All Episodes
Previous Next
May 14, 2025 - The Charlie Kirk Show
36:38
Trump's Epic Saudi Speech
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey, everybody.
Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.
President Trump's triumphant speech in Saudi Arabia.
We explain what's really going on in the Middle East in a very unique, exclusive take, so make sure you listen to it.
Then we have Mark Halperin, who joins the program, and we have a great conversation with Mark Halperin about the Middle East, about raising taxes on the wealthy, and the historical significance of what President Trump is accomplishing.
Become a member today.
It's members.charliekirk.com.
That is members.charliekirk.com.
When you become a member, you can support this program and listen to all of our episodes advertiser-free.
That is members.charliekirk.com.
Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and get involved with Turning Point USA at 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.
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.
It's where I buy all of my gold.
Go to noblegoldinvestments.com.
Lots to cover today.
I am We are so blessed to be here in Phoenix, Arizona while President Trump is barnstorming the Middle East because I can analyze and watch everything that's happening here.
I can look at it and think about it because President Donald Trump is on quite a pace right now.
Understand, President Donald Trump flew all the way...
Through the night, he flew from Washington, D.C. to Saudi Arabia.
He rested for 90 minutes at the local Ritz Hotel, got back into the motorcade, went to the Saudi palace, met with officials, world leaders.
Every CEO on the planet is there in Saudi Arabia.
And then President Trump had to go give a long speech in front of all these people and then go do a royal dinner.
All in one day.
It's basically a 40-hour day.
And honestly, President Trump, for him, that's nothing, considering what he did during this last election.
He did not sleep for the last three days during the last election, and there were many days where he did not sleep at all.
And again, the easy contrast, but it's worthy to keep on mentioning and noticing the last president could not do this.
When Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia, he went and fist-bumped Mohammed bin Salman and took a day and a half off before the first meeting.
You see?
President Donald Trump is recalibrating the world geopolitical order for the better.
He's recalibrating the Middle East to look to the West.
As we mentioned yesterday, those three countries, UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, like them or not like them, understand Saudi Arabia was involved, many of them 9-11 hijackers.
Qatar, a lot of people are upset with what they may or may not be doing with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
That's not what this trip is about.
This trip is about the macro picture.
Which way do we want these increasingly wealthy and powerful kingdoms to point?
Do we want them to point towards America and our value system?
Or do we want them to point towards the Chinese Communist Party?
And understand, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, he is being very smart in how he's sophisticating the finances of Saudi Arabia.
It's more than just oil.
It's more than just petroleum.
They have a remarkably ambitious sovereign wealth fund.
They've invested in artificial intelligence tremendously.
The Saudi investment fund, very successful.
And they are now investing in America, which we want.
Donald Trump is going to come home with trillions of dollars of investment to the United States of America.
Trillions of dollars of investment in factories and plants to our home country.
But let's go a level deeper.
President Trump, by the way, just finished an amazing day in Qatar, in Doha, where they announced they're going to go buy nearly 200 Boeing planes.
Big deal for American jobs.
They're going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into America.
But I want to analyze President Trump's speech in Saudi Arabia.
The typical speech that would be given if George W. Bush would have went there or if Barack Obama would have been a lot different.
It would have been finger-wagging.
It would have been, we are here.
To go reorganize the Middle East to our liking.
Now look, we've been very clear on this program.
We're not a fan of Mohammedism at all.
We stand, for example, with Israel against the barbarians that oppose civilization.
But we also know as a country, we have limitations.
We must have the prudence to know that our own country has immediate concerns and that going to the Middle East and shaming Saudi Arabia Would do us no good.
Now, ironically, this is what's so delicious about all this, is that we are going to Europe and shaming them, but we're not going to the Middle East and shaming their customs.
And I actually think it's very smart, because Europe is not living up to their own standard.
They're not.
Europe is not living up to the standard of free speech and democracy and the rule of law.
They're raiding people's homes for bad social media posts.
A gentler touch, a more friendly touch in the Middle East with these actors will make the next Abraham Accords more likely, will allow us to ice out the malicious actors of Iran and Hamas in the Middle East, and will then turn that capital towards markets that we favor.
And President Trump, he was in rare form yesterday, giving a morally clear speech about how we want the Middle East To be about technology, not terrorism.
We want the Middle East to be about investment and purpose.
For years, our leaders put America last.
And in the process, they caused untold destruction in the Middle East.
Just ask the people of Iraq or Syria or Libya what America last meant for their countries.
President Donald Trump, 279, play it.
After so many decades of conflict, finally it is within our grasp to reach the future that generations before us could only dream about a land of peace, safety, harmony, opportunity, innovation, and achievement right here in the Middle East.
And let me also tell you the brilliance of what President Trump is doing.
This is a long-term American partnership.
Look, you might say the lefties, they're so short-sighted.
Oh, Saudi Arabia is going to be irrelevant because we're transitioning away from...
Petroleum to green energy.
First of all, how are you going to power all your AI data centers?
How are you going to have ChatGPT and quantum computing with solar panels?
Do you understand the remarkable amount of energy it takes to run just a singular AI data center?
One conversation with ChatGPT requires 10 times more energy than a simple Google search.
One.
And more people are using AI than ever before.
So in fact...
The Middle East is going to be more important as to LNG, petroleum-based, quick, high-combustible energy for the AI renaissance that we're going to be entering, but a level deeper than that.
One of the most important things, and President Trump knows this, is he's investing in the future, is that with the Saudis and the Qataris and the Emiratis, so you have the Emir of Qatar, you got Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and you got Mohammed bin Zayed in the United Arab Emirates.
Those are the three major actors.
These are monarchies.
These are not democracies.
These are monarchies.
They'll be led by the same men 20, 30, maybe 50 years from now.
If we forge strong relationships with them, they could last a very long time.
And some people say, oh, Charlie, we shouldn't be cozying up to all these people.
Time out.
What we want them to do is to grow closer to deals like the Abraham Accords, Western values, because our...
If we do not engage with this part of the world, they will go to Beijing.
And that will be bad for the planet and bad for humanity.
President Donald Trump touts the investment.
By the way, has the media been covering this?
I mean, I got to look at the, I got Wall Street Journal, I'll read it in a second.
But the New York Times, emboldened president jumps ethical barriers.
That's their lead.
Officers say Gaza near starvation.
Trump will lift sanctions on devastated Syria.
That is big.
No, that's a big deal.
He should do that, by the way.
But the amount of investment that President Trump is announcing, this is like a stimulus package.
I want you to understand what's happening here.
The amount of investment that President Trump is announcing is the equivalent, if not more.
Then the big Obama stimulus.
Do you remember the Obama stimulus back in 2010, 2009?
It was heralded by the media.
$800 billion stimulus and we're going to build bridges and we're going to build roads and we're going to build solar panels.
President Donald Trump is coming back with a foreign stimulus in America without an act of Congress, without going into debt, without borrowing, without having to mortgage future generations.
Let's play cut 278, please.
In addition to purchases of $142 billion of American-made military equipment by our great Saudi partners, the largest ever, this week there are multi-billion dollar commercial deals with Amazon, Oracle, AMD, they're all here, Uber, Qualcomm, Johnson& Johnson, and many, many more.
And I'm going to build this out further because I know a lot of people in Saudi Arabia right now.
I know I'm in Riyadh and I know the deals that are happening and I'm getting kind of text messages about kind of what's happening.
And without going into some of those details, because it's not that private, but what's really awesome is what President Trump has done is he's created almost a mini Olympics vibe.
This is the place to be.
If you're not here, you're missing out.
And all the deals are happening within like this four-day window.
Boom.
Yes, I'll open up that plant and facility.
Yes, I will expand that AI.
Data Center in Sacramento.
And what he's done is he's brought everyone in the room and the Chinese are iced out.
They are iced out.
What you are seeing is an optimistic economic Olympics of where all the power brokers of the economy are being soft social pressured into investing in America.
With all the talk about tariffs, high prices, and the stock market, most people are feeling the financial pinch.
If that's you, don't liquidate stocks and take a loss before calling my friends Andrew Del Rey and Todd Avakian at Sierra Pacific Mortgage.
They can look at helping you reduce your mortgage payments, consolidate those high interest credit cards, pay student loan debt or whatever you need by tapping into your home's equity.
They're one of the rare banks in America that hasn't changed their name or their values in nearly four decades.
They really are the experts.
They've helped me and they make it so easy.
They'll listen to your needs and find real financial solutions based on what you know today.
They can help you get your financial house in order.
So don't panic.
Call Andrew and Todd.
They're the guys I trust with my finances and they can help you too.
888-888-1172.
That is 888-888-1172 or online at andrewandtodd.com.
That's andrewandtodd.com.
So, let me try my best to explain this.
In business...
So many deals are done in person when there is a sense of camaraderie.
So much of business is actually not just looking at numbers.
It's vibe.
As Gen Z, there's a lot of Gen Z lingo I don't like, but the best Gen Z word is aura.
It's actually a very good word.
There is an aura to people.
There's a vibe.
There's an energy.
There is a feel.
And President Trump has completely changed the aura around America.
And again, I'm peripherally here.
I'm here in Phoenix.
I'm not in Saudi Arabia.
But I know a lot of people right on the front lines, they say, Charlie, the business flow and the velocity towards America is unlike anything we've ever seen.
So what's happening in Saudi Arabia, President Trump is the power center of the planet.
So President Trump goes to Saudi Arabia, and all of a sudden people fly in from Rome, from France.
From Bangkok, from Kuala Lumpur, from Singapore, from the Philippines.
They fly in from Australia.
Anyone that wants to deploy capital, all of a sudden they come and President Trump convenes them in Saudi Arabia.
There is probably...
A trillion dollars of new investment coming to America that is not going to make the New York Times.
That we don't even want to know, that we're not going to know about.
Just, okay, we'll do another $100 million here.
We'll do another $200 million here.
We'll do a billion here.
And that adds up.
Someone's overall vibe, their energy, or their cool factor, which President Trump has, is essentially a compliment, signifying that someone is perceived as effortlessly stylish, confident, and suave.
That is the...
Definition of aura.
And I think President Trump definitely has it.
You see, pre-Trump, people just talked about America inevitably becoming more liberal.
And just think about it.
Everyone was wearing masks and you had to have social distancing.
And Biden was so negative and our borders were open and we were being invaded.
And then we had the Russia, Ukraine stuff.
And we had October 7th.
It was just negative gut punch after gut punch.
And we're getting a little window into the convocation.
Of the power brokers of the planet.
And President Trump intentionally and sometimes unintentionally just brings these people together.
For example, if you saw him with Mohammed bin Salman yesterday on the B-roll camera, President Trump was talking to Patrick Soon-Shiong, who actually we're going to have on the program in June, who's a multi-billionaire, medical innovator.
He was talking to Sam Altman.
Fine.
What I'm saying, though, is that it wasn't just that he was sitting down with Mohammed bin Salman and talking about...
Hawks, which by the way, they're very big into birds there.
It wasn't just they were talking about what kind of birds that they're buying or what kind of planes.
No, this was a convocation of the power brokers of the planet.
And they all drew to that.
And deep down, what they're saying is, man, we don't want to do business with the Chinese.
You see, that is the untold secret.
The untold secret that none of the financial elite here, and I'm reading all these ridiculous newspapers, is that deep down every one of these business leaders prefers to do business in a free society versus the Chinese Communist Party.
And they've been wanting an excuse to invest in this country.
President Donald Trump's gravitational force is undeniable.
They all want to be in President Trump's orbit.
And they have capital.
And so there will be now trillions of dollars of stimulus funding coming to America, but it's more than that.
Understand the goodwill that President Trump is building.
Do you understand the enormity of how seriously they take as a compliment for President Trump early in his term to visit Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia?
That makes them as leaders look very, very good.
That makes them as the emir look honored.
It keeps him popular with his people.
It keeps him popular with his sheiks.
That is the first U.S. president ever to visit Qatar.
And honestly, good for him for doing it.
I know everyone has complaints.
That's not what this is about, okay?
You've got to think more macro here.
This helps him domestically.
Qatar is sitting on one of the largest LNG reserves on the planet.
And now, by the way, if we want to ice out Iran, we could pick up the phone and the Qataris are very much now in our debt.
Would we rather be in the debt to Qataris or would we rather the Qataris be in debt to us?
Let's play cut 340, please.
Too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice.
For their sins, it is God's job to sit in judgment, my job to defend America, and to promote the fundamental interest of stability, prosperity, and peace.
The Trump Doctrine, and by the way, I did write the book The MAGA Doctrine.
People, I don't forget it, but it was five years ago.
It's still very applicable.
This is the MAGA Doctrine at play.
The MAGA Doctrine is an outstretched hand of friendship, and then one hand of a trillion dollar defense budget.
In the other hand, it's carrot and stick diplomacy while always resolutely putting America first.
But the vibe of the business owners right now is remarkable.
It is real.
And all the smart money is coming back to this country.
Think about it.
Every dollar you spend is either supporting your values or working against them.
In today's economy, where you spend your money matters.
That's how we take back America.
Patriot Mobile is leading the way as America's only Christian conservative wireless provider.
Switch today without sacrificing You'll get exceptional nationwide coverage because unlike most budget wireless providers...
Patriot Mobile has access to all three major U.S. networks.
You can even add two numbers on two networks on one phone, something the big guys can't even do.
Stay connected with flexible, unlimited data plans to fit your lifestyle.
These plans offer high-speed data, mobile hotspots, international roaming, device protection, and even internet backup.
Here's the best part.
When you switch to Patriot Mobile, you're supporting faith, family, and freedom.
If you believe in our First and Second Amendment rights, the sanctity of life, and supporting our veterans, this is where you belong.
Switching is simple.
Keep your number, keep your phone, or upgrade.
Patriot Mobile's 100% U.S.-based customer service team will get you activated in minutes.
Right now, go to patriotmobile.com slash charlie or call 972-PATRIOT to get a free month of service with promo code CHARLIE.
Make the switch.
Defend freedom with every call and text you make.
That's patriotmobile.com slash charlie or call 972-PATRIOT.
Joining us now is Mark Halperin, one of my favorite guests.
Mark, thank you for taking the time.
I believe I'm coming on your show tomorrow, so...
I'm glad to be here and grateful to you for coming on.
Bill Clinton used to joke that when he grew up in Arkansas, the only way people could make money was by taking each other's wash and do everybody's laundry.
I like a world where I'm on your show and you're on mine.
I'm grateful to you.
Reciprocity.
There's some reciprocal here.
You had a really powerful newsletter this morning.
I want to read from it because I thought it was beautifully written.
Trump's Tuesday speech in Saudi Arabia, you wrote in your newsletter, which shockingly gets almost zero coverage in the American media, was one for the ages, with some observers not unreasonably calling it extraordinary and some supporters saying it was one of the best and most important addresses by a U.S. president of many years.
It warrants your time to watch it in full if you have not to understand Trump's unusual and distinctive worldview.
Mark, why was it so unusual, distinctive, and arguably extraordinary?
President Trump has a different attitude about national security, foreign policy, and America's role in the world than the establishment presidents who preceded him.
There are bits of it that are Reagan-esque in terms of his philosophy, bits that may be like Bush 41 or Bush 43, maybe a little even like, dare say, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.
But it's distinctive, and it matches the aspirations of his movement, which is what propelled him into office.
I think that I call it, as a bumper sticker, I call it speak loudly and carry a small stick, but a stick that you'll use effectively.
He doesn't want foreign entanglements, and unlike his predecessors and his successor, he did not put American troops on the ground in mass numbers in a way that not just imperiled the lives and treasures of Americans, but America's credibility around the world.
I think he has a pretty keen understanding of what's possible.
And the MAGA movement, they want America to be feared, respected.
They want America to be ready to defend our national interests.
But they don't want extended ground wars.
They don't want entry to unwinnable conflicts.
And they want to partner with people in a way that makes the lives of Americans and other countries better.
I looked at the speech yesterday as kind of the Middle East equivalent of the landmark speech Vice President Vance gave in Europe, saying to these countries, like, Forget the past.
Forget the status quo.
Forget the expectations that we've all been locked into.
Let's think anew about making the planet better, even if we have to make some hard choices or choices that offend some people.
And that's not what previous presidents said.
And again, it's a reflection of the MAGA movement.
And so, I'm sure you get this question a lot.
But you say here it's basically being ignored by the media.
Is that just typical we-hate-Trump media bias?
We don't want to give him credit?
Yeah.
We talked about that on 2A this morning because I'll pat myself on the back.
I'm a very sophisticated student of the media and of how they cover presidents and how they cover this president.
It is always the case that foreign trips don't get covered as much as any White House thinks it will or thinks it should.
That's so interesting.
I wouldn't have thought that.
Always the case.
The time zones are different, right?
The American people, it's quite clear, just aren't as interested in foreign stories as they are stories at home.
They don't see the relevance of it.
So we get all caught up in the photo ops and who's in the room.
I thought that the photo op of the receiving line that the president did with the Saudi leader was one of the most interesting pieces of television I've seen.
I would spell that.
But most people don't care.
So that's part of it.
There's hostility to covering anything that's favorable to Donald Trump, and I think the trip's going well so far.
But I'm baffled.
I raised the question with my colleagues, Sean and Dan, on the morning meeting.
Like, I don't get why there's so low coverage.
I woke up thinking it would be the lead story in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal.
I thought they'd do a lot of quoting of experts about what this means, but it was crooked.
Same on most of cable TV, most of the news.
You know, they're covering, you know, the various trials.
Sports and other things.
So I can't really adequately explain it, although I will say this.
It was filled with news.
It was filled with insight into how President Trump sees the world.
And I think for some news organizations, that's just a little too subtle.
So, yeah, but there's something more macro going on here, where President Trump is trying to recalibrate how America operates in this region.
And he made no...
Qualms about criticizing and critiquing the foreign Republican orthodoxy, which goes to the second element of your wonderful newsletter that I want to highlight, that all within a span of like 48 hours, President Donald Trump criticizes neoconservatism, which is just like reckless warmongering, while also domestically signing a favored nations clause for prescription drugs.
This is not a Republican like we've ever seen before.
Kind of get us into the psychology of the people around Trump, what's driving some of these decisions, the worldview behind it, and just also if the media even cared to just cover the profundity of it all.
We've never seen anything like this before.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I think the main way to think about it is if you said to Donald Trump, it's never been done like that before, or Republicans have never done this before, he'll say, great, not...
Not the way some of these advisors mean it, like, well, we've not done this before.
I'll say it was true in the Clinton White House, too.
They had the same, when they came in originally, they had the same outsider attitude.
And people in the establishment White House press corps, and I was new to the White House press corps, they'd say to the Clinton folks, well, it's never been done like this.
And the Clinton people would say, good, good.
And that's the attitude this administration has, maybe even more so than in the first term, because they know more and they know the sands of the hourglass are going by fast.
I think that...
This is arguably the biggest mistake the media makes about covering Donald Trump, because they're constantly characterizing the things he's for as red meat for the extreme megabase.
He's generally for popular things, and there's nothing wrong with that.
In fact, you could argue that's what presidents and people in public office should be.
Presidents in the past have known that American people think...
They pay way too much for prescription drugs, sometimes a shocking price tag, but always higher than people pay in other countries.
And so President Trump, again, the details are not fleshed out.
It may not work.
But President Trump has had the courage, unlike his predecessors, to say to Big Pharma, sorry, time's up.
Time's up for you to charge Americans way more than anybody else.
Time's up for you to use lobbying and campaign donations and negative ads to intimidate politicians.
If this were Barack Obama, that story would have been covered like he was a hero, and it wasn't.
But it's dramatic change.
Same with the Middle East.
You know, Donald Trump is not afraid to do new things, and he's not afraid to do things and then change his mind.
Again, the press and his detractors characterize that as chaos and backing down and weakness or lack of focus or planning.
Donald Trump's fine to say on Monday, you know what, I'm going to build lemonade stands on every block.
Every block's going to have a lemonade stand built by the federal government.
And then he's fine on Friday to say, yeah, you know, we're not going to build lemonade stands.
Because something's happened in the interim that's made him say we don't need lemonade stands built on every block by the government.
He's fine with that.
And he and his people, they don't care if the press theater criticisms that and says, oh my God, what a disaster this is.
The trip will continue then through Qatar to the United Arab Emirates.
You said something very smart where Trump has things baked in and wins that were ready to go.
Based on your reporting and your sourcing, have we seen the entirety of the baked-in wins?
And what are you hearing about a potential detour to Istanbul?
Every president, when you plan a foreign trip, you have what are called deliverables, which are negotiated by the staff in advance because you don't want to make it up on the fly.
And you want to be able to say it was worth the taxpayers' money, it was worth the president's time to go on this trip because we've got these things.
Most of the deliverables we know are coming, and some have already come from Saudi, are investment commitments.
Now, they're a little nebulous to say what counts as an investment.
And we've seen in the past, particularly from this region, I would be surprised if there weren't some additional deliverable that is...
That is out of the blue because Donald Trump is a showman and he knows he needs to feed the beast every day with something interesting.
And we've seen that so far in the first day in Saudi.
We'll see what comes.
In terms of going to Turkey, if Putin really goes, and I don't think he will, and we're 24 hours away here or less, but if Putin went, I think the president would be tempted to go and the Secret Service would find it crazy and nuts, but I think he'd be tempted to go.
He'll say, come on, let's do it.
Yeah.
But if Putin doesn't go, and I get at my census, Putin won't go.
He sent Secretary Rubio and some other senior officials.
I think that'll be sufficient.
It does, whether Putin goes or not, the drift of this of the last 10 days has been Putin is the obstacle more than Zelensky.
And so the president's going to have to figure out if Putin doesn't go, with Zelensky saying he'd go, and the president's urging the talks to take place, even though...
To get that, they had to drop the precondition of a ceasefire before talks, which is what Zelensky has wanted, the U.S. and Europe have been supportive of.
I think we're going to finally reach, maybe not the last moment of truth, but a pretty significant one, where the president's going to have to say, Putin doesn't really seem to want to actually end the war.
Okay, if that's the case, if we've reached that conclusion, what are our options?
And the options aren't great, but...
But that's when the president will have to say, are we walking away or doing something else?
Well, that's it.
And just one minute remaining, Mark, and thank you for your time on this, which is, I think Putin is playing the domestic American political card, because I think he knows that the appetite for more American funding for the war is at zero.
So I think that's his ace in the hole.
Would you agree with that analysis?
I agree that he had reason to think that.
That's where public opinion is.
That's where the president has been.
But it's going to be a moment of truth.
Now, as you know, in the last couple of weeks, the U.S. has sent some additional military capability to Ukraine.
The Europeans might step in, and Putin might be surprised that if Americans won't do it, the Europeans will.
So I think it's complicated, but sanctions seem like a possibility, and maybe a combination of sanctions and European military aid might be used to try to create a different condition.
But there's no doubt that the thing about Putin...
And she and Netanyahu, and Netanyahu's in a different category, but for the purpose of my, what I'm about to say, they're the same.
They understand American politics really well.
And they know how to leverage the limits on any president, including this one, of public opinion for what they can do to try to deal with a thorny international problem.
That's right.
Private student loan debt.
So many Americans feel stuck and helpless.
They are the sponsor of our campus tour.
They are great people.
You can finally take control of your student loan situation at YReFi.com.
That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.
They provide you with a custom loan payment based on your ability to pay.
YReFi is not a debt settlement company, and they work with each borrower individually, tailoring each loan to each borrower's specific.
You'll not be calling a faceless call center.
YReFi can reduce your monthly payment and guarantees interest rates under 6%.
YReFi does not care what your credit score is.
Go to YReFi.com.
That is Y-R-E-F-Y.com.
So take a look at it right now at YReFi.com.
YReFi refinances distress and defaulted private student loans, which are different from federal loans.
They offer a three-minute rate check.
So I want you to think right now.
Maybe you have private student loan debt.
Maybe your friend does.
Maybe your neighbor.
Got to check it out.
YREFI.com.
Y-R-E-F-Y.com.
Can you imagine being debt-free and not burdened anymore?
Go to YREFI.com.
May not be available in all 50 states.
YREFI.com.
We're here with Mark Halperin.
Okay, Mark, so do you think there's any chance that the Republican Congress is going to agree to raise taxes?
On the wealthy, from 37% to 40%, it's in Trump's budget proposal.
Mark, what's going on here?
Well, this is another thing that would be brilliant politics, I think.
Steve Bannon thinks it would be brilliant politics.
He tried to get Trump to do this in the first term.
Newt Gingrich, who's also very smart and very influential with the president, thinks it's a horrible idea, and most Republicans in Congress do.
So I don't think it'll happen.
You know, my view as an analyst, I'm not advocating either way, but as an analyst, there's nothing magical about what the top rate should be, right?
What anybody's rate should be, whatever income bracket you're in.
So I get that Republicans kind of have a biblical opposition to anybody's taxes ever going up, but there's two strong arguments for it.
One is it takes away the Democrats' main argument, which polls suggest has some effectiveness, that Republicans are trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest to pay for cutting social programs to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest.
It makes the math add up a lot easier for Republicans to come in under the necessary budget restraints to try to do some deficit and debt reduction.
So I think the stronger argument on the politics and the substance is to let the top rate for the wealthiest rise.
But there's a lot of opposition to it.
So we've seen the president take...
Pretty much every position.
For it, against it, and then open to it if Republicans want to do it.
And that was his last public comment.
I don't think it's going to happen.
But again, I agree with Steve Bannon.
The politics of it seem obvious to me.
We're about to enter into major reconciliation negotiation mode.
You've covered these many times.
What the president has now put forward, his official budget request, there's going to be all sorts of reconciliation meetings.
What is a timeline you think we can expect?
And what are one or two elements of this reconciliation debate that you think the media is missing that you have your eye on?
Well, you know, this is boring to most people.
It does affect everybody's taxes and what the government will spend money on, so it's important.
But the process of it is not that great.
I will say, as an aside, one of the, I think, undercover...
Brilliant Trump branding things is calling it one big, beautiful bill.
Because I think for most people, that seems more understandable than reconciliation.
So I'd say to delve a little bit into the process, Congress never acts unless it absolutely has to, and sometimes not even then.
They need what's called a forcing mechanism.
And we're still waiting to find out exactly when the government will run out of money, where the debt ceiling has to be raised, another boring process thing, but one that's super powerful.
And I think an undercovered portion is...
The president and the speaker and the Senate leader have gotten their members of Congress to agree.
Republicans are going to raise the debt ceiling without getting Democratic votes, because Democrats won't vote for this big, beautiful bill, this reconciliation bill.
So that's one thing is, when is that deadline?
Because until we have that deadline, everybody's going to want to continue to negotiate and bargain.
And then second is, you have to please everybody.
And there's some people, like people who want the so-called SALT, state and local tax deduction, changed.
Who say they're absolutely not going to vote for it unless they get exactly what they want.
At some point, the Speaker, the President, and the Senate leader need to get in a room with these folks or on the phone with them and say, this is as good as it gets.
We have slim majorities in both chambers.
You have to vote for it.
So I think the question is, who are the holdouts who aren't going to listen at what they want to be the final moment to that argument and really are willing to take the country and the party over a cliff?
There are some going to be like that.
And we just don't know who those are yet.
So those are the two things I'm watching is when's the actual deadline and which people amongst the 30 or so in both chambers who say there are holdouts unless they get exactly what they want, which ones actually have, pardon the metaphor, suicide vests strapped to their bodies and are willing to pull the cord if they don't get what they want.
In closing here, about a minute remaining, you are constantly looking to see if the political gravity will apply to President Trump.
What one or two things are you keeping your eye on that might, let's just say, make this anti-gravity machine known as the Trump decade-long political movement come back down to earth?
Well, next year would be the midterms, and whether he can keep the majorities, probably can keep the Senate.
And I'm more bullish on the House than a lot of people, including some people in the White House.
I think in the shorter term, before November of 26, two things I'm watching.
One is, can he...
Can he not be hampered by the Supreme Court?
We still don't have any decisive decisions, but a lot of the stuff he's doing now, very dramatic, very change-oriented, the Supreme Court could strike it down, and that could be any range of things.
And the other courts, too, but mostly the Supreme Court.
So what are the courts going to do?
And then the other thing is passing this big bill.
If this big bill passes, it's a massive accomplishment.
It achieves a lot of the president's domestic agenda.
And you have to think about the alternative, although I do think it's likely to pass, almost certain to pass, because failure...
There is not an option politically.
If it does fail and they can't revive it, you could fail and then they could revive it.
That's a big crisis for the president.
Mark Halperin is the editor-in-chief of Two Way and host of Next Up on the Megyn Kelly Network.
I'll be a guest on that program tomorrow.
So check it out, Mark.
Thanks.
Looking forward to it.
Thank you, sir.
Good to see you.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
▲
Export Selection