The Charlie Kirk Show - The Supreme Court's Big Tariff Ruling

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

00:00:05.000 I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic.

00:00:11.000 My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth.

00:00:14.000 If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable.

00:00:19.000 But if the most important thing is doing good, you'll end up purposeful.

00:00:24.000 College is a scam, everybody.

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

00:00:27.000 You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible.

00:00:31.000 Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a Turning Point USA high school chapter.

00:00:35.000 Go find out how your church can get involved.

00:00:37.000 Sign up and become an activist.

00:00:39.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life.

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.

00:00:56.000 The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers.

00:01:09.000 All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:01:11.000 It is February 20th, 2026.

00:01:14.000 Today's lead is sometimes you have to come up with a lead, and sometimes the lead finds it is thrust upon you with great anticipation.

00:01:22.000 And that is, of course, the tariff decision that has come down from the Supreme Court.

00:01:27.000 Now, we spent the morning poring over this.

00:01:30.000 We've got Jonathan Carney from Breitbart, who's kind of the resident tariff expert.

00:01:35.000 He's going to be joining us any moment now, so I'm told.

00:01:39.000 But this was a blockbuster decision that we had been waiting for.

00:01:43.000 Now, just to set the terms, this was any tariff that had been established by President Trump under what's called the IEEPA, which is essentially an emergency power that the president has been given by the Congress.

00:01:58.000 But it's never really been used to do tariffs.

00:02:00.000 Now, its predecessor, what was it called?

00:02:03.000 It was like the Trading with the Enemy Act was used one time in a limited fashion, 10% tariffs by President Nixon.

00:02:11.000 So it's not completely without precedent, but that law had been replaced by the IEEPA, and it had never been used by a president in the way that President Trump was using.

00:02:22.000 They have struck down President Trump's ability to do it.

00:02:25.000 But there's so many wrinkles.

00:02:27.000 So this is, we should just, just to set the stage here, this is mainly the, this is the Liberation Day tariffs that were announced with great fanfare.

00:02:34.000 And some of the reciprocal tariffs.

00:02:35.000 Yeah, about 10 months ago, as well as other tariffs, the reciprocal tariffs he did.

00:02:41.000 Also, a lot of what he was doing, where you'd see the president goes on Truth Social and reacts to something and says there will be a 100% tariff on Canada or China until this is changed.

00:02:52.000 A lot of those really aggressive tariffs that he would announce on short notice, that's coming through this bill, the IEEPAD, International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

00:03:03.000 Yes.

00:03:03.000 And what the Supreme Court ruled today, and it is a six to three ruling.

00:03:08.000 So that involved of the justices who'd be considered more on the right, that we lost Roberts, we lost Gorsuch, we lost Amy Comey Barrett.

00:03:16.000 So that's two of President Trump's three picks, in fact.

00:03:21.000 And they said, in essence, that basically the president's claim of power was too large, that the bill is not intended by Congress to allow the president to declare any emergency and thereby impose any tariff.

00:03:38.000 So they imply even in the ruling that if it had been, if it had been more concrete, if he'd said these tariffs are maybe lower or for a more limited duration, he probably would have held up stronger.

00:03:50.000 They seem to take issue with what they say is the president claiming almost total unlimited authority, you might say, over the ability to regulate international trade.

00:04:00.000 And I think we have John Carney.

00:04:04.000 Yes, we do.

00:04:05.000 We have him.

00:04:05.000 John, welcome to the show.

00:04:07.000 I know you got a busy morning.

00:04:08.000 You're in hot demand this morning with the tariff ruling.

00:04:12.000 We've kind of set the stage here while we're waiting for you.

00:04:15.000 The question then becomes, what happens next?

00:04:17.000 I've seen rumors that President Trump has a backup plan.

00:04:21.000 Okay, so he can't do tariffs under IEEPA.

00:04:24.000 We could disagree with that.

00:04:25.000 We could agree with that.

00:04:27.000 What happens next?

00:04:28.000 So there are a number of plans.

00:04:31.000 There's actually about six statutes that just on the face of themselves allow the president to impose tariffs.

00:04:40.000 The reason why they wanted to do it under IEPA, though, is there's a lot more procedural hurdles to these ones.

00:04:48.000 A lot of them, you have to do multi-month studies, usually by the Commerce Department.

00:04:55.000 Sometimes they have time limits.

00:04:57.000 They can only be imposed for a little bit.

00:05:00.000 So it'll be more complex.

00:05:02.000 I've proposed something I call IACES, which is a licensing regime that would actually link the ability of other countries to export to the U.S. to a license fee that would totally be allowed under IEPA.

00:05:17.000 So this is another thing that they can do under IEPA that the administration hasn't yet fully considered.

00:05:24.000 A big question to me is what do the other countries do?

00:05:30.000 Remember, a lot of them have lowered their own trade barriers, lowered their own tariffs in response to our threatening to raise tariffs.

00:05:39.000 So the question is, do they go back on this?

00:05:42.000 If they do, I think that actually will provide a reason for Congress to actually give this authority to the U.S. president.

00:05:51.000 That's the cleanest way to resolve all this.

00:05:53.000 Congress needs to enact presidential tariff authority tomorrow, frankly.

00:05:58.000 Yeah, I think that's interesting.

00:06:00.000 So you're saying you could enact a license fee, which would essentially accomplish the exact same goal here.

00:06:08.000 It would just be under a different name.

00:06:10.000 And that's kind of one of the pushbacks that Kavanaugh, who wrote the dissent here, which is really fascinating.

00:06:17.000 He basically says, although I firmly disagree with the court's holdings, because he was the dissenter, the decision might not substantially constrain a president's ability to order tariffs going forward.

00:06:27.000 That is because numerous other federal statutes authorize the president to impose tariffs and might justify most, if not all, of the tariffs at issue in this case.

00:06:36.000 And then he goes on to list, which I found interesting because he's basically giving a roadmap here.

00:06:42.000 Those statutes include, for example, the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Section 232, the Trade Act of 1974, sections 122 and 201, and the Tariff Act of 1930, Section 338.

00:06:55.000 In essence, the court today concludes that the president checked the wrong statutory box by relying on IEPA rather than another statute to impose these tariffs.

00:07:06.000 Okay, I guess if we're going to go by the letter of the law, not by the spirit of it, this is probably in some ways you could consider the correct decision.

00:07:14.000 But it's also bizarre and sort of insane, John, because there's other reasons to believe that he could ban all imports.

00:07:22.000 The court is concluding he could just go to China.

00:07:24.000 He could do that.

00:07:25.000 We're going to ban all imports from China, but we can't tariff you a penny.

00:07:28.000 In fact, he seems to have more authority to do that.

00:07:30.000 As if he was just saying, I am banning entire industries from coming into America.

00:07:35.000 He could, right?

00:07:36.000 Yes, absolutely.

00:07:37.000 That's a big problem.

00:07:39.000 Kavanaugh actually points this out that there's that the majority decision basically says Trump is allowed to ban whatever he wants, but he can't oppose a one dollar tariff.

00:07:50.000 That really doesn't make sense.

00:07:51.000 I don't think it's correct.

00:07:53.000 Uh, as a matter of law um, I think that the Kavanaugh Alito Thomas had the right view of the law in this, but it is the law.

00:08:03.000 Now, you know, this is what the Supreme Court says, so the administration will look to all of these other powers.

00:08:09.000 And believe me, they already were.

00:08:11.000 Everybody heard the way that oral arguments went.

00:08:15.000 So this decision hasn't come to us as a surprise to anyone.

00:08:18.000 In fact, a lot of people, I mean, I would say the consensus was that the tariffs, at least all of the tariffs, weren't going to survive.

00:08:27.000 If there's any surprise, it's just how this is pretty, you know, just says the president can't do this at all.

00:08:33.000 There's a pretty blanket slop down of the IPA tariffs.

00:08:36.000 But like I said, even under IEPA, they could ban things.

00:08:40.000 They could put license fees on things.

00:08:42.000 So you can't use the magic word tariff.

00:08:45.000 You know, we'll find another way to protect American industry.

00:08:50.000 The online world moves fast and it's moving even faster these days.

00:08:54.000 That's why TikTok approaches teen safety with families in mind from the start, because discovery and creativity are both wonderful things, but it's important to make sure that safety comes first as well.

00:09:05.000 On TikTok, teenagers have over 50 built-in protections right from when they join.

00:09:10.000 Accounts for teens all start private by default.

00:09:13.000 They're not open to the entire world.

00:09:15.000 And for those under 16, direct messages are turned off.

00:09:18.000 Only their friends can comment on their videos.

00:09:21.000 And that kind of approach matters because feeling confident and comfortable about these platforms your teenagers are on shouldn't mean digging through a bunch of menus and trying to set everything up yourself and worrying that you got it wrong.

00:09:33.000 TikTok is taking a proactive approach.

00:09:35.000 Their protections are built in from the moment those teenagers join so that safety and peace of mind for parents is there right from the start.

00:09:43.000 All of this is to say, when safety comes first, discovery and creativity can follow without fear.

00:09:49.000 Learn more by going to tick tock.com/slash guardiansguide.

00:09:54.000 That's tick tock.com slash guardiansguide.

00:10:00.000 John Carney from Breitbart, major authority in hot demand.

00:10:06.000 I called him early, though, and I got him.

00:10:07.000 As soon as this came down, I said, John, I need you.

00:10:10.000 And you're like, I think I can make that work.

00:10:13.000 All right.

00:10:13.000 So what happens to the revenue?

00:10:15.000 I will say, you know, I'm very happy that you reached out right away because you did get me.

00:10:21.000 You were first right after my own boss, Alex Marlowe.

00:10:26.000 Well, listen, he's got to wait.

00:10:29.000 He's got to wait.

00:10:29.000 We have business to attend to.

00:10:31.000 So tell us about the revenue.

00:10:33.000 Where's it going?

00:10:34.000 So that remains to be seen.

00:10:36.000 So we won't get any more revenue from the IEPA tariffs.

00:10:39.000 That's done.

00:10:40.000 Those are coming off the books immediately.

00:10:42.000 What happens to the, say, call it somewhere between $150 and $200 billion that have been collected under these tariffs?

00:10:50.000 So that's only, by the way, part of the revenue we've collected under Tara.

00:10:53.000 I was going to say, say that number again, John, because it's about 300 billion all in.

00:10:58.000 How much was under IEPA?

00:10:59.000 Probably between 170 and 200.

00:11:02.000 Like call it 170 as a good estimate.

00:11:05.000 So some of that may have to be refunded, but we don't know that yet.

00:11:11.000 The Supreme Court's decision is actually totally silent on what happens next.

00:11:16.000 Cavano is pretty critical of that.

00:11:18.000 He's like, this could be a mess.

00:11:20.000 It could actually take years of litigation because you'll have to prove that you paid the tariff, that you paid the tariff that was an IEPA tariff and not a different tariff.

00:11:29.000 And there would be other considerations.

00:11:31.000 It's not clear that the money is going to go away right away.

00:11:38.000 And so, you know, that money won't come out of the U.S. Treasury, I'd say, for quite a while.

00:11:44.000 If I were a business entitled to the tariffs, what you did is you basically made sure you had records showing exactly which tariffs you paid so that you could then come to the court later and say, please refund these.

00:11:58.000 But it is going to be a mess.

00:12:00.000 So we've got that.

00:12:01.000 What number is that, guys?

00:12:02.000 I want that.

00:12:03.000 That's the refund.

00:12:05.000 quote from Kavanaugh.

00:12:07.000 Get me that.

00:12:08.000 Get me that.

00:12:09.000 So by the way, I believe this is Wharton School has done this.

00:12:12.000 Yeah, Wharton UPenn has done this.

00:12:14.000 This graph is an estimate of IEPA revenue, and it has it at about $164.7 billion, a monthly revenue of $20.8 billion.

00:12:28.000 And they have it cumulative through January.

00:12:30.000 So it's about it maybe is about a month delayed.

00:12:33.000 So you're probably right.

00:12:34.000 About $170, $175 on the IPA.

00:12:36.000 I want to say I just did that off the top of my head.

00:12:39.000 So the fact that the Wharton school came in almost at the same number, I feel pretty good about that.

00:12:44.000 That's pretty good, John.

00:12:46.000 So you think this is going to be litigated.

00:12:47.000 And apparently Wharton School is saying that importers generally have 180 days after goods are liquidated to protest and request refunds from U.S. customs and border protection.

00:13:00.000 So this is a mess.

00:13:02.000 Right.

00:13:02.000 So the process is people paid the tariffs.

00:13:05.000 They had to have submitted basically a piece of paper saying, I don't think I should have paid that tariff.

00:13:13.000 One unfortunate thing about that is, look, the really big importers, big companies, Walmart, the international companies that import stuff into the U.S., they've already filed that paperwork.

00:13:25.000 It's really actually going to be the small guys who really get kind of messed around with here because they probably didn't file the paperwork and or some of them didn't.

00:13:37.000 Luckily, look, you get 180 days.

00:13:39.000 So some of the tariffs that have been paid will still be eligible for refunds.

00:13:44.000 But we, again, we don't know what the refund process will look like.

00:13:48.000 As far as I know, we've never had anything this big where, you know, $150 billion, $170 billion is potentially being refunded to the people who paid the tariffs in the first place.

00:14:04.000 Yeah, I think Kavanaugh refers to it as a mess.

00:14:08.000 He does this.

00:14:10.000 And he even flags, there's issues.

00:14:12.000 A lot of importers probably already passed costs on to consumers at some point here, but now they can double dip from that.

00:14:19.000 What does it do to all of our trade dealers with other countries that were premised on these tariffs?

00:14:23.000 Do those stick around?

00:14:25.000 He really just, the truth is, it seems we don't know what is going to be unleashed by this.

00:14:31.000 I will say that if other countries start to say, no, no, now we're taking back.

00:14:36.000 We're going to raise our tariffs again.

00:14:38.000 We're going to raise our trade barriers.

00:14:40.000 That will at least be a moral victory for Donald Trump because he'll be able to say, they did this because I imposed the tariffs.

00:14:47.000 Now they're taking it away because the Supreme Court took away the tariffs.

00:14:51.000 And that should be persuasive to Congress to actually absolutely come back.

00:14:56.000 Because this, remember, the court here did not say the president could not do this under the Constitution.

00:15:02.000 They said that the statute didn't authorize it.

00:15:05.000 So Congress could, with one word, insert tariffs into IEPA, just one word amendment, and Trump would have the power to do it.

00:15:14.000 Yeah, it's literally because in some of the oral arguments, as you mentioned, they just said, well, it doesn't say tariffs.

00:15:21.000 So that's the whole point.

00:15:23.000 Even though, like, in the spirit of the law, it certainly indicates that he would be.

00:15:26.000 Now, so just to read exactly what Kavanaugh said, I got the quote here.

00:15:31.000 In the meantime, however, the interim effects of this court's decision could be substantial.

00:15:35.000 The United States may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the IEPA tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others.

00:15:45.000 So, you know, their whole argument was that Americans absorb these taxes.

00:15:49.000 That is probably not 100% true.

00:15:52.000 It's probably about an 80-20 import to American consumers, 20%.

00:15:56.000 But if let's assume that they were right about that, then Americans are basically going to get double tax because of this court decision, which is hilarious.

00:16:05.000 So he goes, as acknowledged at Oro argument, the refund process is likely to be a mess.

00:16:10.000 Last word to you, John.

00:16:13.000 And a lot of this money is actually going to leave the U.S. altogether because a huge amount of imports are actually done through foreign companies and their U.S. affiliates.

00:16:23.000 So it's actually going to be payments going to foreigners as well, which is really unfortunate.

00:16:27.000 It'll be a drag on the economy.

00:16:30.000 And like Justice Cavanaugh said, it's going to be a mess going forward.

00:16:35.000 But I imagine that we'll get very soon Trump announcing the new tariffs because they've been working on this.

00:16:41.000 They have continued.

00:16:42.000 Exactly.

00:16:42.000 Trump has a backup plan.

00:16:44.000 Everybody, he has a backup plan.

00:16:46.000 I would also say that we have just gotten word that he has a 1245 Eastern press conference that we're going to be looking for on this tariff decision.

00:16:55.000 So 1245, stay right here.

00:16:57.000 We'll have it on Real America's Voice.

00:17:00.000 John, I know you got to go.

00:17:01.000 You've got Marlow probably screaming at you already.

00:17:04.000 So tell him hi for us.

00:17:06.000 Thank you for making it here.

00:17:07.000 We know you got a busy morning.

00:17:08.000 Jonathan Carney, Breitbart, economics editor.

00:17:10.000 There you go.

00:17:11.000 All right.

00:17:13.000 So.

00:17:14.000 We got an email.

00:17:15.000 Kathy asked, is the possibility of refunding tariffs to the importers?

00:17:19.000 A lot of them have passed costs onto consumers.

00:17:21.000 Do the consumers get a refund also?

00:17:23.000 The answer is no.

00:17:24.000 Nope.

00:17:25.000 Nope.

00:17:26.000 No, it's consumers.

00:17:27.000 The little man gets screwed.

00:17:29.000 Here's the thing.

00:17:31.000 Kavanaugh went through trial by fire.

00:17:34.000 The whole, what was her name?

00:17:36.000 Betsy Ford.

00:17:38.000 What was her Christine Blasey Ford? 0.80

00:17:40.000 Christine Blasey.

00:17:41.000 Two front doors.

00:17:42.000 The whole thing, you know, where he went through a trial by fire.

00:17:46.000 The guy's got steel down his spine now.

00:17:48.000 Everybody doubted him at first.

00:17:50.000 Meanwhile, Gorsuch in ACB, two other Trump appointees going against the president.

00:17:57.000 Listen, you could make the argument that perhaps this was textually the right decision by the letter of the law.

00:18:04.000 But there's a measure of insanity to it because you could just ban all the imports.

00:18:09.000 You can't tariff them a single penny.

00:18:13.000 If you knew Charlie Kirk, you knew this.

00:18:16.000 He was a connector.

00:18:17.000 Charlie believed in finding good people and connecting them with other good people that he cared about.

00:18:21.000 When someone truly took care of him, Charlie would never hesitate to recommend them.

00:18:25.000 Andrew Del Rey and Todd of Akin were two of those people.

00:18:28.000 They personally helped Charlie and Erica with their mortgage needs, and Charlie trusted them completely.

00:18:33.000 Whether it was a home buyer trying to qualify or someone needing to consolidate debt or see if they could get a lower rate in payments, these were the guys Charlie sent people to.

00:18:42.000 And right now, timing matters.

00:18:44.000 The market has shifted and rates have come down.

00:18:46.000 There's more inventory.

00:18:47.000 Bidding wars have cooled and buyers finally have more control.

00:18:51.000 But that window won't stay open forever.

00:18:53.000 As rates come down, competition will return.

00:18:56.000 That's why being prepared now is so important.

00:18:58.000 Andrew and Todd at Union Home Mortgage bring over 40 years of combined experience and guide you through the process clearly.

00:19:04.000 No pressure, no guesswork.

00:19:06.000 These are the people Charlie trusted, and they're the people you can count on.

00:19:09.000 Reach out today to get approved for mortgage financing with Andrew and Todd at AndrewandTodd.com or call Triple 8888 1172.

00:19:17.000 With 40 years of experience, they really are the experts and they make it easy because they keep everything in-house.

00:19:23.000 Call 888-888-1172 or go to andrewandodd.com.

00:19:27.000 That is AndrewandTodd.com.

00:19:31.000 Joining us now is Mark Halperin, a great, great political analyst and commentator and a friend of the show.

00:19:39.000 Mark, welcome back to the show.

00:19:41.000 Lots to discuss this morning with the Supreme Court's ruling on President Trump's use of tariffs.

00:19:49.000 I have all this other stuff I was planning on talking to you about, and then this came across the wire.

00:19:55.000 Give us the political implications.

00:19:58.000 I know there's questions about can he still do tariffs?

00:20:00.000 Can he use other mechanisms?

00:20:01.000 What do we do with the revenue that came in?

00:20:03.000 What happens with that?

00:20:04.000 Does it go to a lower court, et cetera, et cetera?

00:20:06.000 Politically, what does it mean?

00:20:08.000 Well, first of all, let me just stipulate I miss you guys.

00:20:11.000 Haven't heard from you in a while.

00:20:12.000 Haven't heard from you in a while.

00:20:13.000 Good to hear from you.

00:20:15.000 I'll call you every week, Mark.

00:20:16.000 I'll call you.

00:20:16.000 We'll have you on.

00:20:17.000 We'll just make a standing invite.

00:20:19.000 Good.

00:20:20.000 I'd like that.

00:20:21.000 So my first thought, just trying to be in the mind of the president, is he's going to be super annoyed at the Chief Justice, but he didn't pick the Chief Justice.

00:20:29.000 He inherited him.

00:20:30.000 But two of the three justices the president put on the court voted against him, Gorsuch and Cony Barrett.

00:20:36.000 So my suspicion is the president probably will vent that on Truth Social.

00:20:41.000 But the larger issue, more than, as you point out, all the mechanical things involving tariffs, which are super important, is this is the first time the courts really weighed in substantively on the president's powers.

00:20:54.000 They've done some procedural things, but they've ruled against him.

00:20:57.000 And there's a ton of pending cases in other areas, not about tariffs, where if the same justices or even a 5-4 vote against him decide they're not afraid to vote against Donald Trump, right?

00:21:09.000 Everybody likes to pretend these are legal decisions.

00:21:11.000 They're political almost always.

00:21:13.000 It's really disheartening because they should be legal.

00:21:15.000 But justices are pretty political, not just the current ones, not just the ones picked by Republicans or the ones picked by Democrats.

00:21:22.000 So if I were the president's political team, I'd be worried that in the future, when some of these other cases come up, that they may be on the short end of five to four or six to three decisions that will really be impactful for what the president can do.

00:21:36.000 Yeah, I agree with that.

00:21:37.000 And it also, one of the thoughts I had this morning was, you know, we hear about Democrats wanting to pack the courts, wanting to call it a lawless court.

00:21:44.000 And here you go, them doing exactly the opposite of what the president was lobbying for.

00:21:49.000 Will that inspire any trust?

00:21:51.000 They'll still pack the court.

00:21:51.000 I don't think so.

00:21:52.000 Go ahead, Blake.

00:21:53.000 Well, just real quickly, I would concern the other way that we know the president was very invested in this tariff case.

00:22:01.000 I don't know that it would be an exaggeration to say it was his top personal brand, his top priority.

00:22:06.000 He's really fulminated on truth and in other venues about the importance of this case.

00:22:13.000 Should there be any concern among people that the president might up rhetoric on actually, I don't need to listen to the Supreme Court on this sort of thing?

00:22:22.000 Do you think there's any hazard of that?

00:22:24.000 I mean, I know that's talked about a lot, particularly on the left and amongst others.

00:22:29.000 I just don't see any indication.

00:22:29.000 I just don't think so.

00:22:31.000 There have been a few things like some of the immigration orders, like the planes that were in the air on the way to Venezuela, where people have sort of tried to suggest that that was lawless and violation of a court order.

00:22:41.000 That's a close call, but I don't think so.

00:22:43.000 I'll tell you, though, the other political thing that's where this decision is in the president's interest, and I don't mean to give a short shrift to your question, but I hope I sufficiently answered it.

00:22:54.000 But, you know, before the Supreme Court decision, there were three big pieces of economic news that were going to, I think, really do harm to the markets.

00:23:02.000 And four, if you count what was happening in the last day with oil markets because of worries about Iran.

00:23:07.000 First was yesterday this firm Blue Owl Capital made some decision about investors and money that really were spooking people and getting people to talk about, is this the first sign like we saw in 2007 leading into the economic crash of 2008?

00:23:24.000 Then this morning we had two horrible economic numbers for the country and for the president politically.

00:23:30.000 A lower than expected GDP number by a lot, a higher than expected inflation number.

00:23:36.000 I will never know what the stock market would have done today had we not had the Supreme Court decision on tariffs.

00:23:42.000 But as I look down now, the Dow's up and the Dow is likely to end really far up because although this is bad news politically for the president, the markets love this decision.

00:23:51.000 And so if you talk about the implications politically for the president, if he hadn't had this decision, he'd be going into the state of the union with a lot of negative negativity about the economy.

00:24:03.000 Now, a lot of people, at least in the markets, are going to be positive about the economy into the weekend and into next week because they don't want the tariffs.

00:24:10.000 And a lot of Republican politicians are going to be happy too because they don't want the tariffs.

00:24:14.000 Well, and that's a good point, Mark, because we always have to kind of, I think in our mind, we have to bifurcate between normie and politically plugged in, right?

00:24:24.000 Politically plugged in, they're really into the DC of it all.

00:24:26.000 They're into the tug of war, the political jockeying.

00:24:29.000 The normies just want more money in their wallet.

00:24:32.000 They just want to make sure that they got a job.

00:24:34.000 They just want to make sure they can go to their soccer practice for their kids.

00:24:37.000 Those are the storylines.

00:24:38.000 And I've sort of learned to think about it as what breaks containment, right?

00:24:42.000 The economy breaks containment.

00:24:44.000 This is what I knew about the halftime show that we did.

00:24:46.000 It broke containment because, you know, I'm getting hit by the money.

00:24:50.000 You guys did a halftime show?

00:24:51.000 We did a halftime show.

00:24:52.000 It was this whole thing, Mark.

00:24:53.000 I'll tell you about it offline.

00:24:55.000 I heard a bit about it.

00:24:56.000 Some guy wore shorts.

00:24:57.000 Sorry.

00:24:57.000 Yeah, they're called jorts, just to be clear.

00:25:01.000 June shorts.

00:25:02.000 It's a whole thing.

00:25:03.000 Anyways, you can see these things when they break containment.

00:25:07.000 Now, the economy is just one of those things because it's a lived experience that breaks containment.

00:25:12.000 It has this, I think, downstream effect, knock-on effect politically.

00:25:16.000 And yeah, there could be unintended consequences that are positive for the president.

00:25:20.000 I think we need to keep that in mind.

00:25:22.000 It's also important, while we don't know what's going to happen to the tariff revenue that's already been collected, which is in the hundreds of billions of dollars, that's going to be kicked down to a lower court, and we're going to find out what happens that whole other year, probably.

00:25:34.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:25:35.000 But one of the things that I wanted to get to you was this incredible tweet that you had earlier.

00:25:40.000 We covered it on the show, but I'm so glad you get to put added layers to this.

00:25:46.000 You were talking about pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio, Charlie loved Tony.

00:25:52.000 He comes in with 25 slides.

00:25:53.000 A bunch of the cabinet are there, about 75, 100 people.

00:25:57.000 You even mentioned that what they ate.

00:25:58.000 I hope that I love that.

00:26:00.000 That felt like a very marked detail to me.

00:26:02.000 They had their chicken steak buffet.

00:26:04.000 So he's going into what men, moderate, and true independents are the true persuadable voters.

00:26:10.000 And you said housing affordability.

00:26:13.000 You also talked about these key, and I saw the through line here, Mark.

00:26:18.000 These are populist sort of, you get a scalp issue, right?

00:26:24.000 You said messages that break through, banning stock trading for Congress, transparency on health insurance data, including the pricing and claims reimbursement, lowering prescription drug costs, and the Trump tax cuts.

00:26:36.000 These are all issues where you get to go, we got the bad guy.

00:26:40.000 And that is very populist.

00:26:42.000 And it's a conservative tinge populist where we're not anti-business.

00:26:45.000 We're anti-fat cat.

00:26:47.000 We're anti-oligarchy. 1.00

00:26:48.000 We're anti-corruption, right?

00:26:50.000 And so I thought that this was a very interesting through line that is a way for you to sort of bridge this conservative populist divide.

00:26:59.000 Your take?

00:27:00.000 Well, I like the way you framed it.

00:27:02.000 I think it's just right.

00:27:03.000 History, as I said at this meeting, and again, this was the president's sort of political high command briefing, the chiefs of staff, the cabinet members, their chiefs of staff, their other senior aides.

00:27:13.000 They have history against them.

00:27:14.000 History would suggest that it's going to be difficult to not lose control of the House and maybe the Senate.

00:27:20.000 And the president's poll numbers currently are horrible.

00:27:23.000 And so this is a group of political advisors who are battle-tested.

00:27:28.000 They're not a bunch of chickens with their heads cuts off.

00:27:31.000 And they're coming in there to make the best case to this team about what to talk about, where they can have a comeback.

00:27:36.000 There's some tactical things.

00:27:37.000 They can raise more money than the Democrats.

00:27:39.000 They can try to make mischief in Democratic primaries to nominate people who are less electable.

00:27:43.000 They can do opposition research on some of these Democratic candidates.

00:27:46.000 But in the end, they're swimming against two big tides: history and the president's approval rating.

00:27:51.000 At the same time, there's a long time to go, and they're going to look to see what they can do.

00:27:56.000 Again, particularly raising money.

00:27:58.000 The one thing they said at the meeting that I think has not gotten as much attention as I thought it would is they said in the meeting, these are the right issues to talk about, the ones you listed about health insurance and about the Trump tax cuts, et cetera.

00:28:10.000 They said, that's what the data shows.

00:28:12.000 That's what you all should talk about when you're out campaigning, when you're on media, when you're on programs like this.

00:28:17.000 They said, there's going to be a whole other campaign that's run by our best athlete, Donald John Trump.

00:28:22.000 He'll talk about whatever he wants.

00:28:25.000 Don't think there's one campaign where the president's leading.

00:28:27.000 There's one campaign he does, and then there's the parallel campaign that all the folks in the room say we need to do.

00:28:34.000 And the president's going to talk about the 2020 election.

00:28:37.000 He's going to talk about Joe Biden.

00:28:38.000 He's going to talk about Liberace's hair.

00:28:42.000 He's going to talk about where he likes to eat when he's in Dayton, Ohio.

00:28:46.000 They said, you just can't worry about that.

00:28:49.000 That's not the role model, the way the president does it.

00:28:52.000 He'll do his thing.

00:28:53.000 But they're hoping that these issues, which test very well, very popular with voters, as you said, they're populist.

00:28:58.000 They play well with MAGA, but they play well with the center voter, too.

00:29:02.000 They're hoping that that's the message that they can drive through their advertising and through the surrogate activity during the fall.

00:29:09.000 Do you think, Mark, that we might actually see action on some of those items?

00:29:13.000 One of those ones that said, banning stock trading for Congress.

00:29:16.000 I've been hearing about proposals along those lines since the big crash in 2008.

00:29:21.000 People have been talking about members of Congress getting rich off that sort of thing.

00:29:25.000 I guess the problem is the people getting rich off of this are the members of Congress.

00:29:29.000 But is there a serious proposal to take?

00:29:33.000 There is, and as you suggest, it's been around forever.

00:29:36.000 Maybe it'll pass this year.

00:29:37.000 One of the big questions that's going to come out of the State of the Union on Tuesday is: are Democrats willing to vote for stuff that they believe in, that they think would be good for their constituents, but it will give the president a political win?

00:29:49.000 Things like on housing.

00:29:51.000 There's a big housing bill in the House and the Senate both passed separate bills.

00:29:54.000 They're different, but there's some overlap.

00:29:56.000 Are Democrats going to vote on final passage so Donald Trump can have a signing ceremony and say he did something to make housing more affordable?

00:30:03.000 Would they vote for the stock ban and the president sign it where he gets the front of the parade and gets credit?

00:30:08.000 We're going to have to see.

00:30:10.000 And on the stock trade thing, we'll have to see if Republicans want to vote for it because plenty of Republicans have opposed that as well.

00:30:16.000 Well, yeah, so you're asking the fundamental patriot question.

00:30:20.000 Do Democrats love America more than they hate Donald Trump?

00:30:23.000 Yeah.

00:30:24.000 It's a huge question.

00:30:25.000 And that's a huge question.

00:30:27.000 And do some Republican House members like their vacation homes more than they like doing what the voters want regarding transparency on sales.

00:30:34.000 Listen, we are equal opportunity offenders when it comes to corrupt Republicans, rhino Republicans. 1.00

00:30:40.000 And listen, this is central to Charlie's legacy.

00:30:42.000 He wanted a Republican Party that was as conservative as its voters, that loved its country as much as its voters.

00:30:47.000 And so these are questions that we're going to see come to the fore, and we're going to be pounding that drum.

00:30:51.000 And I love the way you framed it.

00:30:52.000 Here's the other thing.

00:30:53.000 You said the border, closing the border, doesn't rate that well.

00:30:58.000 And I remember this from Trump 1.0.

00:31:00.000 Once we kind of got the border a little bit under control and all the craziness was done, it stopped even coming up in headlines.

00:31:07.000 You know, it's like we had this huge fight over the wall, and then it kind of fell off the map.

00:31:11.000 It's a weird issue.

00:31:12.000 You guys heard that.

00:31:13.000 Yeah, you guys are too young to remember Janet Jackson, but she had a song called What Have You Done for Me Lately?

00:31:18.000 And that's what the research shows.

00:31:21.000 It's just, you know, yeah, glad you closed the border, but that's done.

00:31:24.000 So now what are we doing next?

00:31:25.000 And so you'll hear people talk about it.

00:31:28.000 It won't be absent from the rhetoric, the present, certainly, but it's not a silver bullet.

00:31:32.000 It's not something that they think should be at the centerpiece of making the argument for the midterm elections.

00:31:39.000 Mike Lindell and MyPillow employees want to thank you for your great support this past year, and they are looking to make 2026 the best year yet.

00:31:48.000 As a thank you to our listeners, MyPillow is exclusively offering free shipping on your entire order and at wholesale pricing.

00:31:55.000 That means they're bringing back the mega sale exclusively for our listeners.

00:32:00.000 For example, the classic MyPillows are regularly $49.98 and now are marked down to only $14.98.

00:32:07.000 Turn any mattress into the best mattress ever with the Made in the USA My Pillow, My Mattress Topper and save up to $100.

00:32:15.000 Get a set of MyPillow Giza dream sheets for as low as $29.98 or the six-pack towel set for only $34.98.

00:32:23.000 Order now and your entire order ships absolutely free.

00:32:27.000 Go to mypillow.com today and use promo code Kirk.

00:32:30.000 Don't wait.

00:32:30.000 Be sure to order now.

00:32:31.000 Call 800-875-0425 or use promo code K-I-R-K.

00:32:35.000 That is mypillow.com, promo code Kirk.

00:32:40.000 All right, Mark, just real quick here, there's an EJ Antonio tweet, who you might remember, EJ Antoni, was up for a spot in the admin here.

00:32:50.000 He said growth came in at just 1.4%, but here's why.

00:32:53.000 Government purchases tanked almost 5.1%, pulling the headline number down almost a full percentage point.

00:32:59.000 This is good news.

00:33:00.000 And another sign, the economy is being reprivatized.

00:33:03.000 Is this COPE spin, or do you see any truth in that?

00:33:06.000 There's some truth to that.

00:33:07.000 There's also some truth to the president's spin from earlier today, even before the numbers came out, which he's really not supposed to do, that the government shutdown, which he blames on the Democrats, also ate into the GDP.

00:33:20.000 But again, I've talked to a lot of economic experts since the numbers came out, and, you know, they're not great.

00:33:27.000 It's arguably the worst single day of economic data since Trump returned to office.

00:33:32.000 And you can always look at the data.

00:33:35.000 People at CNBC were remarkably unupet by it.

00:33:39.000 But you can always look at the data and poke holes in it.

00:33:43.000 But overall, no, the number was expected to be higher, even with those caveats.

00:33:47.000 Got it.

00:33:48.000 All right.

00:33:49.000 Now, two questions.

00:33:50.000 We're going to get into ICE fallout, the Minneapolis fallout, and the de-escalation by Tom Homan.

00:33:58.000 What are the ramifications ongoing?

00:34:00.000 Is it something voters are going to forget?

00:34:02.000 Secondly, Iran. 0.72

00:34:04.000 So you can take the potential kinetic activities in Iran first or second, and the ICE Minneapolis de-escalation question first or second.

00:34:14.000 I think the main implication of ICE is that I think Trish McLaughlin will probably replace Blake on the show, would be my guess. 0.97

00:34:21.000 Hey.

00:34:21.000 Don't you think?

00:34:22.000 Wow.

00:34:22.000 Don't you think?

00:34:23.000 That's a really Blake.

00:34:25.000 I really appreciate it.

00:34:27.000 Blake wants to go back to a quiet life of anonymity.

00:34:29.000 YouTube will like Trisha much better. 0.67

00:34:32.000 I just Mark, I reached out to you to start bringing you on the show and you carry the knife on my back.

00:34:38.000 No, no, I'm trying to bring you back to your quiet life that you used to love so much.

00:34:42.000 All of a sudden, it's like you get on camera and all of a sudden it's like Trish McLaughlin, out of my way.

00:34:46.000 We've unleashed the monster in Blake now.

00:34:49.000 This is true.

00:34:50.000 Well, yeah, Trisha's leaving the DHS on the market. 1.00

00:34:55.000 Yeah, that's one.

00:34:56.000 I texted Trish.

00:34:57.000 She said that that plan had been in place before and that she actually stayed on longer than she was anticipating just to make sure that the Minneapolis thing was handled well.

00:35:07.000 All right, that joking aside, we just wish Trisha the best. 0.78

00:35:10.000 She's a great person.

00:35:12.000 I think that The main impact of it is the Democrats are fired up.

00:35:21.000 I don't know how the government normally I can make up a scenario to end a government shutdown, partial or full.

00:35:26.000 I don't know how this one ends because the Democrats are so fired up in Washington and around the country.

00:35:31.000 And again, one of the criticisms you guys have heard me make many times of the left is Trump derangement syndrome and just anger about President Trump.

00:35:39.000 They don't understand the other side.

00:35:41.000 They don't listen.

00:35:42.000 Folks come on two-way.

00:35:43.000 Sometimes they do.

00:35:43.000 But in general, they're not sensitive to it.

00:35:46.000 So I always say to folks in MAGA, you get so frustrated that the left doesn't understand why you support Donald Trump.

00:35:51.000 You all need to understand they're really upset about those two people being killed, really upset.

00:35:55.000 And they're upset about it in a different way than President Trump says he's upset about it.

00:35:59.000 They're upset about it because they think it's a manifestation of a lawless policy that's still largely in place, even though, even with the withdrawal from Minnesota.

00:36:07.000 So they're going to raise money off of it.

00:36:09.000 They already are.

00:36:09.000 They're going to have their base fired up for the midterms.

00:36:12.000 They're going to be on the right side of some immigration issues.

00:36:17.000 Most of the things that Republicans are criticizing in the proposal put forward by Senator Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are popular.

00:36:26.000 They're not unpopular.

00:36:27.000 Democrats have gone from being the party on the wrong side of immigration-related issues to being the party mostly, not entirely, on the right side of immigration-related issues.

00:36:37.000 So that's a big political fallout.

00:36:39.000 And I don't know where it's going to go.

00:36:40.000 And I think to a large extent, whatever impact it has on the midterms, the story will be told to a degree by how this partial government shut down.

00:36:49.000 So you talk about how we don't understand each other.

00:36:52.000 I understand why they would see those images and get fired up about it.

00:36:56.000 There just seems to be zero acknowledgement of how we got here that 10 to 15 million illegals stormed the border and we just basically said to hell with our immigration laws for four years.

00:37:06.000 Zero understanding about that, huh?

00:37:06.000 100%.

00:37:08.000 And zero understanding that sanctuary cities refuse to cooperate.

00:37:11.000 Although I would say Tom Homan has made some progress there in Minneapolis and Minnesota broadly, but okay, I digress.

00:37:18.000 Go ahead.

00:37:19.000 No, there's also a little appreciation for the fact that they want people whose families are doxed, who are docks themselves, who are under threat while they're trying to do their jobs and not protected by local law enforcement to just go up there and walk around and let people try to run them over or shoot at them or harass them while they're having dinner.

00:37:38.000 So no doubt that, but again, this is the sort of trap that both sides, red and blue, fall into.

00:37:44.000 You're pointing out things that are true, but you're pointing those out instead of saying, I guess maybe I don't have the full appreciation for why they're so upset about those two people being killed.

00:37:55.000 Because if I did, maybe I'd say, well, let me read Senator Schumer's proposals and see if any of those things would keep anybody else from being killed.

00:38:02.000 So again, part of my job is to try to explain red to blue and blue to red.

00:38:09.000 I understand.

00:38:10.000 They're really upset in a profound way that transcends their failure to close the border or appreciate that the border was open and that's what led to this.

00:38:19.000 It does strike me, it does feel like politically, as your tweet showed, there's this big difficulty in the president and the Republicans harvesting Palestine wins off of some of their biggest successes.

00:38:31.000 As you said, the border shuts down.

00:38:32.000 No one cares right away.

00:38:34.000 We seem to have net outflow of illegal immigrants, and it's like people forget about it.

00:38:38.000 And I'm thinking about also, apparently, we are at some of the lowest, we might have the lowest murder rate since the 1950s.

00:38:43.000 That's a very big shift from Ali Biden.

00:38:46.000 Yeah, massive drops in all of the, in major crimes in big cities, and it coincided with that push from the president.

00:38:53.000 And he doesn't seem to be reaping much political benefit from that either.

00:38:56.000 Well, I think if you look at sort of below the radar of the numbers of the president, mostly it's the economy.

00:39:03.000 I think if the economy was positive and people felt the Trump economy was way better than the Biden economy, which they don't think, some polls show they think the Biden economy, Biden economy was better, then I think the president would be getting a lot of credit.

00:39:15.000 About 80%.

00:39:16.000 The 20%, you know, he's lost immigration because largely of Minnesota.

00:39:21.000 And people aren't seeing, well, people aren't.

00:39:25.000 I'm not convinced he's lost the issue wholesale.

00:39:28.000 Not forever.

00:39:29.000 Not forever.

00:39:29.000 No, not forever.

00:39:31.000 But the numbers are clear.

00:39:32.000 His standing on do you approve or disapprove of the president's immigration policy, the numbers slip dramatically, dramatically.

00:39:39.000 So that's just a reality of where he is.

00:39:42.000 He's not being able to offset the low numbers on the economy with high numbers on inflation, on immigration.

00:39:48.000 No, fair enough.

00:39:48.000 All right.

00:39:49.000 Iran.

00:39:49.000 60 seconds.

00:39:50.000 Yeah.

00:39:50.000 Iran.

00:39:52.000 You know, people should be thinking about this not as a binary attack or don't attack.

00:39:56.000 It's attack big, attack little or don't attack.

00:40:01.000 And he could attack tomorrow.

00:40:03.000 My sense right now is he'll wait 10 days or so to give the Iranians a chance, maybe one more chance to prove they're serious about negotiating.

00:40:11.000 But if they don't come back within a week or so with a pretty serious, not a stallball, but a serious proposal to deal at least with their nuclear capability.

00:40:21.000 I don't know yet about missiles, but if they don't come back with a serious proposal, I do think there'll be a substantial attack.

00:40:26.000 And I think no ground troops, no nation building, but there'll be a substantial attack to try to degrade not just their nuclear and missile capability, but to undermine the regime.

00:40:35.000 I think, yeah, I would anticipate a head of the snake operation similar to Venezuela if they're going to do it. 1.00

00:40:40.000 Mark Halbrin, 2A TV.

00:40:42.000 Thank you, sir.

00:40:43.000 Excellent.

00:40:43.000 Great to see you, gentlemen.

00:40:44.000 Thank you both.

00:40:45.000 We will see you next time.

The Charlie Kirk Show - February 20, 2026

The Supreme Court's Big Tariff Ruling

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript