The Charlie Kirk Show, February 18, 2026

Summary

The Charlie Kirk Show — Real America’s Voice

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show (broadcast from Phoenix, AZ, for Real America’s Voice) delivers a broad, rapid-fire discussion of U.S. politics, elections, immigration, urban decay, housing, and foreign policy, all steeped in the show’s populist, right-leaning analysis. Featuring regulars Blake Neff, guest J.D. Vance (Vice President), columnist Kirsten Fleming, Secretary Scott Turner (HUD), and gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, the show focuses heavily on the meaning of the midterms, strategic messaging for Republicans, housing affordability, the Potomac sewage spill as a metaphor for urban decline, California and New York politics, and the threat of imminent war with Iran.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. Political Strategy for the 2026 Midterms

Timestamps: 07:38–15:34

• GOP Messaging: Reporting on a Capitol Hill strategy meeting, the hosts detail how top Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio advised that the economy is paramount for voters. Messaging should emphasize concrete, relatable populist issues—banning congressional stock trading, health insurance price transparency, prescription drug costs, and Trump tax cuts—while noting that taking credit for border closure “does not resonate much.”
  • Quote (Charlie Kirk, 11:20):
    “There is such a hunger in tackling the corruption and draining the swamp... The voters, the grassroots, they want to see accountability.”
• Media Strategy: The campaign must focus on podcasts and social media, not traditional national news or broadcast. Facebook is still “king” for swing voters.
• Electoral Outlook: Despite historical precedent of the President’s party losing midterm seats, GOP insiders believe Senate control is likely, barring a “massive bloodbath.”
  • Quote (Blake Neff, 14:34):
    “They believe they’ll only lose the Senate if we lose 50 House seats. So that’s...optimistic.”

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2. Immigration, Urban Chaos & Public Safety

Timestamps: 01:25–06:04, 27:33–30:04

• VP J.D. Vance Interview: Vance reiterates Trump administration’s hard stance on border enforcement.
  • Quote (J.D. Vance, 02:02):
    “We don’t want immigration... where you have that chaos in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, it’s because the local authorities are so committed to an open border that they want to put law enforcement at risk. We’re not going to surrender to that.”
• Discussion of Recent ICE Violence Allegations: National polling shows declining support for Trump’s immigration crackdown, with notable fall-off among male voters.
  • 38% approve of Trump’s handling of immigration (down from 50% at start of presidency).
  • News Clip (Terrence Bates, 29:25):
    “This latest Reuters Ipsos poll shows that male voters in particular are losing enthusiasm for the handling of immigration issues.”

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3. Urban Decay, DEI & the Potomac Sewage Disaster

Timestamps: 18:07–26:23

• Potomac Sewage Spill: The largest in U.S. history—240 million gallons—serves as a symbol of infrastructural decline and perceived mismanagement.
  • Quote (Blake Neff, 18:44):
    “Almost like we're the third world.”
• Critique of Diversity in Utility Leadership:
  • The DC Water manager’s focus on leadership diversity is lampooned as misguided, with the hosts blaming DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) for breakdowns in competence.
    • Quote (Charlie Kirk, 23:39):
      “White men created Western civilization... Don’t be surprised when your city regresses to the historical mean. Most places on planet Earth have rivers filled with poop.”
  • Connection is drawn to international cases, e.g., Johannesburg and Rhodesia, as warnings about affirmative action policies.

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4. California Politics: Steve Hilton’s Gubernatorial Campaign

Timestamps: 32:47–42:49

• Jungle Primary Dynamics: With many Democrats splitting the vote, there’s a real (if faint) possibility that two Republicans, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, could advance in the California gubernatorial primary.
• Key Issues Resonating in California: Hilton campaigns on lowering gas prices ($3 gas), cutting utility bills, and voter ID—echoing the national populist messaging.
  • Quote (Steve Hilton, 40:20):
    “Everything is the most expensive in California... My plan: end the Democrat climate crusade, $3 gas, cut electric bills in half, your first hundred grand tax free, a home you can afford to buy.”

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5. New York City: Fiscal Crisis & “Champagne Socialism”

Timestamps: 59:33–67:04

• Interview with Kirsten Fleming: Mayor Mandani’s administration is accused of lavish spending and leveraging a fiscal crisis to push for higher property and wealth taxes on New Yorkers.
  • Quote (Kirsten Fleming, 61:24):
    “He’s Oprah. He’s like, you get more. You get more... putting more into the freebies, the incentives. All these things where it’s like, buddy, why don’t we start cutting some of the fat?”
• Consequences of Socialist Policy:
  • Productive residents flee; remaining working-class New Yorkers bear the brunt.
  • Parallels are drawn to failed urban policies in Detroit and Boston.
  • Quote (Charlie Kirk, 73:11):
    “You’re seeing people flee from Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, California, and they’re going to the Sun Belt... It's going to completely alter electoral politics.”

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6. Housing Affordability & Policy Solutions

Timestamps: 75:24–92:32

• Interview with HUD Secretary Scott Turner:
  • Trump administration highlights its progress for home ownership: mortgage refinancing, first-time buyers, removing illegal immigrants from FHA mortgage eligibility.
  • Structural policies: Ban institutional investors from buying single-family homes; secure the border to limit housing demand; lower rates; invest in building supply.
  • Quote (Secretary Scott Turner, 81:21):
    “You heard the Vice President yesterday talking about what the Trump administration has done thus far to help first time homebuyers to help Americans achieve the American dream in owning a home.”
• Charlie Kirk’s Framework:
  • Quote (Charlie Kirk, 85:03):
    “It’s a pure supply and demand issue... When you flood the nation with millions of people... you’re going to see prices go up.”

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7. Imminent War With Iran & U.S./Israel Policy

Timestamps: 44:07–49:40, 101:33–101:59

• Reporting by Axios: U.S. and Israeli military buildup signals possible imminent strike on Iran, with speculation about regime change operations.
  • Quote (Charlie Kirk, 46:10):
    “There is more and more evidence that war is, in fact, now imminent.”
• Cautious Analysis: Hosts compare to past Trump foreign policy—successes in Venezuela and surgical strikes—but express concern that Iran is a more complicated, entrenched, and hostile regime.
  • Quote (Blake Neff, 48:54):
    “I don’t think it’s the sort of thing where you could helicopter out one guy and they’d be much friendlier. I think it is the sort of thing where... you would have to overthrow the government and install a new one.”

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8. Cultural & Olympic Commentary

Timestamps: 93:47–100:34

• Olympics: U.S. lagging in medal count, discussion of figure skater Amber Glenn’s political activism and performance.
  • Quote (Charlie Kirk, 97:34):
    “None of that made any sense because President Trump is not coming for the queer community.”
• Complaints about “woke” athletes and the cultural climate of the Olympics.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Charlie Kirk (Economic Messaging, 12:18):
  “People want to see accountability... It’s not GDP, it’s not even (according to Tony Fabrizio) stopping the invasion at the border... It’s ‘ban stock trading for Congress,’ ‘get big medicine,’ ‘stop Big Pharma’... These are things people can hang their hat on.”

• J.D. Vance (On Leadership, 02:02):
  "We are going to be deliberate, we’re going to be smart... We’re going to keep on enforcing the border, Martha. That’s the mandate the American people gave us."

• Charlie Kirk (On DEI & Potomac, 23:39):
  “White men created Western civilization... if you are going to go into the C suite of a utility... don’t be surprised when your city regresses to the historical mean. Most places on planet Earth have rivers filled with poop.”

• Steve Hilton (CA Strategy, 40:20):
  “Everything is the most expensive in California than anywhere else in the country. My plan... end the Democrat climate crusade, so you get $3 gas... a home you can afford to buy. That’s really what people are responding to.”

• Kirsten Fleming (NYC Politics, 61:24):
  “He’s Oprah. He’s like, you get more. You get more... putting more into... incentives... why don’t we start cutting some of the fat?”

• Charlie Kirk (Urban Flight, 73:11):
  “You’re seeing people flee from Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, California... completely alter electoral politics at a national level.”

• Secretary Scott Turner (Housing, 81:21):
  “American people are a priority and the only priority. And home affordability is at the top of mind.”

• Charlie Kirk (War with Iran, 46:10):
  “There’s more and more evidence that war is, in fact, now imminent.”

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Segment Guide (Timestamps)

• [07:38–15:34] — GOP Midterms Messaging & Media Strategy
• [18:07–26:23] — The Potomac Sewage Crisis, DEI Critique
• [27:33–30:04] — ICE Violence, Immigration, Voter Sentiment
• [32:47–42:49] — Steve Hilton on CA Race, Populist Campaign Issues
• [59:33–67:04] — Kirsten Fleming on NYC Budget Crisis, "Champagne Socialists"
• [75:24–92:32] — Housing Affordability, Secretary Scott Turner (HUD) Interview
• [44:07–49:40, 101:33–101:59] — U.S./Iran Tensions, Prospects for War
• [93:47–100:34] — Olympics Coverage, Amber Glenn, U.S. Medal Count

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Episode Tone & Style

• Candid, polemical, and highly opinionated. The tone is combative, with a populist, anti-elite, and anti-DEI slant, often punctuated by sarcastic asides and dark humor.
• Frequent cross-talk between Charlie Kirk, Blake Neff, and guests, with a mixture of hard news analysis, cultural commentary, and campaign-strategy shop talk.

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Summary:

For listeners seeking a one-stop, rapid-fire update on the state of conservative/Trumpian politics in February 2026—including strategic campaign messaging for midterms, urban policy and decline, immigration, economic populism, and the specter of imminent conflict with Iran—this episode of The Charlie Kirk Show is a highly representative (and unapologetically partisan) snapshot of contemporary U.S. political discourse.

Transcript

[Charlie Kirk]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[J.D. Vance]

The question we're going to put to the American people is do you want to give the government back over to the people who frankly burned down the house and made most Americans much less wealthy and much less safe? Or do you want to double down on the President's leadership, which has helped us recover from some of the problems caused by Joe Biden and then has built a lot on top of it? Because so much of what we've done over the last year are things that are going to pay long term dividends for the American people.

[Blake Neff]

The President didn't like the videos that he was seeing in Minnesota.

[J.D. Vance]

I don't think any of us like the videos.

[Kirsten Fleming]

Are we not going to see that.

[Blake Neff]

Kind of surge in Los Angeles or.

[Kirsten Fleming]

New York, the other places that you mentioned?

[J.D. Vance]

Well, Martha, none of us like those videos. That's in fact the point is we don't want immigration. In 99% of cases you have a federal law enforcement officer, they show up at a jail or they show up somewhere else, they identify a person who needs to be deported and they get them out of our country. That's how it should work. Where you have that chaos in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, it's because the local authorities are so committed to an open border that they want to put law enforcement at risk. We're not going to surrender to that. We're not going to submit to that. We are going to be deliberate, we're going to be smart. We're going to try to prevent these chaotic scenes that of course the Democrats used to political advantage. But we're going to keep on enforcing the border, Martha. That's the mandate the American people gave us.

[Charlie Kirk]

He's my vice president. Of course he's going to be at the top of the ticket.

[J.D. Vance]

Well, I think the president is very smartly saying we've got three years to go. Marco is my closest friend the administration. I think he's doing a great job for the American people. But most importantly, we all have to continue doing a good job for the American people from the President on down. And that's what we're focused on.

[Charlie Kirk]

Surely as vice president you'd like to be president.

[Blake Neff]

What I.

[J.D. Vance]

Well, look, I think again I'm going to try to do as good of a job as I can right now. So one of the things that I, that I don't like about this question and this entire perspective is I've been in this job for all of a year. About six months ago, sorry, a year and six months ago, I asked the American people to give me this job that I have right now. Why don't I do as good of a job as I can in this job or worry about the next job sometime in the future? Does anybody really believe that AOC has very thoughtful ideas about the global world order or about what the United States should do with our policy in Asia or our policy in Europe?

[Terrence Bates]

No.

[J.D. Vance]

This is a person who is mouthing the slogans that somebody else gave her. And I guess no one gave her one for that. I guess not. And it shows how thin the Democrats policy actually is on all these very, very important questions. Look, that was embarrassing. If I had given that answer, I would say, you know what, maybe I'd go read a book about China and Taiwan before I go out on the world stage again. I hope that Congresswoman Cortez has the same humility. I'm skeptical. If you go back to the Biden administration, the average American lost about $3,000 in take home pay during the four years the Democrats were in charge. In the first year of the Trump administration, they've gained. Average Americans have gained about twelve hundred dollars. Now there's kind of a good news, bad news dynamic there. If you're looking at it from the perspective of the last year, Americans have done better. If you're looking at it from the perspective of the Biden administration, we're still digging out of the hole the Democrats put us in.

[Charlie Kirk]

What do you say to people who say, you know, well, I'm not sure I should have a third or fourth child because it's too expensive?

[J.D. Vance]

Well, one, I hear him and I know a lot of young American families are actually deciding not to have kids or delaying kids. I mean, look, what I would say is it's, it's never a good time in the sense that it's never going to be perfect, it's never going to be easy. I know as the father of three with a fourth on the way, there are always going to be challenges. But I don't know anybody who chose to have another kid who regretted even sometimes if it was financially difficult. It often is. I think babies are a good thing and I think if we have more of them in this country, the country will be much better.

[Kirsten Fleming]

Thanks for doing your part.

[J.D. Vance]

We're doing our part.

[Blake Neff]

What is going on with women and.

[Charlie Kirk]

Not wanting to prioritize family?

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Yeah, this is a pattern that I've seen time and time on these college campuses where young men are ordering their life correctly. They want to first and foremost have children, get married and then have a nice job or to be able to travel. If you look deeper into this data, it's completely consistent with other data we've seen in the last couple of years. Young women, they don't value having children. And this is one of the reasons why we are seeing a fertility collapse in the West. If you play out the liberal worldview, the Kamala Harris worldview, to its furthest possible logical point, you have a country with literally no future. When you play out the logical endpoint of President Trump's agenda of where young men voted for him, you have one of lots of children increasing communities and you also have a need then for mass immigration.

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[J.D. Vance]

Every day there's a battle for your.

[Charlie Kirk]

Mind raging information coming from every angle.

[J.D. Vance]

With the will to deceive, fear not.

[Charlie Kirk]

You found the place for truth.

[J.D. Vance]

The voice of a generation that still has the will to believe in the greatest country in the history of the world. This is the Charlie Kirk Show.

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Buckle up.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here we go. All right. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. It is February 18, 2026, here in the Bitcoin.com studios in Phoenix, Arizona. Blake, welcome.

[Blake Neff]

Howdy.

[Charlie Kirk]

Happy morning. Last night on Capitol Hill, the senior Trump political command briefed its core team on the midterms. This is reporting from Mark Halpern, a frequent guest on this show. And I am reading from an X account that he has given to all. Some great reporting from Mark Halperin.

[Blake Neff]

I like his. He's got it here. It was a meeting at the Capitol Hill Club. So that's where Republicans often meet.

[Charlie Kirk]

The group was served chicken and steak.

[Blake Neff]

Very Halpern detail there. Gets food, gets the food detail.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was a two hour program starting around 5:30. This is a veteran group. Not panicked or shaken, he says, just focused on the work and the task at hand. There were about 75 to 100 people in the room. Many Cabinet members were there, including Scott Bessant, Howard Lucknick, rfk, Sean Duffy, along with their most senior aides. The meeting, not the president, was hosted. No, not the president. The meeting was hosted by Susie Wiles, who spoke briefly. The pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio, who Charlie loved, presented with about 25 slides on the data of what voters care about, the demographics, the issues, the messages that resonate and what do not. The economy will be. The economy will be the issue in the election, he said. Messages that break through, banning stock trading for Congress. That's a message that breaks through.

[Blake Neff]

Let's, let's. Yeah, so this is economic messages that get through the most is what he's saying here. So, yeah, banning stock trading for Congress. I think that's a very interesting one. Transparency on health insurance data, including pricing and claims, reimbursement lower prescription drug costs and the Trump tax cuts.

[Charlie Kirk]

I think this is worth hovering, though, for just a second. Again, this is Tony Fabrizio, one of the most famed respected pollsters in the entire, I guess, political scene, but especially within President Trump's.

[Blake Neff]

Was this the guy? I remember when Charlie, on election night, Charlie would be texting back and forth with like an unnamed person. He's like, he tells me like, we got this, we got like, is that Tony?

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, there was a few of them on election night. One of them was data Republican. Another one was Tony Fabrizio. And yeah, Charlie. Love Tony. Tony is beloved by the Trump administration, by the team, trusted deeply. But again, let's just hover on these slides.

[Blake Neff]

I really love.

[Charlie Kirk]

I do. Resonating.

[Blake Neff]

I do. Banning stock trading for Congress is an interesting one. I know people. I think that is underrated because I do think there's been really all the way back since the big crash in 08, over and over again, public attention goes back to how wealthy members of Congress are, how much wealthier they routinely get while they're in Congress. The fact that insider trading for a long time had no restrictions at all. It's still not that restricted now. There's always like new ways that you can cash in and people notice it. It's like you can literally follow theme.

[Charlie Kirk]

I see a theme in these issues that they list. There is a underpinning of the populist energy in each one of these. Right. And it's coming from a conservative angle. So the question is, how can you get wins that resonate, that stick in the brain of voters? You're also accomplishing a massive portfolio of policy agenda items that are having huge impacts actually on the economy, underlying economic momentum. But these are things that stick in the minds of normie people that are not plugged into the day in, day out of the political rigor.

[Philip Patrick]

Moral.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is what I'm saying. Banning stock trading for Congress.

[Blake Neff]

That's so interesting because it's not really a thing that makes any individual person richer. No, but it captures the idea of are the elites against us? Are they just exploiting us and playing by different rules?

[Charlie Kirk]

There is such a hunger in tackling the corruption and draining the swamp. Now, we're going to get to the Potomac story in the next segment. So that brings a whole new meaning to draining the swamp. But that's what we're getting at, is that the voters, the grassroots, they want to see accountability. They want to see the elites that have been getting away with it in their minds for so long. Be held accountable. And these are the issues. It's not gdp. It's not even, according to Tony Fabrizio, stopping the invasion at the border, which is a huge accomplishment that guaranteed has more impact on your daily life than any of the things I'm going to.

[Blake Neff]

We didn't read that. He actually says, apparently Fabriz in his presentation, he said, this is from Mark Halpern. Taking credit for closing the border does not resonate much. Which does not resonate is a bummer because it is an incredible accomplishment of this administration. But if it's not resonating, it's not resonating. You should still do it, of course.

[Charlie Kirk]

Because it's good. Of course. But check it out. Let's read these again. Banning stock trading for Congress. Get those dirty, corrupt politicians in Congress. Transparency on health insurance. Get big medicine. Get big hospitals. Get. Get big insurance. We want to know what we're paying for. We want them to stop getting away with it. Lowering prescription drug costs. Stopping Big Pharma. And the Trump tax cuts. The Trump tax cuts will resonate because guess what? People are already experiencing about 11% boost in their tax returns.

[Blake Neff]

Mm.

[Charlie Kirk]

Housing affordability. This is a Charlie Kirk special and we're going to get into this in hour two with Secretary Scott Turner from HUD and we're going to talk about that. J.D. vance had a great interview with Martha McCallan yesterday. Taking credit for closing the border does not resonate much. Much to Blake's earlier.

[Blake Neff]

I really. One last thing. And then I want us to move into this. I do. I really like how it's not just, oh, we need a more of a domestic focus on the economy. It's that specific bit of this is a specific thing like banning stock trading or really honing in, like on prescription drug prices that will be noticed and will produce results 1,000%.

[Charlie Kirk]

And by the way, if you think back to the campaign, it was similar, right? No tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. These were things that people could hang their hat on. They could say, oh, that sounds good. And by the way, it cuts through Normieville. It cuts through to Main Street.

[Blake Neff]

Yes. And speaking of stuff, that goes back to 2024. So he goes on, he says he makes recommendations for how they should spend time in media. And he says spend time on podcasts and social media, not national news interview. No one's watching Meet the Press anymore. He says paid media should go on targeted media like that. Social media apps not on broadcast. He says Facebook is still king for voters people.

[Charlie Kirk]

Then Instagram people are Pushing back against, against this. And I want to push back against the pushback. Facebook is where normie voters live, AKA older voters.

[Blake Neff]

They're the ones who will reliably turn out. Facebook. Facebook exists for one reason and it's so boomers can share anti Obama, anti Biden memes.

[Charlie Kirk]

So there's actually data on this. It's older millennials who were the first generation to have Facebook, their parents and that X or in between zone. So it makes sense. They're original users, but they're still the most apt to vote. Right?

[Steve Hilton]

Yeah.

[Blake Neff]

I want we have a minute here. They're targeting he TYPO this. It's 36 targeted House races and seven key Senate races. And they're Frank Fabizzio and then James Blair gets up the political czar and they say historically they know it's common for the president's party to lose seats, often a lot of seats in the midter terms. They believe they'll only lose the Senate if we lose 50 House seats. So that's kind of an optimistic take. We're likely to keep the Senate, keep the ability to confirm Supreme Court justices, confirm appointees and let's say true massive bloodbath. And I think they're aware as long as they take the right moves, they might lose seats. It's likely they'll lose seats, but not catastrophically. He says trying to argue about wages being up will not help. Voters just have to feel it. And then this is interesting. Apparently they said he since President Trump wasn't there, he says Trump will do what he wants to do. He will say what he wants to say. He goes on guts and instincts. He's not as data driven, but everyone else, you know, they can stay on their message and they'll expect, you know, Trump has good instincts.

[Charlie Kirk]

They talk about it as a parallel path that everybody that can stay on message do it. Trump's gonna go with his gut and he's gonna message on instinct. He's the president after all. He's earned the right. I want to tell you guys really quickly about our friends over at All Family Pharmacy. For a lot of Americans, the health care system is reactive. So you get sick, then you react. No, you got to get ahead of it, do it in advance. All right, so this is where all Family Pharmacy is different. This is not a typical pharmacy. It's a family owned operation. Great. Guys down out of Florida that started this works with licensed doctors and is built around a simple idea. You should have the freedom to make informed choices about your own health care and ability to be prepared ahead of time. With all Family pharmacy, you can order prescription medications before you are sick, keep them at home and have them ready when you need them most. Everything is done online. A licensed doctor reviews your request and your medications ship straight to your door. They offer antibiotics, antivirals, Tamiflu, Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, mendazole, almost got that today. Methylene blue, and even your daily maintenance medications. So go to allfamilypharmacy.com Kirk that's allfamilypharmacy.com kirk use code kirk10 to save 10% on your next order. We'll be right back.

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Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show. Andrew Colvett and Blake Neff in so we want to get to this Potomac story as the Potomac, not the Potomac, because it has just experienced the largest sewage spill in U.S. history. 240 million gallons of raw sewage flooding the Potomac in one month. This has been going on for weeks, which is just remarkable actually, that anything this catastrophic and horrific and smelly and gross and disgusting would be allowed.

[Blake Neff]

I can't imagine.

[Charlie Kirk]

Almost like we're the third World.

[Blake Neff]

I can't imagine just a giant poop smell permeating over the capital of the United States of America. Drain the swamp where all the politicians and power seekers are.

[Charlie Kirk]

I know it's terrible. So here's the thing. There's multiple layers to this story. Let's, let's start with NBC is finally covering this. 464 the River George Washington called the.

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Nation'S river, is tonight off limits and contaminated after a 60 year old sewage line in Maryland broke open last month.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Spewing more than 240 million gallons of.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Raw waste into the river. The same river that flows past the Kennedy center and the Lincoln Memorial and used by boaters, kayakers, high school and college rowing teams.

[Charlie Kirk]

So you can see some of the.

[J.D. Vance]

Toilet paper and the sewage up on the banks there.

[Public Ad Announcer]

River keeper Dean Nell Yoakes says the stench and environmental damage are staggering with.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

E. Coli levels more than 10,000 times.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Above EPA quality standards at the time of the spill.

[Blake Neff]

I think they could fix it. They could just take a box of like kitchen matches and you just light it and burn it for a bit and get.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, well if you set the Potomac on fire it would probably clean it up faster than what they're gonna do here. And they're saying this might not be fixed for nine months.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, it just, I feel like that's, that's probably the most emblematic thing. It's that when you're decaying you read like the Hoover Dam got built in like two years or something. The Empire State Building went up in nine months, I think less than a year.

[Charlie Kirk]

And now and Chinese are building ships and we can't fix it for nine months.

[Blake Neff]

You need to look at China. I remember Japan once they raised an entire train line in a day. You can watch the time lapse. They just shut down the whole station. Did it all in one night. And now there's, there's a powerful symbolism in. It's already been a month. This is a, it's a six foot wide pipe. It's quite the, quite the, it's a.

[Charlie Kirk]

Huge scene and I guess some rocks.

[Blake Neff]

There'S like a rock dam. So they investigate it like, oh well, we have to clear this rock dam before we can cure the blockage. But yes, six months, nine months. And you know when they say it'll take nine months, that means it might take them a year, two years. They might just say, you know, ultimately it's now just the sewage river.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's the sewage river. It's the Potomac. And now President Trump is blaming Wes Moore for Maryland. The governor there, and the governor is blaming the feds. 465.

[Public Ad Announcer]

President Trump has blamed Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore for gross mismanagement while Moore.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Fired back saying the pipe was Federally built and regulated.

[Public Ad Announcer]

And the Trump EPA has been slow to respond. The fear now the Potomac may not.

[Charlie Kirk]

Be safe for months. You used to swim right here?

[Secretary Scott Turner]

I swam right here.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Would you swim in here again?

[Charlie Kirk]

Not for a while.

[Blake Neff]

Wow.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

DC Water expects to have the immediate repair job done by mid March.

[Charlie Kirk]

But overhauling the entire line could take.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

At least nine months.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, so here is where it gets interesting. DC Water's manager, David Gattis, had a whole theory of the case. What was wrong with the people running this system before? Hmm, I'll give you a couple guesses. 422.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

You know, when I arrived at DC.

[Charlie Kirk]

Water, this was an organization that looked very similar to our, to our, our industry. It was predominantly, you know, white male at the top. But this was a utility that's, you.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Know, more than 70% people of color.

[Charlie Kirk]

Work at this utility.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

The people at the top, the executives.

[Charlie Kirk]

The chiefs in that C suite, they should look like the employees that they, that they serve and that they work with.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

And the same thing with the community. And so my executive team, you know.

[Charlie Kirk]

Looks exactly like the community. It looks like. It looks like the employees, the staff, you know, be it people of color, women. Well, now they have a river filled with poop. Yeah.

[Blake Neff]

So how did that work out? Yeah, so, okay, they used to be a bunch of white men running it, and they're the ones who built the pipe. They probably built it faster than they'll ever repair it here now. It worked for 60 years.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, and the fact that this was going for four weeks is another just damning detail.

[Blake Neff]

It's sort of. It just seems to have started as a small story and then just, it keeps going and people are like, wait, that's still going. There's still poo going.

[Charlie Kirk]

You're telling me that the river that flows by the Kennedy center and the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial right through our nation's capital is filled with poo.

[Blake Neff]

Now, admittedly, I will, I feel obliged to point out that the Potomac actually has been polluted a long time. So, So I, I know when I moved to D.C. you were not supposed to swim in the Potomac. And there was like a decade long cleanup process. And I think maybe a couple years ago they finally said you could swim in it, and now it's just right back into the pool.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, they have e. Coli levels at 10, 000 times.

[Blake Neff]

Well, now, now you definitely can't. But even before, you were always told not to swim in it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here is a general observation, because white men get a lot of crap. We get we're the only group. It's like acceptable, acceptable to attack us.

[Blake Neff]

But you have genocidal fantasies about them.

[Charlie Kirk]

Set the record straight though. White men created Western civilization. They settled this continent. They built the most successful, functional, prosperous and advanced societies on planet Earth. And if you are going to go into the C suite of a utility that runs your sewage for millions of people and you remove us arbitrarily, whether that be culturally or in this case bureaucratically, don't be surprised when your city regresses to the historical mean. Most places on planet Earth have rivers filled with poop.

[Blake Neff]

If you want, if you want to understand exactly how this works, there's, there's a great X account. I'm going to shout it out to everyone and we should talk about it on Thought Crime next time we have it. But it's a Twitter account called Josie vs. Josie. That's J O Z I. So Josie vs. Josie. And it's Johannesburg, that's the nickname for it in South Africa and all. The only thing the account is is it's photos of Johannesburg from 2010, 2000, 1990, old photos of Johannesburg, but mostly like 2009, 2010, old Google Maps photos. So when they would just drive around and take photos. And then today, and that's all the account is and all you have is Johannesburg after another 15 years of. There's a lot of DEI. South Africa is basically the DEI country. It's in their laws, in their constitution. At this point you have to have African economic empowerment. I believe they call it Black economic empowerment. They'll have labels like that. And that is how they run their country. See how it's turned out.

[Charlie Kirk]

Rhodesia is another example of that. There's beautiful pictures of rhodesia from the 1960s and 70s.

[Blake Neff]

Or go if you wanted a closer to home example, go to London like Charlie did last spring. You'll see beautiful building after beautiful building built 200 years ago. And they can't, they can barely even repair them. Now they're talking about tearing down the palace of Westminster because it would be annoying to repair it.

[Charlie Kirk]

They can't do that. We should do regime change on them.

[Blake Neff]

If they try to change it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Can't go that far. Be careful when you attack the people that uphold society, that produce in your society, that maintain it, that built it in the first place. You might just miss them when they are gone. And I think the Potomac story is a sad, sad reminder that villainizing white people often comes with steep costs. Next up we have Steve Hilton, who's running for governor in the state of California and there's some surprising polling out of the State of California. We'll be right.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosure is available at public.com disclosures.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this Real America's Voice News Break. I'm Terrence Bates. State law enforcement in Minnesota, along with federal investigators, are looking into allegations that ICE agents beat a man so severely that it landed him in a Minneapolis intensive care unit. The Mexican national who was the target of the arrest claims the agents pulled him out of his car, threw him to the ground and repeatedly hit him in the head with a steel baton, resulting in multiple skull fractures. ICE blames the guy himself, saying that he tried to run from the agents while he was handcuffed and fell and hit his head against a concrete wall. Doctors argue the man's injuries aren't consistent with that narrative, though. Instead, a CT scan showed fractures to the front, back and both sides of his skull. Both federal and local investigators have been looking for surveillance video from the shopping center where the January 8th arrest happened in hopes of determining what actually went down. This latest investigation comes amid another federal investigation into whether two ICE officers lied about lied under oath about a shooting in Minneapolis. Turns out video evidence contradicted their sworn testimony. Meantime, President Trump appears to be losing support for his immigration policies. A new Reuters Ipsos poll finds 38% of respondents believe the president is doing a good job on its signature issue. That's compared to 39% in a similar poll back in January, shortly after 47 took office. In the early months of the second Trump presidency, however, support of his illegal immigration crackdown rose to as high as 50%. This latest Reuters Ipsos poll shows that male voters in particular are losing enthusiasm for the handling of immigration issues. 41% are giving him a thumbs up these days, compared to nearly 60% just a year ago. Similarly, about 35% of women support the administration's actions, compared to about 40% who were polled last year. The Reuters Ipsos poll was conducted over four days and ended this past Monday. Well, as always, we appreciate having you along for the ride. I'm Terrence Bates. We'll have more headlines coming your way in just a little bit. Plus, we're keeping our eye on the White House, which is set to host its latest press briefing here in about 30 minutes or so. We'll take you there live shortly.

[Charlie Kirk]

This movement will not be silenced. You're listening to the Charlie Kirk Show. All right. It is Strong Cell time supplement time. Got him right here. If you've listened to this show for any amount of time, you've probably heard us talk about Strong Cell. Charlie loved Strong Cell. For whatever reason, when we would travel around, it was like one of the main things you guys wanted to ask him about. And we're not about politics or redistricting or trans stuff. No, you wanted to hear about Strong Cell. Does it actually work? And I am here to tell you that it does. Strong Cell has a proprietary delivery mechanism of an amazing breakthrough enzyme called nadh. By the way, that H is important. Don't go with the NAD stuff. You gotta go with the nadh.

[Blake Neff]

What's it mean?

[Charlie Kirk]

That's what makes it so special. What's that?

[Blake Neff]

What's the H mean?

[Charlie Kirk]

All I know is that they described it to me and they said that the NADH is much, much more powerful and effective. But it's much more. It's unstable. So when it doesn't make it through your stomach. Speaking of which. So. But it's, it's the good stuff. The NADH is the good stuff. This has NADH CoQ10 collagen. Here it goes. Hopefully get rid of this scratch in my throat. There it is. Strong Cell once again today. Now you can try Strong sell completely risk free, their 90 day money back guarantee. That's right. Completely risk free. To try, go to visit [e-mail] today. No, it is not where we want to put Kamala Harris. Well, we may want to, but it's not. It's actually just their website. StrongCell.com use promo code Charlie at checkout to save 20%. That's Charlie at checkout to save 20%. Don't forget to use the special code Charlie on checkout. All right, do we have Steve Hilton? We're having some technical difficulties.

[Blake Neff]

All right, so. Well, we can still hype up why we wanted to have him on, which is so we get contacted all of the time by viewers and listeners of this show. They always want to ask about California. They say, can you guys save California? And Charlie was always honest. We're always honest. And we say we're focused on the core swing states. Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia, places like that. That and California. If you're there, you should fight for it. You should do everything you can. But it's not imminently about to flip. But there is a governor's election this year and California has a very interesting law. They have jungle primaries, which is regardless of party, everyone into a big pot and the top two vote getters go to the general. And that's how it works. And they did this so they could get more left wing people. In a lot of the country, you'd only have have two Democrats. You could get a more left wing one versus a moderate and so on.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, they wanted a Dem versus a.

[Blake Neff]

Dem, but a side effect of just a big jungle primary is, well, it's a blue state. There are six Democrats at least running in the governor's race and there's only two Republicans. And yesterday we got this poll, it's apparently done by Tavern Research and is an internal poll for the Javier Becerra campaign. And These are top two advance. The top two polling are Chad Bianco, 20%, Steve Hilton, 12%. Well, and then six Democrats.

[Charlie Kirk]

And this is what's great. So I called Steve yesterday. I was like, steve, you're in the top two. Like, this is great. And he goes, oh, that's a fake poll. And just, you know, his wonderful English accent saying, oh, that's a fake poll. Wait till you see what comes out tomorrow. So now we have a new poll and I'm struggling to get the Number here it is 450. So put up the new new one. I think this is for Emma Emerson. Did a, did a poll. Steve Hilton's actually at 17%. In December, he was down at 12%. So if you go to the left side of that graph, he is now pulled ahead as the top poll poll receiving most favorable of all the candidates, this one has Swalwell. Yeah, Eric Swalwell as number two. Chad Bianco the other Republican at number three.

[Blake Neff]

But also also they're both at 14. So effectively tied for secondly, tied for.

[Charlie Kirk]

Second, top two advanced, Porter, Steyer, Becerra, Villaragosa. And then undecided is still a huge chunk because, you know, it's early.

[Blake Neff]

If we were to get, if we were to get it where just two Republicans are the nominees in California for the governorship, that would be, that would possibly be the funniest thing I've seen in state level politics. It basically would be a literal coup. We would take over the state.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, without further ado, one of those men and apparently the, the leading candidate for the governor of the state of California, Steve Hilton, joins us now. Steve, congratulations on these new breaking poll results. You are at 17%. I mean, this massively crowded field. So to get to 17 is a huge accomplishment. Welcome back to the show. Tell us what it means.

[Steve Hilton]

Well, it's great to be with you guys. Always fun. And I really appreciate the way you laid all that out there exactly right. We've got this ridiculous top two system and there is a crazy scenario as you just mentioning where you could get two Republicans in the top two, that's theoretically possible. But in practice it's not going to happen because the Democrat machine is not just going to surrender California. And right now there's another thing that's happened which is as well as the existing candidates that have been in the race for a while, people like I can barely say their names without laughing that as the president would say, they're not sending their best. When you think about the Democrats, Eric Swalwell, Katie Porter, the billionaire climate fanatic, Tom Steyer. Well, on top of that, you've got another one now, a guy called Matt Mahan. He is the mayor of San Jose. No one's really heard of him. But he's got big tech money behind him and that's going to propel him up. He's got a lot of money. And on the other side of it, the unions, they always get behind one candidate. They're going to pick their puppet, as it were. And it looks to me like they're getting behind Eric Swalwell. So within a couple of weeks, even maybe certainly within months, you will get two very well funded Democrats moving up purely because of all the money that the government unions and the tech communities are putting in. So the real risk actually is that we get two Democrats in the top two. That's what I'm really concerned about. And then of course, the Chance for change in California is gone, and it has a massively negative impact on the other races in California. If there's no Republican in the governor's race, you can forget about any of the congressional seats in California that are in play, that we absolutely need to protect the House majority. You can forget about voter id, which is on the ballot.

[Charlie Kirk]

I wanted to update on that, Steve, actually, because we had Calvert on the show giving us the update. Where we stand on that right now, it's fantastic.

[Steve Hilton]

It's qualified for the ballot. We've got more than enough signatures. It's been led by. Ken has been great on it. A friend of mine, Carl DeMaio, has been really working hard. I've been on the road getting signatures as well. It's qualified for the ballot. This is huge. It's not just huge in its own right because it helps stop the cheating. It actually is a big part of why I believe we can really win this year, because voter id, of course, as we know, it's popular across the board, even in California, even among California Democrats, there's a majority for voter id. But of course, it's really popular with Republicans. That means it's going to really help the turnout in November and in a midterm, as you know, that's what it's all about, getting your voters out. And so it's one of the main reasons I think we can actually win this year, truly win in November and elect me governor, is voter ID being on the ballot.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, and listen, there is, I mean, there is probably no politician in the United States so loathed and so mocked, save for, like, AOC and Ilhan Omar as Eric Swalwell. I mean, this. The fact to see his name ahead of Katie Porter shocked me, actually, because, yeah, Katie Porter is. Got a terrible bedside manner. She's terrible to her staff. She's mean. But, you know, she's a little like Eric Swalwell.

[Blake Neff]

I mean, so we have to weigh the possibility that she may, if the race is close, simply eat Eric. Swell Wall.

[Charlie Kirk]

You do not have to chime in on any of this if you don't want to, Steve Hilton.

[Steve Hilton]

Well, I will say one thing, which is I can't decide between them. What is my preference? You know, Katie Porter with the endless opportunity for mashed potato jokes or Eric Swalwell with the, with the, with the, you know, possibilities for Fang Fang. I can't decide.

[Blake Neff]

We can't.

[Charlie Kirk]

There's flatulating on camera. There's Fang Fang. And now the new one is his erotic poetry. He's given Stacey Abrams a run for her money. It was he once penned a graph I will sex charge college poem boasting of lovers kissing till veins imploded and exploded with blood rolled down our chins. Ah. Okay.

[Blake Neff]

Formless and magnificent. A flurry of limbs and nails.

[Charlie Kirk]

I guess you know a flurry of limbs and nails. All of us bad poetry.

[Blake Neff]

He was. He was 19. I guess all of us were cringe once but it is very funny.

[Steve Hilton]

So right now I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna stick to saying my plan is for $3 gas in California because we're gonna end the Democrats climate insanity. That's my response to that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well yeah. What are you seeing resonating on the. On the campaign trail? Because we just got this interesting report from Mark Halperin talking on the national level. They want to see banning stock trading. They want to see price transparency at hospitals. So Fabrizio's giving the president and the administration these messaging line items that will pierce the noise. Right. What's piercing the noise in California?

[Steve Hilton]

So we're on the road. I mean you can see it behind me because this is. I'm on the road with. We call it the Califordable tour because it's all of these. Everything is the most expensive in California than anywhere else in the country. So my plan is incredibly. You got end the Democrat climate crusade. So you get $3 gas.

[Charlie Kirk]

Gas.

[Steve Hilton]

Cut electric bills in half. We have the highest gas prices in the country even though we have abundant oil reserves higher than Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We have the highest electric bills everywhere apart from Hawaii. These are the concerns. Tax is the highest in the country. Rent, housing, all of these things Charlie used to talk about. And that's one of the things that so resonates of course for all of us is that simple American dream. Get married, raise a family, buy your own home, a good decent life. They've made that impossible in California. It's actually those simple things. $3 gas, cut your electric bills in half, your first hundred grand tax free. A home you can afford to buy. That's really what people are responding to. And I think that's. And the Democrats have no answer, like literally nothing to say about any of that. And the idea that we're just going to have more of the same of this nonsense in California, it's just unthinkable. So that's why I'm sure we can.

[Charlie Kirk]

Win the regulatory burden and especially on gas. The refinery situation. Didn't just a refinery just shut down? My family in Nevada was telling me gas in Nevada spiked because a refinery shut down in California. And now there's a report out of Bloomberg that gasoline starved California is turning to fuel from the Bahamas. This just came out from Bloomberg. Gasoline starved California is turning to fuel from the Bah. Where's we need California is so inept. They need fuel from the Bahamas. All right, Steve, here's a question for you. Are you and Chad talking? What's it gonna take to unite the Klans, consolidate the field? You can answer however you want, but it seems to me.

[Steve Hilton]

We do. We got to avoid splitting the vote. That's really important. Otherwise we could end up with two Democrats and that's an absolute calamity. So the truth is that for. For months now, actually, I've made it clear my door is open. I'm building a team to get this done. It's never actually been done like this in California. I've got a running mate for Lieutenant Governor Gloria Romero. Michael Gates, a fantastic fighter, running with me for Attorney General. He was the city attorney in Huntington beach, worked for the Trump administration with Harmeet Dillon in the Justice Department. Herb Morgan running for state controller. We've set up Cal Doge to find the fraud. So I'm building a team already and I love Chad to be part of that. I don't see any interest on his side.

[Charlie Kirk]

Steve Hilton for governor. Charlie Kirkendor. Steve Hilton for governor. We're behind you 100%, my friend. Keep going. Thank you. Keep going.

[Steve Hilton]

Great to see you.

[Charlie Kirk]

We'll be right back.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers. Growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc. SEC registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Charlie Kirk]

It could be happening. That is not an endorsement, by the way, but we're here to bring you the news. According to Axios, Trump moves closer to a major war with Iran. So this is a, the sources noted it would likely be a joint US Israeli campaign that's much broader in scope and more existential for the regime than The Israeli led 12 day war last June, which US eventually joined to take out Iran's underground nuclear facilities. So this, this is a huge buildup here. So we'll go through the numbers here. Trump's armada has grown to include two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, hundreds of fighter jets and multiple air defense systems. Some of that firepower is still on.

[Blake Neff]

The way and people have been seeing how over the last few days a lot of the logistical stuff has been because you can monitor those flights, flights. So tankers have been flying across the ocean. This, the supply vehicles that would support a major effort. All of that is heading from Europe, from the United States. Like you get that long term buildup that would let them have sustained action against the country.

[Charlie Kirk]

Exactly. So more than 150 US military cargo flights have moved weapons systems and ammunitions to the Middle east just in the past 24 hours. Another 50 fighter jets, F35s, F22s and F16s headed to the region. So what they say is between the lines, the stand up with Iran has gone on so long, many Americans are likely numb to it. Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't say the base is numb to it. The Twitterati are numb to it.

[Blake Neff]

What they're getting at is this is a bigger buildup than we had last summer, than we've had at other times. And yet this is the fourth segment of the hour. It's not what we led the show with. We haven't really been talking about it. It's been in the background compared to shutdown in Washington, compared to the ICE stuff, compared to basically a lot of other issues. And there's no, I think if you were to say, if we were to, if Trump were to go on air and say we're launching a regime change war against Iran, I think a lot of people would be wondering why it's happening now. Last summer there was actual war between Iran and Israel going on.

[Charlie Kirk]

Their argument would be that there is this mass uprising and then the regime came in, crushed it. We're talking about tens of thousands of dead protesters, which is obviously horrendous, but there's horrendous things that happen all over the world. Now, the pro Iran lobby would say this is the time you could push them over the top, et cetera, et cetera. So this is what's interesting here, the timeline. The Israeli government, which is pushing for a maximalist scenario targeting regime change as well as Iran's nuclear and missile programs, is preparing for a scenario of war within days, according to two Israeli officials. Some US Sources tell Axios that the US Might need more time. Senator LINDSEY GRAHAM this is the part where it got my, perked my ears right up. Senator Lindsey Graham said strikes could still be weeks away, but others say the timeline could be shorter. This is what it says. The boss is getting fed up. Some people around him warn against going to war with Iran. But I think there is a 90% chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks. One Trump adviser said. And what is prompting a lot of this is that there has been attempted Iran, US Diplomatic negotiations going on, and there is no evidence of a diplomatic breakthrough of the run on the horizon. But there's more and more evidence that war is, in fact now imminent.

[Blake Neff]

We should know that the president has done this a few times. We had, we had the long buildup in Venezuela. I feel like everyone thought we were going to topple that government and then instead he just yoinked out Maduro and instead you have much, just kind of a much friendlier relationship with essentially the same government still.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And all reports from Venezuela, to be fair, you even have former General Petraeus, retired General Petraeus, praising Trump's handling of Venezuela, which is interesting. And all reports indicate that it's going well. Now, there's going to be bumps along the road. There's no doubt in a country that large and that's been that chaotic for that long, there's going to be bumps along the road. But that is one scenario that seems to be going well and that was ahead of a snake operation. Right? You, you take out Maduro, you provide a, an olive branch to the rest of the government. Seems to go well. Maybe he could pursue a similar.

[Blake Neff]

Maybe I would be skeptical of that. Now, as, as they always say, like who, who runs around, it's all as they would say, you know, SEAN hannity VOICE like the mullahs in Iran, it is. You have the ayatollah, but the ayatollahs and a really old guy who's a cleric. He's, it's not a cult of personality around one Guy.

[Charlie Kirk]

It is a guy who loves to tweet.

[Blake Neff]

It is a theocratic regime. I mean, they, they're strong enough that they had military crush, a large uprising in the country.

[Charlie Kirk]

You would.

[Blake Neff]

And also it's a much more, I think, ideologically hostile regime. I mean, it's religious, religious extremists. It's not even just kind of communist. It is full bore apocalyptic type.

[Charlie Kirk]

Probably the most aggressive, from a messaging standpoint, regime in the world against the American.

[Blake Neff]

Exactly. And so I don't think it's the sort of thing where you could helicopter out one guy and they'd be much friendlier. I think it is the sort of thing where if you were going to go in, you would have to overthrow the government and install a new one. And at that point you're risking more U.S. troops. It's a more expensive operation, no matter what happens. And we were just talking at the top that the goal is to pivot towards domestic stuff. Message on the economy, message on drug prices. I think it would be difficult to mix that with this sort of war unless President Trump was highly confident it could be a rapid, decisive operation with no permanent U.S. well, do you remember.

[Charlie Kirk]

What Trump said during the 12 day war? He said, we could have taken the Ayatollah out. We had his location, we could have done it. He opted not to then. So it's an interesting thing to keep in the back of your mind that he. We have the capability certainly to do it from a military standpoint. The question is, and would that be part of it?

[Blake Neff]

You can see how they may have even been selling the president on this. That, for example, a lot of people, us included, were very concerned last summer this would escalate into a quagmire. And instead they said, no, we can do one strike, they won't detect it, there will be no losses, and it'll succeed. And they did that with the strikes. Similar thing in Venezuela. I think a lot of people would have said this is a very risky operation where a lot of soldiers could be killed. And instead, total success, no U.S. losses. And we took them all out. And they were completely, completely humiliating for the regime such that that they basically had to submit to us because they're worried we could blow them all to smithereens with no losses. So you can sort of see how the people who are most concerned that an intervention would become a quagmire have. We should just say it. They have been incorrect. And the people who've said we can do this easily with no losses have been correct several times. Then, yeah, I have to offer that caveat that if you do that over and over, eventually you do get unlucky and you only have to get unlucky once and we're in another five, ten year mess.

[Charlie Kirk]

So the Ayatollah, I was just looking at his Twitter feed, you know, and I, you gotta imagine this is playing into President Trump's psychology here because you don't threaten America. When President Trump is president and basically get away with it, Americans say, come negotiate with us about your nuclear energy. And the result, by the way, nuclear energy, it's not just energy you guys want. We know better. And the result would be that you won't have that energy. There is no need to negotiate. But if a negotiation were to take place, predetermining its outcome is misguided and stupid approach. That's Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini.

[Blake Neff]

We have another one.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Blake Neff]

Well, we have another tweet 473 where he says, the President keeps saying they have the strongest military force in the world. The strongest military force in the world may at times be struck so hard that it cannot get up again. Which. Yeah, man, they really love to broadcast these. Every Arab war or every Middle Eastern war is like threatened total annihilation of enemies.

[Charlie Kirk]

Die. One last thing, Iran has tried to kill President Trump. That's going on in the back of his head too. Don't forget that. Hour two comes up next. Don't go anywhere.

[Philip Patrick]

Foreign.

[Public Ad Announcer]

For the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIP Advisory services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome to this real America's VOICE NEWS break. I'm Terrence Bates. The White House says inflation is cooling. The president and the administration as a whole point to dipping gas prices and an overall stronger economy. Economy yet still many Americans report not feeling the benefits. And that's part of the reason gold is gaining momentum. Let's bring in Birch Gold Group precious metals specialist Philip Patrick to discuss. Philip, good morning. All right, so let's talk about this feeling of uneasiness that many Americans still feel. Is it a justified uneasiness?

[Philip Patrick]

Look, I think it's definitely justified, but it is confusing. As you rightly pointed out on paper, the big numbers, they look really steady. Inflation isn't spirited. Spiking gas prices now have eased. Employment has been confusing lately, but we're still at historically low levels. But ultimately there is a disconnect. As you rightly point out, stability doesn't necessarily mean household relief. And the polls right now are telling us people are struggling. University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index is down about 11% and the conference Board's expectations index is hovering around where it is typically before recessions. And I think this, this tension tells us something important. People, I think broadly feel like the crisis phase is over, but they're not yet confident about the future. And I think families are still feeling squeezed. Ultimately, there's a difference between economic reports and lived experience. And I think this is where the Republicans need to try and focus in the lead up to the midterms.

[Terrence Bates]

You know, for many long term investments, the only numbers that really count are the numbers that they focus on are how well their 401ks are doing. Monday, President Trump posting true social and this is a quote, prices, inflation are way down and your 401ks are way up. It sounds like a good thing. Is it, is it in fact a good thing?

[Philip Patrick]

Not just in practice, it's absolutely good news. Growing savings for all of us is obviously worth celebrating. And you know, we're in a better position today than we were 12 months ago, without question, or 13 months ago, however long it's been now. But we do have to remember something important. And our 401ks are obviously not the economy. The median retirement savings per person is about $40,000. And if we count people who've saved nothing for retirement, the average balance is less than $1,000. On the other hand, prices are still elevated, inflation slowing, but we still have the effects. Grocery bills are 32% higher. Rent's 31%, home prices up 55%, utilities 40. This is all a hangover from the Biden admin. But these prices are now entrenched and they're tied in. So yes, a healthy retirement account obviously is a benefit, but it doesn't fix the problem with higher prices and paychecks not quite doing what they did.

[Terrence Bates]

So long term, in terms of an investment strategy, a savings strategy, how should we be thinking about all of that? Should we be kind of rethinking the way we've gone about this?

[Philip Patrick]

Look, I don't think this is about panic. I think it's more about preparation. Right. I think we are, are in a world now of sort of persistent 2 to 3% ongoing inflation. We have persistent federal deficits and elevated household costs. And I think in these sorts of climates, diversification starts to become essential, especially with assets that are inflation resistant. And that's where precious metals and gold come in. They don't depend on confidence surveys. They don't depend on optimism forecast. You know, it doesn't adjust values based on headlines. This is an asset that grows over the longer term, keeps pace with the cost of living and protects buying power. And in climates like this, it's more important than it's ever been to do that.

[Terrence Bates]

So for someone who may be interested. 30 seconds. How can they at least start to get more information through the Birchgold Group?

[Philip Patrick]

It's very simple. Text America to 989-898, get access to a ton of free information on how and why to buy gold in the current climate. So really simple. Text America to 989-898, get access to free information. And then from there, if they want to learn more, they'll have access to myself and people like me who are there to guide them through.

[Terrence Bates]

I feel like the richest man in America because I have personal access to you whenever I need you. Always good to see you, my friend.

[Philip Patrick]

Thank you, Terrence.

[Terrence Bates]

All right, we'll talk soon. And again, you just heard it there. Text the word America to the number 98, 9898 or 989898 and get all the information you can need.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, welcome back. Hour two of the Charlie Kirk show is underway. I'm excited about our next guest. Never had her on before, but I have followed her writings for a long time. We're here@the Bitcoin.com studio, of course, your one stop shop to buy, sell and trade bitcoin. Check them out today. Bitcoin.com and that guest is Kirsten Fleming, features columnist at the New York Post. Welcome to the show, Kirsten. Honored to have you. And happy Ash Wednesday, where are you?

[Blake Neff]

Solemn Ash Wednesday. I know, don't.

[Charlie Kirk]

I don't.

[Blake Neff]

I don't like, I actually wash it off. It's like a kind of personal quirk of mine. I know most people don't. I do. I take. I, I think, I think always about the Gospel of Matthew where it says when you are fasting, wash your face.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, well, don't.

[Blake Neff]

And it's so. No, no, most people don't. This is an eccentricity of mine, but.

[Charlie Kirk]

It'S a thing about throwing you under the bus here.

[Blake Neff]

A solemn ash, I would say a solemn Ash Wednesday period of fasting.

[Charlie Kirk]

I actually, I had it. I had made a note to bring it up at the top of the show and I missed it. So I'm glad that we got reminded here. Kirsten. There is so much going on in the city of New York and yesterday Mamdani made a lot of news. Let's go ahead and just start with some of this and I'll get your reaction on the other side. Oh, here they are. Okay, so he said we're forced to raid our Rainy Day Fund 407 in.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Order to get to this point of.

[Charlie Kirk]

Closing the gap on both this fiscal year and the next fiscal year, we.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Are forced to raid the rainy day.

[Blake Neff]

Fund the retiree health benefits trust reserve.

[Charlie Kirk]

And to increase property taxes across these other years. Yikes.

[Blake Neff]

He's very casual about that. Oh, we're raiding the rainy day fund, which is it a rainy day? No, it's just the start of his term.

[Charlie Kirk]

So. Yeah. Kirsten, how do we get here? And what is he really saying? And what's the truth? Is he spending like a drunken sailor, or is this all make perfect sense to you?

[Kirsten Fleming]

He wants to spend like a drunken sailor, for sure. I mean, look, it's. He. We're month and a half into his. His administration, and the bloom is already off the rose. The smell is off the socialist. This is what he is doing. He is to put this the best way possible, as our front pages are the best. Stick him up. He is trying to force Kathy Hochul's hand to try and make her come up with the cash by taxing the rich. That's what this is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Okay, so there is this backstory behind this, right? So Kathy Hochul is, in New York terms, not to all of us out in the real world out here, but in New York terms, she's considered sort of more to the center, a centrist Democrat, and she's saying that these are off the table. We're not gonna raise property taxes. Cause. Or. Well, property taxes, Zoran could do all on his own. But the wealth tax, he would need Kathy's help, Hochul's help to do. But she's already given him 1.5 billion from the rest of the state and injected it into the city's budget, which, by the way, Kirsten, is $127 billion. The entire budget of the state of Florida is 117. So, like, the maths. Don't math up for me here. Now, Mayor Adams is saying that he left a fund of 9 billion behind, and. And Mamdani saying that's not true. And so what's the truth there? And what do New Yorkers make of the rest of the state having to subsidize the city?

[Kirsten Fleming]

Well, I mean, I can't say with Adams. I mean, he had some wasteful stuff going on. But the idea is if you do have waste and you have issues going on, you cut spending. You don't keep promising, like, he's Oprah. He's like, you get more. You get more. And it's like putting more into the freebies, the incentives. And he wants, like, you know, in terms of. He's always advertising, even to migrants, like, he wants to shell out way more money for migrants. He wants to shell out all of this money for things that we don't need. He wants to increase the spending that we're going to be giving to each public school student, decrease the class size. All of these things where it's like, buddy, why don't we start cutting some of the fat? Because we got a lot of fat in this place. So that's really what it comes down to. He is, is unwilling to make compromise and he just wants his way and he wants his DSA agenda.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, this is what's crazy about this. It almost feels like he's holding Kathy Hochul hostage.

[Kirsten Fleming]

Yeah, that's exactly like I said. This is like the great job.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes, perfect. Yes, exactly. Well, and here's, I think this is.

[Kirsten Fleming]

Kind of forced her hand.

[Charlie Kirk]

And he's trying to use his social media savvy, his the energy of the activist far left base to really hem her in. And she's trying to say like, it's fine, we'll figure it out, we'll figure it out. Trying to keep the pressure off. But I think this clip spells it out really well for 11.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

There are two paths to bridge this gap.

[Charlie Kirk]

The first is the most sustainable and the fairest path. This is the path of ending the drain on our city and raising taxes on the richest New Yorkers and the most profitable corporations. The onus for resolving this crisis should.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Not be placed on the backs of.

[Charlie Kirk]

Working and middle class New Yorkers. If we do not fix this structural imbalance and do not heed the calls of New Yorkers to raise taxes on the wealthy, this crisis will not disappear. It will simply return year after year, forcing harder and harsher choices each time. And if we do not go down.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

The first path, the city will be forced down a second, more harmful path. Faced with no other choice, the city.

[Charlie Kirk]

Would have to exercise the only revenue.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Lever fully within our own control.

[Charlie Kirk]

We would have to raise property taxes. So if you're raising property taxes, this is just amazing. By the way, he's like, awful decision. Or even more awful decision. Welcome to the warmth of collectivism.

[Blake Neff]

We have no choice other than all of the policies that I have chosen that are terrible.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so when he's talking about raising the property taxes, who are these people? Are these like all rich fat cats or are these like normal New Yorkers?

[Kirsten Fleming]

No, I think people forget that New York is not just Manhattan. It's five boroughs. There's a lot of middle class housing, immigrants who became homeowners in like south, you know, South Brooklyn, in the Bronx, in Queens, Staten island and the, you know, the housing prices keep rising, but the reality is, you know, and it's going to be passed on to the renters as well. So this is not. Not the fix that he's selling it as. And, you know, he's trying to manipulate everything and make it seem like, look, if Kathy doesn't do this, look what the establishment Dems did, we need even more radical policies. And that's just, that's. It's a manipulation.

[Charlie Kirk]

So it just feels like this is the same old playbook. It's like it kind of reminds you of, you know, eventually the problem with socialism. Eventually you run out of somebody else's money. Margie Thatcher. But it's like you promise utopia, you fail because, you know, math is math, and then you tax and spend to deliver utopia, you fail again and then you run out of money to tax and spend. So you scapegoat the last remaining productive people in your society, and then when that fails, you just seize the means of production and you hold them over a barrel until you get what you want. I mean, yeah, what, what? As a New Yorker, what is ever, like you said, the smell is off the rose or the off the socialists, the bloom is off the rose. But I mean, you know, I don't mean to be a pessimist here, but it's hard to have faith in the good common sense of New Yorkers when they keep, you know, it seems like they want to rush down this socialism path. Is it cutting through, I guess is my question. Is it really gonna have an impact? This feels very negative.

[Kirsten Fleming]

It is. It is. It's scary. It is very scary. And look, a lot of common sense New Yorkers did flee during COVID because the conditions were so filthy, the streets were terrible, the crime was rising. And, you know, so people said, you what? Screw this. I'm going to go someplace else and pay less money and have better access to better services and so get more, more bang for my buck. So a lot of reasonable people left. Now. There are still, like, Mandani did not win by that much. You know, there's still a lot of people who did not vote for him and who were freaking out. And people who are prepared, they've got their bags back to go. But not everybody can go like someone like me. My mother is here, my cousins are here, my brother's here, my whole family's here. So I don't make a lot of money. What am I going to do? So it really does put pressure on these people who like me or like working class New Yorkers who can't just like pack a bag and buy a place in Florida. It's just not tenable. And also I work here, so it does feel very negative. I am hoping that common sense will prevail and that Kathy Hochul will hold strong because either way it's a bad, bad outcome. But it's funny because, because you know all these, you know, he had this, his tenant advisor who has called homeownership white supremacy. And you have all gem just go through her Twitter account. So you have all these people and you're like, wow, they're really radical. But what they've done, they're already working. They're already like crafting the machine to be in place for when this stuff falls apart.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, and you, you did a great piece by the way. I recommend everybody read it about the champagne socialist. There's that one guy, the one guy that you find all his old tweets like complaining about American Airlines and France Air and all this stuff. You know the guy and he's a total raging communist. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, just so we're clear, Mamdani let 18 people die on the streets of New York just in the cold, refused to move out the homeless people. So there's that too. Kirsten, this was so fun to have you. We're gonna have you on a back again soon because this story is not going anywhere. Thank you for, thank you for joining. We'll be back.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities. Completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an Investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show. I want to tell you about our first friends over at Y Refi. Private student loan debt in the United states totals about $300 billion, which is insane. It's an insane amount of money. 45 billion of that is labeled as distressed or defaulted. So many young people are having trouble paying their student loans. They don't often get the jobs that they think they're promised. After getting a degree, they're sold a false bill of goods. It is a scam. College is a scam. But if you find yourself in a position where you're holding a lot of student loan debt, private student loan debt, call the folks at Y Refi. They can help you out. Why? Refi will help you save thousands of dollars. They're going to guarantee you an interest rate under 6%, ensuring affordability and financial relief. They don't care what your credit score is. And as a matter of fact, they'll do all this in about a 3 minute rate check without credit impact. And they'll even let you skip a payment every six months up to 12 times. They live for this stuff. This is what they wake up and get dressed and go to the office to do. They want to have help students that are struggling under a mountain of student loan debt that they can't keep up with. So they're going to custom tailor a solution for you and your ability to pay. That's the key. Everything's custom. They're going to talk to you, listen to you. So if you know somebody that is in this situation or if you are in this situation, refer them over to yrefi.com that's the letter Y followed by R, E, F, Y. Call them today at 888y refi34. That's why refi dot com. All right, so we have a great click clip from Charlie on mom dying.

[Blake Neff]

Yes, we do. We've got it. It is. It's really laying out exactly what's going to happen. Let's play 459.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

Coleman Young was the mayor of Detroit and his stated goal, well, that stated, but his whole idea would get revealed later was that kick ever basically make it so unpleasant. But I hold on to power. I will rule over the ashes. I will be the mayor over a destroyed city. I will be a mayor over Dresden after the bombing. It will be a terrible place to live. But I'm in charge. I'm the mayor. And that's what mom Donnie will do. He'll make it so unpleasant. He'll make it so awful of a place to live, and then he'll end up being the king. Some people want to be the king of the ashes. And that is Mom. Dani.

[Blake Neff]

It'S so funny. I wish I could have told Charlie about this before I remembered it. Well, you know, more before everything that happened, which there was a mayor of Boston about 100 years ago, also a Democrat, and there's literally a study that creates a, like a hypothetical effect where it's in the political interest of a ruling elite to make a city worse with the knowledge that your opponents will move out faster and your base will stick around or will move out last, and so you deliberately make a city worse to make sure that you keep control of it.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is what happened in California.

[Blake Neff]

Yes, it's what happens in California. It's what happens in so many Democrat jurisdictions.

[Charlie Kirk]

You're seeing people flee from Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, California, and they're going to the Sun Belt. So it's going to completely alter electoral politics at a national level. But it's really sad. People shouldn't have to leave their homes. We should not live in a country where one state becomes so unbearably, so poorly run that they have to leave their family homes where they were born, where they were raised, where their grandparents were born and raised. That shouldn't be an America that we allow to happen. This is why we have people like Steve Hilton on the show, because it's still important to fight for California. It's still important to fight for New York. It's still important to call out the commies. And by the way, Charlie raged against this. And I completely agree. You had George Will go on and say, well, maybe. Maybe New York needs a tough dose of socialist medicine and then they're going to correct course.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

No.

[Charlie Kirk]

Do you have any idea what Mamdani, the damage that Mamdani and his apparatchiks can do in a city like New York, the systems that they can set up, the processes, the personnel, the budget shortfalls, the taxes, it's incredibly difficult to roll that back once it's instituted.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, it's never. It is never the winning play to say, oh, let my opponent win. There's always this cope. I saw it with Obama when he took office. Everyone said, oh, well, Obama will do socialism, he'll do his thing and he'll fail, and then we'll roll it back and no, all that happened is you got a lot of Obama's stuff has been around ever since. Why is Health care super expensive. Well, Obamacare is still here. It's still, the law was never fully replaced. Why do we have like, I mean like DEI that all went into overdrive, Obama's second term. Yeah, we're still rooting that out. Even if, even if things aren't popular anymore, even if you have a new government in place, their judges are there for life. Elections, bureaucrats are there. It's so hard to eradicate.

[Charlie Kirk]

Elections have consequences. But thankfully we have a great vice president who is in the White House and a great president, of course. But J.D. vance went on with Martha MacCallum, did a wide ranging interview, lots of great clips there. And it's actually going to set up our next segment with HUD Secretary Scott Turner. But we will get to that clip in just a second. Let's start with this one. Him praising Marco Rubio, a lot of chatter about their relationship because people keep wondering, is JD Going to run? Is Marco going to run? Are they going to run against each other in the primary? 4, 6. He's my vice president. Of course he's going to be at the top of the ticket.

[J.D. Vance]

Well, I think the president is very smartly saying we've got three years to go. Marco is my closest friend the administration. I think he's doing a great job for the American people. But most importantly, we all have to continue doing a good job for the American people from the president on down. And that's what we're focused on.

[Kirsten Fleming]

Surely as vice president, you'd like to be president.

[J.D. Vance]

What I, well, look, I think again, I'm going to try to do as good of a job as I can right now. So one of the things that I, that I don't like about this question and this entire perspective is I've been in this job for all of a year. About six months ago, or, sorry, a year and six months ago, I asked the American people to give me this job that I have right now. Why don't I do as good of a job as I can in this job? We'll worry about the next job sometime in the future.

[Charlie Kirk]

And I, you know, listen, I think he did. That's the only possible answer for that. If he was to say, yeah, I do want to be president, that would be like, like months of headlines. President Trump would see him. It would cause all kinds. I mean, it's the only right answer to give in that instance. He was also asked about the midterms and I thought he had another great answer. 413 the question we're going to put.

[J.D. Vance]

To The American people is do you want to give the government back over to the people who frankly burned down the house and made most Americans much less wealthy and much less safe or do you to want, want to double down on the President's leadership which has helped us recover from some of the problems caused by Joe Biden and then has built a lot on top of it? Because so much of what we've done over the last year are things that are going to pay long term dividends for the American people.

[Charlie Kirk]

I completely agree with this. There's a lot of doomerism, there's a lot of black pilling that says well they're not doing enough on all these issues. And so I hope they lose and I hope we just get a Democrat elected into office and they pay for their sins and we get a real radical in, in there folks. Let Mom Donnie be an example of what we're talking about. Let the only Boston mayor to win.

[Blake Neff]

And if you, if, if defeats allow you to win in the future, that's a blessing. I think a lot of us believe this administration has been more successful because of the setback of 2020. But I mean the Biden years were still really bad and caused.

[Charlie Kirk]

We still have millions of illegals in this country that are flooding your DMVs and your hospitals and your schools. Schools and your roadways that should not be here, that are flooding your jails.

[Blake Neff]

Frankly, incredibly enough, the best way to win is to win well.

[Charlie Kirk]

And by the way, this okay. And I wonder if JD's answer would have been different on the midterms after the Fabrizio because I think this happened before the Fabrizio slides. Maybe he'd already seen them. But it's so true there. You know, the economic numbers are increasing, the GDP numbers are increasing, the foreign direct investment is increasing. We're getting people out of the country. It's sometimes messy, it's sometimes not a direct line, but it's, there's so much good happening. Can you imagine Kamala Harris in office right now? The DEI hellscape we've been living, we would be living through the judges that would get appointed. There is no substitute for success. And by the way, J.D. vance talked about one of Charlie's most critical issues for Charlie and that was housing affordability for Gen Z as he, Vice President Vance touches on it. We're going to have Secretary Turner on next to discuss it. Housing affordability. We'll be right back.

[Public Ad Announcer]

Support for the show comes from public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously on public. You can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1.1percent bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra NSIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.

[J.D. Vance]

The voice of generations is the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

More young people under the age of 355 to have equity in the system. Not the Democrat version of equity where they want to have redistribution, but actually are they paying a mortgage? Do they own stuff or are they permanent renters? A permanent renting class in this country is the prerequisite is the leading ingredient for radical politics that nobody wants to see. We need to reinvigorate the ownership economy. And then all of a sudden when you own stuff, you're less likely to burn down a window and vote for candidates like Zorran Mamdani.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well said from Charlie there. Little throwback. And anyways, JD Vance gave a absolute amazing interview on Martha MacCallum yesterday and we played some of those clips and we've got a clip that I think really, really sets up the secretary very well here. And this is Vice President Vance and will welcome the secretary on 4 14.

[Public Ad Announcer]

We're going to make it easier to.

[J.D. Vance]

Build and create homes. We're going to make it easier for Americans rather than Wall street street to buy those homes. But we also need to get interest rates lower. That's a critical part of the President's.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right. Welcome to the show. Secretary Turner of Housing and Urban Development. Welcome back, sir. Good to see you.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Hey, great to see you guys. Thanks for having me.

[Charlie Kirk]

Absolutely. What did you make of the fact that you saw both those clips together? You saw Charlie talking about we need young people to own a stake in this economy, they need to own homes. You do not want a nation of renters. And then to see the Vice President of the United States messaging directly on that issue.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Well, absolutely. You know, we all love Charlie and so thankful him and his legacy. You know, he was spot on in talking about young people wanting to own a home. You heard the Vice President yesterday talking about what the Trump administration has done thus far to help first time homebuyers to help Americans achieve the American dream in owning a home. You know, so many things have happened so far. You know, just In January of 2026, over 5 million Americans were able to refinance their home, making their monthly payments go down. The sales of single family homes have gone up. Mortgage affordability has gone up. The amount of money that you need to afford your home has gone down, which is at a five month high. And so if you look at President Trump, he's making and taking bold action, actions to help American people to be able to afford and buy a home. You saw with banning institutional, large institutional investors from buying single family homes. These homes are for the American people and not for corporations. I know at HUD, you know, last year we helped 1 million people in America be able to afford a home, including 500,000 first time home buyers. We also made it so that FHA backed mortgages no longer will go to illegal aliens coming in our country. And so under President Trump's leadership, American people are a priority and the only priority. And home affordability is at the top of mind.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And it's interesting this, you know, and I've seen it debated, Mr. Secretary, about, you know, the impact of illegal immigration on the housing supply and the affordability of homes. Right. So to what extent does undocumented immigration contribute to the strains on the housing supply?

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Well, that's a great question. You think about during the Biden administration, you know, the immigration policies were extremely weak. And so you have tens of millions of illegal immigrants coming across our border. This put a strain on housing apply, it caused housing costs to go up. And I have some interesting stats for you. You About 59% of illegal alien families use one or more welfare programs here in America, costing us about $42 billion a year. And if you look at some of the blue states around our country, nearly 100% of the increase in rental demand in New York and California is because of illegal immigration. But since we have President Trump in this administration, administration and Secretary Noem and others, since our border is secured now you look at rent prices have gone down in the last Five or six months, because our border is secure. And so the impact of illegals coming across our border unchecked, unvetted, not only strains our housing supply, not only takes it up, but these are houses and spaces that should be used by the American people. And so, under President Trump's leadership, you see these numbers come down, down. You see affordability going up, you see how the supply going up, and it is because we have secured our border.

[Blake Neff]

I'm looking at the map and, you know, in Phoenix area, I know housing prices are actually going down. They've gone down about 2% here. And I just, I mentally link that with a tent I would always see outside the Home Depot that was selling torta sandwiches that only spoke Spanish. And that disappeared as soon as ICE operations thought and began. And I suspect that there's a link between those two things. You know, Charlie had a tweet that he said. He said, in this administration, we need to deport 20 million illegals and build 10 million homes. And that's a good platform to have. But I think he also understood there is a direct link between those two things.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, absolutely. You know, it's a pure supply and demand issue. I think the liberal economists, they don't want to admit this, but when you flood the nation with millions of people and we're building, what, like a million new homes a year, and you flood it with, you know, 10, 15, 20 million people, whatever that number is, of course you're going to see prices go up. And it's not like all these people are living in destitute lives. Some of them have actually pretty good incomes and they can afford a pretty decent home. Look at this graph here, Mr. Secretary. 448. This is the average income needed to buy a home versus the medium income in the country. This is 448. And you see this giant leap starting right around when Joe Biden entered office in 2020, and you see that yellow line shoot up. Now, the average income needed to buy a home is almost $110,000 a year, and the median income is only $83,000 a year. That gap is the politics of our mom. And so how does that intersect with what you're doing at hud? What levers can you pull? I mean, I love that you've taken illegal immigrants off the eligibility for certain loans and housing subsidies. What other things can we do at hud? Or what are you working on right now to address that gap?

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Well, thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. Thank you for that. And thank you for showing that graph and that chart, I think that all of the policies that we've talked about under President Trump and the Vice President alluded to this yesterday. When you bring down cost and you raise supply, more people in America can afford a home. There was a stat that I read the other day that the income of Americans is increasing. And because that income is increasing and housing affordability, little by little, tick by tickets tick really is coming down, you'll see that gap on your chart, you know, even be tighter. And so I know from a HUD standpoint with our FHA and our Ginnie Mae programs, helping first time home buyers, where generally you have to have less of a down payment, like I said, last year we helped over a million people, 500,000 first time home buyers. And if you look at these things all working in concert together, that gap will close as incomes go up, as affordability and costs go down. You know, the American people, and I think because of the one big beautiful bill, and I'm kind of going to, you know, go side here, the one big beautiful bill and the policies inside, I think this year in 2026, you hear Secretary Benson talking about a lot, the American people will benefit from this policy and more money will be in the pockets of American people across our country as it pertains to housing affordability, energy taxes and things of this nature. So I am very encouraged that this year, not just for housing affordability, but across the board from an economic standpoint, that the American people will benefit and thrive this year.

[Charlie Kirk]

Coming. You have a Charlie clip?

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, well, we have another clip that they're telling us is really great. This is specifically about the Sun Belt which we were just talking about. Let's do437.7.

[Guest Reporter / News Clip Voice]

If the average age of a home buyer is 38 years old, that's probably only only going to go up. And so how do we fix it? Well, again, we need more supply of homes. We need less people that are buying them. So deport 20 million people, build 10 million homes. We need to fix all the regulation around the homes. We also need to use more automation and more robotics and how we actually build the homes, which will bring down the price of homes. But also, also we need to cut rates. Now, cutting rates is not everything. Cutting rates is not the entire picture. Cutting rates is not the whole thing because the price is still high, but it will unlock more capital for people that are right on the edge of purchasing a home.

[Charlie Kirk]

Pretty spot on. Yeah.

[Blake Neff]

I mean, that sounds like it's basically the President's plan.

[Charlie Kirk]

For example, Secretary Turner you're not the Fed chair. We got wash coming in, in, I believe May. And I think the market is basically anticipating a rate cut cut in May. We'll see how deep it is and if that materializes. But this idea that we've gotta get first time homebuyers and bring that medium age down. I saw a stat, actually that real incomes have gone up about twelve hundred dollars under the Trump administration, but people don't feel it yet. And by the way, your tax return is gonna be 11% higher than it was the year before, on average. So you've got all of these indicators that people are gonna have more money in their pocket, they're gonna be able to afford more, but they're still living, they're still digging out of four years of Biden inflation. And it just, you know, I don't, I think sometimes the market doesn't feel it yet, the voters don't feel it yet. But it sounds like what you're seeing, what you're seeing at hud, the indications are positive moving forward.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Absolutely. And thank you for bringing that forward and to our attention, you know, and thank you for, you know, sharing the good news. You know, people in America during the Biden administration, you know, suffered greatly as it pertains to economically. Interest rates were high, mortgage rates were high, inflation was high. And so President Trump and his administration really inherited a fiscal mess, if you will. But just in a short period of time over this last year, with the one big beautiful bill, which is the largest working family tax cut in American history, the policies therein will be a big benefit to Americans throughout this calendar year of 2026. As you see home supply going up and costs going down, you know, for the median age of a home buyer to be 40, that is way too high. Owning a home in America really is the greatest step to creating wealth and generational wealth for a family. And so that is a top priority. And so getting people in our country who are not supposed to be here, getting them out of our country, increasing the supply, bringing the price down. Andrew and Blake, I mean, this is a great formula for American prosperity. And I believe that we're on track to do it day by day and step by step. I mean, we've done a lot of things, there's a lot to do. But I'm encouraged and I would encourage your viewers and others to continue to be faithful, continue to work hard, continue to pay attention of what's going on, going on in our economy, the good things that are happening, and know that with great anticipation there's more to come.

[Charlie Kirk]

I have to ask you, Secretary, did you watch the halftime show? You are a former professional football player, defensive back. You played for the Washington Redskins, the Chargers, the Denver Broncos. You were a standout at the University of Illinois. Did you, did you tune in? I just have to ask.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

I did not.

[Charlie Kirk]

Ah, no, not to ours. To ours. Yeah, we had. We had the all American half touch. But it's okay. As long as you didn't go the other way either. That's good.

[Secretary Scott Turner]

Well, listen, when you said the halftime show, the first thing I thought about was the super bowl halftime show. I did get to see many of the highlights from your halftime show. And I'm so grateful for you all that you made the investment in time and talent and resources and energy. I was on the plane during that halftime as soon as I landed. Yeah, I did. I watched it. I was on the plane. But I saw a great highlight. So thank you.

[Charlie Kirk]

God bless you. God bless you, Secretary Turner. Keep up the great work. We'll be right back.

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[Charlie Kirk]

All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show. We have. It looks like Caroline Levitt with an ongoing press conference. We're running that in the breaks. Secretary Turner's a great guy, actually one of the most godly, kind, good natured men in the administration. So I just wanted to give him a shout out because I just feel like There is this pall of negativity. And then you talk to somebody like Secretary Turner and you'll like, you're a fantastic person and you're really based. You're really conservative. You're getting illegals out of the programs. You're getting rid of all this DEI stuff. And, you know, are we even, like, are people aware? So I love having him on, but that's a bit of an aside. I want to. We just have to take a moment to reflect on the Olympics. Blake, we are not winning the medal count, unfortunately.

[Blake Neff]

We haven't won the Winter Olympic medal count in Asia. It's so. It's all kind of. It's like you, You. Have you ever seen how China maxes its medal count in the Summer Olympics? They just, they. It's such a. Like a. Like the stereotype of, like, Asians studying for an exam or something, where they figure out, like, what are the sports that have tons of medals and not a ton of people do them? And so, like, they. They went really hard at diving because there's a ton of diving medals and it's not a big sport that, you know, gazillions of people do and similar for other events. And so for the Winter Olympics, that's basically what cross country skiing is.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Blake Neff]

I think there's 12 different events in.

[Charlie Kirk]

Cross country ones where you're. You're cross country skiing and then you shoot things.

[Blake Neff]

Biathlon. Biathlon has a ton. So, yeah, there's a million biathlon events and a million cross country events. And so the Norwegians just got to dominate it because they all ski to school every winter and whatever. And.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, listen, we brought her up before Amber Glenn. She's an American figure skater. Remind you of the insanity here of what she said? 421. It's been a hard time for the community overall under this administration. It isn't the first time that we've had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights. And now especially, it's not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities. I hope I can use my platform and my voice throughout these games to try and encourage people to stay strong in these hard times. I know that a lot of people say you're just an athlete, like, stick to your job, shut up about politics. But politics affect us all. It is something that I will not just be quiet about because it is something that affects us in our everyday lives. Okay, none of that made any sense because President Trump is not coming for the queer community. And it was dumb she's also been kind of just terrible in general during the media circuit that goes on at the Olympics. 4:42. American Olympic medalist Amber Glenn fires direct message at criticism. Critics, they hate to see 2woke.bi. You know, the B word. Winning. Well, that's really nice of you, Amber Glenn. There you go. See? Too woke. So she admits she's woke. That's great. Well, so she was, I think, anticipated to get a medal. Unfortunately, I. Listen, I always root for America, even when they're awful, like this person, Amber Glenn. But unfortunately for her, it didn't go that well, and she fell during her routine. She is now, I think, going into the second round. She's 13th in.

[Blake Neff]

I think she's just no metal.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, she's. Yeah, she's basically out of the metal running now. She's ranked number 13 in the. Yeah, see, there you go. Number 13 right there. But there is an American that is primed for a potential medal. She's number three. As far as I know. She has a. Been spouting off at the media and drawing negative attention to herself in Milan. So there. There you go. What is. Her name's Alyssa Lou. And she just seems to be very happy and excited about. That is about. Isabel Levito is ranked eighth in the competition. These are the standings currently. And so I think there's one more round to. Oh, she did not fall. She just messed up one of her jumps. But then she cried. And that's all the headlines that I've seen. So she lost a bunch of points because she messed up one of her jumps, which is, you know, you know about figure skating. But I'm just gonna say, couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

[Blake Neff]

I'm reading from experts who actually follow figure skating outside of the Olympics. And because it was a clarification, she didn't fall, but apparently it was worse than falling. Like, she. She just failed to even complete some part of her program. And it literally would have been better to do it and then just face plant right on the ice.

[Charlie Kirk]

Really?

[Blake Neff]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Than what she did. Yes. So she screwed up, but I don't have the video.

[Blake Neff]

I don't watch figure skating.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, we have to do the metal count, because this is the only thing I actually care about. 486 is the metal count. Norway with 15 golds, 8 silvers, 10 bronze, and 33 total medals. Italy, which you think like, Italy has like, 1.2 children, you know.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah. They are the host, so they get a free entrant in every event.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, but it's I mean, they, I think they historically do well in the middle count.

[Blake Neff]

Yeah, well, they have the Alps. All the. Anyone that touches the Alps does pretty.

[Charlie Kirk]

Decently, does pretty well in these, but it's just like they have, like, no people. And yet here they are. They have nine gold, four silver, 12 bronze. And then finally the United States in third position with only seven gold, 11 silvers. I mean, we're really crushing it. We're like, we're like the, the kings of runner up. 11 silver.

[Blake Neff]

We love that silver. We had, we had the sponsors in the other day and they dropped their giant brick of silver.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, well, unfortunately. And then, then it's France, Sweden and the Netherlands and you know, unfortunately for Sweden, they still don't have a lot of black slalom racers. Apparently. That was a criticism made by the AP about the Swedish Olympic team name.

[Blake Neff]

Let's put it up. Let's put up 433. This is Amber Glenn again, and it's going to be difficult. Obviously you can't see it if you're on podcast, but if you're watching us now, you'll be able to see she's crying there after what happened. And if you zoom in on that top image, I don't know if they can, but it's circled. She is wearing a trans kind of pride flag. Heart pride pin. So she'll have that form of pride.

[Charlie Kirk]

If not, that was her waiting for the score to come. So she's sitting there crying, knowing that she messed up her job.

[Blake Neff]

Oh, these. Do they do it so much? They know exactly how it is, whether they've nailed it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, yeah, she knew. She knew, you know. But listen, all due respect, you're. You're an Olympic athlete. You've put the time in. I can only hate you so much. Hate on you so much. But you are very hateable, Amber Glenn. And I regret that your media appearances have been so abysmal and awful and disgraceful to the country. But you're still an American and I would still have rooted for you and been like, well, at least she can back up her big talk. That's what I would have been. All right, one last piece of breaking news here before we leave you for the rest of the show. It looks like we mentioned the potential war in Iran. Breaking news just in. Israeli emergency services and the home front command have been instructed to prepare for war as officials assess imminent, and that is a quote, Imminent U.S. strike on Iran. And that is, according to INET News Service, imminent. Imminent is a, is a scary word. So we've been here before.

[Blake Neff]

We'll see. We will see what happens. Yeah, if what happens, I imagine we'll probably.

[Charlie Kirk]

I did check with some sources in the break, and it does appear that, you know, historically, yes, you could conclude that a kinetic strike would be imminent, but there does not look to be enough resources for a ground invasion or holding land or something like that. So we're gonna have to wait and see and see what happens. We'll have more on that tomorrow. We'll see you then. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.