00:00:59.000The 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.
00:01:12.000All right, so Blake, take us up to speed.
00:01:15.000There's been a lot since yesterday's show about this back and forth between Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Senator Mark Kelly.
00:01:22.000So let's just start from the baseline.
00:01:25.000Most of you have seen this, but in case you haven't, this is the video that kicked it all off that six Democrats put out.
00:01:32.000They released on social media a few days ago.
00:02:33.000Well, they have to say that, basically.
00:02:35.000Otherwise, they are actively telling them to defy orders right now.
00:02:40.000But anyway, Mark Kelly, he is a retired fighter pilot, but he still has, I can't remember his exact role with the military, but he has the ability to be recalled.
00:02:49.000So essentially, he is still subject to military discipline in certain ways, or so the War Department says.
00:02:55.000And so what we had is first, the Department of War put out an official statement.
00:03:01.000The Department of War has received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly, U.S. Navy, retired, in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
00:03:09.000And there's a whole long thing that they may consider action in.
00:03:14.000And then Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, comes out and he has his own tweet, 156.
00:03:20.000The despicable video urging Department of War troops to refuse illegal orders may seem harmless to civilians, but it carries a different weight inside the military.
00:03:31.000This was a politically motivated influence operation that never named a specific legal order.
00:03:35.000It created ambiguity rather than clarity.
00:03:37.000It used carefully scripted, legal-sounding language, and it subtly reframed military obedience around partisan distrust instead of established legal doctrines.
00:03:48.000In the military, vague rhetoric and ambiguity undermine trust, create hesitation in the chain of command, and erode cohesion.
00:03:55.000The military has clear procedures for handling unlawful orders.
00:03:59.000It does not need political actors injecting doubt.
00:04:03.000And so then he goes on in 158, he goes on to threaten an actual court-martial against him.
00:04:16.000Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is threatening to court-martial Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona.
00:04:23.000The Pentagon says they've received allegations of misconduct against the retired Navy captain.
00:04:28.000This appears to all stem from that video that Senator Kelly made with other Democratic lawmakers urging service members to remember that they have a duty to disobey illegal orders.
00:04:38.000And the Department of Defense, which now calls itself the Department of War, they posted a statement on X saying that they have received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly.
00:04:47.000He was a captain when he retired from the U.S. Navy.
00:04:49.000And they said, importantly, that a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which could include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures.
00:05:01.000So definitely email us what you think about this, freedom at charliekirk.com, especially because this is Arizona's senator.
00:05:10.000Because I guess, where do you think you're going to go from here?
00:05:12.000Do you think they'll go for it, Andrew?
00:05:14.000Well, so I think they've given themselves an out here or administrative measures, right?
00:05:18.000And so I think what's going to happen is they're going to basically try and shame him into some way, shape, or form.
00:05:26.000And we talked about this actually before this.
00:05:29.000I mean, I don't know, but I will tell you.
00:05:32.000And by the way, for those who are curious, the UCMJ, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if you're wondering why it only applies to Mark Kelly, which is a question I had, it governs conduct for active duty members, reservists, and certain retirees.
00:05:46.000It does not apply to fully separated veterans, those who left without retiring after 20 plus years.
00:05:52.000So presumably he put in his 20 plus years, retired in a full military retirement style, and therefore he's still subject.
00:05:58.000If you take the 20-year-plus retirement from the military, apparently you're still subject to the UCMJ.
00:06:05.000But yeah, I mean, I think he's saying that they're still subject to certain administrative measures.
00:06:10.000I am, listen, I find this to be egregious what they did.
00:06:13.000You and I actually immediately our immediate reaction was egregious.
00:06:18.000And I would also just say that there is a risk because I've been disgusted how all of them have gone on social media and been, I'm a victim, I'm a victim.
00:06:28.000I can't believe President Trump would say this about me and that he's, you know, he wants me to be executed.
00:06:46.000But he was rightfully all of these things.
00:06:48.000He put on social media, he truthed a Washington Examiner article, and it said that, yeah, listen, this is seditious behavior.
00:06:55.000If you were found guilty of seditious behavior, then guess what?
00:06:58.000One of the potential punishments is, you know, not so good things, as Charlie would say.
00:07:04.000And so listen, I don't think anybody is thinking that this is going here, but I do think that there should be real consequences for this, save going so far as to make him an actual victim.
00:07:15.000And that's what we talked about before here.
00:07:17.000If you actually make him a sympathetic figure, then what they did was egregious.
00:07:22.000I don't think it was egregious enough that you could bring Mark Kelly into a court-martial docket, have him in his uniform, sitting up rigid straight, giving speeches how I only ever cared about serving my country, looking the part, all cinematic.
00:07:42.000I feel the only reason to do that is if you are dead certain you have good oppo on Mark Kelly and you want him to be JD Vance's 2028 opponent.
00:08:34.000Do you believe President Trump has issued any illegal orders?
00:08:39.000To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal, but certainly there are some legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes and everything related to Venezuela.
00:09:06.000That doesn't mean you go out and make a video.
00:09:09.000I mean, this is what I think has a lot of people's hair on the back of their necks up.
00:09:15.000And that is the fact that out of the blue, these people just did this video and they are hinting at something.
00:09:22.000There's something very fishy, very underhanded going on here.
00:09:27.000You know, there is a lot of people that are suggesting that this is seeding the ground for something terrible in the future or for some other sort of color revolution-esque action.
00:09:36.000And I think that's why we're all like kind of, it got our attention because something isn't right here.
00:09:41.000Something is very not very much not right.
00:09:43.000And I understand the reaction that they're getting.
00:09:47.000This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and Founding Partner of YReFi.
00:09:52.000It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us.
00:09:57.000His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come.
00:10:03.000Now, here Charlie, in his own words, tell you about YReFi.
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00:10:57.000All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
00:10:59.000We've got a couple emails here, Blake.
00:11:00.000We got a bunch of good emails in that breakup.
00:11:02.000Freedom at CharlieKirk.com, freedom at CharlieKirk.com.
00:11:05.000First, I want to shout out Nancy, who just messaged us to say that she was just baptized at the age of 63, and she gives Charlie credit for that decision.
00:12:39.000They are all getting away with everything.
00:12:40.000Well, I think this is, I think, you know, I think this is why Secretary Hegseth is sounding the tone that he's sounding.
00:12:49.000It's because I think there is a genuine fundamental just frustration within the base that these people keep getting away with it, right?
00:12:56.000We're going to have Mike Davis on in the second half of this hour.
00:12:58.000We're going to be talking about Letitia James, Comey.
00:13:01.000It looks like the DOJ is going to be appealing that court case that has been thrown out because of a technicality, basically, on the legality of Lindsey Halligan's appointment as a first step.
00:13:14.000So they're going to be appealing that.
00:13:16.000But in general, there is a feeling of frustration that some of these people, these wrongdoers, these people that have, I think, done illegal things and it's been proven and they keep getting away with it.
00:13:27.000This is a video, a social media video that was designed to be provocative and cute.
00:13:32.000But the problem is the underlying message here, Blake, was that they were undermining and sowing doubt.
00:13:42.000As I like to point out to Charlie, treason is defined in the Constitution.
00:13:46.000It's defined narrowly as, you know, it has to be levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort, and you need at least two witnesses.
00:13:53.000That's all because our founders knew English history.
00:13:56.000And in English history, treason and sedition, you know, related laws were used a lot for domestic political reasons against just domestic foes.
00:14:06.000And they were very worried about that.
00:15:52.000Threatened our lives, said we should be hanged because of something we said.
00:15:59.000So he's got this Trump card, if you will.
00:16:02.000And it is what happened to his wife is egregious, terrible.
00:16:07.000I mean, especially in the wake of what happened to Charlie, I get it.
00:16:09.000So you just have to be careful about the battle you're going to fight.
00:16:12.000Now, that's why I say, listen, he's going to get investigated.
00:16:14.000The White House is saying that they fully support it.
00:16:17.000You cannot have a functioning military when you have elected leaders, especially of the profile, Mark Kelly and Slotkin, saying, you know, don't trust the Commander-in-Chief, right?
00:16:27.000That is sowing discord within the ranks.
00:16:29.000The White House is supporting this investigation.
00:16:32.000I think we're going to find ourselves in an administrative solution.
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00:18:04.000Blake is saying, let's not make him a victim.
00:18:06.000Let's not make him a future presidential candidate here, if that's possible.
00:18:11.000What Senator Mark Kelly is doing here by wink, wink, nod, nod to 18-year-old military enlistees to decide what orders of the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, are lawful versus unlawful, and then to ignore what these 18-year-old enlistees think are an unlawful orders of the president of the United States.
00:18:34.000You cannot get more dangerous than this.
00:18:37.000That is interfering with the chain of commands.
00:18:40.000Mark Kelly is trying to portray himself as some noble hero.
00:18:45.000He's trying to portray himself as some victim when he got called out on it.
00:18:48.000He should absolutely get court-martialed and held accountable for this.
00:18:52.000And he can raise his congressional speech or debate clause arguments for his defense, whatever he needs to do.
00:19:00.000But they need to make an example out of this guy.
00:19:03.000There's no chance this guy's going to be the president of the United States.
00:19:06.000He's a clown, and he's really hurt his credibility by doing this far outside of the political circles.
00:19:16.000He's hitting real Americans in real America, the non-political people who think it's appalling that you have members of Congress calling on the military, calling on intel agencies to ignore the president of the United States.
00:19:29.000You know, I tend to fall on your end of this, Mike.
00:19:33.000I think that, you know, I think this was a self-owned by them.
00:19:36.000I think they got way out over their skis.
00:19:53.000Even though I'm the squish on how hard you prosecute it, we should not lowball how bad it was that they did this, how dangerous it is, and how they are egging on a destructive thing.
00:20:20.000I wrote a Fox News piece on this, Andrew, and I point this out.
00:20:25.000If the Supreme Court of the United States, the Trump administration is going to the Supreme Court of the United States on the emergency docket, and they are getting the smartest lawyers and judges at the lower court level reversed by the Supreme Court with like a 91 or 92 percent reversal rate.
00:20:42.000If these very smart Harvard lawyers and judges at the district or the appellate court level are getting the law wrong and the Supreme Court has to fix this 92 percent of the time, how the hell do we expect 18-year-old military enlistees to figure out what the law is?
00:21:00.000I mean, we have to, you have, if you are in the military, you have to follow the president of the United States on every order.
00:21:09.000And I can think of a time, for example, during Vietnam where there was a military officer who ordered the mass murder of the Vietnamese, burned down the villages.
00:21:20.000That would be at the military commander level, where you would say, I can't do this because this is clearly a war crime.
00:21:28.000This is, you're, you're killing, you're raping and killing children, women, children.
00:21:34.000When you're dealing with the president of the United States, you better follow every order of the president of the United States unless you are goddamn sure it is wrong.
00:21:44.000For example, when President Trump ordered the strike on the Iranian nuclear facility, are you going to have some military officer or military enlistee saying, Sorry, I can't do this strike.
00:21:57.000I'm going to expose this ongoing military operation because I don't think President Trump has the lawful authority to take out this Iranian nuclear facility.
00:22:07.000This is a very dangerous game these politicians are playing.
00:22:11.000And Mark Kelly not only should be ashamed of he's capable of shame, he should be held accountable for this.
00:22:18.000Well, you know what this reminds me of, Mike, as well and Blake?
00:22:22.000It kind of reminds me of what Vinman did to Trump, right?
00:22:27.000It was basically this inside-out, oh, we got this phone call, and guess what?
00:22:33.000He was abusing his power and withholding military aid for political gain, right?
00:22:37.000And then all of a sudden, you know, Trump's in the throes of all this chaos.
00:22:41.000It undermines the entire term in so many ways.
00:22:47.000It's such a slippery slope because if you can start alleging that the president has done something illegal when he is given broad authority to command the armed forces, you could basically nitpick anything and start pulling away all authority from the executive branch to command the military.
00:23:13.000These Democrats who pretend like they care about President Trump using the military, which what they think is unlawfully, President Obama ordered an extrajudicial drone strike on two American, on several American citizens, including a minor.
00:23:29.000I fully supported that drone strike of Obama, but there is doubt whether that was legal or not.
00:23:35.000You have David Barron, who's now a judge on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, who was running the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department at the time.
00:23:45.000OLC is the one that decides whether executive branch actions are lawful or unlawful within the executive branch.
00:23:52.000Of course, judges ultimately decide, but it was Judge David Barron who told President Obama that he had the lawful authority to order a drone strike on American citizens, including a minor extrajudicial killings.
00:24:11.000That's up for debate, but you certainly don't want these drone officers, these drone operators in the military to say, you know, I just can't do this.
00:24:21.000I don't think that President Obama was being lawful here, so I can't do this.
00:24:25.000Those people would be court-martialed.
00:24:29.000And that's exactly what should happen to Senator Mark Kelly for pushing this very dangerous game that they're playing because they don't like Trump.
00:24:49.000I think there needs to be pretty stern consequences here.
00:24:51.000So I'm very sympathetic to your argument.
00:24:53.000I do think that, you know, the punishment has to fit the crime here.
00:24:57.000And I think it's a pretty egregious crime.
00:24:59.000I'm open-minded to an administrative solution here.
00:25:02.000I don't want to create a victim out of this guy.
00:25:04.000But, you know, at the same time, I just like I am in this moment having flashbacks to Vinman.
00:25:11.000I'm literally having flashbacks because this is a slippery slope.
00:25:14.000This is the third worlding of the U.S. military.
00:25:16.000I want to change our attention here to the news that broke yesterday that James Comey and Letitia James, that a judge had thrown out the case basically based on procedural issues with Lindsey Halligan.
00:25:27.000So saying that she was not lawfully appointed to her position.
00:25:33.000This is A.G. Pambondi saying, you know, we're going to appeal this right away, 190.
00:25:38.000Sure, we'll be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal to hold Letitia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct.
00:26:58.000James Comey got charged with lying to Congress and obstruction of a congressional investigation for the very thing he's complaining about.
00:27:08.000He politicized and weaponized intel agencies and law enforcement with the Russian collusion hoax with Crossfire Hurricane to take out President Trump, his political enemy.
00:27:23.000The prior interim U.S. attorney was a giant wimp and didn't bring charges.
00:27:28.000Same with Letitia James with her mortgage fraud.
00:27:31.000And so Lindsey Halligan went in there, found the evidence, took it to a grand jury, a Democrat-controlled grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, outside of Washington, D.C.
00:27:43.000And even this Democrat grand jury found probable cause on both James Comey for lying to Congress and an obstruction of a congressional investigation and against Big Tish James, the New York Attorney General, who lied about having a second home in Virginia to get a better mortgage rate when it was an investment property.
00:28:03.000The grand jury returned these indictments.
00:28:05.000Then you had this Democrat Obama chief judge of the Fourth Circuit pick a Clinton judge in South Carolina to come in and to dismiss these indictments.
00:28:17.000And they dismissed these indictments on the incorrect legal grounds.
00:28:22.000They essentially argue that the courts, after 120 days, the courts, instead of the president of the United States or his attorney general, get to decide who the chief law enforcement officer is, the U.S. Attorney in these districts.
00:28:36.000That is an incorrect reading of the statute.
00:28:39.000It's a dangerous reading of the statute because you don't have accountability.
00:28:43.000You don't have prosecutors who are accountable to the American people through their duly elected president of the United States.
00:28:51.000You have prosecutors who are picked by Democrat judges and Democrat hellholes like the D.C. suburbs or New Jersey to protect their political allies and go after their political friends.
00:29:06.000And in the meantime, the Attorney General has many different tools to bring accountability for both Big Tish and James Comey, including indictments in the Southern District of Florida.
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00:29:28.000Maria is 85 years old and lives alone.
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00:29:51.000This winter, as the snow falls and the nights grow longer, her hope fades with each passing day.
00:29:56.000She feels forgotten and needs our help.
00:29:58.000That's why I'm so grateful for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
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00:31:31.000No, I don't necessarily disagree with Stephen Miller on the need for a federal standard for AI.
00:31:37.000I guess it's the tech companies are the only companies in America who think they need federal preemption, but I'm not necessarily opposed to federal preemption.
00:31:47.000They're not asking for federal preemption with federal rules of the road.
00:31:50.000They're asking for AI amnesty like they did with Section 230 back in 1996, where these small tech platforms had Section 230 amnesty and then antitrust amnesty.
00:32:03.000And then we got Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple that crush competition, shutter small businesses, and cancel conservatives and others with whom we disagree.
00:32:13.000We can't repeat the mistakes of Section 230 with AI.
00:32:17.000And so I understand that we need to be competitive across the world and compete with China and compete with our other adversaries, but we also need federal rules of the road if we're going to have federal preemption so state and local governments cannot touch AI.
00:32:33.000For example, I call this the four C's.
00:32:36.000Are we going to have protections for children from online abuse?
00:32:43.000Are we going to have protections for conservatives so we don't get canceled by these AI platforms?
00:32:51.000Are we going to have protections for communities so we make sure that we don't, for example, jack up the water and electricity prices in these small communities so the working class have to foot the bill for these AI data centers that consume all this water and electricity?
00:33:10.000Are we going to have zoning protections in communities so we don't put AI data centers in the middle of neighborhoods?
00:33:18.000These big tech oligarchs, the AI bros, say no, that they should have full amnesty from state and local and then no federal rules of the road so they can just do whatever the hell they want like they did on Section 230.
00:33:34.000Why would we let Meta, for example, and Google, for example, who hate us as conservatives, run us over and make trillions of dollars on the backs of conservatives, children, content creators, and communities?
00:33:51.000If you're not going to protect the four Cs, they don't have 60 votes to get this done.
00:33:56.000They thought they had 60 votes four months ago at the end of June at the beginning of July.
00:34:02.000They thought this thing was going to pass and must pass legislation.
00:34:05.000And then the Article 3 project kicked into gear and it went down 99 to 1, including the lead sponsor, Ted Cruz, voting against his own bill.
00:34:48.000We must have one federal standard instead of a patchwork of 50 state regulatory regimes.
00:34:53.000So I, and actually, by the way, in the final line there, Mike, he says we can do this in a way that protects children and prevents censorship.
00:35:00.000So is the middle ground here spearheading a federal effort to make sure that we have AI, a regulatory regime at the federal level so we don't have this patchwork?
00:35:10.000It sounds like you're open-minded to that.
00:35:12.000Yeah, and I'm working with the president and the vice president and their teams on that right now.
00:35:18.000But they're going to protect children, conservatives, communities, and creators, or they're not going to get this done.
00:35:25.000It's very easy to go on conservative media and get people to light up their two home state senators and their U.S. House rep, and then all of a sudden this AI amnesty that they think they're going to jam through at 4 o'clock in the morning goes down 99 to 1.
00:35:41.000So if they want to play this game again, I'll kick their asses again.