00:00:00.000Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Senator Kramer joins us as we have some polite disagreement on the Restrict Act and Ukraine.
00:01:07.000He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:13.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:41.000I mean, generally, I'm not a huge fan of leaking for leaking sake.
00:01:46.000Certainly didn't like the leaking of the Dobbs decision, didn't like the leaking of Donald Trump's tax returns, but there is a place for leaking.
00:01:54.000I never liked a lot of the anti-Snowden treatment.
00:01:57.000At the same time, I think that some of the information that Snowden made public was a little reckless and put some people's lives in danger, including current operations.
00:02:07.000Julian Assange, largely, I think, did a good thing, but he also did a lot of things that I wouldn't support.
00:03:27.000And then the other question is, did you do it for the right reasons?
00:03:29.000And that's where this thing really starts to fall apart, honestly.
00:03:32.000Is that all evidence shows that this young man did not leak this information to try to challenge the regime or expose the illegal war in Ukraine?
00:03:41.000He did it to try to impress friends on a Discord server.
00:04:27.000It is the content of the leaks that are very telling.
00:04:29.000We're spying on some of our closest allies.
00:04:31.000The most important part of the leaks shows that NATO special forces are inside Ukraine and showing that our intelligence estimates are way more pessimistic on Ukraine's military than we said publicly.
00:04:43.000And again, having a nuanced view on this and just talking about the messiness of the situation, this young man revealing it, that's a good thing.
00:05:06.000I would say, though, that it is important to understand that we do have stringent guidelines in place for safeguarding classified and sensitive information.
00:05:18.000This was a deliberate criminal act, a violation of those guidelines.
00:05:42.000The contents matter a lot more than what this young man did or did not do.
00:05:48.000But the media is trying to make it all about him.
00:05:50.000They're trying to do a whole kind of thing, put him on display, almost Soviet show trial.
00:05:54.000They're putting the focus on the leaker to avoid talking about the lies that the leaks actually exposed, the crimes that our own government is committing.
00:06:03.000When our own government lies to us, we act as if it's totally normal.
00:09:24.000I don't really think highly of the country.
00:09:25.000At the same time, every country that might not exactly be your own flavor of self-government and liberty does not mean you have to go to war with them.
00:12:27.000I encourage people to find a better messaging platform for high-frequency file sharing and for being able to get lots of different channels and feeds.
00:12:36.000The user interface is the best, I think.
00:12:39.000But they would love to be able to go after it.
00:12:40.000They've talked about how Telegram is fomenting places for white nationalist tape.
00:12:46.000They basically say they plan to scrub Discord from now on, basically announcing they plan to spy on the entire thing.
00:13:37.000Apology for the debacle out of Afghanistan.
00:13:39.000Apology for the closed schools, mask mandates, churches being closed and strip clubs remaining open, marijuana dispensaries remaining open.
00:13:48.000How about the apology from saying that the virus came from a bat in the Himalayan mountains or funding gain of function research and still doing gain of function research?
00:14:20.000Instead, they want to clamp down more on us.
00:14:23.000If we actually had a functioning government, which we do not, if we had a group, if we had an opposition party in the Republican Party that cared about us, here's what they would say.
00:14:30.000They would say, okay, this guy should not have leaked the information.
00:14:33.000But honestly, we should be more honest with you guys.
00:15:17.000So the bigger crime here is not leaking information.
00:15:21.000The real crime is the American government violating the War's Powers Act and getting involved in a soon-to-be hot and kinetic war with a nuclear-armed power, Russia, completely unnecessarily for a country that is not a threat to the United States.
00:17:19.000I'm like a lot of conservatives wondering what's the right touch on how you deal with all things China and, of course, our other adversaries.
00:17:30.000How do we protect data from bad actors?
00:17:34.000And do you just ban TikTok and Huawei and then ban them as they come?
00:17:39.000Or can we put some guardrails up front and some authorities that prevent these investments from taking place prior to them becoming, you know, prior to 150 million users in the United States downloading an app?
00:17:54.000And I think it's an honest discussion.
00:17:56.000And I think there's somewhere in all of this, there's hopefully the right path.
00:18:01.000The Restrict Act, to me, seems like a pretty good starting point and a good place to start the discussion, at least, and see where it leads.
00:18:10.000So do you think the bill is being currently misunderstood by critics such as myself?
00:18:15.000And if so, what do you think are the big misconceptions that people are leveling towards this potential piece of legislation?
00:18:24.000Yeah, I do think there's some misunderstanding, but at the same time, Charlie, I'm always open to misunderstood people correcting me.
00:18:32.000I think it'd be arrogant for me to just say you're all wrong and we're the good guys and we're right.
00:18:37.000And that's why what I like about this bill, I expect that there'll be a lot of debate.
00:18:43.000There'll be amendments offered and there should be.
00:18:45.000I actually think there could be a few more guardrails put in place, a couple more restrictions, particularly on the executive branch.
00:18:52.000But one of the things, one of the, what I think is a misconception is that this is similar to the Patriot Act, that it's a dragnet to catch Americans and all of those things.
00:19:27.000It's really companies from specific adversarial countries.
00:19:32.000Again, trying to stop the actual apps and the hardware from getting in place in our country rather than waiting till after the vaccine.
00:19:41.000So I think the biggest misconception, and by the way, it's an earned misconception, just if I might be honest, anything that we do in our country can be used against us.
00:19:52.000Abraham Lincoln warned about that prior to becoming president, dealing with our military and our, I think you call them shining seacoasts and bristling seacoasts and shiny armaments.
00:20:07.000And we have a government that has from time to time demonstrated that their willingness to do that.
00:20:12.000That's why the one thing about this bill that sort of hooked me, Charlie, is that it puts Congress sort of in the middle of it along with the executive branch with veto powers, with the ability to turn back bad decisions made by the executive branch.
00:20:29.000This is largely the Trump rule that he issued as a rulemaking using existing powers, emergency powers.
00:20:38.000I use the term emergency loosely because, again, there's plenty of evidence of abuse by presidents when it comes to, quote, emergency powers.
00:20:47.000But he issued the rule in an effort to ban TikTok, and then, of course, was overturned in court.
00:20:53.000This codifies the rule, puts a few more of these guardrails.
00:20:58.000I keep using that term, but it's the best term I can think of, guardrails in place to prevent the very thing that you rightfully fear.
00:21:05.000Yeah, and I'll be honest, you know, when you say that most of the work was done by Senator Warner, I find that not to be very persuasive.
00:21:12.000I certainly don't trust him, nor do I think he wants what's best for American liberty.
00:21:17.000Maybe this might be an exception to that.
00:21:20.000But one of the issues, though, Senator, that emerges in the bill is that it seems to be more than just China.
00:21:26.000It loops in Russia, for example, which might sound good, but a very popular application is Telegram, and that was founded by a Russian.
00:21:35.000Rumble was founded in a foreign country, albeit Canada, so that's not in the bill.
00:21:40.000But I suppose one of the concerns is that giving the Secretary of Commerce czar-like cyber war power, if it's about the CCP or about TikTok, maybe we could just focus on that and make it a very focused bill.
00:21:58.000Because the skepticism that I have and the audience has is it seems to be a pattern of DC and people that don't share the love of the Constitution you and I have.
00:22:09.000They seize on something that might be popular and a problem.
00:22:28.000He is chairman of the Intelligence Committee and he was very helpful to me in trying to stopping the Fufang investment in Grand Forks.
00:22:35.000And we can go, that's another whole story.
00:22:37.000And I'm still trying to get some sort of a post-mortem on the failures of the CIFIA process.
00:22:42.000But that's part of what motivates me is that our existing institutions and systems aren't working very well on the one hand, to keep the federal government in check, on the other hand, to protect Americans' freedom.
00:22:55.000So Mark Warner was very helpful to me on that.
00:22:57.000The second thing, though, I think back to I'm a 14th and 15th generation pilgrim.
00:23:07.000William Bradford was my 10th great grandfather.
00:23:09.000And when he wrote the Mayflower Compact, while it's only 200 words, the reason he was compelled to write it was because several people on the Mayflower were already discussing how great it would be to not have to be governed by anybody.
00:23:23.000And they said, no, wait a minute, freedom doesn't mean license.
00:23:26.000And so I think the struggle for America over the decades and the centuries, and probably always will be, will be the very discussion you and I are having.
00:23:34.000The unfortunate thing is there are bad actors both abroad and domestically who would like to take advantage of these opportunities.
00:23:41.000And that's why, and by the way, Charlie, what I love about this is that here we are, two conservatives, having this discussion.
00:23:48.000This is largely a discussion within the conservative family.
00:23:51.000As you know, you have, on the one hand, you have, you know, my friend Josh Hawley wanting to ban TikTok, TikTok.
00:24:00.000I've not gotten on that bandwagon yet, although I probably will.
00:24:04.000But on the other hand, do we wait again for 150 million Americans to be downloading the app or telecommunications companies applying Huawei or technologies and then finding out later we shouldn't have allowed that and then rolling it back.
00:24:20.000So again, it's finding the balance that people like you and your listeners are going to help us find.
00:24:37.000I'm not really sure why Cuba has to be on the list, for example.
00:24:40.000And Cuba is one of the countries on the list.
00:24:43.000I think these are the exact conversations.
00:24:45.000The other one thing about it that I'm a little concerned about, I would expect that we could have some amending to would be giving the Secretary of the Interior complete authority to add to that list and then having Congress respond to that.
00:24:58.000I'm not sure that we want that authority.
00:25:01.000I think that authority should have to get Congress's permission rather than a veto, for example.
00:25:07.000Just they seem like little things, but I think they're important.
00:25:10.000And those are just a couple of the discussions that I've been having with friends.
00:25:15.000Yeah, and so I guess you're a co-sponsor of the bill.
00:25:19.000I would challenge, though, why not just say this is probably too far-reaching and the Patriot Act comparison, I think, is fair because some of this is loosely written.
00:25:30.000Now, maybe this will be cleared up, but Senator, in all fairness, I don't have a lot of faith in Congress always limiting legislation.
00:25:39.000It's kind of like a bacterial infection at times where it starts at 100 pages and ends up at 1,000.
00:25:44.000But I mean, some of the language, and again, this is open for debate and for amendment because it's not law yet, is very open, right?
00:25:52.000It says it governs transactions, which it defines as any acquisition, importation, transfer, installation, dealing in, or any use of information.
00:26:01.000I find one thing interesting, Senator.
00:26:03.000You said you're not on board for the banning of TikTok.
00:26:06.000So is the spirit of this, in your opinion, less about TikTok and more about Huawei and just foreign actors in the social media space, more broadly telecommunications?
00:26:17.000Because I think that's where some people are getting confused because we have the TikTok hearings that seem to build consensus.
00:26:25.000Or do you think the TikTok one is not even as big of an issue as the critical infrastructure piece, which I agree is tremendous?
00:26:34.000So really important distinctions, Charlie.
00:26:37.000I'm very concerned about TikTok, but TikTok is the example of what happens if you don't put in some barriers up front to bad actors, adversarial countries and their companies, particularly adversarial countries that are very capable of and have proven and demonstrated strong desire to both steal and manipulate people on their platforms or on their hardware, whether it's, like I say, a Huawei or whether it's an app like TikTok.
00:27:06.000Remember, the four apps that most Americans downloaded in the last month in the United States are all four owned by Chinese corporations.
00:27:18.000So it is largely China and it is largely TikTok.
00:28:10.000There are a lot of questions, which means we will likely have lots of amendments.
00:28:15.000And it's also in a committee, the Committee of Jurisdiction.
00:28:18.000Where Congress really blows things up is with things like omnibus spending bills and these, you know, like my previous examples when you're using budget reconciliation, when there's very little to no discussion.
00:28:32.000That won't be able to happen in this case.
00:28:34.000But that said, again, we've seen it happen too often.
00:28:37.000I get go back to the Mayflower Compact.
00:29:05.000Maybe it just becomes China focused, but I do think that we want to head off other really bad actors before it becomes much more difficult to do it.
00:29:13.000Or you have to unwind things, which is exactly what we're dealing with now when it comes to China in this country.
00:29:18.000I mean, they're embedded in so much of our supply chain.
00:29:21.000Another whole show, I know, but I have lots of concerns about how we screw them out.
00:29:30.000When I hear that it's bipartisan, that makes me even more skeptical because at times it seems as if that's when the biggest power grabs occur.
00:29:39.000And I know our audience certainly feels that way.
00:29:42.000When Republicans see it always seems as if we're pandering to the Democrats, the Democrats don't ever come over to our side.
00:29:48.000We can agree to disagree on that, but it certainly seems that's been the pattern over the last decade.
00:29:58.000They made it hard, and that's why I like the Jeffersonian posture in most of these bills.
00:30:03.000Just vote no and go back to your home state.
00:30:06.000Senator, we have learned because of these leaks that we have U.S. troops in Ukraine, albeit a small force of special forces.
00:30:15.000Would you support a war powers vote authorization in the United States Senate so that Congress could actually weigh in on this now soon-to-be kinetic conflict of America fighting Russia?
00:30:29.000I don't know that it's going to be soon-to-be kinetic conflict with Americans fighting Russia.
00:30:33.000Obviously, we have troops that protect our embassy.
00:30:36.000That's true in every country in the world.
00:30:38.000And I would hope that we wouldn't have an embassy if we couldn't have troops there to protect our people.
00:30:43.000I mean, we've seen enough examples, bad examples of that.
00:30:47.000In addition to that, by the way, they are the ones holding Ukraine account for the weapons systems that are being sent already to them that have been approved by Congress and being doled out now by the president, albeit, in my view, far too slowly.
00:31:03.000With regard to war powers, as you probably know, I was one of the Republicans that voted to repeal the AUMFs from the Iraq wars.
00:31:12.000Both of them older than most of the people that are in Iraq on our behalf right now.
00:31:17.000And so I don't know that we're at a point where we need a War Powers Act vote in the United States Senate if the War Powers Act's even constitutional, which is arguable.
00:31:28.000But before we would send troops there, or at least within the War Powers Act parameters, you'd have to come to the United States Congress for authority if we're going to be fighting there.
00:31:40.000Because, again, unless they were to attack us specifically, I don't think the president would have that authority.
00:31:48.000So, Senator, at this point, we're now over a year into this conflict.
00:31:52.000Anywhere between $100 or $200 billion have been spent.
00:31:55.000At this point, do you think we've spent too much money?
00:32:11.000I think there's probably $40 or so billion that has not been spent, but you're right, it's been authorized and appropriated.
00:32:17.000Part of my struggle with this is that I don't think that this administration was serious enough about helping Ukraine win with those dollars.
00:32:24.000Instead, they've been doling them out so slowly that Ukraine has just had a long, slow, hopefully victory.
00:32:32.000And I say hopefully because you don't know.
00:32:34.000I think had they been better equipped with half as much money early, they very well could have been more successful by now.
00:32:40.000That said, I'm not going to discuss what I think the limits are publicly as much as people love to have me do that.
00:32:47.000And I know you do, because if you did that, then Russia just has to go, okay, we'll just wait till that number is used up and then we'll attack.
00:32:54.000I don't think it's good to discuss those things in the public sphere.
00:32:59.000But I do hope our embassy stays safe, and I'm glad to have some special forces there to keep them safe as well as to account for the money that's already been appropriated and spent in Ukraine to make sure it's being used for the right purposes.
00:33:22.000So I think there are a couple of things, Charlie.
00:33:24.000I mean, first of all, ultimately, our success would be determined by what success is for Ukraine, and that would be to get the parameters that the agreed upon in the Budapest memorandum agreed upon borders of Ukraine.
00:33:40.000That's what America pledged when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.
00:33:45.000And we said we'd be the nuclear umbrella largely in Europe as well as similarly in the Pacific.
00:33:54.000But I don't, again, if it was just you and me discussing it, and we'll just pretend there aren't lots of people listening right now.
00:34:00.000I would expect at some point this gets to the place where there'll be a negotiated settlement.
00:34:07.000But, you know, even me saying that out loud gives Vladimir Putin some hope that Zelensky is going to have to cave at some point.
00:34:15.000And right now, I think Ukraine's doing well enough to expect that they should be able to push Russia out of their country and would go back to Budapest memorandum borders.