Ron Johnson (18:29)

Listen, I'll go with whatever works. I personally think it'd be easier to quick get the border funding passed because I think the, you know, the tax bill settling on. I think the major sticking point is going to be what spending level are we going to agree to within the conference. We've got big spenders in our conference as well. I don't think anybody voted for President Trump to maintain Biden's spending levels. And I want to talk a little bit about that, but I think the easiest thing to do would be two packages, quite honestly, so we can get that border funding right away before the news media starts talking about what it looks like to deport. Somebody could have a few individuals waiver on their support for that. So I'd rather get the border funding done and then take our time. Part of the tax thing. I'd really like to simplify and rationalize our tax code. Primary goal is prevent a massive automatic tax increase from occurring in 2026. I mean, that ought to be incentive enough. But as long as we're doing that, if we can simplify rationalized tax code, that'd be a good thing. But we must agree on dramatically lower spending levels than what we're spending right now. This is absurd that we haven't returned to some pre pandemic baseline in 2019, Charlie, we spent $4.4 trillion. Then we have the spending spree during 2020. That was 6.6 trillion. Last five years, we've averaged $6.5 trillion. We've never returned to pre pandemic level baseline, which is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's just not justified.

Charlie Kirk (20:00)

Yeah. So what is the appetite right now in the US Senate to cut spending? Is there anybody in the Democrat Party that's interested in this? Because we're borrowing a trillion dollars every hundred days.

Ron Johnson (20:09)

No. And my concern is we're not gonna have enough Republicans that are willing to do it either. Again, it's so easy to just say, oh, well, this is what we spent last year. And boy, if we don't spend at least that amount, we're gonna be accused of starving women and children. So I'm trying to make the case. I'm trying to actually tell the American public these are the numbers, because I think we have a general sense that we're, you know, federal government is totally out of control, but nobody knows specifically that's what I'm saying. 4.4 trillion in 2019, last five years, now 6.5 trillion. Charlie, that's absurdity. It's like a family who makes 100,000 bucks, right? Or spends $100,000. They have an illness, all of a sudden, they have $50,000 worth of medical bills, so they spend 150. That individual gets cured. But they keep going. They keep continue to spend 150,000 bucks and borrow the money to do it. I mean, nobody would do that. That's exactly what the federal government's doing. So I think we explained this. I've come up with a couple different options. For example, if you go back to 1998, that's the last year, the first year we had a surplus since 1969. This was Bill Clinton spending. And you take Social Security and Medicare off the table, you just plug those in at Biden's 2025 numbers and interest, but inflate all of Bill Clinton's spending to account for population growth and inflation, we'd be spending $5.5 trillion and we have a balanced budget. So is anybody argue that Bill Clinton didn't spend enough money on all this other crap? If you go back to Obama's 2014 did the same thing, that'd be $6.2 trillion. Even if you use 2019 and inflate it again based on population and inflation, you'd be about 6.5, which is $800 billion less than what Biden says he's going to spend right now. So why would we lock into Biden numbers and be arguing over saving 100 billion or so? I mean, it's so inadequate. We need to dramatically lower the baseline spending level back to what it was prior to the pandemic.

Charlie Kirk (22:10)

I totally and completely agree. If you were to say just some of the. And I know you've detailed some of this, but where can we find some agreement in the Republican conference of where to cut? Is there any appetite to cut? Some of the Pentagon budget certainly is on my part.

Ron Johnson (22:25)

I think we need to really take a look at where do we spend our money. I mean, we've got these massive platforms that can be taken out with asymmetric warfare. We got these Abrams tanks. They have to kind of run out of their hole in Ukraine, fire a couple shots and run right back because they're vulnerable to the drones, you know, to drones across thousands of dollars, not millions. So again, again, the Pentagon, that they're not, they're not keeping up with, with warfare right now, they're coddling to the Military Industrial Complex 155 millimeter shells. This is a prime example. Russia produces those things, about four and a half million of them at about $600 a pop. The west can only produce about 2 million shells. We get charged $6,000, €8,000 in Europe. That's how we're getting hosed, I'll use that word, by the military industrial complex. So, yeah, no, we've got to take a real serious look at that.

Charlie Kirk (23:19)

So, Senator, let's now dive into the very curious developments of John Fetterman. John Fetterman, who seems to be very hard to pinpoint here. Here he is in this interview admonishing his fellow Democrats for opposing the Lake and Riley act. Let's play cut 64.

John Fetterman (23:40)

We have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of migrants here illegally that have convicted of crimes. And I don't know why, you know, who wants to defend, to allow them to remain in our nation. That. And now if you're here illegally and you're committing crimes and those things, I don't know why anybody thinks that it's controversial, that they all need to go.

Charlie Kirk (24:04)

Do you think that this was one of, if not the biggest issue for this election?

John Fetterman (24:09)

Well, I think if we can't, you know, there's 47 of us in the Senate, and if we can't pull up with, with seven votes, if we can't get at least seven out of 47, if we can't, then that's the reason why we lost. That's one of the. That's one of why we lost in part.

Charlie Kirk (24:27)

Senator, what is going on with Mr. Fetterman?

Ron Johnson (24:30)

Well, first of all, he comes from a swing state like I do, and he realizes that, you know, obviously they lost the Senate seat in Pennsylvania. He'll be up for reelection eventually. I think, again, he's smart enough to realize that that was a big issue in this election. And by the way, who could oppose, literally what rational individual can oppose deporting criminals? Well, Democrat Party in total, they did oppose that because they wanted an open border. They elect George Soros, prosecutors, but a lot of those prosecutors lost as well. So Fetterman in a swing state sees when the tide turns, and he's a smart enough politician to at least not buck these major trends where, again, you can't defend opposing a bill that's going to deport criminals.

Charlie Kirk (25:16)

So it's hard to tell whether or not it's authentic. Do you think that there will be more Democrats that potentially might signal similarly? And Jon Ossoff or others, your thoughts on this?

Ron Johnson (25:28)

Well, listen, I think vulnerable Democrats, those are up for reelection, 20, 26. They may vote. I'll be surprised if we get more than six, because if we get seven, the bill passes. I'm not sure the Democrat Party's gonna let it pass. I mean, again, I can't explain that. I mean, I can't explain liberalism. I can't explain the way the Democrat Party is taking such a strong, you know, turn to the left here. But that's, that's who they are right now.

Charlie Kirk (25:54)

The. Let's play cut 95. Senator Fetterman of whether or not he might support some of Trump's nominees. Play cut 95.

John Fetterman (26:02)

But I want to sit down and have a conversation, and I'm, I'm really glad that I've done that. And some of these nominees I'm going to vote for already, in fact, you know, whether it's my, our colleague Rubio, our Representative Stefan Nick, or even Sean Duffy, and I expect to vote for him as well, too. And Brooke Rollins for, for agriculture again. So there's a lot of them I can say right now here on fox. I'm going to vote for them. But. And there's others, you know, but that we're going to go through the process. But I'm open to hear from everyone. And I don't know why that's controversial.

Charlie Kirk (26:38)

I mean, I wish that was the way that this would, this would proceed, that we would have more discussions and dialogues like this and be open minded. I mean, Senator, you voted for some nominees of other parties before. Can you speak to that? I'm not putting you on the spot for that, but I'm saying there should be some yielding to an incoming administration, correct?

Ron Johnson (27:00)

Well, that pretty much used to be the tradition of the Senate is okay, elections matter. A president should decide who wants to serve in their cabinet. And as long as there's nothing disqualifying, you, go ahead and confirm that nominee. For one thing, you want to work with those department heads. So you don't want to start off a relationship and say, I'm going to vote against you. So again, the bias always was, if it's a qualified individual, elections matter, you go ahead, vote for confirmation and try and work with that department head for the benefit of our constituents and for the benefit of America. I stopped doing that with the Biden administration because the nominees were just wacko, radical leftists. And in the end, you say, I can't support that at all. So it's changed. It's become very partisan. And that is unfortunate. But what Fetterman's talking about right now is pretty much the way that the Senate has always traditionally looked at confirmations. And there's been a lot of bipartisan support for, you know, cabinet heads.

Charlie Kirk (27:59)

In closing here, Senator, is there any red flags that you are seeing from Pete to Tulsi to Bobby Kennedy, Cash? Some senators are saying that all of Trump's nominees seem poised to be confirmed. Would you agree with that assessment?

Ron Johnson (28:11)

I think so. Because the default position, particularly on the Republican side, is elections do matter. Trump had a convincing victory. And it's up to Trump to decide who he wants serving his cabinets. You know, I may, you know, whether you like that individual or not, you're not the president. He is. And so our duty is pretty much get in line and go ahead and confirm his nominees, barring some really disqualifying factors. So I think that's the attitude of most Republican senators and I do expect them to get confirmed.

Charlie Kirk (28:39)

What is the importance of the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race?

Ron Johnson (28:42)

Senator, it's vital. Anybody who wants to run for president is Republican in 2028, better help support our candidate for the Supreme Court if you want to maintain a majority in the House. If that court remains liberal, they will redistrict the federal and we'll probably lose a couple of House seats and we may Never get the 10 electoral votes for Wisconsin again. So it's absolutely crucial. America has to focus on this. Democrats will Democrats will send tens of millions of dollars as they have in the past, be the same support from conservatives and from Republicans.

Charlie Kirk (29:18)

Senator Johnson, thank you so much. Excellent work as always. Thank you.

Ron Johnson (29:21)

Have a great day.

Charlie Kirk (29:24)

Charlie Kirk here. For many of us, the new year brings new joys and new financial challenges. My friends Andrew and Todd from Sierra Pacific Mortgage are to help you get organized for the new year with a free financial checkup. I think the world of these guys. They helped me with a very complex loan recently. So listen carefully. Find out exactly where you stand with your real estate, finance, college debt, yearly property taxes and all those expenses you racked up over the holidays. Andrew and Todd, who are amazing people, are your friends in the mortgage business, the experts you can trust. And when you get your free financial checkup, you'll be working with Andrew and Todd and their team directly because they handle everything themselves. They can help you reduce your mortgage payments, pay off those high interest credit cards and have money to fund that big project or be positioned to take advantage of unexpected dips in the market. Start the new year with financial stability. Get your free financial checkup today. Just go to andrewandtod.com and fill out their quick form or call 888-1172, that is 888-88-1172. Check out my friends at andrewandtod.com, andrewandtod.com the Mark Zuckerberg news is very big. I did not get a chance to comment on it. For those of you that missed the program yesterday or do not quite know the news, Mark Zuckerberg announced sweeping policy changes saying they're getting rid of their fact checking department, that this election was about more speech, not less speech, that they're changing their content moderation team to go from California to Texas. These are dramatic changes. And before I get into the details here, and I've had a chance to sit down with Mark Zuckerberg, I'm getting to know Mark Zuckerberg. People say, do you trust them or not? I said, I'm getting to know him. I found him to be very sincere when I sat down with him. But it's going to be a growing relationship over these years that I appreciate. Basically, Mark and the Facebook team, Joel Kaplan and everybody who Joel, I do know very well to stand up to the government, to stand up to these regimes and say, no, we are going to protect freedom of speech. We're going to protect freedom of discourse. Let's play some pieces of tape here. This is cut 51.

Mark Zuckerberg (31:27)

Hey everyone, I want to talk about something Important today because it's time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram. There's been widespread debate about potential harms from online content. Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A lot of this is clearly political, but there's also a lot of legitimately bad stuff out there. Drugs, terrorism, child exploitation. These are things that we take very seriously and I want to make sure that we handle responsibly. So we built a lot of complex systems to moderate content. But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. And we've reached a point where it's just too many mistakes and too much censorship. So we're going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.

Charlie Kirk (32:17)

We got to give Elon so much credit. He took the risk and stood up for freedom of speech. And this is a movement now, three years later, we are going to have the most open Internet that we've had in a decade. And the trend was a more controlled, a censored and censored Internet. We were going towards totalitarianism online. And Elon Musk bought Twitter. And because of his purchase of Twitter, President Trump was then able to win a triumphant landslide victory. And here we are, fast forward three years later where you have Facebook sounding like Elon Musk. And in fact, Mark Zuckerberg went as far to say in his comments, x has it right. We want to follow more of the model of X. And Meta has made a lot of mistakes and there has to be a lot of proof that they are ready to show that this is not just talk, but this is action real. Follow through accounts restored. No more fact checking, no more suppression of political posts. You must trust, but verify. And I could tell you this last year, I mean, I said this to the Facebook team, I said this to Mark. TikTok was way more viral for us than Instagram this last year. It wasn't even close. Daisy and the team did a great job running Instagram, but TikTok was as hot as a pistol. I mean, TikTok was billions and billions and billions of views. And one of the reasons why is Facebook made a decision that they were going to dampen down all political content this year, that it wasn't going to be as easy for political content to go viral on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg made his announcement. So sorry, never mind. We're gonna go back. And that's a good thing that you're going back. These should not be political actors. And there does need to be some proof that the atonement for the $400 million given to Joe Biden to get him elected in 2020, that you gotta, you gotta get over that. But I can say this is phenomenal development. Phenomenal. Mark Zuckerberg is reading the room and the trend is our friend. We should welcome that. By the way, some people are saying, oh, you know, I don't trust him. I'm not asking you to trust him. You should welcome when people come in your direction, that is key. You should not be bitter or walled off where you say, oh, you weren't with me. When it's a different thing of having people in your inner circle versus saying he's in control of the biggest platform on the planet. He's saying something we agree with. He's doing things allegedly that we agree with. He wants to fight regime censorship around the world. That I applaud. And as somebody who has 4 million followers on Instagram and a couple million followers on Facebook, I can tell you that a free and open Facebook and meta is very, very good for the cause of America first and liberty and the cause that we care about on this program. Email me your thoughts. Freedom. Charliekirk.com thanks so much for listening, everybody. Text this episode to a couple friends and donate to turningpoint usatpusa.com thanks so much for listening and God bless. Bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.

John Fetterman (35:16)

Com.