00:00:00.000Hey, everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, we preview Joe Biden's State of the Union address.
00:00:04.000And also, Ken Paxton, the Attorney General of Texas, joins us.
00:00:07.000Email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com, and support our show, charliekirk.com/slash support.
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00:03:00.000And we're on day 715 of 15 days to slow the spread.
00:03:03.00068% of voters say the State of the Union is worse today than it was one year ago.
00:03:08.000To give you an idea of how bad Biden is doing, his numbers are underwater in Colorado, Nevada, underwater in some of the more blue states in America.
00:03:20.000There's only like four states or five states, according to Ras Mussen, that he has a positive approval rating.
00:03:26.000They're like Oregon, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and I think California.
00:03:34.000The State of the Union is not strong in any way, shape, or form.
00:03:39.000But don't worry, Joe Biden has now said, hey, now that we can all talk about Ukraine, COVID is over.
00:03:52.000And now we're all about war in Ukraine.
00:03:58.000Let's go to cut 28, where the White House is saying that dropping the mask mandate one day before the State of the Union has nothing to do with the State of the Union.
00:04:11.000Was it important to the president that masks come off before the State of the Union?
00:04:16.000Is there a message that he hopes to send with that news?
00:04:21.000Well, I would say the president is very powerful, but he couldn't make us be in the green zone that we're in right now in D.C. That's why we are not required.
00:04:30.000We're not going to be required to wear masks starting tomorrow's.
00:04:43.000Biden claims that they've cut black poverty by over 30%, and we've reduced child poverty by more than 50% in the black community.
00:04:52.000I have no idea where he's reading these numbers off of, but play cut 31.
00:04:57.000Tax cuts to eliminate, and the estimate is that we've cut black poverty by over 30%.
00:05:05.000We reduced child poverty by more than 50% in the black community.
00:05:08.000American Rescue Plan also included historic funding that allows cities and states to invest in community violence intervention programs.
00:05:16.000So you're getting a little bit of a preview of what tonight is going to be.
00:05:20.000It really does beg the question, what is the Biden strategy?
00:05:24.000Does he really think he's doing a good job?
00:05:26.000I mean, with every one of these crises in front of him?
00:05:31.000And the answer is very simple and very clear, that it's not about whether or not he thinks he's doing a good job with the metrics of public approval or not.
00:05:39.000It's whether or not he is going to be the bridge presidency, whether or not he is going to be the person to once and for all abolish fossil fuels, get rid of a bordered society, whether or not he is going to allow the transition from America being a Western country into a globalist project and experiment.
00:06:04.000It does, in many different ways, remind you of a president that is looking at himself not as what he's actually doing, but how historians will grade him and judge him.
00:06:20.000Let's play cut 45 about Biden's promises, and let's check in on them ahead of the State of the Union.
00:06:27.000The American Families Plan will finally provide up to 12 weeks of paid leave and medical leave.
00:06:33.000The paid leave provision of this bill will not be included.
00:06:37.000Let's extend that child care tax credit at least through the end of 2025.
00:06:42.000New research from Columbia University shows nearly 4 million more children are now in poverty after child tax credit payments stopped in December.
00:06:51.000And on Act Police Reform in George Floyd's name that passed the House already.
00:06:56.000The House passed the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act back in March, but after Scott rejected the Democrats' latest scaled-down proposal Tuesday, that was apparently the end of the road.
00:08:01.000Fences and the checkpoints put up after last year's assault on the Capitol.
00:08:05.000They've been brought back for tonight's State of the Union address.
00:08:08.000It's all part of a series of safety precautions inside and outside of the Capitol.
00:08:13.000Survey of 1,532 U.S. adults, which was conducted online from February 24th to the 27th, found that just 41% of them now approve of how Biden is handling his job, a number that has hovered between 38 and 42% since December, while a majority, 53%, disapprove.
00:08:30.000More than 6 in 10 Americans, meanwhile, say Biden has not kept most of his promises.
00:08:36.00060% of Americans, 61%, say that Biden has not kept most of his promises.
00:08:56.000The infrastructure bill is a total scam and a con tonight.
00:09:00.000He's going to do his best to try to spin all of that.
00:09:05.000He's going to do his best to try and persuade the population that he's doing just a fine job, but the American people are seeing right through it.
00:09:13.000He's not even able to execute on the one thing he said he was supposed to be able to, which is keep Vladimir Putin in check.
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00:10:44.000Nancy Pelosi says that she's not going to wear a mask at the State of the Union, but she says if I had little children or grandchildren around, I would.
00:12:01.000They've got to decide which narrative that they want.
00:12:05.000So look, we're at a situation right now where the emergency use authorizations for the vaccine, the emergency use authorization for the emergency declaration for mask mandates are ongoing.
00:12:20.000If you don't need to wear a mask mandate for the state of the union, why do you need to wear a mask mandate on an airplane?
00:12:26.000If you don't need to wear a mask mandate to go hear him spew his nonsense, why do you need to wear a mask mandate to listen to fly across the country?
00:12:39.000Now it looks like the mask mandates are finally being lifted in California for children in grade schools, but some schools are still pushing them forward.
00:12:48.000Now some Republicans are deciding not to attend the speech.
00:12:53.000Marco Rubio, of all people, kind of random, but I love it, is not attending.
00:12:58.000He says that I am not going to take another COVID-19 test.
00:13:02.000He said, Marco Rubio says, I don't have time to take a COVID test today.
00:13:10.000For the first time in American history, you now have people having to produce papers to go in somewhere, to sit somewhere, to go to the state of the union.
00:13:17.000You've got to show them I'm vaccinated.
00:13:19.000I took a test yesterday and they took my temperature.
00:13:22.000This is what's happening now in America.
00:13:24.000It's what happens after 20 years of infusing this Marxist thought process into every aspect of our lives.
00:13:30.000And now they've come face to face with it, Marco Rubio says.
00:13:34.000Some other Republicans are deciding to boycott the speech tonight, such as Matt Rosendale and others.
00:13:43.000State of the Union is largely theater, so don't take what is being said too seriously.
00:13:49.000I don't even know how Joe Biden with Martin Scorsese and all the Hollywood people behind him could possibly spin what is happening right now.
00:13:57.000Not even President Zelensky would be able to spin what Joe Biden is doing right now into some sort of a positive.
00:14:05.000Zelensky is basically saying to the world, you know, the positive of being surrounded is you can shoot in any direction.
00:14:10.000Got to give the Ukrainian government credit.
00:14:13.000They've put on the best production to draw the West into their conflict that I've ever seen.
00:14:20.000And all of this is happening simultaneously while it says the following.
00:14:28.000Republican bounces to historic lead on 2022 ballot in New Poll.
00:14:34.000Republicans, advantage over Democrats is at historic levels.
00:14:40.000RealClear Politics average shows Biden's approval rating hovering around 40%, but a handful of national surveys released in recent days pegged the number around the 30s.
00:14:50.000There's a Harvard Harris poll in which some people strongly disapprove.
00:14:53.000Next up are the Rock Bottoms, Marist, and PR PBS numbers showing Biden at 39% approval.
00:15:00.000There's the eyebrow-raising ABC News Washington Post data set as well.
00:15:06.000It's plummeting at every single corner imaginable.
00:15:11.000Now, what really this comes down to as far as how we're going to fix our problem is the states taking leadership, the states taking responsibility, I should say.
00:15:20.000The states being leaders in the midst of all of this.
00:16:35.000Texas, in many ways, is going to determine the future of America.
00:16:39.000And Texas is still a very free state, thankfully, in more ways than one.
00:16:43.000And with us right now is the Attorney General of Texas, who's a friend of mine and has a very important primary race tonight or today, I believe.
00:17:24.000Yeah, so the goal is to get 50% plus one.
00:17:26.000So that's unfortunately what you have to do.
00:17:28.000And then if you don't get the 50% plus one and you finish in the top two, then there's a runoff that is scheduled for May 24th, which is kind of a long way away.
00:17:38.000And a lot of times the voters are disconnected from the first election because it's so separated, but that's just the way it is now in Texas.
00:17:46.000And I know you have some people running against you, and we're hoping that you get to that 50-plus-1 mark.
00:17:51.000And people can go to the polls right now in Texas.
00:17:54.000And so we're going to talk a little bit about that.
00:17:56.000But so, Ken, I want to ask you first and foremost about what's happening on the southern border.
00:18:00.000I called what's happening on the southern border an invasion.
00:18:03.000Attorney General Mark Bernovich agreed with that from Arizona.
00:18:08.000Do you agree that what's happening on the southern border is an invasion?
00:18:13.000It's actually a betrayal of the American people.
00:18:15.000The federal government is given the responsibility.
00:18:17.000And we've had, you know, we had a huge case under the Obama administration called United States versus Arizona, where they basically told Arizona they couldn't make their own laws because it was up to the federal government to protect the border.
00:18:29.000Well, the reality is if they pass laws and they don't enforce them, that leaves the consequences to states like Texas.
00:18:36.000And actually, I would argue that every state now is a border state because these drugs are being trafficked all over the country and increasing drug overdoses by a significant amount.
00:18:44.000We've got COVID being spread because of the immigration.
00:18:47.000You've got all kinds of crime and all of the problems associated with this really make us all border states.
00:18:52.000It's just that Texas bears the brunt of that first.
00:18:55.000So let me ask you, Ken, what is Texas doing to actually fix it themselves?
00:18:59.000Because we know the federal government is not going to come in.
00:19:02.000I know you can only do so much from a legal perspective, but at some point, the states have to take control of their own borders.
00:19:10.000Yeah, and I know the governor's trying to do that.
00:19:12.000We have nine lawsuits, offensive lawsuits against the Biden administration.
00:19:15.000So far, we've been successful, as you know.
00:19:18.000The problem with lawsuits is they don't happen in one day or one week or even one month.
00:19:24.000And we've been winning, but then we get appealed.
00:19:26.000And we're, you know, the Remain in Mexico program is now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, even though we won our preliminary injunction against them months ago.
00:19:34.000So that's part of the problem with what I'm dealing with: it just takes time.
00:19:38.000The governor has tried to start arresting people along the border for crossing in areas where the border patrol are not.
00:19:46.000The problem with that is all the cartels know all they have to do is drop these people off with the border patrol agents and they'll be transported around the country.
00:19:53.000So we have limited access to people crossing the border.
00:19:57.000And so it's hard for us to step in front of a border agent and try to take them away, which leaves the governor in a difficult spot.
00:20:05.000He put out an executive order trying to arrest people that are being transported other than by law enforcement.
00:20:11.000And we were sued over that by the Biden administration in a pretty liberal court.
00:20:14.000And the court stopped us from doing it.
00:20:16.000So we have an injunction against that right now.
00:20:17.000So we have offensive moves, including trying to build a wall, which obviously will take a lot of money, but we're trying and we're spending billions of our own dollars doing what we can to fight this.
00:20:28.000Yeah, and it's a matter of sovereignty, right?
00:20:30.000I know that Texas has now bills coming through to build their own wall and to build their own border patrol because the federal government has completely and totally betrayed the people of Texas in more ways than one.
00:20:42.000So let me ask you, Ken, also about the pro-life bill.
00:20:47.000This was kind of another moment of outrage from the left.
00:20:50.000Talk about the success of the pro-life bill and also some of the work you're doing to defend the unborn.
00:21:11.000And the idea here was instead of putting enforcement in the hands of the Attorney General or some other DA, the enforcement here is in the hands of individual plaintiffs.
00:21:20.000And so every doctor that performs an abortion now can be sued civilly.
00:21:24.000And it's basically shut abortions down at least about 60, 70%.
00:21:30.000And so we're saving about 3,000 babies a day.
00:21:34.000The federal government took us all the way to the Supreme Court and they argued that the Supreme Court should come in and stop state judges from hearing these types of lawsuits.
00:21:44.000And Gorsuch asked the best question of the day, which I think was the key question.
00:22:09.000The Supreme Court has never done that.
00:22:11.000So even though there may have been judges on a court, I know there are three for sure, but there are others that were looking at overturning our law.
00:22:18.000They realized to do to provide the remedy that was being asked for was going to open a Pandora's box for all kinds of crazy issues going forward.
00:22:26.000And so I think we've got a pretty good law here that's going to protect the unborn, I hope, for a very long time.
00:22:45.000There's never been any bill like this in America.
00:22:47.000And I hope that this is a model for the rest of the states that care about protecting the unborn because it's already been in the U.S. Recording Court.
00:22:55.000And as Justice Keegan said, she seemed a little flustered and a little flabbergasted.
00:23:00.000She said, I don't know who these geniuses in Texas have bumped this up, but it's basically a genius move.
00:23:07.000So you said, quote, there is no doubt that gender transition of minors is child abuse under Texas law.
00:23:14.000The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services will enforce this ruling and investigate and refer for prosecution of any such abuse.
00:23:22.000Yeah, so I had a one of my jobs under the Texas Constitution is to answer questions from legislators, the governor, Lieutenant Governor, opinions.
00:23:30.000And these are not my personal opinions.
00:23:32.000I'm literally looking at the law, researching the law, and our team puts these opinions together.
00:24:54.000And I don't think we want them having this done when they're at it.
00:24:59.000They can't make that decision, but I don't think parents should be able to make that decision that ends up permanently changing a child's life forever.
00:25:06.000And with a lot of people regretting it, by the way, once they have that done.
00:25:11.000And so thank you for your clarity on that.
00:25:14.000So New York Times says that the Democrats flip to Republicans and political upheaval of border town.
00:25:19.000This is more of a political question on the day of your primary here.
00:25:22.000Ken, what's going on at the border towns?
00:25:24.000It seems as if there's a red wave looming in the once very blue Rio Grande Valley.
00:25:30.000You know, I don't think anybody on the Democratic side realize when you have policies and you look at the law and ignore it, like the Biden administration has done so faithfully, ignoring the Constitution and federal law, you start damaging people's lives along the border.
00:25:46.000It doesn't matter what their background is.
00:25:49.000And I think a lot of Democrats, Hispanic Democrats who have traditionally voted Democratic are starting to see the truth of this Democratic party that doesn't have their best interests.
00:25:59.000They're more interested in increasing the numbers of illegal immigrants, no matter where they're from, no matter what their background, no matter what their criminal background, no matter what their terrorists.
00:26:07.000And they get it and they're starting to get it.
00:26:09.000And it's starting to change our border towns.
00:26:12.000It's starting to change our state in a way that no one anticipated.
00:26:15.000And I think a lot of these voters are turning the tide and they're voting Republican.
00:26:21.000And more than eight times as many people have already voted in the Republican primary in Star County, Texas, as did in 2020, where Republican primary voter was extremely rare.
00:26:31.000Among these early voters in 2020, 74% voted in the Democrat primary.
00:29:01.000And for example, I had a credit score that was okay, and I realized it was some confusion with some bill that I did pay and it wasn't communicated.
00:29:10.000So if you're trying to refinance a home or whatever, go to Scoremaster for free and see how many plus points you can add your credit score.
00:29:39.000Yeah, I mean, that's the question I get asked more than any other question in the primary because my other two opponents tend to be more liberal.
00:29:47.000He got in really late, two and a half months to run a statewide campaign, which made it seem not very serious.
00:29:54.000And then I had been told by many people that he was brought in to help basically get me in a runoff with one of the other two, particularly Bush, that the Bush people needed because I was going to win outright.
00:30:06.000And so he was designed to kind of be a spoiler.
00:30:09.000And you can tell by his campaign spending, one of his very first spends was a $65,000 truck for a two-month campaign.
00:30:18.000And when I saw that, I knew, like, if I'm running for office, I'm not spending money on a truck for myself, calling it a campaign expense for a two-month campaign.
00:30:26.000I'm going to spend every dollar I can communicate with voters about what I think is the right message for Texas and the right message for the country.
00:30:35.000I think highly of Louis, so I don't really know what's going on there.
00:30:38.000But I know that we need a strong conservative attorney general, and that's why you're on our show right now.
00:30:42.000So I want to ask you about oil and gas, oil and natural gas.
00:30:46.000Talk a little about how the federal government has made it harder to expand oil and natural gas exploration, Keystone XL pipeline, huge part of Texas economy.
00:31:21.000They claimed it was for environmental reasons.
00:31:23.000We know that's not true because now they transport it by rail, which is less environmentally friendly than transporting it by pipelines.
00:31:30.000And then, of course, he opened up the Russian pipeline to Germany, which Trump had kept shut down.
00:31:36.000So it's all the policies, all these regulations.
00:31:38.000We just filed a lawsuit yesterday on emissions that 14 states are joining us on.
00:31:43.000But it's all of these regulations designed to make it harder for America to be energy independent and to have basically the independence and people to have a reliable source of energy.
00:31:54.000And I can tell you this, Texas can provide that and so can other states.
00:31:57.000And the Biden administration doesn't want that.
00:31:59.000They want this renewable energy that doesn't work yet and puts us in a very bad spot with our enemies.
00:32:06.000So talk a little bit about what the posture you think Texas needs to continue to take, because it seems like it's an opportunity and a time for Texas to say, this is what we want, and we're not going to allow the federal government to get in our way.
00:32:19.000Yeah, look, this is the whole reason I'm running a third term.
00:32:22.000I wasn't necessarily thinking, I didn't think Biden was going to win.
00:32:24.000So I didn't know for sure if Bob was going to run.
00:32:26.000I have these big tech issues that are not done.
00:32:28.000And I also have the Biden issue that is clearly not done.
00:32:34.000If as president, you're going to run the country by edict and you're not going to follow federal law that's passed by one branch of government that you're supposed to implement, then Texas as a state, and I think many Republican states with us, are going to oppose you at every turn.
00:32:48.000That's why we have, you know, I think over 30 lawsuits now in about a little over a year with the Biden administration as he's about to give his state of union.
00:32:56.000You know, we're on lawsuit number 30 or 31.
00:32:58.000And it's because we cannot sit by idly, even if like we happen to agree with one of these policies, which we don't, because they're all designed to hurt the American people.
00:33:08.000We're not going to let it happen because we can't, because we can't give an exception.
00:33:12.000Because if we give an exception, then the Constitution becomes less meaningful and less protective of the people of this country.