On this episode of The Charlie Kirk Show: Hour 2, we are joined by Florida Congressman Byron D. Deutch, who is running for Governor of the Great State of Florida, to talk about the tragic loss of his son, Charlie Kirk, and the impact it has had on his life. He also talks about the importance of starting a Turning Point USA chapter at Truman State University in honor of Charlie.
00:00:56.000The 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.
00:01:09.000All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show Hour 2 getting underway.
00:01:13.000I'm Andrew Colvett, executive producer of this fine show with Blake Neff here in studio.
00:02:00.000Well, listen, we brought you on because we saw you were doing some great work with your son, who's taken a courageous step and turning point.
00:02:08.000And you've been speaking at our turning point events on the local level.
00:02:20.000The number one reason I believe that young people are frustrated is because you followed the advice that they told my generation.
00:02:27.000Just go to college and it's all going to work out.
00:02:29.000And I had peers who got the degree and they went into the workforce and realized that the degree did not have the value that they told us it would.
00:02:38.000Yeah, and that's you speak, I believe, because I think you've done a few different events, but this is Truman State University.
00:04:13.000And I think it's really important what Charlie started and his legacy is reaching young people for common sense, conservative policy and values and Western civilization.
00:04:24.000As long as we can continue that effort and that focus of making sure young people understand the policies and the value sets that make America the greatest country in the world, there'll be no stopping us.
00:05:49.000I do agree with the philosophical point that you shouldn't have to rent, essentially have to pay a lease or a fee to the government for you to be able to keep your property.
00:05:58.000And I do fundamentally agree with that from a philosophical standpoint.
00:06:02.000I think in terms of where we are in Florida, look, I think we're going to go down the line of repealing homestead property taxes.
00:06:16.000I think his full plan being given to the people of Florida is going to be critical for this to go from something that is an idea, something that should be accomplished, to actually being implemented.
00:06:28.000Because we're going to have to go through a couple of things: paying, how are we going to fund sheriffs and sheriff deputies and police officers?
00:06:35.000How are we going to pay firefighters, road construction, road maintenance?
00:06:40.000These are the things that local governments do pay for.
00:06:42.000So how are we going to make sure those things don't get disturbed?
00:06:50.000I do support repealing homestead property taxes.
00:06:52.000I agree that people should not have to pay a fee to the government just for the privilege of being able to keep their home.
00:06:59.000But there are key services that local governments provide.
00:07:02.000We want to make sure that that funding is there.
00:07:04.000Yeah, my take is if there's a smart way to do it where you're not hollowing out your education system, your fire department, and not shift the tax burden to younger families that are trying to get started.
00:07:15.000I mean, that's one of the benefits of Florida.
00:07:28.000And I think this is important because we want to talk about young people.
00:07:30.000The reason why I think a repeal of homestead property taxes helps first-time homebuyers is because when you go to buy a home, you're not just paying the sticker costs.
00:07:39.000You also have to pay the closing costs associated with buying it.
00:07:42.000When you go through closing on a piece of property, especially on a home, you have to escrow, pay up front a year's worth of property taxes.
00:07:51.000And so depending on what you're buying, that's several thousand dollars.
00:07:55.000So it actually, in my opinion, helps young people acquire that first home because it decreases the cost, decreases closing costs because you're not having to escrow taxes for acquiring the property.
00:08:06.000So that's where I think that a repeal of property taxes for homesteaded property does actually help young people get into the game of home ownership.
00:08:15.000How about, I think something that there's more unity on is a way you can lower housing prices across the board is just build more houses overall.
00:08:24.000And Florida overall has been good at that long term, but I know there are rising costs there now.
00:08:29.000So how about we look at what's the plan there?
00:08:32.000How do you make sure Florida's had a ton of people moving there?
00:08:35.000How do you make sure that they can be building houses both for the new arrivals and for the children of people who've been living there their whole lives?
00:08:42.000Well, let me talk about Florida specifically.
00:08:44.000The first thing is we have to really streamline the permitting and planning processes in our state.
00:08:51.000Right now in Florida, if you're going to build a single family home, it takes anywhere from 18 months to two and a half years of permitting before you can put a shovel in the ground.
00:09:02.000So you have just dead time in these projects.
00:09:05.000And this dead time where you're going through permitting is not free.
00:09:09.000That adds to the cost of constructing the home and that's paid by the consumer.
00:09:14.000It also delays the ability to actually build housing at scale so that you see prices overall come down.
00:09:22.000One of the reasons why our property values increased so rapidly in Florida is because during COVID-19, when by the way, Governor DeSantis did the best job in America of leading our state.
00:09:56.000It could even reduce it in some areas.
00:09:58.000And that's another way to open up home ownership for young people.
00:10:02.000On Capitol Hill, we got to get rid of these stupid regulations around housing and also these dumb regulations around procuring raw materials because that increases the material costs that goes directly into construction, which goes directly into the cost of the home.
00:10:20.000And some of the green New Deal weatherization stuff on homes that has made home construction more expensive, it's a problem too.
00:10:28.000We could keep talking for a whole lot longer, Congressman.
00:12:31.000It takes me back to a very dark moment in 2020.
00:12:35.000It was when all the riots were happening and Trump was talking, you know, I might send the guard into cities to restore orders.
00:12:41.000When the looting starts, the shooting starts, I believe he said.
00:12:44.000And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, I think it was Millie at the time, he released a letter to the armed forces that was eventually either leaked or published that said, basically, we're going to remind everyone that the military is the guardian of our Constitution and the freedom of speech and the right to protest.
00:13:02.000But I had the very dark thought that what he was laying the groundwork for, it was 2020, everyone was losing their minds, was Trump was going to say, go in and restore order in DC or in Minneapolis.
00:13:24.000And you kind of get the feeling they're trying to set that up here, that they want to have the military just start openly defying President Trump's orders as commander in chief.
00:13:33.000And that is a very dark constitutional Rubicon to cross.
00:13:37.000Yeah, you do not want to cross that at all.
00:13:39.000And I think that's why they were being so vague.
00:14:36.000They're willing to flout our own domestic laws because they actually hate this country.
00:14:39.000Lawmakers appearing in this video include Senator Slotkin from Michigan, Senator Mark Kelly from this state in Arizona, Representative Chris DeLuzio from Pennsylvania, Rep Maggie Goodlander from New Hampshire, Rep Chrissy Houlihan from Pennsylvania, and rep Jason Crowe.
00:14:59.000So you can refuse they so they basically the video is them reciting this version of the of the line, you can refuse illegal orders.
00:15:11.000And again, they're vague, but we're assuming they're talking about, you know, these cartel boats that apparently have drugs, laden with drugs, coming to the United States and international waters.
00:15:22.000I'm not sure what number we're up to, but they've blown up a number of these boats.
00:15:33.000The first time this goes awry and you blow up, you know, a fisherman's boat, you know, some guy just on, who decided to cruise the Caribbean in a manner resembling drugs.
00:15:44.000We saw that in the Middle East where we had those signature strikes, they'd call them, where anyone, you know, a group of, they look like, you know, 18 to 30 year old men in a group, and we'll just kind of presumptively label them terrorists.
00:15:57.000And we blew up people, not even just in Afghanistan.
00:16:10.000But listen, I am very in favor of that policy because I think there's probably really good intel on most of these, but you're right.
00:16:17.000We have to be in doubt probably don't.
00:16:20.000So far, they seem to have all been extremely on point because we know.
00:16:24.000And then to your point, though, the other thing that they're probably railing against is deportations and the National Guard being in some of these blue cities.
00:16:33.000Now, we've seen Memphis, Chicago, D.C., when the National Guard is present, when they ramp up deportations, crime is dropping precipitously.
00:16:41.000And what's funny is they don't even need to do much.
00:16:43.000Like the National Guard, if you've been to D.C., they are mostly just sort of standing around in high visibility areas.
00:16:48.000Yet even that bare minimum effort of showing you care is actually lowering crime.
00:19:25.000Yeah, on campuses, I would say statewide, it's been going very well.
00:19:30.000We've had some issues with getting chapters started because administrators are really pushing back on getting chapters started in our region.
00:19:37.000But in terms of there's a lot of them that are doing very well, and we're getting a lot of volunteers.
00:19:42.000And we actually have an event today that we're advertising for, and it's going very well.
00:19:46.000So we're very excited about how we're doing.
00:20:00.000How many events per quarter do you guys do just kind of and by the way, you know, in the wake of Charlie's assassination, are you seeing increased energy?
00:20:11.000Like you said, you're thinking you're going to fill the room to capacity.
00:20:16.000You know, I think we've sort of found ourselves in a bit of an interesting situation in Arkansas where we went from having about 75 registered members at the beginning of the semester.
00:20:25.000I think last time I said we were somewhere in the 300s, we're like 450 today at my chapter.
00:20:30.000So the growth just keeps happening, which is really awesome to see.
00:20:34.000But Arkansas, we have this weird issue where we really fight this battle of the apathetic voter.
00:20:42.000People are just disinterested in politics because the state is considered so red that conservatives don't seem to care that much because they say, well, my state's not going to change that much.
00:21:10.000We get this a lot in, and Charlie would talk about it a lot, how in red states, you know, actually, by the way, he mentioned this about Utah, how when it's considered to be safely red, you end up getting worse politicians because there's not the pressure, cooker.
00:22:23.000Is there a lot of fear out there with some of these people that are looking at graduating soon about the job market and about the affordability crisis?
00:22:31.000Man, I wish more people would pay attention to this.
00:22:34.000I think some do, but when it comes to H-1B, look at a company like Microsoft that just a couple months ago, they did a mass layoff.
00:22:42.000And at the exact same time, they applied for 6,000 new H-1B programs.
00:22:47.000And then they have the audacity to tell us that the United States is a lack of skilled workers.
00:22:51.000How can those two things possibly be the same?
00:22:55.000Either you're saying Americans are stupid and you went to college, went into potentially upwards of $100,000 in debt for nothing, or you are saying that it is simply cheaper to pay somebody from out of the country.
00:23:12.000And it's insulting to people in my generation.
00:23:15.000I wish more people would pay attention to it.
00:23:16.000And the reason that it persists is because they don't.
00:23:19.000And so there is still this perspective from a lot of people in our generation, more so sort of like the soft conservatives and especially the liberals, that, you know, legal immigration is fine.
00:23:29.000Maybe they'll, maybe some of the liberals will be like, but illegal immigration is bad.
00:23:33.000No, I mean, all of it is hurting Americans currently for the most part.
00:23:36.000And that's not to say there isn't the occasional reason to bring in a legal immigrant.
00:24:51.000They're all very stressed out about it.
00:24:53.000And I think we're seeing that right now in the polls because Vivek Ramoswamy in a state that Trump's won in the past three elections, he's currently losing in his race.
00:25:02.000So he is currently struggling and he is very much defending the H-1Bs.
00:25:06.000And I think that's going to hurt him in his race.
00:25:08.000So I think people are really underestimating politically how much of an issue this really is.
00:25:13.000And to echo what Dino said, I believe Will Kane did an educational segment on Fox.
00:25:18.00080% of these H-1Bs are entry-level jobs.
00:25:21.000So when you see people like Trump do these conferences where he says that these are for the super geniuses coming from Asia and India, it's like, well, are they actually really, or are they doing these entry-level jobs, taking jobs from Americans and then getting paid a lower wage to save the company from having to pay?
00:25:39.000Man, I think, I really hope that people are listening to this.
00:25:43.000I mean, you guys are expressing and articulating political viewpoints about sophisticated topics that I think sometimes older generations don't understand that you guys are this tuned into it.
00:25:55.000And so I'm going to ask this one more time, though.
00:26:00.000Are you saying this is stuff that you are hearing from like, just like I said, normies on campus?
00:26:05.000To some degree, I mean, I think a lot of people that I've talked to are more pissed off about the 600,000 Chinese students than they are specifically H-1B, which is valid.
00:26:20.000And then some people try and defend it and say it's fine.
00:26:23.000Didn't our own State Department say under the last presidential administration, Joe Biden, that like a third of Chinese visa like students are CCP spies that are taking our proprietary technologies and sending them back to their country?
00:26:39.000Like, should that not alone be disqualifying?
00:26:42.000Take out the entire labor market or it costs like driving up the prices of college admissions because there's only so many spots on a college campus.
00:27:11.000I would say young people are very passionate about American sovereignty.
00:27:14.000And American sovereignty extends to H-1Bs where Americans aren't getting jobs.
00:27:19.000It extends to foreign aid to Israel and other allies.
00:27:22.000That's something that Gen Z is very much worried about.
00:27:24.000I would say that's a big blanket statement that it really does cover a few different topics where people feel like American sovereignty and powerfulness and individuality is really losing to globalism, to foreign aid, and to many different things.
00:28:17.000But a lot of the reason that this is the case is because whether we like it or not, the reality is Zoron Mamdani provided solutions to people in my generation.
00:28:54.000And that's why we saw, what, like close to 10% of Trump voters in 24 voted for Mom Donnie?
00:28:59.000Yeah, people need to understand that the youth vote for Trump and the huge gains that we saw and what Charlie contributed to, those are not set in stone.
00:29:10.000And so Charlie was always big on, especially in his final months, talking about we're in a race against the clock.
00:29:15.000We have three and a half years and now three to really deliver on some of these economic policies and make sure that life gets better for young people.
00:29:26.000Thanksgiving holds so many memories, and I'm sure it's the same for you.
00:29:31.000Right now, there's a girl finding out she's pregnant.
00:29:33.000In the next couple of weeks, she's going to make a decision.
00:29:36.000And whatever decision she makes will become her memory of this Thanksgiving for the rest of her life.
00:29:41.000What will she be thankful for a year from now?
00:29:44.000She'll be thankful that you introduced her to her baby by providing a free ultrasound.
00:31:02.000So this poll shows that Trump's higher at this point in his second term than Bush and Obama at their point in their second term, just in terms of approval.
00:31:28.000So Danny is telling, this is not a scientific poll, but this is like a consensus online that Gen Z doomerism is at an all-time high and it ties directly into all the other stuff we're seeing, H-1B, Israel, everything.
00:32:16.000And I understand where they're coming from because the big ones that they really want to see done, perhaps, are going a little slowly, be it immigration enforcement.
00:32:25.000And the thing that I keep coming back to is, look, you've got to have a little grace.
00:32:30.000Like, our country did not become so screwed up overnight.
00:32:34.000Rome wasn't built in a day, and we're not going to fix it overnight either.
00:32:38.000I mean, it's been like 80 years since FDR was president, which I credit with a lot of the start of the government bloat in our country.
00:32:46.000It's not going to be toppled overnight by any means.
00:32:49.000But look, we've got coming down the line in January through March, probably another 10,000 immigration enforcement officers are going to be finally done with their training and hitting the streets.
00:32:59.000You're going to see deportation speed up.
00:33:01.000We are making incremental gains on a lot of the policy positions that we have.
00:33:07.000And people are so dejected and they want to latch on to something that they can't see the forest through the trees.
00:33:16.000They just get so caught up in the immediate because we're all stuck on our phones looking at social media algorithms that we're just, it's all doom and gloom all the time because that's all you see on Twitter.
00:33:28.000I think Brady wants to speak a little more on that.
00:33:33.000If you're on Twitter and Instagram, you would think Trump's approval rating is 20% because you have left-wing people as prideful as ever criticizing Trump.
00:33:41.000And then you have people right-wing saying MAGA is dead.
00:33:44.000So you have basically everyone, both left and right-wing, criticizing Trump and saying America is in a terrible place and it's only going to get worse.
00:33:51.000But what we actually see with that approval rating is people are actually generally happy with where the country is going.
00:33:57.000And it's really actually misrepresentative overall of what the American politics looks like.
00:34:02.000And I think this doomer stuff does apply to Israel, which we are going to talk about as well, because it does directly relate to where people think Americans really are getting sold out to foreign countries, which kind of gets back to the American sovereignty stuff that I talked about earlier.
00:34:15.000So one of the things that I'm noticing just talking with you guys is that it's just like you've you've brought up H-1Bs like, I think, five or six times.
00:34:28.000And I think that's really telling because we could see it as sort of this abstract sort of Twitter debate or something.
00:34:35.000You're saying like on campus, this is front and center for you guys.
00:34:39.000This is something you talk about a lot.
00:34:42.000Let's quickly transition to the Israel topic.
00:34:46.000If you just had to gauge amongst your peers, 50%, 60%, how many of your peers, let's say conservatives, and then maybe include liberals there, how many are supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship?
00:35:01.000Gosh, on campus, it is slim, both left and right-wing.
00:35:06.000I'm honestly having trouble meeting people, conservative or liberal, that currently support the Israeli regime or their invasion of Palestine.
00:35:14.000It is very hard to find people supportive right now.
00:35:30.000Look, I'm not a big fan of everything that's going on with Israel.
00:35:33.000Like I said on the Charlie Kerr, the big roundtable that we did a couple months ago, like I find it insulting when we send money to all these foreign countries when we've got such huge issues in our country, be it the fact that we can't, you know, beat our veterans.
00:35:46.000We've got thousands of homeless people.
00:35:49.000I mean, we need to be making strides on this.
00:35:52.000And it isn't specifically the fact that it is Israel for me.
00:35:56.000It's just the fact that we are too bogged down talking about foreign policy right now when we have such massive domestic issues that we need to tackle.
00:36:06.000And those are the things that move the needle for voters the most.
00:36:20.000It's not like we're going to bring in students and they could potentially take your jobs.
00:36:23.000That's why H-1B is like the biggest thing in Gen Z because it's directly just these people are coming in to take your job versus a policy that where that could happen.
00:36:32.000And so that's why I think H1B is a big issue for Gen Z.
00:36:36.000And so that ties into kind of just another thing, Israel.
00:36:39.000So why do you think Gen Z is so caught up on Israel versus other countries that we give more foreign money to?
00:36:59.000I think also it's because there was such a stigma behind talking about it in American politics for a long time because the lobby is very strong, as I talked about back on the panel as well in the summer.
00:37:11.000And now that the Overton window is kind of shifting, people are allowed to talk about it more now.
00:37:16.000So you get these like radicalizing elements that really do kind of corrupt our young generation because it's so easily to attach yourself to it without really knowing what they're talking about.
00:37:29.000I pretty much completely concur with everything that Brady just said.
00:37:32.000I'm going to tack on this a little bit at the end here.
00:37:34.000And that is that I think a lot of us, we want a reason to be upset sometimes.
00:37:40.000Some people, they want to get out their anger, their frustrations.
00:37:43.000Perhaps it's because they haven't been reading their Bible.
00:37:45.000Perhaps they've got something going on in their life.
00:37:47.000And Israel's just a soft target for a lot of people because they know that if they go on social media and they start dogging on Israel, they're going to get clicks.
00:37:54.000That's not to say there's not legitimate criticisms.
00:37:57.000There are legitimate criticisms, but it's certainly not the biggest issue for the United States today.
00:38:02.000It's just one that people are easily able to sort of take out their anger on, as far as I'm concerned.
00:38:09.000You know, a funny thing, I talk to Charlie about this is sometimes an issue just takes on a life of its own.
00:39:39.000I think it's algorithmically driven in the sense that successful algorithms give people content they want to see that will keep them coming back.
00:39:46.000And it turns out that's content people just love engaging with over and over and over again.
00:39:50.000I do think there's some strong evidence that there's a lot of foreign bots involved and a lot of it's giving people a reward cycle online.
00:40:00.000They get clicks, they get comments, a lot of which are bots, but they see those engagement numbers and they go, ooh, let's go back to it.
00:40:06.000It's so easy to say my opponents only believe this because they're paid to do it or because of foreign propaganda.
00:42:04.000And we're putting up with it because we have this suicidal empathy where we say, oh, well, they come from like these really rough parts of the world and we just need to help them.
00:42:59.000I'm going to send the clips to people in power to help make them listening because I do think it's a generational wide.
00:43:04.000Wouldn't you say, Danny, it's like generationally Gen Z outpunches beyond its weight class here.
00:43:12.000One of the only policies where it's a directly taking your job first, the other ones lead to that potentially, but H-1B directly affects our generation specifically.