The Charlie Kirk Show - Stopping the Death of the American Middle Class with Entrepreneur Jeff Webb

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Today in the Charlie Kirk Show, a conversation with my friend Jeff Webb, a great American entrepreneur.

00:00:05.000 He wrote a really important book about the middle class.

00:00:07.000 You're going to love this conversation.

00:00:08.000 If you want to support us and the work that our team is doing, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:00:14.000 That's charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:00:16.000 Jeff Webb is here.

00:00:16.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:18.000 Here we go.

00:00:19.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:21.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:23.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:26.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:29.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:30.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:31.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:40.000 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.

00:00:49.000 That's why we are here.

00:00:52.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:53.000 Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:55.000 We are thrilled to be joined today by a friend of mine, Jeff Webb, a true American, a successful business owner.

00:01:02.000 And he wrote a book that I really, really enjoy.

00:01:05.000 And everyone listening should check it out.

00:01:08.000 It's called American Restoration: How to Unshackle the Great Middle Class. 0.97

00:01:12.000 And when I first met Jeff, it was almost two or three years ago.

00:01:16.000 And the first time we sat down, we were just, it's almost as if we knew each other for quite a long time because we were on the same cadence of the same topics about how the middle class is getting crushed, about how corporations are really not acting in the interests of private markets, but really in the interests of the ruling class.

00:01:34.000 And Jeff took a lot of our conversations, we worked together on a lot of different things, and wrote this terrific book.

00:01:40.000 Jeff, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:42.000 Hi, great to be with you, my friend.

00:01:43.000 Thank you for having me.

00:01:45.000 You bet.

00:01:45.000 And so Jeff gave a barn burner at our Student Action Summit.

00:01:48.000 If you have not listened to it, you got to check it out.

00:01:51.000 An Only in America episode also we did with Jeff talking about his amazing business career.

00:01:57.000 But Jeff, I really want to get into your book here because I think it's so applicable to what we're living through right now in our country. 0.97

00:02:03.000 You talk about how we need to unshackle the great middle class.

00:02:07.000 Can you talk about how important it is to have a robust middle class for our country's future?

00:02:14.000 Well, you know, Charlie, one of the things that has separated our country from the rest of the world, frankly, for the last 60 years has been the fact that we have this large and relatively affluent middle class.

00:02:28.000 Most countries are much more segmented.

00:02:30.000 They have the great majority of the wealth at the top end than kind of everybody else.

00:02:36.000 So, you know, our middle class has been a key to our economic, robust economic performance over all these years.

00:02:45.000 And it's given us this great, broad-based society where people feel connected.

00:02:51.000 Now, you know, the middle class has been under assault for 30 to 40 years.

00:02:58.000 And when you go all the way back to the period right after World War II, when the GIs came home and they went back to work and back to school and started raising families, it created this incredible economic growth, built the greatest economy in the history of the world.

00:03:13.000 But gradually, gradually, that's being eroded.

00:03:17.000 And, you know, what we're finding out is that there's such a squeeze on the middle class and that they don't have extra money to save, that they're being squeezed by high tuition, high health care costs, lack of job security.

00:03:30.000 And of course, now you have the pandemic on top of that.

00:03:34.000 And the middle class has probably been hurt more than anybody else in this pandemic.

00:03:39.000 So it's going to be very interesting to see how we rebound.

00:03:42.000 And to be honest with you, it's very troublesome.

00:03:44.000 Some of the things I'm seeing that President Biden has come out with in the last couple of weeks don't exactly make me optimistic we're going to have a robust economic recovery.

00:03:55.000 And so I want to zero in on some of the specifics your book talks about.

00:03:59.000 You have entire segments on ending political corruption, ending the endless foreign wars, which I definitely want to talk about, which is a passionate subject of mine, as you well know.

00:04:09.000 I talk about it quite often.

00:04:11.000 Efficient and effective defense spending, protecting American interests in foreign policy and sustainable economic expansion.

00:04:17.000 You also have a part on big is bad.

00:04:20.000 And so, Jeff, in the last year, in the midst of the shutdowns, the lockdowns, and the pandemic, billionaires have increased their wealth by $500 billion on average.

00:04:30.000 Mark Zuckerberg has added $80 billion to his net worth.

00:04:34.000 Elon Musk, who is probably my favorite of the bunch, I actually think he's kind of a creative genius, but still, he has increased his net worth by over $80 billion.

00:04:44.000 Bernard Alnot, who runs Louis Vuitton, another $90 billion.

00:04:49.000 Jeff, middle-class families are not able to celebrate the same amount of wealth expansion in the last year.

00:04:57.000 What does this tell us?

00:04:58.000 Are these trends sustainable?

00:05:00.000 And what can we possibly do to address the almost Gilded Age era of wealth inequality really oppressing our country?

00:05:09.000 Well, is this sustainable?

00:05:10.000 I don't think so.

00:05:11.000 Now, you know, a lot of people think that, well, America can't go broke or America can't go out of business, if you will.

00:05:18.000 It can.

00:05:19.000 I mean, the problems we have with the extreme division of wealth, as you talked about, and you add the national debt that has ballooned.

00:05:28.000 I mean, we are knocking on the door at $30 trillion in the national debt, equal to 100% of our GDP.

00:05:37.000 We are in a territory that we haven't been in since the end of World War II.

00:05:42.000 And how we're going to get out of it is going to be very interesting.

00:05:45.000 And when you end up with these problems, who always seems to take it on the chin in our country?

00:05:50.000 The middle class. 0.97

00:05:51.000 So is this sustainable? 0.99

00:05:54.000 I don't think it is.

00:05:55.000 And that's really why I've gotten involved and created this movement, if you will, to really help people understand that the middle class is so important to our country and making sure that people have an opportunity to do well and provide for their families and have a hopeful future.

00:06:11.000 We all need to be committed to this if we're going to have the kind of country we want to have.

00:06:16.000 And so, Jeff, let's talk in specifics.

00:06:18.000 I think some of these companies have assumed way too much power as people that are definitely not socialists or liberals.

00:06:26.000 But a lot of people are watching and they're not a conservative.

00:06:28.000 They're not a liberal.

00:06:29.000 They're just American.

00:06:30.000 Is it okay for us to challenge some of these entrenched corporate interests?

00:06:34.000 Is it okay for us to push back and say, hey, Amazon, maybe you should pay your workers a little bit more?

00:06:39.000 Maybe you should pay some corporate income tax.

00:06:42.000 Is that a healthy discussion to have?

00:06:44.000 It's totally healthy and something that has to happen.

00:06:47.000 And so you have those kinds of issues that people need to speak up about.

00:06:52.000 Then you also have the kind of things that are being done by these companies to the rest of our citizens.

00:07:00.000 And that's a topic I'm sure we're going to get into here in a little bit as well.

00:07:04.000 Yeah, no doubt.

00:07:05.000 And we've talked at length here about how these companies are no longer acting in the best interest of their workers and the American people.

00:07:14.000 And it's a small group of companies, but they're a powerful group of companies.

00:07:18.000 So can you have a whole part on big is bad?

00:07:23.000 What do you mean by that in the book?

00:07:25.000 Well, if you look at big government, you have this kind of unholy alliance now that's gotten more and more pronounced over the last 10 years.

00:07:35.000 The last five years.

00:07:36.000 I mean, look at the difference in size of Amazon and Facebook and Google, Twitter, from where they are right now and five years ago.

00:07:43.000 The growth and the expansion of their power is profound and it's having a profound impact.

00:07:50.000 And, you know, the book was written before the election, obviously, and before some of the things that have happened and deplatforming and suppression of speech over the last couple of months.

00:08:02.000 We were already headed down a bad path.

00:08:05.000 But you have this kind of developing, I call it an unholy alliance in the book, as you see, between big business, big corporations, the wealthiest, as you talked about earlier among us, and the government ruling class.

00:08:21.000 And big companies have gotten better and better through lobbyists in gaming the system and getting unfair advantages.

00:08:29.000 They have the advantage of scale in the competitive market against mom and pop or smaller businesses.

00:08:35.000 But then they also get these special carve outs through their lobbyists and the legislation and then how the legislation is actually enforced by our bureaucrats.

00:08:44.000 It is not a level playing field.

00:08:46.000 And it's leading to a lot of what you talked about earlier, where you've got this shift to the big companies and the smaller companies and the middle class getting squeezed.

00:08:55.000 So that type of relationship and that type of concentration of power in things that are very important to our democracy and to our way of life are frightening and they have to be addressed.

00:09:10.000 And it's not going to be easy.

00:09:11.000 You can see what these companies do to people that contest what they're doing.

00:09:17.000 They're brutal.

00:09:18.000 They're brutal.

00:09:19.000 And it takes a lot of courage.

00:09:21.000 And it's going to take people standing up and making sure that we get things back on the right track.

00:09:28.000 A lot of you guys have had Mike Lindell's back.

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00:09:34.000 And the amazing company that you guys are supporting is MyPillow.

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00:10:17.000 So conservatives are generally very reluctant to ever criticize private companies.

00:10:23.000 I know that you and I don't like the labels of conservative at times because it could be used.

00:10:29.000 It's too general.

00:10:30.000 However, as a filler word, that's what I use to describe myself generally.

00:10:34.000 I understand.

00:10:35.000 I don't have a better one, but exactly.

00:10:37.000 Populist and all this, but I'm an American first and foremost.

00:10:40.000 However, Jeff, can you talk about how you've had a lot of business experience, 45 years in the business world?

00:10:47.000 You've built some of the most amazing businesses that we know.

00:10:49.000 Can you talk about what you've learned about how some of the people that are quote unquote running these big corporations might not actually always have America's best interest at heart or the middle class's best interest at heart?

00:11:05.000 Well, I think if you look at these companies, it's obvious.

00:11:08.000 Look at where they're doing their manufacturing.

00:11:10.000 Look at the jobs that have been taken offshore and out of our, especially our small towns, our good paying manufacturing jobs.

00:11:18.000 Look at what the result has been.

00:11:20.000 Look at the squeeze on the middle class, the opioid crisis, the suicide, all these things that have negatively affected working Americans.

00:11:31.000 And more and more, you see even anything about patriotism, anything about our own American citizens, that's looked down upon by a lot of these big companies.

00:11:43.000 They don't want to hear that.

00:11:44.000 They don't want that part of their vernacular.

00:11:47.000 They don't want to hear it.

00:11:48.000 And you're right.

00:11:50.000 They're putting their own personal interests and the interests of their companies.

00:11:54.000 Their companies have almost become countries to them.

00:11:57.000 They're more important than their country, it seems to me.

00:12:02.000 And we're seeing the results of that.

00:12:04.000 You know, I will say this about, you take people like Mark Zuckerberg and you take all the Apple executives, Microsoft.

00:12:11.000 My hat's off to them from a business standpoint.

00:12:14.000 They built an incredible business and many of them for pretty meager means, frankly.

00:12:20.000 And so you have to take your hat off to them for what they have done from a business standpoint.

00:12:24.000 However, what nobody expected was that through technology, these companies would become so powerful and have such a direct impact on our daily lives.

00:12:37.000 Our ability to communicate with each other, our ability to exercise rights of free speech and free expression.

00:12:44.000 So they've been successful to a fault and they've become companies and they've gotten into things that nobody envisioned.

00:12:52.000 And it can't go on like this.

00:12:54.000 It has to be addressed.

00:12:56.000 And so I want to talk about one entity in particular that I have been a vocal critic of, which is the United States Chamber of Commerce.

00:13:04.000 And we get a lot of emails from our listeners and our listeners can email us freedom at charliekirk.com of people that say, well, Charlie, the local chamber does a good job, but I always differentiate between the local chamber and the national chamber.

00:13:16.000 And usually the more territory the chamber represents, the more corrupt they end up being.

00:13:21.000 So a statewide chamber is going to be a little bit more wishy-washy than just like the local chamber of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which represents local businesses.

00:13:30.000 But let's talk about the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Big Daddy.

00:13:34.000 What is wrong with the chamber?

00:13:36.000 I have been a critic of them.

00:13:38.000 I believe you share my views of that.

00:13:40.000 Who do they actually represent?

00:13:42.000 They represent those same big corporations that have accumulated all that power and all that money.

00:13:48.000 And a lot of that and some of that money goes to help support the chamber.

00:13:52.000 So again, you have kind of this, I almost call it legal corruption.

00:13:57.000 You've got this big bureaucracy that's able to work between big government and big companies and exercise power and influence.

00:14:07.000 And people in small business and the general public should understand, in my opinion, and I know you share this, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not the friend of small business and everyday Americans.

00:14:21.000 They are the friend of big business, the wealthiest among us, and the big in big government.

00:14:26.000 That's who they are.

00:14:27.000 They're part of that establishment.

00:14:29.000 And Jeff, I'm so glad you've said that because a lot of our listeners are confused because they say, well, the local Chamber of Commerce in Billings, Montana does a nice job.

00:14:37.000 And that might be, but that's not the national chamber of commerce.

00:14:40.000 No, that Chamber of Commerce, Billings, Montana, is working on getting new jobs for Billings, Montana, and expanding the economy and supporting the local businesses.

00:14:50.000 In most cases, these local chambers of commerce do a great job.

00:14:53.000 But that should not be confused with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

00:14:56.000 And the U.S.

00:14:57.000 No, you're right.

00:14:58.000 And the U.S. Chamber controls a lot of the legislative priorities on Capitol Hill.

00:15:02.000 They control a lot of political donations.

00:15:04.000 It's not just a loose collection of groups that are affiliated.

00:15:08.000 They have a lot of power and they dictate immigration policy.

00:15:11.000 They dictate policy when it comes to corporate governance, all sorts of different issues.

00:15:17.000 And so I want to go to another specific year book. 0.97

00:15:19.000 And I'm going to say the book again: American Restoration, How to Unshackle the Great Middle Class.

00:15:24.000 Go buy it, but don't buy it on Amazon.com. 0.98

00:15:26.000 I'm kidding.

00:15:26.000 You might have to because we're all on Amazon.

00:15:30.000 It's an Amazon bestseller.

00:15:31.000 Thank goodness.

00:15:32.000 We really, congratulations.

00:15:36.000 It's also available on middleclasswarriors.com.

00:15:39.000 That's my preferred way for people to buy it, middleclasswarriors.com.

00:15:43.000 And the doctrine is so important, everybody, because this articulates in this book, and it goes through different parts of it.

00:15:49.000 It goes through what Jeff's take is.

00:15:51.000 It's called What's My Take?

00:15:52.000 Then the challenges we face.

00:15:54.000 But now I want to transition, Jeff, into solutions.

00:15:58.000 I like to be a solution-oriented person.

00:16:00.000 I know you do too.

00:16:01.000 I think it's what makes our radio program a little bit different than most.

00:16:05.000 We don't just complain.

00:16:06.000 We do plenty of that.

00:16:07.000 But then we also then offer solutions and we offer concrete ideas to be able to proceed forward.

00:16:14.000 And so I want to focus our conversation now on the ideas and support of the middle class, which shares your specific recommendations.

00:16:22.000 So, Jeff, what is the agenda right now?

00:16:25.000 What would you tell President Biden what to do?

00:16:28.000 What should senators be doing?

00:16:29.000 What should Congress people be doing specifically when it comes to public policy measures?

00:16:34.000 First of all, let me say this: I think Joe Biden missed the biggest opportunity a political leader has seen in 50 years.

00:16:44.000 He won.

00:16:45.000 We can debate whether it was fair or not.

00:16:47.000 He's the president.

00:16:48.000 All right.

00:16:50.000 He talked about unity in his inauguration speech.

00:16:54.000 If he would have walked the talk, if he would have come in and said, you know what?

00:16:59.000 I know people are angry on the left at Donald Trump.

00:17:04.000 It's over.

00:17:05.000 Okay, let's move forward.

00:17:07.000 And if he had come in and said, I really do want to work with the Republicans, because by the way, nearly 50% of the people voted against me or for the other side.

00:17:17.000 And instead, he came in and started immediately, as we've seen in the first two weeks, all of these strictly partisan, heavy-handed regulations.

00:17:28.000 And all of a sudden, the wind has gone out of the sails, and now we're right back to where we were.

00:17:32.000 So let me just start out with that.

00:17:34.000 I think it was a huge miss.

00:17:35.000 The people around him, you know, we keep hearing about that there's one group of people that are more moderate, more traditional, his background, frankly.

00:17:44.000 But then we've got the other set of people who are much more progressive, if you will, much, much a little more extreme.

00:17:51.000 And we're trying to see who's really going to have the influence.

00:17:54.000 It doesn't look good right now.

00:17:56.000 It doesn't look good right now.

00:17:57.000 But I think that there's so much to be done.

00:18:02.000 And, you know, in our company, as I was building the company, one of our tenets was the first one was do no harm, right?

00:18:10.000 Like for the doctors, do no harm.

00:18:12.000 And I think if President Biden had come in and had taken that approach right off the bat and been patient, I think he would have ultimately been more successful.

00:18:22.000 We will see over the next few years.

00:18:25.000 There's so much to be done.

00:18:27.000 The number one, the overarching issue is political corruption.

00:18:32.000 I talk about this in the book.

00:18:34.000 It affects everything.

00:18:36.000 And this is not just people getting paid off.

00:18:40.000 It's lobbying money.

00:18:41.000 It's foreign money.

00:18:43.000 It's campaign contributions.

00:18:46.000 It's just, it's part of the entire fabric of our country now and our commerce.

00:18:53.000 So I think that's the most important thing.

00:18:55.000 It's the overarching issue, if you will.

00:18:58.000 Yes.

00:18:58.000 I think the second one, frankly, has to do with big tech.

00:19:01.000 I think that has vaulted itself to the very forefront.

00:19:07.000 Not only because of monopoly, not only because what these companies are doing to their competitors and crushing them.

00:19:14.000 And also, people don't realize that these companies have huge lobbying arms.

00:19:19.000 They are contributing to every candidate.

00:19:21.000 And by the way, it's both sides of the aisle.

00:19:24.000 It's both sides of the aisle.

00:19:25.000 But then when you add on that, onto that, again, the suppression of free speech, how they're canceling people, how they're deplatforming people is absolutely frightening.

00:19:35.000 We cannot have a dynamic economy, a growing middle class, just a growing, again, a growing economy without the kinds of freedoms that we've enjoyed in this country for over 200 years.

00:19:48.000 You can't separate those two.

00:19:49.000 When you do, who are we?

00:19:52.000 Who are we?

00:19:52.000 We're just another one of these countries.

00:19:54.000 So there's so much to be done.

00:19:57.000 So you wrote a piece recently at humanevents.com where you talked about the federalist response to big tech.

00:20:06.000 Can you help build that out about how the states might actually present themselves as an opportunity to be middle-class warriors?

00:20:13.000 So let's just take Washington, D.C. out of the equation.

00:20:16.000 What can Ron DeSantis do?

00:20:18.000 What can Governor Christy Noam do to advance the middle class agenda that you've articulated in this book?

00:20:24.000 Yeah.

00:20:25.000 Well, with a little bit of the setup, I've got to start out saying this.

00:20:28.000 Ron DeSantis has emerged as a star.

00:20:31.000 I agree.

00:20:32.000 I did a whole podcast on this.

00:20:34.000 His handling of the COVID crisis and then what he's done now to address these issues.

00:20:41.000 I mean, head-on, you know, unemotional, but very, very pragmatic, very rational, very intelligent.

00:20:50.000 So what he's done with regard to big tech is amazing.

00:20:56.000 And, you know, it's like, if we think the way things are now, if we're going to get anything done with regard to big tech and their heavy-handedness through Washington for the next four years, we're wrong.

00:21:10.000 You know, the Democrats are benefiting from what's happening.

00:21:16.000 They are in the short term.

00:21:17.000 They are in the short term.

00:21:19.000 My prediction is it will come back to haunt them, just like changing how we nominate judges.

00:21:25.000 But what DeSantis has done is said, you know what?

00:21:28.000 I'm not waiting for the federal government.

00:21:30.000 I'm going to represent the citizens of my state.

00:21:34.000 And these companies all operate in my state and for my citizens.

00:21:39.000 They utilize their services.

00:21:41.000 I'm going to protect these citizens from bad behavior from these companies.

00:21:47.000 And by going in and making it illegal for these companies to filter content, to decide what people can and can't see, to say to somebody, I'm sorry, I don't like what you said.

00:21:59.000 We're going to take you off.

00:22:00.000 We're going to take you down.

00:22:01.000 We're going to deplatform you to get involved in politics, to help determine what the elections are by using their algorithms and what comes on to the various screens of people who use these devices.

00:22:15.000 He said, we're not going to let it happen.

00:22:17.000 And we're going to make it illegal.

00:22:19.000 And we're going to allow individuals and political organizations or companies that are treated this way to actually sue these companies.

00:22:28.000 Now, so it's going to put some bite into it.

00:22:31.000 The great, the brilliant thing here is this should be the tip of the spear.

00:22:37.000 You know, we have, I think it's 27 states where the Republicans control both houses of Congress.

00:22:45.000 And in 23 of those, we have Republican governors.

00:22:48.000 That's right.

00:22:49.000 Every one of the governors and every one of these state legislatures should be following suit.

00:22:54.000 Think about the pressure that puts on these companies.

00:22:59.000 These big tech companies have operated in this way, Charlie, with impunity.

00:23:03.000 That's right.

00:23:03.000 They've felt no bite.

00:23:05.000 So I think DeSantis has given us a way to level the playing field.

00:23:09.000 He's given us a roadmap.

00:23:10.000 Now it's up to these other governors and these state legislatures to follow suit.

00:23:15.000 And it's up to our citizens to put pressure on them to do it.

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00:24:13.000 If you have the kinds of questions I do about your financial mix, how to best leverage precious metals as a hedge against market uncertainty, I encourage you to visit NobleGoldInvestments.com, call their team for a free gold guide, call NobleGold today, and tell them Charlie Kirk sent you for a special gift with all qualifying transfers.

00:24:31.000 Jeff, it's not just now the big tech issue.

00:24:33.000 Ron DeSantis, I think, has liberated the conversation and reminded us that the states created the federal government.

00:24:39.000 The federal government did not create the states, that we are still laboratories of democracy, that we are a bottom-up government, not a top-down government.

00:24:48.000 And we kind of forget that at times.

00:24:49.000 It's, you know, we get so distracted by the pomp and the circumstance and the power and the authority invested in the presidency.

00:24:57.000 And we realize, well, let's go through this agenda that you have articulated in the book.

00:25:03.000 How could states possibly help with it?

00:25:06.000 And so here's just some of the ideas that we can explore.

00:25:10.000 One of them, which might take someone by surprise, is ending the endless wars.

00:25:15.000 Now, you might say, well, how can a governor end the endless wars?

00:25:20.000 Well, one way Ron DeSantis already has is he's saying National Guard troops are not going to be perpetually in Washington, D.C.

00:25:27.000 Now, it's not a war, but how is it not something that could be endless?

00:25:35.000 Those are state, those are state-delegated troops.

00:25:39.000 Ron DeSantis said, send them home.

00:25:41.000 And by the way, Jeff, that National Guard deployment costs taxpayers $500 million to bring 25,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. You talk about ending political corruption.

00:25:53.000 States could pass robust ethics reform where none of the members that are in their delegation could be receiving certain types of corporate money or foreign money.

00:26:05.000 Jeff, can you build out this idea of how states can now help implement this agenda?

00:26:10.000 And I want to get even more specific.

00:26:12.000 Yeah, well, I think you can look at almost every single thing that's happening with the federal government and the overreach, and there should be a state reaction.

00:26:21.000 And you are right.

00:26:23.000 And I think, again, that it could be that this issue with what Governor DeSantis has done, because everybody is so sensitive to it right now, Charlie.

00:26:32.000 This could open the eyes of people that this is the way.

00:26:35.000 This is what we need to get back to.

00:26:37.000 Everybody is looking at the federal government for everything.

00:26:40.000 And so this is a way for kind of our system of federalism, again, to begin to take hold and have more influence.

00:26:47.000 But you can see it in almost every aspect of commerce.

00:26:49.000 You can see, again, this is the perfect example, but you're right.

00:26:53.000 The state legislatures, we can do things to make them more responsive.

00:26:58.000 You can see what's being done in Texas, by the way, with regard to the wall and the lawsuits that the state of Texas is bringing against the federal government.

00:27:06.000 That they're affected.

00:27:08.000 I mean, you've been to the border a number of times.

00:27:10.000 I've spent some time there and you see the impact of just this unrestricted immigration.

00:27:17.000 You see where the impact is.

00:27:18.000 They don't feel it immediately in Illinois.

00:27:23.000 They do feel it in Texas and Arizona and New Mexico.

00:27:26.000 And so what the state of Texas is doing is like, this is hurting our citizens.

00:27:31.000 It's hurting our economies.

00:27:32.000 We're going to react and we're going to take the lead.

00:27:35.000 And we'll see how that one plays out.

00:27:37.000 But I think you're going to see more and more of that in the next two years in particular, as I think the Biden administration tries to really put the pedal to the metal on these on regulation.

00:27:49.000 I agree with that.

00:27:50.000 So let's get to a couple specific policies that you talk about in your book around ensuring our children's future.

00:27:57.000 Jeff, the topic that no one wants to talk about that gives more American families anxiety, especially American families that are 45 and older, is the topic of health care.

00:28:09.000 It is a topic that drives people into debt.

00:28:12.000 Medical debt is the least talked about but most economically catastrophic form of debt.

00:28:18.000 Devastating.

00:28:19.000 Where the interest is just sometimes insurmountable.

00:28:23.000 The not invoices, but the bills you get are inexplicable at times, where you say, I was only there for a couple hours and now I have to pay how much?

00:28:32.000 Can you talk about, in your book, you talk about affordable and accessible health care?

00:28:38.000 How do we do that, Jeff?

00:28:39.000 That is something that every American could get behind.

00:28:43.000 But how do we accomplish that?

00:28:44.000 Yeah, well, it took us a long time to get here.

00:28:46.000 It won't be easy to get out of it, right?

00:28:48.000 But you have to get started.

00:28:50.000 You know, if you can sit there and go that this is, oh my God, this is such an incredible problem.

00:28:55.000 How do we ever do this?

00:28:56.000 The answer is you have to get started.

00:28:58.000 And I think you start with the smallest, the smallest chunks, you know, take the easy wins if you can.

00:29:03.000 Competition between states, you know, that's that's a good one to start out with.

00:29:08.000 But I think that, you know, you and I talked about this before, you know, that the Republicans have been late to the switch here because you can't just be against something.

00:29:18.000 You know, you have to offer alternatives.

00:29:21.000 And I think finding ways to get the relationship between the actual physician and the patient back into the picture is absolutely critical.

00:29:31.000 I mean, there are so many physicians now that work for a hospital system, work for a big company, that more and more the patient's right to know what's happening, not only what treatment they're getting, but how much it's costing as they go along, what their alternatives are.

00:29:47.000 As you're saying, a lot of times these are not even presented to the patient.

00:29:52.000 And people need to be able to be in control of their own decisions about their health and make those decisions.

00:29:59.000 There has to be so much more transparency, which we just don't have.

00:30:03.000 And our entire system is basically a debt-financed system.

00:30:08.000 A lot of our education is financed by debt.

00:30:12.000 Our obviously housing is, but that's more of a healthy form of debt because you actually build equity that long-term should go up with in value.

00:30:19.000 And our tax code is built into that.

00:30:21.000 Credit card debt, personal debt.

00:30:23.000 And you even talk about the national debt.

00:30:25.000 Now, Jeff, I am a fiscal hawk.

00:30:27.000 I feel like I'm the only one left anymore that talks about cutting spending and balancing the budget.

00:30:32.000 I'm all alone out here.

00:30:34.000 And I know where this brings us.

00:30:36.000 The laws of nature have gone unchanged, Jeff, since a decade ago when we used to talk about the debt robustly.

00:30:44.000 We're headed for inflation.

00:30:45.000 We are headed for the deterioration of purchasing power.

00:30:49.000 And you write in this book that we must address out-of-control federal spending and reduce the debt.

00:30:54.000 Can you convince some of our listeners and viewers that might have been up to you at this point?

00:30:58.000 And they say, ah, deficits don't matter.

00:31:01.000 I'm with you on the middle class thing, but I actually don't really care that much because I don't want to see spending cut.

00:31:06.000 Why should middle-class families want our national debt under control?

00:31:11.000 And when you say it's $30 trillion, who can comprehend that?

00:31:11.000 Yeah.

00:31:14.000 People are like, so what?

00:31:15.000 Like, it might as well be 40, right?

00:31:18.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:31:18.000 And by the way, my life is not a lot different now at 30 trillion than it was at 10 trillion.

00:31:23.000 That's right.

00:31:24.000 Right.

00:31:25.000 So, you know, I talk about this in the book, Charlie, where that, you know, you're right.

00:31:30.000 The day of reckoning is coming.

00:31:32.000 The day, it's not, it's not if, it's when and how, but it is coming.

00:31:37.000 That's exactly because this is unsustainable.

00:31:40.000 And I tell people, here's the easy way to look: here's a kind of a simple way to look at this.

00:31:45.000 So let's take your family and your budget.

00:31:47.000 You've got your income, your salary, or whatever.

00:31:49.000 You've got to operate within a budget.

00:31:51.000 So you start operating, you start spending more than you make.

00:31:55.000 So you start building up a debt, right?

00:31:58.000 And then you keep doing that every month.

00:32:00.000 And then it gets to be pretty significant, but you look at it and go, wait a minute, my life hasn't changed.

00:32:05.000 You know, I still have food.

00:32:07.000 I've still got my job.

00:32:08.000 I've still got my car.

00:32:09.000 I still go to the movies, whatever.

00:32:12.000 It's not changing.

00:32:13.000 And you just keep getting more and more debt.

00:32:15.000 And then all of a sudden, you hit the wall and something stops.

00:32:18.000 And all of a sudden, you can't get that money.

00:32:20.000 And by the way, the wolf is at the door for you to pay back, right?

00:32:24.000 Now your life is going to change.

00:32:26.000 And it's the same way.

00:32:28.000 An American family, we are living beyond our means.

00:32:33.000 It will, it is going to have to be paid back.

00:32:36.000 And this is one thing, you know, I work with a lot of young people, as you know, through my company, college kids and millennials.

00:32:46.000 And, you know, one other thing I hear them saying is that you're leaving us a big debt.

00:32:50.000 You know, the people that are really politically aware and involved, they realize that we are doing this to them.

00:32:56.000 Shame on us.

00:32:58.000 Shame on us.

00:32:59.000 But it will come home to roost.

00:33:01.000 It will.

00:33:02.000 And we better start doing something about it.

00:33:04.000 But I don't see, I see, I'm with you.

00:33:06.000 We are lone voices in the dark right now, right?

00:33:09.000 Both sides of the aisle, people.

00:33:11.000 Well, that doesn't really matter.

00:33:13.000 The interest rates are so low.

00:33:15.000 It doesn't make any difference.

00:33:16.000 Yes, it does because you've got principle that's building up that eventually you're going to have to pay back.

00:33:21.000 And by the way, when interest rates go up, it's going to be harder to pay back.

00:33:25.000 Well, and people say we have no inflation.

00:33:26.000 That is a bunch of nonsense.

00:33:28.000 I can prove inflation exists.

00:33:30.000 Just go to the local restaurant here in Arizona and year over year prices are up 12%.

00:33:36.000 For what reason, I don't know.

00:33:38.000 A great other example is look at Starbucks.

00:33:39.000 College tuition.

00:33:41.000 College tuition.

00:33:42.000 Yeah, college tuition or Starbucks is a Starbucks.

00:33:45.000 How is Starbucks able to get away with $4.50 for a grande coffee?

00:33:50.000 The reason is because Starbucks, either consciously or unconsciously, while looking at the price model, realizes that their cost of production to keep their profit margins, they have to adjust their prices, meaning that they're adjusting to inflation whether or not a macroeconomist tells them that.

00:34:06.000 And inflation destroys a middle class.

00:34:10.000 Vladimir Lenin famously said that I will crush the middle class through taxation and inflation.

00:34:16.000 And inflation is a tax.

00:34:18.000 Inflation is a tax without you realizing it's the silent killer.

00:34:22.000 It's your dollar that's not worth a dollar again tomorrow.

00:34:25.000 And so, Jeff, I want to also talk about, you talk about quality and student-centered education.

00:34:30.000 What do you mean by that?

00:34:32.000 Well, you know, again, you know how they know the saying that crises accelerate trends.

00:34:39.000 That's right.

00:34:40.000 Right.

00:34:41.000 We're seeing that right now.

00:34:43.000 And I think we've already had a crisis in education.

00:34:48.000 And we're seeing right now what's happened to students across the country who've been unable to go to school, who are trying to die, who are trying to use their computer at home.

00:35:02.000 And it's not working.

00:35:04.000 Everything that we're seeing, it's not working.

00:35:07.000 Yes.

00:35:07.000 You've got Catholic schools and some private schools, and frankly, some public systems that have gone back.

00:35:14.000 But across the country, we're seeing just this deterioration in the quality of education.

00:35:19.000 Now, having said that, the other part of this is that we are losing the opportunity.

00:35:26.000 We started making some progress and now there's a movement to push back on people being able to make their own choices about where they go to school and what they do, what teachers they have, that there being competition.

00:35:39.000 The result of this, that does not affect the wealthiest among us, because guess what?

00:35:45.000 Their kids are going to go to the best private schools.

00:35:48.000 They're going to get tutors to have their kids take their SATs and ACTs and college entrance exams, all these kinds of entrance exams, how to get in the best colleges, how to interview, how to build your resume, and then they get in the best colleges.

00:36:03.000 And then they get the best jobs.

00:36:04.000 So we just got this circular move toward the wealthy getting wealthier and everybody else staying the same or going down.

00:36:14.000 Education is the way out of that.

00:36:16.000 Education is the great equalizer, the great equalizer.

00:36:21.000 We have got to be committed to putting students first.

00:36:24.000 We've got to be committed to letting parents decide what's best for their kids, where their kids can get the best education.

00:36:31.000 And if we can get going down that path, we have a chance.

00:36:35.000 But these kids who are stuck in these bad schools and these kids who come from disadvantaged neighborhoods or disadvantaged families, they don't have a chance to get out without education.

00:36:46.000 So it's something that affects all of us.

00:36:49.000 People who think that I'm not, you know, I've got a pretty good school.

00:36:52.000 I'm not affected.

00:36:54.000 We are all affected by what happens to our society.

00:36:57.000 Amen.

00:36:57.000 I totally agree.

00:36:58.000 So, Jeff, can you now talk about what people can do about this?

00:37:02.000 They agree with your agenda.

00:37:03.000 They want to fight for the middle class.

00:37:04.000 What are some action steps people can take?

00:37:07.000 You know, we have no choice but for people to be involved.

00:37:10.000 We can't sit back and just watch anymore.

00:37:12.000 People have to get involved.

00:37:14.000 They have to look at these various causes.

00:37:16.000 The things that I have in my book, there are organizations that are designed out there for every one of them that people can go and get involved and help.

00:37:25.000 But it's got to get back to citizen involvement, Charlie.

00:37:29.000 I mean, you're the perfect example of someone who's gotten involved and built this amazing organization and people out there that are doing something, taking action.

00:37:42.000 That's exactly what it's going to take.

00:37:44.000 And I hope you just look at a cause.

00:37:47.000 Go on the internet.

00:37:48.000 Find the organizations that you can be a part of and you can help move the cause in the right way.

00:37:55.000 I think that's really well said. 0.93

00:37:57.000 The book is American Restoration, How to Unshackle the Great Middle Class.

00:38:02.000 Jeff, any closing thoughts or any topics that we wanted to cover that I might not have hit?

00:38:09.000 You know, when I started writing this book, it was just as the pandemic began, if you will, and I had a lot of time to really reflect and talk about so many of the issues that I'd pondered and talked to people like you about and put them together.

00:38:22.000 But in that short period of time, from then, from last April until now, you know, the plight of the middle class is that nothing would get worse.

00:38:30.000 And there is no easy way out of this.

00:38:33.000 It's going to take people getting involved and working hard.

00:38:37.000 The good news is, if we do that, it also creates this great connection of people working together, working for the right things.

00:38:46.000 And I think that we can make a big difference.

00:38:47.000 I remain optimistic, but it's going to take everybody.

00:38:50.000 Nobody can sit on the sidelines anymore.

00:38:53.000 Well said.

00:38:54.000 MiddleclassWarriors.com.

00:38:56.000 Jeff, thank you for this great conversation.

00:38:58.000 And I hope to see you soon, my friend.

00:39:00.000 Sounds great.

00:39:00.000 Thanks, Charlie.

00:39:01.000 Thanks, Jeff.

00:39:04.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:39:06.000 If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, where we play offense with a sense of urgency to win America's culture war, go to tpusa.com.

00:39:12.000 That's tpusa.com.

00:39:14.000 Start a high school group.

00:39:15.000 Start a college group at tpusa.com.

00:39:18.000 Email us your questions, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:39:21.000 And if you'd like to support us, go to charliekirk.com slash support.

00:39:24.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:39:26.000 God

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 16, 2021

Stopping the Death of the American Middle Class with Entrepreneur Jeff Webb

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