The Charlie Kirk Show - The RNC Funding Fire Alarm
Aired: 2024-02-01
Duration: 34:58


=== Worst Fundraising in 30 Years (15:00) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, it's on the Charlie Kirk show.
[00:00:01]  The RNC has had the worst year fundraising in 30 years adjusted for inflation.
[00:00:05]  Who's to blame for this?
[00:00:07]  Well, we need new leadership.
[00:00:08]  We are pulling the fire alarm.
[00:00:10]  We very well might be headed for a disappointing November if changes are not made.
[00:00:16]  Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:19]  That is freedom at charliekirk.com.
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[00:00:39]  Advertiser-free.
[00:00:40]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:41]  Here we go.
[00:00:42]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:44]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:46]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:49]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:52]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:53]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:54]  His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:01:01]  Turning point USA.
[00:01:03]  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.
[00:01:12]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:15]  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.
[00:01:25]  Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com.
[00:01:32]  That is noblegoldinvestments.com.
[00:01:34]  It's where I buy all of my gold.
[00:01:36]  Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
[00:01:40]  Breaking news out of Vegas, the RNC fundraising totals are now public.
[00:01:44]  The RNC is having their winter meeting.
[00:01:47]  We had our meeting in Vegas right before.
[00:01:50]  It was very well received and very impactful.
[00:01:54]  Put us in a much better place to win.
[00:01:56]  But we were wondering, how did the RNC do?
[00:01:59]  The FEC reports, the Federal Election Commission reports, were going to be made public very soon.
[00:02:03]  We were curious, did they have a good year?
[00:02:05]  Were they able to consolidate donor support?
[00:02:08]  You see, last year we went to DataPoint.
[00:02:10]  We were lobbying to try to get the RNC membership to actually listen to you, the American people.
[00:02:16]  But the RNC membership largely, they don't care about you.
[00:02:19]  They care about the country club.
[00:02:21]  They care about the access.
[00:02:22]  They don't care about the American people.
[00:02:25]  You're an annoyance to many of them.
[00:02:26]  In fact, they told me that.
[00:02:27]  I remember one guy, one of the committeemen from, I believe the state was Missouri, he said, you know, you, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bennon, you guys are the problem.
[00:02:36]  You guys don't understand how things work at the RNC.
[00:02:38]  Things are going great here.
[00:02:39]  I'll never forget it.
[00:02:40]  You talking about how great the RNC was.
[00:02:42]  He was bragging on it.
[00:02:43]  The RNC, they are so confident in their own operation.
[00:02:48]  They think they are untouchable.
[00:02:50]  Well, the grassroots has cut them off.
[00:02:54]  They are so cocky.
[00:02:55]  They thought they had a wonderful 2022 midterms.
[00:02:58]  They thought that they have been posting win after win after win.
[00:03:03]  We have been very patient.
[00:03:04]  We have been trying to get Rana's attention and say, hey, can you fix these things?
[00:03:08]  Can you stop this ridiculous spending?
[00:03:11]  You know, $70,000 on flowers when the Democrats spend $7,000 on flowers or $700 on flowers.
[00:03:18]  We've been working with urgency.
[00:03:19]  I've been traveling the country away from my family, raising capital, hiring staff, trying to get ballot chasers in place.
[00:03:25]  We didn't have to do this event in Vegas, but we were glad to do it.
[00:03:28]  We were thankful for the opportunity, but honestly, we shouldn't have to do that.
[00:03:32]  But we've been receiving beautiful emails from committeemen and state party chairs.
[00:03:36]  And by the way, we have not been unreasonable.
[00:03:38]  We're not here just to create conflict for the sake of conflict, but we know a pack of losers when we see it, top to bottom.
[00:03:45]  The entire RNC staff in its current form.
[00:03:48]  And the chair, they don't want to win.
[00:03:50]  They don't even know what winning is.
[00:03:53]  These are people that have been on the graft for quite some time.
[00:03:57]  But the sales pitch that Ronna McRomney gave to many people is like, hey, the grassroots might hate me, but the donors, they like me.
[00:04:05]  We can raise a lot of money.
[00:04:07]  And even though the grassroots might be upset, wait till they see how much money we raise.
[00:04:13]  And the 168 members of the RNC, a majority of them, said, okay, we'll continue in this direction.
[00:04:22]  Well, the numbers are out, and there's no more hiding.
[00:04:25]  The RNC raised $87 million in the calendar year of 2023.
[00:04:33]  That is the worst year that they have had raising money since 2013.
[00:04:40]  It is the first year that they have had to post debt on their balance sheet since 2015.
[00:04:46]  By contrast, in 2022, they raised $176 million.
[00:04:50]  In 2021, they raised $158 million.
[00:04:53]  In 2020, they raised $649 million.
[00:04:59]  In 2019, they raised $241 million.
[00:05:02]  In 2018, $231 million.
[00:05:04]  In 2017, $132 million.
[00:05:06]  In 2016, they raised $237 million.
[00:05:10]  In 2015, $105 million.
[00:05:12]  In 2014, $114.
[00:05:14]  You have to go all the way back into 2013, 2013, after Obama gets re-elected.
[00:05:22]  And that was the lowest of the low morale.
[00:05:26]  I remember it.
[00:05:27]  You want to talk about being in the wilderness?
[00:05:30]  In 2013, the movement was in the wilderness.
[00:05:34]  Now, if you take 2013 and put it aside, there was not a year as bad as this year, except 2013, since 2001.
[00:05:45]  And if you adjust for inflation, this is the worst year the RNC has posted since probably afflation adjusted since 1998 or 1996.
[00:06:00]  I mean, you look at 1993, the year I was born, the RNC raised $39 million.
[00:06:07]  So Rana gave us assurances and said, we're going to raise all this money.
[00:06:12]  We're going to build a war chest.
[00:06:14]  $87 million.
[00:06:16]  And then they're in debt and they spent $93 million.
[00:06:19]  And what did they spend the money on?
[00:06:20]  Media consultants, limousines.
[00:06:23]  And the DNC, what are they spending their money on?
[00:06:25]  GOF, get out the vote texting, voter file maintenance.
[00:06:29]  Fact, this is the worst year of fundraising for the RNC since 1993 once adjusted for inflation.
[00:06:37]  Is Rana even trying?
[00:06:38]  Here's what Rana and the RNC are doing.
[00:06:40]  They're attacking me and they're attacking Turning Point time and time again.
[00:06:44]  They circulated hit pieces against me and Turning Point.
[00:06:48]  They had their media consultants maneuvering against us.
[00:06:51]  They've attacked us in the press.
[00:06:53]  When you donate to the RNC, you subsidize the attacking of Turning Point USA and the attacking of Charlie Kirk and the attacking of Turning Point Action.
[00:07:01]  That's not speculation.
[00:07:02]  They go on the record.
[00:07:03]  In fact, the RNC war room alerts back in the fall circulated attack pieces against us.
[00:07:09]  Turning point.
[00:07:09]  That's what they spend their money on.
[00:07:11]  That's what they spend their energy on.
[00:07:13]  But the big donors have cut them off.
[00:07:15]  Rana will go down as one of the greatest political failures in conservative history.
[00:07:22]  You look at the numbers.
[00:07:23]  She inherited an RNC in 2017 and largely 2020, thanks to Donald Trump, that was raising $649 million.
[00:07:32]  And in going into a presidential year, she's raising $87 million.
[00:07:37]  In 2019, a year before our presidential year, 2019, they raised $241 million.
[00:07:42]  And she's raiding $87 million.
[00:07:45]  But she told us everything was going to be fine.
[00:07:47]  And the members of the RNC, they protected her.
[00:07:49]  And each and every single one of them find their actions repulsive.
[00:07:55]  But now the RNC has a plan.
[00:07:58]  Mirana, she's not backing down.
[00:08:01]  She has a plan, everybody.
[00:08:02]  Her plan is we're going to take out a $10 million loan.
[00:08:06]  We're going to take out a $10 million loan because we can't raise the money.
[00:08:10]  The grassroots you guys have cut them off.
[00:08:12]  The big donors have cut them off.
[00:08:14]  It's a top-down, bottom-up squeeze of the RNC.
[00:08:17]  They're a pack of losers.
[00:08:19]  They don't win anything.
[00:08:20]  They have a culture of laziness and graft.
[00:08:22]  Limousines, media consultants, no money on GeoTV texting, tons of money on office supplies.
[00:08:32]  But they have one last insult for you, one last insult on you, for you.
[00:08:37]  Let me ask you a question.
[00:08:38]  How many of you in the audience, and by the way, this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
[00:08:42]  This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
[00:08:44]  Wait till you hear this.
[00:08:46]  How many of you in the audience have donated to Donald J. Trump?
[00:08:49]  Producer Andrew has.
[00:08:51]  If you have donated to Donald J. Trump through a victory committee, which many of you probably have because it's before you really might have realized what you were donating to, and it was like the Donald J. Trump Victory Committee, and you might have donated $100 or $150 or $250 over the last five to 10 years, you are on the donor list of the RNC.
[00:09:12]  And they probably pepper you with these ridiculous solicitations.
[00:09:15]  Now, mind you, we've tried to tell the RNC privately and publicly, hey, the way you guys are raising money is really degenerate and it's really unbecoming of a major political party.
[00:09:26]  It's out of panic and like a hair on fire.
[00:09:29]  Give us money or else, or the one that I couldn't stand is Donald Trump is so disappointed in you.
[00:09:34]  Give us money.
[00:09:36]  So Rana is taking out a $10 million loan.
[00:09:39]  Now, by the way, the 168 has to approve.
[00:09:41]  And I hope the 168 doesn't approve.
[00:09:43]  But the question that Steve Bannon asked, and it's the best question, what are they collateralizing?
[00:09:50]  The building?
[00:09:51]  No.
[00:09:53]  They're collateralizing you.
[00:09:55]  Now made public, the RNC to try to make up for their shortfall because they're so unpopular and they're so unable to do their job.
[00:10:03]  They are collateralizing their donor list, which includes you.
[00:10:09]  Your data is being used as leverage to keep Rana's RNC regime afloat.
[00:10:17]  I'm not making this up.
[00:10:19]  So they have your data and they go to some bank or some hard money lender and they say, hey, we have 1.3 million names of grassroots American MAGA patriots.
[00:10:29]  Why don't we collateralize this and give us $10 million?
[00:10:32]  And if we default on the loan, you get to have the data of the grassroots.
[00:10:36]  Hard to believe this is not against privacy laws.
[00:10:38]  I'm sure it's legal, but did you guys consent to this when you gave money to Donald J. Trump?
[00:10:43]  When you gave money to a victory committee, when you gave $100 of your social security check, did you consent to eventually have your personal and private address and data collateralized to bail out Rana?
[00:10:57]  Hey, everybody.
[00:10:58]  I know interest rates are not what they were a couple years ago, but I want to give you my perspective.
[00:11:02]  Did you know in 1971, the interest rate for a mortgage was 7.33%?
[00:11:07]  If you waited for the interest rate to go down, you would not have purchased a home until 1993.
[00:11:12]  Renting for 22 years while you waited.
[00:11:14]  In the meantime, the value of real estate quadrupled.
[00:11:17]  Don't wait to buy real estate.
[00:11:19]  Marry the house, not the rate.
[00:11:20]  You could always refinance everybody.
[00:11:22]  Take advantage of the slower market now and you can, again, refinance when rates go down.
[00:11:28]  Once rates start dropping, the frenzy will start all over again.
[00:11:32]  My friends, Andrew Del Rey and Todd of Akian are amazing, and they recently helped me with a purchase and they could help you too.
[00:11:38]  They've been amazing to work with.
[00:11:39]  I can't say enough good things about Andrew Del Rey and Todd of Akian.
[00:11:44]  888 888 1172 or go to andrewandtodd.com.
[00:11:47]  That's Andrewandtodd.com.
[00:11:48]  If you are Gen Z or millennial, you have a little bit of money put aside, it might be the best opportunity to go to andrewantodd.com and buy a home.
[00:11:57]  Get in the market.
[00:11:57]  Once you're in the buyer's game, you must never leave the buyer game.
[00:12:00]  And again, I encourage you guys to check it out right now.
[00:12:03]  Interest rates, they're signaling that they're going to go down, but don't wait.
[00:12:07]  The price of real estate very well might continue to go up.
[00:12:10]  Go to AndrewanTodd.com, andrewandTodd.com.
[00:12:16]  It's hard to even comprehend.
[00:12:18]  I mean, I'm sure it's legal.
[00:12:20]  I'm sure that it's following the law, but the ethics and the morals here are questionable at best.
[00:12:26]  In fact, I find it to be not consistent with donor intent.
[00:12:32]  So, you know, when you give money and you check all these boxes and sometimes you don't read what it says, I'm sure the RNC had there like, hey, we have the right to reuse your data and to share your data.
[00:12:45]  And a lot of people just check the box.
[00:12:47]  And so here's the multiple sources telling Jennifer Van Law that the RNC winter meeting today, committee members were told that a $10 million line of credit, and they're seeking $5 million of which is used in the proposed 2024 budget, will be collateralized with the RNC donor list.
[00:13:03]  Now, I sure hope the RNC members say, no, we're not approving this.
[00:13:07]  No, we're not going to put up with this, but they probably will.
[00:13:09]  There'll be some holdouts.
[00:13:10]  There'll be 50 or 60, 70 patriots, but there'll be about 100 that just think everything is great.
[00:13:15]  And I met these people.
[00:13:16]  They hate you.
[00:13:18]  I don't think they want Donald Trump to become president.
[00:13:21]  They have a bitterness about them.
[00:13:23]  They also are just there for the prestige and to post a Facebook photo.
[00:13:28]  They have great contempt for the grassroots.
[00:13:30]  They think Rana is the greatest chairman ever.
[00:13:32]  They told me that.
[00:13:33]  In fact, many of them told me Rana's the best we've ever had.
[00:13:36]  She does a great job.
[00:13:38]  She has been so wonderful.
[00:13:40]  They told me this to my face.
[00:13:42]  So I would imagine they approve this.
[00:13:45]  But think about it.
[00:13:46]  You're given 20 bucks that you don't have, 50 bucks that you don't have.
[00:13:51]  How many of you probably gave money to the election integrity fund that the RNC had?
[00:13:55]  Where did all that money go?
[00:13:56]  We don't know.
[00:13:57]  Maybe to flowers, limousines.
[00:13:58]  It's just, we don't know.
[00:14:00]  And then they take your data as if they haven't, as if they haven't took enough from you.
[00:14:07]  And then they're completely devoid of capital.
[00:14:12]  They have no trust of the grassroots.
[00:14:16]  And the last thing they have left is to collateralize your data.
[00:14:21]  The last thing they have left is to say, hey, you guys gave money under the pretenses of helping get Donald Trump elected four or five years ago, but we're going to collateralize your email address, your phone number, and your address.
[00:14:36]  Collateralize the people who never donate to them and collateralize the data of people that have cut them off.
[00:14:43]  This is their way to just say two middle fingers like, haha, grassroots.
[00:14:48]  We actually still can keep ourselves afloat.
[00:14:52]  Thanks for the donation five years ago.
[00:14:55]  Meanwhile, Biden's main political action committee is breaking records.

=== The Grassroots Squeeze (04:27) ===

[00:15:00]  I'm telling you, this election is going to be way closer than people think.
[00:15:03]  I cringe sometimes and I love the president, but when he posts on Truth Social, I'm up eight points on Biden.
[00:15:09]  That might be an accurate picture in time, but we got to get to work.
[00:15:12]  I don't think that's helpful right now.
[00:15:13]  I don't.
[00:15:14]  And I say that as someone who's a devotee to Trump, who is as diehard.
[00:15:18]  Biden's going to have so much money.
[00:15:20]  Remember when Carrie Lake said she was up 10% on Katie Hobbs?
[00:15:23]  Well, we don't have Governor Lake right now.
[00:15:25]  They're going to do shenanigans.
[00:15:26]  We got to secure our elections.
[00:15:27]  Like enough of this thrown around polls.
[00:15:30]  Biden's going to have billions of dollars.
[00:15:32]  Let me say that again, billions of dollars, not to mention most of the tech companies are going to help Biden.
[00:15:36]  Thank goodness we have Twitter and X so we can get the word out.
[00:15:40]  He's going to control the airwaves of dark money.
[00:15:44]  There's going to be ballot chasers.
[00:15:45]  They're already suing right now in all the courts, and we're not even fighting it because the RNC is too busy buying flowers.
[00:15:50]  The elections are less secure than ever before in Wisconsin.
[00:15:53]  It's moderate improvements.
[00:15:55]  Arizona is a disaster.
[00:15:56]  Adrian Fontes just put out this new election procedures manual.
[00:16:00]  That is a catastrophe.
[00:16:02]  Biden is smashing fundraising records.
[00:16:06]  And I know a lot of people say, oh, Biden's not going to be the nominee.
[00:16:08]  It could be Michelle Obama.
[00:16:09]  I have a lot of Democrat sources where it seems that has cooled.
[00:16:12]  There was chatter about that with David Ignatius and the regime 60 or 90 days ago.
[00:16:16]  Joe Biden is death-gripping.
[00:16:18]  They think they can win this election on threat to democracy, on abortion, on climate change.
[00:16:24]  They think they can win it on ballot chasing and the cockiness that I see on the right.
[00:16:30]  I saw someone yesterday said, oh, you know, we're going to win and we're going to win 360 electoral votes.
[00:16:36]  I said, just that is not helpful at all.
[00:16:38]  That is 0% helpful.
[00:16:40]  What are you doing?
[00:16:41]  I could tell you what we're doing.
[00:16:42]  We're hiring 300 people in just Arizona at Turning Point Action that honestly, we shouldn't have to be doing this, but we're doing it anyway because the entire Republican apparatus had the worst fundraising year, inflation adjusted, since 1993.
[00:16:54]  What has Rhonda been doing exactly?
[00:16:56]  How can you be that bad at fundraising?
[00:16:59]  You told us you were great because people see through you.
[00:17:03]  They see that you have had a track record of losing, but she is death-gripping.
[00:17:08]  And her bailout strategy is to take your personal and private data, bundle it, go to a bank and take out a hard money loan to bail out her failed regime.
[00:17:20]  She's leveraging you, the grassroots.
[00:17:22]  Any one of you that have given money to Donald Trump via the RNC, you are, without you know it, bailing out the RNC.
[00:17:33]  Okay, Kirk fans, I need you to stop and pay attention to this.
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=== Outspending the Opposition (14:14) ===

[00:19:27]  I need to warn you, this is going to sound really heavy, and it's going to sound as if I'm being pessimistic.
[00:19:35]  Everything I'm about to go through is fixable.
[00:19:37]  This is not a death sentence, but it's a wake-up call, and it's also going to be a reminder that we have to fortify our defenses and get ready because the election really hasn't even started yet.
[00:19:51]  It hasn't even started.
[00:19:52]  Now, the RNC has had their worst fundraising year since the year I was born 30 years ago, inflation adjusted.
[00:19:58]  And Rana and the RNC, they're not going to say this publicly, but one of the reasons they say is, well, it's because we've been so under attack by people like Charlie Kirk and Turning Point.
[00:20:06]  Well, they haven't said that publicly, but privately, we've heard that that's some of the chatter.
[00:20:11]  Hold on a second.
[00:20:12]  No one is more under attack than Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action.
[00:20:15]  And praise God, we did very, very well with fundraising this last year, near record highs, right near it.
[00:20:21]  The final numbers were still, but it's just right near record highs, 300,000 people.
[00:20:25]  It's because we produce results and we work our tail off.
[00:20:28]  And we have a team of winners.
[00:20:29]  And we admit when we don't do things right and we adjust and we listen to the grassroots, the RNC doesn't do any of that.
[00:20:35]  And also just we have a culture of winners here at Turning Point.
[00:20:38]  These are people that could be working at high-level companies.
[00:20:41]  They could be working for high-level banks.
[00:20:43]  The RNC, just the quality of your average RNC staffer, they're very unimpressive people.
[00:20:48]  I wouldn't hire them to do anything.
[00:20:49]  I'm not saying they're all bad people, but they're not exactly the elite.
[00:20:53]  These are people that were like former congressional staffers.
[00:20:56]  They like to go out and drink at night and, you know, they might work four or five hour days.
[00:21:00]  They're not warriors.
[00:21:01]  They're not the, they're not people that Elon Musk would hire to get a rocket to go into space.
[00:21:07]  Honestly, some of these people at Turning Point, Elon would hire at SpaceX.
[00:21:12]  I could say that 100%.
[00:21:14]  The work ethic, the intelligence, the wisdom.
[00:21:18]  So I'm going to go through a couple of data points, and it's going to sound like I'm being overly negative, but this is a wake-up call.
[00:21:22]  I'm just going to tell you right now that the election hasn't even started.
[00:21:26]  Number one, we have this whole lawfare primary that we have to go through.
[00:21:29]  This is not the time to cover this extensively, but the lawfare primary is going to test the resolve of Donald Trump and our movement.
[00:21:39]  We're talking Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, Fannie Willis.
[00:21:42]  Thankfully, the Fannie Willis thing is trending in the right direction.
[00:21:44]  People are seeing her as the corrupt individual that she is.
[00:21:49]  The Alvin Bragg one is going to materialize.
[00:21:51]  The 14th Amendment efforts, the lawfare primary is going to be in February, March, and April.
[00:21:56]  We're going to have the political deathblow of Nikki Haley coming up in a couple of weeks.
[00:22:00]  Even big donors are fading from Nikki Haley.
[00:22:02]  There's a piece in the New York Times that big billionaire donors that don't like Donald Trump, they're reconsidering their options.
[00:22:07]  Good.
[00:22:07]  We need every dollar that we can right now.
[00:22:09]  We need every single dollar that we can because Joe Biden is smashing fundraising records.
[00:22:14]  Now, they're going to outspend us.
[00:22:16]  And there's a talking point on the right that I just want to push back.
[00:22:18]  Some people say, oh, we don't need their money.
[00:22:21]  We're going to win with just grassroots.
[00:22:23]  Look, that is not wise.
[00:22:25]  We are going to get outspent.
[00:22:27]  But it's at some point you have to close the gap within your just competitive.
[00:22:30]  If you're outspent 10 to 1, I don't care how much grassroots you have.
[00:22:34]  You could run ads and ads and ads.
[00:22:35]  Be honest, some people are just low information voters on the left, and they get mobilized.
[00:22:40]  Like, oh, my goodness, they're going to take my abortion rights away.
[00:22:43]  And it's the number one issue.
[00:22:44]  And where's my ballot?
[00:22:45]  And then they have thousands of ballot chasers that they deploy in Arizona and Georgia.
[00:22:49]  And there's only so much you could do to overcome that.
[00:22:51]  You got to close the money gap.
[00:22:52]  And the RNC has proven they cannot do that.
[00:22:56]  And another story out today, and this is going to be taken out of context, if I'm not super precise in my language.
[00:23:02]  And by no means saying that Ron DeSantis is the only reason why we are in a non-competitive position.
[00:23:10]  But I think we're in a unique place because we were awfully vocal about this.
[00:23:14]  And I basically obliterated our relationship with the DeSantis camp over our communication on this because it was true.
[00:23:22]  Ron DeSantis' numbers have also come out.
[00:23:24]  So this is FEC Day, basically.
[00:23:26]  It's February 1st.
[00:23:26]  So you get all the numbers of the DNC, the RNC, all the super PACs, the Trump PAC.
[00:23:31]  FEC Day is interesting.
[00:23:32]  You get all these publicly disclosures.
[00:23:33]  So you can finally see, hey, what's going on here?
[00:23:35]  New York Times reports, here's how much cash Ron DeSantis burned through against Trump.
[00:23:41]  Now, you can go back on the Charlie Kirk show podcast page.
[00:23:43]  For those of you that listen, you know, we have been so clear, so outspoken, and cautioning Ron DeSantis saying, hey, you are wasting and burning money.
[00:23:51]  You should spend this on general election infrastructure.
[00:23:54]  The $130 million that you're about to burn through is not going to be well spent.
[00:23:58]  You're not going to be the nominee.
[00:24:00]  And we were attacked by many different people on the DeSantis side saying, oh, you don't know what you're talking about, Charlie.
[00:24:05]  I could go to the clips.
[00:24:06]  They mocked me.
[00:24:07]  They smeared me.
[00:24:09]  They slandered me.
[00:24:10]  They came after me.
[00:24:11]  Oh, Charlie doesn't know what he's talking about.
[00:24:13]  Of course, Ron DeSantis should do this.
[00:24:15]  I could name names.
[00:24:16]  And these people still go on TV.
[00:24:17]  They go on cable television.
[00:24:19]  They're trusted as experts.
[00:24:21]  And they were all wrong because we know the grassroots.
[00:24:23]  We saw what was happening.
[00:24:24]  It wasn't just us.
[00:24:25]  It was Steve Bannon, Jack Posobic, Tucker.
[00:24:27]  So Ron DeSantis, was the money spent on full-time ballot chasers?
[00:24:32]  Was the money spent on election integrity lawsuits?
[00:24:34]  No, Ron DeSantis vaporized $130 million.
[00:24:38]  Meanwhile, Joe Biden has a record war chest.
[00:24:41]  This was our warning all summer.
[00:24:44]  By the way, it didn't make my job to raise capital easier.
[00:24:48]  You know how many Ron DeSantis donors stopped giving money to Turning Point because we were saying that it was a complete waste of time?
[00:24:54]  I was at an event in late November, early December in Naples, Florida, a donor event.
[00:25:01]  And I went up on, this was just about two months ago.
[00:25:03]  And I said Ron DeSantis should drop out.
[00:25:05]  And people were, you know, like murmuring and they said, I'm never going to give money to Charlie or Turning Point.
[00:25:08]  Ron DeSantis is the greatest thing ever.
[00:25:10]  How dare he say that?
[00:25:11]  And I said, listen, the numbers just aren't there.
[00:25:13]  And that Ron DeSantis is directly playing into the Joe Biden reelection efforts.
[00:25:16]  Well, it turns out we were right.
[00:25:17]  The astounding sum, this is New York Times.
[00:25:21]  I'm just going to read word for word.
[00:25:22]  It costs more than $160 million for Ron DeSantis of Florida to come in second place in a single nominating contest.
[00:25:27]  That astounding sum makes Ron DeSantis' failed presidential bid among the most expensive in modern Republican primary elections.
[00:25:33]  The details of where the money was laid out is finally in this federal election commission report on Wednesday.
[00:25:38]  Shows just how much free spending Mr. DeSantis and his allied in Super PACs were.
[00:25:42]  53 million of it went to a Republican strategist firm.
[00:25:46]  31.3 million of it went to television advertising time.
[00:25:50]  3.3 million of it went to private airfare between the campaign and Never Back Down.
[00:25:54]  All, as the New York Times writes, for 23,420 votes in Iowa.
[00:25:59]  So now, Blake, you went to Dartmouth.
[00:26:02]  What is $160 million divided by $23,420?
[00:26:08]  Get the final number for me.
[00:26:10]  $160 million divided by $23,420.
[00:26:13]  The bulk of the money, $130 million, was spent by Never Back Down.
[00:26:17]  Okay, so, okay, got it.
[00:26:18]  Okay, so Ron DeSantis spent $6,831 per vote in Iowa.
[00:26:23]  $6,831 per vote in Iowa.
[00:26:29]  We said all along back in July, drop out, Ron DeSantis.
[00:26:32]  Go be a great governor of Florida.
[00:26:34]  Build your stock for a future presidential race and be the hero that defeated Biden.
[00:26:39]  You could have the Ron DeSantis ballot chasing army.
[00:26:42]  Donors would love you.
[00:26:43]  You could raise a couple hundred million bucks.
[00:26:44]  You could fly the country private.
[00:26:47]  You could hire 3,500 ballot chasers.
[00:26:49]  Or, hey, what if Ron DeSantis would have swooped in and said, Mr. President, I want to run the RNC and I'm going to have my pack?
[00:26:55]  Whoa.
[00:26:56]  Obviously, Ron DeSantis can raise a lot of money.
[00:26:59]  No, but instead, Ron DeSantis went on this ego trip.
[00:27:01]  I'm sorry, there's no other way to put it.
[00:27:03]  And it has put us at a serious structural disadvantage.
[00:27:07]  I'm not saying that he shouldn't have run for the first place.
[00:27:09]  Test the waters out.
[00:27:10]  In June, by the way, if you just want to talk about how like the political gods were trying to tell you that you shouldn't run, it was by far one of the clumsiest, most embarrassing political announcements ever.
[00:27:21]  That should have just showed you.
[00:27:23]  All right, I see the writing on the wall.
[00:27:25]  And by the way, he announces on Twitter and he's like reading an op-ed and it was so scripted.
[00:27:30]  It was the whole thing was very cringe.
[00:27:33]  But I'm all for running.
[00:27:35]  See if it plays in Peoria.
[00:27:37]  But around July or August, especially after the first debate, and you're down 45 points in national polls and you're hemorrhaging cash and you realize that the base is turning your back on you, drop out, make a pivot, and help the general election candidate who obviously was going to be Trump make a change.
[00:27:54]  And that's one of the things that just drove me nuts: the hubris and the pride and the self-righteousness of the people around DeSantis.
[00:28:02]  And I was trying to text them and they were calling me idiots and they were calling Andrew idiots and they would ignore us.
[00:28:07]  No humility, no coaching, no adjustments.
[00:28:10]  They're like, no, we know what we're doing.
[00:28:11]  Full throttle and acceleration.
[00:28:13]  Well, you guys just wasted, I'm sorry, wasted $160 million precious dollars that we desperately need right now.
[00:28:22]  And we don't have it.
[00:28:23]  And what do you have to show for it?
[00:28:24]  Well, you spent $6,831 per vote in Iowa.
[00:28:29]  That's like Mike Bloomberg level.
[00:28:31]  That's like Mike Bloomberg level.
[00:28:33]  What did Bloomberg spend in Guam?
[00:28:35]  I think he ended up spending like $10 million per delegate or something.
[00:28:40]  $6,831 per vote.
[00:28:44]  Ron DeSantis could have gone around the state of Iowa and said, Hey, if you will caucus with me for me, my super PAC will send you a stimulus check of $2,500 cash.
[00:28:55]  And he would have saved 66% per vote.
[00:28:59]  He would have won, maybe.
[00:29:01]  He could have had big signup fares, get a payable cash check for $2,500.
[00:29:10]  I will give you cash to vote for.
[00:29:12]  I don't know if this is legal or not, but it would have been more economical instead.
[00:29:16]  He spent $6,831 per vote.
[00:29:20]  We're going to keep diving into this.
[00:29:22]  And some people, you know, say, but Charlie, this is the past.
[00:29:25]  No, it's not the past.
[00:29:26]  It's the current.
[00:29:28]  It's DeSantis and that pack of prideful people around him that put us in this disadvantage.
[00:29:34]  And may we never forget.
[00:29:36]  It wasn't like he spent 10 million bucks like Tim Scott.
[00:29:38]  Like, who cares?
[00:29:39]  Okay.
[00:29:40]  $160 million.
[00:29:47]  This is not playtime.
[00:29:48]  We have benefited for years on Trump's ability to bring out voters just on his name ID.
[00:29:54]  This is not going to happen again just automatically.
[00:29:56]  There is no machine.
[00:29:58]  The best way I could put this is in the most valuable year of preparation.
[00:30:02]  This is what drives me nuts.
[00:30:03]  It drives me out of my mind.
[00:30:05]  Is all, let's just forget the money for a second, all the energy that Rana and that group of losers put into the debates.
[00:30:14]  You didn't have to do the debates in the flashy Reagan library and all that garbage.
[00:30:18]  Now they might say, oh, well, we have to officially do debates because we have committees and bylaws and all this.
[00:30:22]  Okay, maybe a debate.
[00:30:24]  But honestly, you could have just rented an arena, had Dan Bongino and Steve Bannon and Real America's voice and flip the bird to NBC.
[00:30:36]  You didn't have to do some sort of multi-million dollar stage build out and say, we're spending our money on the stuff that matters.
[00:30:43]  Instead, we have all the how many different debates did we have to tolerate here?
[00:30:47]  That was just a complete waste of time.
[00:30:48]  For what?
[00:30:49]  So that Rana could be chauffeured in as if she's the Sultan of Brunei?
[00:30:54]  She's like princess, the princess of the RNC.
[00:30:57]  A lot of people are fixating on these polls that show Trump up seven points and five points.
[00:31:02]  You got to mark that down within five points immediately because Biden is going to spend so much money.
[00:31:07]  And don't underestimate the single woman vote, the abortion vote.
[00:31:10]  Don't underestimate the spin of the media.
[00:31:13]  They're going to make it all about abortion.
[00:31:14]  They're going to mobilize ballot chase, 30 days of voting.
[00:31:17]  And what do we have to respond?
[00:31:19]  Right now, we don't have any machinery except turning point action.
[00:31:22]  And I'm not just saying that.
[00:31:23]  If you guys know of any other national organization that is hiring full-time people on the right, please email me about them, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:31:30]  I'm not talking about five or six people, but hundreds of people.
[00:31:32]  They're already poll tested this.
[00:31:34]  Their ads are going about abortion, saving democracy, and this stuff works.
[00:31:39]  We are in a bad spot structurally right now.
[00:31:42]  You know what makes me sick?
[00:31:43]  Is this should be a blowout election?
[00:31:46]  This should be a blowout election.
[00:31:48]  If we even had 1% of an idea of what we were doing, and if Rana steps down, great.
[00:31:54]  But you know what?
[00:31:54]  That's just when the work begins.
[00:31:56]  Basically, it's like move Rana, get out of the way, and then we're going to have to be in a crisis.
[00:32:01]  We're going to have to fix this thing.
[00:32:02]  We're going to have to fix the plane while it's taken off.
[00:32:04]  We don't have time.
[00:32:05]  This is why we went so hard in Dana Point last year with Harmeet.
[00:32:10]  Let's say Rana theoretically steps down, which I have no idea if she will.
[00:32:13]  That doesn't necessarily solve the problem.
[00:32:15]  We got a nine-point punch list.
[00:32:18]  You got to raise $30 million in 30 days.
[00:32:20]  Who the next RNC chair is?
[00:32:22]  You got to hire 150 people, minimum in the grassroots.
[00:32:25]  Where are you going to find them?
[00:32:25]  I don't know because you have to go remedy all the broken relationships that you guys have stomped on.
[00:32:31]  You have ticked off every grassroots group.
[00:32:34]  Number three, you got to figure out your grassroots donor problem.
[00:32:37]  Number four, you have this line of credit where you're collateralizing the donor list of the grassroots.
[00:32:43]  How are you going to raise more grassroots dollars, RNC, if you're using the private home addresses, emails, and insensitive banking information data, collateralizing that to get a line of credit?
[00:32:53]  You got to fix that.
[00:32:55]  You got to figure out how you're going to counter the multi-billion dollar TV ad spend.
[00:32:58]  You got to go win over the big donors, which, by the way, do not want to support Republicans anymore.
[00:33:03]  I have a top-level billionaire source that says, quote, corporate America is still cold to Trump.
[00:33:09]  They don't like Biden, but they will support Biden over Trump.
[00:33:11]  So we're going to get outspent.
[00:33:12]  You got to figure that out.
[00:33:13]  You have a convention that you have to host that is a tens of millions of dollars production minimum that you got to host in July.
[00:33:22]  And I'm just barely touching the surface.
[00:33:24]  Meanwhile, the Democrats, they're unpopular.
[00:33:26]  They hate the country, but they have more money than ever.
[00:33:29]  They have an incredible machine.
[00:33:31]  And right now, Biden is going around on Air Force One and he's doing $250,000 plate fundraisers and he is raking it in.
[00:33:38]  And they are building a war chest to win.

=== Corporate America Remains Cold (01:16) ===

[00:33:41]  What are we doing?
[00:33:42]  We're playing patty cake about collateralizing.
[00:33:45]  This thing is a joke.
[00:33:47]  It is an insult to our intelligence.
[00:33:49]  Nobody in business should put up with this.
[00:33:51]  As somebody who has been blessed to now run a $100 million operation between Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action, I find this so insulting.
[00:33:59]  We deserve better than this.
[00:34:00]  We need an opposition party.
[00:34:01]  It's not hard.
[00:34:03]  And you might say, oh, Charlie, who would you say?
[00:34:04]  Actually, we can say this.
[00:34:06]  We run a big thing here.
[00:34:07]  We know what it takes.
[00:34:08]  And I could tell you right now, the people, and it's not just Rana.
[00:34:11]  If Rana gets out of the way, top to bottom, you fire the janitor, you fire everybody.
[00:34:17]  The secretary, it's got to be a top to bottom, scorched earth operation.
[00:34:21]  You get them out.
[00:34:22]  Andrew says, maybe not the janitor.
[00:34:24]  I'm talking metaphorically, okay?
[00:34:27]  The janitor can keep their job.
[00:34:28]  God bless the janitor.
[00:34:30]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:34:32]  I love janitors, but it's a part of speech.
[00:34:37]  Meaning, it's like football.
[00:34:39]  You're going to keep everyone, you fire everyone.
[00:34:41]  Wholesale change.
[00:34:45]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:34:46]  Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:34:49]  Thanks so much for listening.
[00:34:51]  God bless.
[00:34:54]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.