I couldn't help but notice he even integrated some of those Fabrizio slides and the presentation about banning stock trading.
00:09:24.000 We had that great moment with Nancy Pelosi where the camera panned to her and he brought her up.
00:09:29.000 He talked about price transparency.
00:09:30.000 He talked about cutting out big insurance companies.
00:09:33.000 These populist wins.
00:09:34.000 That kind of pierce the noise and get to the normal American voters.
00:09:38.000 Andrew, we actually have a pretty funny clip where because he made fun of Nancy Pelosi and she was asked about it afterwards and seemed very caught off guard because at least one Democrat applauded for it.
00:09:50.000 I think that would be a pretty fun one to play.
00:09:52.000 Let's do 448.
00:09:55.000 There was one moment, Madam Speaker, where he called you out specifically around, of course, congressional stock trading.
00:10:02.000 What do you say back to him?
00:10:04.000 I say back to him, as that's what members said, look at your own self.
00:10:10.000 The inference he wants to draw is there was something wrong with that, which there wasn't.
00:10:14.000 And if there was, people get prosecuted for it.
00:10:17.000 For a long time now, we've been trying to pass this law.
00:10:21.000 It doesn't have, now it has more support than it had before.
00:10:27.000 Elizabeth Warren stood up and applauded.
00:10:29.000 Elizabeth Warren stood and applauded tonight when the president talked about it.
00:10:33.000 Well, that we all did.
00:10:34.000 I did too.
00:10:35.000 He said, did Nancy stand up?
00:10:37.000 Yeah, I did too.
00:10:38.000 A lot of people stood up.
00:10:39.000 A lot of Democrats stood up.
00:10:43.000 That shows, Blake, that this, you know, I love this phrase.
00:10:47.000 It breaks containment.
00:10:48.000 This is why I love these ideas like banning stock trading.
00:10:51.000 Like, you could argue there are problems.
00:10:54.000 I would argue that it's central, though, because it's corruption in our judicial or our legislative process, right?
00:11:00.000 And you're getting bought and paid for shills in Congress as opposed to people willing to do the right thing for the people.
00:11:04.000 But here's the thing the people understand these messages, it pierces it, it breaks containment.
00:11:11.000 And the fact that CNN is even forced to do that, That segment and have a little moment of honest journalism, and you get Elizabeth Warren getting on board with it.
00:11:21.000 These are big wins that you can put on the board and you could go and ride them into the midterm.
00:11:26.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:11:27.000 It's, I think that would be a strong platform.
00:11:30.000 Just as you say, you see those headline items, and it's not necessarily the stuff we consider the biggest accomplishments.
00:11:39.000 As their presentation said, securing the border was great, actually of existential importance for the United States, but annoyingly, it's not something where you just stamp this guy secured the border.
00:11:49.000 And you just win the midterms.
00:11:51.000 It should be that way.
00:11:52.000 It's not that way.
00:11:53.000 That's how the human brain is.
00:11:55.000 But having your next thing that you can run on, which is, hey, we have this proposal to ban stock trading.
00:12:02.000 It's not passing because of these opponents.
00:12:05.000 I think that's a good message to have.
00:12:07.000 I think the homeowners' stuff is a good message to have.
00:12:11.000 Yeah, exactly.
00:12:12.000 People need a villain.
00:12:13.000 And so when you see people that are blocking something as common sense as banning congressional stock trading, you have a villain, and then you can.
00:12:21.000 Go after that villain.
00:12:22.000 And I think that's an effective messaging tactic.
00:12:25.000 All right.
00:12:25.000 So here's, I think, the there were so many good moments the Congressional Medal of Honor, the little girl that was injured and is learning to walk again after being hit by an illegal with a commercial driver's license.
00:12:39.000 All of these moments were huge.
00:12:41.000 But this to me was the one that will live the longest.
00:12:44.000 And this is where President Trump asked them to stand up if they support American citizens first, and Democrats refused.
00:12:52.000 461.
00:12:52.000 Tonight I'm inviting every legislature to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle.
00:13:00.000 If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support.
00:13:05.000 The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.
00:13:31.000 Isn't that a shame?
00:13:32.000 You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up.
00:13:36.000 You should be ashamed of yourself.
00:13:39.000 You should be ashamed of it.
00:13:40.000 He baited them and they took the bait.
00:13:43.000 Their hatred of ICE, of DHS, the people that are keeping us safe, is so extreme.
00:13:48.000 It's so extraordinary.
00:13:49.000 They're so beholden to the radical left of their base that they refuse to stand up for American citizens.
00:13:55.000 Absolutely shocking.
00:13:56.000 In that moment, by the way, I will just say in the gallery, Blake, I couldn't actually hear what he was saying for part of it because the acoustics were such that he was still talking and people were already making noise.
00:14:06.000 I couldn't.
00:14:07.000 Make out what he was saying.
00:14:08.000 But all hell broke loose on the floor.
00:14:10.000 I mean, you had shouting left and right.
00:14:12.000 And the fact that President Trump, from an optic standpoint, overpowered that noise and just kept hitting them and came back with all that energy, that dynamism, he came back and said, You should be ashamed of yourself.
00:14:25.000 You should be ashamed.
00:14:26.000 I knew that a big moment had just happened, even though I missed the point.
00:14:29.000 You could feel it in the room, just absolute like the tension.
00:14:32.000 You could cut it with a knife.
00:14:34.000 Yeah, it's a remarkable image.
00:14:36.000 A lot of people were saying, Could you cut an ad based on that?
00:14:39.000 I don't know that I've ever actually seen an ad that used the State of the Union.
00:14:43.000 It would be interesting to see, but it certainly, for us, is the perfect symbol of how it is.
00:14:49.000 That you go back to that 1990, I think it was 96 or 97 State of the Union, Bill Clinton boasting about his efforts to deport illegal immigrants.
00:14:58.000 30 years later, you have Democrats just, they are the party of illegal immigrants.
00:15:03.000 That is what defines them, arguably more than anything besides transgender surgeries, I guess.
00:15:10.000 Yeah, the lines have been drawn.
00:15:12.000 You are either for the American people or you are not.
00:15:16.000 That moment where he baited them and they took the bait is the defining moment of that speech, and they are going to live to regret it.
00:15:22.000 I truly believe that.
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00:15:40.000 On TikTok, teenagers have over 50 built in protections right from when they join.
00:15:45.000 Accounts for teens all start private by default, they're not open to the entire world.
00:15:49.000 And for those under 16, direct messages are turned off.
00:15:53.000 Only their friends can comment on their videos.
00:15:56.000 And that kind of approach matters because feeling confident and comfortable about these platforms your teenagers are on shouldn't mean digging through a bunch of menus and trying to set everything up yourself and worrying that you got it wrong.
00:16:07.000 TikTok is taking a proactive approach.
00:16:10.000 Their protections are built in from the moment those teenagers join so that safety and peace of mind for parents is there right from the start.
00:16:18.000 All of this is to say, when safety comes first, discovery and creativity can follow without fear.
00:16:24.000 Learn more by going to ticktock.comslash guardiansguide.
00:16:28.000 That's ticktock.comslash guardiansguide.
00:16:35.000 Congressman Byron Donald's from the great state of Florida.
00:16:38.000 He's also running for governor for the great state of Florida.
00:16:42.000 Welcome back to the show, Congressman.
00:16:44.000 What a night.
00:16:45.000 I ran into you in the halls afterwards.
00:16:47.000 You were, I would say, in a very good mood.
00:16:50.000 You were in a very good mood.
00:16:51.000 You were doing a bunch of media hits.
00:16:54.000 Tell us your reaction.
00:16:55.000 30,000 foot view.
00:16:57.000 Grade the president's speech.
00:16:58.000 The president hit a home run last night.
00:17:02.000 You know, look, let me put it this way.
00:17:04.000 This is my sixth State of the Union.
00:17:05.000 What I saw last night was really a speech that unified America.
00:17:09.000 It talked about America's greatness.
00:17:11.000 It didn't talk about America's political divides.
00:17:14.000 It actually celebrated, obviously, the United States hockey team and them coming in with the gold medals.
00:17:19.000 That was probably the best moment I've seen in a State of the Union overall.
00:17:23.000 Definitely the best one I've been a part of.
00:17:25.000 In six years, but honoring our World War II veteran, 100 years old, honoring the National Guardsman who was on patrol here in DC, whose praying mother, basically through the grace of God, he is still with us today, him being honored, honoring the helicopter pilot in the mission to bring Maduro to justice here in the United States.
00:17:48.000 It was a unifying speech.
00:17:50.000 Of course, the president talked about policy.
00:17:52.000 He got into domestic policy and how he's bringing back the American economy, how no tax on tips, no tax on overtime.
00:17:59.000 The largest tax cut for Social Security recipients in American history, how that's helping people keep more money in their pocket.
00:18:06.000 The president wants to take on housing.
00:18:08.000 He wants to get Blackstone and these institutional investors out of buying homes and taking them out from underneath the feet of the American people.
00:18:15.000 He wants to make sure that we're driving down energy prices, driving down food prices, and then, of course, deporting criminal illegal aliens and helping from the leadership perspective of the president of the United States, helping to end conflicts around the globe.
00:18:29.000 It was a great speech.
00:18:30.000 And the only thing that was damning is that the Democrats couldn't even get out of their own way to acknowledge the fact that every elected official in America, whether you're on Capitol Hill or local government or state government, we all have a responsibility, first and foremost, to the American people and to the United States of America.
00:18:49.000 That truly is what America First means.
00:18:51.000 That's our responsibility.
00:18:53.000 And the Democrats are so deranged with Donald Trump.
00:18:58.000 They just so lost it.
00:19:00.000 They couldn't even acknowledge a simple question.
00:19:02.000 Who comes first, the American people or criminal illegal aliens?
00:19:06.000 I mean, I just think their party is lost.
00:19:08.000 They're gone.
00:19:09.000 I saw you playing Charlie's take from DJ Daniels last year at the joint session of Congress last year.
00:19:16.000 And it was the same thing.
00:19:17.000 Like, if you can't even acknowledge that, you don't deserve political power because your worldview is so warped, we can't trust you with that authority.
00:19:26.000 I totally agree.
00:19:27.000 And, you know, I do believe Charlie said this last year during the joint address that, you know, there's a spiritual sickness that has taken over the Democrat Party.
00:19:35.000 And I just, I was on full display last night and being in that gallery and hearing the shouts and the jeers from some of the, you know, by the way, Nancy Pelosi's a liar.
00:19:47.000 She's saying you could barely hear it, barely, like, you know, hear it in the room.
00:19:51.000 I heard it, like, loud and clear.
00:19:54.000 The acoustics in that room are incredible.
00:19:55.000 So you're hearing everything everybody's saying.
00:19:58.000 Total lie from her, by the way.
00:20:00.000 I got to get your reaction to some of your colleagues in Congress that are unhappy with the president's speech.
00:20:05.000 This is Democrat Rep Janelle Bynum.
00:20:07.000 She says it was racist.
00:20:09.000 453.
00:20:10.000 What did you think about that moment when the president was asking Democrats to stand up for American citizens during that part of the speech when he was talking about immigration and immigration enforcement efforts?
00:20:21.000 There's thinly veiled racist language, anti immigrant language in what he was asking, and that was uncomfortable.
00:20:31.000 Your reaction, Congressman.
00:20:32.000 That's just crazy.
00:20:34.000 I don't even know what she's talking about.
00:20:34.000 That's crazy.
00:20:36.000 How is that thinly veiled?
00:20:38.000 The president was clear.
00:20:39.000 We are going to deport criminal illegal aliens.
00:20:42.000 We are going to protect the American people.
00:20:44.000 How is that racist?
00:20:46.000 Jocelyn Nungari was not a young little white girl.
00:20:49.000 She was a young Hispanic girl.
00:20:51.000 She was raped and murdered by criminal illegal aliens.
00:20:53.000 How is it racist to stand for her and her mother?
00:20:56.000 All the other young girls, Rachel Morn, who lost her life, how is that racist to stand for her life?
00:21:02.000 This is craziness.
00:21:03.000 And this is like I'm telling you, man, the Democrats have lost it because they would rather continue to drive these wedges using race, which, by the way, the American people are sick of it.
00:21:12.000 They're over it.
00:21:12.000 They're done.
00:21:13.000 They've heard the talking points now for 15 years in American politics.
00:21:16.000 They're tired of everything that a Republican proposes as being somehow racist or bigoted.
00:21:21.000 It's just simply not true.
00:21:23.000 And everybody knows it.
00:21:24.000 So if that's the take that she's going to have, it demonstrates further why the American people cannot trust Democrats with the reins of power here in Washington or, quite frankly, in any state in the country.
00:21:37.000 Yeah, I mean, I totally agree.
00:21:39.000 There's one other one I want to play here for you.
00:21:42.000 Mocking President Trump giving the Congressional Medal of Honor to our brave military men and the nearly 100 year old war veteran.
00:21:53.000 This is your colleague, Democrat Rep Robin Kelly, 451.
00:21:58.000 I was there, I was there, and it was as horrific as I thought it would be.
00:22:04.000 Did you leave early?
00:22:06.000 Absolutely.
00:22:08.000 It was like a.
00:22:09.000 An award show.
00:22:10.000 You get a medal.
00:22:14.000 Man.
00:22:14.000 You get a medal.
00:22:15.000 You get a medal.
00:22:16.000 Congressman, your reaction.
00:22:18.000 Acknowledging a 100 year old World War II vet who was in World War II, was in Korea, was a helicopter pilot and all those.
00:22:26.000 I believe he was a helicopter pilot.
00:22:28.000 Acknowledging his service to this nation is what we should do.
00:22:33.000 Quite frankly, I'm surprised it's not happened at a State of the Union before.
00:22:36.000 It probably should have because it's on display for the entire nation and the entire world to see.
00:22:42.000 That when you sacrifice for this country, you are acknowledged by the highest ranking official in our government, which is the President of the United States.
00:22:50.000 And so, if they take it as some sort of award show because they're trying to diminish Donald Trump, they're not diminishing him, they diminish themselves.
00:22:57.000 Because when the American people see that clip and they're going to see it over and over again in social media, normal people in the country are going to say, you know what?
00:23:07.000 Thank you, Donald Trump, for acknowledging American greatness, acknowledging that veteran of our armed forces.
00:23:15.000 Somebody who truly laid it on the line to protect America and to help make America the great country that it is.
00:23:22.000 Congressman, I got to throw 515 here.
00:23:25.000 You know, one of the things about this moment last night is I feel like it's going to give us massive, massive momentum going into the midterms, going into 2026.
00:23:35.000 You are running for governor of the great state of Florida.
00:23:37.000 This is a recent poll, shows you at 31%.
00:23:40.000 Your closest competitor is at 6%.
00:23:45.000 Tell us, what does last night mean for your race?
00:23:48.000 What does it mean for Florida?
00:23:49.000 What does it mean for what you're going to do down there?
00:23:52.000 What is your plan?
00:23:53.000 Well, I think last night's speech invigorates the country.
00:23:56.000 I think Donald Trump was crystal clear about his vision of how to make America affordable again for our people.
00:24:03.000 And a lot of that work has already started.
00:24:04.000 He's going to continue to do that.
00:24:06.000 It also is about partnering with the president as Florida's next governor to make sure that we're doing everything we can to build the housing we need in this country for young Americans.
00:24:18.000 Who are in college right now trying to figure out a way to get married, have kids, and build their American dream in Florida.
00:24:24.000 And also, how we help seniors on fixed incomes be able to live week by week, month by month.
00:24:29.000 That's where no tax on Social Security really comes in.
00:24:32.000 And so, I think the president did the absolute right thing last night.
00:24:35.000 Talked about the rebuilding that did have to occur from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris because the economy was atrocious and security in the nation was atrocious, and how he's working every single day to rebuild that.
00:24:47.000 And I also thought it was a A speech of true hope of what America is truly capable of, the golden age being upon us.
00:24:54.000 And I will tell you, down in Florida, the golden age has been with us for quite some time.
00:24:59.000 We are roaring.
00:25:00.000 We have new reports saying that we expect the economy to grow, to be the 14th largest economy in the world in Florida.
00:25:07.000 That's great credit to President Trump, great credit to Governor DeSantis.
00:25:13.000 And so we're going to just keep that ball going and growing.
00:25:16.000 And I think the president, what he did last night, is going to help Republicans across the board when it comes to the elections this November.
00:25:22.000 You know, a lot of people move to Florida, especially during COVID.
00:25:26.000 You are in the state from an affordability standpoint, almost a victim of your own success because you know, you got a lot of people moving in, it drives up home prices, things like that.
00:25:34.000 What this affordability message, what are you going to do in Florida specifically if you're elected governor?
00:25:40.000 Well, number one, we're going to address uh, the what it how long it takes to build housing in our state.
00:25:46.000 Um, National Association of Home Builders says that 30 percent of the cost to build a home is government permitting.
00:25:52.000 We're going to shrink that timeline down.
00:25:55.000 We're going to get government out of the way of contractors building homes.
00:25:58.000 If you can get that price down of what it is to deliver a home, you can get the price down for a young family trying to buy that home.
00:26:05.000 Number two, I hope the governor is successful with the legislature to eliminate homestead property taxes in our state.
00:26:12.000 I fully support that.
00:26:13.000 One of the big things that we're also going to have to tackle is portability of homestead exemption credits.
00:26:19.000 If we get rid of it, great, there's no harm, no foul.
00:26:21.000 But we have seniors in our state who bought a home a long time ago, their property tax bill is actually quite low.
00:26:27.000 And if they sell that home to downsize, their property tax bill is going to shoot through the roof, even though they're getting a smaller unit.
00:26:35.000 So, Florida is going to need to address that.
00:26:36.000 Hopefully, the legislature gets that done.
00:26:39.000 But number three, it's about government efficiencies.
00:26:41.000 And number four, it's about making sure that our young kids in the K 12 system, college system, university system, that every kid in Florida is on a pathway to economic success.
00:26:51.000 We want them to be able to graduate, put food on the table, and build their families in the great state of Florida.
00:26:57.000 My wife and I are really blessed.
00:26:59.000 To really build the Florida dream.
00:27:00.000 We built that Florida dream.
00:27:02.000 We're excited about it.
00:27:03.000 We're truly blessed.
00:27:04.000 We want every kid in Florida to build that same dream for themselves.
00:27:07.000 And there's no better place to do it in America than Florida.
00:27:10.000 Yeah, well, amen to that.
00:27:12.000 And I think that portability issue is very fascinating.
00:27:15.000 And what you said about Gen Z and the next generation, that's a message near and dear to our hearts here on the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:27:22.000 Obviously, it's something Charlie cared a lot about.
00:27:24.000 We've got to make it more affordable for young kids to get their foot in the economic door.
00:27:28.000 So thank you for focusing on that.
00:27:29.000 And I encourage you to keep up the great work.
00:27:31.000 Charlie endorsed Byron Donald.
00:27:34.000 Thank you, sir.
00:27:34.000 Great to see you.
00:27:35.000 Thank you.
00:27:36.000 Take it easy, guys.
00:27:39.000 Hi, folks.
00:27:40.000 Andrew Colvett here.
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00:28:38.000 So, one of the other themes, I think one of the big moments that we have to hit here, Blake, is this idea of fraud, right?
00:28:47.000 So, President Trump announced JD Vance would be leading the fraud effort.
00:28:52.000 Obviously, huge story.
00:28:53.000 Nick Shirley, Somali fraud.
00:28:55.000 By the way, watching Ilhan Omar freak out at this segment was absolutely priceless.
00:29:00.000 It was beautiful in the room.
00:29:01.000 You could just see this shattered her person.
00:29:05.000 Blake, what did you make of this moment?
00:29:07.000 Is JD Vance the right guy for the job?
00:29:09.000 Do you like the presentation?
00:29:11.000 I'm definitely glad it was a part of the speech.
00:29:14.000 I think that went very viral in our circles, of course, for basically a month.
00:29:19.000 The biggest story was the Somali fraud scandal.
00:29:23.000 It broke containment, it became a subject of comedians and so on.
00:29:27.000 And I think it's something to drive home.
00:29:29.000 You really want to identify it, really, it gives life to the stuff about illegal immigration, legal immigration for that matter, about the sense that Democrats are on the side of non citizens and against citizens, is that they will.
00:29:43.000 Defend and support and enable all these fraud things.
00:29:47.000 And I think putting the vice president in charge of it is a good way to keep that around.
00:29:52.000 If you're regularly announcing new findings, new indictments, if there's new ways to just keep that in the bloodstream over the year to come, that's it can entrench it in the popular mind as a big deal.
00:30:06.000 And there's hopefully a lot to go for there.
00:30:09.000 Obviously, Minnesota, we've seen it happen over and over again.
00:30:12.000 But you look around in California, they have.
00:30:16.000 Medicaid fraud that's so obviously concentrated in certain places, you know, you have 52 hospices in a few block radius.
00:30:23.000 That's obviously fraudulent.
00:30:25.000 In New York, the New York Post has found where there's like senior care, senior adult daycare centers.
00:30:31.000 And these are very obviously just a way to con the federal government.
00:30:34.000 They're not providing the services that that's intended for.
00:30:37.000 In Maine, they have the exact same Somali kind of rings of businesses that look highly suspicious.
00:30:45.000 Oregon's got it, Washington's got it.
00:30:47.000 You can go to one state after another.
00:30:49.000 And I think if they're serious about this, if they put real prosecutors and investigators on this beat and subpoena the documents and show what they're finding, they'll rapidly produce stories that can be very good for our movement.
00:31:03.000 Yeah, and I think putting JD Vance in charge is a really good move.
00:31:09.000 If JD Vance wants to be the GOP nominee for president in 2028, again, I don't mean to get ahead of ourselves here, but you got to believe he's incentivized.
00:31:19.000 He's going to want to have real wins, real actionable wins on this front because it is such a galling problem in our culture and our society when American taxpayers are struggling with affordability, yet at the same time, you have foreigners that have moved here ripping off their taxpayers.
00:31:38.000 And I love the way that we sometimes put it on this show.
00:31:41.000 I think it's important where you actually say, hey, how many American taxpayers have to pay taxes for a lifetime to make up for $19 billion of Somali fraud?
00:31:51.000 They're ripping out huge chunks of taxpayer base with all of this fraud.
00:31:56.000 And then you expand that circle to California, Washington, Oregon, Maine, like you said, Ohio.
00:32:02.000 This is a rampant, widespread abuse of the American taxpayers that has to be rectified.
00:32:07.000 And I think JD Vance is the right guy to do it.
00:32:09.000 Let's go ahead and play.
00:32:10.000 Actually, JD.
00:32:11.000 Was just on Fox this morning.
00:32:13.000 So I want to play some of these.
00:32:15.000 So I listen, I have lots of here.
00:32:19.000 We'll do 508, him responding to exactly this the fraud story.
00:32:23.000 508.
00:32:23.000 I think that's unfortunate that nobody has ever tried to take a systematic look at how much fraud there is in the federal government.
00:32:30.000 How many illegal aliens are on Medicaid?
00:32:32.000 We know that it's billions and billions of dollars that should go to American citizens.
00:32:36.000 It's going to illegal aliens.
00:32:37.000 How many fraudulent daycare centers have been set up where that money should go to American citizens?
00:32:43.000 to help their kids get into childcare.
00:32:45.000 Instead, it's being stolen from them by illegal aliens in our country.
00:32:49.000 The Department of Justice is going to be investigating and where possible, throwing fraudsters in prison.
00:32:54.000 We're going to be looking at income tax records.
00:32:56.000 We're going to be trying to understand how it is that the American people have been defrauded.
00:33:01.000 And the president and I talked about this a couple of months ago and said, what if we just did everything that we could to stop the fraud that's being committed against the American taxpayer?
00:33:11.000 The president said, great idea.
00:33:13.000 Let's do it.
00:33:14.000 And we're going to work on that very aggressively over the next year.
00:33:17.000 Very aggressively.
00:33:19.000 I think that's a promising sign.
00:33:21.000 I really trust JD to get.
00:33:22.000 I mean, he's a guy and understands the difference between theater and actual wins.
00:33:26.000 Trust me on that.
00:33:27.000 So I'm positive in that direction.
00:33:29.000 Blake, I want to really quickly.
00:33:31.000 Well, and it comes together because it is.
00:33:31.000 Oh, go ahead.
00:33:34.000 It actually.
00:33:35.000 Think about the quality leering center.
00:33:37.000 It is something where theater and real wins overlap because can you solve.
00:33:43.000 If there's $200 billion in fraud, are you going to solve all that overnight?
00:33:46.000 Frankly, no.
00:33:47.000 A lot of that's going to be tough to.
00:33:49.000 Find a lot of it's going to be tough to indict and prosecute.
00:33:52.000 You're not going to solve fraud overnight, but you can get a very strong symbolic win if you can even find a really egregious offender and make them really famous.
00:34:02.000 You drive the problem home, and that can turn into political and policy wins, even if you're not solving everything.
00:34:08.000 You find you can make an example of a few really bad offenders.
00:34:11.000 No, I agree with that.
00:34:13.000 And you know, a lot of times you'll hear these critiques on social media where they say, We got to do more than a speech, or you got to do more than just a documentary or something like that.
00:34:22.000 Understand there's a continuum.
00:34:23.000 You have to bring these issues front and center to the American people.
00:34:27.000 You have to change the culture.
00:34:28.000 You have to change the way people think about stuff because then that creates political momentum to get actual wins.
00:34:33.000 That creates the moral backing for prosecutors to bring actual charges.
00:34:38.000 These things all are connected.
00:34:40.000 You have to win the PR war, the air war, sometimes first in order to win the ground war.
00:34:44.000 So I just want people to be encouraged that sometimes when you think, oh, it's all noise, it's all theater, no, these things play in tandem sometimes necessarily.
00:34:55.000 Because you need to get the moral backing of the American people behind it.
00:34:58.000 Like, I was going to ask you about Iran because.
00:35:01.000 JD Vance talked about it, but we're going to have to wait for hour two.
00:35:05.000 So hopefully we get some time in hour two to talk about Iran, because that was something you and I were both looking for.
00:35:09.000 Go ahead.
00:35:10.000 Well, someone asked Is JD being given an impossible task?
00:35:13.000 A big difference between this and what happened with Kamala on the border, for example, is we actually do want to stop fraud, whereas Democrats never wanted to solve the border, and they still gave it to Kamala.
00:35:23.000 So, key difference.
00:35:29.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.