The Trump Admin Group Chat Leak: My Reaction - The Charlie Kirk Show

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Trump Admin Group Chat Leak: My Reaction

Podcast Information:

Title: The Charlie Kirk Show
Host: Charlie Kirk
Episode Title: The Trump Admin Group Chat Leak: My Reaction
Release Date: March 25, 2025
Description: Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and a leading conservative activist, delivers insightful commentary on current events, mobilizing youth across educational campuses to advocate for freedom and conservative values.

Introduction

In the March 25, 2025 episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, host Charlie Kirk delves into the recent leak of a Signal group chat involving key members of the Trump administration. This episode provides an in-depth analysis of the implications of the leak, the authenticity of the conversations, and its impact on American politics, particularly focusing on the ongoing Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.

The Signal Group Chat Leak

Overview of the Incident

Charlie Kirk begins by addressing the viral leak of a private Signal group chat, which included prominent figures such as Vice President J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Susie Wiles, and Stephen Miller. The chat discussed strategic military actions, specifically targeting the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Charlie Kirk [00:35]: "Buckle up, everybody. Here we go."

Analysis of the Group Chat Content

Kirk meticulously reads excerpts from the leaked conversation, highlighting the administration's candid discussions on military strategy and foreign policy.

Pete Hegseth [00:36]: "Charlie, what you've done is incredible here."

Ron Johnson [00:55]: "He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA."

Kirk emphasizes that the conversations reflect an "America First" policy both publicly and privately, contrary to media portrayals suggesting duplicity.

Charlie Kirk [03:10]: "What you've read is that both privately and publicly, there is symmetry with the national security attitudes that our foreign policy leaders have."

The Involvement of Jeffrey Goldberg

A critical point of contention is the inclusion of Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, in the group chat—a move widely criticized as a breach of protocol.

Charlie Kirk [08:45]: "How is it saved in your signal chat? Seems to be Mike Waltz. That means he's added Jeffrey Goldberg as a contact on Signal since he became National Security Advisor."

Kirk questions the intentions behind Goldberg's inclusion, labeling it a major oversight that jeopardized the confidentiality of sensitive discussions.

Charlie Kirk [31:42]: "How is it saved in your signal chat? ... It begs the question that if it's preloaded on a government device and this is your government official channels and communication, then how is it saved in your signal chat?"

Implications of the Leak

Authenticity and Governance

Kirk argues that the leak inadvertently showcases the administration’s genuine and transparent approach to decision-making, asserting that there is no hidden agenda contrary to public statements.

Charlie Kirk [12:20]: "In reality, we just happen to see that behind closed doors they're doing everything they said they were going to do."

Comparison to Past Administration Flubs

Drawing parallels with previous administrations, Kirk downplays the severity of the leak by comparing it to other governmental blunders.

Charlie Kirk [22:30]: "What's worse, this chat or lying about making progress in Afghanistan while we spent over a trillion dollars to achieve absolutely nothing?"

Discussion with Senator Ron Johnson

Kirk brings on Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to discuss the Supreme Court race, emphasizing the critical nature of voter turnout.

Importance of the Supreme Court Race

Senator Johnson highlights the high stakes involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, detailing the potential consequences of a loss.

Pete Hegseth [18:36]: "We have another election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Last time we lost, our candidate only got 800,000 votes."

He underscores the need for a robust ground game to ensure victory, contrasting past performance with President Trump's record-setting voter turnout.

Pete Hegseth [19:58]: "Every Trump voter voted for Brad Schimmel, we would run away with this race."

Voter Turnout Insights

Kirk and Senator Johnson examine voting patterns, referencing data that illustrates the shift in voter behavior and the necessity to mobilize low-propensity voters.

David Shore [20:32]: "People who didn't vote went from being a somewhat Democratic leaning group to a group that Trump won by double digits."

Pete Hegseth [21:58]: "We need to wake up everybody who voted for President Trump. Let them understand what's at stake here on April 1st and get out and vote."

Reconciliation and Spending Cuts

The conversation shifts to national fiscal policies, with Senator Johnson advocating for significant spending cuts to balance the federal budget.

Pete Hegseth [26:46]: "There's no way you can justify from going from 4.4 trillion in 2019 up to $7.3 trillion this year."

He criticizes the current spending trajectory, proposing a return to pre-pandemic expenditure levels and meticulous scrutiny of federal spending.

Pete Hegseth [28:56]: "We need massive spending cuts if we are serious about saving our republic."

Audience Reactions and Closing Remarks

Charlie Kirk addresses listener feedback, acknowledging the audience's disappointment with the leak and reaffirming the administration's commitment to transparency and responsible governance.

Charlie Kirk [29:25]: "Our audience is not happy with it. ... President Trump is working his tail off all day long and has to be distracted by allowing the editor in chief of the Atlantic into a group chat. Unacceptable."

He encourages listeners to engage with the discussion through the show's website and social media platforms, reinforcing the call to action for political participation and accountability.

Conclusion

In this episode, Charlie Kirk offers a comprehensive reaction to the leaked Trump administration group chat, dissecting the content, addressing the implications, and engaging with key political figures to highlight the broader impact on American politics. The discussion extends to critical electoral strategies and fiscal policies, underscoring the importance of voter mobilization and responsible governance in safeguarding conservative values and national interests.

Notable Quotes:

Charlie Kirk [03:10]: "What you've read is that both privately and publicly, there is symmetry with the national security attitudes that our foreign policy leaders have."
Pete Hegseth [18:36]: "We have another election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Last time we lost, our candidate only got 800,000 votes."
Senator Ron Johnson [26:46]: "There's no way you can justify from going from 4.4 trillion in 2019 up to $7.3 trillion this year."
Charlie Kirk [29:25]: "President Trump is working his tail off all day long and has to be distracted by allowing the editor in chief of the Atlantic into a group chat. Unacceptable."

This detailed summary encapsulates the key discussions, insights, and conclusions from the episode, providing listeners and non-listeners alike with a comprehensive understanding of the topics covered.

Transcript

Charlie Kirk (0:00)

Hey, everybody. Our reaction to the viral signal chat leak. We have a very unique take. I think you'll enjoy it. Email us, as always, freedomcharliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast. Open up your podcast application and type in Charlie Kirk Show. Become a member today. That is members.charliekirk.com members.charliekirk. com get involved with TurningPoint USA@tpusa.com that is tpusa.com start a high school or college chapter today@tpusa.com email me. As always, freedomarliekirk.com buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

Pete Hegseth (0:35)

Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

Charlie Kirk (0:36)

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

Pete Hegseth (0:38)

I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

Ron Johnson (0:45)

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.

Charlie Kirk (0:55)

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 Yesterday there was some breaking news happening while we were on the show. We decided not to cover it because we wanted to get all the facts. There was a group chat that was formed over the last weekend, and we're going to go through all of the facts related to this story and give you our analysis, the analysis that has the media in an uproar. So here are the facts. As you know, over the weekend, President Donald Trump authorized a series of targeted military strikes against the Houthis. The Houthis were firing upon U.S. vessels. Now, we must be very clear that it is a quagmire on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. This is in Yemen. The Houthis are in Yemen, which is on the western part of the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, right near Oman and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia for years has been very invested in this Houthi civil war. It's been disrupting global trade. Many Americans do not even know that there's a country called Yemen, let alone that we should be involved in the Yemeni civil war, President Donald Trump made a decision to authorize American military strikes. Now, regardless of whether or not you agree or disagree with that, that's actually not the core element at play here. Once this decision was well underway, there was a group chat that was started on a messaging application called Signal. Now, I use Signal quite a lot and I'm sure many of you do as well. It's a secure messaging application where you're able to have messages that automatically delete after an hour, a day, a week or a month. In this group chat was Vice President J.D. vance, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Susie Wiles, Stephen Miller and many others. Now let's just begin by saying there were no non government officials on these group chats. That's a good first start. There was not people that were not supposed to necessarily be informed of what is going on. Well, until something got leaked. So I'm going to read this entire group conversation and this group chat conversation and I'm gonna tell you exactly how on earth we have been led to have a window into these private discussions. JD Vance writes at first eThegseth, if you think we should do it, let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again. Let's make sure our messaging is tight here and if there are things we can do up front to minimize risk to Saudi oil facilities, we should do it. Pete Hegseth replies, vp, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's all caps. Pathetic. But Mike is correct. We are the only ones on the planet on our side of the ledger who can do this. Nobody else can come even close. The question is timing. I feel like now is a good time as any given POTUS directive to reopen shipping lanes and then we should go. But potus still retains 24 hours of decision space. Now SM then replies, I believe this is Stephen Miller. I could be incorrect. I think it's Stephen Miller. As I heard it, the President was clear green light. But we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return. We also need to figure out how to enforce such a requirement. For example, if Europe doesn't renumerate, then what? If the US successfully restores freedom of navigation at great cost, there needs to be some further economic gain extracted in return. Now it's presumably Stephen Miller, but we don't know for sure. Then in the next iteration we saw a couple emojis here from Michael Walsh saying the team in Mar a Lago did a great job as well. Great work. All powerful start and the name of the group chat was the Houthi PC Small Group. Now, how on earth did we learn about this? On signal, you are able to add people to your group chat. On signal, you're able to allow other people to come in. You can invite them. National Security Advisor Michael Waltz invited the editor in chief of the Trump hating Atlantic magazine, Mr. Goldberg, into the group chat to go have a window into all of these private national security conversations. Now, before I go deeper into that element of this, I do want to make sure that we are clear about what we've just read. What you've read is that both privately and publicly, there is symmetry with the national security attitudes that our foreign policy leaders have, that there is not a private loathing for the America first policy perspective that they ran on. What J.D. vance believes publicly, he also believes in privately what Pete Hegseth has been saying publicly. He also believes behind closed doors, they aren't plotting how to make Elon Musk money. We saw the Trump administration was telling the truth about what they care about. This is exactly how I'd expect them to speak most publicly and privately, they aren't plotting about how to get five points of approval without caring about the outcome. It is raw. It's authentic. Now, how Jeffrey Goldberg got added is likely because Mike Waltz wanted to add the US Trade Representative, Jameson Greer, and had the same initials. Now, allow me to editorialize for a second. I know Mike Waltz. We disagree on a lot of foreign policy stuff. There's a serious question as to why Mike Waltz has Jeffrey Goldberg as a saved signal contact. It's a very serious question. He's the editor in chief of a Trump hating magazine. You are national Security adviser. You've obviously been dialoguing or talking to him previously. Is Michael Walsh leaking to Jeffrey Goldberg? I certainly hope not. We know Jeffrey Goldberg has pushed some of the greatest anti Trump BS in years past. This is not a friendly or a remotely friendly reporter. This is a major screw up. There is no other way to put it. And the screw up is allowing this guy to be put in and Michael Walsh doing that. And by the way, when you have presidencies and administrations like this, you're gonna have little hiccups and you're going to have speed bumps. The best way is just to take responsibility, confront it head on, and say it was a glitch, it shouldn't have happened, it was a near miss in the sense that it could have been way worse what Jeffrey Goldberg got his eyes on. It could have been way worse what he got read into and was not supposed to be read into. Now some people are saying this was intentional, that they let Jeffrey Goldberg in. None of that is true. Let's be honest. That is a bunch of bs. There are people inside and outside the White House calling for heads to roll over this. This was not some sort of intentional. Let's allow the head of the Trump hating Atlantic magazine to have a window into our signal group chat. So situations like this happen throughout presidencies where things are going a certain way and you have a little bit of a mix up, you have a little bit of a leak. How you handle it is everything. But there are some serious questions though. But you know who does not have to answer questions? Pete Hegseth and JD Vance. Because what Pete Hegseth and JD Vance were articulating in this group chat was an America first policy perspective behind closed doors. That when you are not seeing the conversations, they're still fighting for the country and saying, these Europeans are pathetic. Could you imagine if we had a chat? Do you know what a real scandal would be? A real scandal would be if we had J.D. vance and Pete Hegset saying, yeah, we have to kind of save face with our base, but the Europeans are actually awesome, but let's pretend that we're tough on Europe. Could you imagine that would be an actual scandal? A real scandal would be our leaders saying one thing to voters and doing a completely different thing behind closed doors. In reality, we just happen to see that behind closed doors they're doing everything they said they were going to do. We never should have had that window into closed doors because you don't add the editor in chief of the Atlantic magazine to your group chats. But thankfully, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here. 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Call 833-850-2229 or click on the preborn banner at charliekirk.com that is charliekirk.com and click on the Preborn banner. I'm a donor. You should be too. Charliekirk.com Preborn Banner so I have one more thought that I want to go into a thought exercise regarding this situation. I was not overly surprised by the elements of this story because we have a hyper online administration. Pete Hegseth, JD Vance they are on the younger of the continuum in the spectrum. My generation, I'm 31. JD Vance is about 40. Pete Hegseth I think is late 40s. We do a lot of our communication on signal, on Telegram, on WhatsApp and on group messages. The team is moving very, very fast now in the future these situations should be happening in skiffs and it is the National Security Advisor's job to even reign in cabinet officials and say, nope, we can't be having this conversation here. Can't be doing this. Let's go to a scif. Let's go to a secure conference line. However, understand that a lot of government and a lot of corporate America and a lot of high stakes decision making is occurring in secured group chats. The reason being it's far more efficient to have a group chat with 20 people and they can chime in at their the likelihood of their own timing, the own choosing at their own convenience than having a conference call where everyone has to be there at the same time and then almost nothing gets done. Not defending the elements here, but conference calls are literally hell on earth. It is where bureaucrats go to waste time and a group chat is far more efficient. You can have a very substantive back and forth and discussion on hopefully non classified, non military matters on a group chat than you can having a conference call. Well, and what do you think? And what do you think? Now let's be serious. How bad was this screw up? Well, we accidentally gave some details about bomb strikes on terrorist group that we were publicly talking about doing. This wasn't the operation to kill bin Laden. It wasn't an invasion of Iran, which hopefully will never happen. It was airstrikes on a militant group. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing for Mike Waltz and President Trump says that he's learned his lesson and that he's a good man. It's President Trump's call that's breaking news right here. But embarrassing is very different from destructive. Now let's compare that to some of the other flubs our DC Military intelligence elite have cooked up. What is worse? Accidentally having a journalist in your Houthi strike chat or pushing fake intelligence to justify invading Iraq? By the way, you know who helped push that intelligence and argued for us to invade Iraq? Jeffrey Goldberg, the reporter in this group chat. What's worse, a signal group chat or lying about making progress in Afghanistan while we spent over a trillion dollars to achieve absolutely nothing, then botching the evacuation so that we lost billions in equipment and more than a dozen American lives? What's worse, this chat or overthrowing the government of Libya causing a decade long civil war and humanitarian crisis? Let's look beyond the defense issues. What's worse, this group chat or letting tens of millions of people over the border? What's worse, this chat or Democrat mayors sheltering criminals and gang bangers? If you are watching the mainstream media right now, you are being subjected to propaganda. The people who led America into one gigantic disaster after another are trying to convince you that you are relatively your relatively mild embarrassment is the worst scandal ever. And let's also reiterate the group chat itself, despite the fact that Jeffrey Goldberg got invited, actually showed a highly competent dialogue amongst people that weighed all the options related to a military strike. They are going about the use of American force with prudence, with wisdom, with humility, with sobriety, not with a lustful zeal for blood and conquest in perfect alignment with their public commentary. The way that J.D. vance and Pete Hegseth talked about the use of American force should give you confidence that we are not going to go to a thermonuclear war with Russia. Should give you confidence that they go about the use of American missiles and American intervention with a serious degree of weight. That it is not something that is thrown around like a Frisbee. It's not like George W. Bush who wakes up another day and wants to invade another sovereign nation. If John Bolton would have been on this group chat, he would have said this is a waste of time. We should have Marines invade Yemen. Instead, through a collaborative discussion, we now got an exclusive window, the likes of which we may never see again, that we have not seen for forever into the foreign policy calculus of this new administration and hopefully we never see it again. We got a little bit of a sneak peek into the mindset and embarrassment aside, it actually shows that we're in very capable hands as to how these decisions are being made, who is making them. And then weighing the potential costs of US Involvement in a backwards way, it's actually awfully reassuring. Hey, Charlie, Kirk here. Ever see your dog slowing down or having health issues and wonder, what can I do to make them better? Well, my friend, add rough greens to your dog's food for 90 days and you'll see changes that will amaze you. Guaranteed. Invented by naturopathic doctor Dennis Black, Ruff Greens wants to invite you and give your pup the Ruffgreens 90 Day Challenge. In the first 30 days, you'll see shinier coats and increased energy. By day 60, your dog will have a stronger immune system, less shedding and improved joint function, all due to live nutrients you've added to their diet. And at 90 days, better digestion, reduced inflammation, improved heart health, and you might even have reduced their cancer risk. Fetch a free Jump Start trial bag for your dog today. Go to ruffgreens.com, just use promo code Charlie. That is roughgreens.com promo code Charlie. And just cover shipping. You don't have to change your dog's food to improve your dog's health. Just add a scoop of Ruff Greens, that is ruffgreens.com joining us now is Senator Ron Johnson from the great state of Wisconsin. Senator, welcome to the program. Senator, we are pushing very hard. We have deployed our entire field staff at Turning Point Action. They are living in the state of Wisconsin right now. We are going all in and doing everything we can. Please remind our audience about the importance of this Supreme Court race.