The Charlie Kirk Show - The Summer of Indictments + The Start of Pride Month with Alina Habba and Col. Douglas Macgregor

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:01.000 A summer of indictments is coming.

00:00:03.000 We go through the debt ceiling bill, and Colonel Douglas McGregor walks us through why Republicans are so unwilling to cut that pesky defense budget.

00:00:12.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:16.000 Subscribe to our podcast.

00:00:17.000 Open up your podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:22.000 That's right, Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:25.000 And email me as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:28.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:29.000 Here we go.

00:00:30.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:32.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:34.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:37.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House.

00:00:41.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:42.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:43.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:44.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:51.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:00.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:03.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:12.000 Debt ceiling fight, the bill passed.

00:01:14.000 We'll talk about that.

00:01:15.000 A lot of anger and frustration out there.

00:01:18.000 Palpable.

00:01:19.000 But I want to make sure you're also equally as prepared for what is going to be happening now the first day of June.

00:01:24.000 Happy Pride Month, everybody.

00:01:27.000 What a country we live in.

00:01:29.000 June, July, and August.

00:01:30.000 This is going to be the hot summer of indictments where they're going to try to take Donald Trump off the political chessboard.

00:01:38.000 They are going to try to use extra-constitutional, non-democratic means to interfere with the election to try to baselessly indict him either in Georgia or the Department of Justice.

00:01:48.000 They already have the New York City one brewing.

00:01:50.000 And yesterday was a little bit of a warning shot.

00:01:52.000 It was a harbinger, a canary in the coal mine.

00:01:54.000 Exclusive from CNN.com.

00:01:56.000 Trump captured on tape talking about classified documents he kept after leaving the White House.

00:02:01.000 Make no mistake, they're going to try to interfere with your voice in the Republican primary by using indictments, half-baked legal theories.

00:02:08.000 And to help us understand this and to respond as Alina Haba, one of President Trump's attorneys, does a wonderful job.

00:02:14.000 Alina, welcome to the program.

00:02:15.000 Your response to CNN's article that was published yesterday.

00:02:19.000 Thanks for having me, Charlie.

00:02:20.000 It's always a pleasure.

00:02:22.000 My response is that the leaks kind of indicate exactly what you said, that they're gearing up to, again, figure out a way to keep him out of the race to make sure that the American people don't get an option and to interfere with an election.

00:02:38.000 This is something that we've seen happen.

00:02:41.000 You know, the whole boxes hoax, for lack of a better word, is something that we've seen happen through numerous presidents and, you know, Obama, Clintons.

00:02:53.000 But with Donald Trump and an election brewing, we're seeing something completely different and unheard of.

00:02:58.000 So I haven't heard the tape.

00:03:01.000 I can guess what it says, and I'm assuming it's nothing highly relevant, but they'll make it that way.

00:03:08.000 Yeah, I mean, they're going to try to misrepresent things.

00:03:10.000 Can you just talk about more broadly about a legal strategy that is being embraced right now?

00:03:16.000 Because it feels as if they're trying to take the president out from every direction.

00:03:19.000 You got New York City, Georgia, the DOJ deal, and who leaked this.

00:03:23.000 I mean, look, that's who they are.

00:03:24.000 They leak things for a reason.

00:03:25.000 They're trying to move the Overton window.

00:03:28.000 What is the posture and the plan right now that you're taking in the defense of the presidents?

00:03:33.000 Unfortunately, you know, well, I should say fortunately.

00:03:37.000 They've come at him so hard and they are coming after the president so obviously, right, Charlie?

00:03:42.000 That it's hard for the American people to not see what they're doing.

00:03:48.000 So in terms of PR, that bit is a little bit easier.

00:03:52.000 You know, left-wing media is obvious and we have a conflicting storyline.

00:03:57.000 In terms of legal strategy, we have to deal with each and every one of them differently.

00:04:02.000 We are given indictments, as you saw with the DA in New York, that are vague intentionally, that take something that is not a felony and crank it up to a felony.

00:04:12.000 We have something like declassifying documents, which, you know, we have the Presidential Records Act.

00:04:17.000 We've had every president come in and out and have this issue, but they'll, again, crank it up.

00:04:22.000 So it's about making new case law and going after each and every one of them individually.

00:04:29.000 We're going to, like you said, they're going to try and indict.

00:04:31.000 They're going to try and keep indicting and just make sure our job is to make sure that we keep him out of any serious trouble.

00:04:38.000 And the truth of the matter is there are trials.

00:04:41.000 Indictments don't mean you're guilty.

00:04:43.000 It's a charge and then you have to go to trial and the evidence will speak for itself.

00:04:47.000 So here's a question, Alina.

00:04:48.000 Who has the ultimate authority on classifications?

00:04:51.000 That seems to be at the essence of this.

00:04:53.000 President, the president is the only person that can declassify a document without, and you know, this is not my case.

00:04:59.000 I should always say that.

00:05:00.000 You know, I'm a lawyer.

00:05:02.000 You know, I'm going to give you my waiver and caveat, but this is not my case.

00:05:06.000 Obviously, I'm close to the president and I handle many cases for him, but it's common knowledge that the president does have the ability to declassify documents single-handedly.

00:05:15.000 Yeah, so basically just by a decree, he could declassify anything, right?

00:05:19.000 And so, and he could, the case law is a little bit, you know, opaque here.

00:05:25.000 He could just say, oh, this is declassified.

00:05:27.000 There's really not a committee.

00:05:29.000 There's not a process.

00:05:30.000 No.

00:05:31.000 And I think that that's exactly it.

00:05:33.000 You know, I think that if we were Americans again, we would say, look, this has happened so many times between so many presidents.

00:05:40.000 We keep seeing these hiccups and then NARA has to come back and do this.

00:05:43.000 To me, that's a waste of resources.

00:05:47.000 So I think as Americans, instead of trying to indict people that are leading in the polls, what we should be doing is saying, okay, this is a consistent issue.

00:05:54.000 We want to obviously preserve records.

00:05:56.000 We want to make sure that there's nothing classified that we don't want out there, out there, even though the president has this right.

00:06:01.000 Maybe we need to reevaluate the fact that every president has gotten into a situation where NARA has a back and forth and a communication, right?

00:06:10.000 And that's what we need to do.

00:06:12.000 So I think that's a little bit more productive, frankly, than going after an election integrity situation in this country.

00:06:19.000 But there are not so many like-minded people for our country right now that are leading the charge in DAs and AGs offices.

00:06:26.000 Yeah.

00:06:27.000 So the Presidential Records Act, I mean, you look at Obama, you look at Biden, you look at all these people, and they just say, oh, yeah, we declassify.

00:06:35.000 We're able to bring boxes and stuff.

00:06:37.000 And I mean, the DOJ is, they're looking for everything they possibly can, either the January 6th stuff, which again, you very well might.

00:06:45.000 And Alina, I want your just broad big picture here.

00:06:49.000 I want to make sure the audience is ready.

00:06:51.000 We might see separate federal indictments.

00:06:54.000 January 6th stuff.

00:06:54.000 Yeah.

00:06:56.000 What should we prepare for?

00:06:58.000 Because to take the surprise element off the table is important.

00:07:02.000 What do you think we should prepare for?

00:07:03.000 I think you should prepare for exactly what we saw in the New York DA.

00:07:06.000 I think that if we sit here and we think they're going to have a moment of, wow, this might not be good for the country.

00:07:12.000 Wow, you know, we're kind of exacerbating.

00:07:14.000 Let's not do this.

00:07:15.000 Let's not hold our breath for that.

00:07:17.000 I think your listeners are very well educated thanks to you and the guests you bring on.

00:07:22.000 And I think we have to be realistic.

00:07:24.000 We are in a situation where the Republican Party, where right-wing, conservative, religious minds or anything of that like are under siege in this country, whether it be what we're seeing with children, with the woke generation, with Target, with all of these things.

00:07:44.000 And I can't sit here and tell your people, hey, we're good.

00:07:48.000 Everything's fine.

00:07:49.000 We're not fine.

00:07:50.000 The country is seeing a very serious dual system of justice.

00:07:54.000 And if we don't start thinking that this is what's happening, like you said, we're not going to be prepared.

00:08:00.000 But I can tell you one thing, Charlie, you know, his legal team is prepared.

00:08:04.000 We always expect the worst because that's how they treat him very unfairly and very different, frankly, like you said, than any other president.

00:08:13.000 So they should expect that the DOJ is going to continue to be weaponized until he gets back in office if he can.

00:08:19.000 And look, the only way he's not going to get back in is if there's corruption because his poll numbers say it all, you know?

00:08:27.000 So we really need him to come in and save the country.

00:08:30.000 Otherwise, we're in big trouble.

00:08:31.000 We're in big trouble.

00:08:32.000 It is conceivable that at President Trump's convention speech, 14 months from now in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that he could be under four separate indictments.

00:08:44.000 Yes.

00:08:44.000 And I just, is that realistic, Alina?

00:08:49.000 In the world that we're in, in the culture we're in, unfortunately, I could see that, you know, I'm not on these cases and I could never say something.

00:08:57.000 But yeah, look at what happened in the DA case.

00:09:00.000 I mean, of course.

00:09:01.000 He's already under indictment.

00:09:02.000 One's enough.

00:09:03.000 It's ridiculous.

00:09:05.000 So yeah, no, I'm not going to tell you.

00:09:07.000 It's impossible.

00:09:08.000 You can't imagine that it would happen.

00:09:10.000 It already did.

00:09:10.000 And it should just charge up the voters more, frankly, and people should be waking up.

00:09:16.000 No, we're leading with the story for a reason.

00:09:18.000 And we're going to get into the debt stuff because the audience is fired up about this.

00:09:22.000 We're leading this for a reason, Alina, because we're entering into the summer where we have a very pro-Trump audience, very MAGA, and you cannot be taken by surprise to understand that there is this extra-constitutional creature out there of the Leviathan that uses the ability to indict political opponents, Soviet style, to their advantage.

00:09:43.000 This is going to be the summer of law fair.

00:09:45.000 This is the summer of lawfair.

00:09:47.000 It's not the summer of love, the summer of lawfair.

00:09:50.000 They're going to go after Trump in a very serious way by Labor Day.

00:09:53.000 Summer, quote unquote, it usually goes from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

00:09:57.000 It is my anticipation, and I say this with great disappointment in our legal system that by Labor Day, Donald Trump could be experiencing some incredibly unfair, unconstitutional, and quite honestly pernicious indictments.

00:10:13.000 Alina, great job.

00:10:14.000 Thank you so much.

00:10:15.000 Thank you so much, Charlie.

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00:10:56.000 A summer of law fair.

00:10:57.000 It's coming.

00:10:58.000 It is coming.

00:10:59.000 And look, the reason why Trump is attractive to so many of you, and certainly to me, is that he's under attack by all these institutions.

00:11:13.000 I have a very serious concern right now.

00:11:16.000 And I see it in your emails, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:11:19.000 And keep them coming.

00:11:19.000 I mean, this is one of the more, let's just say, and by the way, I take zero offense.

00:11:25.000 Salty language email inboxes I think I've received in the history of the Charlie Kirk show.

00:11:30.000 Not towards me, just F this and F that and swear words I've never heard of, invented swear words.

00:11:36.000 Very, I can't, I don't even think I could read them.

00:11:38.000 I think the FCC would raid my home if I read some of these.

00:11:42.000 And that's fine.

00:11:43.000 People are mad.

00:11:46.000 Get it.

00:11:47.000 You're mad because you feel as if you work hard, you get chambers of power, and the debt ceiling bill is not what you expected.

00:11:58.000 So let's go through the facts.

00:12:00.000 Last evening, the bill passed the House of Representatives and passed with a majority of Republicans voting for it, but a lot of Republicans voted against it.

00:12:09.000 I could name every single Republican that voted against it, but it would monopolize far too much time.

00:12:15.000 I will say some Republicans that voted for it that are starting to make some headlines.

00:12:21.000 Marjorie Taylor Greene voted for it.

00:12:23.000 And I think the world of Marjorie Taylor Greene, I want to have her come on the show and defend it.

00:12:27.000 Jim Jordan voted for it.

00:12:28.000 I believe I want to check the roll call to make sure I'm being precise.

00:12:32.000 Thomas Massey voted for it.

00:12:35.000 We can get the exact roll call.

00:12:38.000 The people who voted against it, you'd expect, but there are some surprise people that voted against it.

00:12:44.000 Here, Byron Donald voted against it.

00:12:46.000 That's not a huge surprise.

00:12:47.000 Bob Goode voted against it.

00:12:49.000 Dan Bishop, Andy Biggs, Ana Paulina, turning point graduate, voted against it.

00:12:55.000 Matt Rosendale, Chip Roy.

00:12:57.000 Again, I'm not just cherry-picking here.

00:13:00.000 I don't mean Nancy Mace voted against it.

00:13:04.000 Greg Stubig, Jeff Van Drew, Ryan Zinke, Beth Van Dyne, all three.

00:13:09.000 So we have the whole list.

00:13:10.000 We're going to publish it at charliekirk.com.

00:13:12.000 You can also get it at the roll call.

00:13:15.000 It is interesting and confusing to many of you and infuriating Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Thomas Massey.

00:13:21.000 I'm going to let them defend themselves on this.

00:13:23.000 I think the world of all three of those people, I agree with them on this stuff.

00:13:26.000 I'm not in the legislative weeds of this.

00:13:28.000 I could tell you that you guys do not approve of it.

00:13:30.000 Based on your emails, based on what I'm receiving, there is widespread condemnation of this.

00:13:36.000 Oh, did George Santos vote against it?

00:13:39.000 That's so interesting.

00:13:40.000 Is that right?

00:13:41.000 Let me see it here.

00:13:41.000 I got the roll call here.

00:13:43.000 George Santos under federal indictment.

00:13:47.000 He votes against the debt ceiling.

00:13:49.000 Let me play a couple pieces of tape here.

00:13:53.000 And I think it all ties together.

00:13:55.000 Let's play this tape.

00:13:57.000 Last evening, Kevin McCarthy speaking about the debt deal.

00:14:05.000 Let's go to Cut 39, please.

00:14:07.000 I want to know your reaction.

00:14:08.000 Email me freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:14:10.000 Play cut 39.

00:14:11.000 Tonight, we're going to do something we haven't done before.

00:14:16.000 Tonight, we're going to give America hope.

00:14:20.000 Tonight, we are going to vote for the largest savings in American history, over $2.1 trillion.

00:14:32.000 And play Cut 42.

00:14:35.000 Most of the votes against the legislation came from members on the ideological ends of both parties, the House Progressive Caucus and the House Freedom Caucus.

00:14:44.000 While both groups were vocal in the lead-up to the vote, moderate congressional members quietly ended up with a win, showcasing the reshuffled power structure in this new era of divided government.

00:14:58.000 Look, this whole deal from the beginning had a flawed negotiation.

00:15:03.000 I got to tell you, what am I most fired up about this and why I'm most angry about all this?

00:15:08.000 Is that we were hobbled horrifically by the continued war addiction.

00:15:12.000 The whole negotiation process, we did not get more domestic concessions.

00:15:17.000 We did not get more cuts because we were not able to cut the quote-unquote sacred cow that is consuming one-fourth of our budget because we have military bases in Peru.

00:15:24.000 That is a major factor to this.

00:15:27.000 If we're talking about fiscal discipline, we're talking about balancing the budget where debt is the slavery of the free.

00:15:32.000 We are becoming a debtor nation Where it is an existential threat to our currency, an existential threat to our sovereignty, an existential threat to fiscal discipline, which is driving you furious while you are not able to go on vacation, while you are not able to live a life of luxury.

00:15:52.000 Your leaders are living a life of oligarchs saying, yeah, whatever, we're going to keep on spending money.

00:15:57.000 And they can't say, you know what, maybe we should not send all that money to Ukraine.

00:16:02.000 The number one priority of Washington, D.C. should be balancing the budget, balancing the budget, penny plan, zero-based budgeting.

00:16:11.000 And I'm just going to keep on reiterating this point because I do not think this message has really entered the zeitgeist the way it should.

00:16:20.000 We cannot be the party of fiscal discipline, of balanced budgets, while we have a fascination with declaring war and invading other countries nonstop.

00:16:33.000 I want to tell you guys about something every single one of you can benefit from, and you guys need to change.

00:16:38.000 It's who we use when we go to get mortgages.

00:16:41.000 Look, I balance a lot of stuff.

00:16:42.000 I'm traveling all the time, my show, and I recently needed to get a mortgage to get something figured out.

00:16:47.000 And it was a tough one.

00:16:48.000 And I didn't want to go to those woke banks.

00:16:50.000 I, you know, I did previous, my last mortgage we did, it was with a woke bank, and they were just, they were bureaucratic and they donate the BLM and the gay agenda and all that stuff.

00:17:00.000 And I said, what can I do to actually, and I said, of course, duh, hello, andrewandtodd.com.

00:17:06.000 They're Christian.

00:17:07.000 They're conservative.

00:17:08.000 Our worldviews are aligned.

00:17:09.000 They're fabulous people.

00:17:11.000 When I needed a mortgage, of course, I went to my friends, Andrew Delray and Todd of Akin at Sierra Pacific.

00:17:17.000 And look, this is the first time I used them because, you know, we were just recently started doing stuff on the show and partners.

00:17:21.000 I said, okay, let's see how it is.

00:17:22.000 You know, we do a lot of things together.

00:17:24.000 It's blown away.

00:17:25.000 They respond within minutes.

00:17:26.000 They walked me through everything.

00:17:27.000 They took care of all those details I didn't have time for.

00:17:30.000 And I said, Boy, guys, I now see how great you guys actually are.

00:17:33.000 Responsive.

00:17:34.000 And yes, no more of this woke stuff.

00:17:36.000 Stop using the woke banks.

00:17:39.000 Oh, I want to refinance my home and I'm going to go to a bank that hates me.

00:17:41.000 Stop doing that.

00:17:42.000 Instead, go to AndrewNTodd.com.

00:17:44.000 So if you or someone you know is moving from blue states to red states, AndrewandTodd.com.

00:17:49.000 Have an aging family member that needs financial relief because you maybe are reverse mortgage, AndrewNTodd.com.

00:17:55.000 Are you self-employed and finding it hard to qualify?

00:17:57.000 Or first-time homebuyer?

00:17:59.000 AndrewandTodd.com.

00:18:01.000 Again, what I love, again, I'm just friends with them.

00:18:03.000 So I could tell you, I have no other reason to say this except that it's true.

00:18:07.000 They're fabulous.

00:18:07.000 They work hard.

00:18:08.000 We go out to dinner together.

00:18:10.000 They're great people.

00:18:11.000 So don't depend on those woke banks, the big banks.

00:18:13.000 They do a terrible job, by the way.

00:18:15.000 They're funding all the destructive stuff.

00:18:17.000 They want centralized bank digital currency.

00:18:18.000 They're all part of the great reset.

00:18:20.000 This is a group of guys.

00:18:21.000 They do a great job.

00:18:22.000 And stop depending on woke banks.

00:18:24.000 For what I needed, I saw it firsthand.

00:18:26.000 They got it done for me.

00:18:28.000 And it was very complicated.

00:18:29.000 It was a ficket.

00:18:30.000 It was a maze.

00:18:31.000 It was a labyrinth.

00:18:32.000 And they said, oh, you got to do this and this.

00:18:33.000 And I'll make this phone call.

00:18:34.000 We'll do this and this paperwork.

00:18:35.000 And again, these other banks that I deal with, it's like, here's 955,000 pages to sign, and they don't call you back and they don't work weekends.

00:18:43.000 I had a problem with one of the things on the process because it was one thing that wasn't filled out.

00:18:47.000 And they respond on a Sunday within minutes.

00:18:49.000 You're trying to get a response from a woke bank on a Sunday.

00:18:51.000 You'll say, sorry, no response.

00:18:54.000 So check it out.

00:18:54.000 It's AndrewandTodd.com, 888, 888, 1172.

00:18:58.000 That's how you call them.

00:18:59.000 And say Charlie Kirk sent you.

00:19:00.000 You might actually get them on the phone.

00:19:02.000 Again, they're value-aligned, honest, trustworthy, wonderful people.

00:19:06.000 I use them.

00:19:07.000 You should use them too.

00:19:08.000 Super responsive, blown away.

00:19:10.000 And I could say, if they're good for me, they're good for you.

00:19:13.000 Love these guys.

00:19:13.000 AndrewandTodd.com, 888, 888, 1172.

00:19:16.000 And finally, some of you might say, oh, Charlie, bad time to buy a home.

00:19:20.000 I don't know about that.

00:19:22.000 You should look what's happening.

00:19:23.000 Commercial real estate is one thing.

00:19:25.000 Private single-family home ownership, it might actually stabilize and go up in the next year.

00:19:31.000 If you're young, it might be the time to get in.

00:19:34.000 Think about it, pray about it.

00:19:35.000 But most importantly, go to andrewandodd.com for all your mortgage needs.

00:19:38.000 Great guys, andrewandtodd.com.

00:19:43.000 Joining us now is Colonel Douglas McGregor.

00:19:45.000 Colonel, thank you for making time for us.

00:19:47.000 I have mentioned throughout the last week as this bill was passing through committee and passing through the House, and our audience is fired up about it, that based on everyone I've talked to, including the negotiation, people close to the negotiation, is that they were never allowed to talk about the defense budget.

00:20:03.000 In fact, Lindsey Graham said he was going to vote against it if he did not get a 3% automatic hike to the defense budget, the war machine.

00:20:10.000 Look, I think we need a balanced budget.

00:20:12.000 We need severe cuts across the board, including in the Department of Defense.

00:20:16.000 So, Colonel, just riff on this for a second.

00:20:19.000 Is there waste fraud and abuse?

00:20:20.000 Are there things that we can specifically cut in the Department of Defense budget?

00:20:24.000 What a loaded question, Charlie.

00:20:26.000 Yeah, I think so.

00:20:27.000 The first is this so-called national military strategy, which you could rename the national interventionist strategy.

00:20:35.000 You don't really have a defense strategy.

00:20:37.000 So, the first thing you've got to do is you develop a new national military strategy.

00:20:41.000 Point number one, you declare that you are not going to be interventionist.

00:20:45.000 We're not going to interfere in the affairs of other people.

00:20:48.000 Secondly, we're not going to insist that our allies join us in future interventions.

00:20:56.000 We're going to tell you allies: look, in the event of war, you've got to be your own first responder.

00:21:01.000 This notion of maintaining huge forces overseas to reassure people on other continents is a disaster.

00:21:08.000 Technology has changed now.

00:21:09.000 If you put a lot of forces, particularly on the ground forward in any of the theaters, you're going to lose them because we have this thing called precision strike.

00:21:18.000 And the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians, you name it, everybody on the planet now has access to the micro circuitry for that.

00:21:25.000 And the next thing you've got to do is understand that this military establishment that Graham wants to desperately protect hasn't really been subject to fundamental overhaul and reform for 50 years.

00:21:37.000 So, you're staring at an enormous dinosaur.

00:21:41.000 And then, underpinning the dinosaur are hundreds, hundreds of programs that are supposed to provide more capability.

00:21:50.000 And in reality, these things haven't had much value since they were first conceived of.

00:21:55.000 And many of them have dragged on for 20 or 30 years.

00:21:58.000 They become feeding programs for people like Graham and his friends on the Hill.

00:22:03.000 So, the bottom line is: sure, you can do all of those things.

00:22:06.000 And then, after you've made the basic changes in your strategy, you've got to go after the overhead.

00:22:12.000 Charlie, we have 44 four-star generals and admirals for a force of only 1.1 million.

00:22:21.000 Now, during World War II, when we had 12.2 million men under arms, we only had seven four-stars.

00:22:29.000 Seven point two million.

00:22:31.000 Today we have 44 miles.

00:22:33.000 That's such a powerful point.

00:22:34.000 And that is, sorry to interrupt, but that is parallel to exactly what's happened in our education system where we have, we're so heavy on administrators.

00:22:42.000 And it actually, the administrative state, the bureaucracy, far outweighs the actual rank and file boots that are actually doing the work.

00:22:50.000 It's a fabulous, it's a really powerful point.

00:22:53.000 Oh, no, absolutely.

00:22:54.000 Then you have to also ask the question: how many of the people that we have on active duty can actually deploy and fight if they have to do it?

00:23:01.000 But, you know, the top issue is this first issue, which is you stop the interventionism, and then you make it clear that we are going to defend the United States, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.

00:23:12.000 You know, we've got people all over the world.

00:23:15.000 Why?

00:23:16.000 We're not under immediate threat of invasion.

00:23:19.000 We should be concerned about what's happening in our own hemisphere.

00:23:23.000 And the only place where there is an invasion ongoing, as you know, is down on the southern border.

00:23:28.000 That's the one place where we don't have troops.

00:23:31.000 We have military bases in every nook and cranny you can imagine, but 10,000 illegals are able to waltz into our country every day.

00:23:40.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:23:41.000 And this is something else that we need to keep in mind.

00:23:44.000 People like Lindsey Graham and all of his supporters, everybody on the Hill, in fact, all the four stars all understand that the bloated force establishment, the bloated overhead, the bloated budget is all tied to overseas expenditure.

00:24:00.000 That's the problem.

00:24:02.000 In other words, you try to get an Army general interested in protecting the southern border of the United States.

00:24:08.000 He looks at you, why?

00:24:10.000 How do I finance extravagant modernization programs of questionable value if all I'm doing is defending America?

00:24:18.000 I mean, that's what you're going to get from these people.

00:24:20.000 How do I justify my bloated rank structure and all these useless headquarters unless I'm fighting somebody overseas?

00:24:29.000 One of the people I talked to that was involved, it was a U.S. senator, and I called him.

00:24:34.000 I said, what is going on with this?

00:24:35.000 He said, Charlie, you know, off the record, don't say my name, but you could say the essence of this, is that the people involved, Lindsey Graham and his allies in the Senate, were telling McCarthy and were telling him we're not going to vote for this.

00:24:46.000 And Colonel, they were saying we don't have ammunition.

00:24:49.000 We do not have missiles, that our stockpiles are depleted, that we need new everything.

00:24:54.000 And I just, without actually having been in the military, just looking at this as a civilian taxpayer, I know this is rubbish.

00:25:02.000 This is, we spend the chart you could put up on screen, we spend about $800 billion for our defense budget, $732, but it's probably more than that.

00:25:12.000 And that is more than Brazil, South Korea, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, and China combined.

00:25:19.000 I mean, Colonel, I refuse to believe that we need an $800 billion spend every single year.

00:25:25.000 And somehow Lindsey Graham is able to convince people that our munition stockpiles are being depleted.

00:25:31.000 What is the truth?

00:25:33.000 Well, he's right.

00:25:34.000 But the reason our stockpiles are depleted is that for a very long time, we haven't had to prepare for a real war.

00:25:40.000 Everyone forgets that the opponents that we face since 2001 have all been weak.

00:25:47.000 Haven't had any armies or air forces or navies or real capability at all.

00:25:51.000 You're facing people with AK-47s and automated mines and so forth.

00:25:57.000 In other words, there's nothing organized out there to fight.

00:26:00.000 Now, we've depleted what stocks we had because we've shipped them over to Europe for use by the Ukrainians.

00:26:06.000 And we've rapidly run out because we were never prepared to begin with to fight a real war.

00:26:11.000 Remember, the whole defense budget is predicated on the notion that somehow or another, there's no one in the world that can challenge us, that we're the best, we're the toughest.

00:26:22.000 And by the way, we are going to spend lavishly on all sorts of wonder weapons, miracle weapons that will do wonderful things against any enemy.

00:26:31.000 All of that is nonsense, but it puts a lot of money into people's pockets on the hill.

00:26:37.000 Remember, you support the defense industries.

00:26:39.000 Their lobbyists are going to reward you.

00:26:41.000 Your political action committees that support you for re-election, they're going to have millions of dollars at their disposal.

00:26:47.000 And there are also foreign lobbies involved in this because there are foreign lobbies that don't want you to leave the area because they're interested in leveraging us for their own strategic purposes.

00:26:58.000 It's the old tail wags the dog problem.

00:27:00.000 We've got that problem all over the world right now.

00:27:03.000 Can you give some examples of some re, I mean, Ukraine and Russia is an obvious one, but we showed the picture of how many military bases we have.

00:27:12.000 These are military.

00:27:13.000 These are not embassies.

00:27:14.000 These are military bases.

00:27:16.000 I mean, for example, we have 25,000 troops in South Korea.

00:27:20.000 Okay, you might be able to make an argument, but the troops in Peru or the troops in Africa, and we have them scattered all across the country, across the planet, I should say.

00:27:31.000 And Republicans, Colonel, enter into these negotiations with zero willingness to consider any sort of cuts or any sort of adjustments.

00:27:40.000 Colonel, how do you think these negotiations should have been handled from just a leadership standpoint?

00:27:48.000 Well, let me give you two quick answers.

00:27:50.000 The first thing, you mentioned South Korea.

00:27:53.000 In the 1990s, after Desert Storm, people went back and looked at our war plans for the Korean Peninsula.

00:28:00.000 It was very clear that in the event of an attack, even though then it was very unlikely, all of the aid and assistance that we would provide to the Koreans would come largely from the Navy and the Air Force.

00:28:11.000 And so the question was, well, why are we going to use the Army then?

00:28:15.000 The Army was not terribly interested in Korea.

00:28:17.000 They had bigger fish to fry at the time, they thought, in the Middle East and elsewhere.

00:28:22.000 Finally, Colin Powell interrupted and said, well, we'll maintain a little army force there to maintain a foothold, and then we'll make the reinforcement for Korea the Marine Corps' mission, because nobody could find anything for the Marine Corps to do, which, by the way, is a problem right now.

00:28:38.000 So these are not new issues.

00:28:40.000 And the generals are always trying to find workarounds to satisfy both themselves and congressional interests to keep the money flowing.

00:28:47.000 So that's the first part of the question that needs to be answered.

00:28:51.000 Second is McCarthy and the so-called Republicans should have stood their ground.

00:28:56.000 They should say, fine, we're not going to vote for it.

00:28:59.000 They should have stonewalled.

00:29:00.000 And when everybody says, well, you know, if you do that, we might default.

00:29:03.000 Well, I've got news for everybody.

00:29:05.000 That's going to happen eventually anyway.

00:29:08.000 We cannot service a $31, $32, $33 trillion debt.

00:29:13.000 It can't be done over the long haul.

00:29:16.000 We might as well act now, make the hard cuts, make the hard decision, because postponing it means that there'll probably be an attempt to try and inflate our way out, which I don't think is going to work.

00:29:29.000 It could easily ruin and destroy our currency completely, which is already a threat.

00:29:34.000 And then we're in a far worse crisis than anything we face today.

00:29:37.000 Today, we could make prudent changes.

00:29:40.000 No one wants to do it.

00:29:41.000 No one wants the pain.

00:29:43.000 The American people don't want the pain.

00:29:45.000 And so their representatives say, look, I can't do that.

00:29:47.000 I'm going to make all my supporters unhappy.

00:29:52.000 It's remarkable.

00:29:53.000 And our audience is not having it.

00:29:56.000 I mean, regular, ordinary grassroots folks, they see it.

00:29:58.000 Admiral Mullen, who I've mixed opinions about 10 years ago, was correct.

00:30:02.000 He said the greatest national security risk is the national debt.

00:30:05.000 He said, and that was when the national debt was $10 or $11 trillion.

00:30:09.000 It is now triple that.

00:30:10.000 I mean, you can only imagine, not to mention the unfunded liabilities, the pension obligations, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.

00:30:17.000 You can't touch the defense budget.

00:30:19.000 Boy, if you wanted to destroy the country, if you wanted to see America fall, this is what you would do.

00:30:27.000 You would turn on the guzzle of cheap money and erode the currency.

00:30:33.000 Welcome back, everybody.

00:30:34.000 Colonel Douglas McGregor is with us.

00:30:36.000 Colonel, I'd like to have you elaborate a little bit more on how the national debt is a serious threat to our national security, more so than Vladimir Putin.

00:30:46.000 I mean, I don't think Putin's much of a threat to America at all.

00:30:49.000 But the consensus in D.C. is Putin is far more of a threat than the lack of spending discipline, your reaction.

00:30:55.000 Well, if you have been spending recklessly for decades, you'll use whatever you can find to justify its continuation.

00:31:04.000 That's the sad truth right now.

00:31:06.000 That's why it was so important for the so-called Republicans to stand their ground and say, come what may, this is not going to go any further.

00:31:13.000 We're going to stop it.

00:31:15.000 Unfortunately, they let everybody down.

00:31:18.000 I think that the debt has always been threatening because it threatened to reduce the influx of dollars to defense.

00:31:25.000 And that's very true.

00:31:26.000 But it only works.

00:31:27.000 And it's only a threat if the people in charge will behave prudently.

00:31:32.000 And they're not going to behave prudently.

00:31:34.000 They're going to push us over the abyss.

00:31:36.000 I'm afraid that we're going to live in an environment very shortly that is close to 1929, 30, and 31, an environment we helped to create.

00:31:46.000 Right now in St. Petersburg, Russia, there is a plan to bring together 84 countries.

00:31:51.000 That's right.

00:31:52.000 All of whom want to adopt gold as the standard for currency.

00:31:57.000 They want to set up a new currency.

00:32:00.000 And Russia, China, and India, who quite frankly at this point control most of the world's gold, are leading the charge, and they're all going to join them because they want to get out from under us.

00:32:10.000 We're bankrupting everybody else.

00:32:12.000 When you spend dollars and you give other people your dollar, you're passing on our debt.

00:32:18.000 And they don't want to deal with it anymore.

00:32:20.000 If 84 countries come to an agreement on gold, and let's just say there's still a lot of steps in the middle, and they say, hey, we no longer want the dollar to be the world reserve currency.

00:32:28.000 Guess where those dollars go?

00:32:29.000 They immediately get set back to the United States.

00:32:32.000 You will have 20 to 30% inflation.

00:32:33.000 Is that correct, Colonel?

00:32:35.000 Oh, I think so.

00:32:36.000 And you're going to watch everybody dump the U.S. treasuries.

00:32:39.000 Bingo.

00:32:40.000 That's the fire sale that we should all be concerned about.

00:32:43.000 When the treasuries are sold off overseas, that's the beginning of the end for our financial domination.

00:32:49.000 And frankly, it probably should end at this point because we've bullied the Dickens out of the whole world for years.

00:32:56.000 Do what we say, or we're going to harm you.

00:32:59.000 We're going to sanction you.

00:33:00.000 We've got 35 countries under sanctions right now.

00:33:03.000 It's lunacy.

00:33:04.000 And I don't want to over-exaggerate, but the involvement of the war in eastern Ukraine seems to be the centerpiece that is putting this cause set in motion, right?

00:33:17.000 It's almost the cause set in motion is we involve ourselves in eastern Ukraine around a NATO project that then destabilizes the dollar that could create a retreat from our ability to have world reserve currency status.

00:33:31.000 Now, Colonel, this might be a bridge too far and feel free to disagree, but today's the first day of Pride Month.

00:33:38.000 And NATO and the military are embracing this, you know, with evangelistic zeal.

00:33:44.000 In fact, part of the mantra as to why NATO says we must defeat Putin is that we in the West embrace outward celebration of LGBTQIA plus values and Putin does not.

00:33:56.000 Is it fair to say that part of this war in eastern Ukraine is a proxy war over social values?

00:34:04.000 Well, I don't think there's any doubt about that.

00:34:06.000 But let's just remember something that Americans easily forget.

00:34:10.000 The United States military establishment exists for one reason, and that is to kill the enemies of the American people, to defend this country.

00:34:20.000 That's why we have it.

00:34:21.000 It is not there to spread equity, diversity, inclusiveness.

00:34:25.000 It's not there to establish equality all over the world.

00:34:29.000 It's not there to establish democracy, which quite frankly increasingly looks like a joke here at home to other countries.

00:34:36.000 Why don't we bring some democracy here?

00:34:39.000 Yeah, of course.

00:34:40.000 Well, good luck.

00:34:41.000 Not indicting former presidents, for example.

00:34:44.000 Well, yeah, but look, what are we going to do in future elections when everybody's filling out a ballot 16 times over and stuffing it into boxes?

00:34:53.000 I mean, how do you have free and fair elections when there's no election integrity?

00:34:57.000 This is the big issue.

00:34:58.000 So all the focus overseas diverts us, obviously.

00:35:02.000 But there's one other aspect of this thing.

00:35:04.000 There are people in Eastern Europe, like the Poles, for instance, who are very interested in leveraging our power to fight their old enemy, Russia.

00:35:12.000 The question I have is, why should we be interested?

00:35:15.000 Bingo.

00:35:16.000 Russia presents no threat to us.

00:35:17.000 Russia is a Russian Orthodox Christian country with a national identity and history.

00:35:23.000 It has nothing to do with why we should be there right now.

00:35:26.000 Colonel Douglas McGregor, with an incredibly clear and powerful analysis.

00:35:30.000 I wish we had more time.

00:35:32.000 By the way, there's a clip I wish we could play.

00:35:34.000 Senator Graham is saying that he's upset that this bill does not include more money for Zelensky.

00:35:39.000 You can't make this stuff up.

00:35:39.000 Colonel, we're out of time.

00:35:41.000 Thank you so much.

00:35:42.000 Very, very powerful interview.

00:35:43.000 Thank you.

00:35:44.000 Thank you, Charlie.

00:35:47.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:35:49.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:52.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

00:35:57.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk dot com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - June 01, 2023

The Summer of Indictments + The Start of Pride Month with Alina Habba and Col. Douglas Macgregor

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