A Ukraine Peace October Surprise? + How DOGE Saved You $600 Billion

00:00:03 Speaker 1: My name is Charlie Kirk. 00:00:05 Speaker 2: I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. 00:00:14 Speaker 3: If the most. 00:00:15 Speaker 2: Important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter. Go start a Turning Point USA high school chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. 00:00:37 Speaker 4: Sign up and become an activist. 00:00:39 Speaker 2: I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am. 00:00:46 Speaker 3: Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. 00:00:49 Speaker 5: Here we go. 00:00:56 Speaker 2: 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 at noblegoldinvestments.com. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. 00:01:17 Speaker 6: All right. 00:01:18 Speaker 5: Welcome, everybody. 00:01:19 Speaker 7: It is October 21st, 2026. I'm on location. Blake is back today. Thank you for all those emails saying how much you missed him and his keen insights. 00:01:30 Speaker 3: Blake, you were on assignment yesterday. 00:01:32 Speaker 7: Why don't we just start there really quickly and give everybody just a little taste of the event we were doing yesterday because that was really important. 00:01:40 Speaker 3: Oh, for sure. 00:01:41 Speaker 8: It was kind of– we do these periodic summits with– influencers, streamers, people who will be doing our Pick Up the Mic events. And actually, a lot of it is a chance to just talk out the big issues facing the country. So we were talking about 2028. What's the situation going to be by then? What will the big issues be? What could we potentially use as rhetoric for that? And on a few different issues. So we talked about foreign policy. We talked about the economy. We talked about the war with Iran. A lot of different stuff, and I don't want to divulge because it's secret what each individual person says, but it's just a good opportunity to check each other in a friendly environment and probe stuff so that we can be ahead of the curve before it flares up in the coming years. 00:02:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great. 00:02:31 Speaker 7: I mean, listen, one of the things that we do over on the Turning Point side that is just unlike anybody else is we equip. young people, influencers, people with a platform, people with growing platforms, and that are aspiring to get into the space, we equip them with the tools they need to be as effective as possible. So it's a really important thing, especially in the aftermath of losing Charlie, who was just such a big voice, who had such a huge platform with this show, but across social media and all those things. So there's so many people rising up that want to be a part of helping and contributing and fixing this country, preparing businesses, So it's a really important thing that we're doing. Really proud of the team. Proud of you, Blake, for being a part of it and helping be one of the people that helps pour into these young people. So it's fantastic stuff. But we have lots of news to get to today, Blake. And one of the big things that is happening right now this morning, woke up to it, and it really does appear that it has significant traction, is the prospect of peace. 00:03:32 Speaker 3: And why I. 00:03:32 Speaker 7: Feel like this is very interesting in Ukraine and Russia, to be specific, Why I think this is interesting, Blake, is that we just did this 20 promises from the Trump campaign in 2020, and we gave Trump a no. We said he did not achieve peace in Russia and Ukraine. There's not peace in the Middle East. But this could be a huge boon both to Russia and Ukraine and to our midterm prospects, frankly, if we could actually establish the framework for peace in Ukraine and Now, this happened this morning. We know that Steve Witkow, special envoy to the president, is in Russia right now meeting with President Vladimir Putin. And there was a huge development with Stephen Hubbard. He was a Michigan teacher that was arrested in eastern Ukraine in April of 2022. He has been released. He was slapped with bogus mercenary charge and sentenced to seven years. He has been released. There's no prisoner swap. We didn't have to give up a bunch of terrorists to do it. President Trump got this done. in the midst of a bunch of criticism about this diesel deal and sanctions on Russia and these types of things. So he got this done. People didn't realize it behind the scenes. Had he slapped Russia with additional sanctions, for example, this probably would have fallen apart and Stephen Hubbard would still be arrested. 00:04:50 Speaker 3: So that's a huge deal. 00:04:51 Speaker 7: Meanwhile, Vladimir Zelensky from Ukraine was on Fox News this morning speaking with Brian Kilmeade and a bombshell dropped. 00:05:00 Speaker 3: It's going everywhere. Sat 9. 00:05:03 Speaker 9: Would you accept a peace deal that freezes everything the way it is right now, where you still keep 75 percent or more of your country, regardless of how it started? 00:05:13 Speaker 5: Would you accept where it is right now? 00:05:19 Speaker 10: Yes. 00:05:20 Speaker 1: Right now, we have to freeze. 00:05:22 Speaker 11: And I think this is a real way to end this war. 00:05:27 Speaker 7: So, Blake, why don't you help explain how significant that is to hear those words out of Zelensky's own mouth? Because President Trump has criticized him, saying he doesn't want peace. But to hear him say this at this juncture is a huge development. 00:05:43 Speaker 8: Yeah, so first we'll see if it fully pans out, because obviously he could always blame translation issues or unclear English. But if it is what it looks like, For years, we've been trying to get Russia and Ukraine together on peace, and one of the key points is just what would the final peace line look like? Ukraine, for a long time, they really wanted to get the Crimea back. They really wanted to get those eastern provinces and the Donbass back. And Russia, meanwhile, has been claiming even more land than they currently possess. They actually had kind of bogus referendums, and they annexed four oblasts, that's like provinces, and they claimed the whole territory of them, and several of them, they only have a portion of those. So if we can get them to come together and agree, actually the current line, the ceasefire line, that can be our actual peace line. That would be both sides backing off from their extreme positions to reach peace. And there's precedent for that working. If you want an example, if you look at North and South Korea, that line that divides those countries, that wasn't negotiated. That's just where the ceasefire was when the Korean War ended after both sides were exhausted. And so if we get a similar deal here, I think it would be, Great for frankly, great for Russia and great for Ukraine, because what both of them need is for this war to stop. 00:06:56 Speaker 12: Yeah. 00:06:57 Speaker 7: And so just to give you the play by play how we got here. So Steve Witkoff just this morning, again, I'm just repeating myself, met with President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, for roughly three hours. This is following Steve Witkoff meeting with Zelensky in Oslo and with Norwegian and Finnish leaders at the European NATO, another European and NATO representatives. So President Putin has, in principle, now we'll put giant air quotes around that, agreed to resume trilateral talks in the beginning of November. And they might be doing this in Abu Dhabi. 00:07:33 Speaker 3: We're going to see. 00:07:34 Speaker 7: So this is a really, really good sign. They're calling it meaningful progress with Ukraine bringing in new ideas. So they want to talk about long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war economic prosperity plan, as they're calling it, and a broader European security architecture. So, okay, these things become problematic. But to Blake's point, he used a very important word, when both sides get exhausted. When both sides get exhausted. And perhaps this is what we finally come to in this long, drawn-out conflict that is killing thousands of of Europeans, of Ukrainians and Russians every month. It is a bloody, bloody struggle that the whole world would be incentivized to help end. And not only because of diesel prices, not only because of deaths, but because of the fact that this could, Blake, if there is positive signs, and I'm going to be selfish here and think as a domestic actor here, this could inject positive momentum and additional positive momentum into the midterms. And I'm sorry, Blake, That's just what I believe in. I am self-focused here because I care about our country. I want domestic prosperity. I want domestic election wins. And if this can help contribute to that, and we can look at it and say, President Trump got it done, that will only bolster our case heading into the midterms. And frankly, I think that's incredibly important, not only for us, but for the world. 00:08:59 Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%. 00:09:00 Speaker 8: And I just think about Charlie. One of the things that set him apart was that he was fighting against this war. From the start, he thought it was dumb that it broke out. He thought it was avoidable. He was always trying to drive it towards peace. And it's gone on, I think, way longer than anyone expected. When it broke out, people thought this will be over in a few weeks. And we've seen those guests who predicted it would be over in six months over and over again. It would be great for it to finally end after four and a half years, as long as World War I and about as destructive. 00:09:30 Speaker 3: Well, I agree. Charlie was dead set against this war. 00:09:33 Speaker 7: He hated it. And we hate it. And we hate watching Christians get murdered and killed and maimed in that region of the world. So let's pray for peace, everybody. 00:09:46 Speaker 3: All right. 00:09:47 Speaker 7: So as we pray for peace in Ukraine, we also have to look at the elections that are happening right here at home. And that's what we're going to spend the rest of the hour doing. We've got a jam-packed show. We're going to go over this Amy acting. mother ad from the Ramaswamy campaign and talk about the ethics of it because it's caused quite the stir. We're also going to focus on we've got a new drop out of Maricopa County. We're going to have Matthew Martinez from Turning Point Action join us as well as Rich Barris going around the horn looking at all the latest pollings in the early drops. But let's get into this Amy Acton ad, okay? I don't want to actually play it because I think, you know, there's a lot going on here, but I will. 00:10:28 Speaker 3: Read to you what it says, all right? 00:10:32 Speaker 7: So it's a roughly 60-second ad featuring Donna Arthur. And you could play the ad, I guess, with B-roll, but I'll describe it here. Donna Arthur says, who identifies herself as Amy Acton's mother. Now, Amy Acton, of course, is the Democrat candidate for governor in the state of Ohio. She says she loves her daughter, but Amy has a serious problem, calls her a liar, and states she lies about her past. 00:10:57 Speaker 3: She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. 00:10:59 Speaker 7: She lied her entire life. She accuses her own daughter of lying about her opponent and urges Ohioans not to elect her. Don't let her become your governor. If you think she's going to make your life better, you're fooling yourself. She needs help, and she can't help you if she needs help. So the ad circulates widely on X. I saw it everywhere. I didn't engage with it because candidly bringing family into a campaign ad just struck me initially as being something that I needed to pay special attention to, be a little more careful with. But then we find out this other part of the story, Blake, that apparently the mom– while she denies it, that Amy Acton was sexually assaulted. Her brother has stood by her charges here. And the stepfather, Cledith Arthur, who she alleges abused her between the ages of roughly nine and 12, he was arrested, charged with rape involving a child under 13 and later died in 2004. And Amy Acton's mom stayed with this man up until his death. So now Vivek Ramaswamy has said that this did come from his campaign and they are pouring four million dollars behind it so i think this is a lot of ethical questions here it raises a lot of is this a huge backfire is this a huge backlash blake i'm going to start with your take and then i'll give you mine what do you make of this. 00:12:26 Speaker 8: As far as the issue honestly like the ethical issue i don't know that it's not so much as much that the ad exists if let's just grant if it was true that amy acton told really fabulous stories about her past, about being homeless, living in a tent, overcoming a lot of abuse. If that was false, that would be something that is worth pointing out and arguing about. 00:12:51 Speaker 3: If it was true. 00:12:52 Speaker 8: Because just in the same way, that it was a news story with that professor at Cambridge who was making a lot of stuff up, or the way, what's his name in Maine? He was telling all these fabulous stories and also trying to cover up bad stuff he'd done. If it was true, I think that would be a worthy story for an opponent to point out, even if it was the mom getting involved. Unfortunately, the problem here is it seems that her stepfather literally was criminally charged with a lot of this abusive behavior, and so it's difficult to certainly now, to make the case that it was all false. And I'm worried that maybe the campaign just overreached. They thought they had something perfect and they didn't dive perfectly into old newspapers. And I agree, it is disconcerting how much they love to bring family in, but because the allegations in this case would at least be something pretty serious, I'm a little more sympathetic. What really bothers me is when they've done, like the left has done this all the time, where they'll just drag out a family member to just say, oh, Stephen Miller is evil. Oh, here's Mary Trump to say that Donald Trump is just a piece of crap. And that actually bothers me a lot more because it is just sowing discord within families for purely political reasons. So weirdly, I would be more bothered by it if it was a more mild attack, actually. 00:14:13 Speaker 3: Interesting. 00:14:13 Speaker 7: Vivek Ramaswamy is standing by it. He's defending the ad satin. 00:14:23 Speaker 11: It is an ad from our campaign. And the thing that I want to say is that I would love for this race and this election to be about the substantive issues that impact Ohioans. And unfortunately, Amy Acton has been hiding from those issues. She won't debate me. She doesn't allow cameras at her events. And I think her record of continuously, certainly during this campaign, I would say spreading some defamatory, disparaging lies about me and my family, that does deserve to be scrutinized. 00:14:58 Speaker 3: All right, so Vivek's sort of doubling down saying, hey, she's lying about me. 00:15:03 Speaker 7: We think this is an important ad. And they are pouring $ 4 million behind it. Now, I've heard a little bit behind the scenes that there were people that actually did suggest to the rama swami campaign not to air this ad and they chose to do so anyways here's where i'm a little bit split blake i actually do think amy acton is a crazy person there are reports of her in during covid because she was working as you know sort of the the the public health i don't know what their title is in ohio but she was in an official position appointed by dewine and when everything was going down and things were getting tough she was curled up into a ball and on the floor, apparently. This is verbatim. These are reports that you'll hear that she was actually curled up into a ball, didn't show up, basically bailed on the job because things got tricky during COVID for a lot of states. I don't think that this person is fit to serve. I don't think that this person is mentally stable, actually. I do think there are elements of truth here. But when you have a court that convicted the person that she said abused her as a child, You've got to err on that side, in my opinion. I think this is political malfeasance to let this ad go forward because he was convicted. The brother is standing by her allegations and the statements she's made about their childhood. And who would know better than the brother? So I think regardless of the fact that there might be elements of truth in this ad and that hearing it from her biological mother, that she's apparently estranged from, that the last time she claims, Amy Acton claims that she saw her mother was in court many, many years ago and that they've been estranged ever since. So you've kind of got to err on the side of, hey, the courts still matter. The verdict still matters. This guy went away for child sexual assault and rape. I mean, those are serious charges and serious convictions in this case. And so While I am conflicted because I actually do believe there is some elements of truth here, you've got to find another way to express it because this ends up being egg on your face. 00:17:10 Speaker 3: It's caused a bunch of controversy. 00:17:12 Speaker 7: It's driving up sympathy for somebody that I think is unfit for office, somebody I think is actually mentally unstable. And so I think it's kind of a self-own, unfortunately. I still would much rather to have Vivek Ramaswamy be governor of Ohio than But this was a huge risk, and I think it's ultimately going to backfire. 00:17:32 Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, it's like the old line about when Napoleon, he did some, I won't dive into the history, but one of his advisors said it was worse than immoral. 00:17:42 Speaker 3: It was a mistake. And really, we're in politics. 00:17:45 Speaker 8: Your goal is to win, and I don't know that this took us closer to winning. And that's unfortunate, because as you say, Amy Acton is nuts. We know she's nuts for things that are public record today. That's what we should emphasize. 00:17:59 Speaker 3: Gentlemen, let's get real for a second. 00:18:01 Speaker 7: Are you frustrated with today's woke dating scene, the apps, the games, the endless swiping? It's a waste of time. Finding a woman who shares your values, faith, family, patriotism, if it feels nearly impossible, it doesn't have to. Selective Search, America's leading matchmaking firm, is changing the game. They connect strong, successful men like you, men who love God, love America, want a family, with women who share your values. These are intelligent, faith-driven women who put family first and still believe in traditional values. 00:18:33 Speaker 3: Imagine that. 00:18:34 Speaker 7: If you're a single conservative man in his late 30s to early 50s in Southern California, listen up. Selective Search has an exclusive network of women ready for the real thing. Here's the best part. Their candidate program is 100% free and confidential. Some of our closest friends of the show have used Selective Search, and let me tell you, They're meeting great, great women, high-quality women. 00:18:56 Speaker 3: This is your chance. This isn't an app. It's your answer. 00:19:00 Speaker 7: The perfect conservative woman is out there waiting for you. Visit SelectiveSearch.com slash California today. Let the professionals introduce you to women already looking for someone like you in Southern California. Don't wait for the perfect match. Take action now. Go to SelectiveSearch.com slash California and start building the future you deserve. We've got actually two guests on right here at the top. Matthew Martinez, he's in studio, strategic director at Turning Point Action. We have a massive new Maricopa County ballot drop. 00:19:35 Speaker 3: Earlies are in. We have a new report. 00:19:36 Speaker 7: And then, of course, we have Rich Barris, who needs no introduction to this audience, the People's Pundit, big data poll, and author of Burn It Down, What the Polls Say Young Americans Really Want. All right, Rich, I know you got a lot to say. We got this whole Wedgwood thing. I know you're just primed and ready. But Matthew, major, major new drop. Tell us what we know now out of this new drop that just came out in from Maricopa. 00:20:00 Speaker 6: Well, good morning, and thank you very much for having me on the podcast. It's an honor to be here. And just minutes ago, Maricopa just released a new drop of data. And I just tweeted this out. 00:20:13 Speaker 3: Good stuff. 00:20:15 Speaker 6: Republicans won this drop here in Maricopa County, here in Arizona. 00:20:20 Speaker 3: Boom. 00:20:21 Speaker 6: So Republicans made up 38.9% of this drop. Democrats had 37.3%. Others include Independents, Green Party, everybody else other than Republican and Democrat. Made 23.8 with a total of 76,000 ballots in this morning drop. Republicans had a 1.6 vote advantage. This is great stuff. This is twice in a row now. So yesterday we had a Maricopa drop and we won that. So this is the second one and we're expecting this trend to continue with the Maricopa. 00:20:58 Speaker 8: And so how does that trend work out in terms of like, let's compare it to 24 or 22, like what we're looking for in terms of like, we want to win of course, but we're, everyone's comparing it to prior elections as well. 00:21:10 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:21:10 Speaker 6: Looking at the trend right now, it's, it's relatively the same, um, number. So looking at as, as 2022. 00:21:19 Speaker 12: Okay. 00:21:20 Speaker 6: So 2024 had a higher turnout number on day. I think today's day 16, um, or 13, excuse me, 13 days ago on today's day 15. We're a little bit behind from 2022, but it's right there. Pretty, pretty much linear. 00:21:40 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:21:40 Speaker 7: And just to put this in perspective, by the way, everybody in, I actually think we're ahead of 2022. I want to check the math there, Matthew, but just to put this in perspective, we didn't win an early drop until the Friday before the election in 2022. So, Rich, you've been loud and proud out there talking about the early vote infrastructure that's been set up in states like Nevada and Arizona. Turning Point Action is proudly embracing that movement, embracing that mantle. When you see numbers like this compared to other things you're seeing, you're seeing the effects of the door knocking, of the ballot chase. 00:22:15 Speaker 13: Yeah, this is why I stress this as much as I do. And you just said something I was just going to say, which is that Yeah, I know it may look like it's pretty similar, but it's very difficult. And I always caution people every year, try not to overanalyze everything. But there, of course, are some important things to note. You didn't win an early drop. 00:22:33 Speaker 5: You're two days ahead. 00:22:34 Speaker 13: So it compared to 2022. So primary vote is predictive. I would expect this trend to continue where Republicans get the early vote period and not just Arizona, but a lot of other places as well, basically everywhere else. The early vote should and probably will get more red as time goes on. Liberals tend to front load a lot in almost all states except for Nevada. There's some weird– like every state has its own culture. 00:22:58 Speaker 5: Guys, all right? 00:23:00 Speaker 13: And every state has a different baseline. Democrats this year are even changing their vote method behavior, which is learned behavior. Parties teach voters how they want them to vote. This in Arizona. I even see it in Texas, by the way, which prioritized in-person early vote and voting early. In states where it has infrastructure, the investment went in, the word got out, you can see a big difference. 00:23:24 Speaker 5: And by the way, we saw it in the primaries as well. 00:23:27 Speaker 13: Yes, Democrats in Texas edged out, but they were still a decent turnout there. In Arizona, you guys were a bright spot where we looked and we said, wow, okay, primary. 00:23:36 Speaker 5: Voting looks good. 00:23:37 Speaker 4: Go ahead. 00:23:38 Speaker 3: Sorry. 00:23:39 Speaker 5: And that's because we're putting the work in. 00:23:41 Speaker 3: We're putting the work in, Rich. Nevada too, Andrew. 00:23:44 Speaker 4: Nevada too. Yes, exactly. 00:23:46 Speaker 3: And we're working hard in Nevada. 00:23:47 Speaker 7: So we're actually, just to fact check this, it's our 1.8 versus 2022. So we are ahead almost two points at this same stage as we were in 2022, almost two points ahead. 00:24:00 Speaker 3: Of where we were. 00:24:01 Speaker 13: And that was kind of true even before you won the drop, by the way. You know, it's been trending like that, which is good because you expect it to get redder as. 00:24:09 Speaker 5: Time goes on. 00:24:10 Speaker 12: Yeah. 00:24:11 Speaker 7: All right, Matthew, I know you're busy. So Matthew's one of our number crunchers over there. He's building the models. You see that heat map from Maricopa. That's what Matthew's spending his days and nights doing right now, burning the midnight oil. 00:24:23 Speaker 3: We're proud of him. 00:24:24 Speaker 7: So I know you've got to head back, Matthew, but really quick, what's the action plan? Where do we want to drive people? Commit 100. The floor is yours, my friend. 00:24:33 Speaker 3: Correct. 00:24:34 Speaker 6: Commit 100. If you're in Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, or anywhere in the country, We will be happy to have your help in those three states. The path to the White House goes through those three states. And in order to make sure that we have a Republican in the White House in 2028, we need to win those three states. So Commit100 is where you could go. 00:24:59 Speaker 3: Commit100. 00:24:59 Speaker 12: Com. 00:24:59 Speaker 4: Sign up there. 00:25:02 Speaker 6: Help us save those three states. But also, the numbers are showing this, is that low-propensive Republican voters are voting exponentially. And that's because of these programs that we have in these three states. Our Chase the Vote program, Commit 100, volunteers who are calling in Republicans left and right and ensuring that they get their ballots in. So if you still have your ballot at home, get it in as soon as possible. Is that the ballot that I see that you have kept at home? I'm going to be voting today. So I brought my ballot. I'm going to go drop it off today. That is how easy it is. I filled it out. Make sure you sign the affidavit on the ballot. 00:25:38 Speaker 3: Drop it off. 00:25:39 Speaker 6: And then we'll see this ballot in the coming days in the numbers. 00:25:44 Speaker 4: Amen. 00:25:44 Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us, Matthew. Great work, my friend. 00:25:47 Speaker 7: And we'll keep in close touch as these days progress. Throw up 151 here. What he's talking about, support Charlie's mission, take a vacation to help save America and chase 100 ballots. tpaction.com slash 100. Scan that QR code. We'll put you in a hotel. We'll get you all set up. 00:26:04 Speaker 3: We'll give you the app. 00:26:05 Speaker 7: And then you get 100 names of low propensity voters. Rich, here's something interesting I want to get your take on. As it stands right now, and these are preliminary numbers, we've got to turn out, turn out, turn out. But as it stands right now, Rich, we're winning in 0 out of 4, 1 out of 4, 2 out of. 00:26:24 Speaker 3: 4, 3 out of 4 voters. We're winning the low props right now. 00:26:29 Speaker 13: I was just going to stress what he just brought up, which is that it's not just the infrastructure, and you can see it in just straight-up returned ballots. The only other state is Florida, where they're doing a better job getting out low-prop voters. 00:26:42 Speaker 5: Arizona, New Hampshire. where these vote. 00:26:46 Speaker 13: Chasing operations are, you can very clearly see a difference, guys. It is very important to get the low props in during the early vote period and cannot wait until the last minute. That's the best strategy is to bank your low props early so you can divert the rest of your resources when we get to election day to people who are very easy to turn out and we know are high propensity. So you can see it all over Nevada, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Florida. are bright spots compared to where, honestly, Democrats are destroying Republicans in Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, et cetera, when it comes to those low prop voters. 00:27:22 Speaker 5: I mean, it's very clear difference, brother. 00:27:28 Speaker 13: We don't really have enough yet for me to draw a lot of conclusions in Texas. I saw everybody made a big deal about Travis. Yes, Democrats are doing very good. Let's give it till the end of the week before we can say who's getting their low props out more. I like what I see for Republicans right now in Texas. And we know that there is a it's just a very heavy Arlene. I am not telling people to sleep on this race. It's dead even in our polling. But if Republicans get out enough of their vote, they'll eat this thing out. 00:27:56 Speaker 5: So don't sleep on it. 00:27:57 Speaker 13: And remember, in Arizona, Kerry Lake had anywhere between like a four to 18 point lead in the polls going into twenty twenty two. because of how it was simple about turnout. 00:28:08 Speaker 5: We all know kind of the wacky stuff that happened that day. 00:28:10 Speaker 13: I got subpoenaed to testify about it because I conducted an exit poll that day. 00:28:15 Speaker 5: And there were election day voters who couldn't get to the polls. You can beat the polls. All right. 00:28:20 Speaker 13: And Andy Biggs is not in the position that Hobbs was against Lake. 00:28:24 Speaker 4: She's not. 00:28:25 Speaker 5: Or he's not. 00:28:26 Speaker 4: Amen. Amen. 00:28:27 Speaker 3: All right. 00:28:28 Speaker 7: So, so listen, I, I don't know if this, I want to get into this Wedgwood, but I think it's a bombshell. And I think, I think there's so much to get into. I know Blake, Blake has a ton to get into. So why don't just Blake, why don't you explain what, what happened? And then we'll get some analysis from rich on the other end. 00:28:44 Speaker 3: It's exactly what's crazy. 00:28:46 Speaker 8: This is the second time it's happened in this cycle, a pollster people caught somewhat suspicious looking data from Wedgwood. And we don't know if this is them trying to get ahead of it or if they are revealing what they were always doing. But this Wedgwood pollster, I do group that was about one point more democratic, uh, than the consensus of polls overall. So they are a Democrat-leaning pollster. They come out and they issue this letter where they say, yeah, our polls are fake. We need to reform the polling system because you all keep falling for them. And it was in Nate Silver's estimates that so many. 00:29:19 Speaker 3: People look for. 00:29:19 Speaker 8: He's had to shift his outcome in Michigan, for example, by more than half a point just by taking out this pollster. 00:29:25 Speaker 14: And. 00:29:27 Speaker 8: So literally, a major pollster that's pro-left. 00:29:29 Speaker 3: Is fake, and they admitted that it's fake. 00:29:30 Speaker 8: And we now have two of them. 00:29:31 Speaker 3: How many of these fake pollsters are there? I can 100% confirm that. 00:29:34 Speaker 5: That was an attempt. 00:29:35 Speaker 3: To get ahead of him, get ahead of the news. 00:29:37 Speaker 4: He was busted. 00:29:37 Speaker 13: He had no intention of pretending that he was a social experiment. He was faking polls, and he was also trading on fake polls. There's a whole other level to this story. The saddest part, and I don't see the clock, but the saddest part is he only got busted because of a personal gripe that went back and forth, not because the tipper, who I know it is, thought they were going to do the right thing. 00:30:03 Speaker 5: That's the worst part about it. 00:30:04 Speaker 13: This industry needs a total overhaul, which I would love to talk about. 00:30:07 Speaker 5: But look, Mr. 00:30:08 Speaker 13: Guru Nate Silver weighted that poll more than the New York Times poll because Nate thinks he's smarter than everybody else. 00:30:14 Speaker 5: Humiliated again. 00:30:17 Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness. 00:30:18 Speaker 7: Or was Rich Barris on the other side of this break? Thank you, Matthew Martinez, Turning Point Action. Keep up the good work, my friend. Rich Barris, author of Burn It Down. Everybody should check out a copy. I know that book has done gangbusters, Rich, and I think we're going to be confronting some of the realities that you tried to expose in that book in this midterms. 00:30:38 Speaker 3: Hopefully not too painfully. 00:30:40 Speaker 5: Not too badly. 00:30:41 Speaker 3: Let's go around the horn. What's that? 00:30:45 Speaker 5: I said, hopefully not too bad. 00:30:47 Speaker 3: Let's make it a reasonable. Exactly. 00:30:49 Speaker 7: You know, Hey, listen, I'm, I'm looking at Russia, Ukraine, man. If we can get a peace deal there, I think that's going to be another boon. I think that, listen, I'm not dooming on this election. It's all about turnout. It's a base turnout election. I think Trump's rallies are having an impact, but let's, let's go, let's go around the horn here really quick. 00:31:08 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:31:09 Speaker 7: And let's just do rapid fire rich. Cause we've got a lot of States to get to Ohio. All right, we've got a Senate race. We've got a gubernatorial. The Amy Acton ad is blowing up over there in Ohio. What are you seeing there? What are your chances that we hold the governor's mansion? 00:31:24 Speaker 3: Maybe we get that Senate seat. 00:31:26 Speaker 13: We're going to go back in Ohio. That's one of eight states we're going to go back into on Friday. Sherrod Brown is an extremely strong candidate for the state of Ohio for U.S. 00:31:35 Speaker 5: Senate. 00:31:36 Speaker 13: He's done it before. He knows how to do it. He's run a very good campaign, just being totally realistic here. That being said, again, guess what? There are a lot more Republicans in Ohio than there used to be, right? Even when Sherrod Brown ran against Moreno in 24. 00:31:53 Speaker 5: But you got to get him out. I mean, that's really that simple. Vivek, we had him up the last time. We'll see again. 00:31:59 Speaker 13: I've heard it's reversed now, which is why I'm glad we're going back in. I've heard that it. 00:32:05 Speaker 5: Looks like Usted is closing strong. Vivek, I trust. 00:32:08 Speaker 13: My own numbers more than I trust anybody else's. But it's well within the sampling era, guys, for the Midwest. This is really important for everybody to understand. Polling eras aren't just universal. They've been really bad in, once upon a time, Florida. Um, even though they still were in 24 for Donald Trump, I was the only one who had them up over a little over 13 points, but the Midwest really bad. We were the only ones who advance up by seven. I mean, you remember guys, the polls at Marist USA, USA today, they were tied. 00:32:36 Speaker 3: I remember they were tied. 00:32:37 Speaker 7: You, would you give, would you give Husted a better chance than Vivek at this point in time? 00:32:41 Speaker 3: I know you haven't gone back. 00:32:42 Speaker 5: I think I would. I think, I think I would. 00:32:46 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:32:46 Speaker 3: Um, what about Florida? You mentioned Florida. How's Byron looking? 00:32:50 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:32:51 Speaker 13: I like what I see for turnout. I like what I see for turnout in Florida. Is it, you know, presidential level? No, but I think Byron Donald's is going to be okay. Don't sleep on it, please. For the love of God, don't sleep on it. But I think it is very difficult to turn out, turn out. 00:33:05 Speaker 3: Turn out, turn out. 00:33:06 Speaker 13: And I am getting stuff from all over the country. Andrew, the cell phone footage I'm getting. I like what I say. 00:33:12 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:33:13 Speaker 7: And I'm just seeing a 1.4, 1.5 hour wait in noonday, Texas. The post says, Talrico kicked the hornet's nest in the Bible Belt. So I hope that that holds in Texas. Get out, get out, get out. Turn out, turn out, turn out. Let's go to Michelle Tafoya, and let's also hit Michigan. How are we shaping up? Flanagan, Wall Street Journal had a story that Flanagan was basically lying about her resume, lying about her education background. So that's another little story in Tafoya's corner here. How are you feeling about that race? Is it going to surprise us? 00:33:46 Speaker 5: Look, we had it up. 00:33:47 Speaker 13: We had Tafoya was down by only two. I was a little bit concerned about the undecideds. They were very Twin City, very left. But again, there's something going on over there. Flanagan's just a terrible candidate. Again, swings are not universal, and candidate quality matters. Tafoya's a good candidate for the state of Minnesota. 00:34:03 Speaker 5: Flanagan is not. 00:34:05 Speaker 13: So if there is a shocker, it's going to be either Minnesota or the one you just brought up. Which in a normal year, I would just kind of– it's not like he's favored. So I don't want to give anybody a false impression. But there definitely is a path for Mike Rogers in Michigan. 00:34:20 Speaker 2: There is. 00:34:21 Speaker 5: I mean, you have– I don't know if you guys saw it this morning. 00:34:24 Speaker 13: MSNBC was having a meltdown over the decisions Abdul Syed has made. He's out in the Upper Peninsula, and I know what he's trying to do. He's trying to reassemble like a Bernie Sanders-like coalition. His idea is that you can't only leave when you're facing MAGA and an angry MAGA. You can't just do what Harris and Hillary did, which is leave it up to the blue areas in southeastern Michigan and elsewhere in Ann Arbor and in Detroit. You have to go and pull some of Trump's working class base away. That's mad about the cost of living. I get what he's trying to do, but, boy, you've got a problem in Detroit, and I can see it. And I can even see– I mean Mike Rogers is tight in that race. 00:35:02 Speaker 4: He's not up. Absolutely. 00:35:05 Speaker 13: Rogers is doing significantly better with Jewish voters, and that's not a small feat. 00:35:11 Speaker 5: If there's a marginal drop-off, yes. 00:35:14 Speaker 13: And if there's a marginal drop-off with black voters, who, by the way, because he was on the ballot with Donald Trump in 2024… There are many young black men who voted for Mike Rogers more than they would a regular Republican already because Trump was on the ballot and they went out to vote for Trump. He didn't do as well as Trump did, but what I'm saying is there are already voters who have. 00:35:36 Speaker 5: Said, eh, I voted for this guy before. So it is psychological. Look, I still think– Muscle memory. Yeah, absolutely. It's muscle memory, brother. Exactly. I still think it's Michigan. It's hard in the midterm, but if we were going to do it, it would be this year. 00:35:52 Speaker 8: Rich, it does feel to me like each race, obviously politics is much more national than it was 20 years ago or certainly 50 years ago, but it does feel a lot of these races are suddenly, they're taking on a very particular character to them and that could end up, it could end up bailing us out in states that would tilt blue. It feels very funny that simultaneously in red states, it feels like we're seeing some candidates like Vivek in Ohio make these mistakes where it feels like almost like there's a curse on them where bad things keep happening. But then the left is having it happen in their own states that, in Minnesota, in Michigan, in their blue-tilted states, their campaigns feel a little cursed, and they keep stepping in it over and over again. 00:36:32 Speaker 13: It's, you know, you said that, it's funny you say that, Blake, because a lot of people have been comparing this election to 06, but for different reasons than what I'm about to say. And I put up a table first, and I thought, okay, maybe people didn't get it, because it didn't seem like they did. So I put up an interactive map showing the Democratic swing in 06. Democrats won the generic ballot By a little under eight, it was 7.9. They outperformed among the 33 Senate states by. 00:36:57 Speaker 5: About four points. 00:36:59 Speaker 13: Yet if you go around the map, the swing was weird. And what accounted for that? Candidate quality, right? The unique characteristics of that race. I feel like we may have hit a peak of what you just said before where it's like people– I understand we're in a partisan environment. 00:37:16 Speaker 5: What happened to us in 25? We got clobbered. 00:37:18 Speaker 13: Because it was nationalized everywhere down to tax collector. It just feels to me like that's maybe not the case in some of these, in a lot of these states now. So I shared that map to show, look, Brown, when he beat Mike DeWine. 00:37:32 Speaker 5: He pivoted that state by 16 points. That was huge. 00:37:36 Speaker 13: But when Claire McCaskill won, again, somebody who just had a special election, by the way, not that, you know, a couple of years before, it was a very small pivot. So what accounted for that? Candidate equality. 00:37:47 Speaker 5: So, I mean- You might see this again. 00:37:52 Speaker 3: Okay, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, South Carolina. 00:37:55 Speaker 7: Are you worried we might see any surprises in the negative column in any of those three states? 00:38:01 Speaker 3: 15 seconds. 00:38:02 Speaker 9: I am. 00:38:03 Speaker 13: Less so Nebraska than Kansas, but I am worried about Darlene and South Carolina. There's a huge chunk of voters who don't want to vote for Graham, and it's just the last name. 00:38:12 Speaker 5: I'm sorry it's real. And by the way, Wilson's crushing it. Crushing it. So it's real. 00:38:18 Speaker 7: Rich Barris, big data poll, the People's Pundit, an author of Burn It Down. 00:38:23 Speaker 3: Get a book, get a copy. Support Rich's work. Thank you, my friend. We'll talk to you soon. 00:38:27 Speaker 5: All the best, guys. 00:38:28 Speaker 2: Keep it up. 00:38:29 Speaker 5: Go vote. 00:38:32 Speaker 7: I talk about jobs and industries on this show all the time, but I didn't expect to find an entire skills trade community on TikTok. Plumbers, electrician, builders, and contractors sharing the work they do every day. And it went way beyond tips and tricks. People were sharing their craft, connecting with local contractors, and talking about how they were building their businesses and growing their teams. It opened my eyes to how people in the trades are using TikTok to share their skills, make connections, and find new opportunities. I remember thinking, this is exactly what we need more of, people sharing what they know and creating opportunities for others. And I never expected to find a community like this that's the thing about TikTok. You start with something you know, and suddenly you're finding a whole new side of it that surprises you and leaves you wanting to know more. Your next discovery is waiting for you on TikTok. Learn more at TikTok.com slash discover more. We've got so much to get to still. It's just one of those news days. Got Ilhan Omar updates. We've got Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. We've got a fraud bounty system now, an incentive to report fraud. If you are a citizen journalist, please take advantage of that. But one of the, I think, underappreciated aspects of Trump 2.0 at this point was what happened at Doge. Now, I was a big fan of Doge. Charlie was a huge fan of Doge. And we have an expert to talk about, hey, maybe it was even more successful than you realized. His name is Judge Glock. He's Director of Research at Manhattan Institute. And he's also Contributor Editor at the City Journal. Judge Glock, the coolest named guest we've ever had on the show. 00:40:11 Speaker 3: Please, welcome. 00:40:13 Speaker 10: Thanks so much for having me on. 00:40:15 Speaker 4: Well, excellent. 00:40:16 Speaker 7: So you have been doing research looking into the actual ongoing impacts. 00:40:21 Speaker 3: Of what happened at Doge. 00:40:23 Speaker 7: So why don't you give our audience a reminder of what Doge actually was, what it did, and what it accomplished? 00:40:30 Speaker 10: Yeah, so it's tough to remember now, but Doge started out, of course, as an inside joke about Dogecoin, a Musk-favored cryptocurrency company. Actually, I think it was just a random Twitter follower of Elon suggested the name. And they took it up and it moved into an executive order. And for about six months, it became the number one story in Washington, the most important part of the earliest part of Trump's presidency, and a real effort to cut the size of government, cut the regulatory burden, and reduce spending. Now, as I try to go into a bit in the piece you referenced earlier, It could never achieve the kind of most grandiose goals of Elon Musk, who described trillions of dollars in savings and getting rid of the budget deficit and all that. That was always improbable. But Musk is known for making large, grandiose statements, and even if not achieving them, still achieving some amount of significant success. And I tried to show in the piece he did that, most importantly, by cutting the civil service workforce. 00:41:29 Speaker 3: And what was the scale of those cuts overall? 00:41:33 Speaker 8: I've got some of these numbers here. You estimated we might end up saving like $ 600 billion over a decade just on payroll from the cuts they made. And I feel like you're not seeing that number thrown out. It's always presented like Doge just didn't achieve much, but it's actually a very real long-term thing. 00:41:52 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:41:52 Speaker 10: And so, one, there is the usual play in the media was to say, look, Doge said it was going to achieve these trillions in cuts. It only achieved X billion or whatever it is. And one, I think most Americans looking at those numbers say, well, any amount is pretty good, even if it didn't achieve what Elon, you know, had hoped for its kind of peak of power. But what I was showing is the biggest cuts were to the civil service. So In a year and a half, the federal government shed about 270,000 workers. So that's about 12% of the whole workforce. This was the fastest drop in the workforce since World War II. And yeah, a lot of people claim, hey, look, you know, most of government is Social Security and Medicare and all of that. And this isn't a big deal. The civil service workers are only a few hundred billion dollars a year, only 5% of the budget. And to my mind, I say, wait a second, a few hundred billion dollars a year is still a lot of money outside Washington, D.C. And you start adding those cuts over years and a decade. And exactly, you get hundreds and billions in savings, which should have been bigger news than it was. 00:42:59 Speaker 8: Yeah, and I've got these examples here. Veterans Affairs shrank 27,000. The civilian side of the Department of War, 85,000 fewer civilians, which if you can cut that back, that's more money you can spend on people who fire guns, who drop bombs, who fight wars, which is not the civilian side of things. But the other thing I really want to highlight and that you drive home is how so many people predicted total disaster due to these cuts, that they were going to permanently break the federal government. And so you mentioned that, okay, we cut back the National Weather Service, but they were still able to handle natural disasters that occurred, that they were predicting, oh, all of these big federal database efforts that are collecting data for the country, they're all going to start falling apart. 00:43:43 Speaker 3: And I think you have this number. 00:43:44 Speaker 8: It was about 40 of our data sets broke down out of over half a million of these exist, apparently, or USAID, that they cut staff by 90%. but the amount of money being spent on the direct health aid that they said would be catastrophically lost, that actually is about where it's been historically. It's just they cut back on staff. In fact, let's dive into that one specifically because this is the big attack on Doge that they cut back USAID and as a result, millions of people died somewhere. 00:44:17 Speaker 3: Can you respond to that one? 00:44:18 Speaker 10: Yeah, so the USAID claims and arguments was kind of the centerpiece of the case against Doge. And I'll fully admit up front, A lot of this stuff is impossible to know. We can't know exactly, you know, what changed after some of the Doge cuts went into effect. We actually don't even know what the spending in the last year has really been on health. What I try to show is what you mentioned is that the actual health spending that was appropriated by Congress was pretty stable to what it was historically, you know, up, frankly, from the early 2000s. It's a classic story of Washington. Anything that's not a huge increase must be a drastic cut. but actually we have these relatively strong levels of spending continuing. Now, yeah, most of the cuts, when people talk about 90% of USAID being devastated, they are talking about that civilian workforce, which is where the Doge cuts actually really kind of pinch for much of the federal government. And that doesn't mean millions of people are going to die if you don't have a big USAID workforce. That's not what determines it. Just like to your point about the Department of War, Those 80,000 cuts to the Department of War didn't mean the Trump administration cut military spending. In fact, quite the opposite. It obviously increased military spending. But what it was trying to do is show, hey, we can get more without the same bureaucracy. And that was similar to the case for USAID. And partially to your point about the National Weather Service and everything else, you know, you've had every journalist in D.C. and elsewhere desperately looking for these cases of how terrible the cuts have been for the country. And as I try to go through case by case, they just really haven't found them yet. Maybe they're out there. 00:45:56 Speaker 8: I went into the article and I found this specific one. 00:45:58 Speaker 3: I love this. 00:45:59 Speaker 8: So it was 38 days that's got discontinued. And one of the ones we're not getting anymore is the annual count of mink pelts produced in the United States. 00:46:07 Speaker 3: We lost that one. 00:46:09 Speaker 8: We also lost an interactive map projecting how much climate change might cost each individual U.S. 00:46:15 Speaker 3: County. 00:46:16 Speaker 8: I kind of suspect they might have gotten rid of that one regardless of Doge. Uh, but yeah, so, so much good stuff in this. And I just think it's maybe to offer some structure to this, how much have we gotten used to just bloating the federal government overall? Like why, like, are they really actually the best thing? Could they make even more cuts than they already have? 00:46:41 Speaker 10: Well, I think they certainly could. We still have about a 2 million person federal workforce and You know, it's huge enough that I think most people, even that are supporters of that size, the workforce, couldn't explain what a lot of it does. Now, you have to be careful. Like, I try to point out in the piece, too, if you look about that $ 2 million, $ 1. 4 million works for either Department of War, Veterans Affairs, or Department of Homeland Security. So the large majority work for departments that Republicans tend to support on the hold. Now, that doesn't mean you can't cut those in the civil service workforce in them. Again, I think the Trump administration in Doge showed you can do that. But is there a lot of fat in the government to cut? 00:47:20 Speaker 4: Yes. 00:47:20 Speaker 10: And we just got too used to constantly growing the size of it over the past 30 years that everyone assumed nothing could be done. And yet, here we are, 270,000 people smaller, and government seems to be operating pretty much like it did before. 00:47:33 Speaker 7: Isn't that funny? It's like Elon when he took over X all over again. He just lost 80% of the employees. Things march forward. Judge Glock, that's his name. It is the coolest name. Danny in the chat was telling us, Judge, that if you were a college football player, you'd be making millions on NIL just for the jersey sales alone. I think there's a lot of people that would love to have Glock on the back of their jersey. I'm going to be frank. 00:48:01 Speaker 8: You've gotten at least one extra podcast appearance because of that excellent name, because that totally kept your name. Like, we should have that Judge Glock guy on, because that name's amazing. 00:48:12 Speaker 10: Thank my mom for giving it to me. 00:48:13 Speaker 3: Smart woman. 00:48:15 Speaker 5: It's a good name. 00:48:15 Speaker 3: It's a good name. 00:48:16 Speaker 7: So let's talk about why did Doge end? I don't think a lot of our audience understands why. 00:48:23 Speaker 3: Or did it end? 00:48:24 Speaker 7: I mean, there's still there's still this like Doge spirit in there. There might even be people that are still from the original Doge team. I mean, I sort of foggy on the details, Judge. So what is the current state of it? And is this fraud task force kind of the natural outgrowth of what started under Doge? 00:48:41 Speaker 10: So, yeah, I mean, Doge is interesting on a bunch of levels because even though it was called a department, it actually, of course, wasn't a department. It was something that was created by executive order, and they actually didn't really have a clear line item for it. It was a bunch of people that moved into different agencies and kind of got Doge stamped on their name because they were associated with Elon or his top official, Steve Davis. And, you know, if you look at Doge at its peak, the people who are actually working for Doge, you're really only talking about 100, 120 people, which is quite astounding. You had one of the biggest stories in Washington, absolutely huge changes in government being carried out by around 100 people in this 2.3 million person workforce. So that's a big deal. And obviously, what brought it to its end was the falling out between Elon and Trump, which was temporary. I just saw Trump award a National Science Award medal to Elon, and they were obviously in very fine form together, and they were very much enjoying each other's company. But in mid-2025, it really hit a breaking point. Elon at one point had tweeted about Trump being in the Epstein files. That's how ugly it had gotten. 00:49:53 Speaker 5: Yes. 00:49:54 Speaker 4: I remember. 00:49:56 Speaker 10: That's right. That's right. 00:49:57 Speaker 3: How could we forget, Judge? 00:49:59 Speaker 8: I know. 00:50:00 Speaker 10: So many stories in the past year and a half. It's hard to remember all of them, but For a while, that was a pretty wild story. So yeah, so the falling out between Elon, Elon and the Doge team had really, let's say, pissed off a lot of people in the rest of the government. They had pushed very far and very fast to cut things, including in agencies that got Trump's ear and were a little upset about the scale of the cuts. Now, I've talked to people since who've admitted that, hey, I thought they went too far and too fast. But in retrospect, that was probably the only way to get it done. And, you know, you can kind of see the results. The proof is in the pudding of what they accomplished. And it did continue to exist as this digital reform effort in what's called the General Services Administration. 00:50:46 Speaker 7: I think that's really, I think that's smart. And I think it's accurate because that was some of the things I was hearing. I was hearing some of the, even cabinet secretaries were upset because these Doge people would come into their departments and just start slashing things. 00:50:59 Speaker 3: And they're like, hey, am I the boss here or not? 00:51:01 Speaker 7: And so it caused a lot of, a little tension within the administration because Elon Musk, if you know his history or anything, he's willing to go in and break glass. He's willing to go in and disrupt the status quo. So when we look at some of the stuff that we're seeing now with SNAP benefits, they're doing these big purges of the databases, the Social Security Administration, you're getting a big purge of the Social Security numbers that illegals had or there were duplicates. In this anti-fraud task force, Are these seeds that were planted under Doge and they've just sort of taken new form? Is it fair to say, in another sense, Doge has continued on, it's just sort of morphed? 00:51:41 Speaker 10: I think that's accurate. So again, when Doge was such a small entity and when it really didn't even have its own power base, it was effectively an arm of the White House. It had power because people knew Elon had Trump's ear and they knew they had support inside the White House itself. And so people had to listen to them, even if they weren't formally on an org chart saying you should listen to them. And so that ethos did carry out in the rest of the government, and anti-fraud became a prominent part of the Trump agenda. It obviously was a big part of the snap cuts and the Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It's become a huge part of Vice President J.D. Vance's work, and it's been a part of all of the different agencies in government now, partially because of what Doge did and partially just because people got upset about the scale of fraud that came out of COVID. And they rightfully saw the hundreds of billions of dollars lost in fraud, and nobody was doing anything about it in the Biden administration. So I think just time came around and people started to take this seriously in a way they weren't three or four years ago, or frankly, even before the pandemic. 00:52:47 Speaker 4: All right. 00:52:47 Speaker 7: So Judge, Blake tells me you are also really, really versed on housing, which seems like a departure of what we're talking about, but it's really not in a sense, because we've got these great Charlie tweets. He says, we need to quickly deport 20 million illegals and build 10 million new homes. Again, he says, if we don't improve the economic condition of young Americans, Mamdani and the destructive ideas he espouses will continue to spread. We need a moonshot, Manhattan Project style, 10 million new homes in three years, 20 million deportations and self-deportations, reform and reduce legal immigration. When it comes to housing, this is kind of where Charlie's head was at. Is that where your head is at with housing, what are you thinking about? Because it's such a huge issue to our young people at Turning Point, across the country, that are worried they're not going to be able to afford the American dream. What are you looking at in this space specifically? 00:53:38 Speaker 10: So yeah, on the immigration issue, there's been a huge amount of debate, and I get a lot of pushback for simply pointing out that you add around 7 million plus people, as we did during the peak of the Biden year's immigration surge, that's going to increase housing prices in the short term. Housing does not suddenly get built when there's a huge surge of immigrants. If you push them out, you're going to see proportionate reductions in housing prices. Now, that's not the main reason for increased housing prices. But was it a factor in the run up during the Biden years? 00:54:09 Speaker 5: Absolutely. 00:54:10 Speaker 10: Now, on the building side of it. that is still the number one issue. I used to be an econ professor, and I used to joke to my students that if I ever wake you up in the middle of a class and you didn't know what the question was, just say supply and demand, and that's probably the right answer to whatever I was asking. 00:54:27 Speaker 5: That's the case here. 00:54:29 Speaker 10: The demand went high partially because of the immigration, partially because of the work from home tendencies during the pandemic, and the supply didn't increase. We need to build more, but the government has gotten too much in the way of building both the federal, state, and local level, and we're not doing enough of it. Now, there's been a lot of effort to push at the federal level to open up more housing, but frankly, what this has to do is happen at the state and local level, and it often has to be a kind of trench warfare, piece by piece, house by house. Maybe that's urban warfare, I guess, more than trench warfare. until you actually get this stuff built. And luckily we're seeing places like Texas and Florida doing it, but places like California and New York aren't. 00:55:08 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really smart. Blake, good guest. 00:55:13 Speaker 7: Judge Glock from the City Journal and the Manhattan Institute. 00:55:18 Speaker 8: That's the same place Rufo's at. They do so much good work. You guys should read City Journal, support them, and go to them for ideas. The administration should go to them for ideas. 00:55:28 Speaker 10: They do sometimes. 00:55:29 Speaker 3: Judge Glock, thank you for your time today. Yeah. Yeah, good. 00:55:32 Speaker 10: Thank you so much, both of you. It was great fun. 00:55:34 Speaker 3: Absolutely. Thank you for that great, great research and those pieces over at City Journal. Check them out. 00:55:41 Speaker 7: An important message from Noble Gold Investments. November 3rd, control of Congress is on the line. And whatever happens, your savings are going to feel it. If Democrats take power, we could be looking at years of gridlock, followed by the same policies that fueled inflation before. More spending, bigger deficits, and a weaker dollar. We've lived through this already. 00:56:00 Speaker 3: In June. 00:56:00 Speaker 7: 2022 inflation was out of control and unchecked. Now the national debt is over $ 40 trillion and Washington isn't slowing down. What has gold done since 2022? Doubled up over 100%. 00:56:14 Speaker 3: That's right. 00:56:14 Speaker 7: You can't control what happens on election day. You can control how prepared you are. That's why so many Americans are turning to physical gold and silver. Visit noble gold investments.com slash Kirk. That's noble gold investments.com slash Kirk and download your free wealth protection kit. noblegoldinvestments.com slash kirk is your wealth protected if not now is the time to act past performance does not. 00:56:37 Speaker 3: Guarantee future results. 00:56:41 Speaker 7: All right without further ado we have chad chad maizel he's the former chief of staff at the department of justice the doj and former general counsel for the department of homeland security so chad welcome to the show i don't think we could have anybody more perfect for the ilhan omar discussion than you You've got background as general counsel at DHS, and you were the chief of staff at the Department of Justice. So this is something that our audience is really interested in. I obviously understand that Ilhan Omar is not a favorite of the MAGA base, of the conservative crowd, but we had Secretary Mullen on the show on Friday, and he said, hey, this is not political. 00:57:20 Speaker 3: This is not political at all. 00:57:22 Speaker 7: This was not going to be pursued if it was going to be perceived as political. 00:57:26 Speaker 3: Now we're hearing that they have her DNA. 00:57:29 Speaker 7: That they're looking into multiple different avenues from immigration fraud to maybe some of these issues with the finances. We're hearing from James Comer in the House that they were sending barrels of wine that were empty. I mean, tell us what you know and what you're perceiving from the signs you're seeing publicly released, what the DOJ, what the DHS, HSI are looking at specifically with Ilhan Omar. 00:57:56 Speaker 1: There's a lot of scrutiny here. 00:57:57 Speaker 4: That is clear. 00:57:58 Speaker 1: She has been one of the most scrutinized members of Congress ever since she joined. 00:58:03 Speaker 4: Even whenever she was running. 00:58:04 Speaker 1: In the local elections in Minnesota, there were members, famously the Powerline blog, which was publishing reports saying that she had married her brother, that she was engaged in immigration fraud. 00:58:14 Speaker 4: Perhaps even she was engaged in bigamy. 00:58:16 Speaker 1: Actually, even before this interview, I was reading reports dating back to 2018, accusing her of committing various crimes. 00:58:23 Speaker 4: And so the notion that she is committing crimes or something is awry is not new. 00:58:28 Speaker 1: Here's what is new. Two federal grand juries investigating her. The fact that a judge in Washington, D.C., a magistrate judge in Washington, D.C., a place not known to be particularly friendly to Donald Trump or MAGA politics, signed off on a search warrant of her D.C. 00:58:44 Speaker 4: Residence. 00:58:45 Speaker 1: Individuals went in there. They collected her passport. They collected her laptop. They collected her phone. I mean, this shows a real I would say wave of law enforcement actions. 00:58:57 Speaker 4: In addition, you have the U.S. 00:58:58 Speaker 1: Attorney in D.C., Jeanine Pirro, also talking about issues with her financial disclosure and looking into that, what's going on there. And so I would say from the both immigration fraud angle. from a financial disclosure angle, Ileana Omar must be feeling the walls closing in on her. 00:59:16 Speaker 3: Well, this is what's so interesting. 00:59:17 Speaker 7: So, you know, she was not spotted for a while. People were unclear had she fled the country. We were getting news reports that saying that the feds were looking into it and they believed that she was still in the country. But the fact that we were even talking about could she have fled was an enormous, enormous storyline yesterday. 00:59:37 Speaker 3: Now she has appeared, right? 00:59:40 Speaker 7: So she's gone on TikTok and sort of like a proof of life thing, proof of location. 00:59:45 Speaker 3: We'll play the clip. Sot 3. 00:59:48 Speaker 12: Hi everyone, Ilhan here. I just wanted to say thank you so much for the support to everyone who sent a note of support for everyone who sent $ 5, $ 10, $ 20. That goes a long way as we fight Trump and his administration for trying to intimidate me and so many people right before the midterm elections. We know that they're running scared. We're not going to be intimidated. We're not going to be silenced. We're not going to be scared. And please continue to support us. It is going to be a very expensive and challenging time. And so we appreciate whether you're able to send 5, 10, 20. Thank you. 01:00:35 Speaker 7: Which is very strange, actually, that she's soliciting donations, which you would presume would be, I guess, campaign donations. So is she going to finance her own legal fees? 01:00:45 Speaker 3: Through the campaign? Is that legal? 01:00:46 Speaker 7: Maybe you know the answer to that. And I have one other question here, Chad. How would the Feds get her DNA? 01:00:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say it's not strange once you've lived in D.C. and you understand how D.C. works, because politicians will take every effort to put themselves in the spotlight in every effort to raise dollars. I mean, it's a complete racket. It really is a shame that that is where our democracy has turned to, is that If you were on the verge of an indictment, if you were being actively investigated, you were pleading to donors saying, hey, give me more money, give me more money, give me more money. 01:01:19 Speaker 4: So am I surprised? Not at all. 01:01:21 Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same way that Dr. 01:01:23 Speaker 4: Fauci would go. 01:01:24 Speaker 1: And as soon as he left government and after convincing everybody, numerous jurisdictions to take way too draconian efforts. then saying, oh, hey, now I need to go raise money. They might come after me. Well, of course they're going to come after you. If you broke the law, if you lied to the American people, of course the American people want accountability. So too here. The American people want accountability. And so to use this as a fundraising effort, I'm not surprised by that. But it really just shows the disgusting state, I think, of our politics today. Now, the DNA thing is interesting, right? Where could it potentially lead? If there's evidence that she married her brother, right? If that marriage was a sham, that's why you've seen some reports saying that there's potentially an immigration conspiracy violation or essentially that she conspired with her brother, perhaps among other people, in order to secure citizenship for somebody else. Recall the timeline here. She was said to have become a U.S. citizen in 2000. I don't believe some of the allegations relating to her brother and things like that, ended up happening until several years later. So it's not necessarily clear that it would impact her own citizenship, but it could give rise to a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy charge. 01:02:41 Speaker 7: Yeah, and just to be clear, would it be illegal for her to raise campaign dollars than to funnel that for personal criminal defense legal work? 01:02:51 Speaker 1: You know how the FEC works and labels campaign dollars as incredibly tricky? And I'm not an expert in it, so I'd hesitate to say it would be illegal. It's a sort of complicated fact-specific test regarding whether specific dollars you are bringing in are related to campaign, is a legal effort related to a campaign. You could argue that certainly a legal effort as for lawyers are sending letters to DOJ, leaking letters that they've sent to the DOJ. It certainly has a feel for the campaign. It certainly impacts the campaign, that's for sure. But Whether it actually is a campaign violation or not, it's tough for me to say. I will say one thing, though, that is important. People have talked about statute of limitations. People have talked about, is she going to go to jail? Here's something that is unequivocal, and I think it picks up on something that Secretary Mullen said, that this is not political. It is a longstanding rule in U.S. immigration law that if you commit fraud in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen or if you are a dependent– on somebody else, in this instance her father, and he committed fraud in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, and therefore your citizenship was fraudulently obtained, there is a long-standing process by which the Department of Justice will bring a civil suit against you in order to denaturalize you, revoke your U.S. citizenship, and then ultimately deport you. 01:04:16 Speaker 4: And so I think. 01:04:17 Speaker 1: That really needs to be highlighted here, regardless of what's going on in the investigation. And again, I'm seeing a lot. I'm hearing a lot. It's clear that there's a lot swirling here. But the one thing to me that seems to be crystal clear is that if they can prove that she committed fraud or that there was any fraud surrounding her becoming a U.S. citizen, her citizenship is eligible to be revoked. And if it is revoked, then she will be deported from. 01:04:44 Speaker 4: The United States. 01:04:46 Speaker 7: Oh, that would be great. Don't get us too excited here, Chad. Go ahead, Blake. 01:04:53 Speaker 8: Because it still just feels like a dream to me. It's such a long shot. I haven't quite accepted that it could happen. Do you think there's a good possibility we maybe get a medium outcome, which is it does seem there's just a lot of shady behavior in her own life. Obviously, we've seen there's a lot of shadiness embedded within that wider community. Do you think we could get a funny outcome where maybe we don't denaturalize Ilhan Omar, but we just end up with a bunch of process crimes along the way. And she's just destroyed by that the same way they got a lot of Trump people on process stuff with the Russia collusion hoax, for example. 01:05:27 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's entirely possible. 01:05:29 Speaker 1: I'll also say that I think it's entirely possible that she goes through this election, right? She's going to continue pouring money into it. She's going to continue to try to win. If by chance she does win this election, I think she probably waits until the first week of January to And if she really feels the pressure, if she really thinks that the walls are closing in on her, I wouldn't be surprised if she resigns from Congress in order to try to take the pressure off her, maybe sort of negotiate some sort of backroom deal to say, listen, I'm going to step away and resign. And then you're in an instance where you have an open seat. The governor is appointing that seat, potentially triggering special election laws. I'm not familiar with the specific laws governing Minnesota and how those things work, but could potentially trigger a special election. And now we would have, you know, a really important seed up for grabs. 01:06:15 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting, especially on the backdrop of what President Trump has just announced, this fraud whistleblower incentive program. I'm going to play the clip just to give the full rundown here. 01:06:26 Speaker 14: Today I'm thrilled to announce the fraud whistleblower incentive program. Fraud whistleblower incentive program. 01:06:38 Speaker 4: And mark those words. 01:06:41 Speaker 14: Independent journalists and everybody and all Americans will now be able to go to the fraud.gov and report cases of corruption and theft of taxpayer dollars in their communities, all via a new website. 01:06:55 Speaker 4: Anybody that can. 01:06:58 Speaker 14: Prove that he turned somebody in, we are giving a commission to that person of 1%. 01:07:05 Speaker 3: 1% commission. That's huge. 01:07:07 Speaker 7: And it's all related because, as Blake said, there's a lot of fraud in that Somali community up in Minnesota. Nick Shirley was standing right next to the president in that announcement. And Ilhan Omar, she's a big defender of her people. Chad, this is going to be right up your alley. So out of L.A., There was a major concession made. Bill Assele was the one who broke this. Bill Assele, of course, is the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District in California. He says, massive concession. Los Angeles election officials just told a federal court they have no independent way to verify citizenship beyond what voters attest. They simply take their word for it. Under federal law, only citizens may vote in federal elections, yet California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected non-citizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. So this is wild to the average American. Now, Governor Gavin Newsom's press office account is going around saying, we follow federal law. And I think this kind of gets at the crux of the issue, why the Save America Act was so critical and why we pushed so hard for it. 01:08:16 Speaker 3: Because two things can be true at once. 01:08:18 Speaker 7: California is not going through this list of 20,000 suspected non-citizens that have been provided to it And they're not verifying anything. They're saying we don't have the ability to do so. 01:08:28 Speaker 3: L.A. 01:08:28 Speaker 7: Is saying we don't have the ability to do so. What is true here? What is federal law when it comes to non-citizens voting and checking their registration? And is it true that California is following federal law by allowing 20,000 people to go left unchecked, taking on the honor system? 01:08:46 Speaker 1: There's so much going on in California. There's so much rot there. I'm going to do my best to unpack several layers of this. The first thing that's really important to mention is is that it's not just talking about voter rolls. We're talking about under California law, who gets a mandate ballot. California isn't just expecting every citizen to show up and vote in person like they do in Florida where I'm from. And you have to specially request. 01:09:08 Speaker 4: A mail-in ballot. 01:09:09 Speaker 1: Everybody is automatically given a mail-in ballot. That's a huge problem if you have non-citizens on your rolls. Because you might have somebody who says, listen, I was applying for a driver's license, I checked a box, I accidentally registered to vote, I'm not a citizen, mea. 01:09:24 Speaker 4: Culpa, and I didn't even show up to vote. 01:09:26 Speaker 1: Well, that's no longer true if a ballot is showing up at your address. Whether you're filling it out, whether somebody else in your household is filling it out, it creates a serious problem. So what did DOJ do? DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security went through the voter rolls, which they had access to. They also went through the immigration database, which they also own and have access to. And they compared names, addresses, date of births. And they said, based on our overview of your voter rolls and our immigration database, we think these 20,000 human beings who you're about to send a ballot to, who you in fact did send a ballot to in this particular case, California the entire time said, what are you talking about? 01:10:05 Speaker 4: We follow the law. We follow the rules. We're doing everything we're supposed to do. 01:10:19 Speaker 1: And now this huge, huge, huge admission in court where they're saying we actually have no clue whether these individuals are citizens or not. I think you are actually opening out not only to probably the biggest evidence of gross negligence that I've ever seen, but at some point I wonder, have they crossed the criminal line? Whenever the Department of Justice is telling you, you are allowing non-citizens to vote. You are sending non-citizens a ballot. and you refuse to take corrective actions to fix that problem, at what point are you complicit? At what point are you aiding and abetting somebody actually committing voter fraud? 01:10:58 Speaker 8: So do you think, I mean, it would be amazing to see it. We've been asking that forever. I find myself, I almost go the other way in terms of I'm getting really worried. It does seem like California, a big state, It's almost like they're just trying to get away with if they just say we're going to not enforce any election laws at all. And my mind is going a bit further. What if California just basically just started pretending all of these illegals were citizens? They started giving them every document they could. Is there some chance where California could just massively foul up our entire system and basically... What if they laundered non-citizens as citizens and basically did a California level amnesty and they just screwed it up for the whole country? Would it be possible for them to get away with something like that if they attempted it? Because it seems like they're trying. 01:11:48 Speaker 1: I actually think we've seen instances of that happening elsewhere, not on the same scale, not at the same level. 01:11:53 Speaker 4: But think about what broke in New Jersey. 01:11:55 Speaker 1: I think it was a couple of months ago where they said, oops, you know, via a glitch, we ended up registering thousands of non-citizens, thousands of aliens to vote. But don't worry, we only have evidence that a fraction of them actually voted in the election. Some of these elections that you know come down to just a handful of votes. But it's a bigger picture issue, right? That is just the fraud you found. That's not the fraud that has yet to be uncovered. And when those same Democrat politicians are saying, don't come into our house, don't look under our bed, don't look under this rock, everything is fine and dandy, we've got it under control, leave us alone, 100%. American people are asking the questions and they're saying, well, wait a second, something seems fishy here. How come it takes you guys weeks and weeks and weeks to count votes? How come the votes that come in at the end, the tail end of your counting period, always seem to. 01:12:48 Speaker 4: Give an edge to that one candidate. 01:12:50 Speaker 1: Who nobody thought was actually competitive in the race? We saw this in LA. How come these things continue to happen in a really, really fishy way? And as soon as someone comes to take a look, You say, no, no, no, we've got everything under control. So I do think it's an issue. Listen, I think the states have been wise. I'll pour it to my home state of Florida, where I'm actually sitting right now. I think that they've done a great job when it comes to redistricting. I think it comes a great job when it comes to cleaning out corrupt officials who are often in Democrat cities, who I think have for too long turned a blind eye to what's going on and some of the corruption that we've seen in the voting. But even if it's not corruption, we talk a lot about the criminal side, and certainly that was a big focus of mine when I was doing a DOJ and Homeland Security. But there's just also an incompetence level. It is just sheer incompetence for LA, one of the largest, most populous counties in the entire United States, to say we actually have no way of knowing whether somebody who is coming up is a U.S. citizen or not. That is just fundamentally not true. 01:13:59 Speaker 4: The U.S. 01:14:00 Speaker 1: Government is required under federal law, 8 U.S.C. 1373. They are required to share immigration information with any state or local jurisdiction that asks for it. So all L.A. 01:14:12 Speaker 4: Has to do is ask for it. 01:14:14 Speaker 1: Are these people U.S. citizens, federal government? You tell us yes or no. And the federal government is required by law to provide an answer to that question. So they have perfect access to it. they don't want the answer. And that is what's most troubling to me. 01:14:29 Speaker 7: That is damning what you just said. So they're playing dumb right now. And they're refusing to do the basic steps that they could do to verify the citizenship of these voters, which is troubling. I mean, you know, there's a whole part of this conversation I wanted to get to with you, Chad, about federal databases, right? This is why President Trump signed the EO, that the USPS was only going to deliver ballots to people that were, you know, on the federal voter database and the states, all these blue states went and sued them. There's something there that they do not want to reveal. And by the way, all of this has implications for the census coming up in 2030. So we have to get on this. We have to stay on this beat. Chad Mizell, thank you so much. It was great analysis. We appreciate you. 01:15:13 Speaker 3: We'll talk to you soon. 01:15:14 Speaker 1: Thank you, guys. 01:15:19 Speaker 5: For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.