The Charlie Kirk Show - The Baffling Barrier Blocking the Big Beautiful Bill

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Who is Elizabeth McDonough? Charlie introduces the audience to the Senate parliamentarian, and he explains how she's become an unlikely barrier to passing the Big Beautiful Bill, and how the impasse can be solved. Charlie gets a live update from Israel from Josh Hammer, where they discuss what life is like under bombardment from ballistic missiles, why Gen Z has moved so sharply toward supporting Palestine, and whether the shift can be reversed. 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. Who is the parliamentarian? One of the most powerful people in Washington, DC. We introduce you to Elizabeth McDonough. That's right, Elizabeth McDonough. She runs a lot in DC and you're going to learn how a singular Senate staffer has extraordinary power. We then have Josh Hammer that joins the show as we talk about the fallout of the Israel-Iran War and President Trump's pursuit of peace. Email us as always, freedomatcharliekirk.com. That is freedomatcharliekirk.com.

Subscribe to our podcast. That's the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page. And get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa.com. That is tpusa.com. Start a Turning Point USA chapter at tpusa.com. That is TPUSA.com. Start a turning point USA chapter at TPUSA.com. Okay, everybody, it is the event of the summer. Coming up in Tampa, Florida, it's an event unlike any other. It is our Student Action Summit. All ages are welcome. It's SAS2025.com. We have Pete Hegseth coming, Kristi Noem, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Donald Trump Jr., Steve Bannon,

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So take a look at it right now at SAS2025.com, SAS2025.com. And don't forget to subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast. 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.

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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. There is a major story that is bubbling up and I've had my eyes on this for the last couple of weeks and I've been waiting for a time to explain it. Now a lot of people are getting fired up online about this and the anger is partially justified but not totally.

We need to kind of just take a step back and make sure that we do not get too intense, too early in a way that might not actually be rooted in facts or substance. But there is some truth to it. We got to get the facts. That's what our show does. We explore the facts. We are a truth seeking show. So as you know, President Trump's big, beautiful bill is working its way through Congress.

This very difficult process of getting people like Susan Collins and Don Bacon and getting all the moderate Republicans to agree on spending cuts and border security and just all the different elements of this process have been exhausting. We're finally getting to a place of completion where we have to find out whether or not the components of the bill are allowed to remain. What do you mean by that? So remember, this is a reconciliation bill. So when a bill is a reconciliation bill,

it has a very precise technical meaning. It literally means that you are reconciling the budgets of two different fiscal years. And so a reconciliation bill, because you are reconciling two different budgets from two different years, does not require 60 votes. Said more bluntly, you can bypass the filibuster. The filibuster, of course, requires 60 votes. Said more bluntly, you can bypass the filibuster. The filibuster, of course, requires 60 votes to then get to quorum and then get to a vote on the specific piece of legislation. So for example, if they wanted to go pass a bill right now, Congress, on something that was

non-reconciliation, it would require 60 votes. Now all of this is just Senate rules. They could change the rules at any time. The Senate was intended to actually become a majoritarian body. Thomas Jefferson actually always wanted it to be a majoritarian body. On the other side though, the fact that we had the filibuster stopped a lot of the totally insane stuff that Joe Biden wanted to do during his administration. And so we shouldn't be too quick to throw out the filibuster. So in front of us now is an opportunity to pass President Trump's hallmark agenda bill, the big beautiful bill, border funding, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, Trump tax cuts, drill baby drill. All of this has to fit as a budgetary financial reconciliation provision.

So certain things in the bill that might not be germane to budgetary measures will be thrown out of the bill because then it does not pass the filibuster reconciliation test. Now this is very important. It's called the bird rule. So you have to pass what is called the bird bath. You have to pass the bird bath. But here's where things get a little murky and they get awfully confusing and where people are getting fired up, partially rightfully so, which is that, well who decides? Is there a committee? Is there like a Supreme Court of the US Senate? Is there a committee? Is there like a Supreme Court of the US Senate?

Is there a bipartisan panel? Are there people that have been there for quite some time? Who is the umpire? Who is the referee? Who is the final decision maker of what is germane to a reconciliation bill and what is not? Now we went through this entire reconciliation process. The highest profile reconciliation fight was when?

Anybody? 2009 actually, the Affordable Care Act. When Obama wanted to pass Obamacare, a lesser appreciated memory was when Obama wanted to pass this monstrosity of a healthcare bill and he needed 60 votes and he had 60 votes until the lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy died. There was a special election in Massachusetts on the sole reason as a referendum and Massachusetts

elected a Republican Senator by the name of Scott Brown to actually reject the 60 vote threshold. We and kind of conservative folk lore forget this moment. I was a freshman in high school and I remember it intimately, where Obamacare was put on a referendum and Scott Brown became a US Senator from Massachusetts as a Republican and Ted Kennedy passed away. By the way, Ted Kennedy was a scum.

He's a bad guy, a bad ombre, no good whatsoever. Different topic for a different time. So basically then Obama had to change some of the wording because 60 went down to 59 because he did not have the votes to be able to pass the filibuster. And by the way, there were a lot of what they call blue dog Democrats that basically offered themselves as sacrificial lambs. Dashiell would be one of them. I think he was from Blake State of South Dakota. There were a ton of these guys that basically offered themselves up, and they have not elected Democrats in these states ever since. That was the turning point. So then who decides? So that was the fight back in 2009, 2010, and Obamacare actually became less radical and less pernicious because of the birdbath. Well, who decides? Well, it is a singular person that holds all the cards. It's a singular person that decides whether something is in the bill or something is not in the bill. She is becoming the most powerful person in Washington, DC, and her name is Elizabeth McDonough. Now, Elizabeth McDonough, to her credit, was actually very helpful under Joe Biden.

Elizabeth McDonough removed a lot of the total and complete insanity that people like AOC and Elizabeth Warren wanted to fit into reconciliation bills. However, Elizabeth Elizabeth McDonough right now, she holds almost all the cards, sort of. So she holds the cards because John Thune has given her the cards. And John Thune wants to allow this process to play out. And the reason why this is bubbling up to a fever pitch, and trust me I get it, but it's my job to tell you when to get angry and also to explain things away and say, let's hold some of our fire to see if we can't figure this out. And one of the reasons why people are losing it this morning is that she removed a provision from the big beautiful bill that would have saved us hundreds of billions of dollars saying

illegals cannot get Medicaid. Now is that a final ruling? Is that a final gut punch? No, actually. Here's where I just encourage you to take a deep breath and to allow somewhat of this process to play out. They can reword things and go back to her. Now, this is such a broken process that this is a series of broken meetings. And here is the kicker. Here is where you are being led towards anger without all of the story. These are the Democrats that are leaking

that she's blocking this. The process is still underway. I talked to top-level folks on the Senate. I also talked to the people in the office of the president of the Senate. If you don't know who the president of the senate is you should do your civics lesson. It's not john thune and people in that whole kind of community saying just allow this to play out a little bit because it's the democrats that are actually leaking while they're going back and

forth with miss mcdonough. This is an ongoing process where they okay can we word it this way can we do it this way and she says yes or no now look i think this is a little bit of a goofy kind of unsustainable model that one person one staffer she's literally a staffer she was not even senate confirmed she was not elected she's not like it's like this weird kind of she's not like a new branch of government it's a little bit too much power for a staffer. I think it should be at least a committee that you could have votes

and you could have different members. There's gotta be a better process than just like one staffer that obviously could be very influenced. But right now, Elizabeth McDonough holds a lot of the cards in this process. And by holding the cards, she is the recipient of a lot of anger from the base.

Now how do we get rid of her? If she continues her nonsense and it just gets out of control, John Thune can remove her and you could get a new parliamentarian but then she becomes a martyr and you might get an even worse one in return. All that to say she's incredibly powerful. We don't know how it's going to turn out. In fact, the future of our agenda might be with her. Did you catch Angel Studios' record-breaking animated movie, King of Kings, over Easter? You see Jesus won at the box office, thanks to Angel Studios.

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and start streaming today. That's Angel Studios stories that mad. So the parliamentarian has a lot of power right now, but just remember back when this was under Joe Biden in March of 2021, 24 Democrat members of Congress wrote a letter to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris requesting that Harris overrule the Senate parliamentarian raising the national minimum wage. Ultimately Harris ruled in accordance with the parliamentarian and removed the provision. So Janey Vance can overturn it once it gets to the floor, but this really is a John Thune thing, and John Thune's got to work through this.

This is all on Senator Thune. If there is no reasoning with her on stuff that obviously is financial, for example, there's no reason whatsoever that no Medicaid funding for illegals should not be in this bill. Just figure out the right way to word it. Period. End of story. That is 100% a budgetary measure, without question. And that would save us hundreds of billions of dollars. If you can't get no Medicaid funding for illegals, figure out how to word it in a way that can pass the

parliamentarian threshold. But let's be honest, that is, this is way too much power for one person in D.C. This is structurally a problem. And if you were to fire the parliamentarian, the question is who do you replace it with? And understand that would send shockwaves throughout the Senate. I know a lot of us in the grassroots have very little respect for this stuff, but the senators there, they think the Senate is like this wonderful thing and it's very regal and great. They think so highly of themselves and they look at the upper chamber as being the

thoughtful and philosophical chamber that really deep thinking happens. philosophical chamber that really deep thinking happens. But look, we shouldn't put that off the table if it gets to it. If Elizabeth McDonough gets in the way of President Trump's agenda, then we can change the rules. There are many measures that we can get to at this point. My biggest, my biggest concern is why is this even program have one person that's able to get in the way of what we obviously want to do and what we should be able to do. She did not win seven swing states. She did not win a popular vote majority.

And she's a staffer. She's not like Senate confirmed. She's not a judge. She's not from the she's not Article three. It's really kind of a creation. Let's put this up on screen. It's very important history. So the Office of the Parliamentarian does have of course constitutional roots. Article 1, Section 5 says each house may determine the rules of its proceedings. The Office of the Parliamentarian were created in the House in 1927 and in the Senate in 1935. The Parliamentarian answers questions from the presiding officer about the wording of motions and about precedents related to motions or actions. The current parliamentarian is mentioned as Elizabeth McDonough. She's been in office since 2012. Harry Reid put her there, which should make us have a little bit of pause.

And by then, Senate Majority Leader, appointed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the budget reconciliation process is only supposed to include provisions that, according to the Congressional Research Service, quote, would change laws related to direct spending, revenue or the debt limit. Hold on. So spending revenue or debt limit. No Medicaid for illegals is absolutely no spending or revenue. Now she's an officer appointed by the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, and they're generally preserved across parties to maintain harmony in the Senate, but they have been removed before.

And so we should not dismiss that as something, if she keeps on acting in a way where there is no negotiation, then we got to get rid of her. Robert Dove was a parliamentarian picked by Republicans and got fired when Democrats took over and then came back when Republicans took power again again but then got fired by Republican Trent Lott. So these kind of fights have happened but let's be honest the fact that she's in the news means we have a little bit of a problem. We just got to be honest with ourselves. We should not know her name. You should not know her name. We should not be dedicating precious time on our program to Elizabeth McDonough. Illegals getting Medicaid is a red line.

That cannot be allowed. Figure it out. If she gets in the way of illegals getting Medicaid, then we're going to have to ratchet this up a little bit. But I want to just make sure we are being fair. This is not a final ruling. This is not a complete judgment. Let me read from you from a top, top source, a text message that I was texting. The Democrats are leaking.

This is the best source that we can have, better than anyone on cable news, trust me. The Democrats are leaking about what the parliamentarian has done. A lot of it is either out of context or will be dealt with through very minor language changes. There is a version of the Medicaid stuff that will be passable, but the Democrats are leaking this to try to eff us politically.

Okay? That's a top tier source here. But we're making you aware of this growing situation. But let me just repeat this. Quote, the Democrats are leaking about what the parliamentarian has done, but a lot of it is either out of context, oh, the Democrats would never lie and the Democrats would never leak. By the way, that's why the Democrats were not briefed on Operation Midnight Hammer,

because they would have leaked it. And quote, a lot of it will be dealt with through very minor language changes. This is a game and a game of spin, and it's largely a propaganda war. We gotta keep our eyes on her. If she stands in the way of us getting rid of Medicaid for illegals, dramatic action is necessary. Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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continues, we're going to go out of business with this. This is the little nonsense of the US Senate. Buried on page 306 in the Senate finance text of the one big bid if it is a carve out for big multinationals to pocket taxpayer dollars for their Chinese suppliers by grandfathering existing contracts. Big auto companies, General Motors in particular, is pushing for this. This provision will send hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer dollars to companies affiliated with the CCP, literally, through 2030 at the expense of American manufacturers that were just getting a break from their anti-competitive behavior thanks to President Trump's America first trade policy. This is literally being pushed by GM Biden's BFF Mary Barra and her buddies at the Chinese battery company. And by the way, I know that I know the Republican senators that are carrying the water on this.

I'm not saying their names yet. They better fix this. But this this stuff drives me crazy. All of a sudden we have this big beautiful bill. It's America first. Trump's agenda is going and these Republican senators are putting in carve outs that are going to help Chinese battery companies. What is that?

Joining us now is Josh Hammer. Josh is awesome. Josh, I'm pleased that you are back in America. Is your family okay? Inform our audience of the unbelievable journey had to go through because of the Iranian missile attacks. Yeah, Charlie, I think last time I checked in with you, it was less than 24 hours after the IDF operations inside Iran began.

We were over in Israel at that time. And it was a Friday afternoon. The Jewish Sabbath was about to come in over in Israel. And we kind of just everyone knew that the Iranians were going to start their missile launches during the Jewish Sabbath. Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. I literally had to interrupt my Shabbat Friday evening prayers to take my wife and daughter to run down to the to the bomb shelter. This happened on and off over the next few days. And Charlie, you know, this is kind of evaded American media. So the media is properly covering all of the astonishing tactical operational success

that the idea from Assad had, especially in those first few hours of the war inside Iran. But unfortunately, the Israeli air defense was letting too many missiles through. To be clear, they were intercepting most of them, but too many were getting through. And after a few days, it did start to get a little dicey, and there was a neighboring town near where we were staying, that the Israeli media tragically was reporting that two people who even went to the bomb shelter, they actually died from a direct ballistic missile blast. Because Charlie, let's understand here that these bomb shelters over there, they're built primarily with these Hamas rockets and mortars in mind, not necessarily these 2000 mile hypersonic ballistic missiles. So I decided that I basically had to get the heck out

of here. So I did a little research. I came across this program. I live in Florida. I came across a program that our governor, Ron DeSantis had Florida team up with a rescue evacuation organization called Gray Bull Rescue. I was put in touch with a state senator from Florida, a wonderful man named Jay Collins, and he was our point of contact to basically get us home. So it was a three and a half day journey. It took a very long time. We took a bus to the Jordanian-Israeli border. The border was total chaos, total zoo. A lot of people trying to get across that border, spent the night in Amman, Jordan, flew from Jordan to Cyprus, which is like a hub for a lot of people fleeing, did a night in Amman, Jordan flew from Jordan to Cyprus, which is like a hub for a lot of people fleeing

tonight in Cyprus, then flew on a DeSantis charred flight from Cyprus to Tampa. DeSantis was actually waiting for us there. We did a whole press conference. He actually asked me to join him. I was coming off of a 13 hour flight, no sleep. So I did the best I could at 530 in the morning. Hopefully it came out. Okay, it was quite an ordeal to put a mildly, but most

importantly, Charlie, I am home. My family is home. We are all safe. Praise be to God. Ily, but most importantly, Charlie, I am home. My family is home. We are all safe. Praise be to God. And how old is your daughter? Six months. That's tough, man. I mean, that's really tough.

Yes. Could you just remind our audience a little bit, and then I wanna get into some more of the, just the psychological toll. I mean, every night you go into bunkers, no one's getting sleep. It's terror on the children. I think part of it is the terror on the children too.

I mean, I know what it's like. If my daughter or son's night sleep is interrupted at night. It's a disaster, right? It becomes a total calamity. But that's part of what Iran wanted to try and invoke upon the people of Israel. Am I correct? Totally correct. So, you know, the crazy thing, Charlie, so our daughter, her name is Esther. I actually dedicated my book, Israel and Civilization, to my daughter Esther. Anyone who knows anything about the book of Esther in the Bible knows that it is a story that takes place in Persia, in ancient Iran and Persia. So it was actually literally on our daughter's six month birthday on June 13, 2025, that the Persians started launching rockets at us. It kind of had almost like a biblical kind of a divine element to it, to it as well.

But I guess I will say this. So we kind of got lucky in so far as yes, it was horrible. We moved bedrooms. So we were very lucky. We're saying in a house that had a spare bedroom on the basement level next to the bomb shelter. So we actually slept in this room adjacent to the bomb shelter so that when the sirens

and the phone goes off at three in the morning there you can literally just drop everything you're doing and rush next door. Not fun by the way. three in the morning there, you can literally just drop everything you're doing and rush next door. Not fun, by the way. I mean, 90 seconds, two minutes to just drop whatever you're doing. Put on your glasses if you wear contacts like me and just get to the bomb shelter ASAP. But we got lucky insofar as I think it was easier to have a six month old Charlie than if we had like a five or six year old. And sure enough, there actually were some families on our evacuation mission.

There were 300 of us who got on those buses towards the Jordanian border on the first state of Florida evacuation mission. There are these two wonderful, beautiful families from Texas, Christian families there who were visiting the Christian holy sites in Israel. And these two families had these beautiful children, you know, three, four, five, six, seven. And I watched the parents just trying to keep these kids entertained, like really entertained on the bus to the hotel the airport of this and I kind of said to my wife, you know, like we have a six-month-old and that's not easy there

But it could it could also be a lot tougher as well. I mean, I mean I have a near three-year-old I can't imagine What you do like a full all your energy would just be on Making sure your two or three-year year old is entertained. So Josh, praise the Lord that you're okay and your family's okay. So now that the war is over, just kind of give us your take on what President Trump was able to accomplish, what this means for the Western world, and if you would have told most people two weeks ago, Iran would have no nuclear weapon, there'd be no US troops killed, there'd be no US troops on the ground, there would be no permanent

war, there would be no even talks of war in Congress, and that we kind of are moving on in a new cycle. I mean, that would be an incomprehensible accomplishment. I just want everyone to look at this from a two week window. Two weeks ago was when Israel launched the first strikes against Iran, two weeks ago, and now it's kind of a memory and it's being forgotten. It's unbelievable, Josh Hammer. Yeah, Charlie, very well said. This is one of the most astonishing victories from any president of the United States in my entire lifetime. A full stop, I mean, hard stop, end of story. I mean, this is this is incredible legacy defining stuff. Charlie, you and I are roughly around the same age. I'm a few years older. I think I'm 36. But for my entire

adult lifetime, my entire adult lifetime, the Iranian nuclear program has been one of those thorny, recurring ongoing debates. It's been this hovering sort of Damocles over the Middle East, over the United States over Western civilization. What do we do? What do we not do? Do we reach a deal like Barack Obama did in 2015? Do we try to just bomb them? Is there going to be a forever war, regime change war? Are we just going to let it sit and let them get nuclear? It's been in the debate for literally as long as I've been following politics.

Donald Trump in roughly 37 hours from those B-2s taken off of Missouri, going to Iran, dropping the 14 bunker busters, the Tomahawk missiles from the nuclear submarine and then returning home in 37 hours without a single shot being fired on a B2. He has single-handedly changed the face of the region and arguably the world. He has neutralized the single current deadliest threats, not just the people of the Middle East, but potentially to the people of Europe because Iran has ballistic missiles that can go thousands of miles as well. And they've been working very hard on ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well, that God forbid could potentially reach the Americas, the Western hemisphere.

They're not there yet, but they've certainly been working on it there. And in one fell swoop, in one fell swoop, Donald Trump has done more to bring peace, stability and security to the Middle East and to the United States. Charlie, let's not forget the raise on to Etra, the entire purpose of the current regime in Iran is to eliminate what they refer to as the little state in Israel and the big say in the United States. People can say, oh, why do they hate us? It doesn't matter. I'm telling you, it does not matter. The fact is they literally do. This regime started with a hostage crisis at the American embassy that ended the Jimmy Carter presidency. They funded Hezbollah to murder 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. There was the Kaibar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1990s. All the Qassem Suleimani supplied IEDs to murder our brave

men and women in uniform in Iraq in the 2000s. And on and on it goes. This regime has a ton of American blood on its hands. If you can accomplish at an infinitesimally low cost to deprive this genocidal maniacal anti-American regime of the world's deadliest weapons, why in the world would you not do that? So praise be to God that Donald Trump did what he did. It is a fantastic demonstration

of American military prowess. And most importantly, Charlie, it's also the Trump doctrine at work. The Trump doctrine is neither neoconservative nor isolationist. He is a nationalist realist. Jacksonian is a term that gets bad out of the mouth sometimes. He is someone who is not looking to start wars, and this was not looking to start a war. It actually was looking to try to end a war, to end the Iranian regime's four and a half decade long war through the regime directly and their various proxies against America

and America's allies. It is a fantastic, unbelievable, historical display of statesmanship. And I am proud that I voted for this man, frankly, in Don J. Trump. Can you comment? I mean, I was very outspoken against regime change. I'm glad I was. President Trump didn't against regime change. I'm glad I was. President Trump didn't want regime change. But some of other vocal voices in the movement still were calling for regime change.

Why do you think President Trump played this correctly from an American standpoint? Well, it's not the role of the United States to impose top-down regime change, Charlie. I mean, look, we've learned this lesson before. We've learned in Iraq. We've learned in Afghanistan. It is a hubristic and arrogant act for a liberal Western society to try to dictate to a foreign nation who they should or should not have ruled them. Now, having said that, Charlie, we should not hesitate to say that the current Iranian regime is evil. Again, they chant death to America on a daily basis.

But the proper solution is for the Persian people, who are very smart, educated, historical people going back millennia, to ultimately one day, God willing willing take matters into their own hands. That is the proper remedy. That's the proper solution for the Iranian quagmire. It's not for the United States or any of our allies to go ahead and oppose regime change top-down. Well said. Private student loan debt in America totals over 300 billion dollars. About 45 billion of that is labeled as distressed. Why ReFi Private student loan debt in America totals over $300 billion. About $45 billion of that is labeled as distressed.

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And do you have a co-borrower? Well, why refi can get them released from the loan? That is why refi.com. Josh, what do you make of the liberal narrative that President Trump and America's strikes on Fordo were unsuccessful? Josh Hammer. Well, Charlie, I can answer that very simply, which is, you know, Donald Trump, he takes that the line is that they've been obliterated.

I look, I have not been there in Fordow. I have not been able to say that it's literally been obliterated. What I can tell you is this, that this leaker is full of you know what? This leaker is 1000% full of crap there. This has all the markings of a Natasha Bertrand operation. That's the name of the reporter at Politico who was reporting about this leaker is 1000% full of crap there. This has all the markings of a Natasha Bertrand operation that's named with a reporter at Politico who was reporting about this leaker. If the name sounds familiar, that's because it should. She was the reporter back in 2020 who was first seeking to dismiss the New York Post bombshell hunter Biden

laptop story as so called Russian disinformation with Brennan and clapper and that whole terrible list of 51 deep state spooks. So we should be very skeptical for that reason. Charlie, the other reason that I think I feel very, very confident is saying that whether it's literal obliteration or setback years and years there, the other reason I'm very confident is because that's what the Israelis are saying too. And a lot of people say, oh, you know, the US should not trust what Israel says. Fair enough. Every country should do its own assessment.

But in this particular situation, in this particular situation, I think Israel's word is actually very important because the Iranian nuclear program is literally an existential threat to them. So the fact that Israel agreed to this Trump-imposed ceasefire, ASAP, it's pretty much no questions asked.

That means that they are very satisfied that this existential threat hovering over them on a daily basis has been severely neutralized, have not quite gotten rid of in its entirety. So I feel very good about the currency of the program. Obviously we will learn more in the days to come, but this has all the hallmarks of an anti-Trump deep state intelligence community leak. Yes.

I mean, and to your point, I mean, if Israel felt that they were threatened so much by the Iranian nuclear program, they were willing to launch preemptive strikes. And then now they're saying that that threat is taken out. Well then that that's actually probably the best verification because they obviously have the most interest and most invested in the lethality and the seriousness of the Iranian nuclear program. Josh, final thought here. There are there's new polling to suggest that young people's view of Israel

has gone down in the last couple of weeks, last couple of months. There's a lot of work to do to try to educate the next generation about the pro-Israel cause. Why do you think that is? And what do you think can be done in the coming months or years to at least get young people to understand that Israel is a country surrounded by barbarians and a death cult and that it's a much more complicated, nuanced position.

Josh? Charlie, my best guess as to why the Israel position is currently becoming a little more unpopular with certain younger, especially Gen Z types above all, is that especially for those who grew up in a post 9-11 milieu, and to be clear, I was only 12 years old when 9-11 happened, I think that there is this conflation between US support for Israel and the forever wars

that constituted the failed regime change wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But this is a flawed line of analysis for multiple reasons. On the first hand, Charlie, there's this narrative that Israel talked George W. Bush into fighting Iraq. And frankly, nothing could be further from the case.

In fact, both the president of Israel at the time in 2002, Shimon Peres, and the leader of the Israeli right, Ariel Sharon, literally both told George W. Bush, do not do this because you're going to topple this. It's going to become an Iranian province overnight in Iraq. There you're going to destabilize the region. So that narrative has always been bunk. But Charlie, there's a much more important argument here, which I advance in my book, Israel and Civilization.

I have a whole chapter on this, which I think it's imperative for young Americans, young conservatives, young Christians to understand that Israel serves the American national interest in this region by oftentimes doing our dirty work for us when it comes to pruning the jihadist excesses of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Qatayib Hezbollah, all the Houthis, all the various proxies of the Iranian regime, to doing tremendous damage to the Iranian regime itself in the first few days of the 12-day war, therefore making it so that these B-2 bombers could go in with the Iranian missile defense, with the Iranian radar completely obliterated there

with not a single shot fired there. go in with the Iranian missile defense, with the Iranian radar completely obliterated there with not a single shot fired there. I mean, Charlie, what Israel and the US just did to neutralize the Iranian nuclear program, I'm a sports fan, it's essentially equivalent to an al-youp of sorts. I mean, I think back to the old early 2000s, Kobe Bryant to Shaquille O'Neal,

it's basically an al-youp. It is a tag team operation to neutralize a hegemonic threat from a regime that chants not just death to Israel, but death to America as well. All of this, by the way, is in service of trying to stabilize the Middle East and therefore kind of make it easier for America to pivot to China, which is our big threat. Check out the Josh Hammer Show. Josh, thanks so much. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Email us as always, freedom at CharlieKirk.com. Thanks so much for listening. God bless.