The Charlie Kirk Show - Can I Change Rand Paul's Mind on the BBB?

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

Rand Paul has become one of the Republican senators standing in the way of passing the Big, Beautiful Bill. Plenty of MAGA supporters are bashing him on Twitter, but Charlie is trying a different approach: Hearing what he has to say. Charlie lets Paul state his problems with the bill, and then explains why he disagrees and thinks the bill needs to be passed. Then, Kalen D'Almeida and Anthony Cabassa report from the scene of the riots in Los Angeles.    Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com!  Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com! Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio. Senator Rand Paul joins us. Can we change his mind and get Rand Paul to vote yes on the big beautiful bill? I try my best and you'll see what happens. I think we get him very close. You guys be the judge. We then have Kalen Dalimita and Anthony Cabasa, two great patriots, right up on the front lines of doing the most important work in the country when it comes to reporting and journalism. You're going to love it. Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Subscribe to our podcast.

That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page. And as always, you guys can become a member today, members.charliekirk.com. That is members.charliekirk.com. When you guys become a member, members.charliekirk.com, you could join our program. WelieKirk.com. When you guys become a member, Members.CharlieKirk.com, you could join our program. We deeply appreciate it. Members.CharlieKirk.com and listen to all of our episodes advertiser free. 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 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. Joining us now is an old friend and a great patriot. We might not agree on everything, but boy, he is incredibly principled. And for that, I deeply admire him.

It is Senator Rand Paul from the great state of Kentucky. Senator, great to see you today. Thank you for the time. Hey, Charlie. Thanks for having me. So, Senator, the news of the day is that in some ways you found yourself on the other side of this big, beautiful bill from the White House. You know, I've heard a lot of the feedback from yourself and from Senator Ron Johnson, and I totally agree that we need to get closer to a balanced budget and just this addiction to spending must end. Simultaneously, there's some really good points that were made by the White House. We had a long conversation with Stephen Miller. I wanted to give you a fair amount of time to make your case. Where do you currently stand on the big, beautiful bill

and what would potentially get you to a yes? You know, I support quite a bit of what's in the bill. The tax cuts is the primary aspect of the bill. I voted for them in 2017. I support making them permanent. I accept the argument that if you lower tax rates, sometimes you get more revenue. This is what Art Laffer argued in the 1980s and still argues. So I'm fine with the tax cut as is. I'm fine with adding to the tax cuts as President Trump wishes. So I'm fine with the tax cut as is. I'm fine with adding to the tax cuts as President Trump wishes.

So I'm fine with that aspect of the bill. And that's a big bulk of the bill that will lead to growth. It's what led to low unemployment rates in the first administration and really was a great boon to our country. The second part of it, there are some spending cuts. I think many of these spending cuts are good. I think a lot of them are in the outlying years and may or may not happen. Some of them are fake, such as forgiving the student loan forgiveness program or ending the student loan forgiveness program, which the courts have already ended. So it's sort of saying, oh, we're going to save money by something Biden was going to do,

but the courts have said he couldn't do. It's not a real savings. We know that the bill will add probably, even if you say the taxes have said he couldn't do, it's not a real savings. We know that the bill will add probably, even if you say the taxes don't add to the debt, which I accept, the bill in the first years has $400 billion worth of new spending on border and also on military. So we know in the first couple of years, there will be an addition to the deficit. It may be made up in the later years, but that is yet to be determined. But none of that really is my objection to the deficit. It may be made up in the later years, but that is yet to be determined. But none of that really is my objection to the bill. Those are minor things, and I actually could vote for it

as is, even as imperfect as it is, I could vote for it. But I can't vote to raise the debt ceiling $5 trillion. And the reason is this. The debt this year is going to be over $2 trillion, $2.2 trillion. And people say, oh, that's Biden's fault. Well, it was Biden's fault until March of this year when the Republicans, not me, but most of the Republicans voted to continue the Biden spending levels in a continuing resolution in March of 2025. That's what we live under now are the GOP spending levels, minus me and a few others. So that year ends at the end of September. The debt will be $2.2 trillion this year. That's all on the Republicans. If Republicans also vote to extend the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, then really we lose the power of the argument in our moral

standing and saying this is a bunch of Democrat problems. Democrats are deficit and spend, big spenders. It's not Republicans if the deficit now is completely owned by Republicans. So I've offered the opposite. I have said that rather than give Congress, which is reckless with spending and has no good history other than adding $36 trillion to the debt, don't give them a debt ceiling that lasts two years. Don't give them $5 trillion worth because they will spend it and they will borrow it. Give them three months worth. So I've offered this as an amendment, and I would accept it and vote for it if it were part of the bill. Three months is an extraordinary amount, though, $500 billion. And you say, well, it's inconvenient to keep voting on it.

Well, yeah, it's also inconvenient to borrow $36 trillion and have $1 trillion in interest. So I'd make them address the issue. So in three months, let's say we gave them three months worth of borrowing potential, $500 billion. It would expire about the end of September. What comes at the end of September? Another big, beautiful bill to fund the government. It's going to be an omnibus or a continuing resolution. It'll be all the bills crammed together.

It's a terrible way to run government. But then we would ask them at that point, all right, you promised us you were going to do better. And once again, this isn't an accusation against the president. This is an accusation against GOP leadership on both sides. I'm saying I don't believe them or trust them. So in three months, we'd get another bite at the apple and we'd say, all right, what have you done? And they would say, oh, we're going to do it next time. And that's what they say. Right now, from Speaker Johnson, we hear he's going to be conservative after the 2026 elections. The Senate has made it not just $4 trillion in borrowing.

They want to do $5 trillion in borrowing. And they've explicitly told us it's to get through the 2026 elections without talking about the debt. All of these things were conservatives would oppose, but now they, because they support the president so much, they're willing to look the other way. I like the president. I like him personally. I was his biggest defender against two impeachments. We'll do it again. I've supported his nominees, but I'm just not going to go against all principle to support five trillion in borrowing because I don't know who we would be or where we would be as a movement if nobody opposes this.

So part of the problem, and I agree with a lot of what you said, Senator, is that the counter argument is that we don't have the votes in the House or the Senate to do this. The moderates will not play ball with any dramatic spending adjustments, and we have to play with a very slim majority. I imagine your counterargument is that, hey, maybe it's time for those of us that are fiscal conservatives start wielding the same power

that these moderates wield. What would your reply be to the fact that it might not be possible in this reconciliation bill to get some of the demands that you are articulating. Right. And I'm not looking for hundreds or dozens of demands. I'm looking for one. Separate out the debt ceiling and put it in a different bill and I can vote for this. It's still unknown whether there are enough of us. I think the counting and the tally depends on who has the courage to say no.

If there are four conservatives in the House or four conservatives in the Senate who would say no to the debt ceiling, it would be taken off in a heartbeat. They would just negotiate. They're not negotiating because it's mostly me at this point. Now, Ron Johnson has expressed some of the same concerns on the spending and maybe a little bit on the debt ceiling as well. But there aren't four at this point, so they will not negotiate. In fact, they've chosen really to go full bore campaign mode against me. So they aren't really caring at all about whether or not I ever cooperate with the White House again, because they've chosen to smear and lie about me throughout all the social media outlets by paying these

influencers to attack me. But I don't think, you know, if they know me at all, they apparently have misjudged me to think that somehow spreading lies about me and pillorying me will somehow cause me to be chastened and, you know, lick the boot. So I'm not going to do that. And I think what you'll find is, is that over time, people are going to discover that the debt keeps going. The debt is going to go on and on, and it's going to get worse, and there's going to be a crisis in this country, and there needs to be a remnant of conservatives who actually still are fiscally conservative and can argue from that position. So the argument against the debt, and correct me if I'm wrong, Senator, is that if

we peel out the debt ceiling, then potentially it would need 60 votes as a standalone vote, and it would give a lot more power to Chuck Schumer to then we'd have other concessions and other liberal boondoggle wishes or aims. Is that true? There's no history of Democrats ever voting against a debt ceiling. They always vote for the debt ceiling. They love and enjoy debt. The modern monetary theory they talk so much about is just spend, spend, spend. They know it has to go up. Many of them, Elizabeth Warren agrees with President Trump, she'd like to have no debt ceiling, but she will always vote to raise it. And so if you put a bill on the floor and you said, this is it, it's either this or default, are you going to vote to raise

the debt ceiling? They all will. And they'll vote for any amount too. They'll vote for 10 trillion. If they want to do 10 trillion and we can go through the whole term, the whole next term of President Trump and never have to borrow again, Democrats will all vote for that. And people say, oh no, they don't like Donald Trump. They won't do it. Well, they voted to raise the debt ceiling in his first term. And historically, the debt ceiling has gone up, I don't know, maybe a hundred times in the last, maybe not a hundred times, let's say 50 times in the last 30 years. Each time it's gone up, it's been all the Democrats vote for it every time, and it's been the big government Republicans.

But to me, raising the debt ceiling is a day of shame, and they walk down to the front of the floor of the Senate or to the well of the House, and they have to admit that they are the big spenders. So the big spenders on the Republican side always vote to raise the debt ceiling and the Democrats. But now you're going to change the dynamic where it's going to be all Republicans voting for raise the debt ceiling. And what you'll wind up with is no Republicans left who can argue with a straight face that it's the Democrats' fault because they will own the debt. From now on, the Republicans will own the debt and have no argument against Democrats being the big spenders because they will own the debt. I think it's more worrisome than people can imagine unless

they've really thought this through. So a couple minutes remaining here, Senator, and I agree. I believe the national debt is a crisis to our country. Would you agree that the invasion under Joe Biden, the immigration we've seen is also a national crisis facing America. Yep. And so and so where would you rank that and balance that between this big, beautiful bill and the fiscal concerns? I think you can vote. I think you can do both. So I'm against the eight million people or so that Biden let in come to the country. I'm against open borders. I think we should do more than we have been doing. But I can't just quit being a fiscal conservative because you say, well, the border needs more security. It does.

So I'll give you a very specific example. They said to us, we want to fence the remaining thousand miles of the southern border. President Trump and others have fenced about probably 700 miles or so. So there's about 1,200 left, a lot of it's mountains. So you might be able to fence 1,000 more. The Border Patrol website says it costs $6.5 million per mile. You multiply that by 1,000 and you get $6.5 billion. Well, the bill is asking for $46.5 billion. So what are they going to do, build a wall between us and Canada too? I mean,

you ought to at least have to justify your numbers. There's been no justification. Everybody says, you're not the president. Be quiet. We didn't elect you. All this crazy stuff on the internet. And it's like, well, somebody shouldn't push back and do the math and say, well, it doesn't add up. You want $46 billion, and we're getting $6.5 billion on this thing. And so, yeah, we should do the math on this. They want to hire 8,000 new agents. I'm saying hire 4,000 new agents. I'm saying let's get started and not have a permanent army of people sitting around. The border's been largely controlled by the president by sheer willpower. And I give him all the credit. He came in, and by sheer willpower, and I give him all the credit. He came in and by sheer willpower

and various threats and bullying of other countries, he's controlled the border. It shows that it could have been done under Biden and he never did it. But now that it's controlled, shouldn't we at least think about the cost and not say, oh, we're conservative, except when it comes to the border when we're for unlimited spending. Same with the military. The military has been evading its caps for a long time. It went up 3% last year. They added some more on. Now they want to add $150 billion on. The untold story of this bill is this big, beautiful bill is a secret plot by Lindsey Graham and others to explode the military caps. They just want more military money.

They want more tanks. They want more play. They want everything to please the military industrial complex. And I think this is the untold story of this bill. Senator, thank you for your time. I wish we had more time to go through this. We might not agree. I want the big, beautiful bill to pass largely because I agree with everything you say. But I believe we're in the midst of a national immigration crisis and we need mass deportations. And I think it gets that 80 percent quotient. And so, Senator, my hope is that we can figure out this debt ceiling objection that you have, because we'd love to have your vote. Because also, remember, it does defund Planned Parenthood, which you and I both have cared about for quite

some time, a lifelong. And I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm for voting for the bill. I've told him I will vote for the bill, separate out the debt ceiling so I don't have to give up all of my principles and I'll vote for the bill. Senator, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Privacy and loan debt in America totals about $300 billion. About $45 billion of that is labeled as distressed. YREFI refinances distressed or defaulted private student loans that others will not touch. YREFI doesn't care what your credit score is. You can finally take control of your student loan situation with a plan that works for your monthly budget. Go to YRefi.com. Do you have

a co-borrower? YRefi can get them released from the loan. You guys have got to check it out right now at YRefi.com. That is YRefi.com. So check it out right now. That's YRefi.com. Call 888-YRefi34 or log on to YRefi.com. May not be available in all 50 states. Do you have a co-borrower? Well, YRefi can check, help you guys out. Private student loan debt in America totals $300 billion. Go to YRefi.com. That is YRefi.com. May not be available in all 50 states.

Go to YRefi.com. So I agree with a lot of Rand Paul sentiment, without a doubt. But you must deal with the majority that you have, and that is a three-seat House majority. Now, again, I didn't want to turn this into a debate at all. You heard in his interview he was receiving enough antagonism. That's not going to bring him towards a yes, so we wanted to have a good conversation. Nor do I think he deserves or should be a recipient of antagonism. Are you kidding me? He's been amazing on foreign wars and the

Afghanistan stuff and the boondoggles. And he's been amazing on anti-IRS stuff and Fauci. I mean, let's just be honest about it. We got enough enemies. Blessed are the peacemakers. One of my favorite verses, blessed are the peacemakers. I don't think we as Christians are peacemakers nearly enough. But let me respond to something now that I think is important. If Rand Paul got his way and we isolated the debt ceiling in its own vote, let's not fool ourselves. Chuck Schumer will absolutely extract his pound of flesh because you will then need to get to 60 votes. So basically, this is an opportunity to raise the debt ceiling via a 50 vote threshold so that we get zero Democrat concessions. Instead, let's say that we don't raise the debt ceiling as part of this reconciliation bill. And then we go towards another government

shutdown. Chuck Schumer will say this is going to be a republic. This is a Trump shutdown. This is a Trump shutdown. That's what he'll say. And then he'll say, John Thune and Speaker Johnson, here's 15 things that I need. And he'll probably get seven of them. And they'll be like transgender stuff and green energy stuff and foreign aid and the reconstitution of USAID. And it will neuter so much of our leverage. Basically, what this will do with the reconciliation bill is this will prevent Chuck Schumer from having any legislative wins this entire Congress. Let me say that again. This will deprive Chuck Schumer and the Democrats from having any leverage this entire Congress. So while I agree with Rand Paul on principle,

we shouldn't be raising the debt ceiling. It should be a day of shame. Legit respect. Totally get it. What we're talking about here is you'll actually make the Democrat Party stronger. And Rand Paul says, and I'll do respect him, he says, well, the Democrats always vote for every debt increase because they vote for every debt increase once they get concessions. Remember, they've been very happy to shut down the government multiple times until they get concessions and then we cave. Democrats are getting whipped up into a frenzy again. He says they'll never agree to stop raising the debt. Well, it used to be that and that they never agreed to a government shutdown, but they did that in Trump's first term. In fact, we've

seen this time and time again. Democrats tend to get more extreme over time. So if you are tired of Democrats getting wins in D.C., then you kind of need to include the debt ceiling in the reconciliation bill. Otherwise, you're going to throw it back to a 60 vote threshold. We've seen this whole play before. And I want to just repeat one other point here. And there's a lot on the border that I do want to respond to, which is it's not even worth it. It's there's there's a lot. I even worth it. There's a lot. I got 45 seconds. There's a lot here. CBP spends months analyzing the terrain to develop this calculation, which includes motion sentence, monitoring systems, video systems, underground electric cables, anti-tunnel systems, paving entirely new roads, et cetera. The border price is high to make sure it gets done.

No excuses. Now, Rand Paul is right, though. Out of all the places where I think his objection probably has the greatest spirit is the increase in defense spending. It's interesting how that one has not got a lot of attention, the kind of Pentagon bloat. Separate topic for another time. But the debt ceiling is a very important point because if we went to a 60 vote threshold, you would make Chuck Schumer powerful again. And this reconciliation bill makes him weak and powerless and without a victory for multiple years. You ever notice how the power always seems to go out right when you need it most?

Whether it's a heat wave, a summer storm, or goodness gracious, God forbid, a tornado or hurricane. Just too many people running the AC at once, our fragile grid cannot keep up. That's why I got the Grid Doctor 3300 solar generator from MyPatriotSupply. This thing is an absolute beast. 3300 watts of off-grid power that keeps my fridge, freezer, lights, even medical devices running whenever grid power fails. And right now, they've got a crazy deal going. When you buy the Grid Doctor 3300, they'll throw in two waterproof 200-watt solar panels completely free. These aren't cheap plastic panels either. They're super durable, waterproof, and built to last through storms, heat, and who knows what else. Shop mypatriotsupply.com

slash kirk to claim your free panels today. If there was ever a time to get serious about blackout protection, this is it. MyPatriotSupply.com slash Kirk. MyPatriotSupply.com slash Kirk and get yours today. Don't believe what you see. Believe what you are told by the state. That's what Maxine Waters has to say. I want to welcome Kalen Delamita, a TPSA Frontlines reporter, and also Anthony Cabasa, independent journalist.

They were both on the ground in LA doing hero's work. Hello to you both. Let's play the cut from Maxine Waters here. It's just like so incredible. Play cut 369. Don't think that somehow because they called out the national guard, there was violence. There was no violence. I was on the street. I know. And I went from downtown detention back out into the community, talking to people, what happened in Paramount, what happened in Compton, what happened in Inglewood. So first of all, get it straight and don't just rely on what you've been told or the few incidents that you saw. Few incidents that you saw. Kalen, what is the truth of what you were reporting on on the lines

of front lines in L.A.? Kalen? Well, the truth is that these are not a few incidents. It's widespread and it's completely intentional. And that's just the truth of that these are not a few incidents it's widespread and it's completely intentional and that's just the truth of the matter um you can look anywhere around downtown la and you'll find broken destroyed um windows businesses looted businesses they destroyed waymos they've destroyed a countless number of uh cop cars We've seen that footage of people throwing cinder blocks and other things at those police cars that were on the freeway, the 101. And this is all very reminiscent of what we saw in 2020. A lot of these people are likely not from Los Angeles. They're likely from elsewhere, but they're opportunists,

they're parasitic, and they're here just to cause chaos. So I'm going to follow up with that in a second. I have a question. So Anthony, independent journalist, Anthony Cabasa does great work. Anthony, what percentage of these people that were doing this were, quote unquote, professional agitators versus just rank and file people participating? Yeah, thank you so much for having me, Charlie. So what I've been seeing on the ground, I'm actually in L.A. proper. And so I've been able to get to these protests since they began on Friday. You know, you have Gavin Newsom that is saying that he's calling in the National Guard.

And then you have and that is why the escalations have escalated now to violence, but that's just simply not the truth. I've been there since day one, which was Friday, and that was a protest against the ICE raids that have been ramping up here in Los Angeles. So you have a lot of these small organizations here locally that put these things together. You have the Black Lives Matter LA chapter.

You have the PSL, which is the Party of Social of socialism and liberation, which is an oxymoron. There's no liberation through socialism. And there's also the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America. On top of that, you have these teacher unions and the SEIU that are making sure that there's flyers for everybody, making sure that masks are being delivered for everyone, that one has food and water. And surprisingly enough, what I have come to find, you know, Maxine Waters wants to talk about how Paramount was without incident,

that is a city next to Compton, California. I actually exclusively posted a video that I found of a pallet of bricks conveniently located to where ICE agents were setting up to go out and raid. It was actually a setup for them. It was a staging area for them to go out into multiple cities. But then a local city councilman, a lot of people don't know this. It was a local city councilman that just so happened to be around that location, saw a DHS agent car go inside of the staging area.

He put out a video saying DHS is getting ready to raid this Home Depot because the staging area was set in front of a Home Depot. And that's when people started to come and attack the DHS agents was because of the city council member that made this video saying, guys are getting ready, be ready, you know, make sure you come out here and protest peacefully. But of course, we know that led to violence. So, Kalen, you've seen a lot of these type of demonstrations. What, if anything, was there like a command and control type operation? And walk us through some of the more graphic elements of what you witnessed on the ground.

Right. So as far as command and control, I think a lot of that is, you know, I'm speculating is going to be on any internal comms. But what I've seen, you know, since participating in covering these events, such as what we saw in 2020 also, a lot of the same formations, you have a lot of the same sort of agitative individuals up front in front of police officers just continually hurling insults, things that are racist, things that are absolutely disgusting to these law enforcement officers. And then you'll have people sort of behind that, that will continually throw things and continually push forward until law enforcement has to start using less lethal, you know, weapons to get these people to back off. But yeah, there's something more there that doesn't necessarily appear obvious just to anyone who is just viewing these things for the first time. So Anthony, what is the truth here of this? There were bricks and rocks and cinder blocks being stored. And do you have a sense that any of this is paid or organized? Oh, absolutely.

To list the small group of organizations, you have the SEIU. You have the local teachers union, UTLA, that's out there funding all of this. You have the PSL, Party of Socialism and Liberation. You have Black Lives Matter. All these organizations have money that they fundraise. They're putting out all these links online to help donate to fight back, quote-unquote, fascism. You need to help us fight Trump

and his fascist gestapo that are descending upon Los Angeles. So that's why you see that it's very well organized. You see it's out there that, for some reason, there's pallets of bricks conveniently located. I actually discovered two different sites. The first one was kind of dismissed because I discovered the pallet of bricks next to a Home Depot. So there was a lot of people trying to deflect and say, well, of course, it's a Home Depot. But if you watch that video that I discovered of the pallets, it's the only pallet with cylinder blocks out there. There is no other pallet out there.

There's no pallet of fertilizer. There's no pallet of anything else Home Depot sells. The only pallet that was out and that was used by the protesters was the cylinder blocks that were just conveniently located right in front of the staging area. And then on Saturday night,

I also went and discovered that there was bricks right next to downtown LA. And this was just a random. That's the video you're showing right now. This was on a corner tucked in, hidden from plain view. But somehow protesters were able to make their way into it. And so what we're seeing here, right, kind of going back to what I had said, was that Gavin Newsom and L.A. City Mayor Bass are trying to blame this and shift the blame to Republicans and Donald Trump escalating the situation by National Guard.

But it was actually two full days of attacks on law enforcement, DHS agents, and stand-down orders to the LAPD to do nothing with the protesters assaulting the agents, that that is what activated President or what led to President Trump activating the National Guard and then essentially the Marines to act as interim until the National Guard is able to get on scene. But another thing that is very important to note is that people are trying to make it seem like it's the National Guard's presence that is inciting the violence, the fact that they're handling protesters. That couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is the National Guard is being used solely for the purpose of protecting federal buildings. That's it. That's the only location they're in. I haven't seen any National Guard make arrests, use weapons, hit protesters to any capacity. And what this does for people that are wondering,

well, what's the National Guard there for? What you have to understand is you got to look back at the George Floyd riots, which I also covered from beginning to end all the way to Derek Chauvin's verdict in Minneapolis. I was there on the ground. What you need to remember is police resources are already limited in Los Angeles, because not only are they under-resourced and under-staffed, but you have the pandemic that just, you know, we're kind of still kind of going through that, where a lot of first responders were fired for failing to obey city mandates on masks or vaccines or what have you. And so what this does is it gives the law enforcement the time and the effort to be able to solely focus on arresting protesters in containment, while the Federal National Guard and potentially the Marines are only going to be taking care of the buildings.

TikTok has helped U.S. businesses contribute over $24 billion over the U.S. economy. And we go so viral on TikTok, we get billions and billions of views. You see, that's real money flowing into small businesses like AZ Taco King, who went viral on TikTok and hit $1.3 million in sales in their first year. Now they're hiring more staff to keep up. Or Bluff Cakes, who went viral on TikTok and hit $1.3 million in sales in their first year. Now they're hiring more staff to keep up. Or Bluff Cakes, who started as a home baking side hustle and became a national cookie brand. Or The She Mechanic, whose business tripled in just one year with help from TikTok. Now she's in a bigger space with a bigger team. TikTok is helping small businesses thrive, and that's adding up to more jobs and more growth and over $24 billion flowing into the U.S. economy. Our most viral platform is TikTok, and by far.

Learn more about TikTok's contribution to the U.S. economy at tiktokeconomicimpact.com. We are winning the next generation at Turning Point USA and on The Charlie Kirk Show. Large and part thanks to us getting the message out at TikTok. Go to tiktokeK economic impact.com. Kalen Dalamita and Anthony Cabasa are with us guys. I want to ask you some specific questions about how you do what you do, but I want to make sure you both plug your social Kalen first and then Anthony, cause that's how you guys really grow your platform.

Kalen first. Thanks Charlie. So my, you can follow me on X or Instagram at from Kalen, that's F-R-O-M-K-A-L-E-N. And really, it's just a matter of being brave and staying out there, knowing what to look for and what to watch out for when you're on the ground, because in a lot of ways, you're watching out for these agitators. You don't know who they are. They're extremely unpredictable and violent. And so you're watching out for them.

Then you're also trying to make sure that you're not going to be mistaken for one of them while you're covering what's going on. And other things, you know, if you see a burning American flag, let's go document that. If you see somebody breaking into a store and they're robbing all the Jordans, let's go document that. If you see them screaming and hurling insults or throwing things, or you find a pile of bricks or anything like that. There are certain things that we need to document in order to, in order to really tell the full story, because we know the mainstream media won't be doing that. So Anthony, let me ask you as first plug your social Anthony. And then I want to ask,

walk your audience through what you do. You embed yourself in these crowds. I hope everyone in the audience understands. Kalen and Anthony, they could get killed doing this. I know you guys know this. They could get seriously hurt. These are very, very dangerous environments. This is not just like, oh, you know, we're going to look at it. They are up right next to the agitators, right next to the rioters.

I mean, they smell the funk of these lowlifes. Anthony, plug your social and tell us about that. I think the audience needs to develop an appreciation of the grittiness and the balls that you guys have. Anthony. Thank you so much, Charlie. Yeah. So if you guys want to follow me on social media, I go by informed with Anthony, as in like you are being informed. So informedwithanthony on all socials. That's true social. That is Instagram, TikTok even. We're showing the truth there of what's happening in LA. And then just on X, it's just my name, anthonycabasa underscore.

You guys can check me out there. That's where I'm posting most of my footage is on X because thankful to Elon Musk that bought it. You know, I covered the riots of George Floyd on their Twitter 1.0 and I was actually banned the entire time of the riots. And so I'm just thankful that Elon bought X so that we can have free speech again

and maybe make some money in the process. But yeah, that's a really good question. And Charlene, a really great point. Thank you so much for that. I'm an independent journalist. I've been doing independent journalism since 2017. I am a US veteran. I have a family, I have a wife and three kids. We live in LA County. I'm just one of those conservative journalists, and just one of those conservatives and Christians

that yes, we could just get up and leave, you know, we can just sell our home and move to Tennessee, move to Florida. But I just believe that there's also a need for for people to stay and fight. And so that's, that's the model that I live by. We have to stay here and fight. I don't want to cede a single inch of America to communists, to Marxists, to liberals. These people will not run me out of my home. I will stand up and fight no matter what. And that's what I do with my journalism.

What people need to understand is about the mainstream media is when you have antifa and these marxists coming in and destroying property they run the media out uh fox news is not welcome if you walk if you work for fox news and they recognize you they will bully you until you leave and if not it can escalate from there but i have been tear gassed i've been shot at uh you know it's part of the work i actually have believe it or not emails from aclu andU and other left wing kind of law firmsrilla warfare style journalism. We don't have these fancy cameras worth thousands where we can just zoom in. We don't have a helicopter to zoom in via a camera like most of the news. We have to get in there. And sometimes, yes, we get hit by police with rubber bullets or ricochets, whatever it might be. I've been tear gassed way too many

times. I actually have developed a system with my wife that the moment I come in, I head straight to the garage. I'm not allowed inside the home smelling like funk. So we kind of have to do that stuff on the outdoor. But yeah, I'm very supported by all my audience members. I've got about 200,000 on Instagram. A lot of people have been donating to my links. And so it's just great. We're going to continue to work no matter what. Let me just say one final thing here, which is very important. Can we show some of the images, guys? And I'll brag both on Caitlin and Anthony here. You guys understand all these images we're seeing here are sourced from independent journalists. This is not legacy news media.

Understand this, that if we do not have front lines, we don't have Anthony, we would not have the stories here. We would not have the truth of what's really going on. Instead, it would be synthesized and filtered through a media lens. So God bless you both, guys. Thank you so much, Anthony Cabasa and Kalen Dalamita. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Charlie. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

Thanks so much for listening, and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.