The Charlie Kirk Show - Vice President Vance and the Trump Admin Honor Charlie

00:00:03.000 My name is Charlie Kirk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

00:00:31.000 Go start a turning point, you would say college chapter.

00:00:33.000 Go start a turning point, you would say high school chapter.

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

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

00:00:38.000 I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade.

00:00:41.000 Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same.

00:00:45.000 Here I am.

00:00:46.000 Lord use me.

00:00:48.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:49.000 Here we go.

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

00:01:09.000 I am so excited about our next guest.

00:01:11.000 And of course, I'm not even gonna, I'm not gonna tease it out.

00:01:14.000 This is the vice president of the United States, folks.

00:01:16.000 Um and I just want to start by saying this whole story, this whole tragedy that we've been living through, a nightmare, really.

00:01:24.000 Uh, you and Usha have been just tremendous.

00:01:29.000 We and people, you know, need to know.

00:01:30.000 We haven't asked for some of the things that you guys have done for Erica, for us.

00:01:36.000 You've been out front, you've been offering.

00:01:38.000 You've been your team has been getting a hold of us, you've been calling.

00:01:42.000 And uh, I think that speaks volumes about who you are and the man you are and your character.

00:01:46.000 And I just I really want the audience to know that of that you're a human being, that you have like a big heart and you care about people.

00:01:54.000 And uh, as somebody that's been a beneficiary of that in some of the darkest days that any of us can imagine, I just want to say, thank you, Mr. Vice President.

00:02:02.000 I appreciate that.

00:02:03.000 It's good to see you guys, and obviously wish it was under slightly different circumstances, but yesterday was quite a celebration of the White House, Charlie's 32nd birthday.

00:02:11.000 You know, I'm sure it's true for you guys too.

00:02:12.000 It still feels not real in some some cases.

00:02:15.000 I still occasionally will pick up the phone and think to myself, like, oh, I wonder what Charlie thinks about this, or I wonder if Charlie could help me with this.

00:02:22.000 Uh, but but we're just gonna keep on trucking on, man.

00:02:24.000 I appreciate you saying that.

00:02:25.000 I mean, that uh tell you a little backstory about just sort of this this dignified transfer where Usha and I go out and pick up Charlie's body, pick up Erica, pick up some of you guys, and then take him back to Arizona.

00:02:36.000 I mean, the background on that was I was sitting at the White House with then communications director.

00:02:40.000 He has since you know taken a job in the private sector and making a lot of money, I'm sure.

00:02:43.000 Taylor Budowich, who is another dear friend of Charlie's, and you know, Mikey was actually communicating with Taylor directly, and so you know, this little gruesome, but right after Charlie gets shot, Mikey's like, you know, we're at the hospital, Charlie's got a pulse, I'm sure you guys were getting the same messages.

00:02:58.000 I was talking with Taylor a little bit.

00:03:00.000 There was this sort of point of like optimism where it's like, oh my God, because you see the video, you think there's no way Charlie's gonna make it, but you say, Oh, you know, could this be a miraculous thing?

00:03:08.000 And then of course, Marky Mikey was the one who had to make the call to Taylor, and to me, I was actually in Stephen Miller's office with Taylor, and Mikey said, you know, Charlie didn't make it, the doctors just called it.

00:03:19.000 And that was obviously an incredibly hard moment.

00:03:21.000 But then I was sitting with Taylor and I was like, well, you know, what what's what's you know, what do we do now?

00:03:27.000 And Taylor actually had the idea of we should go out there.

00:03:32.000 And I was like, that's an incredible idea.

00:03:34.000 Like I'd love to go out there, see Erica.

00:03:36.000 But you also wonder, like, you know, the vice president of the United States, the Secret Service detail, the media doesn't become too much of a spectacle.

00:03:43.000 So I was like, reach out to Erica and like let her know.

00:03:45.000 I'm not pushing, but if she wants me to come out there, uh, we'd love to be out there and be supportive.

00:03:50.000 And so he did that, and she, of course, was receptive.

00:03:53.000 And then I actually had the idea.

00:03:54.000 I texted my chief of staff.

00:03:55.000 I was like, well, wait a second.

00:03:56.000 If we're gonna be out there, you know, moving a dead body from one place to another is not necessarily like easy logistically.

00:04:03.000 We have a big airplane, and if we're gonna fly from uh from Utah to Phoenix anyway, we should offer.

00:04:09.000 And he was like, Yeah, I'll offer.

00:04:10.000 I I I remember I'll never forget my chief of staff saying, I doubt they'll accept.

00:04:14.000 I'm sure they already have another plan, but we can offer.

00:04:16.000 And then, of course, you know, you guys accepted, and that led to that that day, which despite the grieving was very special to be able to be part of that grieving process with the family and with all you guys.

00:04:26.000 So it was it was a you know, this whole Month has been so surreal for so many of us in so many ways.

00:04:33.000 But but that day really did set the tone for us in a lot of ways.

00:04:36.000 I mean, one, it's it's um you error so Usha had met um she had met um Charlie before, actually the Claremont speech that I gave that Charlie was really too.

00:04:46.000 I mean, he I remember he texted me afterwards, like that's you that's your best speech I've ever given.

00:04:50.000 It's an amazing speech.

00:04:51.000 And uh, you know, I kept on looking at the audience, and there's Charlie sitting next to Usha.

00:04:55.000 They were like in the front table.

00:04:56.000 And that may have been the first time that Usha had spent like more than five or ten minutes with Charlie.

00:05:02.000 And uh, but I don't think she had ever met Erica, but that of course was the point at which Usha was able to be there for Erica, and that that's that cemented their bond that created their bond.

00:05:11.000 So it was despite the sadness and the tragedy, it was it was a special day in a lot of ways, and I think set the tone for the next month, uh, which which has been us mourning Charlie, of course, thinking about Charlie, trying to keep Charlie's memory alive.

00:05:25.000 And all of that, I think really, really, at least for us started on that day.

00:05:29.000 Well, you have done an amazing job, and you've been an incredible friend.

00:05:33.000 I think, you know, what I've realized in this process is that it's not just me grieving, it's not just Blake grieving or the team or Erica, the whole nation is grieving.

00:05:42.000 Yeah.

00:05:43.000 And so as you've come alongside us, you've almost, I think, symbolically come alongside the entire nation.

00:05:50.000 And knowing that your steady leadership and your your carrying hand is alongside Erica and us and the whole team has been, I think, a lift for the entire nation, genuinely and the world, really, because Charlie's message has we've seen has spread across the entire world.

00:06:03.000 And, you know, on that note of you coming alongside us, uh, we do have a little bit of news.

00:06:08.000 That's right.

00:06:09.000 Big announcement.

00:06:10.000 You want me or you?

00:06:10.000 Yeah, big announcement.

00:06:11.000 No, go ahead, man.

00:06:12.000 All right.

00:06:12.000 Well, so you are actually going to be joining Erica Kirk on our campus tour.

00:06:18.000 This is gonna be a big one.

00:06:20.000 Big one.

00:06:21.000 At Old Miss. 0.95

00:06:22.000 If you could throw the graphic up there, guys, 179.

00:06:26.000 Throw the graphic up.

00:06:27.000 There it is.

00:06:27.000 So Erica Kirk and JD Vance and uh at Ole Miss, and correct me if I'm wrong.

00:06:32.000 Will's gonna get mad at me here.

00:06:34.000 Uh that's October 29th, I believe, at Ole Miss, Oxford, Mississippi.

00:06:38.000 And uh we also, the other pictures you see on that graphic are gonna be Benny Johnson, Lara Trump, Eric Trump.

00:06:45.000 Uh that we're they're gonna be at Auburn uh the on November 5th, so the one year anniversary of the big win.

00:06:52.000 But you guys are gonna be in Ole Miss together.

00:06:54.000 Yep.

00:06:54.000 And it's gonna be Erica's only appearance on the tour.

00:06:58.000 I mean, we we really, you know, we thought about suggesting to her to do more, and it's just she needs time.

00:07:03.000 She still needs time.

00:07:04.000 She does.

00:07:05.000 But she wanted to make it a priority to be at this one.

00:07:07.000 Um, and you're making it a priority to be at this one.

00:07:10.000 Where's gonna be like nine or ten thousand people in the arena there? 0.90

00:07:13.000 So it's it's a huge deal.

00:07:15.000 Please tell us uh tell us your perspective on this.

00:07:18.000 Yeah, I'm excited about it.

00:07:19.000 And one of the things I said to you and others is you know privately is I was like, we will, you know, part of keeping Charlie's memory alive is keeping the mission alive.

00:07:26.000 And nobody can replace Charlie, but if we all sort of take little pieces, we can do as much as we can to ensure that Charlie's mission continues to survive long after he's gone.

00:07:37.000 And part of that is these college campus tours, right?

00:07:40.000 And I'm gonna do exactly what Charlie did.

00:07:41.000 I'm gonna my my plan is to you know give a little speech, talk a little bit about the issues of the day, but turn most of it over to just do QA with the audience.

00:07:50.000 I actually want to I want to hear from these kids.

00:07:52.000 I want to answer questions from them.

00:07:53.000 I want to do what what Charlie did because I think that engagement is something that was such a big part of Charlie's legacy.

00:07:59.000 It's not just that he went and talked to people or talked about issues that he cared about, it's that he actually interacted with people and he answered questions sometimes as you know, he answered tough questions, he would answer tough questions from the left and from the right.

00:08:10.000 And so I want to do that too.

00:08:11.000 And of course, having Erica there is very special.

00:08:14.000 Uh, I I am glad that she's not doing all of them because she's obviously got a lot to deal with.

00:08:18.000 She's she's grieving more than any of us are.

00:08:20.000 She's taking care of two beautiful kids, but it'll be very special to have her there.

00:08:24.000 And you know, I actually it it it's interesting.

00:08:27.000 I mean, any of you who have known somebody who's grieving very somebody that they love very much, know that it comes in hills and valleys, right?

00:08:34.000 Some days it's like the worst day imaginable.

00:08:37.000 Some days you actually feel like you're doing okay.

00:08:40.000 And um, I you know, Erica's been staying with us the last few days at the Naval Observatory, actually, and you you sort of see it all, right?

00:08:47.000 There are days where you think she's doing pretty well.

00:08:49.000 There are days where you think she's doing terribly, and that's just the process.

00:08:52.000 And I hope that she continues to kind of yes, keep Charlie's mission alive, and yes, you know, do everything that you guys are doing at Turning Points USA, but I also hope that she continues to grieve a little bit and to carve out some time for her and her her family.

00:09:05.000 Um, you know, a buddy of mine, I didn't mean to talk about this, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say it.

00:09:10.000 But a buddy of mine, and this is what drives home how angry I get at the people celebrating Charlie's death and how really one sided it is that you have people actually celebrating the murder of a dear friend of a guy who is a leader to so many people.

00:09:23.000 But I I was talking to another mutual friend, actually, uh, he was the guy sitting to my left at dinner a couple of nights ago at the vice president's residence.

00:09:30.000 So I I won't I won't reveal who it was publicly, but he told me that he had called Erica about a week or so after Charlie died, and he could hear Charlie's daughter say, Where's Daddy?

00:09:41.000 like six times during this very brief phone call.

00:09:45.000 And I think all of us have had these moments where, yes, we love Charlie and we loved his ideas and we loved what it an important voice he was.

00:09:52.000 You know, he's a necessary part.

00:09:53.000 It says the White House, right behind you guys, right?

00:09:55.000 We're right here at the White House complex.

00:09:57.000 We wouldn't be here without Charlie.

00:09:59.000 But the but most tragically, they took a very loving husband away from a wife, and they took a very loving father away from two kids.

00:10:07.000 And that is to me the the great tragedy of this moment.

00:10:10.000 We can't forget that.

00:10:12.000 Yeah, I mean, uh what Erica said in her speech yesterday, where you know, about uh the birthday uh wish for you know that was that was the one point where I lost it.

00:10:23.000 Yeah, I did too.

00:10:24.000 And I think I looked around, and gosh, I mean, people have seen some of the images of who was in that crowd.

00:10:28.000 I looked around at the most powerful people in the country, which means they're probably some of the most powerful people in the world, and we all kind of just lost it.

00:10:37.000 And you know, it was a really powerful and moving speech by Erica.

00:10:42.000 I think, you know, Dana Perino, I think we have the clip, we don't need to play it, but Dana Perino from Fox said she's one of the greatest orators of a generation, and I I she's given three speeches now.

00:10:53.000 And each one is is in my top ten of speeches, uh the whole the whole way through.

00:10:53.000 Yeah.

00:10:59.000 They're all pretty different too.

00:11:00.000 They hit on different themes.

00:11:02.000 Uh this was I think arguably the most personal one in terms of talking about uh you know, talking about his birthday habits and stuff.

00:11:10.000 It was very philosophical, like the meaning of freedom I thought it was very interesting.

00:11:13.000 Really dwelled on it and you know, and it's all her, you know.

00:11:16.000 I I helped her prepare for it, but she everything that was in that speech was what she wanted to say, how she said it.

00:11:21.000 Yeah, and just tremendous how how well delivered it was, uh how well it communicated, and people what he meant to her and also what what Charlie meant to America.

00:11:32.000 People want to know how Erica's doing.

00:11:34.000 And you've touched on it because you've been she's been staying with you uh at your guys' the Naval Observatory, but she's she is so strong and clear-eyed.

00:11:42.000 Uh Charlie when pr President Trump was talking about that uh story about oh, you're gonna you're gonna love it.

00:11:48.000 Uh Erica, Mr. President, she's so smart, and she really is very smart, and she's so human and caring.

00:11:54.000 But you touched on something else, uh, Mr. Vice President, about the this rise in sort of like the those the celebrate celebration of Charlie's murder and assassination and this rise of left-wing violence.

00:12:05.000 And you said it on the show the Monday after he was assassinated, you hosted this show, and you said I well we want unity, but we also want truth.

00:12:13.000 Maybe just really touch on that uh what before we hit this uh first break and what you meant by that.

00:12:18.000 Yeah, I I I just meant that real unity comes from acknowledging the reality of the situation that we're in, right?

00:12:25.000 Unity requires everybody being on the same page, having some common out commonality of values, and and real unity requires us to acknowledge the fact that while yes, there are crazies on both sides, we have a country of 330 million people, you're gonna be able to find crazies on either side.

00:12:40.000 Political violence is just a statistical fact, it's a bigger problem on the left.

00:12:45.000 And if you had, God forbid, somebody on the left who was assassinated, uh, yeah, I'm sure that you could find one person who would maybe celebrate it or one person who would be offensive.

00:12:55.000 But the fact that main it became mainstream to celebrate Charlie's death, to talk about the fact that he maybe deserved to die because he had said hateful things like, you know, we don't want women playing, or we don't want men playing in women's sports.

00:13:08.000 Just the the the effort to try to like justify his murder, to lie about things that he had said so so as to justify his killing, it was just really disgusting and really disgraceful.

00:13:19.000 And one of the things that we just have to I I want our country to be unified again.

00:13:22.000 I really do.

00:13:23.000 I mean, I'm the vice president of the United States.

00:13:25.000 I really do feel like I represent every single person, even the people who say disgusting things.

00:13:29.000 But if we're gonna have real unity in this country, we're all going to have to acknowledge that killing people for what they think and what they believe is wrong, and right now that violent impulse is a bigger problem on the left than the right.

00:13:42.000 That I asked our daughter what she would like to say to Daddy for his birthday.

00:13:48.000 She said Happy birthday, Daddy.

00:13:55.000 I want to give you a stuffed animal.

00:13:57.000 I want you to eat a cupcake with ice cream.

00:14:00.000 And I want you to go have a birthday surprise.

00:14:05.000 Yeah.

00:14:06.000 The team flagged that uh clip that we had at ready to go.

00:14:09.000 And it's um it's it really brings it all home.

00:14:12.000 And I I know you had such a close personal friendship with Charlie as do we, and um and I and I think it ties into what you were just saying, Mr. Vice President, that that we if we cannot get unanimity around the fact that killing people for their ideas is horrendous and awful and un-american and bad and has no place here.

00:14:29.000 Like what are we even doing?

00:14:31.000 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:14:32.000 And the only way to get unanimity about uh around that fact is to acknowledge that we do have a problem.

00:14:38.000 Like you first sort of acknowledge the problem.

00:14:40.000 That's you know, a cliche at this point, but you have to acknowledge the problem before you can actually solve it.

00:14:45.000 And right now you have a number of people who actually think words are violence. 0.98

00:14:49.000 And if words are violence, then one reasonable response to people saying things you don't like is to kill them.

00:14:55.000 And we have to just completely reject that in the United States of America.

00:14:58.000 It's one of the reasons why I wanted to get out there to Ole Miss uh to go and do this because I think that engagement really matters.

00:15:04.000 And it's not most people, right?

00:15:06.000 This is the good news.

00:15:07.000 It's not most people who think that Charlie, meaning most people on the left who think that Charlie deserved to die because they said something that you know they had disagreed with or that they even found offensive.

00:15:17.000 But it is a large enough and powerful enough minority. 0.71

00:15:20.000 Um, you know, it's pretty well funded.

00:15:23.000 There's a lot of resources behind it.

00:15:24.000 There are a lot of powerful media voices behind it, and it is, I think the most significant domestic problem we have in the United States of America is this justification of violence, which then of course leads to the real thing.

00:15:37.000 Yeah, and you you talked about the funding networks.

00:15:40.000 We had Secretary Scott Bessant uh on the show yesterday.

00:15:43.000 Treasury's taking a leading role in this.

00:15:45.000 He said he he described uh Charlie's assassination as a domestic 9-11 uh of its own right.

00:15:52.000 And the Treasury really got involved after 9-11 to find these funding sources that led to Al Qaeda being able to pull off that uh that horrendous attack.

00:16:01.000 And so they're using some of those same systems and uh uh authorizations to go and root out the funding networks.

00:16:08.000 Is there maybe anything maybe just philosophically anything you want to add to kind of what what what you maybe know what's going on there?

00:16:15.000 Well, I I wouldn't even say philosophically, just a matter of practice.

00:16:18.000 There there is some muscle memory that we're trying to create within the federal government.

00:16:23.000 And I'll just be blunt with you.

00:16:24.000 There's this idea that exists, certainly not in the administration, not at the leadership level of of the political appointees, but there is a group of federal law enforcement, what you what you might call the deep state, where they almost automatically assume that left-wing political violence is protected by the First Amendment and right wing political violence is a crime.

00:16:46.000 And you sort of see just that the basic muscle memory, the basic sort of apparatus of government is very, very primed at right-wing political violence.

00:16:56.000 But it's the instinct is to almost say, well, no, no, that left-wing political violence, that's actually protected by the first amendment.

00:17:02.000 So no, political violence, wherever it comes from, is just not protected by the First Amendment.

00:17:06.000 And because we have such a big problem with left-wing political violence violence, we have to train the investigatory and law enforcement powers of the government to focus on that particular problem.

00:17:16.000 Now, I think Scott maybe has the most important part of this because a lot of this is financial, right?

00:17:20.000 If a brick gets thrown through a wall in a government building, who bought the brick?

00:17:25.000 Uh, if somebody shows up and is a paid protester, but then that person goes in riots and commits an act of violence, who paid for it?

00:17:31.000 If you have an application that's helping people hunt down or even avoid law enforcement officers, um, if you're if you're helping immigrants avoid law illegal immigrants, avoid ice enforcement, but you're helping people actually target the law enforcement officers who are trying to enforce our immigration laws.

00:17:50.000 Well, who's paying for the hosting there?

00:17:52.000 Who's paying for the programming? 0.88

00:17:53.000 There's an entire financial element of this, but we really have to retrain the entire government to focus on this left-wing violence problem.

00:17:59.000 We're Doing it, it's gonna go a little bit slow more slowly than we'd like, but we are doing it.

00:18:04.000 You're making a little bit of news here uh yesterday on uh X, formerly known as Twitter about this politico story, but I think it ties in because we're talking about this the celebratory nature of some, not many, maybe not most, but uh some.

00:18:18.000 And it was disgusting about Charlie's assassination.

00:18:21.000 There is a story, and I believe it's their the two stories are connected that came out of Politico yesterday.

00:18:26.000 Blake, explain this for our audience for those who don't know.

00:18:28.000 We don't need to wallow in it too much.

00:18:30.000 But so Politico has a story where somehow they got their hands on something like 28,000 messages in some group chat group chat of I think 12 people that nobody's ever heard of, but they decided to just publish every single thing in this chat, whatever they found that they thought was the most salacious.

00:18:48.000 And I think 10 years ago, there would have been a very different response to it.

00:18:53.000 But people are starting to learn from this, and the vice president is one of the reasons why.

00:18:57.000 So you uh tweeted this.

00:18:59.000 This is far worse uh than you so what you did is instead of reacting to the story itself, you just posted what uh Jay Jones, our friend in Virginia who's running for AG as the Democrat had said, where he wanted his political opponents to die, and then when someone thought he might be kidding, he called to you know, make it clear, uh actually it wasn't a joke, I was serious.

00:19:19.000 That's how people change their mind.

00:19:20.000 And you just pointed out quote, this is far worse than anything said in any college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia.

00:19:29.000 I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.

00:19:34.000 And we have 14 million views on that.

00:19:37.000 Just a little viral, Mr. Vice President.

00:19:39.000 Yeah, I mean, look, I I I'll let the tweet speak for itself.

00:19:41.000 I'll say a couple of additional things.

00:19:43.000 First of all, a person who is very politically powerful who is about to become one of the most powerful law enforcement officers in the country, that person seriously wishing for political violence and political assassination is 1,000 times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids say in a group chat, however offensive it might be.

00:20:04.000 That's just reality.

00:20:05.000 And if you allow yourself to be distracted by this person's incredible endorsement, disgusting endorsement of political assassination by focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat, grow up.

00:20:18.000 I'm sorry, focus on the real issues, don't focus what on what kids say in group chats.

00:20:22.000 But there's another angle to this that I just have to be honest about.

00:20:25.000 I mean, I'm like an old guy at this point.

00:20:26.000 I'm 41 years old, I have three kids.

00:20:29.000 Uh, you know, we we I I grew up in a different world, right? 0.83

00:20:32.000 Where not most of what I the stupid things that I did when I was a teenager and a young adult, they're they're not on the internet. 0.91

00:20:38.000 Like I'm gonna tell my kids, especially my boys, don't put things on the internet, like be careful with what you post. 0.97

00:20:45.000 If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is gonna leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm. 0.98

00:20:52.000 But the reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. 1.00

00:20:59.000 Like that's what kids do. 1.00

00:21:01.000 And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke is caused to ruin their lives. 1.00

00:21:10.000 And at some point, we're all gonna have to say enough of this BS. 1.00

00:21:14.000 We're not going to allow the worst moment in a 21-year-old's group chat to ruin a kid's life for the rest of time.

00:21:22.000 That's just not okay.

00:21:23.000 Like we live in a digital world, this stuff is now etched in stone online.

00:21:27.000 We're all gonna have to say, you know what?

00:21:29.000 No, no, no.

00:21:30.000 We're we're not doing this. 1.00

00:21:31.000 We're not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat. 0.98

00:21:35.000 And uh if if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with it. 1.00

00:21:38.000 And by the way, if they were left-wing kids telling stupid left-wing jokes, I would also not want the their lives to be ruined because they're saying something stupid in a private group chat. 0.99

00:21:48.000 Well, and you you and Charlie shared that, by the way. 0.99

00:21:50.000 He he became, I mean, because he had so many young people at Turning Point that were working for him that did stupid things from time to time, and he would refuse to start you know, engaging in the pearl clutching, and especially it in this moment where we've seen you know, people celebrating Charlie's murder.

00:22:07.000 Yes, and there's been zero outrage as far as I can tell from politico or others about something so vile as that. 0.94

00:22:13.000 I'm still so disgusted that this is like something that we've put up with as a country.

00:22:17.000 Uh Mr. Vice President, uh, final minute to you, whatever you whatever you want to expound upon.

00:22:17.000 Yep.

00:22:23.000 Say something interesting.

00:22:25.000 That's always dangerous.

00:22:25.000 Give a politician a free microphone for a minute.

00:22:27.000 But I I guess one, I mean, look, I I'm so proud of you guys.

00:22:31.000 I think you're doing a great job.

00:22:32.000 I know it's very hard uh to grieve for a friend, but also to try to carry on an impossibly large legacy.

00:22:38.000 I'm here to support you guys while you're doing it.

00:22:40.000 Yeah, I I I will just say that for for all of the the negativity and the hate and the people celebrating Charlie's assassination.

00:22:49.000 For every one negative moment, I've had a thousand positive moments in the past month.

00:22:54.000 I've had people who've come up to me who said, I went back to church because Charlie got shot.

00:22:58.000 I've had people come up and say that they they they they listened to his clips for the first time.

00:23:03.000 They didn't even know who he was, especially like older people who didn't know who he was before he was killed, but now they're consuming his video content and learning from it, getting back to their faith.

00:23:12.000 I I just remember there there's a lot of love out there, and we should remember that for all of the hate out there, there's 10 times as much love.

00:23:20.000 I think that's that's has to be our charge as we move forward and carry on Charlie's legacy.

00:23:25.000 Well said.

00:23:26.000 President Trump walked into a catch-22 when taking office.

00:23:31.000 Do nothing, and America would be staring at a ticking debt bomb, the kind of crisis that could cripple our future.

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00:23:41.000 But the effects of past administration spending are still working through the system, and experts predict dramatic price increases and market uncertainty.

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00:24:25.000 President Trump is fighting for America's future.

00:24:26.000 Now it's your turn to help protect yours.

00:24:31.000 We have James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, uh, who is really in charge of a lot of the political strategy and policy strategy across the country.

00:24:40.000 And we're here live at the White House.

00:24:43.000 It's an honor to be here, James.

00:24:45.000 So I don't know what strings you pulled to make this happen, but we're we're glad to be here.

00:24:50.000 Obviously, yesterday was a really emotional time for a lot of us on the team.

00:24:54.000 Uh I know you were at the ceremony, uh, the presentation of the presidential medal freedom.

00:24:59.000 It was beautiful.

00:25:00.000 It was a who's who of Washington politics, of American politics, leaders, cabinet members, President Trump, obviously.

00:25:08.000 Um so I just want to I'm gonna start right there with you, James.

00:25:12.000 You people don't know this, but I know this, that you and Charlie communicated all the time.

00:25:19.000 All the time.

00:25:20.000 And I I was even on calls with you during the campaign.

00:25:23.000 You were so active in the campaign, putting together the the macro strategy and then on the state level.

00:25:29.000 But you and Charlie had a really deep relationship, and that's why I was so glad you could join us today because a lot of people don't know that.

00:25:34.000 So tell us about your relationship with Charlie.

00:25:37.000 What was that like?

00:25:37.000 What was your impression of him?

00:25:39.000 And uh what did he mean to what happened in November of 2024?

00:25:43.000 Yeah, um he meant everything that happened in 2024.

00:25:47.000 The way Charlie and I became close really was during the 2024 campaign where we'd had this meeting um where we presented to a few sort of key players uh on the right that ran big organizations, Charlie's being one of them.

00:26:05.000 Um, and this was kind of right at the end of the primary beginning of the general election.

00:26:08.000 April, right?

00:26:09.000 Yes, exactly.

00:26:10.000 Uh we presented, we kind of came in and we wanted, we did sort of the it was kind of a closed door kind of secret meeting, and we said, um, we want to show you our analysis of the 2020 campaign and where things um could have been done better and what the outcomes were, and then we want to walk you through what we're doing in the 2024 campaign and basically what our path to victory is, uh, not only on the strategic level but a tactical level.

00:26:36.000 And uh Charlie had spent a lot of time thinking about exactly that since 2020.

00:26:41.000 And you know, obviously you guys are part of it, that turning point has started to make this pivot since 2020, particularly of becoming not only a campus organizing organization um and a media organization, but an actual grassroots organizing and activation organization.

00:26:57.000 And uh between Charlie and and Tyler and you guys and everybody that spent a lot of time thinking about this, and they the takeaway was they were really excited.

00:27:06.000 Um they I think they were thought it was not gonna be as good as it was.

00:27:10.000 So we had this total mind meld.

00:27:11.000 They were immediately like, you know, this is amazing, all you know, full speed ahead, and sort of a partnership with the campaign was born for um, you know, it was just an opportunity.

00:27:23.000 There was a change in the the rules, right?

00:27:24.000 Yeah, there was a change.

00:27:25.000 So the Federal Election Commission ruled in the late spring, um, thanks to a case brought by Mark Elias, which is ironic, that um third-party organizations, which previously sort of couldn't engage with the campaign at all, a federal campaign, could engage on canvassing door-to-door activity, sort of traditional get out the vote activity.

00:27:46.000 And that is something that Turning Point had been building for a period of time with its Chase the Vote program and all these sorts of things.

00:27:52.000 And it was, you know, turning into a big player in that space and had been um sort of working towards that for the election cycle.

00:27:59.000 So just because of right place at the right time, thank you, Mark Elias.

00:28:03.000 I never sent him my fruit basket.

00:28:04.000 I promised him on Twitter, um, that we would basically become partners, where the the groups that did this uh grassroots work out in the field in the campaign would become partners under the new confines of the law.

00:28:17.000 And we did that.

00:28:18.000 So then immediately we started, you know, talking all of the time.

00:28:22.000 Um not only about that, but you know, just grew into one thing after another.

00:28:26.000 Obviously, I'm just a little bit uh older than uh Charlie was, but we're basically from the same generation, we're millennials.

00:28:33.000 He turned 32 yesterday, I'm 36.

00:28:36.000 Um, so very similar.

00:28:37.000 We also have similar personal lives.

00:28:39.000 Um he's married with a wonderful wife and and two children.

00:28:43.000 I'm married, I have three children.

00:28:44.000 Uh we're both Christian, so it just blossomed into a personal friendship too.

00:28:48.000 Um we 2024, uh Charlie and the organization was essential to what we did all over the country, not only rallying the youth, which is what it's really known for, younger voters, but just rallying voters in general and just really getting into the granular weeds of turning out voters and getting people to go to the polls, getting people to return their mail ballots, hence how you know the Chase the Vote program was sort of born.

00:29:11.000 Um so we're try we're worked on that very closely.

00:29:14.000 But um, you know, Charlie and I developed a personal friendship, and I said I I wrote this online, I didn't know what to say um after news of the assassination, but I wrote online, I mean, one of the things the thing that I admired about Charlie the most is uh he really inspired people around him, I think, to be better, me included.

00:29:32.000 I never heard him use a swear word.

00:29:33.000 I wish that was true of me.

00:29:35.000 Uh my parents are mortified to see me having you know sworn on TV accidentally recently.

00:29:39.000 Um never used a swear word, and uh, but he's a great father, great husband.

00:29:45.000 And the biggest thing is that obviously um his testimony for Jesus, we should all uh be the way Charlie was and put our faith first.

00:29:55.000 And two, to advocate to our generation for why it's great to get married and have a family.

00:30:02.000 Um I I I always joke with my wife, we've been married 11 years now.

00:30:06.000 I don't know what we were doing before we had kids.

00:30:08.000 Um everybody should have kids, it's the most fulfilling thing in your life, and I know not everybody can or haven't fine found the right spouse.

00:30:15.000 I I would say ask God for that.

00:30:17.000 Um, but you know, that sort of transcends politics and everything else, but it also doesn't.

00:30:22.000 Um family should be at the center of everything we do, it's a center of our culture, um, centered around God.

00:30:28.000 And and and Charlie just understood that in a way.

00:30:31.000 Um, as the president said yesterday, his wise bond is yours.

00:30:34.000 That's so true in so many ways.

00:30:36.000 And uh that's one of them.

00:30:37.000 The the president he talked about Charlie's marriage a little bit in his remarks yesterday, and he mentioned uh how he you knew Charlie actually before he even got married, and then he talked about Charlie telling him he was gonna get married.

00:30:50.000 Uh so let's uh let's play that.

00:30:51.000 Let's play clip uh two thirteen. 0.96

00:30:53.000 I was with him before I met Erica.

00:30:57.000 And he told me he was gonna get married.

00:30:58.000 He said You won't believe how beautiful she is.

00:31:04.000 I said, Well, then now that I meet her, he's right.

00:31:07.000 But then he also said, and you know what?

00:31:09.000 He's like the smartest person I know.

00:31:13.000 See, they do go together on occasion, not often.

00:31:17.000 Not often.

00:31:18.000 But on occasion they go together.

00:31:21.000 But uh he was he was in love with you.

00:31:24.000 He was deeply in love with you.

00:31:26.000 That's great.

00:31:27.000 Erica, your love and courage have been an inspiration To all of us, and we will always be here for you, and we're always gonna be here for your gorgeous, beautiful children.

00:31:38.000 And we'll never forget what your family has sacrificed for our country.

00:31:44.000 Man loved our country.

00:31:46.000 Yeah, and I can just attest from you know, I saw I I knew Charlie before Erica.

00:31:52.000 I saw them when they started dating, and their their love was so I mean passionate and such an inspiration to so many people.

00:32:00.000 I can tell you the turning point staff was all, you know, so obsessed with their marriage, and he inspired so many people just in turning point uh to get married and start having families.

00:32:12.000 And you know, I you mentioned his faith.

00:32:14.000 Let's go up and throw up 169. 1.00

00:32:16.000 This made up a bunch of news yesterday.

00:32:18.000 So the apparently this is the first time a cross has been inscribed.

00:32:22.000 I haven't fact checked this, but this is what the internet tells me.

00:32:25.000 But it has a cross on the on the back with engraved along with Charles James Kirk with the cross and his Christian faith just prominently uh placed there.

00:32:37.000 And I think that is the legacy.

00:32:38.000 I mean, Charlie worked so hard on for this country because he believed that this is a providential country, that God has his hand on this country, and he's guiding world events to support this country.

00:32:49.000 And that left that gave him all the faith in the world to just leave it all out on the field.

00:32:53.000 And he I'm so glad that you saw that, because you are a firsthand witness to history and what uh he did for this country 30 seconds before our break, if if you want to add to that, James.

00:33:05.000 Yeah, I mean, I think Charlie just understood that um, at least in our lives, you know, politics and how we're living our lives ultimately is a reflection uh of our faith or not, and um that there's sort of an existential fight between good and evil, and he engaged in that battle on the side of good and his outlet was through politics and by being a leader.

00:33:25.000 Um other people do it different ways, but he understood the really big picture, um, which is there's good and there is evil.

00:33:34.000 This is Lane Schoomberger, chief investment officer and founding partner of Y ReFi.

00:33:38.000 It has been an honor and a privilege to partner with Turning Point and for Charlie to endorse us.

00:33:44.000 His endorsement means the world to us, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Turning Point for years to come.

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00:34:42.000 James Blair, uh white you're the White House deputy chief of staff, along with like Stephen Miller.

00:34:48.000 There's a I don't know what how many uh deputy chief of staff there are, but it's an extremely big job.

00:34:53.000 And obviously Susie Wiles is the uh chief of staff. 1.00

00:34:58.000 But so t tell us how like your portfolio is it's politics, it's public it's policy.

00:35:04.000 Maybe just give us a brief so each of us, I mean, the ones you mentioned, Steven and I. We we um we have different sort of portfolios that are complementary, obviously, but you know, the White House is actually a really large operation.

00:35:18.000 Most people don't really uh realize that it's not just the West Wing, but it's this building that we're in, and there's another building next to it.

00:35:25.000 Um I don't even know how many total employees it has, but you know, 1,500 plus, and it has components.

00:35:31.000 Um, and everything in the federal government sort of um centralizes in the White House.

00:35:36.000 And so we have different portfolios that sort of kind of divvies up the key offices and responsibilities, and then we all work together at the senior level to sort of coordinate those.

00:35:45.000 So my big ones are politics, obviously.

00:35:48.000 I oversee the president's political operation, run out of here of the White House, and obviously work very closely uh in my personal time with sort of the guys outside the RNC, different groups like that.

00:35:58.000 Um I oversee our legislative affairs Office, which is the president's lobbying arm on Capitol Hill, and ultimately is the kind of final shot caller for what the administration's priorities are.

00:36:08.000 Well, and that's a bigger job than probably any other previous president because, you know, obviously we have separate branches, you know, executive, legislative, judicial.

00:36:18.000 But when it comes to President Trump, I mean, he is the Pied Piper of So as President Trump goes, so goes the conservative movement, which means James Blair is probably one of the most important people in Washington.

00:36:31.000 I mean, genuinely, you can you don't have to say that I can say that because you are I mean, when Trump weighs in on an issue, I mean, that's when things get moving because the legislative branch is you know notoriously slow, bureaucratic, just slow off the line, and then Trump comes in, which just means you've you've been involved at some point, and we see movement.

00:36:54.000 And so I want to talk about those priorities, but first uh I want to play this clip from President Trump yesterday giving Charlie some praise.

00:37:01.000 I don't want to get off of this just yet.

00:37:04.000 Play cut two two four, please.

00:37:06.000 He was so wise behind his years, you know.

00:37:08.000 I talked to him sometimes and say, this guy is like a young guy.

00:37:12.000 He was really a wise man.

00:37:14.000 From the time Charlie worked on my presidential campaign in 2016, and he was there right from the beginning.

00:37:19.000 He liked me.

00:37:20.000 I don't know.

00:37:21.000 I have no idea why.

00:37:23.000 What the hell was he thinking?

00:37:25.000 He said, You're gonna win, sir.

00:37:27.000 I said, you know, I'm running against 17 senators and a lot of tough people and governors, we have all these people, and he said, No, you're gonna win, sir.

00:37:37.000 He said, not gonna be close.

00:37:40.000 And uh he made it happen.

00:37:41.000 He helped make it happen.

00:37:42.000 I'll tell you that.

00:37:43.000 Without him, who knows what would be maybe it'd have Kamala standing here today. 1.00

00:37:48.000 That would not be good.

00:37:50.000 I will tell you, Javia, you don't know who Kamala is. 0.71

00:37:53.000 Promise it would not be good.

00:37:55.000 You agree with that, Howard?

00:37:57.000 That that of course is the president talking about Javier Millet, who was in uh was actually in town for a bilateral meeting with with uh the president, but uh stayed for the ceremony, and actually you might have witnessed this down as well.

00:38:09.000 I Charlie sent me pictures of him with Javier Millet, and they got to meet uh at I think it was at Mar-a-Lago during the transition period.

00:38:17.000 Maybe you were there.

00:38:17.000 I don't know, James.

00:38:19.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:38:20.000 I I don't think I was there, but I remember when it happened, although it's hard to remember.

00:38:24.000 I did spend a lot of evenings on the patio throughout transition and even the early spring when we were going back.

00:38:31.000 Um yeah, I I mean, uh it was great for him to be there.

00:38:35.000 It's funny, you know, just before this, we were talking about what happens on Capitol Hill.

00:38:38.000 Right now, the president mentioned it yesterday, maybe the shutdown would be done sooner if Charlie was still with us.

00:38:43.000 Um that's probably true.

00:38:45.000 I mean, Charlie would be calling me every day right now if he were here and say, what can I do to help?

00:38:51.000 President Trump plays a an outsized role on Capitol Hill.

00:38:55.000 There's just no doubt.

00:38:56.000 I mean, the separate but equal equal branches, but he plays an outside role, which means you play an outside role, outside's role.

00:39:02.000 One of the things Charlie was really concerned about, and Blake, feel free to chime in here, was keeping the coalition together.

00:39:09.000 And the legislative priorities, I mean, he was big on the one big beautiful bill.

00:39:14.000 You guys got that through.

00:39:15.000 He he eventually became very convinced about it.

00:39:17.000 He wanted more cutting, but it was we we we educated the audience on that, how this wasn't a budget bill, right?

00:39:24.000 But he ended up really loving it because he believed it was going to unleash economic prosperity and it was going to secure the border and give us give ICE the resources it needed, Tom Holman, Christino.

00:39:36.000 Thinking about it through Charlie's lens, where he was always thinking about how do we keep the coalition together, how do we keep the priorities uh right sized?

00:39:44.000 You know, Charlie would want to know what are the priorities moving forward from your vantage point uh for 26, 2028.

00:39:51.000 Floor is yours.

00:39:52.000 Yeah.

00:39:52.000 Um, you know, first I'll say Charlie, and one of the reasons he liked the bill, and we all want a little more of this or that, right?

00:40:00.000 But one of the things that I loved about Charlie is that he understands that politics is a game of addition, not subtraction.

00:40:07.000 Um obviously I have my views, you have your views, the president has his views, but this needs to be uh a party.

00:40:16.000 Um, if Republicans are being successful, it has to be a party with space for people who disagree a little bit at the margins, and that's what the process of negotiating is all about.

00:40:28.000 And he said, we talked about this as soon as we got elected, and even throughout that process, how do we get this new coalition that's what Trump and Republicans into office to stick together?

00:40:39.000 And the answer, I think, first and foremost that we control is do what we promise them.

00:40:43.000 Just start by doing the things we promised them on the campaign trail.

00:40:47.000 Exactly.

00:40:48.000 Govern like we campaign.

00:40:49.000 That was always one of Charlie's biggest pitches.

00:40:51.000 He just loved that.

00:40:52.000 He would love to break it down.

00:40:53.000 You know, Trump was the most str one of the most straightforward politicians of all time in terms of if he promised this thing, he will almost certainly at least attempt to do it.

00:41:03.000 You know, maybe a court will get in the way.

00:41:04.000 Maybe some judge will discover novel hidden meanings in the Constitution, but he will make the serious attempt for it.

00:41:11.000 Yeah, and he would oh go ahead.

00:41:13.000 Well, so we we talked a lot about how Charlie helped with the election, but I thought maybe you could elaborate on um Charlie was he like he went down to Mar-a-Lago during the transition.

00:41:23.000 He didn't care for DC, but he would come here often enough, try to get into the White House when he could.

00:41:28.000 Uh, I know he was running around this area, running around the West Wing.

00:41:32.000 Could you maybe elaborate on sort of the role he was able to play within the White House or just what his presence was like here?

00:41:37.000 Yeah, I mean, he was an advisor on on personnel.

00:41:40.000 I mean, you mentioned he spent a lot of time um talking Darius, particularly that he knew very well or cared deeply about talking to people and getting a feel for who they were and whether or not they were aligned, and he was really essential to that, helping make sure um that we got the right people into the right seats on the bus, um, you know, as they sort of say in business school.

00:41:57.000 And he had policy ideas.

00:41:59.000 That's the thing.

00:42:00.000 Charlie's not just a political guy.

00:42:01.000 I mean, he had a well beyond his years wide-ranging sort of philosophical view of the world, of government, on what direction we need to go, um, what's right and wrong, and how that helps our movement.

00:42:13.000 And so we would talk about that, and um, he would just help us get things done.

00:42:17.000 You ask what our priorities are.

00:42:19.000 We want to make we want to bring the American dream back.

00:42:21.000 We want to make people be able to once again propel themselves upward socioeconomically through their own labor.

00:42:28.000 We want to make life affordable.

00:42:30.000 We want to make health care affordable.

00:42:31.000 We're focused on getting down the price of prescription drugs.

00:42:34.000 I Charlie was all about that, and he totally agreed because this is something people come into contact with constantly.

00:42:39.000 We want to make the ability to buy a home, you know, something that is open to more people.

00:42:44.000 Obviously, we know what's in happen.

00:42:46.000 The the biggest problem we took when Biden came into office is the Bidenflation in the last four years, right?

00:42:51.000 Prices skyrocketed, and we've had to turn that around.

00:42:54.000 That's a slow moving ship.

00:42:55.000 But you know what?

00:42:55.000 All year, inflation hasn't gone up.

00:42:57.000 It's trending in the right direction.

00:42:59.000 And um, we want to make the American dream accessible to people.

00:43:04.000 It's very simple.

00:43:05.000 America should be the best country in the world to live in, to get married, to work, to raise a family, and to be safe in your neighborhood.

00:43:12.000 Crime is something we're talking a lot about.

00:43:13.000 Charlie was all about that too.

00:43:15.000 We must control violent crime in this country, and we're proving right now in Washington, Memphis, elsewhere, we can.

00:43:19.000 It's about having the will to enforce the laws that are on the books.

00:43:22.000 And we cannot be beholden to violent criminals um and and liberal politicians that want to be beholden to violent criminals, and we're not going to be anymore.

00:43:29.000 It's one of the things that Charlie and the president both have really revealed over the past few years that there is this artificially constrained realm of what is possible.

00:43:39.000 Oh, we we can't stop crime because you know we can only do this through that.

00:43:42.000 And then you know, the president says, actually, you know, you can just stop crime, put people on the streets, and put criminals in prison.

00:43:48.000 Well, Charlie believed in offense.

00:43:50.000 He believed in a yes, muscular, creative, offensive strategy, always moving forward.

00:43:55.000 I know he shared that and probably learned part of that from the the president, but um I know that I I keep saying I I feel like I have like a Charlie GPT in my head.

00:44:03.000 I just kind of like we were talking about this.

00:44:05.000 And I believe that the people in this admin do as well.

00:44:08.000 And and I think we all carry that spirit, and I know that you do as well, James, just because you work so closely together for over the last year, 18 months.

00:44:15.000 So thank you for joining us.

00:44:16.000 Uh, hope to have you on again soon.

00:44:18.000 Thank you.

00:44:21.000 Many of us are hopeful about the direction the country is headed.

00:44:24.000 But after years of abuse and mismanagement, things could fall apart at any moment.

00:44:28.000 That's why I and Americans from all walks of life have taken action to prepare for what's coming next.

00:44:34.000 And that starts with having an emergency food supply.

00:44:37.000 Storing food in your home is the right thing to do because we're living in crazy times, which explains why so many people are preparing.

00:44:45.000 Right now, you can get ready too, with a three-month emergency food kit from my patriot supply.

00:44:50.000 It comes with delicious foods like creamy stroganoff, honey wheat bread, and mushroom rice pilaf.

00:44:55.000 The entire kit offers over two thousand calories a day.

00:44:58.000 This food kit lasts up to twenty-five years.

00:45:01.000 Who knows what our country will look like then?

00:45:03.000 But when that day comes, you'll be ready.

00:45:05.000 Now hear from Charlie in his own words.

00:45:07.000 Just go to my Patriotsupply.com/slash K-I-R-K and join millions of Americans who are preparing today at MyPatriot Supply.com slash Kirk. 0.99

00:45:15.000 That is my Patriots Supply.com slash Kirk.

00:45:20.000 Hello, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:45:23.000 We're broadcasting here from the Eisenhower building next to the White House.

00:45:31.000 Anyway, uh we're joined by Carolyn Levitt, the White House press secretary here.

00:45:35.000 And we were talking just uh during the break about uh during Trump's remarks where he was saying you know he was doing the Middle East peace deal, a very very big deal.

00:45:45.000 Uh but he was thinking maybe should we push this to Friday?

00:45:49.000 But we can't.

00:45:50.000 You know, it's Charlie's birthday.

00:45:51.000 So I believe that's uh clip two two two.

00:45:54.000 As you know, only hours ago I returned from a very historic trip to secure peace in the Middle East.

00:46:01.000 People said that couldn't be done.

00:46:02.000 Charlie felt it could be done.

00:46:05.000 Charlie felt it could be done.

00:46:07.000 But I raced back halfway around the globe.

00:46:10.000 I was gonna call Eric and say, Erica, could you maybe move it to Friday?

00:46:17.000 And I didn't have the courage to call.

00:46:19.000 But you know why I didn't call?

00:46:21.000 Because I heard today was Charlie's birthday, and I said, you know, now we that was indefinite.

00:46:26.000 But I would not have missed this moment for anything in the world.

00:46:30.000 Nothing.

00:46:31.000 He was assassinated in the prime of his life for boldly speaking the truth for living his faith and relentlessly fighting for a better and stronger America.

00:46:42.000 He loved this country.

00:46:43.000 And that's why this afternoon, it's my privilege to posthumously award Charles James Kirk, our nation's highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom.

00:46:57.000 I'm gonna we're throwing it to you in just a second, Caroline.

00:46:59.000 But I I knew that this was happening, and he was all I got all these calls from reporters like, is it gonna get moved?

00:47:04.000 Is you know, can he make it back?

00:47:06.000 And and I made a call made a phone call, and they're like, No, he will not miss this.

00:47:10.000 Maybe you could tell us more about this.

00:47:12.000 Yeah, well, it was out all of our first instinct as well when we knew that the deal was going to be signed, and Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff called the president from the Middle East and said, Sir, now it's now or never, right?

00:47:23.000 You gotta get out here.

00:47:24.000 We need to sign this deal, we need to get these hostages out, we need this momentum, and it's crucially important, literally for peace in the Middle East.

00:47:31.000 And all of us here thought, oh my gosh, we have the ceremony for Charlie on Tuesday.

00:47:36.000 I hope we don't have to delay it.

00:47:37.000 And the president said it was a non-negotiable for him.

00:47:40.000 And I think that really speaks to how much he loved and respected Charlie.

00:47:43.000 There are very few people in this world that the president would really cut a trich trip short, because there was much more we could have done.

00:47:51.000 I mean, we left the White House at 5 p.m. on Sunday evening.

00:47:56.000 We flew all the way to the Middle East.

00:47:58.000 We landed in Israel 9 a.m. local time, so it was the middle of the night, Eastern time.

00:48:03.000 We went to Israel.

00:48:04.000 The president gave that amazing speech in Jerusalem, and he met with uh Prime Minister Netanyahu, met with hostage families.

00:48:12.000 We get back on the plane, fly an hour to Egypt, go to Egypt, and meet with world leaders from all over the planet and signed the Arab peace agreement and really began phase two of this peace process.

00:48:24.000 And then we got right back on the plane and came home.

00:48:26.000 And so we were gone for I think it was 36 total hours.

00:48:29.000 When I got home at 3 30 in the morning, my husband said, I can't believe you just went all the way to Africa and back in like one day.

00:48:36.000 Um, but we did it for Charlie, and I'm so glad we did, and I know the president is glad because yesterday was such a beautiful ceremony, and the way that the sun broke through the clouds and just kind of was over the rose garden.

00:48:47.000 It was so peaceful, so beautiful.

00:48:49.000 Um, and so we're so glad we were able to make it back.

00:48:52.000 Yeah, I I you could tell everybody in attendance, by the way, was looking up at the sky.

00:48:57.000 Because if you've been in DC the last couple of days, it hasn't felt like that.

00:48:57.000 Yeah.

00:49:00.000 And all of a sudden, right before we start the ceremony, the sun breaks through the clouds, and it was almost like you know, God was smiling down on us.

00:49:07.000 And in char even President Trump, he looks up to the sky.

00:49:10.000 I saw him just stare for a while during his speech.

00:49:14.000 And I think I think for a lot of us it was just it was a bittersweet moment.

00:49:18.000 We all didn't want to be there for that.

00:49:20.000 But the fact that President Trump literally moved world events to honor Charlie on his 30 second birthday is something I will never forget.

00:49:30.000 I know Erica will never forget that.

00:49:32.000 We will always be eternally grateful.

00:49:35.000 And to your point, it just shows how close Charlie was with the president and vice versa.

00:49:40.000 And really with all of you in the admin.

00:49:43.000 Um I I I'm I'm just guessing that you nobody fought the president on this.

00:49:48.000 Because you guys all share your own personal relationship with Charlie, and you are one of those people.

00:49:53.000 You actually were involved with Turning Point at the college level.

00:49:56.000 People don't know this.

00:49:57.000 Uh but maybe maybe just tell the audience that because I don't I'm not sure how widely known that is.

00:50:02.000 I was so I mean, I'm a Gen Z MAGA conservative, right?

00:50:06.000 So I grew up in the age of President Trump and in the age of Charlie Kirk.

00:50:10.000 And so he was really one of the first people that got me into politics and into the conservative movement, and just watching him and and hearing his speeches throughout the country and when he was young at the time, you know.

00:50:22.000 I mean, still young, I'm still young too, but he really helped, I think, kind of grow, uh helped me grow in my political philosophies.

00:50:30.000 And so I inquired about a turning point USA chapter on my college campus, St. Anselm College up in Manchester, which is really a political hub for politics because of the New Hampshire primary every four years.

00:50:41.000 And so that really catapulted me into my political career.

00:50:44.000 And then of course, when I ran for Congress in the 2022 midterms, Charlie and Turning Point Action, you guys were the very first political action committee to endorse me.

00:50:54.000 And unafraid to do it, I flew out to Arizona, I met with Tyler, I met with Charlie, and um you guys were on board.

00:51:00.000 And when the mega establishment super PACs in DC were pum pummeling money into my opponents' uh bank accounts, you guys always doubled down and came through, and we won that primary, and in large part because of Charlie and Turning Point support.

00:51:13.000 Yeah, well, and we're we haven't taken our eye off of New Hampshire at all.

00:51:17.000 So if this doesn't work out for you at the uh White House Caroline, we might we might be uh drafting some candidates up there.

00:51:23.000 But yeah, I mean you talked about you put an inquiry in.

00:51:27.000 And that's been a big news story after 910 of just the it's this explosive growth that we've seen at Turning Point uh uh USA.

00:51:36.000 So play uh put up a graphic one eighty-two.

00:51:38.000 Actually, this was from Fox News.

00:51:39.000 They did this for for us.

00:51:41.000 Uh this is um a graphic that shows we've had 350,000 new student registrations.

00:51:48.000 So these is our network is now over 800,000 students across the country involved in one shape way, shape, or form, and over 130,000 inquiries for new college or high school chapters on campuses.

00:52:00.000 So and we've already doubled the number of RSOs, so registered student organizations, which I I don't know if people can fully appreciate that, but it takes a while to form uh a chapter because you gotta get a faculty advisor to sort of put their weight behind it and bless it, and then you have to go through certain steps and get approvals, and you have to form your club.

00:52:20.000 You have to have a certain number of people.

00:52:22.000 So it's it's an involved process.

00:52:23.000 So we've already doubled that, which is such a testament to Charlie, and we will not rest until we have ever uh uh Club America, which is the high school brand in every single high school in America, because that's what Charlie wants.

00:52:37.000 I know that because he told us um just a few weeks before it happened, but now we have that momentum we can get really get it done.

00:52:43.000 Maybe talk about from your your vantage point outside of our our bubble that we're in here of what you've seen in this city of you know, the people that knew Charlie, this this rise, this flush of enthusiasm and patriotism and faith that you've seen from where you're you're at.

00:53:00.000 I think the numbers you just showed and everything that you just spoke to really shows how good our God is and how he does use everything for good, even the most traumatic and and heartbreaking circumstances.

00:53:11.000 And look at how many people have been inspired by Charlie's legacy.

00:53:15.000 And I think you know, the videos that have been circulating of him now and all of the the speeches that he gave, people that maybe didn't listen to him when he was here on earth are now listening to him despite him being in heaven and realizing the impact that he made on our country and just the truth that he spoke.

00:53:33.000 And I I've heard from you know friends of mine who are apolitical, they they follow uh politics because I'm in this job now and and they like President Trump, but they're not political people by nature.

00:53:44.000 But so many of them have reached out to me and said, I'm going back and I'm watching Charlie's podcast and I'm looking at his clips and they're coming up on my feed.

00:53:52.000 And you know, he's really still to this to this very second as we sit here, changing the way that people think and and the values they hold.

00:54:00.000 And so you guys at Turning Point just I I encourage you, and I know that you will continue fighting on and how encouraging it is that so many young people are saying, I want to be part of this.

00:54:10.000 Um, despite the the political violence we're continuing to face in our country, despite the fear and just the violence and the hatred that that unfortunately comes uh from the left.

00:54:20.000 Um, you know, people want to join this movement and they want to be on the side of truth and of righteousness and of good policy, and it's great to see.

00:54:28.000 There's great trends we're seeing.

00:54:29.000 Go ahead and really quickly play a cut to 30, please.

00:54:32.000 A Christian revival across the country.

00:54:34.000 Bible sales increasing over 40% since 2022.

00:54:39.000 Religion app downloads surging nearly 80%.

00:54:42.000 That increase since 2019, and Christian music Spotify streams up 50% from 2019.

00:54:50.000 All uh very encouraging trends, and I think when they run that back after a a little while, they're gonna see the Charlie effect take those numbers even higher.

00:55:00.000 Hey everybody, Andrew Colvet, executive producer of the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:55:04.000 Charlie understood that to lead, he needed to learn.

00:55:07.000 Hillsdale College was ready to teach him.

00:55:10.000 While busy running his company, teaching America's youth and raising a beautiful family, Charlie still found time to complete 31 Hillsdale College free online courses.

00:55:19.000 He talked about it the last time he spoke on his podcast with Hillsdale's president, Dr. Larry Arne.

00:55:23.000 Hillsdale is the cutting edge, and I mean it.

00:55:25.000 It is America's greatest college.

00:55:27.000 You are a force of nature, Charlie Kirk.

00:55:29.000 One of these days, I'm gonna give you an honorary degree.

00:55:31.000 That that would be the honor of my life, but I I got a lot more learning yet to do.

00:55:35.000 And I say this the Hillsdale courses have changed my life.

00:55:38.000 Through Hillsdale College's free online courses, Charlie studied the Bible, the classics, the American founding, and through his relentless pursuit of truth, became not only a great American, but a good man.

00:55:48.000 Charlie's gone, but his spirit of hard work and lifelong learning carry on.

00:55:52.000 Each of us can follow his example and pick up where he left off.

00:55:55.000 So learn like Charlie did at Charlie for Hillsdale.com.

00:55:58.000 That's Charlie for Hillsdale.com.

00:56:03.000 I really want to hit this because I think it's another great way that you guys have honored uh Charlie and also executed on our our policy priorities.

00:56:11.000 So yesterday, right around the time of the uh of the ceremony, the State Department tweeted out uh the United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans.

00:56:23.000 The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.

00:56:30.000 Here are just a few examples of aliens no longer welcome in the US.

00:56:34.000 Let's read a few of these.

00:56:36.000 Let's throw up 199, where they had a Brazilian national charge that Charlie was the reason for a Nazi rally where they marched in homage to him and that Kirk, quote, died too late.

00:56:48.000 Visa revoked. 0.98

00:56:50.000 Uh 198, an Argentine national said that Kirk devoted his entire life to spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric and deserved to burn in hell. 0.99

00:57:00.000 Visa revoked. 0.95

00:57:01.000 And they had like five of these, and they were good.

00:57:05.000 They're great, and you know, it's really we've talked about we Charlie believed a lot in free speech.

00:57:09.000 We believe a lot in free speech, but also we have to build this norm against uh assassination culture that political assassinations are not acceptable.

00:57:18.000 And also, we have the ability to control who we welcome as guests into our nation.

00:57:23.000 These are not include people who celebrate assassinations. 1.00

00:57:26.000 Yes, you are a vile ghoulish, nasty monster of a person, and you shouldn't be in this country. 1.00

00:57:31.000 I have no problem saying that. 1.00

00:57:33.000 And you know, uh I I mean but throw it to you.

00:57:35.000 I mean, you're the you you have the talking points here uh for for us.

00:57:40.000 But this is my perspective on it.

00:57:42.000 I'm so grateful to the State Department and Secretary Rubio.

00:57:45.000 I'm so grateful to also Pete Heggseth, who's been looking through the ranks and uh there's been disciplinary actions and investigations launched uh uh at at uh the Secretary uh the Department of War.

00:57:55.000 Sorry, I don't know if I said DOD.

00:57:57.000 Did I did I say it?

00:57:57.000 You caught yourself inside.

00:57:59.000 Yeah, uh, but uh but I just there has to be no room for this.

00:58:02.000 And we we Charlie, we talk a lot about this between Magioniism versus MAGA.

00:58:07.000 And like the country's gonna go down one of the two routes.

00:58:09.000 And so which one is it?

00:58:10.000 MAGA is American, it is conservative, populist nationalism, whatever, but magioniism is unacceptable.

00:58:18.000 Caroline.

00:58:18.000 Yeah, this is just basic common sense, and I'm so glad we have a phenomenal Secretary of State in Marco Rubio who believes in common sense.

00:58:27.000 And as he said, we've been doing this since the beginning of the administration.

00:58:30.000 If you hate our country, if you are inciting violence, if you are siding with terrorists, we have revoked the visas of pro Hamas individuals in our country who are engaging in some of the campus shutdowns and locking down American universities.

00:58:43.000 We are not gonna tolerate illegal behavior.

00:58:45.000 We're not gonna allow you to side with assassins and terrorists.

00:58:49.000 Having a visa to this country is a privilege.

00:58:51.000 It is not a right.

00:58:52.000 And if you are wishing death upon America, you won't be welcome here anymore.

00:58:56.000 It's so simple. 0.60

00:58:56.000 Amen. 0.60

00:58:57.000 So simple.

00:58:57.000 It's so simple.

00:58:58.000 I the fact that we've made this complicated, by the way.

00:59:01.000 Um, and and by the way, there's there's lots of reasons that you you you should probably have your visa revoked.

00:59:07.000 But I I if there is an argument argument about this, please let us know, Caroline, because we will help on the messaging on that front.

00:59:15.000 Uh, because like the the fact that we just can't have agreement about something as simple as this is disturbing if that's the case.

00:59:21.000 But hopefully we don't get too much personal.

00:59:23.000 I think the only people arguing this are the legacy media who have never seen real changes in Washington, DC.

00:59:29.000 Exactly.

00:59:30.000 The people that I unfortunately have to deal with every day.

00:59:33.000 You know, if a a foreign lunatic that they didn't want to like immediately give citizenship to. 0.88

00:59:37.000 Yeah, it's the only people they seem to support or defend uh are usually like illegal immigrants or you know, visa holders that hate hate citizens or assassins. 0.99

00:59:46.000 There is some news uh with uh a gentleman commonly known as big balls. 0.96

00:59:53.000 We'll call him Edward. 0.92

00:59:54.000 Yes, Edward.

00:59:54.000 Oh, is it Edward?

00:59:55.000 I don't know. 0.99

00:59:58.000 Edward big balls, of course. 0.98

00:59:59.000 I love how they say it here on the New York Post. 0.88

01:00:01.000 But uh so anyway, as we remember, the big inspiration for the law and order surge in DC was when he was just attacked out of the blue while I believe on a date, protecting uh trying to protect her, and they mauled him, and this is just not acceptable to have happen your nation's capital.

01:00:18.000 And so that really inspired let's let's you know, send in the guard to restore order, and it's had a lot of success.

01:00:24.000 But anyway, breaking today, the two teenagers who were involved in that attack have been sentenced to probation.

01:00:31.000 Weren't there more than two?

01:00:32.000 There were ten.

01:00:33.000 Yeah.

01:00:34.000 We have two, still looking for the other eight.

01:00:37.000 I talked to uh Judge Janine, who's our great U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. yesterday, actually, at the Rose Garden ceremony before the president and Erica came out, and she is doing everything she possibly can to restore law and order and justice in our nation's capital.

01:00:52.000 But unfortunately, like in most liberal districts around the country, she is facing roadblack roadblock after roadblock from the courts and from the judges.

01:01:02.000 And so in this case, you had the U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuting the two lead individuals who should be incarcerated, and you have a liberal judge saying, no, they should just be re rehabilitated when they beat somebody to a pulp.

01:01:15.000 And they were in involved in this mob mentality, gang violence that we see was so prevalent in Washington, D.C. And as you pointed out, this instance was just one of many that the administration said, enough is enough.

01:01:28.000 We need to do more in Washington, D.C. to make this a safe place.

01:01:31.000 And so big credit to uh Judge Janine, who's literally doing all she can with the resources that she has, but we have these these far-left judges.

01:01:39.000 I know the president is uh eventually gonna appoint more good judges who actually believe in law and order and following the rule of law and enforcing it.

01:01:47.000 And one of the big issues in DC is these juveniles.

01:01:50.000 They just get a slap on the wrist.

01:01:52.000 They say you need, you know, again, rehabilitation, not incarceration.

01:01:56.000 This administration has a completely different philosophy.

01:01:58.000 We need law and order, period.

01:02:00.000 If you commit a crime, you're gonna face consequences.

01:02:02.000 If you commit a violent crime, you are going to see jail time.

01:02:06.000 And so we'll see that through the best we can.

01:02:08.000 But the courts are a real problem. 0.93

01:02:10.000 And not only in DC and all of these liberal jurisdictions, they are blocking this administration from just pursuing basic law and order.

01:02:17.000 We see it in Portland, Oregon, where there have been hundreds of nights of violent riots of illegal behavior outside of the ICE facility.

01:02:25.000 The president rightfully and legally calls up the National Guard, and we have liberal judges saying, no, you can't do that.

01:02:31.000 When people are literally being attacked night after night, our federal law enforcement officers.

01:02:36.000 So this is a fight we are taking to every city across the country every day.

01:02:40.000 We know we are doing what is right by the merits of the law, so we'll continue to fight these cases all the way up to the Supreme Court if we have to.

01:02:46.000 Well, good for you.

01:02:47.000 And I love that you guys are on top of this.

01:02:48.000 And it it strikes me as not disconnected from what happened to Charlie.

01:02:52.000 There just seems to be this divergence, and I, you know, you there's a thousand theories of what's causing it, but there's a divergence Between the left and the right when it comes to acceptance or justification of political violence, celebrating political violence, or just law and order.

01:03:09.000 People uh, you know, the conservatives, we tend to be, no, this person needs to go into prison, jail, they need to be punished, held accountable.

01:03:16.000 Judge Nean's been phenomenal on that, even if they're a little bit on the younger side sometimes, right?

01:03:20.000 And especially in this city, that is a lot of what we've seen happen.

01:03:22.000 These are repeat offenders.

01:03:24.000 There was uh the former uh, I think it was Metropolitan PD chief said that the average homicide uh suspect had been arrested 11 times prior before committing uh you know the uh a murder.

01:03:36.000 Murdery, every murder that happens by someone who has 11 prior offenses was a preventable murder.

01:03:42.000 100% period.

01:03:43.000 I and I don't know what the philosophical divergence is, but it just seems like one side is doing everything they can to s to so chaos and the other one's trying to clean up the mess.

01:03:52.000 Republicans versus Democrats, left versus right, conservatives versus progressives, whatever you want to call it.

01:03:58.000 There's really a basic principle.

01:04:00.000 It is law and order versus lawlessness.

01:04:03.000 Democrats want to coddle criminals, Republicans want to lock up criminals.

01:04:08.000 That's it.

01:04:08.000 I mean it's it's very simple.

01:04:10.000 And again, we see this resistance from judges.

01:04:12.000 We even see it from police departments in some cities, like in Portland or in Chicago, where the Chicago PD is actually told by the Democrat mayor to stand down when a federal law enforcement agent was being rammed by vehicles.

01:04:26.000 That's an unprecedented action.

01:04:28.000 And the woman had a was a semi-automatic uh correct, strapped to her. 0.72

01:04:32.000 She and she ended up getting shot in a defensive measure.

01:04:34.000 She drove herself to the she ended up being okay.

01:04:36.000 But it's just an insane story.

01:04:38.000 And it and it shows how these Democrats have put politics above public safety, and they are preventing local and federal law enforcement from working together.

01:04:38.000 It is.

01:04:48.000 When you talk to cops on the street, they want to work with the feds.

01:04:51.000 They want that backup, that support.

01:04:52.000 They want to be able to communicate, share intel, and go arrest bad guys.

01:04:56.000 And as our FBI director says, we need to let cops be cops.

01:05:00.000 And that's what we're trying to do every day.

01:05:01.000 And and we want to have accurate data on how bad the crimes crimes actually are.

01:05:05.000 Which DOJ is looking into that in DC.

01:05:07.000 That's a whole Caroline Levitt. 0.99

01:05:09.000 Thank you so much, White House Press Secretary.

01:05:11.000 It's so nice to have you.

01:05:12.000 You too.

01:05:15.000 This is the Charlie Kirk show.

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01:05:56.000 Charlie and Erica love pre-born.

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01:06:01.000 So I'll give the final word to Charlie Kirk.

01:06:04.000 Whether you want to save one baby or five or hundreds, that opportunity is just a phone call or click away.

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01:06:17.000 All right, without further ado, we have director of OMB, Russ Vogue, the man, the myth, the legend.

01:06:23.000 You are you're a tough get, uh, I'm told.

01:06:26.000 Uh I was told in the break that this is your first interview in three weeks or something.

01:06:32.000 Yeah, something like that.

01:06:33.000 Well, I I just want to say I'm honored that you would trust us with this interview, and uh trust me, and I know why you're doing it, because you and Charlie uh were very close, and I told you this in the break that of all of the people not named Trump or Vance, because they're just in a whole different category.

01:06:33.000 Something like that.

01:06:51.000 I think it's safe to say that he had the most faith in your ability to operate in the the levers of government to um move uh forward, a conservative agenda in this in the Imperial Capitol known as Washington, DC.

01:07:07.000 He knew that you understood at an intricate level the way government works.

01:07:11.000 And so uh you you guys had your own personal very close friendship.

01:07:15.000 So I I want to give you the floor and let you just kind of explain what that was like and what Charlie meant to you.

01:07:20.000 Sure.

01:07:20.000 Well, thanks for having me.

01:07:21.000 It's great to be uh here at the White House on and on your show.

01:07:25.000 And honestly, that's just uh uh um what a gracious thing for Charlie to say.

01:07:31.000 And uh he was a huge advocate to get me back at OMB.

01:07:34.000 And you know, I think one of the things that stood out to me about Chile Charlie is just the extent to which uh he was always in the fight.

01:07:44.000 He was always pushing as much as as we could get.

01:07:48.000 Um he was always cognizant of all of the different things that might cause you to be unsuccessful.

01:07:55.000 Uh he was always pushing truth in the midst of whatever complicated, almost simplifying it from the standpoint of what's right, what's wrong, what's truth, what's false.

01:08:06.000 Um and having a good cheer about it.

01:08:08.000 The notion that uh this is coalition ball, we're trying to make sure that uh we're successful, we win, uh, and to have a good time about it.

01:08:17.000 And honestly, I think it's something about your show that I love is just the extent to which you guys embody uh his ability to have fun talking about the issues of the day, getting the message out, and ultimately winning and attracting a whole movement of people that are gonna come along with his legacy of standing on behalf of truth, come what may.

01:08:39.000 And that's something I took from yesterday, the extent to which you know Erica was articulating to the the whole movement, the turning point movement, uh, all of those new chapters, all of those um uh new activists, people who are hitting the books for the maybe the first time and rejecting what's in their liberal schools and saying I'm just gonna be a self-learner in in the mode of mode of Charlie.

01:09:03.000 You know, they they now have this legacy in their heart, um, and that's exciting.

01:09:09.000 Um the future is gonna pay incredible dividends as a result of that.

01:09:13.000 Yeah, well, and I I think that's really well said.

01:09:15.000 Charlie was a proud autodidact.

01:09:18.000 He, you know, people would say, Oh, you didn't graduate college, and he'd be like, that's a it's a badge of honor, first of all.

01:09:24.000 Uh I think at first early on, maybe it hurt his feelings a little bit, but it's but by the time he's 25, he he wore it as a badge of honor and realized that because of that he hadn't wasted all his time, and he was so much further ahead than so many.

01:09:35.000 Uh, but just to so Russ, so you know that I uh not lying to you, let's go ahead and put up image 202.

01:09:42.000 This is where Charlie says on February 7th of this year, he says, people have yet to fully appreciate the significance of Russ Vote at OMB.

01:09:51.000 It's seismic.

01:09:52.000 And then another uh this is August 29th, so uh pretty recent.

01:09:56.000 Uh Charlie said director Russ vote is one of the most capable and accomplished, steady hands in Washington.

01:10:03.000 Russ is the perfect pick to once and for all close out USAID, uh which has become a corrupt, woke and bloated rogue agency.

01:10:09.000 And congrats secretary Secretary Rubio on having one less job.

01:10:12.000 So that was uh I mean, he really he would do it privately and publicly, and you are now in many ways with this government shutdown.

01:10:21.000 Apparently, what are we 14-15 days into it?

01:10:24.000 You uh went pretty viral for a tweet.

01:10:27.000 So you haven't given many interviews or none, but you said, you know, rifts, uh explain you they're coming, right?

01:10:34.000 Explain what that is and you tell us what your plans are in the shutdown.

01:10:39.000 Sure.

01:10:40.000 So, first of all, rips are reductions in force.

01:10:42.000 And this is something that we honestly did not do in the first term.

01:10:46.000 We did a lot of things in the first term.

01:10:47.000 We had a ton of paradigm shifts.

01:10:50.000 But one of the things we did not do uh was reductions in force, and we honestly learned about it in in our years of exile, and we came into this administration and we've done uh riffs earlier in the year.

01:11:01.000 Um but the Democrats have put us in a position where uh against the American people's interest, they've put us in shutdown.

01:11:09.000 Um obviously there's impacts on the American people as a result, but one of the problems of government shutdown is it slows down the administration.

01:11:17.000 So the administration can't do as much of what it was doing on behalf of the American people because it's in a shutdown.

01:11:24.000 And we to the best of our abilities want to minimize that that slowdown in momentum.

01:11:29.000 And I think the president is kind of uh doing that himself with you know solving Middle East peace uh and and all the manner of things that he spends his time in.

01:11:39.000 But you know, one of the things we want to do is if there are policy opportunities to downsize the scope of the federal government, we want to use those opportunities.

01:11:48.000 And if I can't do things, because you can't do everything you would normally do in a shutdown, right?

01:11:52.000 You it has to be generally related to life and protecting property.

01:11:56.000 Um and if I can only work on saving money then I'm gonna do everything I can to look for opportunities to downsize uh in areas where this administration has has thought this is what this is our way towards a balanced budget and I think you've seen some of that in the president's messaging.

01:12:14.000 So are we talking 10 people?

01:12:16.000 Are we talking 1,000 people?

01:12:19.000 Are we talking 10,000 people?

01:12:21.000 We're definitely talking thousands of people.

01:12:23.000 Much of the reporting has been based on kind of court snapshots, which they've articulated is in the 4,000 number of people.

01:12:33.000 But that's just a snapshot, and I think it'll get much higher.

01:12:37.000 And we're going to keep those riffs rolling throughout this shutdown because we think it's important to stay on offense for the American taxpayer and the American people in getting a government that if there's an opportunity to have less bureaucracy, and think of Green New Deal programs at the Department of Energy, think the Minority Business Development Agency at Commerce that divvies up business grants on the basis of race, think environmental justice at

01:13:06.000 EPA, think about CISA.

01:13:09.000 CISA was an area that we riffed, which was participating in censorship of the American people.

01:13:14.000 We want to be very...

01:13:16.000 very aggressive where we can be in shuttering the bureaucracy not just the funding but the bureaucracy that we now have an opportunity to do that and that's where we're gonna be looking for our our opportunities.

01:13:27.000 So you're saying there's been a snapshot of 4,000 jobs cut.

01:13:32.000 Correct.

01:13:33.000 Is there a special but but it could grow if we could grow higher I think we'll probably end up being north of 1000.

01:13:38.000 Now is there some special mechanism that allows you to do this during a government shutdown or are you simply saying hey while everything's stopped I'm going to turn my attention to this because it's a combination of both in the sense that Congress is saying we're not going to fund these programs by passing by not passing the Republican continuing resolution.

01:13:56.000 So if there's no funding for these programs, then what would you have us do?

01:14:00.000 Is it not to make an assumption that you don't intend to fund these in the future?

01:14:04.000 And so we are then doing the normal act legal authorities that are given to us and our focus, time and attention to be able to go after and prioritize the rifts as opposed to the deregulatory agenda or any of the things that we're normally tasked with at OMB.

01:14:21.000 Well, this I mean, just so you're aware, our audience, there's probably people doing, you know, high fives and jump kicks out of just pure excitement to hear you talking about this.

01:14:33.000 Meanwhile, legacy media, corporate media is probably writing, you know, hit pieces about this.

01:14:40.000 But the base is hungry for cuts.

01:14:42.000 It's so hungry for reductions in spending.

01:14:46.000 But, you know, we talk about this, the government shutdown.

01:14:49.000 I'll be honest, I didn't feel it at all until I got to Washington this week.

01:14:54.000 And then it wasn't until talking to staff that I would normally, you know, communicate with and saying, oh, I can't come in because I'm furloughed or whatever until the shutdown's over.

01:15:02.000 Is there a concern that this will start rippling outside of the imperial capital, outside of the swamp?

01:15:08.000 Because I don't I don't think Americans feel it.

01:15:10.000 And that's kind of probably a good realization because there's a lot of government we just simply don't need.

01:15:16.000 But is there a concern that we might start to feel it?

01:15:19.000 And in which ways will average Americans across the country begin to feel it?

01:15:24.000 So I think part of the catch up effect is that the people that are doing essential services are not getting paid.

01:15:30.000 So you may have border patrol, you may have air traffic control, the military, obviously, although we're fixing that by getting, finding a plain budgetary twister to find a pot of money that has a similar purpose that we can pay them.

01:15:46.000 And so it does have an impact on how long this can go without having severe repercussions.

01:15:51.000 And we don't want air traffic control to just start staying home sick.

01:15:55.000 So we want to get out of the shutdown.

01:15:58.000 We want to do what's necessary to get the government open.

01:16:02.000 We've put forward a very simple proposition, which is continue at current levels, and which is a CR.

01:16:09.000 And they have put forward $1.5 trillion in demands.

01:16:13.000 I mean, they said, all right, the entire title of the one beautiful bill has to be repealed.

01:16:17.000 And then we want all manner of expansions to continue to abide in health care policy that have largely been riddled with fraud.

01:16:27.000 And they said, they also want us to repeal our rescissions, which would get us us back in the public broadcasting business with with corporation for public broadcasting and they want us back in the foreign aid business so that we essentially reopen USAID.

01:16:40.000 And so the the the magnitude of their demands is madness.

01:16:45.000 And so we're trying to get that out to the American people and I think it will start to bite unfortunately in the days ahead.

01:16:52.000 But thankfully we've we've paid for the military law enforcement and border and they'll get their paychecks.

01:16:57.000 Oh okay so you did get law enforcement and border.

01:17:00.000 Okay, good.

01:17:01.000 Border is incredibly important as well because I think you know and Charlie believed this that the one you know you can argue about some of the other accomplishments are they're good or bad.

01:17:11.000 It's like no the border is this historic accomplishment and what you guys got done with the big beautiful bill to augment that force first time that I believe ICE personnel has been increased the number of ICE personnel has been increased in its history was a historic important tremendous uh accomplishment that fulfilled a mandate from the American people that they they they said they wanted that in November.

01:17:34.000 So the fact and they want by the way they wanted all the illegals out. 0.68

01:17:37.000 I mean there's a lot of polling that shows that this is Lane Schoenberger chief investment officer and founding partner of why refi it has been an honor and a privilege to partner with turning point and for Charlie to endorse us.

01:17:51.000 His endorsement means the world to us and we look forward to continuing our partnership with turning point for years to come.

01:17:57.000 Now hear Charlie in his own words tell you about why refi I'm going to tell you guys about why refi.com that is why dot com.

01:18:05.000 Why ReFi is incredible private student loan debt in America totals about 300 billion dollars.

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01:18:17.000 Go to why refi.com that is why refi.com do you have a co-borrower why reef I can get them released from the loan.

01:18:24.000 You can skip a payment up to 12 times without penalty it may not be available in all 50 states go to why refi.com that is y dot com let's face it if you have distress or default to student loans it can be overwhelming.

01:18:37.000 Because of privacy loan debt so many people feel stuck go to why refi.com that is y-e f y dot com private student loan debt relief why refi.com Rest vote director of OMB one of the most important people in government that's not named Vance or Trump right now because they're in a separate category is how is how I say it.

01:18:57.000 Is USAID gone?

01:18:59.000 Pretty close to it.

01:19:00.000 We're in the closeout phase of USAID in terms of having shifted anything that was legitimate that needed to go to state.

01:19:10.000 And we're now in the business of of closing it out, making sure that nonprofits that didn't share our values don't get any money, making sure we dispense of any property.

01:19:22.000 But also, I think importantly, Andrew, the extent to which we want to expose the American people, the extent of the corruption, the waste, the abuse, the horrible foreign policy that USAID was a part of.

01:19:34.000 And so my instruction to our kind of small team that has been given this responsibility is we're going to put everything we out there that we possibly can.

01:19:43.000 We've got all the records and we'll be mining those.

01:19:47.000 We'll be bringing in individuals with a specific skill set to be able to go deep and to find out the different tentacles and connections and connect the dots between.

01:19:56.000 Essentially, it was bad foreign policy and the extent to it was largely money.

01:20:01.000 wandering through nonprofits.

01:20:02.000 Maybe maybe dive into that just briefly here.

01:20:05.000 I know it's a short segment, but, you know, a lot of people allege that it was an icy carve out, that there was, you know, sort of meddling in foreign affairs and foreign governments.

01:20:15.000 Mike Benz has done a deep dives on dives on this data Republican.

01:20:18.000 Did you see that yourself?

01:20:20.000 We are we are desperately testing those theories.

01:20:24.000 And we know like we know, you know, a nation like Hungary will tell you USAID was actively pushing regime change in Hungary.

01:20:33.000 And we know that if they even if they weren't pushing regime change in many of these countries they were doing it culturally in the extent to which they were pushing uh woke policies and gay pride events uh in in countless countries and you know so those are the types of things that we want to bring to the American people's attention not just the extent to which hey we have an inspector general of one aspect of abuse that we can then talk about but we want to just the the extent to which it was everywhere with USAID.

01:21:02.000 And that's really what our goal is over the next several weeks and months but I think this will be uh you know the the final uh nail in the coffin the extent to which we put this agency out of business once and for all so just in the break I was like I asked that question and He goes, Well, it's a husk of its former self.

01:21:17.000 And I said, why is there even a husk?

01:21:19.000 And so I love it because you actually have a strategy here.

01:21:22.000 You're going to expose this and educate the American people on what was really going on and give the American people some transparency into this.

01:21:30.000 Another uh agency that you're working on closing, it sounds like the CFPB.

01:21:36.000 Yep.

01:21:37.000 Tell us about that.

01:21:38.000 Because I've heard I've heard people say, actually, of all the things, that actually did some good.

01:21:42.000 And we're, you know, but you disagree.

01:21:44.000 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

01:21:45.000 It's my third hat that I wear.

01:21:47.000 Uh thankfully it's across the street.

01:21:49.000 We don't have anyone working there except our Republican uh appointees and a few careers uh that are doing statutory responsibilities while we close down the the agency.

01:21:59.000 And I'll give you the reason why.

01:22:01.000 People say consumer financial protection, don't we want to protect consumers?

01:22:05.000 Absolutely.

01:22:06.000 This agency wasn't doing it.

01:22:08.000 It had the DNA of Elizabeth Warren.

01:22:10.000 So most, you know, you don't have to be a good one.

01:22:11.000 Okay, that's it.

01:22:13.000 You can convince me.

01:22:14.000 You come into OMB and our career staff, they they want to do what the president wants them to do, and uh, you know, they they're used to working for different presidents, right?

01:22:24.000 This agency, all they want to do is weaponize the tools of financial laws against basically small mom and pop lenders and other small financial institutions.

01:22:36.000 And that's what we saw.

01:22:37.000 I'll give you an example.

01:22:38.000 Townstone uh was a uh uh a lender in Chicago that they weaponized uh disparate impact to go after them and say that and there was never any complaints about lending that that was uh racially motivated or not lending, never a complaint.

01:22:55.000 And they ruined this guy's uh life for seven years.

01:22:59.000 And I called him up and I just said, look, we found internally that not only did they do this, but they knew they were doing it, and they deceived uh senior leadership to do it uh at the time.

01:23:11.000 And that's what we were being.

01:23:13.000 And we've seen it everywhere we look.

01:23:15.000 Oh, gosh.

01:23:15.000 And so we want to put it out, and we will be successful probably with the next two or three months.

01:23:19.000 If you hear, and Charlie was big on this actually, did a whole episode on disparate impact.

01:23:23.000 If you see that word anywhere in government, just know it's a poison pill and it's there to hurt you.

01:23:28.000 It's not good.

01:23:28.000 Yeah, it's not good.

01:23:29.000 It's not American, it's basically communist uh gobbledygook that's laundered in through an official sounding description.

01:23:37.000 Uh Russ vote, uh director of OMP, you're doing tremendous work.

01:23:40.000 Uh that your nation is grateful to you.

01:23:43.000 Charlie was grateful uh for everything that you're accomplishing and will accomplish, and we have just just the most uh respect we could and uh trust in your steady hand to get it done.

01:23:53.000 So thank you so much for joining us and for gifting this show with a very rare interview.

01:23:58.000 We appreciate it.

01:23:58.000 I'm greatly honored.

01:23:59.000 Thanks for having me here.

01:24:00.000 Thank you so much.

The Charlie Kirk Show - October 15, 2025

Vice President Vance and the Trump Admin Honor Charlie

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