The Charlie Kirk Show - February 26, 2026


The Epstein Panic Distraction


Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

182.51656

Word count

6,890

Sentence count

542

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

34

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Epstein is a serial pedophile who has been accused of blackmailing the Trump administration for years. The FBI has never been able to find any evidence of Epstein's involvement with the Trump campaign. He has been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, but he has not been convicted of either of these charges.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Charlie Kirk Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.
00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.
00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.
00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.
00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful.
00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.
00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.
00:00:28.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.
00:00:31.000 Go start a turning point USA college chapter, go start a turning point USA high school chapter.
00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.
00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.
00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.
00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same.
00:00:45.000 Here I am.
00:00:46.000 Lord, use me.
00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.
00:00:49.000 Here we go.
00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts, and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.
00:01:09.000 All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:01:11.000 It is February 26th.
00:01:14.000 Had a great time in our nation's capital, but in the tradition of Charlie, I was all too eager to get the heck out.
00:01:23.000 Because, you know, you don't want to stay there too long. 0.91
00:01:25.000 Rot your brain. 0.98
00:01:26.000 Evil City. 0.98
00:01:27.000 Well, you know, it's weird.
00:01:27.000 Yeah.
00:01:28.000 I went to this Capitol Hill Club where, you know, It's like all the lobbyists hang out and stuff.
00:01:32.000 I got invited there as a.
00:01:34.000 It's the Republican lobbyists, at least.
00:01:36.000 I think that's the.
00:01:36.000 But it was like a zoo trip.
00:01:37.000 It was like going to the zoo.
00:01:38.000 You see them in their caged habitat.
00:01:42.000 And it was very, very illuminating.
00:01:46.000 Anyways, so we got to hit this.
00:01:48.000 There's lots of stories going on.
00:01:50.000 We've got our eyes on what's going on in Geneva because there was a report from Jennifer Griffin at Fox News saying that, I think her quote was, let's be clear.
00:01:59.000 If talks fail in Geneva, we will be at war.
00:02:02.000 America will be at war sometime next week.
00:02:04.000 We're.
00:02:05.000 Watching that very, very closely.
00:02:07.000 Let's pray for peace.
00:02:08.000 Let's pray for diplomacy.
00:02:11.000 We don't want wars in the Middle East.
00:02:13.000 We just don't.
00:02:14.000 You know, Charlie learned to trust President Trump's decision making process and to make hard decisions.
00:02:20.000 These are difficult decisions, but we're watching that.
00:02:22.000 So we got to get, though, and there's an FBI story.
00:02:25.000 There's a Minneapolis fraud story.
00:02:26.000 That's going to be a big one.
00:02:27.000 That's going to be a big one.
00:02:28.000 And we're going to get to it.
00:02:29.000 We're going to get to it.
00:02:30.000 Maybe we'll ask Ron Johnson, who's coming up in the half hour, hour one here.
00:02:34.000 So we can ask him about that.
00:02:36.000 But We got to tackle this Epstein thing. 0.65
00:02:40.000 I had a revelation last night.
00:02:41.000 So I'm flying home and I get into a debate via text because I'm on a plane with a very prominent left wing TV host.
00:02:50.000 All right.
00:02:51.000 So we're having this debate and it becomes very clear to me while we were paying attention to the State of the Union, while we were paying attention to this epic speech from President Trump, this tent enlarging speech where I think he hit so many of the right notes and he.
00:03:08.000 Completely seemed to hit Mark Halperin's tweet, the Tony Fabrizio presentation, you know, banning stock trading for Congress, etc. etc.
00:03:16.000 He did what he needed to do.
00:03:18.000 That being said, the other side of the aisle is fixated on this Epstein bombshell from NPR.
00:03:27.000 I didn't realize the depth of it because I live in the real world and they live in the get Trump at all costs world.
00:03:33.000 But here's where it gets really interesting.
00:03:35.000 So there you go.
00:03:35.000 NPR, Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump.
00:03:40.000 So that's the allegation.
00:03:41.000 That the statute said that President Trump was supposed to release all of these documents.
00:03:46.000 He did not.
00:03:47.000 That's the claim.
00:03:48.000 So I didn't realize how in depth this was.
00:03:50.000 But then you find out, you know, Gen Z TikTok is all about blackmail and Trump.
00:03:57.000 And I mean, they're not buying that Trump has been exonerated.
00:04:01.000 People who primarily get their news through this program or similar programs, I think they need to understand there is a pretty large chunk of America that is substantially on TikTok, substantially on.
00:04:14.000 X substantially on Instagram, YouTube, where like this is the number one and arguably only story in the entire world is various things around emanating from Epstein.
00:04:26.000 Epstein.
00:04:27.000 It is tapped into, and a lot of you in this audience care about it a great deal.
00:04:30.000 I care about it a great deal.
00:04:32.000 And let's just start with brass tacks. 0.99
00:04:34.000 If you are a pedophile, I think you should be arrested, held accountable, death penalty. 0.99
00:04:39.000 Simple as that. 0.99
00:04:40.000 If you touched a little child, underage girl, you should be thrown into jail. 1.00
00:04:47.000 Probably killed, executed, and then into the depths of hell. 1.00
00:04:51.000 No problem there.
00:04:52.000 But what we also have to be clear about is we have to follow facts.
00:04:57.000 We have to actually follow what is provable.
00:05:00.000 And one of the reasons that we don't, as a country, historically just release grand jury testimony is because it's not definitive all the time.
00:05:09.000 It can be conclusory if it's conclusory, but it could also just be a lot of random facts.
00:05:14.000 Grand jury, as it was pointed out, I believe, by the President, even last summer, a grand jury is the rare situation where you can say stuff that would otherwise be totally defamatory if you uttered it in other contexts because it's to a grand jury and they can weigh whether it is actually true, likely to be true or not.
00:05:33.000 Right.
00:05:34.000 And now we've just taken that and blasted it out and given it to the internet to do what the internet does.
00:05:39.000 Now, some of that can be really good and we keep asking questions, we keep asking questions, and that can be really good.
00:05:44.000 But when it turns into like, you know, this government official is eating little babies and whatever, because Some rando email came through and it's in these three million documents, it can literally cause the internet brain rot that you're seeing right now. 0.61
00:05:57.000 And so, this is why I want to address it because it's young people, especially, that are buying into some of the more ridiculous claims. 0.91
00:06:04.000 Now, Jeffrey Epstein is evil. 0.99
00:06:06.000 He was a pedophile, he was a sexual predator, he was using prostitution and soliciting young women in Palm Beach. 0.99
00:06:13.000 President Trump in 2006 called, was one of the first people that called. 0.99
00:06:17.000 That's according to the files.
00:06:18.000 The first people that called, prominent people that called, was President Trump saying, Thank you, finally getting this monster.
00:06:23.000 Yeah, that's a document from the FBI.
00:06:27.000 This is 2006.
00:06:28.000 This is before Jeffrey Epstein was even indicted as a sexual predator.
00:06:33.000 Okay, but here's the deal. 0.99
00:06:34.000 So the salacious allegations that NPR reported about President Trump are ridiculous. 0.96
00:06:39.000 And let me explain why. 0.93
00:06:41.000 This is what they left out of the story.
00:06:43.000 The woman who was interviewed for the first time by the FBI in 2019 claimed that she was 13 in 1983 when her mother put her out for an ad to be a babysitter and that Jeffrey Epstein lured her to her house in South Carolina.
00:06:55.000 On the promise of a babysitting job.
00:06:57.000 Here's the problem.
00:06:58.000 Even Jeffrey Epstein's brother, Mark, who seems to be a pretty straight shooter on this stuff, he wants to find out who killed his brother.
00:07:05.000 He doesn't believe he committed suicide, so that's his motivation.
00:07:08.000 He's never been accused of any wrongdoing or being involved in his brother's crimes.
00:07:12.000 He said he never had a house in South Carolina, never summered in South Carolina. 0.96
00:07:17.000 She says that Epstein then gave her cocaine and alcohol before forcing her into oral sex. 0.69
00:07:22.000 It was in a later FBI interview that she even mentioned allegations against President Trump. 0.89
00:07:27.000 This is incredible.
00:07:29.000 For many reasons.
00:07:30.000 Epstein never had a residence in South Carolina, like I said.
00:07:33.000 Epstein was known to never do alcohol or drugs.
00:07:37.000 And every other allegation against him starts with a massage, not drug fueled sexual acts.
00:07:43.000 There was also another bizarre moment when this woman identified Epstein using a photo that she claimed needed a crop in order to not implicate additional individuals.
00:07:51.000 Well, this was a well known photo that was a picture of President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.
00:07:56.000 So she already had this picture of Trump.
00:07:58.000 And, anyways, on top of that, the woman's lawyer who set this whole interview up is Lisa Bloom, who was also responsible for a very bogus Katie Johnson allegation that was laughed out of court in 2016.
00:08:13.000 Of the exculpatory evidence for President Trump.
00:08:17.000 They don't include the fact that he was the first person to speak out against Jeffrey Epstein.
00:08:21.000 Sorry, I can tell you're ready to jump in here.
00:08:23.000 Well, I think it's helpful to zoom out because it's such a suffocatingly complex story.
00:08:28.000 Three million documents, it's been going on for years.
00:08:30.000 The big picture you need to know here is the president was vindicated on something very important that he warned last summer, which is a lot of people are going to just get recklessly accused of things that there's not evidence for if we go all in on this, which Congress did.
00:08:47.000 And as a result, all these documents have come out.
00:08:50.000 They're filled with a lot of them completely salacious or mentally ill or anonymous allegations that there's no evidence for.
00:08:58.000 And what this NPR article shows is how this is going to end up, which is they'll try to get the House next fall and they'll try to impeach President Trump on process.
00:09:06.000 They'll have no evidence he committed any real crimes, but they'll say he sabotaged the Epstein files.
00:09:11.000 Time to impeach him.
00:09:12.000 And it's going to be a big joke.
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00:10:13.000 That's BalanceOfNature.com.
00:10:18.000 I got to keep going.
00:10:18.000 Epstein.
00:10:19.000 So NPR releases a bombshell on the day of the State of the Union.
00:10:24.000 We don't talk about it because we're talking about the State of the Union.
00:10:27.000 Meanwhile, lefty TikTok, lefty Twitter, blue sky, all this stuff, they're fixated on it.
00:10:31.000 I get into an argument with this prominent TV host, he's left leaning.
00:10:36.000 Good person, good person, but, you know, left.
00:10:39.000 So, anyways, have this revelation.
00:10:42.000 This is all they care about.
00:10:44.000 Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
00:10:45.000 Trump, Trump, Trump.
00:10:46.000 So they claim again, just to reiterate, that Trump left this.
00:10:50.000 Stuff out the DOJ on purpose to protect President Trump.
00:10:54.000 Here's what they're not telling you.
00:10:56.000 So let's deal again with the allegations of these women that they claim are removed from the Epstein files. 0.69
00:11:03.000 One is a woman who called the FBI with a crop photo of a widely distributed photograph of Epstein and Trump.
00:11:09.000 Okay.
00:11:09.000 A woman who sued the Epstein estate and dismissed her claims in 2021.
00:11:15.000 A woman, and then the third, a woman who claimed she was abused by Trump but refused to cooperate.
00:11:20.000 In other words, total nothing burger from a rag outlet, NPR, who's probably just upset that the feds pulled their funding. 0.74
00:11:30.000 Okay? 0.98
00:11:30.000 So none of this is actually problematic from a legal standpoint for President Trump. 0.98
00:11:35.000 Okay, but the allegation is he removed these documents or his DOJ was doing his bidding to protect him.
00:11:42.000 Well, here's the thing there is massive issues, and this is even admitted in the NPR article, with the timeline that the DOJ was given under statute from Congress on this Transparency Act.
00:11:55.000 To get out the 3 million documents, okay?
00:11:57.000 3 million documents had to get out.
00:12:00.000 And there have been thousands and thousands of documents that were published and then pulled down from the site and then republished a week or two later.
00:12:09.000 Because what's happening is all of the victims' legal teams and some of the victims directly are saying, hey, you put in personally identifiable information in these documents, you were supposed to redact them.
00:12:21.000 And the DOJ is saying, we're working around the clock in good faith to pull down any documents that identify victims.
00:12:27.000 Okay, so if we made a mistake, we're sorry.
00:12:30.000 We were trying to, in good faith, meet the statute deadline to release these documents.
00:12:38.000 It was impossible to do this perfectly.
00:12:40.000 So we're pulling these documents down and putting them back up.
00:12:44.000 Okay, so here, let me give you a couple examples.
00:12:46.000 One of these interviews that they're saying was removed to protect Trump was removed from the DOJ's public files sometime after initial publication on January 30th.
00:12:55.000 So they didn't keep them out originally, they just removed them after the fact.
00:12:59.000 And it was republished on February 19th, according to document metadata.
00:13:03.000 The Justice Department told NPR the only reason any file has been temporarily removed is that it has been flagged by a victim or their counsel for additional review.
00:13:13.000 Multiple FBI interviews with other people refer to the second woman's meeting with Trump while she was a minor and being abused by Epstein.
00:13:21.000 One interview with a fleeting mention of Trump was removed from the public database and subsequently restored last week.
00:13:26.000 So they're even admitting that the FBI is pulling things down, putting it back up when they get complaints about personally identifiable information.
00:13:34.000 This is so.
00:13:35.000 Let me just give you an insight.
00:13:36.000 This is a lawyer of one of the victims that is quoted in the NPR pieces.
00:13:40.000 His name's Robert Glassman.
00:13:42.000 He says the whole thing is ridiculous, he told NPR.
00:13:44.000 The DOJ was ordered to release information to the public to be transparent about Epstein and Maxwell's criminal enterprise network.
00:13:51.000 Instead, they released the names of courageous victims who have fought hard for decades to remain anonymous and out of the limelight.
00:13:58.000 Whether the disclosures were inadvertent or not, they had one job to do here and they didn't do it.
00:14:02.000 A DOJ spokesman replied to this and told NPR that the department is working around the Clock to address concerns from victims and handle additional redactions of personally identifiable information that have been flagged.
00:14:14.000 What does this mean?
00:14:16.000 It means that the DOJ is treating this as a work in progress.
00:14:20.000 They released the 3 million documents.
00:14:23.000 People are going through it, combing through it.
00:14:24.000 The internet's combing through it.
00:14:26.000 There's a lot of crazy stuff in there.
00:14:28.000 Some of it's about bodies buried at the New Mexico ranch that never been corroborated.
00:14:32.000 The FBI looks into it, but the internet takes that email and assumes that it's true.
00:14:37.000 They don't see that the FBI actually investigated and debunked it.
00:14:41.000 Okay, so.
00:14:42.000 But there's lots of this kind of stuff.
00:14:43.000 Some of it has victim information and they've pulled it down and then they republish it with proper redactions to protect the victims because the lawyers are on their butts to do it.
00:14:53.000 That doesn't mean that they pulled, you know, evidence from the files to protect Donald Trump.
00:14:59.000 It means that they have done this with literally, NPR admits this, thousands and thousands and thousands of documents from the new release on January 30th.
00:15:07.000 So they're claiming that President Trump is engaged in a legal cover up of allegations against him to protect the presidency.
00:15:16.000 Meanwhile, the DOJ is saying we're doing this on a daily basis, thousands upon thousands of documents.
00:15:21.000 That doesn't even mention the fact that NPR left out all the exculpatory evidence for President Trump.
00:15:26.000 Bigger point this has been turned all upside down.
00:15:30.000 There is one party that released the files.
00:15:32.000 There's one president that released the files.
00:15:34.000 And there's a party that did not.
00:15:35.000 And there's a president who did not.
00:15:37.000 Even though they were sitting on them, President Trump and the Republicans are now getting smeared for releasing the files.
00:15:44.000 I'm not saying they handled it perfectly, but they did release the files.
00:15:47.000 Guess who didn't?
00:15:48.000 The Democrats, Joe Biden.
00:15:50.000 Do you not think for a moment that they would have released those files had there been anything in there that they could have nailed Donald Trump on?
00:15:56.000 Absolutely, they would have.
00:15:58.000 But they chose not to.
00:15:59.000 They sat on them.
00:16:00.000 They didn't do anything, they didn't raise a flag.
00:16:02.000 Rohanna didn't get up with a supposed victim who may or may not have been luring underage women in.
00:16:08.000 He's right after the State of the Union.
00:16:10.000 That's what he did.
00:16:12.000 Stood up alongside a supposed victim who actually has a lot of allegations that she was part of the problem, that she was luring underage women in and telling them to lie about their age.
00:16:20.000 Rohanna didn't make a fuss about this.
00:16:23.000 Not until it became a political football that they could weaponize against President Trump. 0.58
00:16:27.000 Now, all that being said, this hit job, this hatchet piece, which is going viral on the left, which is going viral on social media, especially with Gen Z, was intentionally timed to derail the State of the Union.
00:16:41.000 Now, we didn't make a huge mess about it here because we were focused on all the good news from the State of the Union, but it has to be addressed.
00:16:47.000 And here's what else I'll say final word.
00:16:50.000 Blake, I don't know if you agree.
00:16:51.000 We do need prosecutions.
00:16:54.000 And we talked about this with Mike Davis.
00:16:57.000 Reed Hoffman, Bill Gates, Les Wexner, anybody else that was conceivably involved in some nefarious activity.
00:17:06.000 And if it can be proved, we are a nation of laws.
00:17:10.000 They have to be provable offenses.
00:17:12.000 That's just it.
00:17:13.000 It has to be proven. 0.82
00:17:14.000 I don't, even with that, I would say Bill Gates, you have a lot of evidence that he was hanging out with this gross guy.
00:17:19.000 It should probably damage his reputation. 0.62
00:17:21.000 Yeah, he admitted to having affairs with two Russian girls.
00:17:24.000 Okay.
00:17:24.000 It's not illegal to have affairs.
00:17:26.000 It's embarrassing to have affairs.
00:17:28.000 Prostitution is illegal.
00:17:29.000 So. 1.00
00:17:30.000 If they can get them on that, they should.
00:17:32.000 But if they can't, they can't.
00:17:34.000 Because we are a nation of law and order.
00:17:36.000 We are a nation of rules.
00:17:37.000 You have to be able to prove somebody's guilt.
00:17:40.000 And by the way, that might be frustrating when you want to get the people that you think did bad things.
00:17:45.000 But it's really, really helpful when innocent people are getting accused of wrongdoing and have not done so.
00:17:51.000 So we have to keep these two ideas in our head.
00:17:54.000 We cannot give in to the brain rot that is infesting the internet space.
00:17:59.000 You have to.
00:18:01.000 Follow the law.
00:18:02.000 You have to go by the facts and you have to only pursue that which can be proved.
00:18:06.000 And listen, I'm all for what the UK is doing to some of their people.
00:18:10.000 They're getting people on process crimes.
00:18:12.000 Fine, sure, do that.
00:18:14.000 Did anybody leak sensitive information?
00:18:16.000 Get them on that.
00:18:16.000 Did they solicit prostitution?
00:18:18.000 Get them on that.
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00:19:20.000 Joining us now is the great senator from the North.
00:19:24.000 That is, of course, Ron Johnson.
00:19:26.000 Wonderful, wonderful senator.
00:19:28.000 Charlie loved him.
00:19:29.000 Senator, welcome back to the show.
00:19:32.000 I wanted to just give you the opportunity to respond.
00:19:35.000 There was this NPR bombshell article.
00:19:39.000 All the allegations against President Trump have been debunked and they're uncredible and all this stuff.
00:19:43.000 But more broadly, Senator, what do you want to see take place in the Epstein stuff?
00:19:49.000 The whole saga.
00:19:51.000 Well, guys, well, listen, I'd like to get justice for the victims.
00:19:55.000 I want to have those individuals who preyed on these young women held accountable.
00:20:01.000 I think what's really missing from most of the people who are exploring this, and I'm not, I mean, there are plenty of people looking into this.
00:20:07.000 I've got other fish to fry, basically, as chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation.
00:20:11.000 So I'll let the House do this.
00:20:13.000 I'll let the media.
00:20:14.000 But what really is not being explored much is who was Jeffrey Epstein?
00:20:20.000 How did he get his funding?
00:20:22.000 Who is he working for and with?
00:20:24.000 I mean, the more we see of these things, you know, his involvement with Bill Gates and vaccines and the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum and all those types of things.
00:20:34.000 I mean, this guy was connected to everybody, which is really bizarre.
00:20:40.000 I mean, there aren't many people that made the kind of connections he made.
00:20:44.000 What was that all about?
00:20:45.000 So, again, I'm as curious as anybody, but I'll let other people do the investigation.
00:20:50.000 I'll just read the executive summary and reports.
00:20:53.000 Well, and, you know, we're reporting suggests that this Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, you know, meeting that's going on, this hearing right now up in New York, they're going to deny any knowledge of wrongdoing with Jeffrey Epstein.
00:21:06.000 I just think it's a real, you know, travesty that President Trump and this DOJ that is releasing the files, I'm not saying they handled it right, they actually handled it terribly at first, the whole binder gate or whatnot.
00:21:17.000 But, you know, you don't turn them into the villains for actually releasing the files.
00:21:21.000 When the Democrats were sitting on them for years and did nothing.
00:21:23.000 And all of a sudden, it's a political football that they're trying to take advantage of.
00:21:26.000 I actually, we wanted to have you on because of this great, unless you want to respond, Senator.
00:21:26.000 All right.
00:21:32.000 Well, I just want to say, you know, those files were sitting in the Biden Justice Department for how many years?
00:21:36.000 Exactly.
00:21:37.000 What evidence do I have that they haven't been doctored, that the bad stuff against Democrats hasn't been deleted?
00:21:44.000 So, again, I just have no faith in what's being produced anyway.
00:21:48.000 Such a good point.
00:21:49.000 Such a good point.
00:21:50.000 All right, Senator, you made some news yesterday, and we're going to get to it.
00:21:54.000 But first, I want to play this clip from the State of the Union.
00:21:57.000 I was in the gallery, I saw you down there walking around, shaking hands, and doing the thing.
00:22:03.000 And I heard you say you really had to be in the gallery to understand the tension in the room, the dynamic in the room, and I agree.
00:22:09.000 But here's 503 President Trump saying pass the Save America Act.
00:22:13.000 503.
00:22:14.000 And perhaps most importantly, I'm asking you to approve the Save America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections.
00:22:35.000 So, this is a mandate from President Trump to pass the Save Act.
00:22:39.000 And, you know, you've probably seen some of the reports.
00:22:42.000 You know, there's Senator Tillis doing a dog show.
00:22:46.000 I don't know what's going on, but people are upset because this is going on.
00:22:50.000 Meanwhile, we have like basically one job the base is demanding from the Senate.
00:22:55.000 And you are now on the side of a talking filibuster.
00:22:59.000 Explain what your thinking is and what do you want to see happen?
00:23:02.000 Well, let's first place the blame where it really needs to squarely be on Democrats.
00:23:08.000 I mean, Democrats are one that opened the border, flooded America with millions of people into sanctuary states, sanctuary cities, plus up the census, get more members of Congress.
00:23:17.000 They oppose any measure to secure our elections.
00:23:20.000 In fact, what they're doing is doing everything they can to make it easy to cheat.
00:23:24.000 So, again, the main impediment to Saving America Act is Democrats who want to, again, not have any control over elections.
00:23:32.000 They're happy to have your legitimate vote as a conservative canceled by one of their fraudulent ones.
00:23:37.000 So, they're the main impediment.
00:23:38.000 Okay, now, in terms of our ability to pass it with slim majorities of both the House and the Senate, I came out reluctantly agreeing with President Trump that the day of the filibuster is over.
00:23:53.000 It's unfortunate that Democrats don't respect the rights of the minority, but we know that the next time they're in power, they will end the filibuster to consolidate their power.
00:24:03.000 They'll turn D.C., Puerto Rico into states.
00:24:05.000 They'll pack the Supreme Court.
00:24:06.000 They will pass a national election law to make it easier to cheat.
00:24:11.000 So that's what they're going to do.
00:24:12.000 So we ought to beat them to the punch.
00:24:14.000 But when we do it, we'll do it to secure our border, to secure our elections, to provide prosperity for every American.
00:24:20.000 Again, our motives are the proper ones for the benefit of the American people.
00:24:25.000 Unfortunately, I have a lot of colleagues in the Republican Conference who are deluding themselves, saying, oh, the Democrats aren't really serious.
00:24:32.000 They're not going to nuke the filibuster.
00:24:34.000 Oh, yes, they will.
00:24:36.000 So we don't have the votes to end this filibuster.
00:24:38.000 So the next best thing is the talking filibuster.
00:24:41.000 That's a long shot as well.
00:24:43.000 Unless we're willing to go back to press, because it's basically unlimited debate, unlimited amendments, unless we're willing to go back to prior to 1986 when Robert Byrne changed the precedent of the Senate that didn't count offering an amendment as a speech.
00:24:59.000 So I know we've got the two speech rule, but as long as Democrats can go down and offer an infinite number of amendments, split those amendments, we call them clay pigeon amendments, into hundreds of parts, literally they can just drag this thing out as long as they want to and bring it to a close.
00:25:15.000 Is much easier said than done.
00:25:17.000 Well, so, but Senator, Senator, let me finish.
00:25:20.000 At a minimum, what John Thune ought to do is bring the Save America Act up to the floor and force Democrats to defend day after day after day.
00:25:30.000 And I don't know how long it would last, but make them defend why they oppose something that 80 some percent of the American people support, secure elections and voter ID.
00:25:39.000 Yeah, no, I completely agree with you, Senator.
00:25:42.000 Absolutely.
00:25:43.000 Force them to defend the indefensible.
00:25:45.000 This 1986 rule, what would it take to revert that so that every amendment doesn't turn into an endless debate on the floor?
00:25:54.000 Well, that would be a 50 vote threshold.
00:25:57.000 When Robert Byrd proposed it, over 90 senators voted for it.
00:26:01.000 So it was overwhelmingly popular to allow an unlimited number of amendments and not count those as a speech, counting against the two speech rule.
00:26:09.000 So again, we could do that with the, and that wouldn't be nuclear filibuster.
00:26:12.000 That wouldn't be something unprecedented.
00:26:14.000 That'd actually be following the precedent of the Senate.
00:26:16.000 Robert Byrd changed that precedent.
00:26:18.000 We just would be going back to the way the Senate operated under the culture rule, under the filibuster rule, for about 100 years.
00:26:28.000 I mean, that seems really pretty obvious.
00:26:32.000 Reports are coming in.
00:26:34.000 Listen, I understand you have, there's a culture in the Senate that can be really good.
00:26:37.000 I'm not asking you to name names.
00:26:39.000 I'm going to name them.
00:26:40.000 You don't have to agree, sir.
00:26:42.000 Reports are coming out that it's Senator Curtis from Utah, Tom Tillis, probably Mitch McConnell.
00:26:48.000 And maybe one or two others that are blocking this.
00:26:54.000 So we're probably at like 48, 49 votes to do this.
00:26:57.000 We're short.
00:26:58.000 We need to get to 50, 50 plus one to do this, to make these rules effective in the Senate.
00:27:04.000 Do you feel like any of these holdouts are gettable?
00:27:08.000 Are talks ongoing?
00:27:10.000 Are you guys working the phones?
00:27:12.000 Are you making phone calls to see if we can get them over the top?
00:27:15.000 Well, the best way to get them on top is to put it on the floor and make them vote.
00:27:20.000 Everybody says, you know, we're coming here and we should be willing to take hard votes.
00:27:23.000 Okay, well, put your votes where your mouth is.
00:27:26.000 Put it on the floor.
00:27:28.000 You know, let the Democrats offer an amendment. 0.89
00:27:30.000 It might be something we actually want to pass, but realizing it'd be a poison pill.
00:27:35.000 We defeat or we table amendments all the time, all the time.
00:27:39.000 You know, even good amendments, we said, no, we're going to vote no because if we put this in here, it changes the bill and it's going to be a poison pill.
00:27:47.000 So we just would bring up, you know, any Democrat amendment, we just have a strategy and say, okay, we're not going to, no matter how good the amendment is.
00:27:54.000 No matter how much you'd want to support it, we're all going to vote to table it so we can actually pass the Save America Act because that's the higher priority.
00:28:02.000 Yeah.
00:28:03.000 And just to be clear, I was speaking specifically of changing the rules, maybe back to pre 1986.
00:28:09.000 Seems like we're at like 48, 49 votes to actually institute something like Mike Lee and now you are suggesting and make it a talking filibuster.
00:28:19.000 I love that, by the way, I love the framing that Mike Lee has put on it, the zombie filibuster, because Blake makes this point all the time on the show.
00:28:28.000 Congress is like a zombie Congress because we just don't do anything in Congress because this 60 vote threshold.
00:28:33.000 They're used to not doing anything.
00:28:35.000 You have senators who, the vast majority of senators have been in a Congress that never is expected to pass anything, never is expected to take the initiative.
00:28:45.000 All they can ever do is pass these big omnibus spending bills because that's really the only legislation we ever passed.
00:28:52.000 Well, or, you know, the, you know, the, what's the bill?
00:28:57.000 This is the one big beautiful bill.
00:28:58.000 I'm blanking on the name right now.
00:29:00.000 That's a big omnibus bill, though, basically.
00:29:03.000 We're a new Family Tax Cut Act now.
00:29:06.000 Okay.
00:29:07.000 But generally, not passing things in Congress is generally a good thing.
00:29:12.000 No, for sure.
00:29:13.000 So much of the Passes awful.
00:29:16.000 So that's really the beauty of the filibuster we've been able to block all kinds of awful legislation.
00:29:21.000 And, you know, so again, that's why I'm sympathetic with those who don't want to, you know, end it.
00:29:27.000 But again, you have to recognize the reality has changed.
00:29:30.000 Democrats will end it.
00:29:31.000 They'll turn D.C. and Puerto Rico into states.
00:29:33.000 They'll pack the Supreme Court.
00:29:35.000 They'll pass a national election law that will make it easy to cheat.
00:29:39.000 We have to recognize that reality and we need to beat them to the punch.
00:29:42.000 Senator Ron Johnson, you are one of the good ones.
00:29:44.000 You're fighting for.
00:29:46.000 The base for the grassroots.
00:29:48.000 And we thank you for that.
00:29:49.000 And we pray you're successful because the SAVE Act, I think it's existential.
00:29:54.000 You got to do it before the election.
00:29:55.000 That's the whole point.
00:29:57.000 We have to make sure our elections are secure.
00:29:59.000 So God bless you.
00:30:00.000 Thank you for the work you're doing on that.
00:30:01.000 And we'll talk to you again soon.
00:30:03.000 God bless you guys.
00:30:04.000 Take care.
00:30:07.000 Before he ever stepped behind a microphone, Charlie understood something important leadership begins with learning.
00:30:13.000 He didn't chase a diploma or a title, he chased truth.
00:30:17.000 Through Hillsdale College's free online courses, he studied the great works of the classics, the principles of the American founding, and the life changing truths of the Bible.
00:30:25.000 Those ideas didn't just inform him, they shaped his character, strengthened his convictions, and prepared him for the challenges ahead.
00:30:32.000 One of the courses he took was the Genesis story, taught by Hillsdale professor Dr. Justin Jackson.
00:30:38.000 This free online course explores the relationship between God and man, what happens when that relationship is broken, and the path toward reconciliation.
00:30:45.000 It's a real college course, rigorous, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone willing to learn.
00:30:51.000 You can take the very same course completely free.
00:30:54.000 Grow stronger in your faith, gain clarity about humanity and your place in the world.
00:30:58.000 Prepare yourself for a life with courage and conviction.
00:31:02.000 Visit charlieforhillsdale.com to enroll today.
00:31:05.000 That's charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:31:08.000 Learn deeply, lead boldly, carry it forward.
00:31:13.000 We have to talk about.
00:31:15.000 I'm noticing a trend where left wing commentators or politicians are trying to whitewash what happened to Charlie.
00:31:25.000 And it's really bothering me, actually.
00:31:28.000 And so, two instances in just the last 24 hours there was a Democrat Florida state rep, Ashley Viola Gant, who said his passing was tragic, but he was not assassinated.
00:31:40.000 She doesn't even admit he was assassinated.
00:31:43.000 536.
00:31:44.000 We want to talk about exercising free speech.
00:31:46.000 Let's ball.
00:31:47.000 The First Amendment protects free speech. 0.98
00:31:49.000 We don't need this day of remembrance for a man that was mediocre and racist. 0.95
00:31:52.000 And I say mediocre at best.
00:31:54.000 When we hear assassination, that's typically related to a person and a political position.
00:32:01.000 Charlie Kirk died from gun violence.
00:32:04.000 Okay?
00:32:05.000 Was his passing tragic for those who love him?
00:32:07.000 Absolutely.
00:32:08.000 There is no denying that.
00:32:10.000 But he was not assassinated.
00:32:12.000 And words being accurate matters.
00:32:14.000 It was a death by gun violence.
00:32:16.000 That is an issue here in the country.
00:32:19.000 So, Charlie Kirk was not someone that children in the state of Florida should be subjected to honoring.
00:32:26.000 Oh my gosh. 0.77
00:32:27.000 Yeah, pretty disgusting stuff.
00:32:29.000 So, the Florida House passed a bill to designate October 14th, his birthday, Charlie Kirk Day of Remembrance.
00:32:37.000 And this shameful disgrace of a state rep has the gall to say he was not assassinated.
00:32:45.000 He didn't die in his sleep, woman.
00:32:47.000 Well, all you should ask, she's trying to do this pedantic point. 0.80
00:32:51.000 Well, it's for people in a political position.
00:32:53.000 Okay, was Martin Luther King assassinated?
00:32:55.000 He didn't hold office.
00:32:56.000 Was Malcolm X assassinated? 1.00
00:32:56.000 Great point. 1.00
00:32:58.000 He didn't hold an office.
00:32:59.000 Oh, but sorry, they're black civil rights leaders, so she probably would support that. 0.99
00:33:04.000 Let's just call a spade a spade. 0.88
00:33:06.000 They do not want Charlie Kirk, his legacy, to be in the same stratosphere.
00:33:12.000 I'm sorry, woman, that it's already done.
00:33:15.000 There are millions and millions of Americans that honor Charlie as a martyr, as an assassinated martyr, because that's exactly the truth.
00:33:23.000 Because that's what he is.
00:33:24.000 They want you to put, oh, it's just gun violence, because then that obscures what we know to be reality, which is that a person.
00:33:30.000 On the left, radicalized by rhetoric they heard every day from Democratic lawmakers, from people on social media, went, took a rifle, and murdered Charlie.
00:33:39.000 You're getting to the deeper point, and it's exactly right.
00:33:42.000 And they'll tell that lie repeatedly so that they can get it into the discourse, just like they lied about it immediately after to make people think Charlie was shot by someone on the right.
00:33:51.000 Just like they love to muddle it in all of these ways so then they can look back five years, 10 years, 50 years later and say, oh, it's a confused, muddled mess.
00:33:51.000 Yes.
00:34:00.000 It's very controversial.
00:34:01.000 Controversial.
00:34:02.000 No, exactly.
00:34:03.000 It's not controversial.
00:34:04.000 But here's another one Rep. Jonathan Jackson.
00:34:06.000 So the memo went out.
00:34:08.000 Rep. Jonathan Jackson just absolutely disgraced himself.
00:34:12.000 He's a congressman from Illinois.
00:34:14.000 543.
00:34:14.000 There's a very toxic climate in Washington, D.C., the same Washington, D.C., that would lower the flag for Charlie Kirk.
00:34:23.000 That says the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a mistake.
00:34:27.000 How can you say getting rid of biases and race and sex and religion was a mistake?
00:34:33.000 How can you say it was a mistake to fully enfranchise?
00:34:37.000 People to be Americans.
00:34:39.000 That was a pivotal piece of legislation.
00:34:41.000 But that's the same speaker, and that's what we're dealing with.
00:34:44.000 They have a high tolerance for things that are very indecent and a very low regard for people that have been great Americans. 1.00
00:34:53.000 This is an ignorant fool. 1.00
00:34:54.000 He knows nothing about what Charlie actually believed. 1.00
00:34:57.000 Charlie said the intent of the Civil Rights Act was noble, but the execution of it was wrong.
00:35:02.000 Why?
00:35:03.000 Why was it wrong?
00:35:04.000 Because it created a bureaucratic leviathan that was arguably very extra constitutional that.
00:35:11.000 Has been used among other things to justify things like you know men and women's locker rooms, men and women's sports.
00:35:17.000 That's why there's that's why Charlie had a problem.
00:35:20.000 A huge amount of left wing politics is essentially premised on just intentionally not understanding things because it's pretty easy to understand what Charlie meant by it because he explained himself over and over again, of course.
00:35:33.000 But is that Charlie opposed racial discrimination and so he said, I don't want racially discriminatory things and laws that were passed in the 60s and 70s and 80s that were supposedly Anti discrimination instead institutionalized it, mandated it, were used by courts to impose it on everybody.
00:35:51.000 And that's why Charlie fought against them because Charlie believed in real equality, the equality that is promised in our Declaration of Independence, in our Constitution.
00:36:00.000 That is what he fought for.
00:36:01.000 That is ultimately what he died for.
00:36:03.000 And I have a message for Rep Jackson.
00:36:06.000 It's full from Illinois, Charlie's home state. 1.00
00:36:09.000 If you want to know the real reason that Washington is toxic, it's because of fools like you. 1.00
00:36:14.000 It's because of ignorant fools like you that spend more time on social media and your algorithms that are designed to lie to you and feed you your own confirmation biases, lies about Charlie and what he actually believed, what he actually said, than discovering the truth. 1.00
00:36:30.000 Because the truth isn't inconvenient to you that Charlie actually thought the intent of the Civil Rights Act was noble, but it was executed in the wrong way. 1.00
00:36:37.000 It was put in place in the wrong way.
00:36:40.000 You would rather vilify a martyr.
00:36:42.000 Than acknowledge the truth.
00:36:43.000 You would rather go on Mourning Joe and tell Joe Scarborough a complete and utter fiction than admit that you're wrong.
00:36:53.000 It's these kinds of lies, by the way, Rep Jackson, that led to Charlie's assassination in the first place. 0.99
00:36:59.000 It was fools like you, ignorant fools like you, who told lie after lie after lie about what he said and what he believed, and that had it churned out with these cherry picked clips that lied about him that got him assassinated in the first place. 1.00
00:37:11.000 How many more people have to be killed? 1.00
00:37:13.000 How many conservatives have to die by an assassin's bullet?
00:37:17.000 For you guys to be satisfied, you can kindly leave his name out of your mouth, Rep Jackson.
00:37:23.000 And you should, actually, if you had any shame, you would apologize, but you probably won't because you believe the lie so fundamentally.
00:37:30.000 Shame on you.
00:37:31.000 Shame on Morning Joe for airing it.
00:37:33.000 I hope you push back.
00:37:34.000 I didn't see that part of the clip.
00:37:36.000 Probably not.
00:37:41.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.