00:00:00.000Today in the Charlie Kirk Show, Colonel Douglas McGregor joins the program and he gives some really smart commentary on how we should think about what's happening in Israel.
00:00:10.000Matt Gates, you know, we don't have a speaker.
00:00:59.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:02:06.000The worst thing that could happen would be for other regional actors to become involved.
00:02:11.000Now, the attacks were tragic, and they shouldn't surprise anyone because Gaza is a boiling pot of hatred and anger, all of which is directed at Israel, not necessarily with complete justification.
00:02:39.000And our biggest concern should be to contain this conflict and avoid anything that would widen it.
00:02:46.000So, Colonel, are you concerned or should we be concerned that some politicians are going to try and have malevolent intentions and capitalize on emotion to get us into a broader regional conflict, for example, with U.S. troops against Iran?
00:03:23.000Mike Huckabee, who claims to be a pastor, insists that this is also an attack on the United States, which, of course, is not true.
00:03:32.000If we decided to launch a war against all of the various forces attacking our society, we would be at war inside our own country in perpetuity.
00:04:18.000You begin taking actions and you have no idea what the consequences of your actions will be.
00:04:24.000The notion that we should attack Iran is absurd.
00:04:27.000Turkey is equally concerned with what's happening.
00:04:30.000And frankly speaking, Turkey is a much greater power and it's currently smarting under the experience of having one of their drones shot down by us.
00:04:39.000So the Turks are looking into this with dangerous eyes, in my judgment.
00:05:41.000Was this them turning an eye kind of like Golden Mair did 50 years ago, where she decided not to act on intelligence to win support from other nations?
00:05:51.000Well, the quick answer is to say that we don't know all of the facts today any more than in October of 1973, everyone knew all of the facts.
00:06:01.000So we just don't know the answer to all of your questions.
00:06:24.000And I think what we saw happen with Hamas was something that was undoubtedly building over time.
00:06:31.000I'm absolutely certain that Iranian and Turkish advisors and trainers inside the Gaza Strip or outside of it in northern Egypt no doubt prepared them for what they did.
00:06:44.000And remember, this is something the Arabs had never been able to do in the past.
00:06:48.000You know, the Arabs are very loquacious.
00:07:21.000We went through something similar during the Battle of the Bulge.
00:07:24.000And if you go back to Custer and his cavalry force, his biggest concern when he attacked the Sioux was that they would run away because that's what they'd always done.
00:07:34.000Instead, he ended up fighting not only the Sioux, but all these tribes that had never united, and he was annihilated.
00:08:00.000The Israelis don't want that to happen.
00:08:02.000They want to squeeze the population in Gaza, but this may not be possible.
00:08:07.000The last thing that Israel wants to do is end up in a fighting war or shooting war with the Egyptians, who have already said they plan to stay neutral, but they do want to provide some medical assistance and support and so forth to the population.
00:08:23.000And then you have Mr. Erdogan in Turkey, who is meeting with the Secretary General of the United Nations and is also going to meet with President Putin.
00:08:31.000And he's already talked about on humanitarian grounds the impossibility of cutting off electricity and water to Gaza.
00:08:40.000So the Israelis are in a difficult position.
00:08:42.000I'm sympathetic to them, as I'm sure everyone is.
00:08:45.000We want to see them succeed, but they've got to proceed carefully.
00:08:48.000In the meantime, we should have diplomats in the region working to ensure that this conflict does not spread.
00:08:58.000We need to identify everyone's interest and see what we can do to meet it.
00:09:01.000Instead of treating everyone as a potential enemy, we need to start looking at people as potential partners and containing this conflict.
00:09:09.000If we don't do that, if we do what Pompeo and Huckabee and others are saying, then we risk more than just a regional war.
00:09:18.000If there is an attack on Iran, if Turkey becomes involved, this will not stop.
00:09:35.000So we need to find a way to prevent it.
00:09:37.000Yeah, I mean, and Turkey's part of NATO.
00:09:40.000You're saying, I mean, this is this whole NATO project is just such a disgrace to our intelligence and anyone with reason.
00:09:46.000So a NATO quote-unquote ally, according to you, is helping Hamas.
00:09:52.000But I agree 100%, Colonel, that if we are not careful, this will turn into a regional war, which, again, I'm not trying to get people into panic, but we could get into a world war over this, okay?
00:10:02.000This thing could get completely and totally out of control because of a massacre that occurred in Israel.
00:10:08.000And my other fear is that Netanyahu, who is temporarily humiliated, very well might overreact and try to broaden this and extend this beyond what just happened with Hamas.
00:10:22.000That is a fear of mine because now we have Hezbollah and Lebanon.
00:10:26.000And he says we're going to send a message that will strike for generations to come.
00:10:30.000That's a little bit unclear what he means, but knowing kind of the history of, let's just say, Mossad's pursuit of revenge, I hope this thing doesn't turn into an entire Arab versus Israel conflict.
00:12:56.000But the Turks had a key role in standing up ISIS.
00:13:00.000Turkish intelligence officers provided all sorts of communication equipment, advance intelligence, and ultimately the Turks operate as a go-between to sell oil to finance ISIS.
00:13:14.000They are interested in an agenda in the region that is completely unconnected to anything we want, or for that matter, Israel wants.
00:13:23.000Now, Israel knows that the Turks are unfriendly.
00:13:26.000Mr. Erdogan is hostile to the Turks, excuse me, to Israel and the Israeli state.
00:13:33.000So they have provided support and assistance and advice.
00:13:38.000And now, beyond that, have they provided weapons?
00:13:40.000Now, I think most of the weapons that we're seeing used have come from other sources, certainly from Iran.
00:13:45.000And there are unconfirmed reports that some of these weapons have actually found their way through the Kosovo Arms Bazaar from Ukraine into Gaza.
00:13:55.000I mean, anything is possible in the world today.
00:13:58.000Colonel, I want to make sure we have adequate time.
00:14:00.000Can you tell us about your new organization, Our Country, Our Choice?
00:15:10.000And we're worried about what's happening today in the Middle East.
00:15:14.000We could wake up tomorrow morning with a nuclear accident, an attack on our electrical grid, any numbers of different things executed by people inside the country who were admitted freely without any attempt to vent them.
00:15:31.000Is it fear-mongering to say that there could potentially be sleeper cells in this country that could execute terror and harm on the homeland?
00:16:10.000And we need to measure whatever we think we're going to achieve by how much we will lose.
00:16:14.000And the same thing is true with the border.
00:16:16.000All of these people that want open borders and think that that's humanitarian need to step back and look at the societal cohesion that's being destroyed to look at the rise in criminality.
00:16:27.000I don't know how many crimes or misdemeanors are being committed by various illegals.
00:16:33.000I have no idea, but I know that the illegal population contains the very elements you're talking about.
00:16:39.000Some of these are people that work for Hezbollah, Hamas.
00:16:43.000A lot of people are in this country from other countries simply as foreign agents.
00:16:47.000They will respond to direction that they get overseas.
00:16:51.000Colonel Douglas McGregor, thank you for being so generous with your time.
00:18:36.000My only regret is that the Pro Tem made the decision that was fully vested in him to call for a week of cooling off.
00:18:45.000I don't think we should be cooling off.
00:18:46.000I think we should be heating up, heating up the agenda, the appropriations process, and specifically turning up the heat on the United States Senate to take up the bills that we have already passed to fund our veterans, to fund our national defense, to fund our Department of Homeland Security and the border.
00:19:04.000Right now, we could be negotiating those things.
00:19:07.000The Senate has not passed any of those bills.
00:19:09.000As far as the speaker's race goes, I'm quite pleased with the candidates that we have.
00:19:13.000Where this would be more challenging scenario is if we had seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 candidates, each with a small batch of people.
00:19:22.000And one could see that reasonably taking some weeks to resolve.
00:19:25.000But, Charlie, we have two candidates, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan.
00:19:28.000One of those two people is going to get more support than the other.
00:19:31.000And that will likely be the person that our conference rallies around.
00:19:36.000I've worked with both of them very closely on committees and on regional priorities.
00:19:41.000I think that either will represent an upgrade at the position.
00:19:44.000And when I leave this discussion, we're going to some small group meetings where both Mr. Scalise and Mr. Jordan will lay out their vision on spending.
00:19:52.000That's something very important to me because if we get the rest of this right, but we don't resolve the fact that we're facing a $2.2 trillion annual deficit, then I fear that we'll lose this great country.
00:20:03.000Everybody, email us your thoughts and your questions you want me to ask, Congressman Gates.
00:20:08.000So we're on Team Jim Jordan all the way.
00:20:10.000Matt, who are you supporting in the speaker's race?
00:20:13.000Well, I'm an undecided voter right now.
00:20:15.000Again, I've said it's an embarrassment of riches that we've got someone like a Jim Jordan, who is our most talented, our hardest working member, someone who I personally nominated in January.
00:20:29.000And Steve Scalise is a guy who's demonstrated a tremendous amount of grit.
00:20:33.000He's widely respected among every facet of the conference.
00:20:37.000And I think either of these men would be able to bring us together.
00:20:41.000Ultimately, that has to be toward a specific vision, though.
00:20:44.000I think too often in Washington, it's about personality or fundraising or who's done what favor for whom.
00:20:51.000And so, you know, while I have great personal affection for both of these folks, my final decision is going to be driven by their vision on budgeting and then really reining in this government.
00:21:03.000Because you are rightly critical of Republicans who just put on a big performance in committee, but then at the end of the day, still send the check to operationalize a government that, in many instances, has been turned against the people.
00:21:16.000So I think we have to use that power of the purse effectively.
00:21:20.000And if we do so, we can leverage one half of one-third of government.
00:21:25.000Kevin McCarthy never really understood leverage.
00:21:27.000I think we've got to see how the plan will work under the upgrades in Scalise or Jordan.
00:21:33.000If I were to guess, I think you're going to be more in the Jordan camp than the Scalise camp, but I don't want to speak for you.
00:22:24.000We'll determine who won that secret ballot.
00:22:26.000And I wish it were more action on the floor, like the country got to see during the last speaker contest, where different people could make nominating speeches and you would see publicly how people were voting.
00:22:38.000I think a majority of our conference is instead going to want to resolve this behind closed doors so as to not have that public display.
00:22:46.000I actually don't think that made us weaker.
00:22:48.000I think that made us stronger because the country tuned into what we were fighting for and who we were fighting for and how we thought we could get from point A to point B.
00:22:56.000But I'm not in the majority of the majority on that question.
00:23:02.000I don't think that it'll last into next week.
00:23:05.000And if there are, you know, four, five, 10 or 12 people that will only vote for Kevin McCarthy, even though he's not a candidate and has no path to regain the position, that would be a real sign of stubbornness, not a collective effort to unify and go forward with a plan.
00:23:21.000So, Matt, something that I think is getting misrepresented here.
00:23:25.000Some people say, you know, we want to get an Israel aid package passed quickly.
00:23:29.000And because of that, we need a speaker.
00:23:41.000You could introduce your upper-down vote.
00:23:44.000The speaker pro tem can introduce legislation.
00:23:46.000So what I'm trying to get at, Matt, is that we shouldn't be overly pressured into conceding our principles because of basically a narrative of misinformation.
00:23:58.000And while we're horrified at what's going on right now in Israel, and we understand that Israel has a right to defend itself and is indeed doing so, the observations of Marco Rubio are pretty dispositive here.
00:24:13.000He laid out how under our current laws, there is all of the authority the President of the United States needs to be able to provide any additional supplemental aid to Israel.
00:24:24.000And keep in mind, Israel is on a $3.8 billion auto pay as the consequence of good legislation that Marco Rubio passed.
00:24:33.000And so I think that we're fine in terms of meeting the needs at Israel.
00:24:37.000Of course, we want the border to be more reflective of what the American people want, but we can achieve that objective by demanding the Senate take up and pass our legislation to fund the border with policy demands that people not be just released indiscriminately into the country.
00:24:52.000They have to be detained or removed if they are not here lawfully.
00:24:57.000And so that is a really important asylum change that we're fighting for there.
00:25:01.000But we should not buy into the misinformation that Congress can do nothing.
00:25:06.000I mean, you know, just today I was getting briefings on what's going on in the Middle East.
00:25:10.000Tomorrow morning, we've got a classified briefing set for all the members.
00:25:16.000I do think we need to get a speaker quickly, but it is not worth sacrificing our principles.
00:25:20.000So there's this whisper campaign that's going on here, Matt, that this, I'm going to read this article here from Politico.com.
00:25:28.000McCarthy loyalists vow to draw out painful speakership battle.
00:25:32.000So they actually might want to turn this into a spectacle.
00:25:36.000As far as the news with Israel, do you think that changes the calculation in that regard?
00:25:43.000And how will you respond tactically to moderates that now want to exact revenge by basically drawing this out into a long, long process?
00:25:54.000Well, if moderates want to help Israel, as I believe they do and as I want to do, that would be very self-defeating to say that just for the sake of eulogizing whatever's left of Kevin McCarthy, that we want to continue to vote for him in the absence of any belief that he could govern the House of Representatives.
00:26:13.000What I would say is that Kevin McCarthy has had nine months to lead the House of Representatives, and we didn't really deliver on anything substantive for the American people.
00:26:23.000All we did was advance Joe Biden's spending and Nancy Pelosi's policy priorities while underwriting the debt for all of it.
00:26:31.000We've not even sent a subpoena to Hunter Biden.
00:26:34.000So we've had a pretty large sample size of the Kevin McCarthy experience.
00:26:38.000And if there's a small group of moderates who want to just deny the House of Representatives a speaker with no end game, I think their constituents will put pressure on them.
00:26:48.000I've had every talking head on Fox News and even other conservative media outlets critical of me.
00:26:54.000And yet the recent CBS poll that came out showed that 60% of Americans and 54% of identified conservatives support the ouster of Kevin McCarthy.
00:27:04.000Matter of fact, my resolution vacating Kevin McCarthy may be the most popular thing that the House of Representatives has passed that's actually gotten enacted.
00:27:14.000I mean, it's certainly more popular than the debt limit deal and the continuing resolutions.
00:27:18.000So I think that we've got an opportunity to come together.
00:27:22.000We should seize that opportunity and we should really count our blessings that we've got people like Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise willing to step up and take on this challenge.
00:27:31.000Everybody, you can email us your questions here, freedom at charliekirk.com for Matt Gates.
00:27:36.000Here's one question we received from one of our listeners, Matt.
00:27:40.000How are you handling all of the vicious attacks?
00:27:43.000Can you read us into how they are retaliating?
00:27:46.000Matt, can you add some context to that?
00:27:49.000Because, you know, you don't aim for the king, take out the king, catch the car, and then go back to your district and expect parades and beautiful commercials, you know, with you and your wife.
00:28:04.000Yeah, there are some outside dark money groups that are attacking me in my district, and there are threats of retaliation, expulsion, weaponizing the ethics process to try to force me out of the United States Congress.
00:28:18.000What I can assure the American people is that every day I am here, I will fight for you.
00:28:22.000And if demanding that we follow the law or pass a budget draws me ire or negative attacks, I am built for the battle.
00:28:30.000I have faced down tougher things than a few nasty Grahams from Grover Norquist.
00:28:36.000So I'm very proud of the work we've done, but I don't believe the job is over.
00:28:42.000We are still in this fight to ensure that the American people are represented first and foremost in the thoughts and minds of our leadership as we go to battle the Biden administration and the Chuck Schumer-controlled Senate.
00:28:54.000So, yeah, you know, there have been a few terse words and even terser actions, but it's not something that I let get me down.
00:30:43.000When the government used emergency edicts during COVID to restrict the gathering and worship of churches, three pastors facing the risk of imprisonment, unlimited fines, and their own churches being ripped apart took a courageous stand and reopened their doors in the face of a world that chose to comply.
00:30:59.000The Essential Church is a feature-length documentary that explores the struggle between the church and government throughout history.
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00:32:13.000I was treated really well by the people there.
00:32:15.000And again, I'm not an apologist for the Israeli government.
00:32:17.000There's plenty of stuff that they do as I just kind of say, that's weird.
00:32:20.000But, you know, a common talking point is, you know, whenever America goes to war, you know, like Adam Kinzinger wants us to get another way.
00:33:41.000Demand or seek, Badrash, the welfare of the nation that you are in, because your welfare or shalom or shalem is tied to your nation's welfare.
00:33:54.000And so I was texting with this guy and he says, you know, I have a pregnant wife.
00:34:01.000And I got to say, man, are you sure that's smart?
00:34:03.000He said, I don't think people that don't, he said, with all due respect, Charlie, I don't think you understand how much we believe in Israel.
00:34:50.000When I see entire planes packed with Jews that want to go back to fight for their homeland, when I see Israelis leaving their cars on the side of the road to go to recruitment centers, that's powerful stuff.
00:35:05.000That's honestly, that's nationalism at its best.
00:35:09.000We talk, you know, the bad guys, they always say nationalism is a toxin.