The Charlie Kirk Show - Rose Garden 'Liberation Day' Reaction

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Tim the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:01.000 Immediate reaction, President Trump at the Rose Garden, exclusively here on the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:06.000 We break it all down, what President Trump announced, and the reciprocal tariffs, and there's a lot of them.

00:00:12.000 There's a lot of reciprocity happening.

00:00:14.000 In fact, just to go through them very quickly, there will be a 34% tariff on China, 26% tariff on India, 25% tariff on South Korea, 24% tariff on Japan, 32% tariff on Taiwan, 10% tariff on the United States,

00:00:29.000 Kingdom, 46% tariff on Vietnam, 31% tariff on Switzerland, 49% tariff on Cambodia, 30% tariff on South Africa, should be higher than that, 32% tariff on Indonesia, 10% on Brazil, 10% Singapore, and 17% on Israel. 0.72

00:00:45.000 This is a good idea.

00:00:49.000 This is a bad idea.

00:00:51.000 Reciprocity is occurring.

00:00:53.000 I explain how President Trump is fixing a decades old problem.

00:00:58.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com, text this episode to your friends, and get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com.

00:01:06.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:01:08.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:01:09.000 Here we go.

00:01:10.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:12.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:01:14.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:17.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:20.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:22.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:23.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:01:25.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:31.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:40.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:43.000 Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.

00:01:53.000 Learn how you can protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:02:00.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:02:02.000 It's where I buy all of my gold.

00:02:04.000 Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.

00:02:08.000 President Donald Trump very well could have done what every other politician does when it comes to trade and American manufacturing.

00:02:15.000 You say one thing to the heartland of this country and then you kowtow to the Wall Street class.

00:02:21.000 We have gone into great detail on this program on what is a tariff, where do tariffs come from, why do certain countries embrace them and why do they not.

00:02:28.000 When you are the incumbent economic power, tariffs can be a tool to bring more money, more investment, more capital back to the homeland.

00:02:35.000 However, in order to use tariffs, you have to be willing to look the markets in an eye and say, I know you might be a little ugly, I know you might be a little mean, but I am willing to persevere.

00:02:47.000 I'm willing to push through the instant pain so that we can have long-term success.

00:02:54.000 As we've said many times on this program, the West was built thanks to delayed gratification.

00:02:59.000 Not instant gratification, but instead delaying the inevitable payoff.

00:03:06.000 We have wanted to play this piece of tape a couple times.

00:03:10.000 I did play it a few weeks ago on this program, and it's very important.

00:03:13.000 It's one of my favorite pieces of tape, and credit to the Jesse Watters show for compiling it, because I think this piece of tape sets the tone from what President Trump announced in the Rose Garden.

00:03:23.000 It sets the tone as to what we are doing here.

00:03:26.000 And I'll be very honest with you.

00:03:27.000 As I was watching the Rose Garden speech, and all the networks took it, I was getting a little bit emotional.

00:03:34.000 Not emotional because of what President Trump was doing at the markets, but when I saw a group of 55-year-old autoworkers, the white working class, with their hard hats on, I thought of the countless MAGA rallies that I've spoke at.

00:03:54.000 I thought at the countless political events that I went to.

00:04:00.000 And I and President Trump, President Trump and myself I should say, and myself as proxy, would look these guys in the eyes and we would make a promise to them.

00:04:09.000 We would say to these white working-class men, Elect us and we are going to fight for you. 0.77

00:04:16.000 We're going to do mass deportations.

00:04:18.000 We're going to stop the stem on the southern border, the flow of illegal immigration and drugs, and we are going to use tariffs.

00:04:25.000 And these polite, mild-mattered, mid-western patriots that work for Ford or General Motors, that work in manufacturing plants, those that still exist, would applaud as if it was a lifeline.

00:04:43.000 As we say in this program, they're the ones that shower before work and they shower after work.

00:04:48.000 And I got a little emotional watching that Rose Garden speech.

00:04:51.000 As those very same guys that we have campaigned for can say that we voted for this.

00:04:59.000 Donald Trump won the heartland because of these swing voters.

00:05:03.000 These are the Reagan Democrats.

00:05:04.000 These are The Obama Democrats that voted for Obama, and some of them even voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and they came back home, and you look right there on screen.

00:05:14.000 These are the garbage truck drivers, the UAW members, and I thought to myself, it is very unique to see a politician do what he said he was going to do, regardless of what the media and the institutions of power threaten him with.

00:05:33.000 So I want to just set the tone to set the vibe of our conversation around this historic Liberation Day speech With why we are here This is Jonestown, Pennsylvania before I was born this started this sequence this right here We're about to play is what President Trump is aiming to solve in the Rose Garden 32 years of managed decline 32 years 35 years you could say 40 years of ...

00:06:01.000 of the slipping of American manufacturing dominance.

00:06:05.000 It's a very difficult clip to watch, and multiply it by 60,000.

00:06:10.000 PlayCut 123.

00:06:11.000 For ages, hot molten steel has been the lifeblood of Johnstown, vigorously pumping dollars and jobs through the city's veins.

00:06:19.000 But now, the pulse of the community is in cardiac arrest.

00:06:23.000 Bethlehem officials aren't making any more comments than what's contained in this press release.

00:06:28.000 They're sorry, but it's simply not cost-effective to run the mill any longer.

00:06:33.000 It does hurt, and there's a dramatic spin-off that's going to come from that.

00:06:37.000 And there's going to be a lot of problems that have to be solved.

00:06:40.000 In part, Bethlehem cites fierce foreign competition and the national economy for their demise.

00:06:45.000 For some Bethlehem employees, it's hard to look past the shocking news.

00:06:50.000 Don't rely on a corporation that don't want you, in a sense.

00:06:55.000 And they don't care, you know?

00:06:56.000 You're only a number.

00:06:58.000 Jobs left and drugs came in.

00:07:00.000 Factories closed and communities shattered.

00:07:04.000 We thought we were getting a better end of the deal.

00:07:06.000 Free trade, our leaders told us.

00:07:07.000 George H.W. Bush was president when that happened.

00:07:10.000 And William Clinton took office soon after, in January of 1993.

00:07:17.000 Neither actually decided to fix the raping of the heartland.

00:07:22.000 J.D. Vance ran for the U.S. Senate and eventually became the vice president because he is a son of the forgotten family of the Midwest.

00:07:33.000 He is a son of The forgotten worker of the UAW.

00:07:37.000 J.D. Vance understands the shared lived experience of the factory workers of Appalachia.

00:07:44.000 And what President Trump was doing in the Rose Garden, he did not have to do this.

00:07:48.000 He could have done what every politician did.

00:07:50.000 Oh, I'm in my second term.

00:07:52.000 I'm not running again.

00:07:53.000 Forget this.

00:07:55.000 I don't actually have to deliver on the promises of what I said I was going to do.

00:07:58.000 He could have coasted like Obama.

00:08:00.000 He could have coasted like George W. Bush.

00:08:02.000 But let's go through the list.

00:08:04.000 Reagan, he opened up free trade, which destroyed the heartland.

00:08:08.000 It's true, Reagan was good with a lot of stuff.

00:08:10.000 He was terrible with this.

00:08:11.000 He did some tariffs, but not nearly enough.

00:08:13.000 Bill Clinton accelerated.

00:08:14.000 George W. Bush was terrible. 0.97

00:08:16.000 George W. Bush was awful. 1.00

00:08:17.000 Barack Obama, terrible.

00:08:18.000 Joe Biden, he's the first president in the post-World War II-based order to say enough.

00:08:27.000 Because President Donald Trump feels an obligation to the people that actually put him into office.

00:08:31.000 He made a promise.

00:08:32.000 He made a pledge.

00:08:34.000 And to fulfill that pledge, and to fulfill that promise, requires moral clarity that we have not seen from an American president since probably Dwight D. Eisenhower.

00:08:46.000 This is J.D. Vance who understands the ramifications, the weight, and the heaviness of exactly what President Trump was contesting for.

00:08:55.000 In the Rose Garden speech known as Liberation Day, Play Cut 121.

00:08:58.000 There were two conceits that our leadership class had when it came to globalization.

00:09:04.000 is assuming that we can separate the making of things from the design of things.

00:09:09.000 The idea of globalization was that rich countries would move further up the value chain while the poor countries made the simpler things.

00:09:17.000 You would open an iPhone box and it would say, designed in Cupertino, California.

00:09:22.000 Now the implication, of course, is that it would be manufactured in Shenzhen or somewhere else.

00:09:28.000 And yeah, some people might lose their jobs in manufacturing, but they could President Donald Trump announced

00:09:58.000 A solution to what J.D. Vance diagnosed as the problem.

00:10:01.000 And I'm going to tell you the exact tariffs that he announced.

00:10:04.000 It's going to be a baseline 10% tariff on all U.S. imports.

00:10:08.000 That's big, everybody.

00:10:09.000 You are seeing the redesigning and the restructuring of the artificial intelligence economy.

00:10:15.000 You are seeing the restructuring of the geopolitical hemisphere that America will lead.

00:10:20.000 The western hemisphere, the northern hemisphere that we are in, that we live in, It's gonna be dominant and self-reliant.

00:10:27.000 Reliant on China no more.

00:10:28.000 You're seeing the recalibration of exactly how we view economic matters.

00:10:33.000 And it's been long overdue.

00:10:35.000 Because the deal post-World War II is we don't need to make stuff, we can just consume stuff.

00:10:39.000 We could trade a bunch of money and hedge against it.

00:10:43.000 Maybe a little real estate economy and we'll build software, not hardware.

00:10:45.000 And it has resulted in the crippling of our great nation.

00:10:50.000 You are witnessing the reorganization and the reorientation.

00:10:55.000 Of the wealthiest country on the planet.

00:10:57.000 To make sure that we remain the wealthiest country on the planet.

00:11:03.000 If pain is affecting your life, make 2025 the year of feeling good again.

00:11:07.000 The year of moving better, sleeping better, feeling more alive, and do it with Relief Factor.

00:11:14.000 Relief Factor is a daily supplement that fights pain naturally.

00:11:17.000 It doesn't just mask pain temporarily, helps reduce or even eliminate it.

00:11:22.000 Over a million people have turned to Relief Factor.

00:11:24.000 Feel the difference it can make in your life.

00:11:27.000 Give their three-week quick start a try.

00:11:29.000 It's only $19.95, less than a dollar a day, and just takes a phone call.

00:11:33.000 Call 1-800-4-RELIEF.

00:11:34.000 That is 1-800-4-RELIEF.

00:11:36.000 Remember, every day you feel better is a day you live better.

00:11:38.000 So wherever you're hurting, back, neck, joints, or muscles, make 2025 the year of feeling good again.

00:11:44.000 Try Relief Factor right now.

00:11:46.000 That is 1-800-4-RELIEF.

00:11:47.000 1-800-4-RELIEF.

00:11:51.000 I want to get into the specifics of exactly what President Trump is issuing as far as reciprocal tariffs and tariffs across the board.

00:12:00.000 But understand, you are seeing a historic reorganization of the global and the American economy.

00:12:07.000 And it's going to come as a shell shock.

00:12:08.000 And there will be market volatility.

00:12:10.000 There will be turbulence.

00:12:12.000 It's basically like taking cough syrup.

00:12:14.000 It doesn't feel good, but it is good for you.

00:12:17.000 It's necessary.

00:12:19.000 We have been on borrowed time.

00:12:21.000 We have been on borrowed future promises.

00:12:27.000 And you are not a nation if you do not make stuff in your nation.

00:12:31.000 Let's play Cut 122.

00:12:33.000 The second is that cheap labor is fundamentally a crutch.

00:12:38.000 And it's a crutch that inhibits innovation.

00:12:40.000 I might even say that it's a drug that too many American firms got addicted to.

00:12:45.000 And so I'd ask my friends, both on the tech optimist side and on the populist side, not to see the failure of the logic of globalization as a failure of innovation.

00:12:56.000 Indeed, I'd say that globalization's hunger for cheap labor is a problem precisely because it's been bad for innovation.

00:13:05.000 Both our working people, our populists, and our innovators, gathered here today, have the same enemy.

00:13:12.000 And the solution, I believe, is American innovation.

00:13:15.000 So the U.S. trade representative has chronicled every tariff and every trade restriction on the United States.

00:13:22.000 President Trump has said they calculated an effective average tariff on U.S. goods.

00:13:26.000 If you combine all direct tariffs and all other trade restrictions, he says we are then retaliating by tariffing other countries that amount directly but cut in half with a floor of 10%.

00:13:37.000 So you might say, what does that mean?

00:13:39.000 A lot of tariffs.

00:13:40.000 That's what that means.

00:13:42.000 It's going to be a lot of tariffs with China.

00:13:44.000 And they could reciprocate.

00:13:46.000 And I'll be very honest.

00:13:48.000 It might be harder to go buy piles of plastic that you do not need.

00:13:53.000 Do you want to be reliant on the Chinese Communist Party?

00:13:56.000 Do you want to be subservient to a foreign land? 0.99

00:14:00.000 Are we a colony or are we a country?

00:14:03.000 And I can tell you who's cheering this right now.

00:14:05.000 The autoworkers in Michigan.

00:14:08.000 The welders in Wisconsin.

00:14:11.000 The people that showed up in Record enormous numbers to vote for President Trump are enthusiastically giving a standing ovation for this right now.

00:14:22.000 And do you know how you avoid a tariff?

00:14:24.000 You make your product in America.

00:14:26.000 And understand, if President Trump was just doing tariffs, it's a left-hand, right-hand situation.

00:14:32.000 On the left hand, you say just tariffs.

00:14:34.000 If he was only doing tariffs, it'd be a little rough.

00:14:39.000 But he's doing the brilliant second move.

00:14:41.000 He's doing the brilliant right hand that makes it all happen.

00:14:44.000 He's doing tariffs plus tax cuts, deregulation, and drool baby drill.

00:14:49.000 So when you pair those two together, all of a sudden tariffs make a lot more sense.

00:14:53.000 And he's so smart to do this.

00:14:55.000 So in the spring he announces tariffs, which he can do with his unilateral authority.

00:15:00.000 Get the tough stuff out of the way.

00:15:02.000 Take the pill everybody!

00:15:03.000 Maybe it's not as bad as you think.

00:15:05.000 And then the all-encompassing strategy is boom on the second part, Is a massive reconciliation bill of tax cuts, of no tax on tips, of drill baby drill, of balancing the budget.

00:15:20.000 President Trump is also offering tax deductions on interest on car loans, on American-made cars.

00:15:25.000 So when you then look at the entire picture, and you are a foreign company, you have to ask yourself a very simple question.

00:15:33.000 Do you want to be able to access the American consumer?

00:15:36.000 What President Trump is doing is he's saying hey in order to access the American consumer You got to make the stuff here because the American consumer is the golden prize on the planet Let me say that again.

00:15:49.000 The American consumer is the golden prize.

00:15:53.000 We consume more than any other nation We are a consumerist economy.

00:15:57.000 We buy and we buy and we buy and we go out to eat The Japanese are not like that at all. 1.00

00:16:01.000 They have a deflationary problem.

00:16:03.000 They save their money under pillows Basically.

00:16:07.000 That's why almost nothing goes up in downtown Tokyo.

00:16:09.000 They have a deflation problem.

00:16:11.000 They got to keep on printing money and going through quantitative easing.

00:16:13.000 In America, it's the exact opposite.

00:16:15.000 We have high leverage and huge money velocity and investment and risk-taking and entrepreneurialism.

00:16:22.000 So we are the golden prize.

00:16:24.000 We are the top accomplishment.

00:16:26.000 If you are a Dutch company, a German company, an Argentine company, a Colombian company, you can never reach Global international success if you cannot get into the U.S. market.

00:16:37.000 But now in order to reach the U.S. market, you have to make that good in the United States of America.

00:16:42.000 Employ American labor.

00:16:45.000 Not just say, hey, I want to access the American market.

00:16:47.000 Thanks so much.

00:16:48.000 Let's trade some dollar bills.

00:16:49.000 I'm going to bring all the profits back to Bogota. 0.98

00:16:51.000 I'm bringing all the profits back to Brussels.

00:16:53.000 I'm bringing all the profits back to Copenhagen.

00:16:56.000 I'm bringing all the profits back to Amsterdam.

00:16:58.000 Meanwhile, all we get in return is a pile of plastic.

00:17:01.000 No, instead we say, if you want to be able to do that, make the good.

00:17:07.000 In Knoxville, make the good.

00:17:09.000 In Marshallton, Iowa, make the good.

00:17:10.000 In Flagstaff, Arizona, employ American labor.

00:17:15.000 China has now taken the most extraordinary step of building in Mexico to avoid tariffs and access America's prized market.

00:17:22.000 We are the largest market in the world.

00:17:24.000 We're gonna start acting like it.

00:17:28.000 Hey, Charlie Kirk here.

00:17:29.000 Ever see your dog slowing down or having health issues and wonder what can I do to make them better?

00:17:36.000 Well my friend, add Ruff Greens to your dog's food for 90 days and you'll see changes that will amaze you guaranteed.

00:17:42.000 Invented by naturopathic Dr.

00:17:44.000 Dennis Black, Rough Greens wants to invite you and give your pup the Rough Greens 90-day challenge.

00:17:50.000 In the first 30 days, you'll see shinier coats and increased energy.

00:17:54.000 By day 60, your dog will have a stronger immune system, less shedding, and improved joint function all due to live nutrients you've added to their diet.

00:18:02.000 And at 90 days, better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you might even have reduced their cancer risk.

00:18:10.000 Fetch a free jumpstart trial bag for your dog today.

00:18:14.000 Go to RUFFGREENS.COM.

00:18:16.000 Just use promo code CHARLIE.

00:18:17.000 That is RUFFGREENS.COM.

00:18:18.000 Promo code CHARLIE.

00:18:20.000 And just cover shipping.

00:18:21.000 You don't have to change your dog's food.

00:18:22.000 To improve your dog's health, just add a scoop of RUFFGREENS.

00:18:26.000 That is RUFFGREENS.COM.

00:18:30.000 Several issues to discuss here with a really good guest, Will Tebow, director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Institute and also an Army veteran.

00:18:40.000 Will, welcome to the program.

00:18:42.000 Will, we complained while Biden was president that there were separate fitness standards in the military for men and women.

00:18:52.000 If a woman wants to be in the military, she should have to do the same amount of push-ups, the same amount of pull-ups, and run at the same pace as a man. 1.00

00:18:59.000 In battle, the enemy does not shoot less or deploy less IEDs or fight softer if he finds out that it is a female combatant versus a male combatant.

00:19:12.000 Tell us about the announcement that Pete Hegseth has made that women must now be able to have the same strength and fitness standards as men in the military.

00:19:21.000 Tell us.

00:19:22.000 That's exactly it, Charlie.

00:19:24.000 It is finally common sense again at the Pentagon for men and women to be evaluated based on the same rubric, right?

00:19:33.000 What is it that, frankly, the defense establishment and both parties have told us for over 10 years now?

00:19:39.000 Men and women deserve the same opportunities in combat that they do in the rest of life.

00:19:45.000 And so long as everyone passes the same standards, Well, then they should have that opportunity to serve in these brutal roles.

00:19:54.000 Well, we are finally taking a step towards that being a reality after about 15 years of meddling, you know, with this delusion.

00:20:03.000 Yeah, you know, now when a man or a woman are evaluated based on their fitness, they're evaluated on the same scale.

00:20:09.000 You know, before this week, a woman had to do about 42 push-ups to get an A plus on her fitness test, while a man had to do 84 push-ups.

00:20:17.000 All the while, we were told that that man and that woman were able to do Any combat job in the same capacity, even though they're being judged by the same standard.

00:20:28.000 It was this bait-and-switch that, frankly, both sides of the aisle would tell the American people.

00:20:32.000 And Pete Hegseth has finally fixed that by saying, when it comes to these, you know, gruesome, you know, excellent-driven jobs, that it requires the same standards, so we're not playing identity politics with the infantry.

00:20:46.000 Yeah, so just to get into more of the details of how it was.

00:20:50.000 Yes, thank you.

00:20:50.000 You guys found it.

00:20:51.000 Great job.

00:20:52.000 Put 44 up on screen.

00:20:53.000 This, by the way, this entire rubric was so memory hold, it was really hard to find this.

00:20:59.000 Very hard.

00:21:01.000 So if you are a woman in the US military, again, this was a little bit goofy, so you guys have to help me understand.

00:21:07.000 They did this, they also made the chart in like this backwards way.

00:21:10.000 It's very difficult.

00:21:11.000 So guys, help me understand this.

00:21:12.000 So if you are a woman for Push-ups, a female, in order to get the most amount of points, had to do 53 push-ups, where a male had to do 57 push-ups. 1.00

00:21:26.000 Am I reading that correctly?

00:21:27.000 I believe I am.

00:21:28.000 Yes. Where in order to get the next threshold of points, yeah, this is all based on age.

00:21:36.000 So basically the accommodation, again, so there's an age bracket here, it's very complicated.

00:21:42.000 So, and by the way, they got rid of pull-ups completely, it looks like.

00:21:44.000 They just got rid of pull-ups.

00:21:46.000 But the running is the most dramatic, which I think is one of the most important parts of military preparedness and fitness, where the man has to be able to run in 13 minutes and 22 seconds.

00:21:58.000 The female can be two minutes slower than a man in a battlefield, under the Biden physical fitness standards. 1.00

00:22:07.000 The deadlift, this one I find to be so flummoxing.

00:22:11.000 So to get a max score on a deadlift, a man needed to be able to deadlift 340 pounds.

00:22:18.000 A woman, 230 pounds. 1.00

00:22:21.000 So Will, explain to me.

00:22:23.000 You're in a battlefield in Yemen.

00:22:25.000 You're in a battlefield in Iraq.

00:22:27.000 You're in a battlefield and basically a woman under Joe Biden would not be able to lift an average weight of a soldier and still be able to be on the front lines. 0.99

00:22:39.000 Am I understanding this correctly?

00:22:41.000 Precisely, Charlie.

00:22:42.000 And that's what the deadlift was put in the Army Combat Fitness Test to measure.

00:22:47.000 The ability of a soldier, again, we were told, of any gender, to lift a heavy weight off the ground.

00:22:53.000 Like, say, The body of your fallen comrade, and then carry it out of harm's way.

00:22:59.000 It is brazen, as far as I'm concerned, to say that there was this equal standard for all, when just as you showed, it was a different standard.

00:23:08.000 I'm pretty sure you were just kind of reading off some of the minimum standards, and that's not even in consideration for army combat rules.

00:23:17.000 It's important to note, and you mentioned this, There was even a point where they changed the test.

00:23:23.000 It was the leg tuck, close to a pull-up, that proved, even with a gender-segregated score, to be too, quote, discriminatory for women.

00:23:32.000 So you had senators from both sides of the aisle and female army generals who demanded that the Biden administration and the army under the Biden administration take out It's grading on a curve. 1.00

00:24:01.000 Is that fair to say?

00:24:02.000 Basically, we have a grading on the curve for military preparedness.

00:24:07.000 Precisely. That's exactly what it is, and it's a curve for our most serious roles.

00:24:13.000 You know, if you asked yourself, hey, who would I rather drag my son or daughter's body out of combat?

00:24:19.000 If you had to choose out of a hat, it would be a man or a woman.

00:24:22.000 Anyone would choose a man if they had to choose, right?

00:24:25.000 It's the perfect case of where the exception proves the rule here.

00:24:30.000 But it's about what the military is.

00:24:32.000 The military is not a bastion of equal opportunity.

00:24:35.000 It is not a place where you necessarily deserve a fair shot at the job that you might think you deserve.

00:24:41.000 It's a job where only the best is needed and where masculine virtue is absolutely necessary. 0.91

00:24:48.000 And there's no greater way of laying that disparity clear than in the physical fitness test.

00:24:52.000 But it is where we were told, you know, the most brazen lies.

00:24:56.000 And it's why, although this policy change, of course, by the defense establishment is kind of, you know, tasked aside and said it's just an issue of identity politics, that's not true.

00:25:05.000 It is at the core of what it means to be in the military.

00:25:09.000 And that's to maintain physical excellence and to be capable of going to what we called in the Army, the limited advance with your unit, no matter the challenge ahead of you.

00:25:17.000 That's what the Army Combat Fitness Test measured.

00:25:19.000 And we're finally one step closer for it to being a genuine test of physical excellence and not just a pass-fail metric, you know, before you can include all other, you know, characteristics of identity politics.

00:25:33.000 Let's hear it in Pete Hegsat's own words.

00:25:35.000 Let's play Cut 295, please.

00:25:37.000 Here at the Defense Department, we are restoring the warrior ethos, and that means we got to be fit to fight inside all of our formations.

00:25:43.000 That starts with standards and going back to basics.

00:25:48.000 So for decades, the military I joined, there were different male and female physical standards because men and women are different, and that's understandable.

00:25:57.000 But there were certain jobs, combat MOSs, that were only for men. 0.65

00:26:01.000 And so you had a male standard.

00:26:03.000 Then in 2015, under the Obama administration, against the advice of the military services, opened up all those combat MOSs to males and females.

00:26:13.000 Fine, if that's their decision.

00:26:14.000 But they never changed the standards in a lot of those roles.

00:26:19.000 So you still had higher standards for men than for women in a lot of those combat MOSs.

00:26:23.000 Some changed it, but not all did.

00:26:25.000 We're fixing that.

00:26:27.000 Will. Right, and that's the point.

00:26:30.000 One thing that I think is worth making explicit again.

00:26:35.000 Under the Obama administration, standards became mere pass-fail metrics for the bare minimum of what it took to serve in some of these units.

00:26:46.000 Even when I joined the Army, what the fitness test was, it was a means of determining who is the best and who is the rest, from first to worst.

00:26:56.000 And if you were first, you got whatever job you wanted and you filled out the units You know, by order of merit from there.

00:27:04.000 Standards have not been that since the policy change that Secretary of Defense Hegseth describes.

00:27:10.000 That's a fundamental difference when we're measuring our military on pass-fail minimum metrics, as opposed to genuine excellence and the pursuit of being the best.

00:27:21.000 You know, I'll also say, he glazed over this too, you know, military generals, uniformed generals, recommended against this policy change even back in 2015.

00:27:31.000 About 10 years ago.

00:27:32.000 You know, I would be hard-pressed to think that there are many 2-, 3-, and 4-star generals who would put their career on the line and recommend against such a policy change today.

00:27:43.000 You know, as I said at the start, there were many generals who lost their mind when it became clear that women weren't performing as well under the first iteration of the Army Combat Fitness Test.

00:27:54.000 And so, with help from Democrat senators, the Army changed that test.

00:27:59.000 So let's also use this as an occasion to ask serious questions about the military leaders who are implementing this policy.

00:28:05.000 In many cases, these are the same leaders who carried forward the Obama policy and for different units, and now we're expecting them to all of a sudden faithfully execute Trump administration policy.

00:28:15.000 We need to be really careful about how that gets implemented.

00:28:20.000 Go to YREFI.com.

00:28:22.000 That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.

00:28:24.000 Private student loan debt.

00:28:25.000 In the United States, totals over $300 billion, about $45 billion of that is labeled as distressed.

00:28:30.000 Wirefi is not a debt settlement company and they work with each borrower individually, tailoring each loan to each borrower's specific situation.

00:28:37.000 You will not be calling a faceless call center.

00:28:40.000 Go to WhyRefi.com.

00:28:41.000 Just call 888-WhyRefi34.

00:28:43.000 Log on to WhyRefi.com.

00:28:44.000 You can even skip a payment every six months up to 12 times without penalty.

00:28:48.000 Go to WhyRefi.com.

00:28:49.000 If you go to WhyRefi, you can read testimonials from other people who have been where you are and how they have escaped.

00:28:55.000 Go to WhyRefi.com.

00:28:56.000 WhyRefi refinances distressed and defaulted private student loans, which are different from federal loans.

00:29:02.000 Go to WhyRefi.com.

00:29:03.000 They do not care what your credit score is.

00:29:05.000 That is WhyRefi.com.

00:29:07.000 Y-R-E-F-Y.com. If your private student loan debt is keeping you up at night and ruining your life, it doesn't have to.

00:29:14.000 Just call Y-R-E-F-Y.com.

00:29:18.000 Y-R-E-F-Y.com. Y-R-E-F-Y is not a debt settlement company.

00:29:20.000 So go to Y-R-E-F-Y.com.

00:29:22.000 Call 888-Y-R-E-F-Y-35.

00:29:24.000 Okay, I want to get into this, but I do want to play the second part of Pete Hegseth's tape here.

00:29:36.000 Very important.

00:29:37.000 Play cut 296.

00:29:38.000 We're ensuring that any combat position across any of the services, and the services are evaluating that, has the same standard for men and women.

00:29:46.000 Which means anybody can join, but the standard is to meet what it takes to do that combat job.

00:29:53.000 Rigorous physical standards, so that your sons and daughters, those that join our military, have the best possible units, the most lethal units.

00:30:02.000 So this is a standard review, looking at combat units, looking at Men and women.

00:30:07.000 No standards will be lowered.

00:30:09.000 Only at the highest level.

00:30:11.000 And we look forward to all our best warriors joining those units.

00:30:15.000 It's a review that's important.

00:30:16.000 Long overdue.

00:30:17.000 And the kind of thing we promised inside the Trump administration.

00:30:20.000 Will Thiebaud continues as Army veteran and director of American Military Project at the Claremont Institute.

00:30:25.000 Put cut 325 up.

00:30:27.000 Under the Biden administration, there was a celebration of pregnant Air Force pilots.

00:30:33.000 Pregnant Air Force pilots. 1.00

00:30:34.000 That's what the military has become.

00:30:36.000 Of course, we're all for people having families, but the military should be to crush our enemies.

00:30:41.000 Will, what percentage of women are going to make it through these fitness standards that are now equal for men and women?

00:30:48.000 Perhaps a handful, but the point is, what does this do to the culture and the unit cohesion of these units?

00:30:58.000 Frankly, Charlie, I can tell you firsthand that even if it's just one or two women in Large unit.

00:31:06.000 That is kind of a reorganizing principle based on something other than lethality and readiness.

00:31:14.000 The whole framework for how a unit trains and fights is different.

00:31:19.000 Because I was in the infantry when it became gender integrated.

00:31:24.000 And there was working groups, there were new resourcing requirements, you know, time in the woods where we would spend, you know, three weeks in the field and not really think about it too much.

00:31:33.000 We're all of a sudden unique because of, you know, the, the different kinds of demands that men and women need when they're, you know, supposed to live in austere environments.

00:31:42.000 And, you know, I don't, obviously a lot won't make it and the vast majority won't, and there might be some that do, but does that mean that it's worth it?

00:31:52.000 To change the fundamental character of a warfighting formation.

00:31:56.000 Again, not a McKinsey consulting class, not a Harvard Law School class, but an infantry platoon.

00:32:03.000 A platoon that is meant to fight in a war no matter the consequences and no matter the conditions.

00:32:09.000 It's been a while since we've had You know, sustained combat that looks like that.

00:32:15.000 And I fear that we may naturally fall into this trap where we think, you know, 21st century values merged with 21st century war fighting.

00:32:25.000 We will just assume that it works that way and that all will be the same, even if it's just a few elite, you know, great, excellent women who can meet these standards. 1.00

00:32:35.000 Frankly, my wife was one of those women. 1.00

00:32:37.000 Who can meet those standards.

00:32:39.000 And she served alongside special operations units.

00:32:41.000 That's how we met.

00:32:42.000 But she would be the first to tell you that, you know, again, the exception doesn't prove the rule.

00:32:49.000 And her predilections or, you know, willingness to serve does not mean we need to change the fundamental character of previously all-male warfighting units.

00:33:00.000 I think there's still some more questions to ask here.

00:33:03.000 Will Tebow, excellent.

00:33:04.000 Yeah, I mean, look, it does beg a deeper and broader question.

00:33:07.000 Should women be in combat units? 1.00

00:33:10.000 And that's a deeper question.

00:33:12.000 And at least from the fitness standards, at the very least, in order for that question to be answered, you have to at least be able to have the same fitness standards.

00:33:19.000 So let's just start there.

00:33:20.000 This is just a very simple, common sense way.

00:33:23.000 That's a controversial question.

00:33:25.000 Question and there's plenty of supporting roles but if you can't even do the physical stuff if all of a sudden your fellow marine has his leg blown off and you can't put that marine on your back to be able to you know hike a mile with him to be able to get necessary immediate medical support because you had a special deadlift accommodation you should not be in a combat role.

00:33:45.000 Will, thank you so much.

00:33:46.000 Thanks so much for listening everybody.

00:33:47.000 Email us as always freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:50.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 03, 2025

Rose Garden 'Liberation Day' Reaction

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript