The Charlie Kirk Show, March 5, 2026

Summary

The Charlie Kirk Show — March 5, 2026

Podcast: Real America’s Voice
Host: Charlie Kirk
Guests: Blake, Kristi Noem, Mike Howell (Heritage Foundation), Matt Van Swall (former nuclear scientist), Terrence Bates (RAV News), David Zier (RAV News)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show is packed with breaking political news, hard-hitting analysis of the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, and insider commentary on domestic political conflicts, especially within the Trump administration. Key tensions around the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) erupt live on air, culminating with the bombshell removal of Secretary Kristi Noem. The show also features detailed discussions on public opinion, the crucial role of political messaging, the technicalities of Iran’s nuclear program, and the repercussions of crime and justice policy at home. As always, the hosts call for unflinching honesty with “tough medicine” and a commitment to American values and national security.

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Major Segments & Key Discussion Points

1. America’s Military at War: Tactical Success, Political Risks

Timestamps: [02:54]–[17:43]

• Unleashed Military Power

  • Charlie opens discussing the “unleashed” military under President Trump, contrasting it with the “woke Pentagon” era, and asserts resounding success in the air campaign against Iran.
  • Quote: “Our military is second to none...a military that is unleashed in all of its lethal prowess to go out and seek, destroy and kill the enemy, which is what militaries are for.” (Charlie Kirk, [02:54])

• Two Wars: On the Ground vs. in the Airwaves

  • Blake and Charlie analyze the unique challenge: Whereas previous U.S. wars began with near-universal support, the Iran war started at a 50-50 approval rate or lower, meaning the administration must "win" public opinion as well as the military objective.
  • Quote: “There’s the literal air war over Iran and there’s the airwaves war. There’s the war over public opinion... It seems we’re starting with at best, 50/50, maybe less support.” (Blake, [13:06])

• Campus Pulse: The Youth and the Base are Wary

  • Reports from Turning Point USA student chapters suggest even many young Trump voters are skeptical or outright opposed to new foreign entanglements, signaling a warning for the coalition Trump needs.
  • Quote: “The idea of starting a new foreign war is really, even for Trump voters, really deterring people from wanting to align with the administration and their actions.” (Kristi Noem relaying student sentiment, [16:58])

• Political Implications and the 2026 Midterms

  • The hosts repeatedly stress the danger that if the war drags out, it will demoralize independent/young voters, potentially costing Republicans the House and Senate, and inviting impeachment attempts against Trump.
  • Quote: “If they can keep the popularity of this war down, if even our own conservative students are alienated, then they’ve got a great chance of taking back the House, and we need to fight that.” (Charlie Kirk, [17:43])

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2. Political Landmines: Department of Homeland Security Controversy

Timestamps: [36:00]–[55:24]

• Spotlight on DHS Secretary Kristi Noem

  • Mike Howell (Heritage Foundation) joins to dissect the ethics and efficacy crises at DHS: a low pace of deportations, questionable $200M+ advertising spends, and luxury jet purchases, all under Secretary Noem.
  • Howell warns the controversy has given political ammunition directly to Trump’s enemies, as Noem testified the President signed off on controversial media buys. Trump later tells Reuters he had “nothing to do with it.”
    Quote: “Obviously he did not sign off on $200 million ad buy to play on Fox News to tell illegals to self deport...” (Mike Howell, [48:02])
  • A key moment:
    • Kennedy: "The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads...?"
    • Noem: "Yes, sir. We went through the legal process..." ([39:24])

• Broader Governance Issues

  • Howell and the hosts cite an unspent $40B in “one big beautiful bill” funding intended for mass deportations and enhanced ICE operations, yet little action or deployment of resources.
  • Critique of DHS leadership centralizing authority and delaying operational contracts, particularly for border enforcement.

• A Brewing Ethics/Corruption Scandal

  • Ongoing House/Senate hearings probe the ethics of major contracts, use of private jets, and political self-promotion.
  • Howell notes bipartisan concern—and that if the House flips, inquiries could “inevitably lead” to Trump himself, based on Noem's own testimony.
  • Quote: “It opens up a vector for Democrats and even a lot of Republicans to attack the President’s central mandate of his administration...” (Mike Howell, [42:13])

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3. BREAKING: Kristi Noem Fired as DHS Secretary

Timestamps: [94:50]–[101:36]

• Live Reaction to Noem’s Ouster

  • In a real-time development, news breaks that Kristi Noem is out as DHS Secretary. Senator Markwayne Mullin (OK) is nominated as her replacement.
  • Trump’s statement: “The current Secretary, Christine, who has served us well and has had numerous and spectacular results, especially on the border, will be removing to be special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, our new security initiative…” ([94:52])

• Analysis

  • The hosts praise the rapid, decisive move and Mullin’s credentials. They state the focus must return to “core mission” — mass deportations, border wall, ICE enforcement — not self-promotion or administrative drama.
  • Quote: “You cannot have avoidable stuff. We should not be debating ad buys at DHS. We should not be debating private jets.” (Blake, [98:37])

• Advice for New DHS Leadership

  • “Do not cower. Do not give an inch. But go behind the headlines...post a huge number and blow people away. Make these blue cities heal.” (Charlie Kirk, [101:36])
  • Matt Van Swall, as a voice from the grassroots right, emphasizes: “People, especially on the right...have been frustrated with the slow pace of deportations. It’s the number one issue…” ([100:03])

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4. Iran’s Nuclear Program: Science, Strategy, and Real Threats

Timestamps: [70:38]–[84:36]

• Nuclear Expertise

  • Matt Van Swall, a former nuclear scientist, gives a crash course on uranium enrichment and why Iran’s recorded 60% enrichment level is proof of bomb intent.
  • He affirms:
    • Commercial reactors need only 3–5% enrichment.
    • Anything above 5–10% is for weaponization; 90% is needed for a warhead.
  • Quote: “If you have anything over 10%, you’re going for something.” ([73:39])
  • On the danger: “They could hurt a lot of people real quickly like this. You gotta take this extraordinarily serious.” (Matt Van Swall, [78:07])

• Public Skepticism

  • Hosts caution the public not to be lulled into thinking Iran has been “perpetually close” with no need to act—it’s a technical fact that Iran could “dash” to a bomb from 60% much faster than starting from zero.

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5. Crime, Justice, and the Public Fabric

Timestamps: [85:53]–[93:21]

• Charlotte Crime & Systemic Failures
  • The brutal murder of Ukrainian refugee Irina Zarutska in Charlotte is recounted as emblematic of the country’s criminal justice crisis.
    • “This guy had been in and out of prison so many times, his mom said, ‘my son needs to be locked up.’ And they let him out over and over constantly” (Matt Van Swall, [86:49])
  • Murals for Zarutska are vandalized, further highlighting cultural and political division.
  • Hosts and Van Swall discuss local authorities mislabeling non-white offenders as “white” in arrest data, distorting national crime statistics.
    • “It is a...truth of crime stats matters and...the white crime rate would be insanely low...because these systems...feed into the federal level.” (Matt Van Swall, [91:33])

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6. Conversion Story: From Left to Right

Timestamps: [61:59]–[68:51]

• Matt Van Swall’s Personal & Political Journey
  • Shares how real-life crisis (Hurricane Helene), government failure (FEMA’s poor response), and the generosity of American/church communities radicalized his shift from a left-leaning, secular worldview to an active Christian conservative.
  • Quote: “The only people that stepped up were the nonprofits and just everyday American citizens.” (Matt Van Swall, [67:21])
  • He credits return to church and seeing firsthand the impact of faith-based charity for changing his worldview.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Life is not black and white. And the two things at once idea I want everyone to keep in their mind is this...For me, the Iran war has been a stunning aerial success.” (Charlie Kirk, [10:21])
• "Democrats are completely unacceptable in any way, shape or form." (Charlie Kirk, [17:12])
• “We’re here to get mass deportations done. And if these facilities aren’t stood up asap...we are not going to execute the mass deportation agenda.” (Mike Howell, [45:17])
• “We should not be debating ad buys at DHS. We should not be debating private jets at DHS. Keep it on what needs to be happening. Securing the border, getting the wall up, getting the illegals out.” (Blake, [98:37])
• “We were giving away billions of dollars to Ukraine. And we were funding all these nonprofits to help illegals...it’s pretty radicalizing.” (Charlie Kirk, [67:37])
• “If you want to keep the coalition together and we’ve got all these forces arrayed against us, you gotta go hard on deportations. You've got to be absolutely firm in your resolve.” (Charlie Kirk, [101:36])

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Key Timestamps and Content Guide

• [02:54] Charlie begins with praise for U.S. military air campaign; contrasts Trump doctrine with "woke Pentagon"
• [13:06] Blake introduces the idea of parallel “wars”—air war and airwaves war for public opinion
• [15:26] Turning Point USA student leaders give campus insight on Iran war perception
• [20:05] Break/ads (skip)
• [21:21] Politico report on possible 100+ day timeline for Iran conflict and its implications
• [36:00] Mike Howell discusses DHS, deportation numbers, and brewing scandal around Kristi Noem
• [47:34] Breaking: Trump denies signing off on Noem’s controversial ad buy
• [50:21] Discussion of "luxury DHS jet" controversy, Axios reporting
• [61:59] Matt Van Swall tells story of moving from Democrat to Christian conservative
• [70:38] Van Swall explains uranium enrichment, Iran’s capabilities, nuclear weapons risks
• [86:49] Charlotte crime, repeat offenders, and systemic failures
• [94:50] BREAKING: Noem fired, Markwayne Mullin tapped as new DHS Secretary
• [101:36] Hosts deliver final analysis and warnings for new DHS leadership

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Episode Tone & Takeaways

• Tone: Frank, sometimes confrontational, but also factual and pragmatic; determined to challenge the conservative audience with uncomfortable truths and "tough medicine."
• Overarching Message: Victory abroad must be matched by certainty and clarity at home. Failure to manage the politics and perception of key issues—war, border, crime—threatens not only midterm success but the Trump agenda itself.
• Signature Moment: Live coverage and reaction to the firing of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, with deep analysis of its ramifications on immigration enforcement and the upcoming electoral cycle.

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For listeners: This episode offers a real-time snapshot of the high-stakes battles shaping U.S. politics in 2026—military, moral, demographic. It demonstrates the need for relentless focus on the tangible concerns of voters—and the self-discipline to avoid distractions and self-sabotage from within the movement.

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[End of summary]

Transcript

[Charlie Kirk]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Public Ad Announcer]

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[Blake]

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[Charlie Kirk]

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[Blake]

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[Matt Van Swall]

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[Blake]

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[Kristi Noem]

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[Kristen Davis]

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[Charlie Kirk]

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[Kristen Davis]

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[Kristi Noem]

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[Charlie Kirk]

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The Charlie Kirk show starts now.

[Charlie Kirk]

But what you're seeing right now, Sean, is a military under President Trump's leadership that's not fighting politically correct, that isn't fighting with his hands tied behind its back. One of the reasons I fear, Shawn, that some people in this country lost faith in the military and the capacity to use that military to defend us is because we had a woke Pentagon, because we had a military who at the very highest levels, not the war fighters, was forced to fight a less than full fight. What you're seeing now, Sean, is a military that is unleashed in all of its lethal prowess to go out and seek, destroy and kill the enemy, which is what militaries are for. We're doing very well on, on the war front, to put it mildly. I would say somebody said on a scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15. And we're going to continue to do well. We have the greatest military in the world by far. Do you see a way of somehow coming to some type of compromise with Anthropic? The treasury is not going to is terminating the use of all anthropic products at this point. The vendor does not get to insert

[Terrence Bates]

a use clause, the ex post into a product.

[Mike Howell]

And we had anthropic at Treasury.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was part of a suite of

[Mike Howell]

other the AI company companies we were

[Charlie Kirk]

testing and we'll have them out of

[Mike Howell]

our system within several days. So this isn't anthropic, isn't mission critical

[Charlie Kirk]

and they can't push, they can't push use clauses into their contracts.

[Terrence Bates]

It's been widely reported that, that in

[Mike Howell]

2008 when Barack Obama was choosing his

[Terrence Bates]

vice presidential candidate, he had three criteria.

[Charlie Kirk]

He wanted to make sure he picked

[Terrence Bates]

somebody that wasn't as smart as him and had less talent and charisma and couldn't possibly outshine him. So we picked Joe Biden and then Joe Biden in 2020 used the exact same criteria.

[Mike Howell]

He wanted to make sure he picked

[Terrence Bates]

somebody wasn't as smart as him, had less talent, charisma and wouldn't outshine him.

[Charlie Kirk]

And he picked up Kamala Harris and

[Terrence Bates]

then in 2024, Governor, I think it's

[Charlie Kirk]

very evident why Kamala Harris picked you. Let me make the connection for you. According to the Secretary of Transportation, one

[Terrence Bates]

third of Minnesota's non domiciled commercial driver's

[Charlie Kirk]

licenses were issued Illegally. Were issued illegally. He's here illegally.

[Mike Howell]

He can't read and he got a

[Charlie Kirk]

license under your provisions and he's driving all across the country, imperiling everybody else.

[Kristi Noem]

I just think it's really disgusting how this institution protects itself because y' all, just half of them voted to send this stuff to House Ethics where you know it's going to die. We know that members of Congress are using taxpayer dollars to pay off sexual harassment. We just had a member of Congress literally sexually harass a woman that then lit herself on fire. And you guys all protected him. You guys all protected my. My own side. Your side. And so if you guys want to talk about victims, if you want to go out and Virtue Signal and then you guys are going to kill her stuff on the floor, floor. And then try to pass. Yeah, of course we should subpoena all this stuff. But just. I'm not going to sit here and play games. I think it's a complete fraud. I think that's why the American people hate us. I think the midterms are coming up and everyone should go on record for this. And I hope that members are exposed for this. I hope it goes back, I think into the 70s. Because it's wrong that it's happening. It's wrong that we cover up for. It's wrong that we can't censure our own side because people are busy making deals. Because you guys want to center your side. It's a deal that's been cut.

[Charlie Kirk]

People hate the payments are restarted. Why didn't you tell the truth about why you restarted the payments? My understanding was the the agency believed that the court had required them to make those payments. And that was false, wasn't it? You refused. You said that, didn't you? You said the reason you restart is

[Mike Howell]

because the court ordered you to do so.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here's what the judge says. Governor Tim Walls told the media that the Minnesota Department of Education attempted in payments to FOF because of possible fraud. But that Judge Guzman Guthman ordered payments to continue in April 2021. Next sentence. That is false. But you said something wasn't true. He further states this judge Gotham. The court says yes, Judge Guthman never order the Department of Education to resume payments defeating our future in April 2021. So the court's lying. I can't tell you, Congressman, either you're lying or the court's lie.

[Kristi Noem]

Did you release the Carlos Brown from prison early, allowing him to kill. Please don't touch me. Taylor. Rena Zarudka, you have no comment. Do you Think Charlotte has a crime problem? Do you stand by releasing 3500 prisoners as governor?

[Public Ad Announcer]

Charlie 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 Service 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 [e-mail] Disclosures hi, it's Kristen

[Kristen Davis]

Davis from Are you a Charlotte podcast? I just had the most epic girls day cruising around LA with my friend Heather Graham and thanks to Hyundai we even recorded a special episode for you. Yeah, I have a good 90s story of Fred Siegel.

[Kristi Noem]

What?

[Kristen Davis]

I saw Alanis Morissette there one time.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was so exciting.

[Kristen Davis]

I was with my girlfriend Melanie.

[Matt Van Swall]

She saw you so that's like.

[Kristen Davis]

She was very. It was like the height of Alanis time and she was with this beautiful man and I had a golden retriever puppy and the beautiful man wanted to say hi to the golden retriever puppy. We were eating at that little cafe there at the Santa Monica one and Alanis hung back in a way that made me wonder what was happening. Like who wouldn't want to pet this beautiful puppy. I was like oh my God, it's Alanis. And then I was like try to breathe, try to breathe, try to breathe because I love her so much. My new episode is out now, presented by the all new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid. Make every day epic.

[Kristi Noem]

I need to be healthy every day to survive it and go through the

[Charlie Kirk]

next chemo round and the next chemo round.

[Kristi Noem]

So it's important that work was part of that to keep my mind busy

[Charlie Kirk]

for 8, 9 hours and then I

[Kristi Noem]

had to go back and face the reality. I had a goal and the goal is to survive.

[Charlie Kirk]

Research shows there is a significant connection

[Terrence Bates]

between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery.

[Mike Howell]

We can make work a better place

[Kristi Noem]

for healing, learn more and sign the [e-mail] early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning because early

[Charlie Kirk]

gets you closer to the action.

[Kristi Noem]

So don't be late. Book your next vacation early on VRBO and save over $120. Rise and shine. Average savings $141. Select homes only.

[Charlie Kirk]

Every day there's a battle for your mind raging information coming from every angle

[Terrence Bates]

with the will to deceive.

[Charlie Kirk]

Fear not, you found the place for truth. 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. Buckle up. Here we go. All right. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. It is March 5th already, March 5th here at the Bitcoin.com studio. Honored to be with you all across the country here on Real America's Voice, streaming online, everywhere on podcast. There is a lot to get to today. Very busy show. We're going to be welcomed by or joined by Mike Howe, president, oversight project at the Heritage Foundation. Second half of this hour, lots of rumors swirling is Kristi Noemon. Thin ice. We're cover that story in just a little bit. But first I want to get into a concept of two things can be true at once. We want this audience to be as educated as possible. We want you to have sophisticated thoughts, nuanced thoughts. Life is not black and white. And the two things at once idea I want everyone to keep in their mind is this image 587. This is reporting from the Economist. Hat tip to Kane from Citizen Free Press for flagging this. For me, the Iran war has been a stunning aerial success. This is the Economist. This is, you know, this is not state media. This is the Economist. And this is without doubt true. But the subhead is also true, even if at the political level, its direction is a mess. Now, listen, I was an early critic, as was Blake, that this war had not been sold to the American public sufficiently. I believe that to be the case. I will also give them credit. In the days that have ensued since the initial strikes, they've done a better job of explaining the why and the why now. But so two things can be true at once. Our military is second to none when President Trump lauds the military. When Secretary of War Pete Hegseth explains just how Lethal and precise and incredible. They are. All those things are true. Our military men and women are the best in the world. And our aerial assault has proven to be the best in the world. And look at what we did in Venezuela. Absolutely true. But some of you have been upset with us in our take because we haven't been sufficiently, I guess, enthusiastic. But I want to bring your attention. And Blake, actually, before I get there, why don't you explain, why don't you say what you were going to say?

[Blake]

Well, I'm just, I think what we are seeing is there's kind of two wars. There's the literal air war over Iran and there's the airwaves war. There's the war over public opinion. Every war goes that way. And it's a little different from conflicts you've had in the past where, if you know, if you want to use an obvious example, World War II. World War II starts with 100% popular support for the war because the Japanese bombed us at Pearl Harbor. Everyone is on board. And it would only go down from there if there, you know, were a lot of setbacks and went on.

[Charlie Kirk]

Saw this after 9 11.

[Blake]

You saw this after 9 11. Afghanistan, 95% support for that war goes down from there. Iraq, probably 65, 70% support for that war when it began goes down from there. This is different. Where we seem to be starting with at best, 5050, maybe less support. And the plan is that they can sell it through how successful it is.

[Charlie Kirk]

And by the way, I do want to say this could end up proving, and I said this yesterday, to be the absolutely right geopolitical national security decision.

[Blake]

They have information we don't.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes. And you would be a fool not to see the potential upside of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, of getting rid of a malignant actor in a terror, the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East. There's thousand upsides.

[Blake]

If Trump can say you're never going to be hearing about Iran like you've been hearing for them for the past 45 years ever again. Yes, that's a good thing. But we have an obligation to make this point because some people are saying, people are saying actually the base is super united behind this. Like they're fine on that. And we had students on the show yesterday and we just, we wanted to ask them, we said, be honest with us. What is the attitude like on campus about what has just happened? And they answered us and we told

[Charlie Kirk]

them not to be completely honest with us. And they were. And there's Two clips here that I want to make sure we highlight. Blake, you can call the first one if you want.

[Blake]

Yeah. And this was, I believe this was asking the chapter leader at Appalachian State. So this is not an Ivy League school. This is not Berkeley. This is a school in rural North Carolina.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yep. A lot of Trump voters.

[Blake]

592.

[Charlie Kirk]

So I want to start off by asking you guys to give us the vibe on campus of this, this, the strikes against Iran. What's the vibe? What are people saying? Let's go ahead and start with that.

[Blake]

Be honest with us.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, be honest. Tell us.

[Blake]

We want to know.

[Charlie Kirk]

We want the unvarnished truth. Brooke, you first. Yeah.

[Kristi Noem]

I think at my campus especially, people are very upset with the United States and their involve. I think that a lot of direction is pointed at Israel and questioning our allies and the motives in that way.

[Charlie Kirk]

Megan? Yeah, I definitely agree. That's the same vibe that we're having on campus.

[Mike Howell]

And I think more people don't want

[Charlie Kirk]

to see another war. All right, so that was, we thought maybe that was just a broad segment, but then we asked a follow up question. 593. Copy. So are you seeing protests? Are you seeing, are people gathering in the, in the square, in the quad? What kind of activities are you seeing this manifest in?

[Kristi Noem]

I'm mostly seeing things through online platforms, people on Instagram or Twitter just, you know, really going in at President Trump and, and being upset that, you know, gas prices might go up and forever war. Like people really, really do not want boots on the ground in this circumstance.

[Blake]

Are you seeing that even from people that, you know, voted for Trump in 2024 or is it more? Is it still mostly from people you know, would be left wing regardless, or.

[Kristi Noem]

I think the idea of starting a new foreign war is really, even for Trump voters, really deterring people from wanting to align with the administration and their actions.

[Charlie Kirk]

That should be a flashing red light to everybody that supports President Trump, which we completely support President Trump. I mean, candidly where I'm at, Democrats are completely unacceptable in any way, shape or form.

[Blake]

The entire reason this matters is you do not want to alienate the voters who are, who did vote this last year or two years ago to get the illegals out, to secure the border, to put America first. And all of those things matter more than ever. The left has gone more insane than ever on issue after issue.

[Charlie Kirk]

And mark my words, they are going to try and impeach this president. If they get the House, they will impeach him. And that's where we're going for in the second half of this hour. And you can be upset with me for telling you the truth, but I know this to be a fact, put it that way, that they are going to use different, let's call them, controversies within this administration and they are telegraphing their moves here. They understand that going after Trump was politically a disaster for them and that's probably one of the reasons why we have President Trump in the first place. They're going to go for some of the lieutenants and if they can keep the popularity of this war down, if even our own conservative students are alienated, then they've got a great chance of taking back the House and we need to fight that. I'm not a doomer. I don't think this is set in stone. You talk about this now so that it doesn't become a reality later. And we are completely supportive of our military when the mission was, when they pressed go, when the green light was hit. We're all in for success and we're praying for success. But we have to be honest about the political ramifications as well. And we have an obligation to tell you about that and we will. I want to tell you guys about Strong Cell. It is that time of the day again. Strong cell was one of Charlie's absolute favorite supplements. And why is because you actually can feel it working. You get a big energy boost, brain fog, fatigue, chronic illness. If you're struggling with these things and you just feel lethargic all the time, if you have word recall issues, give StrongCell four to six weeks. I promise you you're gonna feel something different. You're gonna start feeling more energy, especially in those lulls in the mornings. Gonna get you up real quick. So you can now try it. 90 day risk free money back guarantee. And if you use promo code Charlie at checkout strongcell.com, you get 20% off. So it's you get a great deal at the outset and money back guarantee. And this means it's time to time to try. I'm surprised you didn't already take it, Blake. You usually do. StrongCell.com not a place for Kamala Harris. At least not yet. But we'll help you out. Nadh powers all your cells. Check it out. We'll be right back.

[Terrence Bates]

Foreign.

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[Kristen Davis]

Davis from Are youe a Charlotte Podcast? I just had the most epic girls day cruising around LA with my friend Heather Graham and thanks to Hyundai we even recorded a special episode for you. Yes, I have a good 90s story of Fred Siegel. What I saw Alanis Morris at there one time.

[Charlie Kirk]

It was so exciting.

[Kristen Davis]

I was with my girlfriend Melanie.

[Matt Van Swall]

She saw you so that's like good.

[Kristen Davis]

She was very it was like the height of Alanis time and she was with this beautiful and I had a golden retriever puppy and the beautiful man wanted to say hi to the golden retriever puppy. We were eating at that little cafe there at the Santa Monica one and Alanis hung back in a way that made me wonder what was happening. Like who wouldn't want to pet this beautiful puppy.

[Charlie Kirk]

I was like oh my God, it's Alanis.

[Kristen Davis]

And then I was like try to breathe, try to breathe, try to breathe because I love her so much. My new episode is out now presented by the all new Hyundai Palisade Hybrid. Make every day epic.

[Matt Van Swall]

People at work supported me while I

[Charlie Kirk]

was going through treatment.

[Matt Van Swall]

By not treating me like somebody who was going through treatment.

[Charlie Kirk]

Treatment sucks. Cancer sucks. Being engaged with work really helped to oh, I just knew I was going to beat this thing. Research shows there is a significant connection

[Terrence Bates]

between the ability to continue to work and cancer recovery.

[Mike Howell]

We can make work a better place

[Kristi Noem]

for healing, learn more and sign the

[Charlie Kirk]

[e-mail] we see you and you and yes, you. You want to start your education, further your career? Try something new. But what's the first step? The University of Cincinnati has flexible online options Helping you balance the have to dos with the want to dos. And with over 100 degrees to choose from, we're pretty sure you'll find something you love to do. So take the first step. You'll be glad you did. At uc we see you succeeding. Visit WECU UC EDU to take the first step. All right, I want to tell you guys about why Refi. We love the guys over at why Refi. We're all in with them. When I tell you that they're a great company, I really mean they're a great company. Great values. When you walk into their office, you can just feel that they are on mission. Yeah, it's a business. Yeah, they got to make money. But these people, they put people first. And that's the difference. When you get a great company like why Refi? They're really on mission. A lot of people call them, they're suicidal. They can't make their private student loan payments. I had no idea, by the way, about this. We've been talking about why Refi for a while and I had no idea about this. And it's true. These people are like part counselors, part debt resettlement people. Anyways. They wake up to help you. So if you find yourself in a position with private student loan debt, you can't make the monthly payment, you're getting behind, your credit's getting blown up because of it, call them. They don't care what your credit score is. They don't care what your past financial history is. They're going to look at you as an individual custom tailor solution for you. So this goes for you. If you have the student loan or if your kids do, or if you know somebody else that has this, please have them reach out to Y Refi today. It's not available in all 50 states, but, but it's available in most. And if it's available in your state, you're going to want to work with them. Go to yrefi.com yrefy.com or call them 888 y refi34. Amazing, amazing people. They offer a three minute rate check without any credit impact. Check out why Refi today? All right, I'm going to throw up this image596 again. I don't want you guys to get mad at what we're telling you. It's just true that this is a politically fraught war. Our military is second to none. They're doing an incredible job. They've been planning these operations for a while. This could be the national security best call but we have to be honest about the fact that, as Blake said, there's an air war, there's an aerial assault and there's an airwaves war. There's a PR battle. And we have to be honest that this is going to be an uphill battle. Our kids on chapters warned us about this. But then there's this from Politico. U.S. central Command, meanwhile, is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days. Excuse me, but likely through September, according

[Blake]

to a notification obtained by Politico. Now that obviously we don't trust the media automatically, but if they say a notification, my guess is they have some source who showed them basically the request being made and for how long it was.

[Charlie Kirk]

So if this report is true, again, let's go back. We were told four to five weeks. We could move that up. We could move that back. I'm not a fan of putting timelines on military actions because war is unpredictable. War is hell. We don't know what's going to happen. So there's my starting point. I think once you go, you better win. You can't put that genie back in the bottle. So I'm all for achieving missional objectives and strategic objectives in the region. Once you press go, hear me out. But when there is a political calculation that you're also making in a midterm year, then when the timeline starts getting dragged out to 100 days to September, there is going to be a political fallout. Our country is sick of being at war. The independents, normies, young people, these are contingencies that are sick of being at war. And we need to consider them and keep them in mind. So that's a big, big thing. This is our flashing red light to say don't forget Gen Z, don't forget independents. Don't forget the people that built the coalition that was big enough to win a popular vote in seven swing states. We have to consider this because if we lose in the midterms, if not saying we will, I'm not a doomer. We're going to work our butts off to make sure that doesn't happen. But if you better believe it, they are going to impeach President Trump and we don't know how many fighters we're gonna have in the Senate.

[Blake]

Impeach President Trump. If it goes bad enough, you lose the Senate and that's much worse, then okay, yeah, they're doing their endless investigations from the House. That's bad. But if they take the Senate. Very likely that the Democrats will say we are just going to categorically not confirm any appointees by the Trump administration in House. No more judges, no more cabinet secretaries, no more under secretaries. Anyone who leaves is just an empty slot. No more U.S. attorneys. Oh, you can't investigate fraud in Minnesota

[Charlie Kirk]

or in Washington, Maine or anywhere else in California.

[Blake]

Those are the stakes. And so we have to say if this has political consequences, if this is going to be, if they need to make a, do a good job of selling it, they need to know that.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. And fortunately this whole hour is gonna be a bit of tough medicine. I mean it really is. And we're gonna get into the next segment, some of the controversy brewing at dhs. If you're not aware of it, we're going to fill you in because it's important. Why? Because these are arrows in the quiver of the Democrat Party. So play this out. If not when, if it's a big if they control the House after the midterms, which historically is the norm. Okay. If they control the House after the midterms, if, if they make some ground in the Senate, we don't know how Susan Collins is going to vote. We don't know how Curtis in Utah is going to vote. McConnell. We don't know any of that stuff. All right, McConnell will be up. We don't know how Lisa Murkowski is going to vote. Rand Paul even. There's a lot of question marks in the Senate. So don't rest on the Senate either. And we just found out that Montana, I'm just. Daines. Yes, Daines has announced his retirement. That came out the last minute in Montana. Meanwhile, Sheehy is getting into fights in the Capitol. Broke some dude's hand, some protesters hand. I mean, I don't think he meant to, it's obvious from the tape, but it was quite the video. So we're setting up a chessboard here where everything that we've worked for could be wiped away. And we can't let that happen. We need to go in clear eyed and understand the ramifications of the decisions that have been made. And I'm telling you that segment with our young people yesterday, Turning Point students at Appalachian State of all places. Rutgers didn't surprise me as much, but

[Blake]

no, it is, it is a blue ish college town, but nevertheless, it's still not an Ivy League.

[Charlie Kirk]

But look where they're sourcing their.

[Blake]

The county was overall about 50, 50 I just checked.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, but they're sourcing their students at Appalachian State Much different, you know, feeder system.

[Blake]

And as we said, we asked people, you know, who voted for Trump last year, how are they feeling? And they said, pretty similar vibe.

[Charlie Kirk]

And I'm telling you, Charlie knew the same. This is why he was raising the flag warning ahead of Operation Midnight Hammer, because he understood that this was wildly unpopular. We sold President Trump to young people as the peace president. Now the truth is again underscoring our military second to none. We support our warriors. We want success. We want this to be the last conflict in the Middle east ever. We want to take Iran as a malignant force in the region off the map. And this could be very well could be the right geopolitical move, the right national security.

[Blake]

I want to answer a specific email here that we got. Liz says, why would you have college students, two opinions that could not be more accurate on your show? Dispute propaganda. Charlie spoke to college students all the time. They're voters on campus all the time. He had panels with them all the time. He cared about their opinions and he wanted to know what they were. Both because that's the only way you can convince them, but also because they

[Charlie Kirk]

are the future and they're voters. They're voters and they're 18 and over, all of them.

[Blake]

Charlie would absolutely listen to what they had to say and he would not dismiss them if it was not what he wanted.

[Charlie Kirk]

Here's the other thing I want people to keep in mind. It's a leading indicator when you see all the chatter online and the movement of opinion. A lot of that starts on TikTok and Instagram memes, doesn't stay there. What happens on college campus doesn't stay on college campus. We'll be right back.

[Terrence Bates]

Think about this. In 2006, $20,000 equaled roughly 33 ounces of gold and spot price. At today's prices, those 33 ounces would be worth about $165,000. Smart Americans diversify a portion of their savings into precious metals. That's why you may want to consider buying gold from my friends over at the birchgold Group. For thousands of years, gold has been a store of wealth. And today it's crucial in terms of a balanced strategy of investing. Even better, the Birch Gold Group can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax sheltered retirement account. In gold, all you have to do is text the word America to the number 989-898 and receive your free information kit. On gold. There's no obligation here, just useful information with an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. And thousands of satisfied customers allow the Birch Gold Group to help you diversify with gold that is truly peace of mind. Text the word America to the number 9898. 98. Again, text America to the number 9898. 98 to get your free information Kit. Terrence Bates here with your Real America's Voice news break. The Trump administration's war on Iran rages on this morning after Senate Republicans rejected a bill aimed at stopping the conflict and demanding congressional approval for any further action. The measure failed by a 47 to 53 margin. A similar House measure scheduled to be voted on this morning is expected to fail as well. Meantime, more and more Americans across the Middle east are being evacuated and brought home. At last check, the State Department was confirming that nearly 18,000 U.S. citizens had returned to the U.S. about 6,500 made it back thanks to U.S. government chartered flights. Thousands more are said to be seeking assistance in fleeing the increasingly, excuse me, in fleeing the increasing safety threats across the region. American charter flights are being operated out of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. That's going to do it for your headlines. As always, we appreciate you being here with us. I'm Terrence Bates. Now let's get you back to the Charlie Kirk Show.

[Charlie Kirk]

From the campus to the car, the bullhorn to the microphone, it's the Charlie Kirk show. All right. Welcome back, guys. We're gonna have a great guest on this segment again, a little bit more medicine. Got to take our medicine from time to time. Some days are medicine days. But first I'm going to tell you about Patriot Mobile. Patriot Mobile are amazing. Glenn and Jenny Story, if you're watching, we love you guys. Absolute amazing patriots. They're fighting for Texas. And we had our Texas primaries this week. Better believe they were in it. They were on the ground. They were working for the base for the grassroots Christian conservative wireless company. It's the only one, Patriot Mobile. And here's the deal they have you get service through all three major wireless networks. So you're gonna get the same service you become accustomed to, except better because their support team's all based in America. So you'll be Talking to Americans 100% US based customer support. And you get all the same things, unlimited data plans, mobile hotspots, international roaming and much more. Here's the main thing. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're going to be helping grow a movement that fuels your values. Places like Texas. What we do at Turning Point, students switching is easier than ever. Activate in minutes Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. Take a stand today. Go to patriotmobile.com charlie patriotmobile.com Charlie, you got to do it. It's easy. There's no excuses anymore, folks. Just do it. 972 Patriot or use promo code Charlie for a free month of service. So if you call 972 Patriot, you got to use promo code Charlie for a free month of service. All right. Welcome to the show. Right now is Mike Howell. He's the president of the Oversight Project. Welcome to the show, Mike. Great to have you.

[Mike Howell]

Thanks for having me on.

[Charlie Kirk]

Absolutely.

[Blake]

All right, we should set this up. Christine oh is head of dhs and she went to Congress this past week for two days of hearings before the Senate and the House on a whole raft of things. And we'll be blunt. What stands out about it is she got tough questions, obviously from Democrats, but also from some Republicans and Republicans that

[Charlie Kirk]

we like and we respect. Mike, why don't you set the table? I've got a couple clips. I've got one from Senator Kennedy and we have some headlines when I get to. But the floor is yours.

[Mike Howell]

Yeah. So no doubt it's been a rough couple months at the Department of Homeland Security. I mean, the most obvious thing is the deportation numbers are just way too low. It's President Trump's central campaign promise to conduct mass deportations. They're only at a couple hundred thousand and so that's number one. But what the secretary took heat for is really from multiple angles is, you know, ethics issues. And it came from Republicans and Democrats and primarily related to the contracting process. And in doing so, the thing that jumps out at me the most as an oversight guy, I run the oversight project is the implication of the President of the United States, President Trump, in that because she was taking on heated questions about a $200 million ad buy on Fox News telling illegal aliens to self deport. Pause for a second. Not a lot of illegal aliens watch Fox News where that advertisement was primarily played. And she said the president told her to do it. And so if I'm a White House lawyer, knowing that the president is most likely going to be impeached if Democrats win the House, I have a lot of concern about the fact that one of my Cabinet secretaries just implicated the president and a vector of that. But that's one of the angles. There's a lot more, but it was a really rough couple days.

[Blake]

And we have that clip. This is Senator Kennedy from Louisiana. So again, Senator, we like asking her about, yes, this $220 million ad buy. Let's do 586.

[Matt Van Swall]

How do you square that concern for waste, which I share, with the fact that you have spent $220 million running

[Charlie Kirk]

television advertisements that feature you prominently.

[Kristi Noem]

Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from. With. With putting commercials out that told them that if they were in this country illegally that they needed to leave or we would detain them and remove them and they'd not get the chance to come back to America the right way. That has been extremely effective.

[Matt Van Swall]

Ask you to run these advertisements, is that right?

[Kristi Noem]

We had that conversation, yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, so it continues on here. Mike, there's a second part of this that's important because you could see Kennedy's kind of zeroing in here. 597, you're testifying that President Trump approve this ahead of time.

[Mike Howell]

Some understanding.

[Kristi Noem]

We had conversations about making sure that we were telling people.

[Charlie Kirk]

I'm asking you.

[Matt Van Swall]

Sorry to interrupt, but the president approved

[Charlie Kirk]

ahead of time you spending $220 million

[Matt Van Swall]

running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently.

[Kristi Noem]

Yes, sir. We went through the legal processes. Did it correct work with omb? Yes, he did. Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Kristi Noem]

And one thing, Senator, I think would be helpful to know is how effective that communications has been.

[Charlie Kirk]

So this has sparked massive, massive amounts of rumors. And let's just throw up some of these. This is, I guess, 590Trump moles gnome firing. This is from Punchbowl News. This was the first to get it after this interaction. 588. This is from Daily Beast, not somebody we typically reference here on the show. But nevertheless, now rumors are swirling. Mike, what? Put it this way, you set up the stakes. Well, if Democrats get control of the House, he's going to be impeached. They would love something like this to be true. Where the. The DHS secretary is featured prominently is what secretary or Senator Kennedy said they would love for this to be an ethics violation or some sort of corruption. But it goes deeper than this, does it not? There is reporting about airplanes, there's reporting about budgets with former spokespeople lay out kind of what she's dealing with here.

[Mike Howell]

Yes, she's taken it on from a lot of different angles. And it primarily revolves around the movement of money and the ethical perceptions and issues. And a lot of them came, you know, on full display. The hearing from Republicans, Democrats. So let's recall reconciliation. One big beautiful bill. $40 billion to go to ICE to hire more agents, get detention facilities, that money really hasn't been spent yet. It's not getting out in the field. We aren't seeing big detention facilities and manpower increases stood up. Instead, the money first was spent on these kind of marketing and communications ploys, which I call mass communications instead of mass deportations. Now, you add to that failure on the operational side, the ethical scandal that is brewing, and it opens up a vector for Democrats and even a lot of Republicans to attack the President's central mandate of his administration, which is the secure the border and mass deportations. And then to make matters worse, you can imagine when these impeachment inquiries into the Secretary open, it's going to go right to the President's desk. And, you know, Senator Kennedy is a really smart lawyer. He understood the importance and the liability of what the Secretary laid out there when she implicated the President. I think he was trying to do the White House a solid by making them see, you know, very clearly where this trail would inevitably lead.

[Blake]

It's the reason we're emphasizing this is this is clearly, it's basically the most important department within this president's administration. It is his most important campaign promise is to deliver on border security deportations. And as we know from what happened in Minneapolis, it's inevitable. We're going to get a lot of pressure on the stuff that needs to happen, that we need ICE agents out there arresting people. There's going on non negotiable. You're going to take heat for that. It is entirely avoidable and optional to take heat for the advertising budget.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is what I wanted to zero in with you, Mike. I totally agree. You just said something that's incredibly striking. And actually I'm sitting here boiling, if I'm being honest. You just said we're not getting detention facilities and so what other contracts are not getting out the door while we're getting marketing budgets?

[Mike Howell]

Yeah, the Hill. You know, no one wants to throw shade at this issue, and I'm certainly not here to throw shade, but it's the reality that, you know, $40 billion, not much of it has been spent. DHS hasn't even updated Capitol Hill on the money that's gone out. Most of it's been tied up. One example is the border wall contracts. Those only left the secretary's desk a few months ago because they were being held up. And, you know, this type of, you know, contract approval procedure that has come under, you know, this ethical, you know, scandal. And so the result was, you know, President Trump got very upset that the wall wasn't being built when he saw the reports of it not going up, there was a finger pointing exercise within the department as to whose fault that was. It ended up that the contracts were sitting on the Secretary's desk as the price of steel increased massively. And then ultimately, after, you know, some hearings a few weeks ago, the contracts finally moved. And that's just like, one example. And so we can move from the border wall stuff to.

[Blake]

So I just want to point out that when you say sitting on the desk, do you mean that literally, like we're waiting for a signature?

[Mike Howell]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right.

[Mike Howell]

What's happened is it is unusual and the Secretary has told lawmakers this, that she approves all contracts over a certain amount, which has led to, you know, removal of authority from cbp, ICE and elsewhere and centralized it at headquarters. And that has led to some of the infighting, and I call it drama. And again, not commas in the deportation number. And that's why so many people at DHS are at each other's throats as of late. And it's no secret that the camps have been fighting. At first it was internal, but it's spilled over into the press with, you know, targeted leaks of blaming each other back and forth. And so that's the environment of dhs. But why I care is because we're here to get mass deportations done. And if these facilities aren't stood up asap, and many are waiting to go, then we are not going to execute the mass deportation agenda. And so, like, that's what I care about. But when you open up an ethical flank to that, that gives recalcitrant Republicans, Democrats an angle to make sure that we can't, even at a later date, get that money spent, it's a disaster. And I think that's why the President's so upset about it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Mike, can you stay for just a few more minutes? We gotta take a break here. You got a few more minutes?

[Mike Howell]

I do.

[Charlie Kirk]

We gotta talk about this Axios story too. And I don't wanna rush to judgment here, Mike. I don't wanna rush to judgment, but I mean, I've been very clear on this show. This is my personally, this is my number one issue. I think it's existential to the future of the country. We must enforce our sovereignty. We must have a border wall. We must deport criminal, illegal aliens. And everybody needs to be on the table to deport. By the way, no amnesty. None of this sob story stuff. This is what got President Trump elected more than anything else. When we have to see it through. What do we got here? Sorry. All right. I love these guys. I actually just put in our order yesterday because my kids are all sick. So all family pharmacy. These are great guys. You get ahead of it. Everything in healthcare is reactive except for all family pharmacy. You get ahead of it, you go straight to them. They have a licensed doctor reviews your request. Your medication ships straight to your door. They offer antibiotics, antivirals, tamiflu, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, mebendazole. I almost got it. Methylene blue and even your daily maintenance medications. It's an amazing company. Great guys down in Florida that started this company and it has just taken off. There's a reason it's taken off because our healthcare is stupid. It. But this is smart. So be smart, get ahead of it. Choose freedom. Choose the right pharmacy. Go to allfamilypharmacy.com forward slash Kirk. Use Kirk 10 to get 10 off your next order. Allfamilypharmacy.com Kirk we'll be right back. All right, welcome back. I have some breaking news here. I want the team to get this up. It's very on point with our conversation. This is White House correspondent from Reuters, Nandita Bose, or Bose, I'm not sure how you pronounce it. If you guys could get that.

[Blake]

President Trump told Reuters he did not sign off on a $200 million ad buy featuring DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and had nothing to do with it.

[Charlie Kirk]

That is a massive signal right there. We talk about signal and noise when President Trump, I mean, that means that President Trump is aware of the machinations and the scheming against him and is concerned enough about this to set the record straight. Mike, how do you interpret this?

[Mike Howell]

Yeah, I think you're right. It's a massive signal. It's President Trump saying he's had enough of this. And look, obviously he did not sign off on $200 million ad buy to play on Fox News to tell illegals to self deport. Which by the way, only, you know, less than 100,000 ended up using the application CPP1 to actually do that. DHS hasn't released numbers, but this is the President, his lawyer saying we're not going to get dragged down into this impeachment inquiry just because she brought up his name.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, and here's, here's the other thing. So there was a contract that was supposed to go out. I think it was part of this marketing budget to recruit ICE agents, new ICE agents, because we had 10,000 plus to fill. Correct. And I'm told that those numbers got filled pretty quickly and yet without much of the budget being spent. Have you heard the same?

[Mike Howell]

Yeah, I think ICE recruitment numbers are good right now. These ads though, I think related to the CBP1 app and the self deportation. If you recall, they featured the secretary prominently and almost, you know, predominantly aired on Fox News Tonight, which again, you know, legal aliens don't watch. And so they initially grabbed a lot of attention as being unusual. And then you add into it the allegations that the contract was like a sole source emergency funding deal that went to someone with political connections to the secretary. And that was the feature of hearings yesterday and the day before. You know, allegations of corruption there.

[Charlie Kirk]

No, and I get that one. So that's one bucket. But wasn't there a second bucket to recruit ICE agents?

[Blake]

I think the idea they had the money to recruit ICE agents, they got the recruits they needed and they just kept spending it. Which might have the implication that someone really wanted, you know, they could have returned that money, use that for something else.

[Mike Howell]

Right. Yeah. The overall thrust of this is these ads read as self promotion and political advertising as opposed to mission focused things.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. So here's another clip with Kristi Noem. I believe this is Sheldon Whitehouse, who I don't like, so take it with a grain of salt. But it's about this luxury DHS jet, which is another story. There's an Axio, Axios broke this last week. Mike, I don't. I'm sure you saw it. But for our audience who may not be aware. 603, could you explain this?

[Kristi Noem]

Sir, I'm looking at a picture of an interior.

[Mike Howell]

Looks like a bedroom of an airplane.

[Kristi Noem]

Yes, sir.

[Mike Howell]

You're not familiar with that.

[Kristi Noem]

These photos are not accurate. If you're referring to the airplanes that the Department of Homeland Security has purchased and are purchasing, we're using them for long range command and control aircraft that is dictated in statute by Congress for the Department of Homeland Security to have a plane.

[Mike Howell]

Luxury jet with a bedroom in it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Mike, here's the Axios story from last week. What do you know about this? Separate fact from fiction. I don't trust Sheldon Whitehouse at all. So I'm not going to take that.

[Mike Howell]

That's the problem. We don't want Sheldon Whitehouse and the Democrats ever to be right or have a leg up. But here not doing them any favors when money that was supposed to be spent on deportation aircraft are being used for luxury travel for the secretary and others. And the Axios story checks out. I mean One of these jets they claimed was for deportation usage. And the contract is being used for like international junkets and travel. And you juxtapose that against. The secretary spent very little time at DHS headquarters, by some counts less than like a month, a month of time there and is instead focused on, you know, traveling the globe and elsewhere. It kind of begins to just look like what it is. And it's the use of the emergency funds and the one big beautiful bill money, which is supposed to be getting illegals out is being used to get, you know, the secretary of the homeland of security around the world in the country in style. And it just gives Democrats such high ground to make these types of argument. And I don't want to be watching Sheldon Whitehouse and others have that high ground. And that's why it's such a problem.

[Charlie Kirk]

So this is pretty, pretty frustrating to hear. This is, this is, was kind of the main reason that I, I mean, I don't know, there was a lot of reasons, but like, deportations was top of my list.

[Blake]

Now, devil, you know, devil's advocate, obviously this has been critical.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, it's.

[Blake]

The thing is, okay, let's say the president dismisses her, appoints someone new to the position. Are we able to continue doing deportations, doing the wall, doing the things that need to be done while that position goes unfilled, possibly for months on end,

[Charlie Kirk]

like an interim or something.

[Blake]

Yeah. So there will be an interim. Will that person be able to deliver on all the things we care about? Or would we want to maybe have the president give her a stern tongue lashing but keep her around purely because we can't afford that two month pause?

[Mike Howell]

Yeah. So on the first part of the question, yes, I mean, if you recall, in Trump won, we basically ran on acting secretaries while the border wall was being built, which isn't without its problems. But, you know, you could, the OBB money is insulated from the shutdown and all that. And so, so it really comes down to policy changes at the department that need to happen. One is, you know, open the aperture of the deportation program. You know, we got to move from this near exclusive focus on criminals to getting the numbers up, which means worksite enforcement, you know, to get into the millions, which, you know, President Trump promised to beat Eisenhower and that's what it'll take. So that policy change isn't going to happen under current leadership. And then second is this, this process which is just hunkered down, the moving of this critical $40 billion worth of money and now it's going to be even harder to move that money under current leadership with everybody just so focused on the perceptions of ethical issues in that contracting process, politically speaking, of course, it's the president's decision to make and, you know, he's, he's got the, the insight into what needs to be done there. But there are people that could come in and get confirmed by the Senate rather quickly. And if you've seen their names floating around, I mean, Jason Chaffetz could fly through the Senate and he's got a lot of experience and wants the deportation numbers up. Mark Morgan, the former head of CBP and ice, and Trump won. He's an operator who knows how to get things done, has law enforcement experience and rank and file support. He could fly through the Senate. So these are all things that I'm sure the White House is weighing with their optionality of, you know, having more insight into the various variables in this moving exercise.

[Charlie Kirk]

So, Mike, this has been excellent. Thank you for a dispassionate presentation of the facts. We don't want to run to rush to judgment, but certainly this is troubling because we have an electorate, a base, a coalition that wants to focus on local domestic issues. Meanwhile, we've got a war in Iran, strikes ongoing. The timeline keeps stretching out. It's going to be, it's going to be a grueling campaign, even if it is the right geopolitical move to make. Meanwhile, the domestic number one issue, the issue that basically unites the entire base, the entire coalition, is deportation, sealing the border, getting tough on immigration. And it seems to be just a complete mess. And that is a formula for disaster. Mike, thank you so much. The oversight project, this has been excellent. We're gonna have you on again soon as this develops. Thank you.

[Mike Howell]

Appreciate it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Matt Vaughn Van Swall joins us in hour two.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this REAL america's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. While the current war with Iran is dominating the headlines, the Trump administration is also continuing its war against narco terrorism. It started with attacks on drug boats in the Caribbean, but this week extended to boots on the ground in Ecuador as American special forces operators are advising Ecuador's military in taking down drug targets across that country. Today, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth hosted the inaugural America's Counter Cartel Conference, bringing together security leaders from across the Western hemisphere. RAV correspondent and host of Breaking Point, David Zier was there.

[David Zier]

Thank you, Terrence. We are here at U.S. southern Command headquarters in Doral, Florida. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth hosted the inaugural America's Counter cartel conference at U.S. southern Command's headquarters here. Their area of responsibility includes 31 countries in the Western hemisphere. And over half of them were here today and signed a joint security declaration to stop narco trafficking in our hemisphere, an unprecedented hemispheric cooperation. Southcom Commanding general Francis Donovan said the Western hemisphere is our neighborhood and we will take aggressive action against the narco traffickers, but in concert with these nations. And U.S. homeland Security Adviser Steve Stephen Miller said, as far as human rights go, we won't protect the savages who rape and torture and kill, but we will protect the peaceful citizens of these countries. And sec. War Hegseth, the secretary of war, said we abandoned the principles of the Monroe Doctrine. Under previous leaders, more than 1 million have been killed by drugs in the United States. And human smuggling grew to $13 billion industry by 2022. But President Trump has reestablished the Monroe Doctrine. He said America will go it alone if necessary, but would rather work with our neighbors under the area of responsibility of southcom or the US Southern Command. And at the conclusion of today's historic conference, the countries in attendance, over half of the countries of those 31 countries under Southcom signed the joint security declaration. A very historic day for the United States. Back to you, Terrence.

[Terrence Bates]

And in other headlines, the Trump administration's war on Iran wages on after Senate Republicans rejected a bill aimed at stopping the conflict and demanding congressional approval for any further attacks. The measure failed by a 47 to 53 margin. A similar House measure scheduled to be voted on this morning is expected to face a severe similar fate. Meantime, more and more Americans across the Middle east are being evacuated and brought home. At last check, the State Department was confirming that nearly 18,000 citizens had returned to the U.S. about 6,500 made it back, thanks to U.S. government chartered flights. Thousands more are said to be seeking assistance in fleeing the increasing safety threats across the region. American charter flights are being operated out of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia. The families of all six US Troops killed in an Iranian strike on their base in Kuwait have now been notified of their loved one's death. Preparations are underway to bring the bodies home. Although no date for the dignified transfer has been made public, we do know President Trump intends to welcome the fallen heroes home.

[Kristi Noem]

These heroes represent the very best among us. They laid down their lives in defense of our country and we will never forget their legacy or their sacrifice. As the president said, we grieve for these American patriots and their families as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. President Trump intends to attend the dignified transfer of these American heroes to stand in grief alongside their families.

[Terrence Bates]

The Pentagon confirms two of the troops who were killed were from Iowa. The others were from California, Florida, Nebraska and Minnesota. Well, today could be the day President Trump endorses someone in the Texas Republican Senate primary. Incumbent Senator John Cornyn is facing former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a runoff after both of them failed to win a majority of votes on Tuesday. President Trump is expected to hitch his wagon to one of the candidates well before the May 26 runoff. Taken to true social the commander in chief writing, I'll be making my endorsement soon and will be asking the candidate that I don't endorse to immediately drop out of the race. That's a quick check.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right. Welcome back to our. Your emails are flooding in. We will probably read some of those. Some people like what we had to say, some people don't.

[Blake]

It's not even like we didn't like what we had to say.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Blake]

But it had to be said.

[Charlie Kirk]

Sometimes you gotta, gotta take your medicine. But we've got a great hour two in store for you and somebody I met at, for the first time at America Fest, and that's Matt Van Swall. He's a former nuclear scientist for the Department of Energy and not, not Department of Education, doe. DOE is one of those ones. You are somebody that has, your social media following has grown very rapidly. I mean, I don't know how many flaws you have on X or whatever. It's a lot. Over a million. And you used to be a, a left winger.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yep.

[Charlie Kirk]

I don't know how far left. But you were, you were a Democrat.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, definitely.

[Charlie Kirk]

And, and then you basically had a conversion story and you happened to be a nuclear scientist and you happened to be in Phoenix. I was like, you need to come in and explain enrichment because we got this Iran situation going on. But let's start with your conversion. Give us your backstory and what made you kind of start changing.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, so after college I kind of became significantly more left leaning. And it started in college and then kind of of quickly escalated from there. You know, I was single, I was working, you know, it was in an apartment by myself. I was doing like the online dating thing. And you know, you start, you know, reading the New York Times, you know, cnn and you kind of get all of your news. And everyone at work is the same way, too. You know, that you're all kind of bantering and talking and you just start to see yourself move slowly to the left as everyone.

[Charlie Kirk]

So you didn't grow up? You didn't grow up necessarily?

[Matt Van Swall]

No, no, no, no. Oh, definitely not political. My parents were pretty right leaning growing up, and I kind of had, like, a backlash. The same thing with Christianity, too. Like, I grew up going to church with my parents, and then kind of after college, just.

[Charlie Kirk]

It just drifted away.

[Matt Van Swall]

Drifted away.

[Mike Howell]

Yeah.

[Matt Van Swall]

So.

[Charlie Kirk]

So what was the turning point then? So unintended.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah. So. So for. You know, my wife and I were in western North Carolina during Helene, and we lost power for a couple of weeks, but we saw so much devastation during that time. And I wasn't really on Twitter at all up until Helene, and we watched as FEMA just constantly failed over and over and over. And it was so appalling during that time period because you would see FEMA failures all over the place, and the news would just be glowing reviews of how awesome FEMA was doing and how horrific, you know, Helene was. But then you just, like, walk down the street or what I did walk down the street and see people living in tents, you know, almost months after Helene, and you're like, things are not going okay.

[Charlie Kirk]

I mean, I'm Blake. I don't know if you remember, but, like, that was terrible to see the wreckage from that hurricane. Basically Asheville. Aren't you based in that area? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So the. The town was unrecognizable. That hurricane completely wiped that town away.

[Matt Van Swall]

Anything by the river was completely demolished.

[Blake]

$79 billion of damage. That's.

[Charlie Kirk]

I mean, people need to remember just how large of a catastrophe Helene was.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, people are quick to forget that. It's.

[Charlie Kirk]

We're still recovering, so, I mean, like, I'll be just perfectly honest. Like, I haven't thought about it recently. I mean, there's been a couple people that have brought it up here and there, but. But, I mean, we have some of these B roll images, and I don't think these are the worst. There was whole swaths of town that were just mud.

[Matt Van Swall]

Oh, yeah. And that's one of the reasons I started putting it out. I had a drone, and people ask me, like, how did you get big on Twitter? I was the guy with the drone that was putting out just the images from Helene, like, that was it. And so I throw my drone up, and you would just see devastation as far as you could see. And it was awful. I mean, the river just took out everything along it. It was so terrible. But the. The cleanup after that and the helping of people from FEMA was so slow. It took so long. And we would. We eventually started talking to people like Sean Hendricks, who's a good buddy of mine now who did Helene cleanup. And we would talk to him, and you'd be like, yeah, there are people living in tents today. And you're still.

[Terrence Bates]

Today.

[Matt Van Swall]

No, no, no. But, you know, months afterwards. And you're like, how is this possible? And you drive around with them, and sure enough, there are people living in tents. And we were like, we have to get involved. So we started getting involved. And I remember this. You know, we started talking with Sean. His name's Sean Hendricks. You can find him on X. Started talking with Sean. Just having these moments. We were like, you know, the government is not. We would talk to these victims, and they'd be like, we applied to fema, heard nothing. And then you would see a nonprofit like Glenn Beck's Mercury one step in, and they just build them a new home, like, out of nowhere. And FEMA was nowhere to be found. And we were like, I mean, we have to. You have to, you know, get involved. So my wife and I started driving RVs to people. People just donate RVs out of nowhere and be like, hey, here's an RV. We're not using it. Please give this to someone that. That needs it. And so we get them in, we clean them, and then Sean or someone else would. Would drive the rv. And I vividly remember this one time we were driving an RV to a woman and her son, and I drove the RV up to their house, and they were living in a shed with a propane heater. And I remember walking into the shed, and my head hurt so bad from the propane. I was like, how the hell can anyone live in this? And this was months after Helene. And I was like, this. This is crazy. And on that drive, I opened my phone and I saw, yeah, that's it. That's Lake Lure, which, you know, is an incredible spot. I opened my phone, and I saw that Joe Biden had given billions of dollars to Ukraine. And I was sitting there driving an RV to someone like, an American that needed it. And I was like, this is insane. Like, this is absolutely nuts. And then I started, you know, just putting out the stories. It was story after story after story of people applying to fema, getting rejected, never hearing back. And they're the. The worst stories you've ever seen in your life. And the only people that stepped up were the nonprofits and just everyday American citizens. And it was wild.

[Charlie Kirk]

And meanwhile, we're Giving away billions of dollars to Ukraine. And we were funding all these nonprofits to help illegals get in the country and getting the system. Yeah, Pretty radicalizing, isn't it, actually? And it's important that we tell those stories because we need to remember how we got here and what actually put President Trump in office. So you became a Christian, too?

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

We only got a minute left. Of course, I'd ask you the hardest

[Matt Van Swall]

question with a minute, but, yeah, my wife and I started going back to church. It was very tangentially related, related to seeing all of the non profits step up when. When the government failed. And almost all of the non profits, almost all of them were Christian nonprofits. And we realized later on that our kids did not have, like, a community group. They didn't have any moral teaching outside of my wife and I. And my wife grew up going to church as well. But we both. We had never gone to church together, ever, in the six years that we've been together. And we were like, we. We have to go back to church, you know, for our kids and for the community that. That, you know, it builds. And so we. So we ended up doing that. And it's been awesome.

[Charlie Kirk]

Like, my.

[Matt Van Swall]

My daughter works in the nursery. My wife and I just met her involved. Yeah, she's awesome.

[Charlie Kirk]

You got a beautiful family, man.

[Matt Van Swall]

And, yeah, it's. It's been really great. I highly recommend it. Even if you are not a Christian, the community and the morals you get from church is amazing.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is great. And we've got so much more to get to because your story has taken a lot of twists and turns in the last couple years. We're going to get to it, and they're all relevant news stories, by the way. I want to tell you guys really quickly about Hillsdale College. Hillsdale was absolutely one of the keystones, the most important pieces of Charlie, taking everything to the next level. Charlie understood something important. Leadership begins with learning through Hillsdale College's free online courses. He studied the great works in the classics, the principles of America's founding, and so much more. One of the courses this is actually true that he took was the Genesis story, taught by Hillsdale Professor Dr. Justin Jackson. It's a real college course. It's rigorous, it's thoughtful, it's hard, but you're going to learn a lot, and it's accessible to anyone who's willing to learn. You go to CharlieForHillsdale.com to enroll. That's CharlieForHillsdale.comto enroll. You can learn deeply, lead boldly. Carry it forward and learn the deeper truths, the foundational truths that are going to take you and this country, your family, to the next level, just like it did for Charlie. Check out Hillsdale, America's greatest college. We'll be right back. Is there something inherently dignifying for a human being? Swole from North Carolina. Former, I guess Democrat. Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Van Swall]

Democrat voter for sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

Democrat voter. But he's a Christian now. He's supportive of the president's agenda. He's covering all types of stories. But you happen to be a former nuclear scientist.

[David Zier]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So a lot has been made in Iran. They were for decades on the precipice of getting a nuclear weapon.

[Blake]

My entire lifetime.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, yeah. Separate fact from fiction. So we're hearing that, you know, we bomb for do.

[Mike Howell]

Sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

Then they were told they could make a dirty bomb. Explain enrichment to us. How fast does it go? What does it take? Could you do it in kind of like, these crappy backroom labs or whatever? What does it take?

[Matt Van Swall]

Probably not. So the way. So there's a couple ways. Excuse me, to do enrichment. The one that we did in the 40s is not what's being done now. So you could. You could do it. You're essentially trying to separate uranium 238 from uranium 235. And if you can get uranium 235 up to 90% enrichment, then you have a bomb. And the reason for that is it's essentially a domino effect. So if you're. If you're making, you know, you wanted to make, let's just say nuclear energy, you would only enrich uranium at most 5%. Like, that would be the max.

[Terrence Bates]

If you're.

[Matt Van Swall]

If you're. Anything above 5%, you're clearly trying to do something nefarious. Like, there's no reason. Because over what percent? Over 5%.

[Charlie Kirk]

No kidding. That low?

[Matt Van Swall]

Oh, yeah. So 3 to 5%.

[Charlie Kirk]

We're hearing, like 60%.

[Matt Van Swall]

That's insane. There's no. There's no nuclear reactor on the planet that uses 60. Like, anything over.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. Then when they go into the room, apparently it was Kushner and Witkoff. They go into the room with their negotiating counterparts from Iran, and they're like, we have. Have 60% enriched, and we have enough to make 11 bombs of nuclear material. Right. Uranium, essentially. So right then it's kind of like this whole narrative that they.

[Matt Van Swall]

You're clearly making a nuke.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, we don't. We just want to be able to power our country with nuclear energy. Supposedly.

[Blake]

We just offered them all the nuclear fuel. They could ever want.

[Charlie Kirk]

But that's at 5%, 100%. So how long does it take to go from 5% to 60%?

[Matt Van Swall]

So, so it works on like a, to go from zero to, let's just say zero percent. Enrichment of 5% enrichment takes almost as long. It depends as going from, let's just say like 60 to 90%. So there's a very long lag time at the beginning. And so that, that process could take you 10 years.

[Charlie Kirk]

To go from zero to five.

[Matt Van Swall]

No, to go from zero to 90%. So but if you were, is it

[Blake]

all about, about how much infrastructure you have?

[Matt Van Swall]

It's all about how many centrifuges you have. So if, you know, in the 40s we determined that it would take like 10,000 centrifuges to get us to a nuclear bomb to back in the 40s. And so we didn't do it that way, But Iran's doing it with centrifuges because they're pretending that they want it for, you know, nuclear energy, which they're not. Like, again, like if you have anything over 10%, you're going for something.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay, so you're, as a nuclear scientist, you're hearing and looking at these stats, these figures that are being reported, and you're instantly calling garbage on nuclear energy. You know they're going for a nuclear weapon.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, of course.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay, so how did we do it in the 40s if we didn't do it with centrifuges?

[Matt Van Swall]

Oh, that's a good question.

[Charlie Kirk]

Is it too long of a question? I don't want to bog us down.

[Blake]

Public information. Yeah, it's secret.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's public.

[Charlie Kirk]

He's pretty sure. 90% sure.

[Matt Van Swall]

No, I think you can, I think you can grog it. But essentially the way we would do it was we forced. Again, you're trying to separate 235 from 238. And so you would essentially force it through smaller holes, like two. They're different sized elements. So you'd force it through tinier holes. And then we used these monster magnets. And the way that 230 and 238 bent, you could, you could separate it out a lot easier than that. But if you were trying to pretend like you were not making a nuclear bomb, you would do it. You would do it with centrifuges.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's how you do it in the energy world.

[Matt Van Swall]

100.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So, so, okay, dirty bomb. What is a dirty bomb? How do you make it? And I. So, so because that's Another whole storyline in this.

[Matt Van Swall]

So you could theoretically make a dirty bomb by saying, let's just say you have 60% enriched uranium. The reason you want to ENRICH it to 90% is to make the bomb as small as possible. So you could put it on a rocket. Otherwise you have this gigantic bomb that you couldn't even put on a plane.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right.

[Matt Van Swall]

So the idea is to get, you know, get it as small as possible, and then the explosion is much bigger. It's like a giant domino effect. At 90% enrichment versus. Versus at 5% enrichment, you're looking at like a slow meltdown, which is why it's perfect for energy because, you know, you just have this sustained energy over time versus it's like gasoline versus diesel. If you've ever like lit one versus the other, it's the same idea. So you want to. You get a 90% enrichment. You get it on like a very small, like bowling ball size. You could put it in a rocket and hit someone. Otherwise you're just like, how would you transport something that big? So 60% enriched uranium, you could definitely make a bomb. Nobody's saying, but you couldn't send it anywhere. You couldn't fly it. It.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay, so a dirty bomb.

[Blake]

And how. How devastating is that likely to be?

[Matt Van Swall]

I mean, it's 60%. I mean, it's still pretty devastating. I mean, it'd be. It'd be worse. So, you know, conventional. Yeah, for sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, and there's all the fallout from that, right? The.

[Matt Van Swall]

Oh, yeah, it's terrible. But yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So a dirty bomb would be. So what's, what's ideal enrichment for an actual nuclear weapon?

[Matt Van Swall]

90% or above.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So a dirty bomb would be less than that.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So in theory, say fordo. We bomb. Fordo.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

They scurry in there and they get 60% enriched or 70% enriched uranium and they fire it off kind of as is the end.

[Matt Van Swall]

Well, you could not. It'd be very unlikely. You could fire off 60% enriched uranium. Okay, that would be. It would be really tough to do that and have a. Yeah, that'd be tough. But what they could be doing is if you're at 60% enriched uranium, like I said, like, there's a very long lead time for getting uranium up to the point where you could make a bomb. So if they've already gotten it up to 60%, I think this is what I keep hearing from the administration. You're pretty close. If they've just got centrifuges somewhere that we don't know about, that are spinning away 100%. It is possible.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Interesting. So John Solomon, remember on the Saturday stream we did after this initial strike, like he said that you wouldn't even have to get it out of four do you could get it off of potentially the black market or there's other.

[Matt Van Swall]

If someone handed them anything above, let's just say 10% is highly enriched uranium, low enriched uranium is used for nuclear reactors, then yeah, you're on your way for sure.

[Charlie Kirk]

So I mean the more, you know, like, okay, so you're being an, you're an educated person in this field. This is what you know, this was your career. When you're hearing about this, you're instantly going, yeah, that makes sense. They could hurt a lot of people real quickly like this. You gotta take this extraordinarily serious.

[Matt Van Swall]

For sure.

[Mike Howell]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

And I don't think, I think a lot of the skeptics don't understand just how close we were basically existing all the time with Iran's nuclear program. I mean, we were close all the time. I mean, maybe that's why it feels like, well, we've always been so close. Well, well, because they have been close to having a nuclear weapon.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah. It's very possible, you know, that it just, it just took them this long to get to 60%. And it'd be nice to hear more from the administration about like how close they were and evidence about that. I think that would quell a lot of.

[Charlie Kirk]

All right, more with Matt Van Swall when we get.

[Terrence Bates]

Welcome back to this Real America's Voice news break. I'm Terrence Bates. The Trump administration's war on Iran wages on after Senate Republicans reject a bill aimed at stopping the conflict and even demanding that congressional approval be gotten for any further attack. The measure failed by a 47 to 53 margin. A similar House measure scheduled to be voted on this morning is expected to face a similar fate. Meantime, more and more Americans across the Middle east are being evacuated and brought home. At last check, the State Department was confirming that nearly 18,000 U.S. citizens have returned to the U.S. about 6,500 made it back thanks to U.S. government chartered flights. Thousands more are said to be seeking assistance in fleeing the increasing safety threats across the region. American charter flights are being operated out of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia. The families of all six US Troops who were killed in an Iranian strike on their base in Kuwait have now been notified of their loved one's death. Preparations are underway to bring the bodies home. Although no date for the dignified transfer has been made. We do know that President Trump intends to welcome those fallen heroes home.

[Kristi Noem]

These heroes represent the very best among us. They laid down their lives in defense of our country and we will never forget their legacy or their sacrifice. As the president said, we grieve for these American patriots and their families as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives. President Trump intends to attend the dignified transfer of these American heroes to stand in grief alongside their families.

[Terrence Bates]

Two of the troops who were killed were from Iowa. The others were from California, Florida, Nebraska and Minnesota. Well, today could be the day President Trump drops his endorsement in Texas Republican Senate primary incumbent Senator John Cornyn is facing former Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a runoff after both failed to win a majority of votes. On Tuesday, President Trump expected to hitch his wagon to one of the candidates well before the May 26 runoff. Taken to Truth Social, the commander in chief writing, I will be making my endorsement soon and will be asking the candidate that I don't endorse to immediately drop out of the race. We must win in November. He says.

[Charlie Kirk]

Stop watching the news and start making some the Charlie Kirk Show. All right, more with Matt Van Swall here in studio at the Bitcoin.com studio in Phoenix, Arizona, your one stop shop to buy, sell and trade bitcoin. I want to tell you guys really quickly about good ranchers. I love these guys. Good ranchers are the best. And Ben and Corly Spell, they've been on the program before. They are committed to this country, 100% American. From the pasture to the final seal on every box. You get this box delivered to your door, it's about like that, filled with meat, chock full of meat. And it's delicious. And by the way, the quality's through the roof and it's all American. So on America 250, as you want to celebrate this country, as you want to back the people that make it work, there's nobody better to support than our ranchers and our farmers. So back them up. Subscribe. When you subscribe using promo code Kirk, you get $25 off your first order. You get to pick from all these different cuts of meat, from bacon to chicken nuggets to porterhouse to New York strips, all the things. You also get to pick up free meat that will be in the box for life. So if you know you have a specific cut that you love, they'll throw one in for free. And then they'll give you $25 off your first order because they're that confident that you're going to love what you get. So go to goodranchers.com to order goodranchers.com American meat delivered. Use promo code Kirk for $25 off your first order. And you get that free meat as well. Free cut. So check that out. All right, so we have a graph here, I believe. Do we have that up yet, guys? Because this is, this is like, this is the grab. Okay. Uranium enrichment 623. I don't know what I'm looking at. Is this the one or do you want the top one? Okay, nevermind, sorry. 622. Throw up. 622. So this is what we're looking at. And uranium enrichment and uses. You're talking about the first 0 to 5% enrichment takes a long time.

[Matt Van Swall]

This is correct. Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

And then going from five to. Yeah, you could say just accelerates. Yeah.

[Blake]

So just as you can see if it's, you know, you need about 1300 total units of. It looks like they're measuring energy or effort somehow. And you're at 1200 by the time you get to 40%. So the last 50% is less than 10% of the total effort.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is correct. Okay. Effort swu. Okay, interesting. So basically when you talk about enrichment and they say that it's 60% enriched, based on this graph, getting from 60 to 90 happens way faster than going from 0 to 5.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah. And I think when, when they bombed Fordeau, they said that they were somewhere around like 60, 60% enriched uranium. Which if, if you were to just take Iran at their, at their word, the amount of centrifuges that they have, that, that could actually be one week, like maybe. It depends. So when, when they say they set them back, they probably really did set them back pretty far. But if they still kept 60% enriched uranium around and hit it, you know, God knows where, and they have other centrifuges we don't know about, then yeah, that would, that would actually be a big problem.

[Charlie Kirk]

So, so listen, this is where you, you go into the, you gotta trust the people that we helped get elected to kind of make decisions, tough decisions that could be difficult politically. But man, you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. President Trump has been very adamant about that, consistent about that. I want to pivot a little bit here though, Matt, because, you know, one of the things, if you follow Matt online, you live in a state that had a terrible, gruesome murder. It was showcased at the State of the Union. And of course we are talking about Irina Zarutska. She was a Ukrainian war Refugee that moved to North Carolina and was brutally killed in a video. I think that shocked the conscience of so many Americans. And that's your state. And what's interesting about that, it strikes close to home. And Blake will remember this, that, you know, she died just before Charlie was killed. And Charlie was absolutely on top of this. He tweeted about it a lot because this was a story that never should have happened. Yeah, she should still be alive today. And actually, Erica sat next to Irina Zarudska's parents at the State of the Union. I don't think she knew she was gonna be next to them. So it was a really powerful moment. Yeah, I mean, you guys will remember these images. Just horrifying to see them. Our team's putting them up. Just throw them up when you have them. But, Matt, how did this story impact you?

[Matt Van Swall]

Oh, I mean, it's crazy. Like, my. My wife grew up in Charlotte, so she. She's written the light rail quite a few times. And I'd been kind of reporting on Charlotte crime at that point because it was just. I mean, if. If anyone wants to go report on Charlotte crime, it's a free for all. Like, the media is not covering this whatsoever. It's not hard to find the stories. But this one was just so surprising in the sense that this guy Charlotte has a insane repeat offender problem. And this is something I cover over and over on Twitter. But this guy had been in and out of prison so many times, his mom said, you know, my son needs to be locked up. He should not be out. And they let him out over and over constantly. And then he goes and says he's got voices in his head and then murders Irina.

[Blake]

And there's something deeply symbolic about this one. Put up 628 and 629, and then the last one, if you can get it, it. So people have made murals around the country honoring her in big cities, and they keep getting vandalized. People keep spray painting them, trashing them, damaging them, because. And, like, there's something very profoundly insightful about, I think, left wing psychology that they would feel the need to do that to trash murals of an innocent woman who was murdered by someone who should not have been on the street. And as we know, she has become a symbol. But a lot of people could be this symbol. There's a story that's been going on in Fairfax county, right outside D.C. where there was a murder there, where it was, I believe, Abdul Jalo, a illegal immigrant from Africa, let out after, I think, five different malicious woundings. Keeps stabbing people. He, the police sent an email to the Fairfax prosecutor's office saying, you guys let this guy out again. He keeps randomly stabbing people. He's going to randomly stab someone again. And a week or two ago, he stabbed the other woman, Stephanie Minter, on a bus, which the police had warned he was going to, and the prosecutor ignored it. We can endlessly find cases like this

[Charlie Kirk]

and look at throw up.628. This, this bothers me a lot to see this. I haven't seen this before. And it's a irina Zarudska mural. 628. If you have it, please vandalize this. This is a woman who did nothing wrong. She wasn't a public figure. She didn't voice her political opinions online. She didn't go to college campuses to debate college students because Lord knows then you'll get your murals vandalized. She was just riding a bus and she got stabbed in the neck and she died. And people feel bad about that. And that's radicalizing for so many. And I'm sure for you, Matt, as a sort of newer conservative as well,

[Matt Van Swall]

well, you would just always expect. And almost everyone I talk to expects that violent criminals are in jail. Almost everyone you talk. If you were to ask someone is someone who murdered someone in jail for murdering someone, almost 100% of people would say for sure they're in jail.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's almost as common sense as you would assume. Everybody has to show an ID to vote. Kind of one of those ideas.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yes, 100%. And the truth of the matter is, if you go and look at any of the major cities, they are letting violent criminals out at an insanely high rate. Like, there is a juvenile in Charlotte that has been arrested 150 times and he's still out. Like, he's still committing crimes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Like breaking into 50 times.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yes. He's not even 18. Like, you know, it really is nuts. Like the amount of times these people are getting arrested and being let out. And there's, I mean, you can go to my Twitter and scroll. I mean, there's endless amounts of these stories.

[Charlie Kirk]

And you, you, you had a really interesting insight. You, you did some reporting, independent journalism. Right. It's kind of like part of your new role where you uncovered that they were classifying a bunch of non white criminals as white.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

What was the point of that? And did you get confirmation that your reporting was accurate?

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, it's definitely accurate. Now, it depends on, like, which sheriff's office and, you know, a lot of different things. But in Charlotte, at Least there, there is a, like there's an option to click the word Hispanic. If it's in a Hispanic person, there's an option to click the word white or black. And an insane amount of the time Hispanic people are classified as white in arrest reports. There was one so egregious that I remember this one very clearly. It was, it's clearly a Hispanic male with, you know, black hair. And in the arrest report it was a white male with blonde hair. And if you didn't have the photo of this person, you'd be like, like, you know, clearly. So like, this bothers me greatly because the truth of crime stats matters and people constantly post like the crime stats per race of individuals. And if my assumption is that if you were to go and look at the true crime stats based on actual verified race data that is not biased, the white crime rate would be insanely low, like much, much lower. Because these systems that are at the state level feed into the federal level.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. What do you think though? Why are they doing this? Just because more left wing ideology, they don't want to.

[Matt Van Swall]

It's possible. So I think there's possibly two reasons. One is maybe, and I've been told this by police officers that the white button is first on whatever system. So if they're trying to do it quickly, it's just, you know, we'll just leave it at that. In other places, the, you know, Hispanic is, it is an ethnicity, technically not a race, but it depends on again, like the, the system that you're in. Sometimes there's not even a option for police officers to, to tap the word Hispanic. So they'll just, they'll just, you know, you have no option. You just have to tap white.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, I'm looking at one right here. It's Ahmad Jihad Boja.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Race white.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah. Clearly not.

[Charlie Kirk]

Okay.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah, yeah. I, and like there's so many of these examples. Like you could just, I mean you could probably just search the word white on my, my ex account and you

[Charlie Kirk]

would see, yeah, this guy killed three elderly Americans. I remember this story because his name was Jihad.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

He killed him in Florida and he was listed as white.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

This is a guy with the name Jihad.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

Classified as white.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

So is there any efforts at the federal level to fix this?

[Matt Van Swall]

There are, yeah. I've gotten a phone call from someone at the administration. I don't know whether I'm allowed to say who, but they are working on this. This is something that they're focused on

[Charlie Kirk]

because it feels like it would, I mean, the downstream ramifications are, are massive. But you're being lied to and there is a whole racial agenda. You could, you could say part of this might be inadvertent. There's gotta be part of this that is completely intentional.

[Matt Van Swall]

100%. There's no doubt.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. Look at all this. I mean, come on.

[Matt Van Swall]

Yeah.

[Charlie Kirk]

It doesn't pass the eye test or the smell test.

[Matt Van Swall]

No, not at all.

[Charlie Kirk]

Whatever. The common sense test.

[Matt Van Swall]

No.

[Charlie Kirk]

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[Blake]

Too late. Too late.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's 90 day. Risk free guarantee. Money back guarantee. Use promo code Charlie at checkout for 20 off strongcell.com promo code Charlie. Check it out. Today. You will not regret it. Final segment. Coming up, We have some breaking news, folks. Folks, I don't want to say that we did it, but maybe we did it. SECRETARY CHRIS well, Kristi Noem is out as Secretary of dhs. Reports are that Senator Mark Wayne Mullen we have. Will be replacing her.

[Blake]

We have a statement from the president.

[Charlie Kirk]

Let's read it.

[Blake]

Yeah, let's get it. I'll start reading it. I am pleased to announce that the highly respected United States senator from the great state of Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullen, will become the United States DHS Secretary effective March 31, 2026. The current Secretary, Christine, who has served us well and has had numerous and spectacular results, especially on the border, will be removing to be special envoy, envoy for the Shield of the Americas, our new security initiative in the Western hemisphere. We are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Christy for her service at Homeland and then he has a lot about how great Mark Wayne Mullen is and all of that. But yeah, that's breaking news.

[Charlie Kirk]

Breaking news.

[Blake]

Matter of minutes.

[Charlie Kirk]

So we spent a lot of time in hour one talking about some of the controversies that have been swirling around dhs. Stuff that we don't want to see because it's too Critically important to the mission to re election to the coalition. I'm pleased to see that the President is taking decisive action. And Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is friend of the show, very, very well respected, understands the base, but he also understands the, let's just say, the intricacies of working with blue states and understands, working with senators from blue states what these negotiations, these high wire acts really entail. We talk about crime in blue cities. The ideologies that run these blue cities, they don't want to enforce crime. So you've got an uphill battle. Then we make a lot of noise about the numbers that Barack Obama achieved when he was president, about deportations. Well, guess what, almost 80% of those were transfers at the local prison level, at the local jail level. So that was before the sanctuary city madness really took root. And that was before all this TDS anti Trump sentiment. Right. Because it's was before Trump. So they would just hand criminal illegal aliens over at the jail level. Why is that important? Way safer, takes way fewer agents to get those transfers accomplished. And you get them deported immediately. You get violent criminals, instead of releasing them back into the streets, you get them out of your country. So that's going to be goal number one for Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is to exert enough effort and force and coercion if you have to political pressure to get blue cities to cooperate. Now the good news here is that Tom Homan has already given us a model for this in Minneapolis. Minneapolis was spiraling out of control. President Trump sent Tom Homan into Minneapolis, got them to heal and now he's got cooperation from 95% of county jails, local jails, Minneapolis, to hand over these detention requests. Blake, gotta get you in here. How important is this? What, what do we make of this? We're going to have to see.

[Blake]

So we still have a month before it goes in. That would be a pretty brisk confirmation schedule, I think. But he's in the Senate. I think that would help speed things along.

[Charlie Kirk]

Lose the senator.

[Blake]

We lose a senator. But it's Oklahoma. That is a race. We're highly unlikely to lose it. Well, no black pilling, you're telling me. So I think that's when you don't. I think he'll, I mean, we had Mark Wayne on the show. I think he's got a good head on his shoulders about this sort of thing. Yeah, it shows they recognize the fact that he has someone ready to go right away. It shows he recognizes the importance of keeping the heat on because he knows this matters. He knows he needs really aggressive enforcement on border stuff and he needs to keep delivering wins on that because a lot of people voted for that and that is a signature issue for him.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, and yeah, I think as we

[Blake]

discussed in the first hour this happened, you're going to have controversy with ice. People are going to get mad about a bad photograph. They're going to get mad about some bad confrontation with a protester. They're going to get mad about some arrest that gets made that is inevitable. There's the sheer scale of the problem means that's going to happen. And so you can't have avoidable stuff. We should not be debating ad buys at dhs. We should not be debating private jet that they're buying at dhs. Keep it on what needs to be happening. Securing the border, getting the wall up, getting the illegals out, getting the arrests made. That is where the focus needs to be. I have sources at DHS that I've spoken with and I think on balance they are in favor of a change being made. And I think I trust them that they have the interests of the department and the interests of the country at heart when they say that.

[Charlie Kirk]

And I too have sources in this world. And you know this. Let's hope that this is a good thing. And we gotta wait and see, you know, we gotta see what Senator Mark Wayne Mullen does. It sounds like the future secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. But I'm curious your perspective here Matt, as somebody that is newer in this space, you know, so your perspective is probably more on the FEMA angle, but what do you make of something like this?

[Matt Van Swall]

Well, I don't have any sources in the administration, but I do think that people, especially on the right, me too, have been frustrated with the slower pace of deportations. It's the number one issue of anyone you talk to is why are we not deporting more? Why are we not arresting employers? Why are we not targeting people who speak Spanish with ads to self deport. Right. Like very common sense stuff. You know, start, start finding employers that hire illegal aliens. Like I feel like there's, there's a lot of things on the table that could be used to ramp up deportations that have not yet been used and that this is exactly what the, the base of what's. What I want to see like there was a criminal illegal alien who you know, raped a 14 year old girl. Right. Right across from my kids school. Like that was, that was last week.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah.

[Blake]

Now I want to say something because we are losing Secretary Noem. I want to say positively about her. She is a woman who didn't shy away from those controversial aspects of ICE that we mentioned, that they were going into cities, they were making arrests aggressively even where people were complaining about it. And we have to make sure Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, when he takes that job, we're gonna keep the heat on him. He can't back off on things. He can't send any signs of weakness. He has to be ready to trample over blue states, trample over blue cities, lay down the law. That is what the base wants. And the left is going to look for weakness here. They're going to look for choices to roll things back.

[Charlie Kirk]

If we want to keep the coalition together and we've got all of these forces arrayed against us, you gotta go hard on deportations. You've got to be. Be absolutely firm in your resolve. Now, my advice to the senator, future secretary sounds like is do not cower. Do not give an inch, but go behind the headlines. Go get underneath. Do not look to be the face. Just be quiet, make it happen. And at the end of the year, post a huge number and blow people away. Make these blue cities heal. We need you to cooperate, frankly. And I think Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is a guy that can get blue cities to cooperate one way or the other. Matt, we weren't expecting this to be our final segment, but it's good. Candidly, it's a full circle show. So what can we say? A lot happened today, Matt Van Swell. Check him out on X. Follow him. A really important new voice and I think you're gonna continue growing and doing, doing great things.

[Matt Van Swall]

Thank you for having me on.

[David Zier]

Thank you.

[Charlie Kirk]

Been an honor. We'll see you tomorrow. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.