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Weaponizing Government Against Americans
00:15:05
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| Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show. | |
| Jim Jordan and Pedro Gonzalez join us. | |
| We talk about the weaponization of government. | |
| We talk about AOC, Elon Omar, and Lindsey Graham. | |
| Action-packed episode. | |
| You want to catch every single word. | |
| Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. | |
| That is freedom at charliekirk.com. | |
| Get involved with TurningPointUSA Today at tpusa.com. | |
| That is tpusa.com. | |
| Buckle up, everybody. | |
| Here we go. | |
| Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. | |
| Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. | |
| I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. | |
| Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. | |
| I want to thank Charlie. | |
| He's an incredible guy. | |
| His spirit, his love of this country. | |
| He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created. | |
| Turning point USA. | |
| We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. | |
| That's why we are here. | |
| Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com. | |
| Joining us now is Congressman Jim Jordan. | |
| Congressman, welcome to the program. | |
| I want to dive into the controversy with you and Jerry Nadler, but I want to get an initial reaction to your Congressman. | |
| Right now, there is a balloon from the Chinese Communist Party still over the continental United States. | |
| What's your immediate reaction? | |
| Well, I'm concerned like I think every American should be. | |
| I mean, this is not a balloon from anywhere. | |
| It's from China, the same China that's, you know, supposedly spying on Americans through TikTok, the same China who's showing all kinds of aggressive moves regarding Taiwan, same China who steals our intellectual property. | |
| The same China who told us, oh, no, no, the virus didn't start in the lab. | |
| It was a bat to a penguin, to a hippopotamus, to Joe Rogan, and then, you know, the virus goes everywhere. | |
| I mean, so we're supposed to just say, oh, this is just a weather balloon that is off course because of the western, the prevailing westerly wind. | |
| I just'm concerned, I think, like any American would be, Charlie. | |
| But Joe Biden seems not to be too concerned. | |
| I think he's heading off to his home in Delaware for the weekend. | |
| Yeah, and the Pentagon has just told us, get used to it. | |
| The Chinese spy balloon is going to be over the United States for a few days. | |
| So just get comfortable as the Chinese Communist Party floats a surveillance object over our sovereignty. | |
| Yeah, it's remarkable. | |
| So Congress, I'm going to play a piece of tape here of something that happened in the committee hearing. | |
| Let's play Cut 109, and I would love your reaction. | |
| Play Cut 109, please. | |
| And our Pledge of Allegiance is a national symbol of pride and unity. | |
| So my amendment gives the committee the opportunity to begin each of its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance. | |
| It gives our members the ability to invite inspirational constituents to be able to share and lead in the Pledge of Allegiance. | |
| I thank the gentleman for his amendment. | |
| Support the amendment. | |
| Does anyone seek recognition? | |
| I would oppose it simply on the grounds that as members know, we pledge allegiance every day on the floor. | |
| And I don't know why we should pledge allegiance twice in the same day to show how patriotic we are. | |
| Congressman John Jordan, how should we think about that? | |
| Yeah, remember this. | |
| Well, the history here is we offered this amendment two years ago when we organized under the Democrats to organize the Judiciary Committee and they voted it down. | |
| So we Representative Gates brought it back again and we had his guest there, a decorated member of our military. | |
| You know, the reason we think it makes sense is because this is not just any committee. | |
| This is a committee of the United States Congress that's the Judiciary Committee whose primary responsibility is to protect the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment, which we think has been assaulted by the Biden administration, the Democrats last two years, the Second Amendment, and all the rights we enjoy as American citizens. | |
| And so we felt maybe it's appropriate for this committee from time to time to go ahead and say the Pledge of Allegiance before an important hearing. | |
| And we thought that the hearing that organized the committee made sense to do that and to put this in our rules. | |
| And so we did. | |
| We figured the Democrats would push back. | |
| They did. | |
| But in the end, God bless them, they voted to support the amendment. | |
| And it's now part of our rules for the 118th Congress for the Judiciary Committee. | |
| That's a good thing. | |
| So what is on the top of the agenda for you here in the House Judiciary Committee? | |
| I mean, you're off to a fast start. | |
| What are the top priorities for both oversight, but also making sure that we hold the Biden administration accountable? | |
| Well, the first priority is the border. | |
| That's why we had our first hearing immediately after that hearing that you just referenced there where we organized. | |
| We held a hearing on the border situation. | |
| I think there are the three fundamental questions. | |
| How did it happen? | |
| Why does it matter? | |
| And how do we fix it? | |
| How it happened? | |
| We all know that. | |
| This is intentional, what the Biden administration has done, because on day one, Joe Biden said, we are going to stop building the wall. | |
| We're going to get rid of Remain in Mexico for people seeking asylum, and we're not going to deport anyone. | |
| And then you get this influx of people, this unbelievable number never seen in the history of our country, record numbers month after month after month, 5 million in two years. | |
| So that's how it happened. | |
| Why it matters is what we really tried to get across in our hearing on Wednesday, where we had a father who lost his son to fentanyl. | |
| We had a deputy sheriff, excuse me, a county sheriff who talked about in his 38 years in law enforcement. | |
| Two years ago, he said was the best the border situation has ever been. | |
| Today, it's the worst. | |
| I mean, literally what he said, and he said it's the worst because all the people coming across, but the crime, the cost to communities, the cost of schools, the cost of local hospitals, the cost of the entire country, the cost to our system, and then the focus on processing these individuals, what the Biden administration is doing, and then you can't catch the fentanyl and everything else and the smuggling and all the bad things that are happening coming across outside the ports of entry. | |
| So that was why it matters. | |
| And then, of course, what we're going to do in the committee is fix it by passing legislation that will immigration enforcement legislation that will change the policies. | |
| Back to the policies, frankly, we had under President Trump. | |
| That's what we're going to do. | |
| Joe Biden may not sign those bills, but our job is to pass them and show the country what actually works. | |
| So that'll be a huge focus. | |
| And then, of course, as you mentioned, the oversight, because we do believe that our government now has been turned against the people and in many ways is targeting the very people it's supposed to represent and that we have a double standard of justice in the country. | |
| No doubt. | |
| And so, Congressman, in addition to the border, I mean, you're also involved in the weaponization of government committee. | |
| What is the status of that? | |
| Can you talk about, I know it's being formed or in formation. | |
| Is that correct? | |
| Yep. | |
| Yep. | |
| We will have our first hearing next Thursday. | |
| We've noticed that. | |
| We haven't announced the witnesses yet. | |
| Excuse me. | |
| Haven't announced the witnesses, but we will do that soon. | |
| We're working on finalizing those details. | |
| But, you know, we've had whistleblowers come talk to us, Charlie. | |
| We've talked about this before on your show, that FBI agents have come talk to us about how political that place has become. | |
| The very first one was on the school board's issue, where they talked about this threat tag designation put on parents who were reported on the snitch line that the Attorney General of the United States set up. | |
| And as a result of all that, 25 different parents had the FBI show up at their house simply because they went to a school board meeting and advocated for their son or daughter. | |
| Now, the chilling impact that has on speech is, I think, profound. | |
| So we're going to look at those kind of things, not to mention other areas where we think the government has been weaponized. | |
| We saw just this past week, the pro-life activist who was found not guilty for a charge brought by the U.S. attorneys in that district outside of Philadelphia, brought against this guy where he was arrested in his home in front of his wife, in front of his kids, for defending his son outside an abortion clinic where they were praying and counseling people. | |
| But yet the federal government prosecuted, even though local law enforcement, even though the local prosecutors said there's no crime here, we're not going to prosecute this. | |
| The federal government comes in. | |
| The FBI comes in and does this kind of stuff. | |
| Now, thank goodness the jury did the right thing. | |
| But the double standard we see time and time again, whether it's with Trump and the classified documents or this issue, is real and it's not supposed to work that way in America. | |
| Well, Congressman, keep up the great work. | |
| And just one final, I want to get your reaction on the outrage, just the out-of-control reaction from Elon Omar not being on, I think it's the Foreign Affairs Committee or it's some foreign policy-focused committee. | |
| Yeah, just the out-of-control reaction. | |
| What is your reaction to that news? | |
| Well, I mean, look, this is the lady who said all kinds of things about our best ally, Israel. | |
| This is an individual who has said, you know, after 9-11, some bad things happened that day. | |
| I mean, it's like, so do we really want that person on foreign affairs representing our country on trips abroad and everything else? | |
| So I was with the speaker and with the entire Republican conference when he made a decision. | |
| He's still going to be on committees. | |
| He just felt that she shouldn't be on this committee. | |
| And that's why he saw the Congress vote the way that we did. | |
| Very good. | |
| Congressman Jim Jordan, please keep fighting. | |
| Thank you so much. | |
| You bet. | |
| Thanks, Charlie. | |
| Take care. | |
| Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com. | |
| Just to reiterate the news that we said earlier, the Pentagon has told you, the American people, the Chinese spy balloon will probably be over the United States for another few days. | |
| So just get used to it. | |
| Just stay in awe and wonder. | |
| It's like a solar eclipse event. | |
| Like take a selfie as it comes by your town. | |
| Hey, the Chinese blimp is over my town. | |
| It should make sense, though. | |
| Why would our government all of a sudden start to care about foreign enemies invading our country? | |
| We're invaded every single day. | |
| 3,000 people invade our country every single day. | |
| Why would a balloon make them upset? | |
| It's more of the same. | |
| This is a new year, and that means you need a new investing strategy. | |
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| Text Charlie to 74868. | |
| That is Charlie to 74868. | |
| I want to get into this story here with Alexandria Acasio-Cortez. | |
| Every time I say AOC, we should have salsa music. | |
| Just as a way to say, here's AOC on the program. | |
| AOC got very upset. | |
| AOC was speaking on the House floor about the ingrate, Elon Omar. | |
| Alexandre Acasio-Cortez was really fired up that Elon Omar is no longer on the Foreign Affairs Committee. | |
| AOC is celebrating Black History Month by pretending to be black. | |
| PlayCut 94. | |
| Don't tell me that this is about a condemnation of anti-Semitic remarks when you have a member of the Republican caucus who has talked about Jewish space lasers and an entire amount of tropes and also elevated her to some of the highest committee assignments in this body. | |
| This is about targeting women of color in the United States of America. | |
| Don't tell me because I didn't get a single approach. | |
| Time is inspired. | |
| My life was threatened. | |
| Thank you. | |
| She's jumping around. | |
| I mean, it's rhetorical blackface. | |
| Okay. | |
| It's called code switching is what it is. | |
| It's where you try to talk like a black person. | |
| I think it's really insulting, honestly, and incredibly racist and bigoted. | |
| And they never get called out on it, ever. | |
| This is what she said before. | |
| She said it's uncomfortable serving with people who engage in what many experts deem stochastic terrorism, play cut 93. | |
| I think it's uncomfortable serving with people who engage in what many experts deem stochastic terrorism. | |
| But I have had to ride, as has Representative Omar, have consistently had to ride in 20,000-pound armored vehicles in engaging in some of the most gruesome threats that you can imagine that were incited by Republican members. | |
| This is not just about a tweet. | |
| It is about what life looks like and the marshaling of hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people into doing something. | |
| AOC needs to get married. | |
| It's not good for her to be single this long. | |
| It's not. | |
| She needs to have a man in her life and have children. | |
| She's just, she's engaging in really disturbing neurosis. | |
| Play cut 96, Elon Omar. | |
| I think she's engaged. | |
| She's got to get married, though. | |
| That changes your life. | |
| I mean that non-sarcastically, but it's just, she needs something to focus on that's not politics. | |
| It's deeply unhealthy. | |
| She's becoming an angry and angrier person. | |
| Okay, Play Cut 96, Elon Omar said she's going to be honored for her service by leaders all around the world. | |
| Play Cut 96. | |
| I didn't come to Congress to be silent. | |
| I came to Congress to be their voice. | |
| And my leadership and voice will not be diminished. | |
| If I am not on this committee for one term, my voice will get louder and stronger, and my leadership will be celebrated around the world as it has been. | |
| Her leadership will definitely be celebrated in Tehran and Mogadishu. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| What bothers me the most about Elon Omar, it's not about women of color or any of that nonsense. | |
| No, what bothers me about Elon Omar. | |
| And she stood there next to a picture of her as a refugee. | |
| And that should exactly be why, Elon Omar, you should have a little more gratitude for living in the greatest nation ever to exist in the history of the world. | |
| You were let into America because of our benevolency and our generosity. | |
| You were let into America because we believe the lie, invade the world, invite the world. | |
| Now, we didn't necessarily invade Somalia. | |
| We certainly played some shenanigans in Mogadishu. | |
| In fact, the film Black Cawk Down summarizes part of that. | |
| We were definitely involved in Somalia in the 90s, no doubt. | |
| We didn't necessarily invade it. | |
| But then we felt bad and we're like, okay, look at all these refugee camps. | |
| I think she was in a refugee camp in Kenya, actually. | |
| Okay, let's let all these people in. | |
| And then we educate Elon Omar, send her to our schools. | |
|
Abortion Trafficking and Border Chaos
00:02:51
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|
| And what is the product of all that? | |
| Elon Omar telling us that we're racist, bigoted, homophobic. | |
| And then, of course, she hates Jews. | |
| Elon Omar hates Jews. | |
| It's well documented. | |
| She's been that way for a while. | |
| And her fellow comrade in the fight for the destruction of America is Rashida Toledee Play Cut 95. | |
| You are showing who you all are, really. | |
| The gentlewoman's time has expired. | |
| The gentlewoman's time has expired. | |
| The Congressman Omar. | |
| I just, the theatrics of it. | |
| Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here. | |
| When Roe versus Wade fell as the law of the land last year, all it did was increase what pro-abortion states are doing to entice and mislead women to abort their children. | |
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| When you introduce a girl to her baby by providing an ultrasound, you are giving her the truth at the most important time of her life. | |
| And more than 85% of the time, she will choose life. | |
| You don't have to make a lot of noise to make a big difference for life. | |
| Just give an ultrasound at preborn.org to be a hero for life. | |
| That is preborn.org. | |
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| Joining us now is Pedro Gonzalez. | |
| Check out his Substack Contra. | |
| I am a subscriber to it and I learn a lot. | |
| Pedro, welcome to the program. | |
| I really want to talk about Lindsey Graham with you. | |
| I thought you had some of the best commentary on that. | |
| I am a Trump supporter in 2024, and I am disturbed and bothered at Lindsey Graham's proximity to Donald Trump. | |
| Let's play Cut 47, and then I want you to react to play Cut 47. | |
| I am for Trump, not because of the flaws of anybody else. | |
| I'm for Donald Trump because I know what I'm going to get. | |
| We need somebody that on day one can get this country back on track, that can secure our border and bring order out of chaos. | |
| Somebody the Russians and the Chinese fear, somebody that can take the fight to the terrorist. | |
| The Abraham Bakor is the result of Donald Trump impressing the Arabs and the Israelis. | |
| He is the best solution to the problems we face, not because of the flaws of others, but because what I know he can do. | |
|
Keeping Enemies Too Close at Home
00:13:03
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|
| Does he believe that? | |
| Pedro, your reaction. | |
| I don't know because Lindsey has built his career on lying to people and probably lying to himself. | |
| But I think the bottom line is exactly what you said at the outset: that it's not a good sign that Lindsey Graham is in such close proximity to Trump. | |
| And the idea that Trump needs Lindsey Graham's support in order to win South Carolina, that argument just seems to not make sense at all. | |
| And if that's true, that actually means that Trump has bigger problems than people, I guess, are aware of, right? | |
| If Lindsey Graham is critical to your success, it's not a good sign for your campaign. | |
| So really, there's no rational reason for the right to make excuses for Lindsey Graham's proximity to Trump. | |
| And I think that Graham is among the most pernicious in the GOP, precisely for the reasons that I outlined the other night on Tucker Carlson. | |
| But I can actually go a little bit more in depth here because I have more time. | |
| But, you know, again, people look at Graham. | |
| People look at Graham and they see this kind of goofy character who's ultimately harmless, but he's not. | |
| Graham is a snake, and he knows that there's this kind of public perception of him as this kind of dainty, you know, strange guy who, again, is just, you have a lot of questions about him, but ultimately, you know, he's not going to stab you in the back. | |
| It's just not true at all. | |
| And Lindsey Graham is very well aware of that. | |
| And he plays, he plays his part very well. | |
| And so there are two things that I wrote about recently. | |
| And one is a clip that you've probably seen where Lindsey Graham is in Ukraine talking about how we're going to go to war with Russia. | |
| 2017 is going to be the year of offense. | |
| He's in Ukraine talking to Ukrainian soldiers at a Ukrainian military base, telling them 2017 is going to be the year of offense. | |
| So you've seen that clip. | |
| Okay, but what's the significance of that clip? | |
| Why does that matter? | |
| Because that took place in late 2016, one year after a ceasefire had been signed between Russia and Ukraine. | |
| After the U.S.-backed color revolution in Kiev produced regime change favorable to Washington, D.C., pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine, because there are people that are pro-Russian, that have been living in Ukraine for a long, long time. | |
| They speak Russian. | |
| They basically are Russian. | |
| And when they saw that regime change, they basically said, we think that this government is illegitimate. | |
| And so they began clashing with Ukrainian forces, right? | |
| And so there were two agreements that were signed. | |
| They're called the Minsk Agreements. | |
| And the second one was signed in 2015. | |
| And again, the idea was stop fighting. | |
| We're going to try to work out a deal that basically satisfies Russia's security concerns and also guarantees Ukrainian sovereignty, right? | |
| Satisfies both sides. | |
| So Minsk II, the second part of the ceasefire attempt was signed in 2015. | |
| In 2016, that's when Graham is saying 2017 is going to be the year of offense. | |
| A ceasefire has just been signed. | |
| And Graham, a U.S. politician who has no business in Ukraine, is saying, we're going to use you for a proxy. | |
| We'll screw the peace deal that you just signed. | |
| Like give up on it. | |
| Next year, we're going to go to war with, we're going to lay the ground for war with Russia. | |
| That's why that clip that you've probably seen is so significant. | |
| And I think that it's difficult to get into how significant that is, you know, just in just a couple of seconds, but that's why. | |
| Like, in my view, Graham belongs in jail. | |
| And it's precisely because of guys like him that we are where we are right now. | |
| Yes, Russia started the war, but guys like Graham made it inevitable. | |
| They made it so that this war would not be avoided. | |
| I think that's really important. | |
| I don't know if you want to say anything. | |
| I can keep going. | |
| It is important. | |
| No, it's okay. | |
| So, but what, Pedro, what I also want to explore with you is how Graham appropriates MAGA when it's convenient to him. | |
| That's right. | |
| And where he has proximity to Trump through, I think he understands that Trump is probably going to be the nominee. | |
| He uses flattery, even though he's ideologically inconsistent with Trump on immigration, trade, and foreign policy, and obviously the fourth branch of government, the administrative state. | |
| And so help me understand what's going on here because our audience, Pedro, shares my concern. | |
| They are just as disturbed as I am that Lindsey Graham is now in the inner circle. | |
| He is now on the like foundational launch committee for Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I think flattery is certainly part of it. | |
| But I think that I'm sorry to say, and this is something that Trump supporters have to grapple with for the sake of your own movement, you know, for the sake of the America First Man, it's really important to make that distinction, right? | |
| The man and the mandate. | |
| And yes, Trump started the movement. | |
| And yes, Trump became the standard bearer of the movement. | |
| But ultimately, if the man is doing things that are inconsistent with the mandate and you believe in the mandate, then you have to basically police your own movement. | |
| I mean, I don't know how else to put it. | |
| And Trump basically, not just keeping Graham around, but endorsing him, because go back to that rally in January. | |
| You know, Trump says he's a good guy and a good politician. | |
| Graham is neither. | |
| Graham is neither a good guy, and he's a good politician in the sense that he's a very good liar, but in the sense of a statesman, he's not that, not at all. | |
| And that's that's a problem because you can't drain the swamp when you're keeping people like Lindsey Graham around who are integral to the swamp. | |
| And so, again, I think that this actually unfortunately just fits a pattern of Trump making bad decisions when it comes to who he keeps around. | |
| And flattery is certainly part of it. | |
| But at the same time, I think there's some other kind of transactional aspect to it that's just not obvious. | |
| It's not above the surface for most of us. | |
| And to give another example of this, someone who's just like Lindsey Graham in the sense that they're ideologically not aligned with the America First mandate, and yet they occupy a position of power and influence in the Trump world as Susie Wiles. | |
| And I've also written about her. | |
| Susie Wiles became rather infamous because she publicly went to war with basically Trump supporters over the RNC chairship. | |
| And she made these public statements saying she didn't name names, but it's very obvious who she was directing her fire at Harmee Dillon and Mike Lindell, saying that anybody criticizing Rana Romney McDaniel for mismanaging her tenure at the RNC was basically lying and distorting her record and all this stuff. | |
| And so it was a really awkward moment because you have Trump's top lieutenant, that's Susie Wiles. | |
| She runs his Save America leadership pack. | |
| She vets candidates for endorsement. | |
| She's effectively his gatekeeper and she runs his fundraising operations. | |
| This is not like a random foot soldier. | |
| This is a woman who's extremely important in Mar-a-Lago. | |
| And Trump basically entrusts her to run his operations. | |
| And she's in the public fighting with the staunchest Trump supporters, essentially calling them liars. | |
| And Trump is quiet about it. | |
| And publicly, he's, you know, he's saying, let the best person win. | |
| I'm neutral. | |
| But actions speak louder than words, right? | |
| And when you're allowing someone like Susie Wiles to attack your own supporters, that says a lot. | |
| And again, I think Lindsey Graham fits this pattern of Trump making awful decisions when it comes to the people that he trusts around him. | |
| I want to go to cut 48, Lindsey Graham visiting his constituents in Ukraine, talking about why we need to further escalate conflict. | |
| Play cut 48. | |
| Kevin McCarthy said no blank checks. | |
| That makes sense to me. | |
| We're not asking for a blank check. | |
| I'm not. | |
| I'm asking for military aid to accomplish the purpose of driving Russian invaders out of Ukraine. | |
| If Putin gets away with this, there goes Taiwan. | |
| If Putin's successful in Ukraine is not prosecuted under international law, everything we said since World War II becomes a joke. | |
| He will continue beyond Ukraine. | |
| Yeah, from Canada from the idea of neoliberalism becoming a joke. | |
| No, I think this is important. | |
| Who's around Trump matters? | |
| I said this on Toronto Carlson's show. | |
| Lindsey Graham's influence is negative. | |
| You know, people have forgotten about this, but in 2020, he was pushing a visa giveaway for China with the Trump White House. | |
| And the only reason that that got traction was precisely because of his proximity to Trump. | |
| And the only reason it died, again, was because of the pandemic. | |
| So I think that's, I've said that before. | |
| I'm going to say it again until I'm blue in the face, but it's an example of why it does matter who is around you because they will influence you. | |
| And Lindsey Graham is a master of influence, despite the fact that we think of him as this, again, this kind of like weird but harmless person. | |
| He's not. | |
| He's a snake. | |
| All right, Pedro. | |
| Our audience is defending Lindsey Graham's proximity to Trump by saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. | |
| Your response. | |
| It doesn't work like that. | |
| I mean, think about Kevin McCarthy, right? | |
| Friends close, enemies closer. | |
| Well, we know for a fact that Kevin McCarthy undermined, who's, you know, a friend of Trump. | |
| And I know Trump supporters would say, well, he's actually an enemy, but Trump is keeping him closer for that reason. | |
| Well, that actually hurts actual MAGA people. | |
| We know for a fact that Kevin McCarthy ran interference against actual MAGA candidates like Joe Kent. | |
| He slandered. | |
| I think, I mean, this infuriates me. | |
| Joe Kent's wife died in the wars that guys like Kevin McCarthy support, right? | |
| Kevin McCarthy's never fought in these wars, neither has Lindsey Graham for that matter, but they support them. | |
| And so Joe Kent, a guy who lost his wife in these wars and who fought them himself, got slandered by the political machine around Kevin McCarthy as basically a crypto leftist, as a Bernie Sanders guy. | |
| They found pictures of him with long hair because he was in special forces. | |
| So they allowed him to do that, right? | |
| And they said, look, this is proof that this guy's a leftist. | |
| They did the same thing with Anthony Sabatini. | |
| And, you know, I think that the records of guys like Kent and Sabatini, what they said and what they believe in, speak for themselves. | |
| And so you have a guy like Kevin McCarthy who you say Trump is, or some people believe that Trump is keeping him close because he's actually an enemy. | |
| Well, the problem with that proximity is that it enables him to attack people who are actually MAGA and then get away with it. | |
| You could say that it allows him to get away with murder. | |
| And I think it's the same thing with Lindsey Graham. | |
| The problem is that if you encircle yourself with your enemies, going again with this analogy, those people are going to do bad things to like MAGA people, basically. | |
| Like keep your enemies close, keep your enemies close, keep your suddenly you find yourself surrounded by a wall of enemies who are keeping all the good people out of the movement or making sure that there's a kind of gate that only allows them to get so close. | |
| And I think that I don't believe, I understand why people believe that analogy and keeping your enemies closer. | |
| I don't think it's true. | |
| But at the same time, even if you accept it on its face, at a certain point, you know, when you're only surrounded by enemies, you see the problem here. | |
| And you see why the mandate is just undermined at every single turn. | |
| And then you find out, like, oh, you know, that's why we didn't get things done in the first administration because it was Chad Wolf at DHS. | |
| Keep your enemies closer, right? | |
| Well, Chad Wolf was an immigration lobbyist. | |
| A lot of people don't know about this. | |
| They just, you know, they see the picture of Chad Wolf with aviator sunglasses in a helicopter and they're like, okay, well, that guy, look at his physiognomy. | |
| He must be great, right? | |
| Well, at DHS, Chad Wolfe was terrible. | |
| People have totally forgotten about this. | |
| But Chad Wolf, who was an immigration lobbyist before he became the head of DHS under Trump, did nothing to ensure the border wall was going to get built. | |
| He lavished discretionary funds on sanctuary cities and he pushed for increasing visa programs, the kind of programs that take jobs for American workers. | |
| So that's what happens when you keep your enemies too close, I guess. | |
| Even if you accept that analogy at a certain point, it does not make sense. | |
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The Cost of Poor Listening
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| Yeah, I would, and I would also add to that that that might be a truism under certain regimes and certain circumstances. | |
| I have never found that to be true in my own personal life of running a program or running Turning Point USA. | |
| I don't actually find it to be, it's somehow become a phrase that's repeated a lot. | |
| And I don't think it actually works. | |
| Now, there was obviously maybe the Lincoln team of rivals, and even that is hotly debated. | |
| But look at John Bolton, Amarosa, Rex Tillerson, Gary Cohn. | |
| I mean, do we need more examples of that? | |
| I just think that they became impediments, leakers. | |
| And so, anyway, Pedro, thank you so much. | |
| Appreciate it. | |
| Check out his substack contra.substack.com. | |
| Thanks, Charlie. | |
| Thanks so much for listening, everybody. | |
| Email me your thoughts as always: freedom at charliekirk.com. | |
| Thank you so much for listening, and God bless. | |
| For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com. | |