The Charlie Kirk Show, February 12, 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show – February 12, 2026

Podcast: Real America’s Voice | iHeartPodcasts
Episode Date: February 12, 2026
Host: Charlie Kirk
Notable Guests and Contributors: Chip Roy, Blake Neff, Alex Berenson, Tom Bevin, Terrence Bates

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show dives into several key current events and policy debates from a strong, right-leaning populist perspective. Main topics include:

• Political hearings and allegations of corruption in government welfare programs
• The fallout and policy context following a tragic mass shooting in Canada
• The link between mental illness, online radicalization, gender dysphoria, pharmaceuticals, and violent crime
• Increasing concern about the effects of marijuana legalization, with emerging mainstream (including NYT) acknowledgment of harm claims
• Deep-dive into the SAVE Act, voting integrity, and federalism debates in U.S. elections
• A segment on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s contentious House testimony, with direct congressional insight from Chip Roy
• Economic messaging and electoral strategy for Republicans, featuring polling analysis by Tom Bevin
• Audience feedback on addiction, marijuana legalization, culture, and the imperative of personal responsibility

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Heated Political Testimony: Fraud Allegations in Minnesota Welfare (00:25–05:00)

• Committee Chair interrogates Minnesota AG Terrence Bates about alleged $9 billion in welfare fraud (‘Feeding Our Futures’ program).
• Bates accused of helping fraudsters by pledging to intervene in state investigations and accepting a $10,000 campaign donation (“You helped fraudsters defraud your state and this government of $9 billion and you got a fat campaign contribution out of it. You ought to be indicted.” – Chair, 04:45).
• Bates repeatedly denies the allegations, saying his office assisted with prosecutions, not interference.
• Kirk and panel frame the event as emblematic of lack of accountability in government spending.

2. Canadian Mass Shooting: Mental Health, Gender Ideology & Gaming (05:40–23:05)

Event Context

• Discussion of a “trans shooter in Canada” who murdered nine, including family and classmates.
• Focus on the disturbing nature of the perpetrator’s online footprint: Joker-style videos, Reddit posts about transgender identity, and “mall shooting simulator” games on Roblox (07:08–13:11).
• Kirk and Neff claim radical gender ideology, SSRIs (antidepressants), and online fantasy/gaming were all ignored warning signs.

Notable Quotes & Analysis

• “You should have compassion on people that have mental health issues. You should not enable those mental health issues.” – Charlie Kirk (09:31)
• “If you don’t know who your children are talking to online, you, you have to be aware very dark things could be going on.” – Blake Neff (13:11)
• “Fantasies lead to realities. And for goodness sakes, do not shove SSRIs down their throats…” – Charlie Kirk (14:37)

Role of Gaming & Social Media

• Host alleges platforms like Roblox and Discord foster radicalization and provide a “playground for pedophiles.”
• Kentucky Attorney General lawsuit against Roblox cited.

Demographic Patterns in Shootings

• Citing unconfirmed but “directionally accurate” data, Kirk says: “Trans, non-binary biological male tops the list per capita of mass shootings…” (16:29–18:26)
• Discussion of several trans or gender non-conforming perpetrators in recent shootings.
• Neff and Kirk argue “progressive compassion” enables, rather than addresses, such violence.

3. SAVE Act, Voter ID & Federalism Debate (27:47–37:26)

• Congressman Chip Roy details the origins and goals of the SAVE Act (federal citizenship verification and voter ID for federal elections).
• Explains constitutional basis for federal involvement in election law: “It does say the states do the time, place and manner, but it also then says Congress can come in and do it too, explicitly in the Constitution.” – Chip Roy (29:58–31:47)
• Pushback addressed: Opponents call SAVE Act “Jim Crow 2.0”; Roy and Kirk counter with polling showing broad voter support for ID requirements.

Notable Exchange:

• “Are you saying that black voters…the SAVE Act dumb to know what’s good for them?” – Kirk to a CNN panelist (34:46)

• “It’s the height of racism and condescension that these nanny state white liberals want to tell everybody how they can do things.” – Chip Roy (35:03)

• Special provisions in the Act for provisional ballots and varied ID documentation discussed.

• Roy remains confident about court challenges and bipartisan momentum.

4. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Allegations & Chip Roy's Perspective (39:00–44:37)

• Follow-up with Chip Roy regarding Bondi’s handling of the Epstein case (names redacted or released) and claims of DOJ weaponization.
• Roy highlights:
  1. The Trump administration prosecuted Epstein and Maxwell.
  2. There are ongoing investigations into Epstein co-conspirators.
  3. Democrat committee members focused on scoring political rather than substantive points.
• “We have a job to push. I’m going to try to go look at the files this afternoon…we’re trying to seek the truth wherever it may lead.” – Chip Roy (41:09)
• Bondi credited for pushback under intense questioning.

5. Marijuana Crisis: Acknowledgment From the Mainstream (52:28–70:28)

Expert Guest: Alex Berenson

• Former NYT reporter and critic of marijuana legalization.
• NYT editorial admits “It’s time for America to admit it has a marijuana problem.” (52:28–54:55)
• Viral post from Brett Cooper (conservative commentator) details her brother’s weed-induced psychosis and schizophrenia.

Key Quotes:

• “This drug isn’t harmless, no matter what our culture and screaming people in comment sections tried to tell us.” – Brett Cooper (55:18)
• “There are probably hundreds of thousands of young people, mostly men, but some women, in the United States and Canada who become severely mentally ill as a result of cannabis use who wouldn’t have been. Hundreds of thousands of lives ruined, hundreds of thousands of families.” – Alex Berenson (67:54)
• Pot use described as more addictive than alcohol; spike in daily users since legalization.
• Discussion of the failure of “marijuana as harmless medicine” campaign, adverse outcomes, and industry profit incentives.
• Q&A: Weed as gateway drug, cognitive decline, violent crime correlation—all answered in the affirmative.

6. Economic Polling & GOP Messaging (75:15–84:58)

Polling Guru: Tom Bevin, RealClearPolitics

• Debates on the impact and popularity of the SAVE Act, inflation, Trump’s economic messaging, and voter perceptions.
• Notes that while economic indicators improve, perception lags, and “affordability” remains a dominant concern.

Notable Points:

• “The problem he has is a perception problem because people think the economy sucks, even though there are aspects of the economy that are really good.” – Tom Bevin (77:31)
• Emphasizes importance of “kitchen table” issues and Trump focusing on wage growth for the middle class.

7. Listener Feedback: Addiction, Marijuana, Permissive Culture (89:00–94:05)

• Broad agreement on dangers of addiction permeating society, especially among the underclass; many listeners share personal stories of family members affected.
• Libertarian arguments for drug freedom addressed, with panel emphasizing the communal societal cost and the importance of duty and responsibility.
• “All these addictions we push everywhere, they are encouraging people to abdicate their duties towards others, which are part of what make us fully human beings.” – Blake Neff (93:09)

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Memorable Quotes with Timestamps

• “You helped fraudsters defraud your state and this government of $9 billion and you got a fat campaign contribution out of it. You ought to be indicted.” – Interviewer/Committee Chair (04:45)
• “You should have compassion on people that have mental health issues. You should not enable those mental health issues.” – Charlie Kirk (09:31)
• “Fantasies lead to realities. And for goodness sakes, do not shove SSRIs down their throats when they're dealing with severe mental illness.” – Charlie Kirk (14:37)
• “Trans, non binary biological male tops the list per capita of mass shootings.” – Charlie Kirk (16:29)
• “It’s the height of racism and condescension that these nanny state white liberals want to tell everybody how they can do things.” – Chip Roy (35:03)
• “There are probably hundreds of thousands of young people…who become severely mentally ill as a result of cannabis use who wouldn’t have been.” – Alex Berenson (67:54)
• “The problem that he has is a perception problem because people think the economy sucks, even though there are aspects of the economy that are really good.” – Tom Bevin (77:31)
• “We should seek out duties. That’s why Charlie would advocate marriage, children. You become a stronger person when you actually have responsibilities and duties to fulfill.” – Blake Neff (93:09)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Corruption Hearing, MN AG & Welfare Fraud: 00:25–05:00
• Canada Mass Shooting, Mental Health, Gaming: 05:40–23:05
  • Roblox, Online Radicalization: 09:28–13:11
  • Demographic Trends: 16:29–18:26
• SAVE Act, Voter Integrity Debate (w/ Chip Roy): 27:47–37:26
• Pam Bondi Testimony, DOJ, Epstein (w/ Chip Roy): 39:00–44:37
• Marijuana Crisis, NYT, & Alex Berenson: 52:28–70:28
• Economic Messaging & Polling (w/ Tom Bevin): 75:15–84:58
• Listener Feedback, Addictions, Libertarian Arguments: 89:00–94:05

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Tone and Style

• The episode maintains a combative, unapologetically conservative tone, blending investigative and legislative commentary with cultural critique, and gives weight to personal and listener anecdotes.
• Language is direct, loaded with skepticism toward progressive “compassion,” government overreach, and mainstream media narratives.

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Conclusion

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show offers a densely packed, sharply critical analysis of headline news: from government corruption, mental health crises, the intersection of gender and violence, the fallout from permissive drug policies, to the mechanics of voting integrity and shaping the 2026 political battlefield. The hosts and guests urge vigilance, responsibility—both personal and civic—and challenge what they see as the dominant, destructive cultural and political trends of the day.

Transcript

[Charlie Kirk]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Guaranteed Human Announcer]

Guaranteed Human.

[Charlie Kirk]

The Charlie Kirk show starts now.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Let me start with you. You're the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota. Do I have that correct?

[Alex Berenson]

That's a y.

[Chip Roy]

Is.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You're not gonna answer my questions? Are we gonna start this way? Are you the Attorney General of the state of Minnesota? Yes or no?

[Charlie Kirk]

You know the answer.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Shelveson, you're in my courtroom now. You're under oath. So I suggest that you answer my question to the chief law enforcement officer of the state of Minnesota. Yes or no? Let's try another question. Are you familiar with the $9 billion in historic fraud out of your state, including the $250 million in defeating our future program alone? You familiar with that? Don't turn to the pages in your book to get your potted. Are you familiar with it? Yes or no?

[Terrence Bates]

Yes, I am familiar with.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Very familiar. Aren't you? Because the people who ran the Feeding Our Futures program came to you in your official office in the state Capitol, Dec. 11, 2021, and asked for your help in getting investigators off their backs. They complained to you for upwards of an hour about state investigators going after them and they begged you to help them. And you agreed to it, amazingly, and we know you did because it's all all caught on tape. Every single sentence is caught on tape. Here's what you said. Let's take a look. You said, it's not a question. You said to them, send me the names of all these folks who are investigating them. You said to them, send me their names and I'll take that list and I'll call the person over at education who is investigating them and say, what's going on? Why am I getting these complaints? Then he went on to say, I already have my team working on this. What day should we get together to discuss it again? You made pledge after pledge to them. You said, we've got to make sure this guy who's investigating them stops it. You said, you have my attention. I'm concerned about this. You said, let's go fight these people, meaning the people who were investigating the fraud. Why'd you do it? Why'd you help them?

[Terrence Bates]

Are you gonna let me answer?

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Please. We're all of you.

[Terrence Bates]

So first of all, you're cherry picking course out of there.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

The why did you help?

[Terrence Bates]

I thought you were going to let me answer.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Why did you.

[Terrence Bates]

Are you going to let me answer?

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Why did you help?

[Terrence Bates]

You let me answer and I'll answer.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You tell the truth and I'll let you answer. I will Tell the truth. That'd be a nice change.

[Terrence Bates]

So, no, that. Now, see, Mr. Chairman, I didn't come here to be insulted. I came here.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You came here for the truth. Let's have. Why did you help here? They're in black and white. And every member of this audience and their chair listen to the recording is 54 minutes long. It's all in public. You can Google it right now and listen to it and listen to it. Why you help them?

[Terrence Bates]

First of all, I didn't help them.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You did.

[Terrence Bates]

No, I did not. I certainly didn't.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You're saying you didn't do anything for him? You didn't.

[Charlie Kirk]

You didn't.

[Chip Roy]

Well, wait a minute.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

I already have my team working on this again. That's not you.

[Charlie Kirk]

I have.

[Terrence Bates]

I have my team. My team assisted with the information that led to the prosecution and conviction of these people.

[Charlie Kirk]

You didn't.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You didn't look finger to prosecute them. No, you did not. No, because they were federal.

[Chip Roy]

You had.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Oh, bs. You had whistleblowers.

[Terrence Bates]

You're the one talking bs.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Hey, listen, it's my time.

[Terrence Bates]

Doesn't know what you're talking about.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Sir. You now have encountered the truth that you don't like it. Why'd you take your money? Why you take their money?

[Terrence Bates]

I didn't.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

You took $10,000.

[Terrence Bates]

That's a false statement.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

$10,000. Nine days after the meeting. False statement. You took $10,000. Here's what happened. They went to your office. They solicited money from you. They solicited help from you. They came to your office. It was your official office. You met with them for 54 minutes. They asked you for help. You pledged it to them. And they talked repeatedly about money. In fact, it's all they talk about.

[Charlie Kirk]

Money, money, money, money.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

They said, we will put our dollars in the right place. We will support candidates that will fight to protect our interests. You replied. That's right. They said, you are securing your donor base and securing your power base. You can act the way you want. You replied. Money is freedom. They said, the amount of money circulate. I'm reading the transcript. The amount of money circulating in our community today is powerful and we haven't realizing it in a meaningful way. And you said, give me the specifics. And nine days later, you took $10,000 from people who were then indicted. It's in your reports. Why you do it, sir?

[Tom Bevin]

This it.

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

Was it worth it?

[Terrence Bates]

You know what this is?

[Interviewer/Committee Chair]

A theatrical 10,000. This is the truth. What accountability looks like of which you've had None. You helped fraudsters defraud your state and this government of $9 billion. And you got a fat campaign contribution out of it. You ought to be indicted.

[Terrence Bates]

True.

[Charlie Kirk]

Charlie. Every day there's a battle for your mind. Raging information coming from every angle with.

[Terrence Bates]

The will to deceive.

[Charlie Kirk]

Fear not. You found the place for truth.

[Tom Bevin]

The voice of a generation that still.

[Charlie Kirk]

Has the will to believe in the greatest country in the history of the world. This is the Charlie Kirk Show. Buckle up. Here we go.

[Chip Roy]

All right.

[Charlie Kirk]

Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show here@the mobilebitcoin.com studios. We are still in Palm Beach. Well, I am. And Blake is holding it down in Phoenix, Arizona.

[Blake Neff]

Bitcoin.com Arizona.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's true. You're at the studio there. Your one stop shop to buy, sell and trade bitcoin. Check them out today. We want to start today's show by unpacking some of the newest details involving the trans shooter in Canada that left nine dead, including himself, as well as his stepbrother, a 12 year old stepbrother and his mom, and then killing a bunch of kids and one teacher. The kids were between 12 and 13. It's just an absolutely excruciating story. But some of the details that have emerged have been raising eyebrows just because they are so, I would say troubling, demonic, frightening. And we have to play this video because I think it sets the tone for what we're about to unpack. Now this is the alleged Canada shooter laughing maniacally. And I want you to look at this video of this individual and then realize that instead of getting mental help or spiritual help, the officials in Canada instead decided to pour poison and drugs and more SSRIs down his throat 447.

[Blake Neff]

Well, well, for those who can't see it, he's, he has makeup on like he's the Joker from the Dark Knight. Like on his, on his face kind of, you know, like Heath Ledger from the Dark Knight seems to be like cackling to himself. And that's such a. It's an underrated. Because they would basically censor it. A part of the radical transgender ideology is so much of it is people who get lost in fictional worlds, they want to become fictional characters. One reason when people change their names, they tend to not just pick a feminine version of, of their original name, they'll pick like a totally new one. Like they're like they're creating a new character in a video game. And that's one of something that incredible that was found the other day years ago. Matt Walsh on his Twitter account he posted something that had been posted on a Reddit thread about transgenderism and the it was a user who's saying how do I stop comparing myself to fictional characters? And they go on. I am a trans MTF 15 year old. I've been viewing a lot of anime related content I was never into before and goes on about always relating himself to these anime characters. And Matt Walsh posted this and basically saying these people are not mentally well. And everyone on the pro transgender Reddit flipped out at the time. It went viral at the time. And now here we are three years later and it appears the owner of that account is young man who murdered two of his family members and then a bunch of innocent people at his. A bunch of innocent children at his own school.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And we have the video here with the sound. And I wanted to play it with the sound because when you see this with the audio, I think it's even more impactful. It's more terrifying. 469. Yeah, absolutely.

[Blake Neff]

Never play that video on this program again. Oh my gosh.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, I, we, we will never do that again. But I think it's important because these are the people that a certain contingent of the population, mostly radical progressives, are doing everything in their power to defend, to apologize for, to create avenues and protections, legal or otherwise, as opposed to getting them the help that they need. You should have compassion on people that have mental health issues. You should not enable those mental health issues. But another wrinkle has emerged that this individual had a Roblox account. And this is going to be a repeated theme on this show. Moving forward, we're going to unpack what Roblox is, and Blake is our resident gaming expert here. But this is a Roblox account. Well, but you probably know more about it than I do. Belonging to the Canadian mass shooter, it was discovered by the Internet forum Kiwi Farms last night. One of the games created by the shooter is a mall shooting simulator. A mall shooting simulator modeled after a real mall in Canada where the player can fire into a crowd of innocent, helpless, terrified civilians. So this is what young kids can do on Roblox. They can create simulations. They can create their own worlds that they can then act out these fantasies. I think this is interesting because actually the Kentucky Attorney General is actually suing Roblox and is charting, is citing the Assassination of Charlie as one of his inspirations for doing this because he's saying that the gaming platform is violating child safety by giving them opportunity to create these simulations where they can Shoot ICE officers where they can, shoot DHS officers where they can, in this instance, create a simulation where they're attacking innocent civilians at a mall, modeled after a mall. So if you think this through, you realize that they could be. They could be creating an entire map for how they can game out an actual attack on civilians. So they're creating the map in their head so that they could, in theory, follow through on an actual shooting based on the actual layout of a mall in this instance or any other public space, any other soft target. So that's the Kentucky Attorney General, Russell Coleman. And the gaming platform has 111 million active monthly users. And he's alleging that it lacks guardrails to protect kids and creates a playground for pedophiles to meet potential victims, which is another weird wrinkle in this Roblox story. So you've got a whole gaming platform that. Now we know that this kid was on Reddit. He was talking about his trans fascination on Reddit. He was creating Roblox simulations where he was doing mass shootings. And then he actually ends up going and doing it and shooting his mom, shooting his stepbrother, shooting a bunch of kids and a teacher. And meanwhile, the Canadian officials, we talked about this yesterday. We went out of their way to protect the identity and the privacy of the shooter. Out of. Out of privacy concerns. They refused to acknowledge at first that this was a trans person that shoot. Shot up everybody in Canada. Yeah, well, think about that. The absolute upside down nature of their value system that they would care about the privacy of a mass murderer. Go ahead, Blake.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, well, yeah, they. They kept it a secret, basically. It almost felt like just long enough to, like, okay, we have to push this past the first day. And then, you know, they ultimately can't keep it secret. Who did a massacre like this? On the Roadblocks topic, it's. You don't want to fixate on the specific game, though it is true, a ton of people are in it. It's hugely popular. But you also find these people in Minecraft, you find them in similar games, and you'll also see people. We saw this with Charlie, where people are going in discords. Discord started as a gaming server for people to discuss games, but now there's a million discords dedicated to political radicalism, dedicated to transgender topics. They radicalize each other on these forums. And I think the big picture thing to be aware of, like, if you're a parent right now, if you're a parent right now, you have to realize there are gigantic online worlds that it's very easy for your children to get sucked into and have it just totally take over their life. If you don't know who your children are talking to online, you, you have to be aware very dark things could be going on. It's not that you need to police everything you do, but you should be talking to them who are your friends online and make sure they have friends offline as well. If they're just marinating in this soup of whatever is reaching them on the Internet all alone with no input from real people around them, incredibly dark things can be unfolding. And as parents, fantasies responsibility to be aware of that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Fantasies lead to realities. And for goodness sakes, do not shove SSRIs down their throats when they're dealing with severe mental illness. My goodness. We'll get into that on the other side of this break. All right, guys, our inbox is flooding. Everybody's seemed to hit a nerve in that first segment. So please send us your thoughts. Freedom Charlie Kirk.Freedom Charlie Kirk.com we'll do our best to get to them and respond to them on the show. We're gonna have Chip Roy join us. Next segment, talking about the SAVE act, the updates there, as well as Pam Bondi's explosive hearing yesterday. He's gonna be he's running for the attorney general of Texas, so it's relevant. And then in hour two, we're gonna have Alex Baronson talking about weed. New York Times has shifted its position on weed. And then we've got Tom Bevin from Real Clear on some recent polling. Real quick here. I want to tell you guys about our friends over at why refi, why refi.com they are amazing patriots. There it is. Give them a call, 888 yrefi34 or log on at y refi.com with a 3 minute rate check with zero credit impact, you can get on your way to a brighter financial future. If you find yourself with distressed or defaulted private student loans, why Refi is there to help? They're great patriots. They're good people. They care about you. They wake up in the morning, all they want to do is help you get out from under your private student loan debt. They're amazing people. You can even skip a payment with them every six months up to 12 times without penalty. They don't care what your credit score is. You can get mom and dad off the loan. If you or somebody you know is struggling with private student loan debt, it's a kind of a niche world. There's nobody else there out there that's going to help you.

[Guaranteed Human Announcer]

Why?

[Charlie Kirk]

Refi can help you give them a shot. They are great people. They support Turning Point. They support this country. Great patriots. And you can trust them. We're all in with them. So check them out. Why refi.com or call them at 888y refi34. All right, so real quick here. There is a graph going around. We're working on confirming it. There isn't any listed sources, but Blake, probably Blake, just put up a great tweet yesterday documenting all the recent shootings that involve trans people. And so at least directionally, this graph feels accurate. So go up and go ahead and throw up. 448. It's mass shootings by demographic 2015 to 2025. And these are public incidents with four more fatalities expressed as rates per million of the population. Trans, non binary biological male tops the list per capita of mass shootings. Trans, non binary biological female comes in second. Then Asian men, black men, white men, Asian women, Hispanic men. Now, again, we're working on confirming the source, but it's hard to argue when you look back, even just at recent history, when you look back at what even happened with Charlie. Although the Charlie shooter was not a trans individual himself, he had a relationship with somebody that was trans and had gender identity, whatever. And so this is a rising epidemic, a problem where we give drugs, mental drugs, mental health drugs, SSRIs, etc, hormone therapy to the most mentally unstable people in our population. And it needs to stop. It should be, frankly, illegal what they're doing to young people. And Blake, do you have that list of recent shootings, school shootings, church shootings involving trans individuals?

[Blake Neff]

I don't have it in front of me, but I can remember a lot of, you know, off the top of my head. We have the Covenant School shooter that was. That was a biological female, but still a trans case. There was one at a school in Colorado, I think in 2017. There were two shooters, but one was transgender. There was the Annunciation Catholic in Minneapolis just a matter of months ago. In fact, just days before what happened to Charlie. And of course, we have the Charlie's own case, which is adjacent and now this. And it's not that there's a huge number of them by volume, but overall there's not. Thankfully, there's not that many spree killers overall, and there's not that many transgender people. They're probably under 1% of the population, even with young people. And so to have four or five of them just in a sequence of a Matter of years. It really does stand out. And I don't think that's going to be the last we're going to see of it, because we took this insane cocktail of people who are deeply troubled, and instead of getting them help, we've told them, actually, your delusions should be indulged. And if people are not indulging them, they're trying to commit genocide against you. And rationally, how do you respond to people trying to commit genocide against you and just fed all of these lies about how they, how they should view this, how they should act, and then supercharged with any number of drugs, hormones, SSRIs, the shooter in Tumblr Ridge, he was apparently taking like over 200 milligrams a day of Zoloft when 25 is the one you start with. And I think 200 is the absolute maximum. So super dosing on this and on a bunch of other drugs as well. And shocker, it blew up in everyone's faces. And I don't think this will be the last one we see.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, I agree, but this is a larger theme of Democrat, or if you want to just say progressive left wing compassion gone awry. They do this at the border. They think that letting in millions of people at the border is compassion. Then it leads to lots of dead Americans. It leads to carnage in the streets, commercial trucks getting into mass fatality accidents on our highways. It is the complete opposite of compassion. It's actually cruelty to the American citizen. It's cruelty to the, in this case, to the Canadian citizen. When you absolutely defy nature, when you defy law and order, when you defy the natural order, it ends in these absolute catastrophies. And that's one of the themes of Democrat compassion. They'll always label or put a veneer of compassion on some of the cruelest, most obscene, most crass, most absurd policies or positions that they take in the public space. And they need to be called out again and again and again because real people are getting hurt. And not by the way. This young man should have been helped. He should have been dealt with with compassion and with honesty, with sincerity. But the left creates a ideological prison around normal people that they cannot navigate out of, they're not equipped to navigate out of it. And they get stuck in these idle ideological cul de sacs where even this mother, who apparently was sort of a right leaning libertarian type person, posted on her social media that we shouldn't be attacking marginalized people. And with a, with a. Blake, correct me if I'm Wrong. It was a picture on her social media with like a trans flag or LGBTQ flag.

[Blake Neff]

Exactly. She had.

[Charlie Kirk]

And that's.

[Blake Neff]

But the language of compassion sort of takes over these people's brains and they interpret compassion as endless enabling. So we enable the delusions of people who think they're the opposite sex. We enable people to, for example, like people who shouldn't be in this country, who aren't qualified for jobs. We help them get into jobs that they should not be working because they are not qualified for them, they are not capable of them. We enable addicts to get drugs, we enable the homeless to wreck communities. And this is cruelty to the individuals themselves. Like, I don't think this trans shooter, it didn't work out well for him that he was enabled endlessly. It doesn't work out well for people who are working the wrong job and they end up killing people, they end up going to jail and it doesn't work out for anyone in society. When we wreck our cities, when we wreck our public spaces, when we wreck our institutions, it is fake compassion. Real compassion requires sometimes making hard choices. This young man probably should have been in an institution somewhere, somewhere that he could get help and at the least where he couldn't hurt himself or other people. And instead, nine people are dead and 25 injured.

[Charlie Kirk]

There's also a harrowing story of a 12 year old that was shot in the head and she's still surviving and we pray for her and her family. Just a terrible situation all the way around. Chip Roy joins us next.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this Real America's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. The Trump administration is drawing down its ICE anti immigration operation in the Minneapolis area. Border czar Tom Holman made the announcement this morning, leading many to question whether the administration is backing down due to public pressure and losing the narrative battle on the way the operation is being handled.

[Alex Berenson]

For those who say we are backing down from immigration enforcement or the promise of mass deportations, you are simply wrong. Look at the data. Record number of arrests and deportations under President Trump's first year and we will continue that effort. Prioritizing public safety threats and national security threats doesn't mean we forget about everybody else. We will take action on everybody else.

[Terrence Bates]

Homan says while the operation is drawing down, he plans to remain in Minnesota to oversee the continuing operation there. Meantime, the picture we're getting ready to show you is about the only evidence you'll find of Wednesday's meeting between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House Sit down was an encore to Netanyahu's meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US delegation to Israel. Taking to truth Social 47 described the meeting as good, but also noted that nothing definitive was reached other than that President Trump himself insisted that negotiations with Iran continue this in hopes of reaching a deal. The commander in chief also writes, we discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza and the region in general. There's truly peace in the Middle east. He writes. Attorney General Pam Bondi's impassioned and at times contentious testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday as continuing to make headlines. This morning, the nation's top prosecutor faced questions about her handling of the Epstein file, specifically accusations that she hid names. She was also accused of weaponizing the Department of Justice. Bondi defended herself, though, while simultaneously turning the table on Democrat lawmakers for what she described as their failures and the refusal to focus on what voters really want. General Bondi says the left's tactics are meant to distract from all the good work the administration is doing.

[Charlie Kirk]

Forging an all new greatest American generation. It's the Charlie Kirk show. All right, welcome back. We're about to join be joined by Texas Representative Chip Roy, who's also running for Texas attorney general. We're going to talk save act in just a second. But first I want to talk to you about our friends over at Strong Cell. And no, that is not a place you put corrupt politicians, at least not yet. Not in this country. Not yet. Blake. Still waiting on the good news. But Strong Cell, they have delivered a, developed a proprietary delivery mechanism for something called nadh. It is the, it is the power source of all of your cells in the body. Your mitochondria use NADH to power you up. So if you have brain fog, if you have chronic illness, if you have word recall issues, if you have any of those things, you just feel lethargic all the time. You gotta give it a shot. Give Strong Cell a shot. Take it for four to six weeks. I'm telling you, you're gonna feel an instant, instant improvement. Your cells are going to be firing on all cylinders before you. If you wanted to get nadh into your body, you had to take it via iv. You do not have to do that anymore because of this technology they have developed. Right now. Go to strongcell.com use promo code charlie for 20% off your order. 20% off your order. And here's the best part. You get a 90 day risk free money back guarantee. So if you don't like it, it doesn't work. It's probably going to work. But if for whatever reason it doesn't, there's no risk involved, you get your money back at the end of 90 days. So it's kind of a no brainer. Try it. You're going to notice incredible results. I really believe that. All right, without further ado, Congressman Chip Roy, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show. Sir, there's been so much news on the SAVE Act. Can you give our audience an update where we are at now?

[Chip Roy]

Yeah. Great to be on with you guys. Appreciate it and appreciate your attention to this important issue. You know, I introduced the SAVE act as in its original form in 2024, working with Senator Mike Lee, who was the sponsor in the Senate. You guys know this. We worked with Cleta Mitchell, who's one of President Trump's great lawyers with America First Legal, built a great product that was focused on the citizenship angle. Right. Ensuring that we had a process when people were going through the registration in the future, that there was processes for them to demonstrate citizenship and importantly for states to check their voter rolls against citizenship data, which they're currently prohibited from doing under federal law. I'll come back to that in a minute. So we fixed that, but then enter voter id. We thought about putting voter ID with it two years ago, but we decided to keep it really simple, focus on citizenship. So we passed it. What happened? Senate blocked it even though we had four Democrats. Five, I'm sorry, five join us. Last Congress, we reintroduced it this Congress, we had four Democrats join us, but it wasn't moving in the Senate because we knew that Democrats would block it. So we've been having this debate and we said, let's add voter id. The president likes the branding of Save America. Let's put those two together. Let's pass that out of the House, send it to the Senate. And with the great work of Scott Pressler of a whole bunch of organizations, you guys, everybody else keeping the heat up, we've now got it out of the House. We passed it through last night, had one Democrat join us who's still bipartisan is over in the Senate. And now Mike Lee, Scott Pressler and others are working it hard. And I think I just saw on, on Twitter or on x that 48, I think now senators have signed on to the same America act, leaving only five in question. McConnell and Murkowski have indicated they may not support it on federalism grounds, which I think is fake. This totally honors federalism in the Constitution. So that's the current state of play. Now he's got to figure out what they do in the Senate.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes. So explain. You brought up two points, the federalism angle as well as. Well, let's start there. Federalism angle. Because the issue is, is that the Constitution gives the states the rights to the time and the place of their elections. Right. So this is kind of the angle. What is your argument and your retort to that?

[Chip Roy]

Yeah. First of all, hard to find somebody who has stood up over their life to defend states more than myself and Mike Lee. Right. We're two of the most ardent federalists up here. When I was the first assistant Attorney General in Texas, we were fighting against federal overreach. I wrote a book with Rick Perry about federalism. I served at the Texas Public Policy Center's 10th Amendment Center. So I love federalism, comma. However, what we're talking about here is something that has very clear purview in the Constitution for us. Stop for a minute. Elections. Federally, we set elections in November. Right. We don't tell states that they have to run their state elections on the same day, but they do. That's basically what we say we're doing here. We're setting the guardrails around things under the power in the Constitution, under the elections clause, under a numerous. A number of the amendments that walk through 14th Amendment and a whole bunch of others that give us power, but in particular, power over dealing with the elections. When it's our elections, Congress and the presidency. It does say the states do the time, place and manner, but it also then says Congress can come in and do it too, explicitly in the Constitution. So we generally defer to the states. Like we're not telling them where the polling places have to be. We don't tell them their state elections have to be on a certain date. But we're saying for the federal elections, do them in November, for the general election. And now we're adding these components. Hey, we just want to guarantee citizenship. And the last thing, we are freeing up states to do what they want to do but are prohibited from doing now. So it's pro federalism. Arizona has two ways of electing. You guys know Arizona? Well, Arizona checks citizenship for state and local, but is prohibited from doing it for federal. So they have to run two systems and they don't check the data on federal because they're not allowed to. The SAVE act fixes that. The Save America.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, explain that. Yeah, yeah, explain. Explain the prohibition on checking citizenship on the federal level. Where does that come from? What law is that and what does it actually look like when it's enforced or in action, rather.

[Chip Roy]

Yeah. So the NVRA passed in the 90s. I came with the acronym National Voter Registration. Whatever. NVRA, that had a clause in there that was interpreted by courts, I think wrongly, but it was interpreted that way to say that the states were allowed to take their voter rolls. So say Arizona, take that their list and go, hey, we want to check that against what's called the Save system. It's why we call this the Save act. The Save system, which is the system where we have our citizenship data and make sure those are aligned. The court said you can't do that. So we set out to fix that. Then we added to it additional requirements. It says the next time you register, if you're already registered, you can go vote. The next time you register, you move, you change your name. Then you got to go and say, look, I can prove my citizenship. Here's how I do it. Maybe that's the state sense of a system. Check roles using real ID or whatever they're doing. Maybe it's passport. Maybe it's your. Your regular driver's license plus a birth certificate. We set up other ways. We give the state flexibility, but that's what that's all about. Check the roles, get it right. I would argue that's deferential to states. That's helping states do what most of them want to do. And by the way, on the voter ID piece, 30, I think five states, 36. 36 states have voter ID. So we're just trying to align all of that so that all of our federal elections operate the same framework. Voter id.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, citizenship.

[Chip Roy]

And then the states are still free to set their times where the polling is, in a school, community center, wherever it is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, so I want to react to something. So President Obama has chimed in. He's saying Republicans are still trying to pass the Save Act, a bill that will get harder to vote and disenfranchise millions of Americans. Join Redistrict act and tell your member of Congress to vote no. And then I couldn't help but see this beautiful clip with Scott Jennings on CNN last night, where chaos erupts. I don't know if you saw this, Congressman, but it's a phenomenal clip. I'll get your reaction on the other 437. He is actually championing a bill that actually would take voting rights away from a lot of black people in this country.

[Chip Roy]

Wait, what?

[Charlie Kirk]

What voting rights is he taking away from black voters? Oh, if we look at the save. The Save act, that's exactly what we're talking about. That is actually going to continue to disenfranchise overwhelmingly a lot of people of color. There are so many civil rights organizations that have run the data. If we look at the way that it is going to disenfranchise black voters, it's the same reason why Chuck Schumer called it Jim Crow 2.0. So it's the same president. If we want to continue, 76% of black voters think we should show an ID to vote. 80% of Hispanic voters, 83% of the American people. Are you saying that black voters, the SAVE act dumb to know what's good for them?

[Blake Neff]

I mean, that sounds pretty condescending.

[Charlie Kirk]

So Abby Phillips comes in later and she says, well, you know, the SAVE act isn't about that. You got like, most people don't have their birth certificate. Most people don't have, you know, a passport. What's your reaction to that pushback, Congressman?

[Chip Roy]

Well, first of all, good for Scott Jennings. He's doing the right thing and pushing back and he's making the right points. Right. But I'll make one additional point and using an example, and I can't remember who it was and what show did it, but somebody went out in the field and interviewed people in New York about this issue last year, I think it was. And I've seen this out in social media and they ask a bunch of white liberals in Manhattan and they said, hey, isn't it racist? Don't you have a problem with this? Be a real problem with voter ID and these kind of rules? And all of these white liberals said, oh yeah, it's terrible. Black people. And they don't know where the DMV is. They don't often have id, they don't have a computer, they can't get on the Internet, you know, all this stuff. Then they went up, you know, into Harlem and above Manhattan and they interviewed some black Americans in Harlem and said, hey, do you know where the DMV is? Yeah, it's up on 128th and, you know, whatever. Do you have an ID? Yeah, I have an ID. Do you use the Internet and have a computer? Yeah. I mean, it's absurd. It's the height of racism and condescension that these nanny state white liberals want to tell everybody how they can do things. And they say, oh, well, you can't. I actually think the least functioning people in America are these white liberals that have been coddled all the way through their ridiculous pampered education and they don't really know how to function in normal society. On the core issue of the SAVE act and the voter id, the polling is obvious. People support it. We, we worked very hard to give flexibility to states to allow this all to work. So let's take the women's issue. They say, well, women are going to be able to vote because their name changed. First of all, it's a tiny fraction of the population who have changed, got married, their name is different and they haven't already done all of the stuff they have to do for anything else they need. But in that environment, we added a provision that says if you go and you have a conflict with your voter id, you can cast a provisional ballot, sign an affidavit and say, my name is, you know, Jennifer Smith and I changed it to Jennifer Jones. Right. And you can sign that up a David under penalty, perjury, and vote. So you can do things that are common sense. And the same act, when talking about proving citizenship, we have lots of different ways to do that and allow you to use lots of different forms of identification. And you can get a free copy of your birth certificate if you're down to that piece of the process. So it is not a hybrid. It's ridiculous.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, it's obscene. I mean, I find the whole thing laughable how they're twisting themselves into pretzels to try and defend this, calling it. It's going to disenfranchise millions. Yeah, it's going to disenfranchise millions of illegals and foreigners who shouldn't be voting in our election. We're going to keep you for one more segment, Congressman. I already conferred with your team, but first I want to tell you guys about All Family Pharmacy. Right now they're running a big President's day sale with 47% off some of the most requested medications, including Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, mebenzadol and GLP1 weight loss medications. And this is exactly why we recommend All Family Pharmacy around here. They're built for people who want options, people who want to be prepared with what they may need at home. I'm feeling a little under the weather right now. I'm on the road, but I've got my all Family pharmacy kit back home, so I should have brought it with me. Shame on me. You don't have to beg your doctor for a prescription. You don't have to sit in a waiting room, you don't have to deal with insurance nonsense. You simply order online, fill out a quick medical form, a Licensed doctor reviews your request, writes the prescription. Simple, straightforward, no coupon was required. So this President's Day sale runs through Tuesday, February 17th. And when it, when it ends, prices go right back up. So go to allfamilypharmacy.com Kirk allfamilypharmacy.com kirk and grab that 47 off sale while you can. We'll be right back.

[Chip Roy]

All right.

[Charlie Kirk]

Welcome back. We are with Chip Roy, Congressman from Texas, the great state of Texas. He's also running for Attorney General. So I wanted to keep him on for one more segment because a big part of the news today is that explosive hearing with Attorney General Pam Bondi. You were part of that hearing, Chip. So I'm excited to get your perspective on it. There's a lot of news that's come out of it. Let's go ahead and play an interaction you had with her that was related to our last segment.

[Chip Roy]

440Am I correct that under your leadership the Department of Justice has prosecuted cases of non citizen voting? So it's false that some of my Democratic colleagues have claimed that it doesn't happen? Yes, I asked that today because we're voting on the Save America act today to enact common sense policies to ensure layman American citizens vote in American elections and enact federal voter ID laws. But it's true, for example, that in just this month a federal grand jury in Newark indicted two men with illegally voting in federal election and making false statements. Mohamed Mozambal and Mohammed Shaquille were non citizens at the time they registered to vote. This happens. It happens regularly. And you're prosecuting those crimes, correct? Yes. But does that prosecution of those criminals overturn their previously cast votes?

[Blake Neff]

That's all pending, but it does not.

[Chip Roy]

Overturn votes that they've cast. Right. So passing the state. No, Congressman would help deal with that problem.

[Blake Neff]

Yes, Congressman.

[Charlie Kirk]

So there was a good interaction for her, but it was an explosive hearing. Now you are turning point action endorsed candidate for attorney general in the great state of Texas. We're honored to be behind you back you 100% of the way there, Congressman. And you know everybody can support Chip's campaign. Please chip in if you can. Pun intended, I suppose. Chiproy.com, chiproyd.com, i think you're gonna do a great job down there. But so you know, that was good. But she, I mean, she's got a tough job, Congressman. I mean she had this interaction with Thomas Massie about the Epstein files. Maybe just unpack how you see all that playing out it was. Some of the victims had. Their names were not redacted, but some of the co conspirators were redacted. I mean, listen, I know this is weird waters to wade into, but. But the floor is yours.

[Chip Roy]

Well, no, I appreciate it. And first of all, I'm going to take it serious if I have a few minutes. One, it was a very, you know, explosive hearing. Democrats were going after her combatively trying to attack her on the basis of what the situation is on the Epstein matter, rather than going through it logically and sort of calmly to get an elicit, I think, questions on a tough subject. And when I got to my questions with the Attorney General, I focused on a handful of things. I wanted to set the groundwork on other issues like voter fraud. And I also talked about the extent to which they are eliminating backlogs and their immigration judges, their hearings and asylum and all those things. Important stuff as a baseline to show they're stopping crime, they're stopping illegal aliens. When they're working with dhs, with their judges, they're working to stop voter fraud. They're doing a lot of great work, crimes going down. So the baseline is America's better and safer. But Epstein is a real issue. We're all concerned about these power brokers and what Epstein himself did. But I focused this way. I said one true or false? President Trump, his administration is the one that actually indicted Epstein. Answer. True. It was President Trump's administration that indicted Ghislaine Maxwell. True. Those two are in jail because of the first Trump term. President Trump says, hey, we want to know all the files on this stuff. So what happens over the last year? A lot of files have gotten out. Democrats politicized it and they wanted to push for more information. Well, guess what? I want to see more information. I bet you guys want to see more information. We don't want these power brokers to abuse underage women in a sex trafficking ring. It's disgusting. So the question is how, when Congress passed the law that my friend Thomas, these other guys pushed, they did a discharge petition. We were concerned, a lot of us, that it wasn't tightly drafted enough to ensure that victims would be protected. So I asked the Attorney general, Bobby, I said, is it not true that we pushed to try to make that a better demand if Congress was going to insert itself into the prosecutorial function, which is a questionable thing to do, but you want to do it to get more information, shouldn't we have been tighter about that? And I said, so why did you guys. And I Asked her a pointed question. Why did you basically out some of the Jane does, some of these women who were abused, we didn't want their names out. That was not supposed to happen. So I pushed on her about it and she basically admitted we were getting 3,3 million files out and we didn't get it all done. Right. So we're fixing it. And when we saw some. We're fixing it now. That may not be a good excuse. I don't know, we can debate that. But I wanted it to be honest and open. Last point I pushed on this question. If Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted for trafficking in young girls and underage girls, was it just Epstein or there others? In other words, are you going to indict or go after anybody else? And I was the only one that pressed her to the point to say, and she said we have ongoing investigations on individuals that they're going to pursue further on that subject. So look, I think they're trying to go after and seek the truth. We have a job to push. I'm going to try to go look at the files this afternoon. I was going to fly home, but I could only get a spot because the hearing and the say back this afternoon. So I'm going to go over to DOJ and look at some of this stuff. But we're trying to seek the truth wherever it may lead. The attorney general is doing a good job stopping crime. And I think it was a bunch of political show by Democrats trying to score political points, not actually truth.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And I would give her really good, really good marks on some of her pushback. Like why didn't you do this during Biden? You know, it's obviously a political football that they just see an opportunity now to take advantage of. So I think that was high marks. I think she unfortunately went a little off the rails with this. You know, the mentioning the Dow Jones being over $50,000 and S&P almost at 500 or 7,000. I thought that was unfortunate. It was a kind of a, an unforced error there. But to be fair to her, she's getting peppered with all these very belligerent questions again and again and again. And I'm glad to hear that because I actually didn't see that clip chip about you. She confirmed to you that there's ongoing investigations about the co conspirators. Right. That's been a big thing on X this week. That Les Wexner is now, you know, one of the files had him listed as a co conspirator, obviously that's the Victoria Secrets guy out of Ohio that could power attorney to Epstein. Listen, Chip, in the last minute that we have here, you are running for attorney General of Texas. What are your big issues, your plank issues that you're running on? I know you're an immigration hawk like me. That's one of the big reasons why I am very proud to support you. But what are your big issues? One minute left.

[Chip Roy]

Yeah, I mean one, absolutely. The border. We have to ready ourselves to the fact that President Trump's not going to be there forever. We had him before and then we got Biden, my orcas and our borders were exploited and Americans were getting killed and fennel is pouring into our community. So we need an AG who's going to fight that and knows how to do it. I've been winning up here on that subject. I got to take that to Texas. Number two, we've got to stop the Islamification of Texas. I held a hearing two days ago where we had great witnesses who came in and talked about what was going on. Founded the Sharia Free America Caucus with my fellow Texan Keith Self. We're elevating that. We need to go to war on that. When we're in Texas. I want to get criminals off the streets, stop putting them out there with these ridiculous DAs and judges. You got to have an AG who's been there, who's been in the courtroom, who knows the AG's office who's unassailably conservative and can get the job done. God's put me in that position. I survived cancer and I want to go have to you tell they might stay for my kids.

[Charlie Kirk]

You know what you need to do in Texas? You need to get these county prosecutors more in alignment with the AG's office. Though, you guys, people don't realize that Texas has the largest conservative attorneys general team in the country. So it's a huge, huge especially we get a Democrat back in the White House. We need Texas to be strong. Chip, Roy, thank you. God bless you, sir. We'll talk to you again soon. Alex Berenson joins us next.

[Terrence Bates]

Terrance Bates here with your Real America's Voice News break. We appreciate you being here with us. It's been almost two weeks since 84 year old Nancy Guthrie's disappearance and it doesn't appear that investigators are any closer to finding her today than they have been at any point in the search. The FBI and local authorities have reportedly received 18,000 tips and agents are said to be conducting a, quote, extensive search for the mother of Today show Host Savannah Guthrie. Real America's Voice is on the ground in Tucson, Arizona, with the very latest on the investigation and the ongoing effort to bring Nancy Guthrie home alive. RAV correspondent Kevin Posobic joining me live now with the very latest. Kevin, good afternoon. I guess it's still morning there. Good morning.

[Guaranteed Human Announcer]

Yes. Good to see you again, Terrence. So, as you can see behind me is the house in question here under investigation. And there is media lining the streets. There's drones in the air. There are even military aircraft flying over at times. I don't think that's related, but you never really know. So earlier there's posts and still developing. There was a team. There was a white tent constructed behind me at the entrance where we all saw the video and the nest doorbell being removed or attempted to have been removed with the glove that is now in forensics. So the forensics team from Pima county here has come down and they conducted a procedure of about two hours, I want to say, give or take. And they wrapped up about an hour ago. We got some footage of that, and so we're gonna wait and see what they find. That is pretty much in line with what we've been told so far. And, yeah, other than that, it seems relatively stable here. There is a sheriff's truck on, on guard here as well, just so nobody gets onto the property or too snoopy here. And yeah, that is almost pretty much where we're at. So we're gonna keep, we're going to keep looking around.

[Terrence Bates]

Hey, Kevin, I'm curious if there's a sense on the ground there that investigators are actually making headway. There seem to be these small pieces of evidence that are coming to light. But do the investigators seem to think that it's leading anywhere?

[Guaranteed Human Announcer]

Well, we certainly hope so. And I got to say, honestly, I mean, if there's 18,000 tips, even if all of, even if half of those are actually credible and lead somewhere, it's going to take a lot of time to go through all that and filter that in an expedient way. But yeah, some of the local live streamers here next to me earlier were, were saying as much in that, you know, this should have happened on day one, not day 12 of this investigation. And thankfully, it hasn't been too windy or rainy during this, this week, almost two weeks now, case in which case, I mean, if, you know, everything blows around, there go your tire tracks, there go your footprints. And especially if it rains, there goes all the blood stains and the fingerprints. So it's been hot, humid, you know, Just desert weather here so far. So. But yes, I would agree with you T. It seems that it is slugging along slow and steady and, and that is good but also kind of bad.

[Terrence Bates]

So I hate to be negative, Kev. I hate to be negative, Nancy, but we're 12 days in almost two weeks. This is an 84 year old woman who apparently doesn't have her medicine. Is there a sense on the ground? And I would imagine there's buzz, you know, reporters, we like to talk with each other. What's kind of the conversations being had? Is there this idea that at this point bringing her home safely, bringing her home alive is probably not going to happen? And I hate to be negative, but we got a reporter, we got to talk about it.

[Guaranteed Human Announcer]

Well, there are, there are a lot of theories going on. So I'm trying to get in touch with the public affairs officer of FEMA County Sheriff's Department to see if I get any, any other, you know, commentary here. But it's, it seems that everybody is, is kind of, you know, just in waiting unfortunately. And I think with the ransom and then also these leads like the fingerprinting process will take so long it's kind of getting away from. I mean we need a culprit, we need more people detained here.

[Terrence Bates]

Absolutely, Kevin. We appreciate the reporting there on the ground in Tucson, Arizona as Nancy Guthrie is still missing after almost two weeks.

[Chip Roy]

Weeks.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, welcome back. Hour two, the Charlie Kirk show is underway. Blake Neff holding it down in the Bitcoin.com studios. Your one stop shop to buy, sell and trade bitcoin. Thanks for holding it down, Blake. Keeping, keeping the studio warm. I'm here in Palm Beach. I'll be back in the studio tomorrow. We have Alex Berenson joining us. Check out his substack and his book, by the way. It's tell your tell your children the truth about marijuana, mental illness and violence. Alex, welcome back to the show. You are sort of our resident expert on marijuana. You and Charlie saw very much eye to eye on this topic and it is now back in the news. And I hope your book is selling like hotcakes because it's so important. Hope you're getting a fresh infusion of that because the New York Times has admitted that we've been right all along. 4:52 is the image. It's time for America to admit it has a marijuana problem. Big, big admission from the New York Times. Your former employer, by the way. Almost like maybe you still have friends back there that are listening to you. Alex, tell us what the New York Times admitted. And why now?

[Alex Berenson]

So, I mean, by the way, it's interesting you mentioned about the book because even before the Times put this out, it seemed to me that there was something in the ether happening with people becoming aware, increasingly aware of the problems with cannabis and thc. I think probably because so many, you know, so many young people are using and using very high potency vapes, what's called dabbing, which is essentially smoking chunks of thc, which is the active chemical in cannabis. And when you use that way in particular, you can really knock yourself out and become psychotic very quickly. And so I do think that this is unfortunately just something that's happening to people that their friends are seeing, that their family members are seeing, that their parents are seeing. And for whatever reason, the book was starting to sell a little bit more even before the Times thing. And now all of a sudden it actually has sort of taken off again in terms of sales, which is pretty amazing because it came out sell your children seven years ago. And I promise you, I will tell you the Times my view on the Times, which I think it's very important that they did this. But I want to tell you something even more important that happened in the last 48 hours, which is that a conservative commentator, a young woman named Brett Cooper, who you may know, posted.

[Blake Neff]

We actually have this post. Let's throw it up, guys. 494. Yes, here, I'll read it out. My mom and I have been told that my brother's psychosis, now full blown diagnosed schizophrenia, is most likely drug induced from his years of smoking weed. This drug isn't harmless, no matter what our culture and screaming people in comments sections tried to tell us.

[Alex Berenson]

Yes, so, so important, right? Because in the end, you know, the Times can write what it writes and I can write about statistics and journal articles and stuff, but people react to individual stories. They react to the stories of people and, you know, especially when, when it's personal, right? When it's, this is my brother and look what happened to him. And that's been viewed almost 5 million times on X right now. And so unfortunately, that is what's happening out there, is that people are seeing, you know, family members or friends or friends of friends who've had real problems and they say, well, you know, this person wasn't using cocaine or methamphetamine or, you know, or mushrooms. They were using, they were using thc, they were using these vapes and suddenly they wound up in the er or maybe they have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And their lives are really wrecked by this, and their families are getting messed up by it, too. And I need to figure out, I need to learn about this drug. So what the Times wrote was sort of the broader, you know, the bigger picture question, which is this is happening against the background of the legalization of cannabis. Charlie knew, right? Charlie knew. And so legalization, you know, many states have legalized in the last 10 to 15 years. There's been a very aggressive, very pushy, very effective for, you know, for lack of a better word, propaganda campaign, selling cannabis and THC as medicine. It's not medicine. If we're going to legalize it on any basis, it's got to be as a recreational intoxicant. That's got downsides, and that needs to be regulated carefully. But that's not how the industry got people to legalize. They got people to legalize by telling them this is medicine, and if you have seizures, it's good for you. And if you're, you know, if you have cancer, it's good for you. And it's going to keep people away from opioids, all this stuff, most of which has essentially no basis in science. There's a couple of things where there's so many evidence that cannabis and tea might be valuable.

[Blake Neff]

I'm just thinking.

[Alex Berenson]

Sleep doesn't.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, I was just thinking.

[Alex Berenson]

I remember.

[Blake Neff]

I remember being online kind of in that 2002, 2008, you know, that early Internet window, and it felt like weed was coming up all the time online. There was this huge consensus among young people, except for me, where they were saying, oh, marijuana is basically harmless. It was like a whole spiel. It was only ever banned because racist lawmakers in the 20s had, like, a moral panic about Mexicans bringing this drug over the border. And, yeah, as you said, that was medicine. It would cure cancer, basically. It was like a super drug, if anything. And, yeah, and the New York Times, it says in this article here, you know, in our editorials, we described marijuana addiction as relatively minor problems. Many went further and claimed marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. And we said that legalization might not lead to greater use. And the number they have here is insane. It went from about 1 million daily users in 1992 to more than 18 million daily users today.

[Chip Roy]

So.

[Alex Berenson]

So the thing about cannabis is actually more addictive than alcohol, considerably more. If you look at the number of people who use compared to the total number of the number of people who use daily, let's say, compared to the total number of Users. Okay. There's about 100 million adults in the US who use alcohol on a regular basis. About half the population. A little bit more than half. Okay, so maybe a little bit more than 100 million of those people. Fewer than 20 million drink every day. Okay. Based on the studies. And most of those people aren't drinking all day, every day. If they do, we call them alcoholics. We know they have a problem. They know they have a problem. When it comes to cannabis, there are more people using every day than use alcohol every day, even though the total number of cannabis users are much smaller than the total number of alcohol users. And. And those people, those cannabis users, when they're using every day, they are waking and baking for the most part. They are not doing this. I'm gonna have, like one hit. I mean, there's some people who do, but I'm gonna have one hit at night and I'm gonna go to sleep. No, this is. This is. This is a major part of my life. I wake up to this. I schedule my life around my, you know, my vape breaks. I may, you know, maybe I don't have a girlfriend anymore because I decided I liked cannabis more than having a girlfriend. You know, maybe I just hang out playing video games and getting high all. Alex, you know, your viewers. Your viewers know that's a typical pattern.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, well, and Alex, you're kind of zeroing in on the young male cohort when you're talking about video games vaping. And this, this actually tends, from what I'm gathering online, this young male, super high dose of thc, developing brains leading to schizophrenia. This actually, to me, is one of the more terrifying aspects of increased pot usage and us normalizing it and us sort of deifying the drug as like, the only drug in the universe that doesn't have any side effects. Young men seem to be particularly vulnerable to schizophrenia. Let's go ahead and play this cut. We actually have a cut here from Brett Cooper talking about it. 495.

[Blake Neff]

My mom and I have been told that my brother, psychosis, now full blown diagnosed schizophrenia, is most likely drug induced from his years of smoking weed.

[Charlie Kirk]

This drug isn't harmless, no matter what.

[Blake Neff]

Our culture and screaming people in comment sections tried to tell us. The story is that my brother Reid, who was 12 years older than me.

[Charlie Kirk]

He became a pothead, I would say.

[Blake Neff]

Late in high squire to this. He never showed any signs of mental illness. He never showed any signs of psychosis. But for the last decade, my brother Reed has been in and out of psychiatric facilities he has been on and off the streets in states like California.

[Chip Roy]

And Idaho and Tennessee.

[Blake Neff]

He's been all over the country. This is what my family has been dealing with for a decade.

[Charlie Kirk]

My brother Reed is now a diagnosed.

[Blake Neff]

Schizophrenic and he is mute as it stands right now. Currently, he is unable to participate in.

[Charlie Kirk]

Society unless he is medicated. So we only have 30 seconds here, Alex, but that the young men hit 30 seconds young.

[Alex Berenson]

So listen, men have a higher rate of schizophrenia than women. They're more prone to severe mental illness than women. And as we all know, as Charlie talked about all the time, young men are having a hard time in society today. And it's understandable that some of them turn to this drug, but it doesn't make their problems better. It makes them worse. And I just hope that they know they're being sold a bill of goods here by the drug legalizers, by the cannabis industry. They really should try not to use this. It's not a good drug for them.

[Charlie Kirk]

We'll be right back. More with Alex Barron.

[Chip Roy]

All right, welcome back.

[Charlie Kirk]

We're talking about weed, how it's a dropout drug. And it's, it's such an important topic with Alex Berenson, but sort of in a related note, some of you guys are struggling with private student loan debt. Debt. It is $300 billion of private student loan debt in the United States. 45 billion of that is labeled as distressed or defaulted. So if you find yourself in that position, it you do not have to live this way. Please take advantage of the tools that Y Refi has on offer. They can save you thousands of dollars. They will guarantee interest rate rates under 6%. They don't care what your credit score is. And they're patriots and good people. The I went to their offices. There is a whole army of these people that, that literally come into the office every day that want to help you out, get out from under your private student loan debt. And the stories they have are just remarkable. People depressed, stressed, some are even suicidal. You're going to want to check them out. If you find yourself in a situation with private student loan debt that you are behind on, you do not have to live this way. There's no other groups that are going to serve you, like why Refi? Nobody's going to bail you out. Why Refi is there to help you. It's a unique niche industry that they can help you out with. So if you know somebody who has private student loan debt, if you are that person, if you got mom and dad on the loan, they can help you, so check them out. Why refi.com. we are all in with those guys. God bless them. So, Alex, Blake. Actually, I'm going to throw it to Blake. Blake, this is you. You know this topic backwards and forwards better than I do. So the floor is yours.

[Blake Neff]

I mean, it's just, I guess, Alex, some perspective I'd like on. This is just how the New York Times kind of acts. Like they were, you know, they made an error of judgment. But it strikes me, I just feel like so much of these outcomes were obvious that there has to be this element where a lot of people realize they could make a lot of money off of this, that they could. Like they were creating something they knew would be super addictive and there would be a huge market for this. And now a ton of people are getting rich off of these 18 million people a day who are using marijuana every single day. Like, it's kind of like tobacco. Tobacco companies knew exactly how addictive their product was, and they knew how deadly it was. And I. I can't imagine that anyone was under any illusions who was in the know with marijuana.

[Terrence Bates]

You're.

[Alex Berenson]

There's two issues there, okay? And they're both very interesting people in the industry. Yeah, they know. They know how addictive this stuff is. And they've been working for 30 years to make cannabis more potent, to make the, you know, what's called flower cannabis, what's in the joints, stronger, but also to produce these vapes, which are essentially pure thc. And they know exactly what they've been doing. And those. A lot of those people want to get rich. If you look at the times, you know, unfortunately, it's the same kind of, sort of useful idiocy that these people played when they called for schools to be locked down during COVID when they went crazy with the Russian collusion hoax. You know, there is a groupthink on the left in elite journalism that blinds people to facts that should be obvious. Okay, and you. The data on this, what I'm gonna tell your children, it was 2019, and I was able to draw on 20 years of data showing the sort of the harmful links between cannabis and severe mental illness. And that's counting the links between cannabis and, let's say, you know, sort of bad life outcomes because you just don't achieve very much because you're. You're smoking every day and you're not working very hard, and your life is just sort of passing you by. I'm talking about the really severe mental illness Outcomes and frankly, the downstream violence from that, which is an issue we don't even have to begin to talk about. We have so much else to talk about. But people at the Times, people at the Washington Post, people at the Atlantic, all these places that think they're so smart, they didn't look at the data and they just told themselves over and over again, well, this is just being used to put black men in prison. I mean, it was. It was nonsense, okay? It was nonsense. In 2019, it was nonsense. Even in 2009, it hadn't been true for a really long time. Let me tell you one quick thing that I discovered when I was writing tell your children, which was people as. As I think Andrew said, you know, they always say, well, weed got banned in 19, in the 1920s and 30s, because there was this perception that it was a Mexican drug, that it was a drug that was being brought up from Mexico. There is some truth in that. What people don't tell you, what they didn't ever know, all these supposedly smart people, is that Mexico actually banned cannabis first because Mexicans saw what it was doing to their culture and country and they didn't like it. So whenever this drug has become widely used, whether it's in India, whether it's in Mexico, whether it's in African or in North African countries, eventually there's a backlash to what it does to people. And the fact that we thought we could rewrite the rules on this, that a bunch of nice liberals who basically had smoked pot a few times in college thought they could totally rewrite history and human biology and legalize this and there'd be no consequences. Just tells you once again what a bubble the left is living in. And now, by the way, you know, some of these people, what's happened is they've seen their kids get completely screwed up on high potency cannabis and THC or their friends, and now they realize the truth.

[Charlie Kirk]

I think let's do like a little rapid fire question and answer here. Is weed a gateway drug?

[Chip Roy]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes or no? Yes.

[Alex Berenson]

Evidence is clear. Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

What is the rate of schizophrenia? Do we know? Especially in young men that are high.

[Alex Berenson]

Drug users, the base rate is about 1%. So one reason this has been able to happen is that let's say heavy canopy shoes triples the base rate, okay? Even. Not every young man is using. So even if, let's say 30% of young men are using in a dangerous way, that would not result in such a huge number that it would be immediately obvious. Even though this is a really severe Illness, it becomes obvious over time. But what I say, and I say this with confidence now, is that there are probably hundreds of thousands of young people, mostly men, but some women in the United States and Canada who become severely mentally ill as a result of cannabis use. Who wouldn't have been hundreds of thousands of lives ruined, hundreds of thousands of families. Because what you heard with Brett is this destroys families, right? It doesn't just destroy one person. When you're, when you're the family member, the brother or sister, I mean, God forbid you're the child, but brother, sister, parent of somebody with really severe mental illness, your life is misery.

[Blake Neff]

I have a couple, Alex. So even if you don't get psychosis, if you're using weed nearly daily from age 16, how bad of an impact is that going to have on your cognitive baseline? How many IQ points are you going to lose?

[Alex Berenson]

It's a really good question. I don't think there's a simple number. It's bad for memory, it's bad for motivation, it's bad for intelligence. But I wouldn't be comfortable saying, you know, 10 points, 20 points. I mean, clearly most people who use, or many, many people who use heavily find their lives disrupted by this. In the same way, if you're an alcoholic, your life is going to be disrupted.

[Charlie Kirk]

I've got another question. Where weed has been legalized, have the outcomes been, has there been you touched on violence? Have we seen rises in violence, crime, criminality? 30 seconds.

[Alex Berenson]

So why didn't they tell your children? There was evidence that in the states that had legalized early, there was a rise in sort of in violence, basically, essentially in severe violence. Now, nationally, we've been on a downtrend in terms of violence. Obviously, cannabis psychosis is only one component of violence, right? There are many, many different components of what make people violent. Whether, you know, how we treat people who are, you know, do we incarcerate people for a long time? Obviously that gets them off the streets. Are the cops getting better at solving gun crimes because they have more surveillance? There's many things, but there was evidence in 2019 of that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Alex Berenson, check him out. Thank you, my friend. We'll talk to you soon.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this real America's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. The Trump administration is drawing down its ICE anti immigration operation in the Minneapolis area. Border czar Tom Holman made the announcement this morning, leading many to question whether the administration is backing down due to public pressure and losing the narrative battle on the way the operation is being.

[Alex Berenson]

Handled, but also say we are backing down from immigration enforcement or the promise of mass deportations. You are simply wrong. Look at the data record number of arrests and deportations under President transfers to your and we'll continue that effort. Prioritizing public safety threats and national security threats doesn't mean we'll forget about everybody else. We will take action on everybody else.

[Terrence Bates]

Homan says while the operation is drawing down, he plans to remain in Minnesota to oversee the continuing operation there. Meantime, the picture we're getting ready to show you is about the only evidence you'll find of Wednesday's meeting day between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House sit down was an encore to Netanyahu's meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the US delegation to Israel. Taking to truth Social 47 described the meeting as good, but also noted that nothing definitive was reached other than that President Trump himself insisted that negotiations with Iran continue this in hopes of reaching a deal. The commander in chief also writes, we discussed the tremendous progress being made in Gaza and the region in general. There's truly peace in the Middle east, he writes. Attorney General Pam Bondi's impassioned and at times contentious testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday has continuing to make headlines. This morning, the nation's top prosecutor faced questions about her handling of the Epstein files, specifically accusations that she hid names. She was also accused of weaponizing the Department of Justice. Bondi defended herself, though, while simultaneously turning the table on Democrat lawmakers for what she described as their failures and the refusal to focus on what voters really want. General Bondi says the left's tactics are meant to distract from all the good work the administration is doing.

[Tom Bevin]

The hardest working radio show in the.

[Charlie Kirk]

Business, the Charlie Kirk show. All right, 2026 marks 250 years of America and conversations around American culture. We'll be at the front, at front and center all year long, as they should be. So again, why we did the All American halftime show? Good Ranchers has been supporting American ranchers and farmers since it started. And that's not just lip service. They do it from the farm and the field to the final seal on every box. Every piece of meat with a chicken, pork, beef, even fish is American meat. American meat. It's 100% dedicated to America. This, this company. There's no gimmicks, there's no funny labels, there's no loopholes in the law that, you know, it's actually bringing over Brazilian meat or whatever. No, this is a hundred percent American meat. Subscribe [e-mail] you will save up to 500 a year just through your subscription. So you're saving 500 if you subscribe. That's the best way to do it. I'm a subscriber. You should be a subscriber too. It comes in this beautiful box. It's all cold. It's got all this ice in it. Dry ice comes. Put it in your freezer. You're stocked up, ready to go. Don't have to think about it. You can customize your order each and every time. Plus, if you use our promo code, Charlie at checkout, you will save an additional $25 off your first order. That is Charlie at checkout goodranchers.com you'll save an additional $25 off your order. So this is American meat delivered good ranchers.com Ben and Corly spell, who run it are amazing, amazing people. Please support them. Support this country. It's America 250. This is how you need to get your meat. Support American Ranchers. They've been with us through thick and thin for all 250 years of this beautiful country. All right, I want to get to our next guest, and that is Tom Bevin. I got to hang out with him last night at celebrating freedom of speech with Real Clear Politics. Tom, welcome back to the show, my friend. It's good to have you.

[Tom Bevin]

It's good to be back. And it was good to be with you last night. That was a lot of fun.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And thank you for honoring Charlie and his work, celebrating free speech. And I thought you guys did a great job of honoring him and honoring his legacy. So. And you had, you had liberals on stage. I mean, you guys really run the gamut. You really. We had some spirited debates about trans and about. It was, it was, it was good. It was really Don Lemon. And was he a journalist or an activist? It was a, it was a really good collision of ideas. All right, Tom, I'm going to read something verbatim from a very prominent left wing journalist that I was texting with. And this. Everybody would know the name if I said it, but I'm going to leave it anonymous just for the sake of the relationship. Says there's absolutely no proof of any significant illegal voting. He's talking about the SAVE Act. You ran a campaign based on fear, demagogue and exaggeration of them. It worked until now. Now, not only do you have a majority of the country against the way you're enforcing laws, but afford has been revealed to not be because of legal entrance and you guys have a real problem heading into the midterm. So unless you do something about health care costs, you're. You're screwed, basically. And Trump's Trump Rx, ain't it? Agree or disagree?

[Tom Bevin]

I agree with some parts of it, disagree with others. I mean, first of all, the Save act, the majority of the country is in favor of that. You know, across the board, even I think a majority of Democrats are in favor of certainly African American voters, Hispanics, Republicans, independents, think it's kind of common sense that you should have voter ID laws. So is affordability a big issue? Yes, it is a big issue. Is, is Trump? You know, he's got some work to do. Republicans do have some work to do on this issue. So he's. Trump is at 42.1% in our overall rural politics average. On the economy, he's at 40. On inflation, he's at 30. So to the extent that those continue to be issues that are of primary concern to voters and most polls suggest that they are, I think the administration and the Republican Party has some work to do. Do I think Trump RX is an answer?

[Charlie Kirk]

It could be.

[Tom Bevin]

I think the saving accounts could be. My take on the economy, as far as Trump is concerned, is that, you know, he's got good. He's got not a story to tell. There are plenty of good numbers. When you talk about the Dow and all that, the problem that he has is a perception problem because people think the economy sucks, even though there are aspects of the economy that are really good. But when Trump goes out there and says this is the best economy in the world, and voters don't think that, then he looks like he's gaslighting and there is this discrepancy between what their perception is and what Trump is telling them. The reality is. And so that's really a, that's an issue for him to go out and prove to the American people that he is focused on this issue. It's more of an almost an empathy type question to say instead of saying affordability is a hoax, or instead of focusing on taking over Greenland, for example, which occupied like seven days of the media landscape and all the oxygen, right, for him to be doing these events. If you remember back to his first term, he was doing events at the White House with like truckers and, and welders and, you know, he had CEOs, he had everybody in there. It was all about the economy. And he's not doing that kind of thing yet. He'll do an event. He did one speech on the economy at the end of last year in Detroit. And that kind of got overshadowed by the fact that he flipped some guy off and had this thing with this factory floor worker. He did another event recently in Iowa which was supposed to be focused on the economy, and then went out like two hours afterwards and tweeted that he's got the fleet steaming toward Iran. And that became the headline. So they've got to do a better job. In my opinion, the administration has to do a better job of having events and focusing on the economy and then sort of letting the, you know, staying out of their own way so that the people, the perception out there changes on how the economy is doing.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, Tom, that's what I find myself thinking and asking on the affordability issue, on the economy issue, I, there's sometimes we'll have this debate are we in a vibe session where the idea is people have gotten used to the idea that they just say affordability is their go to acceptable expression for things. Just don't always feel awesome. And I guess the part that goes with that is, does Trump doing events meaningfully help on this question? How do you actually imprint the idea? Oh, actually the economy is doing well, or at least this administration is improving things. I guess I don't see the obvious link between him doing an event at the White House and better poll numbers necessarily.

[Tom Bevin]

It's more of a question, you know, he's also trailing on this, on this question, when pollsters asked, does the president care about people like me? Right. Does he have, is he focused on my concerns? And that's more than anything. It's like it's not about the policy in particular, like these Trump savings accounts. Right. Is that going to have any short term impact on the midterms? Is that really going to change people? No, but it was an event where I think the focus was on, hey, this is how we help the younger generation, the next generation actually invest and save and get ahead of the game. I mean, he's fighting the problem that he's fighting right now is he could say, well, inflation's down. Okay, it's down. But we just went through five years where we had, you know, mid to high single digit inflation, which compounded. And so people, you know, things are 30 or 40% more than they used to be and we're talking about health care and, you know, college tuition and groceries and all those things. And while Trump can point in the sort of short term, well, you know, the price of eggs are down, people are still not feel that's why they feel the economy sucks is because they've been battered for four or five years with inflation that has eroded their buying power. And so I think one of the things that he needs to focus on from a policy perspective that would help him is to tell people and impress upon people that wages are rising faster than inflation. It is all about wages. If inflation's at 2% or 4%, but wages are growing at 4 or 8%, people are going to feel like they are getting some buying power back. They are. They're doing better in this economy. And his policies have helped wage growth. And so I think that's another area. But again, it comes down to people looking at their TV screens and, oh, Trump's talking about the price of this or the price of that. Trump is focused on the economy. He's focused on the things that I care about, that we care about in my family and that we're talking about on the kitchen table. He's not off, you know, focused on stuff going on overseas or Venezuela or even, you know, building a new wing on the White House. I mean, those kind of things are just, they're catnip for the media and they help shift the issue, you know, away from where I think the public wants it to be and where Trump needs it to be.

[Charlie Kirk]

Tom, so I'm struggling, especially in this economic question here. We only got about two minutes left here, but so throw up. 456. This is a question asked, you know, are you better off today than you were four years ago? 48 say yes, 44% say no. But that yes number is about 20 points, 20, 25 points higher than it was in November, I believe, of 2024. So it's going in the right direction. There's another image here, 502, this is from Marquette. It says family financial situation living comfortably is at 40%, just getting by 45%. But that's, that's up nine points from November of 2025. So you see, it's almost like you're getting two sets of data. It's like if you ask the question one way, people are positive. If you ask it another way, it's almost like the Biden year hangover and maybe this cognitive dissonance with what Trump is saying, they just can't get, they can't connect with it. But what's true here? Cuz I'm seeing positives, I'm seeing negatives.

[Tom Bevin]

Yeah. And this is, you know, people can make the data say sort of whatever it wants. You could find this stuff, I think the economy is getting better. I think people are feeling a little bit better about the way things are going. But Trump has about and the Republicans have until about June. And basically by that point, if anything that happens after that won't accrue to their benefit probably in the midterms. The other thing about these polls too, Andrew, is you really do need to go in and look at the sort of partisan splits here because, you know, there's this question, if you go back and look, how's the economy doing? Well, when Joe Biden was in office, Democrats, 75% of Democrats said the economy is great and 5% of Republicans said it was great. Republicans thought the economy sucked. And the minute Trump gets into office, that number flips. Right. It's just a partisan sort of lizard brain thing. And so Democrats are, even if they feel the economy is getting better, they're certainly not giving Trump or the Republicans credit for it. And Republicans probably feel the economy is pretty good and they like and support Trump, but focus on independence like they're the ones. And again, it's a 15 or 20% part of the electorate, but they're the ones who truly do move back and forth based on what they see in their, in their, in their daily lives. And they're going to be an important part of the midterms in November as well.

[Charlie Kirk]

Tom Bevin, co founder and President of RealClearPolitics again, so great to see you last night and to be a part of that great event. Thanks for having me and for honoring Charles Charlie. So God bless you guys.

[Tom Bevin]

Absolutely.

[Charlie Kirk]

Thank you. By the way, I check your guys', I check your homepage every day. Every day.

[Alex Berenson]

Love it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Because it, it, if I need to see what the left is thinking that you, you put it all there for me right there. And even if I hate it, you guys put it up. So it's a, it's a really powerful resource. Tom Bevin, thank you.

[Alex Berenson]

Thank you.

[Charlie Kirk]

I want to tell you guys about Strong Cell. I've been telling you about it and apparently you guys are buying it by the droves. And I love that because it's good for you. You, it's going to make you feel better. If you have brain fog, word recall issues, if you have chronic illness, chronic fatigue, please, please, please, please, please try this. If you feel tired and you're like, I've tried everything, I don't know what it is, try Strong Cell. It has a proprietary delivery mechanism of nadh, which is the power cell for all of the cells in your body. And it is a breakthrough it's what all the, it's what all the biohackers are all about these days. It's only strong cell that gets it straight into your veins, but with a vial. So it's a really powerful new product. Strongcell.com 90 day money back guarantee. We'll be right back. I wanted to get to it because James Van Der Beek left us with some really, really good clips. He was a father of six children, so he leaves behind a wife and six children. I think his GoFundMe to support his family is over a million dollars. I encourage people to please support that because six children, that's a lot of mouths to feed. Beautiful, beautiful family. He had some great. It's just some really, really amazing clips. He, he lost his battle with cancer. He was so young, just in his 40s, which just blows me away. Let's go ahead and play cup 4:30.

[Alex Berenson]

Before cancer, God was something I tried.

[Blake Neff]

To fit into my life as much as possible. After cancer, I feel like a connection to God, whatever that is. This is kind of the whole point.

[Charlie Kirk]

Of this exercise on this planet. So beautifully said. 485. This was his final message. Was faced with the question, if I am just a too skinny, weak guy alone in an apartment with cancer.

[Alex Berenson]

What am I doing?

[Blake Neff]

And I meditated.

[Charlie Kirk]

And the answer came through.

[Blake Neff]

I am worthy of God's love.

[Charlie Kirk]

Simply because I exist.

[Blake Neff]

And if I'm worthy of God's love, shouldn't I also be worthy of my own? And the same is true for you. You know, I want to flag, by the way, because I think this would interest some of our people. So this might surprise you. He was an actor. We associate them with being spectacularly wealthy, but a lot of them are not as much as you might think. And so they actually, unfortunately, his battle with cancer did exhaust the family's funds, we're told. So they, they do have a GoFundMe for that family. For his wife, his six children. It has already raised $1.6 million, which is very generous. But if you feel inclined to support them, you can find that on GoFundMe. I just wanted to shout that out there. Yeah, it's remarkable. There aren't enough people like him in Hollywood or in show business generally, but it is good to be reminded that those people do exist.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, he was, he was a. Just seems like a genuine guy. Yeah, it's at 1.593 million and seems like a. Just a really good, nice guy. And, and yeah, if you're a millennial, what Was it. I'm gonna get the. The Dawson's Creek. And then what was the other one? Friday Night Lights. Or was it something like that? Hey, Varsity Blues. Thank you. There was those two dueling high school football pieces of content version of himself.

[Blake Neff]

In Don't Trust the bee in apartment 23. I have not watched any of these programs, but I. A lot of people greatly did enjoy them.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, there's his. There's this GoFundMe. And you know what? Please support him. God bless him. Six kids. It's just tragic. I feel terrible for all those kids without it, without their father. So, Blake, you got some emails for us?

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, well, we got a great deal. We got a very big response, obviously, to the video from that disturbed man, the disturbed shooter in Canada. More. I'd say five or six people sent us the identical take that.

[Guaranteed Human Announcer]

That.

[Blake Neff]

That man they believe was demon possessed in some way. He certainly gave off that vibe. And it's very understandable, you know, whether he literally was or not. Why?

[Chip Roy]

Why?

[Blake Neff]

That's a useful way to look at it, that when you allow certain mind virus, certain brain worms into yourself, and if you indulge them endlessly, that can really take over you as a person. That's why addiction is so dangerous. It's why Charlie would talk about this, why he would try to listen to music that elevates the spirit, holy music, why you avoid certain things. Because we are so heavily influenced by what we choose to marinate in and what we choose to be around. It's why the friends you have matter. You become like what you are around all of the time. And if you're around poisons all the time, those take you over and they destroy what was once a full person. You just become a parody of yourself. We have a lot of responses on marijuana. We got another email. I believe. I believe she'd contacted us before from one. I don't want to say the name, but she has a brother who he's basically been in and out of homelessness due to marijuana use. That shattered his mental health. And we have another one. Gary just says, people are. These are all legal because people are making money off of it. And I think Alex definitely drove that home for us.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, we got one from Clarence saying, be honest, and I'm not trying to be stupid here, but marijuana kept me from drinking because I knew what drinking was about and it wasn't good for me. I would say to you, Clarence, that just because it kept you up drinking, being, you know, smoking a lot of pots, probably not good for you either. Right. In the scriptures, it says that you will be mastered by nothing, no addiction. And so. So everybody's struggles with what they struggle with. But that's the goal. That's the. The North Star. So just something to keep in mind.

[Blake Neff]

I would say the numbers reflect, if you look at it, when you are hooked on one thing, the pattern is that it makes it easier for you to be hooked on other things, which is one reason making marijuana so widely available was such a mistake. Like, for the people at the bottom of society, it was like throwing one more problem onto another. So it's not that we have 20 million people who use weed and then 20 million people who drink too much and then another 20 million who gamble too much. It's often the same people doing all these things. They do too much weed and they drink and they gamble away their money and they're hooked on. They play too many video games, and they also are abusing prescription drugs. And that's one reason the health of a lot of the American underclass is just totally disintegrated. Their dying, which we pay for in taxes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Blake Neff]

And they're dying of 10 different addictions. And it'd be bad enough. It would be bad enough if we just had people with drinking problems, for example. But if you have a drinking problem and you're abusing your pills and you're taking a bunch of weed, it's very bad for you. And we have to conquer these one at a time. But the easiest way to not fall into this trap is to just make sure you never set down that path in the first place. And that's why Charlie was such a great example.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, you know, it's interesting though, just looking at our emails, there's a lot of you that are a little skeptical about our weed take. Still, it's interesting. Gary says, will cigarettes and alcohol kill you? Yes. Cannabis does not. This guy is a useful idiot. So that's interesting. Donald says, hey, folks, love you. The three things listed above are legal. Marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, use at your own risk. They are all bad for you, and they are only legal because they make someone money. Drinking is bad. Cigs are bad. Marijuana is bad. All legal. Blake, final few moments here to you. What do you say about to the libertarian argument of the conservative movement?

[Blake Neff]

You know, I understand the appeal, but we have to recognize, like, no one is an island. None of us is, you know, homo economicus. This, like, you know, this pure Randian superhero against the world. It's like I said, said we're all shaped by what's around us. And also, we are defined not just as Charlie would say. We're not just defined by our independence. We're defined by our burdens, our obligations, our duties. We should seek out duties. That's why Charlie would advocate marriage, children. You become a stronger person when you actually have responsibilities and duties to fulfill. And all these addictions we push everywhere, they are encouraging people to abdicate their duties towards others, which are part of what make us fully human beings. We'll see all of you guys tomorrow. Join the ama. We love having all of you.

[Charlie Kirk]

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