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Charlie Kirk
Okay, everybody, welcome Back to the Bitcoin.com studio to the Charlie Kirk Show. We are here live in Phoenix, Arizona with Blake. Also my conversation with Antonio. Gracias from the White House. Email me, as always, freedomarliekirk.com that is freedomarlikerk.com get involved with Turning Point USA, which is the most important organization in America. At tpusa.com that is tpusa.com Email me, as always, freedomarlieKirk.com I love hearing from you. That is freedomarlieKirk.com Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
Blake
I want you to know we are.
Charlie Kirk
Lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Blake
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
Charlie Kirk
I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble gold investments@noblegoldinvestments.com that is noblegoldinvestments.com it's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com we are here live in Phoenix, Arizona with Blake now. Blake, welcome. We have lots to talk about. I do have to start this with difficult Roman trivia.
Blake
Oh, dear.
Charlie Kirk
All right, just one.
Blake
Okay, hit me.
Charlie Kirk
All right. I think you're gonna get this, though. All right, I'd better. You're not allowed to get it wrong. What Roman general was awarded the Spoila opima, the rarest military honor in Roman tradition. You can't look it up. Blake, for killing an enemy king in a single combat, was the only third man in Roman history to receive it.
Blake
Ah, so the original one who did it, Romulus supposedly does it. And then what's the second one?
Charlie Kirk
Think about it. You have all segment to think about it.
Blake
Ah, crap.
Charlie Kirk
We're also gonna have a conversation.
Blake
Ah.
Charlie Kirk
Blake is like jostling back.
Blake
Killed a Celtic chieftain and I. Is it Regulus something?
Charlie Kirk
Oh, crap. I. I don't fault you for getting it wrong because I can't even pronounce.
Blake
It, so I know what it is. I know what he got it for. I can't Remember the guy's name.
Charlie Kirk
The initials are mlc.
Blake
Mlc. There's not that many possible names.
Charlie Kirk
Like, it's Crassus. Marcus Licinius.
Blake
Marcus Licinius Crassus has it.
Charlie Kirk
Unless chat must be, like, wrong.
Blake
It must be. Okay, so it might be the grandfather or something of the famous one. Because the famous Marcus Licinius Crassus is just a really rich guy and he walks 10ft over the border with Persia.
Charlie Kirk
Younger. It says the younger.
Blake
The younger. Okay, so this is probably a different crisis then.
Charlie Kirk
You have some homework to do.
Blake
Okay, I'll have to go. I'll have to go polish up on the spoiler.
Charlie Kirk
Just to be fair, I asked ChatGPT for the hardest PhD advanced level questions.
Blake
Really? So do you have another fun hard one?
Charlie Kirk
I will. You got to earn it.
Blake
Okay.
Charlie Kirk
All right. But speaking of which, so there's. So Blake, I stumbled upon this about someone in D.C. i was just a. D.C. recently, I was at the White House, and they said, charlie, we really think you should do a segment to look into this, because it deals with the college scam, the college cartel. I never even heard about this. I thought this was a water company. Springer Nature, I thought, like, this is like Dasani, and it's all about basically, academic journals effectively funded by the taxpayer. This is a world that most people don't actually know about. So let's first just explain the medium. What is this whole, like, academic journal world? How does it exist and why does it matter?
Blake
Okay. Yeah. So since people might not really grasp this, the way science is conducted in the modern world is basically through the medium of journals. So if you are a researcher at mit, you'll have a lab, you'll have a study you conduct on literally anything, whether this is medicine, chemistry, computer science, and you'll do a bunch of work and then you'll compile it into a paper, and it could be 10 pages long, it could be 500 pages long. You'll compile it into a paper, and then the way you make it official is basically you will submit it to a journal. The most famous journals are Cell, that's a medicine journal, Nature Science. But there are literally thousands of these journals. So you'll have the, you know, the Journal of Applied Epidemiology. I just made that up, but I assume it exists.
Charlie Kirk
Yes.
Blake
And you'll have math journals and history journals and social science journals, and they'll get really specific. I'm looking at a list, for example, that are offered by the company we're talking about today, and they have, you know, Angio, Genesis, JMST advances, Jewish history, mathematical programming, mathematical programming, computation, mathematical sciences. There are tons and tons and tons of these. And getting published in these papers is essentially, it's how you suggest your work is legitimate and it's how you get prestige. It's a lot more prestigious if you have, if you have a paper in Nature, one of the most famous journals, than to have it in a very obscure one. And some are more selective than others. So there are journals that are basically open access, you can just publish with us and that's it. And it doesn't really accord it a lot of legitimacy. And there are some that, because they're more prestigious and allegedly they have more strict peer review, the research is presumed to be better.
Charlie Kirk
And so where the Doge taxpayer thing comes in is that there's this whole analysis about the Department of Education. Where's this money going? And so. And you have some of these numbers here. So Springer Nature, this company, which is one of the biggest incumbent actors, is effectively funded by the Department Education, because these colleges spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these journals. What?
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
What are they spending the money?
Blake
Exactly. So let's lay this out. Springer Nature is a. I think it's a joint British, German company.
Charlie Kirk
It's European. It's European.
Blake
And they recently went for profit. It's listed on a stock exchange somewhere. And what they do is they own hundreds, thousands of these journals, including Nature, as the name suggests. And the main way you get access to these, you can't just freely read them, which is a problem in its own right, because we'd probably have better science.
Charlie Kirk
It's all paywalled.
Blake
Yeah, it's all paywalled. And they're huge paywalls. And if you think tuition goes up a lot, the expense to have access to these journals goes up even faster. I haven't looked at it recently, but I've occasionally seen numbers like they'll hike at 30% in a year the cost to get these journals, and they'll charge this passed off to, to universities. So people might know this if they've been in a university recently. Like, oh, if you. I remember this actually at Dartmouth. Since I was at Dartmouth, I could basically just read any article at any journal, actually.
Charlie Kirk
Pretty helpful.
Blake
And that's very helpful if you're, know, trying to be an academic in anything. But normal people don't have this access. Schools pay for this. And the way they pay for it is they pay not like thousand millions of dollars for these things. I have Springer Nature's price list for 2025. This is individual journals, they're electronic only price don't need to get it in paper. Let's see three Biotech, $1,171 to subscribe a year. Abdominal Radiology, $4,926 to subscribe per year. I mean this is Acoustical Physics 6100. And what they get you with also is they'll get you to sign up for packages of 100, 200, 500 journals and you have to pay for all of them. And it's tens of thousands of dollars a year. And if you multiply that over bunch of universities, thousands of universities in the US they're all effectively taxpayer funded.
Charlie Kirk
What a business to be in through our grants.
Blake
And the US Government itself pays for these too because our government agencies will like the Department of Agriculture for example will subscribe to every agricultural journal. And they, my understanding is they don't do that much negotiation for what the price on this should be.
Charlie Kirk
According to what I was sent, they charge researchers upwards of $11,000 per article.
Blake
Yes. So they also get in on the other end. So the justification for all of this is that these places at least they do the peer review. They're the ones who are checking the research to make sure that it's not bogus. But infamously, peer review is an incredibly weak process. It's not nearly as strong as it should be. A lot of these journals don't pay scholars for doing peer review. It's more like oh, you pay your dues by doing the peer review on this. And they basically. And then you end up with these costs. It can cost you thousands of dollars to publish your own scientific paper. And there's even last year there was an antitrust suit brought against Springer Nature and some of the other big publishers where allegedly they just do cartel like behavior.
Charlie Kirk
It sounds like a syndicate.
Blake
Yeah, like they agree not to. They make it so you can't submit your paper to multiple places so they might compete over it. So like if there's a really high value paper they could maybe, you know, bid we want this published in our journal but they prevent that through cartel like behavior and they collude to not pay peer reviewers.
Charlie Kirk
Well for example, one of the major reasons we have large language models that are advancing was the Google paper in 2017 by eight authors. You know about this, where it was the famous, I can't remember the name of it. We'll find it out. But they, I think they released it to the world.
Blake
There are people who will do that.
Charlie Kirk
And they didn't put it down behind some sort of a syndicate. And so the. I want to dive more into this in the next segment because I, and I have. I owe you another Roman history question. But this, this is one of the Springer Nature is an example also of like why college is so bad. I mean, it's like. And some of these are very poorly managed publications as well.
Blake
Yeah. I mean some of these are the publications that get literally scammed where you write that fake paper that's all like, you know, feminist, biochemistry, blah, blah, blah. And you can just trip.
Charlie Kirk
And a lot of the COVID stuff like ran through some of these journals.
Blake
Yes, that's another issue with them. And also they're more ideological. You're getting Nature running articles that are just screeching at Trump and that's part of the journal. And you know, ideally that's not really related to scientific research, but they use their prestige, which we are paying for, to do this.
Charlie Kirk
Did you prove chatgpt wrong?
Blake
I think so, yeah. You said Marcus Licinius Krasus. I got totally not that guy.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah.
Blake
Marcus Claudius Marcellus. He killed a Gallic chieftain during the Pena Palace.
Charlie Kirk
All right, I'm going to scold ChatGPT. Then I'm going to say you're wrong about number five. Incorrect answer. Yeah, it's actually correcting now says Marcus Claudius Marcellus.
Blake
Yep.
Charlie Kirk
Was that the answer you first gave?
Blake
It wasn't the one I gave, but I looked it up because it didn't sound right.
Charlie Kirk
Got it. So it corrected itself. Blake, correcting ChatGPT is quite a sight to be seen. Email is freedom. Charlie Kirk.com based on everything I'm seeing about the Springer Nature thing, I think it's time for some sort of investigation. Why would the federal government be indirectly funding this? Basically this cartel, the syndicate from poorly managed publications and also all the COVID nonsense that's there. Blake, I owe you another question, so stay right there. But I think it's time for someone to look into Springer Nature. Private student loan Debt in the US totals about $300 billion. Give Yrefi a try at yrefi.com, yrefy.com may not be available in all 50 states. Just call 888 yrefi34. Log on to yrefi.com, bad credit is accepted. Yrefi offers a three minute rate check without any credit impact. Many clients aren't even able to make the minimum monthly payment on their private student loans when they first contact yrefi. Go to yrefy.com that is yrefy.com it can refinance all your private student loan discussions. So go to yrefi.com it may not be available in all 50 states. About $45 billion of all private student loan debt is labeled as distressed. Go to yrefi.com, do you have a co borrower where Refi can get them released from the loan. You can give mom or dad a break. Bad credit is accepted. Why Refi offers major credit check for you guys free of charge because of student loan debt. So many Americans feel stuck and helpless and they've even lost hope. So you guys can get out@yrefi.com alright, Blake. What obscure Roman official, often overlooked in modern discussions, was tasked with investigating the moral conduct of senators and equestrians during the Republic and. And had the authority to expel them from their ranks?
Blake
The censor. Yeah, yeah.
Charlie Kirk
Was that. That's pretty easy.
Blake
Yeah, I think they only had the one censor.
Charlie Kirk
All right, then I'll ask you a different one. What Roman law passed in 18 BCE under Augustus was designed to increase birth rates among the Roman elite by rewarding marriage and penalizing celibacy?
Blake
I don't. It was an Augustan law. I don't know what the name of it was.
Charlie Kirk
Lex Julia de Mar. It's Latin.
Blake
Yeah, yeah. Julian law.
Charlie Kirk
Okay.
Blake
He famously passed it and then like his daughter was kind of a immoral woman and no one would tell him about this. And then it finally came out. If you ever watch I Claudius, which you should sometime, it's like a scene.
Charlie Kirk
I will. So what just like kind of finishing on this medical journal, not just academic journal thing. So do a lot of these universities pay money because they have to. To these journals?
Blake
Yeah, I mean you have to to be an academic institution. It really is a cartel. If you secede from it, you are not. You're basically telling your guys that you can't take part in the world of scientific research. And it is true, there are informally what a lot of people do, especially if you just want to be a scientifically engaged, normal person who's not working at a university or at the government. You just pirate these things. And there's a lot of that. There's a ton of academic piracy out there. But yeah, it truly is a cartel. If you're going to be a major university, you. They kind of have you over the barrel and I mean open source would.
Charlie Kirk
Make a lot of sense.
Blake
Open source stuff. But again, there is the real concern. You don't Want fake science. And if anyone can publish anything, there will be fake.
Charlie Kirk
But I. But. But ideally, like a company experience. Supposed to check the science, right?
Blake
Yes, they're supposed to do that. And one of the big attacks on them is they're clearly not doing that much of the time. A big scandal that just happened recently. Nature, they published a very important paper on Alzheimer's about 20 years ago, and it recently came out that basically the research for this was falsified. It was entirely falsified. And literally the last 20 years of research into Alzheimer's may have been a blind alley of completely, completely pointless. And we could have known this all along. And hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars of research from taxpayers was directed towards this blind alley that, in theory, Nature should have caught.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, I mean, and there's just example after example here of, like, engaging in censorship.
Blake
Yeah, yeah. They. They censor stuff in China. Like, you know, we don't care for that. I don't even necessarily want to fixate on. They were definitely involved in discouraging the lab leak hypothesis from COVID I don't want to bash that, because it's fine to hypothesize whether it was natural or from a lab leak. But if they were putting their finger.
Charlie Kirk
On the scales, which there's evidence that they did it. They've done stuff for the Chinese government.
Blake
Exactly. And so if they're censoring on the Chinese government, it may be very well that. And they can also choose what articles they select. So if it's possibility.
Charlie Kirk
How much power these institutions?
Blake
Enormous amounts. It's one of those hidden things. We see the high cost of tuition at universities. We see the degree cartel. And you even see things like, people know how textbooks have gotten way more expensive way faster than college itself has. Similarly, this is one of those background ways. There's like, the college scam is even deeper than you yourself describe in the college scam.
Charlie Kirk
I don't even talk about this in my. In my book.
Blake
They get scanned. Like, the colleges themselves are getting scammed by, like, a super college scammer.
Charlie Kirk
Like a publicly traded scammer scamming. It's like there's, like, layers of the scam.
Blake
Yes. It's like a Russian doll of scamming.
Charlie Kirk
Incredible. All right, let's finish with one more Roman history question here. Let's see. I almost knew this one, to be honest, so I can't. I'm not gonna do this one. I don't think that one.
Blake
Okay, hit me with a hard one.
Charlie Kirk
All right. This. This One I think you'll get. Honestly. Which Roman emperor briefly reigned in 193 CE during the Year of Five Emperors and was killed by the Praetorian Guard after trying to buy their loyalty?
Blake
Is that Didius Julianus?
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. I knew you were gonna get that. That one I knew. Okay. What?
Blake
Replaced by Septimius Severus.
Charlie Kirk
That I did not know. I didn't know either. What you served for Emperor in the third century, briefly ruled a breakaway Gallic empire and was later declared a God by his troops despite assassinate being assassinated about his own.
Blake
Is this posthumous?
Charlie Kirk
Yes. So. So is that where we get the word posthumous from looking at things posthumously?
Blake
I don't think so. I think that's usually spelled different.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, it is. But I mean, it would have some connective tissue there. So of all the history stuff, is Rome the stuff you know the best?
Blake
Maybe overall. Although if you think in like relative.
Charlie Kirk
Terms, you have like bizarre Russian.
Blake
I know a lot about Russia, but maybe not as much as I know about Rome.
Charlie Kirk
But someone said to me recently that, and correct me if I'm wrong, I heard this when I was in D.C. that what? Trying to get Vladimir Putin to approve this peace deal be like the fastest military decision for the Russian government in like 200 years is that they usually move incredibly bureaucratic.
Blake
They are bureaucratic. They're slow moving. They don't. And they totally do have a history of sort of just being a bit evasive on these things.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah, that's.
Blake
It's very real. But he might be rope a doping Trump a little bit.
Charlie Kirk
We will see. Blake, thank you so much. While we may have won the selection, the fight to restore our great nation is only beginning. Now is the time to take a stand and Patriot Mobile is leading the charge. As America's only Christian conservative wireless provider, Patriot Mobile offers a way to vote with your wallet without compromising on quality or convenience. Patriot Mobile isn't just about providing exceptional cell phone service. It's a call to action to defend our rights and freedoms. With Patriot Mobile, you'll get outstanding nationwide coverage because they operate on all three major networks. If you have a cell phone service today, you can get a cell phone service with Patriot Mobile with a coverage guarantee. But the difference is every dollar you spend supports the first and Second Amendments, sanctity of life, our veterans and first responders. Switching is easy. Keep your number, keep your phone or upgrade. Their 100% US based customer service team will help you find the perfect plan. Go to patriotmobile.com charlie or call 972 Patriot and get a free month of service with promo code. Charlie, switch to Patriot Mobile today and defend freedom with every call and text you make. Visit patriotmobile.com charlie or call 972 Patriot. I want to air for you an amazing conversation I had with Antonio Gracias. Antonio Gracias is a very smart man. Dear friend of Elon. I had it while I was at the White House. Actually. We got this done. My conversation with Antonio Gracias from the White House. All right, everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the White House with a very interesting man, Antonio Gracias. Antonio, great to meet you.
Antonio Gracias
Thank you. Charlie, great to meet you.
Charlie Kirk
And so I first became aware of you by reading Walter Isaacson's book on Elon Musk, which we won't spend too much time on all the inaccuracies, but I think it did paint a broader macro vision of, quite honestly, one of the most compelling people ever to live and the most compelling innovator of our time. You've known Elon for quite some time, and right now he is villain and public enemy number one of the activist left. Tell us about your story and how you met Elon and what people should know about him.
Antonio Gracias
Well, so I met elon because of PayPal. So I went to law school. David Sacks and David Sachs was the chief product officer of PayPal. And so we invested in PayPal. That's how I first met him and then invested. We're the first institutional investors in Tesla. And, you know, we're operating guys by training.
Charlie Kirk
Right.
Antonio Gracias
Built venture company in the 90s. So I got deep in operations at Tesla with him, and that's really when I got to know him and developed a profound respect for his ability to go deep into the detail, to really operate, understand was going on. And to his desire, truly genuine desire to make the world better.
Charlie Kirk
So I find that to be one of the more unique things about Elon is that he's a visionary, but also he's micro.
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
And it's very difficult to find the macro and the micro combined.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah.
Charlie Kirk
It's with drive. I find the combination of those three things to be exceptional. Talk about that.
Antonio Gracias
His mind is very unique. Okay. So to be able to go from the. To say the least. Right. To go from the very, very top macro.
Charlie Kirk
Go to Mars.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, go to Mars. And then zoom all the way down to the, like, engineering detail of, you know, what, the door handle on the car and why it's got to be perfect. It's exceptionally unique. And, you know, what he does is he's able to galvanize terrific engineers, terrific people on a mission because he actually wants to make the world better. He wants to better humanity. Those missions are huge. But then he zooms all the way to the field. Make them happen. Right. So that combination is exceptionally unique.
Charlie Kirk
Yes. What is his drive? Because a lot of people are trying to ascribe motivations to him. World's wealthiest man. What. What keeps him going? Why is he only sleeping three hours a night and obviously putting some of his wealth, you know, not in jeopardy, but, you know, just saying. I don't really care what. What is his. Why, man?
Antonio Gracias
I think Elon has a really big heart, and he's got. He's a really compassionate man, and if I can just tell you one story.
Charlie Kirk
Please.
Antonio Gracias
In. In. During COVID we were reopening the factory at Tesla, and I was there with him reopening the factory. And we had employees that were bad, and they. They were based on the hospital ventilators. And he pulled me off the line one day to speak to a woman who only spoke Spanish because I speak Spanish, my first language. And her husband was in the hospital on a ventilator, and he wanted to tell her that we were there for her and we're there for her family, and we would do whatever we needed to to help her husband. And he had me literally sit in a conference room on a. On a polygon and transit for him, you know, and that is just to see a CEO. We're in that kind of crisis. We don't get the factory launch, we're gonna go bankruptcy.
Charlie Kirk
Yes.
Antonio Gracias
Right. The. The local authorities, Alameda county, they threatened.
Charlie Kirk
To arrest him, right? Yeah.
Antonio Gracias
I mean, I got there because he called me and said he's going to open the factory, and they were starting to arrest him. I said, listen, I'm coming with you. They'll arrest me, too. He said, no, no, no. Your job is to get me out if they arrest me. But. So I went with him, and I found myself in this moment of great compassion, all this chaos and tremendous desire, where the guy stopped and said, hey, this lady's hurting. She needs some help. Like, please come tell her. Help me. Tell her that we're there for her and that compassion is what's driving it. That's. What's. That's what this is all about. This is about. It's about America. It's about saving America. Not just cutting costs, but saving the entitlement programs for our seniors, for all of our people. The idea that. That this has got anything to do with taking Money or doing anything other than making sure people get their payments is totally absurd. Just look at the facts.
Charlie Kirk
It's bs. I completely agree with that. He has a huge heart for humanity, which I think really is his. Why talk about the last five to 10 years, where it went from Elon the innovator to all of a sudden he got more and more involved in, you could say politics, but just kind of some of the cultural issues. And I think his purchasing of Twitter now X will go down as one of the most monumental and courageous decisions for freedom of speech in the history of the species.
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
I don't think President Trump would have had the movement. President Trump deserves all the credit, but I don't know if he would have had the movement behind him.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah.
Charlie Kirk
If X would not have existed, we would not have been able to expose the COVID lies or the lockdowns or the open border if it wasn't for a free and open portion of the Internet. Did you see a moment where really a switch went on where all of a sudden he saw a sequencing, where like, if we don't win back the White House, then these other 100 things that I want to get done for humanity will not be able to happen?
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, I think it was a. I'd say a progression that began with a belief in free speech, a fundamental belief in free speech. And what Twitter had done was. Was corrupted free speech. People believed it was free speech. This is not true. They had no constitutional standard. I was there myself. I asked these guys myself these questions. There was a long time. I went to law school. I took con law. They weren't at all worried about a constitutional standard. They were a private corporation, and they could decide what was said and what was up on what they were suppressing and actually promoting on Twitter. And it began with that, seeing that this was sort of the center of the woke mind virus being pushed out in the world, and that had to stop. That's really why he did it. I think from that point forward, his mind went, you know, he kind of goes to the biggest problems. Right. What are the biggest problems? And from there, it went to, wait a minute. The problem is deeper than just this one thing. Twitter, it has now infected the government's, infected many of our children. It's gone in many directions. And that he believed that President Trump was the right leader.
Charlie Kirk
Yes. Right.
Antonio Gracias
These country.
Charlie Kirk
So now fast forwarding to today, one can make the argument. I would actually make the argument that going to Mars, having autonomous vehicles, it's going to be far easier than actually Getting Congress to want to cut, spend.
Antonio Gracias
Oh, I got to tell you, man, this is. I'll just speak for myself. This is the hardest thing I've ever done.
Charlie Kirk
Okay, but I want to just pause you. I mean, you have been involved in the hardest things an entrepreneur and innovator can be involved in. I mean, just what Tesla was up against to get car, car output, you guys had people short selling your stock. I mean, you've been up against the wall multiple times. But this is the hardest.
Antonio Gracias
Hardest. I mean, look, I started my career doing serious turnarounds in auto factories with the unions, all that stuff all the way to Tesla and then Ford. What you've seen in the book, and this is by far the hardest. It's the hardest because first it's the biggest problem. Right. You're talking about an enormous organization, the US Government and the, the. I'd say there are very good people. There are some very. People are helping really great. And there are people that don't want help. Right. And so you've got the institution bureaucracy problem going on. And the problems are deep. They're deep and they're really hard to deal with.
Charlie Kirk
So let's talk about that. I just want to go back a little bit. So Doge was born out of a spirit that our government is wildly inefficient. There's programs that should not exist. And if I were to kind of read into Elon, who I've had the pleasure to get to know and I have enormous respect for, I think that a switch also went off in his head where he said, hey, if bankruptcy than no civilization.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah. So look, we're at 130 hp, maybe higher. Depends on how you count the numbers. And, and the reality is, you know, he's. It's a pretty simple math calculation. We keep going, you know, at some point the currency gets devalued and we turn to Venezuela. That's what happens. So we have to stop it. And it's, you know, the target here is over 15 of the cost. Right. You're an entrepreneur. You built a great business. If I said to you, hey, Trey, look, we got to squeeze 15 of the cost of your business, you'd be like, know I can do that. Right? Anyone can do that.
Charlie Kirk
And we try to do that.
Blake
But.
Charlie Kirk
But if I had to, I absolutely could.
Antonio Gracias
Of course you could.
Charlie Kirk
Of course.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, of course you could. And, and all my friends, I said the same question. It's 15%. It's not that big of a deal, okay. In the government, it's a Big deal. Because the, the, some of the money we're, we're, we're squeezing back here is from people that are stealing it. So it's, I think it's important, it's important point. The people that are screaming the loudest are the fraudsters. So why are they burning teles, ships? Why are they doing all this stuff? Because we're taking money away from people. They were committing a fraud.
Charlie Kirk
Such as?
Antonio Gracias
Okay, I can just keep, I can do so. I see. All right. @ SSA, an example, the Social Security Administration, Social Security as an example, the 40% of the fraud on the phone lines do direct deposit. So you could get on the dark web, some associate number, answer six simple questions and change the bank information from one place to another. This was 40% of the fraud. It was actually about 1 billion and a half dollars fraud. Well over $1 billion of fraud. That we know of. That we know of. Okay, so what's the implication of this? If you're a senior like my dad, he's 84, he expects his check, it doesn't show up for a month. Maybe he noticed, maybe he doesn't. Maybe it's two months and it's all going to form criminal syndicates taking the money. That's the cash cost. What we can't measure and should measure is the headache to the senior.
Charlie Kirk
Oh, I mean, it probably shortens their life expectancy.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, I mean, think about the stress, right? These people need the money and they gotta go into the office, they gotta fix the problem. They've been subject to identity theft because we didn't have basic two factor authentication. Every bank in America, you have two factor authentication, right? Why do our seniors deserve less? They don't. We put this in, the fraud went down, right? It's, this is, this kind of thing is all over the place and it's. I can tell you, I don't. There's one sort of thread to pull on, hey, let's go save, you know, a trillion dollars. It's, it's like every business, right? It's like a, it's a game of inches. It's a billion here and a billion so.
Charlie Kirk
But Elizabeth Warren or one of our friends on the other side would say, antonio, that's just a billion dollars.
Antonio Gracias
Come on. Listen, Charlie, it's, it's a billion dollars in American people's money, okay? That's a lot of money in, in it. I can tell you a crazy story. In 2024, $800 million quote fell off the balance sheet of the Social Security Administration.
Charlie Kirk
So what does that, I mean, gravity applies.
Antonio Gracias
Gravity applies. Exactly.
Charlie Kirk
What do you mean fall off?
Antonio Gracias
That's, that's a question I ask.
Charlie Kirk
Who did it fall to whom?
Antonio Gracias
Exactly. Exactly. Okay, so what happened was there's a 20 billion dollar balance sheet of money owed to the social right because during the Biden administration they took, if we overpaid you in some way, it used to be, even going back to Obama that the, the treasury could recoup 100 of the money in as example the retirement program. Right. If we overpay you, we, you know, it was an accident. Okay, we take the money back. They reduced this, the payment plans from, it was three years up until literally threw Obama into, into President Trump's first term. They took it to five years, they took it down to $10 minimum payment. So the, the, the payment plans went out past 2047, which is the end of the system, the system day in the computer. What happened when that 800 million would pass the system date? The technicians in the field had to write notes in the, in the computer to be able to collect that money. Those ones aren't very good. When I met with the auditors myself and asked this question, what happened to the money? The auditor said it fell off the balance sheet. I said, is that a gap turn on? Gap term. She was like, listen, so just gap.
Charlie Kirk
Is generalized accounting principles, right?
Antonio Gracias
Of course it is.
Charlie Kirk
Just to the audience.
Antonio Gracias
Yes. And they said what the auditors told us was, you know, it's a 1.5 trillion dollar program, it's not material.
Charlie Kirk
But how did they answer that question?
Antonio Gracias
That's how they had to question. Not material. And I said, it's not 800.
Charlie Kirk
So just, just, just to make sure I'm clear. So when I file my taxes in two weeks, can I just say that my, the money fell off my, my tax return?
Antonio Gracias
No, you, you go to jail, you go to prison.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. Is that an, is that an official Internal Revenue Service?
Antonio Gracias
Absolutely, you're absolutely right.
Charlie Kirk
Fell off.
Antonio Gracias
Fell off. And I, and we asked this question, we're like mind boggled. $800 million, a huge amount of money.
Charlie Kirk
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Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
Do we have. Can we reverse engineer?
Antonio Gracias
No, I mean the money that this particular million dollars have asked this question. The notes that were taken that relate to these debts were so poor that the auditors have included that it's not collectible.
Charlie Kirk
So I. Sorry to interrupt but like, are the auditors the US government? Are we hiring like McKinsey?
Antonio Gracias
No, it's outside auditors. I'm going to. You can go look it up.
Charlie Kirk
No, no, I know I'm just like. But like they have to stake their entire reputation on this. Right?
Antonio Gracias
And they have. I mean, look, there are, I, if I remember correctly, about a hundred weaknesses in the audit they, they've identified and they still give us a clean audit opinion as at. So scream. It's. It is. I've never seen like, I have never in my career in 30 years seen anything like.
Charlie Kirk
So if you, you're an investor, if you came across a company like this, what would be the first thing that comes to mind?
Antonio Gracias
I would go home. I'm only doing this because the US Government and because I believe in America.
Charlie Kirk
You would probably report that company to the Department of Justice.
Antonio Gracias
I mean, most likely, yes. I would for sure go home and then maybe call the doj.
Charlie Kirk
So that's just the Social Security Administration in just one year of what you know of.
Antonio Gracias
Yes, yes.
Charlie Kirk
And. But your, your, your critics will say Antonio wants to cut Social Security.
Antonio Gracias
This. Yeah. Category not true. Categorically not true. This is a complete lie. We're trying to save it. And the reality is it's going to.
Charlie Kirk
Run out of money.
Antonio Gracias
Anyway, in 2037, no matter what, we have to try to save it. And I can't tell you this is a high probability event, but it's worth fighting for. You know, going to Mars was. Was really hard. It wasn't obvious 20 years ago or 15 years ago. It was worth fighting for. This is worth fighting for. I mean, people have painted the system. They deserve their money. And if we've got to save it 100 million at a time, or $10 a time, we're going to fight to save it $10 a time. We have to, because it's their money.
Charlie Kirk
That's a really important point. And I want to talk about that for a second because what I find when I talk to bureaucrats, which is not very often, they don't talk to me, but at least those that have, let's just say, bureaucrat worldview. Yes, there is a disconnect of whose money is it? If I, if I had to distill the divide that runs this town.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah.
Charlie Kirk
It's the patriots such as yourself and Elon, look at you guys as stewards of somebody else's money that is sent into the system. Whereas the permanent bureaucracy, they actually view it as the government's money.
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
And the people just loaned it and then, like sent it back. We collected what was rightfully ours.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah.
Charlie Kirk
Do you think that is a properly distilled analysis?
Antonio Gracias
I would break that the bureaucratic area in two. Okay.
Charlie Kirk
We found.
Antonio Gracias
Because. Everything we found is because people took us. Right. We just mapped this.
Charlie Kirk
This is whistleblowing.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah. I mean, we do what we don't.
Charlie Kirk
So it's probably even worse than this.
Antonio Gracias
It's. I mean, it is probably worse than this. Yes. We're sure it's worse than this, but the reason we had the information we had is because people told us where to look. There are very good people in these, in these agencies all over the place. They have been stifled and they are now telling us the truth. They're telling us their truth. They're asking us where to look, and they're really helping us. I mean, it is not the case that everyone is bad. This is not true. I mean, it's like anything, right? There's great people and there's not.
Charlie Kirk
There's some phenomenal civil service.
Antonio Gracias
Yes, absolutely. And they're doing it for the right reason. They're here to serve their fellow.
Charlie Kirk
They really are.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, they are. And I, I want to honor them and I want to feel compassion for what they, what they've gone through because they're frustrated. Look we went to the border. I can just tell you the, the, the Border Protection and Border Patrol, they had the highest suicide rates they've ever experienced during the search. This is a human tragedy.
Charlie Kirk
Yeah. So the. So looking now, is it fair to say your assigned task as a Social Security Administration? Are there any others under your purview under the kind of DOGE umbrella?
Antonio Gracias
Yes. What happened was we mapped the entire system for Social Security from enumeration, how you get the number all the way to the end, how you get a payment. We went all the way to the office. In that process, we found this, this category called enumeration beyond entry, and it had ramped dramatically. So it should be for, like H1B green cards, this kind of thing. And it was like, you know, call it 2 to 400,000 people a year every year, and then it goes up and up and up, and it doubles every year during the Biden administration, it ends up at about 2.1 million people. So if you think about baseline 4000 to the 2.1, that really caught our eye. You know, one of our engineers, Peyton, actually found this, and he showed it to us because we were like, mapping through the whole system when we dug into it, we found that the asylum programs were the vast majority of the increase. And so we dug into that. That led us to Homeland Security. It led us all the way to the border to try and figure out what it was, because it's about a little over 5, 5.4 million people or so in total that came in in those years. What we found in the Data was that 1.2 million of them were marked as unknown. No one who the status was.1.2 were marked as general parole. This was during Biden's presidency, this stall during Biden's presidency? Yes. And by the way, it continued through the first fiscal quarter of the Federal Court of 25. Right. So right before President Trump came in. And President Trump has not closed the border, so it's not happening now, that we were just trying to figure this out. We were following the number to complete our map. And I would say we accidentally came across this problem which led us to the border. And the people at the border reported, you know, I'd say some of the most disturbing behavior that I've ever heard where we would, you know, they, they got so overwhelmed at times, they provide people with, you know, I think called the notice to appear or own recognizance release. They'd have. They get in the system with a court date. Once you're in system with A court date. If you file for asylum, when you're in, you can get a form, just filing a form that allows you, once that form is filed, to get automatically enumerated by Social Security Administration to get a number. And it acts as a benefit programs. We map that to the benefit programs. We found these people, some of these people on the benefit programs at scale across the board. And then, you know, just because we were curious, we looked at the, at the voter rolls, and we found in a handful of states, we just sampled a handful of states. We found thousands of people on the voter rolls, and many of them had voted. And this was just. I mean, it was. If I hadn't seen my own eyes, I'm not sure I believed it.
Charlie Kirk
First of all, phenomenal work, because look at all the different layers you had to go through to get to that.
Antonio Gracias
I would. Yeah, the team is very tenacious. You know, the team we have is great. And by the way, again, I want to point out, we wouldn't be able to follow the breadcrumbs if people hadn't told us where to go.
Charlie Kirk
That's. That's critical. So. So two thoughts on that. Number one, someone had to be issuing the Social Security numbers.
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
And so that was the Biden administration knowingly just giving them out. Like throwing them out. Like Frisbees.
Antonio Gracias
Yes. I mean, would, to be clear, this was making illegal people legal. Right.
Charlie Kirk
But without any act of Congress.
Antonio Gracias
Without an act of Congress.
Charlie Kirk
Yes. It's illegal. What the government did.
Antonio Gracias
The programs were there. What they did was, I would say abuse them. They opened the aperture dramatically in these programs and didn't do any due diligence, proper diligence on the coming in. And so there is a requirement for diligence. And I would say that requirement was not met.
Charlie Kirk
So the second part is something you mentioned, which I think is a great way to conclude, which is you talk about the team.
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
Which I've had the opportunity to meet some of these Doge super geniuses. They're young, they're hungry, they're tenacious, they're relentless, they don't sleep. I mean, these are the high IQ patriots that we want in this building. They have been doxxed by the Washington Post and by Wired. They have been singled out and their names and their addresses have been shared. Talk about this group of mostly very young super geniuses that are dedicating their life to save this nation.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, I made the joke. I call them ninjas. These are. These are engineering ninjas. And look, these guys could all go get jobs in Silicon Valley for lots of little.
Charlie Kirk
A million bucks a year.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah. I mean, plus equity. They would all become very wealthy people. Right. I mean, I met. I met young people that I. One of them dropped out of college. He was a senior at Harvard drop.
Charlie Kirk
I met him too. He said he brought amazing Rockstar.
Antonio Gracias
And by the way, there's. There's a number of these guys, right? The guy with. Guys are really geniuses. They're amazing. Yeah. They're patriots. They believe in America and they believe in the future. And the future is for them and our children. And I am deeply grateful and very respectful for what they're doing. And they're really, really good. And look, they're also, you know, Joe, Gabby is walking around here. I'm here. There are other. Anthony, if you guys were more. Stanley came out, there are other people as well, along with the young folks.
Charlie Kirk
Right.
Antonio Gracias
So we have the engineers and then we have kind of, I'll call it the business people that are helping them as well in creating teams around this so that we can cover, I'd say, the entire spectrum of thinking. Yeah, this is a great team. This is almost like the Avengers got assembled to try and come help the government. And look, I credit President Trump. I mean, really, in the end.
Charlie Kirk
Exactly.
Antonio Gracias
Right. President Trump, he had the courage for the first time ever. And foresight, okay, this is a really, really, really smart thing to do, to sign an executive order that allowed us to go across databases and otherwise we could never have figured this out, could.
Charlie Kirk
Never transcend these bureaucratic all silos.
Antonio Gracias
So we had to go across.
Charlie Kirk
They do that intentionally, obviously.
Antonio Gracias
I mean, look, I will say it might be an artifice of like the 1970s databases they have. You know, I wouldn't put intent. But I will say it's created massive holes for people to commit fraud. And that's what we're looking for. Right. And look, we're doing it with like 2010 technologies and SQL queries because we can't use AI. We're not using AI to do this at all.
Charlie Kirk
Why?
Antonio Gracias
We can't.
Charlie Kirk
You're not allowed to or, you know, it does.
Antonio Gracias
I'd say it's about. It's above my, above my policy grade. But.
Charlie Kirk
No, I mean, I would love to learn the answer.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah.
Charlie Kirk
Because I mean, we. We use AI for. Yeah, it's a private sports ticket.
Antonio Gracias
Right. So I think it's a privacy issue. But I, I would say that. I think that's my opinion.
Charlie Kirk
No, I'm not, I'm not trying to put you on the Spot. I just, I think that what could be more important, I mean, I think GROK could do some damage. Yeah.
Antonio Gracias
I think, let me just put it that I would say we could use AI, definitely. We'd be faster and more efficient. And just imagine what it's like for an engineer who could use AI to not use it to use SQL queries, compare and compare data and try to look for it. It's really hard, painstaking work.
Charlie Kirk
So you're saying that is this just Social Security Administration or all data they're not allowed to use anywhere that I.
Antonio Gracias
Know we're not using? I've not seen any I use now. Zero. None.
Charlie Kirk
I'd love to learn.
Antonio Gracias
Yeah, I ask questions on my phone sometimes like, hey, what's the law on this? Because I keep being told it's against the law and I look on my graph.
Charlie Kirk
Well, and that's an important distinction that actually a lot of what they think is law is actually inherited Presidential custom.
Antonio Gracias
Correct.
Charlie Kirk
Article two is that the President has the complete vested authority of this branch. So if the President says to use grok, I mean, is there a law, congressional law that says you can't use AI very much? Doubtful. Anyway, I won't put you on the spot. I just. This is the type of stuff we run into. The final thing is this is all of this would just be. Will end up as a very well publicized Warren Commission.
Antonio Gracias
Okay.
Charlie Kirk
If you guys don't get Congress to act because there's only so much the President can do, there's only so many rescissions, impoundment, act, all that stuff. If Congress does not, then put forward the President's budget and act upon your discoveries.
Antonio Gracias
Yes.
Charlie Kirk
The audience is salivating to hear marching orders talk about how important it is that Article 1 internalizes all of your findings and then acts on it in this budget.
Antonio Gracias
Look, I would say this, this is a bit, a bit above my thinking grade. Right. I'm very focused on the narrow task of fraud, waste and abuse. My opinion is this. The President States is elected by the people and he has a mandate to make change. And if the bureaucracy is resisting that change, Congress should act to help him achieve the mandate of the American people. And that's a reality, by the way. It doesn't matter who the President is. The bureaucracy doesn't run this country. The President does. The President appoints the Secretaries. The secretaries you dealt with have been great across the board from VA to DHS to Social Security Administration. They really are aligned. And the bureaucracy does not run this government. The President States does, along with along with the Congress. And if we need Congress to act to enforce that, we should.
Charlie Kirk
Amen. Antonio, thank you so much for your time and God bless you from I speak on behalf of our listeners and our audience. The fact that people like you that have a ton of wealth, you guys could be in Monaco or you could be in Fiji, literally enjoying all of the blessings you guys have earned. Instead, you are here in D.C. in these kind of like dimly lit office buildings. Go until 2am looking through spreadsheets without AI to still be attacked by the media and be doxed is the definition of a servant government. So thank you so much.
Antonio Gracias
Thank you.
Charlie Kirk
Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us. As always, freedomarliekirk.com thanks so much for listening and God bless.
Blake
For more on many of these stories and news you can Trust, go to charliekirk.com.
Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show – "The Science Cartel, the College Scam, and the DOGE Defenders"
Release Date: April 8, 2025
In this episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, host Charlie Kirk delves into the intricate issues surrounding academic journals and the alleged "college scam," followed by an enlightening conversation with Antonio Gracias from the White House. The episode is structured into two main segments: an exploration of the academic publishing industry and a deep dive into governmental fraud related to Social Security, alongside discussions about Elon Musk’s influence on technology and free speech.
The episode kicks off with a light-hearted Roman history trivia segment between Charlie Kirk and his guest Blake. Charlie challenges Blake with advanced questions about Roman generals and emperors, testing his knowledge and setting an engaging tone for the discussion ahead.
Notable Quote:
Charlie Kirk [00:35]: "Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus."
Charlie and Blake transition into a critical analysis of the modern scientific research framework, focusing on academic journals and their financial implications for universities and taxpayers.
Blake explains the role of academic journals in legitimizing research, highlighting the vast number of specialized journals and the exorbitant subscription fees charged to institutions. He emphasizes how access to these journals is often restricted to those affiliated with well-funded universities, creating barriers for independent researchers and the general public.
Notable Quote:
Blake [04:34]: "Springer Nature, this company, which is one of the biggest incumbent actors, is effectively funded by the Department Education, because these colleges spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these journals."
The discussion zeroes in on Springer Nature, a major player in the academic publishing industry. Blake details how Springer Nature owns numerous prestigious journals like Nature and Science, yet charges high fees, making access costly for educational institutions and taxpayers. He criticizes the company's transition to a for-profit model and alleges cartel-like behavior, including antitrust issues and collaboration among publishers to inflate prices and suppress competition.
Notable Quote:
Charlie Kirk [07:48]: "What you're seeing about the Springer Nature thing, I think it's time for some sort of investigation."
Blake points out the flaws in the peer review process, noting that many journals do not adequately vet research, leading to the publication of falsified studies. He cites a scandal involving a Nature paper on Alzheimer's disease, which was later proven to be entirely fabricated, potentially derailing two decades of research based on false premises.
Notable Quote:
Blake [08:50]: "Nature published a very important paper on Alzheimer's about 20 years ago, and it recently came out that basically the research for this was falsified."
Charlie stresses the need for governmental scrutiny into Springer Nature's practices, questioning why federal funds are indirectly supporting such a monopolistic and potentially unethical entity. He urges for accountability and transparency in how taxpayer money is being utilized within academic institutions.
Notable Quote:
Charlie Kirk [10:17]: "Correcting ChatGPT is quite a sight to be seen... I think it's time for someone to look into Springer Nature."
The second segment features an in-depth discussion with Antonio Gracias, a prominent figure from the White House, known for his association with Elon Musk and his work combating fraud within government systems.
Antonio shares his journey from law school and investment in PayPal to becoming an institutional investor in Tesla. He elaborates on his deep collaboration with Elon Musk, admiring Musk’s ability to blend visionary macro strategies with meticulous micro-level execution.
Notable Quote:
Antonio Gracias [19:36]: "Elon has a really big heart, and he's got... a really compassionate man."
The conversation shifts to Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X), which Antonio praises as a monumental move for free speech. He discusses how the platform was corrupted under previous management and Musk’s efforts to restore its original purpose as a bastion for free expression.
Notable Quote:
Antonio Gracias [23:06]: "Twitter was corrupted free speech... that had to stop."
Antonio brings to light alarming issues within the Social Security Administration (SSA), detailing how significant sums of taxpayer money are being lost to fraud. He explains the complexities of tracking and recovering these funds, highlighting an incident where $800 million fell off the SSA’s balance sheet due to poor auditing practices.
Notable Quote:
Antonio Gracias [28:10]: "What happened was there's a 20 billion dollar balance sheet of money owed to the social right... $800 million fell off the balance sheet."
Antonio introduces the DOGE Defenders, a dedicated team of young, highly skilled individuals committed to combating fraud and improving governmental systems. He commends their relentless work ethic and their role in uncovering systemic issues within federal agencies.
Notable Quote:
Antonio Gracias [38:14]: "These guys are really geniuses. They're patriots. They believe in America and they believe in the future."
The discussion delves into the bureaucratic challenges faced by the DOGE Defenders. Antonio criticizes the inefficiency and resistance within government systems, advocating for greater presidential and congressional support to enact meaningful reforms.
Notable Quote:
Antonio Gracias [42:08]: "The bureaucracy doesn't run this government. The President does... If Congress does not, then put forward the President's budget and act upon your discoveries."
Charlie Kirk wraps up the episode by applauding the efforts of Antonio Gracias and the DOGE Defenders, emphasizing the importance of vigilance and active participation in safeguarding governmental integrity and free speech. He encourages listeners to support initiatives and organizations that align with these values, reinforcing the show's commitment to providing clarity amidst chaos from a conservative standpoint.
Notable Quote:
Charlie Kirk [43:20]: "Go until 2am looking through spreadsheets without AI to still be attacked by the media and be doxed is the definition of a servant government. So thank you so much."
This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show offers a comprehensive examination of the hidden financial mechanisms within academia and government, advocating for stronger oversight and accountability. Through engaging discussions and expert insights, Charlie Kirk sheds light on crucial issues affecting education, research, and public welfare, urging listeners to stay informed and proactive in the fight for freedom and integrity.