Beyond the Midterms: Getting the Ultimate Win
The Charlie Kirk ShowSeptember 29, 202601:15:4834.73 MB

Beyond the Midterms: Getting the Ultimate Win

The battle our country is in right now is not the midterms: It's a long, multi-election struggle for the ultimate fate of America. Steve Deace joins for a full hour to make the case for how conservatives should message in the final weeks of the midterm battle, and how we should move forward regardless of what the result is. Plus, Charlie was passionate about saving kids from the college scam. The show explains an excellent new Trump policy that will deflate that scam and is making the left go berserk. Sen. Eric Schmitt presents his plan to improve college sports.

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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. If the most 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. 00:00:24 Speaker 1: College is a scam, everybody. 00:00:26 Speaker 2: You got to stop sending your kids to college. 00:00:27 Speaker 1: You should get married as. 00:00:28 Speaker 2: Young as possible and have as many kids as possible. Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter. 00:00:33 Speaker 3: Go start a Turning Point USA high school chapter. 00:00:35 Speaker 2: Go find out how your church can get involved. 00:00:37 Speaker 1: 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. 00:00:45 Speaker 1: Here I am. Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. 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 1: All right. Welcome, everybody. September 29, 2026. 00:01:22 Speaker 4: I am still in our nation's capital, but Blake is holding it down at the YRefi Studios in Phoenix, Arizona. 00:01:28 Speaker 1: How we doing, Blake? 00:01:28 Speaker 5: I'm doing great. Not only do I have your mic flag, I have my mic flag. I have two mic flags. You have none. You don't even have a blank mic flag on that microphone. 00:01:37 Speaker 1: I'm not going to quibble this morning. I'm not in the mood, Blake. But I heard it's raining in Phoenix. 00:01:43 Speaker 5: It is. I told you it rains all the time here. It rained a bunch yesterday. I actually got soaked. We were out. walking to the nearby Starbucks, got completely drenched. It rained the day before. 00:01:54 Speaker 1: We don't do Starbucks around here. 00:01:55 Speaker 5: I think it's going to rain today. 00:01:57 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:01:57 Speaker 4: Anyways, I'm missing the rain in Phoenix, which seems to be my usual routine, which is why I don't believe it rains like Blake thinks it does in Phoenix. Listen, I want to start the show off with a little order of business. Blake and I sort of debated whether we should even go into it at all, but we got flooded with emails from you guys, so we know that it's on your mind. And then listen, the story went mega viral yesterday on social media. 00:02:23 Speaker 1: I was aware of it. I was watching it play out. 00:02:27 Speaker 4: I haven't really dove into it too much, but of course I'm talking about some of the allegations that were made against Candace Owens. Obviously she's made many allegations against us, and therefore a lot of you were, I think, enjoying the stories that unfolded. And I just want to say a couple things. I appreciate the emails. Thank you guys for thinking of us. Thank you for supporting us. In general terms, I don't love the salacious aspect of politics where if you have disagreements with somebody, you dumpster dive and you try and scandalize all of their past. 00:03:02 Speaker 1: And I don't like that, okay? 00:03:04 Speaker 4: I think this should be a conversation about ideas, about the future of the country, about values. 00:03:09 Speaker 1: But in this instance. 00:03:11 Speaker 4: I will say I understand and I relate to a lot of your emails because of the manner in which said person has attacked us, has attacked the organization, has attacked Erica. 00:03:21 Speaker 5: Ultimately, even when it's funny, the purpose of this show and the purpose of this organization is to save America, not to make jokes about carpets. Though it's very tempting. And we know all of you have very strong opinions on it. 00:03:34 Speaker 1: Obviously. 00:03:35 Speaker 6: But. 00:03:36 Speaker 4: uh listen yeah i just i want to say like listen in this one instance i understand why you guys are responding the way you are i understand why the internet is responding the way it is i don't love it i don't have to love it i don't even love it in this instance if i'm just being. 00:03:49 Speaker 5: I kind of do i kind of do but. 00:03:52 Speaker 4: And but you know we do want it to be about the ideas and listen i understand why you guys are reacting that's all i'm gonna say i'm all that's all i'm gonna say i understand why You guys are sending us so many emails. OK, I just want to address the elephant in the room because some people on the Internet are not. 00:04:10 Speaker 5: Someone is definitely not. 00:04:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:04:13 Speaker 4: So let's get into it. By the way, I will say, you know, I can't I don't know any of the the veracity of some of the claims. Some people seem to find it very compelling. I'm not even going to go into it because we try and honor the way Charlie would do things as much as possible on this show. And the way Charlie would do it is he would rise above it, and he would stay focused on winning. 00:04:35 Speaker 1: We have midterms coming up. 00:04:37 Speaker 4: And here's one big data point that I want everybody to fully, fully understand. We are at about 15,000 naturalizations a month. 00:04:49 Speaker 1: This level has dropped like a rock, Blake. And we're going to get into the whole college thing in just a second. 00:04:54 Speaker 4: But this number has dropped like a rock. 00:04:56 Speaker 1: We are actually at. 00:04:59 Speaker 4: In August, 15,349,000 naturalizations were approved and 4,213 were denied. That is a 21.5% denial rate. Here's what's crazy. This is literally lower immigration than pre-Heart Cellar. So when it comes to naturalizations every month, and you see it just drop like a rock. And I remember that Secretary Mullen took some fire for basically saying a million were naturalized, but he was actually, that was part of the Biden backlog and they'd already been approved and they had to kind of get through that. This is the new normal under a Trump administration. So all you black pillars, all you accelerationists, all you let's go third party, you horseshoe people, you've got no answer for that. 00:05:45 Speaker 1: You've got zero answer for that. 00:05:47 Speaker 4: Blake, in living memory, we have never seen net Migration out of the country, which we currently have. We've never seen this many actual interior enforcement deportations. 00:05:57 Speaker 1: And we've never seen naturalizations that low. 00:05:59 Speaker 5: And this is what matters the most, because a lot of people who they only ever engage with the world as soundbites and podcast episodes, they would freak out because sometimes Secretary Mullen would say something that they interpret as too pro-immigrant. And that's, frankly, something... Honestly, it might be a strategy to distract and lull people who freak out about these things. That is why, and we've always, we've heard the opposite. We've heard incredibly base takes from someone who then goes and does the same policies that we've had for decades that have been wrecking the country. That is why you have to pay attention to the facts on the ground. And what are the facts that we've seen play out over the course of 2026? It's every month getting record new numbers of arrests, record new numbers of deportations, Hundreds of flights sending people back to their home countries or to third countries that have agreed to take these illegal immigrants. And then we're seeing lower new arrivals for every type of visa, student visa, work visa, H-1B. We're seeing fewer people getting naturalized. Everywhere across the board, Trump is delivering on his promises to fix our nation's immigration system. The thing that he came down the escalator promising to do back in 2016... We're finally getting it. It is going to have a transformative effect on this country, quite literally, because for decades we were transforming this country through the opposite. That was the left's plan to just continue this unabated until you had a third world crap hole that only elects Democrats. President Trump has stopped that cold and it's a huge win. And there's other wins that are going on in the background, as we've been discussing, Andrew. 00:07:44 Speaker 1: Well, and listen, this is the issue. I completely agree. 00:07:48 Speaker 4: And then, you know, I posted about this on social media, and the same old usual suspects go, yeah, this is just a drop in the bucket. 00:07:55 Speaker 1: Well, it's like, okay, fine. 00:07:57 Speaker 4: Do you want to keep adding, you know, gallons and gallons to the bucket, or do you want to start dealing with the problem and scraping back these hard-fought wins that we're doing right now? 00:08:07 Speaker 1: What do you want? Do you want progress, or do you just want more regression? Do you want to doom and gloom, or do you actually want to– Get the problem solved. 00:08:14 Speaker 5: Nothing says– So anyways, go ahead. Nothing says that someone is addicted to losing and wants to lose than facing something like record border security, record deportations that are, in the case of deportations, escalating month over month, and they just whine, it's not enough. It's a drop in the bucket. It's nothing. When the situation is better than it has ever been and getting better– And you can't recognize that win. You can't celebrate that win. You can't go, this is incredible. More, more, more. Someone who's going to have a negative reaction to that is someone who wants to lose. And you should recognize that when someone does something like that. 00:08:53 Speaker 4: Well, and listen, if the stakes weren't already extraordinarily clear for you out there in the audience, please consider that right now there is a migrant caravan gathering steam coming up through Guatemala, up through Mexico, because they think that The polling is going to prove accurate. They think that Democrats are going to win the midterms in some landslide fashion. They think that they're going to impeach President Trump, that they're going to be able to get back into this country. That's what's happening right now. The enemy is at our doorstep. And yes, some of them, I assume, are nice people. But they are trying to evade the country. They have no right to do so. That is criminal. It must be repelled. 00:09:31 Speaker 1: Here you go. Here's Secretary Mullen on this caravan. 00:09:34 Speaker 8: I have been talking with the Mexican government. We actually have been watching this caravan for quite some time. They're also participating in helping to start break this caravan up. 00:09:45 Speaker 9: We made this very clear. 00:09:47 Speaker 8: We will flex this. With DOW, we'll flex with assets we have in DHS. We'll put the Coast Guard down there. And not to mention, remember, we are building wall every single day. There's zero, zero possibility you're going to get in here like the Biden administration and claim asylum with those magic words. 00:10:08 Speaker 4: And that, my friends, is the whole kit and caboodle. That is the whole ballgame. If you let these scoundrels, if you let the Democrat Party regain power in this country, they will let those people in. They will be your neighbors. You will see them at the DMV. You will see them at the ER. You will see them in your children's schools. 00:10:27 Speaker 1: No more. 00:10:28 Speaker 4: Vote Republican, for goodness sakes. It's that simple. A little breaking news here. Jack Smith is getting grilled before Congress. We're actually going to have Senator Eric Schmidt on in. 00:10:38 Speaker 1: Just about 30 minutes. 00:10:39 Speaker 4: 13 minutes, so I'm going to ask him about this. But according to Julie Kelly on X, Jack Smith just admitted to Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz, that he subpoenaed records of ad buys on Fox News made by conservative organizations such as TPUSA. Smith claims the subpoenas were related to false statements they were investigating. 00:10:59 Speaker 10: Okay. 00:11:02 Speaker 4: Turns out Jack Smith was all up in Turning Point's grill. And, like, what on earth? 00:11:10 Speaker 1: What on earth? Why would that qualify for an investigation? 00:11:14 Speaker 4: It's shocking stuff, but we'll ask Senator Eric Schmidt about that in just a second. So that's breaking news, breaking right here. I want to pivot our attention until then, Blake, to this story that is getting a total freak-out coverage response from the left, and that is that Trump has moved to cut off student loans for a lot of different degrees. Under the new rule, if your degree doesn't make enough money, you will not be able to get a student loan. We have told you, Charlie has told you, college is a scam, but especially certain degrees are a scam. Blake, I know you love this idea. I'm going to let you riff on it. 00:11:53 Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. And so this went They've announced this a while ago. I think the actual rules were rolling out in July, but it went mega viral a couple of days ago. Twenty six million views for a New Republic post about it on X, a bunch of other spinoffs. And what it basically is, they frame it this way. Trump is banning students from majoring in degrees that don't make enough money. from taking out college loans, degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aids, and music will be hit the hardest. They present it as though the Trump administration, as they say, banning students from majoring, like they have this thing like no one's allowed to major in music anymore, no one's allowed to study religion anymore. No, no, here is what is going on. The default for ages has been that the federal government will let people take out huge amounts, basically infinite amounts of student loans to study anything they want. And as we know, this has entrapped and hurt millions of Americans because they've taken out money for degrees that it turns out don't translate to a higher paying job. Who wins in this? The schools are winning in this. They win because they get all of the money and they have no accountability for making sure that the person they were educating actually has a career at the end of this. They get rich, the student gets screwed. And so the Trump administration says, wait a minute, why are we funneling taxpayer money to pay loans that often won't be repaid and that will make the recipient worse off? That is a bad use of money. And so they say, we're going to find programs, not even degrees, just programs at specific schools where they say consistently, the people who study this, the person studying social work at this university says, is not getting a job where they do any better than a person who never got a degree at all. And they're going to say, well, in that case, we're not going to have loans go to that. We're only going to have loans go to something where there is some sort of value add from that degree. And this is something Charlie harped on. over and over again, that so many college programs were a scam. And the Trump administration is saying, we still have student loans, but it's only going to go to things that are not obviously a scam. This is something to protect young Americans. And it says everything that the left is freaking out about this. And here's why they're freaking out about it. They are freaking out because their clients, the people they care about, are universities. These universities, they've gotten rich for decades off of the student loan scam. They hike tuition a ton every year. They pay for more programs, more administrators, more salaries. A big thing that they pay for is do-nothing jobs for young left-wing activists so they can park them somewhere and have their real job of left-wing activism, that has all been funded by the endless student loan spigot. And the Trump administration is finally saying, actually, wait, we don't need to pay for this. We don't need to have taxpayer money go to enrich schools and impoverish students. 00:14:55 Speaker 1: I completely agree. Get this stat, Blake. 00:14:57 Speaker 4: By borrower count, more than 9.3 million recipients of federal loans are in default out of 40.5 million. 00:15:05 Speaker 1: With outstanding federal student loans. 00:15:06 Speaker 4: So almost one-fourth, 23% of borrowers, have at least one loan in default. So basically what the federal government is doing is saying, hey, certain degrees are a bad bet. 00:15:18 Speaker 1: It's a bad business deal. 00:15:19 Speaker 4: We wouldn't give a loan to a company if we didn't think it could turn a profit. In the same way, we're not going to give a loan to certain degrees if they don't have earning potential in the future. And to your point, Blake, these are future activists. What we are doing is we are enriching the academy, which turns out activists, which is headed and taught by and staffed by far-left professors ideologically opposed to American values. So the taxpayer has been subsidizing the degradation of the nation state. And it typically comes in terms of these liberal arts degrees that hold very little value to the country. Now, here's one last thing I'll say. We have talked about the French Revolution. We have talked about other revolutions throughout history, and they are led by these low elites, people with college degrees that are downwardly mobile, that are angsty and ticked off, and they're just smart enough to cause a bunch of problems. 00:16:15 Speaker 1: That's who we are telling. 00:16:17 Speaker 4: telling right now the federal government is saying, we're not going to subsidize your crappy degrees that pay off nothing for the taxpayer. That's as simple as that. 00:16:24 Speaker 1: Go ahead, Blake. 00:16:25 Speaker 5: Precisely, precisely. And, you know, I want to get, because we said, Charlie literally wrote an entire book about this. He talked about it endlessly. I want to get one of those ready to go. This is just one of many clips Charlie pointing out The way the college scam works. Let's do clip 17. 00:16:39 Speaker 2: Just to be clear, the vast majority of people going to college should not go. Just one number off the top is that 40 percent of kids that enroll in college, they drop out. They don't graduate at all. And the vast majority of kids are studying things that humanity, sociology or gender studies. There is, of course, a role for some people to go to college that requires some technical proficiency. But what happened, Brian, is that the entire value proposition was turned on its head. is whether it be the $ 200, 000 plus of cost that it occurs for over four years, the bad ideas, the woke ideology, we're really playing with some very dangerous elements here. And so I encourage young people to think twice before going to college, and not everyone needs to go to college to succeed in America. 00:17:21 Speaker 5: Amen, amen. Not everyone needs to go, and this will actually, in the long run, this will make college better, because we'll actually encourage the schools themselves... to have programs that are useful, or if they are not going to be as lucrative, then they'll at least be cheaper. If you're going to study something just for edification, you need a professor and a blackboard and a reading list, and you can read those books online these days. You don't need to be spending $ 75, 000 a year to study it, which some of these schools charge. I am massively in favor of this. We need to break this cartel that unthinkingly funnels education federal dollars to universities that hate America and that are exploiting America's young people. This is a win for young people. It is the federal government coming in and saying, we are protecting you from a scam that is preying on you. 00:18:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, my only critique is that it doesn't go far enough, Blake. I want this to go even deeper. I think there's whole disciplines, entire disciplines that should be added to this list. No federal student loans. And that is ultimately going to be a reforming function. that will force the academies to be better, to be more ideologically balanced, to have degrees that actually offer skills. So we are pro this, but go farther, okay? Allow me to ask you a quick question. When was the last time, if ever, you got a second opinion on your mortgage? Or if you're renting, have you ever wondered if owning a home might actually be more within reach than you think? The truth is a lot has changed over the last few years. Home values have changed. Interest rates have changed. Lending programs have changed. Even your financial goals have probably changed. What made sense then may not be the best option today. Here's what I see all the time. 00:19:05 Speaker 1: Homeowners, they often assume their current mortgage is the best they can do, while renters, they assume home ownership is just out of reach. 00:19:12 Speaker 4: In many cases, neither is true. That's why I recommend wholeheartedly talking to Andrew and Todd at Annie Mac Mortgage. If you already own a home, they'll provide a complimentary mortgage review to see if there's opportunities to lower your payment, eliminate mortgage insurance, consolidate debt, access equity, shorten your loan term, or simply determine whether staying in exactly where you are is the smartest move. If you're renting, they'll help you understand what it really takes to become a homeowner. You may be surprised to learn that buying a home could be more affordable than you think. They'll explain the programs available, answer any questions you have, and guide you every step of the way. No pressure, no obligation, no sales pitch. Just honest advice tailored to your goals visit andrewandtodd.com to schedule your complimentary review or call 888-888-1172 that's 888-888-1172 or visit them online at andrewandtodd.com Senator Eric Schmidt joins us. Senator, we're getting into OPT, we're getting into a bunch of things, but you just grilled Jack Smith on the Hill. Tell us about it. What was the point of it? And then we've got some clips I want to go over with you. 00:20:23 Speaker 11: Well, I think that Jack Smith is the epitome of what the weaponization of government really is all about. You know, I mean, this guy was appointed special counsel a couple of days after President Trump announced he was running again. His job was to get Trump Then you have these other cases in Atlanta and New York. The number three guy at DOJ goes to New York. There's this coordination that happens. I mean, it really is something we've never seen in this country before. And so he was finally before the Senate Judiciary Committee. We asked him a bunch of questions. He ignored the advice of even Biden's Department of Justice public integrity unit by filing things so close to the election. This was all about making sure President Trump never got to the White House again. 00:21:03 Speaker 3: So perhaps the biggest case he. 00:21:04 Speaker 11: Ever lost, and he's lost a lot of them, is the one the American people got to weigh in on in November of 2024 and sent President Trump back to office. 00:21:12 Speaker 1: Man, that's a great point. Mic drop moment for me right there. 00:21:17 Speaker 4: So there's this clip that I just saw in the last segment, Senator, and it is, for me, it's shocking, right? Because it feels like, it's almost like you're coming after Charlie again, all over again. Senator Cruz was asking if he subpoenaed Turning Point, which apparently he didn't. did some of the records related to Turning Point stopped 24 here. 00:21:39 Speaker 12: Did your team subpoena records concerning the Republican National Committee? 00:21:46 Speaker 6: We subpoenaed a number of records. 00:21:48 Speaker 12: That's a yes or no question. 00:21:52 Speaker 7: I do not have, I just want to be clear with you, Senator, I do not have a recollection of every subpoena. We did subpoena numerous records. 00:21:59 Speaker 12: Did your team subpoena the RNC? 00:22:01 Speaker 6: I would have to look at those records, but we did. 00:22:03 Speaker 12: You're testifying you don't remember? Yes, no, or I don't remember. 00:22:06 Speaker 3: There's your three options. 00:22:08 Speaker 6: It is very possible. I do not have a. 00:22:10 Speaker 5: Recollection of that. 00:22:10 Speaker 12: Okay, did your team subpoena Turning Point USA? 00:22:15 Speaker 6: Again, I would have to look at the records. 00:22:16 Speaker 12: Do you have any idea who you subpoenaed? Can you name... All right, let me help you. Did your team subpoena the Conservative Partnership Institute? 00:22:26 Speaker 6: That I do remember, yes. Okay, good. 00:22:28 Speaker 5: We found one. 00:22:29 Speaker 1: Jeez Louise, man. 00:22:30 Speaker 4: So, Senator Schmidt, if you subpoenaed, you've been an attorney, you've been an attorney general. If you subpoenaed the DNC, do you think that you would be able to remember when questioned? 00:22:40 Speaker 1: If you subpoenaed Act Blue, do you think you would remember? 00:22:43 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:22:44 Speaker 11: This was not like some case from 10 years ago of some petty robbery in a small town somewhere. This was perhaps the biggest case ever brought in the history of our country because it was meant to, again, go after the president of the United States, and not just him, actually. I think what he wanted was this enormous show trial to bring in people whose only crime was that they were Republicans. 00:23:07 Speaker 3: Turning Point was part of that. 00:23:08 Speaker 11: I was actually the chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association at the time. 00:23:13 Speaker 3: They subpoenaed Raga. 00:23:15 Speaker 11: I mean, this was a net that was cast far and wide just to sort of scoop up whoever they could for, again, their only crime being Republicans or conservatives. These Jack Smith, I guess, just to get into the psychology a little bit, he thought he was going to ride in and like be a hero. But the truth is, this guy was the ultimate villain. You know, he was the ultimate villain. Show me the man. I'll show you the crime. That's what his job was. Thankfully, you know, he got tossed out of court on the presidential immunity case. That case stalled and present. The election happened and President Trump won in a landslide. 00:23:48 Speaker 4: All right, well, Jack Smith is a total dirtbag, and you caught him out on this NBA game, too, by the way, in Atlanta. I want to make sure we get to everything we're supposed to get to here, Senator, but it was a great moment, so good for you on that. Okay, last night, the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 passed. 00:24:08 Speaker 1: Now, we're big sports fans around here. 00:24:09 Speaker 4: Danny's always moaning and groaning about Ohio State getting beat by Texas and other things, the Cubs, the Bears, all the things. So we talk about it a lot here. So what is in this bill? It passed 77 to 22, a rare moment of some bipartisan cooperation here. 00:24:25 Speaker 1: Why is this important? Why is it top of the list for you right now? 00:24:28 Speaker 11: Yeah, look, I think college sports are a uniquely American thing. You know, it really doesn't exist anywhere in the world where you have these traditions, whether it's at Mizzou games or Florida games or Ohio state games. Those are things that are passed down for generation to generation. And really college sports is at this inflection point right now where. 00:24:45 Speaker 3: There are no rules. 00:24:46 Speaker 11: I mean, 27-year-olds can compete against 17-year-olds. People are going pro and they're coming back. You have unlimited transfers. And so really what it's meant to do is to provide some structure. You've got five years of eligibility. You can't go pro and come back. You get a one-time free transfer. It does a lot to protect student athletes so they can't lose their scholarships because of an injury and all those sorts of things. And so I just viewed this as somebody who played a lot of sports growing up, including in college, and then just been a fan. Like, The people that I talk to, like regular people, like they actually care about this stuff. It's more cultural than it is political. So I was happy to help lead the fight to bring some sanity here. We've got to get it passed in the House. The president is very supportive of this. As you know, he's like a legit sports fan. Like he's not some phony sports ball guy. Like he actually loves sports. He loves college sports. I talked to him last night. He was thrilled with the vote count, and we've just got to get it through the House now. 00:25:39 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:25:40 Speaker 4: Well, and by the way, you are a sports fan, but you are a practitioner– of sports as well. You played the game. Don't, don't forget the diving cat. Your face looks good by the way, but that diving catch at the congressional baseball game, that was, that was one for the ages. That was one for the, you know, hold it down for the GOP. 00:25:59 Speaker 11: Yeah. I, I never expected to be on sports center, but it happened. So I'm pretty happy about that. 00:26:06 Speaker 3: Yes. 00:26:07 Speaker 2: All right. 00:26:08 Speaker 1: Let's get into this fraudulent OPT program. You made it. So it's a big win. 00:26:14 Speaker 4: ISIS just announced a jaw-dropping fraud bust saying 10,000 foreign students are involved in federal government's OPT, optional practical training. This is when you get a degree. In theory, this is what it's supposed to be. And then you get a job related to your major, right? I think it's a total crap, by the way. Like, sorry, we shouldn't be importing all of these foreigners to take spots away from Americans just to give more money to these institutions. And then they take spots from Americans, okay? So two things here. But you have been fighting on the OPT front. So educate our audience. Why should they care about OPT? These like diploma mills, all this stuff. 00:26:53 Speaker 1: Talk about it. 00:26:54 Speaker 10: Yeah. 00:26:54 Speaker 3: So we talk a lot about illegal immigration. 00:26:56 Speaker 5: Right. 00:26:57 Speaker 11: And we should because it's been a disaster. Fifteen to 20 million people in four years. But the president has successfully closed the border. 00:27:04 Speaker 3: That's good. Deportation should continue. Right. Like at a big scale. 00:27:09 Speaker 11: But we don't talk enough, I don't think, you do, I do, about legal immigration and the challenges and the fraud and the sort of raw deal that Americans get because of our legal immigration system. Just a couple of examples. We talk a lot about H-1B programs. These are literally taking jobs away from hardworking Americans who can do the work. It's not because we don't have people. When Microsoft lays off thousands of people, they're just bringing in foreign workers because they're cheaper and more compliant. The American worker who does the same job has to train people his or her replacement, that's the total indignity for their severance pay. So that's H-1B, that's a problem. OPT is basically become a visa mill for universities because they get these students to come into the country, they pay full freight. Employers then don't have to pay taxes if somebody graduates with a STEM degree for two years. They don't have to play the employer tax. Think about that. So we're actually subsidizing American companies to not hire American workers but hire foreign workers who can do the same job after they graduate. 00:28:08 Speaker 3: It's ridiculous. 00:28:08 Speaker 11: It's why some of the highest rates of unemployment for young people coming out of college are for engineering degrees because the OPT system exists. It's fraught with all kinds of problems. We've been trying to point that out. So that's like if it's done the correct way under the law. This is a massive scam that was uncovered where people probably aren't even working in the places and the companies that are getting the tax break because they're supposed to be hiring, I guess, phantom OPT folks. So there's a lot of fraud out there. But the program in and of itself has been a total joke. It displaces American workers just like the H-1B program. And by the way, also displaces American students because those are spots at universities that aren't going to Americans but are going to foreigners because they pay full freight. Universities like that, we got to end this thing. 00:28:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a scam. 00:28:57 Speaker 4: You know, I checked around on this story, Senator, and you mentioned in your tweet thread that the Trump administration might assess like $ 100, 000. If you can simulate it with the H-1B, if you want to do one of these things. But I've checked around and there's some people that believe that you could just get rid of this by presidential executive order or empowering the DHS to just remove this because it's not an. 00:29:19 Speaker 1: Order by Congress. 00:29:21 Speaker 10: Yes. 00:29:21 Speaker 1: Is that something that you guys are exploring right now? 00:29:23 Speaker 3: Yes, yes. H-1B is statutory. 00:29:26 Speaker 11: This was created by DHS, and we're urging DHS to just get rid of it. And we've been kind of on this and focused on even when Secretary Noem was in office and and now with uh secretary mullen this is just thing i just you know if we're trying to empower young people right like if people want to feel like they have more opportunity in this country they can be part of an ownership society where they own things and they want to be able to get a job we should not be putting foreigners at the front of the line who don't have any special skill above an American worker. They're not a better student. It's just we've created a system where it's more lucrative to do that, and that's wrong. So if you want to be America first, let's put Americans first. 00:30:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and. 00:30:10 Speaker 4: I put this out there this morning, and we talked about it on the show. I mean, listen, you can doom and gloom about Iran all you want. You can doom and gloom about whatever your pet issue is. But for immigration alone... You've got to vote conservative up and down the ticket. The wind is just stacking up. I've got to get this clip in here for you, Senator Schmidt. You did a great job. So I've got to give you some flowers here, sir. Sat 25. 00:30:35 Speaker 3: Were you in Atlanta? 00:30:38 Speaker 6: I do not believe so. 00:30:39 Speaker 3: Did you ever go to Atlanta during your time as special counsel? 00:30:47 Speaker 7: I really don't think so. It's possible I flew through the Atlanta airport. I definitely did not go to a Hawks game. 00:30:54 Speaker 3: I'm sure of that. Did you ever meet Nathan Wade or Fannie Willis in your time in special counsel? 00:31:00 Speaker 6: No. 00:31:01 Speaker 11: What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair? 00:31:18 Speaker 3: I don't think you know that we have this stuff. I think you've already perjured yourself. 00:31:24 Speaker 1: Dang. 00:31:27 Speaker 4: So you had text messages from his team confirming that he was going to a Hawks game, and he sat there acting dumbfounded and completely clueless. 00:31:34 Speaker 11: It was the only NBA or NCAA men's game going on at that time in Atlanta. He claimed later that he was at another game. I don't– you know, here's the thing. My job is to ask the questions. He's already– And if that's what his answer is, then that's what his answer is. But he also said that he also took the advice of the public integrity unit, and he didn't because he was filing briefs within the 60-day window. We were not supposed to do it before 11. Jack Smith has lied under oath time and time again. And so, you know, the purpose of today is just to get him to answer a bunch of questions and see if he ensnares himself in more lies because he's done that before. 00:32:12 Speaker 1: Do you think there's the appetite to pursue any– Actual accountability here? 00:32:17 Speaker 3: Man, here's the thing. Here's what I say about this. 00:32:20 Speaker 11: I just don't know how, you know, if people who did all this, who conspired, you know, even from the very beginning with Clapper and Comey and Brennan on the whole Russiagate stuff. I mean, you've got to think about this. You've got to think about this, Andrew. From the very beginning, they hated Trump for what he stood for. They spied on him during his campaigns. And then they knew that was all nonsense. The whole dossier, Steele dossier, was all nonsense. But even when he became president, they turned it into this Russian asset thing and. 00:32:50 Speaker 3: They wouldn't let it go. Then they impeached him a couple of times. 00:32:53 Speaker 11: And then, you know, they refused to release the Hunter Biden laptop stuff and they denied that that was true, even though it was true. And then, you know, Trump's coming back and they want to stop him. So Jack Smith gets appointed and Fannie Willis gets appointed and Alvin Bragg moves forward with his prosecution. 00:33:08 Speaker 3: They did everything. 00:33:10 Speaker 11: I don't view, like, there's a difference between weaponization, which is what they did and accountability, which is, I think people ought to be held accountable for this kind of stuff. And so Jack Smith was tip of the spear, man, his career, he was known in prosecutor circles as somebody who had been super aggressive and. 00:33:26 Speaker 3: Wrong all the time. 00:33:28 Speaker 11: Um, he had cases where he was, he overcharged things and the courts, you know, sort of threw him out. And that's exactly why Merrick Garland and Joe Biden wanted him for this because they didn't care. They just wanted to sideline Trump. And, uh, So he's the worst of the worst in all this, and the lies pile up. He claims he wasn't getting contents of messages when it came out that he actually was. 00:33:50 Speaker 3: It wasn't just toll records. 00:33:51 Speaker 11: So the list goes on and on, and I think it was important for him to be in front of that committee, and then we'll see what people do with that information. 00:33:59 Speaker 3: But I think that we ought to be aggressive here. 00:34:01 Speaker 11: I just can't believe that no one is going to be held accountable for the. 00:34:06 Speaker 3: Stuff that they did. 00:34:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Senator, you said that this was potentially the biggest case that was ever pursued in the history of the country. I don't think that that is hyperbole. I think that when you have something of this size and scope, this level of import to the body politic, that you have to pursue accountability when so many potential crimes have been uncovered by your questioning today, whether that's perjury or just the way that the case was pursued by Jack Smith. You have to send a message. We can't let this happen again. We simply can't. 00:34:39 Speaker 3: Let this happen again. 00:34:40 Speaker 1: And I know that you as an attorney understand that. 00:34:42 Speaker 11: Yeah, and if you zoom out, what they were really trying to do, they used January 6th as a justification for everything, everything. 00:34:50 Speaker 3: Under the sun. 00:34:52 Speaker 11: And if you boil it down, what they were trying to do was take out the political opponent, disenfranchise half of America who wanted to vote for this guy. And also ruin the lives, ruin the lives of anybody who was quote unquote MAGA. That's what they wanted to do. They wanted to make it so toxic that they could, that they thought the brand and the ideology was so wrong that they were willing to go to these links and use our legal system to go after people. And we just can't have that in this country. 00:35:23 Speaker 3: You know what I mean? 00:35:23 Speaker 11: You just, that just, and this is the United States of America. This isn't, this isn't show me the man. I'll show you the crime Soviet style justice. This is America. 00:35:30 Speaker 3: And so, But these people thought they were wearing the white hats, and they were not, not at all. 00:35:35 Speaker 4: Well, Senator, if they get power back, I mean, after the midterms, we're going to see a series of investigations. We're going to see an additional opportunity for them to abuse the investigatory power of these committees and the subpoenas. There has to be a strong message sent right now. And I guess that's where we should end this conversation. We have about two and a half minutes left here, sir. We're heading into the midterms. And there's a lot of doomerism out there. There's a lot of things that people are the headwinds. 00:36:06 Speaker 1: Right. 00:36:06 Speaker 4: You you are from red state America. And that's where we're seeing some of the worst polling is actually from the red redder states to the red states. 00:36:14 Speaker 1: What's your message? 00:36:14 Speaker 6: Right. 00:36:15 Speaker 4: People in Missouri, but people of Kansas, Iowa, Ohio that are similarly based with agricultural workers. The price of diesel is killing everybody. Function of the Ukraine-Russia war mostly. It's not even Iran in that sense. 00:36:28 Speaker 1: What is your message to everybody as we're 36 days, we're 35 days out from polls? 00:36:34 Speaker 3: Yeah, that elections in our republic are about a choice. 00:36:37 Speaker 11: You've got a choice about an administration that has gone after waste and fraud and abuse, closed the border, deporting people who shouldn't be here. Wages are outpacing inflation now. Now there's more work to do, but we don't have 90% inflation like we had under Joe Biden. 00:36:54 Speaker 3: And so do we want to go back? Do we want to go back to a wide open border? 00:36:56 Speaker 11: Do we want to go back to This DEI and CRT nonsense where a country is divided by race in these struggle sessions. Do we want to go back to a place where the Democrats care more about what they still do? Illegal immigrants more than they do about American citizens in this America last agenda. I think that we've got more work to do. But the Democrats solution to these problems are much worse. I mean, you think gas prices are bad now. Check out the Green New Deal. check out, they want to get rid of the internal combustion engine. They want you to pay higher gas prices. So it's not temporary with them. 00:37:29 Speaker 3: It's real. So I think we've got a choice. 00:37:31 Speaker 11: We've got an opportunity to keep going to work for the American people. And what we should always do is be fighters, never be afraid of the fight, get another opportunity, and take the fight again to the Democrats to protect American workers out there and bring back industry to this country. 00:37:45 Speaker 1: Well said. 00:37:46 Speaker 4: Senator Eric Schmidt, the great Eric Schmidt, diving catches in awe. Holden Jack, Smith accountable right in front of Congress. Hopefully he got him to perjure himself, and so we'll see where that goes. God bless you, sir. Thank you for fighting for this country. You are one of the fighters, and we appreciate everything you do. 00:38:04 Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. 00:38:04 Speaker 3: Thanks, my friend. Thanks for all you do. 00:38:09 Speaker 4: If you're looking at your investment portfolio and feeling pretty smart right now, remember, a bull market can make anyone look like a genius. If you've had a good run, the question is whether you keep it. 00:38:19 Speaker 1: The people who act early do it from a position of strength. 00:38:22 Speaker 4: The ones who wait act out of fear. There's nothing worse than turning a great trade into a break-even because you didn't act in time. Taking chips off the table isn't quitting. It's protecting what you've earned. Visit noblegoldinvestments.com slash kirk and find out whether helping to protect your profits with gold makes sense for you. And to celebrate America's 250th, open a new qualified account and Noble Gold will send you a free 10-ounce silver bar. noblegoldinvestments.com slash kirk. The information is free, but the knowledge is priceless. We have the great Steve Dace here. I mean, we have some great guests today. Eric Schmidt, Steve Dace. Steve Dace is joining us. You know, Steve, I said he's an Iowa guy, and Danny gets in my ear going, no, he's from Michigan. He's a Michigan guy. I was like, no, no, no, no. He lives in Iowa, but he roots for Michigan. And by the way, sorry about the weekend. 00:39:19 Speaker 1: We were just talking about saving college sports, but Michigan's having a tough row to hoe right now, Steve, so I apologize. How we doing, Steve? 00:39:28 Speaker 13: Hey, listen, I mean, I've in the last few years watched my team win natties and football and men's basketball I'm pretty good. 00:39:34 Speaker 1: Has your team won any titles Andrew listen we we made it to the national championship and we lost Alabama which is which is not. 00:39:42 Speaker 5: A so so no so no. 00:39:46 Speaker 4: So you were close that would be close that was we were close One of the great ironies of my life, Steve, is that Charlie was a huge Ducks fan. And if you know anything about Washington Husky football, the Ducks, we don't use a D in front of that, in front of the name, if you're. 00:40:04 Speaker 1: A Washington fan. 00:40:04 Speaker 4: So it's a lower down on the letter list if you're grading. Anyways, so we just had to kind of come to grips with it. And after losing Charlie, I've had to begrudgingly become kind of a quasi-Ducks fan. 00:40:17 Speaker 1: And Lanning's a great coach, so it is what it is. Steve, you made a lot of news. 00:40:23 Speaker 4: And I will tell you, because I'm in our nation's capital today, Blake's holding it down at the Y Refi Studios in Phoenix, Arizona. So I'm sitting at a meeting yesterday, and we're talking about midterms. How do we feel about it? 00:40:35 Speaker 1: Are we bullish? Are we not? 00:40:36 Speaker 4: And I actually said I was feeling quite negative about it. And we had Mark Halperin on the show. He said, Blake will remember this well. It was like 15 point. If you're in a Trump plus 15 district, you better do some polling to make sure you're still on top. And I started feeling better about it. But I'm sitting at this meeting and somebody brings up your name. So you're not going full Steve Dace right. 00:41:03 Speaker 6: Now. 00:41:03 Speaker 1: So, Steve, I want to be constructive. I want to be constructive. 00:41:08 Speaker 4: But where do you feel like we're at right now? And we're going to get philosophical. We're going to get cultural in this conversation with Steve. We have the whole hour. But let's talk midterms. Where's your headspace at right now? 00:41:19 Speaker 13: So let me just say from the outset that if I had received that information like two weeks before the election, I'm probably not going to share it. Because the reason I do everything is to win. So if I'm sharing it six weeks out from the election, it's because I still think there's a chance to do something about it. But I just don't think you ever win by not acknowledging reality. I think you have to acknowledge reality in order to win. And I think that sometimes in our business, that maybe what audiences want to hear is not necessarily what they need to hear. That might get you an immediate win in terms of some immediate clicks and feedback. in engagement, but long-term won't lead to the ultimate win. And to me, I want us to get the ultimate win here. And so I think there's a chance to still change the trajectory we're on. The trajectory we're on is not good. And I don't follow really a lot of modern polls anymore, guys. I used to follow them zealously. I used to have files on pollsters and who was good and who was not Ann Seltzer and pretty much the last couple of polling cycles broke me of that. 00:42:27 Speaker 9: But I do know this. 00:42:29 Speaker 13: When people can't afford fuel, you tend to lose if you're in power. And when they can, you tend to win. The most reliable poll that's ever held up over the last 50 years has been the price of fuel when we are voting. And right now, it's just too darn high. And it's causing everything else to be too darn high. And it's killing us from a strategy standpoint, because we could realistically pivot to every other long-term economic indicator and say, we inherited this mess from the people that you put us in place of, and we're working on it. And look at the things like the 140,000 new jobs that were just added, right? We've severely curtailed both legal and illegal immigration in the country, back to those 140,000 jobs. More jobs are going to native-born Americans than we've seen in the last few years. There are some very good long-term metrics there. But when the touchstone for how people feel a lot of things are not good, you don't get to that second level of conversation anymore. especially when, frankly, again, just being honest, it's the kind of war that people voted for us thinking they weren't going to get that is actually causing the issue. So we're accepting a level of blame here by our own decisions. And maybe the president and what he said to Laurie Ingram over the weekend is right. Maybe losing a midterm, maybe victory in Iran, whatever that would look like. And I honestly don't know. Maybe you guys do. But maybe that's worth losing these midterms because of how it reshaped You know, a strategically vital part of the world. He might even be right about that. But but to me, even having these conversations are how you lose. I think there are there is a path to win here and we can get into that. But it's but it's it's going to have to be similar to what the Democrats did in 2022, which is to go very negative. Our biggest strength. Let me give you an analogy. Too many guys focus on their weaknesses. 00:44:12 Speaker 5: All right. 00:44:12 Speaker 13: So let's say you're a dude who's shredded but balding. don't show up at the first date with a bad comb over and a toupee instead where the tightest freaking clothes you have. 00:44:20 Speaker 9: So she sees the guns. 00:44:22 Speaker 3: All right. 00:44:22 Speaker 9: Accentuate your strengths. 00:44:24 Speaker 13: Okay. The, the, the, the fuel thing, trying to argue around that is a loser. And just even having the argument is a loser. The biggest strength we have is who we're running against. And that moment in 2022 when Biden came out in front of the red curtain, we all mocked it at the time. I did, too, and said that just goes to show they're out of talking points. 00:44:41 Speaker 9: And they were. 00:44:42 Speaker 13: But it also demonstrated that they had a base problem and it rallied their base and it got them to kind of a draw. And the biggest number one issue we have right now is we have coalition depression. 00:44:52 Speaker 1: Right. 00:44:53 Speaker 13: And we're not all agreed on Iran and we're not all agreed on this or that. What we all do agree on, though, is that is who we're up against. And I think running running hard negative on who we're against, what they will do if they gain power. To me, that is the path Democrats used to drive down normie turnout, drive up their base turnout. In 2022 and get a draw in a tough environment, that's the exact game plan that I think we ought to pursue. And I think lying about or to each other about where we truly are, I don't think that gets us to a win. I think that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in another direction. 00:45:25 Speaker 5: Yeah, I think about we've had those discussions about how a lot of really transformative wins that seemed far more than we could have hoped for, that the border is totally open. fixed that we actually are getting record levels of deportation. The number of foreign-born people in America is going down. There are tremendous wins, and the people who supposedly were getting those wins on behalf of are not expressing the gratitude they ought to. But I think you might be right, Steve. The way you bring that back to the fore is you point out all these Democrats who are running around to their own base and saying, We need to get back in power so we can have amnesty for all of these people so that we can fly back in the people we deported. That is something they will do. They will pay money to fly someone who was deported, who wasn't illegal, back into this country, and then they will give them a government settlement of millions of dollars for the harm they suffered. That is something, categorically, the left will do, and they're going to unleash absolute— they' ll bring back mayhem in your streets— We need to get the message through that the Democrats have never reckoned with their radical base. They have not pushed them out. They have not forced them to change their tone. They're merely out of power right now. 00:46:39 Speaker 9: Correct. 00:46:40 Speaker 13: I mean, everything you said is correct. I mean, the Democrats are literally like they're running on. We are a party for foreigners. They're literally just running on us. They're literally just running out. The only reason we have a chance in this environment in Michigan is they nominated an open Islamist for the U.S. 00:46:55 Speaker 9: Senate. 00:46:55 Speaker 13: To me, that is the core argument, which is we know what they will do. We cannot afford for them to do it. And I would make that case. I'd hammer that case more and more down the stretch here than trying to tell people that that this is worth the trade when they don't. The Iran war is worth the tradeoff when they don't know what the tradeoff is or pointing out that long term economic indicators are good on some on several fronts. When in the short term, most Americans are only living paycheck to paycheck these days. And I look at my own home state of Iowa and why I think in particular this is vital because this is the state. I mean, the president's been the most popular politician in my home state for a decade. He took over 30 Iowa counties that voted for Obama twice. They have now turned around and voted for for Trump thrice in my home state of Iowa. And so when the tariffs began and our farmers' exports were getting tariffed back in retaliation, they were still in. 00:47:49 Speaker 9: They understood the mission. 00:47:50 Speaker 13: They understood the president was trying to make a long-term paradigm shift economically that the country needed. They believed in their guy. He shares our values and everything else. Well, now what's happened on the back end now, though, is now they're paying these exorbitant diesel costs as well, and they don't understand the mission in Iran. They don't understand what we're doing it for. They don't understand what a win would look like. And so now they kind of feel like they're the most loyal voters he has, but they're getting squeezed on both ends. Let's remind them of why they loved the president in the first place, and it's the cultural differences he represents compared to the Democrats that they have rejected, who still hold on to those very anti-American cultural ideals. 00:48:28 Speaker 8: If we hadn't done Iran, you would be cruising to midterm victory, 225. 00:48:32 Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, you don't know that. 00:48:34 Speaker 3: Any regrets? 00:48:36 Speaker 2: No. 00:48:36 Speaker 8: Supposing we were cruising and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon. 00:48:41 Speaker 6: They would use it. They're crazy. 00:48:43 Speaker 4: Send us your questions, by the way, right now with Steve Dace. What do you want to know from the great mind of Steve Dace? Freedom at Charlie Kirk dot com. Freedom at Charlie Kirk dot com. 00:48:52 Speaker 13: All right. 00:48:52 Speaker 4: So, Steve, we just saw that clip about President Trump and Laura Ingraham talking about Iran. 00:48:57 Speaker 1: You had brought it up before. 00:48:59 Speaker 4: Where she says hey without iran we'd be cruising and it's hard to not think that way candidly it does sort of feel like where things really got squirrely yes we had the epstein stuff yes we had the ford o strike but as soon as we went in on round two with iran it was almost like a psychic break with the base because you know no new wars president trump got us into no new wars and here here are in this sort of quagmire situation in Iran, gas prices, diesel prices. I do want to say one thing. Diesel prices is also related to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, okay? So that's something we don't have nearly as much control over. But you are in ground zero. Iowa is literally ground zero. It's also impacting Kansas. Ohio, that diesel prices are too much. But let's talk about Iran. Is there a way to thread this needle with the base, or do you just pivot and don't talk about. 00:49:48 Speaker 3: It at all? 00:49:49 Speaker 9: Right now, I wouldn't talk about it at all. 00:49:51 Speaker 13: I think for, you know, the two groups that won us this last election that Trump had the greatest growth with were Hispanic men and young men. In all time, best finish with Hispanic men, and then the best finish with young men maybe going back, certainly at least until since 2000, maybe even going back to the 1980s, by some surveys you look at. So that was generational as well. And, and I think that to them, to them, and you know, I'm Gen X. And so I remember when George Herbert Walker Bush said no new taxes and then did a tax increase. 00:50:22 Speaker 9: This is like this to the Gen Z men. 00:50:25 Speaker 1: All right. 00:50:25 Speaker 13: That, that we weren't going to do any more stupid wars. And then in their view, we're doing one. So I wouldn't talk about it at all. I wouldn't bring it up at all. I keep having guests on my show and trying to find anybody. Maybe you guys know somebody who, in our circles, who thinks that they would sacrifice these midterms, given what Democrats will do and are capable of and already proven and demonstrated. You do that for some long-term victory in Iran. I can't find anybody that says yes to that because nobody I know knows what that looks like. I mean, so we topple the regime, but what takes place? And I think the president, to his credit, in a way, is guilty of his own success here. I go back to texting with Charlie in June of 25, the night of Operation Midnight Hammer, and And he was concerned about this, you know, causing a spillover war. And so what we proved with the devastating precision, the president and his team and Secretary Hexeth and everyone else there at the Pentagon proved that we could, if any centrifuges get above ground, we could go over there and mow the lawn in the dead of night, right? And take out those weeds and move on with the rest of our lives and not have some kind of prolonged engagement. And so I think our people are also kind of confused as to why we already proved we can devastate their capabilities when and if we have demonstrations that they're acting on it. So why did it require all of this? And that has not really been answered. And there may frankly not be good answers right now that might not be good politically to give. For example, let's say Iran had greatly increased. We got into this conflict with them and we found out they had greatly increased their drone and missile capacity way beyond what our intel had indicated. Remember, they had tested a medium range missile early on that had gotten further than anything that our public understanding of their capabilities suggested. dictated that they had so maybe we got into this and found out that they were way more of a threat to the broader region than even we thought and this explains why the israelis and the sunni arab countries are aligned with each other against iran well that would make a lot of sense except to people it would a lot of the same people would think so we're going to prioritize fighting a foreign war over fighting the war at home again and so even if that's true and a valid reason it's a talking point that doesn't help you to me the talking point that helps you is the cultural contrast between who the Democrats are and they're not even trying to hide it and what we represent and what the president has represented in the past. 00:52:38 Speaker 5: I think that's the correct move. I think we just, we can't talk. There's just, the way it broke out, Andrew, you and I remember talking to us about it. I just think there was a little bit of, there was a little bit of arrogance that they thought the Venezuela thing went great. This would go great. Everything's worked out. The president has historically been lucky. And so they didn't make that crucial step of, selling an extremely skeptical public on the conflict. And once they got in, it's been difficult to get out. I think our best bet at this point is, as you say, Steve, focus on incredibly radical, nation-damaging things that the left will do, and try to minimize the degree that the war, the conflict, is consuming people's thoughts. And you do that by trying to get gas prices down, You try to get trade routes flowing as well as possible so people aren't thinking, oh, there's something that in my life is being affected by this thing I didn't vote for. But it's going to be tough no matter what. 00:53:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think right now if Washington were serious about solving this problem, in the short term at least, they need to rally the troops, get everybody back in Washington, pass a moratorium on the national federal gas tax. which would lower gas prices by about 50 to 60 cents a gallon. 00:53:54 Speaker 1: That would be huge. Give us six months while you sort out Iran right now. 00:53:59 Speaker 4: Listen, Blake and I privately, you know, we took some flack for this because we didn't tuck tail immediately and turn our backs on President Trump. We don't believe that's what Charlie would have done. He's not here to defend himself, whatever. We were left reacting and responding to the news. But we didn't turn on President Trump, but privately... We were lobbying for Iran not to happen. We were worried about all the same things Charlie was worried about, that the spilling over into sectarian violence, refugee crisis, that it would be a quagmire, it would be drawn out. So we're calling on Washington, get your butts back in gear, pass a moratorium. If you're serious about winning the midterms, pass a moratorium on the gas tax. 00:54:37 Speaker 1: Do it right now. Get back to D.C. Tell people that you hear them. 00:54:40 Speaker 4: Tell people that you understand that they're going through pain at the pump and that they can't afford their daily groceries. That's what you need to be doing. The fact that we're not serious about that is discouraging, candidly. I mean, I don't care what vacations you got. I don't care what lobbying you got. I don't care what campaigning you got. The best campaign measure you could do right now is to do that. Let's see if anybody will respond to the call, answer the call. They probably won't. 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Call 833-850-2229 or click on the pre-born banner at charliekirk.com today. 00:56:10 Speaker 14: Preborn was so special to Charlie, and it's so important to me as well. Right now, you can help make motherhood possible by providing ultrasounds with Preborn. I'd be so honored if you'd prayerfully consider joining us. 00:56:24 Speaker 10: Many of these cities saw an oversupply of new housing, multifamily housing, after and since the pandemic. But deportations are a common factor in all of these markets where rent prices are dropping. And since 2025, there have been more than 600,000 deportations and nearly 2 million self-deportations. So how could something of that magnitude not have an impact? 00:56:51 Speaker 1: Deportations. 00:56:52 Speaker 4: It's a huge, huge answer to many of the problems we're facing as a country. And we're finally, for the first time in my lifetime, we're seeing actual progress when it comes to cleaning up that mess. 00:57:04 Speaker 1: And I'm grateful to the administration. Obviously, we want more, but it's something. 00:57:08 Speaker 4: All right, Steve, I want to get into the cultural topics that you want to talk about. And I want to talk about the immigration topic, because I think that is one of the things we should be running on. 00:57:19 Speaker 1: But first. 00:57:21 Speaker 4: We promised the audience that we're going to have a chance to ask you some questions, chime in on this conversation. 00:57:25 Speaker 1: Blake, what are the emails saying? 00:57:27 Speaker 5: Well, first of all, we have Lee, who's emailed several times, and he says that the University of Michigan National Championship is suspicious. He says something about sign-stealer guy. I actually have no idea what that's about, but apparently people believe that that title is disputed. 00:57:42 Speaker 1: It is not legitimate. 00:57:44 Speaker 5: Can you answer? Can you defend yourself, Steve? 00:57:47 Speaker 13: He wasn't accused of stealing signs. He was accused of doing in-person scouting because stealing signs is actually not against any NCAA rules. So let's at least get the allegation correct. But then we went on and won all the biggest games of the year after he was let go from the program and wasn't on the team. So if that makes you feel better at night, cool. I'm still going to enjoy all of my merch paraphernalia. 00:58:10 Speaker 1: They're like the Joe Biden of college football. Anyways, keep going. 00:58:16 Speaker 5: Another one asks, Christy just asks, what would be the best way of laying out, you think, in an ad, in a pitch, that message of the talking point about, whether you want to call it communism, radical socialism, wokeism, what's the best presentation to make that case that, yeah, even if, you don't want to say this out loud, but even if you're mad about things, you have to realize a very hostile anti-American ideology is coming back the second Democrats have the ability to impose it. 00:58:46 Speaker 13: Well, that question in particular, that's exactly what I wanted to address when we come back, because the inverse is also true. If we're struggling to find people on our side who are like, hey, would you trade these midterms if it meant a long-term victory in Iran, because no one really knows what that looks like or can define it, well, the inverse is true as well, which is, hey, would would you trade higher gas prices for your for your daughter's not being chest bound and your son's not being castrated uh would you trade uh higher gas prices for your country no longer being overrun by foreigners as another migrant caravan makes its way to the border See, the question can be asked both ways, and I think we need to be asking that question the other way. The moral calculus here does not, or even the political calculus, does not just work one way, guys. 00:59:31 Speaker 9: It works in the. 00:59:32 Speaker 13: Other direction as well, which is why, even though I was on your show seven months ago expressing a great amount of pessimism and skepticism about doing this as we were thinking of launching it, It's also why I'm every bit sitting here seven months later as eager to turn on our vote and to win, because there is another calculus at work here, not just Iran, which is the alternative. We know what they will do to our children. We know what they will do to our borders. We know that they're the party of Lindsey Clancy. And I'll close my answer with this. About a year ago, I spoke to the conservative legislative caucus of Minnesota. Yes, such a thing exists. And I spoke at the banquet. It was the most demoralized room I've ever been in in my life. They were and they were all like, listen, what Tim Walz and Democrats did when they won one election year, they got full power one time. They made us California in one legislative session. We're never going to recover from that as a state. 01:00:25 Speaker 14: Right. 01:00:25 Speaker 13: We just simply cannot afford that to happen nationwide. Corn Belt states like Iowa and Kansas, you don't want to Minnesota your Iowa where I live. 01:00:33 Speaker 9: You don't want to Minnesota your Ohio. 01:00:35 Speaker 1: Right. 01:00:35 Speaker 13: That I think that calculus needs to be presented in the opposite direction, too. 01:00:39 Speaker 5: Very strong, very strong. And this is a question maybe above our pay grade, but someone did ask, do you have an idea of how you would end the Iran war? How would you go about? What do you think would be an acceptable way to conclude that? 01:00:51 Speaker 13: Well, everyone's going to hate my answers to that one. We're in a difficult spot now. The time to end it was the thing that the vice president was criticized for, the ceasefire before the 4th of July, as if he just did that unilaterally with a commander in chief to sign off. 01:01:05 Speaker 9: But that was our off-ramp right there. That was the off-ramp. 01:01:08 Speaker 13: That was the off-ramp to say, and by the way, another thing, if we find one centrifuge above ground, it's going to be Operation Phillips Screwdriver, Operation Crescent Wrench. We'll mow the lawn every week if we have to and send a warning. And then come home and focus on home. But we missed that window. And so now if we're going to be honest with each other, just walking away right now, it's not so much what Iran and the regime there will think because we've killed over 100 of their high command. Does it say to China, we're weak, so take Taiwan? Does it say to Putin, we're weak, so nuke Ukraine? That's what we have to be concerned about now. And so there is an argument, and I don't disagree with the president here, that allowing the Iranians to make it look like they waited us out down to their third string quarterback, basically, because we killed everybody else. So they're down to their third string quarterback and they waited out the great Satan because we were concerned about the midterms. That could make us look weaker in ways we don't even want to contemplate globally right now. So to me, just take the issue off the table. The Iranians ought to be told the worst thing that could happen to you is if we lose these midterms, because then Trump's going to be really pissed and then he really won't care and he'll never face the electorate ever again. He might just wipe you completely off the map. That's actually the messaging I would use to them. I would message this separately to the American people. Take Iran off of the burner as much as you can between now and the first Tuesday in November and make the broader cultural calculus of we cannot elect an Islamist. to the United States Senate out of my former home state of Michigan. 01:02:36 Speaker 9: We cannot do that. 01:02:37 Speaker 13: We cannot elect a guy who's a caricature of a 1920s heretical Unitarian pastor as the senator from the great state of Texas. 01:02:44 Speaker 9: We cannot do that. 01:02:45 Speaker 13: There is no justification for making that moral decision as a people. And I think we need to focus on that messaging right now and then let the Iran thing take care of itself after the midterms at this point. 01:02:57 Speaker 1: Blake, any more emails? 01:02:58 Speaker 5: I think I think that gets the stretch. We have a lot of commentary. A lot of people agree. They love that. They point out electing Democrats means Green New Deal means green stuff, which means high gas prices permanently. They are they are no friends of the internal combustion engine, of course. And so a lot of them very much agree with that. 01:03:15 Speaker 1: And we did get I agree. 01:03:18 Speaker 5: We got one email that basically said we all just need to shut up that Trump has won two elections or three, however you want to say it. And we should trust him and stop complaining. So we did get that email as well. 01:03:28 Speaker 1: Well, I mean, let me answer that email right there. 01:03:30 Speaker 4: I mean, I was just in a meeting yesterday looking at some polling, and, you know, in the state of Ohio, I don't know what it's at in Iowa right now, Steve. 01:03:37 Speaker 1: Maybe you got that offhand. 01:03:39 Speaker 4: But, you know, Trump, according to some polls, is upside down 22 points in Ohio. 01:03:44 Speaker 1: Upside down 22 points. Now, by contrast, J.D. 01:03:48 Speaker 4: Vance is upside down one point in Ohio. He's actually the most popular candidate of any political party in Ohio. Sherrod Brown's upside down maybe, like, Two or three points. 01:03:59 Speaker 9: Famous true in Iowa, by the way. 01:04:00 Speaker 1: Maybe you've got to divide and conquer. Yeah. 01:04:04 Speaker 4: So the point is, you've got to send out J.D. in some of these places. And maybe, you know, Trump's going to Alabama. You know, he's still very popular down there. We've just got to be real and honest about our current moment. 01:04:13 Speaker 5: Right. 01:04:13 Speaker 4: But you talked about this point, Steve, and I think it's really important. I want to hone in on it is driving up the negatives of the bad guys. Because these guys are bad guys. They're just, they're our political opponents. But they're actually like villains in a comic book. 01:04:26 Speaker 1: It's that bad. I want to play this clip from Abdul El-Sayed. 01:04:30 Speaker 5: I go on the show. You know why? A, I want to give people the image of watching him get his a * * whooped on his own show by a guy who prays like I do. 01:04:37 Speaker 13: With all due respect, if they go low, we don't go high. 01:04:40 Speaker 3: We take them to the mud and choke them out. 01:04:42 Speaker 7: First kid who stepped to me, I was like, I am going to beat you mercilessly as a message to everybody else. 01:04:48 Speaker 5: Like, that's going to be the last. 01:04:49 Speaker 6: Fight you've ever had. 01:04:50 Speaker 7: We should bash the s * * * out of Trump because he's a terrible human being who does awful things, who's exploited a lot of pain in a lot of people. 01:04:56 Speaker 1: That's just a taste. Here you go. Here's another one of El Sayed. Sat 10. 01:05:01 Speaker 13: Do you really want to have this conversation? 01:05:02 Speaker 5: Are you circumcised? 01:05:04 Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah. 01:05:05 Speaker 13: But, I mean, that's a personal question. 01:05:07 Speaker 1: Okay, doctor. 01:05:08 Speaker 3: You probably should want to move on. 01:05:10 Speaker 12: You probably should want to move on. 01:05:11 Speaker 7: I was buying Gatorade or something, and I bring it to the teller to pay for it. 01:05:15 Speaker 13: Mm-hmm. 01:05:17 Speaker 3: And he says, oh, you know, are you Muslim? 01:05:18 Speaker 12: I said, yeah. 01:05:19 Speaker 3: He said, well, your beard is too short. 01:05:21 Speaker 6: I was like, okay, you're going to judge me? Okay, give me a second. I forgot something. So I walked back. 01:05:26 Speaker 12: I get a fifth of vodka, and I put it on the counter. 01:05:29 Speaker 6: He's like, you can't buy that. I was like, you're right, and you can't sell it. So I smashed it on the ground and walked out. 01:05:34 Speaker 1: All right, so this is, I call it the three E's. 01:05:37 Speaker 4: There's driving up the negatives here because what we're facing is existential. I truly believe that, especially heading into 2028. You've got the 2030 census coming up. I mean, this could be the whole shebang here, okay? But it's the trannies, the commies, and the jihadis. It might come off rough to some of you, but that's really what it is. Steve Dace, your thoughts? 01:05:58 Speaker 13: I mean, that'll preach, as they say down south right there on the Southern Baptist pulpit. That'll preach right there. That's exactly right. I mean, this is existential. The generational game is being decided right now over the course of the next four years. And so we have to think like that. We have to be prepared for the moment we're actually in, not the one we're prepared for or we prefer or we want, but the moment we're actually in. And, I mean, this guy, Al-Sayed represents a religion that circumcises girls. And so this is just, as Charlie would say, it's just not compatible with Western civilization. And that's the case that needs to be made. The state of Michigan knows this. That's why Mike Rogers even has a real chance there. 01:06:44 Speaker 9: They know this, right? 01:06:46 Speaker 13: So all you need to do is close the sale with what they already know that has made that race competitive, singularly competitive. Michigan has been singularly. Pardon me, singularly competitive this entire cycle, despite the macro environment being against us. 01:07:01 Speaker 3: Why? 01:07:02 Speaker 13: Because they've been living with this as a state for the entirety of the Gretchen Whitmer era. There's nowhere you can go in the state that you don't smell the smell of degeneracy. There's ISIS flags flying in Dearborn. 01:07:12 Speaker 9: They know. 01:07:13 Speaker 13: They've watched a gorgeous Midwestern state become California with winter. 01:07:17 Speaker 9: Under this iteration of the Democratic Party. 01:07:20 Speaker 13: So they're open to be sold despite the macro environment against us. Let's try to shape the rest of the environment similar to what it is in Michigan, and we have the ammunition to do that. 01:07:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Michigan's an uphill climb, but I want everybody to remember that El-Sayed is not polling well with blacks in Detroit. Obviously, he's going to get that Muslim Dearborn vote. I think that's a foregone conclusion. But it is a real possibility that Blacks in Detroit could go our way in major ways. Steve, if you had one message, we got this email from a listener. And Phyllis says that if we lose both the House and the Senate, we should look in the mirror because of the influence of this show and of the platform. Listen, I will always look in the mirror and own what I could do better and what we could improve upon. But I kind of liken it to what we do at Chase the Vote. And by the way, you should get involved. We are solution-oriented. Go to tpaction.com slash 100. Go chase some ballots. Volunteer to chase some ballots. We'll give you 100 names, and that is your to-do for the entire election. We've got thousands of you to do that. It can make a huge difference in Arizona, Nevada. 01:08:28 Speaker 1: New Hampshire. And we are solution-oriented. And I do look in the mirror. 01:08:33 Speaker 4: But we have to be honest about the fact that there is an Iran war that is largely unpopular. 01:08:39 Speaker 1: Gas prices are unpopular. 01:08:41 Speaker 4: It doesn't mean that it wouldn't have necessarily even been the right geopolitical decision to make, that maybe that was the right call. And we'll look back and history will look back and say Trump made the right decision and it was worth it as a country to suffer through a short period of gas prices for long-term geopolitical gains. But what is your message right now to people? Let's talk to young men. Let's talk to Hispanic men. What is the message right now, Steve Dace? 01:09:07 Speaker 13: I think the message is that the deportation agenda, the immigration agenda that you voted for, is being executed. 01:09:16 Speaker 9: And it might get executed. 01:09:18 Speaker 13: If Democrats win the midterms and that's the ground that we've made on every single other front other than whatever we all think about this war is all at risk. 01:09:28 Speaker 9: But furthermore. 01:09:30 Speaker 13: That it's possible that the next two years, the last two years of the Trump presidency, becomes stillborn because all Democrats are doing is bogging the country down, impeachment of not just Trump, Hegseth, Rubio, pick anybody, and then RFK Jr. 01:09:43 Speaker 9: they're all getting impeached. 01:09:45 Speaker 13: That much of what we voted for in 2024, the answer to, I don't think we've made enough progress or I don't like where our focus is after 2024, is to not just essentially hand over the last two years of the Trump presidency. 01:09:56 Speaker 9: To the Democratic Party. That's dumb. 01:09:58 Speaker 13: That's cutting off your nose despite your face. That would be my message. 01:10:02 Speaker 5: So let's take another issue that's cropped up a lot. We've talked about bad vibes, negativity. A lot of that has come not just from the public. It's 100% been fueled by various podcasters who've come out and they love to say you've been betrayed. They love to say this administration is finished. It's achieved nothing. It's controlled by Israel. They have a lot of different lines they like to push. What should our attitude on that be? What should our messaging on that be towards the many different personalities who seem to always be most energetic about embracing the negative and they almost seem very willful about rejecting any positive news? 01:10:45 Speaker 13: Well, I love the vice president's line, which is despair is a sin. So, you know, you guys operate in this sphere. I do on my show as well. And that's the biblical worldview, you know, faith first sphere. Despair is a sin. So anytime you hear a voice, what's the difference between despair and conviction? Despair will challenge you to stay down. You can't do better. You can't improve. You deserve it. You earned it. You fell for it. You slipped on the banana peel. 01:11:12 Speaker 9: Stay down. Take the L. 01:11:14 Speaker 13: Conviction is you know better than that. You can do better than that. And so you are compelled to now want to do better than that. What they're selling is despair. There's no conviction there. There's nothing real there. It's completely nihilistic. Following those marching orders gets you nowhere except into further and more darkness. The question is, what's your alternative? What are you going to do about something? Faith without works is dead. Why do you call me Lord if you do not do what I say? Ultimately, it is what we do that defines us, because we do what we believe. 01:11:45 Speaker 9: Out of the heart, the mouth speaks. 01:11:47 Speaker 13: So if you're listening to voices that take you further away from Christ, further away from doing the right thing, further. 01:11:52 Speaker 9: Into the darkness, turn those voices off. 01:11:54 Speaker 13: If you're hearing a message that might convict you, that might challenge you, but it also encourages you to do better and inspires you to stand up all the more, those are the kinds of messages that you want to be making sure you're following. 01:12:07 Speaker 4: I want to sort of end here. We've got about three minutes left, Steve. I want to end here on some positives. I actually think that the most likely outcome here is that we lose the House, but we get about 50. 01:12:18 Speaker 1: 51 seats in the Senate. All right? 01:12:20 Speaker 4: That is not doomsday scenario. That's actually pretty darn good. And I believe we've got a real chance in Minnesota. I think we've got a real chance in Michigan, although I think it's an uphill climb in Michigan. We've got to hold the Midwestern states. Iowa, for example, is a big deal, Steve. We expect you to deliver for Iowa, my friend. But Maine's looking solid. I'm feeling bullish about Texas. I think Ohio's a problem. But here's the deal. We have a real reason to believe that Republicans are getting undercounted in some of this polling by as many as five to seven points, according to some estimates. 01:12:56 Speaker 8: All right. 01:12:56 Speaker 1: Five to seven points. 01:12:57 Speaker 4: If you're undercounting Republicans, what's the last time, Steve, you, you, Mr. Poll Watcher, at least you used to be. What was the last time we saw a poll over sample Republicans? 01:13:06 Speaker 1: It doesn't happen. 01:13:07 Speaker 5: All right. 01:13:07 Speaker 13: It's like the community chess card in Monopoly, a bank error in your favor. That never happens in polling for us. 01:13:12 Speaker 9: No, never. 01:13:13 Speaker 1: No, no, exactly. 01:13:14 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:13:15 Speaker 4: We never get bank errors in our favor. We never get polling errors in our favor. So I just want everybody to be suspicious of the polling. I think economic anxieties for the larger population are over-exaggerated. I think for young Americans, it's completely true. 01:13:30 Speaker 1: I've talked to them. I know it's true. 01:13:32 Speaker 4: But here's the truth about midterms. It's a base turnout election. We need to keep driving up the negatives of these crazy people on the left and what they're going to usher in if they are given power. And we need to remind people that this is short-term pain at the pump. It will turn around. 01:13:47 Speaker 1: The underlying economic foundations of this economy are great. They're phenomenal. 01:13:52 Speaker 4: We're getting investments in restaurants and factories and manufacturing. Native-born workers, wages rising faster than inflation. DEI is getting dealt with. We're dealing with OPT visas and these diploma mills. 01:14:06 Speaker 1: A lot of great things. Fraud's getting rolled back. A lot of great things are happening here, okay? 01:14:10 Speaker 4: So I think the truth with midterms, it's base turnout, young people don't vote as much. I will vouch for the fact that young people are discouraged. But the normies, I think that's over-exaggerated. David Marcus is on the ground in Minnesota, in Michigan. He's telling me straight up, he thinks it's over-exaggerated. So there is reason to be hopeful. It's about who shows up. Blake, and then Steve, final words for the hour. 01:14:34 Speaker 5: It's all about what Charlie loved that line about summertime patriots and winter soldiers, that When you look around, it's difficult in so many ways, but it's so difficult because so many people embrace defeatism. They love feeling down. And when everyone loves to feel down, one of our great challenges is to be upbeat and cheerful. And you saw in the opening of the show today, Andrew, there's so many things to be cheerful about. We have a duty, among other things, to be happy, to be going out and bragging about the amazing things that we've done for this country today. Because there are so many of those, and there will be so many more, if we don't become a bunch of whiners. 01:15:15 Speaker 13: I think it's just very simple. The Democratic Party is a demonic construct. You can't just sit here and let them win. I think it's immoral, unbiblical, and un-American. 01:15:25 Speaker 2: Period. 01:15:25 Speaker 6: End of sentence. 01:15:26 Speaker 5: Amen. 01:15:27 Speaker 1: Totally agree. 01:15:28 Speaker 4: Democrats have disqualified themselves. Their ideas will destroy this country. We cannot let them within an inch of real power. 01:15:36 Speaker 1: We have to do everything we can. Thank you, Steve Dace.