The Charlie Kirk Show - The War on American Energy with Fred Ziedman and Dr. E.J. Antoni

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, Fred Zeidman joins us to talk about the war on energy.

00:00:05.000 EJ Antoni continues throughout this very important economic, energy focused episode of the Charlie Kirk Show.

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00:00:50.000 That is Council for Secure America.org.

00:00:55.000 As always, you can email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:59.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:01:00.000 Here we go.

00:01:01.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:01:03.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:01:05.000 I want you to know we are lucky.

00:01:07.000 To have Charlie Kirk.

00:01:09.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:01:12.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:01:13.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:14.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:01:22.000 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.

00:01:31.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:44.000 We don't talk about energy enough as a movement.

00:01:46.000 Energy is life.

00:01:48.000 And the environmentalists are destroying life in the Western world and specifically in America.

00:01:53.000 It was one of the great accomplishments of the Trump administration being energy independent.

00:01:58.000 Joining us now is Fred Zeidman, co founder of Council for a Secure America, who really understands this issue deeply.

00:02:06.000 Fred, thank you so much for making time.

00:02:09.000 There's so many things we could talk about.

00:02:11.000 Sum up how disastrous Biden's war on American energy has been.

00:02:15.000 I don't think the story has received enough coverage.

00:02:18.000 No, it really hasn't, Charlie.

00:02:19.000 First of all, as a devout follower of yours, I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to be on the show.

00:02:25.000 Thank you.

00:02:26.000 And, you know, I think if you go back to his very first day in office, if you remember, you know, energy independence is truly, truly a security issue, it's not a climate issue.

00:02:44.000 And if you look at what we're doing these days and you look, we take folks a couple times a year out to Harold Hamm's Bakken Shale and show them that the only damage that's being done to the climate is being done as a result of the directives of the Biden administration.

00:03:03.000 But if you recall, the very first thing he did the day that he was elected or sworn in on January 20th, the next morning he canceled the Keystone Pipeline.

00:03:15.000 And I remember telling everybody that day, this is a disaster about to happen to the United States.

00:03:22.000 And it's not only a result of that, it's a result of our security.

00:03:27.000 If you look at this, if you remember the earliest moves that the administration made were all against fossil fuel.

00:03:36.000 And every alternative energy source depends on fossil fuel for their raw material.

00:03:43.000 What do you make windmills out of?

00:03:44.000 I mean, what do you make solar panels out of?

00:03:48.000 And the only effect it's got on the climate is a result of the fact that you've got to flare all of this gas because there's no other way to transport it.

00:03:59.000 90% of the aviation fuel in the United States is produced in the Houston Ship Channel, in the Port of Houston, along the Ship Channel here.

00:04:09.000 And I think it's something like 70, 80% of the gasoline.

00:04:13.000 So you've got to be able to get it down here.

00:04:15.000 Well, how are you going to move gasoline?

00:04:18.000 How are you going to move oil to begin with?

00:04:20.000 You're going to do it through pipeline.

00:04:22.000 You're going to do it through trains.

00:04:24.000 There's only so many trains, and they're all filled.

00:04:26.000 You're going to do it through trucks, and they're all filled.

00:04:29.000 And they've got to get down here to the Houston Ship Channel.

00:04:33.000 Are arguably to some extent to Long Beach.

00:04:36.000 And if they don't get here, we're not going to produce oil.

00:04:39.000 And if you look at these issues, anytime there's a natural disaster like we're facing right now in California, I mean, I don't know for a fact, but I got to believe all the refineries in Long Beach are closed down.

00:04:54.000 Well, why do we have a strategic petroleum reserve?

00:04:58.000 We have a strategic petroleum reserve so that when the refineries shut down, there is a supply of Of gas to give to the areas that are going through a disaster.

00:05:12.000 It's certainly going on in Hawaii right now.

00:05:15.000 But all of those things being said, the other thing is energy independence, which is what, for the most part, Harold Hamm created.

00:05:25.000 I love to tell him there's only one place in America that he's not the single icon of the industry, and that's in Houston, because we had George Mitchell down here who also discovered.

00:05:37.000 Horizontal drilling.

00:05:38.000 And by the way, Harold will tell you over and over again, we shouldn't talk about fracking.

00:05:45.000 We should talk about horizontal drilling because that's really what it is.

00:05:50.000 We're not blowing up the ground.

00:05:52.000 Yeah, and there's so much garbage around the fracking issue.

00:05:55.000 I just want to say the technological advancements of fracking have improved humanity.

00:06:02.000 It is a fact.

00:06:03.000 And the greenies are doing everything they possibly can to spin it.

00:06:07.000 So I want to ask you, though.

00:06:09.000 From a policy perspective, what has Biden done?

00:06:12.000 I know that he probably has not been expanding leases.

00:06:15.000 He also is, it's probably stuff, this is the way the Chinese Communist Party works.

00:06:19.000 It's stuff that's hard to always prove, but I hear from people that are in the space more audits, more headaches from the EPA, just kind of government knocking on their door more.

00:06:31.000 Tell us about that.

00:06:33.000 All of it.

00:06:34.000 Sure.

00:06:34.000 Well, the first thing that he did the first day was shut down the pipeline.

00:06:38.000 It's just unbelievable.

00:06:39.000 Which, by the way, that pipeline was also bringing.

00:06:43.000 All the oil and natural gas out of Canada.

00:06:46.000 So it had an incredibly detrimental effect, if you will, on the Canadian energy as well.

00:06:54.000 But they were selling it to us and we were bringing it down here.

00:06:57.000 The next thing he did was prohibit any drilling on federal lands.

00:07:02.000 There was no federal leasing.

00:07:04.000 And Charlie, I'll apologize that I don't remember the exact number, but 60 or 70% of oil drilling is on federal land.

00:07:13.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:07:13.000 So you couldn't drill there.

00:07:15.000 You couldn't drill offshore, which is all for the most part in international waters.

00:07:21.000 Then finally, he said, Well, maybe we'll promote this a little bit, but then you couldn't get a permit.

00:07:28.000 Well, hello, how are you going to drill a well if you can't get a permit?

00:07:33.000 And the permitting process, even after he said he's going to support drilling, which he never meant, by slowing down the permitting process, this is what you're talking about.

00:07:44.000 You can't really prove it.

00:07:46.000 It's easy to prove if you can't drill, you can't produce.

00:07:50.000 And if you've got to flare gas because you can't get it anywhere, those numbers are fairly finite.

00:07:58.000 What you can't prove is the permitting process and how that slows it down, even if you can get a lease.

00:08:06.000 So these are the direct actions that he took to do away again with fossil fuel.

00:08:13.000 And fossil fuel is the raw material of everything.

00:08:17.000 It's life.

00:08:19.000 You're not going to have alternative energy and forget the effect that that's got on the environment.

00:08:24.000 I mean, how many bald eagles get killed a year trying to get through Aransas Pass down in their normal migration in geese offshore Texas because of the wind farms that are out here?

00:08:36.000 So, and you know, when the wind doesn't blow, which it doesn't a lot, okay, in West Texas, Texas is the biggest producer of wind energy, but only when the wind's blowing.

00:08:49.000 So, I mean, all of these things count, Charlie, towards what has happened to America. 0.87

00:08:57.000 And the fact that we have allowed China to, if you look at what's happened to American exceptionalism and you look at what has allowed China to do in taking our place as the exceptional country in the world. 0.72

00:09:11.000 We were always the guardian of the world. 0.93

00:09:13.000 We're not anymore. 0.99

00:09:15.000 We're back to being at the whim of Mideast oil, of Iranian oil. 0.97

00:09:21.000 And this affects everybody. 0.79

00:09:23.000 This affects all of the countries in the Middle East.

00:09:26.000 That always could turn to us.

00:09:29.000 And now they're turning back to Iran because they don't firmly believe.

00:09:34.000 Again, look at what the Biden administration did to us in Afghanistan.

00:09:39.000 Look what they've done in Syria, although they've started a little action there.

00:09:44.000 So all these countries that always relied on us now feel that they can't rely on us.

00:09:50.000 And they've gone back to buying all this sanctioned oil from Iran, who is now producing, and Russia, who's under sanctions.

00:10:00.000 We didn't, we didn't, we greatly curtailed the export of LNG.

00:10:06.000 So all of a sudden, all of Western Europe was dependent on Russian oil and didn't join us for the most part in the early days of the war in Ukraine because they didn't want to come out against Russia.

00:10:19.000 That's right.

00:10:19.000 Otherwise, there was a very, very cold winter.

00:10:22.000 I want to just make sure I plug your website, Council for Secure America.org.

00:10:27.000 One of the most important stories is how Joe Biden.

00:10:32.000 Has basically, he is, we're committing slow motion energy suicide in this country.

00:10:37.000 And it is so hard to witness.

00:10:39.000 We have been given a gift from God, which is our LNG in this country.

00:10:44.000 And the regime is deciding not to use it.

00:10:49.000 Strong Cell is amazing.

00:10:50.000 I got to tell you, the combination of NADH, CoQ10, and collagen is really something.

00:10:56.000 You know, people ask me, they say, Charlie, how do you keep your energy up?

00:10:59.000 How do you just keep on pushing?

00:11:00.000 Look, part of it is diet, nutrition, but I'll be honest, I take supplements really seriously.

00:11:06.000 Fact check me on this.

00:11:07.000 You can say, I'll try, I'm going to fact check you.

00:11:09.000 Type this into your search engine NADH.

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00:11:15.000 What does it tell you?

00:11:16.000 It might tell you that it is the secret to living long, anti aging properties, more energy.

00:11:21.000 Well, all of that is being proven in more and more clinical trials.

00:11:24.000 NADH is a precursor so that your mitochondria can remain healthy and vibrant.

00:11:30.000 The elites, a lot of billionaires, people with a lot of money, they spend a ton of money on NAD.

00:11:33.000 It's a fact.

00:11:34.000 NAD just might be your secret weapon for more energy.

00:11:38.000 I take NAD every single day.

00:11:40.000 I could tell you that NADH compared with CoQ10, the trials show very, very good things.

00:11:46.000 Don't take my word for it.

00:11:47.000 I mean, honestly, my word should be good for something, but fact check me.

00:11:50.000 Look at it.

00:11:51.000 And if you do it over 30 days, you'll see an increase in energy.

00:11:54.000 I wake up better than ever before.

00:11:56.000 NAD can help you potentially, again, fact check me on this with depression, anxiety, other issues that you might be dealing with.

00:12:03.000 It is nature's gift to you, so you might have extra energy and mental clarity.

00:12:08.000 You guys can use promo code Charlie for 20% off.

00:12:11.000 It's strongcell.comslash Charlie.

00:12:13.000 NAD might be nature's secret weapon for you.

00:12:18.000 I love it.

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00:12:35.000 Would you close down the oil industry?

00:12:36.000 By the way, I would transition from the oil industry.

00:12:38.000 Yes.

00:12:39.000 Oh, that's a big statement.

00:12:40.000 It is a big statement.

00:12:41.000 That's a big statement.

00:12:42.000 Because I would stop.

00:12:43.000 Why would you do that?

00:12:44.000 Because the oil industry pollutes significantly.

00:12:48.000 I see.

00:12:48.000 Here's the deal.

00:12:49.000 But it's a big statement.

00:12:50.000 Well, if you let me finish the statement, because it has to be replaced by renewable energy.

00:12:56.000 That should have made him lose the race for the White House immediately.

00:13:00.000 Love or hate Donald Trump, he was an excellent president when it came to energy.

00:13:03.000 Fred Zeidman continues from the Organization Council for a Secure America.

00:13:07.000 Fred, build this out geopolitically.

00:13:09.000 What does this look like if this continues, this all out crusade against one of our great blessings, liquid natural gas?

00:13:16.000 Well, first of all, I don't think it ever can because I don't think what people realize.

00:13:21.000 Is that nothing happens without fossil fuel?

00:13:25.000 Again, I said before, Charlie, it is the raw material that's used for the production of all of these alternative energy equipment, right?

00:13:35.000 How are you going to?

00:13:36.000 California says they're going to do whatever's going to become an electric car, except they tell you their grid is no good.

00:13:45.000 You look at, I mean, Texas, I'm the proudest Texan there is, but I mean, one of the issues we have here is that we went all independent here.

00:13:54.000 If we have a power problem like we did a couple of years ago, we can't look to any outside our state.

00:14:00.000 We don't have to give it to anybody else who's got a problem, but it's not coming here either.

00:14:05.000 But it has destroyed American exceptionalism.

00:14:09.000 It has made us dependent on imports again.

00:14:13.000 The fact that we have two lifetimes, two lifetimes, I mean, how many thousand years of supply of natural gas that we have that we are flaring into the air, which, by the way, is the only Damage, if you will, that we're doing to the climate, to the environment.

00:14:31.000 And it's not that much because it's in such isolated places.

00:14:36.000 But these are the issues that continue to come up.

00:14:40.000 Who made the biggest contribution to the Paris Peace Accords?

00:14:48.000 It was the United States, and we weren't the problem.

00:14:50.000 So, yeah, we're going to, half of the reduction in emissions is going to come from us.

00:14:56.000 So we're only 9% of it to begin with.

00:14:59.000 So, okay, so we go from 9% to 4%, right?

00:15:03.000 And that still leaves 96% of it coming from China, coming from Eastern Europe, coming from the countries that are depending on coal.

00:15:12.000 And if you look at the emissions from the coal plants in the United States, and by the way, it's my understanding that 30% of the power still produced in the United States is coal produced.

00:15:23.000 But if you look at the changes that have been made, I mean, nobody, nobody could be more off track.

00:15:30.000 Than Joe Biden was and President Biden was in that debate and the comments that he made about the pollution of the environment.

00:15:38.000 You know, was that true 60 years ago?

00:15:41.000 Maybe so, but I don't even know what the numbers were then.

00:15:44.000 But it certainly isn't today.

00:15:46.000 This industry has cleaned it up so much.

00:15:49.000 I mean, we have walked through coal plants and there is no emission.

00:15:53.000 If you go out to any production facility, the only emission at all is gas flaring.

00:16:01.000 And that's just because this administration has cut back the only way of getting gas out of the field and down to Galveston where you can turn it into fuel oil.

00:16:15.000 What's going to happen if all of a sudden?

00:16:17.000 He's successful, and you cut production.

00:16:20.000 The airplanes aren't going to fly.

00:16:22.000 I mean, 90% of the fuel, we're not sure.

00:16:26.000 We're sure not going to trust our airplanes, I don't think commercial airlines, to solar power.

00:16:32.000 You know, it's just not going to work.

00:16:35.000 So the implications of this are so big, and it has virtually nothing to do with climate.

00:16:42.000 We're not going to have a life.

00:16:44.000 Yep.

00:16:45.000 You know, we're certainly not going to be secure.

00:16:48.000 We are intentionally impoverishing our nation. 1.00

00:16:51.000 And the other part of Council of Secure America is the relationship with Israel. 0.84

00:16:57.000 And that's being stressed tremendously right now because of the relationship with this administration and the things that they're doing with regard to that.

00:17:08.000 You know, they're talking about not, you know, about cutting aid to Israel.

00:17:13.000 And who is our eyes and ears in the Middle East?

00:17:17.000 It's Israel.

00:17:17.000 They have been on the front line forever.

00:17:20.000 And now all of a sudden, we've got these countries that know they can't defend themselves.

00:17:26.000 And now, they can't count on America. 0.74

00:17:29.000 And they know that Israel will do everything they can, but they're not big enough to take on the whole Middle East. 0.75

00:17:35.000 Fred, excellent commentary. 0.88

00:17:37.000 I'd love to have you on again soon.

00:17:38.000 And thank you for telling the truth.

00:17:43.000 Do you get the feeling that something bad is going to happen soon?

00:17:46.000 Well, I do.

00:17:46.000 But between the distractions and smokescreens in the media, we probably won't see it coming.

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00:18:45.000 Joining us now is EJ Antoni.

00:18:46.000 So much to talk about.

00:18:47.000 Dr. EJ Antoni, economist for the Heritage Foundation.

00:18:51.000 Doctor, so much happening in the news right now.

00:18:53.000 How should we think about the BRICS summit, and what does that mean for the American dollar and the American economy?

00:18:59.000 Well, Charlie, I think the best way to look at this is yet another failure of Bidenomics.

00:19:04.000 One of the key elements of the president's economic plan has been the destruction of the dollar, whether intentional or not.

00:19:12.000 They have destroyed the dollar at home by devaluing it.

00:19:17.000 We've seen the dollar lose 16% of its value in an incredibly short period of time just since Biden took office.

00:19:25.000 But we've also seen an effective devaluation of the dollar abroad.

00:19:29.000 We've seen that through The unprecedented sanctions imposed by Russia, the confiscation of Russian dollars.

00:19:37.000 And what that has done is shaken people's confidence around the world in our currency.

00:19:42.000 And as a result of that, you now have countless individuals who are wondering whether or not the dollar is still a safe bet anymore or whether they actually need a safer alternative, such as a gold backed currency.

00:19:55.000 And that's one of the things that these BRICS countries are looking at.

00:20:00.000 So, do you see any urgency or concern from our leaders?

00:20:05.000 I just feel as if our leaders are ignoring the fact that we might lose the status as the global reserve currency.

00:20:11.000 You know what?

00:20:12.000 Not only have they been ignoring it and downplaying it, But now, as it is becoming increasingly a reality, we are seeing some of them acknowledge the fact that it's happening.

00:20:23.000 And they're going from saying it can't happen to brushing off the consequences.

00:20:27.000 We've seen that with the Treasury Secretary, for example, Janet Yellen, saying that, oh, yes, de dollarization is actually happening.

00:20:34.000 Just kidding.

00:20:35.000 I was wrong.

00:20:35.000 Oh, but don't worry.

00:20:37.000 Nothing to see here.

00:20:38.000 It won't be a problem.

00:20:39.000 It absolutely is a problem because the global reserve currency status is the mechanism by which, We have effectively been exporting deficits for about seven decades.

00:20:51.000 And now imagine if seven decades worth of deficits all come rushing back into the United States.

00:20:57.000 The result of that would be absolutely catastrophic.

00:21:00.000 You would see inflation not of an extra 1%, 2%, but 10, 20, 30, 100%.

00:21:08.000 Again, it is difficult to overstate just how catastrophic that would be.

00:21:13.000 And our leaders really don't seem to care.

00:21:16.000 What would be a prudent American response then to these nations trying to join BRICS, like India and Mexico?

00:21:22.000 The most prudent thing would be for the United States to get together with all of the nations in BRICS and to go back to some kind of commodity backed currency, to say, look, let's all have currencies that are backed by commodities, and we can develop fixed ratios again between our different currencies.

00:21:41.000 In other words, let's say a dollar is redeemable for one two thousandth of an ounce of gold, and then we have a similar fraction.

00:21:50.000 For the Chinese yuan, for the Brazilian currency, currencies in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Germany, et cetera.

00:21:57.000 And then once you have that standard in place, you don't have these competing devaluations, for example, anymore.

00:22:04.000 I don't see anybody in the kind of American ruling class seem overly concerned.

00:22:09.000 But so, EJ, if you were to say this economy is one of the most confusing economies I've ever seen, and the devaluation doesn't exactly play neatly into that, if it happens at all with the BRICS nation.

00:22:24.000 How would you grade the health of the American economy currently? 0.99

00:22:27.000 Well, Charlie, I agree with you 100%.

00:22:29.000 It is incredibly confusing right now.

00:22:32.000 And one of the reasons for that is because we have a very big difference between the aggregate numbers and how the average American is doing.

00:22:40.000 Just one very good example of that is the fact that virtually all working class folks, people in the lower and middle income classes, have completely exhausted their pandemic era savings that they had, and they are now going into debt to just Be able to afford not luxuries, but necessities.

00:22:57.000 Conversely, the upper income spectras, they still have pandemic era savings left over.

00:23:04.000 And so when we look at savings, we see that they remain elevated today, but it's almost exclusively among a very small group of people.

00:23:11.000 So for the vast majority of Americans, the economy is not doing well.

00:23:15.000 More than half of small business owners believe we're already in recession today.

00:23:20.000 And so we very, very likely will officially be in a recession.

00:23:24.000 By the end of this year, or sometime at the beginning of next year, we have just far too many economic indicators that are pointing in the wrong direction.

00:23:32.000 So, EJ, can you just give me some ideas?

00:23:34.000 So, when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed right around February and March, is it true that the Federal Reserve quietly expanded their balance sheet and increased the money supply?

00:23:43.000 Because this is a debated topic.

00:23:45.000 It feels that from that point forward, we had this little sugar high of an artificial increase in the Dow, where obviously dollars will find its way to the Dow if you expand the balance sheet.

00:23:55.000 Is that a fair assessment of what's happened so far this year, EJ?

00:23:58.000 Because this market is ridiculously overpriced.

00:24:02.000 100%.

00:24:02.000 So, Charlie, if you put two things on a chart together, one being The securities held by the Fed.

00:24:08.000 So that's all of the bonds, bills, notes, et cetera.

00:24:10.000 And then total assets, which would include other things like loans to banks.

00:24:15.000 You see something very interesting happen in March.

00:24:17.000 While the securities that the Fed holds continue to just steadily decline as that chart moves forward, you all of a sudden get this huge spike, hundreds of billions of dollars worth in total assets.

00:24:29.000 And that's that emergency lending that you were just talking about.

00:24:34.000 So you absolutely did see a big spike.

00:24:36.000 And also, we've seen not only the Federal Reserve willing to bail out these bad actors and create a moral hazard, but on top of that, they have failed to continuously raise interest rates at a pace that is necessary to really tame inflation.

00:24:51.000 We actually saw the money supply grow for the last couple of months.

00:24:55.000 So far from taking everything they can to try to fight inflation, they are truly doing this in a very half hearted way.

00:25:03.000 But that's necessary in order for them to continue funding all of Biden's and Congress's unfunded government spending.

00:25:10.000 Is there anything that could be done to slow this down?

00:25:14.000 I mean, from a policy perspective, obviously, there's some things that be done.

00:25:16.000 But I'm afraid that we're going to see a simultaneous collision of the worst possible economic effects where we're going to continue to see high inflation, low growth.

00:25:29.000 The thing we haven't seen yet, EJ, but I think we're starting to see the beginning of it, is the labor market start to dry up.

00:25:36.000 Then we're going to have some huge concerns.

00:25:38.000 Are you seeing early indicators of that?

00:25:40.000 We are, we're seeing early indicators of precisely that.

00:25:43.000 You know, manufacturing tends to lead the rest of the economy, for example, into recession.

00:25:49.000 And when you look at the manufacturing surveys done by each of the regional Federal Reserve banks around the country, universally, you have seen manufacturing not just slow down in terms of growth, but actually begin to contract.

00:26:01.000 And so you are seeing some job losses in that sector, which again is a very strong indication that the rest of the labor market is soon going to turn that way.

00:26:10.000 As well.

00:26:11.000 We're also looking down the barrel of some major revisions by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on those jobs numbers.

00:26:17.000 We'll get those tomorrow, I believe.

00:26:19.000 And it's very likely that they're going to show that the number of jobs created over the last year is not actually as high as we thought it was.

00:26:27.000 They are playing games, intentional games and manipulations with these numbers.

00:26:32.000 EJ, what's the best case scenario here?

00:26:34.000 You know, no spin.

00:26:36.000 Is the best case scenario that somehow there is this legitimate artificial intelligence sugar high and it results in higher productivity and higher growth and we're able to?

00:26:44.000 Persevere because I'm afraid, even the kind of just balancing the worst and the best to kind of the average, this is going to be a very difficult economic year and a half upcoming for most Americans.

00:26:58.000 I think so.

00:26:59.000 You know, we've already had a very difficult year and a half looking backwards, and now looking forwards, we are probably going to have another difficult year and a half because the government continues overspending, over regulating, and therefore also over borrowing and over printing money.

00:27:14.000 And a consequence of that is not only slow economic growth.

00:27:18.000 But continued inflation.

00:27:20.000 This claptrap about how inflation has been trending towards 2%, it's utter nonsense.

00:27:24.000 If you look at the monthly inflation data for the last year and you annualize that out, what you find is that inflation has not been trending towards 2%.

00:27:33.000 It's been trending towards 3%.

00:27:34.000 We've arrived there.

00:27:36.000 There's no indication we're going any lower.

00:27:37.000 In fact, inflation accelerated last month.

00:27:40.000 For the current month of August, inflation looks to continue to be accelerating.

00:27:45.000 Obviously, the month isn't over yet, but it looks like things will continue to get worse, not better.

00:27:51.000 It's just, it's really hard to see this through.

00:27:54.000 Middle income, middle class, ordinary Americans.

00:27:57.000 Are getting crushed.

00:27:58.000 Everything is getting more expensive and the economy is grinding to a halt in a very serious way.

00:28:05.000 But yet, EJ, Chuck Schumer says it's the best economy we've ever had.

00:28:10.000 If you're one of the ruling elites, Charlie, and you don't have to face the ramifications of your own actions, in other words, the policies you put in place don't actually affect you, then yes, things are going just fine right now.

00:28:23.000 If you're a wealthy elite and you have lots of money in hard assets like a house or even equities like the stock market, then those things are in.

00:28:31.000 Inflating with value as other prices rise.

00:28:34.000 And so your net wealth is rising as well.

00:28:36.000 You're doing just fine.

00:28:37.000 But look at the average American.

00:28:39.000 The average American last month, Charlie, was effectively paying an inflation tax on his wages of $4.60 an hour every hour he worked.

00:28:50.000 Compare that to federal income taxes, which cost the average American worker less than $4 an hour.

00:28:55.000 In other words, inflation under Joe Biden has effectively more than doubled what you pay in federal income taxes.

00:29:02.000 That is just crushing working class folks in this country.

00:29:06.000 Energy is a huge part of the American economy. 1.00

00:29:11.000 And right now, we are being lectured that we need to transition to a green economy.

00:29:16.000 What would that mean for the economy in general?

00:29:18.000 What evidence do we have that that's a really bad idea?

00:29:20.000 Well, it would send us back to the Stone Age.

00:29:22.000 I mean, my goodness, none of these things are actually efficient, these things that the left wants, whether that's wind power, solar power, you name it.

00:29:31.000 If these things were actually as efficient and as profitable as the left claims they are, then private business would be doing these things already.

00:29:39.000 But instead, what is China doing?

00:29:41.000 For example, they're bringing a new coal power plant online every single week.

00:29:45.000 Why?

00:29:45.000 Because it is cost effective.

00:29:47.000 It is efficient.

00:29:48.000 And unlike how they do it, when we do it here, you can actually do it in a very clean manner.

00:29:53.000 You can actually keep the air clean.

00:29:55.000 You can actually remove all of those particulates and other harmful particles and molecules from the exhaust streams of those power plants.

00:30:04.000 You can have clean, reliable, domestic American energy, and you can do it very easily if you simply remove All of the regulations and tax burdens that we have in place on coal, oil, and natural gas, and even nuclear, frankly.

00:30:19.000 But I mean, it's just absolutely nonsensical to think that you can take a net negative like solar, like wind, for example, and you can somehow run the country's electrical grid off of that.

00:30:31.000 It is completely and totally ideologically driven, not driven on what is best for the economy, but ideologically driven.

00:30:41.000 EJ, I want you to respond.

00:30:42.000 What would this mean for the economy?

00:30:44.000 Play cut 30, please.

00:30:45.000 Because the fact of the matter is, there's a beast at our door, and that's the beast of climate change.

00:30:51.000 It seems like the whole world is on fire.

00:30:53.000 We need to defend ourselves from climate change.

00:30:56.000 We need to decarbonize our economy so these fires don't ravage us.

00:31:01.000 There's not enough fire trucks in the world to protect us if we don't stop climate change. 0.59

00:31:06.000 Decarbonize our economy.

00:31:08.000 What does that mean, EJ?

00:31:09.000 Make that make sense.

00:31:11.000 Well, we're made of carbon, so I suppose that means this is part of the left's war on humanity, just like abortion, you could say.

00:31:17.000 But I mean, please explain to me how climate change had anything to do with the decision to withhold water from firefighting efforts in Maui for five hours while literally thousands of people burned to death.

00:31:31.000 This has nothing to do with climate change.

00:31:33.000 This is everything to do with failed government policies.

00:31:37.000 It's, I mean, the decarbonization argument is perfect.

00:31:40.000 Well, are you going to get rid of human beings?

00:31:41.000 Because that's, I mean, we're all made of carbon.

00:31:43.000 Carbon is a life.

00:31:45.000 And without it, the whole civilization falls apart.

00:31:48.000 Closing thoughts here, EJ.

00:31:51.000 Economic anxiety, economic concern, the current Biden regime, rich people are doing fine.

00:31:58.000 Ordinary people are getting crushed.

00:32:00.000 And we're going to see, I think we're going to see big job layoffs and concerns.

00:32:05.000 Final thoughts, EJ and Tony.

00:32:07.000 Well, we're certainly moving that way, Charlie.

00:32:09.000 Again, all of the economic data that we have is pointing to a future recession.

00:32:14.000 And it's just simply a question of how much is the Fed going to step in and bail people out?

00:32:19.000 How much is the Treasury going to step in?

00:32:21.000 And bail people out.

00:32:22.000 Now, mind you, the common man is not going to get bailed out, but once again, it will be the bad actors on a big scale, things like the banks that we saw in March.

00:32:32.000 EJ Antoni from the Heritage Foundation.

00:32:33.000 Excellent job.

00:32:34.000 Thank you so much.

00:32:35.000 Thank you for having me.

00:32:37.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:32:38.000 Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:32:43.000 Thank you so much for listening and God bless.

00:32:48.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - August 23, 2023

The War on American Energy with Fred Ziedman and Dr. E.J. Antoni

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