The Charlie Kirk Show - The Left's War on ICE + Voter ID for CA

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

While ICE battles to carry out President Trump's deportation mandate, the left's political leaders are doubling and tripling down on rhetoric that could cause a civil war. The show reacts to Philadelphia's sheriff threatening arrests of ICE officers, and explains the exact kind of crisis the left hopes to bring about. Then California Rep. Ken Calvert about a initiative that could bring voter ID to the Golden State. Andrew and Blake discuss potential revolution in Iran. SUBSCRIBE to The Charlie Kirk Show Podcast: http://apple.co/2VCxGsh 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.

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The Charlie Kirk Show is proudly sponsored by Preserve Gold, the leading gold and silver experts and the only precious metals company I recommend to my family, friends, and viewers. All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show. It is January 9th, 2026. We are here in studio. Lots to go over. Blake Neff, good morning.

Howdy. We are going to be covering all the developments with ice that are happening in Minneapolis, in Portland, in Philadelphia. There's a new wrinkle there. We're also going to be covering the voter ID developments out of the state of California. Yes, I said that right. the state of California is making progress grassroots movement on voter ID. They just crossed a million signatures.

We're going to have Representative Calvert there, the highest ranking congressman out of the state of California, joining us next. He's been behind the scenes pushing that boulder up a hill. He's doing great work there. We are now at the precipice of a very, very sticky, tricky situation. And we talked about it yesterday on our thought crime show with Jack Posobic. but we are now seeing local jurisdictions threatening federal law enforcement. Blake, give us the lowdown. Well, so it's exactly what it is.

So we had the shooting in Minneapolis, and we've seen them sort of build up to this. There have been a few false starts because their rhetoric is like, they'll use aggressive rhetoric, but they don't quite cross the line of taking action. But what they keep doing is they keep delegitimizing ICE. They're calling them masked thugs. They say they're kid. kidnapping people. Gestapo, not. Yeah, Gestapo. They say that they are committing crimes. And increasingly, the goal is to basically say that ICE is a criminal organization and they will treat them as a criminal organization. And I think what we're building up to is they want to, they want to engineer a constitutional crisis where they can just overtly defy the enforcement of federal law, which is what ICE does. ICE is enforcing federal immigration law.

by arresting and deporting people who are illegally in the country. That is what they are doing. It started with, I've seen this play out over basically decades of my life because it was originally just, oh, that it causes harm to communities

if you arrest people. Oh, if you go to their church or if you do, like, if you arrest them in certain contexts, then they won't go to hospitals or they won't call the police for other crimes. But increasingly, just the attitude is actually these people,

everyone in the world has the right to be in America, especially if they're a foreign rapist, gangster criminal, especially. And any attempt to deport them or arrest them, they will not collaborate with that. We already see that with the Sanctuary City stuff. They won't keep anyone locked up so that ICE can detain them. And now they just say, well, actually, ice just can't detain them at all. And where we're getting closer to this is we have them now just basically saying

they're going to arrest ICE agents possibly. And this clip we have. This is Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, D.E.I. Hire out of Philadelphia. And by the way, in this clip, she's praising the DA, who's a Soros-funded DA, absolutely lawless head of this city. It's incredible to the extent to which these municipalities have been radicalized. It's a longer clip, but she says to ICE, you don't want this smoke. So she's like talking like a thug.

Well, let's just show the clip. She's behaving like one. And she is forcing, as you said, a constitutional crisis, 371. Let know that law enforcement professionals, real ones, not the fake made up ice, probably trumps a new army to attack citizens of the United States. Did you hear what I said? No law enforcement professional wears a mask. Those that come into our communities wearing a mask. to commit crime. And thank God for our district attorney, Larry Krasner, who say he's going to lock him up.

And I'm saying now, we are not going to whisk you away for them to hide your identity because when you do it there, you're getting arrested there. If any of them want to come in this city and commit a crime, you will not be able to hide. Nobody will wish you off. You don't want this smoke. Because we will bring it to you. You don't want this smoke. So she's basically threatening an armed standoff with federal law enforcement. That, I mean, that is insane. It is deranged.

And she's channeling Larry Krasner, who we haven't talked about as much lately, but he was a big thing during Biden Peak Woke era. He's one of the worst pro-crime DAs, purges department of prosecutors. He basically ended. He's pro-crime. He's pro-crime. he's like I'm not going to prosecute minor thefts, all these other offenses.

He's a pro-crime individual. And suddenly he's saying, oh, I'm going to arrest ICE agents. Yeah. That's anarcho tyranny as well, right? Where you're enforcing the law selectively against your preferred targets. You're refusing to enforce a lot of the law if it's your preferred, you know, people groups, special groups, whether that's immigrants, minorities, whatever. And so this is, so we talked about this last night. I think it's worth reiterating because you're seeing the same thing in Hennepin County in Minnesota.

You're seeing it in Portland where we are looking, we are looking down the barrel of a standoff between state or local law enforcement and federal law enforcement. And so the Trump administration now has to be zeroed in, laser focused on what do they do when this standoff occurs? And you have some thoughts. Yeah. So we talked about this last night that the left. is headed for this confrontation. The left is they want this showdown over ice. And we can see how we discussed this yesterday.

They were basically thrilled at what happened to Renee Good because that is their plan. They engineered this. They want these confrontations between ICE and protesters because they want someone to get shot so they can condemn ice. So what they want, what these people are dying to have happen is they want to have a confrontation between police and ICE where there's some sort of conflict. And a cop gets shot by ice. That is what they want to have happened. Yeah, I totally agree. And I actually think they wanted Renee Good to be killed.

But they, no, they, they celebrate this. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they did. Because now she gets to be a martyr. You got this white 37-year-old woman that was basically a citizen vigilante. She was taking it upon herself to get metal in the business of law enforcement, obstruct the ice operation that was going on. Apparently she was doing it throughout the day. She's obviously been trained.

She's obviously coordinating with other people. And then she messed around and caused an unfortunate incident. I don't think she was a vigil. Well, yeah, I guess she actually. Maybe she was a vigilante. Whatever. But the point is, is that they, as you said, they wanted her to get shot. And now they want another situation to happen.

They want a cop to get shot. Or, and this is the thing, they want the administration to be so fearful of that that they'll give up on enforcing the law. And they can just say, oh, it's a dead letter. We successfully beat them. And so the administration has to have a plan to make sure neither of these things happen. They have to do two things. They have to do one thing above all. They have to make sure that they assert ICE's legitimate authority to enforce immigration law in this country.

They cannot back off on that. Now, if that means some lunatic in a blue city is going to try to force them stop them, you can't let them stop you. But I would also say, You should make sure that the left is the first one he uses force to try to, like, if someone's going to shoot a gun, it has to be the left first, frankly. But you can push their cars out of the way. You can shove them out of the way. But make sure that they are the ones who try to shoot somebody first. I think this is genuinely important. That is how you, ultimately, this is a test of wills. This is a test of PR. And you have to make sure that you win that battle. This is possibly the most important test this administration will face. So Philly is a standout because you've got this crazy.

Sheriff who's saying, I'm going to, you don't want this smoke, which is a direct threat. I will say for the instance, in the instance of Minnesota, 344, this is the statement by Minnesota police and peace officers. They're, they're asking, they're basically condemning the, some of the statements, the rhetoric that are coming out of officials. They're asking leaders to stop inflammatory language and respect the legal investigative process that, and they're saying that they under, They stand behind law enforcement, i.e. ICE agents and irresponsible reckless rhetoric from political leaders attacking law enforcement has real and dangerous consequences. So at least in the instance of Minnesota, it looks like the police are siding with law enforcement and ice. So that's a good

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That's 866-338-4-325. All right. So there is another ice encounter that was exploding on the news last night, and it was involving a CPB Customs Border Patrol, CBP agent in the city of Portland. And it turns out it was another ramming incident, according to DHS. And the individual that tried to ram the CBP agent was a Trend de Aragua gangbanger who runs a prostitution ring. And the initial reports were fascinating because I said it was a husband and wife. And then there was pictures of the woman scantily clad. And we do not think that that would be his wife. Oh, actually, I wouldn't put that beyond that. I mean, maybe it is.

Maybe it's not. But it would be surprising. So there are the suspects. And without fail, on call, on Q, Portland mayor and Oregon governor, Kodak are coming to the defense of the Trenda-Iraga gangbanger and calling ICE to leave their city because it's ICE's fault that these gangbangers are in the country in the first place. I mean, just for example, you need to check this out. Let's just a little trip down memory laying. Go up and throw up 379. This is the B roll. This is how we got here, folks. This is why all of these conversations are happening because under four years of Joe Biden,

this was your southern border. Thousands of pound, thousands of, God knows who, just streaming over the border coming into your country, coming into cities like Portland and Minneapolis and Philadelphia and everywhere else. Often paid for by the taxpayers to relocate them in the interior and we're trying to set things right. They don't like it. Both of these. Both of these.

That was super important with these guys. They were both. They came here in 2022, released into the country. Of course. Final order have both done crimes Final order of removal Not removed That is in a nutshell

What we're doing over and over And that's the sort of operation The left is fanatical about They are fanatical about preventing these people From leaving the country Even if they assault people Even if they rob people Even if they kill people

Especially if they kill people So they are coming down on the side The political leaders in Oregon are coming down On the side of the gangbangers 376 When a president endorses tearing families apart and attempts to govern through fear and hate rather than shared values, you foster an environment of lawlessness and recklessness.

Ah, I literally, I can't, no, you are the political movement ideology that is fostering lawlessness. You're literally coming down on the side of a dude who runs a prostitution ring. And somehow it's ISIS's fault that they're trying to arrest the, these bad people and get them out of the country for the safety and lawfulness of your community. This is the same thing. They call Trump a dictator or a tyrant or whatever and they think that that just completely absolves them of actually enforcing the law in their communities. 380. This is Keith Ellison echoing the same. You hear a similarity in the tone? 380. This is an aspiring fascist dictator tyrant trying to impose by force will and

dominance on the population. That's what's happening. And the sooner we all wake up to it, the sooner we'll be able to be free of it. Blake, what the heck has gotten into these? It's a freaking brain worm or something. A brain virus. Well, I don't, well, I don't think it's a brain. I think this is. It's a clear. Well, it's just, it's a manifestation of the less values. The left is a force of entropy. The left is an anti-civilizational force. They want to, ultimately, they want to bring down the United States. They might not really fully think that out all the time, but their principles always militate towards this.

This is what ultimately caused the Biden wave. The Biden wave was almost an accident of left-wing thought that at this point, they cannot articulate any valid reason to keep any person out of the United States. They just can't. It doesn't work in their moral worldview. They view the United States as, illegitimate as a country, basically because it was wealthy and successful and because it was

European. And so there's no valid reason for it to exist. Ergo, anyone can come here and they can do whatever they want. Yeah, it's a really, like the more you listen to this, and I've been spending a lot of time late at night, early in the morning, watching and reading a lot of these, you know, comments by like far left activist groups. These are the organizing groups that are, you know, putting on the protest, the mostly peaceful protest, and, you know, setting up. up their autonomous zone now in Minneapolis. It was just like they had in Seattle. Chas, now it's Maz. And they talk about a couple different things repeatedly. It's colonialism. It's native and indigenous people, people of color. It's a big focus on delegitimizing white western. Yeah, white people.

It is a anti-white movement. And ultimately, it comes down to this. They believe that the wealth, power and influence, whether that's militarily or economically, that has been. amassed by European civilization over the last two, three, four hundred years is illegitimate. They believe in a zero-sum game. They believe that the West has become rich of the backs of people of color, slaves, indigenous people, and stolen land. This is how life is. And they want to, they literally want to take it back. This is why when we talk about Cia Weaver yesterday, if you missed it, check it out.

We talked about Cia Weaver, the new tenants rights director or whatever from Mom Dany in New York City. and she is a white woman that is vehemently, militarily opposed to property ownership. She is going in to destroy the tenants in New York City because she thinks that rent control and shared property is somehow the panacea of all the ills that are in New York City. This is why people like Sea Weaver are such idiots. This is why Nancy Pelosi is an idiot. This is why Chuck Schumer is an idiot. This is why all of these people that think that they can bend the knee, that they can kiss,

the ring and they can play along and somehow they'll be eaten last by this mob of hateful vigilantes, this clannish tribalist movement driven by vengeance, driven by jealousy, that they think that they're going to get ahead in this, that they can somehow make common cause with these people. You can't. They want you gone. They want to destroy the United States of America. You are standing in their way. We are standing in their way. And this is ultimately why the conservative movement in the United States must prevail because we are the firewall for Western civilizations. I really believe that. This is Lane Schoenberger, Chief Investment Officer and founding partner of Y. Reefi.

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Excited about our next guest here. Really important story that we haven't touched on yet on this show, but we have been keeping track of it since March of 2025. And that is, of course, about California's push for voter ID. This is a ground up grassroots-led effort in the blue state of California, and they have just surpassed one million signatures on the petition. They have surpassed the first benchmark to get it on the ballot in 2026, but they need more signatures. Here to help us unpack that story is Representative Ken Calvert from California's 41st Congressional District. And after Prop 50,

he is now going to be, he's a candidate for California's 40th district. strict. Welcome to the show, Representative Calvert. Thank you for having me. Yeah, honor to have you. Yeah, absolutely. So why don't you give our audience kind of a broad view of this effort? We know it's grassroots because let's be honest, voter ID would not be coming from the top down in California. This is a bottom-up grassroots-led movement, and it's had tremendous success, Congressman. Absolutely. After this last election, we lost two of our campaigns, one to, up in northern California, John Jorte, he lost by less than 200 votes,

and then Michelle Steele, who lost by less than 700 votes, and we knew that we had a problem. You know, we're the wild west of election law here in California. Everything goes. Motor voter, we register everybody, including non-citizens, and people who should not be voting are voting in our elections, and we need to make sure that we get a voter ID law put on the ballot. And I mean to tell you, the Orange County Lincoln Club, I got to give them a lot of credit.

Carl DeMio, who's doing a grassroots operation also. But the Orange County Link Club raised the first $1 million. All of us, you know, we're trying to raise money to do this. It's expensive. We've gotten a million signatures so far. We need 873,000 signatures verified. And there's a lot of shenanigans are probably going to take place. So we want to make sure we have well over that.

So we're looking to get a million two hundred thousand signatures to make sure that this is on the ballot next November. So to reiterate, you have a million. You just crossed the million mark. We need to get to 1.2 million signatures by March 15th, correct? That's correct. And we need to verify 873,000. So we want to be way over to make sure that there's no mistake that this is on the ballot in next November election. Blake did you have a question I'm just I guess I was I was thinking about a few things The first thing that came to mind is this will probably be the first time in California history They'll really aggressively go through every name

To see if they're they're a citizen correct This person's in illegal yeah that you might see that The other thing I wonder about so obviously we support this obviously it will help But as you mentioned California they have motor voter California gives IDs to people who are illegals they do a lot of bad things. They have very generous mail voting laws, very generous ballot harvesting laws. How much will this help as long as all those other proposals are in play?

And is there any hope of maybe overturning those through initiatives? Or how should we look at it, big picture? Well, you're right on all of that. This is the first step is to get this voter ID done. That's a big step. You're right. That's why we want to get a million, 200,000 signatures to make sure that there's no question that we can verify 873,000 signatures to make sure this is on the ballot. It's not going to

fix every problem, but it's a big step forward for the state of California. Trust me, I've seen this thing go south for a long, long time. So we have a chance, finally, to make an improvement in election law in California and clean up the voter rolls, which also is a problem. You're right about ballot harvesting in California. It's crazy and it's unfair, and we know that we've lost elections we shouldn't have lost. Probably at least two last election, probably three in my mind. I think Mike Garcia also was subject to that. So we need to make sure that we get this passed next November. So we're going to try to raise the last part of it. California is for voter ID. The website is Voter ID California.org. I would, you know, anything that people can do to help this out,

get it over the finish line. And I want to say, for anyone watching this, we have a lot of California fans of this show. They would email in all the time to Charlie. Charlie, when will turning point save California? Charlie, get involved in the governor's race. Get involved in this race. We can turn it around.

All of you people who email us had better have signed this petition. Period. Go sign it right now if you haven't. We're calling you out. You can't sign it online, but you can go to that URL if you live in the state of California and you can request a signature form. So do it right now.

You have till March 15th, but it's going to take time for them to send it to you, for you to fill it out, get it back. So go to voter IDCA.org right now. If you don't live in the state of California, chip in. They need to raise, I think, another million, million and a half to get this over the finish line. But this is really a huge, huge step in the right direction. I was just talking with one of our mutual friends, Congressman Theresa Hernandez, down at the Lincoln Club there.

And she owns a Mexican restaurant. And she was saying that during when the raids were happening from ICE, she said she lost about 50% of her business. And her theory was that, you know, the Hispanic population, even if they had green cards, were not coming out of fear, right? Now, you and I know that that's ridiculous. But if you find yourself getting to November of 20,

And you haven't had any problems with ICE or Customs and Border Patrol. You think you're going to risk the voter ID portion of this to cheat in election, even if they're offering your 100 bucks or gift cards to this or that. I have to believe that this is going to clean up a huge, huge percentage of the problem. And listen, this is becoming an issue front and center. President Trump is now truth socialing about it. He says he's personally going to be running an effort to get this across the finish line. Here's just a smattering of some of what Elon Musk has been saying lately. 3.54. This is a tweet that he put up no ID and mail and ballots make fraud trivial. Both of those need to be fixed to restore democracy. 355. Voter ID is essential to stop widespread

fraud. 356. America should not have worse voter ID requirements than every Democratic country on earth. California and New York actually banned use of voter ID. People are contesting that. but it's essentially true. It is illegal to show your idea in those states. The only reason to do this is fraud. I completely agree. And I want to give a little shout out to Chef Grohl down there. Also, a Huntington Beach resident speaking at the Huntington Beach City Council, 353. When you go to the DMV and you get a driver's license or an ID, you register to vote. You do not need any citizenship to do that. When you get any benefits in the state of California, you. They send you a voter registration card. You do not need to show any ID or proof of citizenship to do that.

then you're on the voter rolls. Those voter rolls, they keep adding people on over and over and over again, and nobody's cross-referencing IDs on those voter rolls. So when you talk to Bob Page on a local level or any local registrar voters, they're going to say, well, yeah, we've got a really great operation on site. We're just taking what Sacramento gives us in regards to the rules. We can't ask for ID on site or we can't cross-reference ID. So the problem isn't ours anymore, right? It's that diffusion of responsibility. It is 100% fact that you do not need to any citizenship to get voter registration in California. Yeah, I mean, it's become so extreme, Congressman, that, you know, these election workers are, they won't even ask for it. And so the next question is, what happens, you know, first question is, is the polling showing that this would actually pass? If it passes, what sort of enforcement mechanisms at the polling centers are in place to make sure that election workers are doing their job and checking IDs. Right. Well, the polling is off the charts. Even a majority of Democrats are in favor of voter ID. Republicans, obviously, great numbers, 90%, the

independent 70%. It's like 70% overall are in favor of voter ID here in California. So we're going to pass this. We're going to get it on the ballot. We'll pass it. Secretary of State obviously is in charge of voter laws in the state of California. We need a new. Secretary of State. We've got a gentleman named Don Wagner, Republican running for that. I encourage everybody to look him up and support him. I think California is coming to a point where it's, that we're going to turn this state around. Look, there's more Republicans in California than there isn't any other state in a union. People forget that because of what's happened in California over the last number of years. But we're a big state. 40 million people. It's a wealthy state. We're number

one in many, many industries. People who live here don't deserve to have the government we have. And so it will be enforced. We did this in Florida. And Florida turned the political system around. I think a lot of it was because they have a much more efficient voter system than we do. And we need to have the same kind of system that a state like Florida has. Yeah. And that's what I've been told is that this law is being written. to emulate Florida's voter ID law, which, you know, is the standard bear in the country. And it's great to know, I'm told there's, you know, tip lines. If local, you know, election workers are not enforcing the law, not checking IDs, you can actually, part of this

bill will actually include an enforcement mechanism like that, where they can call in. And I just want to give you some, your just desserts here, Congressman. You are the, I think the highest rank, forgive me if I'm wrong, but you're now the highest ranking Republican in Congress, or maybe since we're in the majority, you're the highest ranking congressman from California that we have in the House. So, and you are now running for reelection after Prop 50 in now the new district of, District 41, correct? Tell us how people can support what you've been doing. You've been in the state since 93. People, you know, need, need to give you your just desserts there, sir. Yeah, this new district is district 40.

They took the district I had and stuck it in downtown L.A. So get rid of me once and for all, I guess, but that's not going to work. We're running a strong campaign. 70% of this district is in what I've represented now and what I've represented in just a few years ago. So we feel good about it. It's difficult because they combined Republicans together because of this Prop 50. I did everything we could to defeat it. We weren't able to for a number of reasons.

But that's why we need to change how we do business in this state. That's why we need voter ID. And it was mentioned some other things that we need to do in the future to clean up the voter rolls, to get this ballot harvesting fiasco behind us, a number of things. Because we would have won. Look, we'd have five more Republicans right now in this state if it wasn't for this crap. Yeah. So put up that URL one more time, guys.

for where people can get involved. Pitch in, donate or request a petition, voter IDCA.org. We need to get it over the finish line. Congressman, everybody I talked to said you've been masterful behind the scene. So thank you for your contribution. Your nation, thanks you. I'm happy to help.

And thank you for having me on your program today. God bless you, sir. God bless you. Think about it. Every single dollar you spend is either supporting your values or working against them. In today's economy, you spend your money, it really matters, and that's how we take back our country.

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Please log on to the URL. If you could throw that up again one more time, guys. Voter IDCA.org. Please get involved. Pitch in. Help save the Golden State. And you can start clawing back some big wins in California if you get voter ID across the finish line. I really believe that. I think you'd see some immediately immediate improvement. And it's the first step in a road to getting that state back. So please pitch in voter IDCA.org. We're going to pivot and turn our attention to Iran. Blake, why don't you give us the update on where we stand? Well, so we haven't talked about it at all. I think probably the funniest thing about, this is we've had major protests in Iran about a week now and it's struggled to be above the number three story in the U.S. if that. Venezuela's taken precedence. The stuff in Minneapolis has taken precedence and so on. But we've gotten emails asking us to weigh in on it and I think Charlie would definitely

be weighing in on it. So there's been a spate of major demonstrations against the Mullahs, as you might hear them called on TV. Iranian ordinary ordinary, ordinary, Iranians protesting in Tehran in a lot of secondary cities. There's a lot of various reports on the ground that they've set government buildings on fire. They've supposedly taking control of

large cities. It goes back and forth on how accurate all of that is. But what does seem to be true is the regime is now trying to black out a lot of communications. They're targeting the internet. They're targeting other means of communication to

limit people's ability to know what's going on and to try to keep control of the situation. Notably a week ago, President Trump said on truth social that... Image 363. Yes. If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

And I'm seeing more of that. You're seeing some of that agitation that the U.S. should be ready to get involved. the son of the previous Shah, Reza Pahlavi, he desires to take power in the country and he's been saying America should be ready to get involved. Obviously, people would ask us what Charlie would make of this. I think Charlie would still be skeptical of getting involved. He was very, very wary of the Iran war crisis we had this past summer. He was very happy that it was ultimately resolved with one bombing run, nothing else.

I think he very much likes, he likes it, us not to get a bit. involved and if we do get involved, it's the lightest touch possible. You know, those quick in, one strike and it's over. I think he would have liked the Venezuela raid for that same reason. It was one raid and it's over. That's what I think his impulse would have been. Yeah, and again, going back one step. So this started apparently, there's been a dramatic collapse of the Iranian currency, the Rial, soaring inflation. So 40 to 50 percent in recent months, which, you know, this country's still an upheaval from 20 percent over four years of Joe Biden. and imagine 40 to 50% in recent months.

Rising costs of living. This quickly devolved into a broader political movement, including calls for regime change, greater freedoms, anti-government slogans. And this is... I guess how many reales do you think you need to have one United States dollar? Oh, man, I feel like a thousand. 994,000.

No, geez. Wow. I was off by a magnitude. of a thousand. You're off by literally, what is that, two, three orders of magnitude? Yeah, that's huge. Okay. So, you know, protesters chanted against the ruling theocracy. This reminds me of like when you look back at those images of Iran in the 70s before the Shah was kicked out, that, you know, it looks almost like a Western nation, right? And, you know, I used to live in Southern California. A lot of Iranians, Persian community down there are very, you know, enterprising people, very productive people, very almost Western. Yes, they're Muslim. but it's a different variety, right?

It's the Shia Muslim as opposed to the Sunni. It's a different kind of Islam that they seem culturally to practice. But, you know, this is what's interesting. The son of the last Shah, which is Reza Pahlavi, he's making actual, so one hour ago, he's saying, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention. This is image 364, if you want to put it, up there. Last night you saw millions of brave Iranians in the streets facing down live bullets. Today they are facing not just bullets, but total communication blackout, no internet, no landlines.

So one of the struggles that we're having here, Blake, is that we can't even get communications out of Iran, really. It's very limited. And we don't know what's AI, what's not. There was a building burning last night. Yeah, it's like a government building. If there is a deep fake of a government of a building on fire, it's not super obvious immediately. If it's not true because they don't have a robust media. Like, we could kind of tell something as fake because we have a ton of journalists. Yeah. Everyone see it. Iran. Who knows?

Yeah. And we're going to cover this, by the way. We're going to have a guest on on Monday. I've been working behind the scenes to get a really good expert on this story on Monday. But this is what he goes on. Kameeni, fearing the end of his criminal regime at the hands of the people. With the help of your powerful promise,

he's speaking to President Trump, to support the protesters, has threatened the people on the streets with a brutal crackdown. Now, there's reports of at least 50 people have been killed in the skirmishes with, with, you know, I suppose the regime's muscle clashing with protesters on the streets. He's threatened people on the streets with brutal crackdown. He wants to use this blackout to murder these young heroes. So this has been a very youth-oriented movement.

A lot of students, a lot of merchants that have been struggling under this. Merchants. Merchants. Merchants. Well, we say it like it's the middle age. Yeah. The merchant of Venice. Yeah.

These are business people. These traders, their camel caravans have been diverting. Probably like smaller businesses, though, right? Like the people that are actually trying to make a living in Iran. I've called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers last night. They did that. Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime's thugs at bay.

But times of the essence that people will be on the streets again. In an hour, I'm asking you to help. You have proven. And I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word. Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran. I don't know what he's calling for. I mean, military interventions. Last time we did this, it was like Libya.

Listen, if there's a way for President Trump even morally to support the people of Iran to rise up and take over their own country, I'm all for it. To your point, I do not want to invite military intervention. A reason for optimism, as you say, Iran is, it long, it's long been a major civilization. It's a relatively, it is a relatively, it was a relatively more modern. Middle Eastern country before the revolution. They have, they're very talented people. This is not like intervening in Central Africa or something where it's just been backwards for a long time and it's not likely to go well. Iran is, it is a country that is already in a lot of places quite secular on the ground.

You can meet Iranians who are from that country and they'll often say, yeah, a lot of people don't take Islam terribly seriously. I'd say it's a lot less other than the regime itself, it's a lot less robust than it might be in Egypt or in Iraq or certainly in Afghanistan. So if you do topple the regime, I think you're very likely to get

a secular friendly government back. But people would always ask, what would Charlie make of this? And I think I would share with him, you get talked into these interventions by being told it'll be easy and smooth. And it never is. For more on many of these stories and news,

you can trust. Go to charliekirk.com.