The Charlie Kirk Show - The Strait Opens, The War Ends? + AMA

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.

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00:00:26.000 You got to stop sending your kids to college.

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00:00:31.000 Go start a turning point USA college chapter.

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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.

00:00:43.000 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.

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00:01:17.000 All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:19.000 We're here in Phoenix, Arizona at the YRefi Studio.

00:01:22.000 Blake, how are we doing?

00:01:23.000 Oh, we're doing great.

00:01:24.000 It's a good morning.

00:01:25.000 It's a good morning.

00:01:26.000 It's a great morning for our event here.

00:01:28.000 It is.

00:01:29.000 Build the Red Wall is happening today in Phoenix, Arizona.

00:01:32.000 If you look just behind Blake's shoulder, maybe an ISO on Blake.

00:01:36.000 There it is.

00:01:37.000 You see Trump's face right there.

00:01:37.000 Build the red wall.

00:01:40.000 And it is happening.

00:01:41.000 It starts today at 12 o'clock local time at Dream City Church.

00:01:45.000 We are expecting a packed house.

00:01:47.000 People are already streaming in.

00:01:48.000 The line is building.

00:01:49.000 They're chanting.

00:01:50.000 They're waving flags.

00:01:52.000 There's an Elvis sighting.

00:01:54.000 Yeah.

00:01:54.000 Really?

00:01:55.000 There's actually an Elvis sighting.

00:01:56.000 Elvis lives.

00:01:57.000 So if you're in line, our people are going to come greet you, get you water, all that stuff.

00:02:02.000 It's going to be an excellent event.

00:02:04.000 Obviously, a lot of security.

00:02:05.000 They're going to be making us sweep cars and think, well, we're not doing it.

00:02:08.000 The Secret Service is doing that.

00:02:09.000 Just know that.

00:02:10.000 This is all planned, so get in line.

00:02:12.000 Don't worry about it.

00:02:13.000 We'll have our people come out and talk to you and all that stuff.

00:02:15.000 So, Dream City Church, build the red wall.

00:02:18.000 It's a great day to have President Trump in Phoenix because, Blake, ceasefire.

00:02:25.000 Well, we got the ceasefire, and the president has fired off a stream of true socials.

00:02:30.000 We could probably just start rotating through some of these.

00:02:33.000 Of the fact that the Strait has been open, even Iran's spokespeople are confirming that the Strait is, in fact, open.

00:02:40.000 So, to supply context for this, do it, do it.

00:02:42.000 We announced the ceasefire a while ago, but then.

00:02:45.000 There was some friction because they wanted it to apply to Lebanon.

00:02:49.000 We said it didn't apply to Lebanon.

00:02:51.000 So they said it really wasn't fully open.

00:02:53.000 So then we began blockading the strait.

00:02:56.000 So what was announced late last night was there is a 10 day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

00:03:05.000 That was agreed through negotiations here in Washington.

00:03:08.000 And because that ceasefire has been achieved, Iran now says they're ready to leave the strait open.

00:03:15.000 President Trump does say that the blockade will continue until we can reach a final agreement with Iran.

00:03:21.000 Yep.

00:03:22.000 And I think this is a really telling clip because as soon as, listen, you may not like this conflict, you may have skepticism, hesitancy, as I did.

00:03:33.000 But President Trump's onto something with this blockade.

00:03:35.000 And the blockade sort of exposed.

00:03:39.000 So, you know, first of all, you got the strikes, they take out the missile capabilities.

00:03:42.000 That's all well and good.

00:03:44.000 You've got, I don't know, 10 to 15 U.S. destroyers in the area, vessels that can actually shoot down missiles, whatever they have left in their stockpile.

00:03:52.000 So now the Strait was their big point of leverage.

00:03:56.000 So if you block the Strait, you're cutting off their money.

00:03:59.000 That's really a big deal to Iran and the future prospects of the Iranian regime, what's left of it.

00:04:05.000 And I think this word that President Trump uses with CNN is really, really important.

00:04:11.000 Let's go ahead and play SOT 8.

00:04:13.000 Do you think we're now in week seven, entering into week seven?

00:04:16.000 Do you think this is it?

00:04:17.000 This is the beginning of the end of this war?

00:04:19.000 I do. 1.00

00:04:19.000 I think the Straits of Hormuz showed us the Achilles heel for Iran. 1.00

00:04:23.000 I mean, I'm a business guy. 0.95

00:04:25.000 I know that when revenues start to dry up, that all of a sudden you start to scramble.

00:04:30.000 I think the Iranian regime realized that their cash flow was going to take a big hit.

00:04:35.000 When all of a sudden ships can't move in and out of the Straits of Hormuz.

00:04:38.000 And so I think President Trump did a brilliant job of taking that position.

00:04:42.000 I mean, it was, you know, it seemed risky to everybody, but really it was the one that I think put them on their heels and said, look, we have to have that cash.

00:04:51.000 We've got to find a deal.

00:04:52.000 It'll be interesting, I think, at the end, who we're actually really dealing with.

00:04:55.000 I know President Trump knows that.

00:04:57.000 So, again, sorry, that was Rep. Marlon Strutzman who used that word.

00:05:00.000 The Achilles' heel of the Iranian regime is that Strait of Hormuz. 0.93

00:05:04.000 That's where all their money comes from. 0.90

00:05:05.000 That's where all the oil flows out.

00:05:06.000 And it's not just oil, by the way, it's petrochemicals, it's all kinds of different products.

00:05:11.000 So, if you block that Strait and you cut off Iran's ability to get revenue from their energy, you basically strangle the economy of Iran.

00:05:21.000 And the Iranian leaders understand that.

00:05:24.000 So, when you find the Achilles' heel of your enemy or your opponent in this case, now this is Strait, you can really exact revenue. 0.82

00:05:31.000 A really massive toll, a price. 0.50

00:05:34.000 And what is the price?

00:05:35.000 President Trump is going to ensure, at least this is what we're hearing, that he's going to get all of the nuclear components, the nuclear dust, the uranium dust.

00:05:45.000 We should read some of these things.

00:05:46.000 Go for it.

00:05:46.000 Yeah, he says so he opened just two hours ago.

00:05:49.000 He said, The Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage, but the naval blockade will remain in force and in effect as it pertains to Iran only until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete.

00:06:02.000 This process should go.

00:06:04.000 Very quickly, and that most of the points are already negotiated.

00:06:07.000 Thank you for your attention.

00:06:08.000 And then he continued right after, without all caps this time. 0.86

00:06:11.000 The USA will get all nuclear dust created by our great B 2 bombers. 0.73

00:06:15.000 No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form. 0.78

00:06:19.000 We know he was very critical of the Obama nuclear deal, which gave Iran a lot of money.

00:06:23.000 He says this deal is in no way subject to Lebanon, but the USA will separately work with Lebanon and deal with the Hezbollah situation in an appropriate manner.

00:06:32.000 Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer.

00:06:35.000 They are prohibited from doing so by the USA.

00:06:39.000 Enough is enough.

00:06:40.000 That's a very interesting statement.

00:06:41.000 Can I pause on this one really quick?

00:06:43.000 So, I was talking with somebody that is looking at the numbers, looking at the polling for midterms yesterday.

00:06:48.000 And I said, Well, what can we do?

00:06:52.000 What would be your advice?

00:06:53.000 And the advice was really clear it said, President Trump has to assert his independence from Israel immediately.

00:07:00.000 Now, I don't know if this person is speaking to the admin about this specifically, but this tweet stood out to me because this truth.

00:07:09.000 Because he's saying, we're in charge.

00:07:11.000 They're not in charge.

00:07:12.000 We're mandating the terms of this.

00:07:13.000 We're telling them to knock it off.

00:07:15.000 Again, remember that moment after Midnight Hammer where there was still some missiles going back and forth between Israel and Iran?

00:07:21.000 And he was not happy.

00:07:23.000 Remember that?

00:07:23.000 Where he's walking out to the, I think, on the south lawn of the White House.

00:07:27.000 And he's like, I'm not happy.

00:07:28.000 It's not going to, you know, and that was a really important moment, I think, for the president in that time.

00:07:33.000 Fast forward to today, he's sort of doing this via truth, saying, here's the terms Lebanon's not going to scuttle the deal. 0.73

00:07:39.000 I'm not going to allow Israel's fight with Hezbollah.

00:07:42.000 Whatever you may think of that, to scuttle the deal because we got a larger thing that we're doing here. 0.88

00:07:46.000 And frankly, it's too important to America to get the deal done and over the finish line.

00:07:50.000 And this is my big message. 0.58

00:07:53.000 And my hope is that this is really and truly the culmination, the finish, the end of this conflict in Iran. 0.57

00:08:02.000 Let's wrap it up. 0.84

00:08:03.000 Let's declare victory. 0.95

00:08:04.000 Let's get the uranium dust. 0.97

00:08:06.000 Let's put our people in there. 0.99

00:08:07.000 Let's establish and normalize relations with Iran. 0.88

00:08:10.000 If he can do that in the next, if we can wrap this puppy up in two, three weeks, that is a huge, huge, huge, huge. 0.57

00:08:18.000 I would call it a win, a definitive win for President Trump.

00:08:22.000 Now, the political fallout is still a thing.

00:08:25.000 It's going to take some time to shake this off, especially with younger voters.

00:08:29.000 I've told you guys on this show a number of times that young people don't like the Iranian war.

00:08:33.000 They don't.

00:08:33.000 They don't like it.

00:08:34.000 Okay.

00:08:35.000 Now, you might like it out there.

00:08:37.000 You might trust Trump.

00:08:38.000 You might see the geopolitical ramifications of this.

00:08:41.000 But that doesn't mean that normies out there that aren't consuming the news every day understand the ramifications geopolitically, what this does to China, what this does potentially to end conflicts for a long time in the Middle East.

00:08:53.000 And I've said it again.

00:08:54.000 I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that this could have been the Absolutely right, geopolitical national security move, but it will have a political cost.

00:09:02.000 So, the point in politics is where do you want to spend your political capital?

00:09:06.000 We want to get through this and we want to spend our political capital right here at home.

00:09:09.000 We want to nation build right here at home.

00:09:11.000 I think it's pretty clear, as you say, I think it's pretty clear, as we said, this had a political hit to the president, but we said if he can resolve it successfully, pivot domestically, and if he has something he can point to, that this is our last war, that this was a successful war.

00:09:27.000 They will get over it.

00:09:28.000 And I think he's excellently set the ground for that.

00:09:31.000 And now he just has to land the plane, get it over the finish line.

00:09:35.000 If he gets that uranium, man, he'll have done something no other president has done.

00:09:40.000 Not by a long shot.

00:09:43.000 If you are a parent like me, sometimes you go through these growth spurts with your kids at home.

00:09:49.000 You realize how quickly they're growing, their pants don't fit.

00:09:52.000 You got to go get them new clothes.

00:09:54.000 And all of that for me is a sign that we need to get serious about making sure that they're taken care of in the future.

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00:11:22.000 We have the excellent Chris Ruffo joining us to talk about his sustained operation to bring down Gavin Newsom's California before it devours the entire country.

00:11:34.000 Chris, are you there?

00:11:35.000 Yeah, I'm here.

00:11:36.000 Good to be with you guys.

00:11:37.000 What's so amazing about what we did is when we first reached out to you, it was a week or two ago.

00:11:42.000 And at that time, it was your article in City Journal, which everyone should check out.

00:11:47.000 It is Gavin Newsom's Empire of Fraud.

00:11:50.000 California has lost at least $180 billion to fraud, according to officials and experts.

00:11:56.000 We'll get to that in just a second.

00:11:57.000 But just in the last few days, you got another story which went incredibly viral and deservedly so, which is that California is, I don't even, in a sense, I don't know why this is a news story because I think, uh, Kamala Harris basically ran on this as her platform in 2024.

00:12:15.000 But California is giving free sex change procedures to homeless, illegal aliens.

00:12:22.000 Your team went into the streets and you found the people who are getting free taxpayer funded hormones, breast implants, sex change operations. 0.87

00:12:31.000 Chris, tell us more about it.

00:12:32.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:12:33.000 And so if you look in California's Medi Cal documents, it says very clearly that they provide health care to illegal aliens and also that they provide.

00:12:42.000 Gender affirming care, which is a euphemism for sex change procedures.

00:12:47.000 But we went a little bit deeper and wanted to figure out where these things intersect.

00:12:51.000 So we visited a number of homeless shelters in San Francisco.

00:12:54.000 And outside of each one, there were groups of trans migrants, mostly from Honduras and Mexico, who told us very clearly we came into the United States, in many cases, crossed the border illegally because we knew that if we made it to San Francisco, Gavin Newsom would give us free sex change hormones, free shelter, free food.

00:13:17.000 Free gender surgeries.

00:13:19.000 And so it was kind of one of those moments where you're like blown away because it seems like a right wing fever dream.

00:13:26.000 But in the streets of California, on the ground, first hand sources, they tell you as if it were just another Tuesday.

00:13:33.000 So even if this was costing $10, it would be manifestly insane.

00:13:37.000 But what's the expense on some of these operations? 0.85

00:13:39.000 How much does it cost to give one of these illegal migrants breast implants or to lop it off, as it were? 1.00

00:13:47.000 Well, what's really interesting is the total cost. 0.99

00:13:50.000 So, some of the more complex genital surgeries can cost half a million dollars. 0.97

00:13:54.000 But what happens when you go through all of these surgical procedures, you start taking the hormones, you become a lifelong ward of the transgender medical system. 0.94

00:14:04.000 So, you have to go back month after month after month for your entire life to receive all of these follow up treatments.

00:14:11.000 And so, the cost can easily balloon into seven figures.

00:14:15.000 This is a million dollar, multi million dollar lifetime medical process.

00:14:21.000 You know why doctors like to do it because they have a lifetime patient.

00:14:25.000 You know why Gavin Newsom likes to do it because he gets a pat on the head from all of the left wing activists that are living in his state and living across the country.

00:14:34.000 But what's mind boggling is that California voters also seem to support these policies.

00:14:40.000 It costs them money, it's barbaric.

00:14:42.000 I think we'll look back in 50 or 100 years, and this will be just like some of those horrific medical experiments of the past.

00:14:50.000 It will be something that is recognized as a form of barbarism.

00:14:53.000 I think you're absolutely right.

00:14:54.000 And I think that's the point.

00:14:56.000 Very much worth emphasizing.

00:14:57.000 These are not one off surgeries.

00:14:58.000 There's stuff people aren't even maybe familiar with that they'll get, like male to females, they'll get their Adam's apple shaved down because that's more prominent.

00:15:06.000 You'll shave down their cheekbones to have a softer face.

00:15:09.000 Sometimes, you know, we're all gentlemen here, at least I suspect we are. 0.82

00:15:14.000 And sometimes we use euphemisms to talk about how disgusting this stuff is. 1.00

00:15:18.000 But if you are a male to female transitioner, then I mean, they're literally boring a hole in your pelvis, and that hole wants to heal. 1.00

00:15:28.000 And this is what you're talking about. 1.00

00:15:29.000 You become a lifelong ward of the state or of the medical industrial complex here.

00:15:34.000 And you have to receive treatments over your life to ensure that this stays open.

00:15:41.000 It's an open wound that we're pretending is anatomy.

00:15:45.000 It's extraordinarily barbaric.

00:15:47.000 And to think that.

00:15:48.000 California would do this to its own taxpayers, and the taxpayers would somehow go along with this as if it was compassionate.

00:15:54.000 I mean, do we have polling on this, Chris, in the state of California?

00:15:58.000 Yeah, it really depends how you phrase it.

00:16:00.000 And so, if you phrase it like the left likes to do as life saving, gender affirming care, it polls fairly well.

00:16:07.000 But if you actually explain to people the kind of physical mechanics of what this is, and Andrew, your point is really a good one.

00:16:14.000 You know, we talked with one of these migrants, trans migrants from Mexico, who said he got free. 0.97

00:16:19.000 Breast implants from Medi Cal, and he was now on the wait list for bottom surgery, which is another one of those euphemisms, as you're talking about, which is essentially castrating an adult male and using that penile tissue to create an artificial vagina. 0.98

00:16:34.000 I mean, this is Dr. Frankenstein. 0.99

00:16:37.000 This is barbarism.

00:16:40.000 And again, if you explain that to people, the popularity plummets.

00:16:44.000 Even in a left wing state like California, people just don't want this.

00:16:50.000 When you tell them the truth, they recoil.

00:16:52.000 And so that's why it's important, as you guys have done on the show and as Charlie did over and over, to just give people the straight facts, even if it's a little bit uncomfortable.

00:17:02.000 Yeah.

00:17:03.000 Chris, I just want to pause because I know Blake's an avid reader and I'm such a huge fan as well of the work that you guys are doing at City Journal, Manhattan Institute.

00:17:12.000 You guys have some of the most incredible reporting.

00:17:15.000 I mean, the Minneapolis stuff was from, I believe, you and your colleague, Ryan.

00:17:20.000 Tell me his name.

00:17:21.000 I want to give him a shout out.

00:17:22.000 Thorpe.

00:17:23.000 Ryan Thorpe.

00:17:23.000 He came on the show and talked.

00:17:24.000 I mean, but like.

00:17:25.000 These stories are huge.

00:17:27.000 They're shocking.

00:17:27.000 You guys do really good research.

00:17:29.000 I mean, it really is the investigative journalism answer to so much of the apparatus that's set up on the other side of the aisle.

00:17:36.000 And so I just want to give you guys a big hat tip and a shout out there.

00:17:40.000 And we do have a clip here that I was.

00:17:41.000 Oh, of course, yeah.

00:17:42.000 Yeah, this is just to show that you guys did your field work here, SOT9.

00:17:46.000 And me as a trans woman, I feel safe.

00:17:51.000 Were you able to get the hormones or, you know?

00:17:54.000 Yeah, I did that with my doctor.

00:17:57.000 So, Medi Cal, you got the breast implants?

00:17:59.000 Yes.

00:18:00.000 Wow, taxpayer funded.

00:18:03.000 So, here in California, they gave you the breast implant here?

00:18:07.000 Yes.

00:18:08.000 Free?

00:18:09.000 Yeah.

00:18:10.000 Wow.

00:18:11.000 Congratulations.

00:18:13.000 Do you feel like that's a good benefit for other migrants here in California?

00:18:17.000 Yeah, even though you're undocumented, you can get it.

00:18:23.000 Did you do bottom surgery too?

00:18:24.000 I'm waiting for that one.

00:18:25.000 Wow, you're waiting for bottom surgery.

00:18:27.000 Okay.

00:18:29.000 There it is.

00:18:30.000 Is that Jonathan Cho, if I heard the voice right?

00:18:33.000 We work with the Maternity Point Frontlines as well.

00:18:35.000 He's a great guy.

00:18:36.000 Yeah, Jonathan is one of the best.

00:18:38.000 I know he's been doing Frontlines for you.

00:18:39.000 He's been doing work for me, been doing work for Discovery Institute.

00:18:42.000 And it's really important.

00:18:44.000 And it's really important to go out onto the ground, talk to people, get the real story.

00:18:49.000 And I appreciate all that you guys have done to kind of boost these stories that we're doing.

00:18:54.000 And the formula that we've developed is pretty simple.

00:18:56.000 We have now a growing team of investigative reporters.

00:18:58.000 And we put in the work.

00:19:00.000 I mean, we have reporters spending a month, sometimes two months, just on a single story.

00:19:04.000 We're not a content mill trying to generate a million links a day, but we really want those stories that peel back the kind of onion of progressive governance, in this case in California, to reveal what's happening beneath the surface.

00:19:20.000 Well, I really want to flag this because Gavin Newsom's government has tried to dispute the fraud claims, which we'll get to in the next segment, but they have, in fact, doubled down on this.

00:19:30.000 Trans surgery thing, they put out a statement.

00:19:32.000 This is from Gavin Newsom's communications office. 0.75

00:19:36.000 Undocumented Californians don't get special treatment.

00:19:39.000 Everyone on Medi Cal gets the same access to care.

00:19:42.000 If you want to call California woke for not letting politicians interfere with doctors or not wanting people to die in the streets, then go ahead.

00:19:53.000 That's their response to the clip we just played.

00:19:55.000 Oh, dear.

00:19:56.000 Yeah, I mean, what's your reaction to Gavin Newsom and the framing of that tweet?

00:20:02.000 Well, it's classic emotional blackmail.

00:20:06.000 And so this is something we see even with young girls.

00:20:09.000 They say, you know, if you don't let this person transition, if you don't provide the hormones and the surgeries and the drugs, they're going to commit suicide.

00:20:18.000 So that's what they're referring to.

00:20:21.000 It's, of course, totally dishonest.

00:20:23.000 The facts don't substantiate it. 0.99

00:20:25.000 And of course, he's essentially admitting that, yes, we are giving transgenders, migrants, and illegal aliens these gender surgeries, but it's a good thing. 0.94

00:20:36.000 And so, you know, he can't escape the facts. 1.00

00:20:39.000 They knew that we had caught them in the act.

00:20:41.000 And so they're trying to run defense and these very sleazy emotional blackmail techniques that we've seen for years.

00:20:51.000 Charlie had an absolutely relentless passion for learning.

00:20:55.000 I saw it up close and personal in every waking moment, every spare moment that he could.

00:21:01.000 He had a book open, he had a podcast open, he had a Hillsdale online course open.

00:21:07.000 He was always diving into new ideas, absorbing information, studying up and sharpening his skills.

00:21:12.000 That's why I love Dr. Arne at Hillsdale College.

00:21:15.000 They shared a deep understanding that learning is the key to shaping your character, creating courage.

00:21:21.000 And changing lives.

00:21:23.000 Charlie never stopped learning, and neither should you.

00:21:25.000 Through Hillsdale's online courses, he spent time studying the classics, the American founding, and the enduring truths of the Bible.

00:21:32.000 Now it is your turn.

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00:22:16.000 So we covered the trans focus, but there's a bigger picture that you've been highlighting, which is that this is one small part.

00:22:23.000 I guess you can't even call that fraudulent.

00:22:25.000 They're just openly saying this is what we spend money on.

00:22:28.000 But there's also that California is the apotheosis of what you might call the Minnesota problem, which is easy fraud all over the place that's going unchecked.

00:22:37.000 You call it the empire of fraud.

00:22:39.000 California has lost at least $180 billion to fraud.

00:22:44.000 If you want a point of comparison, that's about the size of the economy of Qatar or Kuwait or Uzbekistan.

00:22:52.000 It's larger than the economy of Mississippi.

00:22:54.000 That's a pretty large amount of fraud, and it's coming from a lot of different places, isn't it, Chris?

00:22:59.000 Yeah, I mean, we had four reporters working on this story for a number of months, and it felt like every lead we chased down opened up a whole dozen new leads about fraud within the California system.

00:23:12.000 But if you want to break it down in the simplest way possible, you have three major buckets.

00:23:16.000 The first is unemployment insurance.

00:23:18.000 We know that unemployment insurance in California was defrauded of more than $30 billion under Gavin Newsom.

00:23:24.000 The second bucket, the biggest bucket, is Medi-Cal, the state Medicaid program.

00:23:29.000 We know that there is somewhere between 20 and 25% of that budget is lost every year to fraud.

00:23:36.000 Currently, about $200 billion in total spending.

00:23:39.000 So, we're talking about, you know, let's say between $20 and $50 billion conservatively on the low end.

00:23:46.000 And then a kind of grab bag of other programs that are rife with fraud homelessness services, food stamps, autism services, welfare programs.

00:23:58.000 And so, if you really pull back, the total scale of this is really astonishing.

00:24:05.000 It seems that California is designed to do two things.

00:24:09.000 One, it's designed to line the pockets of Gavin Newsom's key allies in the labor unions, the teachers unions, the medical system.

00:24:17.000 And then second, it seemed to permit fraud because fraud increases spending, fraud increases the kind of perception of job growth within the state, and that some of that fraud is doubtlessly routed into the NGOs, into the unions, into the other parts of the system where Gavin Newsom generates his power.

00:24:38.000 Yeah, I'm just looking through some of the examples here.

00:24:42.000 You have someone who embezzled $2.2 million for exotic cars.

00:24:45.000 They got the monthly rent on a 6,500 square foot mansion.

00:24:50.000 There's just example after example.

00:24:52.000 And it was really, it stands out.

00:24:54.000 A lot of this just, it seems like it went, it was always there.

00:24:57.000 It was always bad in California.

00:24:59.000 But what really allowed it to just become permanent and much bigger than ever before is COVID.

00:25:04.000 That COVID really just set the standard that we're going to give away.

00:25:10.000 Almost unlimited amounts of money.

00:25:11.000 And it sort of normalized the practice of just essentially not checking.

00:25:15.000 That's why fraud is so glaring here.

00:25:18.000 It seems like it's considered immoral, impractical, unethical to check the claims of anybody who's trying to take state money.

00:25:27.000 Is that a fair characterization? 1.00

00:25:30.000 It's more than fair.

00:25:31.000 I mean, Blake, you put it perfectly.

00:25:33.000 During the early months of COVID and California's response, they essentially opened up the unemployment insurance program to distribute money with no checks.

00:25:43.000 In our reporting, we found two very interesting things.

00:25:46.000 One, there were only two bureaucrats in Sacramento controlling potential fraud in the unemployment system, which was issuing tens of billions of dollars per month in claims.

00:25:57.000 I mean, it was really just open season.

00:26:00.000 And one of the stories we found, which was just a perfect encapsulation, during this period, a rapper in Memphis, Tennessee named Nuke Bizzle released a music video showing exactly how he was filing false claims with California unemployment.

00:26:16.000 And harvesting hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the system.

00:26:21.000 Because he made the music video, he was eventually tried and convicted for embezzling $700,000.

00:26:28.000 But the kind of dirty secret, he only got caught because he literally made a music video teaching people how he was stealing money from the state of California.

00:26:38.000 So if you kept it a little more low key, you almost certainly got away with it.

00:26:43.000 Yeah, and I'm looking here that they were paying, they paid out some COVID benefits to.

00:26:49.000 A bunch of hundreds of millions of dollars worth to prisoners' names, including 133 inmates on death row.

00:26:56.000 Is this just a rubber stamp?

00:26:58.000 Is this.

00:26:59.000 Are these.

00:27:01.000 This money, it just seems like nobody's checking any of the work.

00:27:04.000 They're not checking to see if people are actually needing this.

00:27:07.000 And I think that's the other side of the story is that not only is it fleecing the taxpayers, but it's so bad that you have to imagine people that actually need help in services are not able to get it or something.

00:27:19.000 I mean, I just, are there any checks and balances, Chris?

00:27:23.000 No.

00:27:23.000 And in fact, at every turn, we found this in our reporting the Newsom administration and state Democrats have systematically dismantled.

00:27:32.000 Oversight, investigations, fraud controls.

00:27:36.000 It really does appear that they see the fraud as some kind of social justice, maybe redistribution of wealth from California's wealthy class and productive class to California's criminal class.

00:27:49.000 I mean, you really need to go back and like read your Dostoevsky and read your Nietzsche to find the philosophical core of this because, on the surface, if you're a regular middle class taxpayer, it's almost too difficult to understand how the kleptocratic Criminal political class in California just give out tens of billions of dollars per year to fraudsters with seemingly no interest in making it stop.

00:28:17.000 You guys have done incredible work over at City Journal, over at the Manhattan Institute.

00:28:22.000 It takes a long time to do it this way.

00:28:24.000 If you're a young person out there, I will note that Manhattan Institute and City Journal, they're often soliciting for potential fellows, potential reporters.

00:28:33.000 So if you're trying to make it in the world and want to make a difference, consider shooting them a resume.

00:28:38.000 Hiring pretty regularly.

00:28:38.000 They are.

00:28:40.000 Chris, thank you very much.

00:28:42.000 You guys have done tremendous work.

00:28:43.000 We love having you on to highlight it.

00:28:45.000 Keep it up.

00:28:45.000 Thanks, guys.

00:28:48.000 For a lot of Americans, the healthcare system is reactive.

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00:30:09.000 So we have Don.

00:30:10.000 Don, you are first on the Ask Us Anything here.

00:30:13.000 Go to members.charliekirk.com to join.

00:30:15.000 Don, welcome.

00:30:17.000 Hi, guys.

00:30:19.000 Thanks for taking my call.

00:30:21.000 It's good to talk with you.

00:30:23.000 You too.

00:30:24.000 What's on your mind?

00:30:25.000 Well, I was wondering what you did with the microphone that Glenn Beck gave you that used to be Russia's.

00:30:36.000 The Golden EIB microphone.

00:30:38.000 Excellent in broadcasting.

00:30:40.000 So, a little backstory here.

00:30:42.000 When Charlie and I. First, we decided we were going to start the Charlie Kirk show and we're going to do a podcast, then a broadcast.

00:30:50.000 I remember the first conversation I had with Charlie about it, and I asked him, What did he want to be?

00:30:54.000 What did he want to become?

00:30:56.000 And I said, Do you want to become president?

00:30:58.000 You know, I just threw it out there.

00:31:00.000 At that point, you know, a lot of people ended up making that thought about Charlie or thinking that could be a potential in his future later on, but this was early.

00:31:08.000 I said, Do you want to be president or do you want to be Rush Limbaugh?

00:31:11.000 And he said, Well, I definitely know that I want to be more like Rush Limbaugh.

00:31:15.000 I had to pick a route, not to compare himself to Rush by any stretch of the imagination.

00:31:20.000 He just said that that is a direction of where I want to go.

00:31:24.000 I love that.

00:31:25.000 And Charlie and I were both Rush babies.

00:31:27.000 We grew up with our parents listening to Rush in the car.

00:31:30.000 And he left a profound impact on both my life and Charlie's life.

00:31:34.000 And so when Glenn Beck came to the studio and put that mic on in front of Charlie's chair, it was a tremendous honor and an amazing moment.

00:31:43.000 I remember I got kind of emotional.

00:31:44.000 I was sitting in the bullpen watching the show from the bullpen.

00:31:48.000 And so it was an amazing moment.

00:31:50.000 That being said, that microphone belongs in Glenn Beck's museum.

00:31:55.000 So it was not a permanent gift.

00:31:57.000 It was a sort of.

00:31:58.000 It was a lovely tribute, but he did not permanently gift us, which is frankly good because, as he said, Glenn actually has a museum in the Dallas area.

00:32:07.000 You can go and see it yourself, and a lot of other things.

00:32:10.000 He's quite the collector.

00:32:11.000 He is a very avid collector.

00:32:13.000 I once went, he had a, I was once able to go to sort of an open house where they had the main museum, but also a storage area.

00:32:20.000 There's a tremendous number of historical documents that he collects throughout American history and world history, religious history.

00:32:27.000 Very interesting place to go.

00:32:29.000 So if you ever have the chance to see that, if you're in the Dallas area, you should do so.

00:32:34.000 Great pool.

00:32:35.000 Studio here.

00:32:36.000 That was Glenn Beck presenting the Golden EIB microphone.

00:32:40.000 And yeah, I mean, that thing is iconic.

00:32:43.000 It is.

00:32:44.000 And I loved the way Rush would kind of sit back.

00:32:46.000 These are actually the same make and model of the Golden EIB microphone.

00:32:52.000 It's just his was gold.

00:32:53.000 These are the standard ones.

00:32:55.000 But he would kind of sit back and he always had perfect microphone etiquette.

00:33:01.000 So if you get into broadcasting, you hear about microphone etiquette.

00:33:03.000 I like to be a little closer, but Rush would kind of stand there and kind of.

00:33:07.000 Talk into it.

00:33:08.000 And it was a tremendous honor.

00:33:10.000 It's a beautiful, beautiful piece.

00:33:12.000 And I'm glad it's in a museum safe and sound.

00:33:14.000 And, you know, honestly, we probably couldn't keep it as safe as it needed to be here, anyways, with as many people in and out of the studio.

00:33:21.000 So that's what happened to it.

00:33:22.000 But it was a beautiful gesture from the great Glenn Beck to bring that here and present it to Charlie.

00:33:28.000 Yeah, that's good to know.

00:33:30.000 I'm glad it's someplace where it can be honored the way it should be.

00:33:34.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:33:35.000 Of course.

00:33:36.000 Well, thanks for your question.

00:33:37.000 You know, it's funny, Don, we've gotten that question a lot, actually.

00:33:40.000 So I'm glad I get a chance to kind of address it publicly.

00:33:43.000 All right, next up we have David.

00:33:45.000 David, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:33:47.000 Unmute yourself.

00:33:49.000 Hey, how are we doing today?

00:33:50.000 Doing great, David.

00:33:51.000 How about yourself?

00:33:52.000 I'm doing good.

00:33:53.000 My question is, real quick first of all, you guys are doing a great job.

00:33:57.000 Thank you.

00:33:59.000 But I'm trying to figure out how candidates that are not in the race drop out of the race?

00:34:09.000 Because we're in California, and a lot of candidates, we got 60 pages of people running, well, three pages of people running for governor.

00:34:23.000 And half of them have no chance of getting in.

00:34:26.000 How do you tell these people to?

00:34:29.000 Where is this at?

00:34:30.000 California.

00:34:31.000 California is especially bad.

00:34:33.000 Communist California.

00:34:33.000 Anyone can run and it's a jungle primary.

00:34:35.000 Jungle primary system tends to create chaos.

00:34:38.000 I'm much more a fan of each party running their candidate and going through a primary, closed primary.

00:34:44.000 But the practical question is real, which is we've certainly seen cases.

00:34:49.000 You know, maybe as an example, you might look at the Lindsey Graham race in South Carolina.

00:34:54.000 A lot of people want him unseated.

00:34:56.000 But there's a lot of different contenders, and it might have a stronger shot if there was one guy specifically as the champion.

00:35:01.000 There was back and forth about that.

00:35:03.000 Well, and Paul Danz ended up dropping out and throwing his support behind Lynch, which is good because it consolidates the primary field and gives us a better chance of replacing Lindsey Graham.

00:35:13.000 So I get your point.

00:35:14.000 And actually, ironically enough, when you talk about the governor's race in California, it's the Democrats that are concerned about the prospects there of having a splintered field that could result, in theory, in two Republicans.

00:35:26.000 I think that's less likely now that Swalwell has dropped out.

00:35:29.000 But the larger point that you're getting at here, the question is how do you get them to thin the field so that people can throw their support behind the more, I guess, the candidates with the best chance of actually getting elected?

00:35:43.000 And really, this comes down to party apparatus at the state level and the county level.

00:35:48.000 So, what that reflects is a weakened GOP in California that can't sort of exert itself and tell candidates what to do.

00:35:54.000 So, sometimes you have to give candidates an off ramp, you have to give them other opportunities, you have to say, hey, if you get out, we'll make sure you have a A position on this board or something.

00:36:03.000 This is like party politics 101.

00:36:05.000 It happens all the time.

00:36:06.000 And so, the stronger the local party, the stronger the state party, the more influence and pressure that they can wield to get that done.

00:36:13.000 You know, sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing.

00:36:15.000 Sometimes you want the grassroots candidates to stay in because the base gets more of a vote and you don't want the party apparatus to sort of dominate which candidates get the support and not.

00:36:26.000 So, it's tough because naturally politics does, it attracts.

00:36:31.000 People with egos, people who have a bit of megalomania.

00:36:33.000 So, a lot of people like you don't really want to run for governor unless you really truly believe you can win.

00:36:38.000 And a lot of people believe they can win even if they can't.

00:36:41.000 But he is correct.

00:36:42.000 Andrew is correct.

00:36:43.000 That's really where party apparatus that you can really exert pressure financially.

00:36:47.000 You can exert pressure, say, you know, you're done in this party if you don't bail out.

00:36:52.000 That's the strongest tool in their kit.

00:36:54.000 It's a reason we have parties.

00:36:55.000 So, we have more questions here.

00:36:57.000 What's our next one?

00:36:58.000 We have Sarah next.

00:36:59.000 Sarah, unmute yourself and what's your question?

00:37:02.000 Hey, can you guys hear me?

00:37:03.000 Yes, we can.

00:37:04.000 All right.

00:37:06.000 So this is a Canadian question again.

00:37:09.000 So I'm a political activist, a conservative political activist up here in Canada.

00:37:14.000 You guys haven't talked about it.

00:37:15.000 Yeah.

00:37:17.000 Well, it's also interesting, too, because I was recently issued a trespass notice by the University of Guelph, not for anything that I said or did, but because I was in the vicinity of my father, who had what they deemed to be a hateful conversation with two Middle Eastern girls in the parking lot.

00:37:37.000 And I took.

00:37:38.000 No part in this conversation.

00:37:40.000 I did nothing.

00:37:40.000 I said nothing.

00:37:42.000 And now I am banned from that university for life, even though I have work that I need to do there.

00:37:47.000 And I'm now banned.

00:37:48.000 But that's kind of my story.

00:37:50.000 That's what I'm fighting with right now.

00:37:52.000 And it's a big deal.

00:37:53.000 Yeah.

00:37:54.000 I have two questions.

00:37:55.000 So you're saying that for engaging in a conversation, which you didn't, but just let's say for a moment that you did, debating, I don't know, Islam in the West, let's say it was a spicy conversation.

00:38:07.000 They're saying that that is so hateful that you could be trespassed and banned from a university.

00:38:11.000 Yes.

00:38:12.000 Just for having a public university.

00:38:12.000 Yeah.

00:38:14.000 On a public university.

00:38:16.000 Yeah, wow.

00:38:17.000 I mean, it wasn't even hateful, though.

00:38:19.000 Well, okay, let's just say it was argumentative.

00:38:23.000 Let's say you guys, it was a fierce disagreement about the merits of Islam or its compatibility with Western culture, which would be a very spicy conversation to have face to face, I admit.

00:38:34.000 But even then, it just underscores the value of the First Amendment in the United States that that is totally open and free for having that conversation.

00:38:42.000 The fact that you can't do that without, you know, falling afoul of some hate speech codes in Canada is really a A really terrible indictment of the Canadian system.

00:38:52.000 Yeah, but Canada's unfortunately an unfree country or a post freedom country, you might say.

00:38:57.000 Terrible.

00:38:57.000 But I saw you had a little bit more to your question if you wanted to finish.

00:39:00.000 Yeah.

00:39:01.000 I was curious if anything like that ever happened to Charlie because I know he went on a lot.

00:39:06.000 There's a lot more campuses in the United States and I know he went on a lot of them.

00:39:11.000 Was he ever trespassed by a university for anything?

00:39:14.000 That's a really interesting question because it gets at the heart of kind of why he was effective because over time, Charlie and Turning Point more generally, they got very good at knowing what the rules were.

00:39:27.000 For example, if the university tries to block you, when is what they're doing valid?

00:39:32.000 And when are they just trying to BS you, trying to say, oh, there's security risks, you're not allowed to speak, and say, actually, you're a public university.

00:39:39.000 You have to allow us to speak if you allow those people.

00:39:42.000 He did get very good at that.

00:39:44.000 But he was once threatened with.

00:39:46.000 Yeah, so I remember, I don't think he was ever trespassed off a university, but I remember the University of New Mexico, which used to put up.

00:39:53.000 Huge protests.

00:39:55.000 They would ship people in from all over.

00:39:58.000 Most of these were not students, but they would make a lot of noise.

00:40:01.000 And they actually kind of harassed Tommy Laren, who was visiting with us at some event.

00:40:08.000 And so Charlie had made it a point to get back to the University of New Mexico and basically just to plant the flag and say, you will not intimidate us.

00:40:15.000 We don't care if you're going to try and put Tommy Laren in a locker in a room somewhere, which is, I believe, what happened.

00:40:21.000 They ended up having to get escorted out by.

00:40:24.000 Law enforcement for their safety.

00:40:25.000 So Charlie went back there, and I remember he stood on the roof of one of the buildings and waved at the protesters, and the police did not like that.

00:40:34.000 And they threatened him with arrest, and they basically said he was goading the protesters.

00:40:39.000 And really, he's just out there waving.

00:40:40.000 He just stood up on the roof of one of the buildings and looked at them and waved.

00:40:45.000 And it was an important symbolic gesture to say, You will not intimidate us, you will not drive us off this campus.

00:40:51.000 And yeah, I mean, that was the closest I remember him ever getting arrested.

00:40:55.000 You know, it also happened.

00:40:57.000 To Riley Gaines, where she got locked in a room, in a private room where protesters were pounding on the doors and she had to be sort of protected by police.

00:41:04.000 Hours later, she ended up getting out of that situation, but it was a terrible situation.

00:41:08.000 Oh, is this the New Mexico footage?

00:41:10.000 Oh, good job, Dave.

00:41:13.000 And that's how far away he was waving, and they threatened to arrest him for that.

00:41:17.000 Yeah, that was a near arrest.

00:41:19.000 And I remember there was a bunch of hullabaloo after that event when he came back and told us what actually happened.

00:41:26.000 But all he did was stand up there and wave.

00:41:28.000 And they had this huge protest out there for him, and he would not be intimidated.

00:41:33.000 But that's what we loved about Charlie because he looked them right in the eye.

00:41:37.000 And to Blake's point, because of the movement at turning point, and because we were, especially during Trump 1.0, he Did a bunch of executive orders on free speech on college campuses.

00:41:47.000 It created a whole culture and a whole news media environment around enforcing free speech laws on college campuses.

00:41:55.000 And there was, you know, FIRE was involved, ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom was involved.

00:42:00.000 I'm curious if ADF does any work in Canada.

00:42:03.000 I would presume no, just because the laws are so distinct.

00:42:05.000 It's different.

00:42:06.000 I mean, Canada does, as I said, they just don't have our rights.

00:42:06.000 It's tough.

00:42:10.000 They kind of only wrote a modern constitution in the 80s and it's infused with so many of the modern assumptions of the left.

00:42:17.000 So, yeah, you can restrict.

00:42:19.000 Hate speech laws, you can, a whole battery of things. 0.74

00:42:24.000 And that's without even getting into the eccentric parts of Canada, the way large chunks of your major cities are being ceded over to the First Nations. 0.66

00:42:32.000 And one thing after another. 0.99

00:42:35.000 The brain rot is deep.

00:42:36.000 One last thing about Charlie, one thing he would have been fascinated by your story because I know one of his goals that he talked about was he was interested in speaking in more countries.

00:42:46.000 And one of the things he wanted to try was going to Germany and reciting facts about immigration that you'd get in trouble for saying there.

00:42:52.000 If you were a German, and he said his goal was to get arrested or cause a diplomatic incident or get himself deported, start some sort of ruckus.

00:43:00.000 And I think he would have been inspired by a story like yours to maybe try the same thing in Canada. 0.70

00:43:04.000 I remember actually, there was some concern at one point whether or not Charlie was even going to be allowed to go into Canada.

00:43:09.000 There was, we got, it's vague, the memories, it's through the cobwebs here, but there was some concern that Charlie was on some list and wouldn't be allowed in Canada at one point.

00:43:21.000 Yeah, I don't know that we ever.

00:43:23.000 Tested it or tried it or looked into it deeper, but there was some concern that he was on a list and we were sort of warned that it could cause a problem if he ever tried to go to Canada.

00:43:30.000 Thank you for fighting the good fight in a very tough environment.

00:43:35.000 All right, I'm so excited.

00:43:37.000 The weather is finally warming up, which means grilling season is basically here.

00:43:42.000 And sorry if you live in a colder part of the country, where I'm at, it's grilling season.

00:43:46.000 And if you're anything like me, you're already thinking about planning your first backyard barbecue of the year.

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00:44:42.000 All right.

00:44:42.000 So, who's our next?

00:44:45.000 We have Andy next.

00:44:46.000 Andy, unmute yourself.

00:44:46.000 All right.

00:44:46.000 Andy.

00:44:47.000 Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:44:49.000 Hello, guys.

00:44:50.000 Howdy.

00:44:51.000 Hey there.

00:44:52.000 So, I'm kind of in a unique situation politically and stuff, but because the thing is that I've always been MAGA, but I'm also dating a foreign woman. 0.57

00:45:03.000 And I'm struggling with how to balance immigration reforms with keeping out illegals, but also not harming guys like me who are just trying to. 0.93

00:45:16.000 Possibly bring a wife here. 1.00

00:45:18.000 But of course, the dating process is difficult.

00:45:21.000 You know, it's like I would want my girlfriend to come visit the United States to see if she liked it before deciding to move. 0.87

00:45:27.000 But really, the only option is to immigrate because if you do a tourist visa, they won't let her come because they'll presume immigrant intent. 0.75

00:45:37.000 And so it's a really sticky sort of thing.

00:45:40.000 And of course, the only reason I'm dating outside of America is because of the, some people call it the dating apocalypse of America, where it's like perfectly good guys are being.

00:45:51.000 Like, rejected by women left and right.

00:45:54.000 And it's like our only option is to date outside of America.

00:45:57.000 So I'm just trying to live the American dream.

00:46:00.000 And it's just, it's difficult with the immigration system.

00:46:04.000 It's like there's no middle ground.

00:46:05.000 It's like either you're completely kept out and you have to prove everything.

00:46:11.000 It's just like really tough.

00:46:14.000 Yeah.

00:46:15.000 So, what do you mind me asking what country your, I guess, girlfriend fiance is from?

00:46:21.000 Philippines.

00:46:22.000 Philippines.

00:46:23.000 And you guys, I'm assuming you guys have been dating a while.

00:46:23.000 Okay.

00:46:28.000 You went and saw her in the Philippines.

00:46:30.000 Has she come to the States without issue?

00:46:33.000 It's just a matter of long term.

00:46:35.000 She has never come to the States.

00:46:36.000 I've always visited her.

00:46:37.000 I've been there two times.

00:46:39.000 I'm going to be flying down there for a third time, hopefully, to propose to her next time I go down, which is exciting. 0.93

00:46:47.000 But yeah, it's also, you know, she wants to fund her family's home improvement project before getting married.

00:46:55.000 So that's another thing. 0.95

00:46:56.000 She was trying to get like a job that's good paying, but it's difficult. 0.95

00:47:00.000 It would be nice if she could get an H 1B and come here, but you know, we're doing away with that now.

00:47:04.000 That's kind of frowned upon. 0.98

00:47:07.000 Well, you know, in the end, obviously, you have our support.

00:47:12.000 You want to chase the American dream.

00:47:13.000 We want you to get married.

00:47:14.000 We want you to have a family.

00:47:15.000 But we also have to set our immigration policies for the interests of the nation.

00:47:20.000 And I don't think there's any proposal to entirely.

00:47:23.000 No one's proposing that we get rid of the ability to marry foreigners or that you can get marriage visas for your spouse. 0.99

00:47:29.000 But what we have talked about is we do, I think we need to curb, for example, chain migration. 0.99

00:47:35.000 I don't think marrying one foreigner should give them the automatic right to bring in every member of their extended family because that's very abusable. 1.00

00:47:43.000 You have to be careful with it because you don't want people committing fraud. 0.98

00:47:47.000 And people will commit a lot of fraud in order to get into the United States.

00:47:52.000 And so.

00:47:53.000 We're trying to set up a system that is good for the country.

00:47:56.000 There's still ways it can work out for you.

00:47:59.000 And even with you, your obstacle, to my understanding, is not so much that you're unable to marry her. 0.92

00:48:04.000 Your obstacle is just she'll face obstacles visiting you in the United States when she has long term immigrant intent. 0.83

00:48:12.000 Yeah.

00:48:12.000 So I'm just pulling up the numbers from Cato Institute, which did a big study of the decrease in legal immigration categories.

00:48:20.000 And they said that K visas for spouses, and I sent this graphic here, K visas for spouses and fiancés were down 65.

00:48:27.000 Percent in 2025.

00:48:29.000 So if you compare a month by month, just at the last December of 2025, it was down to about 1.25.

00:48:38.000 So 1,250 K visas were granted that month, which was down from a number of almost 3.5 thousand in 2024.

00:48:47.000 So they are cracking down on this because you got to believe there's a lot of fraud involved in this.

00:48:52.000 A lot of people saying, oh, we're married, but they're not actually married.

00:48:55.000 So to Blake's point, I believe that there's still a route for you here.

00:48:59.000 It's just, it's probably going to be.

00:49:02.000 More challenging, more documentation, more proof.

00:49:06.000 I'm assuming you're working with attorneys on this?

00:49:08.000 I haven't hired an attorney yet.

00:49:10.000 Part of the thing is, you know, I have a lot of things I'm paying for.

00:49:14.000 Like, neither of us really have way too much money.

00:49:17.000 So I'm trying to navigate that too.

00:49:19.000 It's like, I do have the dating service I went with called Christian Filipina.

00:49:27.000 They actually have a visa consultation.

00:49:32.000 Company that's directly linked with them, but they're pretty expensive.

00:49:35.000 So it's like, I definitely need that, like, because, you know, it's going to be tough, but it's like at the same time, I can't afford it.

00:49:43.000 Well, I mean, listen, you got to work with an attorney on this.

00:49:46.000 It's a complicated process.

00:49:48.000 So, whether you use that service or some other service, there's a lot of immigration attorneys.

00:49:54.000 That's one of the downsides of the invasion that we've all lived through.

00:49:58.000 There's a lot of attorneys in the space looking for work right now.

00:50:01.000 The big picture is the option is there.

00:50:03.000 It might be more difficult.

00:50:04.000 And it's similar for that for other things.

00:50:06.000 We hear from businesses, obviously, where they say, oh, yeah, we want a secure border, we want to crack down, but it's tougher with labor costs.

00:50:15.000 The roofing industry, in the home building industry, in the agricultural industry.

00:50:22.000 And the truth is, we do have to bite the bullet on that because so much of what we've done has been short term thinking.

00:50:28.000 It's been taking the thing that's easier right now for the next month, for the next year, when we need to do what's best for this country 50 years from now, 100 years from now.

00:50:38.000 And that might require short term sacrifices.

00:50:40.000 I would just encourage you to not despair against the larger goals and the larger vision.

00:50:47.000 And it sounds like you're basically on board with that.

00:50:49.000 It is having a personal impact on you, but you have to then put that in context of the larger goals that the Trump administration, the people that voted for the president in 2024, want to accomplish. 1.00

00:51:00.000 And we do want to limit foreigners coming into our country. 0.99

00:51:04.000 We just do because, listen, we're losing American culture. 1.00

00:51:08.000 We're losing a lot of our norms, traditions.

00:51:11.000 We're losing a lot of things we took for granted.

00:51:13.000 And the country that we grew up in, we're watching it transform in ways we don't like and don't need and that aren't in the best interest of the country.

00:51:20.000 So just separate your personal.

00:51:22.000 Frustration and challenges from the larger goals.

00:51:24.000 And just remember, if this is authentic, if your goals are true and real, and you can get a lawyer, I think you're still going to ultimately be successful.

00:51:32.000 But again, yeah, it's going to cost you something, but not as much as you'd think.

00:51:35.000 Not as much as you'd think.

00:51:36.000 There's a lot of lawyers in this space that, like I said, need work right now because of all the crackdowns.

00:51:41.000 So hopefully you can find a good person to represent you and your fiance, and you guys can get married, have some babies.

00:51:49.000 Yeah.

00:51:51.000 Thanks.

00:51:51.000 All right, man.

00:51:52.000 Good talking to you.

00:51:53.000 What do we got next? 1.00

00:51:54.000 We have Ellie next.

00:51:55.000 Ellie, if you're there, unmute yourself and what's your question?

00:51:58.000 Hi.

00:51:59.000 Can you guys hear me?

00:51:59.000 Yes, we can.

00:52:00.000 All right.

00:52:01.000 So, this is kind of similar to the last question that I asked.

00:52:04.000 But obviously, there's been a lot of chaos with the daily news lately.

00:52:08.000 And I feel like just the spirit of doomerism can kind of just run rampant.

00:52:14.000 But since you guys are both on this show every day and pretty active on X, my question would be how do each of you stay grounded?

00:52:22.000 And still maintain a semi positive view of the country and the world, especially when you guys are very actively reporting on the news every day.

00:52:33.000 So, funny thing, I remember the first time I ever traveled alongside Charlie, this would have been in 2023, and he was about to sit back to take a nap.

00:52:45.000 I can't even remember what we were discussing, but I asked him about some sort of bad news or something like that, and Charlie just told me, Blake, How you feel is a choice.

00:52:55.000 I choose not to feel bad, and so I don't.

00:53:00.000 And that's actually a remarkable testament to his talents that.

00:53:05.000 I would tell people one of the best things about Charlie, he was so high agency.

00:53:08.000 And what that means is your ability to create change in the world that you want to make something happen.

00:53:15.000 And so you take the individual steps to put it into action, which kind of all of us can do, but some are just better at it.

00:53:23.000 And Charlie was 99.9th percentile at that.

00:53:27.000 And a big part of that is, yeah, he had the ability to create how he wanted to feel.

00:53:32.000 And he knew being defeated, being downbeat, being negative was a hindrance to.

00:53:39.000 The world he wanted to create.

00:53:40.000 And so he was always endlessly positive.

00:53:43.000 And I think a big source of that, of course, was his faith that he had that absolute confidence that comes from believing, I am saved.

00:53:51.000 I have, you know, Christ died for me.

00:53:54.000 If I, all I can do if I die or if something bad happens to me is I can meet my creator.

00:53:59.000 And that fire was in him all of the time.

00:54:02.000 And that doesn't mean he never felt bad.

00:54:04.000 It doesn't mean he never felt something was a bad thing that unfolded, but he could always bounce back so quickly.

00:54:10.000 Well, and we try and do a good job on this show of.

00:54:13.000 Talking about all the wins.

00:54:14.000 I mean, if you just want to know why you should feel good, it's like, well, imagine Kamala Harris was president right now.

00:54:19.000 Good Lord.

00:54:20.000 Anyways, if you want to be a part of these conversations with us, we would love to invite you and have you join at members.charliekirk.com.

00:54:27.000 Next up is Mick.

00:54:29.000 How are you, Andrew?

00:54:30.000 I'm well, Mick.

00:54:31.000 How are you doing, man?

00:54:32.000 I'm doing great.

00:54:33.000 Hope you're doing good too, Blake.

00:54:36.000 My question for you shortly after Charlie was assassinated, we heard from the vice president, and then we heard again when you were with him in Georgia that we would see an effort from the administration to crack down on some of those dark money leftist groups, such as George Soros' Open Society Foundation or the Ford Foundation and all their little crony groups.

00:55:00.000 Where are we at with that?

00:55:02.000 I haven't heard anything.

00:55:03.000 We had the little incident where Don Lamont got arrested, but they went into a church.

00:55:08.000 So that was a pretty open and shut deal.

00:55:10.000 And besides that, I haven't really seen anything.

00:55:13.000 So, if anything, and I know the vice president said he listens to this.

00:55:16.000 So if he's listening, I hope he hears this.

00:55:19.000 Yeah.

00:55:19.000 You know, it's funny, Mick, just on that last note, I actually, when I got off stage with him, I was like, were you just like, you know, being nice?

00:55:25.000 Like, do you like, and because I have a relationship with the vice president, if such, he would be like, yeah, you know, I was just trying to build you up or whatever.

00:55:31.000 He's like, no.

00:55:32.000 I actually listened to it.

00:55:33.000 I actually listened to your show, and that was a great honor.

00:55:36.000 And he says a bunch of people in the administration do the same.

00:55:39.000 So, yes, I have spoken with members of the administration.

00:55:43.000 I'm sure Erica has as well.

00:55:45.000 But I'm reminded of that final text message that Charlie sent to Stephen Miller, where he said, We have to dismantle these left wing groups and the funding mechanisms behind them.

00:55:53.000 And I know that Stephen Miller takes that very, very personally.

00:55:57.000 And that the fact that JD Vance brought it up without me urging or asking, Is a really good indication that it remains top of mind.

00:56:04.000 And I will tell you that the Treasury Department, which I remember during my conversation with JD, I brought up, Scott Besson has been working on this.

00:56:13.000 He has a whole team that's devoted to this.

00:56:15.000 And I mean, I've seen the binders.

00:56:17.000 There's like stacks of binders that they're investigating and looking through to root out some of these thugs, these militants.

00:56:25.000 They call themselves activists. 0.96

00:56:26.000 No, these are domestic terrorists that want to intimidate and potentially hurt, injure, and kill conservatives. 0.95

00:56:33.000 And so we saw this.

00:56:35.000 Recently, with what happened to Savannah Hernandez in Minneapolis.

00:56:38.000 And then, honestly, that we talked about some of the violent threats that Erica Kirk was getting in the lead up to that University of Georgia event.

00:56:46.000 Well, a lot of that sparked right after Savannah Hernandez.

00:56:49.000 It like emboldened people to start making threats against Erica and the organization.

00:56:54.000 So I am 100% on board with what you're saying.

00:56:57.000 And I will tell you that they are working on it.

00:56:59.000 Well, I want to flag specific examples.

00:57:01.000 So late last year, so you might recall there was an attack on an ICE facility in Dallas.

00:57:07.000 And That was organized and perpetrated by Antifa cells.

00:57:11.000 And so, actually, late last year, for the first time, we got people who pleaded guilty in court to being members of an Antifa terror cell.

00:57:21.000 And then just last month in March, we had eight more people convicted by a jury in Texas, again, for terrorism related offenses as part of an Antifa group.

00:57:31.000 And it's the first time that's ever happened.

00:57:33.000 We've gotten individuals before, but we've never had it just, oh, your Antifa group is a terror group.

00:57:38.000 You committed offenses.

00:57:39.000 So, You'll sometimes hear people say they're doing nothing, nothing is happening.

00:57:45.000 When the answer is sometimes it happens and people just don't want to believe it, they don't want to talk about it, it's easier to complain.

00:57:52.000 But there are things like that happening.

00:57:54.000 Unwinding a whole financial network is tougher, it takes longer to build that case.

00:57:59.000 Big donor networks, of course, can pay for better lawyers, they can pay for better defense generally.

00:58:05.000 But we are getting the reps out there of going after the activists who commit crimes, bringing them to court, getting convictions.

00:58:13.000 Yeah.

00:58:14.000 And kind of going back to the question from Before, this is one of the reasons that I am positive.

00:58:19.000 I don't black pill because give me four years of President Trump administration and the country will be an undoubtedly better place than four years of Kamala Harris.

00:58:27.000 It's better for my kids.

00:58:28.000 It's better for the country in every conceivable way.

00:58:30.000 Yeah, you might have issues with what's happening in Iran or you might have issues with the foreign policy or not enough focus on domestic.

00:58:36.000 Part of our job is to remind the administration on this show and other shows like it of what the base wants, what the activists want, what the core constituency of this president really wants.

00:58:49.000 And so we talk about that and we.

00:58:50.000 But we do celebrate the wins, and Blake's right.

00:58:53.000 Those are some great wins, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

00:58:55.000 In a nation of 350 million people, it's going to take time.

00:59:00.000 Last question here is from Elizabeth.

00:59:02.000 Elizabeth, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:59:04.000 Unmute yourself and welcome.

00:59:06.000 Hi, Blake.

00:59:07.000 Hi, Andrea.

00:59:08.000 Thank you for taking my call.

00:59:09.000 And also, please just send to Erica.

00:59:12.000 There are a lot of people who love her and pray for her and see how hard she is working, recently widowed with two toddlers in tow to keep her husband's legacy going.

00:59:23.000 Thank you so much.

00:59:23.000 We value it and appreciate it.

00:59:25.000 Like, please let her know.

00:59:26.000 We do, we do.

00:59:27.000 And I want to say very briefly when we get emails, for example, in our inbox, freedom at Charlie Kirk, and if there are messages to Erica of that nature, I screen cap those and I send them on to her immediately.

00:59:39.000 She very much appreciates those.

00:59:41.000 She does often reply to them herself as well.

00:59:43.000 And so I just wanted to say that.

00:59:45.000 Check out her Monday meditations, they were also great on the podcast.

00:59:48.000 They're still out there to listen to.

00:59:49.000 Of course, of course.

00:59:51.000 So, my actual question, I apologize for digressing.

00:59:56.000 Charlie's origin story, sort of in getting into politics, was interesting how he was a door knocker for this guy called Mark Kirk.

01:00:02.000 Nobody remembers him for a reason.

01:00:04.000 He was a forgettable rhino. 0.57

01:00:06.000 And I guess my point is if that was Charlie's start and he could still build Turning Point USA after that, like, don't be an accelerationist.

01:00:15.000 Like, keep going, like, keep building.

01:00:17.000 Because imagine if we didn't have 20 million people in here illegally on the four years under Biden.

01:00:23.000 You can't give these people an inch.

01:00:26.000 Because it takes 12 years to do the damage they can do in two years.

01:00:31.000 Exactly.

01:00:32.000 Exactly.

01:00:32.000 And, you know, even you'll dunk on, we can dump a bit on Mark Kirk.

01:00:35.000 He was rhino y, but he also was a Republican senator for the state of Illinois. 0.98

01:00:40.000 I don't think we're getting one of those anytime soon again. 0.98

01:00:43.000 And even if they're a rhino, if they're in a blue state, you take what you can get. 0.78

01:00:47.000 Those are people who will vote with you on judges most of the time.

01:00:50.000 Susan Collins is a great example.

01:00:52.000 I think, you know, Kirk helped undermine Obama, had a filibuster proof majority for a while.

01:00:56.000 We blew that apart.

01:00:57.000 And that really limited the damage Obama could do.

01:01:00.000 In his second term.

01:01:02.000 So, as bad as he was in plenty of ways, we would never tolerate a guy like that if he was from Oklahoma or from North Dakota.

01:01:10.000 But if he is representing Illinois, that's pretty good.

01:01:13.000 Well, and Charlie always graded Susan Collins on a curve.

01:01:16.000 Yes.

01:01:16.000 Because he said, you know, she'll always be there when we need.

01:01:18.000 We'll do some vote trading. 1.00

01:01:19.000 She'll, you know, make her, you know, she'll throw some bones to the blue parts of the state. 1.00

01:01:27.000 But she's better than a D. 0.95

01:01:28.000 She held the line.

01:01:29.000 We didn't confirm Merrick Garland.

01:01:32.000 So we have.

01:01:32.000 Trump's picks on the Supreme Court instead of Obama's picks on the Supreme Court.

01:01:36.000 You take those.

01:01:37.000 But I love your bigger picture point that Charlie got his start campaigning for another Kirk who was pretty moderate in a million ways and he built a juggernaut that changed America.

01:01:49.000 Always endlessly positive.

01:01:51.000 Great model for all of us to follow.

01:01:53.000 Yeah.

01:01:53.000 Amen.

01:01:57.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 17, 2026

The Strait Opens, The War Ends? + AMA

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