The Charlie Kirk Show - Trump's Epic Saudi Speech

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.

00:00:04.000 President Trump's triumphant speech in Saudi Arabia.

00:00:07.000 We explain what's really going on in the Middle East in a very unique, exclusive take, so make sure you listen to it.

00:00:13.000 Then we have Mark Halperin, who joins the program, and we have a great conversation with Mark Halperin about the Middle East, about raising taxes on the wealthy, and the historical significance of what President Trump is accomplishing.

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00:00:45.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:46.000 Here we go.

00:00:47.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:49.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

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00:00:54.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

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00:00:59.000 He's an incredible guy.

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00:01:45.000 Lots to cover today.

00:01:46.000 I am We are so blessed to be here in Phoenix, Arizona while President Trump is barnstorming the Middle East because I can analyze and watch everything that's happening here.

00:01:56.000 I can look at it and think about it because President Donald Trump is on quite a pace right now.

00:02:01.000 Understand, President Donald Trump flew all the way...

00:02:04.000 Through the night, he flew from Washington, D.C. to Saudi Arabia.

00:02:08.000 He rested for 90 minutes at the local Ritz Hotel, got back into the motorcade, went to the Saudi palace, met with officials, world leaders.

00:02:18.000 Every CEO on the planet is there in Saudi Arabia.

00:02:22.000 And then President Trump had to go give a long speech in front of all these people and then go do a royal dinner.

00:02:28.000 All in one day.

00:02:29.000 It's basically a 40-hour day.

00:02:32.000 And honestly, President Trump, for him, that's nothing, considering what he did during this last election.

00:02:37.000 He did not sleep for the last three days during the last election, and there were many days where he did not sleep at all.

00:02:44.000 And again, the easy contrast, but it's worthy to keep on mentioning and noticing the last president could not do this.

00:02:49.000 When Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia, he went and fist-bumped Mohammed bin Salman and took a day and a half off before the first meeting.

00:02:56.000 You see?

00:02:58.000 President Donald Trump is recalibrating the world geopolitical order for the better.

00:03:05.000 He's recalibrating the Middle East to look to the West. 0.78

00:03:09.000 As we mentioned yesterday, those three countries, UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, like them or not like them, understand Saudi Arabia was involved, many of them 9-11 hijackers.

00:03:19.000 Qatar, a lot of people are upset with what they may or may not be doing with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

00:03:25.000 That's not what this trip is about.

00:03:26.000 This trip is about the macro picture.

00:03:29.000 Which way do we want these increasingly wealthy and powerful kingdoms to point?

00:03:37.000 Do we want them to point towards America and our value system?

00:03:40.000 Or do we want them to point towards the Chinese Communist Party?

00:03:43.000 And understand, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, he is being very smart in how he's sophisticating the finances of Saudi Arabia.

00:03:52.000 It's more than just oil.

00:03:53.000 It's more than just petroleum.

00:03:56.000 They have a remarkably ambitious sovereign wealth fund.

00:04:00.000 They've invested in artificial intelligence tremendously.

00:04:04.000 The Saudi investment fund, very successful.

00:04:09.000 And they are now investing in America, which we want.

00:04:11.000 Donald Trump is going to come home with trillions of dollars of investment to the United States of America.

00:04:19.000 Trillions of dollars of investment in factories and plants to our home country.

00:04:25.000 But let's go a level deeper.

00:04:26.000 President Trump, by the way, just finished an amazing day in Qatar, in Doha, where they announced they're going to go buy nearly 200 Boeing planes.

00:04:33.000 Big deal for American jobs.

00:04:35.000 They're going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into America.

00:04:39.000 But I want to analyze President Trump's speech in Saudi Arabia.

00:04:43.000 The typical speech that would be given if George W. Bush would have went there or if Barack Obama would have been a lot different.

00:04:50.000 It would have been finger-wagging.

00:04:53.000 It would have been, we are here.

00:04:55.000 To go reorganize the Middle East to our liking. 0.94

00:04:58.000 Now look, we've been very clear on this program.

00:04:59.000 We're not a fan of Mohammedism at all. 1.00

00:05:02.000 We stand, for example, with Israel against the barbarians that oppose civilization. 0.98

00:05:10.000 But we also know as a country, we have limitations.

00:05:14.000 We must have the prudence to know that our own country has immediate concerns and that going to the Middle East and shaming Saudi Arabia Would do us no good.

00:05:26.000 Now, ironically, this is what's so delicious about all this, is that we are going to Europe and shaming them, but we're not going to the Middle East and shaming their customs.

00:05:37.000 And I actually think it's very smart, because Europe is not living up to their own standard.

00:05:41.000 They're not.

00:05:42.000 Europe is not living up to the standard of free speech and democracy and the rule of law.

00:05:46.000 They're raiding people's homes for bad social media posts.

00:05:49.000 A gentler touch, a more friendly touch in the Middle East with these actors will make the next Abraham Accords more likely, will allow us to ice out the malicious actors of Iran and Hamas in the Middle East, and will then turn that capital towards markets that we favor. 0.81

00:06:06.000 And President Trump, he was in rare form yesterday, giving a morally clear speech about how we want the Middle East To be about technology, not terrorism.

00:06:19.000 We want the Middle East to be about investment and purpose.

00:06:25.000 For years, our leaders put America last.

00:06:29.000 And in the process, they caused untold destruction in the Middle East. 1.00

00:06:33.000 Just ask the people of Iraq or Syria or Libya what America last meant for their countries.

00:06:40.000 President Donald Trump, 279, play it.

00:06:43.000 After so many decades of conflict, finally it is within our grasp to reach the future that generations before us could only dream about a land of peace, safety, harmony, opportunity, innovation, and achievement right here in the Middle East.

00:06:59.000 And let me also tell you the brilliance of what President Trump is doing.

00:07:02.000 This is a long-term American partnership.

00:07:05.000 Look, you might say the lefties, they're so short-sighted.

00:07:08.000 Oh, Saudi Arabia is going to be irrelevant because we're transitioning away from... 0.91

00:07:12.000 Petroleum to green energy.

00:07:14.000 First of all, how are you going to power all your AI data centers?

00:07:17.000 How are you going to have ChatGPT and quantum computing with solar panels?

00:07:22.000 Do you understand the remarkable amount of energy it takes to run just a singular AI data center?

00:07:29.000 One conversation with ChatGPT requires 10 times more energy than a simple Google search.

00:07:35.000 One.

00:07:36.000 And more people are using AI than ever before.

00:07:38.000 So in fact...

00:07:40.000 The Middle East is going to be more important as to LNG, petroleum-based, quick, high-combustible energy for the AI renaissance that we're going to be entering, but a level deeper than that.

00:07:51.000 One of the most important things, and President Trump knows this, is he's investing in the future, is that with the Saudis and the Qataris and the Emiratis, so you have the Emir of Qatar, you got Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and you got Mohammed bin Zayed in the United Arab Emirates.

00:08:05.000 Those are the three major actors.

00:08:08.000 These are monarchies.

00:08:09.000 These are not democracies.

00:08:11.000 These are monarchies.

00:08:12.000 They'll be led by the same men 20, 30, maybe 50 years from now.

00:08:17.000 If we forge strong relationships with them, they could last a very long time.

00:08:21.000 And some people say, oh, Charlie, we shouldn't be cozying up to all these people.

00:08:26.000 Time out.

00:08:28.000 What we want them to do is to grow closer to deals like the Abraham Accords, Western values, because our...

00:08:36.000 If we do not engage with this part of the world, they will go to Beijing. 0.98

00:08:40.000 And that will be bad for the planet and bad for humanity.

00:08:44.000 President Donald Trump touts the investment.

00:08:46.000 By the way, has the media been covering this?

00:08:49.000 I mean, I got to look at the, I got Wall Street Journal, I'll read it in a second.

00:08:52.000 But the New York Times, emboldened president jumps ethical barriers.

00:08:57.000 That's their lead.

00:08:59.000 Officers say Gaza near starvation.

00:09:02.000 Trump will lift sanctions on devastated Syria.

00:09:04.000 That is big.

00:09:04.000 No, that's a big deal.

00:09:05.000 He should do that, by the way.

00:09:07.000 But the amount of investment that President Trump is announcing, this is like a stimulus package.

00:09:13.000 I want you to understand what's happening here.

00:09:14.000 The amount of investment that President Trump is announcing is the equivalent, if not more.

00:09:19.000 Then the big Obama stimulus.

00:09:21.000 Do you remember the Obama stimulus back in 2010, 2009?

00:09:24.000 It was heralded by the media.

00:09:26.000 $800 billion stimulus and we're going to build bridges and we're going to build roads and we're going to build solar panels.

00:09:32.000 President Donald Trump is coming back with a foreign stimulus in America without an act of Congress, without going into debt, without borrowing, without having to mortgage future generations.

00:09:43.000 Let's play cut 278, please. 0.85

00:09:46.000 In addition to purchases of $142 billion of American-made military equipment by our great Saudi partners, the largest ever, this week there are multi-billion dollar commercial deals with Amazon, Oracle, AMD, they're all here, Uber, Qualcomm, Johnson& Johnson, and many, many more.

00:10:10.000 And I'm going to build this out further because I know a lot of people in Saudi Arabia right now.

00:10:14.000 I know I'm in Riyadh and I know the deals that are happening and I'm getting kind of text messages about kind of what's happening.

00:10:19.000 And without going into some of those details, because it's not that private, but what's really awesome is what President Trump has done is he's created almost a mini Olympics vibe.

00:10:28.000 This is the place to be.

00:10:30.000 If you're not here, you're missing out.

00:10:32.000 And all the deals are happening within like this four-day window.

00:10:35.000 Boom.

00:10:36.000 Yes, I'll open up that plant and facility.

00:10:38.000 Yes, I will expand that AI.

00:10:40.000 Data Center in Sacramento.

00:10:42.000 And what he's done is he's brought everyone in the room and the Chinese are iced out. 1.00

00:10:47.000 They are iced out.

00:10:48.000 What you are seeing is an optimistic economic Olympics of where all the power brokers of the economy are being soft social pressured into investing in America.

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00:11:59.000 So, let me try my best to explain this.

00:12:01.000 In business...

00:12:03.000 So many deals are done in person when there is a sense of camaraderie.

00:12:09.000 So much of business is actually not just looking at numbers.

00:12:14.000 It's vibe.

00:12:15.000 As Gen Z, there's a lot of Gen Z lingo I don't like, but the best Gen Z word is aura. 0.96

00:12:22.000 It's actually a very good word.

00:12:25.000 There is an aura to people.

00:12:27.000 There's a vibe.

00:12:28.000 There's an energy.

00:12:28.000 There is a feel.

00:12:31.000 And President Trump has completely changed the aura around America.

00:12:38.000 And again, I'm peripherally here.

00:12:40.000 I'm here in Phoenix.

00:12:41.000 I'm not in Saudi Arabia.

00:12:42.000 But I know a lot of people right on the front lines, they say, Charlie, the business flow and the velocity towards America is unlike anything we've ever seen.

00:12:49.000 So what's happening in Saudi Arabia, President Trump is the power center of the planet.

00:12:54.000 So President Trump goes to Saudi Arabia, and all of a sudden people fly in from Rome, from France.

00:13:00.000 From Bangkok, from Kuala Lumpur, from Singapore, from the Philippines.

00:13:06.000 They fly in from Australia.

00:13:08.000 Anyone that wants to deploy capital, all of a sudden they come and President Trump convenes them in Saudi Arabia.

00:13:15.000 There is probably...

00:13:17.000 A trillion dollars of new investment coming to America that is not going to make the New York Times.

00:13:22.000 That we don't even want to know, that we're not going to know about.

00:13:24.000 Just, okay, we'll do another $100 million here.

00:13:26.000 We'll do another $200 million here.

00:13:29.000 We'll do a billion here.

00:13:30.000 And that adds up.

00:13:33.000 Someone's overall vibe, their energy, or their cool factor, which President Trump has, is essentially a compliment, signifying that someone is perceived as effortlessly stylish, confident, and suave.

00:13:44.000 That is the...

00:13:45.000 Definition of aura.

00:13:46.000 And I think President Trump definitely has it.

00:13:48.000 You see, pre-Trump, people just talked about America inevitably becoming more liberal.

00:13:53.000 And just think about it.

00:13:54.000 Everyone was wearing masks and you had to have social distancing.

00:13:58.000 And Biden was so negative and our borders were open and we were being invaded.

00:14:02.000 And then we had the Russia, Ukraine stuff.

00:14:04.000 And we had October 7th.

00:14:06.000 It was just negative gut punch after gut punch.

00:14:08.000 And we're getting a little window into the convocation.

00:14:12.000 Of the power brokers of the planet.

00:14:14.000 And President Trump intentionally and sometimes unintentionally just brings these people together.

00:14:19.000 For example, if you saw him with Mohammed bin Salman yesterday on the B-roll camera, President Trump was talking to Patrick Soon-Shiong, who actually we're going to have on the program in June, who's a multi-billionaire, medical innovator.

00:14:32.000 He was talking to Sam Altman.

00:14:34.000 Fine.

00:14:35.000 What I'm saying, though, is that it wasn't just that he was sitting down with Mohammed bin Salman and talking about...

00:14:41.000 Hawks, which by the way, they're very big into birds there.

00:14:44.000 It wasn't just they were talking about what kind of birds that they're buying or what kind of planes.

00:14:49.000 No, this was a convocation of the power brokers of the planet.

00:14:54.000 And they all drew to that.

00:14:56.000 And deep down, what they're saying is, man, we don't want to do business with the Chinese.

00:15:02.000 You see, that is the untold secret.

00:15:05.000 The untold secret that none of the financial elite here, and I'm reading all these ridiculous newspapers, is that deep down every one of these business leaders prefers to do business in a free society versus the Chinese Communist Party.

00:15:18.000 And they've been wanting an excuse to invest in this country.

00:15:22.000 President Donald Trump's gravitational force is undeniable.

00:15:26.000 They all want to be in President Trump's orbit.

00:15:28.000 And they have capital.

00:15:30.000 And so there will be now trillions of dollars of stimulus funding coming to America, but it's more than that.

00:15:35.000 Understand the goodwill that President Trump is building.

00:15:38.000 Do you understand the enormity of how seriously they take as a compliment for President Trump early in his term to visit Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia?

00:15:48.000 That makes them as leaders look very, very good.

00:15:52.000 That makes them as the emir look honored.

00:15:56.000 It keeps him popular with his people.

00:15:58.000 It keeps him popular with his sheiks. 1.00

00:16:00.000 That is the first U.S. president ever to visit Qatar.

00:16:04.000 And honestly, good for him for doing it.

00:16:06.000 I know everyone has complaints.

00:16:07.000 That's not what this is about, okay?

00:16:08.000 You've got to think more macro here.

00:16:10.000 This helps him domestically.

00:16:12.000 Qatar is sitting on one of the largest LNG reserves on the planet.

00:16:16.000 And now, by the way, if we want to ice out Iran, we could pick up the phone and the Qataris are very much now in our debt. 0.99

00:16:22.000 Would we rather be in the debt to Qataris or would we rather the Qataris be in debt to us?

00:16:26.000 Let's play cut 340, please.

00:16:28.000 Too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice.

00:16:40.000 For their sins, it is God's job to sit in judgment, my job to defend America, and to promote the fundamental interest of stability, prosperity, and peace.

00:16:51.000 The Trump Doctrine, and by the way, I did write the book The MAGA Doctrine.

00:16:55.000 People, I don't forget it, but it was five years ago.

00:16:57.000 It's still very applicable.

00:16:58.000 This is the MAGA Doctrine at play.

00:17:01.000 The MAGA Doctrine is an outstretched hand of friendship, and then one hand of a trillion dollar defense budget.

00:17:09.000 In the other hand, it's carrot and stick diplomacy while always resolutely putting America first.

00:17:14.000 But the vibe of the business owners right now is remarkable.

00:17:18.000 It is real.

00:17:19.000 And all the smart money is coming back to this country.

00:17:25.000 Think about it.

00:17:26.000 Every dollar you spend is either supporting your values or working against them.

00:17:29.000 In today's economy, where you spend your money matters.

00:17:32.000 That's how we take back America. 0.95

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00:18:36.000 Joining us now is Mark Halperin, one of my favorite guests.

00:18:40.000 Mark, thank you for taking the time.

00:18:41.000 I believe I'm coming on your show tomorrow, so...

00:18:45.000 I'm glad to be here and grateful to you for coming on.

00:18:47.000 Bill Clinton used to joke that when he grew up in Arkansas, the only way people could make money was by taking each other's wash and do everybody's laundry.

00:18:56.000 I like a world where I'm on your show and you're on mine.

00:18:59.000 I'm grateful to you.

00:19:00.000 Reciprocity.

00:19:02.000 There's some reciprocal here.

00:19:03.000 You had a really powerful newsletter this morning.

00:19:06.000 I want to read from it because I thought it was beautifully written.

00:19:09.000 Trump's Tuesday speech in Saudi Arabia, you wrote in your newsletter, which shockingly gets almost zero coverage in the American media, was one for the ages, with some observers not unreasonably calling it extraordinary and some supporters saying it was one of the best and most important addresses by a U.S. president of many years.

00:19:23.000 It warrants your time to watch it in full if you have not to understand Trump's unusual and distinctive worldview.

00:19:29.000 Mark, why was it so unusual, distinctive, and arguably extraordinary?

00:19:34.000 President Trump has a different attitude about national security, foreign policy, and America's role in the world than the establishment presidents who preceded him.

00:19:42.000 There are bits of it that are Reagan-esque in terms of his philosophy, bits that may be like Bush 41 or Bush 43, maybe a little even like, dare say, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.

00:19:52.000 But it's distinctive, and it matches the aspirations of his movement, which is what propelled him into office.

00:20:00.000 I think that I call it, as a bumper sticker, I call it speak loudly and carry a small stick, but a stick that you'll use effectively.

00:20:09.000 He doesn't want foreign entanglements, and unlike his predecessors and his successor, he did not put American troops on the ground in mass numbers in a way that not just imperiled the lives and treasures of Americans, but America's credibility around the world.

00:20:25.000 I think he has a pretty keen understanding of what's possible.

00:20:28.000 And the MAGA movement, they want America to be feared, respected.

00:20:33.000 They want America to be ready to defend our national interests.

00:20:36.000 But they don't want extended ground wars.

00:20:39.000 They don't want entry to unwinnable conflicts.

00:20:43.000 And they want to partner with people in a way that makes the lives of Americans and other countries better.

00:20:49.000 I looked at the speech yesterday as kind of the Middle East equivalent of the landmark speech Vice President Vance gave in Europe, saying to these countries, like, Forget the past.

00:20:59.000 Forget the status quo.

00:21:00.000 Forget the expectations that we've all been locked into.

00:21:03.000 Let's think anew about making the planet better, even if we have to make some hard choices or choices that offend some people.

00:21:10.000 And that's not what previous presidents said.

00:21:14.000 And again, it's a reflection of the MAGA movement.

00:21:16.000 And so, I'm sure you get this question a lot.

00:21:21.000 But you say here it's basically being ignored by the media.

00:21:23.000 Is that just typical we-hate-Trump media bias?

00:21:26.000 We don't want to give him credit?

00:21:27.000 Yeah.

00:21:28.000 We talked about that on 2A this morning because I'll pat myself on the back.

00:21:32.000 I'm a very sophisticated student of the media and of how they cover presidents and how they cover this president.

00:21:38.000 It is always the case that foreign trips don't get covered as much as any White House thinks it will or thinks it should.

00:21:44.000 That's so interesting.

00:21:44.000 I wouldn't have thought that.

00:21:45.000 Always the case.

00:21:46.000 The time zones are different, right?

00:21:49.000 The American people, it's quite clear, just aren't as interested in foreign stories as they are stories at home.

00:21:55.000 They don't see the relevance of it.

00:21:56.000 So we get all caught up in the photo ops and who's in the room.

00:21:59.000 I thought that the photo op of the receiving line that the president did with the Saudi leader was one of the most interesting pieces of television I've seen.

00:22:06.000 I would spell that.

00:22:07.000 But most people don't care.

00:22:08.000 So that's part of it.

00:22:09.000 There's hostility to covering anything that's favorable to Donald Trump, and I think the trip's going well so far.

00:22:14.000 But I'm baffled.

00:22:16.000 I raised the question with my colleagues, Sean and Dan, on the morning meeting.

00:22:18.000 Like, I don't get why there's so low coverage.

00:22:20.000 I woke up thinking it would be the lead story in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal.

00:22:25.000 I thought they'd do a lot of quoting of experts about what this means, but it was crooked.

00:22:30.000 Same on most of cable TV, most of the news.

00:22:33.000 You know, they're covering, you know, the various trials.

00:22:37.000 Sports and other things.

00:22:38.000 So I can't really adequately explain it, although I will say this.

00:22:42.000 It was filled with news.

00:22:44.000 It was filled with insight into how President Trump sees the world.

00:22:47.000 And I think for some news organizations, that's just a little too subtle.

00:22:51.000 So, yeah, but there's something more macro going on here, where President Trump is trying to recalibrate how America operates in this region.

00:23:00.000 And he made no...

00:23:02.000 Qualms about criticizing and critiquing the foreign Republican orthodoxy, which goes to the second element of your wonderful newsletter that I want to highlight, that all within a span of like 48 hours, President Donald Trump criticizes neoconservatism, which is just like reckless warmongering, while also domestically signing a favored nations clause for prescription drugs.

00:23:27.000 This is not a Republican like we've ever seen before.

00:23:30.000 Kind of get us into the psychology of the people around Trump, what's driving some of these decisions, the worldview behind it, and just also if the media even cared to just cover the profundity of it all.

00:23:44.000 We've never seen anything like this before.

00:23:46.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:23:48.000 You know, I think the main way to think about it is if you said to Donald Trump, it's never been done like that before, or Republicans have never done this before, he'll say, great, not...

00:23:59.000 Not the way some of these advisors mean it, like, well, we've not done this before.

00:24:03.000 I'll say it was true in the Clinton White House, too.

00:24:05.000 They had the same, when they came in originally, they had the same outsider attitude.

00:24:09.000 And people in the establishment White House press corps, and I was new to the White House press corps, they'd say to the Clinton folks, well, it's never been done like this.

00:24:16.000 And the Clinton people would say, good, good.

00:24:18.000 And that's the attitude this administration has, maybe even more so than in the first term, because they know more and they know the sands of the hourglass are going by fast.

00:24:27.000 I think that...

00:24:28.000 This is arguably the biggest mistake the media makes about covering Donald Trump, because they're constantly characterizing the things he's for as red meat for the extreme megabase.

00:24:38.000 He's generally for popular things, and there's nothing wrong with that.

00:24:42.000 In fact, you could argue that's what presidents and people in public office should be.

00:24:46.000 Presidents in the past have known that American people think...

00:24:50.000 They pay way too much for prescription drugs, sometimes a shocking price tag, but always higher than people pay in other countries.

00:24:57.000 And so President Trump, again, the details are not fleshed out.

00:25:01.000 It may not work.

00:25:02.000 But President Trump has had the courage, unlike his predecessors, to say to Big Pharma, sorry, time's up.

00:25:08.000 Time's up for you to charge Americans way more than anybody else.

00:25:11.000 Time's up for you to use lobbying and campaign donations and negative ads to intimidate politicians.

00:25:18.000 If this were Barack Obama, that story would have been covered like he was a hero, and it wasn't.

00:25:23.000 But it's dramatic change.

00:25:24.000 Same with the Middle East. 0.57

00:25:26.000 You know, Donald Trump is not afraid to do new things, and he's not afraid to do things and then change his mind.

00:25:31.000 Again, the press and his detractors characterize that as chaos and backing down and weakness or lack of focus or planning.

00:25:42.000 Donald Trump's fine to say on Monday, you know what, I'm going to build lemonade stands on every block.

00:25:47.000 Every block's going to have a lemonade stand built by the federal government.

00:25:50.000 And then he's fine on Friday to say, yeah, you know, we're not going to build lemonade stands.

00:25:55.000 Because something's happened in the interim that's made him say we don't need lemonade stands built on every block by the government.

00:26:00.000 He's fine with that.

00:26:01.000 And he and his people, they don't care if the press theater criticisms that and says, oh my God, what a disaster this is.

00:26:11.000 The trip will continue then through Qatar to the United Arab Emirates.

00:26:15.000 You said something very smart where Trump has things baked in and wins that were ready to go.

00:26:20.000 Based on your reporting and your sourcing, have we seen the entirety of the baked-in wins?

00:26:25.000 And what are you hearing about a potential detour to Istanbul?

00:26:31.000 Every president, when you plan a foreign trip, you have what are called deliverables, which are negotiated by the staff in advance because you don't want to make it up on the fly.

00:26:39.000 And you want to be able to say it was worth the taxpayers' money, it was worth the president's time to go on this trip because we've got these things.

00:26:47.000 Most of the deliverables we know are coming, and some have already come from Saudi, are investment commitments.

00:26:52.000 Now, they're a little nebulous to say what counts as an investment.

00:26:55.000 And we've seen in the past, particularly from this region, I would be surprised if there weren't some additional deliverable that is...

00:27:25.000 That is out of the blue because Donald Trump is a showman and he knows he needs to feed the beast every day with something interesting.

00:27:33.000 And we've seen that so far in the first day in Saudi.

00:27:35.000 We'll see what comes.

00:27:36.000 In terms of going to Turkey, if Putin really goes, and I don't think he will, and we're 24 hours away here or less, but if Putin went, I think the president would be tempted to go and the Secret Service would find it crazy and nuts, but I think he'd be tempted to go.

00:27:50.000 He'll say, come on, let's do it.

00:27:51.000 Yeah.

00:27:52.000 But if Putin doesn't go, and I get at my census, Putin won't go.

00:27:55.000 He sent Secretary Rubio and some other senior officials.

00:27:58.000 I think that'll be sufficient.

00:28:00.000 It does, whether Putin goes or not, the drift of this of the last 10 days has been Putin is the obstacle more than Zelensky.

00:28:08.000 And so the president's going to have to figure out if Putin doesn't go, with Zelensky saying he'd go, and the president's urging the talks to take place, even though...

00:28:17.000 To get that, they had to drop the precondition of a ceasefire before talks, which is what Zelensky has wanted, the U.S. and Europe have been supportive of.

00:28:26.000 I think we're going to finally reach, maybe not the last moment of truth, but a pretty significant one, where the president's going to have to say, Putin doesn't really seem to want to actually end the war.

00:28:37.000 Okay, if that's the case, if we've reached that conclusion, what are our options?

00:28:41.000 And the options aren't great, but...

00:28:43.000 But that's when the president will have to say, are we walking away or doing something else?

00:28:47.000 Well, that's it.

00:28:48.000 And just one minute remaining, Mark, and thank you for your time on this, which is, I think Putin is playing the domestic American political card, because I think he knows that the appetite for more American funding for the war is at zero.

00:29:01.000 So I think that's his ace in the hole.

00:29:03.000 Would you agree with that analysis?

00:29:05.000 I agree that he had reason to think that.

00:29:08.000 That's where public opinion is.

00:29:10.000 That's where the president has been.

00:29:13.000 But it's going to be a moment of truth.

00:29:15.000 Now, as you know, in the last couple of weeks, the U.S. has sent some additional military capability to Ukraine.

00:29:21.000 The Europeans might step in, and Putin might be surprised that if Americans won't do it, the Europeans will.

00:29:26.000 So I think it's complicated, but sanctions seem like a possibility, and maybe a combination of sanctions and European military aid might be used to try to create a different condition.

00:29:38.000 But there's no doubt that the thing about Putin...

00:29:40.000 And she and Netanyahu, and Netanyahu's in a different category, but for the purpose of my, what I'm about to say, they're the same.

00:29:47.000 They understand American politics really well.

00:29:50.000 And they know how to leverage the limits on any president, including this one, of public opinion for what they can do to try to deal with a thorny international problem.

00:29:59.000 That's right.

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00:31:08.000 We're here with Mark Halperin.

00:31:09.000 Okay, Mark, so do you think there's any chance that the Republican Congress is going to agree to raise taxes?

00:31:18.000 On the wealthy, from 37% to 40%, it's in Trump's budget proposal.

00:31:23.000 Mark, what's going on here?

00:31:25.000 Well, this is another thing that would be brilliant politics, I think.

00:31:28.000 Steve Bannon thinks it would be brilliant politics.

00:31:30.000 He tried to get Trump to do this in the first term.

00:31:32.000 Newt Gingrich, who's also very smart and very influential with the president, thinks it's a horrible idea, and most Republicans in Congress do.

00:31:38.000 So I don't think it'll happen.

00:31:40.000 You know, my view as an analyst, I'm not advocating either way, but as an analyst, there's nothing magical about what the top rate should be, right?

00:31:48.000 What anybody's rate should be, whatever income bracket you're in.

00:31:51.000 So I get that Republicans kind of have a biblical opposition to anybody's taxes ever going up, but there's two strong arguments for it.

00:31:59.000 One is it takes away the Democrats' main argument, which polls suggest has some effectiveness, that Republicans are trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest to pay for cutting social programs to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest.

00:32:18.000 It makes the math add up a lot easier for Republicans to come in under the necessary budget restraints to try to do some deficit and debt reduction.

00:32:25.000 So I think the stronger argument on the politics and the substance is to let the top rate for the wealthiest rise.

00:32:32.000 But there's a lot of opposition to it.

00:32:35.000 So we've seen the president take...

00:32:38.000 Pretty much every position.

00:32:39.000 For it, against it, and then open to it if Republicans want to do it.

00:32:43.000 And that was his last public comment.

00:32:45.000 I don't think it's going to happen.

00:32:46.000 But again, I agree with Steve Bannon.

00:32:47.000 The politics of it seem obvious to me.

00:32:49.000 We're about to enter into major reconciliation negotiation mode.

00:32:53.000 You've covered these many times.

00:32:55.000 What the president has now put forward, his official budget request, there's going to be all sorts of reconciliation meetings.

00:33:02.000 What is a timeline you think we can expect?

00:33:04.000 And what are one or two elements of this reconciliation debate that you think the media is missing that you have your eye on?

00:33:11.000 Well, you know, this is boring to most people.

00:33:14.000 It does affect everybody's taxes and what the government will spend money on, so it's important.

00:33:17.000 But the process of it is not that great.

00:33:19.000 I will say, as an aside, one of the, I think, undercover...

00:33:23.000 Brilliant Trump branding things is calling it one big, beautiful bill.

00:33:26.000 Because I think for most people, that seems more understandable than reconciliation.

00:33:31.000 So I'd say to delve a little bit into the process, Congress never acts unless it absolutely has to, and sometimes not even then.

00:33:38.000 They need what's called a forcing mechanism. 0.96

00:33:40.000 And we're still waiting to find out exactly when the government will run out of money, where the debt ceiling has to be raised, another boring process thing, but one that's super powerful.

00:33:48.000 And I think an undercovered portion is...

00:33:51.000 The president and the speaker and the Senate leader have gotten their members of Congress to agree.

00:33:56.000 Republicans are going to raise the debt ceiling without getting Democratic votes, because Democrats won't vote for this big, beautiful bill, this reconciliation bill.

00:34:02.000 So that's one thing is, when is that deadline?

00:34:05.000 Because until we have that deadline, everybody's going to want to continue to negotiate and bargain.

00:34:09.000 And then second is, you have to please everybody.

00:34:12.000 And there's some people, like people who want the so-called SALT, state and local tax deduction, changed.

00:34:18.000 Who say they're absolutely not going to vote for it unless they get exactly what they want.

00:34:22.000 At some point, the Speaker, the President, and the Senate leader need to get in a room with these folks or on the phone with them and say, this is as good as it gets.

00:34:29.000 We have slim majorities in both chambers.

00:34:31.000 You have to vote for it.

00:34:32.000 So I think the question is, who are the holdouts who aren't going to listen at what they want to be the final moment to that argument and really are willing to take the country and the party over a cliff?

00:34:44.000 There are some going to be like that.

00:34:46.000 And we just don't know who those are yet.

00:34:47.000 So those are the two things I'm watching is when's the actual deadline and which people amongst the 30 or so in both chambers who say there are holdouts unless they get exactly what they want, which ones actually have, pardon the metaphor, suicide vests strapped to their bodies and are willing to pull the cord if they don't get what they want.

00:35:06.000 In closing here, about a minute remaining, you are constantly looking to see if the political gravity will apply to President Trump.

00:35:13.000 What one or two things are you keeping your eye on that might, let's just say, make this anti-gravity machine known as the Trump decade-long political movement come back down to earth?

00:35:25.000 Well, next year would be the midterms, and whether he can keep the majorities, probably can keep the Senate.

00:35:30.000 And I'm more bullish on the House than a lot of people, including some people in the White House.

00:35:37.000 I think in the shorter term, before November of 26, two things I'm watching.

00:35:46.000 One is, can he...

00:35:48.000 Can he not be hampered by the Supreme Court?

00:35:51.000 We still don't have any decisive decisions, but a lot of the stuff he's doing now, very dramatic, very change-oriented, the Supreme Court could strike it down, and that could be any range of things.

00:36:01.000 And the other courts, too, but mostly the Supreme Court.

00:36:03.000 So what are the courts going to do?

00:36:05.000 And then the other thing is passing this big bill.

00:36:07.000 If this big bill passes, it's a massive accomplishment.

00:36:10.000 It achieves a lot of the president's domestic agenda.

00:36:13.000 And you have to think about the alternative, although I do think it's likely to pass, almost certain to pass, because failure...

00:36:18.000 There is not an option politically.

00:36:19.000 If it does fail and they can't revive it, you could fail and then they could revive it.

00:36:24.000 That's a big crisis for the president.

00:36:26.000 Mark Halperin is the editor-in-chief of Two Way and host of Next Up on the Megyn Kelly Network.

00:36:30.000 I'll be a guest on that program tomorrow.

00:36:32.000 So check it out, Mark.

00:36:33.000 Thanks.

00:36:33.000 Looking forward to it.

00:36:34.000 Thank you, sir.

00:36:34.000 Good to see you.

00:36:35.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:36:36.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - May 14, 2025

Trump's Epic Saudi Speech

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