The Charlie Kirk Show - Ten Years Since The Escalator ft. Eric Trump

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Where were you when Donald Trump descended the Trump Tower escalator and announced himself as a candidate for president. Where were you on that momentous day? Charlie looks back and discusses the amazing transformation of the past decade, as well as surprisingly relevant clips about Iraq and Iran from his very first speech as a candidate. Eric Trump talks about the great adventure of being within the Trump family during these dramatic events. 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. Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, 10 years. It has been 10 years since President Trump went down that golden escalator. We talk about that, and then we have Eric Trump and Rick Scott to react. Email me, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast. Become a member today, members.charliekirk.com. That is members.CharlieKirk.com. And get involved with Turning Point USA at TPUSA.com. That is TPUSA.com. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. 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. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. It's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com. We had an incredible Young Women's Leadership Summit this weekend. We are going to be recapping that throughout the show. 2,500 conservative young women from across the country, the largest ever in the history of Turning Point USA. We've been doing this for 10 years. 10 years. That's funny. 10 years. I remember where I was. Where were you?

Where were you 10 years ago today? It's funny. We were actually hosting our Young Women's Leadership Summit while this was all going on. And by the way, we are going to go to all of the news. We're going to go to by the way, we are going to go to all of the news. We're going to go to Trump on immigration. We're going to go on Israel-Iran. We are going to go to G7. We're going to go to geopolitics. There is so much news to cover.

But before we do, we need to take a step back and realize how far we have come and how what happened 10 years ago today is dictating and is determinative to all the news that we are watching. Where were you 10 years ago today? dictating and is determinative to all the news that we are watching. Where were you 10 years ago today? I remember where I was. I was trying to raise money for Turning Point USA. I was driving around in an old beat-up Volkswagen in the Chicago suburbs. And all of a sudden, I remember I was listening to the radio.

AM 560, the answer, might I add, which amazingly we are broadcasting live on now today, 10 years later. What an amazing full circle moment. I was listening on AM 560, The Answer, which now we are live on right now. And I remember hearing businessman Donald Trump and what he was saying. Everyone took it live. Donald Trump is running for the presidency. Donald Trump is running for the presidency. Donald Trump is running to take back America. And we all remember Donald Trump coming down the golden escalator.

And to be honest, I wasn't sure what to think. Was this a joke? Was this a parody? Was this a marketing ploy? Was this an actual political campaign? You see, we knew enough about Donald Trump. But what Donald Trump decided to do when he went down the elevator, then down the escalator, is he basically put his entire life on full time colonoscopy. When he went down the escalator, America changed profoundly. It was a decade ago, a decade ago when Donald Trump entered the world stage and he announced he was running for president of the United States. Play cut to 30. Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States. And we are going to make our country great again. I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places.

I'll bring back our jobs and I'll bring back our money. First of all, can I just remark, he has aged very well over 10 years. He's been shot. He's run for the presidency three times and hard campaigns three times. He's done thousands of interviews. He's been all around the planet. He's done state visits in Asia and the Middle East, back and forth and back and forth. I mean, this guy looks great.

He just celebrated his 79th birthday on Saturday. And you look at that announcement video, he is one of the few people in politics that quite honestly doesn't age into a decrepit old ball after being around for four years. And there's something real special there about President Donald Trump. The journey that he started on that day 10 years ago today was the birth of many things and also the death of many things. It was the death of the Republican consultant class driving our politics. It was the death of political norms as we know it.

He replaced the kind of idea of scripted platitudes with raw, unapologetic populism. It was also the birth of the new right. Now, at times we took some detours. There were some speed bumps. There was some ups and there were some downs. But make no mistake, what President Trump said back 10 years ago, you would not know that if what President Trump was announcing for the presidency or if he was just giving another campaign rally today. Listen to this. It's indistinguishable. The consistency politically is remarkable. Usually when people enter politics, they get new beliefs or they'll change and all this. President Donald Trump has been remarkably consistent.

Just moments ago, President Donald Trump was with Carney, the new prime minister of Canada, the G7 summit. And he says, you know, I'm a tariff guy. I've long been a tariff guy. It's time that we're no longer the dumping ground. Oh, really? I wonder when he first said this. Play cut 227. Our country is in serious trouble. We don't have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don't have them.

When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal. When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they're beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they're killing us economically. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. And now, 10 years later, the border is completely and totally secure. And he's not alone. He has remade the entire Republican Party. He revived a dead and dying GOP that was spending its time and resources with postmortems from losing repeatedly and whose best ideas were to embrace amnesty and Democrat-lite policies. We were one president away.

We were one president away. If Hillary Clinton would have won, we would have become the U.S. equivalent of the Tories. We would have stand for big immigration, mass immigration, pro-choice abortion. Remember, the consultant class and the ruling class, they wanted Jeb Bush to be president. It was supposed to be Jeb Bush versus Hillary Clinton. Wow, what a dramatic choice that is. They'll agree on everything, but they'll disagree on school choice and tax cuts. What a decision for America. Donald Trump rejected that paradigm and he created a completely new one. The era of mass migration is over. The era of mass invasion is over. President Trump was the first Republican candidate to criticize the entrenched bureaucracy, Department of Justice, Internal

Revenue Service, otherwise known as the deep state. And look at all the different chapters we've been through from 10 years ago, going down that golden escalator to the shock victory versus Hillary Clinton, to Russiagate, to James Comey, to him being spied on, to the 2020 election, to COVID, to exile. Donald Trump plots his comeback, to the indictments facing 700 years in federal prison, to picking J.D. Vance as vice president, to getting shot in the ear, nearly dying, almost getting shot again, defeating Kamala Harris after they switched the candidate in a popular vote victory and an electoral vote landslide. To now, it leads all the way back to today. And you look, it is without a doubt for all of you that have always had President Trump's back these last 10

years, for all of you that have never wavered, for all of you that have stood firm, for all of you that have continued to donate and pray and knock on doors and get friends out. You are part of, without a doubt, the most breathtaking political journey in American history. Nothing comes close. Nothing. From a businessman that people watched on TV, from you're fired on The Apprentice, to Trump Wine, to Trump University, to all the different labeling, whether they're controversial or mainline or mainstream, it doesn't matter. From Trump Airlines to him trying to start his own football league to the art of the deal to him going on Oprah, we thought we knew Donald Trump, and he remade the American body politic.

And dare I say, he's being used as a vessel to save Western civilization. From being loved by liberals to hated by liberals. But 10 years later, we can say he did not just run. He rewrote the rules. And you played a major role. You kept this movement alive. You have been the bulwark. You have been the steadfast vanguard.

And a decade later, we are in charge of this country. It's an unbelievable, it's hard to even put into words what we have lived through. And dare I say, it's just getting started. 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 started as a home baking side

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So 10 years ago, Donald Trump went down the golden escrow. By the way, we're getting the most beautiful emails, emails we're getting from people. So funny. Everyone remembers where they were. People remember where they were when Donald Trump got shot, when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton and also where they were when he announced for president. Think about how remarkable that is. How rare is it that you remember where you were, where someone announces for the presidency? Where were you when John McCain announced for the presidency? Don't think a lot of people in this audience would know, maybe a couple. Where were you when Ted Cruz announced for the presidency? I don't know. Nothing against them.

It's just, it's so different. It's so distinct. It's so remarkable. And President Trump remade the American calculus and the Republican approach on foreign policy. And that is a good segue to, of course, what is happening right now in the news between Israel and Iran. This was the shot heard around the world. You see, Donald Trump, you're allowed to kind of talk about Mexico and the cartels. People said, oh, he's a racist. But no, no, no. What got people so upset, what made Donald Trump the recipient of fury, of anger, was when Donald Trump dared to openly criticize the war in Iraq. When Donald Trump dared to say that the Iraq war was a major mistake.

Donald Trump took out a sword and stabbed neoconservative in the face and said, this is no longer going to be the ethos of this Republican Party. Play cut to 29. We spent two trillion dollars in Iraq. Two trillion. We lost thousands of lives, thousands in Iraq. We have wounded soldiers who I love. I love. They're great all over the place. Thousands and thousands of wounded soldiers. And we have nothing. We can't even go there. We have nothing. Now, Donald Trump was right. But we must also simultaneously understand Donald Trump is not an isolationist. Donald Trump's America first, but not America only. His idea of foreign involvement is short, precise, violent, aggressive, targeted action, not clumsy quagmires of bringing in tanks

and nation building. And we're going to win over the, you know, the Islamists in Kabul and we're going to win over the people of Iraq. That is a major mistake. Donald Trump, his perspective when it comes to foreign policy is not about winning and turning over the hearts of minds of the people of Iraq and making them into Westerners. It's about we're going to use force if necessary. We're going to knock you out and then we're going to get out. You have to be philosophically consistent. As I was rewatching Donald Trump's announcement address 10 years ago today, this is not one that you are going to see very often on TV. Donald Trump for a decade has been very worried about Iran getting a nuclear weapon. So as he simultaneously is worried about a permanent

Middle East quagmire, but a lesser reported and lesser remembered part of his historic announcement was ranting about Iran. Play cut to 28. They took the oil that when we left Iraq, I said we should have taken. So now ISIS has the oil. And what they don't have, Iran has. And in 19, and I will tell you this, and I said it very strongly, years ago, I said, and I love the military and I want to have the strongest military that we've ever had, and we need it more now than ever, but I said, and I love the military and I want to have the strongest military that we've ever had. And we needed more now than ever. But I said, don't hit Iraq because you're going to totally destabilize the Middle East. Iran is going to take over the Middle East. Iran and somebody else will get the oil. And it turned out that Iran is now taking over Iraq.

He was very worried about Iranian expansion throughout the Middle East, and he was right about all of that. You see where we are today, by the way, just to be clear, Donald Trump got rid of ISIS. He unshackled the military. ISIS has destroyed something he does not get credit for. He was solving the problems of neoconservatives past. He was remedying the problems of George W. Bush. And that's a very important philosophical baseline for what we're now seeing between Israel and Iran. And we're going to go into all of it. We're going to go through the best possible outcomes and the worst possible outcomes and maybe some of the outcomes right in the middle.

Between regime change, is that a good thing? Should we celebrate that? Should we cheer for that? Between full-out victory for Israel, what does that even mean? What is the goal here? We're going to examine that all throughout the next couple of hours. But the baseline for all of that, we must never forget, is the way we are even viewing these issues, the way that we are asking questions, the way that we are processing this information is fundamentally different because a billionaire decided to go down an escalator

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We can vote on the movies that we like. Producer Andrew loves it as well. It is family-friendly, Christ-driven content. Go to angel.com slash charlie to get your free tickets and start streaming today. That's Angel Studios, Stories That Matter. Joining us now is Eric Trump, great friend and head of the Trump Organization. Eric, great to see you, my friend. I know you have a major announcement about Trump Mobile, but first I want you to recollect.

It's been a decade, my friend. What a 10 years it has been. Hey, Charlie, you sit in the same seat as I do in many regards. And sometimes you need to pitch yourself. Right. Ten years ago to this day, he went down that escalator. I've stood on the stage with him every single day since then. There's probably been no bigger defender of his more loyal surrogate than I was during that period of time I think I was on TV about five times

every day during that period of time learned a lot about life, learned a lot about myself, certainly learned a lot about this country and the politics of this country but man what a journey that was they tried to impeach him, they tried to kill him. They raided his homes. They weaponized every DA and AG against our family. They made up the Russia hoax. They made up the dirty dossiers. They went after his

Supreme Court justices. They went after virtually every single one of the friends, you know, campaign managers, anybody who, you know, entered his orbit. You took a lot of hits throughout that whole process because you were one of them. I mean, I can't tell you. I became the most subpoenaed person probably in American history based on the fact that they couldn't get to my father through the executive branch, so they just absolutely came after us.

Our companies, our wealth, our employees, they wanted to throw him in jail. They wanted to throw away the keys. And despite that, we won two elections and arguably a third. I think we won three elections. But you can definitively say we won two based on the fact that he sat behind the Oval, he sat behind the Resolute Desk twice.

But what a journey it's been, Charlie. And all of that happened in a 10-year period of time and obviously so much more. So I pinch myself every day, honored to be part of the fight, love the man to death, and hard to believe it's exactly 10 years after that day. What did your father say when he gathered all of you together before the announcement? I'm guessing there was a meeting up in his office at Trump Tower with all of you.

What was that conversation like? A conversation I'll never forget. I get a phone call, honey, bring all the kids up to my office. And I bring Don, Ivanka. I called my wife, called Melania. And he goes, kids, I'm going to do this. And then he said, let's do this. That was his exact words. Kids, I'm going to do this. Let's do this. I mean, Charlie, everything we had ever done, we had done as family. You know that, right? Whether it's real estate stuff or the apprentice, we had done as family. You know that, right? Whether it's real estate stuff or, you know, The Apprentice, we had always fought together. We had always won together.

You know, we always did as a family unit. And all of a sudden, we were entering a space. We didn't know what the hell we were doing. I didn't know what a delegate was. I didn't know what a caucus was in Iowa. Listen, I was a master at concrete and building. I didn't know a damn thing about, you know, the American political system, at least, you know, kind of the intricacies of running for, you running for president. And I remember going to Iowa, and I'm standing on tables in the middle of pizza ranches

and other places, giving stump speech. And it was so awkward when you first got into it. My mom would kill me for having my shoes on a table, and yet I'm sitting here doing a stump speech to a bunch of people at lunchtime who probably didn't even want to hear a stump speech, but that's just what you did in the state of Iowa. There were times where it was uncomfortable. There were times where it was fun. I think we grew so much as humans. But, man, has he changed the country in so many great ways.

He taught Republicans how to fight again. He taught people that you could be unapologetic, that you could focus on your core beliefs, and they could actually bring you to kind of the promised land, get you a victory. He was the greatest rhino hunter in the history of politics in that he knocked out every, I won't use a word on TV, just try and be a little bit respectful, but every Mitt Romney, every Sass, all these guys who were the worst of the worst. He created a Republican party that wanted to fight for core principles that they actually agreed upon. They weren't just kind of rollover stiffs that were unrelatable to the entire country. And man, am I

proud of the guy. And he did that all through adversity and nearly being killed twice. And he's a remarkable human being. You take 10,000 billionaires in his same spot, not a single person could have lasted that fight. Not a single person would have weathered that storm. And he keeps on fighting every single day when what everybody else would have done would have been just revert to comfort, revert to Mar-a-Lago, revert to the beautiful plains, revert to playing golf and hang out with the grandkids every single day. I mean, he has blood flowing down his face and he stands up fight by fight and he doesn't stop. And he's a remarkable person. I'm not sure if they'll ever create another one of him.

And so, Eric, I want to get to your announcement here. I know you've got to dash in a second here. I just have one quick follow-up question and point first. We're also proud of you and Don and the entire family. You have stood by your father at every single turn, every difficulty. We see so often, unfortunately, kids that turn their back on their parents. And you guys leaned in. And I just want to say it is a testament to your character. After all you've been through, it hasn't been easy. And also a testament to your

father for raising three incredible sons and how tight knit your family is has really been something to witness. So, Eric, tell us. Charlie, just to say that, I mean, believe me, part of the big political ecosystem was to break us. That's what they did. And the number one rule of politics is do not get your family, keep your family the hell out of politics. That's the number one rule.

They try and break you, and they couldn't break me. As many days as I sat in those courtrooms with my father and as many uncomfortable depositions and subpoenas as I got, they couldn't break me, and they didn't break Don. And they didn't break anybody else in the family. And he did a great job raising us. There's no question about it. So what is your announcement here today?

Eric, tell us about it. You guys have a million different projects going on. What do you want to share with our audience today? Yeah, with Trump Mobile, which we're incredibly excited about. And Charlie, you know this better than anybody. This all started kind of, you know, Trump Organization's foray into kind of the digital world started when X banned my father,

they turned down the dials on you, and they turned down the dials on Don, they turned down the dials on me, and they de-platformed all of us. And guess what? We had to create Truth Social. Then all of a sudden, you know, months later, we had the weaponization of the big banks. And guess what?

They started writing me letters in the middle of the night saying, we're, you know, we're closing your accounts, Eric. We're closing the accounts of Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street and all your buildings all around the world. We're closing the accounts, and we don't give a damn because you wear that red hat that says, make America great again. And so we started World Liberty Financial,

which is kind of our way to fight back against the big banks and kind of remove the power from the big banks, no different than Truth did with Freedom of Speech. And today we're launching Trump Mobile, and this is phones that will be made in the United States. These are phones that have customer service in the United States, all based out of St. Louis. These are phones made by Americans for Americans,

with international calling, over 100 countries around the world, totally free, unlimited text, $47 a month. We are going to go in, no different than we did in the the world, totally free, unlimited text, you know, $47 a month. We are going to go in no different than we did in the crypto world, no different than obviously we did, you know, in the social media world. We are going to go in, we're going to disrupt, you know, the mobile world. We're going to do it better. We're going to do it faster. We're going to do it cheaper. We're going to have better products. We're going to have better security. We're going to have better visibility. And I've never been more proud. It's going to be an awesome venture. And our foray into the digital space has been incredible. And this is really going to shake up

the digital asset world, the cell carrier world. And Don and I cannot be more excited about it. How can people learn more? And what is the call to action there, Eric? Yeah, well, go sign up. TrumpMobile.com. In about five minutes, you can go in, sign up, get an eSIM card, and be on Trump Mobile. And then, obviously, the Made in America phones are coming out later on this year. They're going to be, again, produced here in America. And if you speak to a representative, you're going to be speaking to somebody based out of St. Louis, Missouri. Again, you're going to be speaking to America. This isn't going to

Bangladesh. This isn't somebody who's going to take your customer info and sell it to somebody else, as we saw last week in that massive hack. Again, this is made for Americans by Americans, by a very patriotic family who cares tremendously. And again, we're really excited about Trump Mobile. I think we're really going to shake up the space. Eric, I know you got a dash. I want to just play one final clip here, and I'm going to ask you, how are you going to tell your kids about this journey? First to 277. Now to the race for the White House, and after decades of very publicly flirting with the idea, billionaire Donald Trump says he really is running for president this time around. His announcement was vintage Trump talking up his vast wealth

and combining his first campaign speech with his first campaign controversy when he said this. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards, and they tell us what we're getting. 40 seconds, Eric. How are you going

to tell the story to your kids? Well, Charlie, I'm going to say that everything my father said was right. He was right. Trump was right about everything. They were sending rapists. They were sending murderers. They were sending drugs. And I just want you to look at L.A. right now as they burn cop cars and so many people are holding Mexican flags and walking around those. And, by the way, many other nationalities are walking around those cars as they're on fire. And so, you know, that's exactly right.

My father was willing to say what everybody was thinking, but everybody was too afraid to say. And from that moment, from that speech, his polls spiked. And then he would come out and be slightly controversial again, but exactly what people were thinking, and his polls would spike again. And honestly, it's that kind of un-PC, unscripted toughness that you see right there, which is what won my father the presidency in 2016, certainly what won him the presidency again in 2024.

And you just needed a person who had the courage and the backbone to say it. And that's Donald Trump. Eric, thank you so much. God bless you, my friend. Good to see you. Thank you. God bless you as well, my friend. So you've heard me talk about Patriot Mobile for a while now. You probably already

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The fact is, cell phone service in the country today, you can get exceptional or even better service with Patriot Mobile. That's why they offer a coverage guarantee that others can't. Or maybe you haven't joined because you think switching is painful. I'm here to tell you it's not. In fact, it's very easy. No need to spend hours in a retail store waiting your turn. Simply call Patriot Mobile's 100% U.S.-based service team

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It's time to join Patriot Mobile. Patriot Mobile funds Turning Point USA. They donate to us, support faith, family, and freedom with every call and text you make. Don't wait. Do it today. Go to patriotmobile.com slash charlie or call 972-PATRIOT. Use promo code CHARLIE and get a free month of service. Joining us now is

Senator Rick Scott. Senator, welcome to the program. Senator, first, your thoughts on the breaking news. Israel, Iran, Israel is back into bomb shelters right now as Iran is pledging a massive and overwhelming response. Senator, your thoughts. Boy, Charlie, I talked to you last week and I don't think any of us anticipated what would happen just this last week. First off, hopefully the positive out of this is going to be that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. I mean, it's good for America. It's good for Israel.

They want to use a nuclear weapon to destroy Israel and destroy America. So hopefully that's what will happen out of this. My heart goes out to everybody with any loss of life. You don't want to have loss of life anywhere. But Israel can't. Israel's got to. I mean, basically, this is an existential threat to the survival of Israel. So they don't they don't really have much of a choice. So I hope everybody's safe. I know there's a lot of Americans in Israel right now. I've

talked to quite a few of my friends over there. So everybody stay safe. Without a doubt. So, Senator, the the question that a lot of our audience has still here more domestically is, and this all kind of intersects with the Big Beautiful Bill, which is because we're getting our own Golden Dome in the Big Beautiful Bill. Just think about it. If our enemies decided to send a ballistic missile to America today, what would happen? I mean, you're a military guy. So let's just say right now, if the Chinese Communist Party, God forbid, sent a ballistic missile to

America right now today, who would intercept it? Do we have the technology to do that right now? We have the technology to intercept it, but we've got to improve our technology. I mean, as you know, Communist China, which don't buy any products, any services from Communist China, they want to destroy our way of life. So we've got to build it up. We've got to put a lot more effort into it. It's going to take money. It's going to take a lot of resources. It's going to take a lot of thought. We're a much larger country.

We've got to cover a lot more land that Israel has to. I've gotten tours of the Golden Dome in Israel. It's remarkable what they're able to do. We can do that here. It's just it's going to take a lot more money to do it here. Just right now, as we are live on air, this is why it all connects together. Ballistic missile launch detected from Iran as we're here live on air. So it's just kind of very chilling to think that, God forbid this happens, but it might, that someone who's alive right now might not be alive in about six minutes. No, it's scary. And, you know, I've been to Israel quite a bit. And so, you know, they,

you have, like, I was in Kfar Aza, which got demolished because of what happened with Hamas, a bunch of people killed there, but they, people had 15 seconds to get into these bomb shelters. It's a little bit more time if you're in Tel Aviv. So the nice thing is Israel is prepared. Israel's got a great military. They've got a great leader. So this is, Israel is going to succeed at destroying Iran's ability to have a nuclear weapon. So that's exactly what they ought to be doing for their own safety. And Israel has the prerogative and the agency to do that. So let me ask you, Senator, kind of shifting gears back to the Big Beautiful Bill, because I think the Golden Dome is a big wake-up call.

Your push right now is to, quote, deliver on a better big, beautiful bill for Trump. The big, beautiful bill was getting a lot of attention about two weeks ago. Now it's been on the back burner. What is the update here? What are you fighting on and for? Please give us an update. We've got to get this bill passed. There's a lot of things we have to do to keep the economy going. We've got to make the Trump tax cuts permanent. We've got to make sure we give the Trump administration the money to basically secure the border. And number three, we've got to make sure that our military is plus up. We know that China wants to destroy our way of life. So we have to do that. And by the way, what you said about Donald Trump, about what he

talked about when he first came down the escalator, is exactly how we ought to think about this. We don't want to get into these forever wars. We want and we want to have such a strong military. Nobody wants to play with us. Now, on top of that, we all have to understand we have $37 trillion of the debt, $37 trillion worth of debt. If we don't have a significant change, we're going to add at least $20 trillion of debt in the next 10 years. Now, what that impact of that is interest rates will not come down. They're going to go up. Inflation will not stay down.

It's going to go up. So we've got to find ways to save money. We've had a 53% increase in spending during the Biden administration, right? The House bill cut some, but it cut less than 2%. So there's things to do as that we should completely repeal the Green New Deal, completely. That's a lot of money. We've got to quit letting blue state governors take federal Medicaid dollars, federal Medicaid dollars, and give illegals free health care. Right? That's just, it's wrong. I mean, Medicaid is supposed to be a match program between the

state and the federal government. It's become a federal program, and these blue state governors have taken advantage of it. Just as an example of how it impacts Florida. New York, which we have four million more people live in Florida than New York, they get $20 billion more for their Medicaid program than us. California, which is about 65% bigger than Florida, if you include all the illegals there, they get $40 billion more than we get in Florida. I mean, we pay our taxes. Why? That shouldn't be the case. So these are things we can fix, we should fix, we must fix. And we've got to figure out how to get more savings to get close and hopefully to a balanced budget within a very short period of time to get interest rates down and get inflation under control.

So, Senator, what then is the barrier to getting this done? And what is the process to get senators aligned and agreed with that? And are you saying that the original draft did not remove all of the Biden Green New Deal components? No, the House bill didn't. But we're working, you know, look, we're working on the Senate. We're going to pass a separate bill that would go back to the House. We can completely get rid of the Green New Deal. That's all doable. None of us voted for it. None of us. Not one Republican voted for it. It's a completely Democrat project. We ought to get rid of it completely. Get rid of it completely. Stop. That's number one. Number two, we've got to fix the Medicaid program to cover the people that should be covered. Poor kids like my little

brother, when I was growing up before Medicaid, couldn't get health care when he had a significant disease in his hip. I remember my mom's face when she heard about it, found out about it, and then couldn't get a doc. That's going on today. But the Democrat governors, they're spending money on people that don't want to work. They're spending money on illegals in this country. So on top of that, we've got to take care of the people that have a chronic illness. So what's happened, though, is the blue state governors have taken the Medicaid dollars and spent it on other things, like health care for illegals, free health care for people that don't want to work.

That is wrong. So, Senator, there were some reports this weekend that Senator Lindsey Graham said that no tax on tips and no tax on overtime might not make the final draft. I find that to be outrageous. What are you doing to make sure that those campaign promises and middle class and working class tax cuts remain? Charlie, everything I've seen, it's in the bill. I can't imagine. Thank you. No, Charlie, I'd be shocked if it wasn't in the bill. Both of those are in the bill. We haven't seen the final text. We'll get hopefully the final text tonight

out of the Finance Committee. But everything I've been told, both of those are in the bill. Well, I'm glad to hear that because the working class, they need some sort of victory out of this legislative victory. The people, they need this legislative process. So, Senator, please. We've got to go back through and look at all the spending. We've got to stop just running $2 trillion deficits. I mean, $37 trillion going to $57 trillion? I mean, we just can't do that. It's not fair to the American public. Trump wants to balance the budget. Let's help him. And so in closing here then, Senator, timeline, you're going to get the final draft tonight. And what about Ron John and Rand Paul's critiques? How are they incorporating into the final draft here? So there's a variety of us that are working to try to make it better. So look, I think we'll get most of the final text tonight. And I think the goal is pass it, not this week, the week after that, out of the Senate, with hopefully

the House will pass it before the 4th of July. I'm I look I'm an optimist. I'm going to work hard to get Trump President Trump's agenda done. And I know part of it is we got to stop this billions and billions and billions of wasteful dollars. Without a doubt. Well, Senator, thank you for your leadership on this. And we hope that we can get a final solid bill that will deliver a resounding victory for the American people. And finally, Senator, can you guarantee to the audience that you will fight for and that all of the border funding will remain? Oh, yeah, I'm going to fight for it. But the border, the border funding, we had we we had, we had two big conversations about that

last week. So I think all the border funding will be there. There was an issue that we hadn't seen the detail that some people questioned, but I think we're seeing that now. So although I don't think there's any question, all the border funding will be in there. I think, I think the real conversation is really about, are we going to make this, you know, are we going to stop a lot of the wasteful spending? That's what that's what the real fight is now. I understand that.

Senator, keep fighting. Thank you so much. All right. See you, Charlie. Have a good day. Thank you, too. Thanks so much for listening. Everybody email us as always.

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